#that third point ... I came up with it the day the event released and I've loved it ever since

[throughpatchesofviolet]

Also, in case anyone is curious why I decided to give Hubert the "r:" label for tags--

1. It's the best label out of the ones I have considering my feelings towards him. Yes, he could be a platonic, but he's more than that.

2. There just may be a Mirror World out there where Sherry and Hubert end up together.

3. Sherbert is the funniest ship name I have ever come up with, and it only works if their relationship type is "romantic," so to speak.

[littleroaes]

To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, tbz [ TEASER ]

FULL FIC

Y/n's stale love life gets a catalyst at the start of the autumn semester when two weeks earlier; her younger brother got egged on by his friend to post the box of secret love letters she has collected during 12 years. how does she handle the end of summer and five leaked love letters?

PAIRING ( 3rd pov, she/ her ) fem!reader x lee hyunjae, lee juyeon, ji changmin, kim sunwoo, eric sohn

GENRE, WARNINGS fluff, university!au, humor, to all the boys i loved before!au, 2000s and 2010s au, summer!au, sprinkle of angst, sporty people, nerdy people, parties, friends2lovers, childhood friends, bickering, slice of life, coming of age ( more info in full fic ! )

RELEASE DATE end of may / beginning of june

ESTIMATED WORD COUNT 10 - 17 k

TEASER WORD COUNT : about 500

this will be my fic for the @deoboyznet love letter collective event! ( idk if i should use the dbn tag since it’s just a teaser ) i've wanted to write a "to all the boys..." fic for so long and i'm finally doing it! if someone wants to be tagged for the full fic lmk!

like and reblog are highly encouraged!

THERE'S A THING YOU DO–OR SHE DOES AT LEAST–WHEN SOMETHING'S BEEN OCCUPYING YOUR MIND.

Dad told her once after an argument with a best friend to take a paper and a pen; then, let it out. Fold the paper, lay it in a box, and shelter under your bed. 

It’s inherently the same concept as a diary she suppose. Though, somewhat more effective. 

Nonetheless, from that first letter a series of what one can only describe as an uncontrolled teenage angst ensemble of love letters emerged over the course of twelve years.

...

There are five of them. 

The first one is Lee Jaehyun, a three year older popular student who she had a trivial crush on in middle school (together with everyone else). In all honesty she didn’t know much about him; just that he was cute looking. There’s a sort of emotional torment in recalling her one sided adoration while leaned out the school window to see him play football. Even his name haunts her still in uni as her roommate had a crush on the shining hockey player the entire two semesters.

In short, everyone liked Lee Jaehyun. 

Next is Eric Sohn, her childhood friend, the boy next door, her first love? He has many titles she realize. He lived in an impressive house north from hers, one that hosts many parties every time his parents take the trip to their summer resort. At some point, it felt like he knew every kid in town. Luckily for her; Y/n has never been the jealous type. Despite being each other’s ride or die since ten, Y/n has never confessed the secret ways she looked at him back in the sandbox.  

Third is Sunwoo–just Sunwoo; she never got his last name–from summer camp who she even (jokingly) got married to. Her first summer at thirteen, away from her parents, with kids her age. When recalling it all back, that summer feels as if taken right out of a movie, and she fell head first, three meters deep with the boy. Sunwoo always stood in the center (bad and good…mostly bad tbh). They got paired up for the kayak; it pissed rained and their coordination couldn’t take them ten meters. But she remembers every word he said as butterfly inducing nonetheless. After that, at night they snuck out of their cabin’s to watch the stars. And when that summer too ended, she swore her heart shattered into million pieces.

The fourth is Lee Juyeon, a boy she had never seen before until his cat got pregnant by her own. Scuba Steve (long story) had been gone for some days until another family came up to their door with him. For half a year, it felt like she saw Lee Juyeon everyday. He was just as enchanted by kittens as her (if not more) and they would visit each other just to cuddle with them. Her teenage heart used to rush with the mere presence of him and they together named all the kittens–until they were sold off. Then they eventually stopped seeing each other. Though he still lurks around as a poet’s ghost around campus (source: Eric). 

The last one, Ji Changmin, the son of her mother’s friend. He teached her calculus for a while in high school. To be fully transparent, she didn’t learn much from him that year because all she did was leaning on the kitchen table while adoring him until the rims of his glasses slipped. He always scolded her endearingly when she didn’t listen (which was the majority of the time). Ji Changmin always wore cute polos with neat pants–now when thinking about it, her mother might have approved if they got together. But it’s too late. He went to uni; and simply left her with a newfound thing for glasses (still wearing cute polos in uni). 

And that's all five. She sometimes wonders if it was a mere symptom of youth that resulted in those letters. Since uni–outside a campus crush or two-–that compelling yearning for someone has never come back to her. 

to be continued

© littleroaes, written and all

[maybeimavillain-byleif]

So, I was able to get all the illustrations on my second account, while on my first I only missed Amanda and on my third Jason, but in all of them I wasn't able to complete the witch outfit but at this point I don't even care about the outfit, I just wanted to get all the illustrations. I hope the next events they'll make things easier because clearly not many of us could complete it without even spending gems (that I don't even have and I need them for the episodes). Overall, it's not like I didn't like it, but it became stressful, basically one already knew if they could complete it or not and I don't understand how they did it, they've always calculated everything well when it came to the events on the first MCL, like, I've always been able to finish them in the week they gave us and even with one or more days before its end. Really, I have no idea. Anyways, since I'm here complaining, better take this opportunity to talk about this. I think we should start complaining about the gems, 2 per day, for me, are too little, I know that who has the VIP pass gets more but even for them, getting 2 more for a total of 4 is too little, like, we get 5 golds on MCL everyday + some more by playing the minigame. So, why can't they do the same here? VIP players will still get more than us non VIP players but at least give us more. They still have to fix the contests since they said it needs time, but anyway, by playing it the winners get a lot of gems. Really, I don't understand this, many things requires gems, for example, if you do the mini-game (not the contest) if you don't want to wait you can use the gems to finish it faster but we use them more for the special scenes in the episodes which costs 120 gems. So, for me, either they give us more gems, or they make us pay less gems for the special scenes cause I can't keep up like this, I still have to play ep 8 and there's already the 9th available (well almost) and I can't always wait a whole month or more to get the gems I need for the episode. Plus, the messages from the crushes became useless if I can't get them because I have to finish the episode before the next one gets released. I don't know if you think the same, but for me, that's what I think. Feel free to say how you think it would be better, I'd like to see different opinions, I'm really tired of this honestly

[redrage71890]

My SSR Predictions for the next half of the Nightmare before Christmas Event

WHEN I TELL YOU THAT I HAVE A THEORY RELATING TO THE HALLOWEEN SSR CHARACTERS FOR NEXT TIME.

So, considering its the next part of the Nightmare before Christmas and we have the remaining half of our students for the selection.

Looking back at all the other Halloween events, I've noticed a pattern with the SSR selections.

For Terror is Trending, its a second year and two third years combination. One of them being a dorm leader (Vil) And for Endless Halloween, its two second years and a third year. One dorm leader as well (Riddle).

These two events are very close together and I associated them together as a pairing since canonically they happen in one day on Halloween.

Though for the next two events, they sort of parallel each other in terms of their SSR choices. They don't have a shared inspiration IP but they both introduce new characters and settings that exist in TWST.

Glorious Masquerade has two third years and a second year. This is the only case of all of them being a dorm leader. Though differently Playful Land has two first years and a second year. And only one dorm leader here (Kalim).

This isn't involving the fact that these events get original SSR cards for the new characters of Rollo and Fellow and Gidel. (Or in the EN server its Ernesto Foulworth and Gino)

Now these two are a pairing I say concerning the new places and characters that our boys meet. Besides that fact that they came out a year apart from each other.

In JP server, we've had the completion of the Nightmare before Christmas event. Playing out like the Into the Book with Stich event with the book sucking our guys into the story and meeting Jack Skellington and Sally and everyone in Halloween town. But additionally, we get the TWST version of Jack in Skully J.Graves.

(I won't go into the lore of him)

So, my little prediction is that we are going to get a card of him at some point, probably next year during the encore. Similar to how Rollo and Fellow and Gidel's cards happened the next year after their event release.

I'm not the only one who has thought about or predicted the possibility of an Oogie Boogie TWST character coming in since he is the antagonist/villain of the movie. And he will be involved in the next event with the other half of the students.

So I made a shitty table that showed all the cards for each of boys during Halloween.

To summarise the shitty displayed data, the only characters that haven't gotten a SSR card is Deuce, Trey, Jack, Ruggie, Floyd, Epel and Lilia.

The ones that don't have an SR is Kalim, Rook, Ortho and Silver.

While the only two without an R card is Ace, Cater and Leona.

I say everyone would be able to have an SSR if everyone gets two SR and R cards each. So that would mean in another two Halloween events, then everyone would have gotten an SSR Halloween card.

Would does this have to do with my predictions?

