#most popular bootleg

[allthedesiredusernamesaretaken]

... listen to music ...

[tiptapricot]

Mortal Kombat merch has me parched why is there so much fucking NOTHINGG

[moonsidesong]

cirno fumo in april........ so... cirno fumo... for Birthday:)

[gibbearish]

idk looks pretty clearly posted to me, kinda seems like you just. didnt read the rules and then broke them lmao

Today's sponsored post is to inform everyone that Reddit's r/Art community is run by pigs with no lives. At best, I was mildly annoying initially. They just slung mud. If this is what a community touts as its “best,” it's trash.

[derrypubliclibrary]

Definitely a musical to listen to more than once* (*a daily basis if possible) and I’ll definitely need to watch it if I can when we get home

YES whenever any inconvenience happens i listen to it fr like. OUGH

[norsevvy]

i can't stop thinking about all the parallels and similarities between the three district 12 victors (four with peeta ofc i love that guy don't get me wrong BAHAHA). suzanne collins this is miserable

- lucy gray, haymitch, and katniss were all sixteen at the time of their reaping

- haymitch and katniss both tried to save district 11 girls and failed. both had some kind of mention of willows after death (rue's song, haymitch physically carrying lou lou's body into a patch of willows). you could argue movies-lucy gray had a tie to dill by accidentally killing her (which you could argue happened to haymitch and katniss too)

- all three of them having (mostly) illegal jobs. lucy gray and singing (restricted to the hob), haymitch with his bootlegging, katniss with her hunting. all instinctively rebellious just by nature

- haymitch and katniss both offered some kind of support to their career enemies. haymitch dropped down chocolate to silka after hearing her cry, katniss shot and killed cato to spare him from being (further) tormented by the mutts

- haymitch and katniss have the same family structure; dead father, living mother + sibling (haymitch's brother sid, prim for katniss)

- all of their reapings were never meant to happen. lucy gray's name was intentionally drawn, haymitch's was straight up illegal, katniss volunteered. none of them had their name drawn (save for lucy gray, but that wasn't fair)

- all close with their district partner / partners. admittedly not that surprising, but it's also fully possible to Not be close with them. all three of them risked their lives continuously for their partner(s)

- all related to the covey in some kind of way; lucy gray is just flat-out covey, haymitch is in love with a covey member, katniss has Vague tie-backs to the covey, since burdock had a handful of covey cousins. if anything, katniss is likely to be very distantly related to lucy gray through either maude ivory or barb azure

- all of them were INCREDIBLY popular tributes. lucy gray won most of the capitol over immediately, haymitch's stunt with louella's body + his score of ONE + his interview made him popular incredibly fast, and katniss had the entire world hooked from the moment she volunteered + cinna's outfits + peeta's confession

- all targeted to be more important than their district partner. lucy gray was heavily favoured, jessup went mostly ignored. haymitch was the district 12 victor most people were rooting for, AND beetee asked him specifically to destroy the arena. katniss was immediately favoured, and while peeta was important, katniss had always been "the mockingjay" and was needed more than him

- mockingjays! lucy gray's connection to them is obvious; they loved her and she loved them. haymitch's is more obscure, and is both through lenore dove (who loved them, understandably since she's covey) and maysilee (the original owner of the mockingjay pin). katniss...is the mockingjay BAHAHA but she also has that connection through her father (the birds loved him), and the pin, which is technically relating her back to lucy gray, because tam amber made it for maysilee. the pin dates back all the way to og covey times, albeit it was made after lucy gray's disappearance - also they're all just blatantly mockingjays. in snow's eyes, all of them are birds, which stems from lucy gray and just continues until katniss is outright named the mockingjay (i'm sure haymitch took "all birds i've met are vicious" and ran with it after meeting katniss)

- all three were purposefully hounded and targeted by snow in Terrible ways. lucy gray was the first to deal with his straight up fucking Wrath. snow IMMEDIATELY hated haymitch and told him that he was going to kill him. katniss never had a chance when it came to snow, because he recognised both lucy gray And haymitch in her, and needed to make her life a special kind of hell (and did!)

- likely all knew everdeens, honestly. lucy gray's relation to the everdeens is unknown, but it's clear that the everdeens at least somewhat had covey origins. haymitch was good friends with burdock (katniss's dad), and obviously katniss is an everdeen herself. the everdeens might have originally been bairds prior to marriage

- all had a relation to the mayor / mayor's children. mayfair fucking HAAATED lucy gray, haymitch and maysilee had a found family relationship, katniss was gifted the mockingjay pin by madge - all knew about the forest / meadow. i mean to be fair it isn't like it was exactly Hidden, but all of them have a strong connection to it, which is ALSO covey-related - not even related to lucy gray or haymitch, but katniss saving peeta's life, just like burdock saved otho's life. :( - additionally, lucy gray, haymitch, and peeta were all intent on staying themselves in the arena, not letting the capitol use them or their tears

I'M SICK

[violetwolfraven]

Wait wait wait remember that post about how Team Starkid/the Lang brothers are going to be comparable to Shakespeare 500 years from now and it was mostly played for laughs like yeah lol you’ll need a paragraph of footnotes to explain the zefron poster but like

I don’t think that’s actually far off from how Starkid’s place in theatre history might play out and here’s why. Just hear me out

Why is Shakespeare so popular today when he definitely wasn’t the only playwright from that era? When he’s not even the only playwright from that era from England that we have surviving works from?

