#on todays episode of ‘oh so you didn’t read about his origins’

[thejasontoddarchives]

Batman (2010-) #637

Red Hood and the Outlaws (2016-) #25

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[lingthusiasm]

Transcript Episode 93: How nonbinary and binary people talk - Interview with Jacq Jones

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm episode 'How nonbinary and binary people talk - Interview with Jacq Jones'. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the episode show notes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about nonbinary speech with Dr. Jacq Jones. They’re a lecturer at Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa / Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand. But first, our most recent bonus episode was about various kinds of fun mishearings and missayings and misparsings that people make in songs, in phrases, in idioms – all sorts of, like, you know when you hear “an acorn,” and you think it might actually be “an egg-corn” because it’s like the egg of the tree? Well, we talk about what strange things that you mishear, or misparse, can tell us about how language works. Go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm to listen to this bonus episode, many more bonus episodes, and help us keep the show running.

[Music]

Gretchen: Hello Jacq!

Jacq: Hi Gretchen!

Gretchen: Thanks for coming on the podcast.

Jacq: Thanks for inviting me. It’s awesome.

Gretchen: Before we get into all of the cool research that you’ve done about how nonbinary people talk that you’re working on, let’s talk a little bit about your origin story. How did you get into linguistics?

Jacq: Okay, well, I mean, how far back do you wanna go, I guess? I was a high school dropout. I was in my teens. I was going around North America, in Canada and the United States, working and this and that. I decided I wanted to go back to school. I did get into an adult education programme and finished up my high school. It was in a really small town in rural Alberta. It had a community college, and they didn’t have that many classes. I went into geography.

Gretchen: That’s super related to linguistics.

Jacq: You’d be surprised.

Gretchen: Great.

Jacq: Yeah, because I had spent time in the southern United States and in Alberta and in Ontario and things, and so I liked seeing all the different places. I went into geography. For people who don’t know, geography has these two big branches. There’s physical geography and human geography. Physical geography is rocks and trees and mountains and weather, and human geography is how people affect the world and how the world affects people.

Gretchen: So, like cities and stuff.

Jacq: Yeah, right. So, I was sitting in a class, and we were talking about how goods move across borders and how a lot of human influences – including language and political borders – can affect the movement of goods and, alternatively, how languages can be stopped by things like mountains.

Gretchen: Oh! Okay.

Jacq: You’ll have dialects that won’t go over the top of a mountain because you have this physical barrier. I was like, “That’s amazing.” Somehow, something about this interaction between this natural world and something like language, which is very, sort of, in your heads – but of course, you’re not gonna walk up a mountain to go talk to the person on the other side.

Gretchen: I live in Montreal, which doesn’t even really have a mountain by proper mountain-people standards, and I don’t wanna walk up that mountain just to talk to someone at the top. I totally understand that prehistoric people also did not wanna do this.

Jacq: Exactly. People, you know, live along rivers, so you have languages and language change and language contact all along these natural systems. That was the bug.

Gretchen: That’s fascinating. That’s so cool.

Jacq: And then I went from this community college – this adult education programme – to university, took a linguistics class, and as they say, that was it. Fell in love with phonetics and acoustics and all the meaty bits inside of you that create language. And here we are.

Gretchen: You do sounds – phonetics, how people talk – and specifically, I first encountered your research when I was in New Zealand last year at the New Zealand Linguistic Society Annual Meeting in Dunedin. You were giving a talk about your dissertation on how nonbinary people talk. How did you get into that topic?

Jacq: Sure. I think for most linguists, if you can press them, for most people in academia, what you’re into – there’s always something personal in it. There’s always something in what you’re doing. As a nonbinary person, navigating the 2010s – the late 2010s – trying to navigate what “gender” means, I kept catching myself really interrogating, really thinking about how I interact with people around me and what assumptions they’re going to put on me, what assumptions I’m putting on myself. You know, I’m getting on the bus, how low do I wanna talk to the bus driver? Just really silly stuff like that.

Gretchen: Like, are they gonna “sir” or “ma’am” me to show how they’re parsing my gender?

Jacq: Exactly. And do I want either of those options? Not really.

Gretchen: Which are both wrong.

Jacq: But if I can barely figure out what being nonbinary means to me as a nonbinary person, how can I expect the, you know, 60-year-old parent that I’m talking to, or a random person at the coffee shop I’m talking to, to understand all these backflips that I’m trying to do in presenting my gender? I mean, I’m into phonetics. I’m into acoustics. I’ve always been interested, linguistically, in this space between “This is how people talk because they are from Canada,” “This is how people talk because they’re a woman” – or because they’re a certain socio-economic class, or this – versus “This is how a jock or a burnout talks,” “This is how somebody asserts their identity.” When you’re looking at gender, that’s really this difference between a lot of stuff that we’re taught growing up and a lot of stuff that people might argue is inherent – a lot of stuff that is constrained by physiology, in some ways, by your existence in a meat suit – but you still always have control over it. That’s where this is. Part of it is being nonbinary and wanting that legitimacy of examining the numbers and proving that I exist, and nonbinary people exist, which are not represented historically. That’s changing now. And so, wanting that studying me and people like me to show “Hey, we exist. This is a thing that we can measure. This is a thing that we can look at,” and studying why, and yeah.

Gretchen: If you study all the other nonbinary speakers, then they’ll just tell how you need to talk now. So, that’ll be really handy.

Jacq: I mean, that’s part of it, too, right, is something that’s really exciting about studying nonbinary people during my dissertation – and I think that this is very much changing for the better, and I’m so happy that there are so many more options for young people in terms of gender and for old people in terms of gender and for anybody in terms of gender, but at the time, it really felt like all the templates that were out there were very binary – all the methodologies for studying speech, all of variation studies, everything, was, “This is how men talk,” “This is how women talk,” “This is how you’re supposed to talk if you’re a man or a woman,” or you want to present yourself – it was all binary.

Gretchen: I remember even when I was just being trained at grad school, everything was very binary. People weren’t even really questioning that. Even 10 years later, it seems like there’s been a lot more people thinking that through.

Jacq: Exactly. That is so amazing. From the point of view – putting on the researcher hat – studying it at the point where the speakers are making these first decisions without any templates – without a YouTube person to look at to model this kind of language on – felt really exciting.

Gretchen: And then somebody else who’s doing this study in another 10 years or 20 years or something when possibly nonbinary identity may have coalesced a bit more, then they have this to compare to as a baseline to see – it’s not often we get to watch a new gender evolve in real time. I mean, that’s not quite true because non-cis people have always existed, but the coherent, legible, nonbinary category, we get to watch it evolve in real time.

Jacq: Exactly. Traditionally, in these linguistic studies of dialect formation, that’s the 10-dollar word. You’re looking at something that’s very geographically bound. You have a group of people from one dialect that are moving to another place for another dialect. You have this contact, and you can study things coming out of that. But for nonbinary gender, even now, I can say, “Aw, there’s so many more nonbinary people out there.” I mean, realistically, if we think about our own networks, we do not have – I mean, I guess I can’t say this about everybody – but most of us don’t have a huge amount of nonbinary people in it compared to how many other LGBT people or how many other men or women – there just aren’t that many nonbinary people. We do tend to find each other, but we don’t have these big communities.

Gretchen: There’s a certain clustering, but it’s also not absolute, and there’s lots of other stuff. Do you feel like the internet has an influence on how nonbinary people talk?

Jacq: I think it does in the sense that the internet – and in particular, that kind of American sphere of the internet – influences everything that everybody does all of the time in some ways. But I also think that gender – sex and gender, in particular – these core identity things interact so strongly with where we are and our immediate context that it’s not quite as – in terms of speech, I don’t think it’s quite as strong. I did have one participant – if I can talk about my dissertation a little bit.

Gretchen: Oh, yeah, please, no, tell us about how the nonbinary people talk.

Jacq: One of my participants, Istus, is nonbinary and very femme. One of the things I talked about at that conference talk that you saw me – the slides are on my website, if you wanna take a look.

Gretchen: Excellent, we can link to those.

Jacq: Sweet. Istus is nonbinary and also very femme. This is something that really challenges the stereotypes that we have. Even me as a researcher coming into this had this idea of you have these men and women, and then you have these nonbinary people that are challenging these stereotypes, but “nonbinary” is not necessarily “non-femme.” So, Istus’s femininity was very nonbinary. When she talked about trying to construct her voice, this femininity that she wanted to get across, she would talk about putting on, basically, a Californian accent. She would say, “I can talk like this, and I sound very feminine, but I also sound like I’m smiling all the time, and I’m not that nice a person.”

Gretchen: Is Istus a New Zealander? Because you’re doing your PhD in New Zealand.

Jacq: All of my participants were from Christchurch (Ōtautahi), New Zealand. They were mostly between the ages of 18 and 22 – so this really specific first year of university cohort where you’re learning your identity and really stretching out from under your parents’ wings for the first time. I also had a couple of participants that were over 40. That’s interesting because it also challenges our stereotypes of gender as this static thing that you’re a man or a woman. When we look at how language can change over time, we don’t always think about how the people that are speaking can change over time.

Gretchen: A lot of the most visible nonbinary people are younger, but there’re also older people who are saying, “Oh, these young people have described a word for this thing that I’ve felt my whole life, and actually, I’m also this identity, and now there’s a word for it.”

Jacq: Absolutely. I mean, being a 45-year-old nonbinary person, you don’t necessarily want to speak like a 20-year-old nonbinary person, right.

Gretchen: Totally.

Jacq: If 20-year-old nonbinary people are trying to navigate what sex and gender is, if you’re 40, there’s that much more history of trying to figure all of this out.

Gretchen: Absolutely. Going back to Istus, who is the subject of the talk that you gave at the New Zealand Linguistic Society, one of the things that struck me about this talk when you were doing it is that you had participants take selfies of what they wearing at the same points as they were doing recordings. They did a bunch of recordings with different people in different environments, so you could see how they changed how they talked in relation to both what they’re wearing and also who they’re talking to.

Jacq: Absolutely. Because I think all of us have this experience of thinking about how we’re perceived by somebody else. That perception, for many of us, isn’t limited to just our voices. We don’t exist as a voice that wanders around in the ether.

Gretchen: We are not disembodied voices. We are meat suits wearing clothing suits.

Jacq: Yes. Which is super frustrating for many people, too. I call these recordings “in the wild” because I had this idea of David Attenborough following – “And here, he encounters the cis person.” But yeah, knowing that how we choose to present ourselves in that way is gonna change the way that we talk. This is pretty established. Also, the person that we’re talking to is gonna change the way that we talk. If you’re talking to your parent, you’re gonna talk to them differently than if you’re talking to your boss. We know this. But I was particularly interested in the way that these gendered relationships are navigated for nonbinary people.

Gretchen: Do you have an example of how some of your participants talked differently with different people?

Jacq: One example is Istus would play with makeup in really interesting ways. When I had the participants come, they would show me their selfies of these recordings, and I’d say, “Describe this outfit to me,” so I could see what they found really important because what you choose to wear has a lot more different – like, you know what is significant to what you’re wearing versus you don’t know if I’m wearing my lucky socks. That kind of thing.

Gretchen: Yeah, I dunno if your socks are lucky. I dunno if this is, like, the same shirt I’ve been wearing for three days which gives it a different valance to me compared to “Oh, yeah, this is my favourite shirt that I never wear, and I only wear on special occasions.”

Jacq: Istus didn’t have this in a picture, but she described her “stealth outfit,” which was every aspect of the outfit presented very masculine – sort of a suit jacket and loafers and this kind of thing. But every minute aspect of the clothing was actually feminine. The buttons were on – I can’t remember what side buttons are supposed to be on – but the buttons were on –

Gretchen: Neither can I.

Jacq: – the buttons were on –

Gretchen: The feminine side.

Jacq: Yeah, and the shoes were from the women’s section. There was this whole stealth coding that Istus was doing for herself – not for other people unless they’re cued in.

Gretchen: If she needs to go about as someone who doesn’t want her gender remarked on that particular day.

Jacq: Yeah, then she can choose where that gets presented. She would also wear different kinds of makeup. She would describe it as “enough eyeshadow so you can’t see the bags under my eyes” was one of her quotes.

Gretchen: Love it.

Jacq: The other quote was “makeup for the sake of wearing makeup” versus makeup that you would wear sort of a more natural face. You’ll forgive me if I get any of this wrong. I am not a makeup person. It was interesting because the – in her voice – the feminine cues that she used would change based on how overt her makeup was.

Gretchen: This is something that stood out to me about your talk, the makeup thing, because I’m very femme, I’m very cis. To me, I want all of my gender vectors or all of my gender points in the femme tally. But what Istus did in this thing was, if she was wearing makeup, she would do less femme gender vocal cues, like she’s counterbalancing the gender points, and as long as you have enough in the femme category and enough in the masc category, then it balanced in her head for whatever her personal definition of “balanced” is, which isn’t how I approach gender but is a really interesting thing that I learned from your talk.

Jacq: Aw, thank you. I’m glad that you found it interesting. Yes, Istus – and this is a theme throughout all of the participants. I should say that I also interviewed binary participants – men and women – and there were certain themes there, too. I don’t want to leave them all the way out.

Gretchen: Totally. You gotta have a control group.

Jacq: Yeah. But for the nonbinary participants, there was this – in my dissertation, I called it “incongruence” – but this idea that if you want to create some kind of mixed signal or if you wanna create something that isn’t quite in the two boxes that the people who are listening to you maybe have, then you can either take cues from both, or you can try to find some kind of middle ground. Those are two quite different things. Something very overtly feminine in your physical presentation combined with something a little bit less feminine or more masculine in maybe your vocal presentation, that can still get to something that isn’t binary in a way different than being very neutral-sort-of-middle-ground is.

Gretchen: The neutral-middle-ground is like, “I’m just gonna wear a hoodie and jeans because every gender can wear a hoodie and jeans, and then nobody will be able to perceive me as any gender at all,” whereas in a clothing way, doing something that has mixed signals would be like, “Okay, I’m gonna have a beard and also this super sparkly eyeshadow” or something like that.

Jacq: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that wasn’t quite where any of my particular participants went. But the idea that if you only have these two options, and you need to create a third option, there isn’t only one way to do a third option. There isn’t only one way to be nonbinary. A lot of how you do that, I found in my dissertation, is based on your own personality, which is like, “Oh, surprise, people have agency in how they talk,” and some people don’t like wearing super sparkly eyeshadow.

Gretchen: Totally. But also, sometimes you need to do the academic version of establishing that baseline because you could say, “Well, based on my friends, a lot of them which are nonbinary, people seem to do these strategies,” but having written it down in this academically legible place and gone through and done it with some statistics or something lets you say, “Okay, here’s what we have in terms of what we know now and maybe this would change in another decade if there becomes a more socially legible category of nonbinary-ness.”

Jacq: And I think, also, part of including binary participants in this work is to bring nonbinary people into both an academic conversation that’s already happening, which is, again, that sort of talk of legitimacy and saying, “Here’s an established body of work,” and bringing a “new population” – I’m making finger quotes; they’re not actually new – but bringing a different population – an “understudied” population, let’s say – into the fold, at the same time, that allows you to interrogate what’s already there. We have this whole body of literature that ignores that nonbinary people exist –

Gretchen: But that also doesn’t ask cis people or people that we’re presuming are cis, “How did you know that you’re cis? How do you know your gender? What are you doing to signal your gender with your voice? And how much of that are you doing deliberately?”

Jacq: I think that that’s really valuable, too, the idea that – I mean, there’s nothing that says a cis person isn’t allowed to think about masculinity, or how they present masculinity, or how they present femininity, or what that means. I mean, personally, I think it would be really useful if more cis people did that. If more people just thought about gender in ways that weren’t binary, talking to the binary men and women in my study, I was a little bit surprised, but it was amazing to see – I mean, some people never thought about it. There’s questions about “How do you feel about being a woman?” or being a man, and people said, “I dunno. I never thought about it. It just felt right.” But not everybody. Some of the participants that I spoke to did deeply interrogate their gender at some point in their lives. One of my cis male participants talked about thinking that maybe they were trans for a while and then realising they weren’t. I think the fact that we, as people – and also, we as linguists doing these studies on language – can interrogate even binary gender from these perspectives is really valuable.

Gretchen: This was something that came up in a recent episode that we did about the vowel space and how gender affects the vowel space, which we can link to. One of things that I find neat about that research is that even kids who haven’t gone through puberty yet who still have all identical vowel spaces or vowel spaces with as much variation as they have in heights but nothing specifically affected by the physical changes of puberty are still doing social genders and actually have different vowels based on the genders in their heads even though their bodies aren’t affecting what sounds they can produce yet.

Jacq: That works the other direction, too. We often think of puberty as this thing where a bunch of stuff happens to you, and then you pop out the other end like, talking and looking like –

Gretchen: A gender, now.

Jacq: A gender. You are this. But that’s not – I mean, the variation that almost any given human can produce is so much wider than the constraints of physiology. I’m not the only person to look at this. I know that Viktoria Papp has done really excellent work with transmasc people. Lal Zimman also works with transmasc populations a lot, too. You can take testosterone, and it can thicken your vocal folds, and it can create a drop in pitch, but that’s not what it means to talk like a man if you’re transmasc. That’s not the end of it. At the risk of summing up someone else’s research in two sentences, what you tend to see, I think, in Vietze’s work is a drop, an initial drop, from testosterone, and then it kind of pops back up again with the idea that, as people become more comfortable in their bodies and in their lives and in their situations, there’s less pressure to perform some stereotypical masculinity and more to just be the person they are, the transmasc person they are, or the nonbinary person they are.

Gretchen: That sounds neat. We can link to that study so that if people want to hear more than the two-sentence summary version, they can follow up on that.

Jacq: And Lal Zimman’s work is amazing. Every single thing that Lal has written is fantastic, too.

