#you're my second wind

[awkwardcourage]

silly little tag dump pls ignore.

roleplay tags

i don't want to go to a second location with you | threads

thank you for an extremely weird conversation | answered asks

with poise and willingness to improvise | nsfw

just when you think this shit can't get any more horrible | dead dove content

it is weird it's scary you wind up just saying shit | starters and memes

you wanna know what's really messed up? | wishlist and ideas

oh no i'm good i'm full of cocaine | open starter

hughie tags

i’m not an infiltrator! | visage

i am so angry i can't even breathe | musings

i can be that person who nobody thinks is awesome but actually they're kind of fucking awesome | headcanons

that was joel at the garden | aesthetics

i wanna be someone who saves his family | about

i've been meaning to clean up the supe stuff for a while now | interests

will you stop calling me that? i’m like six feet tall | it him

oh my god is that a threat or a promise? | wants and desires

misc

that was- that was so good that was really good i enjoyed that | compliments and gifts

don't you dare besmirch billy joel | out of character

where’d you get this stuff circuit city? | resources

you're my second wind | promo

then who the fuck are you?! | about the mun

you know what's insane? | psa

we gotta go in there don’t we? | queue

main verses

you're only human | main verse

you’re having a hard time and lately you don’t feel so good | main verse: first season

you’re getting a bad reputation in your neighbourhood | main verse: second season

you're allowed to make your share of mistakes | main verse: third season

it's not always easy to be living in this world of pain | main verse: fourth season

slow down you crazy child | childhood verse

alternative verses

simon & garfunkel | alternative verses

keep the customer satisfied | martyr verse

america | hunter verse

baby driver | hacker verse

the only living boy in new york | vampire verse

the tower coven | alternate vampire verse

CHARACTERS

the boys

like you're starring in porn version of the matrix | billy butcher

i don’t think now is the time for a major hallucinogen | frenchie

that’s a… nickname? | mother’s milk

she wants to know where you've been | kimiko miyashiro

family

every other nice person can fuck off and go home | annie

i have never told you everything | dad

your promise isn't worth the paper it's written on | mom

other characters

big fan | queen maeve

i'm totally comfortable | homelander

every single thing you say is so gross | soldier boy

RELATIONSHIPS

my mom left when i was six | relationships

the boys

you always were my canary | hughie and butcher

don’t be scared petit hughie | hughie and frenchie

you ain't going... i ain't going | hughie and mother's milk

i thought it sounded great | hughie and kimiko

family

you saved my life | hughie and annie

my wee hughie | hughie and dad

i don’t wanna be like her | hughie and mom

dude i had to ask you out! | hughie and robin

[toskarin]

hey rin, a friend of mine enjoys composing music digitally and has a lot of respect for you as someone with more experience with that sort of thing. he has a hard time convincing the people around him to listen to the things he makes, in both the "finding an audience" way and "getting the people around him to give him their opinion on something he's working on way," and he wanted me to ask you if you could speak on your own experiences with those problems and how you've dealt with them. less related, he was also curious about your inspirations for the music that you make. i know this is a lot to cover, so if it would be easier for you to speak with him directly then please let me know

so I'll open by saying that, as far as people who can give good advice on this go, I'm probably not one of those. a lot of what I do only works because of some specific problems with my brain that are oddly adaptive to this sort of thing

that being said, this is a bit of the "tough love" kind of advice for surviving as an artist, so I'll make a second reblog for the second half of the question

this is either advice that will work or a ramble that will lead your friend to making his life unbearable, so look before you leap

-

The Easy Section, or "You've Gotta Be a Bit of a Tradie"

let's go over the business stuff quickly before I start rambling at length about the boring stuff

learn to love the work itself. "find a job you enjoy and you'll never work a day in your life" is garbage, but creative work really is the one area where you should double down on this. kick back and bump your own album on release day, thinking about how every second of it is something that didn't exist before you put it together. this is what's gonna keep you above water when the wind is dead

get on bandcamp. there is nowhere better for small musicians right now. bandcamp is basically the last remaining website with an effective suggestion algorithm that caters to people who want to actively engage with music and buy it

consider getting on instagram. in the majority of places you're likely to live if you're reading this, the local music scene is on instagram. probably don't use your personal instagram for this

consider getting on soundcloud. you won't make sales through soundcloud, because it's a streaming-focused site (more on that in a moment) with a focus on passive listening, but it's pretty decent for networking, especially with digital music production. soundcloud is linkedin for deadbeats

stay off spotify. streaming generally isn't worth the trouble these days unless you're playing concerts or are otherwise already established. if you aren't uttering the words "you can find me on..." more than once a month, it's probably not worth pursuing a spotify presence to end that sentence with

self-promote. if you have platforms, use them. find the subreddit for your genre and post yourself on the self-promo day. consider posting some bandcamp album codes when you do this, not just so you can get word of mouth, but because someone having an album in their collection means you effectively have a permanent zero-cost advertisement for your music which will only show itself to people who are verifiably looking at something similar. companies pay dizzying sums for ads that couldn't dream of being this targetted. this is a big reason why bandcamp is THE place to be for small musicians

cross-promote and collab. work with your friends. if you don't have musician friends, go make some and then help each other out. "independent" music is a misnomer

blind yourself to the metrics. do not look at engagement metrics. pay them no mind at all. don't look at them unless you're trying to see how effective a specific, deliberate course of action was and already know what you want to find

remember that strangers are unknowable. people do things for arbitrary reasons. if you don't have someone giving you written feedback, don't make any assumptions at all about why they did something. skipped tracks and minimum-price pwyws mean nothing at all

present your stuff in a way that gives it context. why should someone care about your stuff? give them a reason. carve out an hour to really work on a nice album cover, go the extra mile and include track-by-track narrative with your dungeon synth album, or just describe what you're expecting people to buy. I firmly believe that NOMAD/VIRTUE was successful in large part because of its presentation

