#it's funny because it's a recurring joke at this point. the dress thing is real btw

[unionizedwizard]

hey how would irma feel about being the knight of princess kurenai :3c

INCREDIBLY SPOT-ON the custom delivery quests were 100% canon and she even made her an entire spring dress outfit (dyed the appropriate color too. dedication) when kurenai asked for pretty outfits from the surface. don't mind the fact she was politely averting her eyes the entire time and also turned the same shade as the dress. or the fact it was a whole entire quest to get the requisite materials and craft it to perfection. ahem

[zinogirl]

To summarize in bullet points for those who've never heard or seen of it

- Middle schooler is molested by his teacher. this is played as scoring a hot chick 90s style. he becomes famous from this somehow, like movie star famous. years later owes thousands in back taxes and is about to go to prison.

- Child of that molestation is estranged from his dad and has several conditions because of poor parenting from a 13 year old. is a successful accountant years later set to be married. this is the centerpiece of the plot.

- Recurring strip club where the dad hangs out is possibly the grossest establishment

- Father and son meet after years because Dad needs money but lies and says he wants to spend time with son. a lot of weird shit happens.

- At least one racist joke is made by the bride-to-be's mother because Son can do math.

- Overly aggressive military brother-in-law who barks?

- Son gets drunk and fucks fiancees dress. okay. Fiancee licks his jizz of the dress. alright. real scene in a movie that happens.

- It is discovered in a later scene that Fiancee is sleeping with someone else. Buckle up.

- That someone else is her brother. Why did Adam Sandler greenlight this movie. Why did Andy Sandberg agree to be in it.

- This is absolutely presented as the gross and fucked up thing it is. Weird that they didn't portray the being molested at 13 as really fucked up and bad aside from the teacher being in prison throughout the film.

That's basically the whole film. there's parts i skipped cuz i forgot/they weren't funny/they weren't worth noting

hey what was up with Adam Sandlers "That's my Boy", the worst movie ever put to the silver screen

[gch1995]

I’m 25 going on 26 now, and I grew up loving the classic Powerpuff Girls cartoon series when I was a kid. Even now when I rewatch it as an adult, it’s still a cute and funny cartoon, especially now that I’m old enough to recognize all of the adult jokes. Like, there’s no way it was a coincidence that Professor Utonium’s despicably dishonest, greedy, lazy, manipulative, selfish, and sleazy former roommate from college was given the name Professor Dick Hardly by accident.

Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup actually are pretty relatable little girls who have believable flaws and insecurities. They make believable bad choices for little girls. Those issues actually get dealt with seriously, rather than just being brushed aside as no big deal with no negative consequences. They are still endearing and sympathetic in spite of their flaws.

While he had a few OOC moments of bad parenting in some bad episodes here and there, generally speaking, Professor Utonium from the classic Powerpuff Girls is actually one of the best dads in cartoons that I’ve ever seen, which is sadly pretty rare in most cartoon sitcoms, even the ones that are actually aimed at a children audience.

Most cartoon dads are abusive, lazy, neglectful, selfish, and stupid oafs. Granted, those type of dads in cartoon sitcoms can actually be entertaining and funny to watch when they are actually being well-written as shitty and slow-witted, but still essentially well-meaning people in regards to their families, such as S1-S8 Homer Simpson from The Simpsons and even S1-S3 Peter Griffin from Family Guy. However, the entertainment quality of those shitty, but well-meaning cartoon dads was mostly lost when the writers flanderdized their negative traits to the point of making Homer and especially Peter downright despicable with little to no redeeming or sympathetic qualities much of the time anymore. They went from being shitty, but essentially well-meaning parents and husbands to downright bratty and spoiled man-children who were much more intentionally abusive, childish, cruel, neglectful, petty, and selfish in regards to their families and others around them with little to no sympathetic or redeeming qualities much of the time anymore, and that’s one of the biggest reasons why The Simpsons went downhill in quality after S8, and why Family Guy went downhill in quality after S3.

Nonetheless, even as they were originally written on their shows pre-flanderdization when they were still well-meaning, but misguided parents and spouses, cartoon dads like Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, weren’t good dads on the whole. There were still plenty of recurring plot lines and/or gags of them being abusive, lazy, neglectful, reckless, and selfish. Back in early seasons pre-flanderdization, it was more forgivable, though, because they also still had their fair share of kind and selfless moments with their families, and their shittiness as parents wasn’t intentionally abusive, malicious, premeditated, and selfish in nature, which balanced them out enough to still be entertaining and likable characters in spite of their flaws.

Realistically speaking, though, dads like Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson would be better off having their kids taken away from them by CPS. Their good qualities and lack of malicious intent, particularly in earlier seasons pre-flanderdization, would still not hold up as legitimate excuse as to why they should be allowed to keep their kids. Bart would have bruises all over his neck, fractures in his neck, and he could possibly be killed if Homer strangled him hard enough to actually break his neck and/or cut off his air supply long enough in real life just once. Meg, Chris, and even Stewie would not only be injured, but actually outright killed in real life from some of the abuse and neglect that Peter and Lois put them through in later seasons of FG. All of these kids, especially Meg, would have serious self-esteem issues for the rest of their lives because Peter, Lois’, and Homer’s abuse and neglect of their kids went beyond just a pattern of being physical in nature, but emotionally and verbally abusive as well.

So yeah, Peter Griffin and Homer Simpson are really not good fathers who you’d ever want to deal with for a parent in real life, even pre-flanderdization. The major reoccurrence of the abusive, bumbling, idiotic, lazy, drunken, neglectful, and selfish dad trope in cartoon sitcoms is exactly why I really love Professor Utonium from the classic PPG cartoon. I don’t necessarily mind it in absurdist cartoon sitcoms when it’s done well as a trope, but I’m also getting tired of mostly just seeing bad and stupid dads in cartoon sitcoms, and not enough good ones.

For the most part, the OG Professor Utonium is a great dad who goes above and beyond to make sure Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup are happy, healthy, disciplined, and safe. He’s usually the parent most of us wish we could have in real life, if we don’t already. It’s refreshing to actually see a good dad in an animated sitcom for once.

Professor Utonium in the classic PPG cartoon is generally a very kind, loving, selfless, and supportive dad to girls. However, he also knows when he has to discipline them and be strict without ever being mean about it. He gives them good advice. He’s very selfless, and even though the girls are superheroes with superhuman abilities, he’ll still risk and/or sacrifice anything to protect them when they’re unable to protect themselves with their powers, including his own life. He didn’t need to be the stereotypical cartoon sitcom abusive, bumbling, dumb, and neglectful dad in order to be funny either. He was funny because he could sometimes be overprotective of the girls, and he could sometimes embarrass them by calling them sickly sweet terms of endearment and telling embarrassing stories that he shouldn’t have about them in public. He was socially awkward. These are relatable flaws in parents that even the best ones have.

While the girls don’t have a mother, Ms. Bellum and Ms. Keane were very brave, kind, and intelligent strong women who were good role models.

Also, the Professor did many activities with the girls and chores around the house that get gender-coded as “mother’s work.” Some of these things include begrudgingly playing dress up as Bubbles to make her happy when she was playing PowerPuff Girls with Buttercup and Blossom on a rainy day inside of no crime when he saw that she was upset that no one wanted to be her, cooking, cleaning, and actually sitting down to talk with the girls, listen to them, emotionally support them, and give them advice. He’s also not afraid to be openly affectionate, doting, and emotional with the girls. There’s just not enough good dads in cartoon sitcoms, which is why I really like Professor Utonium from the OG PowerPuff Girls cartoon and movie. He mostly defied all the bad dad stereotypes, and was a really great one to the girls more often than not.

The main villains from the classic PowerPuff Girls cartoon are incredibly entertaining, especially MoJo JoJo. Him was always the creepiest to me because he was the most devious, insidious, and manipulative one. All of the psychological abuse and manipulation he put the girls and Townsville through was always the scariest to me when I was a kid because out of all the villains on the show, the torment that he wreaked upon the girls and Townsville by brainwashing them, gaslighting them, and/or exploiting their fears and insecurities often was played as dead serious with really scary results, especially in early seasons of classic PPG. While Him had a few human moments here and there, for the most part, he was pretty consistently played off as being seriously scary and dangerous.

MoJo JoJo was an egomaniacal asshole hellbent on destroying the PowerPuff Girls and world domination, and on a few occasions, he actually came close to succeeding. On a few occasions, he genuinely was more scary than camp evil. But he still had a lot of humorous, human, fallible, and relatable moments, too. My favorite MoJo moments are the ones where he is making jokes, irritably going grocery shopping to get eggs, getting too frustrated by the girls antics and childish behaviors and reactions to actually go through with his plans to destroy them at certain points, and getting angry and jealous enough to actually destroy the alien/robot invader from another planet who was destroying Townsville in all the evil ways that he always wanted to himself. He was highly intelligent at coming up with clever schemes and inventions with all his science and technology to take over the world, destroy Townsville, and/or destroy the PowerPuff Girls. However, his arrogance, impatience, and impulsivity always doomed him to fail to succeed in the end, though he did come pretty close on a few occasions, especially in the 2002 prequel origin story movie, and he did actually get to rule the world in “The PowerPuff Girls Rule the World!” Surprisingly, he actually was a kindhearted ruler who did good things, but then he gave it all up and went back to being evil because he got bored.

Originally, MoJo was a well-intentioned extremist who wanted to create a utopia ruled by primates where they would never be controlled or rejected by humans again. As much as Professor Utonium’s irritation with JoJo for being a destructive chimp lab assistant was completely justified, it’s also hard not to feel kind of sorry for Mojo Jojo and understand where he’s coming from in his motivations to become evil, particularly in the 2002 prequel movie because originally all he really wanted was to be loved by his owner, too. He understandably felt rejected when Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup became the center of his universe instead. Of course, that doesn’t excuse him for choosing to respond to the Professor’s rejection by becoming an arrogant, evil, cruel, hateful, hypocritical, domineering, manipulative, petty, selfish, and vengeful villain going on a quest for world domination, attempting to commit homicide several times, probably committing voluntary manslaughter of citizens several times that we didn’t see on screen when destroying Townsville all those times, turning the rest of the world into dogs to try to take over the world, and trying to destroy the girls. However, you understand why Mojo became the villain he did with his backstory. He’s relatable. Occasionally, he does have some genuinely sympathetic moments where he’s actually willing to be friendly with the girls, team up with them, and do the right thing.

HIM was just the personification of evil for no other reason than the fact that he was satan. While MoJo was a complex, human, and relatable anti-villain with his origin story as the Professor’s lab chimp, who gained genius-level human intellect from having Chemical X splashed on his brain, and then chose to become evil after feeling rejected by the Professor when he saw how he pretty much forget about him once the girls became the center of his universe instead, HIM was evil, manipulative, and hateful for no other reason than the fact that those traits were a part of his nature as the very embodiment of evil. Many times, a fictional villain being portrayed as one-dimensional with no sympathetic qualities or relatable motivations will annoy me, but with HIM being evil just because that’s who he is, it actually works because he is literally Satan. There doesn’t need to be a deeper sympathetic story behind why he is evil. Committing crimes, wreaking havoc, corrupting people, manipulating people, turning people against others, exploiting the fears of others, and deceiving others for his own amusement is just who he is, and in the early seasons of classic PPG in particular, that made him really scary to me when I was a six year old little girl watching the cartoon on TV.

You get the idea...The classic PowerPuff Girls was a fantastic cartoon, particularly the first four seasons. Granted, there was some series seasonal rot going on in the writing in S5 and S6 after the 2002 prequel movie, and Craig Mcracken and Gennedy Tartakovsky’s departure from the crew. Like, the characterizations of the characters and/or storylines in S5 and S6 felt comparably flanderdized, ooc, immature, inconsistent, pointless, shallow, and underwhelming at certain times to fit the plot, such as in the episodes “Keen on Keane,” “Pee Pee G’s,” “Seed No Evil,” “Reeking Havoc,” “Toast of the Town,” “Say Uncle,” “City of Clipsville,” “”Bubble Boy,” A Made Up Story,” “Mo’linguish,” and “Simian Says.” Even the good episodes of S5-S6 still didn’t ever reach the same level of greatness of the ones from S1-S4. However, the seasonal rot in the classic PPG cartoon of S5-S6 after Craig McCracken and Gennedy Tartakovsky’s departure still wasn’t nearly as bad as the seasonal rot on The Simpsons after S8, Family Guy after S3, and SpongeBob SquarePants post S3–S4 ish, so I’m still willing to consider most of S5-S6 of classic PPG legit canon.

However, it sounds like the 2016 PPG reboot fucked up everything that was originally good about it to go for a more slapstick comedic feel without substance without consistency, depth, and intelligence. Now, I hear that the CW is making a live-action TV show spin-off of the PowerPuff Girls being jaded and resentful young women who’ve given up crime fighting as result! No, no, no! Why? Why does the CW keep making dark, nitty, and gritty live action teen soap operas out of beloved childhood cartoons?

Yeah, the original PowerPuff Girls cartoon and movie had dark moments. The girls could be bratty and make bad choices sometimes. However, it was still very much a fun show about normal little girls born with superpowers, which they chose to use to defend their father, their city, and on some occasions, the whole world, from crime. No one ultimately forced them to be superheroes for everyone in the classic PPG cartoon and movie. They chose to do it because they had brave and selfless hearts. There was ultimately no obligation for them to be superheroes in the classic PPG cartoon and movie. Sure, they got tired of fighting crime at times, but they still ultimately enjoyed doing it when push came to shove. They weren’t weighed down by the darkness of the world, hatred, and resentment. They still were relatively normal little girls with happy, peaceful, and normal lives of little girls whenever they weren’t fighting crime after the events of the prequel movie about their origins. That’s what made the PowerPuff Girls classic cartoon so special.

By turning Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup into jaded young women, who have given up on being superheroes because they’ve grown resentful of “losing the normal childhood to crime fighting” that they basically are shown to have in the original series for the most part in their spare time aside from having superpowers that they chose to use to fight crime to defend their dad and Townsville from, anyway, where is the fun in that?

[ficsinhistory]

Analysis and Theories - Cobra and Mongoose/Better off Fred -  Disney finally learned how to balance comedy, emotion and action!

Cobra and Mongoose

Hiro and Fred's friendship! It's as cute as these two are always so close, not least because, as was established in the first episode, if the gang were to leave it would be just them. So these tips are cool to see from how they are friends and rely on each other.

The fact that the video game is the same as "Pray Date"! And this time, Fred really won, different from last time! And bonus point for everyone, including Baymax, to have a headphone!

The snakes!! The fact how they attack Fred and how Heathcliff intervenes is so amazing and well animated!! And how sordid and deadly they are!

The poison! Since snakes are robots, they have to throw the poison to be absorbed into the skin. And this happens in real life, there are substances that do it! It was a great recurring joke!

When Hiro comes to help and Heathcliff leaves a cell phone with a dramatic message even though he's barely there!

All the message in question! That butler is so dramatic and I love it!

The fact that Heathcliff knew how to shuffle tracking signals, he was a spy, so well played! Aside from the fact that Hiro took this as a personal challenge to his genial intellect, I love my pompous and intelligent son!

The restaurant where the first battle took place! It's so beautiful and the aesthetics of south asia and how it has influences beyond the Japanese in the city. Because San Franscisco really is full of other cultures and San Fransokyo being part Japanese doesn't erase that. Which is very cool.

Cobra. That's it, that's the whole point.

I love this villain!!! Everything about her is perfect! She is menacing, fun, smart and, as the name says, acts and moves like a snake! Outside I loved the design! And the whole sequence of conversation before the fight was the best! She remembered Momakase, but you can see the difference from her!

Reference to Mary POpPins! Eclipse WHO?!

Heathcliff fighting!! He has a sword in his umbrella and fights masterfully, all this is perfect and from how Fred is with a vase on his head during the fight and is paralyzed again!

In real life, Mongoose are natural predators of cobras and have a layer of fur that makes them immune to poison. So, well drawn writers, well drawn.

Cobra analysis. Unlike Momakase who steals objects, Cobra works on stealing technologies to steal objects, which is a good differential the two thieves. And how Hiro takes offense at his neurotransmitter being stolen. Not least because the last time this happened, his brother was killed. He must not have good memories of it.

Heathcliff's past itself! This, for those who do not know, is a reference to Alfred who was a spy before serving the Wanne. And the fact that he has this whole story with Boss Awesome, and saved the life of said hero in a volcano and how snake should have died and in the end Heathcliff ended up as a butler is cool.

"Who took these pictures?""You have not changed since then?"Hiro Hamada asking the right questions!

Mention to Boss Awesome. Rip Stan Lee.

And he explains it through a spy pen. Carmen Sandiego fans Rise UP!!!

Farewell! How Heathcliff loves the family he works for and Fred, whom he must see as a nephew and he having to leave to preserve that same family is sad. And how he makes Fred swear not to go after him is also sad, because Heathcliff had to use one of the things Fred loves most to make sure he doesn't follow him. It shows how important Fred is and how he knows that because Fred cares so much, he can't risk it.

The memories of Fred and how Heathcliff was with him from the beginning are touching. Fred as chaotic as he is, he really cares about who he loves. And from how his family sometimes travels a lot, it implies that the only parental figure was the Butler. And Heathcliff has no family outside the Fredericks.

It's lil Fred! It's cute!

Cobra's encounter with Mongoose! Cobra had so many robots and how it was on the roofs with the lights in the cities! This avoids the confusion of having people in the middle of the fight, as preserving identity and gives the fight drama on the roof™ !

Fred coming and " breaking” the oath. Oh, the old technical detail of that was a copy! And how he didn't steal the spotlight, thanks to the snakes. That was Heathcliff's past after all.

The final fight!!! From how Heathcliff changed clothes in the best Magic Girl style, with an effect phrase and everything, and in the fight with the umbrella and the giant snake?! It was all for me! He looks good in white!

Hiro helping!!! And of how, in the end it was Heathcliff who arrested Cobra having the spotlight from start to finish! Perfect!

The scary smile joke! I think people too!

Cobra in my top 3 of non-main villains!!

Better off Fred

The beginning has the reference of “guys,guys,guys” from Big Hero 7 (if I don't), but less lively.

Fred being extra™ when heartbroken and having it right in sight!

Baymax can now be a surgeon. Tadashi worked very well.

Honey wanting to know more and Gogo just begging not to. A classic!! Honey Lemon being the mother of the group as always. And Gogo just not getting paid enough!

Flashback! I love how Fred met Olivia. It was very Fred and having someone who liked rare comics is very something that would happen.

I love Olivia! She is super cute and I understand why Fred fell in love with her. She is funny, cool and is actively a nerdy girl, without the vibe of ”no like the other girls", which I quite liked. She is feminine, but not conventionally feminine, reads comics and no one in every episode talks about it. She is actively a nerd, with beanies, colored hair but no one points out that she is the "stranger" for it or she demeans other girls for not being like her. She is a girl who likes rare comics and with a good attitude! Thank You Disney!

The nerd crush music! And the whole gang balloon sequence.

The rejection and what was led to it. They talk about family until culminating in her revealing herself to be a Mole. But, let's be honest, Fred can be pretty chaotic, but he had spine to call the girl he liked right away for a date. Maybe Hiro can ask for some advice.

"Since when have you been there?"The writers recognizing the absurdity of some jokes and out-of-nowhere pops adds 10 years to my lifespan!

Everyone saying listening to Mole was a bad idea! But Fred is in love so he top! Stupid in love, huh?

The music of the transformation sequence speak just that!

The gang in fancy clothes!!! This is not training!!! They look beautiful! And man, Honey looked good in that dress and Hiro kill in that suit. My son looked beautiful! And points bonûs for giving him a real formal costume.

Baymax tie!!!

The arrival of Fred, or rather, Frederique. And how Honey tried to warn him that being himself is the best approach.

Fredsorna. That's a word in canon in BH6. That's... I didn't expect it.

It was all just very shameful when Fred wasn't himself.

Olivia not being traditionally female again. She wears a dress, but it is simpler and instead of high heels, she wears a pair of sneakers. And nobody says anything! Not to mention that I would use.

Points to Disney for showing that behaviors like imposing themselves on someone, invading personal space and acting like the other had no choice is NOT attractive. The media has done this for years and show, mostly to a male group, that being aggressive while flirting is cool. So Disney show showing that this is scary is all I want. I'm glad Olivia dumped her ex, including.

Mole is unbearable!! This kid is evil pure and Fred really got down for it. He really liked Olivia and wanted to spend time with her and gremiling ruined it!!! Besides paying Bluff was only low, even for him.

Olivia listening to everything from afar. She didn't want to leave him badly, she just went... fool.

When Supersonic Stu and Sue appeared! They may be bad, but that Stu has more family support than a lot of people!

Some may find it strange that everyone only delivers their belongings, but we have to remember that without the police and Big Hero 6, most people are defenseless and in the end they are still villains. They can hurt.

Fred saving the day with Olivia's help and using references! That's style!!!

She taking off her glasses and being a lousy actress. I love it.

Fred being honest with Olivia. He explaining everything and being vulnerable and explaining everything is very cute and open, being the opposite of her ex. And from how Olivia understands it is very cool and how good that it all ended well for them with a meeting of giant monster movies.

And Mole stuck on a piano! Please less Mole on eps!

Olivia / Fred will be interesting!

Conclusions and theories:

Cobra's coming back! Maybe after Hiro since he led him to his overthrow? She's a very rancorous villain. And definitely behind Fred and Heathcliff! Anyway, Disney I want to see her again!!! Maybe along with Momakase or even Sirque, who is another tech thief.

Heathcliff! He was amazing!! Best unofficial uncle!

Olivia!! Another one that will appear again!! And now Hiro and Fred can talk about their girls officially! I loved her and want to know more about this girl and the relationship between her and Fred!! And with the rest of the gang!! She's just super cute and I want to know more in general.

I... kind of noticed a pattern here. As much as Karmi as Olivia has names based on nature, more specifically plants and has positive characteristics. Olivia makes reference to olive trees and the name means “friendly”, “beauty” and “kind”. Karmi means "orchard, garden”,  "my vineyard “and other things like” hardworking“,” golden “and even”, ”generous". It would seem that the love interests of these heroes are amazing and brave people with names of a similar nature. Interesting.

She and Karmi would get along very well, by the way. You know, two fangirls.

I like how the two episodes focus on the theme of the season that seems to be family. And this can yield interesting things.

I have this theory even that the episodes will start to have more plot and complement each other more when all the villains of the hexagons appear and then, the grand Big bad (or the villainous driving force of the season) will appear, complementing the NBB.

