#no further explanation needed i think

[thevegetablewhichnoonedaresname]

I very much enjoy the bit in 501 where C-53 is desperately trying to sell toast-making as a marketable skill

[nyxypoo]

chika sneezes like the tiniest of kittens

[heavenpierceher]

i dont give a #fuckkkkk aboiut time loops

[spghtrbry]

my holy roman empire

[corpse-flame]

[bismuthburnsblue]

hi, its another part of design a dress! time for a bonus poll, andddd some very preliminary patterning notes !!

to recap, we are making: a sleeveless, circle skirt shirtdress, with a wing collar & dotted mesh overlay.

so, first off! i bought little pink flower buttons that i think compliment the fabric quite nicely!

and i was thinking, maybe there should be piping around the collar? i feel like the wing collar is the main feature of this dress, but it might blend a little too much into the rest, but putting hot pink flat piping around it will really highlight it! if i did do it, id be doing it pretty much as narrow as i could make it, just a hint of a line.

There are 2 dilemmas with this though- the first, obvious one, is i worry itll maybe look too pyjama-y. Thats the most common context you'd see piping like that, and not the image im trying to evoke. The secondary issue is with there i stop. The collar is gonna run directly into the buttons and right down to the hem of the skirt, leaving no clear stopping point. i could taper it off at the roll of the collar, or go down the shirt section of the buttonstand and disappear at the waist, or i could go all the way down- though i think maybe thats too far? i would be interested to hear what you think!

And now some fun notes about the very start of the pattern! i still dont want to commit to a timeline on this, but it is sparking my interest right now, so i may dip into some mock ups soon :)

Im thinking that im gonna use my Flora pattern as a jumping off point- princess seams seem like the sensible choice to me- doing darts with two layers of fabric is always... fiddly, so i think im going to sacrifice some of the impact of the print to have those be two separate pieces (technically i Could pattern match. but i wont.)(its gonna be hard to do with the shape of the pieces & inefficient on fabric usage, which is already a problem because its directional) theres gonna need to be some adjustments made- mostly to the centre front panel, between the grown on button stand & collar, but i think the bones are good!

Ive been studying grown on collars a bit too- its hard to find specific information for wing collars, but i think the concepts the same. im going to have to do a complete facing for the collar because of the layers (this is also why piping should be a straight forward add in, theres already a seam there anyway), and i was thinking of dragging it across to make a bastardised neck & armhole facing. it should give a nice clean finish to everything that way! technically, i could just do a complete lining, but i think id at least like to try it this way & see how it goes! Ive poked around very roughly with the way the fabric needs to fold and i really think it might come out looking good!

[servuscallidus]

It went well!!!!!!!

[arodrwho]

octavia butler GOOD

[akaakeis]

wishing u a safe recovery from this god forsaken app <3 ily bad sav and i hope everything’s alright :(

thank you my dear <3 love u so bad i just cant w this platform rn, like iya i fear i may quit lowkey.... 😺 everything is fine tho pls don't worry!!!!

[unproduciblesmackdown]

another day another "applying the concept 'disposability' to 'someone withdraws from a personal relationship, & that wasn't signed off on by the other'" kill me

[fluffypurpleglitterdemon]

I really did not expect how early the idea of "inflict Human Face Disease on Yong'an" would come up. I thought Bai Wuxiang would suggest it as revenge after the war! Bai Wuxiang didn't even say in as many words that Xie Lian should inflict it - he told Xie Lian how this outbreak happened, and Mu Qing first brought up turning it on Yong'an in as many words. (Mu Qing was basically picking up Bai Wuxiang's implications, I'm not saying it was Mu Qing's idea. Mostly I'm saying I'm surprised Mu Qing and Feng Xin were even there to give their input on this matter in particular)

[macchiatosdumptruck]

This is random, but have you noticed how Kreese uses different styles of speaking with different people? With Johnny, Robby, and Tory he's very relaxed and genuine. With Terry he's a little lecturing and authoritative. With other characters he's fake nice. And with Daniel he's... flirty??? I don't know how else to describe it lol. The cadence. Every single time! He smirks and pauses before finishing a sentence all slithery like a snake. He called Daniel Danny-boy too and idk how to feel about that

I didn't at first but after rewatching the show and focusing more on his character I do see it. I disagree with how he acts with Johnny though.

It's interesting because the show and the fandom often thinks of Terry as the manipulative one (rightfully so) when John's entire character is based on manipulation.

I would argue Terry is manipulative in a different way. His motivations are more obvious. More black and white.

Rewatching s2 it alarmed me just how textbook his emotional manipulation of Johnny was. Just how effective it was. It reminded me of DARVO tbh.

