#transcription disc

[voted4exile]

dream’s lore q&a 2022.11.16

Transcript of Dream’s answers to lore questions from his Twitter space on 2022.11.16. Timestamps link to an upload of the Twitter Space on Daily Dream Team Clips channel.

c!Dream’s lore finale [15:27]

Dream lore finale for Dream SMP. That's pretty good. It's a good topic. What about it? Let's talk about it. I think it turned out great. I- I really, I was really happy with it. Obviously, if we had more time and, and everything, we could do, do more. But I'm happy with what we, what we did, with what we were given. And I'm happy with how everything went. It went great. 

I quite enjoyed playing the character, and I like, I like, like role-playing and stuff is fun, obviously. Had a good time. It was great. Kind of the daily streams. Streaming with. With Tommy, it went back. It took me back to back in the day. Tommy and Tubbo and everything. It was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it.

I think revealing a lot of the stuff that in terms of intentions. It was all stuff that has kind of already been out there, but not like kind of concise and also not like to Tommy- c!Tommy and c!Tubbo. But you know, it was fun. It was fun. I enjoyed it.

c!Tommy’s limbo [21:15]

“Can you talk about why c!Tommy saw that in his limbo?” I'd say that that's, that's more of a question for Tommy than, than me. Because my reasoning is, well, it's, it's what pushes the story along. But I don't know what the- Tommy's reasoning behind, behind it is and what Tommy's character's reasoning behind it is. So.

I think that the way that I would, I would look, I would interpret it is that-- It's kind of like it, like Tommy wants like-- This, this is what, this is how I would interpret it. And totally, Tommy could completely disagree. So feel free to disregard everything I'm about to say if you don't like it at all.

But I would interpret it as that Tommy really wants like for his friends to, to be able to, you know. If for it to be simple and for him to just be having fun with his friends. You know how, how, he- how it used to be back in the early days of the server and so seeing that but for his, you know, for-- seeing that, but for Dream. You know, the, the-- Dream experiencing what he, you know, what he wants. And of course, Dream is his nemesis, whatever. That's how. That's how I would interpret it.

c!Tommy did not forgive c!Dream [23:31]

“Hi king, can you confirm the interaction between Dream and Tommy wasn't a forgiveness, it was just understanding?” Yeah. No, no, Tommy wasn't forgiving, was not forgiving Dream. I think it was a-- I think Tommy, Tommy had never seen Dream other, as anything other than just this evil, you know, bastard that's doing all these horrible torturous things to him. Which he did and was. And had never, never stopped to think about or, or even imagine, you know, what Dream was like before, you know, in the, in the past. So it was more of a humanizing moment of kind of like a, you know, this person's, this, hey, this person's a human, too. We're both from the same place, whatever.

It was, it was definitely not, “Oh, that means that everything's OK.” Like, I think Tommy said this. Tommy said the same thing in the lore. He was like, “Well, it doesn't, you know, I understand, you know, what your goal is, but this isn't how you do it.” And I think it was one of those things where you-- In my mind, it was, it was a moment of, you know, before in, in the past, you know, you're never going to, if you don't understand somebody's intentions, you don't understand somebody's goals, you don't understand why somebody, what somebody wants and you go into every situation with a, “Well, you're, you know, you're evil or you're, you know, you're a bad person,” you know, whatever. Then you're never going to convince the other person. And it's the same thing with-- You're never gonna make any ground with anybody.

And I think that, so it was, it was the first time where, ever between Tommy and Dream, where they had any, any kind of understanding with each other. Because they had always just been at each other's throats and had always been. You know, fighting for so long. It had never stopped to really, really try and understand each other, but especially for, for Dream. As, as obviously his motives for a million different things had just been, had been up in the air and had been things that not only did the audience not know, but the, the characters themselves don't know either.

But yeah, so I'd say it was, it was 100%. It was not. It was not a forgiveness thing. It was a, it was an understanding. And it wasn't an understanding with a level of forgiveness. It was just understanding it completely. It was just a-- And I think it was more of a Tom- Tommy going up, you know, for the longest time, operating under the impression that Dream is just this, you know, evil bastard that. That, you know, “just enjoys, absolutely enjoys torturing me” and whatever. And, you know, that's the thing is you can interpret things how you like. But I- I'd say that there, there is an element there, and there, there is an element of enjoyment from, you know, from Dream's perspective. Because of, because of the, the past and their history together and whatever. I'm sure Dream does derive some joy from the actions he's seeing, the things he's put Tommy through and whatever.

But obviously those are-- He's not going into it with the intention of, “Oh, I- I- This is my, my goal is just to bring hell to Tommy or bring hell to the server” or whatever. And so I think that the, the moment of understanding is more understanding that if, if that's not, if that's not Dream, if Dream's intention isn't or Dream's main goal is not, you know, being an evil person and, you know, deep down he, he, he does have good intentions even if he's is an evil bastard for the way he went about things. That maybe there is a way to make it work. You know, because if you're just, if you're just pure evil then, you know. You get, get rid of, get rid of it from the earth, you know. Versus if, you know. Oh, you're, you've done horrible things. You deserve to pay, you to deserve to pay for them. You deserve to be punished for them. You deserve to have repercussions from them. But at the same time. Yeah, you can-- There is a way where we can work together because we have the same, we have the same goals, we have the same morals, we have the same, you know, whatever in mind. That’s kind of how I look at it. I don’t know if that-- I don’t know. I think it’s also more up for interpretation.

c!Dream’s plans for the prison [28:23]

“What would have happened if c!Dream's imprisonment had lasted longer?” I don't know what you mean by that. I think that the, the, the biggest, like, behind people, cause people were saying, “Oh, Dream purposely put himself in prison.” So I was like, “Well yeah, but no.” And from my pers- my understanding of it is, yes, Dream did purposefully, you know, put himself into the prison. And the prison was a part of the overall plan in terms of-- It wasn't, it wasn't, I didn't-- 

The prison wasn't built for Dream. The prison was built for the, for fulfilling Dream's goals overall and the ability to do that and one of those things was to-- Obviously, there'd be, there'd be certain people that would be more likely to get in the way and unlikely to-- And, and also having the understanding of the fact that there was a revival book. Dream, after kind of becoming aware of that and, and coming to possession of one himself, Dream had the idea that, well, you know, what if. What if somebody like Techno or somebody like, you know, somebody strong. 

And I'd say, in my mind, that it was originally, when I came up with the idea for it, it was, it was more so based on Technoblade. And the reasoning for it was Dream being scared of the fact. Well, what if there's more? What if there's more revival books and what if death is not, you can't stop somebody with death? Like it's, it's scary knowing that you can, you, you can beat somebody fully and then they're just there. And so he thought the idea of making a prison where if that ever does come to be where somebody is trying to stop, stop him, stop his goals, stop, you know, hurt the server or whatever that they'd be able to be stopped by putting them in the prison. Which is kind of funny because, obviously, it kind of ended up being the opposite but when Dream- c!Dream put himself into the prison. It was, it was thought of as a very, it was thought of as a temporary thing and ended up lasting a lot longer than he had imagined. And also, on top of that, he didn't expect that Awesamdude would let Quackity into fucking torture him. So that obviously made things a million times worse. But. 

Just to clarify, the prison wasn't built for Techno, but it was just like. Oh well, Techno's-- Seeing Techno’s power and stuff back then and being like, it was one of those things where it was like. Oh. What if somebody as powerful as Technoblade? You know, there are people that can be as powerful as, as, you know, as me or whatever, as c!Dream and so. What if one of them is is not on our side? Or what if Techno is not in the future? Whatever.

[rouge-the-bat]

having adhd will make you not have the energy to do shit like cooking and cleaning and general Things You Need To Do To Live but WILL make you have extreme motivation to make a transcript of all dialogue of a 100+ episode 90s anime, take a million screenshots, rip models from a ps2 game of the anime when you have no experience with doing that, so not only you can use them but also all of this can be available online for peoples easy access. just because the anime is your fucking hyperfixation

[tpwrtrmnky]

debate

[ID: 4-panel "pills that make you green" comic.

Panel 1: A light blueish grey stick figure is talking to a green stick figure.

LBG: "Hey I think the way you debate could use some refinement."

Green: "Oh?"

LBG: "Yeah like maybe check out Dischorse, they're pretty good."

Green: "Dischorse? Didn't they say-"

LBG: "Yes they did but don't worry about that just watch a debate."