This simply just narrows down our list of characters we have up for grabs during the next part. First of though, immediately ruling out Trey as a possibility since he's in Halloween Town.

Also I want to add that the Nightmare before Christmas gang had a first, second and third year as the SSR's. So my predictions are based off the exact grade roster the first lot had.

And I want to consider the setting of Christmas Village that might play into why certain characters are chosen. Considering its a snowy setting I immediately think of Jack or Epel as the candidates for the first year slot since they are quite associated with the snow.

Jack because he grew up in a more cold environment and he enjoys snowboarding. Epel meanwhile has the Harveston event as sort of the TWST equivalent of a Christmas event. I don't think Deuce would be considered because he isn't associated with the setting that well. (But if I'm wrong then oh well...)

For the second years we only have Floyd and Ruggie to consider. This is a big 'what if' scenario for these two. I think Floyd would be most likely to be chosen because the Octotrio is from the coral sea and they said in Chapter 4 that it gets pretty cold for them during the winter break.

THE THIRD YEARS ONLY HAVE LILIA AS A CANDIDATE. Purely because Rook and Cater already had their SSR's and Lilia would have a bloody blast in Christmas Village.

Predicting the SR and R's are a lot harder because its just chance. But I think Cater and Ace should get an R card since they don't have a lot of event R cards. (Ace has a Tsum and Tapis Rogue and Cater only has the Beans Camo)

Everyone listed for an SR I honestly think would have so much fun in the Christmas Village setting.

I'll be honest here, I haven't watched the Nightmare before Christmas movie. So my predictions for the plot of the event is flawed to shit.

But I think we all know that this event WILL BE ABOSULTELY CHAOTIC, BECAUSE NOTICE HOW WE HAVE BARELY ANY DORM LEADERS AND THIRD YEARS TO WATCH OVER THE REMAINING FIRST AND SECOND YEARS.

[amorfista]

I have some news to share ^^

A few days ago I had a revelation while at work.

For over 8 years I've been a big fan of the Dark Souls franchise. The first Dark Souls felt to me like a journey; a full-on immersion into an incredibly complex world, marked by disparity: old royalty, splendor, trust, hope, magic, nostalgia, wonder, gold, light... but also decay, dread, betrayal, horrors, darkness, death, monsters, disease, anguish. This game left a deep print on me that hasn't faded. Ever since I played it, fantasy changed in my eyes. Dark Souls I, II and III became a standard, a reference point. Even when I didn't draw as much as I do now, I aspired to one day pay good tribute to the games that meant so much to me! And, of course, I created fan art, but I always felt like I could have given more.

Now. As you probably know I'm also a big Star Wars fan, specifically TCW fan. And a few months ago I watched The Bad Batch for the first time. This show left a print in a very similar way as Dark Souls had before. It fueled my inspiration significantly, motivated me and, most importantly, helped me form friendships that I'm incredibly grateful for ♥. So... the other day, while I listened to some Dark Souls music at work, I thought...

Why not combine my favorite show with my favorite videogame franchise?

So that's it guys. May I present to you:

-The Bad Batch: Dark Souls AU-

That's it! That's my brilliant idea! XD This is going to be a project, a BIG one. So I would like to briefly (i promise i tried) explain how it will affect my content, under the cut: (I'll also drop some older DS artwork at the bottom!)

TLDR: From now on I will focus on TBB DS AU as my main and basically sole project . Even if you didn't play DS, that's okay! I will make it people-who-didn't-play friendly, to ensure everyone enjoys the journey. However, if this isn't for you, it's okay to unfollow <3 -I would say that, since I came to tumblr this early summer, my "signature" drawings are the TBB beach episode ones. I have WIPs for this project but I've been feeling stuck for far too long, so I am going to put it on hold. In fact, I am going to put on hold virtually everything that I was planning on doing, with a few exceptions. This means that I will rarely draw anything outside this AU.

-I am CLOSING commissions. I found that they put a kind of pressure on me that doesn't feel too good, and, honestly, I'm lucky to say that I do not need the money at the moment. I'm still open to requests, though, so don't hesitate to send anything and I'll draw it if I feel like it :) I'll even try to set up a store at some point!

-The project will consist on three journeys, featuring the 6 members of the Bad Batch, and corresponding with the three Dark Souls games. Each of those journeys will, more or less faithfully, follow the events of EACH season of TBB, adapted of course to the universe of Dark Souls, AKA Dark Medieval Fantasy. This means that, until the third season of TBB is released, I won't make any DSIII-related drawings.

-The journeys are adapted to the universe, and thus, will follow the real player journey as faithfully as I can, staying within DS canon and allowing people who have played the games to enjoy my drawings. However,

-THE DRAWINGS WILL BE 100% NON-DS-PLAYER FRIENDLY. I know that my followers are not DS fans but TBB/TCW fans. I am NOT here just to please DS fans. I want TBB fans to enjoy this journey, without having to google meanings or go easter-egg hunt to understand what is happening. I will tell a story and you will only have to enjoy it.

-This is a project for myself. Both DS and TBB mean A LOT to me, and this idea had me vibrating with excitement. I am making this project to PAY TRIBUTE to two things I love. However that does not mean that I will neglect the very people who have motivated me to keep creating. I promise to still deliver my very best with every drawing.

Do not hesitate to unfollow if this isn't for you.

I can understand that some people might follow me only for my wholesome beach episode drawings or for regular, HC TBB content. And that's okay. That's what this announcement is for! To let you know. This community has given me so much and I want to give back. And if you do stay, I can almost 100% assure you that you will enjoy what's to come!! <3 It will be a long but satisfactory journey. I'LL BE POSTING THE FIRST DRAWINGS IN THE UPCOMING DAYS!

OKAY, SORRY FOR THE WALL OF TEXT!!! 😖 Here are some older DS drawings ^^ (jesus I have way more than I thought and these aren't even all of them)

AIGHT. NOW YOU KNOW IT'S SOME SERIOUS SHIT WHEN I SAY I LIKE THESE GAMES.

Anyway. Including a taglist, because I think it would be unfair not to let you guys know about this project in case anyone wants out (or to not be tagged). Send me a DM if that's the case, it's NO PROBLEM!!! I wouldn't want to tag someone who doesn't want this content.

ALSO PLEASE, ANY QUESTIONS YOU MIGHT HAVE, TOSS THEM TO ME! And thank you kindly for making it this far <3

@dukeoftheblackstar @justalittletomato @darthmaulshispanichousewife @botherbother-blog @aftergloom @badolmen @ihaventpickedausername @ohboi @stardustbee @nik-barinova @the-chains-are-the-easy-part @gen-has-green-vibes @ejfivercommander @herbalinz-of-yesteryear @eyecandyeoz @noesqape @lune-de-miel-au-paradis @staycalmandhugaclone @callmesunny04 @freesia-writes @ginnymilling @sunshinesdaydream @sev-on-kamino @cloneloverrrrr @moon-wrecked @idontgetanysleep @tech-aficionado @followthepurrgil @renton6echo @queen-jiru @shoe-bag @eyayah123 @eloquentmoon @and-loth-cat @ladyzirkonia @stardusthuntress @bambambunny @morphofan @gt13tbbart @amalthiaph @cameronirat @nobody-expects-the-inquisitorius @anxiouspineapple99

[incompleteth0ts]

Why can't you be good for something? (Not one shirt off your back)

Day 7 of Hadercy Week: He was the third God I'd met but the first to strike me as Godlike

@hadesxpercy-events

Chap 1 of ???

Next chapter-->

Charon ratted us out.

I tried my best to fight against the skeletons dragging me towards my doom and possible death, but for a couple of dusty bones, they were stronger than me and wouldn't budge.

I could hear Annabeth cursing at the guards to let us go and Grover whimpering beside her.

The undead staff paid us no mind as they threw open a massive pair of doors before throwing us inside.

That's when I saw him.

Sitting on a throne of human skulls, he was clad, head to toe, in black robes that folded and pooled on his lap and feet.

In the folds of the fabric, I was able to make out the faces of the dead as they tried to escape their eternal punishment.

“So you’ve finally arrived. It took you longer than I had thought it would for you to reach me, but I’m patient Perseus. A little waiting doesn’t bother me.”

Hades was ten feet tall and as pale as bleached bones. He wore a crown of braided gold and blackberry thorns. His hair was shoulder-length and blended in with his robes.

He was the third God I've met but the first to strike me as god-like.

I finally understood why it is that Annabeth and Grover were so scared of these guys.

All across his throne, rodents shrouded in darkness, scurried over his feet. The boulders of the horde would come towards us and nip on our shoes. Even Grover couldn’t handle the haunting rats, kicking at them with his hives and bletting in a panic. If this kept up, he was going to faint.

“What is it, children? Is my home not up to your standards?”

I didn’t need to be a child of Athena to know that if we answered, we were dead meat no matter what we said.

I hated this. I hated my father for putting me in this position, to begin with. I hated Hades, too, but I feared that if I thought about it too hard, he would hear me.

