#but we were so insanely and wildly mean to that side of tumblr for no reason

[menlove]

#im curious bc i was definitely always fandom but my gf for example was on what we would have called 'hipster' tumblr #though they really did not self identify w that which is why i used quotes bc ik if you were on that side you probably did not call it that #but i have no idea what yall called urselves bc i did not follow u #but we were so insanely and wildly mean to that side of tumblr for no reason #does anyone remember the gif of the london eye from the sherlock opening someone posted as an aesthetic gif #and everyone ripped this poor girl a new one #they did not deserve it lmao they were like 8th graders trying not to kill themselves why

[leviathan-supersystem]

I want to thank you for posting about how insane the effective altruism community is and how Thielian it is like 6 years ago (maybe even further back). I've been on tumblr only sparsely since then but when i heard about how the ftx billionaires were part of this thing i thought of your posts and how right they turned out to be. I bet a lot of people remember this. So much seems to have metastasized about the things you were warning about (what feels like) very early on. Thank you for braving some deeply annoying reactionary interlocutors back then and being a voice of reason

thank you, it means a lot that you say that, i do consider my investigation into lesswrong and related to be some of the best work i've ever done, and i do think that if i hadn't been there sounding the alarm on that, a lot more people on tumblr could have gotten roped into that whole scam. like i really can imagine that whole thing getting a lot uglier if i hadn't warned people.

and like when that whole saga first started, i had no idea things were going to get so wildly out of control, like the way that it all started was that me and my mutuals were getting harassed by a bunch of people with "rationalist" in their bio, and i was like "okay who the hell are these people and where are they coming from" and i honestly didn't expect there to be anything substantial. i thought the answer would just be "they came from reddit" and that's it. so i was completely blindsided when i started digging and found out all this absolutely buck-wild shit about AI cults and Thiel funding. needless to say i found a lot more dirt on them than i was anticipating.

i'm about to go into tinfoil hat territory for a minute here, but i surmise that there is a particular psy-op strategy that involves the creation of two ostensibly opposed ideological factions which in truth serve the same broader ideological goals, positioning the "conflict" between them in such a way that people are compelled to take sides, and then leading the people on either side of that "conflict" into basically the same ideological trap. so for example, in the 80's there were a bunch of televised debates between christian figures and the church of satan, and it was this whole big broader culture war thing, presented in such a way that people would be compelled to take one side or the other, but in the end both sides of that debate were pushing a right-wing ideology which was identical on the most important points (anti-egalitarian/anti-socialist/anti-democratic. i'll be getting more into detail on that in an answer to another ask, i'm cleaning out my inbox right now).

similarly, with the recent upsurge in christian populist conspiracy theorism on tumblr these days, i can't help but imagine how much worse the scenario would be if the lesswrongers had succeeded in really taking root on tumblr and harassing the communists off the site, as they were clearly trying to. like i can imagine instead of the debate on tumblr being between "bill gates is bad because he's an evil wizard trying to give us the mark of the beast" vs. "no, bill gates is bad because he exploits his workers, poisons the earth, and is hoarding land and resources, etc" we had a scenario where the lesswrongers had supplanted the communists and the debate was between "bill gates is bad because he's an evil wizard trying to give us the mark of the beast" vs. "no, bill gates is good :)." honestly too horrible to contemplate.

[pretty-chips]

Howdy. I’ve started writing a thing and I want to share the beginnings of it, because I absolutely am too excited to keep it to myself. Here’s a lil’ snippet of the beginning of Electric Love, my Rocket x Brita work. let me know if you enjoy! Thanks to @raccoonfallsharder and my angel babies in the discord server for unearthing my desire to write.

I’ve never uploaded writing to tumblr, especially on mobile, so apologies if the format is weird! The spacing between paragraphs was a lot and that bugged me lol.

“You’re freaking joking. You haven’t seen Footloose yet??” Peter’s voice is kind of shrill, and it makes Rocket’s ears pin back. “DUDE, I’ve talked about it like a million times! You guys kidnapped Kevin freakin’ Bacon for me!”

Two hours of Peter Quill being back on Knowhere, and he’d already brought up stupid flarking Kevin Bacon twice. Sheesh. Rocket shrugs defensively, lifting his hands and gesturing wildly as they walk. “Dude, I don’t know! The only place I ever get earth movies is here in Knowhere and I’m, like…busy, I dunno.”

Peter stops in his tracks, his face screwed up in confusion and surprise. “Wait, there’s a place with earth movies here?”

“Yeah.” Rocket’s arms fold as he regards Quill with a raised eyebrow. “You didn’t know?”

Peter looks absolutely appalled. Offended, even. “NO, I did not know. What the heck, man! I thought you guys were just…getting them somehow with the satellite or something.” Peter holds his hand up to his eyes and scans around, a bit dramatically, and Rocket roll his eyes. “Where the crap is this store? We’re going. Right now.”

With an amused huff, Rocket starts walking and gestures over his shoulder for Quill to follow. “C’mon Pete. Let’s get your stupid movie.”

He catches Peter smiling. Good. That means he heard the ‘I missed you’ buried in those words.

~

“I think I’m going to go insane.”

Brita’s elbows slide across the counter as she holds her chin in her hands. “We’ve heard this song five times. Why can’t we play a radio station or something? We’ve got the satellites for it.” She glances out the big window by the front doors, her eyes flicking wistfully back and forth between every person walking past. They probably had more exciting lives than this.

Her coworker, currently alphabetizing a row of media disks, shrugs impatiently. She doesn’t even give Brita a side glance or anything.

Brita huffs and shuffles her feet back to lean down onto the counter even more, bent at quite the impressive 90 degree angle.

This coworker girl had proven to be quite a stick-in-the-mud, which made for a pretty lame conversation partner. And as awful as it made her feel, Brita still couldn’t remember her name. Calling her Krylorian Coworker has worked just fine in Brita’s brain, but that probably isn’t going to last very long without accidentally slipping out one day. Oh, well. Maybe soon she’ll pull a good old, ‘So how do you spell your name anyway?’

Brita had pretty much used every ice breaker she could think of today, which had very visibly worn Krylorian Coworker’s patience pretty thin. She had only really responded to like, three of them. Brita sighs, her gaze out the window again.

It wasn’t her fault that today had been so slow and sludgy. Like tromping through the sloppiest terrain of the swampiest planet. The ground would probably suck at her boots, making her legs magnet to the mushy ground and her whole body burn with exertion. It would probably be hot, too, the combination of muggy air and sweat plastering hair to her forehead. She’d push it out of her eyes, blinking away the blur, and she’d see a figure come into focus. A familiar figure also trekking through the muck in front of her, strong and stout legs visibly strained with effort. He’d be holding a big gun, of course, probably one with little red blinking lights that flash through the murky air. Air you could feel as you inhaled, such thick and humid air in this swampy environment. He’d turn his head back to look at her, pretty auburn eyes alight with mirth. That fluffy ringed tail would swish behind him, an ear flicking as he opens his mouth to say something clever…

“You’re daydreaming, Brita.”

Krylorian Coworker stares, a hand on one hip and her eyebrow raised. “I can literally see you disappearing.”

Brita blinks hard, the yellow lighting of the media store melting away the trees and mud from her imagination. She lets out a breath as she comes back to reality, straightening up and stretching her arms above her head. “And that’s why I wanted some new music. I’m getting bored out of this dimension.”

Coworker shakes her head, huffing in amusement as she goes back to her alphabetizing.

Brita gives her own huff, and walks around the counter. It’d be better to actually do something with herself. Maybe she should alphabetize like Boring Coworker.

She makes her way down a couple aisles of holo-vid disks, glancing at the labels. She smiles, her heart doing that skipping thing it always does when she thinks about her favorite things. She’d apparently subconsciously wandered to her favorite section, the Terran holo-vids. Movies, she knows they’re called, but that’s not universal enough according to boss man who was in charge of this d’ast store. And the tech is different, anyway, he’d said. Whatever, Brita knew better than that old fart.

Her fingers run along the labels, stopping to reminisce at a few favorites. One day she was going to consume every single piece of Terran media in the store, and even further one day, the whole Terran planet. Every movie, every song, every book…everything.

Ring-ding-ling.

The little bell on the door announces, after at least an hour of nothing, a living being. Brita leans back, angling her head to look at the front doors. A guy with somewhat curly hair and a red leather jacket is stepping through, looking…amazed, actually. As he makes his way towards the aisle she’s standing in, Brita studies him further and is pretty sure she recognizes the things on his t-shirt. Her eyes widen.

An earth dude!

Before she can even process her body moving, she’s in front of him, all smiles. “Hi, how are ya?”

The guy blinks at her, seemingly coming out of some kind of trance, and his face lights up. “How long has this place been here? I’ve never noticed a…what, record store-slash-bookstore-slash-Blockbuster?”

Brita figures that’s an earth thing, and her heart flutters in excitement.

“Yeah, maybe a few months? Short enough lots of people haven’t been in yet, long enough it feels like ages if you’re working here.” She grins, leaning against the shelf next to her casually.

The comment lands, and the guy laughs. “I get that. But, I feel like this is probably the coolest place to work in all of…anywhere. You’ve got something from every planet I know the name of in here, just from what I can tell right away. That’s freakin’…epic.”

His enthusiasm is intoxicating. Brita beams at him, anxious to make this interaction last as long as possible. “Oh, dude, believe me, it is epic. Working here has permanently changed my life. I get to hear earth music and talk about movies…that’s a dream.”

He lights up even more, which Brita didn’t even think was possible, and his big open-mouthed smile says, “You like earth movies?”

She feels a beautiful conversation brewing, the feeling punctuated with Coworker’s exasperated sigh from across the counter, and Brita nods with a grin.

“Hell yeah I like earth movies.”

She’s not even sure how many minutes pass, she’s so enveloped in her favorite conversation she’s ever had. They gush over their favorites, which somehow don’t overlap at all even though they’re both familiar with everything brought up. The difference in taste is almost comical to her. She feels like she could be here for days, the world could pass away and she’d be completely content just standing here, talking to this man in a red jacket. Brita doesn’t even process her surroundings until she hears someone clearing their throat behind her.

Snapped back to earth, she realizes Coworker is raising a brow. Right. Work. Job.

“Sorry,” she laughs lightly and folds her arms as she leans against the shelf again, “you were looking for which one?”

“Oh, yeah. Footloose, can you believe Drax and Rocket both haven’t seen it yet, even though it’s the greatest movie of all time…”

Every muscle in her body stiffens. Her folded arms tighten against her chest and she feels her fingers dig into her arms. He’s still talking, she can tell with his mouth still moving, but nothing he says is reaching her ears anymore.

Rocket. Rocket. All she can see now are those bourbon eyes. A voice rings back into her processing, but not the voice of the dude, it’s deep and rumbles through her core. This guy, this Terran guy, was friends with Rocket. An earth dude that’s friends with Rocket AND Drax, how did he get so lucky…

Suddenly, it clicks.

“Wait, wait, stop.” She knows she’s interrupting, and she doesn’t care. “You’re freaking Peter Quill.”

He mouth quirks into a bit of a confused grin, one eyebrow inching up. “Uh, yeah I am.”

She blinks at him. She knows she looks stupid. “Sorry, I didn’t, uh, I didn’t... Not to be, like, weird, y’know. I just. That’s so cool. I’ve always wanted to actually talk to the guardians, they seem like, such…incredible friends. I hear about you all the time.”

His smile is sly, but there’s a heartwarming expression in his eyes. “They talk about me, huh?” He nods and glances over behind her shoulder. “…They are the best friends I’ve ever had.”

Before she can respond, another voice materializes behind her. One she’s only heard once, months and months ago in real life, but countless times in her imagination. Gravelly yet liquid gold at the same time.

“Pete, holy crap, d’you get lost or what?”

Peter Quill smirks and lifts a hand in mild defense. “Just talkin’ to…” he glances at her name badge, “Brita here about stupid earth movies, man.”

Brita is frozen in place. She desperately begs her brain to send any kind of signal to her body, to make it move, but it’s complete radio silence up there.

The presence behind her moves past, then stands next to Peter Quill. That tail swishes casually and those ears flick, just like in her dreams.

Peter is saying something. She tries to tune in. “Brita, this is my buddy Rocket.”

The furry face tilts his chin up in a nod. The auburn eyes flit up and down her body, studying her.

“How ya doin’?” Says Rocket Raccoon, who is standing directly in front of her on purpose for the first time ever.

Brita can feel how huge her eyes are, the skin above her cheeks and under her eyebrows feels strained. She probably looks ridiculous. Why can’t she say anything? She glances at Coworker for a lifeline. A clue of what she should even do right now.

Krylorian Coworker’s eyes widen, and for the first time since Brita can remember, she looks genuinely interested in what’s happening in front of her. Coworker has been told possibly way too much about the hearty interest in this particular guardian of the galaxy. The subject of all of the daydreams Brita keeps getting caught in. The one that brought her here, to Knowhere, even though he definitely had no idea that was the case.

Brita can feel her mouth opening and closing, and she just knows she looks like a stupid fish. She smashes her mouth shut and conjures up a smile that is probably a little too big. She forces a word out of her mouth.

“Hi!”

#rocket x oc #rocket gotg #gotg oc #rocket raccoon #rocket x reader #brita x rocket

[kiefbowl]

I think it's important to acknowledge that access to wealth can provide an avenue to securing an abortion other women might not have access to, sure. Yes, maybe a wealthy woman or two were able to get on a plane and fly to an unrestricted country and pay out of pocket for an abortion once or twice or idk even five times. If that's happened, I'm glad they were able to do that. There are probably other ways wealth might give you an avenue that poverty blocks. However, no amount of wealth protects you from your husband's violence. It's also an insane hoop to jump to access abortion, the hypothetical plane ticket. A handful of extremely wealthy and fortunate women were maybe able to manufacture a way to secure an abortion, that doesn't mean I want poor women to have access to the same hoop to jump, access to the same hypothetical plane ticket...it means I want all women to be able to walk down the street to get an abortion uninhibited. And what of the hypothetical unrestricted country, what if those start to disappear? What is the percentage of women in the world that are part of the upper echelon that can afford space ships to planet abortion, exactly? And then once we have the number, what do we do with it? Do we execute those women or like...what.

I think the ongoing public internet discussions about abortion access wrt to wealth and to race is clumsy at best on all sides, but there is something insidious about mouthy men going on twitter and shaking their little finger going "ut uh uh, don't forget to center this conversation about how we just fucking hate some women." What is that contributing? Where is that leading us? "Let's acknowledge how privilege provides access to abortion" okay what's the next steps after that? It just seems to be a means to applaud your own "political prowess" w/o providing any meaningful discourse, and a way to veil how much you don't fucking care about women and don't give a shit about abortion except with how far it can make you appear progressive, appear feminist, appear leftist, or whatever the fuck. How many articles, twitter threads, tumblr posts, memes, reddit discussions are going to circulate that regurgitate the same condescending, posturing, escalating political language that is just meant to gesture wildly at some socio-economic concepts most people have been absorbing only through osmosis in their poorly constructed and cultivated online social media presence before people get bored and we can start discussing abortion as a de facto right that's being violated? I would love to hear well constructed arguments about wealth and race and women and abortion, but that's not coming from joe shmoe asshole extraordinaire who's never held a broom in his life and who's only political contribution in the world is sometimes remembering to register to vote and his twitter that he uses to shit endlessly on women secondary only to finding porn to like. Women have got to stop thinking these are the guys who we have to measure up to politically, because he would gladly abandon his principles to take a check, a wife, and an excuse to never use a condom again. so what exactly do we gain for aligning ourselves to some conversation about how wealthy women have wealth and white women have white privilege when everyone in that arena is really just doing it to jack themselves off?

I would rather be locked in a room with the most horrible, woman hating, conservative, pro-life, unethically wealthy woman for 800 years to only discuss abortion than spend one iota of a brain cell registering another hot wet fart of a take about wealthy women from any man, and from women who can't be bothered to log-off. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hellish, I'm just saying I would rather do an 800 year nightmare than listen to one more "actually" who's only point is to derail a conversation about abortion than contribute to it. AGAIN - you point out wealthy women could have access to abortion, and the follow through is what? How does that help poor women? We're not writing a term paper, we're discussion laws that are deteriorating PRESENTLY. Currently. Materially. Right the fuck now, in the real world.

It just proves that people are extremely uncomfortable with abortion and even more uncomfortable putting any responsibility on men. Let us not forget that the cause of an abortion is some man's ejaculate. Ejaculation causes abortion, ejaculation causes unwanted children. Women could be at peace about abortion forever if men decided to never ever ejaculate inside women ever again. So let's start the conversation there, actually. We can get to hypothetical wealthy women buying hypothetical plane tickets later, let's talk about men and their non-hypothetical ejaculate first.

[beatriceeagle]

I'm more of a fantasy than sci-fi person, but consider my interest piqued. Why should I watch farscape?

Okay, the thing is, every Farscape fan’s pitch on Why You, Yes You, Should Watch Farscape ends up sounding very similar, and that’s because Farscape is a black hole that sucks you in and does things to your brain, and after you’ve watched it you are never, ever the same, which incidentally is basically the plot of Farscape.

I would summarize the basic plot for you, but that’s work, and luckily, the show’s credits sequence includes a handy summary that I will provide instead of doing that work: “My name is John Crichton, an astronaut. A radiation wave hit, and I got shot through a wormhole. Now I’m lost in some distant part of the universe on a ship, a living ship, full of strange alien life forms. Help me. Listen, please. Is there anybody out there who can hear me? I’m being hunted by an insane military commander. Doing everything I can. I’m just looking for a way home.“

So let me break down that monologue into its component reasons you should watch Farscape.

1) Some of the strange alien life forms are Muppets.

Farscape a co-production with the Jim Henson Company, and while there are many aliens played by humans in make-up, there are also a considerable number (including two of the regular crew) who are Muppets. By which I do not mean Kermit. I mean really gorgeous, elaborate works of art.

Also, even a lot of the humans-in-makeup aliens just look cool, and incredibly weird. Here’s an alien who appears in a single episode of season 1:

Not that there aren’t, you know, occasional Star Trek-style “these guys are just humans with weird hair,” or whatever, but in general, the aliens on Farscape look really alien. And that’s more than an aesthetic choice; it’s Farscape’s driving narrative principle. The aliens look alien, they act alien, they have alien values.