Panel 2: Green is sitting at a computer setup with two monitors. On the left monitor is a logo that reads "Disc Hors", without the e, showing a horse head emerging from some kind of disc. On the right is a social media app.

Green: "Well, time to learn debate tactics I guess."

Panel 3: A stick figure with a horse head is slamming their hands into a table while a long chat (transcript below) flies by on the right.

Dischorse: "Look, CouchTruther69, we've been over this already. If your only source is a ten hour rant video then you don't have a source. No, no. Don't try to change the subject again, yes you're trying to change the subject. Behave."

Panel 4: Green continues watching, with the monitors in front of them.

Green: "It's four hours of this? I mean if they're getting paid to do it, sure. Not for me though."

Dischorse: "No, listen to me. We've been over this. That was already debunked ten minutes ago-"

End ID.]

[Chat transcript:

very dark off-white: horse they did a logical fallacy get them. orange: outside is so cool. God damn. games workshop fenrisian grey: horse your take on the season finale of Bexing Mech Politics was reprehensible, I've never seen media literacy this bad. blue: Thoughts on chromomedicalism? I think we should consider it. the imperceptible idea of a color known as "man": hi everyone moss green: If the election comes to microtransactions child versus immortal jeff, I'm voting with violence, actually. fishmoder37: why is everyone in this chat chromatic? where are my grayscale dischorsites at? cyan: lol purple: lmao red: speaking of, when's horse going on hue replacement therapy? in square brackets: user red has been banned for prime directive violation. blue: horse wouldn't look good anyway.

end transcript.]

Start - Previous - Next

[beemo-clippin]

Gem and Etho boppin to the #1 hit track on Hermitcraft: “Honey, Honey, Honey” by Smallishbeans

Clipped from Gem’s VOD, “I Streamed a Hermitcraft Meeting - Server Tour #1” (2:10:05)

Video description and transcription below cut:

Transcription:

Joel’s song “Honey, Honey, Honey” plays on a music disc: ♫ o-aaaah a-oh-aahh ♫

Several hermits laugh including Joel, Xisuma, Ren, False, and Doc

Doc: you’re the worst

Joel’s song cont.: ♫ all the things I could buy! If I sold all of this honey! ~wownoww~ ♫

Pearl (?) mimics the ~wownoww~

Ren (?) laughs and Xisuma giggles

Joel’s song ends: ♫ In this Minecraft world! ♫

Joel: there you go

Joe: woo!

Video description:

POV GeminiTay on the Hermitcraft server, with a facecam on the bottom right corner and Twitch chat replay in the top left corner. Roughly 11 Hermits roam around inside Joel’s tree stump honey shop, and laugh as his “Honey, Honey, Honey” song plays on a music disc. Gem walks to the source of the music, a mound of wood blocks with a sign, gold block, and a button on the gold block. Etho stands on top of the mound and dances wildly by crouching repeatedly and moving his head around. Gem switches to third person POV and centers herself on screen. She joins Etho dancing by crouching to the beat, but Etho’s just going nuts behind her. Several hermits watch and roam around them, including False, Bdubs, Pearl, Ren, and Xisuma.

Feedback:

Please lmk if I can make any improvements to my video descriptions or transcriptions, as I am just getting used to it! I will be adding captions to my future posts once I get my computer + editing software :)

[cubfan135-facts]

cubfan135 fact #247:

cubfan is the best friend ever

Transcript:

Scar: -lot of awards at that... wh...

(A few seconds of silence before Cub notices Scar)

Cub: ...Well hello there, Scar! You've just caught me at the opportune moment!

(Cub uses a music disc, Pigstep begins playing)

Cub: You've been working real hard man, and uh, I came here, I got some fresh lemonade for you. Check it out.

Scar: What?! Lemonade? Hold on, let me dump my inventory...

Cub: Yeah, yeah! Take a seat, take a seat!

[magzthemad]

John Lennon, March 20th, 1964—The Beatles on Ready, Steady, Go (x).

TRANSCRIPT

“Our amateur disc jockey this week is John Lennon”

John Lennon: *barks*

[sumwan]

I'm not sure how many people know about this, but the entire script for the Green Festival was actually shown in Tommy's DSMP tribute video from last year. It seems to have been written by Dream (it mentions "I" at some point when referring to Dream), and it's pretty interesting to see how they planned out the lore streams and what changed in the actual streams.

Transcription can be found under the cut.

Transcription The festival is happening. Fundy, Tubbo, Quackity, Ranboo, Niki, and anyone else that is generally around lmanburg can attend. Everyone starts streaming early for the festival. Before the festival starts, Quackity Tubbo and Fundy (and ranboo? I'm not sure who was there originally), have a meeting about how they're going to kill Dream.

They talk about how Dream trusts Tubbo so Tubbo is going to have to be the one to do it. That they've become sort of friends since Tommy was exiled. Tubbo agrees, still slightly doubtful that it would work. Tubbo says that Dream agreed to show up with no armor to for the first time ever, honor lmanburgs laws.

The meeting ends and they start the festival, talking about how Dream said he would be a little late.

Tommy and Techno at this point have been planning how they're going to ruin the festival (and get back Tommy's disc from Dream). They know that Dream will show up, but they don't know how they'll fight him without him escaping. (Ranboo finds them on the outskirts of lmanburg and tells them that Dream agreed to show up in no armor? possibly?) That sparks that they can hide around lmanburg and ambush Dream when he's at the festival. Tommy and Techno improv and mess around while trying to build an "ambush spot" (all of this is sort of unimportant to the plot so can be adjusted to make funnier/better streams for those two).

Tommy and Techno start streaming about 30 minutes after the others.

After some festival activities have been done, Dream shows up in full armor, placing obsidian again in a wall formation. Everyone sees him and runs over confused about what's happening.

They hop in a call with dream (techno and tommy join too but tell eachother to be quiet before joining.) Dream starts screaming about what Tommy did and how he really screwed up this time (tommy is kind of afraid and is looking at techno for assurance), and everyone is confused about what Tommy did, especially tubbo. Dream yells about the fact that Tommy destroyed the community house, the longest standing structure on the server, and how he has to pay for it. Quackity and the others don't believe it and decide to go look with Dream. (Techno and Tommy follow stealthily behind (invis), no one should see them).

Sapnap and anyone else from the original Dream SMP can log on now or already be on and come over to see. (Awesam, Callahan, George(probably not), Sapnap, BadBoyHalo, Punz)

They stand in front of the shattered remains and everyone is shocked that Tommy would do this, and upset. Everyone is insisting that Tommy really screwed up and that it's horrible.

Tubbo agrees but insists that he and lmanburg had nothing to do with it. Dream says that as long as Tubbo has one of the discs, he has everything to do with Tommy. Tubbo seems shocked and thinks about what Dream said. All of the Dream SMP original members agree and are talking about how he should give it so they can burn it once and for all. Tubbo is reluctant but seems to agree that Tommy keeps doing things that would put lmanburg in danger, so he doesn't want association.

He seems like he is about to give the disc, so Tommy reveals himself (techno too) and gets into a screaming match with Tubbo about it.

--Tommy and tubbo fill in what happens here, but it's a big argument and fight probably mostly improv-

Eventually after both nearly dying, Tommy realizes that he's fighting his best friend and stops. Tubbo is angry and gives the disc quickly to Dream, saying that it's just a stupid disc. Tommy is hurt by that but realizes that he's been blinded and has lost friends because of it. Tommy realizes that Dream now has both of his discs, and that they're back at square one.

Dream has an evil speech about how Tubbo is an idiot and that he never should have given him the disc. That Tubbo was never the president of L'manburg, but that everyone else had more control than him of his own country, even Dream. That he's the worst president because he was no president at all. Expose Ranboo as a traitor that has been working with Techno and Tommy, and that he can't even keep control of his own people. Give Tubbo the book with proof. That l'manburg is weaker than it's ever been, and that the only thing stopping Dream from completely destroying l'manburg was the fact that Tubbo had the discs and so Dream had to befriend him.

Now there's nothing stopping Dream from completely obliterating l'manburg. Everyone seems shocked and tries to talk Dream down, but Dream screams and tells everyone to shut up. Everyone goes completely silent. Dream asks Techno if he has any withers left. Techno responds basically like "oh do III" because he has so many.

--Techno should add more here so he has more of a role-

Dream announces that tonight is the final night of l'manburg forever. That he and Techno will finish the job that Wilbur started, and that l'manburg will be blown all the way to bedrock at (TIME, the next day). He tells everyone to say their last goodbyes, and to not try and stop him because Techno and him will kill every last one of them.