I tried to look at Annabeth for help, but she looked even worse than me. Annabeth has been sheltered all her life. She only came all this way to prove a point.

I tried to think of what I had planned to say to Hades when I got her, but my mind went blank. Every time I looked at him, my heart would seize, forcing me to look away. The only sound in the room was the raspy gasp of souls tied to Hades' robes. Hundreds of desperate souls pleading to be released. I was beginning to feel just like them.

“Where is your moxy child? Is this truly the same boy who killed one of my most loyal followers? A boy without a spine? A boy without his mother?” I watched filled with horror as Hades rose from his throne and descended toward us. The rats and shadows clung to his robes, trailing behind him like Ursula’s tentacles. I tried shoving my body through the army of skeletons, but they were like an impenetrable wall behind me.

“I expected the next Achilles—a brand new Heracles. But I’m sure you expected the same thing from me, nephew,” The word ‘nephew’ slid off his tongue like poison. It must be insulting learning that not just one, but both of your brothers had broken an oath that was supposed to be as sacred as it was life-changing. “I bet you were looking for blue hair—flames that rose to the ceiling, three little ladies lurking in the corner. You would burst through my doors, demanding the freedom of your mother,” Hades' voice was getting louder. Grover's knees were knocking together, and Annabeth’s shorts had gained a dark spot.

“Do you think of yourself as a hero? You are none of those things. I have lived thousands of lifetimes, and I will live a thousand more. And every time, without fail, a young, naive, self-centered brat, like you, comes down here thinking they will be the next savior of Olympus. So tell me, Perseus. Why are you down here?”

My knees gave out from under me. If my arms weren’t in the bruising grip of undead soldiers, I would have hit the floor. I wanted to cry. All my life bullies have tossed me around, my biggest and meanest being Gabe, but at the end of the day, even though Gabe was human, Hades was not. When I didn’t answer, he grabbed me from the group.

He was so fast that I had only noticed when I was suspended in the air.

He similarly gripped me to the way the minotaur handled my mother. The backpack that Ares had given me weighed stubbornly down my back. I don’t remember putting anything sharp in it after leaving the casino, but it felt like the broken end of Clarisse’s spear was exacting its revenge.

“Percy!”

“You even dared to enter my domain with the very thing you accused me of stealing, strapped to your back.”

“Please- please. I don’t know what you're talking about. I swear I don’t have-”

“Silence yourself!”

My jaw clamped shut, nearly biting off my tongue. The room buzzed in anticipation, every living and non-living thing waiting for Hades' next move.

“Open your backpack, nephew. Show me what you have brought into my realm.”

I cried in pain as Hades uncaringly threw me at my friend's feet. The scent of fear and piss made it too hard to think.

“Open it.”

I took the backpack off me, and my fingers trembled- fighting for a good grip on one of the pathetic metal zippers.

When I finally managed to pinch one of the zippers, I held my breath as I pulled it to the side.

The air pressure dropped.

I held my breath. The inside of the backpack emitted an electric blue glow. It was radioactive and hurt my eyes. The hair on my arms stood on end. I could hear the skeletal army behind me, rattle. It almost sounded like they were excited about what’s been discovered.

I was too scared to reach inside the backpack; instead, I flipped the entire thing around- shaking it until everything fell out. At the bottom of the pile, glowing as bright as a pine tree in December, was a long cylinder tube, and I mean, this thing was long. It was four feet tall and ribbed like a mini bronze column. The entire thing sparked like a live wire.

Looking at it made me sick to my stomach.

This is why Ares wanted us to keep the backpack.

This was the gift I had been warned about.

“I see. So you truly do take me for a fool.”

“Wait, wait- wait, wait!”

[7grandmel]

Todays rip: 25/03/2024

The Life and Times of Wade L.D.

Season 3 Part of: The SiIvaGunner Christmas Comeback Crisis

Directed by Smoky, Chaze the Chat Music by dante Full list of credits on Wiki

Requested by Jiko Music! (Request Form)

Five years. It's been five whole years since the third season of SiIvaGunner came to an end. Five whole years since, in some ways, the channel began charting a course that would change it's direction forever. Season 4 Episode 1's mission statement was incredibly concise - to return the channel's chaotic, unpredictable nature of the Season 1 days, and to deliver on the absolute titan of an event that was the King for Another Day Tournament. After various production woes in the Christmas Comeback Crisis' main storyline and a newfound interest in other ventures through the King for a Day Tournament, it became evident that there simply wouldn't be much room left over in the itinerary for the channel's ongoing storyline in 2019. And so, in a way, Season 3's finale marked the day that the channel's storyline bowed out to a backseat position - yet with The Life and Times of Wade L.D., they did so with utmost splendor.

I've said before on here, at least way back on 時の回廊 ＜ver. CCC＞, that I don't wish to get too hung up on dissecting the Christmas Comeback Crisis storyline in particular - compared to most other lore on the channel, the form it takes is one that any average viewer is well able to dissect and watch on their own without much added context needed. I adore the series and wish to celebrate it - particularly its later endeavours - with my whole heart, but if I did I feel as if I'd inevitably be writing up to pages in the triple digits. Yet even if you're not all too familiar with the Christmas Comeback Crisis, be it as a newer fan or just plainly someone uninterested in the lore, it's pretty immediately noticeable that The Life and Times of Wade L.D. has a far different feel to it than other endeavors in the series. For one, the story told doesn't follow a character like Wood Man or Smol Nozomi or Haltmann, but an entirely new character - one who is created and (seemingly) ceases to exist entirely within this storyline. It is in some ways a standalone story - one that, perhaps more noticeably, is presented in an incredibly unique fashion - through an chronological archive of various recordings, emails, receipts, logs and photographs all centered around the titular Wade L.D. character. A character who, for the first time in the Christmas Comeback Crisis story, depicts the life of the everyman in Grandiose City - those who are not heroes nor villains, but are simply trying to exist within this strife-filled world that The Voice Inside Your Head unleashed at the series' beginning. Three years deep into this storyline, and it's officially become so much more than just the fun Kirby: Planet Robobot spoof that Patched Plains Fusion Collab, Mother's・Caption (We Paused The Channel For HOW Long?! Mix), The Noble Haltmann and so many more rips were all themed around. With Season 3 in particular, we'd gotten so many deeper insights into how this universe's world and operations were undergoing, small little peeks behind the curtain - it only makes it all the more befitting for the season to end with a full-on investigation of the truth. "Trust Nobody. Doubt Everything."

I believe its fair to say that The Life and Times of Wade L.D. was one of the most ambitious individual videos the team had made at the point of its release. Throughout its entire, gargantuan 30-minute runtime, we're spoiled with quality in so many different areas, from the fantastic artwork that maintains the story's mysterious atmosphere perfectly, to Smoky's remarkable writing being able to effortlessly ping-pong between seriousness and sly comedic jabs and references, to the soundtrack done entirely by the CCC series' sound director and certified GOAT, dante. Before the King for Another Day Tournament had the world floored, it was The Life and Times of Wade L.D. that kept impressing me with every turn - the commitment the team still had to this story, despite the clear signs to move on from it that they would eventually take in the years to come, was awe inspiring.

All of this is punctuated by what perhaps sets the story apart the most from other CCC productions - the full voice acting of all spoken and/or recorded dialogue. Season 3 was still a time where the voice acting the channel would have was typically in jest, either through sentence-mixing, text-to-speech, or through jokey rips altogether such as Haltmanna feat. Rob Thomas of Matchbox 20. Before Season 4 Episode 1 and onward would bring proper voice-acted performances for characters like John NotWoodman, DJ Professor K, and Joke-Explainer 7000, we had this. And perhaps unsurprisingly, it is that titular character, Wade L.D. himself, voiced by ripper CaptainComedy, who through my every rewatch still impresses me most in his performance. At once, CaptainComedy's performance feels tired, fed up, exhausted, yet also like someone no more different than you or I - a true everyman, a cog in the machine, yet one with pent-up anger and frustration building up inside of him, anger that comes out as events unfold.

Its hard to not get excited, as a big lorehead, to have the narrative in question focus so much on loose ends set up by prior CCC events and Haltmann's Archives videos. The presence of 2B from Nier Automata as a prominent character, the direct callbacks to the first-ever side story in Waluigi's Tacostand and establishing its bizarrely critical plot importance, the building drama between Haltmann and The Voice, the investigation onto SiIvaGunner's empty house and the traces of Woodman's presence there from the very start of Season 2...there is such an overarching feeling of satisfaction throughout all of The Life and Times of Wade L.D., as if I'm being genuinely rewarded for having paid attention to all of the channel's workings ever so extensively. All capped off by a genuinely touching narrative about the gradual collapse of a man's life.