Two main reasons:

1) Shakespeare’s work is (relatively) universally relatable. The characters do things that are so fundamentally human. They make jokes at their friends’ expense. They complain about being awkward in front of their crush. They have daddy issues. The plot lines of the plays aren’t too complicated. The dick jokes land whether you’re watching in 1611 or 2024, and they probably still will in 2637. Shakespeare’s works are timeless because he didn’t try to outsmart his audience. He wrote about things everyone could relate to rather than trying too hard to peacock his intellect in front of the nobility. This is not true of every playwright.

2) Shakespeare was really popular right around the time England started colonizing everything in sight. Copies of his work got shipped all around the world, translated into dozens of languages, performed probably thousands of times. Setting aside the moral implications of this, the important thing to note is that Shakespeare was about the most easily accessible English playwright during a time of rapid, intense globalization.

Meanwhile, Starkid:

1) Invests hard in meaningful, relatable character arcs instead of spectacle and expensive sets or costumes. Also, lowbrow, immature humor and dick jokes that make A Very Potter Sequel funny and enjoyable regardless of if you’ve ever seen any other Harry Potter media in your life.

2) Posts professional recordings of their musicals to YouTube FOR FREE, making their shows about the easiest, best quality musical theatre you can get pretty much anywhere in the world, regardless of if your area has an active theatre scene. Proshots from other companies are rare and usually not free. Bootlegs are all well and good, but even if the video quality is alright (and that’s a big if) the audio is usually garbage. Starkid has been posting the best quality free recordings they can afford since 2009, shortly after the birth of social media, another time of rapid, intense globalization.

In short, I’m not saying that theatre historians in 500 years won’t remember any our current Broadway faves, but I am saying that in my opinion, Team Starkid is probably going to be more accessible for the general public. If you’re a 26th century English teacher trying to teach your class about narrative structure in 21st century theatre, what are you going to show your students? A bootleg of Hadestown with blurry video and garbage audio? Or the professional recording of Twisted, parts of which they will probably even enjoy, because even long after no one remembers Disney’s Aladdin anymore, your class of 26th century 16-year-olds are still going to laugh at “No One Remembers Achmed.”

[professorspork]

friends i am FROTHING AT THE MOUTH over the Nov 1 2008 Wicked boot, Carmen Cusack's penultimate 1NT show with Katie Rose Clarke

it is far and away the best boot I've seen so far in the great chronological watch and just kEPT GETTING BETTER OVER TIME

like. Carmen really gets her teeth into Elphaba and lets her be a bitch when she needs to be

and she and Katie's Galinda are just such fascinating equal-and-opposite autistic4autistic

and Deedee Magno Hall's transition from Nice Nessa to Wicked Nessa is so tangible and legible and good

and Cliffton Hall's Fiyero actually gives thropple for once

and like. it's stellar throughout, and there are so many gay little moments (KATIE KISSES CARMEN'S SHOULDER IN ONE SHORT DAY WTF) but like

after "Wonderful" it just goes. the fuck. OFF.

and by "it" i mostly mean "Katie Rose Clarke"

please forgive me these gifs will not even remotely capture it but my words alone would not do this justice

first of all the REUNION HUG they just CANNOT BEAR TO END so they KEEP FINDING NEW WAYS TO TOUCH

but all good things must end, and when Elphaba and Fiyero leave Glinda is FURIOUS with them and SO HEARTBROKEN

but not as furious as she is with HERSELF. I have never seen an "I'm Not That Girl (Reprise)" that is so dripping with self-hatred and like you stupid bitch of course they left you, you should have known better energy

like PLEASE look at this UNHINGED SHIT katie is doing with her head and neck about "don't wish":

and then after that our big reward is one of the straight-up horniest ALAYM renditions i have EVER seen

and then the catfight

THIS CATFIGHT

gifs cannot capture Carmen's delivery of "wretched little farmgirl" but know it was so perfect I was screaming and clapping

and like. ok. throughout this performance Katie does this Obvious Regret thing where like, Glinda says things aloud and then visibly immediately hears how stupid it sounds and wishes to take it back and there's nothing she can do about it (changing her name to Glinda being the biggest example, but the delivery of "FINE GO, YOU DESERVE EACH OTHER" above is ALSO a great example)

and this fight escalates so quickly because she CANNOT stop making it WORSE

and she KNOWS

but can't QUIT IT

and then Carmen literally STOMPS THE GROUND on "by bubble"

and then delivers "someone like him could actually choose someone like me" in the platonic ideal way that acknowledges thropple, the indictment of Fiyero coming with her when Glinda didn't

and then

Katie ACTUALLY SLAPS HER

SO HARD HER HAT FALLS OFF

AND THEN PLEASE LOOK AT THE SLAP BACK

Katie's "lemme go I almost had her" is FERAL

and afterwards she is still SO MAD that she KICKS THE BROOM

EVEN HER "DO IT" IS MAD, she TURNS HER BACK ON HER

but then

then it's For Good and it starts to dawn on you that it's Carmen's second to last show because she LITERALLY cannot BEAR to look at Katie (who is crying) for most of the song because she knows she'll mcfreaking lose it if she does

but that's fine because when she actually DOES look at her she KISSES HER HAND

I AM DEAD

this boot has ended me. ENDED ME. @theseerasures and I finished watching it and IMMEDIATELY had to go back and watch the highlights again

like I didn't even have TIME to get into this Popular

anyway uh if you're looking for a bootleg that'll really fuckin hit the spot

i STRONGLY RECOMMEND this one

[godhandler]

tired manager!Nanami x kpop idol!reader

He’s sick, absolutely sick of you. In all his underpaid overworked years as an idol manager, he’s never seen one as impossible as you. 