Dream leaves.

Everyone is left in shock, (maybe techno has some funny monologue here like it's awkward that I just left him there with everyone or something)

No one knows what to say. They realize that Dream has gone completely insane and that he has to be stopped. (techno is gone by now) They realize that Dream made a mistake by telling them the time, and they decide that they will all plan to work together and stop them. If all of the server fights together they can beat Techno and Dream. They get hyped about it and Tommy and Tubbo agree to fight together, despite having 1 canon life, that they're willing to put their lives on the line for l'manburg. They kind of have a reunion.

--Possibly Tommy leaves or ends here?-

Quackity seems blood thirsty and wants to punish Ranboo for conspiring with them and being a traitor. Tubbo disagrees and Quackity and tubbo get into an argument, Quackity insists that he HAS to execute him because he was a traitor. Tubbo gets mad and flips out on Quackity insisting that he's not going to be like Schlatt and execute him next to his own festival decorations (call back), that they need to ALL be together, ALL of them, otherwise they will lose to Techno and Dream. As long as he agrees to fight, he will fight with them. Quackity still seems to disagree, Tubbo puts his foot down and mentions what Dream said. That everyone else always pushed him around, but no HE'S the president, and his word is final, anyone who goes against it is committing treason. Quackity reluctantly agrees, but says that what Tubbo said doesn't mean they can't deal with the traitors after they stop Techno and Dream.

-End of this stream-

Bullet points for Tommy-

Starts Stream a little after Tubbo and the others start.

Plan to go to l'manburg to ruin the festival

Show up at l'manburg, with lots of invis potions, investigate what's happening

Dream shows up, join VC secretly Hear Dream freak out about the community house, seem confused, follow them.

Once Tubbo seems like he's going to give up the disc, tommy interjects

Fight tubbo

Give up on fighting tubbo and realize that you're fighting your best friend

Listen to Dream evil speech

After Dream/Techno leaves, convince everyone to work together. Talk about putting your life on the line for l'manburg.

Bullet points for Techno-

Start Stream a little after Tubbo and the others start.

Plan to go to l'manburg to ruin the festival

Show up at l'manburg, with lots of invis potions, investigate what's happening

Dream shows up, join VC secretly Hear Dream freak out about the community house, seem confused, follow them.

Once Tubbo seems like he's going to give up the disc, tommy interjects

Fight tubbo

Give up on fighting tubbo and realize that you're fighting your best friend

Listen to Dream evil speech

Join in when Dream asks if you have withers, *whatever else you want here*

After Dream leaves, awkwardly leave and head back to your house

Dream is there and Techno & Dream briefly talk about what they're going to do, Techno shows Dream the wither room

Bullet points for l'manburg-

Start Stream a little before the festival

Have meeting with cabinet about killing Dream, how Tubbo should be the one to do it because he's trusted.

Start the festival, Dream said he would show up a little later.

Dream shows up in full armor and is building an obsidian wall.

Realize and run over pissed off. Join his VC (don't see tommy / techno)

Listen to Dream, then go see the community house

Be mad at Tommy

Tubbo fights with Tommy after almost giving up his disc

Fight ends, Tubbo gives the disc to Dream to end war

Listen to Dream evil speech

Ranboo was a traitor for Techno/Tommy

After Dream/Techno leaves, Tubbo and Tommy convince people to work together. They talk about putting their lives on the line for l'manburg.

Quackity wants Ranboo executed

Tubbo puts his foot down and insists that he will not be doing that, that he's president.

Bullet Points for original DreamSMP members:

After l'manburg and dream show up at the community house(it's blown up), show up and seem upset and distressed that it was blown up. That it was the oldest artifact on the server and it had a lot of memories.

Follow Dream's lead, mostly agreeing with what he says.

Once Dream brings up the disc that Tubbo has, insist that it be burned and turned over by Tubbo.

Once Tubbo turns over the disc, Dream gives and evil speech

Realize that Dream is taking it too far and l'manburg's a part of history and is a free country

Follow Tommy/Tubbo's lead, talk about how you guys can stop Dream and Techno if you all work together

[geoffrard]

My Chemical Romance, Hardcore Sexual Repression, and the Lemon Stealing Whore

[Content warning for non-graphic references to pornography, sex, sexual violence, and negative attitudes towards sex work. There is no explicit nudity but you might not want to read this in front of your boss. All images have descriptions in alt text. See sources here. Read this essay on my Dreamwidth here.]

It’s the setup of a joke: Gerard Way, Mikey Way, Frank Iero, Matt Pelissier, and a porn actress huddle around a leather couch in a dingy room as a camera rolls. The actress, a young and bright-eyed Joanna Angel, asks each member of My Chemical Romance in the room, “Do you guys watch porn?”

Most of us have seen the interview. If not, stop and watch it now, because nothing else I say will make sense otherwise. (And here, just for you, I’ve reuploaded the video with at least 10% more pixels. Watch below, or read a transcript here.)

The fact that My Chemical Romance, whose faces have decorated shirts at Hot Topic for over fifteen years, whose songs have saved lives and inspired memes, who all have wives and children, would end up associated with an alt porn website like Burning Angel often baffles fans watching the interview for the first time. 

For example, see these comments left on the original video uploaded to YouTube: 

These comments, though more than a few years old, generally represent how a lot fans understand the interview. Other people think it’s funny and perhaps a little out of left field, but don’t question how four members wound up on a porn site like Burning Angel. Both attitudes are a pretty typical example of the MCR fandom’s ignorance about the New Jersey hardcore scene, as well reflecting general weirdness about sex work. 

Since I cannot turn my historian brain off, I wanted to provide some of the extremely interesting historical context behind the video. The post I had originally planned to make very, very briefly outlined how MCR ended up being interviewed by Joanna Angel, founder and longtime CEO of Burning Angel. But the more I looked into it, the more I fell down a rabbit hole. This eventually turned into something of a mammoth manifesto about women and sexuality in the late 90s hardcore scene that gave My Chemical Romance and Joanna Angel careers. I will warn you: this is long. But it’s also important historical background information that rarely gets discussed at all—especially by MCR fans.

(So, with all that said, please feel free to ask any questions about anything I say here! Sources for will be posted on a different post which I will link at the end, and I have been quite thorough, though not as thorough as I could have been.)

Tl;dr: Joanna Angel came up in the exact same scene as My Chemical Romance, Thursday, and Midtown, a scene which stigmatized open sexual expression, at the expense of women and queer people—especially those involved in sex work. When she started her porn site, Burning Angel, she applied the same DIY values that her peers did to their own bands, but faced violence and ostracization from a subculture much too repressed to embrace such blatant expression of female sexuality. In this context, the My Chemical Romance interview with Burning Angel in 2004 was not only a group of guys doing a favor for someone they had probably known for years at that point; it can also be read as a somewhat controversial act that pushed back against this aversion to sexuality, and that helped legitimize and popularize both the site and Joanna Angel’s career. 

Burning Angel: the Movie (2005)

Say you’re a diehard My Chemical Romance fan in 2005—if you really want to watch your favorite band discuss their porn-viewing habits, you’ll have to travel to either your local adult entertainment store or go to the hardcore porn site BurningAngel.com and order their first DVD, appropriately titled Burning Angel: The Movie. Once you have the disc, you’ll have to fast forward through several sex scenes and interviews with other bands before you arrive at what you wanted: the actress who you’ve just seen in hardcore sex scenes asking Gerard, Frank, Mikey and Otter questions about their preferences in adult entertainment.

The DVD was Burning Angel’s first attempt at more professional pornography, and Joanna’s first foray into full participation in filmed, live-action sex. Joanna Angel would later go on to be one of the most well-known porn stars of our time—in Virgin Territory (2006), for example, she played a lemon stealing whore; you might have seen the video—and Burning Angel would be credited with the popularization of the “alt” porn genre, which broke from the exploitative mainstream porn model and typically featured models representative of subcultures.

But in 2005 her alt porn empire was still in its infancy, and Joanna was still struggling to rectify her recent full expulsion from the local New Jersey hardcore social scene with her enduring devotion to DIY values—and the fact that members of the sexually repressed subculture that had ostracized Joanna were her site’s target audience.

Joanna Angel on the Scene

Any thoughts of a future career in adult entertainment and the last name Angel were far from her mind when Joanna Mostov enrolled in Rutgers University in 1998. 