Yet more than that satisfaction, what I love most about The Life and Times of Wade L.D. - above the music, the story, the artwork, the lore, or whatever else - is how much it still truly feels like a SiIvaGunner production. CaptainComedy's performance is incredible, yes - but right alongside him, you have channel founder Chaze the Chat playing a literal self-insert of himself, dubbed by only the most modest amount of investment into the role, althewhile making references to Maroon 5 and Kara's Flowers. There's references and nods to prior CCC episodes, an ongoing bait-and-switch joke that sees "Dr. P", set up to be a reference to the Dr. Piccolo meme, actually turn out to be referencing Dr. Pavel of Baneposting (Maskettaman - Dr. Pavel's Fly​-​So​-​Good) fame. There's just this subtle cheekiness to it all - never any sign that the episode and the storyline aren't being sincere, yet with countless signs to remind you of just how much fun the team are having in producing this story. A beating heart. A passion.

There are so many readings one could make of the storyline, that I don't know where to - or even if I should - begin. In our real world, the SiIvaGunner channel is a passion project driven entirely by voluntary contributors, a group of people contributing to a greater whole as a hobby out of love for the channel, their craft, and one another. It stands in stark contrast to the version of SiIvaGunner that The Voice Inside Your Head seeks to create, a symbol of the whiniest of fans of the channel's early days, and it stands in even starker contrast to what Haltmann further wishes for it to be - to produce rips as content, as products, as a job to attend just like Wade L.D. himself does. Wade's journey is one of excessive overwork, of burnout - perhaps not of making rips, yet with work pertaining to SiIvaGunner itself althesame. The environment Haltmann has created necessitates that Wade finds escapes from his job in order to feel relieved from it, that his work offers him no relief or fun - that the act of contributing to SiIvaGunner's growth is, at this stage, no longer something done out of passion. The Christmas Comeback Crisis, as meme-filled as it and the entire channel its hosted on is, is a form of a dystopia, if a subtle one, and the insight we get into Wade's life shows just how dire a project like SiIvaGunner could, in a far-worse world, be.

I could, really, as I said before, go on forever about this, about any Christmas Comeback Crisis episode. The series means the world to me, the CHANNEL of SiIvaGunner of course means the world to me as well - but it was, as I've said many a time before, through Season 2 that I unabashedly fell in love with the project. The Life and Times of Wade L.D. was everything I could have ever wanted a side story of the Christmas Comeback Crisis to be, and it warms my heart to see so many people from the team still cherish it. Be it dante reminiscing on how important of a project it was for him as a composer, or indeed this post's requestee, Jiko Music, arranging the episode's main theme for RIP^2 just last year with the beautiful LD. Its clear that it's so much more than just another piece to the SiIvaGunner lore - as perhaps SiIvaGunner's best Season finale second only to the one Season 7 just provided us, The Life and Times of Wade L.D. is downright incredible.

[sodasa-was-taken]

Hey there, I'm curious about your thoughts on this. If the Gundam fandom particularly the English part isn't very fanfic-heavy, what's up with Gundam Wing having 50000 fanfics from FF dot Net and AO3 combined? And many of them still being updated. They even had a zine last year and I think you can agree that that's admirable for an old fandom. Compared to Gundam Witch, I'm only aware of 2, and one is even dead. Meanwhile, other M/M heavy fandoms have released more than a number of zines already.

I guess I can't help but compare the English fandom with the Japanese fandom which is releasing countless anthologies and events across the board to this day. Like many, I've read that fanfiction is the gage that people care about a fandom so I can't help but wonder if that is an old way of thinking and unlike Gundam Wing fans who are older, the fans of Gundam Witch are younger and just don't care about fanfiction anymore.

This is the first time someone has pointed out a flaw in one of my arguments. It's been a long time coming if you ask me.

I think I might not have expressed myself in quite the right way. I didn't mean to say that the English speaking part of the Gundam fandom isn't into fanfiction but that it has a proportionally small amount of people whose main thing is writing fanfic. I think it's silly to only use the amount of fanfiction to determine the size of a fandom because the skill sets and passions people within a fandom can have vary greatly. Some fandoms are huge on fan songs some barely have any or not at all. Some ships have more animatics dedicated to them than others and while popularity does play a role it's rarely if ever perfectly proportional. That's what I was trying to get at. The only way the output of a specific type of fan work would be a reliable way to determine the size of a fandom is if the ratio of that type of fan work to the amount of people in the fandom was at least somewhat consistent. In most cases it's anything but.

The disparities between Gundam Wing and g-witch makes perfect sense to me, but it doesn't have anything to do with young people not caring about fanfiction. Believe they absolutely do. The thing is Gundam Wing aired on Toonami back in 2000 as the first Gundam show to ever premiere on American television. It was a straight-up phenomenon in the way anime just isn't anymore in the west due to anime becoming a lot more mainstream within the last decade. The way it was distributed meant that a lot of people could stumble into it without already being in certain circles watch a few seconds while skipping between channels and decide to give it a try. This had the potential to bring in people with very varying interest because a lot of those who became fans hadn't actively been seeking out the show.

Compare that to a show like g-witch that came out in a time where streaming wars and algorithms mean you most likely wouldn't have just stumbled upon it unless you were already watching similar shows. People in the west had to main ways of learning about the show: either through someone they know or through the internet. There's basically no way anyone got into the show out of pure curiosity and this is pretty much true for any Gundam show since Unicorn. Anyway, my point is we've gotten more picky because we can be and it makes fandoms more homogeneous when it comes to taste than in the past.

When it comes to what kinda people do choose to watch g-witch there's three main points I've seen people bring up when recommending the show. It's a new take on Gundam. It's well produced. It's gay, I swear. These three things respectively appeal to existing Gundam fans, people who are passionate about the medium of animation, and fans of sapphic media especially those who like animated shows. If they are to join the fandom they're likely more than one of them. Without knowing for sure through what I have been able to observe I would guess it's people falling under the third category who are the most prolific Sulemio shipfic authors. In terms of the amount of fics that is as I'm almost certain it's a bunch of Gundam veterans who are responsible for the 300000+ words ongoing fics.

That was a longer answer than I would've predicted. Thank you for the ask.

[apieceofsushi]

ladies and gentlemen the annual post you never asked for

summoning plans!! (2024 addition because man I have a mild addiction and as a f2p I cannot afford to be broke over banners I do not actually care about that much and-)

feel free to use this as well, I have found that it is rather helpful!

here's the initial layout (subject to change per the usual)

My ramblings under the cut :) :

Cutting down from last year's eleven banners to five?! insane. this is due to a) really thinking about what cards are actually the most appealing in my mind and b) time constraints. I really only play prsk for half an hour a day (at most, sometimes I may go a few days without due to having a life (a shock)), so I realized this year that the time required to successfully acquire the cards I wanted was nonexistent. so we're being reasonable! I think I had to cut out little bravers, the valentines event, both of the Kohane focus events, the toya dragon event, the Kanade Zamza (so excited for song btw) event, light up the fire, holy shit this is a lot, the latest akito event, and the third-anniversary event?? I mean, that last one should have the dream pick, so obviously, I'll try to pull a little, but we'll see how the savings are.

A reminder that doing these is kind of just a way for me to personally organize my thoughts and that anyone is welcome to try this!! visually this just helps me a lot.

Okay, now some more reasoning (again half for my own benefit) to pull on each banner:

In the Corner of a Resonant Town (ALL OF THESE CARDS ARE SO PRETTY WTF)

Shiho: I technically have a limited of her among a couple of other four stars, but the theme of this whole set shot an arrow through my heart the moment I saw it. It's just??? I have no words

An: similar reasoning as Shiho, I have her fest card and two other normal ones, bUt HeY oNlY tHe LiM cAmE wItH a CoStUmE-

Ena: did I just say that I was skipping her fest because I gained a lim of her this year? yes. do I still want this one and will fight to acquire it? yes.

Miku: I actually have a couple of Miku four stars already, but I feel like seeing her on a rate up nowadays is becoming...rarer? probably due to the need to put other virtual singers on banners to balance out how many she had at the beginning of the game, but there's no doubt the frequency at which she's on banners is significantly less (unless she's the focus or smth). not to mention that because she has six versions of herself, it's even rarer for one that you might like a lot to be on a banner?? so far this is one of three Leo/need Miku four stars, and the only one that's limited, so you know damn well that if it's this pretty I'm going for it.

Our Escape for Survival

So quick note: because this one is only a month after Resonant Town, idk how much I'll actually save for it. time-dependent ig

Mizuki: hot take the 3D outfit isn't that good but the art of it is AMAZING. I saw a comment somewhere saying "wow they look like k-pop idols" and as a fan of the genre my fate was sealed. while it is a mizuki banner, it's a limited one, so I feel like there's a bit more reason to summon. again, it's time dependent, so if I can't it's not the end of the world.

Mafuyu: MAFUYU. this card was my computer wallpaper for a period of time so it'd be a crime not to try for it. I'm trying to only get mafuyu lims/focuses as I have an abundance of her (as a mafuyu collector any mafuyu is accepted), and this one is really nice, and the hairstyle is refreshing imo.