So far we have most of the villains, just missing Momakase, and along with them,story lines related, with the theme family, that will converge even more. The NBB and the sisters has the theme of Brotherly Love, along with Hiro's conflict with the separation of the gang established in the first episode, apart from what may be the push to the Big Bad that I believe to be Braggtech, brought in the first episode and that I think will be developed in the episodes ahead, in addition to the

Hardlight and the Super duo brought the romantic love of a family to both Hiro and Fred, with Harlight taking an extra line on what may be Karmi's rise as a heroine and how all these changes in her will affect her and Hiro's relationship. The Supers have a strong relationship with Fred and Olivia.

Cobra too, but she may have a more forward role more related to Braggtech, in my opinion.

Apart from the other villains that remained from the second season. Of course, not everything will be connected, but the main plots yes.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.

[crusherthedoctor]

Sonic Villains: Sweet or Shite? - Part 15: DR. EGGMAN

There are some villains I like. And there are some villains I don’t like. But why do I feel about them the way I do? That’s where this comes in.

This is a mini-series of mine, in which I go into slightly more detail about my thoughts on the villains in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise, and why I think they either work well, or fall flat (or somewhere in-between). I’ll be giving my stance on their designs, their personalities, and what they had to show for themselves in the game(s) they featured in. Keep in mind that these are just my own personal thoughts. Whether you agree or disagree, feel free to share your own thoughts and opinions! I don’t bite. :>

Anyhow, for today’s installment, it’s finally time for him. The bad doctor himself. Gather round ladies and gentleman, for the spotlight is on the arch-villain that shines above them all... Dr. Eggman.

The Gist: It's the dawn of the 90's. A little company called SEGA had an ephiphany. They wanted to make a video game juggernaut that could rival the quality and iconic appeal of the then-unmatched Super Mario Bros, and their current star, Alex Kidd, just wasn't doing it in the way that they hoped. They promptly set about starting anew, as a worldwide phenomenon wasn't going to make itself.

So a gentleman named Naoto Ohshima created a selection of design concepts for this brand new mascot. One of these concepts was President Roosevelt in his pajamas.

Seen here with his catgirl body pillow.

The response to this character was “This is good, but we think kids would prefer kicking the shit out of him”, and so he was given an antagonistic role instead. In the meantime, after juggling the rest of their ideas, they eventually settled on a rabbit hedgehog named Sonic for their main protagonist, knowing his Mickey Mouse-like aesthetic would help endear him to the audience, and the franchise as a whole would have an easier time gaining a DeviantART fanbase later on down the line.

Initially, the character of today's review was but a mere lackey among many, seemingly little more than one of numerous minions working for Sonic's originally intended main villain, the Nonspecific Goblin. He was also dressed as a bee for some reason.

Which is the least weirdest thing in this image.

At some point however, they all got together and decided that actually, the guy with the moustache was the only one worth shit, and so he was upgraded to the role of main villain himself. With a spiffy new attire of red and black, he was given the bold title of Dr. Eggman, because with a shape like that, what else are you gonna call him?

“Funny you should say that”, laughed SEGA of America, as they rebelled like an angsty teen and named him Dr. Ivo Robotnik instead. While this name does make equal sense for the character, as he is indeed a hard worker who also happens to like robots, the reason for this name's existence seems to have been mainly because they thought Eggman was too out there of a name for an egg-like man. Whatever the case, this would confuse a lot of fans for years, and remains a point of divisiveness to this day... Unless you're like me and your first game in the series was Advance 2, in which the manual clears it up right away, and you accept the idea of a character having two names and immediately carry on with your life.

He would have aimed it perfectly if it weren't for the Sonic Heroes Parrot distracting him.

And that was that, really. It didn't take long for them to come up with his characterization, which was that of a cackling fiend with an ego to end all egos. This guy was the Narcissist Alpha, more king than actual kings, no strings attached. Other villains would build statues of themselves, but only Robotnik would deface Ancient Egyptian monuments to improve them with his face. Other villains would think “Nah, refacing all four in Rushmore would look silly”, but only the Eggman, the Eggmyth, the Egglegend, would go “Well fuck you, I'm doing it anyway.” Then he'd do it anyway, and proceed to address to the entire world that he did in fact do it anyway.

It also didn't take long for them to develop his primary schtick. With the dynamic of Sonic VS Eggman, you had a classic rivalry between nature and technology. Interestingly enough however, this turned out to be executed more tactfully than your typical Amish-abiding examples in similar media. Never was technology itself regarded as a corruptive influence that you should never utilise no matter what. Rather, it was only as good or as evil as the person using it, with it just so happening that the villain loved machinery only slightly less than he loved himself, and it was countered by Sonic’s best friend being a techno wiz in his own right anyway. Anyhow, with his machinery, the doctor would make a name for himself among video game baddies by confronting his enemy as the boss of nearly every zone in each game, rather than hide away until the endgame.

And all without a driver's licence.

In his soon-to-be-30 years of activity, he has largely remained the same since his inception. Other characters have been introduced, other villains have came and went, but Eggman has remained THE villain of the franchise, and he's remained a vital part of the Sonic the Hedgehog universe... with a slight redesign along the way.

The only ad I don't want to skip.

The Design: Eggman's design may be more simplistic than the likes of Bowser and Ganondorf, and he may not look as openly threatening at first glance, but it's still a very iconic look no matter what look it is. His original appearance was devised so that kids could have an easy time drawing him, which only makes me feel worse about not being able to do it as a grown adult without it looking like a Sexy Legs Kirby.

Still, it's a classic for a reason. With his to-the-point colour scheme, contrasting heavily with Sonic's blue, and his capelet collar resembling walrus tusks, it was an instant winner and made everyone goo goo for g'joob.

The Emeralds he’s juggling are a metaphor for the divided fan community.

And when it was time to give the cast an update for Sonic's first real 3D adventure (or at least the first one that didn't get axed for being a magic eye seizure), Eggman got a respectable change of his own. He was taller, his getup was militaristic, and his body was more legitimately egg-shaped rather than basketball-shaped. He also gained a pair of goggles that he never uses, except in scenes where he puts them on and then never uses them.

“How do my chicken legs not collapse under the might of my gluttonous mass? Find out in an unrelated tie-in novel that you have to pay additional money for.”

There was also that one redesign from 2006, but...

Be it Classic or Modern, I've always loved his design. Before he even says a word or does anything, you know from his appearance that he's a bit of a clownish sort. But he also has a subtle creepy vibe going on, with the way his glasses often obscure his eyes, and how this only makes the pearly-white, unnecessarily wide grin on his face that much more empty and unsettling. This little bit of eeriness hiding among his cartoonish physique reflects the full extent of his character pretty accurately, as we’ll delve into soon enough.

If nothing else, it's more effective than him having no eyes at all.

GRRRRRRRR FUCK YOU BUNNIES THAT I CAN'T SEE

The Personality: If you've seen my villain reviews, then you'll have gathered that Sonic's rogues aren't known for having much in the way of personality. There are exceptions, but they are indeed the exceptions. More often than not though, whether it's an alien conquerer, an ancient monster, or Dan Green the Recolour, they can be summed up thusly: They're evil, they want to destroy the world, and the heroes stop them because they're evil and want to destroy the world. If they're feeling particularly daring, they might go for a second colour.

Luckily, as if to counter all these cardboard drawings, the central adversary of the franchise makes up for these voids of personality by actually having one. And what a personality it is.

The writers of SatAM looked at this and thought “No, this won't do, there's no character to work with here.”

He really is brimming with comedic charm. Every moment that he's present...

Every moment that he shows off...

Every moment that he basks in his own glory...

Every moment that he unveils a new wicked scheme...

Every moment that he puts his enemies to the test...

Every moment that he challenges the world...

Every moment that he laughs at the world...

Every moment that he lives, nay, every moment that he breathes...

Yes, the man has plenty of humor, and it's part of what makes him so enjoyable and memorable. However, if you think being a clown is all there is to him, then prepare to have your expectations subverted initial assumptions taken in a unexpected direction, because although he puts the goof in goofy, he ALSO puts the “oh...?” in “oh shit”.

For you see, Eggman is by all means the epitome of Laughably Evil, but do not, under any circumstance, take him at face value and write him off as a joke. He is anything but.

For starters, he can swing a planet.

There is a rule of thumb that I personally go by with Eggman’s characterization, one that I believe is an immediate make or break factor in regards to whether or not you understand what makes this villain work. Eggman - when you put all his secondary traits aside - is made up of two prominent halves. There’s the egocentric meme machine that bounces up and down like a kid with his N64 and laughs like Santa... and there’s the monster buried within that remains completely and utterly unrepentant for everything he’s responsible for. This is very important. Despite the character’s simplicity at his core, many writers have failed to grasp this, official writers included, and I for the life of me cannot understand why this is such a recurring problem. Eggman is funny, AND Eggman is evil. Both are equal. When you take away one or the other, you may have a funny character, or you may have an evil character, but you don’t have Eggman. Simple as.

Armchair intellectuals may argue that Eggman’s deeds aren’t that evil, since he tends to be merely callous rather than actively trying to hurt or kill people. Those people are probably the types on TV Tropes who weigh a villain’s evilness and effectiveness purely through the surface-level scale of their goals rather than what they actually do to achieve them. While it is true that Eggman tends to be more apathetic about the aftermath of his actions, that doesn’t - and shouldn’t - negate how dangerous he is. It shouldn’t negate what he’s capable of. It shouldn’t negate how far he’s willing to go. And it shouldn’t negate the consequences and casualties that can and do result from his many schemes.

Seriously, think about this for a second. If you confronted Eggman about his current plan to... I dunno, make a water park in Africa or some shit, and you informed him that there has been unexpected mass suffering as a result of this, how do you think he would truly feel about that? What do you think he would actually say to that?

Spoiler: No fucks.

If anything, that he “merely” doesn’t care either way as long as he gets what he wants is more uniquely horrific and deplorable than if he were a generic baddie who committed his evulz specifically for evulz’s own sake and nothing more. At least you’re inadvertently acknowledging that other people’s lives have value when you act one-dimensionally gleeful over ending them, but when your immediate response to the side-effect of a million potential deaths and environmental disasters is “Oh well, fuck ‘em, Eggmanland time baybeeee”, that’s a new level of cruelty.

Besides, even in the Genesis era, he was carpet bombing Angel Island...

“Good thing I have this shield. Sucks to be this forest!”

And he’s only gotten worse since then, indulging in such acts as going full suicide bomber with a missile, after his initial plot to destroy and rebuild Station Square through the means of Chaos and the Egg Carrier didn’t work out...

But don’t worry, he kept it lighthearted by making it look like a penis.

Making one of Sonic’s friends go insane with power against their will, forcing the Blue Blur to put them down personally...

It’s ironic, cause he’s metal. Or do I have to awkwardly explain the joke two more times before I’m a proper YouTuber?

Capturing thousands of innocent aliens, and forcefully converting them into mindless beasts...

I’m pretty sure I saw Alfred Molina conduct this experiment one time.

He even removed the heroes’ collective IQs so that he could shoehorn a cliffhanger on an already terrible game.

Thanks, cunt.

And honestly? When it comes to Sonic and chums at least, Eggman does let out a more openly sadistic side now and then. Need I mention that time when the doctor forced Sonic and two random buddies to make their way through a trap-infested island of his own creation? Not for the sake of nabbing Chaos Emeralds or anything of the sort mind you, he just wanted the blue motor mouth to suffer.

Images you can hear.

To make matters even worse, as befitting of his manchild tendencies, he’s ridiculously petty. How petty? Petty enough to abduct a little girl’s mother for no other reason than because Cheese completely trivialized his forces the girl was friends with Sonic and helped participate in the latest kicking of his own ass.

He only picked Vanilla because there was no Strawberry.

But at least his captives can admire the sheer variety that their captor has to offer. One of the greatest things about the doctor's style is that anything goes. With all due respect to Bowser, he tends to stick with his fiery castles (although he has been branching out recently), and plenty of other villains in gaming tend to be similarly stuck in their ways when it comes to tastes. Eggman, on the other hand, will create all sorts of fortresses and reside anywhere on the planet and beyond. It can be in the sky, in space, somewhere hot, somewhere cold, under the sea, in a circus... and every now and then, he might combine some of them together and thensome. So long as it's even vaguely mechanical in some way, his ground rules have already been ticked off.

Hang on a minute...

You know what else Eggman is? Relentless.

Persistence is a quality that most villains by their very nature share, lest they cease to be an effective antagonist. But once again, Rrrrrrrobotnik maxes out more than any other, and will often go to insane lengths to keep the current plan going, or if not that, then to spite Sonic.

Exhibit A: Sonic 3 & Knuckles, in which the grand finale consists of the madman throwing a gravity-shifting contraption your way, busting out a Kaiju-sized robo, escaping with the Master Emerald after his defeat, continuing to escape even after the Death Egg has been thoroughly destroyed, getting chased through the asteroid fields in space by Super Sonic, and only finally going down when the escape craft and the piloted mech controlling the escape craft are down. And all of this came after a grand adventure where, among other things, he destroyed an entire level just to kill you.

There are immortal omnipotents that put up less of a challenge.

“Looks like it’s time for Plan... *checks paper*... F.”

His relentlessness also reveals another side of the doctor that is simultaneously admirable and terrifying: He bows to no one. No one. Doesn’t matter who it is. Doesn’t matter how powerful they are. Doesn’t matter how much the odds are stacked against him. If another villain were to demand that he cower before them, the scientist would laugh and show through physical demonstration that this is not the way the egg rolls. Unless he’s absolutely unable to do so, he will give it his all every time, and even if he can’t, he’ll use his crafty mind to find some other way to get around the issue. You can beat him in battle, you can foil his plans, but you absolutely cannot break his resolve.

“Dad said it’s my turn to play with the Ruby. I know this, because I’m your dad.”

What about his relationship with those who actually serve him? Specifically, his own robots? Well for the most part, he treats them like absolute crap, what with verbally abusing them at every corner and being all too willing to go full Vader on them the moment they mess up. He IS capable of expressing fondness and giving praise to his more successful creations, like with Metal Sonic and Gamma, but even then, it’s a roundabout way of praising himself, since he’s the one who made them what they are. So basically, you’re only valuable to him if you make him look good.

Gaming in the Clinton Years in a nutshell.

And as for Sonic? Yeah, like with any legendary and long-lasting hero/villain dynamic, it’s obvious that Eggman has some degree of begrudging respect for his opponent. But if you think this respect would dissuade him from actually going through with his ambitions of rulership...

As the hedgehog’s apparent demise in Sonic Adventure 2 proves, as well as his defeat at the hands of Infinite and the subsequent six months of brutal conquest in Sonic Forces, Eggman is dead serious about his goals. If you think he’d get bored after conquering the world, he would simply expand his resources and have a crack at conquering the rest of the universe. When he says he hates that hedgehog, I’m inclined to believe that he means it, and although he may enjoy his “games” with Sonic to an extent, I also can’t see him wanting to remain stuck on square one forever.

If this were Sonic X, he’d just grieve.

By the way, the scene above? Undeniable proof that for all the doctor’s boasting, he’s not actually lying or exaggerating when he prides himself on his brilliance. Because when you get past his goofy exterior, when you look beyond the occasional, relatively minor mistake (*glares at IDW*), you’ll see that... yes. He IS brilliant. And not just in the science department either, although his countless robots and strongholds over the years are no doubt a testament to his credentials there. While he may prefer to go in big and bold, he can also be shrewd with his strategies when he wants to be.

Sonic’s aforementioned near-death experience, for example, was the result of Eggman turning the heroes’ own cunning plan on its head by being one step ahead of them. And in Sonic Unleashed, he lured his enemy into a trap, culminating with him cancelling out Super Sonic.

“...and pay the price for your Werehog gameplay...”

And after all those years of struggling, he finally got a giant monster under his complete control. “But he had help!”, you say? Yeah, from himself.

Did Flynn sleep through all this...?

Much like his inner nature as an evil bastard, Eggman's effectiveness is likewise commonly underestimated by writers. Yes, he occasionally makes mistakes. Yes, he occasionally overlooks details. Yes, he occasionally lacks foresight. But he is NOT stupid. A hero is only as good as their villain after all, and if Eggman is portrayed as a bumbling fool, then how can Sonic be a truly great hero? Eggman is humorous, sinister, and when the chips are down, competent.

...Did I mention that he's also a master Olympian?

The Execution: There's no surprises here. You knew from the moment you saw this review that my stance wasn't going to be anything less than 100% fanboy adoration. In that respect, this section almost feels redundant, because there's only so many ways I can say “Dr. Eggman is the fucking shit and I'm eternally grateful to Mr. Ohshima for bringing this absolute masterpiece into our world” without it getting repetitive. So to cap this review off, I'm going to very briefly compare his portrayals in other media, and explain why they tend to not be as good as the original SEGA Eggman.

“Cause they’re not balanced, right?” you ask. “Cause they veer too far in a particular direction? You're so predictable,” you add. To that I say:

1. Yeah, basically.

2. ...S-Shut up...

3. While the conclusion may be obvious, it's nonetheless important because as I mentioned previously, despite how straightforward this villain is, writers seem absolutely intent on not getting the point. There are loads of villains out there who share Eggman's talent of mixing hilarity and evil together with a bow of competence on top. Two of those villains are among the most famous supervillains of all time, in fact. You might have heard of them.

Joker can do it just fine. Green Goblin can do it just fine. And plenty of others can do it just fine. So why is it such an issue with Eggman? What is it about a round body and a long moustache that gets people to think “No, this guy is absolutely incapable of being comedic and threatening at the same time, no question, end of.” Is it because he’s a more cartoony franchise? Well, that can't be the case, because even Mario has a couple of beloved examples. Fawful, anyone? How about Dimentio? Cackletta? King Boo? K. Rool? Hell, you could even count Bowser himself depending on the portrayal.

Anyway, the point is, writers tend to miss the mark for one reason or another. With Sonic X for example, he wasn't too bad in the beginning, but as the show went on, he became exactly the toothless non-villain that many people misjudge him as. We all know that scene where he berates Black Narcissus for harming their captives (not for pragmatic reasons mind you, he genuinely took issue with the act on moral grounds, even though his own hands weren’t exactly clean either), but even before that point, he was doing such things as healing an injured Sonic without an ulterior motive, not taking any opportunity whatsoever to start conquering Sonic's world because he was pining for Sonic's attention, and being the Jiminy Cricket to Chris Thorndyke's Pinocchio. Why they thought the goddamn villain should be the moral conscience of this show remains an unanswered question, but at least it no longer influences how he's portrayed in the games.

Then you have the IDW comic, which is a similar tale of starting off decent and then careening wildly into the abyss, but for different reasons. Initially, he was built up to be in-line with his competent, foresight-packed self from Forces, with his inevitable return being met with dread, and a delightfully devilish scheme to match when he finally did so. But somewhere along the way, Ian Flynn thought that Eggman coming back from his amnesiac period and returning stronger than ever with a new minion and a deadly virus wasn't enough to up the stakes... so they decided to “up the stakes” by turning both the doctor and his new minion into massive imbeciles so as to justify their plot getting hijacked by the Deadly Six, a move so predictable yet infuriating that it got even me to turn against the Six. And the reason the Six got invited in-universe is because Starline decided he didn’t like being unique and devolved into Snively 2.0 behind Eggman’s back. All this from the alleged “best writer” for the series...

Yeah, same.

And then you have the Boom version, which shares basically the same issues as Sonic X but in a more mundane fashion. It's easier to dismiss because it's a comedy-centric show and his redesign makes it easier to separate him from mainline Eggman, and I'll gladly admit that he does have a lot of genuinely funny lines that redeem him a little bit. But yeah, too much of not being a true villain for my tastes.

Now this isn't to say that there haven't been portrayals in other media that are up there with the original. The versions that I consider better off than the ones above include...

- The OVA Eggman is pretty faithful all things considered, aside from his romantic feelings for Sara, which feels slightly off since the idea of Eggman loving anyone other than himself is incredibly unrealistic at best. But it doesn't actually soften or undermine his deviousness, so I'm willing to let it slide for an alternate take. Especially since he gave us the best Metal Sonic out there.

- AoStH is far from a perfect show, but there's a reason why even its detractors tend to treat its version of Robotnik like a national treasure. Admittedly most of that is because of the legendary Long John Baldry and the endless memes associated with this incarnation, but despite hailing from a comedy-focused show like Boom Eggman, this Robotnik still had a lot of legitimately dangerous moments, more than you'd think.

- And of course, Jim Carrey's Robotnik in the Sonic movie is just... *chef's kiss*

So obvious aesop though it may be, but you see what the more effective portrayals have in common, I assume?

Granted, this also isn't to say that SEGA Eggman himself has had a perfect track record. The decade's worth of upstagings and backstabbings by other villains should be enough of a counterpoint to that claim, and I've also made it clear now and then that I take issue with certain games regarding what they do with the doc, no matter how revered they may be by other fans. Sonic Adventure 2, for instance. I praised the fake emerald scene, and I do sincerely believe that he has a number of other badass moments in that game, but because Shadow was playing him like a fool the whole time, I can't help but have a bitter taste in my mouth when I look at the bigger picture.

So close to greatness, yet so far...

So in that case, which game do I think has Eggman's best showing overall? That's not in any way an easy question, but lack of dialogue aside, I'm gonna go with Sonic 3 & Knuckles again, as the classic journey through the sights of Angel Island plays out in a way that highlights just how determined, ruthless, and underhanded he is with carrying out his mission to revive the Death Egg by any means necessary. Other games do win out in other areas - SA1 for how bastardly he is, Forces for how cunning he is, Colours for his hilarious announcements, CD for using the scenery to show the effects of his actions, Mania for not letting the other villain walk all over him - but for the purest essence of the doctor at his cartoony yet competent best, I'd say S3&K is a reasonable bet.

And when it comes to all his many traits, which one do I find the most special one of all? Well again, far from easy to answer, but I think the coolest aspect about him is also one of the most overlooked. Robotnik, despite whatever superhuman qualities he may occasionally unveil, is for all intents and purposes a regular guy with a big brain. This might make him appear unimpressive when compared to your average Final Fantasy villain and the like, but if anything, it paints him in a more flattering light than expected, because he doesn't even need to be on their level to still be on the radar. It's easy to be a big bad threat when you're an ancient demon or an almighty god-like being, and you only have to wave a hand to cause armageddon. But when you're just Some Guy™ going up against superpowered opponents, meaning you have to earn your threat level the hard way, and you prove to be a challenge every step of the way regardless, because you're just THAT much of a genius... that's fucking awesome, no other way to put it.

And you know what else is awesome? You may not like Eggman, and you don’t have to like him, but like it or not, he is directly and indirectly responsible for a vast majority of the coolest and most loved moments and aspects of this franchise.

The opening to Unleashed? Eggman set up the scene.

