#and people clocked me immediately as 'learned some swedish at some point'

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I downloaded this episode after it aired last night, but I’m glad I saved it for today to watch it. Last night, I’d have gone through it quickly, knowing I needed to be up at 6 AM the next morning for the last day of a work placement. Today, I have just finished my work placement, celebrating the fact that I managed to get through it without a single breakdown, and have all the time I like (for now) to relax and watch these things the way they are meant to be watched: slowly, with many pauses to appreciate the masterpiece in front of me.

So in light of that, here are thoughts on Taskmaster s13e08, written as I watch it:

- The loveliest thing to hold above your head - I haven’t seen any of the prizes yet, but if anyone pulled a Katy Wix, they should win this one. And by “pulled a Katy Wix”, I mean “borrowed, or perhaps just stole, a Taskmaster trophy from a previous winner, like Katy did to Kerry Godliman”.

- Okay fine, Sophie Duker’s tiny stand-up participation trophy is so adorable that it’s possibly better than an actual Taskmaster trophy. Good entry.

- I absolutely love how funny Alex finds Ardal’s explanation of his prize. Can just see him thinking “Aw shit, why have I never incorporated a ping-pong paddle into the opening bits of this show?”

- Bridget’s parasol is genuinely very nice, but I can’t get past her referring to a child throughout her story as “it”. Very strange, quite funny, on brand for Bridget.

- Holy shit! Holy shit! When they read the first task and just said “Learn Swedish”, I didn’t dare hope. But then they added that there will be a conversation with a Swedish person. Surely this means... surely this means... they wouldn’t sully the good man’s legacy by bringing in a different Swedish person, so does this mean... fucking Fred?!? Are we getting Fred back after all this time? Fred’s the best! I’ve missed him! Fred!

- Okay now that I’ve had that initial reaction, I can say I also like this task. A twist on their previous Swedish-based Fred interactions, in which they had to navigate the language barrier from their own side. This time they are, quite literally, speaking his language. That’s fun.

- This season has a bunch of tasks that have “Your time started when” instructions, so there’s some time when they think they’re just messing around but actually the clock is running down. I’m sure that did not help the Chris Ramsey paranoia, that is by now well established to be a running theme of season 13.

- I love how clearly Alex relished getting to deadpan, “Please come and talk to a Swedish person.” So far, this episode has highlighted two things that fit deeply within Alex’s sense of humour: the image of someone holding a ping-pong paddle high while people follow them around, and to pretend it’s normal to refer to his friend Fred only as “the Swedish guy” or “the Swede”. The latter is a source of humour that was tapped to great effect in the first few seasons, and I’m so pleased they’re bringing it back.

- Now that I see their setup (Fred on an iPad, which makes sense as they did say at some point that the reason he stopped appearing on the show is he moved back to Sweden), I’m disappointed that none of these contestants seem technologically incompetent enough to give us some Mel Giedroyc-like moments. I still laugh so hard when I remember the way she approached the tablet like it was a potentially dangerous foreign object, and could not get the hang of talking into it as though Fred were in the room with her. Unfortunately, Chris, Sophie, Judi, Bridget, and even Ardal are likely to well versed in how to do video calls like a normal person.

- Chris seemed to have started strong, immediately knowing how to answer “How are you?” That’s a good strategy, working out what the Swede is likely to say when a panel show has told him to have a conversation with some Anglophone comedians, and coming up with simple replies. I say Chris started strong because he did go downhill quite quickly after that. Though to be fair, I understood what he meant when he took one look at Fred and said he’d immediately forgotten it all. I feel like I could also spend 15 minutes carefully learning Swedish phrases according to my strategic predictions about what will come in handy, and then my mind would go totally blank when expected to recall them in the room.

- Oh shit, there’s a title drop from Judi. She’s named a lot of episodes this season.

- Well, not a great start overall (I mean, it was good from a comedy perspective, not great for, as Alex suggested Fred’s season four task could do, improving Britain’s relations with Europe). Judi said a bunch of words that sounded a bit like they could be something but I’m pretty sure they were gibberish, and Chris lost his mind.

- “Contestant knows they’ve done badly, and this contestant is competitive enough to be upset when they’ve done badly from a points perspective, as well as self-conscious enough to just be upset that they failed so hard on television” - that is a genre of Taskmaster images that I always enjoy.

It’s especially funny when it’s contrasted with another contestant who has also done badly, but this one is uninterested in the competitive side of Taskmaster and unconcerned about whether they appear to be bad at whatever silly things happen on this show, so they’re much more collected about it. Think Ed Gamble and David Baddiel when Ed was killing flies and David was just sitting there saying (I paraphrase, but not much) “I mean I’m terrible at this game but I’m not going to lose sleep over it, what’s wrong with you?”

We don’t often get both those contrasting images into the same screenshot, but it’s lovely when it happens.

- I like Alex letting us know that Fred is back by “genuinely popular demand”. Like, “I know it sounds like we’re doing a bit, but seriously, people fucking loved Fred.” Damn right they did.

- Oh shit, Ardal sounds like he’s spoken some Swedish-like language before. Right off the bat he has a bit of the accent going and sounds so much less awkward than the others.

- I’ve just thought of something: the task said the phrase book and tablet had to stay in the caravan. Didn’t say anything else had to. I’d have copied stuff from the book onto some paper and brought that with me.

- It is amazingly funny that 1) Ardal felt like had to change his name to something that sounded Swedish, and 2) he went with Sven Johansson. He just took  Scarlett Johansson and tried to make it sound like a boy’s name, right?

- The fact that all these people have had to ask Fred his name tells you how many previous Taskmaster seasons they have not watched.

- Did Ardal just ask Fred if he is a herring? No Ardal, Fred was the guy from seasons 1-4, Herring wasn’t until season 10.

- Ardal and Sophie both seem to have taken a more proactive approach, just learning the stuff they want to say and then saying it, rather than learning some phrases that could be helpful and then awkwardly trying to fit them in. Which works a lot better than the previous attempts, though one could argue that it makes for less of a reciprocal conversation. I guess they’ve both asked questions though, so that’s some back and forth. Even if Ardal’s questioning revolved around whether the guy is a herring.

- Sophie has informed the guy that she is both pregnant and hungry. It occurs to me that Fred would probably have no reason to disbelieve her, it’s such a weird thing to say if it isn’t true, and perfectly plausible that Taskmaster could have brought on a pregnant contestant, and she’d learned how to declare that as a piece of conversation. He probably assumed she really was pregnant until Alex would have told him otherwise afterward. I don’t know why, but that makes it so much funnier. 

- If Ardal’s story in the studio is true, then I’m impressed that he managed to accurately recite a Swedish song he heard one night while drunk and knowing he’d need to remember it for later. If it isn’t true, then how the hell did he know that song?

- Chris, Judi, and Sophie have just talked shit about Fred the Swede, so they’re all dead to me now. Ardal O’Hanlon for Taskmaster season 13 champion, because you do not disrespect Fred on my watch! (I’m like 96% joking.)

- Ah, Bridget is calling her brother. I did wonder if, before implementing this task, they checked whether any of the contestants actually speak Swedish. That would be such a big advantage that it would really mess up the task. I guess they might have checked that, but they didn’t control for whether any of them know any Swedish speakers. Or Sofie Hagen, who was close enough to Swedish for Katherine Ryan. I wonder if Bridget’s brother knows actual Swedish, or just a vaguely Nordic language.