gimmick. gimmick gimmick gimmick. discount codes are more fun than automatic discounts, free album codes are more fun than free albums, contests are more fun than giveaways, so on so forth. lacking any physical goodies to bundle in, you should still endeavour to give people Something To Do that makes them feel like they're really engaging with your music

zero expectations, zero overhead. do not rely on the whims of complete strangers to justify whether or not you end up in the red. if you ever find yourself saying something like "I can afford to pay for a session musician because I'll just make it back" you can't afford to pay for a session musician. you're probably never getting bailed out if you eat a loss, so try not to put yourself in a situation where you can eat a loss to begin with

someone else's expectations, someone else's overhead. if someone else is paying you to make this music for a soundtrack or something, if (and ONLY if) you have the money in your hand and know you have it, you're no longer gambling. at this point, you can start to look at expenses as investment

now onto the less fun stuff. here's where I ramble for like an hour at you.

-

if there's one thing I've really had hammered in over my decade-odd as a somewhat commercial artist (in all the disciplines I've worked with, which is most of them), it's that you have to be a bit of a bitch about it sometimes

that nagging fear in the back of your head that you're annoying? it's stopping you from doing what you need to do: annoy people

with that being said, this next section is kind of...

The Rough Section, or "You've Gotta Be a Little Hard-headed"

at the end of the day, you'll often find that you are your only advocate, and that means you kinda have to get your foot slammed in a few doors if that means holding them open. this also unfortunately means that you've gotta convince yourself you're pretty good. you don't have to think you're great, but confidence is a trade skill

the last opinion people see before the first time consciously engaging with your work (which here means "the thing that primes them for how they feel about it") is yours

which brings us to the first uncomfy rule

absolutely no cutting yourself down before anyone else even gets a swing

you can be modest if you want (you don't have to), but you absolutely cannot prime people to see the flaws in your work. if 50% of people are discerning enough to notice a flaw, why make that number 100%? what do you gain from that?

if something isn't as finished as you'd have liked it to be, but you've pushed it out the door anyway (which you will sometimes have to do), you absolutely cannot prime people to consider it unfinished

if the thing is still being worked on, there's nothing wrong with being forthcoming about that, but the fastest way to make someone think of something as "inferior product" when they otherwise would never have reached that conclusion is by telling them it is

and that, of course, leads us into a bit of an inversion of the previous rule

absolutely do not take the majority of your validation from strangers

doing this is bad for a million reasons, but I see the worst of this in visual arts, where artists double down on what gets them the most engagements and lay themselves at the mercy of complete strangers who have no actual investment in them

of course, it's normal to desire validation and approval from people you respect, but if you put yourself in a position where it's possible to enter a negative feedback loop that crystallises into you no longer making art from the default response of neutral apathy from strangers, it's not a matter of when: it's going to happen to you one day

so what's the move here? spend 8 years making music you don't release like you're in a compressed time chamber? probably not. I did it that way, but I didn't get much out of it, so you probably won't either

the actual answer is that you've gotta network. you need an inner circle. you need people with shared interests so that you can gas each other's stuff up

just like everyone else, you need your friends

you need to have friends who care about you, about what you're doing, and you need to care about them and what they're doing

this is because, while self-confidence is important...

the majority of your external validation as an artist should come from your friends and peers, not strangers

it's important to have artist friends, because then you can encourage each other in ways that are personally meaningful, but having your friends behind you, whether or not they're musicians, is so incredibly important

if you're motivated exclusively by success, however you're choosing to measure that, what you're actually doing is forming a nightmarish parasocial relationship with the concept of a crowd. not even a real crowd! a fictional group that materialises when you've created "the conditions for success"

there is no such thing as a truly independent artist. if your understanding of artistic success requires competition against others, you're going to lose that competition and then explode (unfortunately common)

finding your audience as an artist (and mind you, art is a social field) is very much a process of networking, but it feels gross to say it that way, so I'll just leave that at "if you want to be known by others, you need to be willing to know others"

anyway, this doesn't really terminate in a complete sentiment. I was just transcribing a train of though

if I were to boil this down to a shorter, snappier answer that I could read comfortably read out, it'd be...

TL;DR

the process of finding an audience is so much less about actually finding one than it is about learning to create happily whether or not you have an audience. developing an audience is the largely incidental byproduct of long-term creative efforts coupled with self-advocacy and interpersonal networking

if you want to be found by a scene, you have to participate in a scene, and if you want to participate in a scene, you need to be in the scene. so on so forth

as stupid as it might sound when I put it into words, the truth is that you can't build any kind of audience in isolation. someone has to find you somehow, and it's a lot easier to be found if you're actually somewhere that people might look

[heartsoulrocknroll]

AEW Dynamite 12/7/22

Dynamite Diamond Battle Royal -- This was as boring as every battle royal. The final two are Ethan Page and Ricky Starks, and Starks gets the win, making him the number one contender for both the AEW World Championship and the Dynamite Diamond Ring.

As soon as the battle royal ends, MJF's music hits!!!!!! I was honestly not expecting him to be on this show!!! What a wonderful surprise!!

MJF enters the ring and tells Starks, "I'll be with you in one second." Lmaooo. MJF addresses Bryan Danielson, saying that Danielson isn't there because he is terrified of MJF. MJF doesn't blame Danielson, because after what he did to Regal, he'd be scared too.