Shadow running around and continuing to be part of the franchise? Eggman released him.

Blaze getting involved with Sonic’s world and continuing to be part of the franchise? Eggman’s half-responsible for that.

Metal Sonic? Eggman made him.

Egg Dragoon? Eggman.

Big Arm? Eggman.

Monkey Dude? Eggman.

That text is missing a blue checkmark.

This review is probably longer than the echidna family tree in Archie at this point, so I better finish it off. If it wasn't obvious from all the paragraphs I've belted out in this post, I'm very passionate about Eggman and the way he’s portrayed. Ever since I got into the Sonic franchise in 2003, I immediately took a liking to the doctor, and to this day, he remains not only my favourite Sonic villain, my favourite Sonic character, but also my favourite character period. Some may find it a weird or lame choice compared to other, “better” characters, but that's the way it is, and I ain't about to change it. I am very unlikely to ever stop enjoying the hell out of this villain, and even if he got irreversibly ruined in some way, I'd still continue to love what he was before that point.

Because yeah, he's not the deepest character ever, but... who cares? Is it not enough that we find something that appeals to us? When I got into Sonic, I was introduced to fantastic games, a likable cast, high quality soundtracks, beautiful worlds, numerous friends on this very site, and of course, the lovely treasure that is my partner. I may not have been with this franchise during the 90's, but it's given me just as much fun, nostalgia, and happiness as those who were. Despite the flawed titles, despite the fandom conundrums, I still love this series.

And I still love this absolute prick.

Crusher Gives Dr. Eggman a: TWO Thumbs Up!

[x--daughters-of-darkness--x]

I TALKED TO AMY LEE OF EVANESCENCE ABOUT INSPIRING THE WORLD’S WORST FANFICTION

The singer of My Immortal (the song) has now read My Immortal (the fanfic)

If you mention the name “My Immortal,” you may mean one of two things. The first is the 2003 hit song from rock band Evanescence. The second is a Harry Potter fanfic so transcendentally, mysteriously bad that it’s transfixed the internet for years.

The fanfic My Immortal is about a time-traveling mall-goth teenage vampire wizard (named “Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way”) who is obsessed with Evanescence and a variety of goth-inflected rock bands. She’s supposed to look like Amy Lee, Evanescence’s lead vocalist, pianist, and songwriter. And to this day, nobody is sure who wrote the story or whether they were serious.

Back in the real world, Lee and the rest of Evanescence have spent months under stay-at-home orders during the coronavirus pandemic. They’ve used that time to film two music videos in collaboration with director P.R. Brown, each shot by band members and their families. The latest is a surreal video for “The Game Is Over,” a song from their upcoming album The Bitter Truth. In Lee’s words, it’s shot as a “psychological thriller,” full of imagery based on a specific fear or inner demon from each member.

These videos — filmed in living rooms, cars, and other personal spaces — give fans a new kind of look into the band members’ lives. But I was curious about a different kind of fan relationship: did the creators of “My Immortal” know about My Immortal? I spoke to Lee, and the answer is yes; in fact, it’s part of a long-running family joke. She’d never actually read it, however, until last week.

You’ve made two videos under quarantine, and they’ve taken very different approaches. What was the process behind each of them?

We really had to just think kind of quickly. We were working on another video treatment that would have been full-production, this whole deal with a big crew and things we could no longer have because of the pandemic — including the fact that we couldn’t even physically get together because we live all over the world.

We recognized that “Wasted on You” had a bunch of lyrical content that felt like all of a sudden where we were. So we went for that. I really wanted it to be real on a level like people hadn’t seen us before: in our own homes, in our real lives, not dressed up, not in makeup, just the real, raw us.

For the second one, it’s like “Okay, how do we take what we’ve learned and amp it up even more to make it look like a real video more than just us being ourselves?” We have all been very serious about the lockdown, so we have been completely alone for the most part during this time — and that is cool in some ways as a creator. But you really have to live with yourself all the time.

A few of us have gone through some difficult things in the past few years. [Bassist Tim McCord] and I both experienced losses in our immediate family. There’s just been a lot of hard. So you know when you’re finally forced to stop being distracted by all the things that keep us happy, there’s silence — and that stuff comes out. So each of us had a private kind of gut-spilling confession with [P.R. Brown] about what we’re struggling with.

We were just sharing deeply in a way that we don’t normally go all the way with when it comes to at least our visuals. When I pour my lyrics into my music, it’s always really raw. But in this, it’s like, we’re not going to hold back on the video side and just make it beautiful — we’re going to go for it and let it be ugly and share the dark parts of ourselves.

I think of a lot of your music as being open and vulnerable, and you interact with fans online. What does filming a video at home like this communicate that your normal social media presence and music don’t?

I hope it just shows more and more of that willingness to be vulnerable because as hard as it is, it always leaves me feeling more satisfied than just putting on a pretty face.

Social media’s such a weird world for me. I love it — I’m grateful for the idea that we can have a direct relationship with our fans. But it’s kind of a double-edged sword. It’s such an open platform for everybody to criticize everything about you. And when you go there, you’re going to see that. I think that’s true for everybody. It doesn’t matter if you’re a celebrity or not. It’s just a place where people don’t have to show their face to say things, and there’s a lot of ugly out there.

What’s your relationship specifically with fanworks? Do people send you things that were inspired by you?

Oh my god, it’s so wonderful. We’ve got so much art. I’ve got this huge collection of stuff that I’ve been hanging on to just from the beginning. There are so many talented people out there that pour their efforts into making a piece of visual art that is either of something in the Evanescence world or just something else that came out of them while they were listening to our music.

Then there are other things that you have to keep because they’re so hilariously funny. People will make a crazy poem that makes totally no sense but I’m a character within it, which is awesome. It’s like, I know this person’s like 12 years old and totally sincere, but this is so funny. I have a little studio, and I dedicated a little bit of time during our unexpected free time to cover it wall-to-wall in the bathroom with all the fan stuff.

Which brings me to my next question: had you ever heard of My Immortal?

I think for quite a while I was just unaware of it. And then my cynical, Reddit-loving younger sister who’s also an English teacher, somewhere during the holiday every year when the family’s all together, it’ll come up for some reason. And she’s like, “Wait — you still haven’t read My Immortal?” And I’m like, “No, what do you mean?” She’s like, “You have to. Okay, hold on. Let me read you an excerpt.” And then she’ll pull up her phone and read some awesome paragraph from the craziest, funniest thing ever that makes no sense.

It’s one of her favorite things that she thinks is the most hilarious thing in the world, and I still just kept not reading it. It’s been kind of this ongoing joke with us. And then I got a call a few days ago that you wanted to talk about it, so I was like, “Oh, crap. I have to read a little bit of it.”

I read I think not quite half of it, but it did have me in tears. I was laughing really, really hard at one point, just because of the nonsense. And then I started asking myself, is this real? I can’t quite tell. I’m totally undecided. Is it sincere? I feel like it started maybe as sincere, but they got in on it and started playing it up for the haters. I can’t tell! What do you think?

It would have to be so elaborate, but there are a bunch of cases that really make it seem like this person knows much, much more than the character they’re putting on.

I noticed a misspelling that was like, instead of triumphantly, it was “triumelephantly.” And I was like, come on, you don’t think “elephant” is inside “triumphant.” There’s no way.

At one point, the main character’s name is spelled two different ways within three words of each other.

I totally saw that, too! I’m torn because I want it to be sincere, kind of... but I don’t know.

There are things about it that aren’t cool to talk about. Like it’s not funny to talk about slitting your wrists. So it takes me a second to get past that joke, which is so recurring.

Yeah, if you go back to old internet culture, a lot of it is really ugly. And it’s weird trying to separate that stuff out.

Is it better now?

I don’t know because now I’m too old to know what’s going on. But kids do seem nicer. They often seem nicer.

I would like to believe we’ve grown up a little bit as a society from that. Maybe everybody having a little bit more of a microphone has taught us some things that we need to be aware of that are outside of our perception and our personal experiences. There are other people that are seeing that in a different way. I think it would be cool if that’s true.

I was a teenager around when My Immortal came out, and it feels like it describes a very recognizable “goths versus preps” rivalry. Did you feel that?

I think this thing is poking fun at that world — I mean it would have to be, come on — and that part of it really resonates with me in a real way. But I didn’t consider myself goth! Part of what’s weird and funny is like okay, this is describing hating the preps, and you’re the cool one, you’re the underground, you understand real life and the gravity of death, and I get it. But if you’re so depressed and everything’s so hard and you’re so real and they’re so fake, why do you put so much effort into your look?

That was what always turned me off about the word “goth” when that started being assigned to me in our early days. If I was 15 years old and you’d asked me what I was, I’m grunge. I buy all my clothes at garage sales, I don’t do crap to my look, I get ready two seconds before school, and all the preps are the ones who put all their focus on their looks and what party they’re going to go to.

But yeah, that part was funny to me. That part existed.

I love the idea of you knowing about this thing for years without having read it.

I kind of want to thank you because I did get a really good laugh out of it last night. It’s not like, when I have free time, I’m motivated to go read some horribly bad thing. But it’s actually pretty interesting.

And you’ve gotta love all the characters breaking into song to sing My Chemical Romance songs. It’s pretty great.

[popculturebuffet]

The Loud House Reviews: The Boss Maybe/ Family Bonding

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Loud House weekly coverage continues as Leni is pushed into the deep end of responsiblity and taking over Lori’s old role of babysitter while her parents are gone and promptly drowns in a sea of comedy clubs, human body parts both on screen and in the fridge, old men in holes and indoor beach volley ball. 

First things first: Last week I forgot to mention Rusty’s mustache freezing off as god, wether it be the judeo-christian god, Odin, that prick Zeus, the flying spagehtti monster or one of many other gods out there. Perhaps all of them did it at once out of hatred for the little weiner. Maybe one of them finally answered my prayers which in that case, that was nice and all but there are far worse things going on i’d prefer you took care of. Also the “stuff I couldn’t fathom” turned out to be just more loudcest, because of course it did. Loudcest is like David Spade, you think it’s finally gone or isn’t doing as much but then it comes around and makes the wrong missy and you waste 90 minutes of your life thinking i’td be so bad it’s good when it’s really just boring and a waste of it’s main actress talent. I lost track of that metaphor, but Loudcest is like david spade in that people like it for reasons I can’t fathom and it hasn’t quietly faded into the background for reasons I can’t fathom, though at least david spade was funny once. So maybe Loudcest isn’t like david spade. or maybe i’ve been taking too long with this bit. 

But whlie last week was a bit wonky it also had a lot to setup.. but now it’s time to see what the show does with all the setup over, and a lot of new possiblities ahead. PItter Patter!

The Boss Maybe Ah now this is exactly what I was hoping for this season. New situations brought about by the year-up and all the changes it brought, with the same old heart and humor and character progression that drew me back into the show. This is the kind of episode i love and have talked about in the past and dosen’t fall into any of the shows usual pitfalls in the process. Just great. I could end it there but I haven’t shut up before why do it now.  So this episode focuses on Leni who I talked about a bit last week and easily had the best plot and in general tends to have good episodes, both before and after the show became an ensemble piece, and even in episodes without her tends to slide in just fine. She’s always a nice breath of fresh air when she shows up. 

I think that’s due to a number of things. For one it’s how sweet a person she is: She’s genuinely nice, kind and well meaning. While she is dumb as a box of rocks that resemble Pauly Shore, what I like is her stupidity isn’t malicious, or overused for misery. She causes comical injuries from time to time with it but she’s quick to apologize iff she realises it and usualyly has no ill will to anybody unless provoked or fighting Lori over a dress despite them wearing the same clothes all the time. I know standard animation thing but it’s always weird to me when shows with a stock outfit for a character have a fashionista, and prefer when shows have stylish characters actually change outfits like Kim Possible did with it’s title character, Xiaolin Showdown did with Kimiko and of all things LIttlest Petshop did with Blythe. Granted Blythe is a nothing of a character but still, credit where it’s due. But I do get this is also a nick show and they givet hem the budget of 50 cents and a network memo that says “BEG US FOR MORE MONEY” written in blood, so fair enough. 

That aside she’s just plesant to watch. The other factor is Liliana Mumy. If you haven’t heard of her , she’s a vetran voice actress whose been doing this on and off since she was a kid, voicing Panini on chowder as a child and later going on to voice Beth in bravest warriors among other roles. Why she only does work so ocasionaly I have no idea but when she does she’s great. She’s also the son of fellow child actor BIll Mumy, aka the guy who as a kid played Anthony Fremont from the Twilight Zone classic “It’s A Good Life”, which if you haven’t seen it is about a small child who has the power of a god and thus can banish people who are “bad”, i.e. disobey him and thus rules over a small town as a creepy and cruel despot. Oh and he can read minds so if you dare to have a thought he dosen’t like your getting banished, with no telling what that means or where anyone disappeared goes. It’s good stuff. Highly recommend it, Mumy is absolutley terrifing and a brilliant actor even at that age and I wish he’d done more as an adult. I also bring it up because Lily played his daughter when they did a sequel episode during the UPN version of the show, set decades later and showing just what the little terror was like grown up... as well as what happens when his DAUGHTER gets the power. It was also really good and worth a watch after the first one. Good stuff. 

TLDR: Leni is one of my faviorites, so’s her voice actress, i’ve rambled enough about unrelated stuff at this point. 

We open at the mall, where for Leni life begins after schol, that’s when we bend all the rules time to hang with all her friends in the place where she belongs!

I mean technically she’s 17 now, but she was 16 when she started this job and none of them were 16 by the time the show ended so nyeh. This started in season 3 when the show started giving the girls not just their own stories but their own supporting casts., storylines, love intrests etc. Luna and Luaan got their romance plots with Sam and Benny, Lori got her college plot towards the end of the season, Lynn’s friends started showing up in her plots more, Luna’s mortuariy club went from assorted background friends of hers to a full fleged supporting crew, and of course Lincoln’s friend group started to become a recurring part of his plots away from his sisters. 

For Leni, being one of the only three kids that could legally work at the time, another possible plot to dig into, and with Luna having way less incentive to get a 9-5 job with her music to work on and the fact we’ve seen her use said music to make money once in a blue moon, Leni was a good choice. It gave her something she was good at besides fashion, even if it’s fashion adjacent and gave us a new supporting cast for those stories: Her boss Mrs. Redinger, your standard “i’m tough by fair” type, and her new friends Fiona and Miguel, two fellow fashion savy teens played by actors i’d never heard of but who do a damn good job and play off her well, with both being a bit sarcastic but Fiona being a bit more mopey and deadpan and Miguel being a possibly but defintely gay teen. Both play off her well by being more down to earth and more wiling to be negative, but still enjoyable enough to be around you can buy them being friends with Leni and their a stellar addition to the cast. I wish, much like we’ve gotten with Liam lately, we could see more of them outside leni stories. Their a treat. 

But I really like Leni’s work there. Besides the cast it puts Leni in a role of responsiblity she excels at. My only real problem is her boyfriend, maybe I dunno, Chaz, one of the ONLY love intrests from l is for love to get mentioned again and one of the more intresting ones, never shows up despite also working at hte mall and the story potetial of them working for rival stores or the same store. I mean I can’t blame them for not throwing another love intrest on the pile when they had two ongoing romance plots, but now both Luna and Luann are on steady ground with their steadies, it’s time to pull that trigger, get off hte ground and eat that horse. Also let LIncoln have one again will ya? It dosen’t have to be stella but Girl Jordan is right there, i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again.. where is she. And if not her just make one you’ve proven to actually be really good at it. 

Where was I? Ah yes the mall. Leni is doing great at her job, suggesting some gloves to scoots, who ceases being skeptical when a hunky younger man of 30 something compliments her on them them chases off after him. If you don’t remember who scoots was that’s the old lady on a scooter who makes troulbe and appareltly can still get it. Good for her. Granted this is coming from someone who ships eda and stan pines still even though it’s now revealed she’s 30 but... frankly I don’t think age is a concern with her and stan can make this joke, so it evens out. 

I mean he would right? I”m getting off topic even more than usual, point is Leni is doing great and her boss takes her to the break room for cake room... it’s just the one cake but can you imagine a cake room? that’s the life. Just a fridgerated room full of cake. 

Turns out she’s EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH. And she didn’t have to chain squidward to an ancient battle ship to get it or anything. After some confusion, Fiona has to clarify it’s NOT her birthday because of course she does, Leni is proud. Full of cake and pride she tells her mom whose decided to reward her good job at work.. by dumping a bunch of respnosiblity on her.  I kid. Rita is being somewhat resonable here. She asks Leni to take over Lori’s old role of babysitting/making sure the other 10, now 9 kids don’t burn the house down... no really she actually specifies that when leaving in the next scene. Which.. fair enough.. you have 11 kids, all likely to plug in a lot of stuff especially Luna and Lisa, said Lisa is a mad scientest who ends up nearly being the one to do it this time, Lynn has no common sense, and the younger ones who aren’t mad scientst are still reckless and vain and combattive respectivley so the odds of a house fire nearly breaking out on any given night are 1:1. But Leni in a show of self doubt that’s rare for her is scared (Though her revealing that by answering a question of how she’d feel about about babysitting the kids with “Scared” was fucking gold. I swear Lily’s deliveries are always so great. ), and while Rita assures her she’s not sure. But as I said, she is being resonable: While Leni’s not the brightest she’s kind, she’s been shown even before her recent major award she’s responsible, she’s babysat for other people’s kids, and she’s kind. I mean they COULD put Luna or Luaan in charge but while when I first read the preview blurb for this episode I was cuirous why they didn’t think of that or thought they would, this episode does a good job presenting WHY they’d do it, while other episodes fill in the gaps: Luna is a bit reckless and Luaan can get caught up in her bidness and as we know once a week goes through the green door and comes out a gamma monster fuled by the sound of her own laughter, a horrible mixture of the joker and madman.. the leader’s insane brother. I’m a huge nerd, you all know this. Leni is the right choice.

Despite her nerves Leni has little choice but to take it on and Mr. Loud proudly sees her out with ye olde english as he and Rita, with lily in a cute little knight’s helmet in tow, are going to a renisance fair to cater, with Lynn Sr needing the backup. And while you may say “what about his staff”.. their either going with and he just needs an extra pair of hands since it’ll be nuts, or some of them are staying behind to man Lynn’s Table while he’s out on his catering gig. I mean the man has plenty of time for his kids, he’s not at the restraunt 24 hours a day. Someone else has to run it when he’s gone. I asked internally why they didn’t just take them along.. then reminded myself that taking all 11 kids to the faire at once, without anyone to watch them and likely having to call in favors when jsuta s likely, Lynn Sr and Rita can take them all another day with presumibly free passes as part of the catering job as that sounds like the kinda thing he’d do. Also Senior’s into scarf’s now thanks to Leni, which I love. Looks good on him. Hank should give her a call. Ascots may be out but I think he could rock a scarf. I’ve had ventures on the brain.  What follows is naturally Leni having several panic attacks as chaos naturally insues btu without Lori’s lifetime of experince dealing with it. IT’s a nice dynamic: Leni, as we’ve established, has always been sort of Lori’s sidekick, her best friend, her amigo. Sure they fight, siblings do that, but they’ll always be there for each other when it counts. SHe’s never really had to THINK without her or be without her, so throwing her into the deep end of taking care of the kids really leaves her shook. It’s a HARD job, it’s probably why the louds don’t bring in babysitters often: there are 11 kids to look after, 10 now and only 9 tonight but still a LOT of them and most of htem pretty high maintince. It was just easier with Lori because she grew up knowing each of them, knowing each of their weaknesses and putting the fear of her righteous wrath into them. They’ve spent their whole lives looking up to her, literally and figuratvely, as their big sister and respecting her as the biggest authority in the house that’s nto her parents, sometimes bigger. Those aren’t just big shoes to fill , their Galactus size and that combined with her big sister worship leaves Leni understandably scared, lost and frequently paralized with anxiety this episode.  No really multiple times she just freezes and one times she screams. As someone with Anxiety disorder I related to this.. sometimes you either just break down or you just FREEZE from the stress and everything hitting you at once and have no idea how to progress while people are still barking at you to do something. It’s a lot but it was a nice touch that really added to her sympathy.   And her anxiety is also understandable when she’s being hit with 80 problems at once, which i’ll tackle all at once here rather than in order as this episode has a really frentic and good pace: while it follows the formula of “Leni runs into a problem, Leni freezes, then Leni gets help from Lori twice hten mr.grouse, more on that in am inute”, the quick pace and great jokes help keep things from feeling too repetivie. 

Anyways the chaos: Just from the start Lucy puts a possibly human liver in the fridge, Lana eats all the cookies then gets skunked by her pet skun, and Lola and Lynn get into a fight over 5 bucks Lynn found, and since Leni can’t just let one kill the other as nature intended she has to fix all this.. mostly by removing the smell with tomato juice and scaring off the skunk and cutting the dolar bill in half. Money dosen’t work that way as both sisters point out but frankly it’s Lola and Lynn, I don’t care who they feel. 

Meanwhile two of my other faviorties get into a tiff over their room: Luaan turns it into a comedy club and kicks luna out, with Scoots and her new man returning. Again, get it girl, get it, and Leni, under Lori’s advice, pretneding to be a fire marshall.. only for Luna towarsd the end to turn it into her own rock club. Lisa creates a corossive super substance that burns a hole in the floor, Lana continues to grapple with the skunk and finally Lincoln and Clyde.. watch a scary movie despite Lucy’s warnings.. and Lucy does something else.. I think? It was a chaotic episode with a lot of set pieces so forgive me if I forgot one of them. Honestly she’s the most well behaved there.But yeah as per the cliche Lincoln and Clyde, after Leni gets the wifi fixed with Mr. Grouse’s help, they get super scared and freaked. Everyomne is freaking, the house is falling apart and Senior wants permission to wear a pinky ring via thought cloud.. which.. no man no. Scarves yes but no one looks good with a pinky ring. No one. And I say that as amporphous blob covered in hair, sweat and regrets. 

As for how Leni deals with all this she leans on Lori, calling her twice, but at inportune times: during a golf game and at the library where said phone gets taken. Granted, I don’t get why she didn’t have it on silent, as I would in those situations, but then we wouldn’t have an excuse to include her and it feels necessary to show WHY Lori can’t just help all night or reassure her sister and with Lori gone the panic only intensifies. As I said she gets paralized with fear and later just outright screams.. which attracts an irate Mr Grouse, the next door neighbor who I need to watch more of’s episodes. Including 12 louds of leapin.. I know i’m way overdue on that. This december. Promise. 