Luka: partly out of desperation to get some of the newer virtual singer cards that release (many of the ones I have are quite dated at this point), but also this is so pretty hello?? easily one of my favorite Luka cards if not my favorite. k-drama set lessgo baby

Saying Goodbye to My Masked Self

Mafuyu: at this point I've come to accept that I automatically pull on Mafuyu focus banners, and that's been quite successful! the only mafuyu focus I still have not claimed is the intersecting melodies one (one day... one day...), so I can say that all normal rate-up banners have gone quite well. while I haven't been following the story very closely lately, I know that this event is very important for her arc, and as bittersweet as it is her trained card in this set is relieving.

Kanade: tbh her and ena are here because this is just a mafuyu focus that I will summon on, but hello they're actually pretty?? the cards in the Snow White set were mid outside of mafuyu (so basically just mizuki and rin), so I would happily pull more even if I already got Mafuyu. also. I currently only have one kanade card, and it doesn't have a costume, so I'd like to fix that.

Ena: same reasoning as Kanade (except I have a solid supply of ena cards and I just find this set pretty)

N25 World Link Event (oh boy)

Since all of these cards are fantastic (even if they're not limited (?)), I'll just come out and say that I love them all and I hope that they come home. Genuinely was at a loss for words when I first saw them and I'm very excited for the event when it comes to global.

Now, here I was thinking: man, with the Sanrio collab, I think that's a good amount of gacha for the year!

And then the new year banner came into existence. Not even kidding it has altered my plans so much, I won't go back and edit each thing as that's confusing but list them below:

Resonant Town will stay the same, I only need to do 200 pulls to spark for someone I want (as I have ten stickers, I'm assuming that's still how it works? I've never saved enough to spark lmao)

May skip Survival depending on how much I spend on the previous banner. It'll probably end up being leftovers from Resonant Town if I have any. But from here on out, it's hardcore saving time!!

Masked Persona will have to be a pull-until-Mafuyu-and-then-quit because as much as I could use a Kanade four-star, I'm hoping to get that from the World Link event. At this point, I make sure to summon on Mafuyu banners because I have all of her standard focuses, and I've been pretty lucky with not having to spend too much to get her each time (fingers crossed it stays the same).

World Link event will depend on what happens over the first ten months of the year (damn, they really had to put the best banners in the last two months of the year didn't they), but I hope to spend a bit on this one. Then again, there is the chance to get them on other N25 banners, so even if I couldn't get all of them I wouldn't be too worried.

Sanrio Collab (not pictured) is still a must!! If I have to limit the World Link event for this, then I shall! It presents the opportunity to pull for characters I don't usually want to (Saki, Airi, and Emu), so I'm looking forward to it!

New Year's Banner......all of these characters are stunning (and Mafuyu is a 3-star and an amazing one at that, literally better looking than some of the earlier four stars), so...I really don't have any words

Obviously, as the year goes on, I'll see how I feel about these sets, but I'm pretty happy that I managed I've managed to cut down on how much I want to summon (it's like a diet guys). Again, I put my thoughts down here not only because doing all of this rambling helps my thought process but also because I think it's helpful and encourages others to use it if they're unsure of what they want to pull on!! Happy New Year's, folks, I hope 2024 is a good one !!!

[blazehedgehog]

This is the first Victory Royale I've had in a month and a half. I don't want to say this Fortnite season has been "bad" in so many words, because I think the new jungle area is great, but in terms of what they've done with it, it's very... perfunctory. Which has been a lot of this chapter. You'd be hard pressed to wonder if Fortnite's best days are behind it.

In the early days, Fortnite used to have mystery! Intrigue! Then it had story, which was messy and poorly told. Then it got slightly better told, at the cost of demystifying and fleshing out some of its characters in such a way that it started to feel kind of lame. The personality and tone I imprinted on Fortnite's mystery was not what they ended up going with. A common pitfall.

The opening season of this chapter, Chapter 4, served as kind of an epilogue for what had happened in Fortnite up to this point. AMIE, a robot character introduced partway through Chapter 3, needed help to travel the multiverse in search of the heroes we lost in the transition to Chapter 4. In the climax of Season 1 of Chapter 4, she said goodbye to Jonesy, the guy who was literally the face of Fortnite for most of its life, and both of them disappeared.

Keep in mind that, within the story they were conveying, Jonesy didn't go anywhere. Not that they ever told us. He just stopped being in the story. Hasn't been seen or heard from again. And when he left, he apparently took the all of Fortnite's ongoing plot threads with him, because Chapter 4 Season 2 pretty much ignored everything and was about some kind of weird cyberpunk clan war. You had to "unite the clans" by doing some incredibly basic stuff like "hit an antenna with your stick." It wasn't terrible, but it didn't have anything to do with what we'd been dealing with for four years now, and by the end of the season it was clear things were coasting on fumes.

The thing about Fortnite's story is that, love or hate it, it provided secondary gameplay. It took some of the focus away from solely just winning a match and gave you a broader sense of accomplishment. Even if you only managed to finish 20th or something, maybe you got a couple of quests done and leveled up the battle pass. And, once they started doing voiced quests, maybe you got a little bit of somewhat amusing dialog to go with it. It was flavor, even if the flavor wasn't always what you wanted to taste at that particular time.

Now here we are in Chapter 4 Season 3 and things are the thinnest they've maybe ever been. A vast jungle has spread out, taking up close to a third of the entire island. It's full of ancient ruins, and there's just... nothing about it that matters.

Fortnite's story was always ongoing. You received new story quests every week or two, give or take. The map itself was always static, but things would evolve week by week. A story event might see a building get destroyed, and as the season progressed, something would happen to those ruins. Clean up vehicles would spawn around them, and trucks carrying rubble away would appear further and further down the road in every update. Fortnite's island felt alive, like people were living and working there behind the scenes in between matches.

As of this chapter, it's happening less, and less, and less. As seasons got longer, wait times between new story quest branches got longer. Last season things came to a head, with new additions to the story hitting every month and a half. You could often finish the next branch of story quests within an hour of their release, only to be told "Additional quests will be available in 48 days!"

And now, halfway through this season, those sorts of updates have grinded to a standstill. The jungle is our one big geographical update and the rest of the map hasn't been touched. I subscribe to someone on Youtube called PlaystationGrenade because he used to do these great videos breaking down all the fun changes every update, and last season he just outright gave up because there was nothing going on anymore.

There haven't even been any story quests at all this season -- audio logs are scattered around the jungle hinting at something big on the horizon, but they're mainly teasing what is probably going to be the end of Chapter 4 in December or January. It's July.

(There was a time where Fortnite didn't reboot the entire map every single year, and maybe that's contributing to this problem.)

The best we've gotten is a quest category called "Snapshots" which, since the season's launch on June 8th, has contained exactly one single snapshot. There's no plural there.

So it's not that I hate what they've done this season, it just feels like they drop a new biome on us and check out, and it's been a problem that's getting worse over time.

It maybe wouldn't bother me so much if it wasn't for the fact they spent years and years and years building up all this lore, all these characters, all of this story, and then just cut that all off at the knees and dip. I would accept this as the sunsetting of Fortnite, but it feels like there's unfinished business, and I'm sure it's not as though Fortnite is suddenly "out of money", you know? It just feels like they've stopped trying, or at least stopped trying in ways that matter.

Salt in the wound is that, perhaps to make up for how little there is to do this season, it feels like they've really cranked the heat up on their matchmaking algorithm. I'm not one to complain about the perils of "skill based matchmaking" (SBMM) but these last couple seasons have thrown me into the deepest end of the pool where I clearly do not feel comfortable in. All my games are full of people who are miles above my skill level, snap to my face, and melt me in one or two shots. And, without decent quest content or meaningful map evolution to act as a buffer, it's starting to feel real stale playing this game. It really does feel like Epic's top shelf creative talent is focusing their attention somewhere else, and these kinds of scraps is all that's left for Fortnite.

Even if they're just trying to go back to the raw, original Fortnite gameplay of being a Battle Royale first and foremost, to that I say... once you lean so much on story and story quests, that's not a genie you can just put back in the bottle. Especially if their grand ending is "everybody died and the few remaining survivors stopped caring." I didn't love Fortnite's story, but if they've gone this far, they should at least wrap it up.

Of course, it wouldn't be the first time Epic ended something like this on a wet fart, I guess.

[gdwessel]

Fifty

Hi there. I'm fifty years old today, and the last couple of weeks I've felt every bit of it. I'm mostly writing this on Wednesday night. Mostly. I'm sure I'll have other things I wanna say come up before I hit the Post button.

C2E2 came and went. It was alright. I sold some copies of WAR BIRDS and TAKEDOWN, wish I'd sold more, but I've heard others had a really slow show as well. I didn't even really do BarCon like I was wont to do pre-pandemic (and OK, even a little post-pandemic); Friday night died early, and Saturday I just didn't feel like it, even as it hit me halfway to walking to the bars. Don Cardenas pointed out to me that this was the third C2E2 in 18 months, which once he said that kinda put things in perspective. The next one is not until late April 2024, so maybe there will be a bit more enthusiasm for the event on all sides by that time. Maybe by then, I'll have something else out to sell to people too.