Kreese does this interesting thing with both Terry and Johnny where he brings up "the good times" specifically when they're rightfully upset.

Tory and Robby are interesting. He doesn't put on a false "helpless old man" front like he does with Johnny. He's straight forward. He's helpful but he's pragmatic. He doesn't lie to them, but he doesn't tell them all of the truth either. He views them as competent individuals but he reminds them of their weakness. They're fair game, in a way.

With Terry it's some sort of power play. His ego is always being fed. He's kind to Terry as long as Terry doesn't get too confident in himself. Then it's time to pull rank.

I think he might do that out of fear. As if he thinks Terry will leave him if he no longer sees Kreese as he used to. The most important person in the world.

He's saying "you can't ever leave me" and convincing himself it's a statement rather than a question.

And with Daniel, it really is ... Something.

Kreese's preoccupation with Daniel has always been different than his with Johnny or Terry. Daniel stands as something that Kreese is against. But he still respects him in a way. At the same time he's always belittling him. As if to make Daniel feel younger or smaller.

And I think that's why it comes across as flirty. It's almost like he's negging Daniel.

John "but I like that" Kreese wants to put Daniel in his place but he wants to have fun while doing so.

He's the only person in canon other than Terry to call Daniel "Danny." And he HAD to get that knowledge from Terry. He had to know it would specifically push Daniel's buttons.

And he enjoys seeing Daniel riled up. It's almost like that one asshole who harasses girls because "you're cute when you're mad."

Dominance is John's thing. Imagine if you can't intimidate someone out of fear, trying to do so sexually. 🤔

The extremely flirty and creepy way he acts towards Amanda is to be noted. It's similar to how he acts towards Daniel but more obvious. And I think ultimately this all ties in to how Daniel's enemies have always tried to feminize him in an attempt to belittle him.

Once again Daniel occupies a spot often taken up by a female character. The young hero vs the creepy and intimidating, yet still alluring villain.

[galacticlamps]

actually ascension needs its own post since that's the one with the most details to speculate over and im starved for soho talk so i will talk to myself if need be

First the cover again, because I kinda can't get over it:

my only thing is that I had been hoping we might get Lizbeth on a cover again since she's never been on one of the boxsets before, despite being the 2nd person credited on all 4 of them (even if that's just alphabetical, still, she's the only one of the four main characters who never makes the cover)

But letting that go...

I know we already kinda knew the brief for this one but damn I didn't expect it to go quite this hard. Maybe that's just because the Parasite & Ashenden covers were (comparatively) similarish to each other and I was so pleased with Unbegotten's, and then got so used to it as the placeholder for Ascension while they kept postponing it, I wasn't expecting anything this colorful or detailed or with what I can't help but register as Fun New Outfits even though these are still like, pretty damn basic as far as costumes go. Still, it's a different vibe from everyone in suits and trenchcoats on every cover, technically. (Oh the woes of being an audio fan such that two characters owning sweaters actually does qualify as new information)

On top of just being visually delightful though, I know we knew religion was gonna be a fairly big part of this one, but I didn't actually expect to get quite this much of it - though I'm glad of it for a number of reasons. The BF twitter already made the ineffable joke so I don't have to, but also yeah I did very much spend all of season 2 episode 4 of good omens half convinced Samuel Barnett & Dervla Kirwan were about to pop up around any given corner (if you will go around being gay supernatural and horrible at your messy bureaucratic jobs in midcentury soho then I'm sorry, this is where my brain's gonna go) - so, fuel to that fire. But in terms of actual important things, at least one of my Soho wishes looks to be being granted because we have a Rev Edward Folgate on the cast list, which must mean we're finally meeting Norton's father, even if his mother & brother don't appear (which they could, technically, I've definitely seen BF not list all the doublings on their cast tabs before). Religion, domesticity, and the nuclear family are all things that absolutely fascinate me when it comes to Norton's character, so getting any amount of story involving his father & his church is something I've been actively hoping for for a long time now.

(I will say I'm a tiny bit bummed Saffron Coomber isn't on the cast list to play Mia again, but I kinda figured she wasn't going to be since Greg Austin's Armitage, who's making his first recurring appearance after originating in Unbegotten, was listed ever since the boxset was announced - presumably if she was also returning, that would've been handled in the same way. But since Unbegotten ended with Lizbeth and Mia going on a date, I still held out hope. Who knows though, maybe things did go well for them and Lizbeth just has a better work/life balance than Norton so she can date someone without them getting dragged into every scifi plot. I know that's not a very common accomplishment for any Torchwood agent, but a gal can hope)

At this point I know I'm completely in the realm of speculation & even wishful thinking, but I'm really really hoping we get some more clues as to Norton's overall timeline in this one, and I have a feeling that even if there's nothing as direct as dates given, the events of a plot like this one are going to heavily influence my personal interpretation of it.

