#persona invented music

[milesmorkri]

can't stop the JAM

[sp0o0kylights]

Grass is green, water is wet, and Jonathan Byers does not like Steve Harrington.

These are known facts in the universe.

Computers were going to take over the world, a “mobile” phone was being invented, and Steve Harrington had lost most of his hearing.

These were unknown facts--rumors even, if you will. Eddie had never seen even a grain of truth to support any of them. 

(Well, maybe the computer thing, but only because Grant and Dustin both had made a couple of convincing arguments.) 

So he doesn’t think about it, when his freshman gang up on him. 

Doesn’t even factor the “can’t hear well” thing in, when he was tasked (demanded, whined, bitched and moaned at) with helping them explain to Steve why going to the release party of the new D&D box set, located at a hobby store only a mere 2 hour drive away, was important.

Eddie’s not even sure how the little shits got him to agree to do it until he’s standing in the parking lot in front of the former King himself. 

“The store’s leading up to the release with a handful of one-shots.” He’s explaining, unsure whether to pull out the bored act or play up his court jester persona, and thus mixing and matching on the fly. 

He does not care if Harrington doesn’t know what a one-shot is. 

“They’re releasing the set at midnight. You have to be there to get it though, you can’t have someone else pick it up for you because they only got a certain amount in.” 

Harrington’s frowning (no surprise) but it’s not until Eddie is well into his spiel about how his van is already full with the elder members of Hellfire, and thus has no room for the freshmen, that he realizes Steve isn’t quite looking at him. 

Is in fact, looking over his shoulder.

Eddie stops. Follows Harrington’s gaze.

Parked across from Steve’s Beemer, is Jonathan Byer’s barely working clunker car. 

A handful of steps in front of it, and thus nearly right behind Eddie, is the man himself.

His hands are still moving, mouth shaping words silent as he goes, his gaze locked not on Eddie or the kids--but on Steve. 

Who turns back around as Harrington’s eyes slide right back to him. 

“And this is taking place next Friday?” He says, in that sort of annoyed but resigned way parents aim at their children. “After school?” 

“I’d like to go during  school, but the freshmen insist you wouldn’t let them ditch out.” Eddie tells him. “They had two separate arguments about it.” 

Loud ones, that had interrupted the game and given Eddie a migraine. 

Once again Steve’s eyes slide away from him, to Jonathan. 

“They’re not skipping school.” He says suddenly, a glare forming and Jonathan makes an annoyed noise. 

“They argued about skipping, they’re not going to.” He says aloud, and finally steps up so that he’s next to Eddie instead of behind him. 

“Munson slow down, I can’t sign as fast as you’re talking.” He adds, in the hang-dog grumble he’s notorious for. 

Eddie stares at him. 

“Can he seriously not hear me?” 

“No.” Steve and Jonathan answer together. 

“I can kind of still hear,” Steve adds, gaze returning to Eddie’s face. “But its more loud music or noises. I can lip read, but you’re also talking too fast for that.” 

Without pausing, he turns back to Jonathan and says; “Why can’t you take them?”

“It’s Friday.” Byers deadpans. 

Eddie’s not an expert on sign language, but his hands somehow looked deadpan too. 

He’s not sure how Jonathan did that. 

“So?” Steve snarks back. 

What follows is an argument that Eddie is not, at all involved in, mostly because he’s too busy handling the fact that Jonathan Byers has learned sign language, for Steve Harrington, apparently, and given the tone the argument is taking they still don’t even like each other.  

Eventually the argument ends, Steve throwing his hands in the air and demanding that Jonathan owes him. 

(Eventually Eddie will corner the ever so quiet Will Byers and ask why the hell his brother learned sign language for someone he clearly fucking hates.

“Oh they don’t hate each other.” Baby Byers would say, in that shy, quiet way of his. “I think they’re actually friends now?” 

“You think?”

“Well--you’ve seen them.” Will shrugs. “I think being mean to each other is kinda their thing.” 

‘What the hell.’ Eddie would think, right up until he stumbled across one of the kids sign language books. 

Byers the Elder, he decides, isn’t the only person who should learn sign language to chew out Harrington properly.

The pay off is immediate. 

Or at least, the pay off of watching Steve’s shocked face the first time Eddie signs something vulgar at him is, anyway.)

[super-lovely-star]

Very Specific Middle Regression Things

These are all pretty particular to me and what I could think of, so feel free to add on your own experiences!

Scrambling up the stairs on all fours like an animal

Seeing what will happen if you balance the light switch between on and off

Making up extremely elaborate stories in your head as you take a shower/bath

Trying out ridiculous makeup riiiight before you wash your face for the night so that way no-one but you sees it

Picking out random things from the refrigerator and seeing what will happen if you cook them together

Recreating your favorite characters on the Rinmarugames Mega Anime Avatar maker (this game is still playable it’s on dolldivine!)

Gathering different soaps and lotions from the bathroom and mixing them together just to see what it will smell like

Inventing personas, getting dressed up to fit the role, and then taking and editing unnecessarily dramatic pictures/videos of yourself

Listening to music and imagining your favorite characters or OCs singing along or starring in an elaborate music video

Coloring in your nails with sharpies or other markers, or drawing “tattoos” on your arms with them

Pretending that you have some kind of rare magical ability and then acting like you have to hide it, vaguely alluding to your “powers” etc

Making up code words for various real or imaginary things in your life and referring to them as such

Let me know if you do any of these things/ have done them as a preteen

[waitingonher]

LOVER'S ROCK [h.o.o. characters in love]

percy jackson

memorizes your fast-food/gas station order. even if you didn’t ask, percy’s still gonna get you a lil something from wherever he goes. he has a shoe box that holds every single thing you’ve ever given him. may or may not still have the receipt from the restaurant after your first date. listens to the music you recommend him. usually, percy’s very opinionated about the music he listens to but he always gives yours a try. embarasses himself solely to see you laugh. yes, the time he dropped his ice cream cone into the hudson was on purpose.

annabeth chase

waits for you to watch the latest episode of your favorite show. annabeth will wait for you no matter what, even if it pains her to not know whether or not her favorite character just died. eases up around you. she appreciates not having to be completely on guard all the time. paints your nails for you. annabeth always finds it funny when she sees your non-dominant hand perfectly manicured while your dominant hand looks as if you did it blindfolded.

jason grace

annotates his favorite books for you to read. when it’s the occasional romance novel, jason writes “us <3” in the margin everytime the love interests do anything remotely romantic. gifts you a necklace with his initial. he smiles everytime he sees it resting against your chest. jason’s phone is entirely made up of you. his lockscreen, his home screen, his widgets…everything is you. jason randomly gives you massages. if you’re working on some school assignment he’d come up behind you and start massaging your neck and shoulders, getting out the knots you didn’t even know you had.

piper mclean

allows you to bypass her dnd. most of the time, piper’s on dnd so she made it so that only your notifications could bypass it. she does the chores you hate the most. even if she hates it just as much, she’ll do it just to see you happy. piper loves making those cheesy couple videos with you on tiktok. every day she’ll tell you how you two are basically tiktok famous?? piper only listens to you when it comes to fashion advice. yeah, she’ll acknowledge what others have to say about her outfits, but she truly only cares about what you think. 

leo valdez

loves you to the point of invention. you can’t even count the amount of gadgets leo’s made for you. he also comes home with little knicknacks made from spare parts of his projects. flowers made of metal scraps >> regular flowers. lets down his guard for you. leo doesn’t feel the need to keep up his happy, humorous persona when he’s with you. he lets you take whatever side of the bed you want. even if leo likes to sleep against the wall, he’ll let you because he knows it makes you happy.

hazel levesque

buys matching couple outfits. you two have your own pinterest board dedicated to your matching outfits. takes care of your hair. considering her own hair, hazel knows a lot about hair care. date nights where she oils your hair and washes it for you over anything else. ties your bows for you. she laughs when you finish tying the bow in your hair only to realize that the loops and tails are different sizes. wears matching jewelry. you two have lockets with photos from your first date. 

frank zhang

never the first one to let go from hugs. frank can and will stand there and hug you for the entire day if you want to. ties your shoes for you. whenever he notices your shoes are untied he entirely stops what he’s doing and drops to the floor, propping your foot on his knee to tie it. always gives you his food. even if you had said you didn’t want any, frank still shares some with you.

[antimony-medusa]

*I emerge from several weeks of talking about conceptualizing my cubitos and who else populates their world and what the precise nature of the character is* Hello. Hi. It's time for my twice-yearly thoughts on RPF.

Okay so I was one of the people who was emailing Ao3 about it when we had all of MCYT wrangled into VBRPF going please please please please can we have our own server tags pleeeeeeease I promise it's not just video blogging rpf pleeeeeeease my streamer doesn't have wings in real life pleasssssseeee— and my general stance is that writing about Dream SMP characters is writing about characters, it's not RPF.

Not quite. It's not quite RPF. There is a meaningful distinction there, but it's not a really huge one. That distinction exists and is important to me in how I conceptualize those characters and whether I'm mentally going "okay I need to study lore streams for vocal patterns" for voice research or if I'm going "okay I need to pull up technocord logs " to get techno voice right. What I consider the authoritative canon "character" is a rp guy who spawns withers, not a real streamer in california with a little white dog.