(Which reminds me, something I prophesized last post thankfully did NOT come to pass, when Brandon Johnson won the Chicago mayoral race ahead of White Rage MAGA Chud in Dems Clothing, Paul Vallas. Thank gawd. Now Johnson just needs to be a better mayor than the last few. It's a low bar to clear, but somehow Rahm Emmanuel and Lori Lightfoot couldn't clear it…)

If you are in suburban Chicago, I'll be tabling at the mini comic con the Schaumburg Public Library is hosting on Saturday 4/15/2023 from 1pm - 4pm CDT. It's my local library, and if I wanted to I could walk there. It's the library system I grew up in. My daughter works there, as a matter of fact. Very pleased to be doing so. Gene Ha and many other local artists will be a part of it. Please say hi if you are coming by.

Speaking of WAR BIRDS, next Tuesday, 4/18/2023, will be a second launch of sorts for the book, as it will finally be available in bookstores, as well as Amazon and Kindle. So hopefully everyone who was not able to get a copy at their local comic shops because they didn't order and/or get any can get a copy. (MY local, who I've been shopping at for DECADES [well, OK, there was a break from when I was living in Indy] didn't get any in on release day. But that may have been Diamond fuckery.) In any event, Tuesday is the bookstore release date, and I hope you can get one then if you didn't get one previously. (And if you did, THANK YOU!)

I mentioned a Project I Couldn't Name last post. Pleased to say I've turned it in, way ahead of when I was told to, so hopefully there'll be some news on that front I can actually share soon.

I saw Depeche Mode! It was amazing. That's it, that's the review. (The opener, Kelly Lee Owens, also really good!) I can't wait to see them again in November.

(I was in the middle of writing this when I found out Dan Gaines, the owner of my Other Local, Comic Carnival in Indianapolis, has passed. Hadn't talked to him since I left Indy. So sorry to hear of his passing. My condolences to his family, loved ones, friends and everyone at Comic Carnival.)

I keep putting off something I've been wanting to write about here, and I'm going to be doing it once more, as it is now my birthday, and I have a meeting in about forty minutes for something I've been wanting to do for a very very long time, and thought the door was closed for decades, but it has reopened recently. So I am going to do that.

Thank you everyone. Talk soon.

[writer-citation-needed]

Emily Henry's newest release Funny Story begins with Daphne moving in with the least likely roommate, Miles, aka the ex-boyfriend of the now-fiancée of her recently-ex-fiancé. Who else could understand her pain and shock but the ex of the very person her fiancé left her for the day after his bachelor party? Now, she has to spend her summer rebuilding her life and planning for her now-uncertain future, all while planning a readathon for the library she works at. What is a girl to do?

This is my third read from Emily Henry and boy am I glad I went for it because it was such a redemption after Beach Read! Like her others, this is both a romance and women's lit, and it blends it so well in my opinion. See below the caption for my full review, featuring spoilers!

The Positives

The premise is so fun, and I think it's a great introduction to both Daphne and Miles since they're both different but work so well together. Forced proximity is a great way for them to bond, and it's hilariously sad to see them both getting over their exes.

Additionally, Miles is the perfect love interest for this book! Not only is he so cute (and reminds me of the love interest in Fangirl who I also adore) but his carefree nature makes him so yes-and-y which works so well for Daphne's impulsive side (see: their first kiss being to support Daphne's lie because if he's going to be a fake boyfriend, he better be a GOOD one). I also really enjoyed his deeper nature and his relationship with Julia but I wish he had more opportunity to heal than a summary of a conversation with his sister.

In tandem with both of the other points, I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly the plot moved past the break up, since it certainly could have been brought up at every moment (like a certain That Woman). Right from when Miles said "We're more than just what happened in April. Let's focus on the other stuff" I knew that I would actually enjoy the next couple hundred pages.

As I've mentioned before, I love Emily's side characters. Funny Story offers many of them from the library crew (including Ashleigh who I really liked (she keeps it real)) to Miles's many farmer friends, and I was really happy to see their community at their housewarming party at the end

Speaking of the end, I really liked how Daphne and Miles came together in a sort of compromise, neither exactly picture-perfect and controlled nor free and messy, I think it was a great conclusion to their theme of life being imperfect and finding love in that imperfection!

I thought the callback to January's books was super cute and alllmost made me forget why I didn't like BR

The Negatives

The drama with Daphne's Dad kind of bogged things down for me. It was good character development for Daphne, sure, but I think his appearance was timed strangely and felt super unnecessary in the whole mess near the end with Miles. The Petra misunderstanding at the same time made it seem really unnecessary and honestly it's a forgettable beat especially since Daphne gives her whole speech about how crappy she thinks her dad was just after learning the effort Miles went through in order to better their relationship

Speaking of, there was SUCH a missed opportunity for there-was-only-one-bed when her dad and Starfire showed up. Why Emily didn't take this chance when she has used this trope before successfully I will never know.

Overall Thoughts

Funny Story is just that- a funny story that turns a terrible situation into a fun and heartwarming tale. I loved how the story spent just enough time in the spiteful fake dating before really opening up into a conversation on disappointment and expectations- all with a delightful town of interesting characters and a library event that I wish I had as a child. There is so much to love about this book that I'm happy to ignore how the emotional climax (aka Everything Seems To Be Going Wrong In Daphne's Life... Again) had a bit too many moving parts. I really related to a lot of Daphne's internal struggles and adored Miles right from his introduction and his complete dedication to The Bit. Absolutely my favorite Emily Henry novel thus far!

[boonesfarmsangria]

Orlando Weeks recently released his brilliant new record LOJA. It’s either the ex-Maccabees third solo album or fourth, if you count the children’s book and accompanying Paul Whitehouse-featuring soundtrack he made for The Gritterman in 2017. It’s also his best, pairing the intricate introspection of his previous solo work with the expansive art-rock dynamism that made The Maccabees so exciting. He launched the album with a four-night residence at London’s Copeland Gallery, exhibiting his artwork during the day and playing gigs in the evening. I (still Niall here, still hungover) was originally supposed to speak to him on the second day of the residency but he was swamped and very politely rescheduled at the last minute. We caught up a week a week later instead:

The New Cue #391 June 24: Orlando Weeks

Hello Orlando. Sorry I'm late, I couldn't find the link.

No, I owe you the apology, I cancelled so late last week, so thanks for doing this.

Don't worry about it, I could tell you meant business because you had a pencil behind your ear. You were in the zone. What was going on at that point?

All of it went well and I'm really happy with how it went, but everything took longer, required more time... I totally underestimated things like how long it took to cut all the paper to size, how early I needed to get in each day to make the prints to sell in the evenings. It was the first time I'd done it so it was a lot on the fly and I felt like I was barely keeping up with what I needed to get done and if I was having a conversation with someone where my responsibility to that conversation is to try and give good account and be good company or whatever, then I was gonna fail at that miserably.

Haha. With all that in mind, how did you feel after the run of four days?

I really enjoyed it. I felt like all the aspects could have stood on their own. The exhibition looked as I wanted it to look, the performances worked and made sense, especially in the context of the gallery. The general experience of being there all day and making more work for the event, all of that makes sense to me in terms of contextualising the record and staying busy during the day really works for me in terms of taking some of the onus off the evening. I don't like turning up somewhere and doing the gig and that being the be all and end all of my product that day.

It's a lot of dead hours.

Yeah and it just puts too much pressure on that moment. Even towards the end of Maccabees, I was beginning to try and find ways of getting into getting into those bigger venues, trying to get into them really early in the morning, finding a desk or a room that no one else is going to use and just be busy in there for a bit and it would take some of the weight off the gig in the evening.

Did it work? By the time the gig came around, were you in a different headspace compared to how you would have been if you've just been sitting there for hours waiting to soundcheck?

Definitely. Being a touring musician as a solo proposition, turning up at venues and setting up the merch desk and all the things that used to be fun about the early days of being in a band, I really like. I like being sure that I've met lots of people that work in the venue and said hello, I really like feeling that that is part of what the venue is, not just the backstage and the stage, all those people make the weirdness of sitting on a stage and playing music to people slightly less weird.

The flipside of that is, do you miss anything about doing those big gigs where The Maccabees ended up?

Yeah, there's the rareness of experience. It's not something that lots of people get to do. Towards the end of Maccabees, I was getting this really unpleasant stage fright that meant that I had the adrenaline through the afternoon and into the gig grew, my ability to process the adrenaline would just fail and then during the show, I would become more and more anxious and self-conscious and panic. Then by the time we finished the gig, my emotional drop off was really intense and unpleasant and so I found it really hard to enjoy those big gigs. In retrospect, I would hope to be in a better headspace to really process what that was, if that's possible. I definitely had some of those gigs that were great that I enjoyed but, as a whole, I was really struggling with getting to the end of the gig and not finding it just uncomfortable.