Gretchen: Yes. Everyone’s in the Lal Zimman fan club. So, you have a corpus, which is delightfully called, I think, “The RAINBO Corpus.”

Jacq: Yeah, “Recorded Audio-visual Interviews with nonbinary and Binary Orators. It’s “RAINBO” without a W.

Gretchen: Oh, and it spells “RAINBO” – that’s so good!

Jacq: For the sake of the acronym.

Gretchen: That’s such a beautiful acronym. You have six nonbinary participants in there, and six binary participants, and they held this speech that you looked at the pitch of it, and you’ve looked at how they do their vowels and things. You also have a talk and a paper, I think, you’re working on that’s co-authored with one of those research participants who then de-anonymised themself from the previous anonymous corpus work that they were in.

Jacq: Yeah.

Gretchen: I find this really interesting because there’s this interesting balancing act in academic between, “Oh, I’ve got a research participant. They’ve got sensitive data. I’m going to preserve their anonymity,” and also, sometimes when people are telling us really interesting things about their lives or their language choices or their identities, giving them credit for that intellectual contribution to the work which names them – yeah, can you talk about this balancing act about participant and researcher collaboration?

Jacq: Absolutely. I would love to. I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I don’t want to portray myself as an expert. There is a whole other body of work where your collaborators, your language consultants, work very closely with the researcher, but that’s not always the same methodology as the bigger picture, what we call “variationist,” studies where we’re trying to look at large groups of people and how they speak. Kaspar is the name of the person that I worked with. And I got their permission before this episode – I asked them how they wanted to be referred, and they said, “Okay.” We’ll call them Kaspar, which is great because that’s their name, so it’s super easy for me to remember.

Gretchen: But they also had a pseudonym in the study originally.

Jacq: Yeah. In the study, if you read my dissertation – which you don’t have to, but if you do – in the study, they were called “Alex.”

Gretchen: Dissertations are notably very long and, often, in the years after a dissertation comes out, people will write some shorter papers that summarise small bits of the dissertation. Keep an eye on Jacq and their website. Maybe there’ll be shorter versions. But if you really wanna read the whole dissertation or skim through it and pick out the bits that look interesting to you, we will link to it.

Jacq: I had set up, for my dissertation, you know, as a – I think there’s something else. Dissertations are a long work, and you’re learning as you go. That’s the point. When you’re planning these ethics and all of the things in planning this dissertation, you go through the process that has already been established. I did that. It’s fine. Kaspar came and was recorded. It ended up, as it happens, after I had done my data collection, Christchurch is not a huge place. Kaspar and I were in the same social circles, and we became friends after the data collection. Every once in a while, we would talk about the work that I was doing and stuff I was studying because they were super interested. They have a background in mathematics, and they’re familiar with linguistics, so it’s not like they knew nothing about linguistics.

Gretchen: So, when you were showing them some pretty graphs, they were like, “Oh, cool, graphs. I like those.”

Jacq: Yeah. And then I can’t remember if I asked them or they offered to do some proofreading before I had submitted it, and I sent them a draft. I got it back, and there were smiley faces and frowny faces on a lot of stuff. Then because we’re friends, we went and hung out and talked about it, and there’s something different. You’re participating in research. You’re getting recorded. And then research comes out. You know that you’re maybe nonbinary. You’re this population. And then you see yourself on a graph that plots your pitch somewhere, and you know what the stereotypes about feminine pitch and masculine pitch are. I mean, I did a bad thing in that sense. I hurt somebody, right, in not earth-shattering ways, I don’t think – or at least Kaspar didn’t tell me it was earth-shattering.

Gretchen: But in frowny face ways, yeah.

Jacq: And we share this perspective of the importance of examining new populations using established methodology and these traditional ways of doing things to grant – whatever you wanna call it – some kind of legitimacy from the academy – or however we wanna navigate this – but then this is still real people that are given little dots or little diamonds and plopped on a graph. I can say in 300 words how this isn’t meant to tell people how gendered they are; this is meant to examine nonbinary people and compare them on equal footing with binary populations, but of course, nonbinary people don’t come to the table with no baggage, with nothing behind them. You come, and you come with a gendered upbringing, a gendered – you exist in a world, right. You can’t just not.

Gretchen: Totally.

Jacq: That was really hard. We had a lot of conversations about that through the course of proofreading a dissertation and submitting it and trying to get to a point. And I didn’t have – because of the way that the ethics works – I couldn’t contact every other participant afterward and get the same insights and things. But it’s not all bad. Kaspar expressed to me how interesting it was and how amazing it was to see their plots there and the joy of seeing themself not in the ASAB cohort that they expected versus the sadness when they came a little bit too close or that kind of thing. We gave a talk about this and, hopefully, a paper that examines that a little bit more. The other benefit is that, now I have a collaborator and a co-author, it means that we can do a lot more really interesting stuff with data.

Gretchen: Well, and if they know all this math, you can do such cool math.

Jacq: And we can track them over time, and we can do new recordings and even stuff about how these interviews with people, or these recordings, are still a snapshot in time. Things aren’t static. People change, and people’s interpretations of themselves are reinvented constantly. I’m really excited. Watch for that paper.

Gretchen: That sounds really cool and really exciting. We will look forward to the Jacq-Kaspar collaboration, Kaspar-Jacq collaboration. You can keep swapping your names for who goes first if you do a whole bunch of different co-authorships like people do.

Jacq: It made me glad that I wasn’t recording myself.

Gretchen: Were you sometimes interviewing or the interlocutor?

Jacq: Yeah. We did these “in the wild” recordings, and then we had the traditional sociolinguistic interview with all of these questions. We recorded me at first thinking there might be accommodation stuff, but then it’s also just like, I can’t transcribe, like, 400 million hours of –

Gretchen: So, “linguistic accommodation” is the thing where, when you’re talking with someone, especially if you like them or you’re trying to get along with them, you talk more like the person you’re talking to, which happens to lots of people lots of the time. I certainly do it. And you were thinking, well, maybe if people are talking more like you when they’re talking with you, then that might shift things, but also, you end up with a lot of data.

Jacq: Yeah, that’s true. It ended up doing a little bit of spot checking. It didn’t seem quite there because of these outsider-insider relationships of I am Canadian sitting in New Zealand interviewing people. There was enough of a gulf that it didn’t seem –

Gretchen: They didn’t all start sounding Canadian when you were interviewing them. I’m shocked.

Jacq: They weren’t like, [stereotypical Canadian accent] “Oh, hey, thanks for interviewing me.”

Gretchen: Maybe this is a good segue actually because you’re a fellow Canadian, hello, “Welcome to the podcast, eh” – [laughter] – who’s been living in New Zealand for nine years now.

Jacq: Yeah, almost a decade.

Gretchen: Amazing. We’ve had a previous interview with Ake Nicholas talking about Cook Islands Māori if people want to hear someone with a more New Zealand accent.

Jacq: Actual New Zealand accent.

Gretchen: An actual New Zealand accent. But this is presumably a linguistic experience for you. Do you wanna say anything about what it’s been like? Do you talk differently to people other than me who don’t have a similar Canadian accent?

Jacq: It’s kind of hard to know. I think there’re a few things. I noticed about four or five years in that I was losing my Canadian raising. We had gone somewhere, and I said, “Aw, look at those three houses.” I was like, “Ah! What did I just do?” Instead of saying /haʊsəz/, I said /haʊzəz/. I was like, “Ugh.” Which is funny because when I lived in Canada, I never noticed Canadian raising. It was one of those things that was so –

Gretchen: So, Canadian raising, which we actually haven’t talked about on Lingthusiasm yet – so maybe someday in the future –

Jacq: What!

Gretchen: – is the thing that is responsible for the differences between how I say the vowel in “house” [noun] versus “house” [verb] or in “height” versus “high” – “height,” “high,” “house,” “house.” I will say, I don’t Canadian raise that much, so it’s a difference in terms of how you say the vowel between /t/ and /d/ or /s/ and /z/. There’re some people who say something like, “about,” more like /əboʊt/. There’s a stereotype that Canadians say /əbʊt/, and that’s not true. I want to correct that right now. People in lots of other English-speaking environments don’t do this Canadian raising, and you noticed that you were stopping doing it. Anecdotally, I also notice people that move to Canada do start doing more Canadian raising, so this seems to be one of the ones that’s flexible in people’s speech.

Jacq: Yeah, I think that’s true. It’s funny because it’s so stereotyped in Canada. I don’t think it’s as strong as the stereotype, but it’s definitely sticky in a weird way. I did lose it. But probably, in this interview, it’s back.

Gretchen: It clicks back in.

Jacq: Yeah.

Gretchen: Any other things that you’ve noticed?

Jacq: I remember when I first landed in New Zealand – so New Zealand is non-rhotic. There’s no R. Words that are spelt E-A-R, like “ear,” and words that are spelt A-I-R, like “air,” have merged, so they’re pronounced the same. I was sitting on the airplane waiting to disembark, and the announcer came on, and they said, “Could everyone exit via the /ɹiəɹ stiəɹz/?”

Gretchen: Oh. [Laughs]

Jacq: I had this moment of, like, cows stacked up at the back of a plane. Like, and it’s sat with me, and I think it’s because the context wasn’t quite enough for me to get – but I was like, “Rear steers? Rear steers. What?”

Gretchen: Well, it’s what you exit the “ear-plane” by, obviously.

Jacq: “When you exit the ear-plane by the rear steers, or alternatively, exit the airplane by the rare stairs,” which are the stairs that they don’t bring out that often.

Gretchen: We have to save the rare stairs and the fine china for guests.

Jacq: Exactly.

Gretchen: That’s exactly the kind of thing that, especially, when you’re hitting something out of context, and they seem to be more fond of using that, so if you weren’t used to that particular phrase, either, it would catch.

Jacq: Yeah, and I mean, you’re also in a new place and all of this, and you’re trying to pay attention because you have to do what the airplane people tell you because that’s the rules. I have one more anecdote that is very deeply only Canadian and New Zealand overlap.

Gretchen: Please, I wanna hear it.

Jacq: Maybe this is only western Canada. We’ll see. So, Gretchen, what do you call the front row of seats in the classroom?

Gretchen: Oh, that’s where the “keeners” sit.

Jacq: That’s where the “keeners” sit, right, that’s the “keener” seats, right?

Gretchen: I dunno if I have “keener seats” specifically as a phrase, but like, absolutely, totally understand you when you say this.

Jacq: So, if somebody’s a “keener,” that’s the person at the front of the class, yeah.

Gretchen: Absolutely, yeah. I have told people about this Canadianism myself.

Jacq: Amazing! I’m glad it’s a super salient Canadianism.

Gretchen: I’ve introduced Lauren to it, in fact.

Jacq: So, it’s not a thing in New Zealand. They don’t have keeners, but New Zealanders say “keen” all the time.

Gretchen: Oh, but for something different.

Jacq: You’ll say – and apologies to any New Zealanders if I get these pragmatically a little bit wrong – but you’ll say, “Ah, I’m going for coffee. Is anyone keen?” Or you might say, “Ah, the movie’s coming out next week,” and someone else might say, “Keen,” like they’re keen to go.

Gretchen: Oh, okay, yeah, I think I could say, “I’m keen to go,” but not “keen” by itself in a phrase like that.

Jacq: No, and I think that my impression – my 8-year-old, 9-year-old Canadian impression – is that you don’t really use “keen” – because it has a little bit of that odd, negative – I mean, it’s a “keener” thing, so unless you’re really claiming –

Gretchen: That you’re a big fan of Star Wars, and you’re a Star Wars keener, and you definitely have to go see the new one.

Jacq: If you’re keen to go to Star Wars, you wanna be in the front row.

Gretchen: Of course! Yeah, okay, yeah, I sort of get that. It’s not as neutral. It’s like you’re really actively excited. You’re not just like, “Oh, yeah, I’d be good to go” or like “I’d be down to go.” “I’d be keen to go” is like, “I’d be so keen to go! That would be great!” not just like, “It’d be fine.”

Jacq: Yeah, but if you’re keen, you’re like, “Yeah, I could” – if you wanted to be extra, you could double up the New Zealandisms and you could be “keen as.”

Gretchen: Oh, yeah, I’ve heard the “as.”

Jacq: You could be “keen as,” but I don’t know – that’s where my knowledge of New Zealand lexical items stops is at “as.”

Gretchen: I love “keener” as a Canadianism because my prof friends will be like, “Oh, one of my keeners came to my office hours today,” and they’ll mean that student who’s always asking really good questions and is really excited to be there and stuff like that. It’s very positive when my prof friends who were all themselves keeners back in the day use it. Maybe some people use it negatively, but I sure don’t know any of them.

Jacq: If you are a keener, then “keener” is quite positive, but maybe less so if you're not.

Gretchen: Maybe less so. So, you finished your PhD, and you’re teaching now. I have been told that you make students stab themselves with toothpicks for science. Can you tell us about that?

Jacq: I would love to tell you about that, with a caveat: I tell students to very carefully try not to stab themselves with toothpicks, but it doesn’t quite translate. I teach phonetics, which involves learning about all of the sounds and how we make them. If you’re a speaker of English, you might be familiar with this little sound called “R.”

Gretchen: R is a sound, yes, that I’m familiar with.

Jacq: The alveolar approximate, the /ɹ/ noise. The R sound, the /ɹ/, can be made about 16 million different ways. There’s something like eight or nine different things that you can do with your mouth that will get you close enough to /ɹ/ for people to understand you.

Gretchen: Oh, wow. When I was learning phonetics, they told us there were two different ways, and there’s actually six or eight of them.

Jacq: There’s two different tongue positions, and that’s where the toothpick comes in. But you can also do – there’s different stuff with the back of your mouth. Some people have lip rounding, and some people don’t. Some people raise this and that – yeah, there’s different ways to do it. But you were right when you were learning phonetics.

Gretchen: But because it all produces approximately the same sound, kids just hear adults making the sound, and they experiment with their mouths to produce The Sound, and because the meat suit part of our throats is kind of squishy, you can manipulate it in different ways and end up with the same thing that comes out.

Jacq: You get close enough. In English, we don’t have a lot of other stuff in that area, too. When you think about it, if you’re a kid, if you think about something like a /p/, if you’re a baby looking at a caregiver going /p/, you can really see that, right, but a /ɹ/, you get a face, and you don’t really know what’s going on.

Gretchen: You just get a blank face. You can’t see what they’re doing. With something like a /k/, you can’t necessarily see what they’re doing, but the sound is very distinct that they’re making. /ɹ/ is this approximate sound, which is why it’s called an “approximant” in the International Phonetic Alphabet because it’s just sort of like, “Eh, I dunno.”

Jacq: Close enough, yeah. What you get is you have this sound where there’s a bunch of different ways to make it, and also a bunch of speakers that don’t really know how they make it. When you say something like a /k/, you make that sound, and you’re like, “Oh, my tongue goes here.” But when you’re making a /ɹ/, it changes – depending on where it is in the word – all this stuff. As you learned in your phonetic class, there are two ways that your tongue can be shaped when you’re making a /ɹ/ sound. This may blow some people’s minds because they never thought about it before and didn’t realise that the other way is possible. The two big ways are – they have a million different names because of course they do – but one is called the “bunched R,” usually.

Gretchen: This is when your R, like the back part of your tongue sort of crunches up or gloms up into a bit of a shape at the back that doesn’t actually touch the roof of your mouth.

Jacq: The back of your tongue is all crunched up, and the front of it is down at the bottom of your mouth. The other way to do it is often called the “retroflex R,” or the “curly R,” so you have bunch-y R and curly R. The curly R – the retroflex R – the front of your tongue is curled up and back a little bit.

Gretchen: It’s almost like the tip of the bottom of your tongue is touching, or almost touching, the roof of your mouth.

Jacq: Yes. Which one do you make? It’s hard to –

Gretchen: I know which one I make!

Jacq: Awesome! One of the important points of science is confirmatory analysis. You should replicate this finding and see if it still holds true. If you wanna know which R you make, there’s a way that you can do this with just a toothpick. It’s really easy. All you do is you take a toothpick, a clean one – and make sure you wash your hands – and then you take your toothpick, and you make an R sound – /ɹ/ – or you can pretend you’re a dog and go [imitates dog growl], something like that, just make your /ɹ/ noise. Then you take your toothpick, and you rest it on your bottom teeth or however you wanna – kind of have it centrally into your mouth – and as you go /ɹ/, slowly and carefully, and not stab-ily, put the toothpick into your mouth, and then go, “bleh,” stick your tongue out. The toothpick will either be touching the top of your tongue or the bottom of your tongue.

Gretchen: Whoa! And this tells you which R you have?

Jacq: Yes. And if it’s touching the bottom of your tongue, you’re making a retroflex – you’re making a curly R. And if it’s touching the top of your tongue, you’re making a bunched R.

Gretchen: So, you’re either a curler or a buncher, and you can tell this based on which side you are. I actually went looking for toothpicks so that I could try this and ended up finding a cotton swab, like a Q-Tip, before I saw my toothpicks, and so I tried this with a cotton swab and did not stab myself. This is the safety conscious version you can do if you like because it also works.

Jacq: As long as it’s clean and your hands are clean, that’s a good, safe way to do it.

Gretchen: I’m a buncher, which I thought I was, and I have just confirmed that.

Jacq: Anecdotally, in Canada, it was usually about 50/50 when we go through classes, or we try it. This is in Alberta.

Gretchen: And in New Zealand is it also 50/50, or is it different?

Jacq: In New Zealand, there are a lot more bunchers. I think this might have to do with New Zealand being non-rhotic. I don’t have a paper on this. I don’t know anything. But there’s also a lot less lip rounding. In Canada, lip rounding is almost universal, like it’s on Rs a lot.

Gretchen: Yeah, I lip round.

Jacq: But in New Zealand, that’s not the case. Most people don’t round their lips.