- So, this has always been a debatable issue on Taskmaster - is unauthorized phone use cheating (I say “unauthorized” to differentiate it from something like that season 12 task when they had to keep someone on a call, and were told to use their phones)? They’re not banned in the actual rules, so they’re not technically cheating, but they are against the spirit of the game. There’s a good argument that Katherine Ryan phoning up Sofie Hagen in the season 2 task was sort of bullshit, which is especially controversial given that she won the whole season by such a narrow margin.

I feel like the general consensus is that phone use is okay if it’s funny, enhances the task performance by enough to be justified, and doesn’t make the difference between winning a task or losing it. Otherwise, it might not be cheating, but it’s not exactly a respectable way to win. And I don’t think Bridget’s use was justified here. Any of them could have just brought their phone in and used a translation app, if there were fine. I feel like writing phrases down on paper would have been a creative way around the task’s wording, but bringing a phone just makes it pointless.

- Okay, I think that scoring is fair enough. If they were going on best language demonstration alone, obviously Bridget should win. I like the idea of allowing her move that didn’t technically break the rules, but knocking her down a place and giving the five points to Ardal.

- “Stick your tongue out as far as it will go, and keep it out until further notice.” I haven’t heard the next part yet, but that line and the setup with the weird food makes this feel like early seasons of Taskmaster. Along the lines of the pie identifying task in season one or something. The tongue being out suggests a straightforward gross-out challenge like how they used to collect sweat or tears. Sort of season 7 vibes too, like the one about not blinking. That along with Fred being back makes this feel like a classic episode.

- Right, now that I’ve heard the entire task’s instructions, I only have three words to say about that: What the fuck?

- I’m sorry, I tried to tell myself not to write this point, but I can’t help saying, I’m glad Sophie Duker is queer, because if she didn’t occasionally find herself having sex with people who have vulvas, that would be a waste of that massive tongue. I’m sorry for pointing that out once and I promise I won’t do it again.

Conversely... I guess it’s good that Bridget’s straight? I’m not sure I believe her tongue is actually that short, that’s ridiculous. How does she eat food?

- Wow. Alex did not give us a content warning before Daisy May Cooper ate watermelon out of Richard Herring’s hand in season 10, or before the awful manipulating objects with the tongue task from season 11. They showed that clip of Lee Mack’s tongue so many times that it’s burned into my brain, and no warning first. So the question is: is what’s coming up somehow worse than all that, or did Alex give us that warning because there were complaints about how gross Lee’s tongue was and they were told they had to warn people next time?

So far in this episode, Alex has had to clarify that he was being genuine about two things: “No, seriously, people really did popularly demand the return of Fred,” and, “No, seriously, you should actually look away from this next task if you’re easily grossed out by human spit.” 

- Jesus Christ. I’ve just finished watching Judi and Ardal go and what the fuck? Yeah that was pretty bad. Definitely worse than Lee. Maybe not quite worse than Daisy and Richard, but fucking close.

- Now that I’ve had a minute to think about it, I can say I think the strategy has to be just a quick touch of the tongue. Not a proper lick, just put the tip against the food and pull it away fast. Though I guess the other good thing to do would be to put your tongue back in your mouth as soon as Alex finishes reading the instructions, like Katherine Ryan with the egg task in season 2, and say “Yeah my dignity is worth more than this.” But given that the two people we’ve seen so far are the least competitive in this season and even they gave it as shot, I assume no one walked away from this with (to quote a season 5 episode, my references are all over the place right now) dignity intact.

- So they’ve saved Sophie “massive tongue” Duker for last (I almost made the nickname something more explicitly related to the use for that tongue that I suggested earlier, and I’d like credit for the restraint I showed in not sticking with that). I think this will be good.

- Chris gets it, has done exactly what I suggested as the best strategy (well, aside from deciding that the only winning move is not to play). Bridget has, of course, done the opposite of that.

- Okay, maybe Bridget’s tongue really is that short. Because I think she just screwed over by that - she lost the task when her tongue slipped back into her mouth, but it happened pretty much accidentally because it was barely out to begin with. I didn’t know people could have tongues that short.

- I’m really sorry for preserving something so disgustingly horrifying with a screenshot, but the look of pure hatred in Chris Ramsey’s eyes as he glared up at Alex during that task was very funny. You can just see him thinking “Why did I spend all those years wanting to come on this fucking show?”

- Okay, let’s fucking go. Let’s see if Sophie, as the size of her tongue and her position in the running order suggests, going to do something special.

- Alex Horne: We’ve reached the ten-minute mark.

Me: Holy Jesus hell, let us all bow down before our queen.

I realize ten minutes is less time than some of the previous totals, but all the others were dying by this point. Sophie looks like she could go forever. I compared this to the blinking task in season 7, and Sophie is very much the Rhod Gilbert With His Eyes Taped Open For Seven Fucking Minutes of keeping her tongue out. I mean that as the highest possible compliment.

- Alex Horne: Which is the worst one?

Sophie Duker:

Again, I’m sorry for preserving that image. But the fact that Sophie can conjure up that kind of roast while having kept her tongue out for that fucking long is genuinely impressive. Everything about this is genuinely impressive. Absolutely horrifying. Genuinely impressive.

Alex said before Sophie’s turn that Chris was the leader up until then. So I assume Sophie will beat him by one point in this task, with her taking five and him taking four. It’ll be very fitting if she beats him by that one point in the overall scores across the season. This is a level of commitment that means she deserves to win the whole thing. And to have some nice lukewarm water for her tongue as soon as this is over. Jesus Christ.

- I’m so sorry, I have to post another screenshot of this horror show because look at this shit. She’s nearly finished the fucking popsicle! 

Also, look at Alex’s face. I think this is one of the few times I’ve ever seen him genuinely put off by something a contestant’s done. I loved when he told Sophie, “I’m not making you do this,” and he keeps reminding her that she can stop at any point. I’m pretty sure he passed beyond his normal character and is now just genuinely concerned for her well being.

First eating the entire vulva made of butter, and now this. Sophie Duker did not come on Taskmaster to fuck around.

- Jesus hell. Twenty-six minutes. I don’t think I could keep my tongue out for half that long even without the challenge of licking that stuff. And I’m not going to fucking try.

- “I don’t think I know who I am if I’m not licking those things anymore.” - Sophie Duker

- God damn. I’m not one to advocate bonus points normally, I think they should be used very sparingly, but Sophie should have gotten one there.

- The third task is fun, a nice creative break after that straightforward physical gross-out one. I think we need this. Let’s watch them all find some stylish accessories and keep their bodily fluids inside their bodies.

- And Judi makes Alex do the entire task for her again. Her combined laziness during the actual tasks with bullshit in the studio has been a fun bit this season.

- Well this is not a great episode to be Chris Ramsey. I just watched that whole sequence of him wandering around before coming out in Alex’s shoes and a cowboy hat, and that was amazingly funny.