Though she often pushed back against the wishes of her religious orthodox Jewish family, the extent of her adolescent rebellion had ended at sneaking out to punk shows and getting piercings her mother wouldn’t approve of. At Rutgers, Joanna quickly became enmeshed in the New Brunswick hardcore scene, putting her in the same circles as a host of people whose names you might recognize: Geoff Rickly of Thursday (who ran hundreds of shows out of his basement), Gabe Saporta of Midtown and Cobra Starship, and Alex Saavedra of Eyeball Records. 

Geoff Rickly: Well, you know, the funny thing is that, at the time, Joanna, who would later go on to form Burning Angel and become a famous porn star in her own right, was playing in her goth bands with chelsea haircuts and the basement shows. Like, her local goth band would play. And they’d bring out people and stuff, and I’d put touring bands on that show, and so it’s funny to me how, weirdly, DIY punk hardcore scenes and porn had weird associations then. [source: Going Off Track: Geoff Rickly, 2012]

The NJ hardcore scene was close-knit enough that while she only has documented friendships with some of these people, she had to have crossed paths with most of them multiple times (for example, Joanna was at the show on December 31, 1998 where Thursday and Midtown played their first real sets). She went to every show she could and hosted some in her own basement. 

While we don’t necessarily have a written record of her friendship with Frank Iero and Mikey Way of My Chemical Romance, the fact that Joanna attended plenty of shows in the North Jersey area and also spent a lot of time at the Eyeball House (Alex was a close friend; and Pencey Prep was on his label) suggests that, at the the very least, Joanna, Frank, and Mikey were aware of each other’s presence in these early years. They were peers in the same scene, just as they were with everyone else who frequented the same venues or played in the same basements.

For years, the hardcore scene mattered to her more than anything else; it was her social life and what she based her values upon. 

Those hardcore values and a growing curiosity about her own sexuality lead Joanna to sex-positive feminist activism and a writing internship with Nerve.com, an online magazine which explored topics related to sex and romantic relationships. From there, her interest in expressing her own sexuality continued to develop.

[Suicidegirls in 2001]

So, in 2002, when her roommate and friend asked her if she wanted to start a porn site that offered more explicit content than sites like SuicideGirls, which featured punk aesthetics and band interviews but stayed away from anything more than simple nudity, Joanna agreed.

BurningAngel.com went live in April 2002. It wanted to do things differently than other porn sites. While not necessarily pushing the boundaries of beauty standards, the site used models who were beautiful but in a more approachable, average sense. Joanna has said that since she had little experience even watching porn prior to starting the site, she wanted the site to mimic the kind of sex she was having with actors who looked like the people she was having sex with. 

Joanna: When we started the website, it was a reflection of ourselves. It still is to this day. There's band interviews on the website, the style of girl that we use is not your average typical porn star and the personality on the website is a little bit different. All the members interact with each other, all of the girls have blogs and profiles, and people become friends with each other. It's more of a community and a reflection of a subculture rather than just being a website with content to jerk-off to and never think about again. [source: Complex: Interview: Joanna Angel Talks Alt Porn, Piracy, And Her Blow-Up Doll, 2011] 

[Burning Angel’s homepage in June 2002]

Hardcore Punk Reacts to Hardcore Porn 

Her longtime involvement in the scene and her application of DIY ethics to her porn business did not mean that the hardcore culture actively nurtured Joanna Angel’s career in porn. In reality, many parts of the scene were actively hostile towards Joanna and the site once Burning Angel went live.

This backlash isn’t incredibly surprising within the context of late 90s hardcore, a subculture that by and large refused to acknowledge sexuality of any kind. 

The sexual repression in hardcore reflected several different aspects of its culture: a negative perception of women active in the scene; a reaction against the violence of tristate hardcore in the early 90s; and, more than anything else, the general privilege of those involved in the underground.

Like Joanna, Geoff Rickly, and Frank Iero, most people involved in New Brunswick hardcore were enrolled at Rutgers, and white, middle-class male college students dominated the scene. For many of them, applying DIY values to their own lives meant distancing themselves from their socioeconomic upper-hand. Consequently, the scene as a whole developed an attitude of asceticism, rejecting anything that served no purpose beyond pleasure or personal enjoyment. (Of course, it was easy for them to reject their social privileges, especially when they could just as easily cast off their aesthetic of poverty and self-denial for an adulthood of relative comfort.)

To do anything just because you enjoyed it, or because it brought you happiness in the moment, was seen to be a betrayal of hardcore’s higher intellectual goals—and that included sex. You can see this trend, for example, in lyrics from NJ hardcore bands, which focused on things like political issues or childhood traumas instead of the common themes of sexual and romantic desire found in mainstream music.

Joanna spoke about finding comfort in the general sexual repression of the scene because of her own adolescent insecurities:

Joanna: Me being very sexually not advanced and insecure, [90s hardcore] was the perfect place for me, because I could ignore [sexuality]. I was getting older, I don’t know, I wanted to explore myself more. So I began to write these graphic sex stories. My roommate, Mitch, knew about it, and I remember him getting a kick out of it. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

For another salient example, Geoff Rickly of Thursday has spoken about his own struggles with the hardcore scene’s repression, especially in regards to the shame he felt about writing sexually explicit stories for pay:

Geoff Rickly: You have to think, this is the 90s punk scene. It's not now. Nobody would openly talk about sex in DIY punk. It was such a repressed PC time, where — I mean, a lot of that stuff is my heart, like the political activism that was still such a part of punk, and actually just giving a shit about things that matter, and modes of how you're doing what you're doing. Those things seemed to matter back then, and I appreciated that side, but it was also so uptight. So repressed. [source: Going Off Track: Geoff Rickly, 2012]

While its general aversion to sexuality might have been born out of an initial desire to reform the violent misogyny of other hardcore cultures, it created the conditions for certain social problems to go completely unaddressed. After all, how can you address the rampant misogyny, homophobia, and sexual violence in your community if any acknowledgement of sexuality is taboo?

(For a brief but interesting perspective on the impact of hardcore sexual repression upon queer people in the scene, check out Episode #4 of Geoff Rickly’s podcast Dark Blue, in which Steve Pedulla and Norman Brannon discuss their experiences as gay musicians in the scene.)

Of course, these issues aren’t confined to the New Jersey hardcore, nor were they unique to the late 1990s. This particular brand of sex-averse misogyny reflects important threads within the feminism of the time which villainized open female sexuality—especially when it concerned sex work. Left-leaning spaces like music undergrounds adopted this sex-negative, misogynistic attitude as a part of their feminism—not in opposition to it.

In particular, the Riot Grrrl movement of the late 80s/early 90s pushed back against a culture (and a subculture) that shamed women for publicly expressing their sexuality. Following that, early fanzines and performance practices addressed the mistreatment of sex workers in hardcore as one way that female bodily autonomy was limited and women’s bodies were policed. Bikini Kill frontwoman and Riot Grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna has spoken about her past in sex work, the hostility she endured for openly discussing it, and the importance of that experience in shaping the form of Riot Grrrl’s protest. 

Kathleen Hanna: “Whenever we were written about in the press, I wanted my sex-work history to be part of the description, because I wanted other women whom I danced at clubs with (and who never knew my real name) to see themselves reflected in some way. A lot of women who are doing music now have been sex-trade workers, prostitutes, dancers; I thought it was really important that I didn’t hide that. But I also didn’t want to glamorize that experience in being a super-cool thing in itself. I just wanted other women who work in the sex industry to remember that we can be sex-trade workers and be philosophers, writers, musicians, artists, or whatever. [Andrea Juno, Angry Women in Rock (1996)]

Riot Grrrl gained significant traction and nation-wide attention. In the decade or so after Kathleen Hanna and her peers catalyzed the movement, bands like Bikini Kill and Bratmobile remained incredibly popular, and likely contributed a lot to shifting attitudes towards sexuality in music subcultures. 

Still, these sex-negative attitudes prevailed among enough people involved in local underground scenes that, when Burning Angel launched in 2002 and Joanna started marketing it in local hardcore spaces, the site received a lot of attention—both good and bad. The positive attention fueled the site and allowed it to expand beyond just photographs, text interviews, and low-budget personal sex tapes that characterized its early content. 

However, the negative attention Joanna and her site received was vocal, targeted, and occasionally involved literal physical violence. As Kathleen Hanna had faced moral condemnation for her time in sex work, Joanna Angel faced criticism from fellow members of her subculture who thought sex work to be completely antithetical to their social justice goals. She has spoken about how difficult it was to see a community she had cared about for years turn her back on her completely for engaging in a type of work that she found enjoyable, and that she thought could be done with moral integrity. 