Then MJF turns to Starks. "Richard, these people seem to really like you around here. They talk about you like you're some underutilized god of professional wrestling. And trust me, you are very talented. But you wanna know the truth, bud? (Shut the fuck up chants.) You wanna know the truth, absolute? The truth is, in comparison to me, you're the absolute (MJF uses air quotes here) drizzling shits. Or should I say (MJF puts on his best Rock voice), you're a roody-poo candy ass!! Considering the fact that you've stolen literally everything else from that guy. Because no offense, Richard, you ain't nothing more than a dollar store Dwayne. So you know what I'm gonna start calling you? I'm gonna start calling you the pebble. And here's what's gonna happen next week in the main event of Dynamite, little pebble. (Pebble chants!! Loool) I'm gonna put you in my pocket. I'm gonna hop in my brand new Porsche, because unlike all these simple-minded humanoids, I'm actually rich. I'm gonna drive to the nearest body of water. I'm gonna take you out of my pocket, pebble, and I'm going to skip your scrawny little pigeon-toed ass all the way back to Billy Corgan's NWA, so you can wrestle on YouTube where you belong." GO OFF, MAX, OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oohhhohoo my god, as that promo went on, I kept thinking it couldn't get any better, and it just kept getting better. I need a moment to collect myself off the floor.

Ricky chants from the crowd!! Starks calls MJF "Maxipad" and calls him a fifth-rate Roddy Piper wannabe. Starks says MJF smells like paint thinner and ass. Loool. Starks says everything about MJF screams cheap, including the cheap suits, the cheap shoes, the cheap heat. "With that AEW Championship comes a big responsibility that you know nothing about. The difference between you and me is that when these people got behind me, I gave them a reason to keep going. When they put faith in you, you let them down. But when it comes to Ricky, I deliver on time, every time, every night, every week, every month. You can take your little ass to Greece for three months, because you didn't get paid enough. But the fact remains, I've been here busting my ass. Let's talk about the fact that you avoid responsibility. You avoid any type of pressure. I show up to sign at meet and greets, where you don't care. You just blow it off, because hey, everybody hates Max, so he has nothing to lose, right? Guess what buddy? There comes a lot of responsibility when it comes to people actually liking you." Starks talks about living in his car, grinding, and providing for his family and says MJF knows nothing about that. "I'm gonna do you a favor that you've never had done in your life. I'm gonna take the responsibility off your plate, little boy."

MJF responds to this heartfelt speech with a swift low blow, and I am almost in tears because I am deranged. MJF winds up to hit Starks with the Dynamite Diamond Ring, but Starks stops it with a huge spear!!!

MJF was absolutely on fire here once again. I cannot adequately express how obsessed I am with him. I am staring at the TV with the most literal hearts in my eyes. Someone please help me. I have lost my grip on reality entirely. I am taken to another world when MJF speaks.

Starks did a great job here too. Some weird things came out of his mouth that I don't think he intended and he meandered a bit on the way to the point, but for the most part, he cut a good promo here. Starks is on the rise, but the contrast between him and MJF here is very apparent. Nonetheless, Starks managed to get me excited about him as MJF's challenger, where I wasn't really excited at all last week. Let's go!!!!!

Moxley promo up next. He says he is starting to like Hangman Page, because Page fell off his horse, dusted himself off, got back in the saddle, and did his talking with his fist. Moxley says there is too much talking in AEW lately. He says this is not All Elite Talking, and there is no Blackpool Microphone Club. Lol. Good stuff.

Samoa Joe (c) vs. Darby Allin for the TNT Championship -- Darby takes Joe off his feet with a dropkick! Joe to the outside. Darby tries to follow with his suicide dive, but Joe walks casually out of the way, leaving Darby to fall hard on the floor! Joe picks up Darby and swings his head into the barricade, then into the ring apron!!! Joe peels back the mats on the floor, bangs Darby's head into the apron, and tries to powerbomb Darby, but Darby reverses. Darby runs at Joe, but Joe intercepts and powerslams him HARD on the exposed floor!! Back in the ring, Joe takes Darby off his feet with a hard chop!! Darby with some shots to Joe's abdomen, but Joe takes him down again with a headbutt! Joe smashes Darby's head into the ringpost while Darby is on the apron! Darby bounces off the post to the floor! Darby gets back into the ring at 9! Big boot takes Darby down again! Huge senton by Joe! Outside again, Darby drives Joe into the ring steps, then lands a Coffin Drop from the top to Joe on the outside! Inside again, Darby hits a stunner and a CODE RED ON JOE!!!! Darby charges Joe in the corner, but Joe cuts him off with a huge STO!! Joe goes for the Muscle Buster, Darby stops it, but Joe neutralizes him with a HUGE chop!! Darby bites Joe's head!! This sends Joe stumbling off the top. Darby goes for a Coffin Drop, but Joe catches him in the Coquina Clutch!! Darby passes out!! Joe retains!!! I liked this match a lot. Great contrast of styles that made a great match. Both of these guys are so good.

Darby gets up and shoves Joe after the match. Joe takes Darby down with a headbutt, then lands a Muscle Buster on the wheels of Darby's skateboard!!!! Taz: "Live by the board, die by the board." Lmaoooo. Joe puts Darby out with the Coquina Clutch again!!! Wardlow comes out to stop Joe.

Backstage, Orange Cassidy tells Kip Sabian he doesn't have to attack him. If Kip wants a shot at the All Atlantic Championship, all he has to do is ask.

Claudio Castagnoli and Wheeler Yuta vs. Daniel Garcia and Jake Hager -- This was solid. Good stuff between Yuta and Garcia here, as usual. Nice Claudio hot tag with a vicious, unrelenting series of uppercuts to Hager and a hurricanrana to Hager off the top!! Claudio gets the pinfall on Hager after reversing Hager's ankle lock, driving Hager into Garcia, and following with a big uppercut.