I love that Chris Ramsey approaches this show with so much care and paranoia and attention to detail and making sure he hasn’t missed anything at all, and often it really pays off, but sometimes it just backfires. Like here, when he loses his mind and gets so fixated on finding the answer that he’s convinced is hidden somewhere that it doesn’t occur to him to try the obvious. At one point he grabbed a giant hanger or something and asked, “Is that a clue” - he was looking for something Alex had hidden. And was looking so hard that he forgot he was allowed to make stuff.

Something like that happening because of a contestant being so competitive his brain shut down - that’s peak Taskmaster.

- Okay, I went to put away my laundry after writing that previous point, and that gave me time to think about how the hell he could have had such a big gap in his understanding despite being so focused, and how this is basically just sports psych 101. Ed Gamble talks on the podcast about how things seem so obvious when you look back and have seen everyone else, but in the moment, it’s just you there, and sometimes things don’t click. And that is an interesting look at human behaviour because it’s how things happen when you in things actually matter too.

This is a silly comparison, because Taskmaster is just a comedy show and of course sports are real things of material importance (that’s definitely true and I won’t be told otherwise, they’re not just all meaningless social constructs, I need something to believe in), but that is a phenomenon that’s really common in highly competitive sports. As a coach I have studied the way being put on the spot creates panic and panic creates tunnel vision and slower reaction times and adrenaline dumping that further shuts down the more complex cognitive functions so they zero in on one thing and can process nothing else, and that’s why you can have an athlete perform incredibly well on less important days but fall apart on more important ones. I’ve learned in coaching courses about how to increase an athlete’s focus when needed, but also how to decrease it when it passes a certain threshold and starts being psychologically detrimental.

I guess this is obvious, you don’t have to be a competitive coach or athlete to know that sometimes people choke under pressure. But this was an example of Chris’ brain spectacularly failing him, just missing something incredibly obvious even though he’s the one who spends most of him time obsessively making sure he doesn’t miss anything, and I find it interesting that there actually entire fields of study dedicated to understanding why this sort of catastrophic failure occurs at times like that.

- Major David Baddiel vibes from Ardal here. Even aside from the general season 9 vibes, as this is reminiscent of the tasks in which they had to make legs and make part of their body extra long.

- Love that Judi really did just come out in a bunch of shoes stuck together and a bunch of hats stuck together. She kept to her original plan of making Alex do all the work.

- Finally, someone taking this task the correct amount of seriously!

Which is really quite seriously, enough to be a real effort in and do something cool, but not so seriously that they forget what arts and crafts are. I feel like this task was basically made for Bridget, great job.

- Sophie is being saved for last again. If that is, as I suspect, because she did something great, then this is a very good episode for her. Following from last week, the momentum is on her side going into the final two episodes.

- Sophie, what the fuck?

I mean, I guess the size of the hat is debatable, but you have to give her the longest shoes and style point. No one said she had to do an entire character, but that’s the sort of thing Sophie Duker delivers.

- I would complain about Ardal getting the pity point for style, but my girl Sophie’s having a good day, so it’s all right.

- Ooh, another team live task. I like that they’ve started including those.

- I thought I’d let this live task play through before pausing it to write stuff, to be honest because it’s getting late and I’m tired from a long day at work and decided to wrap this post up, but I do have to pause it briefly to say they’ve just finished writing this first words and we haven’t seen the women’s words yet but I love the look of concern, which is presumably based on hearing the men’s words and realizing her interpretation of the task was way off.

Judi, what the fuck did you do?

- I mean, Judi isn’t all that competitive. So this one can’t be blamed on some sports psych scientific stuff, Judi just forgot how many legs birds have.

Absolutely hilarious, well done. Perfect facial expressions and body language to match. Judi Love is so much funnier than I used to give her credit for.

- The way Ardal relished reading the word “knob” out loud - also worth pausing the video again to point out. Very funny.

- Bridget looks almost as pleased with herself for the “Purple Rain” joke as Ardal was with himself for writing “knob”. This is a fun task that way, gives the comedians a chance to think of a joke in the moment, write it down, and then enjoy sharing it with everyone. Which is sometimes genuinely adorable.

- This is a lovely screenshot:

- Judi Love and Bridget Christie, working out that they both wiped out “penis” from their list of things that are nice to put in your mouth:

- Solid episode, I really enjoyed that, and I’m still so pleased about Fred. Sophie has a six-point lead over Bridget and an eight-point lead going into the final two episodes, I think she can hold it but it’ll probably be close. I like that this season is competitive to the end, excited for the final two episodes. Also going to bed now. I had a long day, and it’s time to try not to see tongues with spit dangling from them in my nightmares!

[liapher]

wait, do en/sv/no/de all have a different word meaning 'exact' that's (part of) the prototypical affirmative utterance

#exactly 🤝 precis 🤝 akkurat 🤝 genau #i learned about precis vs akkurat v quickly after arriving in norway bc i kept using 'precis' #and people clocked me immediately as 'learned some swedish at some point' #anyway this isn't to say that alternative versions like 'precisely' don't exist but they're not theeeee go-to version. right? #or is this down to personal preference / geographic/etc. variation #the worst part about being into linguistic variation is that the actual recorded data are fairly limited :/ #anyway i do enjoy going around asking various acquaintances 'how would you express [x]' / 'does [x construction] sound natural to you' #maybe. i should stay in academia. #wow amazing how every thought i have manages to eventually lead to the question #'what am i gonna do with my life once this semester is over' 🙃

[jq37]

The Case File – Mice and Murder Ep 1

The Case of the The Pernicious Party  

Hello, hello, hello! It’s been a hot second but your resident D20 recapper is back to tackle the newest season: Mice and Murder! Y’all had to know I wasn’t gonna sit out the murder mystery, are you kidding me???

I might be playing around with the format a bit in the coming weeks to make sure I have the best possible system for keeping track of possible clues, suspects, and theories as we untangle whatever web Brennan weaves for us this season so don’t be surprised if things change a little. 

Anyway, without further ado, onto our mystery!

Summary

In case you missed it, this season takes place in an alternate, Zootopia/Wind in the Willows-esque universe where all the characters are animals but history seems to have happened in more or less the same way--for example there was still a King Charles but he was a King Charles Spaniel (cute Brennan). Our story specifically takes place in the English village of Tufting Meadows.  

We start with Katie’s character--Gangie Green (Weasel/Thief Rogue) in the graveyard of the Anglican Chapel (Our Lady of Prayerful Paws). Gangie, we learn, is an orphan who was kicked out of the orphanage at some point for thievery. Obviously, he’s not reformed of the habit because he is here to do some graverobbing. On a nat 20 (that Katie hilariously doesn’t notice even though her total is like a 29) Gangie can see through the window of the rectory that there is a weeping window inside--Catherine McCabbage who is being (dubiously) tended to by Raph’s character, Vicar Ian Prescott (Owl/Bard, College of Eloquence). 

Ian comes from a line of men of the cloth but he’s not exactly the best speaker despite his subclass. He’s doing his best though! The widow’s husband (Conor McCabbage) died at the local mill in what has been declared an accident but she suspects foul play. She’s been hearing his voice on the wind and wants Ian’s professional opinion on whether this could be a sign from God or if her husband might be speaking to her from beyond the grave or something like that. Ian gives a very muddled and not very comforting answer but seems pretty sure that something sketchy did in fact happen. Then, he sees a crack of lightning outside which illuminates the graveyard where he gets a glimpse of Gangie. 

