#with like detailed archive retrospectives

[xtorted-mensch]

Hardcore annotating that Columbine Killers Diaries book (the version w/basement tape transcripts) while drinking my girly pink drink at in my girly outfit at the beach :3

[drinker-of-paint]

Babys first go at an Alice design!!

I'm slightly worried I might have made her outfit a bit. Much? But on the other hand I think her fashion sense cannot be silenced

I'm just trying to get the ones out that I had immediately somewhat clear in my head before I get influenced by everyone elses designs,

I think I'll do Gwen next, no promises on how soon that'll be though bc it's me 😬

[thankskenpenders]

Happy new year, everyone! Welcome to 2024, the year that will mark the 10th anniversary of Thanks Ken Penders. I'd like to go over my plans for the blog for this year.

First of all: in the very near future, I'll have a post with my thoughts on Sonic Dream Team, and I'm sure I'll write one last Sonic Prime review once the final episodes drop on the 11th. I've also been sitting on an unfinished piece about the Sonic LEGO sets. I wanted this to be longer and more detailed piece that not only reviewed the sets but also went into the weird disconnect between homogenized image of Sonic the Brand and the actual fiction it's based off of, but it'll probably end up getting cut down a lot just so I can put something out. Let's just say I did a fun little thing with one of the sets.

Second: yes, I would like to return to regular TKP updates this year. As I've said many times, I wanted to do this in 2023, but I've been suffering from creative burnout after finishing SLARPG and have generally been unable to focus on any of my creative goals this past year. I'm hoping that this year will be better and I'll be able to get back into the swing of covering Archie Sonic issues. Even doing one issue every week or so would be vastly preferable to continuing the hiatus. I'm still only halfway done!! But aside from burnout, my other main hurdle is that I need to reread my own archive to refresh myself on all these things after nearly three years away. This will take some time.

The thing is, though, this year I'll have an extra incentive to go back through my previous writing and brush up on all things Archie Sonic. Because you see...

I've decided that I want to make a video essay about Penders. The comics, the copyright battle, The Lara-Su Chronicles, everything.

The why

I've thought about doing this before, but I never committed to the idea. I was too busy with gamedev, or I thought it'd end up being too long, or I figured that there were already enough videos on the subject, or I just lacked confidence in my ability to put together a video essay. So I told myself it wasn't meant to be, and let the multiple YouTubers who have cited me as a source on their own Penders videos fill that void.

Recently, though, a few things have happened that have convinced me it might be time. For one, YouTube video essays/media retrospectives/etc. are just getting longer and longer. When Quinton Reviews is out here doing 21 hours of videos on Sam & Cat, a subpar Nick sitcom that only lasted one season, I don't feel so crazy for wanting to make a video about several hundred comic books and two lawsuits that'd be at least an hour or two long lmao. Admittedly, I've also been self-conscious about doing a long video essay like this as a trans woman who has yet to do any vocal training. But these days I feel like I see a lot more transfem YouTubers who have done little to no vocal training, and that's given me more confidence on that front.

But the big one was Hbomberguy's recent plagiarism video. As I sat there watching it, I kept thinking about the time I found a CBR article that was just a crude 800 word summary of my two previous articles on Penders, published by a CBR writer who's put out over 4000 articles since 2019. If I've already been plagiarized before, and my writing is so frequently passed around as a go-to source on Archie Sonic drama, then I wouldn't be shocked if there were YouTubers out there straight up just plagiarizing me. I don't watch other peoples' videos on Archie Sonic, so I'd never know! So if people are just gonna paraphrase me when covering these topics anyway, why not take matters into my own hands and make what I would consider to be the definitive video on the subject? If hacks like James Somerton and iilluminaughtii can churn out these shitty video essays and people will still watch them, surely it can't be that impossible to make my own, right? (And also, uh, Hbomb literally told me I should make the video lol. If you're reading this, thanks for the encouragement.)

The what, how, and when

So here's the plan.

Part of this video essay will be an adaptation of my Medium article on the recurring themes of Ken's Archie Sonic run, with its content touched up and expanded upon. There were a few things I skimmed over in the article because I didn't want it to get too long, but again, people are out here watching ten hour videos about bad Nickelodeon sitcoms now. I can get away with elaborating a little more. I can add a few paragraphs talking about the Chaos Knuckles arc, or throw in a little more historical context I've discovered in the years since.

After covering the comics, the back half(-ish?) of the video will be dedicated to the copyright battles and their ensuing controversies, trying to give an accurate picture of what actually went down, the sheer scale of how bad Archie fucked up, and what our takeaways should be. This will have some similarities to my New York Magazine article on the subject, but I'll be rewriting it from scratch. I REALLY had to keep things short for that article because I was already way over the expected word count, and my tone was a little more straight-laced than normal because I was trying to keep things Professional. I can riff more and insert more of my own opinions this time, like I normally would.

I'll inevitably have to touch on some of Ken's Bad Tweets when discussing things that have happened after the lawsuits, but I don't want the video to just devolve into a list of times people got mad at him on Twitter, so I'm gonna try to keep that to a minimum in favor of focusing on his actual work. Things like the Scourge the Speed Demon incident and his continued statements on certain characters' copyright statuses probably warrant mentioning, though. And finally, assuming that the book really does come out this summer, I would like the grand finale of the video to be about those first couple chapters of The Lara-Su Chronicles.

I don't currently know when this video will get done, but it'll probably be in the back half of the year, especially with me waiting for the book to either drop or get delayed yet again. But I've actually already started writing a bit of the script, and will keep chipping away at it for a while.

So, uh, yeah, look forward to that? Wish me luck?

[riaaanna]

23rd March 2011

Roger Taylor & Brian May Interview - Part 1

(This is a rescue of the whole thing, so parts 2 and 3 are below!)

There are a few things going on around Queen at the moment…there is  a major retrospective exhibition celebrating the band’s formation and first five albums… your catalogue has been signed to Universal Music, the albums are being re-mastered and re-issued… and you have a 40th anniversary. Brian…What is it the 40th anniversary of?

BM: I think the popular view is that when John joined the band, the band was complete. So it’s the anniversary of that which I think is March. So we became the complete Queen group when John joined us.

Brian, The exhibition is called ‘Stormtroopers in Stilletos’, which was a kind-of subtitle to ‘She Makes Me’ on the third album ’Sheer Heart Attack’. ‘Stormtroopers in Stilletos’…what’s all that about?

BM: It’s just an image really, because it was actually Roger’s idea in the beginning to put this subtitle on because he said, 'look I really like this song it has a great beat and everything but I don’t like this title'. This is in 1975 or something. He said 'you should call it Stormtroopers in Stilettos if it has this big beat' and I said ok you can call it that as well if you want. So we put ‘She Makes Me’ and in brackets ‘Stormtroopers in Stilettos’. But I think that there is a kind of, ok there is some kind of reason because this exhibition is about the very early times and it’s about trying to get behind the veil, which we put up in a sense. You know for the first time we’re letting people see what life was really like for us, you know. So the Stormtroopers in Stilettos has this strange juxtaposition, it’s a nonsense, you know in a sense we are as a group, we’re something very powerful. You know, the very essence of our music is power and drive and very loud and everything but we are portraying very delicate ideas. So there is a kind of anomaly there, why is Killer Queen a rock song? Why is Good Company a rock song? The answer is maybe not, maybe it isn’t, but this is us, you know Stormtroopers in Stilettos is a kind of paradox. So people tell us we were a kind of paradox as a group, so this is expressing that paradox I think.

Talking about the exhibition – looking back on those old pictures of the band, what emotions does that stir in you – is that how you both remember it?

RT: We had a mixture of emotions. We weren’t quite expecting to be projected back. For forty years and to see all of those very old pictures of us when we were looking very young and very poor. We saw us as really kids, suddenly you remember what it was like in those days and it was quite painful I have to say I feel a great joy and a great pride in what we achieved in those early years, but it is kind of painful to look at it in that much detail.

Were there any bits that you found difficult, maybe almost too emotional, to re-visit?

BM: It was quite an emotional jolt I have to say because I am used to see pictures of Freddie the whole time you know and Freddie’s gone, but he’s still with us and this is something normal and part of our lives and a joyful part of our lives, but when we went into that exhibition suddenly you got a much clearer picture of the way things were when we started. I could see pictures of people who were very close to us who have died now and suddenly it was all very much more real. 

RT: Many of our old friends are in those pictures, preserved forever young and so it bought back some very sad memories. 

BM: Some of it was surprising, a lot of the material is from my own archives. I collected all of these posters and singles and tickets and stuff, so that was no surprise, but then there are some pictures there that I had never really seen. There’s one picture of us at the time of A Day At The Races and we were all sitting there in the stands watching these horses and it was a sort of promotion for the album and of course a lot of the people who were there are no longer with us you know, not just Freddie, and suddenly it was very real, it was life size and there’s my wife looking like a little tiny stick you know and me looking like a kid younger than my own kids are now, and it was a jolt and Roger and I both felt this. There was Pete Brown who was a wonderful friend and employee of ours who used to take us around the world, he’s gone, long gone. And there were lots of things there and I think looking at there was a glass case with the whole RockField's set-up and there are tape machines, all the bits and pieces which we used to play with the whole time including mounds of tape on the floor which is actually real because we did used to do this and if you’ve dealt with a mix and you know you’re not going to use it you just run it off on to the floor because it’s quicker and suddenly I had this feeling that maybe I should be inside that glass case as well. And we felt we were sort of looking at...it’s almost like being dead. It was a very strange feeling I have to tell you and Roger and I both sat there once everyone had gone thinking and looking and saying to each other how we felt and it was a weird feeling, you know, there is great joy and great pride in what we did but it’s almost like going to the Victoria and Albert Museum and seeing Thomas Edison or something like that, you know, it’s all covered in dust and you think is that us? What are we? 

RT: It’s a long time ago, forty years. It was our formative period and it brought back all sorts of brutal memories like how poor we were and you know how we were saving up money for instruments and food. The next meal was a great high priority at the time and where was it coming from.

Roger – you’re one of the great rock & roll drummers, but the story goes that at 20 years old you wanted to study to be a dentist?

RT: I guess I was brought up in a way I know my parents would generally think, 'well we want you to be a doctor' and all that, they’d have loved that. I came to London to go to college to meet other people, to be in a band and that was my plan and the college was a way of getting to London and meeting like minded people. London is a real centre you know, and now as well, but in those days especially all the fantastic bands came out of London. Jimi Hendrix had to come to London to make it, you know and meet people, like minded people so that is why I came to London and dentistry was...in fact I did Biology in the end, but dentistry was really a bit of a red herring. 

What kind-of band were you setting out to be in 1971 – did you have a musical vision?

BM: It was a vision in our head really. I think we would have described it at the time as very heavy underneath, but very melodic and very harmonic on top - there wasn’t really a model. We had heroes you know, Jimi Hendrix was a huge hero and Zeppelin were sort of almost contemporary but they were our heroes as well.  They managed to do what some of what we wanted to do, but they didn’t have this other side to them. We were very fond of Yes at the time who had an element, they had this very complex harmonic element which was an inspiration, but our heroes also went much further back in time so there’s people like George Formby and the Big Bands and The Temperance Seven all sorts of strange eclectic influences on us...became what we were. I think we were like a sponge and we observed all of this wonderful music that was around us at a very particular time in history, it couldn’t really happen now I don’t think but we grew up with all of these sounds in our heads and we knew what we want. The lucky thing was that Freddie and Roger and I had a very similar vision in our heads so when we came together it was easy to know which decisions to make to try and make this happen.

Tell us about Freddie back then, was he always the flamboyant showman we now remember him as? 

BM: He was always a rock star, he really was, that’s the funny thing. He was a very shy boy, very shy, very insecure I would say. He came from a very strict public school upbringing and very repressed in a sense, and so his reaction to that was to go completely the other way, to be completely outrageous and build a character around himself which he inhabited, and it came to it's climax when he actually changes his name and became Freddie Mercury instead of Bulsara. I regard Freddie as a completely self made man. He had his vision, he had his dream and he constructed everything about his life to make this dream happen and we were part of this whole kind of journey.

Back in the early days did you ever imagine that Queen would have such an impact on popular music…still be talked about 40 years on? 

BM: No, I still think it is a dream sometimes. There is this theory that there is only me that exists and everything else is a dream. I still get that feeling sometimes because everything is so incredibly, I was going to say lucky, but it’s unusual in every respect, we had these incredible dreams, but I think along with the precociousness and the belief and the sort of belligerence of trying to achieve your dream there is a little piece of you inside which says 'no this is impossible, we could never do this'. I still have that and I wake up some mornings and think how did that happen? How did we become this worldwide phenomenon? It’s great, it’s amazing and I feel very grateful and I think I still have a problem putting it in its place and maybe that’s just, maybe that’s lucky too.