But like I do multifandom exchanges and I wander into them with my cubitos clutched tight in my palms, and I see what other fandoms look like— and importantly, I see what other rpf fandoms look like— and guys, I think that line is legitimately blurry and I think that's literally fine. If I walk into a mulltfandom space with my guys they're going to squint at me and go "rpf fandom— kinda, I think" and I can go "hahaha, not quite", but also I do not blame other people for thinking this is RPF cause like— there are a lot of similarities!

What MCYT tends to classify as "RPF" is directly stories operating in a world where the characters are streamers, they post on twitter, they have lunch with the CEO of twitch. And anyone not writing that, is obviously not writing RPF. And that is not untrue, up to a point, but there is a broad category of fics that tend WAY harder into the pure fictional that are still considered RPF fandoms, if you actually check what other RPF fandoms are doing. There are 599 works in "Demon Shane Madej", many of which are in AUs that have no connection to the real world other than the character relationships, and they're still officially considered RPF.

I have a friend who's in a c-drama rpf fandom that has a rpf ship they really like, and a really popular thing is to take the various characters these actors have played (totally fictional characters from various media) and ship them together. And that's just a crossover of two fictional mediums, but because the thread connecting them is two guys in real life, that's considered RPF.

The banddom tags are absolutely COMPLETELY full of aus that are not set in the real world at all, no connection to the music industry, and what the people in those fandoms will say is like yeah, I have no idea about the real guy, I'm working with a character/persona who's put on for the stage and interviews and personas, and that guy is not REAL, who knows what the real guy is like, but like, I like the persona, I deal with the persona, and then they put that persona in an au where he kisses other personas— and this gets considered RPF.

Wrestler RPF is directly dealing with invented characters who are beating the bloody snot out of each other (hot), they have names like "the undertaker", dealing with scripted storylines, but it still get considered RPF.

And like, I look at myself as I am entering my third year of writing Technoblade most of the time, and what I'm doing here and— there are a lot of similarities in what I'm doing to what other RPF fandoms are doing. I'm a fan of the DSMP character but I'm also a fan of the guy, so I want to play in this extended universe, so I want to include nods to his other stuff. So I will pepper in a cheeky nod to the potato war here, I'll mention hypixel there, etc, kind of make an extended Technoblade universe. And I think that's not RPF (quite) because I'm working from a fictional canon that includes references to the potato war and hypixel etc, I'm just expanding on it, but like, this is literally what my friend in c-drama rpf does as well when she's writing aus about her guy. It's kind of close to RPF. That line is not really obvious to the casual viewer.

So I do not blame anyone else if they look at what we're doing and they go ah, nods wisely, you are a rpf fandom, I've seen this before, and we go um actually, hahah, you'd think that, but no, and then they nod and clearly do not understand how it's not a RPF fandom.

But the thing is it's literally fine if people think that, I think. RPF is not the end of the world. It's just a bunch of people working with people's various performancesonas and worksonas and having fun with it. Spoilers for mythbusters in the real world, but we now know that by the end of mythbusters adam and jamie were not really friends, but most of the mythbusters rpf keeps them as friends because that was the professional persona they provided for the camera, and that was the fictional world the writers wanted to live in. I don't think it's a problem if someone wants to write straight up streamer fic, you do you, and that's unequivocally RPF, but once you start getting into AUs and extended universes and bringing emduo content into qsmp and writing fic based on GIGS streams, the line legitimately gets WAY more blurry.

I think a bunch of fic (including my fic) can start to exist in a "both things are true" state where it's drawing from direct fiction but it's also drawing from a lot of stuff that other fandoms would consider RPF sources, and like, I don't mind this. I don't think it's bad if you're doing this too. We're not getting more DSMP content, the fandom police are not gonna turn up at your house if you want to pull strongly from minecraft monday for your fic. Do schlackity on QSMP. Do a DSMP extended future where tommy gets tubbo to marry him for a bit and then tubbo immediately demands a divorce. The canon of material we have to draw on is not something where big obvious lines exist between "rpf content" and "pure fiction" if you step at ALL outside of canon-compliant. Like fuck, in my very first DSMP longfic I included all these hermit cameos and mcc references which would make it RPF in any other canon, but also I was pulling mainly from the prison arc lore and beats and relationships for the core, which is NOT rpf, and at this point it is not worth the hassle in my head to draw a strong distinction between them.

It's kinda RPF. It's not quite RPF. It's fictional. It's based in the real world. It's all personas. it's drawing on off-lore-stream dynamics. It's drawing on scripted scenes where my streamer had his camera in lore mode. It's COMPLICATED to unpick and I legitimately think that's fine. RPF is literally fine, some people are gonna think we're writing RPF, it's not the end of the world. Just have fun with it.

[despairots]

miles 42 and miles 1610 are twins and fight over reader and try to impress her and stuff

━━━━━━━━ talk about first impressions.

earth1610! miles morales x gn! reader x earth42! miles morales. fluff and warning, there’s some suggestive comments from grown adults. i started this yesterday but im posting once/twice a day until i burn myself out from writing and deleting requests. reader is like peni parker. ignore the description, my brain was idk.

please remember that in my last oneshot, earth 1610 miles will be spiderman and earth 42 miles will be the prowler, the two are vigilantes, keep that in mind. also you’re an anarchist lolsies!!1!1! the spanish translation might not be accurate. leaving this on a cliffhanger too LMFAO. you’re always an anarchist in these oneshots.

where the morales twins can’t help but fall for the technology nerd who can do a lot of things, trying to impress you and gift you stuff in public, and with you, obviously being a talented person, you apparently have a lot of admirers, especially weird, old, strange adults.

you sighed in embarrassment at the two morales twins trying one up eachother with giving gifts to you or impressing you. some people would call you lucky, some would be jealous of you.

being fought over the two most attractive guys in brooklyn vision who may look the same but act like polar opposites is a nightmare.

the two may be extremely smart and artistic but they for sure, had different personalities.

miles morales is smart and passionate, committed to others before himself. he has a lot of love for science and art, which he got from his mother, making inventions since he was younger.

the two are both suckers for music, mixing beats as a hobby with their uncle aaron when they were younger.

miles is sociable around crowds, as even when he struggled to fit in after moving to brooklyn vision, would often start conversations with those he came across on the street.

though many of his acts are selfless, mikes is partly driven by low self-confidence in his own abilities, feeling smaller than he is.

since becoming spiderman, miles is extremely eager to help others. this is as much to his credit as it is to his detriment, as he will often put himself in grave, life-threatening danger, in his quest to protect his friends and those he cares about.

myles morales, on the other hand, may also be smart but he’s closed off only being carefree with you and his twin brother. he also has a lot of love for art, spray painting with his brother.

myles isn’t one to talk, again, he’s closed off and usually upholds a stoic persona, opposed to his brother who doesn’t have a problem showing how passionate and cheerful he is.

with him being the prowler, and technically being labeled as ‘spidermans rival’, ignoring that the prowler is his own being. he had a strong morality of protecting his family and you after his father had died.

to which leads him also going into life-threatening dangers.

“[name], do you have any idea how lucky you? like, i would die to be in your spot!” you rolled your eyes at that sentence, “then do it.” your snark reply made a few people in the hallway snicker.

now back to you, [name] [lastname], the robot-technology-hacking loving nerd that grew with the morales twins and them fighting over you, it’s not something that’s lucky.

that constantly one-upped eachother to gain your attention, to the point they wouldn’t HESITATE to embarrass eachother in front of you along with literally fighting who got the best present for you.

it didn’t help since you liked both of them, i mean, how couldn’t you not like them? they were literally labeled ‘most attractive boys alive’ and their personality didn’t help, why do you think you fell deeply in love?

“i got the best gift-“

“i did!”

your bestfriend, gwen stacy, sneaked her arm around you, “i obviously did.” she gave you a smug looked as you sighed in your hands with embarrassment, remembering the time you two accidentally kissed (more like pecked eachother on the lip).

you two vowed to never talk about that again but since that was two years ago, you guys are all 15 by the way, which you guys were 13 by the time she stole your first kiss.

the morales twins didn’t like that, uhh, next!

“ahora no es el momento, gwen.” you muttered, expressing massive stress from the two and the welcomed gwen, “i — uh, failed spanish.” you made a ‘that’s-the-point-‘ look.

“siempre suenas bien hablando en español.” myles commented, shooing gwen’s arm off your shoulder and throwing his arm over yours instead.

“get apagado de [nombre], myles.” miles rolled his eyes and scoffed at his twin, “at least i get an a+ in spanish.” miles gasped at the comment with offence.

“this is why you’re failing science, estúpido!”

“estoy siendo peleado por gemelos estúpidos.” you pinched the bridge of your nose before sneaking out between the twins quarrel, heading over to foam party.

did i mention that you won awards and was on the news for making a working robot suit and finding out how to time travel?

mutters and comments were heard in the coffee shop, irritating your already bad headache. ‘i hate society.’ you rubbed your temples, before ordering your drink and waited.

apparently those minutes of waiting, you got… weird, suggestive comments from grown adults. your face scrunched up every time they said something about you.

“that shirt really compliments your curves.”

you’re were just 15.