He goes to check it out (and Gangie fully has an elderly goat he’s dug up slung over his shoulder) but “gravedigger” is his legit job so Ian decides to assume whatever’s going on is legit and not ask too many questions. He goes back to the widow (who, before she leaves, says that maybe sometimes people need to work on God’s behalf) while Gangie takes the body Loam Hall (a massive manor, built into a hill).

We cut to the next day and our next two characters! 

At 22B Hamsted Street in a pretty well appointed home are Ally and Grant’s characters. First up, we have Lars Vandenchomp (Huge ass Doberman/Battlemaster Fighter) who is so tough looking but also so Swedish sounding--it’s A Lot (so, incredibly on brand for Ally). Lars is security for Grant’s character Sylvester Cross (Fox/Inquisitive Rogue) who is a kinda (to use Grant’s word) “foppish” Sherlock Holmes type. He was hired by Squire William Thornwall Brockhollow to figure out what happened with Conor McCabbage (and clear him of negligence in running the mill) but he couldn’t find any evidence of any funny business, making this the only case he’s never cracked. He’s not as young or popular as he once was so this is, understandably, bumming him out. He’s even more bummed out when he realizes that William has invited him to his 60th birthday party that’s happening that night (as kind of a prop to show that he did his part in trying to solve the mystery) and Lars has already RSVP’d yes. He grudgingly agrees to go as it’s one of those asks that’s really more of a veiled demand but decides to pull the money he was paid from the bank first so he can return it and really stick it to the guy.

Finally, we cut to our last set of PCs who are on their way to Tufting Meadows via a very luxurious train. Inside are Sam and Rekha’s characters! Sam is Buckster $ Boyd (Peccary which is like a small boar/Mastermind Rouge) a Texan Oil Tycoon who acts exactly how you’d expect a Texan Oil Pig to act. Yes, you pronounce the dollar sign as “dollar sign” (even though as we find out later his middle name is Cassius so it’s like Cash which I think is super cool). With him is Rekha’s character, Daisy D'umpstaire (Raccoon/Assassin (???) Rogue another American (from South Carolina) though it seems she’s My Fair Lady’d herself into an upper class socialite (her last name was previously Dumpster). They’re traveling with their accountant, an Armadillo named Armond who seems kinda skittish and concerned about their travel expenses but Buck tells him that to make money you gotta spend money and they’re gonna make a *ton* of money on this trip. They’re also so so mean to him for absolutely no reason. 

When the train stops, they’re greeted by Templeton Padhop (a frog, natch) who is the chauffeur of Loan Hall, sent to fetch them. A wheel on his car is broken so he joins in on the Armond abuse immediately and has Armond roll into an Armadillo ball and replace it. Poor guy. When they show up they're greeted by a footman--a pug in a bowler hat named Milo Snout.

Meanwhile, Lars and Sly (Oh, Sly fox, I see what you did there Grant) are similarly greeted by another footman--a lizard named Basil Baskins. On a 23 perception check, Lars sees that Jeremy “Jez” Brockhollow is inside (the son of William who is a badger btw) and also clocks Gangie (who they know as a career criminal who disappeared like a year ago). Gangie doesn’t notice Lars though. 

Ian, who is also invited, shows up at about the same time as Sly but very quickly, the conversation is taken over by Lucretia “Lucy” Brockhollow, William’s older, eccentric sister who immediately gets into it with Lars about astrology and the occult (she thinks bad stuff is happening because of a curse let loose when Sly’s old rival--a rabbit named Fletcher Cottonbottom who is the son of his former employer--opened an Egyptian tomb). They’re thick as thieves right away because Ally is a nonsense magnet. And not like a regular magnet, one of those big electromagnets. 

Daisy and Buck spot William’s kids--the aforementioned Jez and his older sister Constance--along with their husbands Dr. Corbin Magpie (Constance’s and obv a magpie and a doctor) and Osmond Sheffield (Jez’s who is a Ram and a lawyer). Daisy is too stuck in her conversation with a truly unhinged squirrel (Lady Eugenia Bristlebrush who clearly does not know she’s in a murder mystery because she just keeps talking about how much she hates and wants to kill everyone) to hear what’s going on but she indicates the conversation to Buck who is able to eavesdrop and hear that they’re lamenting that Catherine--the widow--RSVP’d no which is gonna look really bad, like they didn’t invite her (bad PR). 

Buck, introducing himself as a business partner of William, eases into a conversation with the husbands which their respective spouses also join into and we learn that Buck's dad was British and a friend of Willian’s. Buck bonds with Jez (who is a bit of a dilettante) really quickly since Buck is ready to go drinks-wise immediately (and there’s a stellar pun about the “American [Drinking] Constitution''). Through the window, Buck notices Gangie outside getting his attention. 

At the same time, Ian is going from party guest to party guest, giving out the penances he forgot to earlier at church (as one does). We see him talking to the Lord and Lady Bramble (a cow and hedgehog, respectively) and while she wants to pray her way out of situations without doing any legwork, he wants to buy his way out and gives Ian 250 pounds. A frustrating but financially lucrative conversation.  

Buck goes outside to talk to Gangie who has a list of names of the bodies he’s been collecting. We’re not told what Buck is doing but it seems that this list is extremely valuable to him in some way. Gangie (who Buck keeps calling Gangly, to his annoyance) pays him handsomely (like, with a 50% tip) for the list (and Gangie gives him the real list, despite Brennan saying he didn’t have to). We also learn that Gangie has allegedly been getting the orders from someone in Loa Hall and they flow from William himself.

Matilda Molesly (a mole and the head maid) invites Gangie to come in from the rain--she’s the only person who’s been consistently nice to him and he agrees to come in for tea and scones. 

Everyone is ushered together by the butler (because of course there’s a butler--he’s quite literally a fancy rat named Thomas Gilfoyle) and William gives a speech where he wishes Conor well and kinda highlights that he did hire Sly to solve the case in a “Hey, I did my bit don’t blame me” kind of way. He also makes a 150k pound donation to the church (and Ian thought 250 was good) and tells his daughter not to read the praise he got for it from the cardinal when she mentions it (I wonder if that was choreographed). Sly interrupts the speech to “magnanimously” give his money back, to William’s annoyance. Buck notices that Lawrence Longfoot (a nouveau rich, rabbit photographer) takes a pic of the scene but with Sly in the foreground and William in the background. 

Then, a few things happen at once (in a very cinematic way):

As the camera flashes, Mrs. Molesly drops her tray, eyes hurt by the light. Lady Calliope Fawnbrooke (Deer, Matron of the Arts) helps her up.

In the moment of dark, after the flash goes away, the butler disappears. 

Buck thinks he sees a shape through the window, out in the rain. 

A cheer goes up for Sly for returning the money but all Sly can focus on is one figure he recognizes in the back of the room. Daisy, who is downing her drink and not cheering for him. He downs his as well, and looks at her until she breaks the stare and leaves the room. 

And this episode doesn’t end with a dead body like I thought, but with a flashback to a younger Sylvester, 12 years ago when he first met Daisy.

PC INTERPERSONAL DRAMA Y’ALL!!! Get HYPED! 

Case Notes

Here is a compilation of all the characters (PCs and NPCs introduced in this episode). 