Your first five albums…Queen…Queen 2…Sheer Heart Attack…A Night at The Opera and A day at the races…are being re-released, re-mastered…there are bonus tracks….Let’s talk about the first album, Queen, which you recorded here at Trident….which was mainly recorded at night time?

RT: Well, you’re right, it was recorded mainly at night time when David Bowie wasn’t, because we were signed to this studio, they were our managers. This was a very fashionable studio at the time. 

BM: The owners of the studio, in a sense owned us, they were our managers but they didn’t want to spend any money, so basically if someone was in here like David Bowie and he finished a session at 3 o’clock, we would get a phone call and they’d say 'come in boys we’ve got some downtime come in and do some work'. 

RT: So we would go, two until six in the morning.

BM: So that’s how that album was made. So although we had great technology around us we didn’t really have much freedom to use it. It really was grabbing little bits of time and we were regarded as, sort of the new boys who didn’t really know anything and nobody really wanted to listen to the way we wanted to do things. 

RT: Because we were being pushed slightly towards the fashionable sound with the drums etc; too dry for us. 

BM: They put tape all over his drums and they put cushions everywhere and sound absorbing and they made his drums go ‘pff’, ‘tich’, ‘tich’. 

RT: This famous Trident drum sound it was called, there was a booth that was over there. if you imagine this big room with this tiny bit area for the drums, then we used to put the drums in there, taped up and everything, so it was dead and that was the fashionable sound. David Bowie had used it, I think that album suffers for that, but it has a lot of good stuff on it though.    

Roger, there’s quite a different sound to the five bonus tracks included on the re-mastered first album…what’s their history…why were they recorded? 

RT: They are the demos that we did before we had any record contracts or anything. We hawked them around to every record company under the sun, begging for a contract really.  

BM: We went into a studio and we really had no contact, we’re very young people, we’re poor people, we have a dream, but nobody shares our dream and we were very lucky to find this person who wanted someone to make a noise in the new studios they were building, De Lane Lea in Wembley. We went in there and made some noise for them and in return they made us these five tracks. We were very precocious boys, we knew what we wanted already so the four of use went in with an engineer, Louis Austin, and made these five tracks and they were pretty much the way we wanted them to sound. Only a couple of days, two or three days, I think that we spent in there but it was enough to flex our muscles and make these...start to fashion the sounds that we had in our heads. 

RT: Brian did some great good work, he found them on an acetate and using the new technology managed to remove all of the sort of ‘clecks’ and  ‘clacks’ and ‘pops’ and it sounds fantastic. Sounds better than the first album actually.

25th March 2011

Roger Taylor & Brian May Interview - Part 2

I’m interested in what Freddie was like when you were recording…was he the flamboyant performer we all know or was he a different man in the studio…more disciplined?

BM: Incredibly disciplined. He was very undisciplined when we met him as a performer, he would run around and scream and generally be quite shocking, but as soon as he heard himself in the studio, and it’s quite interesting that we’re sitting here, because I remember sitting here and Freddie listening to himself back and being very critical and unhappy about the way he sounded, and he worked and worked and worked night and day to fashion his voice and the way he controlled it into the way he wanted it to be.

So we have these five re-mastered albums, re-mastered by Bob Ludwig. Why did you choose him to do the job?

RT: We went to about eight different mastering studios, all great actually, we really liked Bob Ludwig’s work and so we made sort of our own little notes and sent them back to him and then he sent them back again. It really does sound beautiful and fresh and wonderful, alive, and of course it’s all recorded analogue in the first place, which I still think sounds better than digital recording and there is something about it in the fatness of the sound, it’s just more pleasing to the ear, I think. It just sounds a little better.

Roger, can I ask you about Queen’s recording process…did the four of you turn up at the studio with the songs and arrangements all finished and ready to record?

RT: No, they were never utterly finished, not completely finished, there was always sort of quite a bit of group work really, people would chip in ideas and stuff, but you’d have to have the general concept in your head and usually some chords.

Roger, is it true that any rows, any ‘creative differences’, in the studio would always be between you and Brian...and that Freddie was the mediator?

RT: Freddie was a great diplomat. We used to have, yeah, we used to have creative differences, but then we’d normally resolve them well and I think it was, without using the word compromise, it was a good result.

Given that you had Freddie as a front man, was the plan always to be a spectacular theatrical live act…?

RT: We wanted to be different and we wanted be theatrical, because very much in those days it’s easy to forget the bands did nothing. They came out and they didn’t move – they maybe shake their heads. So we wanted to put on show, unashamedly theatrical and Freddie was very good at that. Nobody else was really doing that, maybe David Bowie in a slightly different way, he was great, fairly theatrical performer, but more understated.  

When the first record came out, did people understand Queen…did you understand Queen?

RT: We had it in our heads, we pretty much knew what we sort of wanted to get and where we wanted to get, but a lot of people didn’t really quite get it, they thought what are they glam? We are hard to categorise, there was a lot of glam rock bands and art rock bands, we were sort of somewhere in between hard rock, we were sort of a mixture of things, we were a strange beast.  

I always felt in the early days that the press didn’t quite ‘get’ Queen…

BM: I think perhaps we had sidestepped the press; we didn’t go up the normal route so perhaps they felt left out and felt kind of jealous because they like to help build things, so perhaps we never had any time for them and they never had any time for us. 

RT: It was very hard to categorise us I think, because we were sort of falling, there was a bit of this and a bit of that, but we were sort of fairly theatrical and we really got up purest critics noses quite a lot I think, but thankfully there was a sort of great public out there that seemed to really lap it up. They seemed to like it and we always felt fairly unhip, I think it’s quite good to be unhip because if you’re hip you don’t last very long and so we’ve been successfully unhip for forty years now. 

BM: I sometimes think that the rock business is all about persistence, because you do something and people go ‘what?’ ‘What is that?’ And then you do it again and they go ‘oooh that’s not bad’ and then you do it again and people think: ‘ah they’re really serious and you know what? I really like that’. So we just kind of ploughed on our furrow, we plugged on believing what we believed in and gradually the snowball started to build.

So, Brian, ‘Queen II’ made it to #5 in the UK and also hit the Top 50 in the U.S where you had a deal with Elektra. But things really took off for you with the third album, ‘Sheer Heart Attack’ which hit #2 in the UK and #12 in the U.S on the back of an American tour which took its toll on your health… 

BM: Yes I was very sick, we did our first American tour and I got Hepatitis but that wasn’t the real problem. I recovered from Hepatitis relatively quickly, but the diet that they put me on re-energised the bad stuff that was going on in my digestive system, which had apparently been going on since I was a kid, so I collapsed on a consultants floor at one point and he said you’ve had no nutrition going into you for months, it’s a wonder you’re still alive, because your stomach is completely blocked, you know the exit to your stomach. Without going into too many details, I went in and had this operation and it was a very serious operation they don’t do it anymore. Nowadays they give you these drugs like Tagamet to stop this whole business happening. If you really want to get into details it’s all about helicobacter pylori, nobody knew this in those days, but some research was done about twenty years ago which really revealed that almost every stomach problem including all these acid and duodenal ulcer problems is down to one bacterium, this helicobacter and it’s not exactly inherited in the genes, but it is inherited in families because you are drinking from the same cups and eating the same foods, so now that’s been discovered they don’t do this operation anymore they just give you this cocktail of antibiotics and you’re cured. But I was probably one of the last people to have this major operation to take piece of your stomach away and re-engineer the plumbing down there.

‘Sheer Heart Attack’ still sounds like a special record…

RT: I think by that time we’d got the sounds that we wanted, we were much happier with the studio and we didn’t have people trying to steer us anywhere or tell us what to do and I think we had a mixture of the extravagance of the second album but with a more commercial and accessible sound on that. I think it’s a very good album, there’s no time wasted on it and it’s good.

Roger, I read somewhere that someone had said your fourth album, ‘A Night at the Opera’ was Queen’s ‘Sergeant Pepper’...

RT: I wouldn’t, well I’m not sure I think that Sergeant Pepper is the Beatles best album you see. I think it’s probably analogous to Sergeant Pepper. I think that the Beatles made better albums than that actually, you know, I’d say Revolver and Abbey Road and the White Album are all better. I think for me so I would say Night At The Opera was a very good piece of work and very eclectic and because it had Bohemian Rhapsody, but we did a lot of other good things as well. So I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily our best work but maybe it was our Sergeant Pepper album.

You mention ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’…now might be a good time to ask…the staggering harmonies on that track...

BM: The harmony thing, do you know I don’t even know, but we had such diverse influences I can remember listening to Mantovani and trying to understand how these harmonies worked with the violins and some of that is in our records strangely enough. I had a very favourite group called the Temperance Seven who were kind of based on Dixieland jazz, but highly arranged and I loved this kind of arrangement of spontaneity and very complex arrangements and you hear this sort of bell thing on Bohemian Rhapsody ‘ar, ar, ar’ well even that has some of its roots in the Temperance Seven. Ever since being a kid I was analysing people’s harmonies, like the Everly Brothers or the Crickets, but also things on Doris Day records. We took in everything.

Were the Beach Boys an influence? 

BM: Beach Boys we liked, but I don’t think the Beach Boys were much of an influence because they came from a different world, but I have to say I think I had a bit of a resistance to the Beach Boys. They were like the enemy when I was young and it wasn’t until probably later, I remember Good Vibrations, I thought ‘yeah very nice’, but I would have done it differently, you know, being a very big headed little boy. I remember hearing this record when they made this record called Darling, it suddenly washed over me and I thought ‘Oh my god I’ve been missing so much because these guys are so clever and there is so much great instinct in there as well as great skill'. So, looking back, The Beach Boys are wonderful, but for us it was The Beatles. Really, The Beatles were our bible in the way they used the studio and they painted pictures and this wonderful instinctive use of harmonies. So, The Beatles and Jimi Hendrix and The Who, we loved The Who. Now, The Who had the beginnings of harmonies and they were very kind of rough and hooligan and we liked that. We liked this sort of element of danger that was in The Who.  But I suppose we took our harmonies a lot more seriously and I remember Pete Townsend, we met him quite early on, we went to record in his studio and he said ‘Brian where did all of this harmony stuff come from? Did you study it?’ and I actually didn’t know what to say. I said ‘I don’t know if I studied it, we listened to people including you and something happened in our heads’.

29th March 2011

Roger Taylor & Brian May Interview - Part 3

When was the moment you realised you had the world at your feet?

RT: I guess when Bohemian Rhapsody was a big hit around the World, that felt very good. It did get a lot bigger after that you know, we had a great few years in America in about 1980,  that was our peak there, but then we went to South America and then that was incredible.

You became huge in the United States…. You’d signed to Capitol Records…but around the time of ‘The Works’ your career there went into decline…do you have a view on what happened there?

BM: That’s a very long story really, because really America is a place where we grew up. We sort of owned America at one point, when we had ‘We Will Rock You’, ‘We Are The Champions’. They were bigger hits there than they were here, and ‘Another One Bites The Dust’ was an enormous hit, and I think there was a moment where we were not only the biggest group in America, but probably the biggest in the world. A lot of people have that moment, but we had that moment at a certain time. But to cut a very long story short we diverged, and I think 3 things contributed to us losing America. One of them was the video for ‘I Want To Break Free’, which was regarded as something completely impossible and something that rock stars do not do, dress up in Women’s clothes. Over here people got the joke, because we were spoofing Coronation Street, they didn’t get that in America. I remember being out on promotion and people being so shocked. I remember presenters going white and not wanting to be a part of that, how could rock stars do this?

So that was one thing, second thing was we unwittingly got involved in all sorts of scandalous stuff which was going on between record companies and radio stations. This whole thing of independent promotion came to head, and the record companies were investigated by a government department to see, basically we’re talking about bribery, and our record company that we just signed to Capitol Records, made a big stand against the whole system and refused to pay for any promoting and therefore nothing got promoted. They got a huge backlash from these people that thought they ruled the world, you know the gangsters. And so I remember the moment, ‘Radio Ga Ga’ which was rising, I think it went from about 60 to 30 in the Billboard charts, and the next week it disappeared. You know, nobody would play any Queen records, because of this whole thing going on.