“you’ll find a person just like me.”

they were in their late 30s.

“how ‘bout instead of wasting your pretty little time in this coffee shop, you come to my place.”

you just wanted your coffee.

“can i get your number?”

stop.

“you’re really sexy.”

stop it.

they tried grabbing your hand.

“i’ll treat you better.”

stop it. they tried kissing your hand before someone clocked them in the face, “aren’t you an adult, man?” miles’ voice was heard beside your ear as he tried comforting you.

myles rubbed his knuckles with a grossed look on his face. they saw that they were harassing you as you tried to move away from them, worst thing yet, nobody tried to do anything.

they saw what was happening but didn’t help, god they really hated adults.

“acércate a ellos, y será mucho peor que un puñetazo en la cara.” they ran off, myles grabbed your order as the three of you left. it was quiet, too quiet for your looking.

“i could’ve handled that y’know—“ miles handed you a box, opening it to which showed a necklace with a charm that was your hacker logo. you could feel the myles’ eye twitched.

“remember i got [name] a car—“

“shut the hell up, man!”

[name] after the morales twins keep giving them money and gifts.

[pain-in-the-butler]

Out of curiosity…if Ono is your third fav Seb. What’s your Offical Sebastian Ranking™️?

Just as with the ask about the Anime Expo panel, it's fortunate for me that someone reached out, because I was thinking of making this a post on my own eventually someday anyway. What follows might be more information on my opinions of Sebastian than you care to have, so apologies in advance. Let's count down from worst to best:

6. Hiro Mizushima from Black Butler (2014)

There's a reason no one talks about this movie. It's because it sucks, and somehow I feel I can't really blame Mizushima for his performance, but... it is still a mixture of weird and unmemorable. That hairstyle does him no favors either, but maybe the fact that I find him a little bit frightening to look at should give him points rather than detract them. Off-screen, he looks like a completely normal man; somehow the film's efforts to make him a sexy butler were unfortunately funneled into making him unnerving and unappealing. And the movie is two entire hours long.

There's a lot I've deleted from my memory about the Black Butler live action film, but that lack of memory seems a sign that he should sit in dead last. Whether he's acting like a total weirdo or actually successfully impressing me, Sebastian should never be a forgettable character, and all I can think when I consider Mizushima's performance is that I never need to see it again.

5. Yuya Matsushita from That Butler, Friendship, The Most Beautiful DEATH in the World, and the first run of Lycoris that Blazes the Earth

I know some people may find this placement to be blasphemous, but honestly, the only thing I really like about Yuya's Sebastian is his singing voice, and even then I'm not that wild about it. It's been a few years since I watched TMBDITW, so it's not super crisp in my mind, but I will give him some recognition as an early Sebastian who still had little material to work with. He probably had to do some of his own legwork to adapt the character to the stage and to the original stories he was expected to act in. That can't be easy, and it makes sense that his Sebastian would be one that had to stand somewhat independent from the canon. I also appreciate that he is playing Sebastian with purpose behind his actions and not a sexyman who just serves whatever convenient purpose the narrative dictates, like Mizushima's Seb.

With that caveat out of the way, I still don't like his Sebastian portrayal. It's clear Yuya really drummed up the "I'm no one but I can become anyone" aspect of Sebastian. He can invent personas that suit the situation, like when he decides to seduce Undertaker, but as soon as the problem is solved, he reverts back to being robotic and unsmiling. You get the feeling that he's rather cold and calculating and that he is only interested in doing things that will earn him Ciel's soul. I didn't watch with subtitles, so perhaps that evaluation is misplaced, but his mannerisms dictated that energy to me.

Also, I can't get behind the sort of sexual and romantic tones that sometimes felt present, especially when real children were involved. It will always taint his work for me. There's one song where he and Ciel look at each other the entire time and it's three and a half minutes long but it felt like a year. I wanted to crawl out of my skin because it was so horrifically awkward. Stick this man in fifth.

4. Toshiki Tateishi from The Public School's Secret

So I went into this musical fully prepared to hate Toshiki's performance, considering the act he was following, and... I thought it was actually pretty decent. When I think of Sebastian in the Weston arc, I think of the "sexy professor" angle Yana kept trying to push, and I was worried Toshiki would play into that, especially considering Ciel was being portrayed by a legal adult onstage for the first time. I was pleasantly surprised! That's not what happened at all.

Though likely unintended, I would say Toshiki gives off a rather maternal vibe, behaving more like Seb does in memes: kind of silly, kind of fussy, an overworked single mother who cares for her boy. Toshiki's Sebastian was very attentive of Ciel. He was frequently pleased with his kid's impish nature and didn't seem that annoyed to be taking on extra tasks, only complaining lightly, "Even though I have things to do too!" at the end of the chores song. When Ciel came up with a plan to foil Maurice, Toshiki seemed excited to praise him and gratified to help. He was like Sebastian Lite, only a bit insidious at times, mainly the ever-attentive helper.

To me, it's the first time one of the musicals has made Sebastian feel like a supporting character rather than the driving force behind the story. I prefer when he and Ciel are both treated evenly as protagonists, but I hate it when it's All About Him. I think Toshiki's performance has a good heart and he made me laugh at times. He's not quite canon Sebastian, but I like him. I trust him not to eat the sonboy just yet. Mostly.

3. Daisuke Ono from the Japanese dub of the anime

Daisuke Ono was a part of my first experience with Black Butler, so there's something about his voice that feels like it's just right for Sebastian. And it kind of is. It's a really flexible voice, and one that is clearly giving a performance when you listen to him. He also infuses his dialogue with what sounds to me like inherent smugness, which I think suits Sebastian perfectly. Ono's performance is the most self-satisfied in nature. It makes you think of a well-fed cat licking its chops while it considers its next meal.

His voice is not sexy to me, but I can see why people find it to be. At the same time, Ono isn't afraid to give Sebastian different inflections, even ones that some might consider too embarrassing or OOC for Seb. He's a veteran voice actor and he knows how to do whatever is requested of him. Sebastian treats his career just the same: he too will do essentially whatever Ciel requires. I think Ono is a natural match is what I'm saying, especially having now seen him in person and observing the way he works a crowd so effortlessly.

All that said... Ono's Sebastian is perfect. I don't mean that as a compliment: I mean he's too lacking in flaws. Sure, he has the big flaw (okay with killing a child) but he isn't really giving "silly idiot." Ono's Sebastian is the one the girlies write about in their self-insert fiction. And for the first two seasons, that's kind of who he was supposed to be, so fine. But even when he has silly or idiotic moments, it doesn't feel quite authentic, if that makes sense? I think to Ono, Sebastian's stupid mistakes are just a fluke, quickly corrected. It doesn't feel like they're a fundamental part of who his Sebastian is.

If you consider this nitpicking, you're right! The next two Sebastians are just that good. I still consider Daisuke Ono to be a very talented and accurately-portrayed Sebastian.

2. J. Michael Tatum from the English dub of the anime

While it's possible that I pick up on more nuance in Tatum's performance because he's the only one here who speaks the same language as me, how fortunate we are to have him doing Seb's English voice. He might not actually have a real British accent, but he's just too charming not to love. To me, he has all the vocal command of Ono but is more candid in his delivery. Ono may be Sebastian the perfectionist and Sebastian the performer, but Tatum is Sebastian the butler, well settled and confident in his human role.

I really appreciate the ways you can hear Tatum's voice change notably depending on Sebastian's emotions. This is especially prominent in Book of Atlantic during the flashback sequences: an annoyed Sebastian is an entirely different sounding dude than when he's being cunning, and again when he's being subservient. And he really does have this very silky, ASMR-ass way of speaking that suits Sebastian to a T. It's inherently convincing.

And more to my own interests, Tatum's voice for Sebastian has a really paternal nature to it, and I like that. I think it adds to the complexity of Sebastian's role in Ciel's life when you can hear this caring quality in the voice of a demon that will one day kill the child he works for. He can also be snipped and punctual, and then he can be gentle and reassuring, all in the same scene. And he can be scary too... and I'm super looking forward to hearing how this plays out during season 5.

To compare him to Ono again, I think Tatum knows Sebastian can be an idiot at times, but that quality still takes a backseat to the suaveness. He's almost perfect. And I probably would even say he is perfect, if we hadn't seen perfection itself. As he is, I think Tatum is an excellent voice actor for Sebastian, and I'm grateful that we have him in the position that we do.

1. Yuta Furukawa from the second run of Lycoris that Blazes the Earth, Noah's Ark Circus, and Tango on the Campania

Yuta Furukawa. What a legend. What an icon. This is where I would say "he isn't just playing Sebastian, he is Sebastian," but Furukawa is even more than that. He's what Sebastian should be. And that's not just me being rude to Yana. Yana has flat-out said that Yuta knows Sebastian better than she does herself. She's right.

If you have yet to see Yuta perform, then congratulations: you're in for a treat. What I wouldn't give to forget my first watch of Tango on the Campania and relive that magic all over again. Yuta knows who Sebastian is with every fiber of his being. And the fact that you see him over the course of three plays means you get to witness for yourself how his Sebastian goes from being a smirking demon who lives to impress, to a creature who understands fear, hardship, and pain. And yet you still wonder: is he really learning and growing after all? Or am I too being tricked by this suave being who appears to be emotionally moved?