Gretchen: Jacq, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. As we ask at the end of every interview, “If you could leave people knowing one thing about linguistics, what would it be?”

Jacq: It would be that you’re the boss of your language. How you communicate with people – it’s all on you. People can tell you how they think you should talk. Even linguists can say, “Well, this is how people talk.” But if you’re not feeling it, do something different. You can change it. You can do whatever you want, communicate however you wanna communicate. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do.

[Music]

Gretchen: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on all of the podcast platforms or at lingthusiasm.com. You can get transcripts of every episode on lingthusiasm.com/transcripts. You can follow @lingthusiasm on all the social media sites. You can get scarves with lots of linguistics patterns on them including the IPA, branching tree diagrams, bouba and kiki, and our favourite esoteric Unicode symbols, plus other Lingthusiasm merch – like our “Etymology isn’t Destiny” t-shirts and aesthetic IPA posters – at lingthusiasm.com/merch. You can find our co-host, Lauren Gawne, on social media, and her blog is Superlinguo. Links to my social media can be found at gretchenmcculloch.com. My blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com. My book about internet language is called Because Internet. You can find our guest, Jacq Jones, on their website at jacq.land – that’s J-A-C-Q-dot-L-A-N-D. Lingthusiasm is able to keep existing thanks to the support of our patrons. If you wanna get an extra Lingthusiasm episode to listen to every month, our entire archive of bonus episodes to listen to right now, or if you just wanna help keep the show running ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm or follow the links from our website. Patrons can also get access to our Discord chatroom to talk with other linguistics fans and be the first to find out about new merch and other announcements. Recent bonus episodes include spoonerisms, mondegreens, and eggcorns; secret codes and the joys of cryptic word puzzles; and inner voice, mental pictures, and other shapes for our thoughts. Can’t afford to pledge? That’s okay, too. We also really appreciate it if you can recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone in your life who’s curious about language. Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our Senior Producer is Claire Gawne, our Editorial Producer is Sarah Dopierala, our Production Assistant is Martha Tsutsui-Billins, and our Editorial Assistant is Jon Kruk. Our music is “Ancient City” by The Triangles.

Jacq: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

[plutoccult]

HAIKYUU X THE OFFICE AU — EPISODE FIVE: BOOZE CRUISE

pairing: sugawara koushi x female reader

description: ukai attempts to help the office bond more by booking a booze cruise for his employees… in the middle of winter. meanwhile, tanaka miserably tries to set suga up with his older sister per kiyoko’s suggestion.

word count: 6.5k

also available to read on my ao3 here

author’s note: hey, i changed my user! i was @310802 before, now i’m @plutoccult! i also had to repost this because the original post wasn’t showing up in ANY tags, so i’m sorry if you already read it before i did this! moving on, i was SO EXCITED to write this episode. i know i neglected the katy storyline from the show, so i decided to take the opportunity to somewhat use that for this episode as a little one-off. i think i was clever with its use too… i’m trying to balance the amount of “screen”time between the reader and suga, but some episodes may just end up needing more focus on suga for the sake of the storyline. anyway, the next few weeks is gonna be updates galore, so you’re all gonna be FED. btw, thank you to @dragon-slayer5 for beta reading this! enjoy!

tags: @toorubobatea @intorder @dragon-slayer5 @femme-lune @jeanboyjean @cowgirlikets @imissyuuji @darthferbert @kazuchaos @bakagun1312 @beingbrokenfitsus @mumblepingu @daedaep69 @intheewrld @msbyomimi @sukxma @akari-fujikawa @milkteeboba

taglist form here

suga considered lunchtime to be the only time of day where he could actually catch a break. he seemed to have a hard time catching any sort of breaks lately, especially when it came to his miserable love life. as much as he wanted things to change, today would certainly be no different.

since suga entered the office building this morning, tanaka had his eyes on him like an hawk. it was creepy how every time suga looked away from his computer, tanaka was staring right at him. but why? did he have something on his face? was his hair actually looking gray? no, that would be terrible. there can’t be anything than that.

to hopefully get tanaka’s eyes off him for once, suga got up and headed down to the hallway where the vending machines were. maybe a little snack would ease the unnerving feeling in his stomach. unfortunately, tanaka was already on his way to follow.

suga pondered over his choices, and before he knew it, tanaka’s reflection was seen in the glass of the vending machine. it was like a scene straight out of a horror movie, but suga decided to ignore him and pray he would go away, then continued to ponder over what to pick.

“a little birdie told me something.” tanaka spoke up.

oh no. “what?”

“nothing.” he smirked.

you enter, also looking to use the vending machine. great, just what this moment needed, suga thought.

“hey, guys.” you greet the two men, no clue about what’s going on. it was better if you didn’t know.

“oh, hi, y/n.” suga slightly blushed.

a smirk crept up on tanaka’s face. suga began to wonder about tanaka’s motives even more, but shook it off and picked a bag of sour cream and onion chips before walking back to his desk. tanaka quickly followed behind, which you found weird considering you assumed he was waiting for his turn to use the vending machine. you figured “oh well”, got your snack, and went back to your desk.

you sit down and meet eyes with suga who’s about pop a chip into his mouth. you quickly open up your bag and pull out a chip, doing a little “clink” with your chips from across the room, which suga immediately thought to reciprocate. it was good to know you two were still in sync.

a few minutes later, ukai returned from eating out for lunch, which he typically did almost every day. oh, how you wished you could afford ordering food for lunch all the time like your boss, but alas, you were just the receptionist.

“hello, everyone.” ukai said as he hung up his coat.

“welcome back, ukai.” tanaka replied before loudly whispering in suga’s ear. “i know your secret…”

my god. as much as suga was totally freaked out right now, ukai thought tanaka’s menacing words were directed towards him instead. “what?! i don’t have any secrets!”

suga and tanaka both look into the camera with furrowed eyebrows.

•••

the crew loved putting you and suga together for interviews. and given the drama that’s soon to come, they had to use every opportunity possible.

“so, ukai sent everyone a very interesting email last week.” you say the camera.

“yeah, it was, um… quite the thinker.” suga chuckled.

“mhm. it said, “it's time for our first quarter camaraderie event, so pack a swimsuit, a toothbrush, rubber-soled shoes, and a ski mask.” you read out the email from your phone. “i’m not really sure what that exactly equates to…”

“clearly, he wants to us to rob a bank and escape through the sewers afterwards.” suga shrugged. that was totally the obvious conclusion.

“then brush our teeth after a hard time committing crimes?” you jokingly question.

“yeah, exactly.” suga smiled at you, making you blush. you quickly turn to the crew and wonder if they noticed that, but it was obvious they did. the cameras catch everything.

•••

now the question that remained rent-free in everyone’s minds was what the hell ukai could possibly be planning this year. he was never up to any good, always doing something completely out of the box. he was simply incapable of doing anything normal. it made work interesting, but sometimes you all wished ukai take a chill pill for once.

at the most random time, ukai emerged from his office with an announcement. why he always did this, you couldn’t help but wonder, yet you didn’t hesitate to look away from your computer to hear what he had to say this time around.

“everyone, it appears some of you have figured me out.” ukai said to grab everyone’s attention. “so, it is now time to unveil the destination of this year's retreat. drumroll, please.”

no one provides a drumroll, much to ukai’s disappointment. “really? no drumroll? not even you, tanaka?”

“just spit it out already.” tanaka groaned.

“okay, fine.” he sighed before announcing the big news. “i got us a riverboat cruise on the abukuma river! it’s gonna be a booze cruise!”

a booze cruise? god, for a paper company, you guys sure consumed a lot of alcohol. plus, the combination of ukai and a cruise ship already seemed like a total disaster. when you add booze into the mix, it was almost comparable to the end of the world.

ukai received practically cricket noises from his employees, daichi being the one to express what was on everyone’s minds. “ukai, it’s january.”

“so? it was cheaper.” ukai shrugged. if it were any other month, like—hm, who knows—any month in the summer, maybe they’d show a little more excitement.

“and what is up with you and booze?” daichi asked. again, something you’ve all thought about at least once. “this is like when hinata was addicted to mixing buzzballz with every soda known to man.”

“pepsi with the cranberry flavor was the best…” hinata randomly spoke up, remembering that month-long phase last year. it wasn’t pretty, to say the least.

“gross…” kageyama shook his head in disgust.

“you don’t get it like i do, kageyama.” hinata protested.

“what is that supposed to mean?” kageyama raised an eyebrow, ready to start up an argument with his desk neighbor at any given second. typical, of course. you wondered when it would ever get old.

“okay, shut up before you two start making out!” ukai interrupted them before another hr fiasco occurred. again.

“what?!” the two gawked in unison. did they really give off that vibe?

“anyway!” ukai forced a laugh and switched the subject back to the cruise. “just hear me out guys, okay? let me cook. i’m combining fun with education! it’s gonna be mind-blowing.”

“sounds like you just want another excuse to party.”

“it’s not a party, it’s a bonding exercise.” ukai corrected him. “i’m helping us bond. people find lifelong friends in the workplace. others may find the love of their lives.”

ukai was right, shockingly. people do find lifelong friends. suga knew he would always stay friends with daichi for life, and even if tsukishima got on his nerves sometimes, he wasn’t the worst person in the world to be around. there would always be a bond between your coworkers. maybe you were all trauma bonded from dealing with ukai for all these years, but it was an unforgettable bond nonetheless.

suga blushed out of embarrassment from that last statement. some do find the love of their lives. he liked to believe you were the love of his life, swearing he found such a thing his first day at the office. the second he walked through that door and was met with your face, the words “japan pulp and paper, this is y/n. please hold.” coming out of your mouth as you spoke on the phone before setting it down to ask him what he needed. suga knew, right then and there, that he had found his future wife, but oh how he wished he knew back then what he would be in for years later.

even if ukai was oddly onto something for once, not everyone was interested. asahi, who had yet to survive a full year at the office, raised his hand and attempted to opt out of the event. “can i sit this one out? i have… a thing… later…”

“nice try, asahi.” ukai rolled his eyes. “this is mandatory. i better see your beefy ass on that dock tonight.”

“i’m not that beefy…” asahi said with a tinge of red on his cheeks.

“you so are, bro. those glutes go crazy.” nishinoya said confidently.

asahi wasn’t sure why nishinoya was paying attention to that area of his body, but he took the compliment anyway, although continuing to question it. “thank you?”

“glad we got that covered.” ukai said. “now, before we go on this cruise later, we have to talk about safety.”

“you’re literally the most unsafe person here, ukai.” you speak up. if anyone knew ukai best, it would very well be you, always there to deal with his antics and sometimes assist in them. the time you helped ukai hack into a higher up’s email account to prevent a picture of his ass that he accidentally sent being seen would go down in office history. you saved his ass, quite literally.

“ugh, come on!” ukai huffed. “i saw titantic a million times and i refuse to let us all die like leonardo dicaprio!”

•••

“do you think you could save one of your employees in the face of danger?”

“um, hello? i took a swimming class once. of course, i could save one of them.” ukai sassily replied to the documentary crew. “besides, we all know jack and rose could’ve both fit on that door at the end of titanic. james cameron is such a liar.”

•••

later on, suga went to go grab a cup of coffee in the break room. before he knew it, he was being cornered by tanaka, the sound of his name being called practically scaring him shitless. “sugawara koushi.”

“jesus christ.” suga jumped, putting his hand over his chest to feel his heartbeat. “do not use my full name like that ever again.”

“shut up.” tanaka shushed him and pressed his index finger over suga’s mouth to further silence him. “how would you… like to… take my sister as your date for the booze cruise tonight?”

there was no way this could be real life right now, suga thought. being in this position with tanaka was weird enough, but taking his sister as his date? he wasn’t even aware people were taking dates for this. it was no contest who suga truly wanted to take as a date, but of course it wasn’t an option, and he didn’t want to settle.

“your… sister? uh, no thanks.” suga turned the idea down without hesitation. however, tanaka was feeling devious.

“really?” he moved his finger away and crossed his arms with a smirk on his face. “kiyoko told me everything, suga. i know you have feelings for—”

oh no. not again.

“oh my god, shut your fucking mouth!” suga exclaimed with wide eyes, slapping his hands over tanaka’s mouth so he’d be quiet. to hell with censorship, this was critical. at this rate, the whole damn office was going to find out about suga’s pathetic feelings. he was going to end up broke by the time he bribed everyone to keep their mouths shut. his poor wallet and heartstrings can’t suffer any longer.

“woah, woah, woah!” tanaka laughed awkwardly, actually kind of scared over suga’s newfound rage. “language, my man!”

“whatever!” suga yelled “why the hell did she tell you?!”

“well, it was her idea to set you up with my sister, and i wanted to know why, so…” tanaka replied timidly, hoping kiyoko wouldn’t kill him later for pinning part of the blame onto her. well, unless suga didn’t get to her first.

“god fucking dammit.” suga cursed as he walked away from this monstrosity of a conversation. now, where was he off to? to confront kiyoko about the mess she’s made, of course.

“well? are you taking her out or not?!” tanaka yelled out to suga on his way out, receiving a middle finger in response, which will undoubtedly be blurred out in post production. the editing team had a lot of work cut out for them, that’s for sure.

on a mission like his life—and certainly dignity—depended on it, suga stormed up to kiyoko’s desk, where tsukishima and yamaguchi sat across from one another.

“kiyoko.” he towered over her as she sat in her chair, completely unbothered by him. “you were sworn to secrecy.”

“actually, only tsukishima was because you gave him twenty bucks.” kiyoko said. “you didn’t buy my silence.”

well, no wonder she spilled the beans. tsukishima got money, she didn’t. it’s not like kiyoko had asked that day at the christmas party, but suga certainly should have known better than to not doubt her. yamaguchi, however, was one big ol’ question mark. “yamaguchi? what about your silence?”

“i don’t like taking advantage of those less fortunate than me.” yamaguchi replied to him, those savage words coming out so innocent from his voice.

“less fortunate?!” suga gasped. it was beyond insulting, but he couldn’t even be that mad hearing it come from yamaguchi. now, if it were tsukishima talking, he’d insult him right back.

“suga, you need to have eyes on other women.” kiyoko lectured him. it’s not like she was wrong, obviously suga knew that, but the heart wants what it wants, and no matter what, his heart wanted you.

“but did you really have to tell tanaka about it?” suga whined.

tsukishima almost choked on his drink. “you told—”

“quiet.” kiyoko shushed tsukishima. “listen, suga. i’m doing you a favor, okay? just… take saeko out. just once. maybe it could take your mind off you know who for a little while?”

suga didn’t really have much choice, did he? maybe being seen with another woman will throw away any suspicion his coworkers may potentially have. it definitely won’t take his mind off of you, but at the very least, suga could have some sort of benefit from this whole ordeal.

“and will you keep your mouth shut if i do?” he asked, the most important question of all.

“accompanied by some cash, yes.” kiyoko said. why, of course.

giving in, suga let out a sigh as he whipped out his wallet and handed kiyoko money. she took the bill with a smile on her face, slyly putting in it her pocket.

“what about me—” yamaguchi began to say before suga cut him off.

“i’m less fortunate, remember?” he replied sassily, a nod to what yamaguchi said earlier. suga then finally went back to his desk, muttering curses to himself. “assholes.”

•••

“i’m gonna end up killing someone.” suga said to the camera with an unsettling smile, which quickly faded when he realized he couldn’t actually commit murder like he desired in the moment. “actually, i can’t do that. i’m still waiting for gta 6 to come out.”

“what?”

“none of you guys are waiting for gta 6?” he furrowed his eyebrows before pouting when the crew shook their heads no. “aw, come on…”

•••

once the sun set for the night, the employees of japan pulp and paper all met up at the dock for tonight’s booze cruise. ukai, who arrived far too early, waved his arms in the air for his employees, motioning them to board the boat, acting as if he were the captain of it.

“all aboard!”

“isn’t that what people say on trains?” you ask as you arrive with ryo, shocked he’s not totally against coming here tonight. it was safe to assume it’s because of the open bar, when you really thought it through.

“that’s such a stupid question.” ryo scoffed. of course, a part of him hated being around your obnoxious coworkers. that was no surprise, unfortunately.

“whatever.” you sigh. “sorry i asked, i guess…”

meanwhile, suga parked his car in the parking, just now arriving. he hoped he wasn’t late as he really didn’t need to feel tanaka’s and/or kiyoko’s wrath. he may as well feel it regardless of his time of arrival. suga didn’t want this date tonight. that too was no surprise.

as he got out of his car, suga’s eyes landed on the coolest motorcycle he had ever seen. whoever owned it must take really good care of it, like it was their child or something, he thought to himself. suga didn’t think of the motorcycle much further as he heard a car door slam from far away. he turned around, hoping it was you, but it turned out to kiyoko and yachi rushing towards him.

“sugawara!” they yell out.

suga put his hands out in front of him, hoping to shield the two girls away. “oh god, am i being ambushed?”

“no.” kiyoko replied to his question out of breath. she knew quitting track in high school was a terrible idea. “we were waiting for you to arrive.”

“why..?” suga furrowed his eyebrows.

“to make sure you’re ready for tonight.” yachi said on kiyoko’s behalf.

what did he exactly to be ready for? a date he was forced into with a woman he’s never met? frankly, suga he didn’t really want to meet tanaka’s sister. it was nothing against her personally, she just wasn’t you.

“do i need to give you money too, yachi?” he groaned.

“that’s like taking money from charity.” she replied. man, yachi was just as savage as yamaguchi. they’re truly made for each other.

“wow, just wow.” suga said in disbelief. “look, i’m here, isn’t that good enough?”

“no.” kiyoko deadpanned.

he didn’t have time for this bullshit. suga was just going that stupid dock. “i’m walking away.”

“but—” kiyoko and yachi go after him, but can’t seem to keep up.

suga didn’t really think this through. he was just so irritated that he had to get away from kiyoko and yachi. suga didn’t think about where his feet were going, but before he knew it, he was right at the dock, freezing when you saw you with your fiancé. god, he really regretted his life choices right now.