The third thing that happened, in my opinion, is down to one man. We had this guy who looked after Freddie, who was called Paul Prenter, and he got a little too big for his boots I think. The reflected glory of Freddie gave him a lot of power and we’d worked very hard over the years to have a very good relationship with all of the media in the States, and Roger and I worked our asses over every time we played, we would go and do every radio station in town because we cared and we wanted to make that contact with the people. This guy in the course of one tour told every radio station to fuck off, but not just fuck off, but ‘Freddie says fuck off, Freddie says he doesn’t care about you’ and so we sort of lost our relationship with the media at a stroke. It was a very sad thing and suddenly the rest of the world was calling us. Suddenly we all went out and did stadiums, like you say, in South America, In Europe, In Australia, in Japan, but America was not calling us and so you tend to go where you are called and I remember Freddie saying ‘I’ll probably have to fucking die before America wants us’.

Did America have a problem with Freddie’s sexuality?

BM: Well you know the word ‘G-A-Y’ was really very dodgy for a long time in the States and in some ways it still is. You look at these people that are trying to go back to the original constitution, the tea party. It’s all highly retro, but it’s all very retrogressive thinking, that element will always probably be alive in America.

You decided to carry on after Freddie’s death…did you discuss this for a long time before making up your minds?

BM: Our first thought was no, it’s finished.

RT: We didn’t really know what to do when he died and we thought maybe lets end everything.

What comes next for you guys…have Island Records asked you to do any events to celebrate your 40th anniversary?

RT: It’s nice to be with a fresh set of people actually, they’re very proactive, Island so far they have been fantastic. They’re talking about a TV thing that is going to be on the internet, where we have a lot of really great singers as guests. It will be more of a sort of intimate show in a way, with a little mixing of videos and stuff in there as well. So we are thinking of doing that. Brian and I sort of decide to do things suddenly, out of the blue we decide to do something, like the tours with Paul Rodgers, like “Come on we’ll do it” and they happened in a snap, so then you have to plan ahead a bit, but I’d like to think we would do something live.

BM: There’s a whole grieving process that goes on, I was worse than that, I didn’t want to talk about Queen, I didn’t want to be Queen. I went out and did my own tours and if people asked me about Queen I resisted talking because I thought “no it’s over” and I wanted my life back and I regarded Queen as this big shadow which I couldn’t get away from. But of course that’s part of your grieving process, it’s an overreaction and I realise that now and after a while you come back to the realisation that Queen is actually ours, it’s not anything outside we created it, it’s part of us, it’s an extension of us and you can never go “It’s finished” because it never can be over, it’s going to always be with you because it’s your creation.

RT: Somehow though it seemed to have a life of its own,  4 to 5 years later we completed the ‘Made In Heaven’ album, which we didn’t know if we were going to do that at first, but we did it and we were very happy with the way it sounded, but we still weren’t planning ahead, and then along came ‘We Will Rock You’, the musical here. And all these things seemed to build up and the radio kept playing the music, and all these things added up to keep the band alive in people’s minds, which was fantastic

BM: People want to hear Queen songs and they want some sort of representation on stage, they want to keep living this and so we think “Ah what do we do?” so I think gradually Roger and I came round to thinking we could do something in the way of being Queen. I have to say I’m still being very resistant, you know the subject came up, ‘this is the 40th year of Queen, why don’t you tour? Why don’t you get someone to sing?’ I don’t feel like it, I don’t feel like I want someone there being Freddie. We did go out with Paul Rodgers, which I think was a great success in many ways. But it was really successful in many ways because he wasn’t Freddie and he wasn’t trying to be Freddie. He came with all his material, all his legend, all his catalogue. And yes it was a nice equal partnership in a sense. But it would be very hard to do that again, and I don’t think I want to do it again. I’m happy doing the things that we are able to do with Queen. One of the things is the musical, it’s great that we can have the We Will Rock You musical. It’s like we’re Uncles or Fathers to this musical and this is a great way of communicating Queen music and keeping it very much alive, it’s not fossilised, it’s young people and musicians.

As I sit here talking to you and Brian, I have to ask why John Deacon doesn’t get involved in Queen projects?

RT: John lives very quietly, and he decided years ago, he’s very nervous and very fragile and he doesn’t really want to deal with a lot of people anymore and I think he found the stress of this business, especially after Freddie died, I think was too much. He would prefer a quiet life I think, but he’s still our partner, you know, he still gets paid. But we really don’t see him very much, he’s very quiet and that’s just the way he likes it I think.

How is it that you can still carry this on…almost 20 years without a front man?

BM: Queen somehow has a momentum of its own and there is a kind of very strong spiritual force in there somewhere and Roger and I both fight it sometimes. Sometimes we regard it as a big shadow over the top of us that stops us being anything else. But I think there is also an appreciation that we created this and we love it and we’re proud of it so we continue in any way we can, to be part of this thing we created.

Someone arrives from another planet…he’s never heard of you…how would you explain Queen to them?

BM: I can’t explain it to myself, we’ve been involved in re-mastering a lot of these things and rescuing the old tapes, it’s fascinating and the new re-masters are beautiful, they will be clearer and more perfect than ever before. That makes me very happy, but listening to The Millionaire Waltz, I can’t even comprehend how we did that now; it’s so incredibly complex, so incredibly polished. I marvel, we were only really kids, but we managed to pull this stuff off by sheer willpower and it’s amazing to me, I feel very proud of what we achieved together.

Are you proud of the fact that so many bands, so many artists, cite you as an influence?

RT: Oh absolutely. We have influences, everybody has influences. Everybody has grown up being excited by somebody and that becomes one of your influences.

BM: Very proud, very happy. It means a lot, I think that means more than almost anything, if young people who are in a sense our peers, the new peers, speak well of us and recount the fact that we influenced their growth, that’s a great feeling for me, it’s very nice to have the approval of people who are doing what we did, grafting their way, carving their own place in history.

And Brian, finally, what has being in Queen meant to you?

BM: I’m proud of what we did and of what we are, whatever that is now; I don’t even know what that is.

RT: Well it’s what I do, it’s the central thing in my life and everything else revolves around it.

BM: The dream that came true.

[historicallyaccuratecheese]

I’m now halfway through The Magnus Archives’ 1st season, so I thought it would be cool to just post my thoughts on each episode so far :). (Spoilers, I like all of them, and this podcast is going to be all I care about for a while.) Also NO SPOILERS PLEASE!!!

Link to Masterpost (contains all of these thought posts)

- Episode 1, Anglerfish 🚬

Statement of Nathan Watts, regarding an encounter on Old Fishmarket Close, Edinburgh.

Really strong start, not the scariest episode so far but definitely unnerving, and it gives a good first impression and layer of intrigue. While the story is simple in comparison to the later ones, it was still enjoyable, and I was just appreciating the atmosphere and framing device of the episode as well.

- Episode 2, Do Not Open ⚰️

Statement of Joshua Gillespie, regarding his time in the possession of an apparently empty wooden casket.

This is still one of my favorites. The whole time I was on edge, and this was the first episode that really kept me up at night. I went from wanting to know what was inside the coffin desperately, to wanting to stay away from it as much as possible. Joshua’s insuring dread and creative solution to his problems was fantastic, and it ends with some intriguing plot threads being set up.

- Episode 3, Across The Street 📓

Statement of Amy Patel, regarding the alleged disappearance of her acquaintance Graham Folger.

I think I share a common sentiment when I say that Amy stalking Graham was almost as creepy as the actual horror lmao. Overall I don’t have that much to say about this one, but it was very enjoyable, and I feel really bad for Graham in retrospect :(.

- Episode 4, Pageturner 📕

Statement of Dominic Swain, regarding a book briefly in his possession in the winter of 2012.

I…feel like I should hold off on talking about this one for now. While it was definitely well written and creepy, it just seems to be so full of setup for future plot lines that I almost don’t feel like I can form a concise opinion on it until I really get what’s going on. Honestly, my only complaint with this episode is that maybe it’s setting up TOO much in one go, but I still had a good time with it overall.

- Episode 5, Thrown Away 🗑️

Statement of Kieran Woodward, regarding items recovered from the refuse of 93 Lancaster Road, Walthamstowe.

This one actually did a pretty good job at getting me to think about waste disposal workers lmao, I never really thought about them like that before. This one was just really creepy, but also kind of fun in a weird twisted way. It did a great job keeping me on edge as well.

- Episode 6, Squirm 🪱

Statement of Timothy Hodge, regarding his sexual encounter with Harriet Lee and her subsequent death.

I am simultaneously horrified, and unfortunately aroused by what happened here.

- Episode 7, The Piper 🔫

Statement of Staff Sgt. Clarence Berry, regarding his time serving with Wilfred Owen in the Great War.

Having an episode set nearly 100 years ago is a really fun idea, and it’s executed perfectly here. It was interesting how it also featured a real person, and I liked how the paranormal activity felt more metaphorical here, it really did feel like it was showcasing the horror of war.

- Episode 8, Burned Out 🌳

Statement of Ivo Lensik, regarding his experiences during the construction of a house on Hill Top Road, Oxford.

I found this one to be very nerve-wracking, since not only was the whole scenario with the tree just, like…three creepy things happening at once, but the fact that the statement was given by someone with schizophrenia did a good job making me question it’s validity, even though I’m certain it’s true after listening to a later statement. I also hope that I get to see how the history of the house is unveiled in the future.

- Episode 9, A Father’s Love 💡

Statement of Julia Montauk, regarding the actions and motivations of her father, the serial killer Robert Montauk.

This one made me feel really sad :(. I really felt Julia’s despair in this one (Jonathan Sims does such great voice acting for every statement btw, both the character and the actual person), and I was even more saddened by the implications of why Robert did what he did. If my assumptions are correct, then…SCREW THE MOTHER! It was also the first one that got me thinking about where exactly all of the paranormal stuff comes from, and later episodes only add to my theory that it’s all due to demons/cults/higher powers.

- Episode 10, Vampire Killer 🧛🏻

Statement of Trevor Herbert, regarding his life as a self-proclaimed vampire hunter.

Much like Episode 8, this one did a really good job at making me question the validity of the statement, although I became more sure of its truth a bit earlier. I also just love how nonchalant Trevor comes off as, compared to all of the other traumatized horror victims. (Also, I’m guessing that the name Trevor and the episode title are meant to be a Castlevania reference?) While vampires aren’t the most creative thing for an episode, at least in comparison to everything else, the beast-like execution here more than made up for it in my opinion.

- Episode 11, Dreamer 💭

Statement of Antonio Blake, regarding his recent dreams about Gertrude Robinson, previous Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.

Yeah…Gertrude Robinson did not die a normal death. My guess is that she was caught by ✨the horrors✨, but I’ll wait and see. This was another very tense episode, with the prophetic dream world being really, REALLY creepy. I do hope we get to see more of “Antonio” in the future, as I think he could be quite important. (I also hope he gets punched for DUMPING GRAHAM IN HIS TIME OF NEED-)

- Episode 12, First Aid 🏥

Statement of Lesere Saraki, regarding a recent night-shift at St. Thomas Hospital, London.

OMG GERARD KEAY HI HI HI HI HOW ARE YOU!!! Yeah I audibly gasped when he showed up again, it was such a cool moment. Anyways, hospitals already creep me the fuck out so this was pretty effective. Definitely some great setup here, and it helped to make a bit more sense of Pageturner, now that I have a better idea of what Gerard’s whole deal is. It also added some good fuel to the whole cult idea, and my god this poor nurse. Having to deal with all of this in a single night sounds like hell.

- Episode 13, Alone 🌫️

Statement of Naomi Herne, regarding the events following the funeral of her fiancé, Evan Lukas. Statement taken direct from subject.

Having a new voice in this episode was really cool, and Katie Davison did an excellent job as Naomi! It was also cool to see how Jon interacts with other people, he was…nicer than expected. This episode honestly felt like it was calling me out, as I am also someone who’s confident in my independence, but if I was in Naomi’s place I would also probably be scared shitless. I really hope she’ll get a happy ending :(. Also, The Lukas family is quite intriguing, especially since we now know they have a connection to The Institute…

- Episode 14, Piecemeal 👆

Statement of Lee Rentoul, regarding the murder of his associate Paul Noriega.

Firstly, this is probably my favorite of Jon’s vocal deliveries. His performance of Lee Rentoul just feels perfect. (Once again, this applies to both the writer and the character, I’m genuinely convinced the latter is an ex-theatre kid.) Outside of that, THIS ONE CREEPED ME OUT. The body horror was very effective, with the only thing holding it back being the fact that Lee isn’t the most likable protagonist in the podcast, but if this happened to someone else I’d be even more upset. Still though, it was a very creative concept, and the whole vibe and execution of the episode made it great.

- Episode 15, Lost Johns’ Cave 🕯️

Statement of Laura Popham, regarding her experience exploring the Three Counties System of caves with her sister Alena Sanderson.

What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fuck. What the fu-

- Episode 16, Arachnophobia 🕷️

Statement of Carlos Vittery, regarding his arachnophobia and its manifestations.