I'm also proud to report that Yuta plays Sebastian as a true idiot. He says silly things, he behaves in silly ways! He's embarrassing enough to make Ciel roll his eyes, he uses his brawn before his brain, and he's often surprised enough to gasp. He's not afraid to look impressed or astounded or even frightened: he wears his emotions on his sleeves, but he can hide them just as quickly. This Sebastian lives for attention from humans, but what he loves even more is learning from them — perhaps so he can become a better hunter, perhaps so he can become a better scholar. He leaves you wondering which in the most intriguing way.

And I may be biased, but Yuta to me is the most paternal of all the Sebastians. Whether or not a fatherly nature is intended, I'm at least happy to report that his Sebastian is not one romantically inclined towards Ciel. His coworker is an actual child, so there's no reason that should be an acceptable angle anyway, but it really shows in all the little ways he primps at and supports Ciel on-stage. His rapport with Reo is especially adorable and shines through in their every scene.

Not to mention, he's so endlessly entertaining to watch. He has legs for days and he can fuckin groove. He may be playing a demon but he has the voice of an angel. If I called him to my house, he'd probably fix my leaky shower. What can't this gift of a man do??

I could literally go on and on and on for paragraphs. Yana is just the same. We all love Yuta Furukawa, the only Sebastian who is more Sebastian than Sebastian and probably the best thing, in my humble opinion, to come out of the Kuroshitsuji franchise. Thank you, based Yunbastian. We did nothing to deserve you.

[lizbethborden]

Whether you like her music and persona or not, Chappell Roan is extremely interesting as an example of an artist speed-running the famous female experience in a matter of months. After her Gov Ball performance, she exploded in exposure and popularity, with massive crowds on the festival circuit. Her exposure came with a price--her safety and privacy--and when she publicly asked her fans to stop cannibalizing her well-being--to stop doxxing her family, calling her by her real name, and kissing and touching her forcibly--she became hated by large groups of pop fans virtually overnight. Her conduct in public since has only intensified this, as her response to red carpet hostility and her apparent exhaustion and frustration around award shows and publicity have made her appear "ungrateful."

What this reminds me of is Andrea Dworkin's analysis of Marilyn Monroe in her book, Right Wing Women. She is talking about Hollywood's most famous actress, but much of this also applies to Roan, who, like Monroe, performs period-typical ornate femininity and expresses orientation toward male aesthetics and desires (Roan specifically via her much-expressed worship of male drag artists). Here is Dworkin on Monroe:

“The actress is the only female culturally empowered to act. When she acts well, that is, when she convinces the male controllers of images and wealth that she is reducible to current sexual fashion, available to the male on his own terms, she is paid and honored. Her acting must be imitative, not creative; rigidly conforming, not self-generated and self-renewing. The actress is the puppet of flesh, blood, and paint who acts as if she is the female acting.”

Roan is not a subversive artist. Even her explicit desire for other women comes in a "queer" context; modern "queerness" is largely a joint invention of capitalism, antifeminism, and homophobia, which is why it has mass appeal to Gen Z. Many of her costumes and looks are overtly done in drag style and in tribute to famous male drag performers. She has talked about her Chappell Roan persona as her "drag" persona and relating heavily to the experiences of drag queens. (I have never, whether in person at her concert or in interviews, heard her express knowledge of the existence of female drag artists, drag kings.) All of this in combination with her feminine aesthetic--femininity being a social signal of acquiescence to male interests and desire--means that she is, as was Dworkin's Monroe, "reducible to current sexual fashion." Her aesthetic is performed in hero worship of male creators: "imitative, not creative; rigidly conforming, not self-generated and self-renewing."

Dworkin goes on to discuss the effect of Monroe's suicide on the public (male) consciousness:

“Monroe’s premature death raised one haunting question for the men who were, in their own fantasy, her lovers, for the men who had masturbated over those pictures of exquisite female compliance: was it possible, could it be, that she hadn’t liked It all along—It—the It they had been doing to her, how many millions of times? Had those smiles been masks covering despair or rage? If so, how endangered they had been to be deceived, so fragile and exposed in their masturbatory delight, as if she could leap out from those photos of what was now a corpse and take the revenge they knew she deserved.”

Monroe committed the ultimate act of self-declaration, and in our culture, the ultimate sin specifically for a woman like her. By committing suicide, she not only forever severed male access to her person; she also threatened the tenuous male fantasy that she had ever enjoyed male access to her body, her image, her mind, her creative expresssion. Her suicide, though a private act performed out of her own personal anguish, was nonetheless an indictment of the public that had fed itself not only on her creative output, on her beauty and sexuality, but also the contempt bred by such familiarity with her image. No matter what, whether you loved her or hated her, wanted to fuck her or didn't, you could bite off a piece of Marilyn Monroe and chew, and the public consumed her until there was nothing left.

Chappell Roan has made public what Monroe kept private: that the cannibalism of fame is agonizing; that no, she does not like "It—the It they had been doing to her, how many millions of times." Rather than fulfill the female prerogative of suffering in silence, or through hateable, explosive acts like those performed by Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan in their heydays, she has explicitly, verbally expressed that she is hurt, tired, angry, frustrated, annoyed; that she does not enjoy the myriad of intrusions conducted on her person and her life by her fans, by her haters, and by the public and press. In turn, the public has revolted against her: she has violated the ultimate female rule, which is, in very brief, "smile and take it." She has declared at the very outset of her public career that she has a self and interiority that does not belong to anyone else, and she is now despised.

[lorasdolly]

ɪɴᴛʀᴏᴅᴜᴄɪɴɢ: ꜱᴛᴇᴀᴍᴘᴜɴᴋ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ

Steampunk!reader is the world of where grass gears whirl and steam-powered contraptions light up her life.

(scroll for master list)

She’s a brilliant inventor, her mind whirs as quick as the engines she built. Fast with her hands and faster with her words, having a sharp wit and sarcasm that she embodies.

She’s created gadgets that defy the laws of nature, thinking rules are there to be broken anyways.

She’s confident on the outside, an air of dominance that seems undefiable, but underneath the bravado, she hides a craving for connection, affection, and being in the control of someone else.

Her worshop is a chaotic masterpiece, cluttered with unfinished projects and stacks of blueprints. No project has ever been to small or big, sometimes even suprising herself with her ingenuity. She’s incredibly cocky when it comes to her work, prideful of all she’s achieved.

She throws out sarcastic comments in the middle of tense situations just to lighten the mood, but mainly to piss someone off. Her responses can often be laced with dry humor and biting remarks.

She carries herself like she’s ready to take on anything, fiercely prepared to take charge. But despite the tough exterior, she desires giving up control and let someone take the reins over her.

She’s extremely pliable once in the hands of her partner, turning into puddy. She’ll bend for them and giggle at everything, not a single thought in her mind.

She tends to push people away with her sharp tongue and independent attitude, leading to self-sabotage.

Her remarks are usually a defense mechanism, building walls around herself. She’ll project her insecurities onto others when feeling threatened.

On the contrary of her persona, her partner is firm and assertive, not dealing with some bullshit that Steampunk!reader might throw at them. Her partner will show patience, but once the patience runs out, they’ll quickly put her in her place.

Her love language is gifting and acts of service, creating gadgets to help her partner and watch their praising faces of awe when she introduces them to their new invention. She names her favorite inventions after her partner.

Her music is typically rock, punk, or alternative musicians such as Tally Hall, The Dresden Dolls, and Misfits. The order of which she listens to them depends on what she’s up to.

Her closet includes skirts, belts, and button ups, mostly earth and neutral tones. Lots of Victorian elegance and industrial innovation, both whimsical and functional.

Her hobbies consist of restoration and going to jazz bars or taverns. She enjoys fixing everything and anything, machines, clothes, furniture, and more.

She’ll dress up cutely to go to bars and taverns with her partner, hoping they’ll secretly match with her.

WORKS FOR STEAMPUNK!READER:

(under construction)

[taxonomicons]

What We Do In The Shadows Episodes that I wish existed [ Part 1 ]

———————————————————————————

Nandor the Relentfull

Colin Robinson makes “Opposite Day” real to convince Nandor to relent. When he does the vampires take advantage of his newfound kindness.

Batshit Crazy

Laszlo gets the “batshits” and can’t turn back into a human, unfortunately batshits are highly contagious.

Gadgets and Gizmos

Guillermo replaces himself with a mannequin wearing glasses in order to attend his sisters baby shower. Nandor makes a confession and the Nadja doll makes a new friend.

Where Wolves?

Nadja’s latest project requires a werewolf tail, but the only way to get one is to be courted by a werewolf during a full moon.

The Lion, the Witch, and the War

The vampires put on a puppet play about Nandor’s favorite war during a dark rainy night.

Oh Fuck! My Guy!

Laszlo, Nadja, the Guide, and Colin Robinson get stuck in an escape room overnight while Guillermo is sick with the flu. Nandor insists on caring for him until he’s better.

A Normal Human Show

An undercover mission forces the household to all take on human personas. Jackie Daytona returns with his new friends Mosquito Larry and Natasia Demetriou.