You’re the centre, lead singer, and the most popular member of your girl group ‘R0ck-Chic’. The princess of K-Pop. Ranked Top10 on Billboard and Melon, brand ambassador for Chanel. Photocards for $1500 retail. Face straight out of a manhwa, bubblegum-sweetheart personality, born a musical genius too!

But that’s just on camera.  

“Prissy bitch.”

Nanami keeps his thoughts to himself. He’s doubling as a bodyguard-cum-manager for your M-Net Music Show, watching you yell at your hairstylist backstage. She accidentally burned a piece of your hair extensions off, but hey, it was a fucking accident! The poor lady is nearly in tears at your cruel words. No one really likes working with you, not your staff, not the other members of your group, because underneath the Estée Lauder Double Wear foundation is a secret none of your massive fanbase knows: You’re a cunt. 

“Nanami-san!” At least you’re still calling him with honorifics, even though he’s cringing thinking about what harsh command your majesty shall bark at him. “God, Nanami-san, where the fuck are you? When’s our show going to begin? Can’t get on stage in time, can’t get my makeup done on time-” You cast an evil look at the makeup-artist, who promptly bursts into tears too. “- I’m surrounded by useless trashcans!”

Miwa, the leader of R0ck-Chic, hesitantly tries to calm you down. “Ah, yn, it’s ok, they’re setting up the stage right now so–”

“– I believe it’s prudent to look at the other groups’ rehearsals and analyse the competition, miss.” Nanami steps in. He really hates his job, having to babysit the most spoilt celeb on the planet. When he speaks, he means it to everyone around you. “Let’s all use this time to the fullest, yes?” 

(Later on he’d go and apologise to the people you brought to tears. Not that he’s under any obligation to do so, he’s simply a gentleman like that. And maybe he cares about your reputation.)

You grumble, taking the ice-chips that Nanami offers you. It’s hard to be angry with diet-abiding ice-chips in your mouth. “Don’t need to ‘analyse’ any stupid competition. R0ck-Chic has me, and I’m the best.” 

The fucking audacity, Nanami cringes. And she’s not even wrong. That’s the worst part. 

You kill it on stage that night. Broadcasted live, the TV ratings spike immediately when you come on screen, bootleg solo fancams flooding Twitter and your ending fairy goes viral. The photocard prices jump up to $2000. 

There’ll be stalkers tonight following the car. I’ll have to drive through the offside path. Nanami took all the security measures that any manager worth their salt would.

Only he didn’t account for how crazy your stalkers would get tonight in particular. Even the offside has large unmarked SUVs, waiting to trail your car to a standstill. Sasaengs.

You’re in your sweatpants, performance makeup off, texting away inside the car that Nanami is driving right now, clearly no idea of how much danger you’re in. A fan would simply take your autograph and leave happily. Sasaengs, especially ones of this calibre, would stab you. At least she’s not screaming. Yet. 

He’s very correct. Because the moment that he tells you that you’ll have to stay in the dance studio tonight (can’t risk leaking the group dorm location to the stalkers), screaming is exactly what you do. 

“You promised I’d go home!” You stamp your feet on the ground, chuck your phone at him, throwing a proper fit. “I’m sick of you stupid fuckers ruining everything! Everyone is dogshit here!” The regular migraine that comes after dinner-time drives nails into Nanani’s temple. “Nanami-san, you dumb fucking gasbag! I’m tired! I-WANT-TO-GO-HOME!”

“SO-DO-I!”

Both you and Nanami are shocked silent. No one has ever talked back to you since you became famous, and you became famous at the age of 5. It’s weird. It’s interesting. 

Poor Nanami-san now has to deal with all the drama you cause as well as this new problem: you might be growing a teeny weeny crush on him.  

Bonus: you have to buy a new phone. stop throwing phones. 

masterlist

a/n: I have insomnia and a bad cold. no one has suffered like me.

[cinnbar-bun]

Straw Hats- Reversed AU HCs

AU: In which YOU are the character of a very famous franchise, and they are regular people who are fans of your series.

Note: GN!Reader, crack, very unserious

Luffy

Thinks you’re neat! Super cool!

People think he doesn’t really “get” you and just likes you for your awesome powers and/or cool appearance, but he drops like an innocent yet profound tidbit about you that shows he really is thinking of you.

Honestly probably only has a bootleg figure of you courtesy of Ace. It’s goofy as hell but he adores it.

Maybe has one of those printed graphic tees.

Ace and Sabo joke about his love for you but then Luffy throws his slippers at them.

If he sees anything with you on it, he’s just gushing over it.

Loves finding funny comics with you online.

Zoro

Guy who likes you for your powers.

The same guy who is also a weeb in front of the mirror and tries to replicate your awesome moves.

Help his roommates caught him-

I think he’d get those compression shirts/shorts with you or a symbol of yours for when he works out.

Also the guy who’s working out to your voice like those ASMR videos so he can pretend you’re praising him and congratulating him.

Gets into fights with Sanji about who’s the bigger fan.