The old man who yells at Louds helps for a bit, helping get rid of a beach Lynn set up because she’s lynn, she has the consderation of a puppy, but eventually falls in a hole like most great heroes and most elderly people. I mean the ones up the street at the retierment home must fall in once a week. They get out of course because the assitant living mole lets them ride out as it digs into the walls. Or maybe that was just a hallucination.  Eventually though the start at her job comes back as she calls the only people she has left for help: Fiona and Miguel, who are at the mall in chairs because of courser they are, and both are confused why she’s so helpless: She’s fantastic at work, she’s kind, confident and smart.. about certain things, she can do this. Besides helping her confidence with this really sweet moment they also give her a good tool for how to use said confdience from work: just treat her siblings as customers. It’s also a nice call back to how we’ve seen Leni learn way back in season 1 during “Driving Miss Hazy” we’ve seen that she can have troulble grasping things, but when you put it in terms she understands, like fashion, or shopping, or in this case helping customers with their issues, she snaps into it. She learns at her own pace in her own way, it’s why I think sh’es neurotypical, and possibly ont he spectrum like yours truly: while her stupidity isn’t part of that the unqiue way she processes things has me supscious. either way it works. 

So with a new strategy Leni.. literally adresses them like shoppers, which is comedy gold. However it’s a valid strategy:  besides the visualation part by getting them to form a line, instead of trying to handle 2 or 3 problems at once she simply handles them one at a time: She scares the skunk off again, shuts down both competing clubs in the older kids room, uses water to take out lisa’s universal solvant, gives Lola and Lynn 5 bucks instead of just cutting a ten in half this time, and in the sweetest moment of the episode, reads Clyde and Lincoln a childrens book to clam them down. Sure it’s  a bit funny but their genuine relief and all threes adorable expressions really melt the heart. 

Leni finally wins, just as her parents get home and congradulate her, Rita’s faith not misplaced. While Rita probably knew it’d be an adjustment, and frankly should’ve prepped her sooner, she knows her daughter and knows waht sh’es caapable of. Also Senior brought home meet and gives leni a turkey leg who gives it to the old man who now lives in a hole inside their house. That’s his home now. Mr Grouse is just there now. Or I wish he was. But I guess you can’t always get what you want epsecially if it’s an old man living in a hole in the loud’s living room. Someday.  Final thoughts for The Boss Maybe: As you could easily tell I loved this one. Funny with a hell of an emotional core, and with great pacing espeially for a loud house episode, this was a joy to watch and easily one of the best episodes the show has done. Just a funny, breezy watch with a lot of subtext, intetional or not, regarding what we’ve seen of Leni and honestly i’m going to go with intetional. It felt really rooted in who Leni is, her relationship with lori, and her work without hitting you over the head with it. It just all flowed really well and made for a hard one to top for the season this early. I’m impressed and it gives me hope for the rest of the season. 

Family Bonding

This one was.. okay. As i’ve learned the hard way from doing Amphibia when an episodes just okay it’s best to breeze through it.. but I can give it this. While it’s mostly a standard loud house episode the ending.. wasn’t predictable. That’s for sure. I mean.. it left me with only one thought really...

But i’m getting ahead of myself. The episode’s plot is standard for the most part: Lincoln’s obessed with a new spy comic book about a james bond expy.. okay so that’s what Sterling Archer did besides physical therapy for the three months between his waking up and Season 11.  Anyways they soon get more exciting news from Lynn. New Neighbors! Before Rita can stop them, the rest of her family tramples over her and goes to make their aqunatince and of course be a bit overbaring with it before Rita rushes in with a spray bottle to spray them like a bad dog because frankly when your dealing with 11 people most of whom are really impuslive, sometimes dog training just works. You try raising eleven kids and see how long before your brain breaks.  Anyways after introductions and the mom turning down cherry pie, you monsters, lincoln sees strange flashing lights and a device and is convinced something is up and unable to convince his family and on a spy kick, recurits clyde. Now why he dosen’t call on Stella and Zach I dunno. And yes I said Zach and not my boy Liam. I have my reasons: Stella, besides being a faviorite of mine, is a tech whiz as shown in one of the comics and in the cookie episode, and Liam is already a paranoid conspiracy nut and as we’ve seen with Dale Gribble, they can be suprisingly useful. I mean Dale is not the best on common sense but he knows goverment bilaws in and out, is skilled with a gun or a bag of pocket sand, and has danny trejo’s octavio, whose basically danny but as hired muscle instead of a master actor, on speed dial. I mean we don’t know if Zach dosen’t have a danny trejo on speed dial or not. We never asked.  As for the other two while I love LIam, spying just dosen’t seem to be in his sizeable skill set and Rusty.. well rusty’s about as subtle as a man covered in screeching cats he glued to himself blowing an airhorn, while screaming the script to a micheal bay movie while doing the explosion noises himself.. which Rusty has probbbly done.  The real thing i’m getting at is I don’t get why, outside of Clyde and LIam, the writers think when LIncoln has an epiosde it either just needs ot be ClyncolnMcCloud or the ENTIRE group, when one or two would do the trick. YOu CAN seperate them out. People do hang out with diffrent friends at diffrent times. I know the show’s grasp on reality is tenous at best, we got to that last week with the whole one teacher for core classes thing with schooled and this week.. again we’ll get to it in a second, but friends DO hang out seperate. We saw each member of the Lincrew, minus stella because she didn’t exist yet, doing their own thing in Racing Hearts. It’s not that complicated. It’s hard to flesht hem out when their used as one solid unit and not unresonable to just use one or two. it’s a lesson I hope the show learns eventually and hope it’s sister show learns too. 

But yeah our dynamic duo spend the episode as youd’ expect; unraveling conspriacies and stalking the new family, though there are some funny bits. Besides Rita squirting her family like a cat or a dog, we have flip getting half his face shaved by a survelince drone and okay maybe just those two things. not bad bits, but the general concept of them roleplaying into mischief.. has been done before. The show’s done the detective bit before and the spy trappings really don’t change that. And you CAN do a good spy takeoff episode, this one just sin’t it and feels like your standard LIncoln and Clyde messaround with tuxedos. Which to be fair are pretty awesome but still. It’s pretty flat.  The climax though? I’ll give it this.. it’s pretty entertainngi if also 100% what exactly the fuck. So our heroes are naturally caught sneaking into the neighbors house and its eems they were wrong, etc etc, exactly what we expected the new kid will hang around.. at least we have a new character. Instead.. LIncoln accidently hits a knob and unveils a panel

So yeah... turns out the new family ARE spies, just for Peach Growers and plan to wipe out all cherries in royal woods. Yup.. look I know this universe is patently insane but even for loud house, even with all of lisa’s super science... even with the slapstick but this is just.. nuts. Like i’m fine with suspending my disbelif, this show is a goofy comedy, but this is a bit much. I LOVE it for being nuts but only in a “what on spagehtti monster’s green earth were you thinking”. I get swinging for the fences but Lincoln getting into a fight with a bunch of spies after playing spy, well beating them with slapsticks and stopping their plot to elmitie cherries..t his isn’t Kids Next Door. This just.. dosen’t work. Jeff Goldblum tell em why, my brains too broken to articulate this anymore

Yeah that. It’s just a weird climax and ends iwth LIncoln vetting the new neighbors.. which does it include girl jordon? Did they just write her out? If so why? Fans liked her, you can have more than one female character in Lincoln’s friend group. Zach is replacable. You can give me whatever the fuck this was, but not an intresting friend for him who has personality already. I get 50% chad but not your decision making. Gah. 

Final Thoughts for .. this. one This one really didn’t work. Besides the ending just not fitting the series specific brand of ludicrous, I mentioned KND for a reason as it made this sort of plot work fine by having it’s whole unvierse be really fucking weird and specific, it’s mostly just okay. We’ve seen this before.. well okay I haven’t watched many of the Lincoln and Clyde messarounds, but the formula’s about the same.  And that dosen’t work. For one you have a HUGE swath of new possiblities: A new school, Chandler coming back, new teachers and faculity, a new principal, and Lynn and LIncoln being in the same school, and you instead just.. retread the same crap. you have 4 of lincoln’s friends other than clyde to use but don’t let them in on the fun. And most agrivating to me you move new neighbors into the neighborhood while neglecting some of your old supporting cast and have them be villians of the week instead of adding someone NEW to the neighborhood. Give one of the other kids a new friend, or give lincoln a new friend to add to his group and replace liam, shake up the dynamic with him and clyde bya dding a third or, most obviously move one of his friends INTO the neighborhood, most obviously stella since you spent so much time building her up then have her addition affect Lincoln and Clyde. Sure we’ve had an episdoe of one of his friends getting in the way of them before, but this would be diffrent. This episode is just.. not great and was a waste of my time, espespcailly after following such a stellar episode. It’s probablyt he first genuinely bad episode i’ve covered on this blog. Now that probably won’t stand, i’ve seen genuiley worse but.. as a wise penguin once said. 

One last note. That Young Dylan graphic is really obnoxiou and obtrusive.  It’s the second most obnoxious thing i’ve seen on this network. 

I”m out for this week. If you want more check out my Amphibia reviews, as I just finished a new one today, my other loud house reviews in the newly minted nickelodeon tab or other stuff on my other tabs, send me an ask for reviews you’d like to see or pay me to review whatver you want for 5 bucks via direct message. And check this blog Monday for the return of weekly Ducktales coverage, and next weekend for the next episode of loud house, and throughotu the week for more reviews.  Until we meet again, GO TEAM VENTURE!. Play us out Mary Kate Wiles. If nothing else this episode let me use this song. 

[purplesurveys]

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What was the most unsettling film you’ve seen? Unsettling films are my jam, man. To name a few, there’s Eraserhead, Room, Midsommar, Eyes Wide Shut, Misery, and most recently, I’m Thinking of Ending Things. Eraserhead takes the cake though. That movie always makes me queasy...

What unethical experiment would have the biggest positive impact on society as a whole? I’m a firm believer in nothing good ever comes out of unethical practices. I’ll never forget reading about an experiment where a group of newborn babies were given basic needs like food and being bathed, but weren’t shown any affection whatsoever and it was meant to see if humans can survive with just the most basic physiological needs. By the end of the experiment period half of the babies were dead. The results were honestly a lot bleaker than how I’ve put it, but I don’t wanna be a downer lol. Suffice it to say that experiment haunted me for days after reading it.

When was the last time you were snooping, and found something you wish you hadn’t? It was around a week or so ago, I’m pretty sure.

Which celebrity or band has the worst fan base? My sister is into K-pop and I hear insights from her all the time, but her one constant is that BTS breeds the most annoying, toxic fans. I’d have to agree. Ariana Grande’s fandom was also annoying at one point, but I haven’t heard much from them making a mess these days.

What are you interested in that most people aren’t? Autobiographies.

If you were given a PhD degree, but had no more knowledge of the subject of the degree besides what you have now, what degree would you want to be given to you? Why would I deserve a PhD on something I’m clearly not qualified for...I’m not sure I’m following this question right, but I don’t feel like thinking too hard about it.

What smartphone feature would you actually be excited for a company to implement? I’m happy with the features that are widespread now, but I wish companies adhere more to countries other than the common ones like US, UK, Australia, etc. I always see ads about phones being able to tell you how much movie tickets cost or track boarding passes, but those are all irrelevant here. It makes a lot of Apple’s basic apps useless on this side of the world haha.

What’s something people don’t worry about but really should? Long-term effects of poor habits like not getting enough sleep or drinking too many cups of coffee. I know because I’m guilty of this.

What movie quotes do you use on a regular basis? “I won’t think about that now, I’ll think about it tomorrow,” but I usually say it to myself, especially when I feel stressed.

Do you think that children born today will have better or worse lives than their parents? Better, but idk if that’s just me being biased because my generation will be the next parents lol. I just think that a lot of Gen X parents still have a lot of dated prejudices and mindsets that my generation was able to learn better from. For example my mom doesn’t like using people’s preferred names, especially if they’ve transitioned -_____- and I know I’d never want to set such an example for my kids.

What’s the funniest joke you know by heart? I know I’ve come across hilarious ones but I always fail to come up with one when asked on the spot.

When was the last time you felt you had a new lease on life? LOL RIGHT NOW

What’s the funniest actual name you’ve heard of someone having? It’s more stupid than funny and I know I’ve already mentioned this before, but Covid Bryant as a first and second name still takes the cake for me. My sister went to school with a girl whose name is just her surname backwards, and for a time I was really weirded out by it. But in the times I’ve seen her she really owns her name and never looks bothered by it, so I quickly stopped caring.

Which charity or charitable cause is most deserving of money? For me it would have to be organizations for animal welfare.

What TV show character would it be the most fun to change places with for a week? Post-El Camino Jesse Pinkman. I wouldn’t want to live through his chaotic shit  from Breaking Bad, but his fate after El Camino is something I’m super envious of.

What was cool when you were young but isn’t cool now? Flip phones, Blackberry phones, Roshes, Frappuccinos.

If you were moving to another country, but could only pack one carry-on sized bag, what would you pack? Phone, laptop, their chargers, important IDs, some of my favorite tops and jeans, underwear, essential toiletries, wallet, a family photo, a journal and pen, earphones, certain knickknacks to remember Gab and my dogs by. Minus the clothes, all of these are pretty tiny so I think these would all fit in the bag just fine.

What’s the most ironic thing you’ve seen happen? I don’t know. I’m not really a fan of rating the most/worst this and that stuff in my life, either. I feel like I unnecessarily rack my brain too hard for them when I take surveys to have a chill time.

If magic was real, what spell would you try to learn first? Probably something that’d keep my dogs from dying.

If you were a ghost and could possess people, what would you make them do? No thanks. I’d be the chillest ghost tbh, I’d like to just sneak up on people’s business and hang out but never interfere in them.

What goal do you think humanity is not focused enough on achieving? Climate change, global warming, alleviation of poverty. Corporations and the few people who actually have the power and money to change things only ever come up with short-term shit like donations and never look at the big picture. What problem are you currently grappling with? So many personal ones. But just like the recurring theme of my surveys so far, “I don’t want to get into it.”

What character in a movie could have been great, but the actor they cast didn’t fit the role? As much as I love Kristen Stewart, I heard she was cast as Princess Diana for an upcoming film and I’m not really feeling that decision. They could’ve gone with a British actress for starters?????? The movie is still in production but it is pretty annoying to think about lmao.

What game have you spent the most hours playing? Probably GTA: San Andreas as a kid.

What’s the most comfortable bed or chair you’ve ever been in? Luxury hotel beds are always so fluffy and comfortable.

What’s the craziest conversation you’ve overheard? Omg one time at a coffee shop Gabie and I sat beside this older couple that obviously was going through some heavy SHIT. There was a lot of animosity and tension between them and I caught the lady silently break into tears a few times. I never overheard anything but then again they sat in silence for hours until the lady finally walked out on him. Never knew what it was about but I’ve always guessed that the man did something crappy, like cheat, and was discovered. It was a really sad sight and a crazy situation to witness and I think I felt even more sorry because they were obviously in their 50s or 60s. I hope the woman is in a better place now as she looked rough as fuck that evening.

What’s the hardest you’ve ever worked? I wore a lot of hats when I was in my college org, and that was on top of balancing my acads as well.

What movie, picture, or video always makes you laugh no matter how often you watch it? That scene from Friends where Ross plays the keyboard for Chandler, Phoebe, Monica, and Rachel.

What artist or band do you always recommend when someone asks for a music recommendation? It depends on what music they’re into and if I have actually have a recommendation in mind for them. I obviously can’t suggest Paramore to someone who mainly listens to metal.

If you could have an all-expenses paid trip to see any famous world monument, which monument would you choose? I’m down for any monuments that are super ancient like Stonehenge or the Pyramids of Giza.

If animals could talk, which animal would be the most annoying? I’d go with frogs, but only because they get annoyingly loud in the evening.

What’s the most addicted to a game you’ve ever been? Playing The Sims, Mario Kart, Rock Band, or games in the Burnout franchise.

What’s the coldest you’ve ever been? Japan was so fucking cold when I was there. Didn’t do my research and ended up being dressed poorly, and I was so cold I could barely talk to my parents or fully enjoy my time. Sagada was also nearly unbearable in the early morning.

Which protagonist from a book or movie would make the worst roommate? Not from a book or movie, but BoJack Horseman. Diane can also be in the running as I always found her too whiny. I get that she had her personal shit to deal with, but I don’t think living with her would be good for my own sanity and mental health.

Do you eat food that’s past its expiration date if it still smells and looks fine? It annoys my chef dad to death that I don’t lol. No matter how great it looks, I’d bounce. I once ate expired Kit Kats that tasted like cardboard and that scared me off of expired food forever.

What’s the most ridiculous thing you have bought? I once bought a stupid novelty soap that to this day I’ve never even opened. It’s in one of my drawers, and I plan to just throw it out at some point.

What’s the funniest comedy skit you’ve seen? Not a fan of these but one that got to me is Dear Sister from SNL.

What’s the most depressing meal you’ve eaten? A few years ago there was a local breakfast place that offered red velvet pancakes for a limited time and I was all over that crap, so I went and ordered. The actual pancakes ended up not being any bigger than my palm, and I remember not being able to hide my disappointment once the server placed the dish on my table haha. I felt so scammed. I had to order something else to feel full, because those pancakes were stupidly small.

What tips or tricks have you picked up from your job/jobs? One of my superiors, when she was presenting a pitch to our director yesterday, kept asking questions and picking at the director’s brain so that she can get suggestions and answers straight from the director herself and so that she didn’t have to do any brainstorming anymore. I thought that was a pretty nifty and clever hack.

What outdoor activity haven’t you tried, but would like to? Hiking a mountain!

What songs hit you with a wave of nostalgia every time you hear them? Umbrella by Rihanna feat. Jay-Z.

What’s the worst backhanded compliment you could give someone? Idk, anything can be the worst depending on the context. I’m not a fan of giving those, though.

What’s the most interesting documentary you’ve ever watched? Unsolved Mysteries’ Dupont de Ligonnès episode was a lot of fun to watch.

What was the last song you sang along to? I think it was Thinking of You by Katy Perry? but I’m not entirely sure. I haven’t sung along to anything in a while.

What app can you not believe someone hasn’t made yet? I don’t really download and use a lot of apps other than the basic ones, so I don’t care too much.

When was the last time you face palmed? Last night.

If you were given five million dollars to open a small museum, what kind of museum would you create? I’d give it away to the Martial Law museum currently being made near my university so that it can do more to show the atrocities of the Marcoses. And so that I can piss off my pro-Marcos relatives.

Which of your vices or bad habits would be the hardest to give up? Uh hating myself, if that counts.

What really needs to be modernized? Public transportation systems in this country.

[fan-think]

SKAM FRANCE PROJECTION -  Q&A RECAP

I wasn’t sure I wanted to write a description of the Skam France projection in Paris because I knew it would be so long ; but we were so privileged with all those informations that I though I needed to share with you some of it. And also for myself, so that I don’t forget this day.  I’m just gonna keep a few details to respect the kindness and sincerity they had for our little audience, and I don’t feel confortable repeating to hundreds (or thousands) without their consent. Important note : I didn’t take notes, I’m not a machine so I don’t remember everything, I don’t remember what they said word by word, so, I’m sorry if some quotes or meanings are a bit inaccurate. I tried my best, please don’t hold it against me.... :) Now, lets begin this VERY LONG recap. I’M SORRY !! 