The way they tackled the concept in the title was really well done. Arachnophobia is seen as an irrational fear by a lot of people, so having it portrayed as an effect of childhood trauma was a good call. And as someone who is not arachnophobic, this episode got me close to feeling that way. What ever force was making Carlos relive his trauma is a sick fuck. Also the cat was a real one, glad he survived the whole situation. (Also THE WORMS, HOLY SHIT IT’S THE SEX WORMS!!!)

- Episode 17, The Boneturner’s Tale 🦴

Statement of Sebastian Adekoya, regarding a new acquisition at Chiswick Library.

This episode really compelled me to get out the rubber bands connecting images lmao. I really liked all of the connections to past statements here, like the presence of another book from the library of Jurgen Leitner, to the mention of Micheal Crew. The body horror here was once again very creepy, (outside of the flat rat, that was morbidly funny), but my favorite part of the episode was the introduction of Elias, which was a humorous, but also very intriguing scene. Also, the themes of books containing power was great as well. Great stuff all around.

- Episode 18, The Man Upstairs 🥩

Statement of Christof Rudenko, regarding his interactions with a first floor resident of Welbeck House, Wandsworth.

…ew. Ok in all seriousness, this is probably my least favorite episode so far. Still very far from bad, but after all of the extremely interesting themes and plot threads, having an episode where the idea was just “What if a guy had a house covered in meat? Wouldn’t that be fucked up?”, felt just a little bit underwhelming. Which like, the fact that my least favorite episode’s biggest problem is that I find it slightly pales in comparison to previous ones is just a testament to how much I’ve been enjoying the podcast. Still though, there were definitely a few things I really liked. The reveal of the room was creepy (especially considering the meat that seemed…alive…), and as someone who has had to deal with upstairs neighbors making noise for hours during construction, this episode definitely scared me.

- Episode 19, Confession, and Episode 20, Desecrated Host ✝️

Statement of Father Edwin Burroughs, regarding his claimed demonic possession.

This, alongside Lost Johns’ Cave, was one (or I guess, two…) of those episodes that seriously fucked me up. While I am not religious, I have always had fears of how religion can negatively affect me and the people around me, despite the good that it seems to do for so many people. So seeing Edwin be charged for every “sin” he committed by a higher power that wishes to steal its faith, and then not get judged by it, but by the people around him for his one true sin, was absolutely haunting, and I hope he turns out ok in the end. Outside of the horror, the episodes were fantastic. Listening to the events of Episode 8 from Edwin’s perspective, and seeing how Ivo’s actions saved him, was really cool, and solidifies in my mind that Ivo’s experience was real. The connections to demonic magic and Latin script thickened, and it was overall just a great mid-season finale. In conclusion, I hope that Martin feels better soon, and if he isn’t actually sick and is being plagued by ✨the horrors✨, well then I hope he survives :).

Thank you for reading my silly little thoughts if you’ve made it this far, it really means a lot to me :). I’ll probably update this every time I finish half of a season, so hopefully my thoughts on episodes 21-40 will be here in the Reblogs soon. :)

[iwtvfanevents]

Rewind the Tape —Episode 6

Art of the episode

Just like we did for the pilot and for episodes two, three, four, and five, we took note of the art shown and mentioned in the 6th episode while we rewatched it.

Love's Coming-Of-Age: a series of papers on the relations of the sexes

Edward Carpenter, 1896

Carpenter was an English writer and philosopher, and an early activist for gay rights and prison reform. In the opening of the episode, Louis is shown to be reading his essay "Marriage, a retrospective" you can read this essay, as well as the rest of the book, in the Internet Archive, here.

The Poems of Emily Dickinson

First collected and published in 1890

Dickinson was an American poet who published only ten of her approximate 1800 poems during her life. Before her passing, Dickinson had asked her sister to burn her writings, and you can read more about how her sister Lavinia came to publish them instead, with major editions, in this LitHub piece.

Pelléas et Mélisande

Claude Debussy & Maurice Maeterlinck, 1902

Referenced in Lestat's lyrics, this is an opera in five acts about a love triangle, which ends in tragedy for both its titular heroes, the mysterious Mélisande and her husband's younger brother, Pélleas. An interesting detail: after Pelléas and Mélisande's demise, they are survived by their daughter.

Three Peaches on a Stone Plinth

Adriaen Coorte, 1705

Coorte was a Dutch Golden Age painter of mostly small, intimate still lifes, and little is known of his life.

Still Life with Blue Vase and Mushrooms

Otto Scholderer, 1891

Scholderer was a German painter of portraits and still lifes, and was acquainted with another painter we've seen already, Manet.

Cumulus Clouds, East River

Robert Henri, 1901-1902

Henri was an American painter, first featured in episode one.

[All three identified by @diasdelfuego.]

After Lestat moves back into the house, new furniture, new decorations and new art appear all over, leaving little trace of the previous domestic violence (that is, except for the "reminders" that Claudia insists on keeping).

La Nausée

Jean-Paul Sartre, 1938 [Identified by @saintarmand, here.]

A recent release at the time of this scene, this novel by French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre deals with an isolated and melancholy protagonist.

Baby Strange

T. Rex, 1972

The song playing during Louis and Daniel's first meeting is by an English band, an early example of the glam rock genre.

If you spot or put a name to any other references, share via DM or in the reblogs, and let us know if you'd like us to add them with credit to the post!

Starting tonight, we will be rewatching and discussing the finale, ...The Thing Lay Still. We hope to see you there! And, if you're just getting caught up, learn all about our group rewatch here ►

[illustraction]

Le SAMOURAI (1967) - ALAIN DELON MOVIE POSTERS (Part 20/20)

We conclude this short retrospective of ALAIN DELON's filmed with his masterpiece Le samourai, his first movie out of 3 directed by Jean-Pierre Melville (see parts 11 and 16).

Above are the ALL original movie posters from Japan as well as from Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and the US (click on each image for details)

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville Actors: Alain Delon, Nathalie Delon, Francois Perier

ALL OUR ALAIN DELON POSTERS ARE HERE

If you like this entry, check the other 19 parts of this week’s Blog as well as our Blog Archives

All our NEW POSTERS are here All our ON SALE posters are here

The posters above courtesy of ILLUSTRACTION GALLERY

[foap-enjoyer]

Scar reveal | Interrogation | Presumed dead

Interrogation.

'A mock interrogation for a set of rookies to learn and take notes from. The interrogator: Ghost. The poor prisoner in for a rough time? Soap Mactavish.'

Trigger warnings for this prompt: Torture using different means. See end of post for more detail. Ships for this prompt: Ghoap.

Read here, on AO3: Ouch. - Chapter 8 - Tsukuyomi_Ravioli - Call of Duty (Video Games) [Archive of Our Own]

~

“Alright! Alright!” Price barked out into the loud and chatty room, “Settle down, you muppets!”

Soap watched with a lopsided grin as nervous, excited rookies snapped to attention, keen eyes following the Captain. They reminded him of jittery puppies being reprimanded by their mother; their excitement overruled any possible consequences. That became clearer when whispers picked up once more, not able to stand the silence as they were clearly fossilising where they stood. Typical kids.

He couldn’t say he blamed them, not one bit. Actually, he was the exact same when he was in their shoes, which was, in retrospect, quite some time ago. This was their first ever interrogation. They were only witnesses, of course, and obviously this wasn’t a real interrogation, a simple mock-one for studying, but it was action nonetheless. Especially to young troopers. Not to mention, from the mutters his ears caught, they were excited to see the Lieutenant Ghost in action. A man that he had no doubt they had heard rumours of ever since joining up.

These lot weren’t theirs, actually. Not 141’s rookies, at least - these troopers were from another regiment, coming over like it was a school field trip to witness a higher-ranking squadron in action. Explained the excitement over a man in a skull mask.

Once again, he’d done the same, at their rank. He can still remember buzzing with pure excitement as he and the rest of the fresh-faced soldiers fumbled into the room, watching intently as the interrogation played out. He can still remember the name of the poor officer he watched get beaten up- Staff-Sergeant Redrick. The woman had given up one hell of a fight, had almost passed, but she’d broken in the last thirty seconds. It was a wild time, and he still remembered it vividly. 

He wondered if that flash-bulb memory would be the same for these lot, with him in the chair instead. He’d give them just as good of a show as she did alright. He couldn’t wait.

“So.” 

Soap blinked away the memories of his youth, focusing back in on Price. Regardless of whether or not Soap had already been debriefed previously, it wouldn’t help to listen in. He had, of course, been debriefed, that is, not that he knew much. Protocols stopped him from knowing which torture methods Price had given Ghost the all-clear on. To make sure he couldn’t mentally prepare himself. 

What he did know however was that whatever was in store for him had something to do with whatever these rookies were learning in their studies. The education system changed up each year on techniques, keeping different, more relevant types fresh in their soldiers’ minds. So it could be anything. Waterboarding, maybe. Or strangulation, perhaps. He wouldn’t know until he sat his ass in the chair. 

What he did know, however, was the information that Ghost would have the pleasure of attempting to torture out of him. Hard emphasis on attempting. Ghost knew the information too, so there was no way he could lie his way out of it. Not that he planned to.

“As you’ve probably figured out, Sergeant Mactavish here will be the prisoner.” Price gestured to him, and he nodded. Of course, the crowd’s eyes snapped over to him, as if they hadn’t noticed him there beforehand despite being stood mere inches away from Price himself. “And Lieutenant Ghost will be along shortly and take the role of interrogator.”

“Give him hell, sir!” He heard someone back of the group, erupting the youngins into a fit of cheers. Thankfully, positive ones. They wanted a fight, and a fight they would get.

Soap grinned, winking. “Will do.”

Price rolled his eyes. It reminded him of a tired father. “Lieutenant Ghost has been debriefed on the specific methods of torture you are currently studying. Your task, as observers, is to catch when those methods are used, and write them down on a clipboard.” He nodded over to the doorway of the viewing room. Gaz was stood there, leaning on the doorframe. He waved at the crowd with a smile, “Sergeant Garrick has paper and pens. Take one when you go in. Do I make myself clear?”

“Sir yes sir!”

“Then get your asses in there, kids, we don’t have all day!”

“Yes, sir!” The crowd surged forward, clumsily almost falling over one another to be the first in the room, their energy bubbling like a pot of boiled water.

Soap hid a snort as they fumbled and crashed into what he assumed was supposed to resemble a line, awkwardly filing in. He turned to look at Price. “Thoughts?”

Price sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose tiredly, “They’re a bunch of idiots.”

He couldn’t hold back the chuckle that formed in his throat. “Weren’t we all at that age, Cap’?”

“You may have been, Sergeant, but I certainly wasn’t.”

“Mmm, Laswell says otherwise.” He hummed with a click. Price gave him a dirty look as he made his way over to the interrogation room doors. “Oh.” He turned back to flash a cocky grin, “So does Nik’.”

“I’m not even going to ask.”

“You wouldn’t want to know anyway.”

Price groaned, “Get your fucking ass in there already, Mactavish.”

~

It was his own reflection to greet him when he wandered into the interrogation room, his own bright blue eyes piercing into his soul from the meticulously cleaned and disinfected one-way glass. It took up the entirety of one of the four walls in the chamber. 

A chamber that was, now that he was in it, door closed and all, fucking freezing. Colder than he remembered, anyway. The decor remained the same, though. An old, creaky table, two chairs, and, of course, a slew of tools tucked neatly onto a shelf in the corner. 

Ghost wasn’t here yet. Of course he knew that, from what Price had told the rookies, but it still struck him as slightly odd. Being late was rare enough for the man, but being fashionably late was a whole new category. Ghost didn’t do ‘late’. 

It made him think back to the scenario at hand. Was this part of the torture? Isolation? He’d been isolated before- real torture, this time, not a mockup. Left to rot in a white, sad little room for weeks on end. This fake interrogation, however, was only an hour long. That was not nearly enough time for isolation techniques to take hold of an individual. It wasn’t for him, at least. 

Even if these kids were studying isolation, he thought to himself as he walked further into the room, taking a seat in the ‘prisoner’s’ chair. A metal, ugly thing that had handcuffs locked to its armrests. He bit his lip as cold metal touched his bare skin. It wouldn’t be worthwhile to show them me sitting in a room alone for an hour. Right?

Yeah he was completely right. So it had to be something else. Was Ghost bringing something, maybe? Or was he chickening out? They may have a… thing going on, him and Ghost, but the man couldn’t just halt his duties for Soap. Soap expected to be treated just the same as any soldier on this taskforce, and if that meant getting his shit rocked in the most unsexy-ist way possible, then so be it.