After the match, Schiavone shows Moxley, Castagnoli, and Yuta an interview he recorded a few weeks prior with Regal. Regal says people are only going to see this interview if something bad happens to him. Regal says the BCC doesn't need him anymore, but they wouldn't let him go, so he had to show them that they don't need him. Regal says Moxley is a very calculating man (looool), so he will understand this. Regal says the reason he did what he did at Full Gear was to teach the BCC the final thing he could teach them, which is to always keep eyes in the backs of their heads. Regal says he is BCC for life. Moxley and the BCC have no comment on this. Moxley basically ignores it and just says that after Final Battle, the BCC's war with the JAS is over. Weird. You'd think Moxley could address what Regal said.

Schiavone has a sit down interview with Jamie Hayter. She says she is going to be a reigning, defending, fighting champion. She says the winner of Shida vs. The Bunny on Rampage will get a shot at her title. Hayter is great here. She doesn't say much, but she comes off very cool and confident.

The Acclaimed (c) vs. FTR for the AEW World Tag Team Championship -- Caster raps that FTR's name stands for find the remote. Loool. Beautiful side headlock takeovers and waist lock pinning combo by Cash on Bowens. Nice hip toss and pretty, pretty arm drag by Caster on Dax! Dax and Bowens trade chops! Dax goes for a Sharpshooter, but Caster reverses. Double Sharpshooters by Caster and Bowens on Dax and Cash! Outside, FTR send Bowens into the ring post and catapult Caster face first into the bottom of the ring apron!! Bowens gets a hot tag and takes out Dax and Cash. Flurry of strikes and kicks from Bowens to Dax!! German suplexes by Dax on Bowens!! Neck breaker on the knee from Bowens to Dax!! FTR land an assisted piledriver on Bowens, Dax performing the piledriver and Cash jumping off the second rope to assist in driving Bowens down into the ring!! Bowens kicks out!!! FTR have Bowens in position for a double vertical suplex, but Caster comes out of nowhere to spear Cash!! But Dax holds onto Bowens and rolls him up!!! Bowens kicks out! Big rolling elbow by Bowens!! Cazadora cutter combo by the Acclaimed on Dax!! Dax kicks out! FTR go for the Big Rig, but Caster reverses! The Acclaimed go for a Big Rig of their own, but Dax and Cash reverse! Dax sends Caster shoulder-first into the ring post in the corner, then FTR finally land the Big Rig on Caster!! Bowens barely makes it into the ring in time to break up the pin! Arrival by Bowens on Cash! Mic Drop attempt by Caster misses!! Huge back hand chop from Caster to Cash! Big lariat by Cash to take Caster off his feet!!! Caster kicks out! Two more HUGE lariats by Cash!!! Damn!!!!!!!!!! Powerbomb by Cash into a jacknife pinning combo, but Caster rolls through into a pinning combo of his own and steals the three count!!! This was really good. FTR continues to pull great matches out of everyone they wrestle. This was a good finish to allow The Acclaimed to retain without hurting FTR too much.

After the match, the Gunns read FTR a note from the Briscoes, challenging FTR to a double dog collar match for the ROH World Tag Tean Championships at Final Battle. Wow!!!!!! Hype!!!!

[serendertothesquad]

Seren's Studies: The Odd Squad UK Promo

Now, before reading this, I need everyone to give a middle finger to Firefox for repeatedly flashbanging me throughout this entire followup whenever I went to take a screenshot. This has never happened before. I don't know why it's happening. I do know that I am inches away from throwing that inflamed vixen in the trash and moving to SlimBrowser instead.

Okay, so now that you've done that, let's discuss this 30-second promo that someone on Discord was very polite enough to dredge up. (Since there's a lot of...sensitive stuff that happens in that server -- in an "inner workings of a television network" kind of way -- I will refrain from naming names. If you see this, you know who you are, and thank you.)

At the time of this writing, there are no teaser images, nor have all the expansive synopses been released yet. It'll take a while for TVO to get through all of them, BBC doesn't have any expansive synopses, and my other sources are...dead in the water.

I don't think I need to say this, but I'll say it anyway: there are spoilers abound in this. If you haven't seen the promo yet, it's best if you view it here before proceeding with this followup.

Let's dive in below the break!

The only reason I'm putting this here is because the plehn started in Arlington and it's goin' to the United Kingdom and to Britain.

Because PBS's Headquarters is in Arlington.

MOUNT VIRGINIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-

Am I fuckin' trippin' on some shit or are we inside Big Ben? Because I mean the clock to the left there is confusing my pea brain. And if we are in Big Ben, some agent is going to go clear through these doors and wind up doing the Peter Griffin death pose but...y'know...they're dead. So.

On another note, I see we're ditching Apple computers and going straight for Microsoft. I know what iMacs look like. I have Google. Those are not iMacs. Sorry, Cook, but you're not cookin' in the UK.

We can also see the breakroom that was spotted in the gadget competition briefing video, which...kinda makes all my cracks about the shitty editing age poorly. (The video editing, mind. Not the audio editing. Those cracks stay. There is no excuse.)

So there's a lot to take in here -- and I mean it's a disgusting amount; I have to go frame-by-fucking-frame -- but let's focus on Captain O and Ozzie specifically. We have Captain O holding a letter of some kind, while Ozzie himself is still in his Department of Help uniform. The letter could be something along the lines of "congrats, you're hired", but who's to say. Hard to tell from a simple zoom-in and an "attention, everyone!"

Me, I just wanna know what the knitting needles on Captain O's jacket are for. Watch it not be answered in 12 episodes and then I'll be staying up Googling when I have a car to drive and cry in.

People in the Odd Squad Discord server are, by general consensus, not happy with this British-fied Odd Squad logo. And really, I don't blame them. This is pure "graphic design is my passion and I get paid for it handsomely, motherfucker".

Look, I liked it better when it looked like a sun. The sun, at least, is symbolic from a certain standpoint. This is just making it British because we're in Britain, and it's not funny.

Pure excitement written all over that girl's face, right there. He's gonna be the poor schmuck just being dragged around everywhere in town.