I feel like the new record has a real connect with the music you made in The Maccabees. I really liked the previous two but this one feels like it's got the ambition and expanse that The Maccabees had paired with the arty introspection of what you've done on your solo records. Is that fair?

I think so. There is an element of the first two that were very insular. A Quickening was basically made in Nic Nell's bedroom and then he moved flat and it was another bedroom and a bit of his studio in New Cross and then the second was made in Nathan Jenkin's [aka electronic producer Bullion] studio in Tottenham Hale. We were really nervous about being in confined spaces so everything was done with masks on so it was not a freeing experience. We were very lucky that we were making a record that the point was to try and be uplifting because had that not been the manifesto for it then I think it would have not been such a pleasurable experience because it was great. I really enjoyed it. But with this, there was Fiction back on board, so [Fiction MD] Jim Chancellor championing me and making me feel like 'Why don't you do that? You should!'. I feel very comfortable with Jim. And then also there being a bit of budget, there being enough musicians that I knew that I'd worked with, toured with, played with, watched, become friends, whatever, that I could put together a band. And I'd written songs that I thought would suit that.

My initial idea of the record was I wanted to try and make a band in a room record and it isn't that. That was something that Maccabees strived to do and didn't achieve. One of the records that I've listened to in the last like four or five years that I think does it amazingly and is an incredible record that I return to a lot is the Caroline debut record. They're rare things, especially when it's a lot of people.

Tell me about getting some of the guests involved. You've got a band you’ve put together behind you, and also Katy J Pearson, Rhian from Wet Leg and Tony Njoku on it. It might not be a band in a room record but it feels like an album where you are sparking off other people.

Yeah, and I think there is a difference between those two things. There is a huge amount of collaboration and successful collaboration to my mind on the record, which is different to a band in a room record. I'd gone away with the initial recordings and I felt like we hadn't nailed the band in the room record so it was then trying to think, 'Right, so if it's not going to be that, I made the rules, I made the manifesto, it's mine to break, it's mine to change and I want it to be the best version of whatever it's going to be' and then starting thing 'Okay, so My Love Is needs something else' and I think Katy has one of the great voices in terms of emotive voices and I think it works well with my voice. I felt like I had a favour in the chamber with Rhian because even though I'd said no to it, she'd asked if I'd be in a Wet Leg video so I knew her well enough to ask a favour or at least see if she liked the song. Tony Njoku I'd played with, he'd come and supported me a couple of times. We have mutual friends and I know him well enough to just ask him directly and send him some music. Olly, I'd seen Caroline and the record became something that I listened to a lot and I'd seen Caroline at Latitude. So there were enough people and enough time that I could approach people and let them have some time with the decision. It feels like a collaborative record.

By the end of the Maccabees, you lot were becoming notoriously slow. I think the last record featured in Q previews for the coming year two years in a row. Have you got better at working quicker o have you carried that into your solo career?

I mean, the reason Maccabees sounded like Maccabees was because the process took as long as it did. The sifting that had to happen, that's just as long as it took. Without those various, necessary Maccabee hoops to jump through, I can make decisions quickly, I can work as late as I want to or get up as early as I want to. I think Maccabees always had a really good work ethic, especially the last two records, everyone worked hard, I just think if you're in a group generally, that's just the kind of natural law.

You’ve been solo now for going on seven years. What have you learned about yourself over that period?

In relation to Maccabees, I can feel much fonder about all that time and I have a much nicer, easier time with all those people which is a very nice thing that time gives. I really love the process still, I really like starting with no songs and then slowly getting building a record. In terms of my work, I don't think I've changed very drastically. I just really like doing it. I count it, I mind about it still, like I find the responsibility of it... when I hear myself saying these things, it sounds so flat!

It doesn't!

I genuinely think the mission is to try and find ways of keeping that as long as possible. When I was saying that it sounded flat it's just because I'm so comfortable with that as my MO. I'm doing everything I can to justify to myself and to enough people to find its relevance that's a legitimate thing for me to try and sustain.

Does it feel weird or funny to you that you and [other Maccabees offshoot] 86TVs are releasing music at the same time?

I think it probably would have felt weird if it was happening straight away, I also think that what we're making is pretty different and the way we are framing it is different. I'm so pleased for the boys that, from when I speak to them and from what I see from their output, they're having a very good time doing it and they've been very sweet when they've spoken to me.

I tried playing the two tracks over one another to see if I could get an idea of what The Maccabees would sound like in 2024 but it sounded awful.

Hahaha, good! I'm quite relieved that it didn't end up that satanic messages started coming through.

I should've asked this at the beginning of this conversation but where are you at the moment?

I'm in Lisbon.

You’ve lived there for a few years now. Does it feel like home yet?

Yeah, definitely.

What are the main things you love about living there?

I find it hard to explain but I feel very new here. I lived in London almost all my life. Apart from a few years in Brighton when I was coming back a lot anyway, I was in London for almost 40 years so your fingerprint is everywhere, there is so much of your history in and so many eras of your history embedded in everything. It was so rare that I would go to somewhere that I hadn't been to before that I hadn't had a night there before or I hadn't seen countless gigs there. I'm habitual anyway so if all of my days are spent at a desk either writing songs or doing drawing or whatever, and any desk will do, then in the evenings, I'm less interested in going and doing a new thing or seeing anything or walking down the street and being like 'That's it's the first time I've done it' and here I feel like that all the time. And this is not to do with being noticed by someone that might have known the Maccabees but I'm inconspicuous here, I'm not bumping into people, I'm not coming across old haunts, I'm fresh here.

Constant surprise.

Constant surprise, lots of moments where I cannot believe my luck. The way that Lisbon sits, the hills mean where a sunrise happens or sets, if you're just one road over, everything is weirdly more colourful or the way that that light bounces, I'm so seduced by it. I keep thinking the newness will wear thin and it doesn't.

How far do you look forward, what's your mind on now?

Weirdly, today was the first day I sat down and started just playing piano and thinking about what I'd really like to do next. I really want to write something that Bill Ryder-Jones wants to produce or sing on or play guitar on. It's something we've talked about on and off for a long time. Even if we just did one song. I just sent him a video link for the McAlmont & Butler song the other day, just as like a 'mmm?'. I started trying to think how to write a pop song that he would enjoy. And then the other thing is I want to try and find other places in the UK or in Europe where I can take the Copeland gallery framework and put it into another place and be in a place for a few days and do play some music and exhibit some work.

Nice one man, thanks for your time.

Amazing, thank you again

[rubyperic-09]

In Love

Chapter 2 is lowkey kinda boring.... i think so anyway, it's eventful, just not the most interesting events. Anyway...... Lmk if you enjoy it and I'll release Chapter 3 at 9:00 am tomorrow (UTC+10/Australian time) maybe chapter 4 as well.

as i said on the last chapter, i was in my heartstopper faze while i wrote this book :) not that i've left but i write other things now xx

feel free to lmk if there are any mistakes or anything in this and if you have any suggestions for additional parts to any chapters at any point :)

I will be opening my suggestion box after the release of chapter 5 so get keen if ya have any suggestions!!!! anyway.... i'll quit yappin 😂 enjoy xx

Summary (was too lazy to do it myself so ChatGPT did it for me 😂): Ivy shares her experience of coming out and the subsequent challenges with her family. She had secretly been in a relationship with Lilly and assumed She had informed her brother, Henry, after telling their parents. While discussing travel plans with Lilly, a visibly upset Henry walked in. After ending the call, Ivy tried to comfort Henry, eventually revealing her relationship with Lilly. Henry was surprised and hurt, having not been informed. Ivy explained their attempts to stay in touch, which failed due to miscommunications. This led to a heartfelt conversation where both siblings reassured each other of their love and bond, ending with a tender reconciliation.

Chapter 2:

I do not remember telling my brother about my relationship with Lilly, but I told my parents about her. My dad had done the exact same thing he was doing with Henry. The whole “you’re not allowed to spend every minute of your day with the person you love” thing. I had learnt to block it out after a while. I proceeded to live with her for 9 months and then finally moved to live with my family. Lilly and I have arranged to see each other whenever possible. She will come down to Melbourne for the Easter holidays. I will go up to Brisbane for the winter holidays-it will be freezing in Melbourne and Brisbane is always warm- she will come down for the spring holidays, and my whole family is going up for the Christmas holidays to see my cousins anyway, so I will see her then as well.

I have dated guys in the past, that is why my parents were so shocked when I came out to them. They just thought I had finally given up on relationships. Nope, never. I just had a relationship with the person they thought was my best friend. My dad was completely shocked. Like he had no idea it was coming. My mum on the other hand, had seen me kiss her goodbye when she drove me home one night. I genuinely thought we had been secretive about our relationship. But apparently not. My mother was like a super spy. She heard me say I love you over the phone a couple of times and I just pretended I was talking to my aunty when she asked about it. She then of course called my aunty who ratted me out and said I had never called her. So, I had to tell her. I told my dad at the same time because I would not have to come out twice that way. But I must have forgotten about Henry.