You know how a lot of sci-fi shows will have a stand-in for “fuck,” like Battlestar Galactica has “frak”? Well, Farscape has “frell.” And also “dren.” And yotz, hezmana, mivonks, loomas, tralk, snurch, eema, drannit, dench, biznak, arn, drad, fahrbot, narl. Some of those are swear words, but some of them are just words, never explicitly translated, that the alien characters will pepper into their speech, because, well, why should translator microbes be able to completely translate all the nuances of an alien culture? You’ll pick it up from context. One time, in passing, a character mentions that he’s familiar with the concept of suicide, but there’s no word for it in his language. I cannot emphasize to you enough how fleeting this moment is; the episode is not about suicide, we’re not having a great exchange of cultural ideas—at the time, the characters are running down a corridor in a crisis, as they are about 70 percent of the time—it’s just that the subject got brought up, and this character needed to talk around the fact that he literally didn’t have a word, in that moment. Things like that happen all the time, on Farscape.

Because more than anything else, Farscape is a show about culture shock. John Crichton is this straight, white Southern guy, at the top of his game—he’s an astronaut! he’s incredibly high status!—and then he ends up on the other side of the galaxy, where none of his cultural markers of privilege hold any meaning, where he doesn’t know the rules, where he literally can’t even open the doors. And he has to unlearn the idea that humanity is central, that he is the norm.

2) John Crichton, an astronaut, is pretty great.

A show that’s about a straight white guy with high status having to learn that he’s not the center of the universe could easily be centered around a really insufferable person, but one of the subtle things that makes Farscape so wonderful is that Crichton is, for the most part, pretty excellent. He has a lot of presumptions to unlearn because almost anyone in his cultural position would, but he’s also just a stand-up guy: compassionate, intelligent, open-minded, decent, forgiving, brave, hopeful.

And the galaxy tries to kick a whole lot of that out of him. It doesn’t succeed, mostly, but if Farscape is about anything other than culture shock, it’s about the lasting effects of trauma. How you can go through a wormhole one person, and experience things that turn you into someone you don’t recognize.

That’s kind of grim-sounding, but ultimately, what I’m trying to say is that Farscape is almost fanatically devoted to character work. Crichton is not the only character who sounds like he should be one thing and ends up being another. All of the characters—all of them, all of them, even the annoying ones—are complicated wonders. And you don’t have to wonder whether the events of the episode you’re watching are going to matter. They will. Everything that happens to the characters leaves a mark. Everything leaves them forever changed. Whether it’s mentioned explicitly or not—and often enough, it’s not explicit—the characters remember what has happened to them.

3) The living ship houses a lot of excellent women, among them the ship itself.

Ah, the women of Farscape, thou art the loves of my fucking life.

There’s Aeryn Sun, former Peacekeeper (that’s the military that the “insane military commander” hails from) now fugitive, currently learning the meaning of the word “compassion” (literally). She will break your fingers and also your heart. John/Aeryn is the main canon romantic ship.

There’s Pa’u Zhoto Zhaan, a priestess of the ninth level, current pacifist, former anarchist. Sorry, leading anarchist. She orgasms in bright light! (Oh my god, Farscape.)

There’s Chiana, my fucking bestie, a teenage(ish? ages in Farscape are weird) fugitive on the run from a repressive authoritarian state. Chiana is like a seductress con artist grifter thief who mostly just wants to survive so that she can have fun, damn it. Characters on Farscape do not really discuss sexualities (sex, yes, sexualities, no) and it would be fair to say that several of them do not fall along human sexuality lines generally, but I’m gonna go ahead and say that Chiana is canonically not straight.

Then there’s Moya, the ship herself, and it’s hard to get a straight read on Moya’s personality, since she mostly can’t speak. But she definitely has opinions, and things and people she cares about. And she moves the plot, though that gets into spoiler territory.

Past first season, further excellent women show up: Jool (controversial, but I like her), Sikozu (I once saw a Tumblr meme where someone had marked down that Sikozu would lose her shit when someone pronounced “gif” wrong, and that’s absolutely correct, and it’s why I love her), and Noranti (who is incredibly weird, and incredibly hard to summarize, but man, you gotta love her willingness to just show up and do her thing). Plus, there’s a recurring female villain, Grayza, who I could write probably multiple essays about. (I don’t know how you will feel about Grayza, as not everyone loves her, but I think she’s fucking fascinating, especially because she’s not actually the only recurring female villain. We also get Ahkna!)

(Side note: I should mention, here, that the cast of Farscape is really, really white. There is one cast member of color, Lani Tupu, but he pretty much represents the entirety of even, like, incidental diversity in casting for the series.)

Anyway, Farscape is full of awesome women, and also awesome and unexpected men, and it really enjoys playing with audience expectations of gender roles, generally. Literal entire books have been written about the way that Farscape fucks around with sex, sexuality, and gender. It’s a little weird because it was the late 90s/early 2000s, and sometimes that does come through, but Farscape’s guiding principle was always to try not to present American culture of the time as the norm, so like. It is not.

(An aside on Farscape and sex: Literally every character on Farscape has sexual tension with every other character. If you are a shipper, this is a Good Show, because no matter who you ship, there will not only be subtext, you will get a Moment of some kind. Multiple characters kiss the Muppet. Farscape is dedicated to getting into the nitty-gritty of the galaxy—I like to think of it as showing the guts of the universe—so a lot of the show is kind of squishy. They live on a biomechanoid ship, instead of androids there are “bioloids,” there’s a lot of focus on strange alien biologies, and lots of weird glowing fluids and things. I think the sex thing is kind of part and parcel of the larger biology focus: Farscape is really fascinated with how we all eat and evolve and live and die and, well, fuck. Which is in turn, kind of part of its focus on making everything really alien.)

4) Other stuff you should know.

Farscape as a whole is excellent, but it was kind of the product of creative anarchy—an Australian/American coproduction (oh yeah, everyone except Crichton speaks with an Australian accent) that was also partnered with the Henson company, whose showrunners were based in America but whose actual production all took place in Australia, and who was just constantly trying new things. So individual episodes can vary wildly in quality. It really takes off in the back half of season one, but no season is without a few off episodes.

It is extraordinarily funny, and I really think I haven’t stressed that enough. It’s one of the shows I want to quote the most in my daily life, but almost all of its humor is really context-dependent, and if you just wander around going, “Hey Stark? What’s black and white, and black and white, and black and white?” people look at you really funny.

It’s very conversant with pop culture generally (although obviously sci-fi  specifically, and Star Trek most specifically of all) and really enjoys deconstructing tropes, often to the effect of, “Well, Crichton really does not know what to do here, does he?” but sometimes just to be interesting.

There are also a lot of themes about science, and its uses and misuses.

The whole thing is fucking epic, and if you get invested at all, will take you on an emotional ride.

This show is weird. I know that that’s probably come across by now, but I think it’s worth reiterating as its own point: Farscape is so weird. Like, proudly, unabashedly, trying its hardest, weird. An amazing kind of weird.

If you’re into fantasy, you should know that there’s a recurring villain who’s just a wizard. Like, they don’t bother to explain it any more than that, he’s just a fucking wizard.

In summary: You should watch Farscape because it is a weird, wild, emotional, epic romance/drama/action/allegory full of Muppets and leather and one-liners and emotional gut punches and love, and if you let it, it will worm its way into you and never let go, which, now that I think of it, is another Farscape plot.

Send me meta prompts to distract me from my migraine!

#farscape #meta

[thewritepages]

The Diary of the Older Collegiate (#TheFreshman Series) (1)

Synopsis : Annabelle Green is somewhat in a situation no thirty year woman would want to find herself in : (Un) Happily divorced, childless and with a job worth peanuts and migraine. The downward spiral of her life doesn't seem to end anytime soon until her sister reminds her of her most cherished dream.

College.

part 1 | part 2 | part 3

MAY 3, 2019

3.30 A.M.

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

I hate myself.

No, really. I may have called it once or twice in the past due to mild anger or frustration, but this.

This is real.

I mean, I may be the only person who would:

A) Cry over a failed marriage during an interview

B) Scratch that, cry over a failed marriage in midst of the most IMPORTANT interview in my entire career!

C) Go straight to the pub later to drown my sorrows when I know perfectly well what would happen if I do get drunk.

D) Do what would be obvious to a broken-hearted, career destroyed, thirty year old drunk woman: Leave a string of carefully selected profanities on the voice mail of my beloved ex-husband.

E) Waking up several hours later on the side of god-knows-what street staring in horror at the drunken messages I've sent to everyone in my cell's contact list- which would also include my parents.

And to think of it, I managed it all in little less than 12 hours last night.

I think I'll just dig a burrow in my apartment and never come out of it. Wait a minute...

That's it! I'm never leaving my apartment again. It'll be perfect- I'll take up one of those work-at-home jobs they always advertise on the internet, eat ramen noodles for sustenance and stay protected from the world outside throughout my life.

In fact, I'll tip off my doorman to tell my family that I've left to pursue my inner self and I may never come back again. As many years pass by, my family would mourn over my presumed death while I get a plastic surgery done and change my name to something untraceable like Ronal Wallis.

Oh, jolly good! A brilliant idea. Why didn't I ever think of this before?

MAY 3, 2019.

13.30 P.M.

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

Err; maybe the whole change-my-identity-and-live-happily plan didn't exactly work.

Don't get me wrong, it didn't totally blow up or anything. My doorman, Steve did his job perfectly, informing my sister that I have indeed joined Deepak Chopra on a journey to find myself in a tiny village in the Himalayan Valleys. He narrated the story in such a sober tone that even I found myself believing him for a moment.

But Steve and I didn't realize that in order to leave the country, I would actually need my passport- The passport which is still in my ex-husband's apartment along with the rest of the stuff I was going to pick up this week.

Unfortunately, my sister was very much aware of this piece of information.

"Anna, it's been two months. You've got to get your shit together. You cannot stay dep-" I gave my sister a warning glance.

Not the D-word. Definitely not the D-word.

"I'm completely fine."I mumbled, looking down at the dregs of my empty coffee mug.

"No, you're not completely fine Annabelle Green. You've stopped calling, stop visiting all of us. Hell, nowadays you don't even get your ass out of the bed. Now, I know what Luc-"she stopped short, taking in my pained expression.

Another word I do not want to hear – Luc- Lucas.

Lucas .Lucas. Lucas.

"I'm sorry," Kat, my sister, bowed her head down low. "I shouldn't have brought him up."

"Yeah, you shouldn't have." My eyes closed from exhaustion. "Kat, why are you here?"

"Well, last night you-"

"I KNOW. It was a mistake. And I think I sent an explanatory text earlier this morning."

"That won't stop me from checking up on you, Anna. I'm bloody worried about you."

My eyes descend down to her enormous belly. She shouldn't worry about me right now- I'm not the one who is due for two bouncing baby boys in less than two months.

Did I just say bouncing? Oh, Lord.

"How're the boys kickin'?" I pat her belly gently, forcing myself to smile.

Her face instantly relaxes. "Oh, they're kickin', all right," she smiles at me, "Didn't give me a wink of sleep last week."

Well, that makes the two of us.

"I can't wait for little John and Paul to meet their ol' Aunt Anna." At least this was true. The arrival of my twin nephews is the only thing keeping me up for the past couple of months.

"Anna, we have talked about this. I'm not naming the kids after The Beatles."

"Why not? I recommend you have another set of twin boys so we'll have the entire boy band in our family."

"And have four crazy boys running around the household? No thanks. Phil and I would probably die of insanity."

Sigh. Phil and Kat. Their story is the closest you'd ever get to a fairytale- childhood sweethearts; they were two young teenagers wildly in love but were painfully separated to colleges at the opposite ends of the country. When it looked like it was truly over between them, they reconciled during the summer after college. It was literally The Notebook all over again, leaving out all the letter writing and the crazy house building. I don't think Phil is capable of fixing a broken lock, let alone build an entire house.

Suddenly, I felt someone holding my hand tightly. I look up to see Kat's eyes filled with tears. "Annie, come home. Mum and Dad miss you. I miss you. We want to stay with you in these difficult times. A few days away from Seattle will do you good. "She gets up. "Mum, Dad and Phil are waiting for us in the car downstairs. I'll help you pack up."

My heart softens, but I raise my eyebrows in sarcasm. "So, they sent you to emotionally blackmail me, right? Well, it's working, Mommy –in-waiting."

She tweaks my nose playfully. "It always does, baby sis."

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

A/N :

Hi there, thank you for taking the time to read my new diary styled new ChickLit series:

"The Diaries of an Older Collegiate"(#TheFreshman).

If this chapter ignited an interest for this series, please let me by reblogging or sending me a message. I'm very new to Tumblr writing so it'll really help me calm my nerves :")

Lastly, I'm tagging a few lovely authors here whose works I've been binge reading and they've really inspired me to put out my work out here. Authors, if you like this chapter, I'd be very grateful if you could share it among your network and let me know :)))))

@go1denjeon, @ladyartemesia,@noteguk,@junghelioseok

#ihopethisgoesok #chicklit #teenagers #young adult #writers on tumblr #womenwritingfiction #fiction #funnyshit #college life #university #holy heck

[mannatea]

Hi. I used to follow your old blog on a different account. Hope you're doing well. Do you have any tips on thinking up stories that are *not* dark and depressing due to subject material? The last story I was working on I had to quit because the backstory I was developing for my passive male character was super depressing. At times I enjoyed researching it, though what won out was the thought I was wasting my time looking into angsty things for something I wasn't even planning to publish. Now I want to write something a little happier. But I have the most experience in writing angst and cringe comedy 😅 thanks for any help you can give. Stay safe out there!

By the way, good on you for dropping that manga you used to follow. I was happy most of the characters lived, but other than that, it felt "meh" to me (granted, I didn't read all the way from the beginning). The author was probably going for a "people will always be fighting each other" theme, but some of the imagery of what happened after a time skip could definitely be taken as pro-fascist. And I was disappointed the protagonist basically said he wanted to bring about destruction! I'm glad I didn't spend any money to read it.

Wow, hi! I’m doing all right, thanks for asking. I hope you’re doing all right, too. :)

As far as “that manga” goes, I’ve kept tabs on it. I’ve been on the fringes for the last two-ish years; I dedicated something like four real life years to that fandom and mostly had a good time while I was there (made some friends I hope to keep for life), so it was one of those situations where I just had to find out how it ended. I realized at some point that I was in a very negative space in the fandom, and felt it was better to publicly drop the series and the blog associated with all of my meta/discussion than to play in what had become a toxic pool for me. I didn’t really want to drop the account after my time there, but I couldn’t have dealt with the nonstop questions/messages/etc that would have piled in over the years, and eh, when you’re done you’re done. I criticize Hallmark television for fun, now, instead. It’s a lot less stressful! And literally nothing is That Deep so there’s very few delusions, at least on the Tumblr side of things. (Reddit, however, is insane, but I don’t post in the fandom there.)

As far as writing advice goes, I am going to apologize in advance for muddled thoughts. I just got out of work and have been staring at numbers all day, so it’s hard for me to think lmaoo.

In my opinion, any sort of character or personality type/flaw/whatever could have developed via a negative OR positive influence/catalyst, so that’s something to consider. I also think people tend to reach for “sad” or “traumatic” pasts either as a way to cope with their own issues/pasts/whatevers, or because it’s the “easy explanation” for why a character is the way they are.

If you WANT to write things a certain way, it’s sometimes a matter of changing the lens through which you’re viewing life, the story, the characters, or character writing in general. This is never easy, especially when you find a genre you feel comfortable in, but it’s always possible. When I was in college and submitted an autobiographical piece (Rot Tooth) for a creative writing final, I received multiple comments from classmates and even the professor that my talent/skill was in writing comedy. COMEDY!!!! I don’t think anyone who has read my writing from the last decade would say that I was a comedy writer. I stopped labeling ‘fics as humor/romance so long ago I can’t even remember when it was. But boom. I had written a comedy piece.

I don’t think I can ignore that most of the comedic elements in Rot Tooth were brought about because humor is one of the ways in which I cope with things, but it was also a very conscious choice I made. I wanted people to be able to engage with the story without being grossed out, without getting bored, without feeling that it was a poor-pathetic-me story, and humor was the classiest way to do it. Here, read this long story that includes journal entries from Ye Olde Livejournal days, but it will make you laugh often enough that the depressing aspects of the story don’t weigh it down too much! It was probably the only way to make the subject matter widely palatable. 

As often as I joke about characters or scenes or moments that “just write themselves” the author does have control. I mostly write fanfiction, so let’s go with examples from that.

I’m (very slowly) working on a ‘fic called Three Years which features a character who, when last seen, was headed off to serve a prison sentence. They haven’t been on the show for three years and thus I assume they have been serving that sentence for the last three years. The story starts when this character is released from prison. They are a woman. This is a historical piece of fiction. Prisons were vile to women and yet...this is fiction. I have a choice. I get to choose. Does she get to start her life off carrying 25 bags of trauma or just 2? It would be unreasonable to expect that someone, especially a woman, who was imprisoned for 3 years in the early 1900s wouldn’t have some issues (at the very least, the isolation would have been awful), but it doesn’t really have to be much worse than that. It doesn’t.

I have the power to choose.

A character has anger issues. Sure, he could have had a traumatic past with an abusive parent who took his anger out on him or his mom or whatever...or maybe it is an inherited personality trait and the parent figure with the problem was never really That Bad about it, but seeing it normalized makes it harder for the character in question to realize it’s a huge problem and part of their character arc is realizing they need to get help, not because they don’t want to be like their dad, and not because they hate their dad, but because they just want to be a better person/they don’t want to let that struggle consume them.

Someone’s sweetheart goes off to war. Guess what? They don’t have to die there to force a traumatic past. They don’t have to come back a raging alcoholic either. Maybe the time apart, and the time fighting a war just puts a natural sort of crack in the relationship by making it clearer to each character what they want in life/what matters to them in their life.

A character is super passionate about their work/hobby. Maybe they have ADHD and it’s a hyperfixation. Maybe they’re autistic and it’s a Special Interest. It doesn’t have to be “their parents ignored them and forced them to be alone all the time and they used this thing to cope so it means everything to them because it’s always been there.”