Gargilo the Hideous

The worlds most beautiful vampire must be put into witness protection by the Staten Island Vampiric Council, her looks prove to be a major distraction.

Doctor What?

The vampires visit the Staten Island Institute of Medicine to try and find a cure for fang rot. Nadja reconnects with an old friend.

Colin “Danger” Robinson

Colin invents a daredevil stunt persona while Nadja accidentally becomes president of the local elementary school parents association.

Battle of the (Hus) Bands

Newly divorced Nandor must fake his marital status to help Laszlo compete in the musical competition “Battle of the Husbands” unfortunately he didn’t tell his fake new spouse, Guillermo.

[legallybrunettedotcom]

idk if you've already talked about brat but i'd love to know your opinion on the album (if you've listened to it)

hi, jade! i have listened to it, quite a lot now. i have a lot of conflicting, incoherent thoughts. so when it dropped, i thought well, that was okay. fun pop, dance music. then i go online, i open youtube and suddenly see there's a bunch of videos, essays, reviews etc. about the album all with the title or thumbnail saying "revolutionary", "changed the music" etc etc. and i'm like am i going insane? does this album deserve this much attention and discourse? it's quite difficult to escape the album if you're online a lot, so some of those songs just nestled inside my ear. decided to give it a few more listens and it definitely grew on me. like maybe i do want to be going crazy to this in a club. it's obvious sophie's spirit is still somewhat present here, two of them collaborating on vroom vroom ep did change the pop music and we've seen this shift towards something more experimental and avant garde in pop. i think charli's always been a bit too mainstream for indie, and too indie for the mainstream. brat is unique, but also still very much charli. i think what she did expertly is crack the marketing strategy. we know music alone isn't enough anymore, you need a whole "aesthetic", you need to build your own world and lore. y2k, party girl persona but make it vulnerable. the specific shade of green on the cover is now associated with this album and everything that comes with it. "oh, green eye-shadow, that's so brat of you." how long that reference will last, we're yet to see. we're still very much in the whirlwind of brat summer after all. using lowercase as song/album titles has been quite popular for a few years now and ig it's this attempt at casualness, yk carefully curated carelessness, but it also reminds me of those lyric videos i used to watch when i was 12. when the remix with lorde dropped, ngl, i did tear up a bit, but i also can't help but be a bit cynical, like this too is marketing. the music video for 360, i didn't enjoy the song that much, 365 is better but also i understand you can't have one without the other, but the music video specifically sums up the entirety of brat imo. the criticisms i've seen of it are all on point, like "myopic, self-referential for ppl who live in 4 neighbourhoods in nyc/la, reminder that you're not on the list" all of that is correct, but on the other hand, it's pastiche, you have these internet famous women congregating in an ugly restaurant deciding who will be the next it girl and choosing a random waitress, a reminder that everyone can be a hottie, the it girl, the cool girl whatever. ok, that's cute, but like... i'm still not on the list. it's difficult for me to believe you aren't enjoying your fame and pedestal status, but i think she's also aware how easily you can be replaced as soon as the public gets bored. i also felt a bit insane when people started analyzing the lyrics, like specifically the song apple and being flabbergasted that it's about family and familial trauma, because the apple has been such a widely used metaphor for family since the 19th century. it felt like she was receiving the taylor swift treatment, which is funny considering that one song, yk acting like this has never been done before. of course it hits if you don't read and you don't listen to a lot of different music. in general my problem with a lot of discussions surrounding musical artists nowadays is how a lot of people seemingly have no understanding that music wasn't invented a mere 10 years ago. i'm ranting, and i'm saying a whole lotta nothing, but all in all, i do ultimately enjoy the album, like it's obviously fun and silly, and sexy and i love dancing to it. it will probably end up on my favourite albums of 2024 list, but i just don't see it as revolutionary. i could say "oh that's mother" and "those that get it, get it and those that don't, don't", but i feel like that kills any meaningful conversation and the art of criticism, which is not something i'm good at, but it's not just about "consuming" art, we have to discuss it too.

[art-tea-chill]

Sir Pentious redesign I've made. I love him and I hate how Vivziepop treated him in the series.

Design notes under the cut + rewrite

I gave him a broader/sturdier figure to fit his inventor persona more, more info on this post made on my main blog @autumnteawithfriends

Changed his pink to red, I thought it would make him look more intimidating

Made his outfit more Victorian Age accurate

Added more eyes (explained in the lore segment)

Honestly, I didn't want to change much because Sir Pentious to me has one of the better designs to me despite the flaws.

Now time for some rewrite lore

His real name was Sir Arthur Price when alive

He was born on December 1st 1853 and died in 1890, making him 37.

Class 3 Sinner, his sins were Wrath, Envy, and Pride

Is an inventor/machinist who had plans on advancing machines in a way nobody would see coming when alive, he was actively and maliciously jealous of anyone he deemed a rival.

He was not very well liked when alive, not at all. which did not help with his ambitions with wanting to advance the field of machinery.

Arthur went bankrupt one day due to lacking the funds to maintain his machines, meaning he had to marry an aristocrat for money.

He married Marielle Farfalle (OC) on December 13, 1879. Their marriage was neutral at first until Mari discovered his villainy and was ecstatic to learn this. After that, they started to genuinely fall in love.

Arthur snapped the day he tried to launch his first invention to the public. He showcased it only for the public to be interested in his rivals inventions.

He plotted to kill his rivals along with the help of his wife, while they succeeded in doing so. Both of them were ratted out by a house servant who discovered their plans.

Died by electric chair alongside his wife on November 20th 1890

Has hypnosis powers and a deadly poisonous bite, the poison from his bite can immobilize sinners depending on how much poison comes out of his fangs (The poison can last from a day to a few weeks)

I made him a mix between his pilot and show counterparts - A hammy, but dangerous and somewhat competent supervillain sinner who can be caring and affectionate to his loved ones (Mari and the Egg Boiz.)

He's a snake in Hell with tons of eyes because of two reasons. He hated snakes when alive, and he had scopophobia when alive because of the glares he received by bystanders and his rivals alike. Mari helped him grow out of it.

He speaks very fancifully to reference the Victorian age, he also doesn't swear too much aside from referring to Angel and Cherri as whores spitefully

He only keeps up with Technology and Music in Hell, he couldn't care about anything else.

The reason he's not in Purgatory is because he achieved one of his goals in life, which was getting rid of his rivals.

That's all, feel free to give your opinion on the redesign.

[therecordconnection]

The Comeback Kid, the Midwest Princess, and the Shared Horrors of Online Parasocial Interaction

On September 28th, the long-running NBC sketch comedy institution Saturday Night Live will be starting its fiftieth season. In anticipation, NBC recently revealed the first five guest hosts and musical guests that will kick off the anniversary season. There are some neat combos: Jean Smart and Jelly Roll, Michael Keaton and Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande and Stevie Nicks. I haven’t followed SNL for years, but I’m sure people will enjoy those episodes.

However, the one that really grabbed my attention was John Mulaney and Chappell Roan, which is scheduled for Saturday, November 5th. On the surface, those two have absolutely nothing in common with each other, but upon thinking about it a little, I can’t think of a more apt celebrity of the current moment to pair up with Roan. Why? Because both of those two have experienced being utterly adored and obsessed over by the internet. Both of them also had to endure what happened when the internet decided to turn on them, eat them alive, and spit them back out when people were forced to stop imagining the idealized version they made up and remove them from the pedestal they were placed upon. When the internet was forced to reconcile with the fact that Mulaney and Roan are flawed, flesh-and-blood humans as opposed to the perfect and imaginary versions they invented for those people, the love and adoration for both of them stopped. I found that connection utterly fascinating.

We’ll start with Mulaney, since he’s had it bad, but nowhere near as bad as Roan has. Back in the early-to-mid 2010s, I hadn’t watched either of the major stand-up specials (New In Town and The Comeback Kid) that made him omnipresent in the culture, but I can absolutely tell you that I’ve seen every single frame from them in picture form, due to how often screenshots from those specials were posted online. Whether they were just shared as its own post or used as a response to another post, I became incredibly aware of Mulaney and the major bits from those specials. I’ve still never seen those specials, but I can quote major parts of them through pop culture osmosis alone. I remember being present for all of that.

I also remember being present for when the internet, Tumblr especially, did a complete X-Games caliber Frontside 180 on that guy in 2021. It was weird and it only made me think of the same question Thugnificent once asked on The Boondocks: Man, what did he do to make them that mad?

The answer ended up being both simple and complicated. The simple answer is that a big part of Mulaney’s stand-up persona was built on being what is known as a “Wife Guy”. His marriage to artist Anna Marie Tendler factored into the bulk of his comedy and that’s what people latched onto. This guy was super happy to tell you how great his marriage is and relay all the crazy adventures that happen in marriage. That wasn’t the only thing he based material around, but a lot of the dude’s most beloved bits had something or everything to do with his wife, their relationship, and their marital bliss. A “Wife Guy” normally uses his wife and milks that relationship in order to gain fans and get fame (there are dudes on Instagram doing this play as we speak), and that would certainly be true of Mulaney... if he wasn’t already notable for having been a writer on SNL from 2008 to 2013. He contributed to a lot of the best known sketches from that time. He was in The Lonely Island’s video for “Like a Boss.” He co-created the Stefon character with Bill Hader. He was doing stand-up long before he married Tendler, so it’s not like his entire career and source of fame is tied to her. He just got married and started writing observational comedy about married life, a thing you do when that major life event happens and you’re a comedian looking for anecdotes. Also, Tendler, it’s worth noting, was and still is an artist in her own right, both before and after her marriage to him. But since Mulaney didn’t achieve superstar status until after the specials started happening, the internet came to know him as “the guy who really loves telling you about wife and how marriage is going.”