We arrived a bit before 5pm, and people were waiting in line outside. The movie theater didn’t open before 5. Somehow, while waiting peacefully, we saw the cast and crew arriving just in front of the theater, greeting each other and talking together, like a reunion. That was nice. Marilyn came to us and greeted some people waiting as well.  Then we went in the theater, were handed a flyer/postal card (see at the end) of the Skam cast, and headed to the cinema. The crew and actors were already seated. We all sat, then David (the director) came on stage with some people from the production, France TV and Niels Rahou (main screenwriter). Him and David had a cute moment sharing the mic and saying I love you to each other/declaring their flames haha. What a pair ! David thanked all of them, the cast as well, we applauded (of course). Then David said : Are you ready to see Lucas and Eliott fall in love ??  We applauded loudly again, then he sat down and we started watching the first episode. We laughed a lot reacting to the funny scene or lines, and when FINALLY we saw Eliott for the first time on screen, everyone screamed and clapped. So I took a look at Maxence reaction, he has his face in his hand, kind of hiding but was smiling like crazy, that was adorable. From there, almost every time Eliott was on screen, we could here reaction in the cinema. When the episode ended, we applauded loudly. We waited 2 minutes, and the second one started. It was nice to hear people react to the jokes, we really felt connected. When Eliott appeared at the bus stop, same thing everyone screamed a bit and the next 15 minutes were intense ! I tried to take a look at Maxence pretty often during those big moments, he was smiling like crazy and hiding himself at the same time. He deserves everything. When the screen went black, we clapped, whistled and screamed a lot more, because... HEY what an experience to live ! And because we’re so grateful for everything they did obviously.  Then, the whole cast and David came on stage, David expressed his big though for Axel who couldn’t be here because he was filming a movie. Big clap for him too! Then he opened the Q&A part. Since it lasted quite a while, I’m gonna proceed with bullet points from what I remember.  • The first question was for the whole cast but more for Maxence and it was how does it feel to see yourself on screen. He answered it was kind of weird (chelou) since it’s his first role mostly...  • When ask what was their common points with their characters. Marilyn said she was a bit “motherly” like Manon. She has the tendency to tell people to be careful about what their eat, they do etc. They all agreed it was weird to speak about themselves like that, then she took the mic when Edouard (Mika) started talking and started praising him for his acting because he is the opposite of Mika, she saw him acting a couple years back and said she was so impressed that when she understood he was in Skam as well, she was really impressed and afraid to play with him. It was so nice, we applauded a lot. (The joke was that she actually added him on facebook 6 or 7 years back and he never accepted her request before Skam hahaa) For this same question, Maxence said he his a solitary/lonely person like Eliott. Lula is a workaholic, very invested in what she does and make people laugh without intending to. Assa is very similar to Imane, even if she might not have a temper as strong as Imane (but pretty much). And Léo (Yann) said he is pretty open (minded), and chill about things, people (I think.. not sure on this one) • Maxence and David explained how he was cast. David said that when they started the casting, they wanted to feel and know from the moment the actor would enter the room that it was him. But unfortunately, this feeling never came, for months... Then, the cast director called David and said she may have seen someone that could fit (at a “representation”). But she warned him that this actor had broken his ankle in the morning, so... for the “walk in the room and we know  it’s him” it was a bit compromised because of the crutches. So David and Maxence just sat down and talked, the feeling was there though, and this is how it started. Maxence then added : when he was called for the first casting interview, he didn’t want to go because he just finished his acting studies and wanted to go in vacation basically haha But then he convinced himself it would be just an exercice, so why not. Obviously it went well. Was called back for a second try, and a third try with Axel. He was in vacation when David told him he had the role. The moment he picked up the phone, a thunderbolt fell right next to him(Maxence) and David added at the theater “it was a prediction from what was about to happen” because “thunderbolt” is “foudre” in french, and when people fall in love at first sight we call it “coup de foudre” (coup = a stoke/a blow of thunderbolt)..... ❤ • During the casting call, Axel and Maxence did a scene but they incorporated the crutches situation in the scene, and it went very well. Also There was no weirdness between the two from the beginning even if Maxence said something to Axel that could have offended him. But he wasn’t and from that point, Maxence knew it was all good with Axel. He said they were lucky (I think?) that they had a such a good chemistry.   • A question was about the boys gang. Niels took the mic and made a big point on that. Saying that their reaction is normal. Here, they are teenage boys who know Lucas as there straight friend, they can not imagine or understand why he is acting now, what he has in his mind. They’ve been raised in a environment were masculinity is toxic, like any-elsewhere and we must not hold it against them because it’s reality. We (Skam viewers and lgbtq+ community) are well educated on the subject, but this is reality.  • Anne-Sophie (Chloé), David AND Niels especially made a big point on how Chloé is essential and must not be hated. She is a girl in love that is being fooled by Lucas. The only thing she does wrong in the og is outing Lucas like that, but apart from that, there is no reason to hate her. They were pretty passionate about that point.  • A recurring theme/question was about a fifth season... with (most likely from the person asking the question) Daphné. David, the head of production and a France TV representative, they all took the mic to speak about it, and the main thought was : they would love to do it because they love Skam so much BUT  because of legal reasons, of the views on Season 3 and 4, and so much more things, there is NOTHING planned on that yet... Somehow, they emphasized on how much we -the audience- matter for this kind of future. If we talk about Skam to people, if we raise the views, express how much we love it on social media etc, it might help.... So... talk about Skam France to everyone you know, and maybe, only MAYBE, we might have a change for more seasons... • Same thing with how homosexuality is usually shown in french TV. He said something like “If you’re expecting the usual kiss and then, a fade to black... No, that’s not gonna happen. We talked with France TV (the diffuser), they told us “no, you can give us all you want, we want to show a lot more”, so... since we had the images, a lot of images, we went thoroughly on that. Don’t worry for that, really ! There might be some bloopers/BTS too...” • Maxence hadn’t seen the Skam og or anything before shooting (apart from the toilet scene) because he wanted to be just like his character : he didn’t know anyone or anything of what was happening. Also, from what he saw in the toilet scene, he said he didn’t want to be like Even, it felt too “”“pushy””” and this wasn’t him or who he wanted Eliott to be. After shooting the season, he “binge-watched” everything in two days. • Now... If you are still afraid of the chemistry and the “intimate” scene. Just know that David made sure it would be realistic... that all I’m gonna say on that.  • They only had 35 days to film the two seasons!! It is extremely short. The other remakes shoot one season at a time. David emphasized on the few hours of sleep him and some of the crew had. Also, they shot around 15 minutes per day of images. It is HUGE. The work they put into the last 2 seasons is enormous. • Before staring, David thanked his wife for taking care of the kids 6 months during the year while he is filming (we clapped a LOT) • The first kiss scene was taken in one shot (correct me if I’m wrong) • Lula never wears jeans or pants, only skirts and dresses. In real life, but also on the show. • Basile falling was an improvisation from Paul, they shot it twice (I think...) • Axel doesn't play the piano, he just learned this piece for the scene (Maxence told us) and they shot the scene multiple times. • Marilyn complimented Michel on the common points questions. • Alex’ bisexuality was a random suggestion from Coline just before shooting the scene when we know about it. Easy peasy. • David and the whole team were frustrated for season 1 and 2 that they had to follow exactly the original script and lines. Even more frustrated when they saw the other remakes... • Niels was wearing a unicorn shirt, perfect  ❤  • Philippine (Emma) and Coline (Alex) told us 2 jokes.  • Lula (Daphné) is the most likely to laugh on set • They all see all your reactions, all you comments, the bad ones as well, they knew all the bad comments from season 1 and 2, knew all the pressure for season 3 and 4, so they just hope you’ll like it because they fucking love it ! :) • The journalists only saw episode 1 to 4 and the reviews are good, even if, according to Niels, they havent seen anything yet.................... so, we kind of know what to expect. Or not. Seriously, I think we’re not prepared at all.  • Neither are we for season 4 apparently... Warnings from David. Then everyone started to leave but... not really haha. The room stayed pretty full for a good 30 minutes. Personally I stayed close to David who was answering questions in a corner. I can tell you : he is SO PASSIONATE about this season, about Eliott and Lucas, his actors, it is SO heartwarming ; but above all, it confirms to me that this season has an intense depth that - in my opinion - we are NOT ready for. Outside, everyone was talking with the actors, especially Maxence, obviously... I talked with Edouard (Mika) and with Niels (the screenwriter) mostly. I just stopped Maxence who just finished talking and taking pictures with everyone to thank him, and let me just say he is an adorable sunshine. I barely started to say something, he was hugging me and he made the pictures I took with him adorable. He was jumping all around, a real ray of sunshine and kindness. Then he ran to hug David and it was the cutest thing I’ve witness that night. He must have seen me grinning like crazy at him and David, but I don’t care. It was WAY too heartwarming. They are all absolutely ADORABLE. ADORABLE !!  THANK YOU SKAM FRANCE !!!   

PS : If he agrees, I’m letting David tell the story about his child name and their request :) You’ll melt and be happy about our future. PS 2 : Thank you to Manon et Laura who helped me remember a few things. Twitter : @lau_helder

[arbeaone]

The Skinny Magazine Published on May 01, 2017

[ View larger version here ] Text from the article can be read below. (There may be some errors.)

The Mighty Barratt

Beloved curmudgeonly comic Julian Barratt makes a jump to the big screen with the endearingly silly Mindhorn, in which he plays a washed-up actor caught up in a murder plot. He talks about the pomposity of actors and a possible return of The Mighty Boosh

Interview: Jamie Dunn

Movie actors are a funny old lot. Essentially they're big kids who've been paid handsomely to raid the dressing up box, but to hear them talk you'd think they were curing cancer. Comedian, musician, writer and actor Julian Barratt finds his fellow thespians' self-importance endlessly hilarious. "It’s so hard to not sound like an arse when you talk about acting,” he says down the phone from London. “So it's a very rich territory for comedy.” You can see this self-seriousness at work on shows like Inside the Actors Studio and those round table discussions The Hollywood Reporter do around the time of the Oscars. “Oh, those round tables are just great,” Barratt chuckles. “They're full of people trying to make out they don't care about acting and it’s just a job. ‘We're just like plumbers, but working with different materials; the plumber works with pipes, I work with human emotions.' Or when you talk about how privileged you are to work with whoever - even that comes across as annoying."

Barratt channels some of this pomposity into Richard Thorncroft, the protagonist of Mindhorn, his inspired new comedy, which he co-wrote with Simon Farnaby. At the start of the film we discover Thorncroft enjoyed some low-level fame in the 80s as the title star of Mindhorn, a cheesy detective show in which the titular sleuth uses his bionic eye to literally see the truth; his ocular gift helped him interrogate bad guys, but it also came in handy while seducing women. We see snippets of the show - which comes across like a mashup of Bergerac and The Six Million Dollar Man - throughout this feature-length comedy, but the majority of the action takes place in the modern day, where Thorncroft has become a grotesque has-been; overweight and toupeed, he reaches a career nadir when he loses his latest gig, a TV ad for orthopaedic socks, to John Nettles (of Bergerac fame).

Thorncroft is a joke, but Barratt can certainly empathise. “He is very much a version of me after a couple of bad decisions,” laughs Barratt. He reckons at actors are a few poor choices away from Thorncroft’s predicament. "I don't think it takes much: make the wrong career move here and there, and a couple of bad relationships, and suddenly you're on your own and you're grasping at straws.”

Barratt is being modest, surely. The 48-year-old has been a key player in some of the 21st century's most feverishly adored British comedies. With Noel Fielding he created the wildly surreal The Mighty Boosh, in which he played “jazz maverick” Howard Moon, a character even more pompous than Richard Thorncroft. Then there’s Dan Ashcroft, the self-loathing journalist who finds himself inside a maelstrom of idiocy in East London's hipster scene as depicted in Chris Morris and Charlie Brooker’s prescient sitcom Nathan Barley. He also had a recurring role in spoof supernatural medical drama Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace. And that’s not to mention Will Sharpe's brilliant Channel 4 show Flowers, from last year, in which Barratt gave his darkest- and finest- performance yet as a suicidal children’s book author.

Despite this success, Barratt insists a Richard Thorncroft-style fall from grace is a real worry. “Sure, I've made shows that have connected and that I'm very proud of, but you're always trying to think of the next thing you're going to do. You have to keep asking, 'Do I still have it in me to do another thing that people want?' I have friends who never got into show business at all, and they have proper jobs - they do their job and they're not constantly thinking, 'What can I do next?' 'How can I make it valid?’ ‘Is this going to work?’ 'Are people going to be interested?’ They just do a job and then at the end of the week they turn off and go out. I sometimes envy them that sort of life.”

We're glad he's stuck with comedy, as Mindhorn contains some of Barratt's most gut-bustingly funny material. With his career in the toilet, Richard Thorncroft is given a reprieve. When a deranged serial killer on the Isle of Man tells the police he’ll negotiate, but only with Mindhorn, whom he believes to be a real detective, Thorncroft is given a cushy gig resurrecting his old character to try and solve the murders. Files the film with ¡Three Amigos!, Galaxy Quest and Tropic Thunder, the other great comedies about actors being mistaken for their characters and pulled into real-life peril. The initial idea came from Barratt’s friend and co-star Simon Farnaby. “Really nerdy fans of The Mighty Boosh will know that Mindhorn is the name of a half-man, half-fish creature that appears in one of the Boosh's songs,” Farnaby explains when we meet him in Glasgow ahead of the film’s Scottish premiere at Glasgow Film Festival. “He's very obscure, he appears in one of the songs from the radio show, I think. Julian had given me the CD and I heard the name Mindhorn and I just wrote it down because it sounded like an 80s detective show, you know, these one word shows like Wycliffe or Spender.”

The pair clearly love this very particular genre; you have to love something to satirise it as well as Barratt and Farnaby do in Mindhorn. But the film isn't simply a nostalgic piss-take in the mould of, say, MacGruber, Will Forte’s hilariously crude parody of MacGyver, the action-adventure American equivalent of the shows Mindhorn send up. Barratt came up with the twist that the films should be about the actor who used to be in Mindhorn, and Richard Thorncroft was born. This was over a decade ago. "Originally Julian thought he was too young to play Thorncroft,” says Farnaby. “Whoever played the character had to be old enough to be believable as an aging has-been. We thought: let's get someone like Ben Kingsley to do it!” But so slow was the writing process that Barratt soon found he was approaching the perfect vintage to take on the role. “He likes to tell people he put on weight for the part,” chuckles Farnaby, “but he didn't, he just carried on doing what he normally does.”

Barratt is far more complimentary about his writing partner: "Simon is great because he's very pragmatic. He's great at just getting to the end of things. I'll get really caught up with the problems and the details, agonise over them a lot, so we were a good team." How does he feel about writing on his own?” "I can’t stand it to be honest. I'll do it. I mean, I like to write with someone and then go off and write a bit on my own and bring it back. But writing on your own is lonely, it’s bloody awful."

Talking of writing partnerships, Barratt is still best known for his wildly inventive stage show and BBC sitcom The Mighty Boosh, which he co-wrote and co-starred in with Noel Fielding. It was a classic chalk and cheese double act: Fielding's Vince Noir was a glam rock dadaist with a child-like spirit of adventure while Barratt’s Howard Moon was a curmudgeonly jazz-enthusiast and the butt of almost every joke. Rumours of a revival, or even a feature-length project, have been floating around since the pair's last official Boosh performance in 2009.

Barratt sounds open to the idea. "I don’t want to start any rumours, but we never finished with the Boosh," he says. "We parked it essentially. So it's like a crazy old car that we drove around in, and it’s still there. We could get it out, we could look at it, try and get the engine going again, give it a new coat of paint. Sometimes you think it’s best just to leave something where it was and not try and recreate that magic, but who knows?" He gives a long pause and chuckles. 'We'll probably run out of money at some point and you'll see us doing it.”

[briflatclarinet]

25 Days of Wolfmas: Prompt Two

U.S.S. HEPHAESTUS STATION, WOLF 359 MISSION

PROJECT WOLFMAS: TRANSCRIPTION AND NOTES

Log Date: 12021859-WDE

BEGIN TRANSMISSION

 EIFFEL

Are you serious? I already did this yesterday, Commander! You heard me recording the transmission!

MINKOWSKI

While it was amazing to hear you actually doing your job for once, Eiffel, I’m afraid you’re going to have to do it again. Command sent specific instructions for one question to be read out everyday until Christmas.

EIFFEL

But sir! That’s twenty-three days from now! Do you really expect me to read these things twenty-three times?!

HERA

Actually you have to read them twenty-four more times, Officer Eiffel. You haven’t recorded today’s question yet.

EIFFEL

Hera! Ix-nay on the echnicalities-tay.

MINKOWSKI

I don’t get what you’re complaining about, Eiffel. It’s just reading one cue card a day and the questions aren’t even that long!

EIFFEL

I get what you mean, Commander, and trust me I’d be totally fine with easy work. It’s just… I don’t get why I have to do it. I mean, what’s the point? I’m not even answering the question!

MINKOWSKI

(Sigh) I don’t know why Command wants you to read these, Eiffel, but you were given an order to read them and so help me, I’m going to make sure you actually complete this assignment. I don’t want you half-assing something as simple as this, so you’re going to go in there, record the stupid message, and you’re going to do it right. I don’t want any funny business, capiche?

(Silence)

MINKOWSKI

Eiffel!

EIFFEL

Alright, Commander! You don’t have to shout!

MINKOWSKI

Are you going to go read the card?

EIFFEL

(Silence) (A long sigh) Fine. (Grumbles) I’ll read the stupid card.

MINKOWSKI

Good. Then get to it!

EIFFEL

(Sigh) Yes, sir.

MINKOWSKI

Here’s today’s question. Don’t you even think about leaving the Comms Room until you get this recorded and sent to Command, got it?

EIFFEL

(Groan) Yes, Commander! Will you get off my back and let me get this over with already?

MINKOWSKI

Alright, then. Get to it, Eiffel. (Note: Footsteps are heard and then a door slamming shut)

EIFFEL

(Growl) She can be so annoying sometimes! (Note: Officer Eiffel changes his tone of voice to mock Commander Minkowski) Eiffel! Here’s this useless and menial job sent by Command. I want you to do it no matter how stupid it is because I’m such a kiss-up who always does what Command says. I don’t care if it’s a waste of your precious time, get to work!

HERA

I’d make sure Commander Minkowski couldn’t hear me before I began mocking her, Officer Eiffel.

EIFFEL

Oh, crap! Did I turn the Comms on again, Hera?

HERA

(Note: Unit 214, designation: Hera, sounds amused) No. I just wanted to see your face.

EIFFEL

(Note: Officer Eiffel does not sound amused) Oh ha ha, very funny. You almost gave me a heart attack, Hera. The Commander would chew me out if she heard me say those things.

HERA

Because that would mean you weren’t recording your question and answer card?

EIFFEL

Exactly. I don’t get why she’s so into me reading these. And for twenty-three days? Is she serious?

HERA

That is what Command ordered you to do.

EIFFEL

I couldn’t care less what Command wants. This is so stupid! Command could order me to dress in drag and do the hula and I wouldn’t find it nearly as pointless as this.

HERA

(Laugh) While that would certainly be an interesting sight, Officer Eiffel, all Command has asked is you read one little cue card. Just one! That’s it! You can manage to read one card.

EIFFEL

I could, but it’s the principle of the matter, Hera! I wasn’t sent up here to do busy work! Command put me in the sky to make first contact with aliens and all this time I waste with this stupid cue card is a missed moment where I could be talking shop with E.T.!

HERA

Does all the time you’re wasting by complaining instead of reading the card count as a missed moment too?

(Silence)

EIFFEL

Shut up, Hera.

HERA

(Chuckle) Just get on with it, Officer Eiffel. Then you can go back to searching for your extraterrestrials.

EIFFEL

(Sigh) Alright, fine. You don’t have to twist my arm. (Another sigh as some blips and beeps are heard. Note: noises are presumably from the Comms Room control panel)

(Sounds of Officer Eiffel clearing his throat) Howdy, folks! It’s your favorite radio personnel, Communications Officer Doug Eiffel, back at it again with another stup- wonderful question and answer set from Command! (Laugh) Aren’t they simply the best? And to make things even better, I just found out Command wants me to do this each and everyday until Christmas! Can you believe it? I get to read a question and answer everyday until December 25th. How great is that?

(Silence)

EIFFEL

Yeah, that’s what I though to. So (Throat clearing) Let’s get this over with. Today’s wonderfully amazing question seems to be a simple one: What’s your favorite episode? Now, I’m not sure what they mean by episode but if it were me, I’d probably choose something from a classic series like Star Trek or good old Doctor Who; but as we learned yesterday, I’m not the one answering so let’s see what our mystery writer has to say.

(Note: shuffling can be heard) Okay, let’s see here. Woah, today’s response is a bit wordier than yesterday’s, Dear Listeners, I guess our mystery write has quite a bit to say on the subject. Good ol’ MW says: I can’t just pick one episode, so I’m going to answer this question by picking a favorite from each season.

(Small laugh) Sounds like MW here’s a bit of an over-achiever, they’d probably get along with Minkowski. Anyways.

From season one, my favorite episode is either Am I Alone? or The Empty Man Cometh.

Wait a minute… The Empty Man Cometh? Could they be talking about when Command sent us that psych eval? How could anyone like that?

HERA

Officer Eiffel, maybe your questions would be answered if you just finished reading what’s written down?

EIFFEL

Alright, no need to get smart with me, Hera. (Note: Officer Eiffel is amused by Unit 214’s statement.)

HERA

(Chuckles) It was just a suggestion, Officer Eiffel.

EIFFEL

I read ya loud and clear, Hera, I’ll finish the letter.

I loved the introspection we got with each character’s monologues in Am I Alone? (And the discussions of what can be considered ‘alone’ were very interesting!) and I really enjoyed The Empty Man Cometh because it was super creepy! I remember first listening to this episode very early one morning and I was so spooked because I was the only one awake in the house, but this episode really put me on edge until the big reveal at the end of the episode.

Hmph, well if you thought listening to all that mumbo jumbo was creepy, just imagine how I felt living it.

HERA

Officer Eiffel, I don’t think Command needed you to comment on the question’s answer.

EIFFEL

And I don’t think I needed advice from the peanut gallery, Hera, but here we are. (Note: the transcriber believes Officer Eiffel and Unit 214 are merely teasing each other and mean no malice. More notes shall be taken on this subject as the project continues.)

HERA

Just get back to reading the answer, Eiffel.

EIFFEL

Okay, okay. Now where were we? Oh, right.

My favorite episode from season two is definitely The Paranoia Game. It’s just a really funny episode to me and I love how everyone had a concrete theory on who stole the screwdriver, but they were all wrong (I totally called the real culprit beforehand btw and was really happy to hear from the plant monster once again). Season three was filled with so many great episodes, but I’d have to say my favorite was Mayday. It was so interesting to see how Eiffel worked out what he needed to do to survive and I loved how each part of Eiffel’s internal monologue was portrayed by a different person depending on what Eiffel needed to hear at that moment. I honestly loved how that’s a recurring thing in the show as each character is haunted by the ghosts of what they’ve done. Plus Zach Valenti’s acting was amazing and it was super cool to see Eiffel work out such an innovative and clever way to survive so long on a broken down escape pod.

(Note: Officer Eiffel chuckles and speaks with a smug tone) Well, thank you, mystery write. (A smug sigh) It’s always nice to be appreciated for my genius.

HERA

I wonder who Zach Valenti is?

EIFFEL

Some nobody actor by the sounds of it. Probably just thrown in there as an afterthought, I doubt it’s someone important. But, hey. We’re almost done with today’s letter. Looks like there’s only one paragraph left, thank god. Let’s wrap this up quick.

The most obvious answer to which episode I liked the most in season four would be the finale but while I did love it (no matter how heart wrenching some parts were) I think my favorite episode of season four had to be Dirty Work because it was nice to see Jacobi and Minkowski both struggle with their grief ad guilt. Constructive Criticism was a fun episode too, but I mostly enjoyed listening to how much everyone annoyed each other with Kepler’s games. I’ve even been tempted to try one out myself the next time my friends and I are super bored.

EIFFEL (CONT.)

There. I read the stupid question. Happy?

HERA

Commander Minkowski should be pleased to know you’ve finished her request… But wasn’t that last part super weird?

EIFFEL

Yeah… I don’t know who Kepler or Jacobi are and I don’t know what grief it was talking about. But I thought these were coming from someone who had been listening to our logs?

HERA

So did I, but I don’t know what most of that was about.

(Long silence)

EIFFEL

(Note: Officer Eiffel begins to blow air through his lips, making a sputtering noise.) You know what, Hera? This is probably some sort of joke. Command is probably yanking our chain again.

HERA

Maybe you’re right, Officer Eiffel. Either way, nothing like what was mentioned in that last part has happened yet, so there’s no point in worrying about it.

EIFFEL

Exactly what I was thinking! Now, how’s about I finish this recording and we go annoy Minkowski for a bit?

HERA

Don’t you mean you go annoy Minkowski and then leave me to mediate?

EIFFEL

(Note: Officer Eiffel clicks his tongue, most likely paired with finger guns.) I like your style, kid. That plans sounds even better than mine.

HERA

(Sighs) Just finish the recording, Officer Eiffel.

EIFFEL

Alright, alright. (Throat clearing) So there you have it, ladies and gents! Another day, another confusing question and answer! Will tomorrow be just as annoying? Will the question be just as weird? Will Minkowski actually force me to do this for twenty-three more days?

HERA

That last one is definitely a yes.

EIFFEL

Find out this and more on our next episode of Stupid Space Adventures: Wolf 359 edition! Goodnight, everybody!

[whetstonefires]

d gray man liveblog part 5! (part 1)(part 2)(part 3)(part 4)

Love the amount of personality Allen conveys by code-switching into different formality levels. the translators here are doing an excellent job conveying that, though i suspect the foul language there could have been legitimately punched up.

asserting that his oath to mana and the love that underlies it are his even though he can’t know that is...what makes Allen main character material i guess.