Maybe you have a character whose greatest fear is losing the people they love. It doesn’t have to be because a pet died in their arms when they were four and it traumatized them. It doesn’t have to be because they only have one person they love in the whole world. It can just be a thing because that’s a valid fear literally anyone can reasonably have, and maybe it’s a bigger deal because they don’t have siblings or aren’t close to many people! (And the “aren’t close to many people” thing doesn’t have to stem from trauma, either. Most busy adults for example who get to choose their friends, are just like that.)

A perfectionist might just have the personality type; it doesn’t mean their parents criticized everything they ever did. A person with three failed marriages might hesitate to fall in love and try again but it doesn’t have to be because those three failed marriages were abusive. A quiet character may just be shy or introverted by nature. 

I think everyone carries some kind of trauma with them, so it’s never unreasonable to have some in a person’s past (you can’t write an ugly character without having to think about the fact that they carry some trauma from what it’s like to grow up ugly), but it doesn’t have to define them. It doesn’t have to overshadow everything else in their past.

You can always ask yourself, “Why am I reaching for angst every time I create a backstory?” Literally everyone has some kind of angst. Most kids were hurt by things said to them in school, for example, or made fun of for some reason. Most people did something extremely embarrassing as a kid and never got over it. There are a thousand little moments in our adult lives that go back to these little points—you might call them the tiny traumas. But they’re not defining. They’re not so heavy they also live in the present. Not all of them.

Why do you reach for the darkest corner? Why not for the light? Or a middle ground?

I encourage people to write basically whatever floats their boat, but it sounds like you’re at a point where you just feel weighed down by that sort of stuff, and that’s not a great way to feel, especially when it discourages you from working on a project entirely.

My final suggestion: look at some of your favorite characters from various types of media. Are they all traumatized? What are their defining characteristics? Black Beauty has some depressing stuff in it, but is ultimately a story with a happy ending. Pride and Prejudice has drama, but nobody’s past is filled with the darkest stuff imaginable. North and South has awful things to consider in it (cotton mills were sooo awful) but the characters are not wildly traumatized people.

What kind of story are you trying to tell? Do the characters need to be traumatized to tell it? Does the story have to be dark to get across the message you want to send? 

Way back in the day, when I was into “that manga” I made an RP blog for a one-off character that nobody gave a damn about. Like, he was so one-off that even back in those days nobody even remembered him having existed. It was sort of a joke RP blog that wasn’t supposed to be serious. The only canon information we had about this character was that he enjoyed drinking. I decided to make him a lighthearted character because the series was pretty dark and I wanted to send people hilarious starters instead of wading through the muck of depression with everyone else’s sad, abused characters. I decided his family was old money and he had a brother. Nothing super traumatizing in his past. Some family issues but not the sort of thing that would haunt anyone. He was not traumatized in his recent past any more than other characters were. Mostly just “a regular guy.” I really loved RPing him. He was fun! The story could get heavy but he didn’t have to be.

Anyway, dive head-first into the dark angst if you want, but if it’s not necessary to tell the story you want to tell, just remember you don’t have to go there. You have the choice.

#long post #thoughts about writing #nacrene-archaeologist #answered mail

[katieamazeballs]

DWTS Live Tour Recap 2020

Whew....this day has been a doozy between lack of sleep and a weird ass day at work.  This years tour was a vastly different experience than in the past because Mother Nature is a raging beeotch.... but it was still so amazing!  Details below the break to save y’alls timelines some grief. 

We started off our day at work and school.  I had known, and bitched extensively, about the 100% rain outlook but it was pretty sunny all day.  I picked Abs up at early release and I swear to you...the second the car door shut, the sprinkles started.  Because of course it did.  We got ready and went for some lunner only to be caught in INSANE traffic.  Fun fact, Floridians can’t drive in the rain and there was a fatal accident on a major bridge that shut it down and made traffic a nightmare.  No biggie though, because it was nasty out and we knew they weren’t just going to be wandering downtown so we were in no rush.  We got downtown about 4 and we started wandering. 

(Gratuitous bus pic)

We stopped and chatted with the nicest security lady who, bless her heart, was sitting there between the buses huddled under a golf umbrella.  She said she hadn’t seen anyone in quite a while (probably because they were inside teaching the show to Keo) but that if we had been there at 7am they were all outside chillin and going to work out and such.  We did a lap then stood under the awning at the front of the arena for a bit. 

(Why is she so weird?)

During our laps we saw Keo (who was limping something fierce...like I wasn’t sure he was going to make it up the steps to the arena limp...looked like he pulled a hammy) but due to the sprinkling and the running buses he either didn’t hear us or pretended to not hear us.  We also saw Val, possibly Jenna (hood was pulled over her to her eyes), Daniella, and Wit.  Everyone but Wit was doing the mad dash into the arena from the buses.  Wit was in full hair and makeup and talked to Abs for a second as she was entering her bus...Abs didn’t ask for a picture because Wit clearly wanted to get into the dry and not mess herself up.  We did a couple more laps then standing under the awning loops then met up with @loveisstatic​. 

(Poor sweetheart bore witness to Savage being savage most of the night.) 

We decided to take a lap but didn’t see anything....sigh.  After a pretty epic battle over the fact that Haley said she also “liked” Alan....as in, he’s a good dancer, which “someone” took as “Imma steal your man”. 

We went in the arena and went to the merch table where Abs refused a tour tshirt because Hannah was on it...lol.  I was trying to get a cute pic of Abs and her 10 paddle....but home girl was trying to make sure she wasn’t standing next to Hannah ffs....

Then we went to get drinks (ha for Haley) and were very quickly let in to our seats.  Haley was actually only a couple rows in front of us, so we were able to chat before the show and during intermission.  The show is, of course, absolutely amazing!  It has a cute “theme” of driving the bus on tour and the voice overs were cracking me up.  After the Magic Mike number, Jen talks to the lady rubbing up on Val.  The poor lady clearly either has zero idea who the two of them are or has lost her senses due to all the testosterone filled sweat on her person.  Jen “You know, I recently got married”  Lady “Oh, congratulations!!!”  Jen “Yeah, that man you were just grinding and rubbing and smacking on....that’s my husband”  Lady “OMG!”  Jen “Yeah, his name is Val.  I’ll let it slide this time (then whatever the script is)”.  The lady was so embarrassed.  It was funny.  There was the absolute cutest little girl in the front row that Val came out and talked to.  She’s on the DWTS Tour story.  That section of the show was pretty awesome, actually.  I loved his speech about breaking the tv barrier and coming to do shows live to all of us who were gracious enough to invite them into our homes every Monday night.  Abs fave dance was Daddy Shark (I’ll steal her video and post it later....we can’t have enough reposts of that gem) and anything that had Alan and mine was the entire Hero section at the end where they’re wearing white (for the dancing) and Dream On (for the music).  Actually, the dance where they’re passing the key to the tour around was pretty awesome, too.  Then, it comes to intermission and Abs starts bitching about being hungry.  I told her sorry (she’s not a popcorn or nut fan and that’s all they really had) and she starts made some wildly and embarrassing comments about want candy...Alan’s candy complete with eyebrow waggles and cackling.  I think that it was at that point that our new friend decided that kid is a hot damn mess.  Jenna’s swan dive is absolutely amazing in person....mostly for the reaction it causes.  I, of course, knew it was coming but the lady next to me literally slap/grabbed her husband and whisper yelled “OH SHIT!”.  After the show, the adults in the group had to pee.  The teenager in the group just bitched that we were going to make her late to the buses.  (This is a very important fun fact for later.)  They have some weird ass security dude on tour this year who had some rule where the crowd standing (couldn’t have been more than 20 of us) had to scrunch into the space of 2 of those metal fence things as opposed to the other 57000 of them lining the buses.  Every 5 min or so, he’d waltz out and yell at us to “get on this side of the line.  No one can be between the buses”...except none of us moved after the first few times.  He was intense and a good time fun ruiner.  Kept trying to tell us that the police were going to see us standing at his one of his non approved fences (the same ones we’ve stood at for 2 other tours) and “shut the whole thing down”.  Sure, Stan.  Evenutally, he stopped fussing and Kate came out. 

She is a gem, honestly.  Super sweet and funny as hell.  Love me some her.  After Kate went in, it was cold and SOMEONE in our group had to pee (remember that fun fact....ha).  Val came out and got into the runner van and scooted off to the airport.  There was much discussion of how we knew it was him and how we knew where he was going.  Sasha came out and we talked to him and got pics. 

(Not all his selfies are hysterical gems that will be reused for all of eternity)

I gave him all my notes and Glebs drugs because we thought we were going to have to leave.  He said he’d pass them out for me.  We were deciding to leave when Emma popped out of the bus all “Which one of you gave the Benadryl to Gleb?  That was bloody brilliant!”.

We took pics with her and decided to stick around for a bit more because Abs needed  wanted to see Alan.  Thankfully, he came out shortly after and turned on the front camera flash I didn’t even know I had. 

(He also has very long arms for a good selfie angle)

After Alan came Wit and Daniella and thankfully that was it.

The grumpy security dude told us all to leave and I think everyone was ready.  We were stacked like 6 people deep having to shove up to the front for pics as the pros were like “WTF is wrong with these weirdos in Jacksonville and why aren’t they standing over at all these other perfectly decent fences”.  Like, they’d move over to the fence to the left to take pics and we’d all be like “NO!  We aren’t allowed!”.  It was cold and it was a week night and everyone was pretty much over the foolishness at that point.  What was cool about the night was I got to not only meet up with a fun tumblr friend, but there were a few of us at the buses that have started recognizing each other from other tours.  The girl Brandon pulled on stage recognized Abs and me and then I recognized a dude we’ve seen each year.  Funny story, the girl (who is a huge Derek stan) and I were talking about how pretty Gleb is (after the Benadryl thing) and she was talking about Brandon and having to touch his butt on stage.  She’s all “I mean, it’s a nice butt, but he’s just too cute to rub up on”.  She’s not wrong, he is just the cutest thing in person....just not in a sexy Daddy Shark type way.  Anyways, another tour down.  Plans to see MVPJ with a new friend and bus stalk at the “next tour” with the other bus stalkers.  Can’t wait till next time! 

#dwts live tour

[yououghtaknow]

5, 29 and 30? Also, I read all four seasons of Skam Brighton over quarantine and it was fantastic! The changed storylines were so refreshing and I’m so excited for season 5 💛

hi!!!!! thank you so much for asking and thank you so much for reading <3.

29. which version (og + adapts) does yours most closely resemble?

hmm. well i would say skam austin, definitely, as a western english speaking remake. also with the dance team/theatre club vibes and the music aspect. also skam españa, definitely, with the centring of the girls' stories and just the beautiful friendship tone of it all, which is what i really wanted to get across. also some druck in there, with the realism and fixing the trans wrongs they did. and alistair fletcher has the drama of skam france, just as a character. what do these remakes all have in common? canon wlw. which was the main thing i wanted to write in this remake. skambr has 11 canon named wlw characters who have all played major-to-minor roles in the plot of each season, with 5 of them being members of the girl squad and three of them being mains and having wildly different experiences with their attraction to women because you can’t sum up the lgbt experience with just one person.

30. free choice! just give us some fun facts about it!

fun fact: i have never physically been in brighton. i would like to be one day, but i will most likely not get there before the series finishes.

second fun fact: i was originally planning to write a skam remake set in derry, northern ireland before i wrote skam brighton. that idea has morphed into something else that i plan to write, but it is a fun fact!!

and now. the big one.

5. what are some iconic soundtrack moments?

here we go lads, seasons 3 and 4, like promised.

season three

tw for discussion of mental illness and suicide, drug abuse and violence throughout.

trailer

WE START OFF!!!! WITH A BANGER!!! "tainted love" by soft cell. it’s an iconic 80s banger that we all know and love, about a toxic relationship, and we see a type of favourite character that is niche to me (the guy with perfectionism/parental issues who did some fucked up stuff in a piece of media who not a lot of people like). it’s jake baby. it’s about him living his life and being like “i feel like i have to run away from all of this” (a sentiment which shall be echoed later on). and jake with all of his different masks…….. i was ahead of my time.

episode one

we open with “say amen (saturday night)” by panic! at the disco which is. kind of yikes now, but the song does have the vibes i desired for the opening scene. a party-esque banger. lyrics like “i pray for the wicked on the weekend / mama, can i get another amen?” for the catholic imagery and mommy issues. also panic! is known throughout history to be an lgbt band. 

then we get “get out of my head” by redlight”, just for the mental illness of it all. also it has been said that i do love a good party song with deeply depressing lyrics about the main playing in the background <3. 

and then we get me ripping off druck with “idontwannabeyouanymore” by the theorist playing because i just wanted to use a piano cover of the song because silence with just instrumental is just very dynamic and mentally ill. 

and then we meet eleanor with “insane” by sonny fodera and biscits, which is basically just the lyrics “girl you make me go insane” because. well. you hate to see it folks, but we gotta foreshadow the internalised ableism and the hating one woman as a treat.

and to close off a very music filled first clip, we got “drive” by halsey, a staple of tumblr culture back in the day because it is just like “all we do is think about the feelings that we hide”. literally when you are gay and alone and are just so desperate for someone to see you but also so deeply afraid of it because that means change coming <3 

AND THEN!!!! we meet the love of my life ms christine love as she hums “express yourself” by madonna as she cleans the house. i wanted to give christine a lot of 80s music in her scenes, to show that she’s living in the past in regards to jake’s dad. also it’s just a good song, “you gotta make him express how he feels” is me writing any of the characters having dialogue.

AND THEN BABY!!!!!!!!!!! we get a moment i love so deeply. “mama who bore me/reprise” by the sweet signatures. an all female acapella cover of the iconic spring awakening song. this song has everything - heavy metaphor about sex, wanting your mum to tell you shit, catholic imagery, teen angst, amazing belting. we get the slow part as jake is alone and just trying to work out how to help his mum, and then get the ANGRY BANGER as jake goes out to play with his dogs to get his frustrations out, because at the end of the say, all of these characters are still kids <3

then we get “young (club mix) by jaded because i just wanted kind of boring straight party music for the bryan and rory scene. 

BECAUSE THEN LGBT COMMUNITY!!!!! we get jake’s dramatic walk down the hallway as “somebody to love” by queen plays. it’s about the catholicism, it’s about the being gay, it’s about the being so fucking lonely and just wanting somebody!!!!! also the parallel between jake’s lonely scene with “somebody” playing and liz’s crowded scene with “nobody” playing…. it’s about mentally ill people being different but also the same <3

AND. NOW. THE MOMENT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. we meet Him. the most valid theatre kid rep in the world. mr alistair thomas fletcher, who enters our lives singing “shallow” from a star is born under his breath as he washing his hands. once again, i’m ahead of my time. but also the first lines al sings are, metaphorically, him talking to jake. like “aren’t you tried trying to fill that void / or do you need more”. and then we begin a piece of foreshadowing most pleasing to me. alistair in season 3 and the recurring motif of falling, which will climax at the end of episode 10. also foreshadowing of his experiences with bipolar disorder with “in all the good times i find myself longing for change / and in the bad times i fear myself”. and we also begin the motif of jake interrupting al’s singing. 

(you may be thinking, isaac tumblr user nickhealy, you’re putting a lot of thought into this. that’s because out of all of the characters, al’s the one who never really expresses himself with his words or actions - he usually expresses himself primarily through music, which is a very fun and autistic thing of me to write.)

(also, the og episode 1 bench scene did make me feel very. not good as a gay trans guy, with all the talk of penises and such. it’s just very sexy of me to change it to al talking loudly about ballet and elton john. and then we get jake up on the balcony and al down yelling up at him. because i have literally never referenced anything subtly in my life)

and we end with “how does it feel” by m-22. like: “how does it feel when your walls fall down /  how does it feel when you're lost and found / how does it feel / it's the sweetest sound”. like it’s about jake meeting al, king of not being Good At Social, fletcher, and instantly being like “yes, husband material, thank you”.

episode two

(yes, this episode is titled after the gay hsm song. yes i’m a genius)

we open, as all good things do, with a fun homoerotic punk song with catholic imagery “east jesus nowhere” by green day. it’s just jake being like “i am Trying to find the instagram of a cute guy outside of church, love being a sinner”.

and now we see the beginnings of Sad Boy Jake, with “it’s ok, i wouldn’t remember me either” by crywank. we got “i am looking for an easy place / to mask my thoughts behind my face” and “i can hide from friends but i cannot hide from you” because he’s gay and he has depression. 

AND THEN!!!! we get “i like you” by dandelion hands playing as he comments supportive things on the youtube video of al….. literally jacob love will see a pretty boy one time and be like “last time i had you i should have kissed you”. also his alternate name being jack valentine…. valentine and love ugh my brain is so big

AND THEN!!!!!!! slow mo time, with “bite” by troye sivan…… a gay classic, if i do say so. like it’s about jake seeing al casually walk past, being all prententious and out, and jake’s just like “please set me free and let me walk beside you” because of the gay experience of simutaneously wanting to be a person and kiss them.

and then we get “the daisy chain” by the growlers. “feeling pressure on every side” and “tired of waiting to be explained / weakest link in the daisy chain”. it’s just the vibes babe.

AND THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! a brilliant moment in my bare a pop opera stanning career - we get jake watching a bootleg of bare 2004 as “role of a lifetime” from the show plays. literally one of the most gorgeous songs ever written, sung by matt doyle. like everything is an act when you’re pleasing everyone - which could be the tagline of skam brighton as a whole. also jake watching “see me” and beginning to tear up because he’s afraid to come out to his mother and get the same negative reaction….. and him watching “cross” and sobbing because he relates to jason so much and feels like he would also be better off dead than gay….. 

BUT AFTER THAT!!! we smash cut to al as jeremy in be more chill, singing the beginning of “more than survive”. absolute king shit!!!!! also, i don’t remember if it’s mentioned in canon, but eleanor is the person who plays the squip in this production of bmc, because i am not!! subtle!! with!! my!! metaphors!! 

and we return to sad boy jacob with “swear to god the devil made me do it” by the front bottoms, chosen because references to the devil and mommy issues <3

AND THEN!!!! A MOMENT OF GREAT FORESHADOWING!!! we get mister alistair fletcher practising alone in a theatre because he is dramatic, and jake walking in as he sings “broadway here i come” from smash. we got references to saints, we got hints at al’s anxiety, we got the falling motif coming back in a song explicitly about jumping off of a building, that also doubles as a song about wanting to do theatre….. also, al plays the last note wrong as a metaphor for al’s plan of suicide going well until the very end, where he ends up alive and goes home.