Kind of like the guy who was my "boyfriend" in high school and then literally dragged me through the halls showing me off like he got the most valuable plushie in the world. (Yes, that actually happened. Yes, the quotation marks are intentional. No, you don't want me to elaborate, trust me.)

Only the guy is a tourist, I'm the poor schmuck who has to help the tourist, and the guy probably can't drag me because I outclass him by about a hundred pounds.

It took them ten years, but we finally have magic effects for when agents combine gadgets.

Oscar is shedding a tear of joy somewhere. He's never been able to make that happen, but a tourist and a Brit somehow made it work, and he's so proud of them.

I could've sworn I've seen this structure as a filming location, but I can't for the life of me figure out whether it was in the Season 3 days or if it was last year. My memory's trying to make me think the former.

Taken out of context, though, this is a monster that sees Orli and whom I have to assume is either Onom or Orwell as two fresh-blooded meals. Which ups the danger ante of the entire franchise considerably, because there is a line between "I'm going to hurt you" and "I am going to kill you".

This octopus...thing is just...more direct about the latter.

In the medical industry, that would be classified as a brain disorder.

...In the real world.

Here in the Oddverse, you can have electricity shooting out of your head and it's as much of a minor inconvenience as an item being out of stock at the store.

(Also, someone mentioned that this guy sounds like TomSka, and...I mean, I'm inclined to agree. Not exact, but it's pretty close.)

This is William Ocean's brother, who finally emerged out of the depths of Monty Python. Good for him!

I'm sorry, I just noticed this...but they have a steel rotating door?

Like...like a captain's ship...like it's...

And it's automatic...

I'm sorry, but I'm just so damn used to seeing metal doors that seeing one in a completely different color, material, and shape is sending me for a whirlwind. Holy cheesin' Jesus.

"I wanna be a cooowgiiiirl, baby!"

"Heeeell yeah!"

"I wanna be a coooowgiiiiiirl, baaaaabyyyyy!"

(Or, alternatively, Smoothest Bitch in the East.)

And finally, we get to my favorite part: the gay triangle villain. Gay villains, if you want to count the one on the left, but since they don't speak, it's hard to tell where they fall on the LGBTQ+ spectrum.

I could make an entire Seren's Study on Odd Squad and LGBTQ+ representation, and I probably will one of these days, but I need you guys to understand something for a moment.

So in the aforementioned Discord server, there was talk of an episode of Season 1 of Alma's Way called "Say I Guess to the Dress". It involved Alma struggling to figure out what dress to wear to a party she's attending. It was meant to air in January of last year, but got mysteriously pulled and replaced with a different episode, and hasn't aired in the US since.

You might think this is not normal fare. You'd be right.

But in one scene of the episode, Lucas, one of Alma's friends, models a dress that -- and I am going off of the Wiki here -- was worn by Julia, his late cousin. Only for one scene. Only for a bit. Nothing more, nothing less.

This led to speculation that the episode got banned, hence why it hasn't aired yet. In Australia, it aired fine. However, we are on Season 2 of the show, and all we've gotten is pure crickets. We don't know for sure what happened, but with PBS, it's a minefield -- since they get a lot of money from donors, adding in an LGBTQ+ major character would sap up a good financial origin because people would be too pissed off to donate. So they relegate it to tiny sprinkles.

I'm not sure what the BBC's rules are on LGBTQ+ people in kids media. They could be strict, they could be lax, who knows. I still need to do some research on that. But for how much PBS is trying to make Gay Triangle Villain straight...he's not. He's really not.

Because let's be honest here: they're called the Triangle Sisters. That already says enough on its own.

Oof...didn't wanna make this super long-winded. But I'll discuss this at length later in another Seren's Study, once the episode airs.

I really might as well come out and really say it: I'm really not really a fan of the "really" gag. For a really short episode spanning really 11 minutes long, they really don't have time really for something of really this long and really painful.

...Really?

Really.

*distant ding*

Ahaha...ahaha...haha...aaaaaaah...

Mmm...

Cute. Real cute. Fuck you. But real cute.

And also, fuck PBS Kids execs for only putting out promos of new episodes of shows the day of. Remember when they used to put out promos earlier than that? Pepperidge Farm remembers, and for how much my memory sucks ass, so do I. Those were the golden days. Now we get stuff like these, because not a day goes by where they're stuck under the feet of Netflix and Hulu. Big competitors. Target and Walmart kind of rivalry.

----------------------------------------------------

Overall, not a lot of beef to this promo. I wasn't expecting anything mindblowing like, say, the trailer for the first movie (and that was epic in its own right), but it's pretty standard as far as PBS Kids promos go. I'm fairly positive CBBC will put out something far better that pulls in viewers, though I can't attest to how great their promos are because the last I saw one was...whoof, a long time ago.

But hey, look at it this way: Odd Squad UK and Pokemon Horizons will air on the same network, which means I can be an insufferable "Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon is my life" bitch all I want.

As for the contents of the promo itself...aside from gay triangle villain, there wasn't really any spark that caught my eye. Nothing to make my jaw drop or make me go "wowee kazoo". At this point, I'm watching for two reasons: curiosity, and to give them another chance at making a franchise going stale a lot better. And also the fanfic ideas. Lots of fanfic ideas.

I doubt I'll put out another Seren's Study before this one (my PBS Kids one isn't done yet), so the next one will come sometime after the first batch of episodes releases and will be an episode followup for "Odd Ones In". Once that's done, I'll work on followups for the other episodes.

Thanks for reading. Seren out.

[wrestlingisfake]

G1 Climax D Block finals preview

Tetsuya Naito (4-2, 8 points) vs. Hiroshi Tanahashi (3-3, 6 points) - If Naito wins, he clinches a spot in the quarterfinals. Tana can get to second place with a win, but not without help--he needs Jeff Cobb and Hirooki Goto to win their matches to create a four-way tie that favors him.