I don’t see Zoro as the type to “collect” things, but he’d probably have a keychain of you around his belt or something as a good luck charm.

Might even have an action and poseable figure of you like a Figma.

Nami

Likes you lots, but also recognizes your merch potential.

Works alongside Usopp to produce fan merch or zines for you to make money.

Has a unique piece of jewelry with your symbol/iconography to wear.

She’s not wearing “obvious” for merch, because she just isn’t about that.

Probably has a few very expensive figures of yours that are special edition or anniversary editions that she managed to get at a steep discount.

Reads a bit of fanfic but tends to mostly peruse fanart of you.

Tends to have multiple ships for you- she doesn’t really favor one over the other she just thinks they’re interesting.

Likes to do cosplays of your fits, though. She’s gotten very popular for her lovely cosplays. She tends to handmake most of her cosplays, but Usopp and Franky add to the amazing accessories.

Plays the gacha game for your series, and her amazing luck means she gets practically all your units easily.

Usopp

The artist of the group who has seen and had to do heinous things for a commission.

Unlike the others, he IS making a self insert and HE IS DOING ART AND COMICS WITH YOU AND HIM AS THE MAIN COUPLE!

Has made a name for himself of making doujins and art for you. His store has seen lots of purchases for his doujins.

Nami basically is his account manager and has made him raise commission prices many times in order to pay their rent and so he can realize how valued his work is.

He mostly just posts his work but does like answering questions from fans and posting about how awesome you looked in the new episode.

Always making art and stories from you.

Has done fanfiction for you but it’s mostly with his OC/SI and his artwork tends to be more well-known.

Always does special drawings for your birthday and various holidays.

Plays the gacha and has bad luck so he has to whale for your unit. He insists he prefers just regular console or PC gaming instead of gacha.

Sanji

Number one fan, he WILL get into arguments about you and inject you into everything.

All your figures, all your merch, all of it in one specific room dedicated to you. Sanji even has a lifesize figure of you in a cool/cute pose he religiously cleans (and prays to ngl) every day because AINT NO WAY HIS LOVE IS GOING TO GET A SPECK OF DUST ON THEM!!

His work as a chef makes him busy, but he likes to wear small things of you like a brooch or something on his uniform to cheer him up through the day.

Makes videos cooking things you cooked or dishes you liked within the series.

He sometimes shows off his collection and Zoro calls him a loser and they get into fights in the comments.

Commissions art of you (probably Usopp) to hang up in the (Y/n) room.

I feel like he would do a persona/self-insert but also I feel like he’d be like no!!!! I cannot sully my beloved like that!!! So he focuses on just you.

Blocks people who are fans of you and does not like shipping anyone with you, hell no his mellorine is HIS!!!

Has done fanfic, mostly self-insert, and that’s pretty much all he reads. No ships.

Robin

“Oh, (Y/n)? Yes, they are an interesting character. I like them.”

[1 Million word count fic series, tagged: slow burn, character exploration, heavy angst, found family, Book 4 of 7]

“I just think they’re neat.”

Probably the mother fic writer for you and/or one of your ships.

Doesn’t socialize much online, just tends to post and scroll through the fics for you and answers comments under her fic.

Likes to support her fellow creators so she does look into the art and projects other fans have made.

Does try to create her own aesthetics for her blog and fics, but sometimes she just commissions Usopp to make her things for her fics to fit her vision.

Is really into unique and often abstract or “dark” art of you.

Yes you’re her favorite character, yes she will still make you suffer in her fics and art for the ~development~.

It’s a running gag with her peers where they ask her how she will torture them next.

She finds the Nendoroids of you are quite cute, so she bought one to go on her desk.

Franky

Franky likes making garage set figures of you.

He’s also a bit of a dork, so he will often make you pose with a super sentai outfit or large gundam robots (since they’re also a part of his crafting hobby).

Makes videos showing off the new figures he made of you.

He loves you cuz you’re his hero, you just amaze him!

Printed a photo of the art your creator did where you guys were all dressed like super heroes or something- suuuuppper up his alley and he loved seeing it.

He likes collecting the manga/comics for your series and keeps them on his personal shelf.

Franky also helps Nami/others with specific cosplay accessories. Franky is known for his craftsmanship, so he’s made plenty of cosplay gear for others that are above and beyond.

Him and Usopp have collabed to create the original figures of you that Franky adores.

Does those videos where he takes cheaper/smaller figures of you and adds to the base and design to make it more “epic”.

What the hell is “fanfiction”?

Brook

Goes by the username “Soul King” and uploads his covers of your franchise’s music.

He really loves you though so he’s often rocking your shirts while he’s recording the music.

He does a lot of different genres for your theme covers- jazz, heavy metal, lofi, piano, music box- he’s done em all.

Whenever he’s not recording covers of his music and does streams, he very proudly shows his figure of you and a poster he has hanging up on his wall.

Also plays the gacha game, has pretty good luck but never with your units.

“Wow! 5 Sugo-rares! Who are they- GOD DAMN IT IT’S JUST THE OTHERS!!! RATE UP IS A LIE!!!”

Brook is a menace though and I’m gonna keep that under wraps for various reasons.

Maybe in the future I might explain further.

Jinbei

Jinbei is classy, unlike many of the others here (we will not name names).

He’s more likely to “make” his own merchandise for you.

Handmade doll with a lovingly sewn kimono, for example.