(side note, we also got the football team’s jackets and signature colours being black and white (straight pride flag colours babey) and then we see al in bright yellow. it also represents jake’s depression and al’s mania, the everything and the nothing of it all.)

AND THEN!!!! we get manic (in the most literal sense of the word) pixie dream boy al asking jake to dance with him to “movement” by hozier because. it’s literally just such a beautiful song. and jake is just watching al dance like “hm. no thoughts head empty just pretty boy”. also the scene itself is a reference to wicked, with jake doing an awkward and stilted dance and al taking it and turning it into something graceful (the glinda and elphie scene in dancing through life)

and then we get the return of blue neighbourhood with “youth” by troye sivan playing over a smoking montage with the boys, because they’re young, they’re gay, they’re vibing

AND THEN!!!! we get “talk” by hozier playing as the episode ends - a song that of course references orpheus and eurydice, as al also did in this clip with hadestown. it also plays over ellie talking because jake is just Ignoring her to pay attention to al. also the inherent homoeroticism of making eye contact while hozier plays

episode three

we open with “highway to hell” by ac/dc over a fun football montage of jake both playing the game and getting bored and checking out guys. it’s about the thinking he’s gonna go to hell for doing it but he literally Cannot Stop

AND THEN!!!!!! a moment. we get a performance of some of “all you wanna do” from six by al and ellie and their theatre kid friends as they rehearse for something at lunch and jake, bryan and rory watch them. ellie’s doing the whole flirty k howard thing, and not actually getting into the real feeling of the song, and the guy she’s dancing with it awkward as all fuck because he’s her cousin. so we get al stepping in and fucking going the fuck off. and we see how good of an actor al really is in this scene, as he’s legit scary. we also see ellie clearly having feelings towards al and him just being like “yep good acting! moving on!!!” because no thoughts just dance. also bryan and rory not understanding that the song is about assault and jake being genuinely concerned….. and then al and ellie’s kiss at the end as ellie “dies”..... god the real reason this show isn’t made is because i would be too powerful if i could make everyone see my theatre kid mischief.

AND ANOTHER MOMENT!!!! we get “like a prayer” by madonna playing as jake is living his life and taking some “am i gay” quizzes - the questions of which are comprised of actual am i gay quizzes i took to make the scene as legit as possible, and as a gay trans person. Did Not Like. Would Not Recommend. also jake admitting he’s gay to the quiz because he’s pissed about the concept of misgendering al….. also jake forcing himself to pick the straight options even though it’s emotionally hurting him…. and then we hear christine singing in the hallway “everyone must stand alone” because it’s jake pov at the time…..

AND SMASH CUT TO!!! fall out boy’s cover of “i wanna dance with somebody”, because at the last very gay house party “i wanna dance with somebody” played and i love a good parallel

AND THEN!!!!!! literally the hottest of all hot boy summer things, we get al and esther doing some karaoke at the house party with “don’t you want me” by the human league. (which, yes, is a glee reference.) THE LITERAL COURAGE OF THIS MAN!!!! alistair fletcher looked a closeted guy, who he has had three (3) interactions with in person, dead in the eye and was like “i know you want me”. as opposed to esther “just be her friend first and then see about anything else” montner and james “I Will Never Speak To You Again If You So Wish” cohen.

and then, because of course i did, we get “bad romance” by lady gaga playing over the next scene with the beginnings of the boy squad because it’s a gay house party and it’s a fucking banger for the ages

(also just the shift from al hot boy summer fletcher to al gay disaster fletcher with him running literally out of the house because he kissed a guy.)

“left handed kisses” by andrew bird and fiona apple plays after jake and al’s deep conversation outside. like jake’s really out here like “i don't believe everything happens for a reason” and “i don't go in for your star-crossed lovers / in the heart of a skeptic / there's a question that still hovers near” because al info dumped about his love for adaptation of romeo and juliet…. (side note, al is definitely an & juliet stan, as everyone should be, stream & juliet <3)

episode four

we open with a song i discovered when i was in a community theatre rip off version of cats, “the show” by lenka. it’s about a song about indecision in the middle of a church before confession, because jake can’t actually confess to the sins he believes to be true. it’s about the “'cause it's too much, yeah it's a lot to be something i'm not”.

And then we fade to “pink + white” by frank ocean (because mlm rights), and just like “you showed me love / glory from above / good glory, dear / it's all downhill from here” is a very al/jake line. also it’s a bop for a little football montage.

AND THEN!!!! on halloween, we get a little montage of jake dancing to “paradise by the dashboard light” by meatloaf as he makes himself a sandwich - it’s literally about just being happy and having a nice time. and also jake dancing to more old timey music because he’s going up to his parents’ old room and he’s also living in the past a little, with his childish snack and playful dancing.

(also, the phone call where al just infodumps about bare and jake’s listening and asking questions <3 it’s about the autistic love and friendship yet again)

and then we get “i’m so tired…” by lauv and troye sivan as we arrive at the very awkward ellie/jake/al pre drink, because Is Jake Not So Tired Of This Heterosexual Bullshit He Must Do.

(also, it is my personal headcanon, and therefore canon, that al convinced ellie to go with the angel and devil costumes so that he could pull up in his leo-as-romeo get up and live out his baz luhrmann esque fantasy).

AND THEN LGBT NATION!!!! we get “run away with me” by ms crj as jake and al literally run away from the party after al got misgendered and Pissed. it’s about the using romance and whimsy as an escapism from your shitty life, it’s about the being the in darkness and occasionally getting hit by the street light, it’s about the “i’ll be your sinner in secret”, it’s about the bare connotation with the “run away with me” parallels. it’s also about the song being one of the best songs ever written.

(and then we get the wedding, which, before i get into the song, is a reference to So Many Things. we got west side story with the fake wedding and first kiss, we got hadestown with al making the wedding rings from nature (a la wedding song), we got bare with wedding bells and the dream wedding, and in the scene, we get some vineyard scene from spring awakening vibes, with the discussion of the future and religion and philosophy…… quite literally i love art so much)

and then. ladies. a piece of writing written in Peak tender tumblr. al and jake have the kiss of their wedding to “pink in the night” by mitski. it’s literally about the “i know i kissed you before but / i didn’t do it right / can i try again?” of it all. like jake love voice “i glow pink in the night in my room / i’ve been blossoming alone over you”. the repression, the pining…………. i am such a talented man.

and then we end with a doctor who reference, with al saying “run”, taking jake’s hand and the two of them running out of the church as “run away with me” comes back in. it’s literally about al taking jake out of his dull life and helping him find his own happiness. it’s also about the inherent autistic culture of relating to aliens.

episode five

WE! OPEN! WITH! a song about being gay and falling in love with someone immediately after meeting them - “share your address” by ben platt. a bop for the ages. it makes me so happy, it’s a great “early stages of a relationship honeymoon stage” montage song.

(also, i just really love the detail i put in about al’s binder, because the cuddle scene with david and matteo in druck did make me worried because david was wearing his binder. like i understand why he wore it for the actor’s comfort but just the thought of sleeping in a binder…… terrible. awful. pain beyond my wildest dreams.)

(also also, al saying he couldn’t get on hormones because of “problems with his heart” is a lie, because he means because of his mental health, which is based on personal experience babey)

and then we get an iconic skam song: “talk show host” by radiohead plays as jake sits in the back of a drama club meeting, isolating himself. it’s literally about the “i want to be someone else or i’ll explode” of it all. 

and then we get “rock and roll” by led zeppelin as jake walks his dogs - just because it seems like the kind of song jake would like and it just vibed with the whole scene.

(also, the clip where jake texts al at the beginning of it and then asks bree about her family….. literally i’m so good at foreshadowing)

AND THEN!!!!! WE GET THE ICONIC!!! “involuntary teenage rebel” by clout from grandma’s closet plays as we get a jake solo slow mo. literally they were right when they said “they say i'm a teenage rebel / but i'm really just afraid of how i come across to others / and it bothers me when i look weak”. like that’s just another skam statement line babey. also it’s genuinely such a good song and literally helped inspire me to do more songwriting…. stream it 

and then we get “heaven” by avicii, chosen purely for the title being “heaven” because christianity centric season.

AND THEN!!!!! we get jake asking al to come save him from the shitty party, and al says “wait for me, i’m coming”, an obvious hadestown reference, and when he arrives, he’s singing the “la la la la la la la”s from the show. it’s because the party - where bryan, rory and ellie are - is, in al’s mind, hell, and he’s going to save jake from it. 

and then, because, as mentioned, the way al express his true feelings is through Music, we get al trying to comfort jake by playing him a song - “you matter to me” from waitress (put a pin in waitress, i’ll get back to it later). the inherent homosexuality in “come out of hiding i’m right here beside you / and i’ll stay there as long as you’ll let me”. also it’s just about mattering to someone. like, for the first time in his life, jake has someone who’s saying “i love you, you matter, i will be here for you” and he just needed that So Much. 

episode six

AND WE SMASH CUT IMMEDIATELY TO!!! “london boy” by taylor swift, a campy and beautiful bop!!!! because al Is from london and he Is a boy!!! (also, fun fact, i was going to make al be from ireland originally, but then someone in the skambr discord said this song should be used in a scene, and i was like “okay, fuck it, london time”)

(also, you can subtly see al’s mania in the london boy scene, with him coming up with quick ideas, clearly having very low anxiety through the past few episodes, and just taking off his shoes and going for a walk in a park in november…..)

and then we get “landslide” by fleetwood mac as jake lies in his dead dad’s bed. it’s really about the “can the child within my heart rise above? / can i sail through the changing ocean tides?” and about the grieving as a child and your mental health getting worse while you’re still so young and you feel like the world’s on your shoulders and you’re both an adult and a child at once……

and then……. we get “class of 2013” by mitski after christine has her breakdown and jake packs his things to run away. it’s about both of them dealing with their grief by pretending it never happened and having all of that build up inside of them until they can’t take it anymore. And i see the lyrics of “mom i’m tired / can i sleep in your house tonight?” in this specific situation as jake being tired of his father’s constant presence and he just wants to be in a house with his mother the way he remembered her before his father died. 

(and, sidenote, this is one of the saddest scenes i’ve ever written, in my opinion…...with jake being like “she’s so crazy, but i’m nothing like her” because he’s in denial of his own mental health issues and al seeing him saying that as “oh, he’ll see that i’m crazy too and want to leave”...... and al says his final goodbye to jake, using his full name, because he assumes jake will never want to speak to him again, but jake has no idea……..)

(also, jake parroting bryan’s words of “gay marriage is legal, so everything is fine” in the pride clip……. God. and the way jake’s internalised homophobia and ableism manifests in the same harmful way….)

and then we get “don’t threaten me with a good time” by panic! At the disco as they boy squad rolls up to the party in the park. it’s just a party song. no deeper meaning lads.

and then we get jake in the bathroom having a little breakdown (as a treat) to “Give me novacaine” by green day. it’s just about the using alcohol and drugs to cope with your poor mental health because you have no other quick way to make it all better. It’s about about jake trying both to numb himself and to force himself to feel something, but neither one of those things give him the results he wants.

episode seven

we open with another iconic and beautiful song: “life in italics” by clout from grandma’s closet babey. like jake love voice “all these troubles on my mind i’ve been lonely / building walls running from the old me”. thank you clout for literally writing some of the best lgbt music. 

AND THEN!!!!!!! a scene that brings me much joy. “gotta go my own way” from high school musical 2 plays in the other room as jake has a religious breakdown in a literal (storage) closet. and then al leaves the group chat and blocks jake…. like jake voice “another colour turns to grey / and it's just too hard to watch it all / slowly fade away”

and then we get “hello!” by role model as jake goes for a depressed jog and he sees bree out drinking with some random people. like “i never really talk much, keep it inside / to find someone who cares is getting harder to find / we should be dancing in the sun / it's hard when everything is numb”.

(also, at the end of that clip, we briefly shift from jake’s pov to al’s, as we see al filming in the park and he films jake running away…… do i know what this means metaphorically? not really. do i vibe hard with it? oh hell yeah)

AND THEN!!!! after jake and sandy have their beautiful conversation, we get “under pressure” by queen and david bowie, another older song, this time expressing jake’s joy as he finds some small solace with his younger self. it’s also just about the inherent homosexuality of the song and of sitting on the beach, eating chips with your best friend.

episode eight

WE BEGIN!!!! with a youtube video of ellie and al singing “wallflower” from we are the tigers. i chose this basically because i wanted to get more of a vibe of what their relationship is/was across, and also because i love the song (stream we are the tigers original off broadway cast recording). it’s also about the dynamic of the song being “shy introvert vs outgoing extrovert being very toxic friends”, and also about the ellie supporting al stuff, because she has canonically been there for him for years, just not in a very good way. also i wanted to write representation for the “had a very intense friendship with a girl pre-transition and then had a dramatic friend break up and now i’m a guy and feel disconnected from the whole thing, although it was quite homoerotic at the time” people. this scene also marked the beginning of my purely self indulgent musical number scenes, and be warned, this may the the first, but it is by no means the last.

and then it’s very music lite for the rest of the episode, until al returns, and jake’s like “hey, maybe you should stop talking to your toxic friend” and al responds by beginning to make out with him as “fuck time” by green day starts to play. the COMEDY of jake being like “seriously, i think--” and then all you hear is “OOH BABY BABY IT’S FUCK TIME”. skam brighton is a comedy show.

and then we get al “communicates through music and theatre references” fletcher beginning to sign the ASL translation of the bridge of “word of your body (reprise)” from spring awakening with jake - which is another Very tragic show - and al also literally says the line “and so you should”. and al responding to jake jokingly calling him insane by shutting him up with another kiss….. oh ladies.

episode nine

WE! OPEN! WITH! “love shack” by the b-52s as jake wakes up and sees james and al just having some Fun making breakfast in the kitchen. it’s just some boys being boys and having bants.

and then we get jake using al’s love language of music and singing “those magic changes” from grease, singing along to the jordan fisher and aaron tveit version because that song did assist in my gay awakening.

(also, al stanning female doctor pomatter in waitress and james stanning waitress as someone from an abusive household….. my mind.)

and now. we begin The Big Bad Clip. “why didn’t you stop me” by mitski plays over the beginning of jake and al’s london adventure. it’s literally about looking back on the scene as it happens in a montage and al being like “why didn’t you stop me from doing that”..... god.

(also, jake and al go to see waitress, which Has been played before, and it’s foreshadowing for how their relationship ends. jenna and jim’s relationship - the main couple of waitress - begins with them cheating on their parents and falling in love quickly in secret, but they know it’s not healthy for them to keep the relationship going, so agree to end things and part ways as friends who wish nothing but the best for each other.)

and then we get “oops! I did it again” by britney spears glee cast version, because it’s just really Sexy and Fun. also just the mentally ill experience of “oops! i did a manic episode again!”.

and then we cut between a piano version of “last night on earth” by green day, as jake sits alone in the hotel room, and “true trans soul rebel” by against me! as al walks down the streets of london, in a split pov, and then we see al having a full meltdown/breakdown in the middle of victoria station. like al voice in this scene “another night you wish you could forge, / making yourself up as you go along / who’s gonna take you home tonight? / does god bless your transsexual heart?”.

and then we get legit “last night on earth” by green day as jake walks away after ellie yells at him. just because it vibes so much.

episode ten

we open with “mystery of love” by sufjan stevens as jake walks down to al’s house, because it’s just a vibey song, and while i hate cmb//yn with the fury of a thousand suns, it Is a song written for mlm.

and then we get “better alone” by lykke li as jake researches al’s various diagnoses. and it’s just like “nobody wants to be the one to walk away / nobody wants to see the truth, then let it in, run away / nobody wants to know the ways they don't love you right” and then “i’m better alone than lonely”..... mr love

and then we get “let it be” by the beatles, a Very nostalgic old fashioned song with catholic themes and just big comforting and recovery vibes…. jake confessing his real feelings to the priest and then reuniting with christine in the church and hugging her tightly and they both agree on working on getting better….. 

and then we get to the talent show, where we see the end of ellie singing “on my own” from les mis - as jake did at the beginning of season one. is this foreshadowing? is it a coincidence? i honestly don’t know. i just chose it because basic theatre girl song.

AND!!!!! THEN!!!!!! we get the song that acts as al’s suicide note: “the goodbye song” by joe iconis (writer of be more chill and “broadway here i come” from smash). we get the return of the falling motif with “i’m flying away” and the lines that really act as what al imagines to be his final goodbye to everyone he knows, as everyone he knows and loves is in that building: “i'd stay if i could / but the universe won't let me / so please be good / and don't you forget me”, and then al turns the “aahs” at the end of the song from a catchy crowd pleaser ending to a long, painful scream as the audience slowly stops clapping, until the room is silent, and then he bows a la the emcee at the end of cabaret (a bow which is often viewed as a metaphor for the character’s death). it’s literally just al having a breakdown on stage, but he rolls a nat 20 on his performance check, and the audience are like “this is very good performance art”

we then get a flashback to “broadway here i come” because. i am a king of foreshadowing.

and then we get “wait for me” from hadestown (obc version) as jake runs to find al, and it’s about the role reversal of jake running to save al from something worse than al saving him for bryan. it’s about the repetition of “wait for me, i’m coming” because of the fear of “what if i get there too late?”

episode eleven

“a better son/daughter” by rilo kiley plays as jake looks through al’s two tumblr blogs - and the song simultaneously a very al and jake song. with the descriptions of depression and dealing with a mother with mental illness at the start, which are very jake, but then the lines “and sometimes when you're on, you're really fucking on / and your friends they sing along and they love you. / but the lows are so extreme that the good seems fucking cheap” are just the base character description for al.

and then we get “the archer” by taylor swift as jake goes into the school again…. like he has been the archer and he has been the prey, in regards to being gay (with him helping in outing sandy and being outed himself).....

(also, fun fact about the episode, it was originally written to be from al’s point of view, but then i decided against it and had to rewrite it, which is why there’s only 4 clips instead of the usual 5 or 6)

and then, lgbts, we get “the predatory wasp of the palisades is out to get us!” by sufjan stevens as jake walks his dogs  out on the beach and al goes to the beach to write his emo poetry…… also, fun fact, al’s poetry is the first time i’ve ever written poetry/lyrics that weren’t about me, which is very fun. 

and then!!!! at the beginning of the final clip, we got “footloose” by kenny loggins, the iconic bop from the film of the same name. just because it slaps and it’s a fun time.