If this match goes to a draw, a lot of things could happen. If Jeff Cobb and Zack Sabre Jr. both stay at 8, Naito and Tana would both advance at 9. If Cobb and Sabre get to 10, Naito and Tana would be eliminated at 9. If only one guy gets to 10, Naito and Tana would be deadlocked for second place, and I don't know what they'd do. Or New Japan could go nuts and do nothing but draws at the top of this card, and give us a three- or four-way tie at 9.

This match is on top because Naito and Tana are two of the tippiest toppiest guys in the company. They've had 17 singles matches and the record is split 8-8-1. But the bottom line is that Tanahashi is 46 and winding down, and Naito is maybe just past his peak.

My prediction here is that Cobb and Goto give Tana the help he needs to make this match winner take all, but in the end Naito will prevail. He's still my pick to go all the way and win the G1.

Zack Sabre Jr. (4-2, 8 points) vs. Hirooki Goto (3-3, 6 points) - Sabre can get to 10 points with a win, but that won't do him any good if he finishes in a three-way tie with Cobb and Nato, who both beat him earlier in the tournament. He needs to outscore at least one of those two in order to advance. Goto is still alive, but only if he and Naito win and Cobb loses.

Goto's story in this tournament is a rib injury that's been hampering his performance, and now he's in there with a sadistic submission specialist. I normally wouldn't expect him to last long against Sabre, but in this particular case on the other hand they might give him the upset just to keep him (or Tanahashi) alive. Goto would also make sense as a challenger for Sabre's television title down the line. So I'm picking Goto to win, but I'm not super confident about it.

Jeff Cobb (4-2, 8 points) vs. Shane Haste (2-4, 4 points) - If Cobb wins, he clinches first place. He has block match wins over Naito , Sabre, and Tanahashi, so most of the tie scenarios favor him. Even if he loses here, he may still have a good chance of advancing, unless Naito and Sabre both outscore him. Haste is already mathematically eliminated.

I don't have a lot of expectations about this match but both guys have a silly side and it should be interesting to see their respective silly styles interact. I think Cobb will get the victory and win D Block, but I wouldn't put it past Haste to play spoiler.

Alex Coughlin (2-4, 4 points) vs. Toru Yano (2-4, 4 points) - Both guys are out of the running, and just fighting to stay out of last place. It's a shame because Coughlin did a blistering promo before the tournament about how he joined Bullet Club because NJPW took him for granted. Of course, I thought the promo was a mistake, since I kinda expected Coughlin would finish at this level, and burying the promotion only works if you're being pushed as a rebel on a hot streak. If they have Yano beat him with Three Stooges shenanigans, I'll laugh my ass off, but it'll be rough for Coughlin's career, I think. Something tells me they'll realize that and book Coughlin to win.

Ren Narita & Minoru Suzuki & El Desperado vs. Shingo Takagi & Yota Tsuji & BUSHI - Kind of a random trios match that isn't setting anything up or really following up on anything that happened earlier in the tour. Bushi is probably the weak link in this match, so look for him to get beat.

Great-O-Khan & HENARE vs. Tomohiro Ishii & Tomoaki Honma - It looked like Honma got knocked the fuck out last night, so I hope he's okay. Either way he's probably the loser in this match.

David Finlay & Gabe Kidd & Gedo vs. Shota Umino & Hikuleo & Master Wato - If Gedo is on your team then you're probably going to lose, and I don't expect any different this time.

Mikey Nicholls & Kosei Fujita vs. Kaito Kiyomiya & Ryohei Oiwa - I hope they have something else in mind on the rest of this tour for Kiyomiya besides teaming with Oiwa, because if that's all they've got he's just going to lose every tag match.

Eddie Kingston & Yuto Nakashima vs. EVIL & SHO - I'd enjoy seeing Eddie beat the shit out of Evil but with Yuto on his team he's not winning.

[quacksonholland]

I miss you

wc: 1.1K

Warnings: one swear word? + didn't really proofread.

(Masterlist) - Join my taglist!

INSPIRED BY these pictures that scream soft!tom <333

•••

"Darling? You there?" Tom asked in a soft voice, careful in case you were asleep, which you weren't just yet.

"Uh- yeah, yeah. I'm here." You said, trying to cover up the yawn escaping your mouth. Tom heard it, though, and he smiled, thinking about how cute you were when you were sleepy.

"What time is it in London anyway? Isn't it past eleven or something?"

"It's... 1 AM."

"1 AM? (Y/N), you could've told me sooner! You really need to get some sleep. We can talk tomorrow."

"No, it's fine, really! I really want to be with you right now. Even if it's through the phone. I miss you."

"God, I miss you too, darling. You can't even imagine..."

At first, you had thought that you were the one who felt the most affected when he left for those long periods of time to do press or shoot movies. But lately, you've realized how much he misses you as well when he's gone.

And being alone for so many months with no breaks had taken a toll on him.

He had been acting more clingy than usual, calling more often and sending you random updates throughout his day, not that you minded, of course you didn't. He needed a shoulder to lean on during this time of his life. It was the Spider-Man: No Way Home promo tour, which means loads of work and tons of interviews for him. Tom had worked his ass off for this movie, and he wants his fans to be as pleased as possible. But as much as he loves this movie and this trilogy, he's under a lot of pressure, and he is overwhelmed. Exhausted. Home-sick.

He was in LA, miles away from everyone. Being in LA means that even when he's surrounded by thousands of fans that love him... he feels lonely.

You aren't there with him, nor are his brothers or any mates, there's no one in LA with him. And that is why he ends up feeling alone every night.

It's quite weird, though. Because when he's not on social media, his fans miss him a lot but he's happy, with less pressure and his family by his side. Meanwhile when his fans get a lot of interviews and content, and they're happy... Tom isn't feeling as good.