Joanna Angel: People were calling me ugly, calling me all sorts of mean shit, how [Burning Angel was] making a profit, [we were] exploiting women, blah blah blah. And I was so bummed. I was like, you know, this isn’t fair! I always support every fucking band in the punk scene. Even if I don’t like the band, I support them—I go to their shows, I would hand out fliers for their shows. I thought it was like a code, in the punk scene, that it doesn’t matter whether you like it or not. If this is part of the scene, you accept it, and you help it, and you love it—and I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. I remember being very hurt, you know? I was like, dude, I didn’t violate any punk laws by starting this. My friend from my computer class is the one who put it online. All the other girls on the site—all three of them— were punk chicks and part of the scene. And I felt really bad; people were insulting the other girls, and I really thought I was starting this cool thing where girls could just explore their sexuality. And mind you, at the time, the beginning of Burning Angel was just photos, not even videos. People were getting all up in this upheaval because of a handful of naked photos on the internet. It’s crazy to think about now. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

Amidst the mounting antagonism and after an incident at Hellfest 2004, Joanna officially decided to leave the hardcore scene that she’d been involved with for over five years.

Joanna Angel: I remember going to Hellfest one year. Maybe it was like 2004?…these girls were throwing water balloons at us because we had a booth there. Because we used to get booths at some of these shows and sell tshirts. We didn’t even have any DVDs—we’d literally get in a booth and sell tshirts and hand out fliers and stickers. And these other girls were throwing water balloons at us and calling us sluts. I was like, “Hey, that sucks, can you stop doing that?” And one of my friends—he owned a record label. He owned Eyeball Records, Alex…he saw the girls picking on us, and he went over to the girls, and said, “Hey, can you cool it? They have a booth here—let them do their thing. They’re not gonna get in your way.” And then those girls and their boyfriends beat him up, and he wound up in the hospital. He almost died. It was terrible. And I was like, we have to get out here. Let’s just stay away. If we’re a porn site, let’s just be a porn site. Let’s promote ourselves with other porn companies; let’s step away for a little while. Everyone in the punk scene knows who we are. They’ve made their decision about if they like us or not. I’m still gonna interview bands, still gonna do that thing—but I’m done. [source: Turned Out A Punk #127: Joanna Angel (Burning Angel)]

Joanna and Burning Angel’s separation from the NJ hardcore scene in 2004 finally brings me to Burning Angel: The Movie, My Chemical Romance, and that interview.

So, 2004: after over two years spent largely behind the camera and slowly expanding her porn site, Joanna finally decided to get in front of the camera and produce a more intentionally crafted alt porn video that retained the feel of the website. Thus Burning Angel: the Movie was born. 

As Joanna explains in the interview, the general idea of the DVD was that different self-contained pornographic scenes would be interspersed with band interviews. One of the key features of Burning Angel, like Suicide Girls before it, was the band interviews subscribers could access alongside the porn, so it made sense to preserve this aspect of the site on the DVD experience. Joanna interviewed five bands in early 2005: Killswitch Engage, Eighteen Visions, Shadows Fall, The Dillinger Escape Plan, and, of course, My Chemical Romance—all bands that Joanna admired, and who had been involved in the same scene that she had recently left because of very real threats to her emotional and physical well-being.

Within this context, My Chemical Romance’s decision to participate in the Burning Angel interview was a statement, as they put their support behind an enterprise that was highly controversial within the social circle most immediately relevant to them. 

Fresh off the 2004 Warped Tour and promoted Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, My Chemical Romance might have appeared to be largely divorced from their scene of origin, but they still acted in response to those politics—politics that impacted American culture at large more than you’d think—in both intentional and incidental ways. 

That is not to say that MCR was being overtly political; they’ve made a clear effort to distance themselves from the clear-cut political imagery and goals of some of their peers in hardcore. Still, the band (Gerard especially) very obviously cared a lot about using their music and stage presence to express shades of sexuality that they perceived to be lacking from some forms of music.

Gerard: I also wanted, at the same time, [for] the record to be a testament to self-expression, and putting stuff in there like that, while not being a homosexual myself, but expressing myself in a homosexual way, is either going to push your buttons in a negative way or you’re going to identify with it. [AP: Well, this whole scene wants you to be sensitive, but not too sensitive.] It is extremely homoerotic, especially the whole emo-sensitive thing. Everyone’s wearing women’s pants; everyone’s got women’s haircuts; everyone’s wearing youth-medium shirts. I don’t want to come out and say it. It’s blatantly obvious. Wearing a leather jacket is an extremely masculine thing to do in this scene. Even the hardcore bands, the really hard ones, you see them in makeup and stuff. I like that. I think it keeps it dangerous. It keeps it exciting. In a way, sex has really been missing from rock, especially because of all the sensitivity. That’s what I really wanted to convey on the record, too. I wanted the record to be very dangerous and sexy at the same time. There’s such a lack of sex in music. It’s been more about getting in touch with your feelings and being there for each other, which is great, but it’s definitely lacking this sexual duality. [Source: Alternative Press #193, Aug 2004; emphasis mine]

Additionally, many of their moments of explicit sexuality on stage were designed to be somewhat incendiary and polarizing. 

But it’s important to remember that, just as late 90s New Jersey hardcore was not the first subculture with issues of sexual repression, My Chemical Romance does not represent the first attempt to push back at this asexual culture and definitely weren’t leading that particular conversation. Gerard took inspiration from artists already pushing those boundaries and incorporating sexual expression into their art. He has spoken, for example, about the impact of Riot Grrrl acts upon his music and stage presence (Joanna Angel has similarly pointed to bands like Bikini Kill as significant influences). These bands had already incorporated resistance against harmful sexual repression, values which Gerard and his band mates took on when they adopted their styles into My Chemical Romance.

(I also want to mention briefly that other significant people in the hardcore world have spoken out against pornography, such as Ian MacKaye of the formative post-hardcore band Fugazi. MacKaye owned Dischord Records, the definitive underground music label, to which a young Frank Iero unsuccessfully attempted to get his band Sector 12 signed. The matter of pornography and its role within the hardcore world was not one upon which you could maintain a neutral stance after, say, appearing on a porn DVD.)

As shitty as it was that they needed approval from the men in the scene, My Chemical Romance, along with other bands, supported Burning Angel, a new kind of porn, and helped legitimize Joanna Angel’s claim that what she was doing was not backwards or exploitative but had integrity. 

Have you had an issue with people you grew up with when they find out you're in the adult industry? Joanna: At first people had problem[s], but not anymore. Once the cool kids in bands said, "I think what she's doing is cool" all the others turned around. Everyone I ever respected didn't have an issue with it and all the stupid, annoying hardcore kids had a problem. For as much shit as I got, I also got a lot of support. [Source: Hustlerworld Interview: Joanna Angel]

I don’t mean to glamorize the porn industry or to depict Joanna Angel as some savior of female sexuality in the early 2000s. But, as Kathleen Hanna points out, sex work is legitimate work, and sex workers deserve to have workplaces that treat them with dignity and communities that recognize their humanity. The reality was that NJ hardcore as a community did not support sex workers. Fundamentally, these were the barriers that caused Joanna and Burning Angel to make an exodus from the local hardcore scene—and they are the attitudes we risk reproducing when we express discomfort that a band we admire has interacted with a sex worker.

My intentions with this post (which turned out longer than I had ever anticipated, so Jesus, thank you for reading) were to shed light on the historical context of one moment in My Chemical Romance’s history. I’ve found that the average MCR fan, even those with a specific fondness for their early years, doesn’t actually know much at all about it—so I hope this has given some clarity.

I’ll end on this note: Without bands supporting Burning Angel, who knows—we might have never seen the lemon stealing whore. At the very least, the culture surrounding porn would look a lot different. That might not mean it would look better or worse—though you can’t deny the role that Joanna Angel played, nor the role that bands from the New Jersey Hardcore scene like My Chemical Romance played in shaping the American culture of pornography. 

Find sources for this post here.

[acknowledgements: thank you so much for reading! my forever thanks, as always, to nic @raytorosaurus, sophia @sendmyresignation, vyn @bringmoreknives, and maddy @8thnotes for their continued cheerleading as i spent over a month writing this long, long post. additional thanks to wes @killrockstar for very kindly offering some incredibly helpful guidance about riot grrrl and sending me resources about kathleen hanna. and much gratitude to merlin @void-flesh and @transmascfrankiero for their feedback on the final draft of this essay.]