Now, wouldn’t it be crazy if, oh I don’t know, dude ended the marriage with the woman that he wrote all of that material about at some point? That would be crazy right? Probably wouldn’t happen, right? I mean, he sounds so happy talking about her during those comedy sets! Once you’re married that’s it! That's the endgame! The Mulaney/Tendler marriage is gonna be the next Johnny and June!

I say all of that because the marriage didn’t last. Mulaney and Tendler divorced in 2021. Based on reports at the time, it didn’t sound like it was amicable...

Fans online were shocked when this happened. For a number of reasons. This is where the complicated part of the answer comes in. In 2020, Mulaney had checked himself into a rehab facility to address alcohol addiction and cocaine abuse. The public didn’t know that until he left rehab in February 2021. A few months after that, news broke that Mulaney and Tendler’s marriage would be ending after six years. Again, it didn’t sound like it was amicable, mostly due to Tendler flat out being quoted in Vanity Fair as saying, “I am heartbroken that John has decided to end our marriage. … I wish him support and success as he continues recovery.” I heard that news and had a perfectly normal reaction to it: “Damn. That sucks, but breakups happen. I’m sure they’ll be alright.” I promptly moved on after that, but some people online felt personally betrayed and thought he was a piece of shit for immediately leaving her after she had supported him through relapse and eventual recovery. I don’t know either of these people and also don’t care how two adults I don’t know choose to conduct themselves and their relationship/divorce. I just want to hear Mulaney do the bit about the guy playing Tom Jones’ “What’s New Pussycat?” on a diner jukebox some fifty-something times (with one “It’s Not Unusual” peppered in there at some point).

But the thing that really seemed to piss off fans and internet denizens came with the secret third surprise: Mulaney started dating actress Olivia Munn shortly after that divorce announcement... Oh! And also that she’s pregnant with his kid. That’s a wicked fast turnaround! There were rumors of infidelity on Mulaney’s part, but most of those rumors only really ended up being hearsay and never had much (or any) confirmation attached. But, for a moment, it looked like Mulaney was living a real life version of Usher’s “Confessions Part 2.” He and Munn got married earlier this year. Good for them.

I remember the Comeback Kid being yeeted off that pedestal at dizzying speeds as soon as all of this happened. He’s still a popular comedian, mind you, that’s one big reason why he’s gonna be a guest host on SNL (for the sixth time) in a little over a month. But I remember reading posts from people who were being Absolutely Normal About It(tm) online and voicing how betrayed they felt and how shitty he is and how he “definitely cheated on his ex-wife.” The biggest and most common genre of post I saw were from people who now thought his career was built on one giant lie, that he basically used his wife to get famous and then betrayed and dumped her when the time was right. I don’t think that’s what happened at all. A good number of comedians make anecdotes and build sets and bits around married life, Mulaney was just the white hot star of the moment getting really popular from doing that kind of thing. Plus, marriages end all the time, for any number of reasons. I don’t doubt all the anecdotes and happiness Mulaney displayed was a giant lie. He was happy, then he wasn’t, then he chose to end their marriage for whatever reason. Your neighbors and coworkers could do the exact same thing and the internet isn’t going to go insane over it. But that’s what happened! People saw “the ultimate Wife Guy” got divorced, started dating somebody new, moved on with his life, and felt like this was now just a Hollywood playboy leaving his old wife for a new model. He’s been continuing his stand-up comedy career up to the present moment and is still doing fine for himself, but I remember all of this really starting the conversation surrounding celebrity worship and how we don’t actually know these people. I know John Mulaney (Comedian), but I don’t know John Mulaney (Just a Guy in the World), you know? I also distinctly remember the word “parasocial” becoming much more present in the lexicon when all of this happened, and we’re all worse for it, because it’s now been overused to hell and it doesn’t have any of the original meaning left intact (the internet does this for every single new buzzword it learns). Watching somebody and enjoying their personality and following their career isn’t “parasocial,” but it does become that when you suddenly think said person is your friend and you think you know them better than they do. That’s when it gets weird.

Last thing on Mulaney. Apparently, all of this stuff I’ve been talking about is topical again because Anna Marie Tendler just recently released her memoir, Men Have Called Her Crazy (not the most incredible celebrity memoir title, but still a pretty good one), last month. In it, she details her mental health journey and her experiences in a psychiatric hospital after her divorce... but I’m willing to bet a good chunk of change that people will only really want to read it so they can learn about the end of her marriage to Mulaney and hope it talks about how much he sucks and how he definitely betrayed her and left her scorned. I haven’t read the book, and in all honesty I don’t have much interest in celebrity memoirs, so I think I’ll be skipping that one. I can tell you that the internet is still definitely not normal about either Mulaney, Tendler, or Munn in the slightest. The Slate article “Uh-Oh, People Are Being Weird About John Mulaney and Olivia Munn Again” did a good job at filling me in on some things regarding that strange triangle(?) and it’s worth the read if you want a more in-depth version of that whole story. The wildest part of all this is that back in Spring of last year, Munn had made the announcement that she had been diagnosed with an aggressive variation of breast cancer. She got a bunch of surgeries to combat it and as far as I’m aware, she’s doing fine! Which is good and I’m happy to hear that! The bad part is that Munn apparently announced this right around the time Tendler announced Men Have Caller Her Crazy was coming out... to quote Slate: “Most, of course, were sending Munn and Mulaney well wishes. But some distasteful posters instead saw Munn’s illness as karmic payback for Mulaney’s supposed maltreatment of Tendler. Others even found the timing of Munn’s statement to be shady, accusing her of attempting to steal the shine from Tendler’s memoir announcement.”

Positively normal one right there, guys. I highly doubt Munn waited until the perfect time to drop that bombshell on us. I doubt Munn even really cared or was even aware that Men Have Called Her Crazy was coming out. Why would she give a shit about a book written by her now-husband’s ex-wife? Does she even know who Tendler is beyond “my husband’s ex wife”?

The whole thing just reeks of reaching super hard for reasons to hate somebody that you don’t know. But hey! Speaking of hate, don’t you just hate it when your fans are really weird and don’t understand respecting boundaries and privacy? Don’t you just hate it when your fans think they’re putting pieces together and figuring things out? Don’t you just hate it when your fans make up completely preposterous things about you and act really weird about the choices you make in your life when they have absolutely zero say in how you conduct your business and relationships? You know who might be able to relate to John Mulaney in those ways? Chappell Roan. I’m sure they’d have a lot to talk about at SNL when it comes to people online being weird about them.

Let’s talk Chappell Roan, Your Favorite Artist’s Favorite Artist. The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess is the name of the debut album that shot Roan to fame back at the start of this past summer... but you could just as easily use it to describe the way her entire summer played out. It feels like I watched an entire three act stage play unfold in real time. Act I was the early days of summer, when I was first introduced to Roan via my sister playing me “Good Luck, Babe” and “Red Wine Supernova” for the first time. Act II began with the absolute breakneck speed at which she attained popularity in the mainstream consciousness. Every time a music festival happened this summer, news sites were quick to tell you all about what Chappell Roan did for her performance and how it went. It helped that she dressed up in wildly elaborate and different costumes every time. Some highlights include: Paying homage to drag queen icon Divine at Kentuckiana Pride, dressing as a wrestler at Lollapalooza (I lovingly called this one, “Gay Bane from Batman”), and my personal favorite, the Statue of Liberty at the Governors Ball. In a short amount of time, that woman captured the imagination of everybody. My brother and his wife are not pop music listeners in the slightest and even they were under the spell of Miss. Roan. Act II was fun and immediately set up Act III when Roan made two TikTok videos going into detail about how weird fans were becoming towards her and how she was feeling increasingly unsafe and uncomfortable with everything. She detailed a lot of upsetting and invasive behavior from fans and started a conversation about current celebrity culture, respecting boundaries, and recognizing that fans are not entitled to anything from the person they’re a fan of and shouldn’t be upset when a fan doesn’t immediately grovel and give them what they want. If for some reason you haven’t seen these two videos, you can view those here and here. The main message can be summed up like this: Leave me alone and stop being so fucking weird. (Spoiler: People are still being really weird. When the internet is told not to do something, people just do it even more.)

We’ve now reached the point in Act III where if she even says anything regarding how she’s been treated in recent months and how she feels about it, pretty much everybody will tell her some variation of, “Oh, God, just shut up and quit whining already.” Part of this stems from media outlets sensationalizing the entire thing and really only interested in the bad parts. Interviewers and reporters aren’t really interested in her music much, like they were a few months prior. Did you know that she had a great performance at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards? You might have! She came out in a suit of armor, she had a whole castle setup on stage and even made it look like it was being lit on fire! It was cool. But I’m willing to bet you heard more about her being harassed by a photographer on the red carpet and telling him to shut the fuck up after he yelled at her. Fun stuff.