It is Monday afternoon, and I am on the phone to Lilly, organizing how in the name of hell we were going to pay for a plane ticket. We both had jobs and could already pay for half the plane ticket if we combined our summer money. I decided to use some of my birthday money to even out how much we were both paying. We had two thirds of the plane ticket paid for at this point and only needed eighty-three dollars to pay for the rest of the ticket. That was easy enough that is only a week’s salary, and we only need to pay for half each. I pay my half of the money using my job money from last week. And Lilly will pay for hers on Thursday when she gets paid. For now, she borrows the money from her mum.

I was about to buy the plane ticket when Henry walked in, tears rolling down his face. When I asked him what was wrong, he changed the subject and asked what I was doing. “I’m on the phone” I say.

“I know that” he says. His voice shaky.

“What’s wrong?” I ask again.

“nothing”

Obviously, that is wrong.

“Hey, I’m really sorry, can I call you back later?” I say to Lilly.

“I don’t get much option do I.” she says laughing.

“Nope.”

“Alright, fine. Love you.”

“Love you too. Bye”

...

“Who was that?” Henry asks.

“Who do you think it was.” I answer.

“I don’t know. Some stupid guy you met in primary school and reunited with.” He rolls his eyes at me.

I stare at him blankly. “I did not tell you. Did I.”

“Tell me what?” he asks while wiping away dried tears.

“Alright.” I sigh. “I was on the phone to Lilly.”

“Oh. So, it is like your plutonic love then?” he says almost disappointed.

“No!” I say this too loud. I can tell because Henry recoils from his regular slumped position to a very stiff straightened position. “sorry” I say. “I am so sorry for yelling at you. I didn’t mean to. I ... I ...”

I can’t find the words to finish my sentence. It’s like there is a frog in my throat. I then realize that I am crying too. “I have been dating Lilly for aver a year now. I just assumed you knew.”

He doesn’t say anything. He just sits there like a stunned donkey. “I told mum and dad about her about a year ago. I genuinely thought I had told you.”

“You hadn’t” he said so quietly that I barely heard him.

“I know that know” I say.

...

“I’m sorry for not telling you. I was so stressed that I forgot to tell Lilly that I had come out to my parents for like six months. Like I just completely forgot about it.”

“Glad I’m not the only one you forgot about then.”

“what’s that supposed to mean? I never forgot about you. I sent multiple letters, postcards, I sent you presents. Mum sent me the address. Did you not get any of them?”

“no.” he says with an incredibly surprised look on his face. “Not a single one of them.”

“Oh. I must have sent them to the wring address or something. That’s my fault.” He doesn’t say anything. He just stares at his jumper sleeves. “I tried to email you. But they wouldn’t send through and none of my messages got replies.”

“So that was you. I have like sixty messages on my phone from an unknown number. I didn’t know it was you.”

“Mum sent me your number. I told you it was me, didn’t I?”

“nope”

“Oh, well, that’s me. Woops.” I say almost laughing.

We both burst out laughing. “Is this why you have been avoiding me? You thought I forgot about you?”

“Kind of”

“OMG. You are such an idiot! I can’t believe you thought I forgot about you. I thought you had forgotten about me.” We are both almost crying laughing at this point. “I love you, Henry. And I aways will.”

“I love you too” he says back. We aren’t laughing anymore. We are serious this time. I hug my brother for the first time in what feels like forever. He snuggles into my shoulder. The same way he used to when we were kids.

[aurelie-in-letters]

Saturday, April 20th, 2024. 2:01am

I wish it wasn't so hard to find the free time, energy, & motivation to write. I've started & abandoned so many journals & diaries in my life, & I have such poor memory as well. So many things I recorded & lost, that I forgot & will now likely never remember. I know moping & being sad & regretful about it isn't going to get me anywhere, but I can't help it. I come back to it every now & again.

Anyways, it wasn't a super eventful day. I didn't go to work, I slept from 1pm to 6:30. My nana babysat my half sibling (I was not raised with her, we aren't close & I don't consider her to be my sister), & at some point the power went out - no one realized at first because it was such a a bright & sunny day that we didn't need to use any electrical sources of light indoors. I looked up the outage zone & it was rather big, but as far as I can tell, no one ever released an official reason for the event.

I holed away in my room for a while because my awful homophobic excuse for a sibling (one who I was raised with) came over since she was within state lines with some other family members I'm unfamiliar with. The door doesn't lock (I am so tired of doors that don't lock - though the last time I did have one, it didn't stop my psychotic ex roommate & friend from breaking in) so I pushed the obnoxiously heavy bedside table in front of the door & left it there for the duration of their visit as I did not expect her to respect my boundaries (she never has before) but she actually never came to bother me.

I made it through that visit unscathed & then had to spend an hour or so trying to get the kitten off the roof of my papa's garage - how did he even get up there ... ? Had some more leftover coffee with my nana & then I took a nice bath & washed my hair - running low on my fancy shampoo & conditioner, & my sugar cookie body wash from Native. I'll have to order more shampoo & conditioner soon, but I do have a couple back up body washes from Native, so that can wait. May purchase some more deodorant from Native as well. I bought 3 in December & I just ran out of one, & I'm like halfway through a second - I keep one in my bag & then I keep one at home, & the third stays in the bathroom, where it rarely gets used unless it's closer or more convenient to do so. I ran out of the cinnamon heart one, & I have the sugar cookie & vanilla buttercream remaining ...

Other than that, I would like to express my frustration that I cannot seem to get through a single day without spilling a can of coke zero - two tipped over today & I very narrowly saved them. Is this some bizarre curse?

Anyways, I should sleep soon. I work early today.

[brainrot-yumm]

tw: third year anniversary of ending one of the worst points in my life uwu so mental health issues SH talk Past thoughts of suicide talk

I'm very not used to people following this account man. Genuinely this is gonna be a very personal ramble I'll be having so be warned. I know since this is online it was always gonna be seen but I'm not used to it. Luckily this didn't happen while my account was peaking or else there'd be a lot more issues than needed.

So! Halloween was my 3 year anniversary of not killing myself, and today (or yesterday as of 4 hours ago) is my 3 year anniversary of going clean from self-harm. It's a bit ironic how I was actually contemplating hurting myself during these days, legitimately not as a relapse thing but because I have some chest acne that's been bothering me and turning them into scabs tends to make them go away faster. I don't count that as self-harm at all since it's not emotionally based on release but more as a weird side effect that I can now do thanks to my self-inflicted high pain tolerance. This anniversary is especially important to me because it's been six years since I planned to die. So now I've spent about as much time suicidal as I've spent recovering. Though it's more like 3 and a half years, so check back next June.

I know it's poor taste to say, but there are a few good things that came from all this mixed in the ocean of terribleness. I genuinely like my scars (how they feel, look, represent). I don't think they make me look better than before but I don't think they retract from my appearance at all. I get tattoos now instead of hurting myself to get the same meaning in a healthier way though. I also love having a high pain tolerance, it gives me more options on how to live my life and keeps me from hurting as much in general. And now that I'm hyper-obsessed with not becoming an abuser like my intrusive thoughts say I will inevitably be, I'm learning a lot about myself and how I function in order to work around and fight against impulses. Uh. And that's all the good things. And I could go on for hours about everything else and the rest is all bad.

I think I'm doing a lot better than I was last year. It's honestly strange. I kind of feel like I'm experiencing my childhood again, because everything's normal now. Middle school and puberty has been associated with being traumatized to me, so now that everything is normal and nobody is hurting me (and it's so fucked up how that tremendously traumatic experience is really just a 7-year event that could have happened to anyone, that I can just stumble upon trauma and will inevitably stumble into pain like that again against my will it's so fucked), it feels like I'm a kid again. A very, very, very, very busy kid. A kid who needs naptime and eats too much candy for Halloween and can still kind of summersault and somehow still has too many expectations for the world. I'm hoping maybe I can reclaim some of the hope I used to have. Normalcy feels nostalgic to me I guess.

But yeah, I'm doing better. I'm always tired, I cry pretty much daily, I have the emotional maturity/understanding of a 12-year-old, and despite having been in the semester for like 11 weeks I still haven't scheduled an appointment with the counseling center, but I got diagnosed with ADHD, I'm having more fun with my fashion than ever, I fully understand and accept myself as trans despite being so cis-passing, and apparently I see myself as worthy enough to ask my splat out. I wasn't able to ask her out on Halloween, mostly cuz I knew she was too busy and didn't wanna burden her further. However we eat lunch together now and if I can get my rizz together I might ask her for dinner. I was not able to see myself as worthy enough for another relationship last year.

I'm happy to be alive. I've always been happy to be alive. It's just that I spent so long not living that I stopped thinking there was a point. And now I'm alive again. It's nice.