Besides, it beats paperwork. That duty usually went to the interrogator, per protocol. Since the ‘prisoner’, or as he liked to put it, the victim, spent, usually, the rest of the week locked up in medical after these types of mocks, the interrogator had to pick up their slack in their stead. It was a fair deal, afterall, and one every soldier who stepped foot in here agreed to automatically. Made the guilt, and the pain, easier for both parties. 

He couldn’t wait to relax for a few days duty-free. He was actually excited about it, in typical John Mactavish fashion. Though, he could admit, like a true man, he was a little nervous.

That was because this was his first ever time being the prisoner in this scenario. 

At least, in terms of student-mockups. He had, of course, done this rodeo thousands of times in and out of the taskforce. Both real and fake alike. But this was his first ever time in front of a live audience that weren’t either scoring and ranking his responses or highly-classified terrorists looking for information. He was slightly ashamed to say he had a little case of stage-fright, being here in front of around thirty people, all hidden behind futuristic glass, pens at the ready. He felt a little bit like a rodent trapped in a pet shop being goggled by giddy children.

But oh well. He’d been through worse. He was about to go through worse. He could take it, always did.

That sounded incredibly wrong, John, Jesus Christ.

He jumped slightly when the door slammed open, violently thudding into the wall with a crack. Ghost was stood there, mask and all, eyes dark and terrifying. To people that weren’t John Mactavish, that is.

So, with a smirk on his lips, teeth bared and all, he raised his chin up high, preparing himself for the worst.

Showtime.

Ghost moved closer, silent like a… well, like a ghost. The door was the only noise he could hear, closing creakily behind the bulk of a man. Dead, brown eyes never left his own, and he forced himself to glare into them. He wouldn’t back down, wouldn’t be the first to look away, even if this eerie silence was… incredibly off putting.

Why isn’t he talking?

Ghost didn’t stop moving until he was in front of Soap. His gloved hands reached down, securing Soap’s wrists to the chair with ease. Still, radio-silence. He wasn’t sure if Ghost was even breathing it was so quiet.

When the cold, metal cuffs closed around his skin with a click, Ghost left.

He just… left.

What the fuck?

He tried not to let the confusion show on his face, instead focusing on feeling the restraints against his wrists. They were pretty tight, pressing into him uncomfortably. He could barely move his hands, but it wasn’t horrible. It was bearable. He’d had worse.

Silence is new, though. It’s almost isolation, but not quite…

Ah. Dehumanisation. Had to be, right?

The door opened once more, and Ghost wandered back in, dragging a bucket behind him this time. 

Soap curled a brow, hearing water slosh about as the man got closer. Waterboarding? That wasn’t dehumanising. Embarrassing, maybe, but it couldn’t even compare to other acts that ripped a person’s soul away from their body. He could handle simple waterboarding.

His eyes couldn’t help but widen as Ghost picked up the bucket, tossing ice-cold water all over him. He grit his teeth as his body seized up, fighting back the urge to tremble from the shock. He took that energy and put it into shaking his head instead, flinging droplets that clung to his hair off onto the floor. Like a dog. 

Okay so not waterboarding, which means it’s…

He knew where this was going. Fuck.

“Going to tell me what I need to know?”

He almost didn’t catch Ghost’s voice through the chattering of his teeth. He blinked up at the man through water-logged lashes, grinning. “Nope.”

“Your loss.” The man wandered over to the set of tools over on the shelf, picking up a cattle prod and turning it on. It crackled in the quiet room. “Should just tell me, Sergeant.”

“Not a chance.” Fuck this was going to hurt.

The water, mixed with electricity, was agony.

His whole body seized, and he let out a yelp, which very quickly turned into a croak as his jaw tightened. He felt his hands clench, and his eyes squeeze shut. He couldn’t breathe- air was being sucked from him like a vacuum, forced out of him like he was being constricted by a fucking snake. His neck tightened, his back arched, and his throat let out another sad gurgle as he struggled and failed to simply breathe.

As soon as it started, it stopped. The electric left his body, and he slumped, boneless, into the chair, gasping for a singular breath he couldn’t draw only moments ago.

“Feeling like talking now, soldier?”

“Fuck you.” He spat through his panting, resting his head on the wall behind him, chest heaving.

Ghost hummed quietly, “Alright.”

Again he was fucking electrocuted. It hurt more the second time round, enough to bring tears to his eyes. He could feel them roll down his cheeks, the salt on his tongue as he licked at his dry, chapped lips. 

Soap let out a chuckle as he forced his eyes open once more, body trembling from the agony crawling through his skin. “Is this it?” He couldn’t help but tease. “It’s pretty shit.”

Ghost’s eyes stared into his soul. Wordlessly, he put the cattle prod down onto the table beside him, raising his hand once it was free to deliver a knockout-worthy punch to Soap’s face, right on his nose. It sent his head crashing backwards, thumping into the brick wall behind him.

Now, alongside the salt on his lips, metallic blood soon followed. His nose was definitely broken.

“Shame.” He spat out some of the blood at Ghost, landing square on his mask in a thick clump. Ghost recoiled slightly, wiping it away. “I liked my face.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way, you know.” Clearly Ghost wanted this over with- they’d just started! Soap could go on, he could, and he would. “Just tell me what I want to know.”

“Nope.”

Another punch this time, followed by another, and then another, and then-

He lost track of time during the beating. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, all he could do was feel, and feel he fucking did. He felt his ribs shatter, his lungs collapse, his heart stop, anything and everything, he felt it. His whole world felt like it was crumbling as he gurgled and choked, curling desperately in on himself.

“Just fucking tell me!”

Ghost was generous enough to give him a break to catch his breath once more. He felt his chest wheeze uncomfortably as he sucked in enough oxygen to form a sentence. “Maybe the secret-” He coughed, hacking, blood splattering onto his thighs, “-was the friends we made along the way?”

“You’re really testing my fucking patience right now.”

“Tryin’ to.” He grinned with blood-coated teeth. Ghost’s eyes narrowed. “You’re the one not tryin’.”

“Really?” A hand around his throat. God how many times would he be suffocated today? If those fucking students missed that on their ‘checklist’ so help them- he’d choke them out for their stupidity himself. 

Fingers tightened, and he clenched his teeth. His jaw ached horribly from the rough treatment, but his neck hurt worse. He forced out another grin. “Yep.”

“If you don’t tell me right this fucking second you’re going to live to regret it.” Why did Ghost sound almost… serious? No, serious wasn’t the right word, of course he was being serious… Was he pleading?

Another tactic, no doubt. Soap wouldn’t spill. “Do your worst.” 

For a brief moment, neither of them moved. Soap’s eyes met Ghost’s, and he almost recoiled at the pure agony in the man’s gaze. What the fuck was going on?!

“So be it.”

Fingers unwrapped around his throat, allowing his head to drop down and finally relax. He watched as Ghost walked away. Watched as he kept walking until he came to the door, slipping out of it silently.

Soap’s stomach lurched uncomfortably. This wasn’t- why was Ghost, the Ghost, pleading with him to talk? Ghost didn’t plead, he didn’t… What could be so bad that he’d want Soap to give away such information? He should be proud, not upset.

It’s just a tactic, it’s just a tactic, it’s just a tactic-

Fuck.

Was that barking he could hear?

The door opened once more and- yeah. Yeah, that was a dog alright. Dogs, actually. Multiple. His heart clenched in panic.

“Military dogs are often used in interrogations” His own Sergeant, Sergeant Brown, had taught him when he was a young soldier. “Many people are alright with dogs, love them, even, but when a big German Shepherd is growling inches away from your face? It scares even the calmest.”

Well that explained why Ghost had been very stubborn in attempting to break him beforehand. Soap fucking hated dogs, Ghost knew that. Ghost was trying to save him from this.

As much as he didn’t want it to, anger coiled in his gut. I told him I wanted to be treated just the same as any fucking soldier on this taskforce. So what if it was a fucking mutt? 

Ghost clicked his fingers, and the dogs snarled, growling and snapping as they lunged towards him. Soap forced himself to sit still, forced himself to close his eyes as the dogs descended onto him, nipping lightly at his skin with hot breath and wet, disgusting tongues. 

He clenched his teeth, forcing his muscles to relax. I’m fine, I’m fine, I’m fine.

Why did it have to be dogs?

“What’s the matter, soldier?” Ghost’s voice sounded weird. Distorted. Soap forced himself to breathe, taking in quick, silent breaths, the stench of dog wafting through his nostrils. “You don’t like dogs?”

He couldn’t help but grin. “I didn’t think I’d be meeting your family on the first date, sir.”

One of the dogs’ teeth grabbed onto his ear, tugging at it. His head snapped sideways with the weight, and he hissed. It spurred the other dogs on, and they too quickly grabbed ahold of him, tugging and yapping and pulling in all sorts of directions, fur mixing with his blood as teeth too sharp to be gentle broke his skin with ease.

He risked opening an eyelid, glancing at the clock hung haphazardly on the wall nearby. Holy fuck, time was almost up? He’d barely been through anything!

One of the dogs made purchase with his thigh, teeth ripping right through the fabric and into soft fat and muscle. He yelped, attempting to kick the dog off. It didn’t work. 

Another grabbed at his arm, near his elbow, snarling, as if spurred on by the conflict.

He shouted, writhed, kicked, moved, did his best to get these vile things off of him, but nothing worked. 

“Will you fucking tell me now!?”

“Go fuck yerself and yer fucking dogs, ya wee shit!”

“Are your limbs really worth it?”

“Yes!” He snarled, glaring into Ghost’s eyes. Eyes that weren’t as cold as before. Weren’t as dead. There was real emotion behind the mask. “Yes! They fucking are!”

“No it isn’t!” Ghost’s hand came down to tear one of the dogs away, fabric and skin pulling away in the canine's bloodied teeth. The man’s gloved hands wrapped around Soap’s jaw. “It fucking isn’t. So just tell me!”

He smiled. “No.”

“Alright lads, time's up.”

That was Price, through on the intercom. Ghost immediately let go of Soap, clicking with his fingers for the other dog, which was still attached to his arm, to release as well. A man who Soap figured must be their trainer quickly poked his head in, calling for them. They all fumbled towards him with glee, tails wagging.

“That was very good, boys. Well done, Soap.”

Soap grinned softly as the cuffs were undone, standing up on shaky, bloodied legs. “Always, Cap’.”

“Ghost, make sure that idiot gets himself to med.”

“Yes sir.”

~

“Why didn’t you just tell me the information?”

Soap curled a brow, glancing up from his casted limbs to look at Simon, slumped in a chair beside his gurney, mask off and eyes dark in the dim light. “Because that’s the assignment?”

“You hate dogs.” He pointed out.

Soap nodded, not quite understanding where this conversation was going. “I do.”

“So why didn’t you just tell me it?” Simon sounded… actually confused. Like he couldn’t quite understand why Soap wouldn’t spill so easily. Like he thought Soap was a civilian, or a rookie, or some fucking damsel in distress that needed to be coddled. “Then I wouldn’t have had to bring the dogs out. I tried to save them for last but you wouldn’t break.”

His eyes narrowed in anger. “I wouldn’t break because I’m not weak.”

“I never said you were.” Brown eyes peered up at him, full of sadness. The raw emotion made Soap recoil slightly in horror. “But…”

“You're worth it, Si’.” He reached out with his good hand, touching the man’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t- I wouldn’t give you up just like that.”

“It was just my location.” Simon’s lip wobbled slightly, even if he tried to hide it. “All you had to say was my location.”

“I wouldn’t do that.” He squeezed Simon’s shoulder tightly. “I can handle it.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

His eyes softened. “I know. But that’s in the job description, isn’t it?”

Simon’s hand moved to scrub harshly at his eyes, smearing black paint everywhere. His mouth tightened. “You’re right.”

“Hey.” He tapped the man’s neck. “Doesn’t mean you can’t be upset about it.” He moved his arm away, tapping the mattress underneath him. “Get in, you big idiot.”

Simon didn’t need to be told twice, climbing in with ease, fitting himself smoothly against Soap, hiding his face in the younger man’s hair. 

Soap reached his good arm up to rest on the man’s back, rubbing soft, soothing circles over the thin shirt. “You’re alright.”

“Not me you should be worrying about, Johnny.”

“Hey.” He chuckled softly, “You won’t be saying that when you see how much overdue paperwork I’ve got on my desk.”

Simon poked at the bruises that lined his cheeks. “Fuck you.”

Soap simply laughed again, tucking himself closer into the crook of his partner’s neck, feeling safer than ever. “We’re even, then.”

“Whatever you say, Johnny.”

~

Hurt/comfort, happy ending Trigger warning in depth: Electrocution, beatings, broken noses, dog attacks.

I've got a weird obsession with hurting my boy with dogs as of right now. Or my imagination is a brick wall. Bit of both.