Fancy tea set that is painted with your symbols but it’s so subtle and chic that some of his viewers don’t even realize it’s from some random franchise he likes.

He prides himself on his traditional and handmade crafts and you’re just an avenue to experiment with them.

He likes to design the kimonos and outfits with you in mind and the season. He shows the process of creating it in these calm and quiet BTS videos.

Really they are beautiful and the amount of love and skillmanship put into the work he does is fantastic, it’s awe inspiring.

Does not know what a fanfic, a gacha, or what a “fan edit” is. He’s an old man he’s got things to do, man.

[hamletthedane]

Hello, would you be able to explain why wicked bootlegs are called slime tutorials? It's very clever but I'm curious as to the origin. Thank u!

Ha! I actually can, though you could probably guess the answer:

So back around ~2016, Universal was in pretty serious talks to make a Wicked movie, as they were a little jealous of the Les Mis movie’s popularity in 2012 and Menzel’s resurgence of popularity after Frozen. As part of this, they got really aggressive about copyright and began blasting the best Wicked bootlegs off the internet left and right. They apparently even sent C/D takedown letters to people who ran bootleg blogs listing the recordings they had for trade.

Around that same time, the genre of ASMR “how to make slime” tutorials was starting to get really popular on YouTube. There were approximately 8 million of them being posted every day by anybody with a camera. So people who filmed broadway performances began uploading them under names like “Wickedly Cool Green Slime Tutorial - O/B/C Full” and “Pink Slime and Green Slime Tutorial - SJB/AA” , or even “As Long As You’re Slime - Aaron Tveit” to bury them in a sea of uploads and avoid their removal.

Fans did this for a variety of different broadway performances - the term DEFINITELY wasn’t exclusive to Wicked, by any means. I’m actually pretty sure the term was first used for the Hamilton OBC performances that circulated back then, since those were still hush-hush.

However, Wicked performances in particular are among the most highly sought-after in the bootleg community (mostly bc each set of actresses creates a pretty different viewing experience, and there’s tons of weird lore). Plus Universal’s aggressive takedowns were making them harder and harder to find on the open web.

Thus, the term “slime tutorial” (or “slimes”) is commonly used for all musical recordings, but it became very highly associated with Wicked performances in particular!

[breaking-it-down]

hey there, i got word of this by a few people. i have no idea who to tell or how to get this out. but i do know that something has to be said. this is about a few well known outsiders accounts / fans. keep in mind, most of them are minors / early adulthood, but age doesn’t excuse shitty behavior, especially when the safety of others is in jeopardy. this is when a callout is needed!

myegolovesyou / kayla apparently had dinner with melody and recorded their whole conversation without mel’s consent. this person is an avid brody hater, which yk to each their own. its not my place to decide who people support or whatever; however, it’s madddd weird that they are actively crossing multiple boundaries with their platform like starting rumors, spreading hate, and acting as if they need to be on a pedestal. they need to be held accountable and deplatformed. im hoping someone sees this and informs melody too, so she can be cautioned as well and hopefully take her own safety precautions. this person has commissioned bootlegs with groups of fans and leaked all of them to somebody that posted every single one on youtube. they have now since been taken down, but the damage was done and it traces back to myegolovesyou.

same with mckenna, who openly admits to following cast members on their trains, out to their cars, and around grocery stores. i know for a fact she stalks emma and trevor. she started the rumors of brody being on probation? or something? saying she has friends in the cast who told her it. but, verified sources have said otherwise. and said verified source within the cast said they had no idea who she is or what she is talking about. she has also leaked bootlegs that are not hers, nor did she pay for, to the cast without the owner or commissioners knowledge, allegedly. hence why melody follows her. apparently owes money to people that rush with her too, which is estimated $100 or more.

there is a whole group chat of them that act like this. i cannot confirm who the others are, but i do know it’s a lot of the popular fan accounts. these are the same people that were ableist to a disabled fan, use slurs, use racist rhetoric in regards to some cast members, make brody r*pe jokes, spread misinformation about things, make up rumors about cast / fans, abuse and cut the rush line, make the cast insanely uncomfortable, and are just overall mean girls. there is screenshot proof of these claims that can be provided privately.

hopefully this is reaching the right people to spread awareness, especially to the community that this hurts, the actors involved, and others who interact with these people. no one is better than anyone here, nor is being parasocial cute. if you are actively starting drama and talking badly about people in the cast and in the fandom… why are you here and wasting your money? / gen. if you are “friends” with the cast, why are you rushing the show every day, stalking them, spreading rumors about them, talking negatively about them, being weird with them, etc? / gen.

respectfully, we need to do better and stop platforming these people. they need to grow up and stop making the community unsafe and toxic.

honestly i’m not one for spreading drama/promoting harassment, but i have heard some things about this group, and i think this fandom needs to learn to not put those people on a pedastol. the whole fandom severely disappoints me, and i honestly just stopped supporting the show because the fanbase has pushed me out, and the show itself should also be addressing these things. the cast shouldn’t have to address stuff like this. it’s the shows responsibility to provide safety for their actors and they are clearly gaiiling to do so. i blame the show and the community. stop letting people like this gain big followings. yes, i understand that some of them are kids, seeing that the fanbase is 95% 13-15 year old girls, but it’s just so obnoxious. you can’t even excuse it with “they’re kids they don’t know any better” because as someone older than those kids, it’s your job to educate them and tell them what’s wrong with what they’re doing.

i’m not promoting harassment so much as i am spreading awareness-please don’t harass those accounts, that’s just stooping to their level, but as a community we need to grow and learn from these things. seeing things like this makes me lose any respect i had for the community/show as a whole. you can’t even smexcuse it when the show is raising prices the way they are and keeps reposting the casts tiktok’s, which is all fine and good, i don’t give a shit, but if you can do that then you should be able to address the problem at hand and ban these people from the show, that’s more so what they need rather than being deplatforner. i’m surprised that brody allegedly is renewing his contract. i hope whoever stays gets treated better than they have been the last year.