“suga, come here, pretty boy!” he’s snapped back to reality thanks to tanaka calling out his name. without any chance to take a step, kiyoko and yachi creep up behind him and push him to move. you watch the events unravel, wondering what’s going on, but shake it off bring your back to ryo.

suga stumbled to tanaka and an unfamiliar woman. he met eyes with her, a look of shock evidently present on his face. how can someone related to a bozo like tanaka be so… attractive? no. suga couldn’t think like that. she was tanaka’s sister.

“this is my sister, saeko.” tanaka said, waiting for one of them to say something.

“hiya, suga.” saeko extended her hand out for a handshake. “nice to meet you.”

“hello.” suga replied awkwardly, reciprocating the handshake. thank god it was winter. otherwise, they wouldn’t be wearing gloves.

“have her home by midnight.” tanaka joked. “i’m just kidding, she rode herself here.”

“huh?” suga questioned.

“oh, she’s a biker. have fun!” tanaka then walked away to follow kiyoko, who was boarding the ship with yachi. at least suga knew where that awesome motorcycle belonged to.

now alone with saeko, suga turned his head and watched you board the ship with ryo. he looked back to saeko and examined her face for a second before deciding his next action. she was a very pretty woman, but that simply couldn’t fill the void in suga’s heart. he had to be honest while he had the chance. it was only fair.

“listen, saeko… you seem like a really nice girl, but tanaka is only doing this because i’m in love with a girl that works here and wants to help me get over her.” he admitted, a weight lifted off his shoulders after revealing the truth. “i just think i should be honest.”

“oh, i know.” saeko replied bluntly. “he told me all about that.”

suga blinked a couple times and tried to make sure he heard that correctly. “he did?”

“yeah, i’m just doing this because i owe him one.” she shrugged. “besides, i don’t really date older guys.”

“older?” right. the hair. of course.

“i can play wingwoman for ya! don’t worry, pops.” saeko lightly punched him in the arm, followed by an obnoxiously loud laugh. suga looked to the cameras for help, but the crew just stood in their place.

•••

“tanaka…” suga let out a long sigh. “what the hell have you gotten me into?”

•••

after going through all of the safety measures for the cruise, the office were finally allowed to have their fun. it seemed that telling saeko the truth was the best idea suga ever had as she wanted to help him out by trying to make you jealous. well, if that’s even possible, but who knows? it was worth a shot.

suga and saeko walked to you and ryo as you sat together at one of the many tables. their arms were interlinked, surely making some sort of statement.

“y/n, ryo.” suga said to catch your attention, although he ended up catching ryo’s attention more than yours thanks to saeko.

“well, well, well. who’s the pretty lady you brought with you tonight, suga?” ryo asked with a smirk.

you weren’t all that phased until ryo spoke up. saeko wasn’t just pretty to you, she was beautiful, far more than you ever thought of yourself. you can’t remember the last time ryo ever gave you eyes like the ones he was giving saeko now. you weren’t sure who or what you were jealous of right now. the fact that suga was on a date, your fiancé ogling at said date, or that she was so much prettier than you. you cursed yourself in your head for those thought. you didn’t have a right to be jealous of suga. he had every right to date, he was single, you were not.

now that you thought about it, suga never really dated anyone since he started at the office. as far as you knew, at least. you wondered why that was, but it was impossible to pinpoint it down to one reason. you were so painfully blind to the truth.

“uh, this is—” suga began to introduce saeko until she interrupted him.

“saeko. nice to meet you.” she said with a smile.

“she’s tanaka’s sister.” suga added for a little salt in the wound.

“oh…” your eyes widened. you look to ryo and see as he gave suga a high five, telling him he hit the jackpot. you felt sick, and it definitely had nothing to do with the sea.

suga sat next to you, making you in between him and ryo. saeko sat on the end with suga, showing her excitement about the booze cruise. “i feel like we're in high school and we're sitting at the cool table. how fun.”

“yeah.” you reply, trying to remain as chill as possible. you had to keep telling yourself that she wasn’t a villain, she was just a really nice girl who got lucky to be with suga tonight.

“y/n, what were you like in high school?” saeko asked you.

ryo, however, answered the question for you, letting out a cackle as he practically insulted you in front of the whole table. “oh, she was a total, total dork. it took her getting pretty in college for me to notice her.”

“ha! that’s hilarious!” saeko giggled, nudging suga to laugh as she thought this would work with their plan, but he didn’t find it funny whatsoever. it was completely insulting to you.

“it’s really not…” suga muttered to himself.

“where did you go to school?” ryo asked saeko.

“karasuno.” she replied instantly.

“woah… you guys had the tiny giant, didn’t you?” ryo gasped, referring to a well known former high school volleyball player. despite being at his peak, he retired after graduating high school, never once playing professionally. everyone always wondered about what could’ve been, including ryo, who was one of the many people that heard the tale of the tiny giant.

“yeah, i went to school with him.” saeko bragged. it was far from a humble brag, it was awesome.

“woah! what was he like?” ryo questioned in amazement.

“uh… tiny, i guess?” saeko shrugged. she wasn’t quite sure how to answer that question as she never knew the guy personally, just passed him in the hallways on occasion.

suddenly, the cupid shuffle blared through the speakers. nishinoya had taken over the music and started to play his own playlist, claiming the dj “sucked ass” and decided to take matters into his own hands. there wasn’t much protest as everyone began dancing together, including saeko and ryo who get up from the table and decide to join in on the dance.

suga watched the sight, glad to finally have a moment just with you, but when he turned his head to say something to you, it seemed as if you disappeared. of course, he wondered where you went off to, and decided to find you.

you stood alone, leaning your back against the railing of the boat and rubbing your hands together for warmth. it all became overwhelming for you too quickly, and you figured ryo wouldn’t notice you leaving anyway. even so, it still shocked you when suga noticed, finding you in your lonely spot.

“getting too rowdy?” he asked you.

“mhm…” you nod as you shiver a little.

“yeah, i’m not really a fan of making my ears bleed.” suga said to lighten things up. he wondered if this was a good time to admit the truth about the whole saeko thing, that it was all a set up to get your attention because he was in love with you, but before he had the chance, you blurted out something he didn’t expect out of you.

“sometimes i just don't get ryo.”

suga gulped as his eyes widened for a brief second. “oh…”

“i mean, i don't know. it’s whatever.” you shake the feeling off. why were you saying this to suga anyway? it wasn’t his burden to carry. “so... what's it like going out with tanaka’s sister?”

“oh, um...” suga struggled to answer the question. a long silence followed, making you both feel awkward. there was so many things the two of you could say to each other right now.

“i'm cold.” you say with a faint laugh before heading back to your coworkers, suga following not long after. it was easy just to ignore the unspoken tension.

•••

“how’s the booze cruise going so far?”

“kind of wish things were different right about now.” suga forced a laugh. it was clear he was in pure misery. “haha… i need a drink.”

•••

you return to the group, scanning the area. ryo was chatting it up with one of his coworkers from the warehouse, chugging drinks together and sharing a laugh. you then see kiyoko and yachi pull suga by his arm, seemingly yelling at him for reasons you weren’t sure of whatsoever. your choices of where to go were limited, so you return to your table and see saeko sitting alone with a beer. it seemed like a good idea to have a friendly chat with her.

“hey.” you sit down next to her.

“hey.” she greeted you, taking a swig of her beer bottle.

“i never really liked beer.” you say, trying to start up a conversation. whatever topic worked, you were fine with. as adults, talking about alcohol seemed like the best bet.

“oh, you don’t?” saeko questioned. “you just have to find the right brand, honestly. some taste like shit.”

“ha, yeah.” you quietly laugh and rest your face in your hand. saeko immediately noticed the ring on your finger, even if it’s lost its sparkle as the years have gone by.

“woah, nice ring.” she said in amazement.

you look at your ring, shocked by the compliment. it wasn’t anything special, but you appreciated it anyway. “oh, thank you.”

“i'd like to be engaged.” saeko sighed. “how did you manage to pull that off?”

“uh, i've been engaged for three years, and there's no end in sight, so... you don't wanna ask me for any advice.” you force a laugh. god, you‘d kill for the waiting game to finally end.

unbeknownst to you, ryo overheard what you said, and he decided that tonight was the best night to finally take some action when you least expected it.

•••

“what do you think of saeko?”

such an awkward question for the crew to ask you, don’t you think? even so, you had to answer it without making a complete fool of yourself.

“she’s nice.” you shrug. it technically wasn’t a lie, but you sure quickly pulled it out of your ass. “really pretty too. crazy to think she’s related to tanaka…”

“but what about suga taking her as his date tonight?” and there’s the stinger. you didn’t have a right to be jealous, did you?

“uh… doesn’t really matter what i think, i’d say.” you say timidly and look away from the camera.

•••

out of nowhere, ryo got ahold of the dj’s microphone, seemingly about to make an announcement. what the announcement was, you didn’t know, but you sure as hell were scared to know what it would be.

“everybody, could i have your attention for just a second? could you guys listen to me for a second?” he said into the microphone.

everyone stopped what they were doing to look at ryo. suga had a terrible feeling this wasn’t going to be any good, at least not for him.

“i was just, um…” ryo paused before he dropped the ultimate bomb in front of everyone. “y/n, i think enough is enough. i think we should set a date for our wedding. how about june tenth?”

your eyes widen in shock and you find everyone’s eyes are on you. suga swore he felt his heart drop, desperately waiting for your answer like everybody else. wasn’t this what you wanted? to finally get married? it was hard to think that this was real life. you almost wished time would just stop for a second, but the time kept ticking as you had yet to say a thing.

“well, what do you say?” ryo asked.

before you said anything, you immediately look for suga. he was supposed to be your knight in shining armor, you thought, but now when you desperately needed his saving, he was nowhere to be found. maybe this was a sign that you should say yes. after all, you said yes the first time, right?

“okay..?” you answer.

the room felt silent before everyone erupted into cheers, you the least excited person present. “she said okay!”

you’re ushered to get up and head to ryo. he wrapped an arm around your shoulder and planted a big kiss on your temple. it might as well be the most affectionate he’s been towards you in a very long time, but of course, it was when he had a large group of eyes all on him. while part of you was happy you finally began to see a light at the end of the tunnel, the other part of you felt that this was all just for show. but maybe things will be different. you always think that, but you wanted to think that it would really be different this time.

ukai hopped to you and ryo, quickly hugging you and sharing his excitement for you two. “woah, congratulations, you guys! i knew it would happen eventually!”

“did you?” you raise an eyebrow, looking back on all those past jokes about your engagement.

“uh, yes, y/n. of course, i did.” ukai replied sarcastically. he actually didn’t see this coming, but he wanted in on the attention. “now you have to let me give you away!”

“uh, no thank you.” you quickly shut the idea down. even when all the attention was on you (and your fiancé), your mind still went back to suga. he should be here celebrating with you. you wanted him here. he was your best friend, after all. “um, where’s suga?”

“i don’t know, i thought he was right—“ ukai looked around and saw he was nowhere in sight. “oh, seems he vanished.”

“i should—“ you began to say before ukai cut you off.

“no, no. i’ll go find him.” he insisted. “go celebrate!”

“yeah, okay…” you frown as you watch ukai walk away to find suga.

ukai searched around for suga for quite a bit. when he disappeared, he really took it seriously. it was like he vanished out of thin air. ukai hoped he didn’t jump off the ship or something, and luckily before he could cause a scene over a potentially missing employee, suga was found.

“hey, suga.” he said to him. “you, uh, disappeared, man. did you hear the news?”

“uh-huh. i sure did.” suga said, looking down at the deep, dark ocean, almost as dark as his heart had become after what just happened. you finally set a wedding date. it was a day suga dreaded for god knows how long. he always went back and forth wondering whether the day would actually come, but now that’s it’s here, it was a nightmare turned brutal reality.

“something wrong?” ukai asked suga.

“i just…” he paused, tempted to speak up about how he felt, but kept it to himself. “mmm, nope. it’s stupid.”

“i’m the master of stupid things. you can tell me.” ukai said.

it was just the two of them. for some reason, suga felt like he could actually confide in his boss right now. maybe telling him what was wrong wouldn’t be such a bad idea. “i just… i didn’t think they’d ever actually plan to get married.”

“who? y/n and ryo?” ukai questioned. “what, do you like her or something?”

the look on suga’s face said it all. it showed a man who was desperately in love with a woman that simply wasn’t his. it was all so clear now.

“oh my god, you like y/n.” he said, followed by a faint gasp.

suga let out a sigh. he didn’t need to say a thing, ukai just knew. it was a shock he never figured it out before, really. everyone else seemed to find out easily once suga started to slip up in his facade.

“i can’t believe i never noticed before!” ukai exclaimed. “you two are always smiling and giggling with each other, how could i be so blind? holy cow.”

“tsukishima figured it out at the christmas party.” suga said with a frown. “it’s only a matter of time before she figures it out too.”

“and is that so bad?” ukai asked. it seemed like such a simple yes or no question, but the only way suga knew how to answer it was by pouring his heart out, spewing all the things he kept shoved down his throat for the longest time. it was always bound to come up one way or another.

“ukai, it’s not that i just like her… i love her. i’m in love with everything about her. i adore her. she’s sweet, funny, and she just has this aura… i can’t describe it.” he spoke from the heart, the only way he knew how when it came to you. “she’s beautiful inside and out. i would do anything to give her the world. i worship the rain that waters the grass that grows on the ground she walks on. my heart beats louder for her than it ever has for anyone else, and…”

“and… what?” ukai questioned.

“i don’t want her to marry him. i want her to be with me.” suga cried out, covering his face with his hands out of embarrassment. how could he say something so selfish out loud? the thought felt safer in his head, but even so, he would have burst if he kept it in any longer. “god, it’s so fucking stupid. i’m such an idiot.”

suga had been suffering in silence for too long, and ukai could clearly see that. it pained him to see one of his best employees in this state of despair. “suga, if that’s how you truly feel… then don’t give up. tell her how you feel.”

“she’s engaged, ukai. i can’t.” suga shook his head no. such a prosperous thing to suggest now. it was easy to think he could reveal his feelings when he knew there wasn’t a wedding date in sight, but wouldn’t it be so silly now to beg you to cancel the wedding? he felt like a tall child with all these thoughts eating him up.

“so? engaged ain’t married.” ukai shrugged. “besides, you’re way better than ryo.”

it was weird to have ukai on his side. was he not just celebrating with you? maybe suga’s heartfelt speech gave him a change of heart, or maybe he always saw something there without truly realizing what that something was. maybe ukai always knew you deserved better than a lowlife like ryo.

“why are you saying this?” suga questioned ukai. “i thought you’d be excited about the world’s longest engagement finally reaching its end.”

“i don’t know. i just… when i look at her with ryo versus with you, i think there’s a clear winner. you two have something special, and i wouldn’t give up hope, suga.” he replied. “maybe one day you should just… take a chance and see what she says. you never know what’s going on in that mind of hers.”

“you think so?” suga asked.

ukai nodded without hesitation. “never, ever give up.”

overcome with emotion, suga suddenly decided to wrap his arms around ukai. what’s crazy was that it didn’t even feel weird. ukai may be the most insane boss ever, but no matter what, he always had his way of showing he had his employees backs. when suga needed him most, ukai was right there, telling him words he didn’t know he needed to hear, and turned out to be what he needed the most.

“okay.” suga sniffled into ukai’s shoulder, holding him tighter than before. “i won’t.”

ukai really didn’t want to ruin such a heartfelt moment, but he felt like the life was being sucked out of him. “suga, you… you’re suffocating me.”

“oh.” suga quickly let go of him. “sorry.”

“it’s okay, but don’t forget what i told you.” ukai said, gently poking where suga’s heart was. “that’s an order from your boss.”

suga thought that tonight was the end of the world, but it turned out that he still had reason to have hope. maybe ukai was just feeding his delusions, but it sure felt nice knowing someone had his back and believed in him, that his feelings weren’t foolish. besides, a lot can happen between now and june, right?

© plutoccult / 310802. please do not copy, repost, modify, or translate any of my content in or outside of tumblr. reblogs are appreciated <3

[fwitolei]

The Dragon Prince Thoughts 6x04 - The Starscraper

Previous Episode // Masterlist // Next Episode

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Spoilers under the cut

“Are those Draconic words?”

Honey I know you did not just read out loud unfamiliar words when you KNOW Draconic words are usually spell incantations and would almost definitely do something—

CLAUDIA YOU BETTER NOT KILL THAT KITTEN FOR PARTS

NU-UH—

“I’m so messed up, Terry. I’ve been stuck just staring, for over an hour now.”

I mean at least she’s self-aware that’s a good first step

She seriously needs therapy tho

Shit everyone in this show does lmao—

“Drop.”

LMAO that was cold

He ain’t taking no shit today

STELLA CAN’T YOU TELEPORT OR SOMETHING C’MON NOW

“I think…I need to see my dad again.”

Oh wow. I thought with Viren leaving that Claudia was going to go over the edge and just go all in. Freeing Aaravos, supporting his plans and whatnot, and honestly I thought she was going to be so gone in her grief and stuff that terry was going to join team zym to try and get her back. Seeing her take a step back and try to find the right path is surprising, but it’s good.

“How do you feel about spiders?”

Okay I seriously love Astrid she’s frickin amazing

I hope we see a lot of her in later seasons

Also KOSMO IS SP PRETTY ugh I’ve always loved vitiligo it’s absolutely beautiful—

“The Elder is the only living Celestial Elf who has ever removed his blindfold and let in the starlight.”