XD I want to ask when ‘being a total maniac with a personality whose internal contradictions are never entirely resolved’ became the shounen protagonist standard but i’m paging through mentally and it basically goes all the way back.

Ashita no Joe was like this. it’s always been like this. only the details change.

I will give Cross Marian .3 points for the possibility he predicted that offering Allen no mercy would inspire him to pull out his hardshell rage against the whole situation rather than crumpling under the weight.

stg allen walker is composed of 93% layered trauma like fine lacquerware and 4% mental invasion. the remaining 3% of his personality is what’s subject to contest. when XIV exceeds 7% encroachment is when shit is going to get real.

oh woo there is Politics afoot and Bookman is...actually intimidated by them, that scares me.

also he and Lavi keep conversing through thought bubbles and i can’t tell if we’re meant to understand they have a telepathic link or this is just an idiosyncratic method of indicating whispers.

lavaliere thinks allen is funny. or that komui’s attempts to reframe shit in allen’s favor are funny.

he’s not actually wrong that the XIVth can’t be trusted, but you want to insist he is wrong somehow because he’s already demonstrated that his standards for treatment of people who even might be compromised are inhumane as fuck.

i want to keep making Pope jokes but the recurring phrase ‘the central government’ just. it really does emphasize how much this organization is modeled on a modern Japanese concept of hierarchy rather than an early-modern European one.

...i am reminded that early European accounts of Tokugawa Japan recorded the shogun as the Emperor and the Emperor as the Pope.

labubibir just smirks when komui asks if his unilateral ‘we’ll tell everyone all about this in the morning’ decision has the pope’s imprimatur behind it.

srsly if we get to a twist that the current Pope is like. an animated corpse or a stuffed bear or a wooden statue or something run by a committee, i’m not even going to be shocked.

oh look it’s Link in that outrageous papal magic ninja getup. XD the role of Timcampi in this story is so weird. and great. he’s like. magic floating R2D2 stg, only if Luke threw R2 at Yoda’s head at some point.

...the point would be when Yoda actually explained about Vader before Vader could, but did it in the most assholish and unhelpful way possible

which you know i would believe would have happened.

Cross Marian it is so completely in character for you to turn up dead and thus useless at such a politically vital moment i almost don’t believe you’ve actually been killed.

only the fact that you actually shared significant information last night makes it seem reasonably likely this is not a fake death.

the disappearing body is a good trick. the guards sleeping and not dead is suggestive either way.

i like the juxtaposition that made it look link Link was blowing shit up by playing chess. (instead it is the marginally less ridiculous ‘playing chess at the site of a battle while ignoring the fighting’)

are those things even akuma? they’re fighting them in a graveyard and either the fight is non-serious enough or the chess is important enough that Miranda’s multi-tasking...

if she needs to use reverse on the board then presumably it...got spilled? but then they could just memorize the positions and let her let it go...

lol yeah okay allen scold the monster for its lack of manners toward a lady.

lmaoooo okay the chess was to win an Innocence-infused ring back from the ghost of its chess-master previous owner! normal duties have resumed in spite of the massive loss of personnel and allen’s identity issues, and apparently Link is now contributing to team efforts. this won’t divide his loyalties at all of course.

the chessboard didn’t decay with the ghost, so i still don’t know what Miranda was reversing time on it for.

+1 sassy old lady.

wow they’re actually building Order operations around use of the Ark, which only Allen can pilot. i guess anyone can use the doors he’s established so once he’s got a solid network running they can axe him but....

...Miranda it is rude to crush on a priest, though he has very pretty hair. (i mean, i’m assuming he’s catholic, since he’s with the Order, which works for the Pope. all indications really are that England is a catholic country in this universe.)

...it’s also a country where the Noahs are installed at high levels of government I don’t understand how no one in the Order has noticed that.

‘even if only for the moment’ ffffffffs link shut the fuck up.

...if anyone is inexplicably reading this without familiarity with the media property involved and picturing the hero from Legend of Zelda when i yell at link, please continue doing that, it’s basically correct except for being wrong in almost every particular.

oh good grief. So, they actually agreed with me about ‘can’t get rid of Allen’ for all the reasons i stated! they just announced to everyone he knows that they have an ongoing mission to kill him if he goes rogue.

that’s entirely reasonable, really, though depressing, but they had to be so viciously dehumanizing about getting there! wtf. “our very own pet noah” imma wring your throat.

...ten years has made Miranda Lott so much more relatable but never more than in this moment where she’s reminding herself she’s the only actual adult in this group.

also really feeling Allen’s “I don’t understand anything, but time keeps moving on.”

Holy shit the guy who knew Kanda when he was a small person now counts as foreshadowing of horrible things to come.

...how long have they left the bloodstained shattered window unrepaired so Rebeliel can sit here staring at it?

i don’t know whether i’m more focused on how absurd it is that this man does fancy baking (19th century! powerful! man!) or how terrifying it is that he’s offering Allen a slice of cake.

lmao apparently Reever is not a typical example of his role, probably because Komui isn’t. in fact, i don’t think i previously realized the ‘section’ he’s ‘chief’ of is the hq science section, because Komui acts like he’s Head of Mad Science and leaves Reever to be his chief minion.

also, this poor woman. her brother got horribly murdered working with these people and it traumatized them and now they’re treating her as a replacement goldfish because she looks just like him. that’s messed up on so many levels, though presumably she’s at least moderately okay with being misgendered or she’d dress differently. it being the 19th century and all.

...also i can’t tell if she’s meant to be a very pale black woman or if hoshino just did a ‘fat person’ character design around racist caricature visual tropes, but she’s got the blackface lip outline and a dreadlock ponytail, so welp.

wow Cross’ disappearance just gets more mysterious even as the evidence of his death mounts.

oh never mind Lebubble says it was definitely his bosses but he’s concerned because he was left out of the loop.

hmm okay that’s two women getting instant crushes on pretty boys and two relatively minor cases of sexual harassment in three chapters, all four times intended as humor, do not like this trend.

hmm now a trans woman being used as a visual gag. i’ve seen worse uses of this trope, but ugh.

the Ganimard expy is funny, tho. the amount of personality conveyed in a few pages is reliably high.

...i feel like he’s pointedly not given his prisoners any changes of clothes in order to maintain the illusion that it makes some kind of sense for there to be an entire gang of phantom thief that gets caught every single time.

that doesn’t actually explain why they’re all still wearing the outrageous hat.

aaaaand back to allen’s identity crisis.

wow, on the one hand cross is pressuring him from beyond the grave not to rely on Mana’s memory because that’s not his real self, but on the other hand he has to seriously consider that his recent lapses in the formality adopted in imitation of Mana were even less himself and in fact the result of a hostile alien consciousness breaking through.

haha this heist scenario is so exactly like a Magic Kaito one I’m guessing that’s a deliberate allusion and not just shared Phantom Thief tropes. (Though how do you tell in a genre like this, Ganimard-Nakamori-Galmar lmao.)

...the thematic element of speech-mode equating identity is really nicely used but lmao sticking out the tongue has sufficiently different connotation in Japan to make this possession sequence weirder than intended. which was already pretty weird.

daaaaamn link’s papal ninja moves are finally seeing some use. also way to signal your real identity bodysnatcher kid, allen’s like sixteen, an adult would definitely not call him niichan.

wow you can even use his papal ninja paper magic! somehow! that is a really high-tier bodysnatching skill. also lol of course kanda can recognize a papal ninja crow by skillset.

i am a huge fan of allen’s capacity for headgames.

oh my goodness is he seriously donating all the money from his thefts to an orphanage? specifically the orphanage where he lives?

and again with the boob grab.

...allen walker weeping that he’s bleeding is quite the hilarious sight but come to think of it if he can’t hold off one random crybaby bodysnatching kid his odds against XIV don’t look that hot, eh?

oh no evil undead nun.

oh that’s a great idea, ask komui for advice about what to do in the situation that an exorcist and his guardians are rejecting summary kidnapping. it’s not like he devoted his entire life to regaining contact with his sister after the Order kidnapped her.

oh no it’s another hideous potbellied angel monster and they’ve figured out how to jam allen’s curse radar. that curse was a present from his dad you bastards!

...mana was a really weird person.

you know link, i’m pretty sure from you that was protectiveness.

oh! a twist! the nun is evil without being an undead monster!

meanwhile the nice nun and all the orphans have been turned into puppets.

daaaaamn the Papal Ninja Paper Magic is good stuff! why don’t they teach it to more of their staff, maybe they wouldn’t have such high turnover.

...Kanda just referred to Noise Marie as ‘she’ but I’m pretty sure that’s a translation error based on the fact that his surname is ‘Marie’ and ‘Noise’ sounds like a descriptor based on his hearing-based power rather than a first name.

it would frankly be awesome if Noise Marie were a woman, but considering the only two not-conventionally-boobalicious and also not elderly female characters we’ve had were minor visual gags (plus i guess Miranda during her initial nervous breakdown), and that hoshino was genuinely startled people thought Jasdero was a woman, presumably because of the lack of visible breasts, i reallllllllly think she would be unlikely to design a huge bald muscle woman, let alone treat her with this much casual respect, let alone while writing her as gay.

regardless, if Noise Marie actually dies imma be so mad. not that me being mad has had a perceptible affect on the death rate--though Kanda and Krory did survive the Ark Battle Arc so maybe i do have power. or rather we collectively as readers do.

hah he cut his own fingers off with wire, badass.

allen’s talent for inspiring compassion claims another victim in Bodysnatcher Timothy and holy cow Emilia The Nice Middle Class Girl is here with a handgun to menace the giant monsters, nice.

i mean, they’re not very menaced, but she’s shooting them anyway, because fuck you.

...holy shit that’s a powerful ability. the fact that it leaves his real body vulnerable is kind of a major drawback even with good teammates, but wow. also for some reason his Innocence has its own consciousness???

which can pilot his body for him while he’s walkabout, how helpful!

Bonne the the translady prison boss has joined the count of girls who see a cute guy and get an instant crush recently, but for some reason she’s really into Reever? I mean, he’s good-looking, sure, but he’s not one of The Pretty Boys.

Just realized that part of what’s vibing so weird is, this is a shounen series, but the specific way it juxtaposes elements of extreme shittiness with elements of brilliant concept and execution is more shoujo in style.

sameface isn’t normally a big issue in this series but Link-with-his-bangs-blown-back looks confusingly similar to Timothy’s Innocence Spirit, whom Timothy identified as his adult self with startling ease.

kneeling there out of options thinking you’re going to die and you dedicate your last thought to revellier, link? really??? that’s extremely sad. did he actually do anything to earn your loyalty or is this just brainwashing?

I feel like last time through I failed to absorb the political implications of the Order having managed to put together agents who can stop a Level 3 akuma with their hands and then eat it. with their hands. i think they’ve been spliced with akuma, because ‘nothing human can get through this barrier.’

Lenalee going one-v-one on a Level 3 was a nigh-self-destruct big deal a couple of months ago. This isn’t just sloppily managed shounen power creep this is the obsolescence of the excorcists.

which in theory would be a good thing, but the way these guys are made has to be awful and our main characters were already disposable enough in the eyes of their masters.

At least Allen’s getting Power Creep too! New tactic: drop sword. Stab enemy in the back with it while standing in front of them because it’s still part of your body somehow.

oh good grief allen you saw what happened to tiki myk! how did you not see this coming. ughhhhhhh. i know why. your current life plan is to Denial so damn hard the universe breaks your way. this is your god letting you know she’s not going to indulge that touching optimism.

i think it shocked me the first time, but i’m not sure anymore.

yeah, deeply counter-productive course of action.

...i’m now used to the way XIV uses Allen’s face but the akuma seeing him as a flaming skeleton monster i had forgotten about. wut?

with kanda it’s not a question of did he count on allen being able to dodge or did he not care if he stabbed him too, it’s both.

the cognitive dissonance of the story trying to treat Timothy joining the Order as a Good End to this episode, the same way it did back in early days when they recruited Miranda, when the prevailing atmosphere of the story has become one of institutional cruelty and corruption wherein the Order is a hellish slave-taking death trap that eats its people alive is just...fucking me up big time.

am i actually expected to accept the content here at face value?

...i mean, it’s a good end in that our heroes are spared having to forcibly kidnap him into indenture, but Emilia joining to look after him is just. It’s not funny or heartwarming or empowering.

we’ve recently gone over how komui doesn’t want lenalee to see his joining the Order for her as self-sacrifice even though it was, and also how much it fucks him up being accountable for how evil this organization is.

and not to be awful but lenalee’s his actual family and actually sweet, whereas timothy is a horrid brat with a habit of sexually harassing Emilia.

And that was before the war reached a point where we’re seeing 90% mortality.

don’t do this emilia. nooooooope.

on the upside, the nice nun and all the children survived somehow!

allen’s relationship with Link is weird.

i wonder if i was meant to be disturbed by how similar Mana’s body language was to the Earl’s for a second there?

okay so can we talk about how in this moment of extreme drama where Allen has sat up in bed possessed by evil, timcampi (who never communicates except via body language and is a floating orb) gets a speech bubble containing a picture of a toilet?

because it was really important to let the readers know that the little golem theorized that Allen needed to have a pee, in between cutting from the unsettling Symbolic Dream to the terrifying murder face.

and the thing is, it even kind of was! it contributes to the pace of the whole scene, it reminds us that timcampi is a conscious being with opinions even if he can’t communicate much, and is witnessing this incident. and yet. toilet.

the entire storytelling style of D. Gray Man revolves around creating cognitive dissonance and it does not suit my brain.

...i honestly don’t know what to think about Link being uncomfortable sharing a room with Lenalee flashing that much thigh, but i know i like him better for the fact that he let her drive him out of his own room by falling asleep on his bed, and just stood around in the hall like a chump waiting for her to finish her nap.

and he escalates from threatening allen with a formal complaint to threatening to tell komui he’s alone in a room with lenalee lmao.

he really is fitting right in.

oh hey. it wasn’t just timcampi who saw.

yes okay thanks for the tyki myk update good to know there are long-term consequences for running a noah through with Crown Clown.

aaaand North American Boobs Lady didn’t seem half this menacing last time she came up, but now she’s flanked by Hungry Hands Dude and his partner and komui is looking freaked out.

he does that a lot lately.

[quicksilversquared]

How to Fake a Marriage (Chapter 2)

Adrien Agreste is excited to go to London to get a degree in Physics- but he's less excited about the ridiculous list of rules his father keeps giving him, especially since it's clear that his father doesn't trust his judgement at all. So what better way to rebel than to fake a wedding with one of his friends as soon as he gets to London.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

(AO3) (FF.net)

"Your father actually forbid you from dating?" Marinette asked in disbelief as she and Adrien finished putting away her groceries. Adrien had decided to put off his grocery shopping until the next day, since Marinette had invited him over for dinner on the condition he help her put away her groceries. He had been only too eager to help and spend some time with her. "That's insane! He does realize that you're an adult now, right?"

"I don't think so," Adrien admitted, folding up the cloth bag he had just emptied. "I mean, I sure it doesn't help that I'm still doing the same stuff at Gabriel that I've been doing since collège. I might have a business degree, but I haven't been helping with the administrative stuff for the company at all and that possibility hadn't even been mentioned at all. It's all photoshoots and commercials and fashion shows and 'being the face of the brand'." Adrien rolled his eyes. "Not that I want to be doing business or anything, but it seems like a waste after getting that degree and all."

"And you didn't apply to work anywhere else, or did your father forbid that as well?"

Adrien winced. "I, uh. Hadn't thought of that. I just sort of assumed that since Father had been talking about me taking over the business end of Gabriel once I got my degree, I would automatically get some sort of job there." He should have looked into that, probably, but then Plagg had pointed out that Adrien didn't particularly like business, so why not study what he actually liked? Maybe now that he was in London, he could get some sort of part-time job using that degree so it wouldn't go completely to waste.

Or maybe he could just focus on getting his physics degree. Considering that his father was paying for his living expenses, that would probably be easier. Besides, his father would probably object if he weren't focusing all of his energy on his schooling.

Thankfully, Marinette didn't seem to be judging him at all. She shrugged, taking the bag from Adrien and stooping to put it away with the others in a lower cabinet. "That seems like a reasonable assumption. I wonder why your father didn't do that?"

"I probably could have asked him," Adrien admitted. Looking back, it was clear that he hadn't really been as proactive as he should have been in applying for jobs. Of course, he had been applying for a Physics program during his final semester of business, but he could have gotten some sort of proper job during the summer months, either at Gabriel or elsewhere.

Yeah, so maybe he was a little behind in this whole "adulting" thing. In his defense, his father seemed to be doing his best to keep Adrien from doing anything on his own and he certainly hadn't offered up any advice like Adrien's friends' parents had.

Once the food was put away, Marinette started making dinner. Adrien pitched in, chopping vegetables like a pro as Marinette started gathering the spices she was going to use for their dinner. As they worked, Adrien found himself hoping that cooking and eating together would become a recurring thing; after all, he and Marinette had become really good friends after they got past the gum incident back in collège and he had really missed her while she was gone. They chatted as they worked, catching up on what they had missed during the months Marinette had been in London.

And naturally, the conversation eventually veered back onto the topic of Gabriel's restrictions for his son while Adrien was in London.

"It's like he thinks I'm going to up and elope with someone I just met," Adrien said, rolling his eyes as he dug into the cooked potatoes. They were fantastic. Adrien recognized the recipe as one of Alya's, which made him guess that Marinette had probably gotten the same lessons he had, or at the very least she had gotten the recipes. She probably already knew how to cook, considering her uncle and all. "Which is ridiculous, I wouldn't..."

He trailed off. Well. Actually, now that he thought about it, that wasn't an awful idea. Not getting married for real, obviously, but faking it for just long enough to make people believe him. The thought of how much his father would freak out made him snicker to himself.

(He might have been spending a little too much time with Plagg. The little cat kwami was a bad influence.)

"You wouldn't...?" Marinette prompted when Adrien didn't say anything. She raised her eyebrows when Adrien still didn't respond and then she suddenly frowned as she caught on to his train of thought. "Adrien, you wouldn't. There's all sorts of legal red tape you would have to deal with to get married, and then if you get divorced afterwards-"

"I wouldn't for real," Adrien assured Marinette hastily before she could really start freaking out. "Just a fake wedding. I don't know how that would work, exactly, but I would just need some photos and someone to be a fake 'bride'."

Marinette groaned, worried expression immediately turning exasperated. "Adrien..."

Adrien gave her his best kitten eyes to try to win her over. It had worked in the past, but Marinette still didn't seem convinced. "It would be funny."

"You're going to get your dad coming over and hauling you back to Paris."

"I'm an adult. He legally can't withdraw my enrollment at the university, and he's already paid for the first semester. I have enough money saved up from modeling to pay for the rest and for housing, and I can always got a part-time job while I'm studying." Maybe he was being a bit immature, but the fact that his father was still insisting on treating him like a child even though Adrien was nearly twenty-two was irritating. He wasn't about to do anything stupid. And of course, not being trusted not to do anything stupid made Adrien want to be stupid. And if he was being stupid, he might as well go big. And because he didn't want to screw up his reputation or his future permanently, a fake wedding was the best way to go.

Now he just had to persuade Marinette of that, or go find someone on the street to cooperate with him.

Marinette groaned again, slumping onto the table and burying her face in her hands. "You're ridiculous."

"I'm rebelling."

"How exactly are you planning on going about getting a fake wedding?" Marinette asked with an exasperated sigh after another pause. She was sitting with her arms crossed, but Adrien knew her well enough to notice the twinkle of amusement in her eyes and the way her mouth curved up at the corners. She might pretend to be the reasonable one, but she was just as amused by the idea as he was.

"Well," Adrien said slowly, trying to think. He had been to weddings before, of course, but they were big affairs for friends of his father or obscure relatives or something that Chloe dragged him to. They involved a whole lot of ridiculous extra bells and whistles. "Uh... in weddings, there's a bride and a groom-"

Marinette giggled. Adrien pretended to glare at her.

"-which I think we have covered, if you're willing to play along with this," Adrien said, suddenly realizing that he hadn't actually asked Marinette yet. He glanced over at Marinette, hoping that she wouldn't be averse to the idea.

"Sure, I'll be your groom," Marinette said with a perfectly straight face. "Are you going to wear a white dress? I'm not sure it'll work with your complexion."

"Ha, ha," Adrien deadpanned back. "But in all seriousness, how much do we want to dress up? I don't want to spend too much money setting stuff up. Besides, too much of a fuss and the press will be all over us and my father will actually kill me."

"I have a nice dress I can wear," Marinette assured him. "We can just wear decently nice clothes and go to a courthouse and pose with an officiant there. Maybe we should pick up fake rings somewhere, so we can have, like, a ring-exchanging picture-"

"Okay, stupid question, maybe, but what makes a wedding official?" Adrien asked, biting his lip. He had come to the sudden realization that he really didn't know as much about weddings as he maybe should if he was going to do this. "Like, I don't want to accidentally get real-married just as a joke."

Marinette snorted. "Yeah, your father would never let you out of his sight again. Or maybe he would reassign Nathalie to follow you around 24/7." She bit her lip to (unsuccessfully) try to smother another snort before she considered Adrien's question. "I think there's some documents you need to have- a marriage license, for one. We wouldn't have one, obviously, but if you really wanted to freak your dad out, we could take a picture of us pretending to sign something."

Adrien grinned and held his fist out for her to bump. She did so with a grin. "I like how you think, partner. This is going to be great. Does getting married tomorrow work for you?"

The next morning found the two of them in the grocery store, doing a quick stock-up of Adrien's food supply before they headed to the courthouse. Marinette had kindly loaned Adrien her bags so that he wouldn't have to worry about getting some of his own right away ("You'll probably get a bunch at student orientations anyway," Marinette had said, "and if not, well, it's easy enough to buy a few later on.") and they had headed off, certain that with two of them chipping away at the list, it wouldn't take too long.

It was taking too long.

"At least normal shopping trips should go faster," Adrien sighed as he turned around once again to head back up an aisle he had already gone through. He hadn't organized his list very well, which meant that there was a lot of backtracking to get things that they had missed. Hopefully it would speed things up once he was more familiar with the layout of the store. "How did your conversation with your parents go this morning?"

"They were pretty amused, I think," Marinette said, grinning. After she and Adrien had laid down some details on how they were going to fake the marriage so it would be believable, Marinette had decided to give her parents a heads-up so that they wouldn't freak out (being freaked out lead to distraction while baking, Marinette had said, and distractions while baking lead to mistakes and injuries; besides, her father had promised to post some sappy comments about being proud of them for getting married once they posted the photos online, just to further confuse everyone). She had called before they headed out, when the bakery would be in the middle of a lull. "I don't think my father stopped laughing for five minutes after I told them. He wants copies of the photos. They also suggested having a couple of my coworkers come and act as bridesmaids and groomsmen."