We’ve also reached the point in Act III where the internet has decided to turn from overwhelming adoration and obsession to looking for any reason to despise her. You know that thing internet users like to do when they want to turn heel on a famous person? You know, that thing users do where they look for any moral reason to justify why they now hate said famous person? Even if they have to stretch more than Mr. Fantastic in order to do it? Yeah! Well, don’t worry, the internet has done that classic play with Roan as well. Take your pick! Would you like to go the route of “Is Chappell Roan actually queer or is she just appropriating drag?” RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16 contestant Plane Jane went that route. Bold move! That was a take that landed her the coveted “Main Character on Twitter For the Day” award! If you don’t like that option, you could always go the political route with “Chappell Roan is a ‘both sides are evil’ kind of person and is actually Republican”, despite the fact that she never said that and there’s no evidence that she’s fully blue or red. Instead, she opted to advocate for the importance of voting, using your brain, and being critical of both parties; to not fall into the trappings of blind loyalty. If people actually read full articles (and if said articles were accessible to people and without fucking paywalls!) maybe people might know what Roan actually said in the Rolling Stone cover story where she talked about the upcoming election and how she isn’t publicly endorsing any candidate:

“Right now, it’s more important than ever to use your vote, and I will do whatever it takes to protect people’s civil rights, especially the LGBTQ+ community,” she tells me in August. “My ethics and values will always align with that, and that hasn’t changed with a different nominee. I feel lucky to be alive during an incredibly historical time period when a woman of color is a presidential nominee.”

She was also very adamant in a Guardian interview about paying attention to smaller places, your own city, and using your critical thinking skills when casting your vote:

“I have so many issues with our government in every way,” she says. “There are so many things that I would want to change. So I don’t feel pressured to endorse someone. There’s problems on both sides. I encourage people to use your critical thinking skills, use your vote – vote small, vote for what’s going on in your city.” The change she wants to see in the US in this election year, she says instantly, is “trans rights. They cannot have cis people making decisions for trans people, period.”

For the record, I absolutely think Roan is correct. Anybody advocating for “use your brains, people!” is a winner in my book. Neo-Liberals with terminal brain rot really don’t like when you’re critical of Democrats in any way. If you're critical of Harris or disagree with her on some things, that's healthy and perfectly. That's how you're supposed to view politicians, even the ones you may really like and may have respect for. They need to be criticized and called out when they're being foolish, which is a big reason why Roan declined the invite to the White House’s Pride event back in June. From Rolling Stone:

"Roan opted to turn down the invite, though there were some who misread what she felt was a pretty clear message. 'I saw a couple of TikToks where they were like, So she's pro Trump?' Roan's face contorts into disgust. 'It is not so black and white that you hate one and you like the other. No matter how you say it, people are still going to be pissed for fucking some reason. I'm not going to the White House because I am not going to be a monkey for Pride. And thank God I didn't go because they just made a huge statement about trans kids a couple weeks ago,' she says, referring to the Biden administration stating its opposition to gender-affirming surgery for transgender minors in June (The administration would walk back those comments a month later.)"

I can tell you this with confidence because I’ve lived long enough to see this play again and again and again. Whenever the internet turns on someone, they always make them seem like a giant flaming ball of shit, because it’s apparently not enough to just say, “I think they’re annoying” or “I really don’t care about what’s going on with them.” Going the “they have shitty politics but I don’t have credible sources for that” route is a surefire winner. And also, because I won’t get another chance to say this, for twenty years we continue to circle back around to that classic Dave Chappelle bit about caring too much about what celebrities think, citing when TRL asked Ja Rule what his thoughts, feelings, and reactions to 9/11 were in late 2001. Dave summed it up perfectly: “Who gives a fuck what Ja Rule thinks at a time like this!?” Roan herself thinks that the responsibility of voting and learning who is worthy of your vote isn't in her hands but the hands of people and fans. People twisted her words from interviews so much that she had to go to TikTok (again) and make videos clarifying that she's not publicly endorsing anybody and relying on a pop star to tell you who to vote for is a dumb move. You can watch those two videos here and here. It fucking sucks that she had to do that because, and this is just me, I thought she made herself pretty damn clear. But in the wake of the Harris campaign co-opting Charli XCX's whole "Brat Summer" meme and Taylor Swift publicly endorsing her via Instagram, I imagine Roan felt she had to make things even more clear regarding where she stands politically. I hate to break it to you, but there’s a non-zero chance that many young voters will cast their ballots for Kamala Harris specifically because Taylor Swift told them to. Anything that gets people to vote is a positive, but the blind loyalty stan culture on display from doing what a pop star fave tells you to do is not. Roan rejected that and is now getting burned for not being the made-up version of Chappell Roan that people invented. It sucks. I feel bad for her.

The online opinion and complete turn around on Chappell Roan happened almost as quickly as her rise to stardom happened. At least Mulaney had close to a decade before people online got weird and turned on him for no reason. She was completely and utterly adored and obsessed over by the masses. She was placed on a pink pedestal fit for a Midwest Princess... until she asked that people stop being so weird and to stop harassing her and making her uncomfortable. After that, the masses were forced to look at her not as Chappell Roan, the hot lesbian drag queen dressing up in elaborate costumes and doing cheers and dances to some of the best pop music of this year, but as Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, a regular human woman in her mid-twenties who has had her life completely turned upside down and is just trying to keep up with the giant wave she’s riding; a woman who is now being called “entitled” and “ungrateful” all because she demanded there be boundaries between musician and fan, which is a normal thing for people to ask for and have respected.

Time is a flat circle, history repeats, and part of me can’t help but wonder if Mulaney and Roan are being paired together as host and guest on SNL on purpose specifically because somebody noticed their experiences with weird fans that don’t understand boundaries or speculate and make shit up about them is exactly the same in some regards. All of it sucks and it shouldn’t happen, famous or not, but there’s at least some positive aspects to find here. John Mulaney is doing fine. People are still weird about him online sometimes, but his career isn’t hurting and he seems happy and content with Olivia Munn and their toddler son. Good for him. Chappell Roan has had many other pop star women reach out to her to voice their support, check in on her, and express that she isn’t in the wrong at all for asking for boundaries and asking that people stop their weird behavior. She’s apparently bonded with Sabrina Carpenter in recent days, that other pop star that shot into the stratosphere this past summer and is trying to handle the massive amounts of fame that came with it. I think that’s nice. From what I’ve seen, Carpenter seems like a nice gal. I’m happy those two have each other to confide in and relate to. I hope it helps both of them, but especially Roan, considering that it just got announced that she’s been diagnosed with severe depression, which isn’t shocking to me in the slightest and shouldn’t be shocking to you, given what she’s been through as of late.

As for where the Chappell Roan story is headed, she is up for the Album of the Year Grammy this coming year, but has expressed that she doesn’t want to win it: “I’m kind of hoping I don’t win, because then everyone will get off my ass: ​‘See guys, we did it and we didn’t win, bye!’ I won’t have to do this again!” I totally get that. If she wins, I kinda hope she pulls a Bo Burnham and doesn’t even go to the show. What I want is for her to disappear for five years and come back with the weirdest, most off putting Kate Bush/Bjork/Mitski-ass album ever conceived and just use it as a test to see who the real fans are. If not that, my hope is that her happy ending is in the Carly Rae Jepsen route, where the world at large only remembers her for her own “Call Me Maybe” (I don’t know what the Chappell Roan equivalent would be) but a dedicated cult of online pop music nerds prop her up, keep her working and, more importantly, keep her as happy and as (moderately) famous as she’d like to be, if at all. That’s my hope for her. Fame is a real bitch and I hope once the wave finally dies, she ends up being okay. Pop music has enough dark and twisted stories to tell until the final embers go out. Roan doesn’t need to be one of those dark stories and I hope she isn't. I hope she has a good time on SNL. Maybe she’ll get to meet John Mulaney. Maybe they can chat about how weird people on the internet are towards them. Maybe she’ll find another famous person who has been there and understands and cares. That would be nice.

Good luck, babe.