[7grandmel]

Blog Update - 16/06/2024

TL;DR: My 1-month break is over! The blog is returning but with a slower rate of posts. New forms of posts will start rolling out soon as well - scroll down to the bullet-point list for details.

Hello all! I've been receiving some asks and questions in the request form wondering where I've been this past month. Rest assured, I've been fine. With Athletic Doctor back in May, I reached the one-year anniversary of doing this daily-rip-posting thing, and today, June 16th, marks the one-year anniversary of this blog's existence as a whole with Snowball Park - Super Mario 3D World. Because yeah, for those first 30 posts I didn't do this as part of a blog, but as a daily activity for my own personal Tumblr account on @melblur. If you compare the word counts on those first few posts (the "First 30 Archive") to the posts made later in the blog's run, you'll likely be able to see how my focus in writing evolved, going from mere shoutouts and recommendations to full-on retrospectives and analysis. That was a large part of why I chose the blog's initial name as "Tumblr's SiIvaGunner Historian", there's something about regaling these oft-forgotten events in the channel's history that just invigorates me, a passion that kept me doing this for a year straight. What began as nothing but a laid-back writing exercise to keep my mind sharp became something that, on some days for rips that I was truly passionate about, drew my FULL undivided attention for an entire day's worth.

You saw the TL;DR, and you can probably tell where this is going. By the last few posts, I was noticing myself that this really isn't sustainable to keep doing at a daily rate. I've worn that pace as a badge of honor for so long on here: In my mind, it just made so much sense for a blog celebrating SiIvaGunner, a channel partially defined by its insane rate of uploads, to also do things at such a high pace, with so many references to past posts interconnecting them all just like the many in-jokes on SiIvaGunner itself. But this blog isn't a network of a hundred team members and a thousand contributors - aside from the requests on what to write and footnotes left by a rip's creator, everything made on this blog has done solely by its writer, me, Mel. I loved it - but I do think its about time I slow things down.

I was as torn on this choice as you likely are seeing it - after all, it's called "TODAYS siivagunner" for a reason, right? I was toying around with how to resolve this as far back as in March of this year, tossing around ideas and concepts as to rework the blog to be more feasible whilst still preserving its spirit. The April Fools prank, the legendary Raftmageddon of Raft Ride ~ The Story So Far, was sort of an offshoot of this, a day where posts were more rapid-fire than ever yet were all contained to just five or six sentences each: Short, snappy, concise, and even pretty casual and silly a lot of the time. And that was really fun for the sake of the bit, it again fit with the nature of Raft Ride the same way that my main posts sort of fit with the nature of standard SiIvaGunner uploads, but I realized even then that it wouldn't be a good fit for the blog's main posts - the things that make both you and I most happy as readers and writers respectively are when I get to truly get down to the meat of a rip and explore its contents and history to the fullest.

A month went by quicker than I thought it would, but alas, here we are. A lot can change in not so much time - I'm currently employed, for one, which is yet another reason why daily posts feel far less feasible, but I'm also spending my time expanding my interests, listening to albums, reading books, watching shows, talking to new people...I want this blog to keep going, but I also don't want to use it as an excuse for my own lack of growth as a person. And so, I've landed on a compromise that I hope will satiate all of us. Here's the current plan for the blog going forward:

Rip coverage will be going from daily to weekly, posted every Monday starting tomorrow, June 17th. In return, the goal is to make these posts as well-written and interesting to read as possible.

Requests for these posts will still be taken as normal. I'll of course try to prioritize requests from people who haven't had theirs featured on the blog yet, but keep in mind that it's still up to my judgement if I'll be able to have enough to say on a rip (or know enough about a rip's topic) to warrant writing a post on it!

New, more laid-back kinds of posts for the blog will be featured in the days between rip coverage posts - these will be a lot simpler in nature and made ~2-4 times a week depending on my schedule. Here are some examples of posts I have in mind!

GIFs and image sets from the channel's various visual rips and/or lore videos! Think the Christmas Comeback Crisis, the KFAD Tournaments, the Festival events of Season 4, 5 and 6, legacy content posted on the SiIvaGunner Twitter account, and more!

Character appreciation posts featuring all sorts of characters from the SiIvaGunner lore! Celebrate the figments you love with all twelve other SiIvaGunner fans on Tumblr!

Trivia about the channel, which I'd otherwise sneak into main posts, may get small little posts in of themselves! This can be anything from Did-You-Knows about how in-jokes have been carried on during the channel's life, to easter eggs and references, to fun tidbits about rippers themselves.

Shitposts! Goofs! Stuff I'd otherwise reblog under the #epic flintstones tag, basically.

Miscellaneous text posts related to the channel, such as Guides, summaries, or just whatever various thoughts I have!

All of these will have their own tags dedicated to them, just like #todays siivagunner - what tags they end up being is still up in the air and may change even as the posts are rolling out. Either way, the blog's pinned post will be continually updated with all the relevant tags and info about the blog - keep an eye out on it during next week.

Whew! That's a lot of stuff covered. I hope you're as excited for the second year of this blog as I am! Hopefully the greater variety of posts will help with the longer wait between "main" posts. The goal is, as you can imagine, to keep the blog a fun read for you all and just as much of a fun passtime for me, whilst also easing my own workload enough to make it manageable. I love running this blog more than anything, and I'm hoping this new schedule will give me more energy to make better posts - Maybe I'll even get a chance to interact with all of you even more by discussing more than just per-rip analysis.

Thanks for reading everyone - That SiIvaGunner Tumblr Blog will officially be back tomorrow!

[mania-sama]

Fanfic Writer Review

AHH thank you so much for tag @doctorweebmd! I love doing silly little tag games. I used to hate them in my Wattpad days, but now they are good fun on Tumblr. I also love yapping about my fics, and it made my heart full to know I was tagged by an author who I deeply admire for their writing technique and ability.

➼ How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 78 active and visible on my profile. I have 3 under Anonymous and AT LEAST 1 that I have orphaned. That makes for 82 on Ao3. I have also deleted a few fics, but I don't know how many there are. Two, I think, but I can't be sure so it's not going in the tally. My account dates back to 2019, with the first visible fic being a Dream SMP fic in 2021. However, I know my earliest fic was around when I joined because I had previously written on Wattpad under an account that is not associated with my current mania_sama identity. For the sake of my sanity, no details will be disclosed on that fic. It haunts my nightmares.

Simplified: 78 on profile, 82 total that I know of on Archive of Our Own.

➼ Your top 5 stories by kudos/likes:

I will preface this by saying that I am not ashamed of my history with Dream SMP. Do I keep up with any of the members? No, and I haven't for years to be honest. That's why I haven't transferred those fics over here; I just don't care anymore. But, you know, it is what it is, and I, for one, refuse to be shamed for once being a young person who liked to enjoy things.

Without further ado:

1. tommyinnit's slightly beatable method of avoiding sudden death ❧ Dream SMP | 2.1k kudos | 29.7k hits ❧ This fic is not my most popular because of its quality. I reread a few sections of the first chapter, and I'll give credit to myself that I was funny and hit my target audience well for when it was written. But that isn't why it blew up. It blew up because this is a fanfic for an extremely popular, well-written Dream SMP fic titled tommyinnit's unbeatable method of avoiding sudden death. Yes. I was creative with the naming of my fic, I know. But this is to say: the popularity came from there. I don't claim it to be my incredibly humorous and charming personality. Regardless, I do think I was funny and the fic is funny, except for when I added an alternative ending as a second chapter in which I killed all of the characters in various manners. That wasn't funny but it kinda is in retrospect. Considering the plot was Tommy attempting (failing) to take down a child trafficking ring, it was bound to end horribly.

2. ask for help, call it weakness ❧ Genshin Impact | 1.7k kudos | 14.3k hits ❧ It still makes me mad that THIS is my second most popular fic. It's entirely based off of a TikTok edit. I said I would write a fic based on it in the comments. Little did I know, both the TikTok and the comment would blow up like a pipe bomb, and suddenly I was completing this at 1 in the morning. You may say it's only 3k words, but 3k words is a lot for ME. I am a slow writer. Very slow. Anyway, I would not say this is my best work. It's just Xiao comforting Aether during a PTSD-induced panic attack. That's literally all there is to it. I don't know man. It's funny how life works.

3. lone star ❧ Genshin Impact | 1.1k kudos | 13.9k hits ❧ ANOTHER. FIC. BASED ON A TIKTOK. It's a curse, really. But I will give myself more credit here; this fic gained a lot of popularity on its own, disassociated from the Tiktok (because neither the Tiktok nor my comment was insanely popular like the last one). I had a lot of comments that were very confused on the plot and why Venti would mentally torture Diluc, and all I could do was shrug at them and say that the Tiktok made me do it. Peak torture writing though, and the second chapter was fun because I got to experiment a bit with an outsider's point of view. I think this is where my talents for whump started to shine through, and I realized that my full potential lies in making characters disassociate from reality through intense trauma. Woopee!

4. with every line, a comedy ❧ Genshin Impact | 787 kudos | 11.8k hits ❧ Now, this fic. This fic is one that truly deserves to be on this list. I am incredibly proud of this fic. Honestly, I think it's my favorite thing I've every written. It's a Kavetham fic set directly after the Akasha system is abolished and dreaming is returned to Sumeru. Kaveh starts sleepwalking, and Alhaitham tries unsuccessfully to get to the root of the issue. I truly worked hard on this fic; every line is imbued with love and care for these two characters. I wanted them to work this out, and I wanted them to achieve their happy ending. It's jam-packed full of pain, sorrow, and long-forgotten trauma swelled up to crash over their lives. And a few sex jokes, because I can't help myself. Wet dreams. Ha ha HA. Anyway, I truly love every single person that read that fic and stuck with me through it. I seemed to have really reached people's hearts with it's contents, and I'm really, really grateful I had the opportunity to connect with people in that way.

5. gojo satoru's guide to being a good father: cheating is only tolerable if it happens in monopoly ❧ Jujutsu Kaisen | 786 kudos | 4.7k hits ❧ I think this fic is evidence that if I just let myself go while writing, amazing things happen. I truly did not give a fuck while I was writing. All I wanted was to live out my fantasy of destroying a nice car, preferably while listening to Before He Cheats by Carrie Underwood. But I cannot destroy a nice car, nor have I ever been cheated on, so that fantasy is far away. Now, I did not just write about the car. I threw in just. Random shit in there as well. They watch Human Centipede 2, eat at Subway, and play Monopoly. Why? I don't know. I just wrote the first things that came to mind. And you know what? This fic got a PODFIC. You see what I mean when I say amazing things happen? I truly do love this fic. I think I am EXTREMELY hilarious and I still laugh at the things I wrote in there. Dad Gojo to Megumi and Tsumuki is my everything.

➼ Do you respond to comments. Why or why not?

I do! I try my very best to respond to every single one of them. I think it'd be a lot harder if my focus was on long fics, but the majority of my collection is one-shots, so it's much easier for me to keep up with.

➼ What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Angsty one-shots are my specialty. Major Character Death graces many of them, not even including all of my whumptober prompts that end poorly. Even if they don't die, some of their fates are just sad. That being said, I think I have to give the hats off to the difference between hurt and injured. It's long enough (20k) that the reader can get attached to the characters, understand their wants, dreams, and motivations, before a character takes his own life. It's not a senseless whump or angst 1-4k one-shot; it's a series of developments that leads up to an ending that was entirely predictable from the beginning, yet hurts just the same. It teaches a lesson, one that I've had seared into my brain: if you don't act, then the world will act for you. The reality of the situation is what makes it the most depressing, I think.

➼ What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

I was a little stuck on this one. I had a few in mind, but I think the one where the characters made it out objectively the happiest with the MOST payoff is toss a coin to your witcher. It's a Dream SMP Sweet Tooth AU that sort of follows the first season of the show. If I were still in the fandom, I think I would rewrite this to be leaps and bounds better in terms of plot and regular writing, make it a more fleshed out fic that explains/makes it more obvious WHY I chose that specific song, of all songs. But regardless, the characters go on a long, long journey, both physically and mentally taxing, to get to their ending, which is why I think it's the happiest.

➼ Do you write crossovers?

My answer varies slightly on what is defined as a crossover. I have written and posted AU's for other shows and medias before (previous fic in example). In terms of characters meeting other characters from different shows? ... Kind of? Not really. It's hard to explain that fic. It's one IRL person traveling from universe to universe, but the universe characters do not meet each other.