[leonardcohenofficial]

mavis staples on bob dylan during her 2008 wait wait...don't tell me! appearance (this transcript is abridged compared to the recording, though the same text is included below the cut)

SAGAL: I got to ask, you, actually, and Dylan became quite close.

STAPLES: Oh, you know.

SAGAL: Oh.

(LAUGHTER)

STAPLES: Oh, Dylan. Yeah, Dylan was - he...

(LAUGHTER)

SAGAL: All right. That's fine, Mavis.

STAPLES: We were good friends.

(LAUGHTER)

STAPLES: That dog on Internet. You know, one disc jockey said, well, I hear you and Dylan, you know, proposed a marriage to you. I said where did you get that from? The Internet.

(LAUGHTER)

AMY DICKINSON: Well then it must be true.

SAGAL: It got to be true.

STAPLES: Yes indeed.

SAGAL: And what was your response to this question then?

STAPLES: Well he just did it out of the blue. He proposed.

SAGAL: He proposed out of the blue?

STAPLES: Pops - what he told Pops. He didn't tell me.

SAGAL: Bob Dylan asked your father for your hand in marriage?

STAPLES: He didn't ask. He told Pops.

SAGAL: He told him.

STAPLES: Pops...

CHARLIE PIERCE: He's a lot braver than I thought he was.

(LAUGHTER)

STAPLES: Yeah, well, see...

SAGAL: What did he say to your father?

STAPLES: Pops, I want to marry Mavis. And Pops said, we'll don't tell me, tell Mavis.

(LAUGHTER)

STAPLES: That was during the time - it was lunch. Everybody heard him. We were in line, you know, to get our of lunch.

SAGAL: Wait a minute. You're standing in line at like some sort of buffet?

STAPLES: That's right.

SAGAL: And he's standing there behind your father and says, oh, by the way, I want to marry your daughter and can I have the potatoes?

(LAUGHTER)

STAPLES: He just shouted it. I guess it just came over him.

SAGAL: I understand.

STAPLES: Something got a hold of him.

[tibllec]

ExplodeBoyHalo

-> Transcript under cut

Tubbo: Bad come here! Bad: Come where? Tubbo: To me! Come to the sound of my voice! Foolish: Oh! (realising) Oh no.. Bad: Do you have cash money over there? Tubbo: Bad, there's a flashing disc over here I think you can stand on Bad: Where? Tubbo: Here! It's this little dish, stand on it! Bad: Stand on it? Ok! [explodes] Tubbo: Oh- Foolish: [laughing]

[superlinguo]

Research Data Management. Or, How I made multiple backups and still almost lost my honours thesis.

This is a story I used to tell while teaching fieldworkers and other researchers about how to manage their data. It’s a moderately improbable story, but it happened to me and others have benefited from my misadventures. I haven't had reason to tell it much lately, and I thought it might be useful to put into writing. This is a story from before cloud storage was common - back when you could, and often would, run out of online email storage space. Content note: this story includes some unpleasant things that happened to me, including multiple stories of theft (cf. moderately improbable). Also, because it's stressful for most of the story, I want to reassure you that it does have a happy conclusion. It explains a lot of my enthusiasm for good research data management. In Australia, 'honours' is an optional fourth year for a three year degree. It's a chance to do some more advanced coursework and try your hand at research, with a small thesis project. Of course, it doesn't feel small when it's the first time you've done a project that takes a whole year and is five times bigger than anything you’ve ever written. I've written briefly about my honours story (here, and here in a longer post about my late honours supervisor Barb Kelly) . While I did finish my project, it all ended a bit weirdly when my supervisor Barb got ill and left during the analysis/writing crunch. The year after finishing honours I got an office job. I hoped to maybe do something more with my honours work, but I wasn't sure what, and figured I would wait until Barb was better. During that year, my sharehouse flat was broken into and the thief walked out with the laptop I'd used to do my honours project. The computer had all my university files on it, including my data and the Word version of my thesis. I lost interview video files, transcriptions, drafts, notes and everything except the PDF version I had uploaded to the University's online portal. Uploading was optional at the time, if I didn't do that I probably would have just been left with a single printed copy. I also lost all my jewellery and my brother’s base guitar, but I was most sad about the data (sorry bro). Thankfully, I made a backup of my data and files on a USB drive that I kept in my handbag. This was back when a 4GB thumb drive was an investment. That Friday, feeling sorry for myself after losing so many things I couldn't replace, I decided to go dancing to cheer myself up. While out with a group of friends, my bag was stolen. It was the first time I had a nice handbag, and I still miss it. Thankfully, I knew to make more than one back up. I had an older USB that I'd tucked down the back of the books on my shelf (a vintage 256MB drive my dad kindly got for me in undergrad after a very bad week when I lost an essay to a corrupted floppy disk). When I went to retrieve the files, the drive was (also) corrupted. This happens with hard drives sometimes. My three different copies in three different locations were now lost to me.

Thankfully, my computer had a CD/DVD burner. This was a very cool feature in the mid-tens, and I used to make a lot of mixed CDs for my friends. During my honours project I had burned backed up files on some discs and left them at my parents house. It was this third backup, kept off site, which became the only copy of my project. I very quickly made more copies. When Barb was back at work, and I rejoined her as a PhD student, it meant we could return to the data and all my notes. The thesis went through a complete rewrite and many years later was published as a journal article (Gawne & Kelly 2014). It would have probably never happened if I didn’t have those project files. I continued with the same cautious approach to my research data ever since, including sending home SD cards while on field trips, making use of online storage, and archiving data with institutional repositories while a project is ongoing.

I’m glad that I made enough copies that I learnt a good lesson from a terrible series of events. Hopefully this will prompt you, too, to think about how many copies you have, where they’re located, and what would happen if you lost access to your online storage.

[yesterdays-xkcd]

Twister would've been a much better movie if they'd cut out the bad-guy storm chaser and all the emotional romance crap. All you need for a good movie are tornados and scientists. Actually, that's all you need for anything.

1,000 Miles North [Explained]

Transcript

[A van (almost exiting the frame to the right) and a pickup truck behind the van are driving on a road where dust blows up behind the tires. There are three mountain peaks in the background. In the rear of the truck is a cylindrical-shaped object. Above the truck there are two frames with yellow background and text. The top frame is at the height of the mountains, the other just above the truck.] 1,000 miles north of tornado alley A new breed of scientists has emerged.

[At the base of a mountain (or glacier front) to the right, Cueball runs towards Ponytail (as shown with a curling line behind his raised leg). He is carrying a laptop in his arms, and he has a headset with antenna and microphone on. Ponytail is holding a probe in both hands, maybe drilling it into the ground. Grass and small rocks are drawn around them. At the top is another frame with yellow background and text.] Half researchers, half adrenaline junkies Ponytail: What's the reading? Cueball: 3.9 meters down, gradient's off the charts!

[The pickup truck is shown in a zoom in from the side. Cueball is driving very fast, while holding a Walkie-talkie up to his head. The cylinder in the rear, from the first frame, now clearly turns out to be some kind of instrument with a small parabolic disc and a smaller antenna, and there are some labels and a text is written across it, although it is difficult to read. At the top is another frame with yellow background and text.] Risking everything for the thrill of the hunt Cueball: The freeze line is shifting! We've never seen anything like it! Cylinder: Riwan

[Ponytail is holding a large video camera down towards a tiny spot of grass on the ground. She is standing in a barren field with one small mountain to the left and three small mountain peaks to the right in background. Behind her is a large box connected to a small radio with a long antenna. Cueball speaks to her over his walkie-talkie, his voice coming from the radio via a zigzag line. At the top is a final frame with yellow background and text.] Permafrost chasers Ponytail: I'm getting some great footage here! Cueball: Dammit, Harding, it's not worth your neck! Get the hell out of there!

[the-bus-called-graveyard-8]

Madagascar in Nickelodeon Magazine (part 4 of 4)

This last part is some miscellaneous Madagascar content that has appeared in various issues of Nick Mag. I used to keep all my Nick Magazines in big binders so I could reread them, but some years ago I decided to finally get rid of them. I only kept a select few (the Madagascar ones, of course) but before I tossed the rest I flipped through five years' worth of issues looking for any scraps of Madagascar. I don't know which issues any of these bits and bobs are from, but here they are nonetheless!