Sly mentions that Ignatius Cottonbottom faked his own death as a part of some scheme which seems like a backstory point that might come back later--we now know that there exists a way to convincingly fake your own death in this world. 

Sly walks with a walking stick because of some “mysterious accident” but we’re jumping into a flashback next week so it looks like we might find out about it pretty soon. 

Sly also mentions he used to be the personal physician to the elder Cottonbottom so those are skills he has. I wonder if that’ll be useful to this healer-less party. I wonder if cleric was even an option in this world which seems to be low to no magic. It would explain by Ian is a bad and not a cleric. 

Lars has a military background which I wanted to mention in case it becomes relevant later. 

And Dr. Magpie grew up poor and still acts it a bit even though he married a very rich woman. Brennan uses the very good line, “He forces his body into the shape of an apology”

This might be a really deep cut reference but did anyone else here was the old Britcom “Keeping Up Appearances”? Cause I was getting serious Bouquet/Bucket energy from Daisy. 

This is an all College Humor season and it shows. The energy of 6 (7 if you count Brennan) top notch comedians sparking off of each other, trying to one up each other is off the charts. Some of the best bits this episode:

“When God closes every door but one, you go through the door that is open.” followed by “I’m an owl by the way.”

“Time is money, here’s both” from Buck re his inscribed gold pocket watch--everyone at the table loved that so much and they’re right. 

Armond going from being a third to a fourth wheel. 

And the names--I already shouted out a ton on the main recap but also a rat butler (like Rhett Butler) and naming the mouse Cat(therine). Can’t forget Gangie Green/gangrene from Katie. Also points to Ally for the data stealing Eel Musk which broke Brennan a little. 

I know we just went through this with Crown of Candy but what are these animals eating? Like, in Zootopia there were only mammals so we can assume the carnivores are eating like birds and fish but there are sentient birds here. I know this isn’t important. I’m not trying to do a CinemaSins gotcha. I just wonder, you know?

Y’all were waiting for all the lights to go out during that speech and then come back on and there’d be a body too, right?

If Brennan makes the bad guy a chicken or a duck or something so he can make a “fowl play” joke, he is cordially invited to catch these hands. 

I have been waiting for Raph and Katie to do D20 forever. Their specific brand of nonsense on Rank Room was always amazing. 

I love love love that Grant and Rekha are the PCs that have ~a past~ because they are so funny together. If you haven’t seen their episode of Game Changers, you absolutely must (it’s also a murder mystery actually!). 

#dimension 20 #dimension 20 spoilers #mice and murder #mice and murder spoilers #the case file #points and also glares to camwritery for pointing out that grant also went for the silver fox pun #i will be fighting both of you at my earliest convenience

[anotherwellkeptsecret]

Alrighty. Time to type up my surgery and recovery experience. 

When I got my pacemaker two years ago, I spent a year (almost exactly) drawing a comic called Change of Pace, which helped me kinda process what happened to me. You can read the comic here if you’re interested. It’s largely all true, aside from the love story part. Tsk.

I don’t think I’m going to be drawing out this experience. It was completely different. I’ve been expecting a surgery of this nature since I was nineteen, when I was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. So, in a way, this stint in the hospital was harder, more personal. The pacemaker was an emergency. The colon resection was some time coming. Not as much trauma, really. Not as much confusion about what was happening and why. But I still feel like telling the story, purging it from my mind. 

I was scheduled for surgery on Monday, the 18th of November. I took off work that Friday so I could have my pre-op bloodwork done and I also took off Sunday so I could start the colon prep. If you don’t know what a colon prep is, God bless you. You basically drink a crap ton (lol) of laxative and spend all night pooping until you poop clear. The easiest version is the Miralax version. If you have to have a colonoscopy, ask for the Miralax. I promise, you don’t want the Go-Lightly.

The day before prep, my friend took me climbing in Memphis to keep my mind off of things. We also went to IKEA. It was helpfully distracting. I had Swedish meatballs. 

I was meant to “technically” start the prep at midnight Saturday by not eating anything until surgery on Monday. Beginning to drink the Miralax sometime around noon on Sunday. I didn’t get that far. 

I got righteously sick Saturday night. My back was killing me and I was very nauseous and dizzy. I knew what was going on even before I started throwing up. I had a bowel obstruction. The second one in my life. I’d had one once before in March and jeeze. It hurt like a son of a bitch. I’m not sure if every bowel obstruction feels the same way, but mine certainly did. If you find yourself having these symptoms, please go to the ER. Bowel obstructions are no joke. You can go septic, which is incredibly dangerous. 

Nausea, feeling like you’re going to pass out, vomiting bile, severely upset stomach, cold sweats, and my back was aching something awful. I assume it was because my stomach was cramping so badly, my back muscles were spasming.  

I live with my mother. Have done since I’ve been getting sick so regularly. I woke her up and she took me to the hospital. 

The first time I had a bowel obstruction, I thought something was wrong with my heart. (The cold sweats, the nausea.) They rushed me to the back immediately. This time, I knew it was an obstruction, not my heart, and I said as much. They don’t tend to be in as much of a hurry when you don’t mention your heart. Didn’t realize that. I’m also not entirely sure they were convinced I did have a bowel obstruction. I’m sure plenty of people walk into an ER saying random stuff for random reasons, but yeah. I was very slowly processed. I remember them taking my blood pressure and because it wasn’t high at all, I imagine they thought I was full of shit. Figuratively, not literally. Because I was, literally. Whatever. 

My blood pressure normally runs very low. I can also take a lot of pain, because I’m on a first name basis with pain. They didn’t take my pain seriously because my blood pressure wasn’t high, I guess. Not my fault I’m a badass.

I sat in the waiting room until I started vomiting bile again. I also pooped all over myself in the processes. Which I didn’t think you could do if you were obstructed, but you live and you learn! 

That’s when they got in a hurry. I was making a huge mess. 

They got me a paper gown and I cleaned myself up as best as I could before the CAT scan, which proved I was, in fact, obstructed. 

So there I was, in the ER, very very early on the Sunday morning before my surgery Monday. I was admitted and my doctor contacted. Since the surgery was so close at hand, they agreed it was best to wait until the scheduled time to do the surgery. I’d stopped vomiting so there was no need for an NG tube this time. Those things suck.

Got admitted. Got a room. Tried to sleep. My surgeon came in and we talked. Got everything situated. At one point my mother told me there was a girl down the hall who’d just had a colon resection if I wanted to talk to her. She was sitting int he hallway with her sisters, eating her dinner. Poor thing had been in the hospital for almost a month. 

I spoke with her a bit. I’m not entirely sure what happened. Whether it was nerves or if I was hurting, but I almost passed out in the hallway. I hadn’t experienced anything of that nature since I had my pacemaker put in. The whole point of the pacemaker was to prevent me from passing out altogether. But I didn’t pass out so...I suppose that means it’s working?

I also pooped on myself that night while I slept. First time that’d ever happened. It was then I knew that I’d literally gone as long as I could before I needed surgery. I couldn’t wait any more. I’d been so stressed out over in the idea that I maybe didn’t need the surgery. That I was being pitiful and my case wasn’t that bad. I could tough it out if I really wanted. I realized what a dumbass I was for thinking those thoughts, but hindsight is 20/20. 