Adrien snorted as he perused the spice rack. Salt and pepper went into his cart first. "Your parents are awesome. I'm glad I'm getting them as fake in-laws."

"They said we needed to get a picture with the cake, even if it's just a plain one." Marinette grinned. "They're really amused by it. I get the feeling that they've been wanting to plan a wedding for quite some time."

"Who's getting married?"

Marinette and Adrien both yelped as a new voice inserted itself into their conversation. They whipped around as one, Adrien holding his canister of dried basil out like a weapon, and came face-to-face with Madam Rosalie.

"Oh, you scared me," Marinette breathed, one hand still on her heart. Madam Rosalie laughed.

"Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to, but I saw the two of you over here and just had to pop over and say hi. I'm glad you two already met. So who's getting married?"

Marinette glanced over at Adrien with a clear how do you know her? expression on her face. With a guilty start, Adrien realized that he had figured out pretty early on that Marinette was the intern Madam Rosalie had been referring to, but he had never mentioned her to Marinette. As far as his friend knew, Adrien should be a complete stranger to her boss.

"Madam Rosalie is a friend of my father's," Adrien explained to Marinette as he tossed the basil into his cart. "They've known each other for years."

"Ah."

"And, uh..." Adrien thought fast, trying to decide whether or not Madam Rosalie could be trusted with their plan. She might think that it was stupid and tell his father, but on the other hand, she and Adrien's mother had gotten up to some crazy things themselves when they were in school. She would probably have more ideas for them to make the wedding seem more real. But he couldn't help but tease her a little first. With a wide grin, he reached over and took Marinette's hand. "And actually, Marinette and I are getting married. Today."

The effect was instant. Madam Rosalie's eyes bugged out and her jaw worked wordlessly as she stared at them. After a minute, she finally found her words.

"You just met, what? Yesterday? Today? You can't just up and get married to someone you just met, that's absolutely insane. I thought you two were smarter than this-"

Then Madam Rosalie stopped quite suddenly and peered at them suspiciously. After a moment she straightened up, earlier panic completely gone. "You're just pretending to, aren't you. To freak out your dad."

Adrien groaned, letting go of Marinette's hand. Really? Busted already? "We're that predictable?"

Madam Rosalie shook her head. "Oh, no, not at all. It's just that I know what newly-in-love couples look like, and you two didn't quite manage that. I'm sure you'll be better at acting later today, though, right?"

"Yes, yes, of course," Marinette said quickly. "And we were just planning on getting photos taken, so we can redo them if we don't look mushy enough."

Madam Rosalie let out a bark of laughter. "You two, really. How did Adrien already manage to rope you into his schemes?"

"We've known each other since collège," Marinette admitted, looking a little sheepish. "And we didn't realize that we would both be in the same part of London, much less the same building- and across the hall from each other, even!"

"Oh, that's convenient. You already have a friend in the city!" Madam Rosalie looked absolutely thrilled as she patted Adrien's shoulder. "Of course, you can't let that get in the way of you practicing your English and making friends here."

"We won't," Adrien assured her. Really, he shouldn't be speaking for Marinette, but she had been in London for months already. Surely she had made some local friends already. Marinette was incredibly kind and outgoing so unless she had been absolutely swamped by work, she had probably made a dozen friends already.

"Good." Madam Rosalie looked pleased by his response for a moment before the focused look returned to her face. "So you said something earlier about a fake wedding?"

"Ah...yeah." Adrien bit his lip nervously as he tried to think of how best to explain the whole situation. "So my dad kept telling me all the things I wasn't allowed to do when I was in London, and one of the things he forbid was dating, so, uh-"

"So you decided to go straight to getting married instead," Madam Rosalie finished. She laughed. "Okay, that's hilarious. I'd love to be a fly on the wall when he hears about it. So what had you planned so far?"

By the time they finished their shopping, Madam Rosalie had been caught up on all of their plans. She was amused, but she thought they could do better. Way better.

"I have a wedding dress that I designed and just finished that you can wear for the day," she told Marinette. "And of course, I have a few tuxedos on hand. One of them is bound to fit you, Adrien." She grinned, all pumped up about being involved in their prank. "And I have some gorgeous prop rings that you could borrow for the ceremony, they're even your style, I think. And oh, I know a minister-"

And from there it just exploded.

Almost all of the staff and interns that Madam Rosalie called up jumped on the chance to prank the Gabriel Agreste. They all piled into the Rosalie Fashions building to try out the suits and dresses that Madam Rosalie wanted to use to find out who fit in the pieces with minimal adjustment. Those who wore the pieces best would be standing in as makeshift bridesmaids and groomsmen. A few interns that normally worked with the photographers during photoshoots brought along several cameras and a video recorder to catch the whole thing on tape. Someone trotted off to get Madam Rosalie's minister friend, who came in dressed in full garb. By mid-afternoon, Madam Rosalie was herding them to a private part of a botanical garden, which she had managed to procure by calling in a favor from the owner of the garden.

Adrien was of the opinion that Madam Rosalie knew half of London. She really was able to call in all sorts of favors, all for one little prank.

"You have to go big or go home," was all she said when Adrien and Marinette protested how much trouble everyone was going to just for them. "Besides, your mother would have found this hilarious."

Adrien couldn't argue with that. His mother probably would have jumped on board to help plan the prank, even if the intended target was his father.

Especially if the intended target was his father. She was just awesome like that.

"All right, I want you three arranged up front," Madam Rosalie ordered, pointing to the three assigned "groomsmen" who were milling around the gorgeous private garden. They were all dressed in identical suits from her newest collection. She waved one of the photography interns forward. "Arthur, arrange them. Adrien, Chris, you join them."

"This is certainly looking very realistic," Chris, the minister, told Adrien as they found themselves being steered into position in front of the vine-covered trellis. From their position, they could see the majority of the private garden around them. Most of the flowers were long since gone, since it was fall, but the area was still gorgeous. The gardeners had picked out plants that had interesting-looking leaves to keep the area beautiful once summer was over, and some had a purplish hue to them to break up the green and grey of the plants and stone walls around them. During an actual wedding, the area would probably be filled with rows upon rows of folding chairs, but right now it was rather sparse. That didn't mean that it wasn't busy, though. Madam Rosalie was steering the bridesmaids and Marinette into a line and checking that everyone else was in position and not accidentally going to show up in the video.

From Adrien's point of view, the setup certainly didn't look like a particularly realistic wedding. It looked far more like a photoshoot in the middle of being staged.

Of course, that was kind of what it was. A photoshoot, or perhaps a movie. Looking towards the front of the garden, it probably did look much more like an actual wedding, and that was what counted in the end.

"Does it really?"

The minister was grinning as he watched everyone being steered into position by a very much in charge Madam Rosalie. "I've officiated more than a couple rush weddings in my time. Some of them looked almost just like this."

Adrien's eyebrows shot up. He had figured that between the designer outfits, the location, and the other details that had fallen into place, the element of believability might have been completely lost. "Really?"

Chris laughed at the look on Adrien's face. "You don't believe me? I'm not saying that all rush weddings are this nice. They vary, just like the weddings that take months to plan. I've seen everything from people dressed in sundresses and shorts all the way to one couple who had rented the most fancy wedding dress and tux I've ever seen."

"For a rush wedding that their family didn't even come to?"

"Oh, no, their family came!" Chris assured him quickly. "Immediate family, that is. They had a very large extended family that they didn't want to deal with and they didn't have the budget for but they still wanted a fancy wedding, so they threw everything together in the two days after they got engaged and had the gorgeous, but very small wedding that they had always wanted."

"They must have had some plans in place before they did they got engaged then, right?" The mere idea of even trying to plan and pull off a wedding in two days gave him a headache. His and Marinette's original simple plan had been hard enough to plan out already in such a small timeframe, and that was with as few bells and whistles as possible and without the added hassle of inviting guests and having a reception afterwards. Somewhat subconsciously, Adrien found himself taking notes on all of the moving parts there seemed to be to a wedding. After all, he would presumably be doing this again for real someday and it would be good to be prepared- unless, of course, he just decided to elope. But no matter how tempting the idea was after all this, he wasn't entirely positive that his father wouldn't disown him if he actually did elope. "Don't things like flowers and cake normally have to be ordered months in advance?"

Chris laughed. "Enough bouquets to decorate an entire room and a large enough cake to feel dozens of guests have to be ordered way in advance, yes. But small arrangements like Marinette's and a cake for twenty people can be done in a heartbeat. I'll admit, it's easier for people like Madam Rosalie who have all sorts of connections, but it's fully possible."

"All right, places!" Arthur yelled from where he was standing next to one of his tripods. He had set several up so that they could get photos from several different angles. "Benny, start recording, if you please. Ellen, the music. Adrien, look like you've fallen head over heels in love with Marinette. I want lovesick! Just a normal smile won't do- perfect! All right, let's go!"

Adrien threw himself into the role of a lovesick man. He pasted the most dopy in-love expression that he could make on his face for the entire ceremony, and Marinette did the same. There were a few small bumbles, as there were bound to be without a proper prior rehearsal, but in Adrien's mind, that just added to the authenticity. Marinette played the shy yet lovestruck bride role well, and she definitely looked gorgeous in the nontraditional blue wedding dress that Madam Rosalie had procured. It was gorgeous but not too fancy, which suited both Marinette's style and the location well. The hairstyle that Madam Rosalie had chosen for her framed Marinette's face nicely, and the hairpiece that they had picked out absolutely shone against Marinette's dark hair. Adrien could definitely see Marinette dressing up in something similar when she got married for real.

"You look amazing, Marinette," Adrien murmured in her ear during a small pause in the ceremony. His grin turned even more genuine as he saw her blush. She didn't have time to respond, though, before they started the vows. They were pretty standard, since they didn't have time to think up their own and besides, they didn't want to say anything that would give away the fact that they had known each other for years. It was best to keep things short, sweet, vague, and ridiculously sappy. The interns that Madam Rosalie had put in charge of coming up with the vows while everyone else got their hair and makeup done had clearly had loads of fun going absolutely over the top.

And then it was time for the kiss.

Adrien's heart almost stopped as the pastor looked at the two of them expectantly. He had forgotten about that particular part of the ceremony. How, he didn't know, considering that it was only the most important part ever or at least the part that everyone seemed to look forward to the most. He hadn't even asked Marinette if she was okay with kissing him, though maybe he should assume that she would be fine considering that she had agreed to the "wedding" in the first place and the photos that they would have taken with the ceremony that they had planned originally would have more likely than not included a kiss. Besides, Marinette was looking up at him expectantly. There was no way to misinterpret that look as reluctance and he definitely wasn't against kissing Marinette.

Decided, Adrien stepped forward to close the gap between himself and Marinette and, with only an impish grin as warning, he dipped her and planted a lingering kiss on her lips.

As soon as the ceremony proper was over, Chris guided them towards a small table that had been set up on the side. The minister had procured a fancy-looking piece of paper for them to sign in place of a marriage license, and it took all of Adrien's strength not to snicker at the "bla bla bla"s that filled the paper where the legal mumbo-jumbo would usually go. Marinette signed first on the line, and then she handed the pen over to Adrien. He pressed a kiss to her cheek before taking the pen from her and signing as well.

"That was fantastic," Madam Rosalie exclaimed as soon as they were finished signing and the cameras had stopped rolling for a moment. "If I hadn't known better, I would have thought that you two were getting married for real. If your father isn't fooled, Adrien, then it'll be a miracle."

"Your coaching earlier was incredibly helpful," Adrien said humbly, remembering how- well, not awkward, really, just stilted- the two of them had been before Madam Rosalie pulled them aside for some coaching while everyone else got dressed. He beamed at Marinette. "And Marinette was amazing. I don't think I would have been able to pull that off with anyone else."

Madam Rosalie looked strangely smug at his words. Marinette turned pink.

"All right, almost done!" Arthur interrupted them. He waved his camera at them. "It's time for the photos! First, I want all of the bridesmaids and the bride, and then after that I'll want the groomsmen and the groom. Then it'll be a few group photos."

Marinette beamed at Adrien and then moved off to join the other girls arranging themselves at the front of the garden, in front of the few still blooming flowers in the garden. Adrien watched her go, letting himself enjoy watching the way her dress swished over the grass. Marinette was a natural at this, really. He wouldn't be surprised if she was asked to model more in the future.

"If I'm not needed in any of the photos, then I should go," Chris announced, checking his watch before glancing around again. "I have some things I still need to get together for this Sunday. It's been great meeting all of you," he added, shaking Adrien's hand. He lowered his voice. "And feel free to call me up when you and that young lady get married for real. I'd be happy to officiate."

Then, before Adrien could respond, he was gone.

"Now the groom and the groomsmen!" called Arthur. "Come on, come on, we don't have all day! We're going to lose the best light soon! We'll do the cake-cutting after this."

"Is something the matter, Adrien?" Madam Rosalie asked when Adrien made no move to join the others. She followed his gaze curiously, but Chris was already gone. "Adrien?"

"Sorry, sorry, just zoned out for a minute," Adrien said hurriedly, quickly heading up to where the other guys were being arranged by the photographer. When he and Marinette got married for real? Either Chris hadn't been given the right story by Madam Rosalie or he had read too far into Adrien and Marinette's acting and thought that the chemistry was really there. There was no reason to overthink the minister's remark. Maybe the guy was a romantic at heart. If he officiated a lot of weddings, that definitely was a strong possibility.

Adrien let Arthur guide him into position and automatically posed for several photos, following Arthur's directions without having to think about it too much. The entire "wedding party" piled together for another series of photos, and Arthur hummed in pleasure as the group posed naturally. He and Marinette threw themselves into their roles again, gazing at each other with hearts all but floating out of their eyes. As soon as that was done, the whole group piled over to where a rather simple wedding cake was sitting on a folding table (covered, of course, by lacy white linen snitched from Madam Rosalie's collection) so that Adrien and Marinette could cut the cake and hand it out. They posed for a few photos during that, too, since Madam Rosalie insisted that it was tradition.

"All right, I'll get these and the video on a USB drive for you," Arthur said, reviewing the photos on his camera. "One last photo everyone, I want a group picture to remember this by!"

Adrien grinned as everyone who had helped out, from their false bridesmaids and groomsmen to the owner of the garden, set their cake aside to pile together with him and Marinette. He had already made several friends from the group, even though they had been insanely busy getting everything ready. Marinette had already promised to bake another cake for them all to have later in the week as thanks for all of their help, and Adrien was trying to figure out if he could cook a meal to go along with it or if it would be too hard to cook for so many people. He was rather inclined to think that it would be too hard to do. Maybe he should just bring some drinks and extra dishes for everyone to use.

"Are you telling your friends back home?" their second bridesmaid- Lynsey, Adrien was pretty sure she was called- asked. "I mean, I know Marinette said she told her parents. But your friends- Alya and Nino, I think?- do they know that it's a prank?"

Marinette and Adrien exchanged a look. They hadn't really thought about it, though they definitely should have. Adrien was tempted not to, just because Nino and Alya's reactions would be hilarious. They would probably freak out in very loud unison.

"Let's not," Marinette said after a moment, clearly having the same train of thought as Adrien. "I want to see how much Alya freaks out. Besides, if too many people seem to know about it, it starts to look planned instead of a spontaneous 'we just decided to do this'."

Adrien held out his fist for her to bump. "Great minds think alike. I just wish I could be a fly on the wall when they see our posts." He grinned. "It would be absolutely hilarious."

[hockyeah]

spooked : kleinphy

a/n: ok so hi @beaniejared !! its trumpet anon!! merry christmas!! congrats on dealing with my endless pestering for the entire month (wow!!) all self deprecating jokes aside, i had so much fun being your santa! heres a very kleinphy halloween, because i saw that your boys wanted halloween and ran with it ( @dear-evan-hansen-secret-santa )

warnings: they go to a haunted house but it's mostly fluff

word count: 3791

rated t for these fucking gays swear so much 

“Ow! Zoe, fuck off with that hairbrush or I’ll shove it up your ass.” Connor complained, swatting away her attempts to fix his hair.

“Connor, watch your language and be nice to your sister.” Cynthia tutted, adjusting the bow on her witch hat. Connor scowled, adjusting his headband. He turned to look at his sister, who was now brushing her own hair before dividing it into sections and braiding them.

“Sorry.” He said without remorse. Zoe stuck her tongue out at him childishly, and Connor had to bite back the instinct to do it back.

It had been her idea to go to a haunted house. Connor had been put off by the idea at first (weren’t they much too old to be celebrating halloween like that?), but, thanks to his sister’s constant begging and a fair share of bribery, he had agreed. It was later that he found out that it had actually been Alana’s idea. And she had invited Jared Kleinman, who had, in turn invited Evan Hansen.

So he was stuck going to a fucking haunted house that probably wasn’t even scary with a band of four other people. And that wasn’t even the worst part. The worst had to be that his mother was so positively delighted that he was spending time with other people that she had to eject herself into their lives, managing to be more excited than either of the siblings.

Most of Connor said that this was an awful idea, that he was going to absolutely hate it, and it would be better to fuck off and get high at some party. But, he had to admit, there was some small part of his that was excited for this recreation of his childhood. And, to be doing it with a group people who genuinely tried to understand and get along with him? He couldn’t ask for anything better.

That being said, the night would still probably be total hell.

“I have to run to the store for tea lights for our pumpkins, if you guys leave before I get back, just shoot me a text.” Cynthia stood, grabbing her car keys and running out the door.

Connor truly didn’t understand why his mother suddenly cared so much about Halloween. It was probably because she hadn’t had two children celebrating halloween together since Connor was thirteen.

Halloween used to be his favorite holiday. Forget Christmas, forget his birthday, Halloween was the one holiday where no one would look at his oddly, no one would expect any gratitude in return. There were no stuffy family traditions that he would have to sit through. It was just him and Zoe, dressed up in whatever costume they had decided on that year.

But suddenly, when he hit high school, his father deemed him too old to trick-or-treat, and insisted he stay behind. He hadn’t wanted any of the younger children to be scared. That part had stung, but Connor couldn’t fight back, instead having locked himself in his room for that first year, and fucked off to some party for all the succeeding years. But now, a glimmer of hope shown, through Zoe trying to genuinely connect with him, in the form of a group activity and a shitty sibling costume.

“Connor,” Zoe waved a hand in front of his face, snapping him out of his thoughts, “you here? Alana just pulled up.” Connor scrunched his face up and backed away from her hand, standing up. Zoe tugged at the wings on his back. “Be careful how you sit, you may fuck your wings up.”

“Oh, and I would hate for that to happen.” He remarked sarcastically. Zoe playfully hit him on the back of his head, grabbing his hand and tugging him towards the front door. He laughed sharply, letting the hint of a smile flit across his features. He looked at his sister’s costume, a pair of red devil horns in her hair and a belt with a pointed tail attached wrapped around her waist.

He was the angel, she was the devil. It was a classic role reversal, and Connor found it hilarious that Zoe had come up with the idea. He walked up to Alana’s car, the sun already beginning to set over the loose hills. Zoe ran past him.

“Shotgun!” she yelled, opening the car door to find Jared Kleinman already sitting in the passenger seat. “Get out, Jared.” she demanded playfully.

Jared Kleinman was something of an anomaly to Connor. He managed to worm his way into everything he ever tried to do, and refused to get out, like some disgusting parasite. However, something about him was endearing, something kept Connor pushing for more, always arguing back and forth. His insults used to sting, but now, the encouraged an equally shitty reply and from a light blush to bloom on his cheeks.

To say he had a crush on something as utterly repulsive as Jared Kleinman? Completely false. Connor swallowed at the thoughts, forcing himself back into the scene unfolding in this driveway.

“No way! I was here first.” He retailed. Alana leaned over, unbuckling Jared’s seatbelt for him. Jared bleated loudly, sending a sideways glance at the girl in the driver’s seat. “What the fuck? I’m being teamed up on, this is bullying-”

“Sorry, Jared. I’m the driver, I have final say, and I say that Zoe’s sitting up here. Better luck next time, bucko.” She smiled sweetly, letting Jared slide out of the seat, surrendering it to the smug look on Zoe’s face. Connor climbed into the backseat, watching for the disappointed look on Jared’s face when he, too, climbed in and saw that he was spending his time in the backseat with no other than Connor Murphy.

“Ah!” Jared yelled at the sight of Connor, “Hey there, Hot Topic, don’t worry, the halo doesn’t detracted from the whole edgelord persona.” Earlier in the year, Connor may have been angered by Jared’s remarks, but now, he knew that the brutal insults that they traded was just another type of banter, even if many thought that they were constantly at each other’s throats.

“Oh, and I can see that my favorite asshole didn’t bother dressing up, he’s already scary enough.” Connor shot back. Alana snorted from the front seat. Jared fanned himself, false tears springing to his eyes.

“I’m your favorite?” He asked, batting his eyelashes, “I could cry.” He dropped his dramatics. “Don’t accuse me of not having a costume, Murphy. I’m not as uncultured as you think I am. It’s just in the back because I didn’t want to bend it.”

“He’s not lying.” Alana said from the driver’s seat. “I had to help him load it.”

“Whatever.” Connor grumbled, pulling his legs onto the seat. “Isn’t Evan coming?” He was not sitting next to Jared’s infuriating ass this entire car trip. It wasn’t that Jared even got on his nerves anymore, and that’s truly what scared Connor more than any haunted house ever would.

“Nope.” Alana responded. “He said Heidi managed to get the night off, and he thought it a haunted house would be too much for his anxiety.” Connor nodded. Evan would quite possibly flip shit at anything remotely scary. Even if Jared was annoying, he wasn’t prepared to deal with Evan bawling his eyes out. It wasn’t Evan’s fault either, and Connor made a mental note to tell him he was missed.

“So you’re stuck with me, edgelord.” Jared gested playfully. Over the past few months, his insults had lost their edge, sharp taunts becoming a form of playful banter between the two.

“Unfortunately, shortass.” He grumbled, looking out the window, the trees racing past highlighting the brilliant orange backdrop of the sinking sun. It would be dark soon, long shadows already sliding across the paved roads. Alana turned onto a small road, following signs for the haunted house. It was a recurring fixture in their small town, open only August through November, and apparently making a killing.  

“Woah, that’s a low blow!” Jared fired at him.

“Maybe because you’re so close to the ground.” Connor immediately shot back, smiling in spite of himself.

“You’re so mean to me.” Jared pouted, but his words were laced with laughter. In the low lighting of the sunset, he looked like he was glowing. Connor took a spare moment to admire his face, but quickly shied away, quashing the warmth blossoming in his chest. Now was not the time to fixate on the entrancing fucker.