"My love?" He asked, his voice cracked.

"Yes?" You could tell he wasn't feeling the best.

"Could we switch to FaceTime? I miss your gorgeous face."

"Of course."

And so you did. As soon as the screen was filled with him, and him only, you gasped. My goodness, he looked so pretty, so damn cuddly and soft.

His curls were as long as ever, looking all fluffy with the wind. You knew he low-key absolutely did it for you because you loved running your hands through his over-grown curls.

Tom was wearing some brown glasses; a rare sight that was becoming familiar as he chose to wear them more often. They looked so good on him, he looks so cute. And his outfit... don't get me started on what he was wearing.

The autumn colors looked great on him. All shades of brown, red, and yellow adorned his fuzzy jacket, and under it, he was wearing a mustard-yellow hoodie.

Altogether... he looked lovely.

"You look so handsome, bubs."

Tom blushed. Your words had that effect on him.

"And you look beautiful."

You spent a few seconds, maybe even minutes, silently admiring each other.

It was no secret how absolutely everyone believed you two wouldn't survive through a long-distance relationship, given the fact that you're young, and Tom's so busy he barely gets time to talk to you.

But against all odds, after a year and a half, here you were. Miles away, and yet, your love for one another strong as ever, almost radiating off the smitten look you two shared.

"Tom" he hummed in response, "Your curls are so long."

"They are, aren't they? How do you feel about 'em?"

"I absolutely love them." Your words made him smile brightly. God, that million-dollar smile always won you over. It was what made you fall in love with him in the first place, and is what makes you fall in love all over again, every single day you see him flash you his signature grin and those shining eyes. "And I mean it. Don't cut them off, please. I really wanna run my hands through those curls when you come back home."

"Mmm, can't wait, love."

"I can't either."

And literally out of nowhere, you started tearing up. You just wanted to hold him tight, and never let him go. But at the moment, you weren't able to, and you couldn't help but feel sad about that.

"(Y/N)? Are you crying?"

The sniffle you let out was all he needed to click his tongue in pure pity. He smiled, but it was not the same smile he had before. Sadness seeped through it. He absolutely hated seeing you sad. It made him feel sadder.

"What's wrong love?"

"I really miss you. And it's... that's not good, 'cause you just left, and the press tour just started but... I can't help but miss you so hard."

“Aw, darling. It’s okay to miss me. I miss you too. A lot.”

Your tears through the screen broke his heart. He wanted nothing but to hug you, kiss your tears away and assure you that everything was going to be alright. But knowing he couldn’t… it broke his heart.

He was sick of not being able to hold you. Sick of having to wait months and months on end to see you. Tom loves his job, but things like these make him wish he weren't an actor. He can't bear the sight of you crying because he isn't there to comfort you, and God knows he feels miserable himself.

Fuck it.

“Tell you what, darling. Why don’t you take a few days off at work? You take, let’s say 5 days off at work, you come here to LA, come to the premiere with me and we spend the week together. Would you like that?”

“For- for real?” The way your face enlightened made his heart flutter.

“I mean it. I miss you, and I'm sick of waiting, I need to see you again.”

“I'd love to go with you, Tom. I have to check how many days off can I ask for, but I'll get as many as possible."

“Brilliant, darling. I’ll tell my manager to book your ticket then.”

“Can't believe I'm gonna see you soon... goodness. I love you Tom.”

Tom mirrored the smile on your face. I want to marry you, (Y/N Y/L/N), he thought. It is still a little soon for that, but the thought amuses him.

“I love you too (Y/N). I’ll call you tomorrow, all right? Go get some sleep now, you need it."

[bluewinnerangel]

Hii, j hope this isn't a stupid question to ask. I'm wondering if there are any connections or similarities (or just theories in general) of Harry's airplane necklace and Louis' paper plane tattoo? Or is it just completely unrelated in your opinion? Sorry if this is dumb

Yeah I talk about it in here. I don't love that post, you're not gonna love that post, so I'll just paste the relevant bits about the paper airplane only:

October 2012:

Harry tweets about Paper Airplanes on oct. 4 2012, and wears the necklace already then too. He wears it during that month of promo in a whole bunch of interviews.

The whole “Take Me Home” promo also had paper airplane imagery:

November 9:

One Direction’s album Take Me Home is released. 

First sighting of Taylor Swift wearing an paper airplane necklace and the whole haylor thing takes off

Taylor doesn't wear her knock-off until the day of the Take Me Home album release, how stunty promo can all this get really. And it's definitely been a harry-only thing up until that point.

So the way I see it, that paper airplane necklace was either something Harry liked first and then it got used for promo like crazy, or it was a Take Me Home thingy first and foremost and then Harry got a necklace of it just cause he liked it, or, it was a PR prop from the start. Who knows, but like we've seen since, over and over and over again is that Harry will wear something first and then le girls that get associated with him will start wearing that thing and he just... continues to wear the thing for a bit and then stops. Like... minimum participation. It's not even participation lol. It's justpeople ruining his aesthetics over and over and over again, that's how it comes across to me. Anyway.

January 23:

Louis gets the swift bird and the paper airplane tattooed.

For the paper airplane tattoo, the easiest and most probable explanation I got for it is something he wanted that related to the album, and as paper planes were part of the aesthetics he got one of those. Or even simpler, looks fun that's all. Or pick one of the endless meanings if you wish: travel, being carefree, flying, go where the wind blows the wind makes nice waves, whatever.

But this is also the Louis that followed Harry into a tattoo shop (again something that was turned into some haylor PR juice) to get a complimentary home-pointing tat, this is SHE'S MINE Louis, this is He Got The Dagger Louis, and that paper airplane that first very clearly associated with Harry, then made into a very very very haylor thing.. their whole stunt was build around it for about a month before they were papped and stuff? Basically Harry was wearing something that Taylor/PR then made "theirs", and the second that ended Louis pretty much immediately put that exact thing on himself? Permanently? He associated him instead with that thing?!