Monday dawned and surgery rolled around. Took forever. I was basically watching the clock tick the minutes by until transport fetched me. I was wheeled down to pre-op where they gave me a hair net. I don’t remember getting a hair net for the pacemaker surgery. 

I signed some paperwork and a lady told me she was going to get me ready. She said she was going to give me a nerve block in my stomach. I was like, “Cool, right on.” Until I saw the needle. 

Holy fuck. That needle. 

“You’re going to give me that when I’m asleep, right?”

“I’m going to give you some ‘I don’t care’ juice.” 

“Oh, thank God. I probably won’t remember this then.” 

“Probably not.” 

In went the ‘I don’t care’ juice. I got really dizzy. 

They swabbed my belly with iodine. 

They prepped the needle. 

I was still very much awake. 

I said, “Guys...” Because at this point there were several people standing over me. Like five. “...I’m still cognizant.” 

Yeah, I used the word cognizant. That’s how fucking cognizant I was. 

Not sure if they heard me. Or if they replied. I was really dizzy. 

In went the needle. 

And ow. OW. 

In went the needle again. One stick on each side of my belly. 

The ‘I don’t care’ juice must have been working in some way because while I remember the pain, I don’t remember the panic. I certainly would have panicked if I didn’t have that juice pumping through me. So that was a thing. 

I fell asleep soon thereafter. Couldn’t have been like...a minute earlier? Really? 

I remember waking up in recovery with the pacemaker. I remember the pressure, the nurse asking me questions. I remember being wheeled back to my room. I don’t remember jack shit about recovery after the colon resection. I don’t remember being wheeled back to my room. I apparently asked for my mom, but I don’t remember doing that either. 

I do remember, however, turning over on my side. Because ouch. But I did it anyway and kept doing it because I’m a determined asshole. Monday night was very hazy. I was high as fuck, probably. 

Tuesday: Not a good day. I was in a lot of pain. They gave me hydros, but the hydros weren’t touching it. Felt like I was taking Tylenol. And I have a very very VERY low tolerance for pain meds. They wouldn’t give me any morphine because my blood pressure was too low. (Again, badass?? Maybe?? IDK man my blood pressure just runs really low.) Which makes sense, because that’s dangerous, but I was in agony. I begged for morphine. I pleaded with the nurse to give me morphine. She would not. 

My mother got angry. I’m not one to complain. And my threshold for pain is admittedly pretty stout. I was hurting and no one was doing anything to help. My mother got ANGRY. 

I think they must’ve finally given me some morphine, but I don’t remember. Morphine also didn’t help. Didn’t even make a dent in the pain I was feeling. They kept giving me hydros every couple of hours to no avail. I remember I asked for a heating pad for my back. Barely. The nurse did give me one, but said I could only have it for an hour? Very fuzzy.

The tech forgot to...do something with my catheter because my urine got everywhere. The nurse that found me like that called the floor manager. I hated to, but I did report that my pain wasn’t kept in check. I was hurting so badly I actually reported one of the nurses. The one that wouldn’t give me morphine. I felt horrible about it, but I was also nearly in tears I hurt so bad. 

Hell, the pain was so intense at one point my mother called my family. Like, they thought something was wrong. Very very wrong. The doctor called for some kind of scan while I was in bed. They put a board behind my back. I was writhing, I remember. My family gathered in the hospital to see me in case I had to go back to surgery. In case I wasn’t going to do well. 

It was scary.

The next set of nurses figured out the problem when the scan revealed nothing out of the ordinary. My back was spasming. Horribly. When I sat up and they felt of me, they were shocked to find my back riddled with knots. It felt like knuckles underneath my skin. The new nurses got me some hella icy hot with pain killer and rubbed me down. 

It helped tremendously. My back stopped freaking out, which gave my abdominal muscles time to rest.

At last, I wasn’t hurting. At last, I slept. 

Wednesday and Thursday were spent trying to keep my back under control. At one point I vomited all over my bed due to acid reflux. I paged the nurse to ask for some acid reflux medicine and puked all over the place while I was on the call with her lol.

I never once had any issue with my incision. My entire trouble, the whole time, was from my back. And nausea. And lemme tell ya. Vomiting with a six inch incision on your abdomen? OW.

Getting up and walking? Easy enough. Getting up and going to the bathroom? No problem. Spongebath? Piece of cake. But God my back. 

I managed to poop for the doctors. Fantastic. 

And finally, finally, I got to have food. 

I went from about 5:00PM Saturday to 12:00PM Friday without having anything to eat or drink. I had an IV, and I could eat ice chips if I desperately needed to wet my mouth, but yeah. I hardly had any ice chips. Weird to imagine you can go that long without food and be alright. 

I proved I could eat GI soft food on Saturday and they let me go home.

Got my staples removed the following Tuesday. Had some steri strips applied. Just waiting for them to fall off on their own. 

And here I am. Just lounging, waiting to get my strength back. It’s much easier to draw after this surgery than the pacemaker one. Thank God. I’m slow moving and my stomach hurts a bit when my contents shift, but other than that I’m doing swimmingly. I can’t lift anything over ten pounds until the new year. Not sure when I’ll be able to drive, either. I’ll find out soon. 

This surgery was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Mentally and physically. Mentally because I’ve been struggling with Crohn’s since I was a teenager. I’m 32 now. Half my life I’ve been at war with my own body, drowning in the pain it leashes on itself. It’s been a long road. I hope this spells the end of it. Or at least, the rest of the journey is all downhill.

I’ve lost a lot of weight. I’m trying not to think about it too much. I’ll gain it back. Just takes time.

#personal #medical #tw pain #tw medical #recovery #crohn's disease #colon resection

[csykora]

Hey hey hey! I was wondering how i could find that post ab Kuzy and the struggle to adapt for North American hockey?? My dad is saying international hockey is easier to play than North American (as a justification for why Nylander is doing better @ worlds than this szn but that’s a diff story) and I’m trying to prove a point (Russians aren’t bad hockey players just because they (historically?) struggle in North America!) thanks xxx

Hey there.

**The following is not an opinion on Willam Nylander. I am agnostic. I suspect he may exist and you all cannot make me do more than that.**

Lemme chat with your dad a min? I got questions.

what does he think makes one game harder?

Factually we know what the difference is, right: one rink is wider than the other. 

how does that then make that game different?

Restricting the width of the rink, the skaters’ room to move, changes the goals of the game.

Any moment that I have the puck and you do not seems like it should be good for me. If I have it, you aren’t scoring a goal with it. If I try to score a goal with it, maybe I score, but maybe I mess up and you get it and you score a goal and that’s bad. Shooting is giving up possession in a meaningful way.

But in a narrow rink, we’re always closer together, it’s easier for you to smash into me, so you have more chances to take the puck away from me. Some of the time you’ll manage and then you’ll have it and you can score goals with it. I just plain probably won’t be able to keep possession all game, trying to do that would be risky for me, so it makes sense for me to try to score goals before you do.

In a big rink, if I’ve got the puck—oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t hear you across all this ice, wide enough that I can push off and hit peak speed going any direction, not just end to end. Did you say you want this? Did you want to smash me and take it and try to score some goals with it? Sure, you can try. Catch me and my several speedy friends first.