Wait so do Skywing elves have super long life spans or something? Do all elves live super long like that? I’ll have to look it up I forgot—

OOF THOSE LOOK LIKE VIREN’S STAFF

BUT ONE IS MISSING HAHA—

Wait didn’t the staff originally belong to Ziard? AND DIDN’T ZIARD GET IT FROM AARAVOS??? So much BACKSTORY

“I’m afraid the Novablade was given to a brave human girl hundreds of years ago.”

THE ORPHAN QUEEN IT’S GOTTA BE

CLAUDIA REALLY WAS ABOUT TO GET MAULED OMG

SHE WASN’T GONNA DO IT

“He’s back, Soren. Your father, he’s here.”

Soren’s really gonna have a rough time this season I already know it.

It’s gonna be baaaaaaddd

I MEAN LOOK AT HIS FACE

He’s already distressed poor babyyyy 😭

OKAY it’s really picking up now. I didn’t say anything about the “Chosen Two” stuff Callum and Rayla are dealing with cuz i didn’t really have any commentary on that part but I am excited to see what happens there. Claudia really surprised me with her internal conflict and stuff and I’m glad she’s thinking rationally now i hope it stays that way. I think it’s safe to say that from here on out this season is going to get extremely tense, so buckle up :'D

[nickmaghighlights]

Nick Mag Highlights - Nick Mag Presents: Danny Phantom (Fall 2005)

Well, well, well, fancy meeting you here. Welcome back to my blog and the words that inhabit it. Today, Halloween comes early this year when we read through another exciting issue of Nickelodeon Magazine Presents, this time all about Danny Phantom. Boo! Trick-or-Treat! Deck the halls!

And not only is this edition of Nick Mag Highlights spooky, it’s also… pretty chill. Y’know? Just takin’ it easy, reading a handful of comics and probably a crossword puzzle or something. As much as I love researching the kind of stuff Nickelodeon Magazine includes in its articles, sometimes it’s nice to sit back and take things at face value and just see what the state of Nickelodeon was like at any given time, and these short-and-sweet issues of Nick Mag Presents are the perfect venue for just that.

But why exactly am I tackling this purportedly Halloween-themed issue in August? Well, mainly it’s because that new Danny Phantom graphic novel just came out… two weeks ago (oops). And I really enjoyed it! So I’ve since been in a big Danny Phantom mood lately. I even ended up re-watching the whole first season and had a blast doing so. This show was a real obsession of mine as a kid, so maybe this blog post is also a way for me to give it its dues.

This issue can be found online here, read along… if you dare!

Another Nick Mag Presents, another humorously wordy introduction. If you’re unfamiliar, basically all these Presents-styled issues have a panel on the first page with a character essentially advertising the book to you and talking about all the comics and activities included inside. This one here features Danny and an understandably perturbed ghost, for example. 

Since these issues were usually sold in stores as opposed to through a mail subscription, I suppose this is the issue’s way of hooking you in and explaining to you why you should buy it. I think a kid would probably be more inclined to just flip through the book and arrive at the same conclusion, but I guess this approach doesn’t hurt anybody.

But anyway, let’s see here… aw, only two wholly new comics? The Fairly Oddparents-themed issue I took a look at previously had five original comics. That’s a bummer, but at least we’ve still got variety… SpongeBob, My Life as a Teenage Robot, and The Wild Thornberrys, oh my! Even Tak makes an appearance here, two years before the premiere of his actual Nickelodeon cartoon, meaning this was an attempt to interest readers in the then-recently released video game: Tak 3: The Great Juju Challenge. Not sure if that worked.

And if you’ll take a look at that yellow, spiky bubble with words on the right there, this September 2005 issue is meant to coincide with the then-upcoming two episode-long Danny Phantom special, “The Ultimate Enemy”, which featured Danny taking on a more powerful version of himself from the future. Seems like the included removable poster is even themed around that very episode! Let’s just hope that poster is still left intact, eh?

So first up, we’ve got a page to get you up to speed on the main cast if you’re new to the show. It’s even got some new factoids for the already familiar superfans! For example: Did you know Sam is into anime? I sure didn’t.

Oh, and if you’re wondering where series villain Vlad Masters is, don’t worry, they go over him later on in the book.

On the right you’ll find an easy if not slightly amusing word puzzle, which tasks you with solving questions where each answer contains the word boo. Simple enough for a kid while still being worth the time, methinks.

Although all the stock ghost art on the page gets me wondering, how come most of the ghosts in the show manifest as typical-looking cartoon ghosts while others manifest in a human form? I guess maybe it comes down to the strength of your spirit. Who’s to say?

You’ve met the characters, now it’s time to meet the voices behind them! I’ll always take a side of interviews with my Nickelodeon Magazine, and this is no exception. The questions are cute, and I had fun reading them. Not much to say.

So we’re finally here at the first comic of the issue, and… not really a fan of this one! Yeah, sorry to start this retrospective off on a sour note but this isn’t really doing it for me. The main villain of this one is Youngblood, who already isn’t exactly one of my favorite villains from the series. But here they’ve got him and all the other characters stuck in a pretty by-the-numbers plot where Danny and co. get stuck babysitting the brat while he tries to maim them, with them of course unable to fight back lest they face the wrath of his parents (who are humongous lizard monsters, for some reason). 

If you’re even a little familiar with cartoons you’ve probably already seen quite a few takes on this formula already. And even if you like Youngblood as a character they don’t have him doing his usual pirate shtick he’s remembered for, so I’m not sure what anyone is getting out of this, really. What's especially not helping is that this goes on for ten pages, further dragging out an already tired concept. 

So there you have it, I guess. Done-to-death story with accordingly done-to-death jokes, a lame villain, and about two pages of action. I will say though, Danny and Tucker’s babysitting poster on page 2 did get a smile out of me, at least.

You’ve met the characters, and you’ve also met the voices behind them, now it’s time to meet… the rest of the characters! The villain ones! These guys really made the show for me, cause the team behind the show really just seemed to understand the assignment and made all of them really unique and memorable.

So we can see they’ve been ranked in terms of how dangerous they all are, which is a fun idea. ‘Course you’ve got Vlad at the top of, but then there’s Technus just behind him? I can’t say I remember him being notably more dangerous than any of the other baddies, I’m fairly certain he gets swept up at the end of his specific episode just like all the rest. I’m pretty sure Valerie gave Danny a bigger run for his money, and she’s down at #3.

Woah now, I’m starting to scrutinize the power levels of cartoon characters. Cartoon characters from a show I haven’t even fully watched all the way through since I was a kid, no less. Better put a stop to that before it gets ugly.

Cool little cartoons on the left there, that one on the top right is properly devious and I’m all for it. All the art is quite lovely too.

The right is… well, it’s Mad Libs, there’s no other way around it. Y’know the Mad Libs website refers to itself as “the world’s greatest word game” but I seriously think they need to take that up with Scrabble, or hell, even Hangman. Yeah I was never a big fan of this kind of fill-in-the-blanks stuff, but I guess it’s a pretty inoffensive activity to include.

Check out Danny’s dad rocking that emo hair.

And now we’ve made it to the second and last new comic for the issue, and unfortunately it’s only a two-pager. But hey, if my thoughts on the previous ten-page comic said anything, it was that I prefer quality over quantity. And this one is… okay. It’s funny enough, does what all it needs to with the concept, and it definitely doesn’t overstay its welcome. I’m again surprised by the lack of action in both of these comics, considering Danny Phantom is an action show, after all, but it’s not like the show wasn’t a comedy either, so it’s not that weird.

I guess while we’re here I could nitpick it a bit. The lineart here courtesy of series creator Butch Hartman* is a bit wonky at times. There’s the aforementioned emo hair Danny’s dad is wearing, but my main gripe is that dog robot just doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the artstyle. It being the only new original character design for this comic as well doesn’t seem like a coincidence to me. I guess the team was fine with whatever Hartman drew because he made the show after all, so surely he knows what he’s doing, right?*

*Insert obligatory comment about how much of a loser Butch Hartman is here.

Just want to give a shoutout to this pretty creative puzzle here. It actually stumped me a little when I first read it! Those monster designs are pretty entertaining too. Solid activity overall.

Next up it’s an installment of Sam Shade, which was a short-lived recurring series in Nickelodeon Magazine. Apparently the series ran from 2002 to 2005, so this may be one of the last times a Sam Shade comic was ever printed in a Nick Magazine. 

These comics mainly consist of the titular Detective Sam Shade trying to solve some mystery, sleuthing around the area in a series of detailed, wordy scenes. Likewise, you as the reader are as well tasked with scouring the pages for clues to help deduce the culprit. Each panel here smoothly moves into the next, making for something like a Where’s Waldo puzzle but with an actual narrative. It’s a really good idea! A shame this series didn’t last longer.

Hey, is that Carl from Jimmy Neutron on the bottom right there?

Pretty nice My Life as a Teenage Robot comic here. Although that’s kind of unfortunate in a way, since that means I haven’t got much to talk about! It’s pretty much a 1-to-1 translation from animation to comic here. The artstyle and writing are both on point, it’s all just in a shorter, more paper-y format.

I wonder why the aliens’ speech bubble has flowers in it. Is that a theater reference, maybe?

The design of these fiery aliens are particularly awesome - simple but effective. I’m surprised they used such a cool design in a comic that was going to be seen by way less people as opposed to using it in the cartoon. Man, this show is so cool, even its supplementary media is stylish!

But anyway, do you want to know how this story ends? Read it yourself!

Ohh man, I distinctly remember this comic. I don’t remember what issue of Nickelodeon Magazine this one is sourced from, but whichever one it was, I had it. The story’s nothing to write home about really, It's another take on the age old tale of “Squidward yells at SpongeBob and Patrick for doing something annoying, so they inadvertently ruin his life”. Squidward must have a really good lawyer for him to be able to bounce back from all the crap SpongeBob and Pat get him into.

This version of the usual story has S. Bob and P. Rick making a cake in Squidward’s image. Mr. Krabs ends up mistaking it for the real Squidward, bringing it to the Krusty Krab, and having it run the cash register, obviously to disastrous results. It’s all pretty par for the course, and there’s some funny lines to be had.

Weirdly though, unless I’m blind, I can’t seem to find any credits for this one. Not in the comic itself or at the back of the book. I’m pretty sure the artist(s) behind this one did more SpongeBob SquarePants comics though, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the same writing team had a hand in them too. I distinctly remember one where all the characters turn into desserts. Or maybe it was an alternate universe where they’re all desserts? Something like that. Maybe I’ll find it and cover it on this blog someday!

And up next, it’s a Wild Thornberrys comic of all things (said with feigned surprise, having read the table of contents moments ago). And I’m just now realizing none of these comics have anything to do with ghosts, or horror, really. Quite the magazine you’ve got just in time for October, Nickelodeon!

But hey, it’s not right to judge a piece of art specifically by the context in which it is presented. Especially when it was originally published in a magazine that likely came out years earlier, probably not even around the month of October. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that, even when it comes to filling the pages of a magazine.

This comic is especially cool, anyway, as you can no doubt tell from its distinct shakeup in style!

The story has Eliza receiving some gifts from her Japanese friend, Mayumi (who was probably in the show, presumably), one of those gifts being a homemade manga. And while I’m not exactly an expert on the Japanese arts, I certainly find this art convincing and really appreciate the attention to detail. I bet any kids that were fans of manga around this time must have felt pretty seen to have one of their hobbies referenced in a rather unlikely place, and with such attention to detail no less.

One thing I can also appreciate is that this story really isn’t something they could have pulled off in the show itself (unless they studio really wanted to have an anime-themed episode and go through the undertaking of doing an episode in an entirely different, foreign animation style all on their usual budget), so overall this is a really fun idea done quite flawlessly. My only gripe is we don’t get to see a manga-styled Nigel Thornberry, but what can you do?

Oh boy, the Tak comic, cool. Now, I know these games have their fans, but I can’t say I’m one of them. I did watch the show a bit though, but I’ve heard it has nothing to do with the games, so I guess that makes me rather unprepared to tackle this two-page comic on an intellectual, researched level. I will say though that I think the Sam Shade comic from earlier pulled off this style of free-flowing, no-panel storytelling to a much greater effect. The amount of Taks they threw around the page makes it feel really busy and cramped, and they had to essentially remove the second character Tak is traveling with from the story since I guess they were strapped for page space.

But yeah, the colors are nice at least, and Tak media is especially hard to come by nowadays, so I suppose if I were more into the property, I might be more into this.

Last comic of the day, and it’s Jimmy Neutron. At least this one kinda fits the theme, I mean, aliens are almost in the same horror-league as vampires, zombies, ghosts, and all that. This is a pretty quality one to end off the book with, and in regards to Jimmy Neutron, this is one of the better ways these characters have been translated to 2D. Although the incredibly warm colors and harsh shadows throw me for a loop. Pretty good overall!

Before we wrap things up, I would like to mention that advert for The Nicktoons Film Festival on the right. I totally forgot these used to be a thing! From 2004 to 2009 Nickelodeon hosted a film festival and let viewers vote for their favorite animated short, along with letting proper animation people who know what they’re talking about vote on their favorites, too. Lots of great up-and-coming cartoonists took part in these festivals. This one in 2005 actually featured a short by J. G. Quintel that eventually was used as a basis for his own Cartoon Network show, Regular Show! You can check the short out below:

Neat bit of history there, yeah?

Even though I’m still a bit disappointed this issue didn’t include more original content, I still think this ended up being a fairly entertaining walk down memory lane. And hey, I hope you had a good time too. I’m doubly disappointed, however, that the archive of this issue didn’t come with that tear-out poster! Now we’ll never see it in its full hi-def glory.

As always, thanks for stopping by and checking out another bit of Nick history with me. Have yourself a good one, and I’ll see you all next time!

[neveah-llama]

Why do I have gospel on My Spotify Daylist? I’m Atheist. Oh Also Here’s Some Background Info For the Fic :)

Haha ignoring the title, I just wanted to talk to you more about ‘The Impossible Adventures of the Phantom and the Ninja,’ give a sneak peak as to what I plan and maybe get your guys’ input.

So as I said before I love serialized cartoons centered around teenage superheroes. Maybe because I love comics, or because I too felt like I was living a double-life and found a connection to these characters. Still do even though I’m now older than the characters. But what I love most about them is the possibilities for world-building.

I love stories that center more about the world the author has created, along with how that world affects the character(s) relationships, traits, etc. It shows me the extent to the author’s creativity, having thought of all these cool societies, cultures that seems real like it could belong to the real world, even down to how people in that story keep track of time.

(Off topic but this is actually the main reason why I love the ATLA universe)

However I don’t really get that with the teen-superhero drama. Especially when it airs on cartoons like Disney or Nick. They do explore some topics for sure, but I’m looking more to the drawbacks of living a double-life. Mostly because I feel those drawbacks even today. Furthermore, most of these shows like Danny Phantom and Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja were only able to air due to both the networks and the creators, at least in simple terms. So sometimes shows would be canceled when it’s left at a cliff hanger (I.e. Teen Titians (2003) and RC9GN)

So that’s why I wanted to write this fanfic, I want to try to expand the worlds of both shows by connecting them together, I want to add my own flair to the characters, story arcs, and the direction of the series, and I really hope I do both shows justice because I grew up on these shows and I even still watch them (even when some words they use are outdated and just overly obnoxious/cringe)

Which brings me to the second part of this post. To those who read this far good for you, you get a cookie 🍪.

Anyways I have three arcs planned so far when it comes to this fanfic (more will defiantly be added later on). Granted it’s not all fleshed out so I’ll have to add or take out stuff as I continue with this story. But here’s a brief description and some notes for the first three arcs:

1. Origins

Obviously it’s the introduction to the story. Danny and Randy just returned to their homes a week before school starts, it’s their first year of high school and both of them have big plans for the next four years.

They just didn’t account the chance to become heroes of their respective towns.

The arc is going to be about 4 chapters long, ending with a rewrite on ‘Bitter Reunions’. The chapters will briefly glaze over the first six episodes of Danny Phantom. And the first like two/three episodes to RC9GN.

This arc will mostly focus on Danny struggling to getting a hold of his powers and Randy coming to terms that being a hero isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Only problem is I’m not sure if I want that to happen to Randy this early on the story or not. Eh, guess we’ll see what I feel like, lol.

2) Original Storyline:

It’s in the works! This is set after both of their Halloween specials in season one. Mostly because this is placed in November. I might plan a chapter or two to happen before this arc so who knows (really want to write Fanning the flames- I have plans for that one it’s all based on a joke while I started writing out the three arcs lmao). I don’t want to say anymore other than the fact I want it to focus more on Japanese myths, it’s actually how I got inspired to write this fic so I’m really excited.

3) Interlude:

After that week-long adventure, Randy, Danny and friends slowly adjust to their new normal. Mostly just rewrites of canon episodes to help build up to another major story arc that is forming in my head at the moment. (It’s definitely a canon one just to give you a hint).

Anyways so yeah. That’s all I have so far. Thanks for reading, love y’all!

Ps if you see a poll thing, no you don’t. This is my first time posting on tumblr via phone and I don’t know how to delete it. (I’m not old I swear I’m in my early twenties 😭)

[sesamestreep]

30 Day Writing Challenge - Day 4

Write about your MC’s personal style (from this list) ➸ set in the Bakeoff AU, before the events of summer came like cinnamon, so sweet and referencing an event from the first chapter of @firstelevens original fic in the series (sugar pie, honey bunch) and yes, I'm aware this is a huuuuge stretch for this prompt, don't worry about it!

Karen’s just left them to go get another round from the bar when Foggy’s phone starts ringing. On the screen, a photo of Daisy looking comically crestfallen while holding a ruined sufflé pops up and Foggy swipes to accept the call immediately.

“Hey, Daisy, what’s up?” he asks, aiming for casual but…well, Daisy’s roughly his age and avoids talking on the phone as much as anyone of their generation does, if not more. He’s slightly concerned that something must be wrong. Across from him, Matt’s expression turns pinched, probably because he’s thinking the same thing or he can hear the worry in Foggy’s voice.