(we also get some Foreshadowing with al referencing rent in this scene)

and then. transgender nation. we get “midnight radio” from hedwig and the angry inch playing over al and jake’s having fun and being dumb kids montage. 

i know riverdale made this song a meme, but it HITS. it’s about the al referencing origin of love in the cuddle clip, al saying “i laugh because i will cry if i don’t”, it’s about the “for the misfits and losers” and the “hold onto each other”. it’s literally about jake finding community and also wholeness and happiness in himself.

(also, jake talking about all the little soulmates and the fact that he believes that the boy and girl squads are all his soulmates in different ways…… and bree actually paying attention and showing some vulnerability at that point because she loves her friends so much!!!!!!!!!!)

season four

tw for discussion of sexual assault/rape, alcohol abuse and abortion throughout

trailer

lgbt community. we begins with the regrettes' cover of "don't stop me now" by queen because a) i think it's fun when women and b) it's about bree's mania that we've already seen throughout the seasons, this time from her perspective, and it's simultaneously a Fun Time and a Foreboding time.

episode one

we open with "hail mary, gentle woman" by the cathedral singers, which is literally just the prayer "hail mary", but a song. i chose this because catholic, women, and church time babey. also because it was always one of my favourite hymns growing up (because, in case you couldn't tell from half of the mains being raised catholic and lowkey fucked up because of it, i was raised catholic)

and then we SMASH CUT to "r u mine?" by arctic monkeys, a sad british teen staple, as we see bree wake up in josh's bed for the first time and take the "walk of shame" to get to church. it's about the "i go crazy 'cause here isn't where i wanna be", introducing the Mental Illness, bree's want to get out of where she's from and go to a good uni, and her literally not wanting to be in some strange guy's bed in one line. am I reading too much into this? hell yeah. but it's my show, so i can read as much as i want!!!! (also "satisfaction feels like a distant memory" is both about her depressive states and josh not being able to make her orgasm <3)

AND THEN!!!!!!!!!! we get "all i really want" by alanis morissette, the beginning of my season 4/jlp parallel hyperfixation. it's about bree kinning frankie healy and "do i stress you out?" being her @ audrey. and just bree voice "it would knock me to the floor if i wasn't there already / if only i could hunt the hunter". it's just a perfect teen angst song and it's perfectly grungy and brianna-y.

AND THEN!!!!! we get "kiwi" by harry styles playing as bree slow mos by herself down the street. it's about the just hot girl energy of the song and also the romanticization of unhealthy behaviour because that's bree, baby!!!! also we get more of the word "crazy" because of bree's internalised ableism, and we also get the chorus of "i'm having your baby, it's none of your business", foreshadowing her unplanned pregnancy done by josh, who we saw in the last scene.

AND THEN!!!!! we get "chandelier" by sia as bree and the girls have a fun party moment, but bree is still Fucked Up mentally by seeing annabell and also men being creepy. it's about the using alcohol and drugs to push away your feelings because you have a lot of trauma and have internalised ableism and have no idea how to get the help you need without being vulnerable, which terrifies you so So much. also we see that bree forgot to take her meds in this scene, which i couldn't explicitly say in the scene because spoilers, but it's a fun thing.

then we get dodie's cover of "when the party's over" by billie eilish because i like the soft piano vibes of it as bree walks home after the party, because we always see bree as "the party girl", but the party's over now and we see her petting her cat, making sure her brother's home safe, taking off all her makeup and pretty clothes, completely non sexualised, and just getting into bed to sleep because she's just So Tired. also it's about bree pretending she's happy on her own, but she's Not, she has a lot of self loathing and deeply loves her friends more than anything. also a bree/rori moment with "call me friend but keep me closer".

episode two

we open with an audition sequence!!!!! because i'm a theatre kid and love a good audition sequence!!!!

we get rori singing "sexy" from mean girls, because it's a very rori show (pink aesthetic, fun female characters, a funny time), and because it's a very maureen from rent song. also rori is just a very funny person and also has a sick high belt in my mind. also it's about her learning to like the way she looks, slowly but surely. it's also a song about changing who you are, which is a very skam brighton theme.

and then we get al singing "vienna" by billy joel, but the shortened version they did in smash, but he also plays the piano like ben platt in the politician because he's a basic white theatre boy. it's also just a beautiful song about growing up and maturing, and also "if you're so smart, then tell me why are you still so afraid?" is a very bree line. 

(also, the part where josh calls milo his "kid cousin" and then bree's like "yeah, milo's the same age as me" but josh ignores it…… creepy!!!!! bad!!!!!! also, side note, milo is canonically genderfluid and uses different pronouns depending on the day, which is why they change throughout the season.)

and then!!!! we get annabell singing "hallelujah" by leonard cohen, which is just a stunning song, we all know this. it's a song about faith and doubt and it's also a parallel to rori's happy go lucky song, which annabell's being slow and sad instead. also they're jewish and gay and lovely. and then the jeff buckley cover plays over the next scene because it's Good.

and then we get "feel it still" by portugal. the man as the girl squad text. it's just a fun song and the line "i'm a rebel just for kicks" is great from brianna "rebel girl by bikini kill" holland.

and then, swiftie nation, we get “new romantics” by taylor swift as bree agrees to go out with josh because she’s being self destructive. like the fact that she says yes to him as the line “we’re all bored / we’re all so tired of everything” plays say it all. and just the whole song is very bree core, as a whole, also it’s a really fucking good song. i am a 1989 (deluxe) stan.

and then we fade away with “vienna” by billy joel because it is such a good song god bless <3

episode three

WE!! OPEN!! WITH!!! “tik tok” by ke$ha because it is genuinely one of the best songs of our generation, and also it’s just a very shopping centre song. i don’t know why but it Is.

AND THEN!!!!!!!!! we get genuinely one of my favourite songs that i’ve been waiting to find the right scene for ever since i first heard it. “dog bite” by stella bridie is just genuinely a stunning song that really Gets bree’s character as a whole, especially the first lines “putting on lipstick in the bathroom at the doctor’s  / i got a party after this blood test”..... the whole Need to be perform feminity whilst doing something as simple as going to the doctor’s as bree draws herself and tries to make herself look perfect because she believes her only self worth comes from her body and just….. the vibes. immaculate.

and then we get “ophelia” by marika hackman, another beautiful song, as we see bree self destructively look through all of the cyber bullying that’s happened to her in the past as a way of emotional self harm. it’s just a genuinely depressing scene with a good song underscoring it.

but then we cut to rori and brianna out for a jog together - because both have issues with their self image, but also because they’re friends and like to do things together - as “it’s nice to have a friend” by taylor swift plays. it is a very homoerotic song, with a lot of childhood friends to lovers vibes, which is kind of what we’re going for here. they are both very deeply sad but also it is nice to have a friend and have someone there for you when you find out the cast list of the musical you auditioned for and you can hug them…….

and then!!!!! we get “...ready for it?” by taylor swift as we get another party sequence because it’s a fucking banger and also brianna is Very reputation as a person, which will be shown with some other taylor songs throughout the season. also it’s kind of a “are you ready for it?” for the Deeply Sad scene that follows the fun party sequence, because this is skam brighton, and i will always write scenes of people being sad outside/after parties.

episode four

we begin with “harlem” by new politics as bree, annabell and dean hang out at the shopping centre and fuck around in clarie’s. it’s about a funky song and about the recurring line of “like you, like me, like everybody else” of the three of them all having their mental illnesses in common and bree simultaneously feeling happy that she can be open about it, and deeply uncomfortable that she has to be open about it.

and then we get “crush on you” by elijah who as bree scrolls through instagram and looks at two pictures - one of annabell and one of rori and nick, and when she likes the picture of rori and nick, she literally taps over nick’s face so that she can just look at rori <3 it’s about the bree being a bicon.

and then we get the theatre club watching rent as a fun time!!!! we get tune up #1 and voicemail #1, just iconic numbers. we get theatre kid supreme al knowing all of the words, cool guy james doing his air guitar, and when the line “let her be a lesbian” is sung, we get annabell cheering and rori awkwardly looking away because she has internalised homophobia.

(side note, one of my favourite aspects of this season is that it’s a subversion of the past three, where we’ve seen sandy, liz and jake deal with their internalised struggles with their sexualities, but with bree and rori, rori’s the one dealing with her sexuality, while bree is in love with her quietly)

AND THEN!!!!! we open clip 5 with the iconic skam verse song “call your girlfriend” by robyn as the girl squad show up at a house party and bree and rori have a homoerotic moment

and then!!!!!!!!!!!! a moment of skamverse wlw solidarity, “blush” by rhiza plays as rori and bree kiss in the bathroom. a) because it’s a good song and b) because the whole “she's just a friend, you know, but sometimes yeah i wanna kiss her, uhm but that's just 'cause she's cute right? that don't make me gay, it's not like i like other girls like i only like her, i mean no, i'm not gay, right?” part is really summing up what rori’s going through in this scene. also the song is just a bree song. 

episode five

WE OPEN WITH!!!!!! an iconic moment, if i may say so myself. an iconic wlw song, “boyfriend” by marika hackman, plays over bree and nick out partying. like it opens with the lyrics: “i've got your boyfriend on my mind / i think he knows you stayed with me last night” and then we get “it's fine 'cause i am just a girl / ‘it doesn't count’”. i mean. come on.

we then get a snippet of “rent” from rent in a rehearsal, with the lines: “how do you leave the past behind / when it keep finding ways to get to your heart” and “how can you connect in an age / where strangers, landlords, lovers / your own blood cells betray / what binds the fabric together / when the raging, shifting winds of change / keep ripping away”, which all really relate to brianna with her trying to bury her past traumas and and how she struggles to connect and also struggles with change - and the reference to fabric in the line when she’s the person who does the costumes for the show.

and then we get “pynk” by janelle monae as bree and annabell go charity shopping together and have a nice time. It’s just a fun wlw song and i like it. also it’s boppy and happy and kind of dreamy to show how their relationship is very on the surface and not as deep as it once was and they’re not really going to get that back so it’s just really awkward. 

AND THEN!!!! we get bree panicking because she’s getting creepy messages from josh so she runs to hang out with the girl squad and works on her drawing of them, focusing on rori as “head over feet” by alanis morissette plays. this is kind of a contrast to “pynk”, with it being a song that uses real instruments as opposed to the more electro feel of “pynk” to represent the two different relationships. also the lyrics “you treat me like i'm a princess / i'm not used to liking that” and “you've already won me over in spite of me / and don't be alarmed if i fall head over feet / and don't be surprised if i love you for all that you are / i couldn't help it / it's all your fault” are just Incredibly rori/brianna.

and then we get “hand solo (acoustic)” by marika hackman as we get a brief scene of bree masturbating to some not very healthy p*rn. i was hesitant to include this scene, out of fear of over-sexualising bree as a bisexual girl of colour, but then i thought i had to include the scene from a non-sexual stand point - to show how bree uses sex, even in her own mind when she’s alone, as a self destructive thing, and to show that masturbation is a normal thing to do, but also it’s a hint that bree’s state is getting a bit more manic than usual, so she’s getting more hypersexual. also for the catholic guilt of her stopping and looking up to see the cross above her bed.

when then get ortopilot’s cover of “basketcase” by green day, which is more of an acoustic version of the song. the song itself is just a Very mental illness song and just has a lot of vibes of guilt with it, and the beat of the song is very quick and manic in itself.

we then get “every breath you take” by the police playing over bree and josh’s Scary text conversation in the fish n chip shop, because it’s a creepy stalker song with Pleasant Music over it, which is kind of the Vibe i was going for with josh. also, the season came out around the same time as skames season 3, and seeing the parallels between josh and miquel, with josh being very emotionally distant and miquel being very emotionally close, but both of them having the same goal in mind and end result was very interesting to me. also both of them being very creepy old guys who should stay away from teenagers <3

but then. oh but then. we get a moment that is genuinely one of my favourites. we get the broadway cast version of “forgiven” by alanis morissette, another one of my favourite songs. i chose the broadway version because i prefer the quieter orchestration and the build up to the chorus instead of going all in on it so quickly. i chose this song because bree does parallel frankie from jlp, yes, but she also parallels mj in the fact that she’s repressing her trauma from being sexually harassed and assaulted by adult men ever since she was a child. and the song itself is very beautiful and bree core, with lyrics such as “my brothers, they never went blind for what they did / but i may as well have / in the name of the father, the skeptic and the son / i have one more stupid question” and “we all had our reasons to be there / we all had a thing or two to learn / we all needed something to cling to / so we did”. we also see bree seeking refuge in a church after being harassed by josh, because religion is the place where she genuinely feels safest, but she also doesn’t feel safe, as a bisexual woman in the catholic church, but she also knows in her heart that she is loved by god. 

episode six

WE! OPEN! WITH! “motion sickness” by ms phoebe bridgers plays as bree wakes up at liz’s house the next morning - a song literally about a shitty older man - and then bree is literally sick in the bathroom, claiming she has food poisoning from the strange fish they got last night because she couldn’t go to their usual place out of fear. but, in reality, this is morning sickness from her pregnancy, because she had sex with josh for the first time 6 weeks prior.

and then we get a scene of bree in a manic state rapidly working on costumes as “my body’s made of crushed little stars” by mitski plays. this scene is directly inspired by me in what i believe to be a manic episode staying up until 5am writing because i thought that if i stopped i would forget everything that i was thinking and never write anything good again. fun times. but also just the fast pace of the song and the very depressing lyrics and the whole “i’m not doing anything” playing over bree doing So Many Things…..

we then get a lot of silence because it’s Emotion Time, but then!!!! we get a moment very pleasing to be, “unprodigal daughter” by alanis morissette playing as bree goes to buy a pregnancy test. the song itself is just one of my favourites, and it’s also about bree kinning ms frankie healy (having a “perfect” white older brother, having an intense relationship with your mother, being artistic and into english, being bisexual and just really cool), but it’s also a song about choice and the singer choosing herself and who she wants to be and having hope for the future and wanting to run away. also the line “i’d invite you but i’m busy being oppressed” once again being used in regards to a young bisexual girl of colour….. genuinely one of my favourite lines ever written. the power it has.

and then. bree finds out she’s pregnant via the tests. and “oh no!” by marina begins to play, because skam brighton is a comedy show, but also skam brighton is a show for depressed british-ish teenagers. bree copes with this Really Fucked News by deciding to go and get wasted because that’s her favourite method of dissociation. also the song is just very bree as a whole, with the wanting to change and the “i'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy” after her making fun of her cousin’s pregnancy in the first episode.

and then we get “bubblegum bitch” also by marina as bree goes out to drink. it’s there to represent how bree is trying to force herself to get into her familiar role of the fun bitchy party girl, but it’s not working because she’s just really fucked, but she’s trying her best.

BIG TW FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT

and then “you are going to hate this” by the frights plays as josh and bree dance together, and we see josh giving her more and more drinks, getting her purposefully drunk as she gives into it, wanting the release being drunk gives her, not realising that he could be doing something bad to her because she’s so distracted by a) the alcohol and b) the fact that she’s fucking pregnant and doesn’t know what to do about it.

and then we get “seventeen” by sharon van etten as josh begins to assault brianna. i first heard this song in sex education, where it played as a group of girls supported their best friend after she was sexually harrassed on the bus, and i wanted to use it here as kind of a parallel to that, but also as a reminder than bree is seventeen years old, a child, and josh knows this, purposefully got her drunk and is assaulting her, because he is a disgusting human being.

episode seven

we open with “interlude iii” by tessa violet, as bree wakes up and leaves josh’s bed again, a parallel to the first clip of the season, but this time we saw the before that presumably happened. it’s just a really pretty song that vibes with the lonely emptiness of the scene.

and then we get “the ballad of mona lisa” by panic! at the disco as bree walks into school. it’s just a really vibey bree song, and the whole “i’d pay to see you frown” line is just about the always masking around people and never showing your real emotions. 

we then get “out tonight” from rent, but the movie version, purely because i just prefer the music production on that version. it just slaps. also, i just used this scene to talk about my love for my interpretation of mimi marquez. she’s just a teenager with a lot of problems who needs proper professional medical help, very much like bree. also, i have always seen “out tonight” as mimi having a manic episode and using the number as a distraction from her actual problems (literally what bree is doing) and i love her. (also the scene of bree watching the scene from the movie and having gay panic is just an Iconic moment)

we then get “funeral” by phoebe bridgers as bree lies in bed, deeply depressed and barely able to move. it’s just about a beautiful and deeply sad song. like all of the lines just vibe really hard with bree and the deep loneliness and emptiness of the song, and the underlying panic really outline bree’s actual emotional state.

and we end with the titular song of the episode, “will i?” from rent. i chose this song because, despite it being very repetitive, it’s always been deeply meaningful to me. and the only lines being “will i lose my dignity / will someone care / will i wake tomorrow / from this nightmare?” playing after bree talked about having to deal with her pregnancy, and following the dream imagery used in funeral, because all of the music Is connected…….. quite genuinely one of my favourite moments, because it’s so understated

episode eight

we begin the music of this episode with “everything i own” by the front bottoms - just a really fucking sad song for a really fucking sad time in bree’s life. with like like “just try to appreciate what you got while you got it” and “sometimes i don't feel like singing / i don't really like these songs / sometimes i don't feel like dancing / dj please, don't turn the beat on / let's keep it quiet, keep me honest, keep me true” just really vibing with her.

and then we get “even my dog” by kathryn gallagher, another one of my personal favourite songs, as bree walks through the hospital. first of all, kathryn gallagher’s character in jagged little pill, bella, does parallel bree quite a lot - being from a poor family, being talented at art, being slut-shamed by her school and dealing with the trauma of being sexually assaulted. the song itself has lyrics describing depression, with lines like “i don’t know how i’m gonna get better / i just know that i’m supposed to / i don’t know how i’m gonna get better / but i’ll tell you i’m good ‘til i believe it too” and “everybody wants me to be happy / everybody wants me to be” and “i can feel it / the life i knew before you / it’s beautiful to be so naive” which i feel just Really fit bree and her situation

then we get a little bit of “musetta’s waltz” played by james, because it’s a rent thing, and rori sings a bit of “over the moon” because it’s a maureen song and i just wanted to include it for a little bit of fun in the hell week

and then. oh and then. we get the funeral scene from rent and “i’ll cover you (reprise)” performed by milo and everyone else. the reason i chose this song is because a) it’s one of the most beautiful and heart wrenching songs in musical theatre canon, and b) i wanted to use the imagery of a funeral to show bree quietly making the decision in her head to go through with the abortion, even though she has many doubts. and the line “a new lease you were, my love / on life” is about the baby bree might have had may be being her ticket to a new life, the way she was for her mother, but bree knows that’s not what she wants and not what she can handle right now. and the moment bree finally break is the climax of the song, the moment death is said out in the open “when your heart has expired”. she hears that, is struck by the reality of what she wants to do, and just runs because it’s a lot for any person, let alone a seventeen year old, to handle.