I guess that's my theory there.

[larrydoinglaundry]

I usually do my snippets on Sunday but since I got tagged and my writing's doing well, I want to share something! Thanks @princelyharry for the tag.

As always, and maybe for the last or second last time, a snippet from Silver Fox Louis AU.

I wrote this bit a while ago already but I don't want to share anything from the final parts, at least not any of the parts I've written so far becaaaause I'm a little out of my element and I don't want to put anything out until my beta aka Cait has read it, so. Hope you'll like this one, though!

"How are you so good?" Harry asks between his giggles, peering down at their feet as he tries to follow the lead of Louis' steps.

"Actors need to learn all kinds of stuff," Louis chuckles and spins them around once, squeezing Harry against him so tight he has no choice but to move along.

Harry keeps laughing, his giggles accompanied by surprised shrieks every time Louis makes more sudden moves.

"I'm beginning to think you didn't even have a dance double in Midnight Memories."

"I wish. I only learned the most basic stuff," Louis admits. "I tried to give him credit in promo interviews where it was due even though I was told not to put too much focus on it."

Harry smirks. "Oh, what a baddie."

Louis winks, "I know. I was a certified bad boy in my twenties."

He raises his arm and Harry slightly ducks as he spins under it on cue.

Smiling, Louis pulls Harry back close, "See, you're getting good at this."

As the beat of the music intensifies, Louis tightens his arm around Harry's waist and spins him around the floor with ease, their feet slotted together in a way that allows them to move together smoothly.

Harry follows gracefully for several steps until their feet get tangled, and they stumble down on the floor with shrieky and startled curse words flying. Their hands are stumbling as they try to grab on anything at all to stop the fall.

Louis' first instinct is to brace himself for the fall by extending his arms, not wanting to slam down and knock Harry's wind out in the process.

He worries about Harry's head when he hears the thump of the impact but the second he sees Harry laughing, even though his face is slightly twisted in pain, he relaxes.

"I told you I'm a terrible dancer. A walking hazard," Harry chuckles as he tries to get a hand under himself, “My arse will be bruised tomorrow."

Louis grins. "I can kiss it better. Besides, you did quite well for a beginner. You didn't even crush my toes."

"Now you're just trying to kiss my arse."

"Oh, my god," Louis groans, rolling his eyes.

"You literally said it yourself!"

"You're insufferable,” Louis states, once again, and shakes his head. He pushes himself up from the floor and offers a hand to Harry who grabs it right away, getting up with only a little bit of struggle.

When he’s up on his feet, Louis drops his hand down to gently rub his bum. “No but in all seriousness, are you alright? Do we have to worry about a broken tailbone or something?”

“Nah, I don’t think anything’s broken. My arse is used to taking a pounding.”

Louis groans and rolls his eyes. “Oh my god, I’m leaving this cabin.”

Harry can only giggle, “You wouldn’t even find your way out. You’re stuck with me.”

Fortunately Louis quite enjoys being stuck with Harry for a few days. He would never tell him he finds his puns relatively funny sometimes though. It might add fuel to his fire and if Louis rolls his eyes once more, they’re going to stay that way.

Louis places his free hand on the other cheek as well and pulls Harry close. He sighs affectionately, “Yeah, I am."

"Seriously though… Am I being too much of a handful?"

"Well, let's see," Louis says as he curls his fingers, squeezing. "Quite a handful. More than a handful, actually."

Harry smacks his chest. "Hey, at least my puns are good."

"Now, we can have multiple views on that," Louis says, endeared by the disgruntled look Harry pulls. Louis slides his hands up to the sides of Harry's waist and adds, "You're a handful but not too much of a handful. Not in the way you probably fear right now."

"So, I'm not driving you crazy?"

"Oh, you are. You drive me absolutely insane but I couldn't love that more than I already do."

Harry's eyes glisten when he pulls Louis into a tender hug. Louis melts into it immediately.

“I’m sorry if I was… you know. This morning."

“Oh, no, don’t worry about it, love," Louis whispers, rubbing Harry's back. "You have nothing to apologize for.”

"I can't stress enough that it was nothing you did. It's all in my own head."

Louis would like to argue with that since it obviously was his words that upset Harry in the first place. He just doesn't understand why. The worst part is not knowing what he said or did to cause such a severe reaction.

Tagging @stylesthebrave @brightgolden @jacaranda-bloom @hershelsue @harrystomlinson @haztobegood @kingsofeverything @neondiamond @larrysballetslippers if you want to share a snippet! Now or Sunday, however you wish.

[ladybuvelle]

The promo is SO PRETTY ✨ And you’re right. I should work on not preceding things with “It’s not my ship, but…” I think I tend to do it with friends and acquaintances as a buffer? I’m happy when other people are happy about their ships, but when I bring it up, I try not to give false hope that I ship it too/have knowledge of it, I guess? Especially when it comes to rare pairs. I’m rambling at this point. I hope you’re doing well :)

// The thing is, I completely and utterly understand why you'd say it and your reasoning for it. I've been in that mindset about it before, too. But when you step back and think about it for a second... it's pretty silly, isn't it?

If Tumblr's taught me anything, it's that we're all terrified of each other. Everyone is afraid of hurting everyone else's feelings, and everyone else is afraid of being hurt. I'm not gunna go into some long-winded speech about it, but I hope you know that such expectations are unreasonable. You're not giving anyone "false hope". You're not going to hurt my feelings. And even if you do? Who actually cares? I'm responsible for how I feel, not you! Silly!

Ya'll need to drink some water and relax. Maybe get laid. Maybe stop being over-sexed. Somethin'. Ya'll need somethin'.