HOWEVER. Just because I have never posted a tried and true character meet-and-greet crossover doesn't meet I haven't written one. I have a Saiki K x Bungou Stray Dogs fic sitting in my drafts right now. Yes, Dazai Osamu goes to PK Academy to kill Saiki K. Yes it exists and no I will probably never finish it. Also, I used to write character fights. Like, Karma from Assassination Classroom vs Bakugou Katsuki from My Hero Academia. I did post that but that's long since been deleted from my profiles, and they weren't typical fanfiction anyway. They were just sort of a list of occurrences during a three-round fight (regular, loser is bloodlusted, both bloodlusted) or just a regular fight by different parameters. So I don't know if it really counts or not.

I guess the short answer to the question is: YES! I am literally down for anything remotely interesting.

➼ Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, but two were hate-adjacent I think. Both of the cases were a little odd, and neither were directed at me or my writing. The first case was on a Ragbros fic where a commenter complained that they couldn't ship Kaeluc, even though people ship Eren and Mikasa from Attack on Titan together. Another commenter ripped into them before I could delete the comment, which was kind of funny. Comment had nothing to do with my fic though. I didn't mention Kaeluc once anywhere in the tags, story, or notes.

The other one was under an IwaOi fic that complained about Oikawa's characterizations in the fandom's fics in general. It makes much more sense in context why I don't consider this hate. Also, I was able to turn it into a dialogue on the topic, and they ended up complimenting my writing style. No harm, no foul.

➼ Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do not have a single fic rated above Teen. No. I do not write smut. I don't like reading, watching, or writing sex scenes. No shame to anyone who does, though!! It just isn't for me!

➼ Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Interestingly enough, yes. It was brought to my attention by a wonderful Tumblr user, who recognized the fic on ao3 as being incredibly similar to mine, and DM'd me about it. I took a look into it and found that they copied almost the entire fic word-for-word, except for adding in a few small paragraphs and segments of their own to "hide" it. It might not have bothered me so much if not for the fact that their work was getting more popular than mine, and I'm a petty bitch. So I commented with ALL of the segments that they plagiarized (it was a very, very long comment. Multiple parts. Many segments. I also had a few words to say of my own), and said that they could either give me credit (meaning they get to keep the fic), or they can take it down themselves, write their own words, and reupload the fic.

They orphaned it after I'd commented, so I took it to the OTW and had the fic removed. I know some people don't mind when it happens, but it was kinda like spitting in my face when a commenter had said that they thought the work was like mine and they replied "oh, yeah, I liked her stuff." And then proceeded to not credit me or say I did any of the work in any capacity. It would be another thing if they had simply transferred it to another site. But the same site? Really? I was a little upset. Just a little.

For anyone curious, the fic that was plagiarized was rule #4 - fish in a birdcage.

➼ Have you ever had a fic translated?

No, but I don't want to diminish the fantastic things that have been gifted to me before! A lovely person on Instagram drew fanart for as you wave me goodbye (I have yet to figure out how to imbed images. One day I will. It's a process of hosting the images, I know. I'll get it eventually). I have since lost touch with the person and don't know their new Instagram account so I can't even credit them, which makes me sad. I've had a few works gifted to me, and one person even made me a podfic! I am so incredibly grateful for everything!!

➼ Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I write at the pace of an emaciated snail crawling on salt. I do not see myself ever collaborating with anyone ever, even though it would be cool. I just couldn't put that pressure on myself and the other person, only to let us both down. I do not do deadlines. I do NOT.

➼ What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I don't think I can reliably answer this question. I've given direct answers before, but it changes so often that I can't say for certain that I have a favorite. I will say, though, that all of my ships can lead back to one. One damned ship. Klance (Keith/Lance). It's always them. Always. It never stops. Voltron leaving Netflix? Good riddance. It doesn't matter. Even if Voltron is wiped off the face of the Earth, those bitches have dug a whole in my heart and will never leave. I'm literally reading a longfic about them right now. Will I ever stop? NO.

Merthur (Arthur Pendragon/Merlin) taught me what good fanfiction is, though. They have a scar over my psyche, a hot brand on my brain. It's not a painful one, but I also will never forgive BBC for what they did. No self-respecting Merlin fan can. Merthur is very, very special to me. They are definitely high up in my favorites. I can link a lot of ships back to them

as well.

➼ What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I'm going to be honest with myself: the righteous hand of god. DON'T GET ME WRONG. All of the ideas are still there. I want to finish it so, so badly. But it's been almost two years. My writing style has changed a bit, and I'm scared of uploading. Everything is still there though. I know exactly how to end it. I just wrote myself into a corner and I'm too afraid to write myself out of it.

Other than that, I have two on-going series that definitely will get more fics. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. The fics I've posted in them are completed, though, so I feel less bad for the wait.

➼ What are your writing strengths?

I think I excel when it comes to writing grief. Perhaps it's because I've had the most time with it, but my writing style shines brightest when a character is grieving something. Grief comes in many forms, and anything can be grieved. An object, a relationship, a place, a person, a personality trait, a memory - grief is not limited to death. A loss of any kind can trigger such intense emotions. I've become comfortable with it, which means I can explore and play with styles and ideas. I have two fics I'm currently actively writing: one is on the funny side, the other is more serious. They both tackle grief in a different way. The funny one explores preemptive mourning; a character is preparing himself for a relationship to be broken, thereby hardening his exterior and playing pretend. The serious fic is one that is constantly surrounded by death because the main character is immortal. He doesn't care much for death until death comes for him. Or, rather, comes for someone he's come to love. And for the first time, he understands what dying really means.

Yes. I think grief is my writing strength. It's my home, the place I find myself running back to over and over again.

➼ What are your writing weaknesses?

Grammar. I used to not proofread my works at all. Now I give them ONE read before I post them, as per my 2024 New Years Resolution. Obviously, you can see the issues. I'm sorry. Reading my own work makes me want to throw up and burn my computer. It's very hard for me, and it takes me a long time because I have to take frequent breaks. I also refuse to get a beta reader due to my inability to write at ALL and for other personal reasons, so that's definitely not helping.

I also will not rework the story most of the time. If I write a scene in it's entirety, it is STAYING and it will not get changed. It's different if I get halfway through, decide that it's dogshit, and delete it. Fully completed? I'm working around it. Unfortunately, it can make for weird pacing.

➼ What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I really don't have a strong opinion either way. When it's one or two words at a time, keeping it in the language you intend it to be in is just fine. But a lot of authors don't speak the language they are writing the dialogue for, so they Google translate it, and then don't provide a translation sample for the reader (Voltron authors are frequent offenders). As a reader, it honestly doesn't both me much? As a writer, I'll just say "'[dialogue]' They said, in Spanish." or whatever language I'm writing for. I picked up this habit from Rick Riordan when he introduced Latin in The Lost Hero, and I prefer doing that for longer bits of dialogue. When the character I'm writing doesn't know how to speak the language they are listening to, I will write it so that there isn't any written dialogue, just an indication that a character is speaking. In example, from if you need me, dear, i'm the same as i was:

Tooru’s voice is strangled and hoarse between his gasping breaths in mangled Spanish Iwaizumi doesn’t understand.

But, again, it doesn't really bother me either way. It's fun when they are in other languages! I read an IwaOi fic recently that integrated Tagalog really well into the fic. And I don't mind going back and forth between Google Translate. It's interesting sometimes! And especially with Spanish, I like to guess if I'm translating it right in my head before I Google it. The different languages can also really add to the story if done properly.

➼ What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

I've never gotten around to completing any stories for Methur from Merlin. I've written an a Merlin AU before, but it was technically an Identity V fic, so I don't think it counts.

➼ What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

with every line, a comedy, easy. Do I think it's my best-written work? ... Not anymore. I think if you need me, dear, i'm the same as i was is better. However, WELAC stands as my longest completed work, and it holds a very, very special place in my heart. It's also the only fic that I have transferred over to Fanfiction.Net!

➼ Tagging:

@pinknips @kingofech0park @3l91 @iwaoiness @kings-highway

NO pressure to anyone to do any of these. Tagging people already makes me want to throw up and pass out, so PLEASE. PLEASE know there is no pressure; I just like your guys works!

[allthingslinguistic]

A vision for the field - How to frame a plenary talk

This is a post about how I think about plenary/keynote talks at conferences, brought to you by a friend asking for ideas on their plenary, expanded on as a thread on Bluesky (yeah I guess we're on Bluesky now), and repeated here for archival purposes because I think it might be useful for others!

First, a definition of terms: I'm using plenary to mean a big talk that's not cross-scheduled against anything else at a conference, thus implicitly aimed at all attendees at the conference. I think a keynote is basically the same but academic conferences tend to call it a plenary, at least in linguistics. I'm framing it around linguistics for the sake of having a few concrete examples and because that's what I work in, but people have already been telling me that they think it applies to other fields as well.

The thing I always hope for from a plenary is a vision for the field.

This is your chance to get people excited about work in a particular direction or that addresses a particular type of question!

The impact that a plenary can have is to fire people up:

inspire people to work or collaborate on that area

encourage people to pay attention to work in that area or be able to tell people about work in that area

give people who are already working on an area renewed energy on why it's important

The plenaries I've really liked are generally framed around "why". Why do this work? Why have I spent decades of my life on this?

Which leads into more detailed findings about a few specific things, to get people up to speed if they're unfamiliar or contextualize work into a bigger picture for people who are relatively familiar.

And then back out to why and hopes for future directions.

I say that a plenary is about an area or topic rather than a subfield because highlighting an approach or methodology or value system or something is also a great way of doing a plenary (and a whole subfield is possibly too broad anyway). Some examples:

Why is it important to look at this particular language, variety, or family?

Why is it interesting to do research at the intersection of these two areas, how can they cross-pollinate each other?

Why approach language using (a particular approach) as baseline?

This "why" structure of a plenary often fits nicely with a bit of personal reflection on how you got interested in the topic in the first place and how you situate yourself in the history of the field, especially as plenaries are often given by people relatively senior to a field who were there for (and indeed created) some of the history that more junior people might not know about.

However, this is not to be confused with a common historicizing template for plenaries that ALMOST works: "this is what I've done". Better to fit that retrospective into "this is why I've done it and what I hope other people can do as a result". You've been doing this for decades, surely there was a reason why! (If you've forgotten what this is because you've been too close to the nitty-gritty details for too long, sometimes asking a few friends or colleagues can help.)

People also have challenges with figuring out what level a plenary should be pitched at:

How much background information should the speaker assume the audience has, when they can vary from students to senior professors?

In my opinion, the level of assumed background knowledge of a plenary talk at a general linguistics conference should be pitched around first year grad student, for two reasons:

There are students in the audience!

Profs who don't specialize in the topic probably last touched it in grad school (which might have been 30 years ago)

You can scale this level of assumed background knowledge up or down depending on how niche the conference is. For example, a plenary at a phonetics conference can assume more specific phonetics knowledge, and at a general scicomm conference, it needs to assume much less shared background knowledge (people probably know about academic journals and statistical significance but not concepts specific to a field).

But in any case, it is a great idea to include a slide or two getting everyone on the same page about what some key concepts are. Even if you think half the room knows it already, people don't mind seeing familiar info as much as you think they do (in fact, if they're super experienced then they probably also have to explain it to unfamiliar people sometimes, so it's helpful for their own explanations to see a nice summary definition!)

In my opinion, the ideal state to leave an audience member in after a plenary address is somewhere on the spectrum of "now I'm all fired up to keep doing this work" to "I never thought about doing work in this area before but now I sorta want to do so?"

Summary: A plenary is a chance to think about the unifying threads animating why you've been doing what you do and where you hope it leads. In other words, what's the positive subtweet that you wish you could give the field? Sometimes people grumble to a few friends "I wish people would care about x". Well, here's a chance to reframe that into: "here's what it could look like when we care about x".

Also, Amy Plackowski added a helpful comment on bluesky that if there is a theme of the conference then the plenary should connect in some way! (I'd say it's useful to make this connection explicit at the beginning and end of the talk.)

[kotkamoon]

The ONLY dsmp art post i will ever make here, for archiving purposes

Rinne PMV - May 2021

Loved MAP Part 6-7 - June 2021

Before the Confrontation - Feb 2021

explanations + rambles below the cut

You’ve never talked about dsmp, why does this post exist

If you’ve seen my Youtube channel, you’ll notice a few DSMP animations. I was 15, and absolutely loved the concept and the creativity of the community. It’s what got me to finally post art + dabble into animation.

BUT hey the white blob man crawled out of the woodworks and I gotta say. yeah. Bad people suck.

You’ll find full, better explanations elsewhere, but I don’t support the Drm nor Wlbur. Or anyone else like them. I don’t keep up with the community anymore (or any mcyt for that matter) but I just wanted to make that clear

I am still keeping these videos up for (1) archiving purposes and (2) it’s my art, not theirs. I’ve had to put disclaimers on every video though because they just couldn’t be decent human beings

Art Rambles, a Retrospective

Rinne is especially a video that feels desecrated. Has one of my favorite songs and cover artists. One where I experimented with limited colors. One where I was pretty proud of the animation (the fire in the first shot) + tweening (fiddled with Philza’s wing to make it look natural). At least the version without the weirdos is here.