[conkreetmonkey]

Splatoon 3 is wild because imagine if you were living in Japan due to a recent economic and cultural boom, and suddenly a space shuttle with a mutant house-sized T-rex riding it suddenly burst from the center of Mt. Fuji and disappeared into space without explanation, and all you ever find out about what the fuck that was about is that Zuckerburg mysteriously disappeared the same day and was never seen again, but still "officially" ran Meta through an open secret Queen-Elizabeth-being-in-good-health gaslighting campaign, and everybody kind of suspected he may have been connected but never figured out anything conclusive.

Also the T-rex is now orbiting the earth in the fetal position like the guy from Jojo, and there are rumors of a substance that, if touched, turns you into a half-dinosaur monster. Nobody understands any of this but Meta employees just keep going to work and pretending Zuck still exists. The same 12 prerecorded voicelines constantly squak from the PA system.

Oddly, the statue in front of Meta HQ of a T-rex eating a human changes overnight into one of a giant human eating a tiny T-rex. Nobody noticed the switch, despite the statue being in a constantly bustling area. It happened shortly after the shuttle incident.

Jack Black's tiny clone, Lil' Jack, now wears a headset at all times and has been acting really shady since the incident. Also they're both hyperintelligent, immortal velociraptors found in an ancient cryogenic chamber who spend their days judging college football and eating the legally harvested flesh of hillbillies. Lil' Jack is probably plotting to kill Big Jack, but Big Jack doesn't seem to care, growing fat and lazy, sleeping on public benches in a bed of throw pillows. Also, he's very open about the fact that, as a velociraptor, humans look delicious, but he hasn't actually eaten anybody aside from the aforementioned hillbillies because he's civil.

Everyone is just expected to move on with their lives after this. This is normal to you.

The local art school was recently attacked by giant sea serpents, which were actually hideously bioengineered hillbillies, fulfilling a biblical doomsday prophecy, and they were driven back by Meta's army of minimum wage, part time child soldiers armed with warcrimey jury-rigged weaponry. The sea serpents had giant frying pans grafted into their mouths, which launched primitive tactical nukes made by filling garbage bags with their explosive phlegm. They still exist, and occasionally defend their comrades, but spend most of their time in the deep sea.

The local homeless emo twink everyone's attracted to is a closet millionaire who sells bootleg clothing in exchange for live rats, which he messily devours behind closed doors. He's also 8 feet tall and British and only has one eye.

North Korean refugees now flood the western world, after a greasy 14 year old hipster, under the guidance of Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift, beat Kim Jong Un in a mech battle, and the EDM remix of the Japanese national anthem they performed caused like half the soldiers to immediately realize North Korea sucks ass and defect. One of these individuals, 7 foot tall hypergenius, becomes a newscaster alongside a nepo baby rapper with dwarfism who likes to eat entire jars of mayo, and also they're a popular band. Also also, they may or may not be gay. Almost the entire population is gay, so this isn't a huge deal.

The new local newscasters are a famous Japanese lion tamer, an Indian girl with a bloodline trait allowing her to control snakes, and a Brazillian man the size of a smart car who exclusively communicates via grunts.

Gods, souls and zombies are objectively real, and you're effectively immortal because real-life respawning was invented a while ago. It works like a Keurig, but with mucus instead of coffee. Submersion in water kills you.

A good deal of the population is a hivemind. They pretend to be individuals for no reason.

Almost all men are now femboys.

Despite all this, you still have to go to work at 9 tomorrow.

[getfuckedblr]

this is the one. the most popular fic in the harry potter fandom. the fic that got me into fanfiction. the fic that i sobbed to for months after reading it.

i tried to bind this three separate times over the last two years and bro the first two sucked ASS. it was legit the very first fic i tried to typeset which is like, not the greatest thing to start off with LMAO. it looked funky, i hadn’t fixed any of the spacing, my footers didn’t match the text font or size. it was very much a baby binding.

the second one was my first time using a cricut and there is a very steep learning curve w the cricut, especially in creating designs that aren’t too complex or too plain. i tried to copy one of the popular printable book jackets and omg i spent weeks modifying my designs and printing and reprinting on my cricut and it looked like trash when i was done.

so finally, we have come to this.

i got really into quartos during the winter and was like omg the editing process for this would be so much more manageable if i broke it down into years! so then i did lol. it allowed me to customize each chapter into sections so i could add the chapter title to the footers, and break down graphics into separate years so i didn’t have 100 pages in one canva file. it was just a lot easier to feel accomplished having broken it down bc this fic is a MONSTER.

every chapter heading is the same - just the swirl. i gilded all the chapter titles using toner reactive foil and my laminator (she broke in the middle of this project. i ended up having to buy another laminator, and about 3 packs of foil from icraft. this is my most expensive fic binding to date🫠). i included the songs ms.kingbean put at the top of every chapter, and the bootleg tapes and christmas special.

i am seriously so proud of how this turned out, and can’t believe it’s actually done. sorry this is super long, but this really was a labor of love. they’re not perfect, i’m still really bad at measuring and cutting straight lines, but i’m satisfied. really satisfied.