First we have a prank DVD cover for an absurd mashup of several 2000s animated movies called "Flushed Through the Hedge in a Happy Car". One of the characters parodied is Alex the lion, and several aspects of Madagascar appear in film's description. Full transcript under the read more.

Front cover:

"Flushed Through the Hedge in a Happy Car"

A penguin, a taxi, one wild ride...

Starring Will Smith, Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres, Wanda Sykes, and Luke Wilson

From the creators of "Charlotte's Open Barnyard"

Back cover:

A break-dancing New York City Penguin named Happy (Wanda Sykes) is accidentally shipped to a zoo in Mexico City. The homesick bird escapes and meets a hilariously sassy taxi named Turbo McCab (Will Smith), who offers to drive her home. Along the way, they get stuck in the woods during hunting season, freeze solid during an ice age, and visit an underground rodent city, where they pick up a tuxedo-wearing mouse named Wobbly (Tom Hanks). Just outside of New York City, Turbo gets a flat. A nerdy raccoon named AJ (Ellen DeGeneres) offers to take Happy over the hedge to find a spare.

Once in human territory, Happy becomes obsessed with Dancing in the Suburbs. Will Happy find happiness as a reality show star? Will her lion dance partner (Luke Wilson) ever learn his moves? Will Turbo ever get to race in the Madagascar 5000? Can penguins really talk? And who is paying for all of Turbo's parking tickets?

2-Disc DVD Collector's Edition

Bonus features include:

A step-by-step look at the 350-day process of creating convincing CGI fuzzy dice.

Deleted scenes that were cut because they stink real bad.

Voice talent farting into the microphone during recording.

Trailers for other penguin movies.

Director's commentary.

Director's dog's commentary

Rated P for Penguin

Digitally mastered for superior penguin cuteness

Next we have three ads I snipped out of different issues.

Top left: Madagascar video games

"Madagascar and the all new Madagascar: Operation Penguin

Go from the zoo to a place that's totally new

Rule the city and the jungle in two hit games based on the hit movie. In Madagascar, play as Alex, Marty, Gloria, and Melman in a wild adventure. Available on all video game consoles. In Madagascar: Operation Penguin, play as Private Penguin in madcap missions, available only on GameBoy Advance."

Bottom left: Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa video game

"Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa

For PS2, PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, PC, and DS

Play as all the main characters—including the penguins—through the story of the Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa movie.

Tip: In the soccer match in the In Madagascar level in single-player mode, Mort the lemur can be a tough goalie. Raise the Power Meter to the 75 percent mark and you can kick the ball over Mort's head and score nearly every time.

Zelda the roving reporter: Do you have a license to drive that?"

Right: TPoM world premiere

"What's New on Nick

Penguins of Madagascar

The penguins are back, and this time, it's for their very own show! Catch the premiere immediately after the Kids' Choice Awards on Saturday, March 28. And check out the first-ever Penguins of Madagascar online game at nick.com."

Lastly, we have this crossover comic of the Penguins with Aang from Avatar: The Last Airbender. I don't have the cutout of this, but I distinctly remember seeing it in the Gag Station of one issue's Comic Book section. I was able to find it online but unfortunately I don't know the artist.

And that's every time Madagascar was featured in Nickelodeon Magazine!

[marcarella-pizza]

Buddy Daddies Bluray Vol 2!

Im finally back home from Japan and can now share with you guys the Buddy Daddies bluray!

Quickly before I start:

If you’re outside of Japan and would like these, I have a post here detailing how to get them!

I bought this copy from Yobodashi, NOT animate, so unfortunately no bonus pic this time!

Let’s begin!

First, all the buddy daddies media currently available (not including the OP album cus that’s not BD branded)

The case! It went pink this time which, if we hadn’t seen “Daughter Daddies” I’d have found it somewhat weird. Idk if this is about to become a rainbow or what though. My guess would be vol 3 is blue.

Inside content! The red booklet features settings from the two episodes included (Vol 1 did this too) this vol however, also came with AAALLL the character designs - every character. Even the “mafia boss” as he’s titled from the first ep.

And finally the DVD case! The classic two page spread illustration for the back is adorable! I’m only sad that Rei was the one left out this time. Similar to vol 1 though, miri was the left out one there so my guess is kazuki will be vol 3.

Vol 3 design was already released actually so I’m fairly accurate!

The two discs are for the episodes and the Drama CD…

I’m tempted to provide a transcript and translate it… HOWEVER I admit that I struggle with listening to Japanese a bit. I rely on Japanese subtitles often and… well… audios don’t have that. So if I did do it, it may have errors.

I’ll think more on it…

Until next time!

[tjodity]

Loose Transfem C!Tommy thoughts:

@maigetheplatypus57

transcript below cut:

I think Tommy would be fine still going by Tommy and it's easier to remember but she would get so so much gender euphoria from being called Clementine I think when she's younger she doesn't feel any attachment to being a guy and really really wants to look like the girls she hangs out with but doesn't have any context for those feelings and just assumes it's kinda normal and tries to make a joke out of it. Hence "Manly man ulimate man tommyinnit" and "I love women" being running bits. She really idolizes Schlatt just from commercials and interviews and stuff she sees as this guy who seems to just. nail being a man so flawlessly. When Tubbo transitions she's like wow that's so cool I wish I could do that. Anyways. but that's kind of the first even incling that she'd like to be a girl but she doesn't think about it again for a while. Then everything with Manberg happens and she gets to see Schlatt and realizes 'oh this guy is so fucked up. oh this guy was an insecure wreck who ended up destroying everything around him and himself while pretending so hard that he was fine. huh' and the feeling that something is wrong with how she's going about things gets a bit stronger. But she keeps putting it off because of everything happening. BUT THEN WE GOT EXILE. nothing can force you to think about your own identity like being kicked out by your best friend and completely isolated on an island for a few weeks and grappling with suicidal ideation. At this point she's kinda like fuck I don't wanna be me but is having a hard time sorting out what's gender and what's depression and what's escapism. I think her habit of trying to ignore it and overcorrect flares up really badly when she's living with Techno. Cuts her hair short and tries to put on this very cold, violent exterior-

because she's just very scared and feels completely betrayed and alone and deeply uncomfortable in her own skin. Post Disc Finale she spends a lot of time trying to grapple with herself. She finds some of Niki's old clothes that she abandoned somewhere and tries them on in private and gets really freaked out by the fact that she likes wearing them and puts them away. She's not really on speaking terms with Eret and Tubbo at this point she's friends with but he's not always very approachable. Ironically I think the first time he voices any of her thoughts about gender is when she's trapped in prison because Dream won't tell anyone and she doesn't really care about what he thinks of her. And cDream is. a very bad person. But he's also not transphobic, and he also cares about Tommy in his own horrible fucked up way, and he can kind of relate just based on wanting to be someone else and weeks spent in different performances and disliking parts of how he looks. He comes across as dismissive but also tells Tommy that she can just be a girl if she wants, and that she's stupid for stressing out over something like gender. Then a few days later he beats her to death but yknow. I think the first person she'd properly like. come out to would be Sam Nook. Basically saying like hey could you act like i was a girl for a little while pleaseplease please and Sam Nook's just like Okay ^_^ I think she might come out to like. Ranboo next. She doesn't know him suuper well but she just finds them easy to talk to and it ends up slipping out

It would take her a whiiiile to tell Tubbo because she has a hard time talking to him and doesn't want to mess with anything that could upset their friendship but after they start making an effort to hang out more and Tommy starts living in Snowchester she would try to mention it very very casually just when they're doing chores one day. Then Tubbo is hit with like several years of memories of Tommy being arguably very clockable as an egg and him just. not realizing and he has a crisis about not noticing something like that. But when he calms down he becomes #1 Tommy girl supporter. He calls her pretty and cute and Miss and Ma'am and drags her out to go shopping so that they can get dresses and makeup and things for her. Tubbo vaguely remembers how to do makeup and Ranboo wants to learn with Tommy so they have a fun time with that. I think Tommy would love love love wearing dresses and doing her makeup and stuff but would not give any fucks about being traditionally pretty or presentable. She'd run around with very cute dresses wearing a t-shirt and cargo shorts below it with very assymetrical makeup having the time of her life

also she'd grow her hair out and loooove braiding it. Her transition also comes with a lot of relief because for a loong time she's enjoyed things that are traditionally feminine (sewing, domestic chores and upkeep, etc) but wasn't letting herself enjoy them and just letting go is so nice.