and then we get the girl squad picking bree off the ground, quite literally, and helping her go to the doctor, all of them together, as “sign of the times” by harry styles played. all of the girls are involved, organising rides and where to go and comforting bree, and al’s staying behind, doing ground control at the rehearsal, because al and bree are siblings and they love each other god damn it. ans the song itself is just. simply epic. and the lines “you look pretty good down here / but you ain't really good” really get to where bree is in regards to her self image and it’s about her finally opening up and accepting help and doing what’s right and good for her, not being self destructive or doing things for someone else.

episode nine

we open with a slowed down piano cover of “knee socks” by the arctic monkeys, simply because i liked the sound of it and it’s a quintessential sad british time, but it’s also about girls being pretty.

and then we get one of my favourite songs from rent being sung by bree, “without you”. it’s a genuinely beautiful song about addiction and the struggles that people can go through with it. the song has a double meaning to bree, as she’s been struggling with her alcohol abuse problems recently and going clean, but the song is also about bree imagining life without her hypothetical child. “but i die / without you” is how bree is seeing it, still thinking she’ll be rejected by her mother, and partially by god, if she goes through with it, but the song goes on. she knows the world will go on without her child, but she’s unsure of how she’s going to be after the child is gone. (we also see james come in and sing too, as he plays roger, but him singing is also a reference to him dealing with his own addiction, as mentioned before in this season, to nicotine).

we then get “you gotta be" by des'ree playing as we go from bree getting herself together after josh gets fired to bree and her mother sitting together and watching ladybird. i wanted ladybird to be playing because it’s a very bree movie, in my opinion, and the “give me a number” scene playing is a really good feel, for me, of what it’s like to be a working class child and feeling the need to pay back your parents, which is something bree also feels immensely. and the song has lyrics such as “challenge what the future holds / try and keep your head up to the sky / lovers, they may cause you tears / go ahead release your fears” and “stand up and be counted / don't be ashamed to cry” and “you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger / you gotta be cool, you gotta be calm / you gotta stay together / all i know, all i know, love will save the day”, which just really vibe with where bree is in this scene, trying to figure out all the things she has to be and can be and the whole thing about standing up is just very bree, because, despite us seeing her insecurities and weaknesses, she’s always been a confident person 

and then we get a scene that i wrote just to make myself cry. bree gets her hair cut by her mother after deeply connecting to her as “slipping through my fingers” by abba plays. it’s a song about a mother watching her daughter grow up and trying to stay close to her despite her always growing and changing, which is how i see audrey. she’s a woman full of love and she will do anything to support her daughter and make her happy, and it took bree until now to see it. and then we see bree’s hair literally slipping through audrey’s fingers, because haircuts are often used as a way to regain control over one’s life, and i’ve used bree’s hair throughout this season as a way to represent her trauma. when she gets morning sickness, she throws up in her hair. josh pulls on her hair when he assaults her. her cutting her hair off is a metaphor for her cutting off her trauma, but then from the hair cutting we transition to:

the abortion clinic, where “soon you’ll get better” by taylor swift and the chicks is playing. a song where a daughter sings to her mother to get better, and we see a mother supporting her daughter as she gets ready to go through surgery. the song itself, though, feels more about bree’s mental health than her physical state. she knows that through this surgery, she will ultimately end up better, but it’s going to take a lot of time.

and then as bree and audrey sit at home, they watch another movie: this time “grease”, representing bree’s desire to get back to her younger, happier self.

and then. we get “wake up” by alanis morrissette as bree gets ready for the rally in support of sexual assault survivors. a song, when used in the jlp musical, is used to talk about how it’s easier to not stand up and speak out against sexual assault. with the line “it’s so much easier not to / and what goes around never comes around to you” being used in regards to the cishet abled white man who will never get back all of the harm he puts out into the world, but we see bree reclaiming the song and her own body, putting on makeup in a way that makes her happy and marching out to the streets as it plays, focusing on her and only her

episode ten

WE OPEN WITH!!!! a moment most pleasing to me - “i did something bad” by taylor swift playing as the girl squad slow mo down the street together, a united front. i chose this song because it’s literally about society saying a woman did something bad, but she doesn’t give a fuck and wishes that she could do it again, which is how bree feels about fucking up a rapist’s life. also, once again, bree rolling a nat 20 on her deception roll as she gets proof of josh having the pictures of her on his phone by pretending to be the manic pixie damsel in distress josh wanted….. and we also get josh using the term “witch hunt”, the same phrase bryan used when he went off on bree, to show that they’re both the same character archetype, but in different flavours (bryan coming in asshole jock and josh coming in adult man incel).

(note: i also wanted to include the girl squad in this scene, because in the og when noora when to go meet nikolai on her own i was just. So Scared for her because she had No One. also, fun fact, i included the fact that the squad call nick “nickolai” as a nickname in season 2 so maybe there would be a theory that he would be nikolai, but i was just playing 4d chess with myself and he’s just a nice guy)

and then we get “seasons of love” from rent, which is, yes, a basic theatre song, but you can’t deny how good it is. and the whole “minute” thing in it lining up with the “minute by minute” iconic skam speech, and we get annabell on the big soloist lines because they’re the person who also heard the “minute by minute” speech before from the same place as bree, because it was said in their group therapy…. and it also parallels “i’ll cover you (reprise)” with them all standing in a line, but this time bree stays because it’s about love and being supported by your friends and not being sure if you’re okay, but knowing there’s always a safe place for you to go where you’re loved.

(also, we get a throwback joke of sandy, once again, being surprised by how strangely sexual all of these musicals are. i love her so so much)

and then!!!!! we end the episode with rori and bree confessing their feelings for each other and kissing for real for the first time, and it ends with “dress” by taylor swift playing. literally just the most homoerotic song, and the whole “i don’t want you like a best friend” line…… they deserve to be in love with each other and i have been building up to them finally admitting it for four seasons. literally the longest slow burn i’ve ever written. 

episode eleven

WE! OPEN! WITH! “watch you sleep” by girl in red, a song i discovered in 2018 and wanted to save for a good moment, and then the whole “do you listen to girl in red” thing exploded, so. (james from derry girls voice) i support wlw, though i myself am not wlw. also it’s just a really sweet song that i like a lot. and we’ve seen bree wake up a lot at the beginning of episodes, and we see her wake up from a nightmare this time, and she calms down instantly when she realises she’s home and with rori…..

and then we get a moment MOST PLEASING to me!!!! we have canon swiftie alistair fletcher streaming “daylight” by taylor swift in the bathroom as bree and rori wait for him to be done. and then they start to dance together to it, with them referencing rent before they start dancing, and rori begins to sing along because rori, as a character, has such “lover” energy. and we get rori singing “i once believed love would be black and white”, which is a reference to her and james’s relationship, with her thinking it would be simple and easy, and then “i once believed love would be burning red”, with her and nick’s quick, passionate relationship “but it’s golden like daylight” and we see her and bree together, calm, best friends who are now lovers, no big dramatics, no fireworks, just two people who care so deeply about each other, holding each other, having seen each other at their worst and still adoring them with every part of their being. and we get the “you’re so pretty”, “no, you”, “no, us” exchange, which is just saying “stop comparing yourself to other girls, just be in love with them and yourself”

and then we get “number one fan” by muna, which is just a really fun boppy song, and just big bree core. with lines like “so i heard the bad news / nobody likes me and i'm gonna die alone / in my bedroom / looking at strangers on my telephone / well, wouldn't you? / wouldn't you like if i believed those words?” is showing her development, going from believing all of the bad shit people say about her, both online and to her face, and standing up for herself and believing in herself

(fun fact, there was originally a clip in this episode where we see bree going to the police about josh, but as i was getting closer to publishing it, i thought “fuck that, i’m not giving them any screentime”, and just gave bree some fun exposition about reporting josh to his school)

so we get “icu” by phoebe bridgers as bree’s walking down the street, just vibing, very happy because she just got her rapist expelled from his university. we get lines like: “and i get this feeling / whenever i feel good / it'll be the last time” which vibes with my perception and bree and her relationship with her mental health, which is currently, in the episode, in a good place because of goos things happening, but she knows that it’s going to come back down eventually, but she’s prepared for it now, she’s not as scared of herself anymore

then we get al’s film of the rehearsal process - which is, once again, him using art and music as a way of expressing his love - as “heroes” by david bowie plays. this is a direct reference to “the perks of being a wallflower”, a very inspiring piece of media to me, writing wise. the film that al makes is just a love letter to being teenagers and making art and noise in a world where people are constantly telling you to shut up.

and then, following two deeply philosophical speeches i wrote at 3am one night, we get the last 15 minutes of act one of a musical because it’s my show!!!!!! and if i want to have a character yell about love and then sing a song i can!!!!!

we begin with “la vie boheme”, the iconic act one closer of rent. quite genuinely, this song has the same meaning here as it does in rent, only with the added layer of “this is the last clip, so we’re just all having a fun happy ending” on it, so i’m just gonna be talking about my favourite fun parts of it.

we got al and bree sharing a laugh as al sings “not to mention, of course / hating dear old mom and dad”; we got al high-fiving jake as he talks about “fruits”, because they’re both gay; we got one of my favourite lines: “to being an us for once instead of a them”; we got milo and bree messing around because i love their friendship; we got bree and nick singing a verse together; we got al making it canon that mark cohen gets pegged with the “mucho masturbation” line; we get rori making eye contact with bree while she kisses another girl, because we love a call your girlfriend reference and we love her character development; we get james finally perfecting “musetta’s waltz”

and then we get “i should tell you”, a song i hated upon first watch of rent, but now i love it so so much. while james and bree are singing it together as roger and mimi, bree is very much dedicating the song to rori, because it’s a song about being scared of starting a relationship but doing it anyway because you’re learning to trust the other person. we also see audrey and patrick in the audience, both so happy and supportive of their children, because i love them so much. i love all of the parents, but audrey is definitely my personal favourite so fa.

and then!!!! we begin “la vie boheme b”, literally one of the biggest bangers of musical theatre history. 

we get rori singing the first fast verse, literally raising a middle finger to the idea of perfection and eating disorders, because while those ideas may be a part of her life, she’s happy to say “fuck you” to them; we get nick voguing to the camera as he sings his fast verse, goofing around like usual; and then we get milo yelling out their verse to the audience, serious, because they genuinely believe in the words they’re saying

then we get the cast all yelling out their lgbt identity in the form of a reclaimed slur. i also changed this part of the show because there’s two terms referring to lesbians in the song and i wanted to a reference just for bisexual people. 

then we begin to shift all focus away from bree and her story, beginning to move onto nick, as he and james dance together as al yells out the title line of the episode: “the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation”. and i decided to edit the closing monologue because i felt that it placed too much focus on roger and mimi’s romance and wanted to end the season with a focus on revolution and positive social change, ending with the line: “the riot goes on and on and on and on…”

and then we end the season with the line “we will now take a short intermission” as nick looks into the camera, because it’s time for a break between seasons babey!

and that’s another well over 10k essay on my music choices!!!!! also, as of writing this, i have officially finished production on skambr season 5!!!! i’m way ahead of schedule, which is really good for me, and the trailer will be coming out in about a month’s time!!!! until then, thank you for reading my infodump <3

#skam brighton #skam brighton spoilers #isaac speaks #tw rape mention

[is0gild]

Ice Cream and Fire Oven Pizza - Chapter 4

Pairing: Elsa x Lea/Axel || Side Pairing: Riku x OC

Summary: Modern AU. She's an introvert ball of nerves who works at Ice Palace, a mall food court ice cream shop. He's the outgoing, sassy goofball who works at the Pizza Planet across the way. Hilarity, snark, and fluffy romcom hijinks ensue.

Word Count: 3,861

FIRST CHAPTER || PREVIOUS CHAPTER || NEXT CHAPTER

Credit for super friggin’ cute and super friggin’ amazing cover art goes to the super friggin’ talented ky-jane here on tumblr!

So there I was.

Liplocked with a complete and total stranger.

A ridiculously and obscenely attractive stranger.

A fact I hadn’t been fully aware of nor really all that inclined to notice until right then, while stuck in said liplock.

I think it’s some sort of universal law, actually. That the more one embarrasses themselves in front of another person, the more insanely beautiful that person ends up being. I don’t make the rules. It’s just science.

These were the critical thoughts that were running through my head in that second.

One single second. That’s how long the kiss lasted. Short when you really think about it in the grand scheme of things. But at the time? It had felt like an absolute eternity. One miserable, mortifying eternity. It’d seem that while I hadn’t randomly gained the ability to reverse time in that moment like I had silently prayed for, it was a distinct possibility that I had somehow magically learned how to slow it down, but only to make humiliating incidents such as this last excruciatingly long.

Worst. Super power. Ever.

Green, by the way. 

The color of his eyes. In case you had been wondering.

I hadn’t been. Not particularly. But it was kind of hard not to notice when those eyes were all in your face and bright and vibrant and-

...was that… guyliner? 

I’d heard of such a thing, but I’d never seen it in practice until now. It actually looked kind of amazing. Wow, how did he get the wings to look so… so swoopy and-

Wait. Hold up. I smelled pepperoni.

I suppose that made sense. He did work at a pizza place, after all.

There was the scent of flour too.

That also tracked, what with him having just dropped dough all over his head.

What was a bit of a head scratcher however was the hint of cinnamon added into the mix. Had to wonder where exactly that one was coming from. I mean, it’s not exactly a common pizza topping. Not that I was aware of anyway.

Oh, and his lips? Soft. Like, super, duper soft. Dang, did he use moisturizer on those puppies? ...was that even a thing? Did people actually moisturize their lips? I don’t know about that, seems odd, but maybe-

I finally snapped out of it. The painfully longest second of my entire life at last came to an end and time sped back up to normal. I jerked my head back, hands flying up to clasp over my mouth, my eyes round and horrified, my face burning and breaking heat records across the globe. His own eyes were wide as he blinked at me a couple times before settling back on his heels in a daze.

Oh god, oh god, oh god…

What had I done?

No, seriously. What had I just frigging done?!

He was the first one to break the roaring, deafening silence as he began, “H-” 

“LET ME SEE IF WE HAVE ANY MORE IN THE BACK!” I blurted out loudly over him before I even realized what my mouth was doing, causing him to stagger a small step backwards.

That hung in the air between us for a couple awkward seconds.

And then I bolted. 

One second I was staring at his dumbfounded, stupidly gorgeous face, the next I was in the back room, slamming the door shut behind me and pressing my back up against it, hyperventilating and staring at my two coworker’s dumbfounded, not-quite-so-stupidly gorgeous faces.

…did that just really happen? Was this even real life? No way… there was just no possible way! This had to be a dream. A terrible, cruel dream! One that I was ready to wake up from now in my old bed in my old room in my old life, because the real world? Too much for me! This had been a bad idea, I’d been kidding myself, I couldn’t handle it! I may not have been happy in my old life, but at least it was safe and predictable and everything stayed the same and nothing happened, nothing like… like… 

Groaning, I squeezed my eyes shut as the last few agonizing minutes did an instant replay in my mind. I rolled away from the door over to the wall beside it, hiding my face against the cool, concrete surface.

This was a nightmare. All I needed to do was wake up.

I banged my head against the concrete.

Thump.

Wake up…

Thump.

Wake up!

Thump.

For the love of all that is good and merciful, please, please wake up already!

I peeked one eye open. 

Much to my dismay, the sight that greeted me was still that of the bland grey storage room wall as opposed to my old, safe fluffy pillow back in my old, safe warm bed.

It wasn’t a dream.

Drat.

And now my forehead hurt. Great. Just… great.

Another groan escaped me as I flipped back around, still using the wall for support as I slid down to sit on the ground, hugging my knees to my chest. Frozone and Kristoff had put down the large box they had been carrying between them and were now kneeling down in front of me. Their faces were twisted in confusion and concern, their lips were moving, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying to me.

It just kept playing on loop over and over again in my head.

Had I really just said that? After doing… that?! To the poor, unsuspecting pizza guy?! 

He was going to think I’d escaped from an insane asylum! That’d I’d planned that. That’d I’d plotted and possibly even schemed. That that was my MO, to lure pure, innocent men into my carefully laid traps before I pounced and-

Dear lord, I was a sexual predator. 

They were going to make me watch the harassment orientation video again.

Would it be enough? Or was it too late for me? Was I too far gone and out of control? Men everywhere, see me and despair! Cower and flee, lest I corrupt thy virtue and-

“I kissed him,” the words came tumbling out of my mouth before I’d even realized it and with them, sound came rushing back to my ears.

“You what?!” Frozone yelped as he shot back up to his feet, at the same time Kristoff asked, “Kissed who? A customer? What happened?”

“I- He- It… Dough!” I all but shouted the word, striking up a finger, my eyes darting wildly between the two of them. “There was dough! Flipping, flying! And then, it wasn’t. And- his head! Oh gosh, his head, it was- I started laughing! I mean, wouldn’t you? Who wouldn’t have, it just was too- but then there was the wave! Oh my god, the wave! So I did the only thing I could, obviously… I hid! But then, that was just… it was so stupid! So I stood back up, but, but… he was there and I was there and we both were there and it… it just… It. Just. Happened!”

The deluge came to an abrupt and blessed end and a hush fell. A long one at that, punctuated only by my haggered panting. My coworkers just stared at me unblinking for a few seconds before exchanging looks between each other.

“Did you, uh… follow any of that?” Kristoff mumbled out of the corner of his mouth.

“Not really,” Frozone shook his head, stepping over to the door. He cracked it open an inch to squint through, before brightening a bit. “Oh, that’s not a customer! That’s just one of the pizza dudes from across the way.”

I furrowed my brow up at him, shaking my head, “Does that really make it any better?!”

His fingers scratched under his cap before he shrugged. “...guess not.”