[lucabyte]

What's your favorite way to characterize your ocs? (if u want a challenge try not to answer with any homestuck related category)

mine is how many siblings they have!

Ok so this is a genuinely interesting question bc i had to actually like... Think about how to word this in a way that isn't complete nothing?

So. My favourite way to characterise my ocs is via their interests. (... something i think homestuck does very well via making sure every character has a grab bag of cool & uncool, intense & wayside interests instead of just a bunch of cool stuff they like equally, but i digress)

That said, it's not so simple as just giving them a likes and dislikes list. in fact i fucking hate likes and dislikes lists cant stand them, they always feel really flat to me. I know they have their uses but I usually can't flatten characters down that way. Likes are ephemeral-- Likes can be shit like 'warm days' which. Duh.

Something i'm a little mean about related to this is what i call "Likes: Friends Dislikes: Bullies" which is something you see on character likes and dislikes in one form or another a LOTTTT. This is because like... Yeah? That can be assumed of everyone? It tells me nothing about the character. Telling me your character likes Pleasant Weather or dislikes Gross Food is like. Uh Huh?

It's not specific! It tells me nothing! But that's the secret.

Specificity and Contradiction are where it's at. Now a character who hates pleasant weather and likes gross food? Now that's a weirdo. Or maybe even that they dislike 'gross food'-- But by their definition that's like... Anything that's not literally raw? Now that's characterisation! Now you get to ask why the fuck are they like that.

And this is how I like to approach things. I like to dig into a character's interests on the surface level by assigning them some, sure. But the fun comes from digging in and making them specific and contradictory. (And usually if a character is unfinished, to me, it's because they're still on that surface level of Just Having Some Interests) (Also, it goes without saying, one of the best places to find these interests for characters in the first place is by joking and riffing for as long as humanly possible. A core joke will carry you farrrrr)

so my actual favourite way to characterise characters? Giving them really specific dislikes, in relation to their interests.

So, for example, (because they are always the example...) Ali is a stagehand and decent actor, and loves plays. In fact, they love plays so much they are outright dismissive of other art forms. They don't play games, they don't really watch TV, their main intakes of media are books, screenplays, poetry and filmed productions or bootlegs. (and hey, bringing up bootlegs: that probably means they participate in the weird bootleg-trading-ring people have going on online. Look at that! A weird niche activity I can give them!)

But, they HATE musicals. Think they "lower" the art form-- Despite (or perhaps because) they're the most popular type of play to put on, especially in the local productions they help out on. They value the scary intimacy of a theatre production, being in a near silent room physically with the performers, they think it elevates it. Makes it unique. They don't like that musicals are like... fun and loud.

But let's go even more specific. Do they have any exceptions? Any begrudging respect?

Well, I think they'd respect musicals like Cats. Things that are pure spectacle, where the music and intefacing with the audience in a chaotic manner are the point. They like that Cats "Doesn't even pretend to have a story. It's not actually trying to compete with plays, it's doing its own thing. It's practically Theatre of Cruelty."

And furthermore, they also enjoy animated or movie-original musicals. Because, well, film is a medium they don't care about as much. It's okay if it lowers itself by being silly. Plus!! Animation is like, fake, for children, and has a heightented requirement for suspension of disbelief! It's perfect for musicals! They're nothing but spectacle! In fact, that's what makes them the perfect medium for them!

^ You may notice that the above is like, while logical, is very dismissive of other mediums! It's a little bit anti-art in places!

And thatt's the other thing. I like to make characters who don't hold the exact same opinions I do.

While there's parts of my actual opinions in there-- I do believe animated is a great medium for musicals due to the whole suspension of disbelief & fun thing-- Um. I would hope it's obvious that as an animation graduate I don't think animation is for children or inherently less serious of a medium.

But Ali is a weird little snob who will hopefully get some slightly more nuanced opinons when they're not literally only 19. So it makes sense that they're being elitist about things. They're insecure, and hanging a lot of their self-esteem on being "an artist with good and refined taste". Of couuuurse they've got a stick up their ass about musicals (something I myself am not a superfan of, but usually enjoy when I watch them. I think Ali is missing out!)

But yeah, that's just from digging in and getting specific about one interest: Theatre.

By digging into the contradiction of "Likes Theatre and Dislikes Musicals" I can find a reason for why. And I can avoid making characters just Mouthpieces For My Own Opinions by giving them opinions i disagree with.

I follow this logic a lot, though not always so straightforwardly.

Chrome is a musician who doesn't really like music, and thinks all artists are just vapidly doing it for attention. (Which should immediately clue you in to what's wrong with him.) It's a more selfish version of the same kind of reasoning Ali has, but one Ali would find ghoulish.

Ess, meanwhile, is a Pedologist. A soil scientist-- A very specific thing you usually get to via being like... A geologist, or chemist, or something more general-- But I've said he was basically on that shit immediately-- Which is a funny concept to me. He didn't go on a journey of scientific discovery to find a niche area of study-- He just loved that niche ever since he was a kid.