[theemmtropy]

I think I've found the wildest piece of music history in existence. So I went to a audio/visual store today, and they had vintage cassettes, and I was amazed to find a Travelling Wilburys one. The Travelling Wilburys were a musical supergroup consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty. (I've linked their most popular songs, just in case you're not sure who they are.) So I was very excited to add it to my collection. (Side note: it plays great.) Upon opening it up this evening, I was looking at the inside pamphlet, you know, the kind that has designs and track lists and such. And I found an incredible piece of fake lore for the band, which I have typed out (CW for brief racial stereotype):

“The etymological origins of The Traveling Wilburys have aroused something of a controversy amongst academic circles. Did they, as Professor “BOBBY” Sinfield believes, originate from the various Wilbury Fairs which travelled Europe in Medieval times, titillating the populace with contemporary ballads, or rather, were they rather derived from “YE TRAVELLING WILLYBURYS”, who were popular locksmiths during the Crusades used to picking or unlocking jammed chastity belts (rather like today’s emergency plumbers.) Dr. Arthur Noseputty of Cambridge believes they were closely related to the Strangling Dingleberries, which is not a Group but a disease, an unpleasant form of crotch-rot; arguing that a “WILLBERRY” is often used as an expression for a piece of crud found in the crevice of an ancient pair of y-fronts; but I think this can be discounted, not only because of his silly name but also from his habit of impersonating Ethel Merman during lectures. Some have even gone on to suggest tenuous links with the Pillsburys, the group who invented Flour Power. Dim Sun, a Chinese academic, argues that they may be related to “THE STROLLING TILBURYS”, Queen Elizabeth the first’s favourite minstrels, and backs this suspicion with the observation that The Travelling Wilburys is an obvious anagram of “V. BURYING WILL’S THEATRE”, clearly a reference to the closing of Shakespeare’s Globe theatre by Villiers during an outbreak of plague. This would account for the constant travelling. Indeed, many victims of plague and St. Vitus’ dance literally danced themselves to death, and it is this dancing theme that resurfaces with The Wilbury Twist. Not a cocktail but a dance craze, reminiscent of The Wilbury Quadrille made famous at Bath in 1790 by Beau Diddley, and the Wilbury Waltz, which swept Vienna in the 1890’s. One thing, however, remains certain. The circumambulatory peregrinations of these itinerant mundivagrant peripatetic nomads has already disgorged one collection of popular lyrical cantata, which happily encapsulated their dithyrambic antiphonic contrapuntal threnodies as a satisfactory auricular experience for the hedonistic gratification of the hoi polloi on a popular epigraphically inscribed gramophonic recording. Now here’s another one. Tiny Hampton (Professor “TINY” Hampton is currently leading the search for Intelligent Life amongst Rock Journalism, at the University of Please Yourself, California.)"

(I've included links that might help contextualize the jokes/puns/references that I could pick up on.)

HELLO?????? WHICH ONE OF THEM WROTE THIS I NEED TO KNOW

And APPARENTLY, they all had Wilbury personas.

And BEST OF ALL, they named their SECOND ALBUM (which this is pulled from), "VOL. 3". IM WHEEZING.

[alarrytale]

Shawn is one of the few artists I think would benefit more from coming out than staying closeted. His closet is working against him. I wish his label would realize this. He's no Harry to put it bluntly. He isn't interesting or charismatic or inventive or a good showman. He's vanilla. His image and music. He has had his time as a teenage heartthrob. Culture has changed. Doing a pr relationship will bring him attention and het fans but there are far more interesting and inventive artists to follow so how is he going to compete with others and hold people's attention. It could also backfire because he isn't convincing with women so he could end up being a laughing stock again like he was with C*mila. If he was to up his game in order to make it look convincing I fear another mental breakdown. He has a small fanbase but is popular with gay men. Gay men, on average, aren't interested in his career because his target audience is straight women but they follow him because they find him attractive and recognize him as one of them. Him coming out and being rebranded and marketed more towards gay men would save his career I think. It would make him more interesting and give him more to work with, and that would attract straight people too. Artists don't have to appeal to everyone and they shouldn't. The record labels need to learn this.

Hi, anon!

YES! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

I think he would expand his fanbase if he came out, because he'd be more authentic and genuine, he'd get more attention than he's ever had, and he'd be more himself, in stead of a industry created bland persona. No more fake stunts that nobody likes or believe is true. If he started dating a good looking fellow celebrity, that could potentially bring him massive amounts of attention.

He's only 26 years old, he's good looking, he'll still be able to target straight teenage girls even if he comes out as gay. His music has not been any good lately, and i honestly think his career depends on making hit songs, and not about his sexuality. Just look at Chappell Roan. She shouldn't appeal to everyone and she doesn’t have the straight gp as a target audience, but she does appeal to them despite that, because she's genuine and original, no stunts and PR drama, and she makes bangers.

[jovies]

Borderline Personality Traits in Lee Quinzel

As a follow up to my post discussing narcissistic traits in Arthur, I wanted to expand on my theory that Lee represents an archetype of Borderline Personality Disorder. I will be relying less on the DSM here and more on my personal experience of the illness.

Lee definitely has many of the narcissistic traits I outlined in the post about Arthur, such as grandiosity, willingness/tendency to be interpersonally exploitive, belief in being special or wanting to associate with special or ‘high-status’ people, arrogance, etc. She also shows the antisocial personality traits of law breaking, deceitfulness, impulsivity, disregard for safety of others, irresponsibility and lack of remorse. The ASPD traits apply to her pretty much entirely across the board. But what most interested me about her were her borderline personality traits, outlined below.

Going just by the DMS traits for borderline personality disorder, we see the following:

Unstable relationships: She very quickly falls into a romantic and sexual relationship with Arthur, based on her idealization of his Joker entity. However, she quickly discards that relationship by the end of the movie, showing little genuine lasting connection. She also is either implied or stated to have engaged sexually with a guard in order to get in to see Arthur in solitary confinement, and while that was a means to an end for her, it does indicate the kind of promiscuity frequently associated with BPD functioning. The intensity of the attachment to Arthur is fairly typical of a BPD attachment to a ‘favorite person’ around whom all your thoughts and behaviors revolve.

Unstable self-image: She literally starts dressing like Joker, creating the Harley persona to mirror him. This indicates a vast degree of identity and self-image fluidity. The BPD patient will idealize another person and then begin to copy their traits, but with little actual intentionality. They simply fall into patterns of speaking, dressing, and behaving like that love object, i.e. you may expect the BPD patient to suddenly like the same music or adopt mannerisms similar to the love object. Object is the right word because the person they idealize doesn’t have real interiority to the BPD patient – they are a character in MY play, or a mirror to my true self. She even invents an entire backstory that mirrors Arthurs to prove to him that they are the same in some undeniable way. “Did you lie to me”? he confronts her. “Sure, everybody lies a little. I just wanted you to like me.” Her identity was so fluid as to accommodate a totally fictitious upbringing defined by poverty and abuse, with the manipulative aim of making him see her as his idealized love through these cosmic similarities.

Impulsive or self-damaging behaviors: She sets fire to the ward during the movie screening she attends with Arthur, which jeopardizes her life and freedom if she’s convicted of arson. In real life, engaging sexually with a guard would likely cause some erosion of her self-esteem even if it were in service of seeing her love object.

Varied or random mood swings: The “I’ve got the world on a string” scene where she sings in front of the mirror reads as a mixed mood episode to me. She is singing very cheerful lyrics in a minor musical key (usually associated with melancholy or darker emotions/musical themes) and manipulating her face in a grotesque fashion. This could be the grandiosity of mania mixed with depressive elements and dissociation – and the music accompaniment helpfully includes sliding musical scales to underscore that it is a mood swing.

Problems with anger: We didn’t see as much of this because they showed her having more of the coolness/lack of emotional affect associated with ASPD, but she was very angry with Arthur’s lawyer for not mounting a defense that comported with her grandiose view of him, and she was angry with the press for seemingly misunderstanding who he is based on her idealized view of him.

Loss of contact with reality: If she really thought Arthur’s defense would have been more effective if it focused on his Joker identity rather than his real mental illness, that is certainly a loss of contact with reality. Dancing and singing to herself on the court plaza, if we assume this did actually happen in reality and not in her head, was definitely a loss of contact with reality. And she acknowledges in the final scene with Arthur on the stairs that “all [they] had was the dream” and that they “were never going to go away.” She acknowledges the relationship was steeped in delusion and not in reality.

Lee’s larger arc is a classic idealization and devaluation BPD cycle. The BPD patient idealizes their love object, then when that person fails to live up to the fantasy they built up in their head, they quickly swing to disgust or even hatred for that person.

Key idealization moments include:

“You can do anything. You’re Joker.”

When she sang “Close to You”:

On the day that you were born the angels got together And decided to create a dream come true So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold And starlight in your eyes of blue.

And when she and Arthur ‘escape’ the ward to run around the Arkham grounds:

I'd like those stumble bums To see for a fact The kind of top drawer First rate chums I attract

“I’m nobody. I haven’t done anything with my life like you have.” – she devalues herself to idealize Arthur – common during the initial phase of enmeshment with a favorite person.

“You should see it out there, they’re all going crazy for you.” – Lee thinks the anarchist crowd is ‘going crazy’ in their love of Arthur [like she is], when it’s clear by the end of the movie that neither the crowd nor Lee's 'love' was really about Arthur personally.

“Everything’s gonna work out. You’re Joker.” – her idealization of him carries over into her expectations for his trial outcome.

All of these lines to ‘gas Arthur up’ are really about her initial idealization of him as Joker (Arthur and Joker being one and the same to her).

Final thoughts:

The show “Crazy Ex-Girlfriend” on CW was a musical series revolving around a woman with diagnosed BPD. Like Lee, she was impulsive, romantically obsessed with an idealized object, interpersonally exploitive, and law breaking. The lyrics of that show’s second season intro juxtapose nicely with the lyrics of “Folie à Deux”:

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend:

I'm just a girl in love I can't be held responsible for my actions   They say love makes you crazy Therefore you can't call her crazy

'Cause when you call her crazy You're just calling her in love!

Folie à Deux:

In our minds, we'd be just fine If it were only us two They might say that we're crazy But I'm just in love with you

[…]

Insane in love with you