Corner work and board battles are less practical for you, so holding possession becomes more of a virtue for me. Goals still happen, but they happen when one team outshines the other enough in skating or passing that it makes sense for them to award themselves a point. An equal or even ultimate goal is to keep control until the clock runs out.

With more ice on the wings, wingers become more like centers. They have to spend more time managing their space, rather than mostly finishing plays that their center managed down the middle. They’re judged more for what North Americans see as classic center beauty (speed and awareness, as they’re expected to travel the full length of the ice, puck control as they skate, passing). Kuznetsov and Malkin were wingers in Russia, because they suck at faceoffs, and in Russia that’s seen as the only thing centers really do that wingers don’t, to the point that Kuznetsov and Malkin on the wing didn’t seem like a waste.

What North American men call ‘overpassing’ starts to happen: instead of the first person in with the puck aiming for a goal, the puck carrier will pass back and forth with other players until someone feels secure to shoot. This slows goals, which, remember, aren’t the only goal.

The other two NHLisms that Kuznetsov struggled with, by his own account, are the idea of dumping the puck and the idea of shooting over passing. These are not hard for him to do. They are foreign to him, hard for him to remember to prioritize doing. He thinks they’re irresponsible and rude, because they don’t contribute to the goal of his game.

In the NHL, they do. And that’s fine! The NHL plays on small ice and has its own goals and values and skills, and they’re awesome. They are no more or less awesome.

Now your dad might say, G, if non-North American hockey is better adapted for big ice than North American style, 

how come Canada does so great in competition, huh?

What do we know about Team Canada?  Sidney Crosby can have Steven Stamkos and Patrice Bergeron on his wings if he wants. You don’t crack that roster if you’re not a top 10 center, even on defense.

I think North Americans tend to know that and think, “well centers are good so more centers is just better,” but if that were always true we would train all wingers to think like centers. A three-center line doesn’t work well on narrow ice, where the winger needs board skills and finishing skills (and, frankly, to be less of a diva). It does work as a bridge when the two games meet in competition.

I just described what international hockey is, not how hard it is.

which is harder, jumping a horse or jumping on a bike?

Now, I might say riding a horse is easier, because I know how to do it. Or I might say it’s more complicated, because again, I know what all it takes to do it.

Both those answers are honest and both are less useful than I don’t know how to ride a bike.

When my brother does well in a bike race, I’m not gonna ask him hey if you’re so “good” at this why’d you fall off the pony that one time then huh? I’m not gonna make him race me.

Or if I did, and I crushed him, I wouldn’t say my sport is better, I’d say oh right I’m on a horse, they big. If he won at 50 yards and I won at 200 yards and at 5 miles and he won at 50 miles, I’d say wow, it’s like a bike and a horse are good at different things in different situations.  

Different kinds of hockey aren’t as different as that, but my point is that it’s possible for two things with two different goals to have two different ways of doing them well. And someone coming over from one thing to judge how you’re doing the other is silly.

Another question to think about:

If international hockey is easy, why do North Americans who go to the KHL also suck?

I don’t think your dad has heard their stories, because let’s be clear I don’t think your dad knows international hockey, but those players exist and have the same darn struggle as Russians in the NHL.

Now, your dad could argue that that’s because we’re pitting North American D-listers who have to go to the KHL against a league of Russia’s A-listers, but frankly that’s offensive to Amur, who’ve assembled a crack team of Russian D-listers and are also very bad.  

Americans who go to Russia don’t immediately dominate with scoring. They take a while to learn the game, and then they start to excel in the ways that you can excel in the KHL’s game.

why have Russian players historically struggled?

We’ve seen individual players have trouble adapting. We’ve also seen Alex Ovechkin, so, you know, he fucks any generalization. Kucherov’s doing okay. Svech sure looks alright.

Russian players make up a very small percent of the NHL today. “Russian NHLers” is barely a big enough test group to sample flavors of toothpaste, much less make sweeping claims about people’s experiences.

And there are so few of them because historically speaking, Russia is real big and not real friendly to North American business interests (which is what NHL teams are), so NHL teams don’t maintain scouts there.

Can you name a player from East Russia? I guarantee it’s not cause there’s no ice there! But it’s a wild huge amount of space to cover. When KHL teams take days and–I can’t stress this enough, have repeatedly died in travel accidents–just to get to games, the NHL is not investing in that.

The NHL doesn’t try to draft Russians unless they’ve already made a name for themselves at international tournaments. Imagine if only the Canadian boys who got to go to Worlds and scored points there were on anyone’s radar. The NHL’s business model is to get quick dibs on obvious talent and let the rest bubble up.

Which is one of many things that makes the modern NHL and NHL fans’ devotion to the draft difficult. There are good reasons that some kids go undrafted who are as good as the drafted kids, so fans have the idea that non North Americans who are left to develop are devalued. (The idea that anyone should be ready for the NHL right out of the draft is really new and really, really wild, like, biologically-speaking. 18 years is the age you can sign a contract, it has nothing to do with your physiological or athletic development).

Big question: does your dad like international hockey? Does he follow the Swedish or Russian leagues? Does he like William Nylander?

You say ‘that’s a different story’ but honestly I think that is the story.

Because if we agreed that actually, Nylander is talented at some things, then the argument that anything Nylander does well must be easy to do doesn’t make sense. It’s a bit like seeing Nylander ride a bike and asking why he couldn’t ride that pony. Maybe Nylander is better at one thing than the other thing. This rests on Nylander being bad, and/or Swedish hockey being bad.

If your dad is honest, he doesn’t like William Nylander, and he doesn’t like Swedish hockey. And that’s fine! He didn’t have to justify that. 

But he is back-engineering an argument to justify not liking them that rests on already not liking them. 

And he’s kind of digging at the value of anyone who likes what he doesn’t approve of: “easy” is a heavy word. The implication is almost that Nylander is worse for doing something “easy” well but being too lazy to work hard in North America

I swear if I get a single comment asking me to think about Nylander beyond his hair I am turning this blog around

Your dad isn’t behaving well in this argument. Relatable, but not well.  

I’m not saying shame your dad! I hope he’s otherwise great. But I encourage you to ask questions that encourage him to self-reflect, more than trying to feed him facts. Mostly because that won’t work. And it won’t be a failure on your part when you don’t say the perfect facts in the perfect way to make him acknowledge them. This is between him and his hockey gods, you know?

I think a lot of us could stand to learn not to argue like he’s doing, but a lot of us could stand to learn how to talk to someone who is arguing unfairly without taking too much on ourselves, trying to justify what we like back to them when neither of you have to justify shit. 

So if it will bring you joy to shove these points at him, good luck, have a ball. If not, go watch some Swedes be good at Swedish hockey, and have a blast.

[evalocity]

Can you say something nice about mutuals you've interacted with who you think are closest to you? Can be as many as you wish, it's time to spread positivity😊😊

This is a wonderful idea boo, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to do this :) 

(it might be a bit long lmao here we go!)