“Did you watch the episode last night?” Daisy asks, without preamble or greeting. 

“Oh, yeah. I mean, me and Karen did. Matt fell asleep like ten minutes in.”

Daisy scoffs over the line at the same time as Matt says, “I already apologized like five times for that!”

Pulling the phone away from his mouth slightly, Foggy says, “I know you did. And I forgive you. I know how important your beauty sleep is to you.”

Matt rolls his eyes, looking vaguely embarrassed at the same time. Foggy’s not sure if the extended time away during the show has made old things he’d gotten used to before new again or if this really is something new, but Matt’s easier to fluster than he remembered. Foggy could have sworn he made lots of jokes about Matt’s good looks and Matt always just brushed them off. This new shyness about it is surprising.

“Anyway,” Foggy says, turning his attention back to Daisy, “I saw the episode. Why do you ask?”

“Have you been online at all today?”

“You mean, have I been connected to the Internet at all? Yes, of course, Daisy, come on!”

“No, I mean, on social media,” Daisy says, impatiently.

“I don’t really use social media. You know that.”

“I know you have your finsta,” she replies. “I didn’t know if anyone had tagged you in anything there. Or if you have a dummy twitter account to lurk sometimes.”

Foggy laughs. “God, no!”

“Don’t say it like it’s totally ludicrous! People do it!”

“Yeah, but not me,” Foggy says, still laughing. “I’m just a simple country lawyer. What need have I of your twitters and your algorithms?”

He feels like he can hear Daisy roll her eyes on the other end of the call. “You’re such a dork!”

“Sorry. What’s so important that you needed to call me on the phone to ask if I have a secret Twitter account?”

“The Internet is freaking out about you, Foggy Nelson.”

Foggy’s stomach sinks. “It is?” he asks. “What did I do?”

“You looked too damn hot in this week’s episode, apparently.”

“I—what?” Foggy asks, feeling so utterly stupid. None of those words made any sense to him, which is troubling because most of them were pretty simple. “Wait, did I look really sweaty or something?”

“No, dumbass,” Daisy says, “I mean ‘hot’ like ‘god, he’s so hot, I want to have his babies,’ which, by the way, is a real tweet I read about you not fifteen minutes ago.”

“What?!” Foggy basically shouts, which makes Matt lean forward in his seat and give him a questioning look.

“Your humility is really beyond the pale, Franklin. It’s like you don’t know you’re hot!”

“I don’t know that,” he says, still freaking out slightly. “I’ve been called that by three, maybe four people in my whole life before today! It’s not a common occurrence.”

“I don’t believe that for a second,” Daisy says, because she’s fundamentally loyal and it makes her confused sometimes. 

“Well, if it’s happening a lot, it must be behind my back, then.”

Matt, apparently done with being out of the loop, reaches across the table to poke Foggy’s wrist with his index finger. Foggy replies in turn by patting Matt’s hand with his twice, hoping that conveys that there’s no emergency. 

“Well, it’s happening a lot on Twitter right now,” Daisy replies. “Which, I guess is still behind your back, technically.”

“That’s…great, I guess…”

“I thought you’d be happier,” she says, sounding worried. “You seem upset.”

“It’s just weird to think about,” Foggy says, keeping his tone mild. He’s not mad at Daisy by any stretch, but having people outside of the neighborhood know who he is and have strong opinions about him has proven to be a tougher concept to reckon with than he originally anticipated. “It’s that thing of being perceived in a way that I have no control over.”

“Yeah, I get that,” Daisy replies, thoughtfully. “I just…I thought you should know you’re the Internet’s reigning boyfriend at the moment.”

Foggy laughs, still feeling weird but in a warmer, cozier way than before. “Well, it’s an honor to be somebody’s boyfriend, I suppose.”

Matt’s head perks up at that, like a dog who’s heard a strange noise, and Foggy resists the urge to laugh at him for it. Karen returns with their next round at that precise moment, too, and makes a face at this pronouncement as she slides Foggy’s beer across the table to him. He also sees her look over at Matt, as if he’ll have more answers somehow.

“I’m guessing based on your blasé reaction to this news that I shouldn’t send you a curated collection of mine and Colleen’s favorite tweets about how gorgeous you are?” Daisy asks, innocently.

“For the sake of my mental health, you probably shouldn’t,” Foggy replies, “but honestly, today’s been a weird one and we had a miserable time in court, so it might cheer me up.”

Daisy squeals excitedly, which is not a noise Foggy knew she made before this very moment. She didn’t even make that noise when she won Bake-Off, not that he’s allowed to tell anyone that yet. “That’s what I like to hear,” she exclaims. “Alright, well, get ready for some screenshots. And also sorry in advance for any psychological damage I may cause.”

“Thanks,” Foggy laughs. “Both for the apologies in advance and for making sure I knew about this.”

“What are friends for?” Daisy sighs happily, and then hangs up without a goodbye.

“What’s going on?” Karen asks as she takes a sip from her beer.

“Have you been on Twitter today?” he asks, in response.

“I’m a journalist, Foggy. Unfortunately, most of my life is spent on Twitter.”

“Do you follow any Bake-Off people there?”

“I might follow the official twitter for the show itself, but I’m not sure. Why?”

“Apparently, Twitter is freaking out about me in last night’s episode.”

“Really? What do they have to freak out about?” Matt asks, frowning.

Foggy shrugs. “I don’t know. Just me, I guess? I looked good or something.”

“I told you that you looked good last night,” Karen says, gesturing broadly to convey her annoyance. “You didn’t believe me.”

“You’re one of my best friends, Karen. You have to lie to me about that kind of thing!”

“No, I don’t! And I wasn’t!”

“Well, you’re about to be vindicated,” Foggy says. “Daisy and Colleen are sending me screenshots.”

As if on cue, Foggy’s phone lights up with several messages being sent to his and Colleen and Daisy’s group chat and the notifications don’t slow down at all for another full minute.

“God,” Foggy says, just looking at the new messages pouring in. “She wasn’t kidding.”

“You want to read them,” Karen asks, with a bright, dangerous look in her eye, “or shall I?”

Foggy hands over his phone without a second thought. “Probably better if you do it,” he says, feeling genuine panic and terror at the idea. It’s too late to go back now, though. He’s gotten her hopes up.

“Oh my god,” Karen says, after he’s gotten his phone unlocked for her. She puts her hand to her mouth to disguise her…horror? Amusement? Both? It’s hard to tell.

“What?” Foggy asks, anxiously, and Matt turns over his hand underneath Foggy’s palm so he can give it a quick squeeze, which…that shouldn’t be as soothing as it actually is. It’s, frankly, ridiculous that it helps so much.

“Foggy,” Karen says, excitedly, “you’re a sensation!”

+

guy with no problems • juliachildsplay

um… hello?? Foggy coming into the tent with those little braids??? I’m experiencing symptoms????

the hateful nate • nateorade

I’ve been online too long because the minute I saw Foggy Nelson with his hair in braids, I just shouted OOOHHH GENDER!! at the top of my lungs. my gf and my cat both left the room in protest.

kelly nguyen • gaygrenadine

me normally: it’s so embarrassing when cis dudes get so much credit for the mildest defiance of gender norms… me seeing foggy’s braids in GABO: yasss queen thank you for my rights 🌈🙌 gender is sooo over!!

brynn it to wynn it • flibbertigibbety

I did not actually think Foggy could get hotter to me than when he responded to people ridiculing his French pronunciation by revealing he speaks fluent Punjabi, but I was WRONG!! 

Ezekiel (he/they) • ezeydoesitt

how is anyone getting any baking done right now when foggy is there looking so so good?? couldn’t be me!!!

world’s #1 trilla apologist • eldritchedeelite

lord, I am not one of your strongest soldiers… foggy in that salmon colored t-shirt and those braids… I am WEAK

dinah (derogatory) • surelytemple

my two cents is that Ava deserves star baker this week because she is somehow still baking with foggy nelson’s whole beautiful self directly in her eye line. talk about performing under pressure.

bram (not stoker) • bramblinnmann

I am watching bakeoff with my family right now and it’s getting very difficult to pretend to be straight in front of them when Foggy’s out here looking this hot

your future canceled wife • thecouturevulture

THEM: hey how was bakeoff this week? what did everyone make? was it good? ME: FOGGY NELSON WORE HIS HAIR IN BRAIDS!!! 

citizen paddington  • genderemporia

I literally couldn’t tell you a single thing that happened in this episode of GABO. Foggy appeared onscreen and my brain shut off for the next hour. I came to and I was googling wedding venues, idk man

Kira Iris • villainesque

I don’t condone people getting obsessed with public figures and violating their privacy but if some of yall wanted to be weird and find out if Foggy’s “partner” he references is a business thing or a romantic thing, I would look the other way just this once

Default Username, Esq. • shrimpheavencanwait

thank god foggy nelson isn’t on social media or I would be embarrassing myself I would be in those DMs like cheese filling in a danish I would be bringing shame upon my ancestors for that man I promise you

Helena Bee 🐝♿️ • bananabreadcrumbs

that part of the episode where Colleen walked behind Foggy and pulled one of his braids to say hello and he smiled at her??? It just hurts to see other people live your dreams???

spy x savage x fenty  • coolnormalchill

foggy deserves star baker because he cured my depression and my gender dysphoria in one fell swoop and that’s that on that

Lindy the SEO bitch • easilysearchablebrandname

other bakers: [make the snack] Foggy Nelson: [is the snack]

sayid’s secret account! • sayidsayless

I didn’t hear who won star baker, I didn’t see who got sent home, l learned nothing about sweet dough, I was busy googling foggy nelson Instagram foggy nelson partner foggy nelson star sign 

hb lovecraft • hazelbleu

I've already decided to call out sick from work tomorrow so I can spend the whole day watching the inevitable Foggy fancams that will come from this week’s GABO. It’s my duty as an American.

go gert go • yorkestown

if there’s any uneven bakes this week, we all know it’s because Foggy was simply too hot to handle and it threw off everyone’s baking times

SORRY 4 PARTY BROCKIN’ • attackthebrock

foggy saying that one thing he loves about bakeoff is never having a shortage of people to share his bakes with, because normally it’s just up to his partner to finish them. ME AND WHO TBH????

nora mcclain 👻🥀🖤 • themostest

Foggy explaining the hot cross bun recipe he’s making prompted my (allegedly) straight husband to say, out of nowhere, “I’d let him put a bun in MY oven!” Like, sir??? I’m right here???

stardew valley girl • wooloolemon

it’s crazy how many babies are going to be born nine months from the airing of Great American Bake-Off Season 3 Episode 6

Tolkien Straightguy • helmsdeepthroat

it’s pretty normal for me to end an episode of bake-off hungrier than I was before, but I’ve never finished one this THIRSTY my god

maddie📍grad school hell • doctorwormphd

seeing foggy with those french braids made me crazy y’all!! I almost redownloaded tinder I was so lost in the sauce

blandine montpetit ☮️💟 • peaceandloafs

Ava’s star baker moment was so deserved, I’m just sorry we were all too distracted by Foggy being the cutest human alive to really appreciate it. But not sorry enough that it won’t happen again.

+

“We’ve strayed very far from the light of god, I think,” Foggy says, with his face pressed into the sticky surface of the table, which…yeah, bad idea, but one of many he’s had tonight. Matt pats the back of his neck with a hand that was maybe supposed to be more in the direction of his head and ended up somewhere more weirdly intimate by accident. Foggy lifts his head to put an end to it, not because it didn’t feel nice but precisely because it did and that in turn makes him feel a bunch of messy emotions he doesn’t like. “Karen, what are you doing? Are there more?”

“Yes, but they’re getting a little redundant, honestly,” she says, squinting at his phone’s screen. “Everybody wants you to impregnate them, apparently.”

Matt chokes on air at the same time as Foggy chokes on his beer, so it takes both of them a few seconds to recover and respond. 

“They what?” Matt asks, looking pale.

“The power of a new hairstyle,” Karen says, with a self-satisfied smile, though she directs it at Matt, for some reason. They have a lot more meaningful looks and mysterious half-conversations these days than they used to before Foggy went away to film the show. At least, that’s how it feels to him and if Karen didn’t have a boyfriend that she seemed to love a lot, he’d be worried that she and Matt were going to try dating again, for all it was a disaster the (admittedly brief) first time. Instead, it feels like they developed a shorthand while he was away and, granted he also made a bunch of close friends who he essentially talks to in baking-themed twin speak, it still makes him feel strange. He didn’t think him being away for the time that he was would change so much, but apparently it did. Matt and Karen speak in code now, and the Internet wants to fuck him. Life is strange.

“Do you really talk about me on the show that much?” Matt asks, apropos of nothing, it feels like.

“What? What do you mean?”

“A lot of those tweets referenced you talking about your partner,” Matt replies, looking thoughtful. “That’s me, I assume.”

“Yes, obviously,” Foggy says as his face heats. “Why shouldn’t I talk about you?”

“I’m not saying you shouldn’t. I just didn’t realize it was enough to be noticeable.”

“One thing I’ve learned about the Bake-Off viewers is that they notice everything,” Foggy says. “And I don’t mean to talk about you a lot, but you’re important to me and you’re in most of my stories and…all that…”

Matt seems to be thinking hard about that, while Karen is sitting with her chin resting in the palm of her hand, still scrolling through Foggy’s phone. 

“What are you doing over there, Page?” Foggy asks, in the hopes of distracting everyone from the corny admission he just made that got met with silence. 

“Just sending a few of these to my phone,” she says, with a sheepish look. “I want to show Frank.”

“God, no!” Foggy yelps as he reaches out to snatch his phone back. “I don’t need Frank knowing about these! It’s bad enough Matt had to hear them!”

“Why is it bad for me to know?” Matt asks, startled out of his reverie by the mention of his name.

“Because you think all of this is stupid!”

“All of what? Twitter?”

“No,” Foggy sighs, and then thinks it over. “I mean, I assume you do think Twitter is largely stupid, actually—”

“And you’d be right,” Karen adds.

“What I meant was you think all this stuff about the show is stupid.”

“No, I don’t,” Matt says, frowning. “I mean, I confess I don’t understand half the stuff you say on the show or about it, but that doesn’t mean I think it’s stupid. If anything, it makes me think I’m stupid.”

“Well, you certainly can’t be impressed by everything Karen just read us,” Foggy replies, gesturing with his phone. He’s aware, in the back of his mind, that he’s doing that thing you’re never supposed to do and negotiating against himself, but he can’t really stop it, for some reason. “It makes the fans of the show sound insane!”

“I understood even less of that than I do of the baking terminology, honestly,” Matt admits, “but I think most of those people have the right idea.”

“You mean, hitting on Foggy via Twitter? You think that’s the right move in this situation?” Karen asks, and there’s some kind of play acting going on in her tone, like she’s goading Matt about something that Foggy doesn’t have the context for.

“I’m saying Foggy’s loveable,” Matt replies to her with an unexpected amount of heat. “I don’t know why he acts like he isn’t.”

Foggy blinks at them, feeling like he’s stepped into the middle of an old argument he didn’t know about. “Am I still a part of this conversation, or…?”

Karen’s expression clears first and she turns to Foggy with a reluctantly amused expression, like she doesn’t know what to do with him, he’s so silly. “Of course you are! Matt and I were just agreeing about how great we think you are! That’s all!”

“Yeah, sure,” Foggy replies. It sure as hell didn’t sound like two people agreeing on anything, but he’s willing to let it go. “Well, if I’ve learned anything from this uncomfortable incident, it’s that I should braid my hair more often.”

“And that you look good in that salmon-colored shirt,” Karen adds, helpfully. 

“Which is too bad, because I spilled ink all over it a few weeks ago.”

“Writing with a quill again?” Matt asks, innocently.

“No, I was helping Ruthie,” Foggy says, rolling his eyes when Matt’s smiles stupidly at his own joke. “Her newest hobby is calligraphy.”

“I thought she was into knitting now?” Karen says.

“Old news,” Foggy replies. “I’m just praying her next kick is baking so it can be something I’m even remotely good at.”

“I suppose it’s too much to ask that she gets really interested in reading up on legal precedent, huh?” Matt asks, thoughtfully.

“Yeah, probably,” Foggy laughs. “The point is, my magical salmon shirt that apparently makes me irresistible to random people on the Internet is out of commission.”

“Oh, well,” Karen sighs. “You’ll just have to subsist on the attentions of your local admirers.”

Foggy takes a sip of his beer. “I wasn’t aware I had any of those,” he says.

“Probably a lot more than you think,” she says, and she’s giving Matt another one of those weird looks again. Foggy decides it’s probably safer not to ask, and resolves to change the subject instead.

[which-hospital]

Haunted (24/02/24)

I feel ill and tired but I watched the episode when I woke up, so.

I know I normally post this after the episode airs but I'm not worried about spoiling anything because all my discussion of the actual episode is below a cut. Just don't read below the cut if you haven't watched yet. Also, I'm only talking about what I can be bothered to write up (so I’m extremely focused on a few characters) because I'm really very tired and my brain is melty.

Is that really it for Paige? It felt like a pretty un-final final episode. Whether that's actually goodbye or not, PAIGE DESERVED BETTER, she's been treated like a side character in another person's life (yes, I know that person is my fave but I get to give him preferential treatment, the writers probably shouldn't) since the start of AHOV but she at least should've been the absolute focus of this episode, not the love triangle. Maybe Barriers set my standards for final episodes too high with how well they handled Sah’s exit.

The patient plot they had going on with Paige and Jodie didn’t feel like it made sense for the two of them as much as it might’ve made sense for Sah and Teddy during the original iteration of the love triangle. Like, since when are Paige and Jodie comparable to ’rush into a burning building’ friends?