I stiffened. “Wait… he’s still out there? Oh god…” I buried my face into my knees, arms covering my head as I tightened my ball formation. I couldn’t face him, I just couldn’t! Please just kill me now. Put me out of my misery, I beg of you. “Tell him something… anything. Please, just… make him go away!” Then I gasped, head jerking back up once more, “Tell him I don’t work here!”

Frozone stared at me blankly.  “...you want me to tell him we left the storefront unmanned, allowing some lunatic to climb behind the counter, steal and get dressed in one of our uniforms and pretend she worked here, all without us realizing it?”

“No, no, that’s not what I meant. Please, that’d just be silly,” I waved him off. Pft, what a ridiculous idea. “No, I meant tell him that no one like me works here. Tell him that… that I was just a figment of his imagination! Yeah, that it was all in his head! Or, oh! Tell him that I was a ghost!”

Totally plausible.

At least, to my somewhat addled, panicked brain, it was. 

...I may have been a bit logically compromised at the moment.

His eyelids drooped. “Yeah, no, I’m not doing that.”

My shoulders slumped at that. But then I perked up again as I seized on another idea. “Then tell him I’ve left the country!”

“...left?” Kristoff cocked an eyebrow at me. “Past tense? As in you’ve already crossed the border? ...in the space of five minutes?”

I nodded my head rapidly. “Yes! I’m already in France! Or Arabia! Ooo, Norway!”

Sighing, Frozone squatted down in front of me once more. “Listen, if this guy is harassing you or… if he attacked-”

“What?!” I burst out in horror before quickly shaking my head. “No! No, it was all me! My mouth was the offending party here! His lips were just innocent bystanders! But it was an accident, a mistake, I swear! I didn’t mean to-”

“Alright, alright, I believe you,” he raised a hand, gesturing for me to settle down. “I’m still not sure I totally understand what exactly went down, but… this all just sounds like one big misunderstanding. I’ll go talk to him and see if I can get him to leave,” he said gently as he rose.

Feeling relief flood my chest, I raised my hands over my bowed head, pressing my palms together. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Yeah, yeah, just… try not to let it happen again,” he mumbled over his shoulder before disappearing through the door.

Wonderful! Problem solved!

...for now, anyway.

I moaned, leaning my head back against the wall and hiding my face in my hands.

I still had to deal with the fact that he worked at the Pizza Planet directly opposite of me. That’d I’d probably have to see him every day, or close to. That’d he probably try to talk to me and want an explanation for the… thing I did. I didn’t even know if I could explain it. I had a hard enough time making small talk with people. And this? So not small! Not even close! Ugh, what was I even going to do the next time I saw him? I had no idea. Absolutely none. Was crumbling to dust and scattering on the wind a viable option? No, probably not.

A tiny whimper escaped me.

“Aww, why so glum?” a very dopey, but very familiar voice asked.

Eyebrows knitting together, I dragged my hands down my face, peeking out between my fingertips.

One of those little reindeer plushies was in my face, being held aloft by Kristoff. Using a finger to bob the stuffed animal’s head up and down, he continued on in that same goofy warble, “Turn that frown upside down! Cheer up! Things aren’t as bad as they seem.”

I just gave him a dull stare.

“When I’m feeling down, I like to sing a song and-”

“Kristoff,” I grumbled, folding my arms atop my knees.

He tipped the dolls head to one side. “Who’s Kristoff? I’m Sven and I’m here to brighten your day and-”

“Kristoff,” I interjected a second time, eyelids drooping now as I said flatly, “Please make the reindeer stop talking to me.”

“Got it,” he immediately dropped the idiotic voice as he tossed the plushie over his shoulder.

“Thank you.” I then sighed, cradling my face into my arms.

It’d been sweet of him to try to comfort me, but…

...I think I’d preferred it more when he was a bit of a grump.

“Wait,” Rayne froze, her reflection’s gaze meeting mine in the mirror. Eyes dancing and voice quivering slightly as she bit back a grin, she asked, “I’m sorry, but you did what now?"

I grimaced, looking down at my lap and shifting uncomfortably.  “Please don’t make me say it again.”

“Oh my god!” Now she erupted with laughter, making me twitch in my seat.

My face warmed for what must have now been the thousand and twenty-sixth time that day (oh yes, I’d been keeping count) and I released a tiny huff, glancing back up at her reflection. “I fail to see what’s so funny.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she waved one hand, trying to muffle her giggles behind the other and failing miserably. She at last managed to sober somewhat, saying, “I get it though, I really do. You want to earn them fat tips. But sweetie, you’re supposed to suck up to the customers, not suck face with them!” She spluttered and broke down once more.

I narrowed my eyes, heaving a sigh through my nose.

Ah, having the loving care and support of a dear friend.

Wonder what that’s like.

Must be nice. 

I had gotten home not too long ago from my disastrous first day. Thankfully, Frozone had taken pity on me, letting me hide in the back for the remainder of my shift and help him with getting the rest of that new shipment sorted out. But tomorrow I wouldn’t be so lucky. My insides were already twisting into a million knots at the very idea. Sleep? Ha! Like I’d be getting any of that tonight.

Rayne and I were now in my bedroom. By now all of the baby stuff had been cleared out and the room was looking pretty bare. Not like I had a lot of munny (aka none) to decorate with. But hopefully that’d be rectified soon and I could start making the space feel a little more homey… a little more me. For now, there was the bed they’d already had in there, now complete with a quilt comforter with various patterns and shades of blue - sort of a “house warming” gift from Rayne and Riku. As for the rest of the furniture, they’d introduced me to a thing called curb shopping, out of which we’d managed to find me a free wardrobe and dresser, both obviously old and a little nicked but otherwise serviceable, as well as a vanity with a large mirror attached and an accompanying chair.

It was at that vanity that I now currently sat, with Rayne standing behind me while she brushed my hair. Or, rather… had been brushing. At the moment, she was a bit otherwise preoccupied with her chuckling at my expense.

“Why exactly are we doing this again?” I muttered through my teeth.

“Hm?” she wiped at the corners of her eyes, finally settling down enough to resume carefully stroking the brush through my long, pale strands. “Oh! Well, since jellybean here,” she patted her tummy, “is a girl, I gotta prepare! And Riku’s majestic mane is not around at the moment, so who else am I gonna practice on? Besides, it’s soothing. It’ll help make you feel better.”

...which, okay, it kind of was.

She shrugged, “Plus, brushing hair is a time honored tradition of girl talk.”

My nose crinkled slightly. “This is girl talk?”

She gave me a pointed look. “We’re discussing kissing boys, what do you think?”

My shoulders slumped, “Ugh, don’t remind me.”

One corner of her lips twitched up and she pinched my cheek. “Lookit you, already making friends on your first day, I’m so proud!”

Lightly swatting her hand away, I scoffed. “I know I’m a bit clueless when it comes to this whole being around people thing but last time I checked, what I did was not the socially acceptable way to make a new friend.”

“You’re right. My mistake.” She smirked, “I should have said boyfriend.”

I paled. “Boyfriend? Oh no, certainly not. He definitely thinks I have a few screws loose now... That I’m a total freakshow. He’s probably just as mortified as I am. Beyond maybe demanding I explain myself and that I apologize, he’s not going to want to have anything to do with me.”

“You kidding?” she quirked an eyebrow. “You’ve seen yourself, right? Girl, you’re a total knockout. That boy is probably praising Aphrodite for blessing him with the divine gift that was your sweet, sweet lips.”

I groaned, my hands wringing the hem of my skirt. Now commencing blush number one thousand and twenty-seven. “This is all just so humiliating. I wish I could just disappear! Just… find a deep dark pit somewhere to dive into and get lost miles below the earth’s surface and… and discover an underground kingdom of mole people! And they’d welcome me with open arms and accept me as one of their own to live out the rest of my days in peace… that is of course, until I inevitably kiss one of them on accident because, let’s face it, I have a taste for it now, the beast has been awoken, this dark urge cannot be controlled, so then they’ll banish me down an even deeper, darker pit where I’ll find the mole people’s mole people and-”

“Elsa,” she bonked me on the head with the flat of the bristled implement.

“Right. Babbling. Sorry,” I winced, hanging my head. “Maybe...maybe I should just quit.” The hairbrush stilled again, this time as Rayne fixed me with a dull stare. I sighed, “No, I know, it’d be pathetic to give up after only working one day, and over something so silly. Besides, I… need to stop running away from my problems and start facing them head on.”

She smiled and the combing began again. “Good girl. Sorry,” she murmured the last part as she caught a snag, eliciting a soft hiss from me. “Now stop changing the subject. I want all the juicy deets on Romeo. Spill.”

Ugh, I really just wanted to forget the whole thing ever happened. But there was no getting out of this, it seemed. Might as well get it over with. “Well… he works right across from me and-”

“Wait, you mean at the Pizza Planet?” At my nod, she pressed, “Was he blonde?” 

I frowned. “No, redhead.”

Her eyes widened. “Aw snap, you kissed Lea?!”

...Lea?

Both eyebrows shooting up my forehead, I blinked. “I don’t know, maybe?”

Annnnnnnd there she went, exploding into another fit of laughter.

I wished Anna were here. She never would have-

...oh, who am I kidding? She would have been cracking up twice as hard.

Reaching for a lock of my hair to twist at, I asked, “Do you... know him?”

“That mall used to be practically a second home to me, I know almost everyone that works there. Oh gosh, trust me, you have nothing to worry about. Lea’s a giant sweetheart, he’ll understand that you’re just a total spazz and it’s all a big mistake. Just talk to him.”

My eyes darted to the left. “I think I’d rather take my chances with the mole people.”

“Oh shush. Just do it, you’ll be fine, I promise.” She fell silent for a couple more sweeps of the hairbrush. “Soooooo…” she drew the word out before conspiratorially whispering, “what was it like?” 

My forehead wrinkled. “...what was what like?”

“You know…” she waggled her eyebrows at me, “Laying some sweet sugar on that big red tree of a man.”

Make that one thousand and twenty-eight. I clasped my hands over my ears, “Gah, please tell me you did not just say that!”

She snorted, “What? Don’t get me wrong, I could kiss those pillow lips of Riku’s all day-”

“I really didn’t need to hear that.”

Rayne rolled her eyes. “But there’s nothing wrong with having a little curiosity! So stop holding out on me already, girl. I want to know everything.”

Averting my gaze, I grumbled, “I was kind of too busy having a frigging heart attack to really pick up on any details.”

Alright, so, not technically true. Like, at all. It had actually been kind of distressing how painfully aware I was of everything teeny-tiny little thing in that one now infamous second that had stretched on to infinity and beyond.

But… I really, really didn’t want to talk about it.

I noticed Rayne eyeing me suspiciously, not quite buying it. Before she could press further however, I cleared my throat and said, “Could we… please just talk about something else now?”

“Fine,” she harrumphed.  Her lips pursed to one side, then, “...have you called them yet?” 

Twitching, I muttered, “Something other than that.”

“No, no,” her reflection pinned me with a stern look. “You don’t get to do that. I already let you wriggle your way out of the last topic, which by the way we’re gonna be circling back around to.” Great. “But really, you need to talk to them and just get it over with already. Rip the bandaid off. They’re probably worried sick.”

I exhaled slowly through my nose. “I know, I just… was giving them more time to cool off.”

“It’s been a week, how much longer do you think they really need?”

I shrugged, “Oh, I dunno, I was thinking maybe… sometime next century?” Another bonk to my head from the hairbrush. “Ow! Could you not?”

She crossed her arms and frowned down at me. “Call them.”

Yeesh, the child wasn’t even born yet and Rayne already had her Disapproving Mom Stare down pat. I could tell you now, that kid wasn’t going to be getting away with anything.

“I don’t even have a phone.”

She fished her mobile out her pocket and slapped it down on the vanity.  “Call them.”

Gnawing on my lower lip, I slowly reached for the phone, resting my hand over it. A couple heartbeats of hesitation, then I was pushing it away.  “Tomorrow, okay? I… I’ll call them tomorrow.”

Her eyes narrowed, but at last she relented. “Alright then. I’m gonna hold you to that though, missy.  Now,” she set the brush down beside her phone and gathered my hair into two separate clumps, one just behind either ear, “I’m envisioning pigtails. How cute would that be?” She beamed at me in the mirror. “What do you think?”

“Uh… sure?”

As she happily set to work, my thoughts wandered back to making that dreaded phonecall.

Tomorrow…

That’s what I’d told myself yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that. So I certainly hoped she wasn’t going to hold me to it.

But who knows… maybe I actually meant it this time… 

...eh… probably not.

Author’s note: Elsa being the walking, talking, awkward ball of anxiety rears its ugly head once more! To her credit, at least she remembered to say what Kristoff told her to say… now the question is, did that really help matters? You decide! Side note, I found an excuse to make Kristoff talk for reindeers in this fic, and really, that’s the dream right there. And thanks to Rayne, at least Elsa now knows the name of the stranger she accidentally got to first base with, so that has to be a step in the right direction, right? Also, gosh, I know it sucks that we’re already 4 chapters in and Lea hasn’t even gotten to talk yet. Don’t worry, he starts talking next chapter! It’s all small and slow at first, but once he has a chance to really get going, he doesn’t shut up, I promise xD

Next chapter, will Elsa woman up and sort things out with Lea? Will she make this phonecall to the mysterious “them” (you all can probably guess who) that Rayne alluded to? Stay tuned to find out! Thank you so much for reading, and an extra BIG thank you to anyone who liked or reblogged last chapter, seeing that always brings the biggest, goofiest smile to my face!

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#kingdom hearts #frozen #elsa #axel #fanfiction #lea #fanfic #kingdom hearts fanfiction #frozen fanfiction #kh fanfiction #kh fanfic #frozen fanfic #kingdom hearts fanfic #axelsa #fluff #romcom #snark #kh3 #my writing #ice cream and fire oven pizza #rare pair #crossover pairing #slow burn

[kuragin]

be more chill: book versus musical

i very recently (like, friday night) got my hands on a copy of ned vizzini’s be more chill, a novel i have been meaning to read even before i had heard of the musical due to the fact that i have read another one of his novels, it’s kind of a funny story, but i could never get my hands on a copy of due to the fact that the bookstore never had any. being a diehard of the musical, i decided to do a little review of the book, how it compares to the musical, and why it should not be getting all the hate that it deserves. here we go:

I instinctively knew that the original book version of Be More Chill is a wildly different product than the musical. Also, neither one is better than the other considering that they are two very different things. The novel Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini centres on the struggles of Jeremy Heere, a socially inept high school aged theatre kid who takes a pill called a SQUIP in order to be with the girl of his dreams, the blonde, popular, and frankly hotheaded Christine. The musical Be More Chill by Joe Icons and Joe Tracz deals with a similar situation- Jeremy Heere, an anxiety ridden teenage boy who likes video games, takes a pill called a SQUIP in order to be less sweaty and more cool, and to hopefully go out with his long time crush, a passionate, ADHD Asian theatre kid named Christine.

When I see a lot of people on Tumblr comparing the novel to the book, I feel like they’re forgetting the fact that (a) Ned Vizzini wrote the novel in 2004, and (b) The novel is not a hero vs villain story like the musical, but rather the protagonist vs himself. The musical is about Jeremy vs the SQUIP, with some character development for him thrown in. The book is about Jeremy vs his own anxiety, fears, and self-set limits.

When you get into theatre, it’s hard to stay away from well, the theatrics. Adapting anything to the modern stage can be a challenge, especially a stream-of-consciousness book like Vizzini’s Be More Chill. Instead of having your character's thoughts be portrayed through text, they have to be shown through dialogue. Vizzini’s books are projections of himself, his experiences, and a place of vent. The musical is not Ned Vizzini.

Having the SQUIP be villainous makes for a much better show. Motivations are clear, the setup is easy, and the audience reception is much more well-received. However, if you were to novelize the musical version of Be More Chill, I can guarantee that it would be tacky and not very well recepted. And I think that’s a credit to the Joes of the Musical, who managed to pull off such an insane show. The concept is strange and unusual, but the exposition is wonderful. A ballad like Michael in the Bathroom would have absolutely never been well translated into text, because the entire song is pure, raw, unfiltered emotion coming from Michael, rather than it as experienced through Jeremy’s point of view (which is how the novel is written- Note: the novel features 0 instances of Michael freaking out in a bathroom).

Here’s some things I noticed in the novel that made somewhat of an appearance in the musical:

Novel!Michael mentions that his older brother got a SQUIP, and he went from a failing student to attending Brown University, but because it was a SQUIP 1.0, it also made him go insane. In the musical, (the dialogue just before Michael in the Bathroom) Michael tells Jeremy that he couldn’t find anything about the SQUIP on the internet, but he says that, “Finally, this guy I play Warcraft with told me how his brother went from a straight D student to a freshman at Harvard” which is obviously a reference to his novel!brother.

Michael and Jeremy are much closer friends in the musical. In the book they were friends, but they weren’t die-hard-I-would-put-on-pants-for-you friends. They weren’t as dedicated to each other in the novel, which I think, when you watch the musical, was meant to provide a best-friend-who-saves-the-day type situation, a la Lord of the Rings Samwise Gamgee style. Novel!Jeremy is much more isolated from other characters and social situations than Michael is, which is apt for a novel about the individual vs self. Having Michael and Jeremy be outcasts together makes for a much more interesting climax at the end when they’re on opposite sides of the social hierarchy and pitted against, yet still want to care for each other.

The novel was written in 2004, at a time when Mountain Dew Code Red was readily available. In a modern retelling, having Michael be some hipster ass gamer who buys expired soft drinks for his collection is downright hilarious and a wonderful way to explain why it was hard for Rich to get his hands on some, it further asserts the importance of Michael as a character, and creates even more suspense for a climax (as the soft drink was only available in limited quantities, AKA 1 bottle, and it would be extremely difficult to get more).

(Can you notice that I love Michael Mell? Personal bias, I guess.)

One of the things that surprised me the most was that Jeremy’s mom was in the novel. I just figured that she was also absent in the books, and that it was one of the many other things that Jeremy was struggling with.  Having his mom absent is a strange decision, but I can see only two possible reasons for it: a smaller cast, because there really isn’t a need for a grown adult woman in the play besides his mother, and Jeremy already has a parent (for reference, the actor for Mr. Heere also plays the drama teacher Mr Reyes and other background characters; Mrs Heere would not have had any secondary roles), and for dramatic situation. Having Mr. Heere a depressed father whose wife left him adds another layer to his character, rather than just having obese divorce lawyer who eats peanut butter oreos. Mr Heere is the one who shows up to Michael’s house and motivates him to help Jeremy, even after he had been a jerk to him. It’s much more suited because the musical has different conflicts and requires different resolutions, including those of background character development.