Alana turned into a heavy populated parking lot (the house was apparently a very desirable Halloween hangout) and maneuvered through the grid of cars, pulling into an open space.

“Get out of my car.” She commanded, pulling out her keys and unlocking the doors as the lights blinked on.

“Wow, someone’s bossy.” Zoe retorted cheekily, opening her door.

“Is that a bad thing, Ms. Murphy?” Alana teased. Connor saw a faint blush scatter itself on his sister’s lightly freckled cheeks and gagged.

“Get a room.” He jeered. Zoe turned and stuck her tongue out at him for the second time that night. He flicked her off in return.

He exited the car, shutting the door after him. Jared had popped the trunk, removing his costume, a large white sign emblazoned with black letters.

“Nudist on strike.” Jared read  his sign aloud, seeming very pleased with himself. He pulled the sign over his head.

“You think  you’re so fucking funny, don’t you?” Connor asked him, biting his lip to stop from laughing.

“Oh Connor, darling, I don’t just think it. I know it.” Jared batted his eyelashes, slamming the car door shut so that the lights blinked off. Connor blushed at this appropriated pet name, but disguised it before it was too noticeable. The two followed Zoe and Alana towards the house, standing in a line with swarms of people. Alana purchased their tickets, smiling sweetly at the tired looking teen taking their cash.

“Okay, miss. There’s a few simple rules here. Firstly, no flashlights. It ruins the fun. Secondly, do not harm our actors. There are real people underneath that makeup. And, finally,” He delivered the line with tired impatience. “Try to make it out alive.”  He looked like he hadn’t slept in days, and Connor truly felt sorry for him.

There were hundreds of people, all roughly in groups of four or five like their own. Many were costumed, too, bright wigs and long capes adding to the scene. Jared got far too many compliments on his cheeky costume, but that was just Connor’s opinion.

They followed the line of people into the front door of the haunted house, where they waited another ten minutes, (Within this time, Alana and Zoe had discreetly grabbed each other’s hands, but Connor chose not to say anything) and then were directed inside the house, the door slamming behind them, and with it, any light left fleeing from the room.

Suddenly, the group was bathed in darkness.

Connor looked around, immediately disoriented. He grabbed the closest thing he could find to steady himself.

“Murphy! Paws off!” Jared squawked, breaking the silence. Connor released Jared hesitantly, his eyes slowly adjusting to the room.

“Zoe? Alana?” He called, hoping they weren’t too far. When no response came, he returned his grip to Jared’s shoulders. Jared grumbled in disagreement, but didn’t bother shoving Connor’s hands off as he had before.

“They probably went ahead of us already, no biggie.” Jared explained. Connor noticed the slightest hint of shakiness in his voice, smirking slightly in the dark.

“Well, we can’t just stand here forever. Let’s get moving. Maybe we’ll catch up?” Connor tried, reluctantly letting go of Jared to continue going what he hoped was forward.

“Maybe.” Jared replied from behind him, catching up so that they were walking side by side. They entered the next room, a large hallway dimly lit by two candles at the end. Portraits of all shapes and sizes lined the room, eerie faces with eyes far too realistic for Connor’s taste. He resisted the urge to once again attached himself to Jared, instead bravely leading the way, ignoring the way the eyes seemed to follow him, sticking to his neck like heavy molasses.

They reached the end of the hall without incidence, passing by the final portrait. A hand shot out from the picture, almost like it was coming out of the painting itself, and grabbed Connor’s arm. He jumped several feet, and, judging from the small screech and the battery of curse behind him, a similar fate had befallen Jared.

“Piss off! Skedaddle! Get the fuck away! Shoo!” Jared reached down, unattaching the hand that was clamped around his ankle. Connor repeated the motion on his extra hand, the appendage shooting back inside as if nothing had happened in the first place. Connor turned back to look at Jared.

“That was…” He was breathing heavily.

“Terrifying? Invasive? Utterly petrifying?” Jared supplied.

“Any of the three. Let’s keep going.” Connor nodded, letting Jared lead the way. They turned into another room, a bedroom type scene. It was dimly lit as before, smelling musty and looking about the same. Connor pointedly tried to ignore the figure pointedly wrapped in white sheets in the childlike bed.

Jared walked through with the same hesitance as before, holding his hands up on the defensive. Connor trained his eyes ahead, promising himself to not look backwards. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

“Who the fuck is touching my hair.” He squeezed his eyes shut momentarily. Jared whipped around, looking at him, his eyes widening. A slight, childish giggle sounded from behind him.

Whatever, Connor told himself, you signed up for this. And with that, he too turned around, finding himself face to face with a grotesquely mottled girl. She smiled a toothless grin, and had it been any other situation, Connor would have stopped to admire her makeup. But instead, his fight or flight instinct kicked in, and he turned to lock eyes with Jared, pleading for him to run.

Jared took his cue, flinging open the door and plunging himself into the darkness. Connor followed, taking extra care to shut the door after him. The two ran, side by side, through the dark hallway, not stopping to care, only wanting to reach the next room without encountering another creepy companion.

“Connor, is it just me,” they had stopped running, both panting from the exertion, “or is this hallway getting smaller?” He looked around wearily. Connor’s eyes, now adjusted to the dark, looked into Jared’s beady small ones. He glanced around, coming to a darkening conclusion.

“I’m pretty sure it is.” He affirmed, cursing internally. Why had he let Zoe drag him out to this? He knew that there was no real danger other than maybe a few bumps or bruises, but still, if anything, this trip had proved that he was a bigger pussy than he thought.

The hallway was beginning to shift, the painted walls slowly transforming into something softer and more constricting. Connor let Jared lead the way, resisting, for the millionth time, the urge to cling to Jared like a scared puppy.

“This stuff is so fucking weird. I think it’s like foam or some shit.” Jared poked one of the walls experimentally.

“Do we keep going?” Connor asked.

“No, we dig our way out. Of course we keep going.” Jared retorted, sarcasm lacing his words, and took a step forward into the closing cavity. The two slid through the hallway, eventually turning on their sides to fit through. Connor found himself short of breath, the restricting cavern freezing the air in his lungs. Jared must have noticed something, because he spoke up.

“Just breathe, Murphy. It’s like music. In for four, hold for four, out for four.” He instructed, demonstrating the pattern on himself. Connor mimicked this, steeling his gut. He was not going to have a panic attack in the middle of a haunted house in front of Jared Kleinman. If not at the very bottom of his to-do list, it was very close to the end of “things I want to do in front of Jared Kleinman.”

Jared was the first to push through, landing them in a very normal looking staircase. It was the first properly lighted room in the house, and Connor blinked, readjusting to the light. He and Jared shared a look of disbelief. This looked too good to be true, but they continued descending the stairs, finally reaching the door at the end of the flight.

“God, this is the last fucking time I go along with anything Zoe plans.” Connor said, looking at Jared and shaking his head. Jared raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I’d say it was a bonding experience.” Jared reasoned.

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” Connor retorted. They had stopped at the closed door, both too uneasy to open it.

“Wouldn’t you agree, Connie?” Jared batted his eyelashes. Connor would almost call it adorable, if the offending person was anyone but Jared.

“God, call me that again and I’ll punch your fucking lights out.” Connor threatened, but the heat wasn’t there. He found the term near-endearing, and the thought of that repulsed him so much that he shoved it to the back crevice of his mind, planning never to think of it again.

Jared finally reached for the door swinging it open slowly. Connor felt himself bracing for impact, thinking that something had to go wrong. He squeezed his eyes closed, tensing his tall frame.

And nothing happened. He cracked open his eyes, the door revealing a dark and musty looking room. It wasn’t appealing, but, then again, nothing about the excursion had been. He looked over at Jared, the portly boy shrugging weakly and stepping into the room.

A mechanical noise ripped through the air, and Connor instinctively looked over his shoulder. He swore, yanking Jared around so they both faced the bloodied mask of a ghoulish creature bearing a chainsaw. It stepped towards the pair, Connor gawking.

“Oh, for fucks sake!” Jared swore loudly. Connor grabbed Jared’s hand instinctively and bolted, dragging him through the dark room and into another, somehow even mustier room, the low hanging ceiling adorned with webs and spiders. Connor hoped they weren’t real, still gripping Jared’s hand. The two tore into the room, shoulders dripping with cotton webs, and stopped to catch their breath.

“Why are you such a pussy?” Jared asked between gulps of air.

“I’d ask the same of you.” Connor responded. Jared flicked him the bird, still clenching his hand tightly. Suddenly, the rip of the annoying, probably not even real (but still petrifying) chainsaw came back into earshot, and Jared and Connor locked eyes again. Jared bolted this time, yanking Connor along. The sound was getting closer and closer, and, even if Connor knew he wouldn’t get hurt, fear still coursed through his veins. Jared yanked him sharply, pulling him around a corner Connor didn’t even know existed. It was only when he heard a door slam had he realized that Jared had pulled him into a closet.

“Kleinman! What the everloving fuck!” Connor whispered-yelled, finding himself in a very compromising position. The closet was far too small for them, the near-crawl space designed to fit one person at most.

“Shh!” Jared shushed him, “The bitch will pass, and then we’ll be home free. Just- just sit still.”

“I’m not doing much sitting-” Connor complained, heat rising in his cheeks. If they had been the same height, perhaps they would have found themselves nose to nose, but because Jared’s stature was small - and Connor’s was anything but - they stood awkwardly in a face to chest position, pressed tightly against each other.

“I get your fucking point, asshole.” Jared retorted. Neither of them had released the other’s hand.

“So we’re stuck like this?” Connor asked. He couldn’t move without being pressed even closer to Jared, something he was trying to avoid at all costs.

“Unless you have any other ideas?” Jared replied, pushing further into the closet. It was pitch back all around. “I’m surprised we’re still alive and intact.”

“No, I’m surprised you’re still alive and intact. I’m quite murderous tonight.”

“Shut the fuck up.” Jared snapped playfully.

“Oh, blow me, Kleinman.” Connor quipped back.

“Do you know how unsanitary that would be?” Jared said after a moment of silence.

“I’d rather not think about it.” Connor cringed, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

“What would you rather think about, then?” Jared challenged.

“Not you.” Connor dissented.

“Oh, blow me, Murphy.” Jared parroted the phrase from moments earlier. Connor froze. Through their entire barrage of back and forth insults, the two had come closer and closer together, and he had just realized. He was sure Jared had noticed, too, as the shorter boy shifted uncomfortably against the wall. The air was suddenly thick, the space seeming much smaller than before.

“You fucking wish.” Connor’s words cut through the heavy, inexplicably hot, air. He was blushing, blushing heavily, and was grateful for the cover of darkness to hide the heat rising in his cheeks.

“I wish a lot of things, but definitely not that.” Jared tactfully replied.

“Like what?” He prompted.

And suddenly, Jared mouth was on his, their frames pushing together in the tiny, pitch black closet. It was warm and chaste, Jared’s soft lips pressing against Connor’s chapped ones. Connor breathed sharply, kissing back without thought. To say it was an ideal spot for a kiss would not have been accurate, but something about the illusioned terror waiting outside the door propelled them onwards, Connor’s long arms wrapping themselves around Jared’s warm shoulders. They broke apart suddenly.

“What the fuck.” Was the first thing out of Connor’s mouth.

“Look, if you want to say that never happened-” Jared offered, but Connor cut him off.

“No, do that again.” Connor said, and Jared kindly obliged him.

Later that night, when they were found in that same closet by another tired employee, a noticeably disheveled Alana, and a furious Zoe (who had, as it turned out, gone ahead of them earlier in the house), both boys would deny anything ever happening. That being said, it didn’t take a scientist to figure out the change in chemistry between the two. On the drive home, when Jared fell asleep on Connor’s shoulder, Zoe whipped her head around to interrogated him. He simply smiled, told her not to worry about it, and she may want to invest in some concealer to cover the rather noticeable hickey on her neck. Alana laughed, Zoe blushed, and, in that moment, Connor decided that, just for a minute, everything would be okay.

[justdumbandstupid]

ok so i thought of another one.

we know abed is often compared to birds because of his appearance (that one guy who called him bird-face in comparative religion) and probably his head movements has something to do with that too. i think that this comparison started to get on his nerves and that’s when he turned to batman. ok, hear me out, birds are okay right? but what’s just a cooler version of a bird? bats. what’s even cooler than bats and is also a more humanized version? batman. so abed develops an attachment to batman as a kid/teen (or at some other point idk).

so this batman role he plays appears first in introduction to statistics (S1EP7) when he shows up dressed as batman. troy sees abed’s cool batman costume and pretends he doesn’t absolutely adore the commitment to the bit. he even talks to abed like he is actually talking to batman himself. troy is reacting very well to abed’s costume and abed takes this reaction as a sign to continue. he is fueled by the motivation to make this new friend like him. so basically he continues with the bit for the rest of the night, heroically saves pierce and jeff from their death by chair crushing, then has his funny little monologue at the end. in this monologue, abed says “am i a bird? no. i’m a bat. i am batman”. he is confidently assuring the world that he is in fact the batman, not some weird inhuman bird.

in the end tag we have the scene with troy and abed sitting and talking. two important things happen in this scene: 1. troy admires abed 2. the two find relatability in each other.

troy atempts to do a batman impression but abed deems it incorrect so he proceeds to coach troy, who is obviously full of admiration. abed has probably never felt admired before this point, let alone to this extent. this is a first for troy as well. has he ever been this invested in a typical “nerdy” thing like batman? probably not. his past self would just make fun of abed.

it is also a first when troy finds out that him and abed relate to each other a lot. he mentions the scary possibility of waking up as a donut and eating himself. when abed doesn’t respond in mockery but instead genuine interest, troy is amazed. he doesn’t fully let it show but he says “it’s cool to know other people think about this stuff too” which in my opinion, sets the tone for their whole relationship. this moment is the introduction to many recurring elements of their dynamic, and beyond that it makes them start to feel like real people with real thoughts.

so abed takes this new found closeness and carries it throughout the whole show. the joke of abed being batman comes back so many times, showing he really did take troy’s (and the rest of the group’s) reaction and remembered it. he could associate his relation to birds with a cool persona of heroism and friendship instead of a label for dehumanization and humiliation.

guys.

[news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog]

What it’s like to be Pornhub's social media manager

Managing a brand’s social media is tricky for anyone in 2019, and it’s even more challenging if you’re the social voice (and face) of Pornhub, the web’s most popular porn site. We spoke with Aria Nathaniel about the fine line she walks at the office each day.

Boasting a whopping 6 million followers on Instagram and 1.25 million on Twitter, Pornhub has amassed extensive reach on social media channels. By riffing on memes, trends, and current events — and interacting with readers — Pornhub stays relevant and continues to build an engaged community.

Most of that work is done by one woman — Pornhub's social media manager, Aria Nathaniel, who’s staying up to date not just on what Pornhub’s doing, but on the latest trends across the internet.

The voice of Pornhub

Between spreading awareness of the brand, engaging with followers, and keeping her posts within each platforms’ terms of service, Nathaniel has a big job. But for all the extra behind-the-scenes challenges of running social media for a porn brand, Nathaniel's work appears effortless to the average follower. 

Like all social media managers, Nathaniel's job requires her to stay up on what's happening online. “I try to latch on to mainstream trends and breaking news stories to boost engagement. If people are talking about something nonstop, I want to insert myself into that discussion,” Nathaniel tells Mashable via email. “It’s me 24/7, 365.”

“I’m constantly scouring the news and keeping myself 'in the know' on things — sports, politics, entertainment, video games," she says.

#instagramdown pic.twitter.com/yaZlCJy0tm

— Pornhub ARIA (@Pornhub) March 13, 2019

Like any social media manager for a brand, Nathaniel has to follow certain rules (like the aforementioned platforms' terms of service). But as the voice of a large adult entertainment platform, she has more leeway about what she shares than, say, someone running social for a telecom or an airline. “I’m afforded a unique opportunity to pave my own funny/witty/sexy/raunchy lane and break away from all the mundane commentary that tends to typically proliferate [on] branded social media,” she says. 

This strategy, Nathaniel says, has made Pornhub more “approachable,” adding, “People are able to see me being silly on social media and are less inclined to think of us as strictly an adult entertainment platform. I like giving Pornhub a personality that many people can relate to.”

RT if you sexually identify as a mistake

— Pornhub ARIA (@Pornhub) March 20, 2019

She puts thought into the type of content to put on each platform: The Twitter account is heavy with jokes and memes, because, as Nathaniel says, “it’s especially important to be relevant and topical with whatever you’re posting about there.”

Because Instagram is more visually focused, she notes, she focuses on promoting some of the adult entertainers and "posting pictures from various marketing initiatives we’re doing, whether it be a new product, physical activation, or stunt.”

SEE ALSO: Oh great, another 'Game of Thrones' porn parody is here

While some of the content Pornhub posts may get your heart racing just a bit or isn’t something you’d want coworkers in your office catching you scrolling through, Nathaniel says that nothing she posts violates TOS. While content has occasionally been removed from Instagram, she says those instances generally aren’t a TOS violation but coordinated attacks by dissenters, “a result of people mass reporting our account because they don’t agree with what we stand for.”

There are other social media challenges for Nathaniel, too, but, surprisingly, not the ones you might think.  

Side-stepping Twitter’s darker corners

We all know that along with the good things they do, like providing a platform for marginalized voices, social media channels can also be terrible places, filled with harassment and misogyny, making these platforms a minefield for women. One study, published in December 2018, found that women were harassed on Twitter every 30 seconds. And you know it’s not a good thing when that number actually feels like it's lowballing how often it occurs.

Nathaniel, though, says she’s actually been relatively lucky when it comes to harassment. She tells me she keeps a close eye on Pornhub's mentions so she can interact with followers, and doesn’t receive too many harassing comments. “The internet, by and large, has been rather kind to me/us in regards to comments and interactions," she says.

View this post on Instagram

Find me nowhere near the sun because my skin has evidently never seen the light of day....selfie. #phworthy

A post shared by Pornhub (@pornhub) on Feb 27, 2019 at 5:58pm PST

But Nathaniel does make an effort to evade trolls by being careful about what she chooses to post about, and avoiding controversial political topics. “I’m very cognizant so as to not post something too controversial because I don’t want my comments and replies to turn into a hateful thread where people are arguing back and forth with each other," she tells me. 

Still, there are some questionable queries thrown Nathaniel's way, even as she seems to take them in stride. “The one question I’m asked incessantly... is why I haven’t done porn, which I take as a compliment,” she says. 

In reality, she says she rarely even visits porn sets: “Because I’m the brand ambassador it’s pretty rare [that] I’d wind up on the production set unless it was for a marketing campaign. We do very little production ourselves, actually, which usually surprises most people.”

Nathaniel hasn’t had many issues with overzealous followers, either, and when she has it's been mostly positive. “For a while I had a wonderful fan sending me donuts every week. While it’s not uncommon for people to send me things, this was recurring and quite wholesome.”

Fans also appreciate her literal realness: “It always amazes me when people realize I’m not a bot and actually a real human," she says. "I always get a good laugh from that. Most people are super nice and gracious, and I’m always so appreciative.“ At the end of the day, regardless of someone’s profession, people should be mindful of the things they say to them.”

View this post on Instagram

Gal pals! #phworthy

A post shared by Pornhub (@pornhub) on Mar 13, 2019 at 8:03am PDT

The big online porn behemoths Pornhub, RedTube, and YouPorn are all owned by the company Mindgeek, and each has its own social media manager. When asked if these social media accounts might play a role in the misogyny that’s rampant on these platforms, Nathaniel points out that all of Mindgeek's social media accounts are run by women. “[Mindgeek] is a cool place for us as women to speak up and speak out on things that are near and dear to us."

Nathaniel says she also has a great relationship with those other social media managers: “I’m close friends with YouPorn Katie and the social media manager for RedTube, Emma.” 

All three women work in the same office, she says, and adds, “We do sometimes talk shop but rarely compare notes. We want to be as genuine as possible and if we compare notes or share tips with respect to what does and doesn’t work on our distinct platforms, that may compromise our authenticity and personality.”

Treading carefully

One might think a drawback to working in the adult entertainment business would be becoming numbed to sex. After all, there have been numerous stories about the effects on those who watch a lot of pornography; it stands to reason that working in the industry, even an arm's length from production, one might run similar risks.

But Nathaniel says she hasn’t experienced this in her job. “People always expect me to be super horny or super desensitized to sex from working here, but I don’t feel a shift in anything at all. If anything, I’m just more informed.”

Elaborating, she adds, “Working at Pornhub is like being in sex ed class 24/7, and I mean that in the best way possible. I’m more knowledgeable about sex and sexual health. I’m more aware of the sexual community and the challenges they face. I’m more in tune with sex workers and have been fortunate to form lifelong friendships with many of them.”

That’s not to say she doesn’t have any concerns. When you’re the person behind a major brand online, you’re always a target of trolls and others looking for you to make the slightest misstep. Or, sometimes, no mistakes at all; they’re just ready to pounce. 

The story of Amy Brown, the Wendy’s social media manager who blew up thanks to sassy tweets but soon experienced a backlash for no reason other than that people are jerks, is one such example.

Being sharp and genuine and connecting with the readership is a big part of the task, too, and Nathaniel is quick to praise the entire social media team at Pornhub, adding, “We work tirelessly to ensure we’re culturally competent, authentic, and sensitive to people.” 

“At the end of the day we just want to put a smile on people’s faces. I want someone to be scrolling through Twitter, stop on my Tweet and laugh out loud or smile. That’s all," she says.

And it's working: Users apparently like Nathaniel's voice so much, that there are multiple series on YouTube featuring her, including the day-in-the-life series “Chronicles of Aria,” and “Pyft,” in which Nathaniel operates a rideshare for porn stars. “[Many] people who follow us on social ask to see more of me and my personality, so we thought this would be a cool way to do so on a safe for work platform," she says.

While it appears that she leads an adventurous life, Nathaniel insists that she’s not “a wild and crazy person” but has had a few fun moments, like the 2018 Pornhub Awards in Los Angeles. “I never thought that I’d have Kanye West (who was creative director of the awards show) physically stitching a dress to my body.”

Ultimately, the success of both the Pornhub social media strategy and Nathaniel herself has boiled down to maintaining that much-talked-about authenticity and not losing her sense of self, particularly on a platforms littered with garbage, bots, and plenty of hate speech.

And, she says, it’s especially important to stay centered when you run the account for adult entertainment; the subject matter itself can inspire people who might think it’s okay to be horribly foul in response while at the same time angering people who, as Nathaniel mentioned, don’t like what Pornhub does.

Ultimately, Nathaniel has found that balance: “Pornhub Aria is who I am as a person. I haven’t changed to conform to people’s preferences or anything. I’m super authentic and take pride in that.”