So, you'd expect that I'd maybe make Ess dislike other sciences then? Nah, I think he's more nuanced than that. Because, following his very polite and politically aware demeanor, I think it would make more sense for him to be very respectful of all sciences, even if he has no real interest in them outside of how they relate to his field. Instead, he is conciously trying very hard not to form a grudge with more 'popular' sciences-- He knows why they're more popular, and he knows it's not the fault of the people who love the field that they get a lot more funding than him. It's not their fault, it's just a result of science having to be so capitalistic.....

See! Polite little man, very nuanced. That's because most of his contradictions come instead from being a terrified and anxious soul who is doing illegal shit right now while being very scared because they know it's for the greater good. (see! politically aware again. He knows trespassing is illegal, but his morality does not line up with legality. He's exposing governmental malpractice, ffs. But! Not a cool punk! In fact a very scared guy!)

Ess there does get to be a bit of a mouthpiece for me, since obviously I also believe you should trespass to go get evidence of the government knowingly dumping biohazards into the fucking water supply for cost cutting reasons. But he gets to balance it out because every time I have to do research into soil science my fucking head hurts.

Pulling back away from Ess and back to Ali and Chrome again I think I have one last really good example of letting characters have opinions that are different to mine, that's about something that isn't an interest, per se, but hits on the reason I like to do this so much.

It is so fucking fun to make characters argue.

In an earlier purrgatorio that im not going to re-look-at because its early enough the writing quality might make me dry heave, i let ali and chrome have a bit of an argument (with tabitha as a weird mediator who has the closest to my real opinions LOL.)

So. Chrome has what i can describe as "Basically my opinions, but worded in the most bad faith way possible." If I saw someone arguing my point like this i'd want to either smack them or disagree with them on principle.

Whereas Ali has "The opposite to my opinion, but worded with all of the arguments for that point of view that I genuinely respect." They're the talking points I've observed that I genuinely find to be decent reasoning, and I would be hard pressed to disagree with in polite conversation.

They're arguing about religion. Ali is religious, following a small gnostic sect that's basically only practiced by their immediate family. Chrome is bluntly atheistic, but coming at it from a conception of religion that only has room for (a pastiche of) american big-box puritan protestantism, and is assuming every religion to be the same way.

I am an atheist myself, but cannot fucking stand the culturally-christian reddit atheist talking points. So I gave that kind of thing to Chrome (part of this irony being, Chrome is far more spiritual than he thinks-- having internalised a LOT of protestant work ethic), and Ali is from a small cultural religion that couldn't be further from it-- And is also a modern-day internet user with a bitchy streak-- So of course they've memorised every rational and reasonable counter-argument to this kind of thing.

(The full on irony being, that they are fictional and thus Ali is acutally in a sense... Right that there is a demiurge. Lol.)

Even if I do ultimately take the side that uh. Idk dude i dont think god is real. Giving that opinion to the guy who's being a shithead about it makes it more interesting to write?

I treat a lot of things like this. Chrome has a bad anti-art anti-intellectual streak that I follow the logic of, but think is dangerous and flawed. Markus loves scientific knowledge and biology, but is too naive to really know how to chase it-- or when to stop. Miao has a lack of academic smarts, and deeply undervalues her other skills because she's internalised that they don't matter in comparison. Lupus believes there's good in everyone, and can't comprehend the logic of cruelty-- Leading her to equivicate legality with morality in a very childish manner.

Everyone gets an ideology. I should be able to follow the logic of everyone's ideology even if I don't agree with it. And interests are both an extension of ideology, and a window into it.

Chrome's anti-art anti-intellectualism leads him to barely partake in media-- But also undersell his own academic smarts because his skills in physiology are "just dumb meathead shit about how to stay jacked". Lupus' disagreements with Mafioso over criminals being 'cool' betray her inflexibility in categorising actions as 'good' or 'bad', because she wants no-one to suffer-- And assuming an unjust police absolutely turns that to dust.

It's all about putting characters together like a big jigsaw to make them have unique worldviews-- To then be able to look at a real world thing and go "who of my characters would like that/act like that/think that?"

(Now. Uh. I can't say I'm like. The Bestest At This-- That would be a touch egotistical given my lack of Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is And Writing A Big Story For Everyone To Look At. But um. We'll get there? I hope lol.)

But yeah, TL;DR:

My favourite ways to characterise characters are:

Give them specific, contradictory and ironic interests

Interrogate their reasonings and how it informs their self-perception

Give them opinions that don't always align with mine

Interrogate whether they are actually coherent when discussing these opinions

[hickeygender]

enjoying 2012 les mis is like. yes i love parts of it. yes aspects of it are absolutely sinful and straight up bad. the acting is terrific. the singing is dogshit (please give jackman a glass of water) except when it verges on angelic (redmayne, barks, and seyfried). the casting is iconic (blagden served cunt for his .2 seconds of screentime and barks is legendary). who let tom hooper direct this (it was mackintosh (derogatory)). why did they cut parts of the songs only to ADD an entire new number. would i recommend watching it? absolutely. should it be your first exposure to les mis? absolutely NOT. was it mine? you know it babes! is it the most well known/popular/easiest version to find? again, yes, but i'm begging you on hands and knees to watch it live or find a bootleg or the 25th anniversary concert or ANYTHING else as an introduction or i promise that the version of the musical that burns itself into your memory will include ugly singing (i speak from experience)