I’m sure there could’ve been a way to make Teddy and Jodie interesting, I still wouldn’t have like shipped them or anything but I might’ve accepted them in the same way I accepted Teddy/Paige happening immediately after I thought we were finally getting our Sah/Teddy storyline in With a Bullet, but they have not done it and I want them to break up immediately.

The crowd's reaction to the explosion sounds like an obvious and very silly added-in sound effect and that isn't a complaint because I found it funny. Also the explosion-y scenes we saw today only represent half the explosion-y scenes in the trailer.

Jan and Teddy can have one scene together and I will love every second of it. Di Botcher and Milo Clarke play them so well, they've got the dynamic on point and I just love them so much. I completely believe, as Jan is dragging Teddy away from running into a burning building, that she has been been putting up with him for 24 years. As silly as that can be, I also think it really adds to their storylines (when they get them...), being able to believe that Jan has known Teddy his whole life fuels the I-need-to-lie-down feeing I get any time I think about Teddy and Jan when Teddy was younger.

I’m interested in Tariq. It must be hard to introduce a new main character who already has a relationship with another main character because you have to really hit the ground running, it's probably why the Holbyverse is so full of estranged families. But they did it well with Jan and Teddy and I hope they do it with Rash and Tariq too.

I think I like Siobhan but in the sense that when I was giving my non-Casualty friends the weekly Casualty update, the overwhelming response to "there's a new clinical nurse manager and she's older" was "GIRLFRIEND FOR JAN??????" which I doubt will happen but it's a brilliant suggestion.

She’s what the ED needs, though. Everything is exploding all the time and she has shown up to try and stop that a bit and I love her for it.

With the Harry and Mel stuff: Stevie will be obviously fucking right and they’ll (Charlie and FAITH) all be like “omg Stevie is overreacting fr” IS SHE???? hhhhhhhh… SIOBHAN KNOWS SHE’S RIGHT THOUGH (I’m happier with how this stuff has been this week, actually, just because the show isn’t also treating her like she’s unreasonable anymore)

I’m sure other stuff, important plot stuff, happened but I've not got much brain power left for words so I'm leaving it here.

OH, WAIT, YEAH. “Must have a hell of a bromance going on to go back in there." Theodore, my love, you got shot for your best friend, though that wasn't really a 'bromance' situation, was it? Aughshsh... I miss them and the get-a-room-losers way they used to stare at each other so much.

[firestarter91]

16 years ago today Merlin first aired and we said hello to these adorable idiots

Awwww come on just look at them!

I love their relationship dynamic even if there were times I wanted to bang both their idiotic heads together.

I realised a few days ago we were coming up to its original air date (20th September 2008), I loved the show from the very first, having always enjoyed reading about the Arthurian legends, meeting these characters before they were famous was such a great idea. It was a fresh take on the heroes and villains of a legendary story that still strongly resonates today.

From the opening strains of the rousing theme tune, seeing the castle looking straight out of a fairytale, it gave the briefest nod to the real early medieval period but that didn’t really matter as the cast were so engaging. I drifted away from the fandom at different times to focus on other things over the next decade or so but it kept callling me back time and time again. When I’m feeling sick or sad I usually curl up on the sofa and watch one of my favourite episodes, it’s my brand of comfort food.

I continue to adore this show, more than any other, and one of the key reasons is because of Merlin and Arthur. Bradley and Colin were perfectly cast and blessed their roles with fantastic chemistry. I remember sitting down Saturday tea time every week to watch it live with the family so excited to see their adventures and that of the rest of the cast. Even now the stirring music sends shivers down my spine, and my heart swells. It was charming, cheesy, funny, silly, serious and heartbreaking and oh so many things.

It was also the start of the Merthur ship which helps keep the show firmly alive and well in so many fans hearts and minds today, so thank you Bradley and Coiln for bringing these people to life, it says a lot when people talk about Merlin and Arthur now I think of them.

I have created my own happy ending since alas both the boys and the audience didn’t get one. I’m convinced they’re still together snarking and bickering away. Arthur knows the full extent of Merlin’s magical powers and they’re off having more adventures as Arthur continues to forge his path towards greatness as the King Arthur of legend with Merlin, his ever loyal supportive counsellor and friend.

[purble-gaymer]

THOSE LAST COUPLE CHAPTERS HIT HARD

I just got caught up on your fic and I always oh so love the interactions between the three knight bros. I also adored how you wrote the interactions between Meta Knight and Dedede. I'm a huge fan of redededemption arc and it's why in my hcs I count (an altered version of) the anime as a precursor to the games. I really think that anime Dedede gets a little more hate than he should. He's selfish and a jerk but he's been like that in the games too. I don't like it when people characterize anime Dedede as truly evil and undeserving of redemption because he's meant to be seen more as downright childlike to a fault, even having fits and not being able to read. He's more negligent of real danger even when he's the one causing it than he is downright cruel, and that was proven in the episode where he really thought Kirby died (which was actually a pretty fucked up thing to pull imo). My point is that I think that's exactly how Meta Knight sees him in the anime. Bothersome, spoiled, and a conductor for events that become far more serious than he ever thinks they are. Truly, Dedede has no idea what he's up against with Nightmare, and Meta Knight doesn't hold him responsible for that. He's just there to make sure nothing goes too wrong and shrugs off the childlike berating Dedede gives him afterwards. But for all of that Dedede never stays mad at Meta Knight, and likewise Meta Knight looks out for Dedede in a way by also making sure his exploits don't go out of hand and harm him (since he knows Dedede is playing with fire when it comes to the monsters). Even for the flawed parts of anime Dedede's characterization he's just an immature king who isn't actually that much of a feal threat, just like in the games -- and Meta Knight is his loyal knight who puts up with his antics. Sorry for the drabble but again my point is I just felt like you nailed their interactions PERFECTLY. I can absolutely see in your writing the potential for how their friendship would grow overtime. All the characters really are just silly fellas, reading them gives off those same vibes from the anime. Anyway, I just wanted to compliment you over that .o.

uwhjg. thank you !!😭 dedede has always been a fun character to write whether it’s a serious scene or a silly one, and i wanted to set them on the same course they take in the games. of course, it’ll still be a long time before everyone sets aside their differences enough to become friends, but it’s a start. matching the characterization of the show while doing everything i wanted to was a challenge, but it’s good to hear it paid off! dedede is misled and inexperienced, but he’s still dedede. there are inklings of the character we know today, it’ll just take time for him to grow from his original characterization. like, it takes until triple deluxe for kirby and dedede to really work together. now that nightmare’s gone, it’ll probably follow a similar course.

i’ve had one or two people mention leading up to 93 that not a lot of writers look at mk & ddd’s relationship in too much depth, and i agree. i didn’t get into is as much as i would’ve liked to, but i tried to include it whenever i could because they’re so interesting. you see them hanging out like friends but you also see them constantly denying the other’s wishes and fighting about it later. not to mention the whole ‘let’s blow up the halberd’ debacle. we’ll talk about that another day. but to my original point, dedede gets shelved a lot in favor of developing other characters and it’s a shame. he’d be just as important after nme’s destruction. he’s still got kirby to deal with, after all. it’s not like he and meta knight never interact, either. i’ve inserted a lot of scenes but there are plenty of times mk just shows up in the throne room to ask about something. even things like mk helping dedede with his plan to get kirby into the grand prix in 35/36 are suggested by the fact dedede and escargoon are in the storage room with him when he talks to kirby. these scenes are really only baseless in episodes where the knights don’t appear at all (i’m pretty sure they aren’t actually in 93).

i’d like to say dedede starts to realize just how serious things are after 89 because of the whole…incident with mk, but because that didn’t really happen, it’s not reflected in the show. maybe it’s more in the back of his mind, sort of a ‘no, that can’t be right!’ thought that he can’t quite dismiss. by the time the destroya come along, he just goes along with things because he wants to stop the attack. he certainly understands the danger once they’re at there fortress, so he has to have realized at some point. i think meta knight also starts to gain a level of respect for him after my made-up 89 epilogue, if only because he brought him back to sword and blade to make sure he was safe after. they wouldn’t have fought so openly in 93 if it were the beginning of the show—dedede might’ve been a little upset, but what’s it matter? meta knight is just another soldier under his lead. they’ve been through a lot by the end, and they’re going to go through more.

i wish the show gave them more interactions. i think that’s part of the problem. all you really see of them is mk asking questions from time to time, and it doesn’t establish anything beyond their usual fronts. it feels uninteresting and surface-level. but there’s so much more there that can be brought out simply by removing them from the situation and letting them talk on their own.

shit i just thought of something so i’m gonna talk a little more—the opening of 60 is sort of a fun example. their interaction is very short, but shows a lot. dedede and escargoon come into the courtyard with their destroyed car, and dedede shouts for meta knight to get down there and help. sure, it can be read as a nothing command, but it’s also a declaration of ‘this is serious, we need /your/ help because i know you know what you’re doing.’ he doesn’t call for the waddle dees to line up at the gate and prepare to battle, he calls for meta knight’s help specifically. (i’m pretty sure sirica asks about star warriors before blasting them, but i’m not sure she ever says mk’s name. they probably don’t know she’s actively looking for him at this point.)

i wanted to express everyone as having room to change, because that’s part of what the series is about. it’s about love and it’s about change, and even if the anime isn’t so bubbly bright and happy as the games, the anime is about that, too. they all have their own lives and they all have places they’re going, even if we don’t get to see what happens after they get home to dreamland. these aren’t static characters, as simple as they seem. they have history, they’re layered, and yes, they are very, very silly. letting that potential go ignored would be a crime, wouldn’t it?

[watchingspnagain]

Rewatching Sex and Violence

Welcome to “Mind the Rocks, Boys: A Supernatural Rewatch Blog” with Lor and Mace!

Up today, s4e14: Sex and Violence.

Men are killing their wives for what seems to be no good reason, and so the boys, of course, investigate. Turns out they’re on the hunt for a siren, which takes on the form its victim most desires. In the midst of the hunt, tensions between the brothers are simmering, mostly because Dean hates that Sam is doing whatever he’s doing with Ruby and lying to him about it. It doesn’t help that the Hot Doc they meet while on the case is totally into Sam and not Dean (this isn’t a situation Dean’s familiar or comfy with), and when Dean finds out Sam has boinked her in her office while he’s supposed to be working, Dean accuses HD of being the siren and goes off to solve the case on his own. Jokes on him, though, because the FBI agent he teams up with IS, in fact, the siren (oh, and should we talk about how it’s presenting as a dude for Dean?). Eventually FBI Siren infects both brothers and it honestly doesn’t take much stick-poking to get them right at each other’s throats. In fact, they come very close to killing each other when Bobby shows up just in time to gank the monster and save the day. #bestfosterdadever. The episode ends with Bobby leaving the boys with a slight stinkeye, and the boys shoving their real feelings under the rug, as per yoosh.

Below is a log of our real-time reactions as we watched. Remember that there may be spoilers for any part of SPN’s 15-season run here. Note also that the nature of our conversation is adult and thus it may contain adult language and themes.

 [and we begin:]

Mace:

Cas you’re such a snitch

Lor:

LOL

Lor:

this is why you don't keep a meat tenderizer around

Mace:

or maybe just not marry a douche

Lor:

aw lookit ’im sleepin

Lor:

well sure

Lor:

Sam's wearing Wes's sweater!

Mace:

i think you mean honshooing

Mace:

YES

Lor:

LOL

Lor:

now, Dean

Lor:

let's not judge people by their names

Mace:

yeah

Mace:

so this guy’s a dick in several directions. got it.

Lor:

right?

Lor:

I mean, I know there's wacky shit happening, but still

Mace:

yep

Mace:

demons didn’t make him walk into that strip club

Lor:

NOPE

Lor:

"far as I know" LOL

Mace:

HA

Lor:

look it him all in his lovely suit, all leaning forward all earnest

Mace:

yeah. she needs to back off though

Lor:

LOL

Lor:

she does

Lor:

I LOVE that everyone is either a Sam girl or a Dean girl [gender neutral]

Mace:

i mean, Sam in a suit will produce those levels

Lor:

YEP

Mace:

DEAN. WINCHESTER.

Lor:

lololol

Lor:

"I read"

Mace:

HA

Lor:

or it could be whoever is using a Disney princess name

Mace:

(Sirens didn’t lure the men in with sex - they sang to them songs that told stories of the men being great heroes and THAT’s what the men couldn’t resist)

Mace:

HA

Lor:

(oooo. that is so much more interesting)

Mace:

(yep. that’s usually the case with modern takes vs original tales)

Lor:

this is why you don't keep fire pokers around

Mace:

snork

Lor:

everyone would be fine if they just ridded themselves of these heavy blunt objects

Lor:

you glare at that phone, Dean, you glare at it

Mace:

sure sure

Mace:

Dean. Quit snooping

Lor:

he's so WORRIED. and so boundary hopping

Mace:

mrrrph

Mace:

dude. it sounds pretty straight forward

Lor:

right?

Lor:

the misdirection in this ep is awesome

Mace:

you mean the doc?

Lor:

yeah

Mace:

Ha! I feel like it’s pretty blunt, really

Lor:

oh well FINE, smarty pants

Lor:

I was totally fooled the first time

Lor:

heeee Bobby

Mace:

I mean, she’s clearly pulling all these boys in

Lor:

yeah

Mace:

Dean’s freckles are out of control

Lor:

you're supposed to have a one-night stand with him, Dean

Lor:

YAAAS

Mace:

well he knows stuff about Baby and loves her, so he’s halfway there

Lor:

YEP

Lor:

i don't get strip clubs? aren't you just getting all worked up with no way to do something about it?

Mace:

perfect for men who like to pretend to have big dicks

Lor:

LOL

Lor:

so what's the appeal? is it all performance? lookit me I'm at the strip club I'm such a man?

Lor:

wouldn't watching porn at home be more fun?

Lor:

confused in introvert ace

Mace:

maybe it’s like sex larping? they get to pretend for a bit that the women are actually into them?

Lor:

aaah yeah maybe

Mace:

my GOD Sammy looks good in this ep

Lor:

he DOES

Lor:

the undone collar and rolled up sleeves

Lor:

nice parallelism bt Sam and the doc hanging out and connecting with their work clothes a little after-hours rumpled and Dean and Nick doing the same thing

Mace:

yeah

Mace:

Sam. Come on. She’s gross.

Lor:

right?

Lor:

she's just annoying

Mace:

SUPER annoying

Mace:

because you just boned her, Sam

Lor:

yeah, that's not a hunch, Sam, that's an erection

Mace:

HAHAHAHA

Mace:

“what’s with you and banging monsters"

Mace:

HAHAHAHAHA

Lor:

LOL

Mace:

okay mister I Poked The Stupidest Angel

Lor:

LOLOLOLOLOL

Mace:

mmmm, toast

Lor:

"crazy on toast"

Lor:

LOLOLOLOL

Lor:

with some butter and cinnamon and sugar

Lor:

aw, Dean. he just wants someone to value him

Mace:

yep

Lor:

I VALUE YOU DEAN

Mace:

it’s stupid though that they’re playing it as if the siren is offering dudebro status. Come on.

Lor:

yeah, Dean doesn't want to be brothers with you, Nick

Lor:

RIGHT?!

Lor:

I mean, sure, part of why this works is bc Dean is feeling alienated from Sam, but he absolutely does not want Nick like a brother

Mace:

“and it wasn’t some bitch in a g-string” well, they at least got it half right

Lor:

YEP

Mace:

EW

Lor:

ick

Mace:

oh really, Dean? you’re not hiding stuff?

Lor:

yeeeeah

Lor:

Sam! Stop underestimating Dean's intelligence

Lor:

neither of these two get pie

Mace:

Ha!

Lor:

dude playing Nick is 100% playing this like lovers not brothers

Mace:

and Bobby’s stronger and smarter than both of them

Lor:

YAAAAAS

Lor:

"you boys are drivin, ain't ya?"

Lor:

I LOVE Dad!Bobby

Mace:

YES

Lor:

Bobby. Knock their heads together

Mace:

Aw, Bobby. Good parenting

Lor:

YES

Lor:

"course, me too"

Lor:

you lying little dopes

Mace:

totally unintentional I’m sure, but I love that the siren caused them to tell each other truths they didn’t want to hear instead of lies they did

Lor:

YAAAAAS

[toujokaname]

Get Along / Episode 4

Author: Kino Seitaro with Akira

Characters: Tatsumi, Hiyori, Hokuto, Arashi, Kanata

"That's—my "wish", from the bottom of my heart."

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Location: Old Seisoukan Building

Season: Winter

Tatsumi: I've returned. Arashi-san said she left something in her room, so she'll come back later―

Oh? It seems no one is here. I heard that Hiyori-san was practicing by himself today.

Hiyori: ......

Tatsumi: (Mm? So, Hiyori-san was on the balcony.)

(Is he on the phone with someone...?)

Hiyori: "...Yes. Yes. I know."

"The next reading drama will be my last job. After that, I'll spend my time properly as a son of the Tomoe household, so please let me finish this project."

"I don't intend to ask for an extension―after I've already asked for one."

"I'll keep my promise. I will retire after the end of the year SS. That was the agreement."

Tatsumi: ...!

(As I thought, Hiyori-san's statement about his "last job" wasn't a misunderstanding on my part.)

(But I never thought that Hiyori-san would retire from being an idol―)

Hiyori: Hmm. Eavesdropping isn't acceptable, is it?

Tatsumi: I'm sorry, I just came back.

Eavesdropping wasn't my intention, but I walked in at the wrong time.

Still, is what you said true? That this reading drama in the Shuffle Project will be your last job...

Hiyori: Yes. I didn't mean to hide it. I was going to say it when the Shuffle Members were all in sync, but it's true.

Of course, I know you have a lot of questions... But it's better to talk about these things in the presence of everyone. Can we do it when everyone in Getto Spectacle is here?

Tatsumi: ...Of course. Do so whenever you're ready, Hiyori-san.