@the-fierce-fangirl Ria, you were my first tumblr friend on here, in March 2018 we’ll have known each other for a year now ! I knew no one on here when we met, you reblogging my post was ?? a blessing ! someone noticed me ! and we started to talk, and you’ve been the purest and sweetest friend I could ask for. My birthday present ? That you freaking sent me ? I don’t deserve you. I just...there’s no words dear friend, to tell you how much you mean to me ;-; One day I’ll come to Poland and we’ll have tones of fun ! xoxo

@jasonblossomsghost Or, I remember when we first started talking. I was shy at first, but you seemed sweet, and honestly bless those swedish fish for starting our friendship. You’ve always been such a good friend, one that I don’t need to talk to 24/7 to know I can count on, and one that I’ve always wanted to defend because oh my god why are people in Kansas so annoying lmao. You’ve educated me on subjects that I knew nothing about and you’ve been there for me in dark moments, and I’m so so grateful. xoxo

@sapphic-spook Rose, you’re an amazing human. Idk if I could handle your aura irl, because just online you are such a ray of sunshine. You’re so nice and wise, your words can calm me down and make me feel better like no others can. Hell the apocalypse could me happening and you’d tell me to chill and I would :’) nah I think you’d know better than to tell me that x) but seriously, you’re amazing, and I just need to thank you for handling my panic attacks like the boss you are. I hope you’re happy, whenever I think of you I’m sending you tones of positive vibes because that’s what you deserve. xoxo

@addcolortomysky Em, it’s been a while since we’ve talked ! But that doesn’t mater, whenever I do an ask game I remember how much you love those and I tag you because making you happy makes me happy. Thank you for sharing my crazy interests, sharing them with you was hilarious ! I miss you, sorry for sucking at staying in contact :’) xoxo

@crazyreader1899 Hi Matata ! We’re mutuals and it’s been a freaking while since we’ve talked (I suck, I know). But nevertheless ! You know that meme where a guy is standing in an empty auditorium and waves and the text says something along the lines “me at that mutuals who likes all of my posts” well every time I see it on my dash, I think of you. Seeing you in my notifications always make me smile because you’ve kept up with my shit for so long now ?? You’re great, thank you, ily. xoxo

@izzyd03 Izzy !! You’re such a sweet human you know that ? I feel like I don’t do enough to let you know how much I appreciate you caring about me, like when you’d wish me good luck on my finals because you’d remember when they were ?? I’ve cherished those good lucks my dude, you’re such a good friend. Also your Instagram ? On point girl, you’re beautiful, you go. xoxo

@sugasugahanihani Bia ! Babe omg ;-; First of all, I want to apologize to you for being the worst™ and never keeping up with texting you I honestly don’t know what’s wrong with me but please never doubt how much I care about you because you are !! the best !! I’m so dumb Idk how to express this friendship, you just mean so much ? You are so freaking sweet and I can rant to you and I can talk to you and you’re always there like omg I do not deserve you girl, you’re such a blessing. xoxo

@mr-bushido Hi boo ! We’ve been mutuals for hum a freaking while ?? I wanted to take a minute to thank you because you’ve actually helped me discover a bunch of k-pop groups and songs ! You’re a sweet mutual and I enjoy your blog very much. I hope you’ll have an amazing year 2018 :) xoxo

@yoonminfaketexts Hii ! I absolutely love your blog omg :’) I feel dumb rn because we don’t know each other but ! We’re mutuals and I really appreciate what you post so thank you for making me smile you’re not unnoticed xoxo 

@moonlightkth Bel !! Can we take a second to bless your fake texts because 1. They’re amazing 2. Without them I wouldn’t have known you ;-; Sharing BTS and Got7 with you ? An accomplishment™. I consider you like a little sister and I hope you know you can always count on me. xoxo

@nooowestayandgetcaught Hi Rie ! First, it’s been a while since we’ve talked I’m such a mess, but I wanted you to remember how great I always thought your writing was, as an author you’ve been an inspiration and I’m so proud of you ! Plus, you’ve educated me on some stuff, always being respectful and kind. Thank you so much. xoxo

@clap-your-hands-yo Kensley ! My fave NCT blog ;) and one of my fave blogs actually ! You’re hum so freaking talented ?? Like honestly when God made you he dropped all the damn Talent™ bottle Istg :’) When I think about you, I know it’s stupid but the first word that comes to mind if “perfection”. I’m proud of you for your grades, for the work you’re putting in learning my language, for being so sweet, for being you. xoxo

@lovingyoongi Hopi !! Babe ! I’m so glad everything is going well for you in Korea, oh my god. We’ve always simply shared our love for BTS together, but I really care about you and man, your happiness is mine ok ? Have a blast in Seoul, you deserve it all. xoxo

@emmcfrxst Pasc :) Idk if I should talk to you in French or English ? That’s kinda awkward :’) OH WELL. You are such a sweet human omg, always taking the time to make people feel better, always being so considerate, always trying to fight against problematic stuff to create a safe space for your followers. You’re awesome ! xoxo

@mintysugasweet Rae ! You’re a new friend, but you’re a friend I’ve liked immediately. You are so so nice ! Texting you has made my days better, would it be by sharing my theories with your (amazing, incredible, awesome, breathtaking) au, simply talking about our mutual interests or learning more about your experiences in Korea. I don’t remember how I’ve discovered your blog but the least I can say is that I’m so thankful I did. xoxo

@exoverdosed Chelsea !!! My fave blog on this hellsite omg ;-; Idk what to say without getting emo just thank you for being so great ? Your blog lets me keep up with our Kings, and your tags make it the funniest thing ever. I can always count on you for moral support and to help my clueless ass about what’s going on in the k-pop world. Ily, ot9 rule and yass you’re cool keep up being you. xoxo

@sugahobiby Lune, it’s been a while since we remade, I remember our first interaction being me trying to send you positive vibes because you were stressing out about uni. Look at you now ! I hope you know you can count on me to help you in all the ways I humanly can, would it just be someone to talk to. Also I live for your snapchat stories lmao it’s a blessing :’) xoxo

@noona-clock Hi you two ! I wanted to thank you for all your great reactions and fics, I always enjoy reading them they’re soft and really great ! You seem so nice and I hope you both have an amazing year 2018 :) xoxo

@baekphia Sophia, I’ve been following you for a while and when we became mutuals I was SO freaking happy ! You’re nice, you’re so much fun and it reflects in your blog that I enjoy a LOT. Have an amazing year 2018 filled with your best friends (EXO), your mutuals and followers, your sister and Bakehyun with his possible new album !! xoxo

@minnie-rocker-xx Hi boo ! We haven’t spoken that much because idk if you’ve guessed but I’m a MESS at keeping up but you seem so nice already omg ! Why don’t you send me a message detailing all of your interests so we can talk about them ? I’d love to know you more :) xoxo

@softminmin Tila, mY GIRL. It all began when I was just a casual fan of your fake texts, and then you noticed me and I proudly became your cheerleader™ (I still am btw no one is taking that spot.) ! And now we’re friends and omg Ilysm. It’s like we don’t have to force any conversations we just naturally connect. I feel like a copycat lmao because your feelings and your thoughts are the same as mine ? It feels so great to be able to share with you, honestly everyone deserves someone like you babe. Good luck on your finals, I know you can do it ! xoxo 

IT TOOK ME A FREAKING WHILE, and I hope I didn’t forget anyone !! I love you so much, not just my mutuals but all my followers and all the ones that I follow ! THANK YOU ANON XOXO