I also think with cTubbo #1 Tommy being a girl supporter and also Tommy living in Snowchester with him and Ranboo and them being so close Tubbo would absolutely accidentally call Tommy his wife at some point in conversation. And then there's a beat and then he's like ohmygod im so sorry i didnt mean to say that and Tommy's just like no I'm that from now on. Husband<3 and Tubbo's just completely dumbfounded

[koter-irl]

My Xenoblade OST Trinity Box Set arrived! It contains 5 OST discs for Xenoblade 1, 6 for Xenoblade 2, and 9 for Xenoblade 3, as well as a booklet containing tracklists, lyrics, credits, and messages from the composers (as well as Tetsuya Takahashi), I am uploading these messages and transcriptions of them for any Xeno fans on here that may be interested in seeing the contents. Let's begin!

Message 01 - ACE (Tomori Kudo)

I first participated in the production of the series with Xenoblade Chronicles, in March of 2009, which is exactly 14 years ago from the time of writing this comment. Thanks to being given the chance to join the project, I was regarded as a "Xenoblade Chronicles Composer" and gradually started gaining recognition. It became a precious project for me as a composer. The first time I really felt this is when I performed music from Xenoblade Chronicles at the video game music orchestral concert "PRESS START." The fans cheered a lot for us.

My creative spirit was kindled every time I read the series' scripts, and I found myself thinking, "wow, this is interesting!" I was always inspired to create new video game music that hadn't been made before (well, "new" within my own range of experience.) As the series piled up with new entries, the music also powered up. We even recorded with an orchestra. Although there was hardship each time, I think I was able to grow alongside the Xenoblade Chronicles series.

I would like to express my gratitude again for being given the opportunity to take part in such a wonderful series. I would be thrilled if everyone enjoyed these musical pieces, while remembering the various scenes in which they were used, for many years to come.

(More messages below the cut)

Message 02 - ACE (CHiCO)

I was deeply moved by the first game's script and vision which went far beyond my imagination, and with the words of the person in charge of the music at the time, "This project will go down in gaming history," I wanted to create music that would overturn the existing "video game sound." It seems like yesterday that I started composing with enthusiasm, and I have constantly taken on many different challenges through my music. I worked so hard that the phrase, "as if my life depended on it," most likely isn't an exaggeration. Before realizing it, it had become a life's work.

In my personal life, I became a mother between Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. One month after giving birth, I had the chance to perform the Xenoblade Chronicles portion at the concert called "PRESS START." There are so many things I'd like to say about that busy time; it truly left a deep impression on me.

I would be more than happy if the music I made became someone's enjoyment, thanks to the wonderful Xenoblade Chronicles series.

My childhood dream was to be like Mother Teresa. Though, even if I lived for a thousand years, I'd still be nowhere near her.

I am full of gratitude for the director, the staff at MONOLITHSOFT, Nintendo, Dog Ear Records who reached out to me, everyone at PROCYON STUDIO who produced this CD album and everyone else involved for allowing me to take part until the end of these three entries to the Xenoblade Chronicles series.

Message 03 - Kenji Hiramatsu

Each time I worked on the music of the Xenoblade Chronicles series, I steadily looked for and drew out new sources of creativity within me. To ensure that my music did not get overshadowed by the world of the game, I wanted it to have unprecedented brilliance. Although there were many struggles, I took on the challenge with all my might and somehow reached the end. Like an RPG, the Xenoblade Chronicles series helped me grow immensely.

Looking back at the past three games, I feel that time has really flown by. However, taking part in a series loved even now by many throughout the world and overcoming many hurdles have become a precious treasure to me as a composer! I also treasure the many thoughts and feelings I receive from the fans about my music. These treasures are an important driving force in helping me take on the next challenge.

To be honest, after completely using up all my energy working on Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I feel a little weak. But I think sharing this soundtrack with everyone will become another source of strength for me!

Now that this series has reached one point of closure, it's time for a fresh start! I wonder what kind of sources of creativity I'll find in the future. I hope everyone's looking forward to it!

Message 04 - Manami Kiyota

Ever since I was a child, I wanted to become a composer. Although I somehow found myself debuting as a singer, I was given the opportunity to write music for the Xenoblade Chronicles series.

At first, I think I caused everyone a lot of trouble with all the retakes. When I managed to successfully submit my work and played the game for the first time, I remember how excited I was to hear my music in the game. That said, whenever I play the game, I get so immersed that I forget I created music for it... (laughs)

By the time I started working on the third entry, I feel I had come to understand what my role is in the Xenoblade Chronicles series. I always aim to create music that exists as a sort of atmosphere within the world created by the director and among the visuals, the voice acting, and the sound effects. After playing Xenoblade Chronicles 3, I've been playing Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, Future Connected, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Torna ~ The Golden Country. There are new discoveries and excitements when playing through the series.

I am truly happy to have been able to work on a world I love, the world of the Xenoblade Chronicles series. I'd like to give my heartfelt gratitude to the director, Mr. Takahashi, everyone at MONOLITHSOFT, all the composers, all the staff, and the players who enjoyed the games. Thank you very much.

Message 05 - Yasunori Mitsuda

Having worked with Mr. Takahashi, the director of the series, on numerous projects over the years, starting with Xenogears released in 1998, then Xenosaga Episode I, and then the Xenoblade Chronicles series, he is what I would call a brother in arms and a good friend who fully understands my music. That said, when he contacted me saying, "I want you to work with us on Xenoblade Chronicles," I declined. I felt that the project didn't need me because its fascinating atmosphere and world were already complete. As my own rule, I never decide whether to participate based solely on how much honor or profit I can get. Instead, I always try to consider what kind of "music" and "sound" the game wants and whether it really needs my "color." After he contacted me, I concluded that the game's already-established world didn't need anything new. For that reason, I declined his offer many times.

However, after Mr. Takahashi spoke to me in person and said, "Mitchan (note while writing - this is Mitsuda's nickname,) the series only makes sense if we close Xenoblade Chronicles with your music." I decided to accept his offer, though only the ending theme (I'm weak to heartfelt requests.) After that, I participated in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles 3, and found myself working with him for a very long time. Although the Xenoblade Chronicles series has successfully reached one point of closure this year in 2023, to be honest, I'm still asking myself if there was a meaning in my participation. The answer shouldn't come from me; if fans have been happy throughout the series, I think participating was the right decision. I'd like to express my gratitude to all those who have enjoyed the Xenoblade Chronicles series up until now. Thank you.

Message 06 - Tetsuya Takahashi

I have had few experiences where the word "harmony" has fit so well. I've known Mr. Mitsuda for around 30 years and it has almost been 15 years since I first met each of the other Xenoblade Chronicles composers. I suspect it's due to the accumulation of a decade and a half, but it was easy to imagine the kind of music I would receive in return to any request I made. And the music that I received far exceeded my expectations.

Looking back, when working on Xenoblade Chronicles it's true that I was fumbling to find each composer's expertise as I sent out orders for the music. However, that was only until halfway through. In the latter half of development, I personally remember there being considerably less trial and error. Most importantly, the composers were so passionate that I thought preserving that passion, without tampering with this or that, would be the best way to reach the players.

After going through that process, I felt I had a lot of leeway when working on Xenoblade Chronicles 2. This was largely thanks to Mr. Mitsuda, who doubled as music producer. From small matters to more important ones, he listened to my various thoughts and also gave me a lot of advice. I was able to use that leeway to spend more time thinking about the overall direction and mechanism of the music.

Speaking of mechanisms, the incorporation of a jazz-style atmosphere in Torna ~ The Golden Country is fresh in my mind. While the main reason for it was simply because I liked an American film I watched in 2015 titled Whiplash, there wasn't enough time to implement it in the main game, and considering the flow from the music in Xenoblade Chronicles, I decided it would be too abrupt so I incorporated it in the additional story rather than the main game. Considering each composer's style, I was confident that it would go well and was very happy with the result.

And then, Xenoblade Chronicles 3. There waiting, cultivated over time, was peace of mind and a sense of trust. This is what I mean by "harmony."

While also feeling apologetic, I'd like to express my gratitude to the composers for sticking with me without getting discouraged by my selfishness over the past a5 years (twice as long for Mr. Mitsuda.)

To all the composers, thank you!

And that's it, these are the six messages included in the booklet contained with the Trinity Box Set, hopefully this has been insightful and entertaining for anyone reading, and I hope you enjoyed reading it, I'm glad to have been able to post these online for all to see. Thanks!