Hiyori: Thank you. I'm glad you understand.

Hiyori: Everyone. Thank you for gathering here.

Originally, we were going to have dinner together at this time, but...

There's something I really need to tell you. Will you listen to me for a minute?

Hokuto: What's the matter, you're being so formal... It's not like the usual Tomoe-senpai.

Arashi: Could it be, maybe Tomoe-senpai also thought there was a problem with living in the old building―?

Kanata: Is that true...?

There's no need to force ourselves to live "together", but... Maybe we can talk about it a little more?

Hiyori: No, that's not what I want to talk about. Communication is important, but I should've told you something more important than that.

To tell you the truth, I'm retiring from idol work at the end of this job.

Hokuto: Retiring...?!

Impossible, for Tomoe-senpai to do that... This isn't a bad joke, is it?

Kanata: I'm "surprised", too. Do the people in "Eden" and Anzu-san know about this?

Hiyori: Yes. I've already told the people closest to me.

According to the Tomoe household's policy, I was supposed to go back to my parents' home after graduating from high school.

But I was worried about Jun-kun and Eden, so I asked for a one-year extension.

Because of that, I was going to make the year-end SS my last job and turn down this project, but when I heard that the theme was "Princess Kaguya", I hesitated a little.

A role that would let me say goodbye―Maybe this could be the one last role I play for my fans. That's what I thought.

So, I volunteered to be the leader.

"DJ Classics" is a popular educational program that brings together famous creators and star guests.

That kind of treatment would be appropriate for my last job before I retire―Everyone in Eden agreed.

Tatsumi: I just heard about it a short while ago, and it still shocks me.

I didn't notice a single sign of such a thing, and I had no idea that discussions of that manner had been going on behind the scenes―

Hiyori: Well, it's no wonder you're surprised. I don't really like for things to get gloomy.

An idol like a bright sun who had a smile on his face until the very end―I wanted everyone to think that Tomoe Hiyori was just like that.

Tatsumi: Hiyori-san...

Kanata & Arashi: ......

Hokuto: I see... So that's why Tomoe-senpai was so enthusiastic about this Shuffle Project.

Tatsumi: Yes... I'm unaware of what these family matters entail, but―

This job must be a parting gift from Anzu-san and ES, to the wonderful idol named Hiyori-san.

Hiyori: I guess it's a bit like that. I wish I could've been an idol for longer. Ahh, jeez... Seriously, such bad weather.

I thought it would be a special project, but the members of Getto Spectacle still aren't in sync, and there's only a week left―the worst possible situation.

Hiyori: But it's not over yet.

I want to make this job a success no matter what. I hope you will all help me decorate the path to the end of my career[1].

That's―my "wish", from the bottom of my heart.

Hiyori uses the term 花道, which literally means "flower path", but it's also used to refer to the honorable end to one's career, specifically in the manner of a performer leaving the stage towards the audience in order to receive flowers. It also refers to the art of flower arrangement, as Hiyori is part of Reimei's Flower Arrangement Club.

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[waitmyturtles]

As promised from last night’s post of hyperbolic surprise at the ending of The New Employee, my review: 

I was insanely excited for this show when I first caught up with it, because I thought (and honestly, I still think this) it had so much good stuff in balance -- it had heat and confessions, a boldness towards managing attraction between a superior and a junior in a workplace, two out guys being out and comfortable with it (and thus, none of the struggle of one of the characters being afraid of being in a queer relationship, as we see so very often in QLs), and it had this great story of an intern being immediately successful in a competitive workplace. All REALLY good storylines.

Before I go on, I desperately want to think that I’m not the kind of person that wants to see a show stick to the canon material -- I’m SO against that, philosophically and fundamentally. Directors and screenwriters are artists, too. Nothing in our lives is cemented in canon anything.

And yet. (Oh god, am I turning into my mother? Being someone I don’t want to be? AAAAHHHH.) I read the webtoon manhwa in the heat of being totally obsessed with this show, and I LOVED IT. Oh god, is Jong Chan a complicated character in the webtoon! He’s got a lot going on.

I got my hopes up that we’d see a bit more of that in the drama. I never wanted the drama to totally STICK to the material, but perhaps to lean into it a bit more at the end to ride out a more holistic conclusion. 

To the point of @linnie-la91, who I reblogged earlier today in their commentary about the webtoon being a slice of life piece -- I totally, 100% agree with this.  However, I would say that the workplace depictions, from the slice of life perspective, were a HEAVILY major piece to the webtoon that I had expected the drama to get a bit more into, especially for its conclusion. I’ll put a read more line here now to protect folks from manhwa SPOILERS, in case y’all ever read it.

So in the webtoon, the guys stay at AR Communications, but in different roles. We know from the drama that Jong Chan avoids management responsibilities. In the webtoon, he ends up taking on a managerial role in a different team, so that Seung Hyun can join the Planning team himself, because that’s what he’s ultimately excellent at, and Jong Chan knows that, for himself and for the sake of the company. Jong Chan plans a return to the Planning team after a few years, to re-join Seung Hyun on the same team.

It involved Jong Chan engaging in quite a bit of negotiation with the CEO, and there was a very good amount of inward-facing reckoning that he had to do to face that he, himself, was a huge part of the reason why Seung Hyun wasn’t originally offered a job. It really rocked Jong Chan.

All this stuff also came together to demonstrate Jong Chan’s love for Seung Hyun, which -- oh god, I hate myself for being all canon-mama here -- in the manhwa, had a lot of time to build up. The “I love you” between the guys in the webtoon had a long road behind it, with all that work stuff happening beforehand.

Separately, I saw on Twitter a quick commentary about the meaning, in the drama, of Jong Chan creating his own company, and how that’s indicative of his love for Seung Hyun. I totally agree with that. 

And I think I probably ruined the drama’s ending for myself by expecting to see more of the AR Communications struggle, likely because I think that I think (I’m still working on my thoughts, ha) that there was also love devotion from Jong Chan in every machination he made to get Seung Hyun a job at AR in the webtoon. You could SEE the LOVE that Jong Chan had in the process of his engaging in negotiations to secure a future for Seung Hyun at AR.

Maybe what I didn’t see in the drama was as much of that love build-up. Don’t get me wrong -- I LOVED THE HEAT of the earlier episodes. Jong Chan in the drama didn’t hold back (and he def def def did no holding back in the webtoon, hoooooooo weeeeeee). I loved that he didn’t hold back; I loved that he followed Seung Hyun during the company outing to confess that he was bad with words, and I LOVED the softness and comfort of episode six as definitive of their close relationship.

But there was a real internal struggle in the webtoon. Not to say that resigning from your job and starting your own company isn’t as much of a struggle in the drama! That’s deep shit. 

I just think it was glossed over.... and I’m not sure why, since from the start, I thought there was an expectation of there being eight episodes. The last episode did ultimately feel rushed to me.

I appreciate seeing commentary on the tag from folks that really liked this series, including the ending, and I don’t think there’s anything NOT to like about the way it ended. It had a wonderful and warm happy ending. 

But I think I expected to see more by way of an emotional struggle for Jong Chan, because it was there in the webtoon, and getting to know this reckoning side of him would have been really cool to see. I ABSOLUTELY understand that the focus of the episode needed to be on Seung Hyun and how he recovered from the rejection. I just wanted to see a bit more of our guy Jong Chan in there, too. 

Gah, so I’m conflicted, obviously, ha. I truly think this was a darling show, and will highly recommend it, but maybe don’t do what I did and read the manhwa beforehand, because that really got my heart racing, and I totally FELL IN LOVE with Jong Chan even harder because of the webtoon. 

I’M VERY EXCITED FOR THE MOVIE VERSION! Give us more scenes! Overall -- I’m very glad I fell for this show, and I’m looking forward to seeing Seung Hyun and Jong Chan again soon.

[variousqueerthings]

okok final thoughts about the movie after all that:

1. pleased to have watched it, despite my laundry list of criticisms

2. I didn’t think any of it was comedic in the gallows humour sense I assume it was going for. that may be an effect of ageing, but then, mash 1974- is frequently excellent at this, including and especially in its first seasons 

3. read that there was a subplot that happened after the movie has ho-jon getting conscripted by the south korean army (after which in the film we never see him again, and I think that was the most “oh, this isn’t my hawkeye” moment actually, because he kinda just goes “dammit” and then it cuts to something else, and that’s it), in which he’s killed and his body comes through the 4077th, and I think that would have been better in the context of what I think the movie wanted to do?

4. I do get a bit lost in the movie’s intentions, I confess. is it war is hell and so we become worse people? is it surreal antics in the face of serious conflict? is it related to the military really? is it that this is just what it was like? none of it really... slots into place for me, because there’s a bits that dispute every one of these, and mainly I guess I just don’t see what apparently a bunch of reviewers saw

5. the roger ebert review at the time: “There is something about war that inspires practical jokes and the heroes ... are inspired and utterly heartless ... We laugh,  ... because it is so true to the unadmitted sadist in all of us. There is perhaps nothing so exquisite as achieving ... sweet mental revenge against someone we hate with particular dedication. And it is the flat-out, poker-faced hatred in "M*A*S*H" that makes it work. ... We laugh, that we may not cry ... We can take the unusually high gore-level in "M*A*S*H" because it is originally part of the movie's logic. If the surgeons didn't have to face the daily list of maimed and mutilated bodies, none of the rest of their lives would make any sense ... One of the reasons "M*A*S*H" is so funny is that it's so desperate.”

6. I get confused about how a lot of the reviews discussed it in the context of war, when for me I felt like the Korean war was almost totally absent (in practicality as well as in feeling), apart from the occasional nuisance it caused the characters. maybe for its time it was very gory/very real/very desperate, but I don’t see it today -- the imdb also states that “the staff of a Korean War field hospital use humor and high jinks to keep their sanity in the face of the horror of war,” and I was just there wondering... what war? horrific to whom? and it’s not like war films in which war is very present hadn’t been made before this, but perhaps just not in really in America. the very idea of challenging the American military logic even a little may have been a breath of fresh air?

7. altman called the book racist and pretty terrible, but apparently the movie doesn’t deviate much from it, which is... interesting

8. I can see why this was a hit when it came out. I just feel such a visceral shudder at it watching it now, that it’s hard to even judge it on the merits of the time in which it came out

9. on that note, I am once again fascinated by the intentions going into the show. the pilot episode especially certainly has more movie DNA in it than the rest, but the casting immediately created different tensions, especially of course alan alda, but also wayne rogers, larry linville, and of course loretta swit. the fact that they’re setting up recurring characters also gives them more of a depth -- you know that things will happen and shift and change, whereas in the movie the point is the aimless drift from thing to thing

10. actually the aimless drifting + loudspeaker interludes were my favourite parts of the film -- my least favourite thing (structurally, otherwise it would be the misogyny) is the football match at the end, which was... odd. dull. if there was an absence of war before that, it totally disappeared for a substantial amount of runtime to just show this flipping football thing happening

11. how many of the hijinks from the movie/book were in the show -- I’m going to make a separate post for that

[chidoroki]

Tokyo Revengers S2EP1

aka: the boys are back in town ♫

Oh thank god we're picking up right where season one left off with no recap in sight. Exactly what I wanna see!

 Who the hell was quick enough to beat Kisaki up and save Takemichi when the lights went out huh?

This place at the side of the river where Takemichi is now.. I vaguely recognize it from some of the season’s previews.

BAJI???? I.. what? WHAT? Sir you died in this timeline didn’t you? They were just talking about you and how Kisaki apologized for it!

Wait, did they ever mention last episode that Baji was actually dead..? Okay yeah, looking back they did mention he died on Halloween. So.. I’m still confused on how he’s here now apparently? Unless that ain’t even him and I’m rambling for nothing. I dunno, I screamed and paused when this guy showed up.

Real talk though, I know how the series ends. There was a lot of chatter when the last couple chapters were being released, so naturally, I got curious and read the last three and yeah.. kinda disappointing how fucking quick everything was resolved and ended (I feel your pain, TPN did the same), but at least we’re all happy? I guess? Anyway I’ll shut up now. I know little to nothing of everything that happened in between last season and the very end.

Ohhh shit, it was Kazutora who saved him! I wished I would’ve recognized his voice more.. that would’ve helped. I love that he still has that little bell earring.

Okay well never the fuck mind then, now he’s beating up Takemichi.

Hold up, he wanted to save Chifuyu? Mmhhm okay, good. Good. I wish you did save my boy. I’m starting to warm up to you now.

Aww but he was there to pick Kazutora up when he was released from prison! Best boy!

Yeah Toman has really got batshit crazy. Y’all gotta fix that.

Ah cmon, Pah and Peh were murdered last night too? I’m trying to think who else at that table was part of the old Toman since they’re getting targeted apparently.. the dude that always smiles and the guy with the blue hair with the swirl I think (it’s been a long while, I’ll remember names eventually). And Hanma too, but he wasn’t originally Toman.

Oh, speak of the devil, there’s the blue haired guy. And these other two guys from Black Dragon I remember from last season and recognize from previews. Three of ‘em working close under Kisaki? Oh dear..

Good, so Naoto is alive, just who knows where.

Ah, there he is.. and he’s handcuffing Takemichi. Alrighty. So much for a touching reunion.

Oh even Kazutora was blindsided by this, oops.

Every time the episode fades to black I’m expecting to see the new OP and every time I get nothing! Ah! Stop teasing me.

Damn dude, Takemichi really changes when he moves between timelines huh? That video of him was totally unlike our crybaby.

Ah fuck, so he’s the one who gave Akkun the order to kill Hinata?

Okay so he didn’t know that it was her who was gonna be killed, the second video proved that, but still. How do ya go back in time to fix that when you’re sorta the problem? I mean, can’t we all just agree to kill Kisaki? Yeah? No? Okay.

“I can only go back to today 12 years ago! There’s no way I can save him [Baji]!” If I didn’t know how it all ended, I would’ve been far more upset with this.

“Tetta Kisaki clearly has some obsession with you and my sister.” I think I know the reason via my many random glances at the manga but not completely sure..? But if it’s for the reason I think, then he’s so dramatic.

Oooh back to the past and we’re on a bowling date with our lady. Not only that but he got three strikes? Nice going lad!

Oh my god, the way she tossed the ball was adorable.

Ah great, the blue haired guy got a strike in the lane right next to us. Hakkai is his name right? Pretty sure he’s already part of Toman at this point. I know I’ve seen him in previous fights.

And that was his sister off to the side too right? Only know that ‘cause I had tagged her in stuff already.

Aahh Chifuyu! So happy to see you even if only in the ending! (for now).

So many names I gotta go back and remember, oh boy.

There’s our tall guy Hanma! Ngl I’m kinda excited to see more of him? I dunno what changed in me since season one but yeah, went back and watched a few of his scenes again and I like him.

Those white jackets I thought were from Valhalla but these ones got “Tokyo Kai” on ‘em, so are we switching? Because honestly I loved that style of bomber jacket more than the black Toman ones. Not really sure though, since a bunch of other scenes have the originals.

Ending sequence and the song were nice though.

Well now, lot to take in from the first ep but so glad to see everyone again!

[themuselesswriter]

A Mad Queen For A Mad King - Chapter 9: Unwanted Help

Characters: King George iii, Queen Charlotte, Brimsley, Reynolds, Original Female Character

Summary: George almost has an episode but luckily, Matilda saves him, she helps him and they spend a day together that makes him forget all about his troubles.

Word count: 1500+

Warnings: none

A/N: Okay so I suck at updating my Tumblr. So... Matilda will be a recurring character in this series and I think I will add some flashback on their upbringing together? Cause why shouldn't the world have young George, young Reynolds and young Tilda! Anyhoo, I hope you guys like it!

Credits: photos from Pinterest, editing app is picsart

---------------------------Teaser-------------------------

George’s hands were shaking uncontrollably, Charlotte was by his side, holding him close, he was anxious due to some news he heard regarding his mother, her health was declining and he was unable to leave his palace to visit her, the thoughts alone were causing him to reach the edge of an episode, Charlotte was doing her best to prevent that, she came to the dining area thinking it would be a normal breakfast, however, it turned into something bitter.

Matilda joined then shortly afterwards, her shining smile dropped at the sight of George, she looked at Reynolds who gave her a look that she was quite familiar with “good morning” she greeted sweetly, then headed towards George, she saw his hands and offered him the sweetest smile “what is troubling you today my king?” she asked, Charlotte wanted to tell her to fuck off but George seemed concentrated on her voice “Tilda, you are here” the king said weakly, his wife embraced him but said nothing, she continued to watch “where else would I be silly?” the other woman giggled.

Charlotte thought of her optimism to be out of place, but her giggle was contagious, she glimpsed a smile forming on George’s lips “well, whatever is troubling you, it must wait! I have the most amazing day planned for us, I promise it will make you feel better” she moved closer and offered him her hand “if Charlotte allows it, I would like to steal you for the day” contemptuously, the queen nodded, anything that would benefit George’s well-being “of course, I don’t see why not” she said bitterly, George nodded as well, too distressed to realize the discomfort in his wife’s tone “what do you have planned?” he asked, seeming slightly distracted of his worries “oh don’t trouble your beautiful brain with that, it’s a surprise! I just need you to trust me” she offered him her hand, he didn’t think twice before taking it, then off the two went, she ordered the servants to bring them their breakfast to the gardens and prepare a picnic.

“Don’t trouble your beautiful brain” Charlotte mocked once they were out of sight, as if she was a jealous five years old, well, she was jealous of Matilda’s bond with George, she hated how she was able to draw a smile on his face so easily, she hated how they had inside jokes and would spend almost every minute together but what she hated the most was her inability to hate the woman, she has been nothing but kind and gentle to her and her family “Brimsley!” the Queen roared “yes your grace?” He replied instantly “bring me my quill and pen, I shall write a letter to Sir Fredreick and request his presence” Brimsley knew this act by now.

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