To say that life & death are major themes for the soho crew feels wildly reductive, but even by Torchwood's standards and taking into account its origins as a piece of media with Jack Harkness & his newfound immortality at the heart of it, the living/dead status of this bunch has always been fantastically up in the air to me. Obviously Ghost Mission introduced Norton as kind of a ghost before revealing more obvious ghostly characters later on to which the title might have been referring, but his being from the past did beg the question of his survival into Torchwood's present era all the same, which Outbreak later alludes to much more directly, and his habit of showing up via hologram in multiple stories only further obfuscates any certainty we might have about where & when he definitely can be said to be alive and well. Then you've got Lizbeth and Gideon both being effectively 'brought back to life' via paradoxes that prevented them ever having died in the first place. Again, they are very very far from being the only Torcwhood characters this happens to (for a sprawling EU, it's really rather impressive how often & in how many different ways Torchwood as a whole manages to circle back to being about like. chaotic undead queers at the end of every day. though I suppose that consistency is part of why I keep falling in love with its different iterations again and again). That's without even getting into the question of Norton's dubious fate in God Among Us - and I say dubious because I know some people take that to be his ultimate death, but I personally think that reading something as vague as that as having any kind of finality rather goes against the spirit of this whole world/series, not just because I want him to live. (There are obviously other ways to make him survive/reappear, but I don't see this as a River Song scenario where we can safely assume one of his earlier-released adventures had to happen at the end of his personal timeline). But wherever God Among Us falls for him, he does very much meet God in it - or at least, a god, since the sentinel in Unbegotten is also described as a god of sorts, and even if he doesn't ultimately have the status of the god Jacqueline King is playing there, Unbegotten is still full to bursting with ghosts/undead/came back wrong/echo characters to continue underscoring that life/afterlife theme.

So all things considered, even allowing for the fact that we know Norton's twin hobbies are lying about himself and abusing time travel to suit his own ends/ever-shifting alliances, I find it difficult to believe we could get through a whole 6-part boxset about religion & death without something providing some kind of compelling evidence about where this adventure fits in among his other run-ins with apocalypses and gods and ghosts and dead-but-still-here characters/creatures, so I'm very much looking forward to any further exploration on that front.

And lastly, and least intellectually, I really want to know what the hell 20th-century Torchwood's obsession with Reginalds is. Reading through the cast list, I had to do two separate doubletakes over the character 'Sir Reginald Peebles' - firstly, because I had Reginald Rigsby on the brain, this being Soho (and the other Troughton brother being so active on BF's releases for this same month) - and secondly, because reading this in conjunction with the announcement for the July monthly adventure in which the new main Torchwood guy of the 20s is apparently called Sir Reginald Dellafield, there was a brief moment where I took that monthly release to be a tie-in with Ascension. I don't expect it to be, but damn. was it really so popular a name?

anyways, catch me thinking about those stained glass windows for the next couple months I guess (and knowing Torchwood Soho, for a long long time after it comes out as well lol)

[airasora]

Any friendly souls out there who'd be willing to educate me a bit on pillow princesses?

I've known about this term for years and I think I get the gist of it, but there HAS to be something I'm missing cause... from what I can understand, a pillow princess is a lesbian woman who only likes to receive pleasure and never give it, right? I would personally argue your sexual orientation is irrelevant if the type of sex you have is only you receiving pleasure and your partner is only giving pleasure, but that's not important to my question.

I guess my question is, put bluntly... why?

As a switch, but a preference as a dom, I absolutely take joy in having someone at my mercy and give and take away pleasure as I see fit while my partner, technically, isn't giving me physical pleasure. But I can't imagine that being the ONLY kind of sex I have with someone - it'd start feel very... imbalanced to me? Boring as well, perhaps.

But I must be missing some key information about pillow princesses cause I see women proudly describing themselves like this on dating apps, bios, in videos etc... and the sentence: "I only like to receive pleasure and not give it" doesn't really sound like something you'd proudly say about yourself?

So, yeah, I need help understanding this. Cause it's been years and no matter how much I read, hear or research it, I still can't really wrap my head around it. Again, NO shame to anyone who identifies this way; I'm asking because I want to understand.

[lovinglin]

Cleaned up my carrd... kinda HRJEHFDJH I feel like my head hurts 🫠

[truegoist]

The reason why I’m good w math isn’t bc talent or hardwork actually. I’m just poor