The Loved MAP part was also interesting. The first time I was proud of drawing a cartoon human face (like. DSMP literally got me to draw more detailed people— the closest was Frisk from Undertale who… Was a bunch of pixels lol).

I also figured out the shading style I liked, and that helped build how I shade today.

Also learned to Green Screen!! That’s why his hair looks funny around the letters.

Lastly, the Ranboo animatic was also my first ever animatic, and the only dialogue-centric one I’ve done. Learned how to splice audio from the VOD, how to add environmental sfx, and how to add some music. Learned a lot about character acting too. Too much flashing in retrospect, but I like the shot variety and the last transitions. I don’t think I can ever top that creativity with the water droplet

Just weird that I was allergic to drawing… ears? Of all things???

Also no, I didn’t stop animating because of any drama. I literally got too sick to draw lol

Some good things, and a Goodbye

I will say, there are still great parts to the dsmp. All the illustrations, animations, writings, and songs that came from that era. Not to mention the amazing works still being made today.

I’ve also heard that some of the other Content Creators are doing better and doing good. I saw a bit of Quackity’s SMP and it seemed chill. And from what I’ve seen from Tommy, I’m glad he’s maturing and has Tubbo + Ranboo as his friends.

I’m pretty sure there’s others who are doing well, like Philza, but again, I haven’t kept up with things.

MCYT is no longer something I’m into. And that’s okay.

If you’ve read this far, thanks. If you decide to find my videos, uh thanks too? But yeah, don’t subscribe and follow for any mcyt content haha

[opinated-user]

It's funny how lily accuses County of changing their story and adding worse and worse stuff when that's what she does as well.

The first time she ever talked about Courtney it was a story about how they were a brat who they beat up for scratching her. But now she's been heavily implying Courtney sexually abused her in some way, months after playing up her sister as nothing but a run of mill asshole.

It's just ironic that lily deflects Courtney's a claims by saying "but her story changes and gets more and more outrageous so it has to be lies", while also doing the exact same thing. Like idk if we go by her own logic, she's just as unbelievable.

there's a difference between a story changing and more details being added. Courtney always said that the molestation started when she was 6 and LO 7. now he's saying that it started in LO's room. Courtney always claimed that LO would sneak into their room to molest her. now Courtney is saying that she specifically started doing that at 11. Courtney has always claimed that LO must have done something to him during their sleep, when he was unsconscious so he wouldn't know for sure what it was and could only see the consequences of it the next morning. now it's that he is realizing that the SA probably escalated considering everything in retrospective, just like only now in retrospective she can aknowledge that LO was more than likely SA as a kid. most of the things LO accuses Courtney of being are things we have proof LO has done. i don't mean the allegations specifically, but the putting minors in danger (by grooming them and exposing them to NSFW content, both in her channel and tumblr), the being a violently abusive person (LO bragging about stabbing some guy on the streets with a pocket knife), the being transphobic (and unlike Courtney, LO never apologized for misgendering other trans people) and constantly actually changing her story to whatever it suit her at whichever moment. originally LO would say that Lizzy never did anything physical to her. but the moment Lizzy came out talking about how LO would coerce her into doing NSFW she was never comfortable with, emotionally manipulating her into it until she could literally not take it anymore. now it turns out that she did physically abused, and not only that! she totally raped her! do you see the difference there? if Courtney had said "LO was a creep and i didn't like her, but she never did anything to harm me physically" from the start and only later said "actually she molested me/abused me sexually" then we can talk about changing stories, but he never did. his story has always been the same. unlike LO who constantly switches from "i beat her up a thousands times" and "she was beat up by me" to "she actually abused me all along, don't ask me how or in what way, just know she did that to me" (after months of she accusing me, but that's a coincidence) from "Courtney is the violently abusive one" to "grab the heaviest object that you can grab and smash it against the head of your bullies" as an advice to give to children at school. you can dislike Courtney all you like. you might even doubt her story. but it's no way that in good faith someone can see everything we have in LO, all the archives, all the videos, all the receipts, and come out thinking that is a innocent well adjusted person who has "never done a damn thing wrong" her entire life. LO is the one who has a history of coercing people into doing sexual things for her against their own boundaries, not Courtney. LO is the one with a long history of sexualizing and romanticizing incest, even to this day, not Courtney. LO is the one who has flip flopped all over the place when talking about Courtney, not him. LO is the one who is desperate to deny that Courtney ever went through any kind of abuse, even the one that had nothing to do with her, just to save face herself, not Courtney. LO is the one who wants to sell you this image of her being the perpetual victim who never harmed anyone and never did anything wrong she needed to change, not Courtney.

[e3khatena]

What're your top 4 favourite games of all time?

I actually pretty recently went through my Top 25 on Twitter but that's mostly a contextless image with no words to it, so I do wanna spend a little more time to highlight my four favorite games (1024 words):

4. Earthbound (SNES, 1995)

Earthbound is a truly superb JRPG, with a kitsch and a camp to it that feels simultaneously cheesily-dated and timeless to boot, with a charisma and world that's ripe for exploration, from a guy who is a master craftsman of compelling stories. This is by far my favorite game to actually play in the SNES' library.

3. Hypnospace Outlaw (PC/XBO/PS4/Switch, 2019)

Back-to-back 90s-flavored games with phenomenal storytelling, Hypnospace Outlaw is a game about playing the moderator of an alternate timeline's niche corner of the Internet. Users on Hypnospace create webpages with their mind so they can hang out and be productive while asleep, and the characters are deeply nuanced with tons of personal details and secrets in tow. It's fun to be an enforcer and track down cases, but it's just as fun to go down the rabbit hole and follow links, and your curious nature is handily rewarded with shortcuts, hacks to be a better enforcer, fun Angelfire/Geocities webpages with MIDIs or ripped MP3s for backing music, and an utterly stellar story of corporate mismanagement, cover-ups, and an attempt to pin this universe's Y2k bug on an innocent kid that makes up the game's final act, a retrospective as you work to archive Hypnospace for modern audiences and tie up any loose ends. Jay Tholen's world is eclectic, surreal, and so oppressively 90s that you *will* listen to their fake Linkin Park on its own long after you play this.

2. Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, & Hand Grenades (PCVR, 2016-)

Rust LTD's range simulator/physics sandbox stands out as one of the defining games in PCVR spaces. Being the brainchild of developer Anton Hand and having been in incredibly active development for eight years, H3VR's dedication to the craft of firearm simulation is matched with a quirky, lighthearted sense of humor that extends into the enemies; sosigs bleed mustard* and say cheesy one-liners or compliment the player before exploding into meat, and Anton's strict adherence to not including real-world human enemies or gore extends to the lore explanation of the seemingly endless number of enemies being a giant meat grinder and casing stuffer that brings units to life. This has pissed off *tons* of fans of other VR FPSes, but I've been long enamored with Anton's realization that what people want from gore (satisfying particles and deformation, cathartic violence) can be done super cheaply and in an approachable manner for all-ages while still maintaining a very strong network of AI pathing and handling systems.

Even if you aren't fighting the enemies, the game's core simulations are still fun to engage with, with lovingly rendered guns that let you see their specific oddities, effectively digitally preserving over 500 firearms, both real and fictional (including a handful of pop cultural pieces like the guns from Robocop, Blade Runner, and Team Fortress 2 in an official collab with Valve) and their inner workings while giving you an expansive sandbox for building scenarios, be they IPSC-style accuracy trials or a simple bed of targets to plink at. Anton still updates this game weekly, working on things like night vision goggles/scopes, thermal cameras, and a Hitman-inspired ImSim mode. Despite this, Anton still does not see the game as a 1.0 finished build, and has plans to continue updating the game for a long while to come.

Cruelty Squad (PC, 2021)

There is no other game like Cruelty Squad, man. Its roots lie in underground artist Ville Kallio, a Finnish creator of the strange, surreal, and visceral. So much of Kallio's art centered around video games and they way they depict and discuss violence, and he took his work to its logical conclusion with an Immersive Sim unlike any other. The visuals are garish, the music is shoddy, the maps are nonsensical with a bizarre fetishization of ad-soaked dystopia, and does a great job of putting you into the headspace of the depressed former Death Squad member Empty Fuck, who finds himself becoming a gig economy worker settling petty corporate disputes for his former boss with the aid of a slew of lethal, stupid weaponry.

For your trouble, you're paid out a pittance, so most of your income has to come from side hustles. Gibbing enemies lets you harvest their organs, which is fantastic for you as modern medicine has made death a thing of the past, stitching cadavers back to life and saddling them with medical debt. If you're not fishing or playing the incredibly volatile stock market that experiences a short squeeze that reaches MOASS levels, you're organ harvesting, which also nets you an opportunity to steal a fallen foe's weapons after you scoop up his liver and kidneys, as you can only get new guns by carrying them out with you on a successful hit. The game takes you to cultist lairs, cushy offices with armed guards, a bombed out nightclub in Helsinki created in the aftermath of a chemical weapons attack to blockbust the district, and straight up to Cruelty Squad HQ to confront the balance of life and death in the world.

Cruelty Squad is truly so beautiful in its unabashed ugliness. The NPCs complain about their life and financial woes while their bosses gamble the extracted value of their labor on buying new yachts, advertisements for the game's brands are everywhere, and though the wealthy bourgeois are free to flaunt their wealth and perversion, the common prole finds themselves in a constant loop of being caught in the crossfire of mass shootings and waking up an instant later with discharge paperwork and a hospital bill. Kallio has made a truly chaotic, bitter, visceral world mirroring our own frustrations with the modern technology and finance sectors, and displays an incredible understanding of game design through all of the design decisions clearly meant to draw the most ire and frustration. It's not an easy game to enjoy, Cruelty Squad. It's difficult with an unfair difficulty curve and some decently bad levels, but my GOD its marriage of Deus Ex and Hitman ImSim sensibilities and a passionate disdain for late-stage Capitalism make it an easy choice for my favorite game of all time.

[squigg-les]

hi I love your comic!!!!!!! I binged it all in a day and then binged it AGAIN the next day and noticed so many little details the second time around 👀. I also love the Magnus archives and the locked tomb so in retrospect it's no surprise that I love your comic! some thing you might enjoy, just based on the other things we both like: malevolent podcast, and signalis the video game ✨ thanks for making TBOHH, I'm so excited to see where the story goes!!!

I’ve been meaning to get into both of those! I’m glad you’re enjoying tbohh :)

[bookwyrminspiration]

truly have got to reread it again and see how it is! i think i read it for the first time probably somewhere in 2022 and it changed my entire life and i've ofc reread it several times since; to me it's very acod in the sense that you go forward to the next book and then something happens and you can never go back with the same knowledge you came in with--which is a common enough story trope, but it also is used to SUCH devastating effect!!! writing style wise the locked tomb has historically paved the way for probably some of the most detailed sensory fanart i have ever seen which is why i love it so much. it's SO vivid quil it's SO!!!! AGH in the same sense that i lose it over the sound design of the magnus archives the verbage and diction that muir uses in her writing is so wonderful. and obviously insane confusing things happen that genuinely do not make sense unless put in the Entire Context and that is very acod-esque, although they are perhaps more absurd and filled with memes for the fandom/web-cultured haha. i would have to like bring a magnifying glass to confirm the observations though! perhaps make more comparisons, one day! in the summer or something!

In the time since you sent this ask I have now read the entire locked tomb trilogy, conducted a survey on it, and wrote a 10 page group paper on it and religious trauma.

So now I can say: I concur! Obviously they're very different series, but the use of hindsight/retrospect is similar. You have these situations you understand in one way, but there's clearly more going on, and then you learn and everything you know is recontextualized. Relos Var is Rev'arric is Solan's brother is Kihrin's brother is the one who killed him, Gideon is dead is haunting Harrow by Harrow's design is Jod's tool of a daughter, etc.

Which, yes, a lot of stories use, but it doesn't always hit the same. And acod and tlt not only hit, it's a home run and also they've caved your skull in. twice.

And the depth of the worlds!! The confusion! Tamsyn Muir and Jenn Lyons said understanding the plot and knowing who the main character is is a privilege, not a right. And I've never been more in love.

That too! the conversations about relationships, as an aroace in a qpr, get me!! LOVE to see it

tlt is more memey (though acod does have cold clam broth), and acod is more sexual, but I get the comparison you were making and had it in the back of my head the whole time I was reading the series. i have another friend who's read tlt who may also read acod so in that case we can triple check with them :)