Despite being written in 2004 and now retold, Eminem is still relevant and mentioned in the musical, and canonically dies in both. I think my favourite addition though is when Brooke says “he was super old and mean to women” just after they all find out he dies.

Also Jenna takes much more precedence in the novel, but in the musical she’s reduced down to the “school gossip”. This is done for a reason though, because she is a main catalyst to how Jeremy keeps spreading the SQUIP to the other students of Middleborough. Brook is also a lot less apparent in the book. Overall, I think the female characters in the musical have a lot more personal development and personality than what the novel reduces them to. In defense of Vizzini, however, the novel is written in the POV of Jeremy and that is how he sees the girls, rather than the omniscient point of view that the musical provides. Ie: Christine, who is a much more likable girl in the musical for her dorkiness and self-aware theatre geekiness. 

So overall, the book and the musical versions of Be More Chill are still different things, adapted for different modes of sharing, and for different audiences. One is not better than the other, one is just much more culturally relevant than the other, especially because were in an age where the Teen Musical is increasingly becoming popular and centralized for a pretty specific group of fangirls.

Also jeremy is a furry in the novel ok i said it

#bmc #be more chill #be more chill book #ned vizzini #long text #post

[harry-niclach]

Crowns Part 1

Title: Crowns

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The artist is the wonderful and kind @painfullybisexual

And this is for the Big Bang @ts-storytime thanks for creating this it helped me get used to a deadline and it helped improve my writing so thanks you guys and thanks for all your tips! Ily guys

Pairings/Characters: Romantic Analogical (Logan and Virgil) and Platonic/Familial Royality (Roman and Patton) and some oc and side characters that are in a relationship or are implied to be in love!

AU: Fantasy/Medieval based

Summary: Virgil has always been alone. He didn’t believe that there was a place for him out there. So when his Mother left him with a quick to turn Father he seemed more alone than ever. Now, however, someone is trying to help him, what can their reasoning be?

And more importantly, can Virgil stop himself from being too gay and falling for him?

Warnings: Panic, Panic attack, Minor Character Death, Illness, Cuts from falling, Swearing, blood, weapons, sword fighting/knife fighting, chase scene or two, If there's more let me know. There were more but I ran out of time to expand. (These are warnings for the entire book I will put the ones that apply for the chapter in bold!)

A/N: Research was done for the characters, names, outfits and some other random bits and bobs the rest is the fantasy half where things were added that might not be 100% factual but that’s part of the fun I guess! I hope you enjoy reading it and I hope I make the deadline! This will also end on a cliffhanger and depending on what people think I will make sequel if it goes down well and I know that Roman and Patton aren’t written as much as Logan and Virgil and that’s like only because I love analogical so much that I just can’t stop once I start but they do meet! I’m only 13 and I have written before just not on Tumblr so I had to balance school and homework and stuff too like others probably did too but don’t be mad if it isn’t great! I appreciate all the feedback though so don’t be afraid to let me know what you think!

The stairs had given way a few days ago. No one had come by. He was stuck.

The vines outside had grown and tangled in the crumbling walls, the bushes outside had grown wildly, and the grey sky ceased to clear. There was a very cold draft all through the tower and the stairs were gone and in a pile at the foot of the tower. Virgil’s crown had been thrown in a corner the second day that he had been trapped.

After all, it was the reason his world had crumbled, much like the stairs.

He had been waiting for a few days now.

-

People like knights were supposed to pass by here and they did but in the last few days no one had been near the area and it seemed like the universe was against him. His anxious heart was beginning to beat faster and faster. His eyes looked out the window and scanned the grass outside in hopes of seeing someone, anyone, but he could see no one and his hopes of hearing someone were drowned out by the sound of his heartbeat in his ear and his breathing that was filling up the empty room, void of sound. That would explain why he didn’t hear his savior approach,

“Is there someone up there?!” The voice was cold and precise and snapped him out of his panic,

“Y-yeah! Please! Fuck, the-the stairs I-I can’t get out!” He called back to whoever was at the bottom, his voice cracking as he stumbled over his words trying to get them out in desperation. This person sensed his discomfort and began talking calmly,

“Okay, I will find a way to get you down but please do as I say, can you do that?” Virgil only took a moment to respond,

“Y-Yeah I-I’ll try,” He was still shaking quite a bit but his mind had calmed slightly at the thought of finally getting out of this awful tower.

After about 5 minutes of listening intently waiting for the man at the bottom to tell him to do something, he heard a low rumble and some more bricks fell startling Virgil so much that a small yelp emitted from him.

“Are you alright up there?” He heard the voice once again filling him up with more hope. He nodded for a moment before realizing that this person couldn’t actually see him,

“Y-yes!” He went back to being quiet and sat on the small creaky bed in the corner of his small damp room. It was a miracle that he hadn’t become ill yet.

“Okay I need you to stand where the stairs used to be so that I can throw up a rope ladder to you, can you do that?” This man was constantly making sure that Virgil was okay. Who on god's green earth was he? Virgil pushed that thought away as it was unimportant right now, he honestly did care who was rescuing him but he also didn’t care. If the person was nice enough to rescue him and go out of their way to do so, then he assumed they were an okay person. Virgil didn’t like to assume things but in this case, he had to and it was a gut feeling so he went with it.

Virgil walked shakily over to the stairwell and looked down, making sure to keep his body pressed around the wall from the fear of falling. He waited a few minutes for this stranger to eventually throw a rope ladder up the tower. He waited and waited, he waited to the point that his anxious head made up reasons for why it was taking so long and his anxious heart began to beat faster and faster but he willed himself to at least make it down until he had a panic attack.

Just as he was about to give in the stranger came back and they had a rope ladder. Virgil’s next thought was that this stranger was very handsome and his thought after that was that he was a prince from the North. Which sent him into a further panic.

-

For the longest time, the North and the South Kingdom had been fighting and invading and pillaging the towns in the west where the dark sides were and Virgil had been roped into this quite against his own will. It had all been a big misunderstanding but the strange thing was that he would rather be stuck up in the tower forever than be back in the west. He wasn’t even a dark side! But as soon as the people of the uneasy kingdom saw him they guessed that he was their next king and when Virgil denied they ignored and when Virgil protested they reacted and that was how this whole thing had happened. God he wished his father hadn’t wanted to move to the west in a desperate act of fear of the South Kingdom who had threatened him so he decided this was a good idea.

He had never been more wrong in his life but Virgil didn't care he now hated the man he once called father as when Virgil was assumed of royal blood he sided with those in the wrong and when it came to dealing with Virgil’s outbursts his “Father” agreed with moving somewhere where he had nothing to mess up and where he was out of the way.

-

So that’s what happened and now after days of waiting for some stranger from one of the very kingdoms he feared was here trying to help him.

Why?

He was broken out of his thoughts, once again, thanks to the man shouting up the stairwell his voice laced with the slight undertones of frustration which implied that he was repeating himself,

“Please, listen, I can hear that you’re breathing quite erratically, please take a deep breath and try to focus until we at least get you down from up there,” His voice was very calculating and precise but nevertheless he did have a point, taking in a deep breath Virgil nodded more to himself before calling back down the stairwell,

“Y-yeah, o-of course,” His voice broke a little and his pitch was a little higher than usual but who could blame him because he was currently stuck in a tower with a stranger trying to help him down with a probably unstable ladder but hey at least he was getting down,

Right?

The man wasted no time in throwing up the ladder then he went on to instructing Virgil on what he should do,

“Okay, First I need you to make sure you have everything as we will not be returning here then I need you to hook the ladder onto the brickwork where the stairs used to stand, Can you do that?” His voice was again not too loud and not in the slightest bit concerned he seemed very calm, in fact, he seemed like he had no problems in the world but what caught Virgil’s attention was the word ‘we’ what did he mean?! Virgil did as he was instructed without argument or protest. Once the ladder had been hooked onto the relatively sound brickwork, the man began to talk again,

“Okay, you can begin to climb down now as the ladder appears to be structurally sound  but please hold on tight and shout if you believe it to be true that you will fall, I will catch you,”

Was this guy insane?! How was he going to catch him and how was Virgil supposed to climb down the ladder calmly and why wouldn’t he hold on?! It’s not like he had a death wish! Instead of voicing his concerns he just obediently began to climb down the ladder it shook and wobbled and pieces of wall crumbled down the stairwell but the ladder somehow stayed in place, and for that, Virgil was grateful.

He reached the ground after some unknown time span, as he reached the ground his legs were too shaky to withstand his own weight but the man who helped him down caught him, it was as if he had somehow foreseen Virgil’s weak knees.

“Th-thanks...” Virgil’s voice was no more than a whisper, if even that but he was so relieved to finally be on the ground and out of that godforsaken tower. His crown was dropped next to him in disgust and as a second thought. After about a ten seconds Virgil was shaking too much to stand and lowered himself to the ground with the help of the man,

“My name is Sir Logan from the North,” He looked at Virgil with a warm shine in his eyes but nothing suggested that he wanted a name and information in return.

After Virgil was set down leaning against the wall by the door Logan moved to inspect the crown that had been thrown, He picked it up gingerly and began to turn it in his hands, his face set like stone, he spoke up once more,

“Where are you from? I do not need your name nor do I care what your name is at this precise moment in time, Now where are you from?” His voice hardened and his face remained set clearly he already knew the answer,

“Th-the West, shit! B-but! I s-swear I-I’m not a-a fuckin’ dark s-side-!” He was now frantic, trying to get his conscious stream of thoughts out into words but he couldn’t, and that’s what bothered him. He worked himself up even more tears threatening to spill out as he clenched his jaw,

“It’s okay, I know that your not one of them, I can tell from your stutter so please calm down. Take a deep breath and know that I won’t hurt you, Okay?” Logan was talking slowly but emotions weren’t Logan's forte he had a difficult time reading people's emotions, he could tell what emotions people felt at best but he had no idea how to deal with them,

Virgil began to hyperventilate, he was trying to take deep breaths but for some reason, he couldn’t breathe no matter how hard he tried and he as trying.

There was now warmth where there hadn’t been before. Something pulled his arm from his huddled form and held against a body of warmth. But it wasn’t too warm. There was a steady beat that Virgil could feel through his hand and it, oddly enough, ebbed his panic away until he wasn’t continuing to get worked up over what he would do and what would happen to him. Don’t get me wrong he was still in a state of panic it just wasn’t increasing anymore it was slowly - incredibly - leaving his system as he focused solely on breathing deep full breaths and then forcing them back out in time to the beat which he could now guess was a heartbeat.

After some minutes had passed - or maybe it had been hours? Virgil wasn’t sure anymore - when Virgil could think clearly and was mostly coherent Logan asked him something,

“Would you like to come back with me?”

-

Sorry for any mistakes. If you want to be tagged let me know! <3

#sanders sides #virgil sanders #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #fanfic #sanders sides fanfic #sanders sides fic #ts-storytime 2018 submission #harry writes #crowns #analogical #royality #my writing

[chicoryandbananas]

Out Breath (Nancy Wheeler/Jonathan Byer Fic)

(Is there a Tumblr-standard format for fan fiction? My blog, my rules. Disclaimer, disclaimer, mid-episode 2x06, spoilers, adventures of the doubter and the liar, enjoy)

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A few steps inside the flimsy excuse for a door, he stops kissing her with the equal and opposite force he'd used to pull her into that kiss in the first place. His back is up against the wall and she's standing off balance, alone, in the middle of the room, sense of touch still a few seconds behind. She can feel everywhere his hands were on her a moment ago like her skin had bunched up as easily as the fabric of her shirt and was coming unwrinkled slowly, snapping with the static of frustration.

“What the hell?” She says indignantly, heart so loud she thinks for a second Murray is knocking on the door and she whips around to look at it with rage. She only just registers the new steel in her voice, the certainty, grown over a year of horrors that didn't beat her, that she wants him and she's earned this. “What the hell, Jonathan?” She's says, louder still, angry before he has a chance to answer at the fact that he's not a coward in anything but this.

Jonathan breathes fast and deep. His eyes cast around wildly like he's chalking and erasing numbers in the air, doing the math of self control. Each breath out is a propulsive force, anchoring his resolve to the wall at his back. His shoulders don't fall in on themselves. He's not afraid anymore. Not of her, not of the way she looks at him and what she must see.

“Steve,” he says like the name means regret. “I don't hate the guy enough to….I know how I'd feel if I had someone like you and lost her just because...because the world was ending.”

She too tries to catch her breath, feeling her own eyes dart around the dim, low room in panic. No, no. Anger. “That's really patronizing, you know. I don't get to make choices for myself now because of Steve?”

“No,” he says and his shoulders really are the straightest she's ever seen them, like he's holding up the wall and the world and he's never been afraid to kiss her he's just saying no. “You can do whatever you want but I get to make choices too, Nancy. If I get to be with you, I don't want it to be because we snuck off to hide in some nowhere place.”

“It’s not like that.”

“Oh, come on. It's exactly like that. It's so much like that that everyone on this mission to Bizarro-Ville has been telling us so for the last two days. It's like our lives are this insane play with monsters and mysterious labs and we just walked off stage left where nothing counts toward the plot.” He’d been looking her dead in the eye but now he looks away for the first time and she finds herself wondering, against reason, if he'd kissed her with his eyes open, taking it all in be a use he never meant to do it again.

“You’re right, Nancy. We're only friends when there’s a monster to fight and it’s great...it's great being your friend. But this is going to fuck up our regular lives, the ones we're trying to get back. Yours with Steve and mine with...well, with any other girl for a really long time because I'll compare them all to you. Maybe forever. Pick Steve, Nancy. Even if you just like him. Because the world won’t be ending forever, not if we do this right.”

She runs a hand through her hair angrily and clenches her jaw so hard something creaks. She thinks about shouting at him, screaming about how he's passing up his one chance and that this will be the pattern of his pretentious, self-righteous, lonely existence if he doesn't get his head out of his ass. But that would make the third lie of the night.

She lets the tension drain from her face, feels the anger and vindication go with a sting of loss. Life was chaos and it felt good to explode but he's standing across from her in a spare room in the middle of nowhere and he has trust issues and straight shoulders and a kind heart her misplaced rage could shred to pieces like a blow from a baseball bat studded with nails.

“I don't pick Steve,” she says. “It's okay if you don't believe me right now because I won't pick Steve tomorrow or the day after or the day after we save the world again. You got it?”

He meets her eyes steadily, not trying to hide a small smile until a passing car’s headlights force him to blink and squint. “So...when we're not busy blackmailing a murderous government agency, you're planning to woo me.”

“Woo.” She can't stop a giggle of absurdity at the whole thing. But then she takes a steadying breath. “I like you. Everyone has known that for a year but me and everyone has believed it for a year but you. Lies and trust issues, right?”

His shoulders sag for the first time. “I appreciate the continuity,” he says like he's analyzing a novel, a sure sign he's going to shut down, redirect, “but it's not as simple as, 'you think you like me so everything is fine now'.”

“Jonathan,” she says and it sounds like "Idiot". “I think I love you but I need time to be sure that's true and so do you and that's fine but only if you'll let me have it. So will you? Please?”

He tugs at his shirt where it's rucked up halfway to his ribs on one side, smoothing the thin cotton. His eyebrows knit and purl, like he's trying on reactions, trying out the consequences of his next words. He puffs a cheek out with a resigned shy, nodding quick, sharp nods at the ground and swallowing compulsively. “Okay,” he says finally, so simply she has to fight back the adrenaline of the moment to make sure he's answering the question she thinks he is.

“...Okay?” She’s smiling and shaking her head in confusion. “Okay...go away and never speak of this again? Or okay, okay and I can have the rest of my kiss now, please.”

He grins and nods and breathes in.

#nancy wheeler #jonathan byers #steve harrington #stranger things spoilers #jancy #joncy #jancy fanfic #adventures of the doubter and the liar #st2 #st2 spoilers

[whitelippedviper]

Pop Comics #4: Saga #46. Come Mush with Me

This article originally appeared on my patreon, which you can subscribe to for as little as one dollar a month.  As a patreon subscriber you get to see these and other articles sometimes weeks before everyone else.  Subscribe now.

It’s a new week in me writing about a popular comic from last week.  For the purposes of this column I am defining popular as top ten on Comixology’s weekly list.  This week I’m tackling one of the most popular books in all of comics, and last week’s most popular comic overall: Saga #46. Saga #46 is written by Brian K. Vaughn with art by Fiona Staples, with lettering/design work by Fonografiks.

The last Saga comic I read was the first issue.  I might have made it to the second issue. But I really only remember that I read the first issue.  I only mention this because it’s a context that like with a lot of these monthly comics speaks to that I’m really reading a lot of them from a more mechanical place than someone who has really taken the time to become invested in the work and the characters, and I’m admitting that is to my detriment in terms of giving a complete critical sense of the thing.

Saga #46 starts with some guy with a TV head freeing a horned girl that’s tied up with a tentacle from a lynching being executed by two horse people, and this non horse cowboy dude.  TV dude frees Horn girl, and she’s like “I didn’t even WANT you to save me” for some reason.  And then we cut to a horned dude with his pregnant but unconscious non horned wife and kid.  They are in some field outside a house, where this giant multi-titted fox doctor runs a kind of planned parenthood clinic. Horned dude is very pro-life, so he and the fox have a discussion about abortion with no real resolution.  The whole thing is kind of setup like the Fox, who calls herself an Endwife, is going to kill the wife. But that doesn't happen in this issue.  I don’t know why these people are in this field or how they just happened to come to this particular house at this exact moment--but hey that’s what happens when you jump right in on issue 46 of a comic.

 While horned dude is arguing with Fox doctor about abortion, upstairs the kid is singing her imaginary friend into non-existence for some reason.  And then meanwhile the TV Dude and the horned girl are getting drunk and arguing about dumb shit, so they of course want to fuck, and the last page of the book is just a page of them “shockingly” kissing. One of the interesting things to me reading this issue of Saga is that Fiona Staples has been drawing this one book for about 5 years.  Which I know is a thing that happens a lot in comics, but it’s interesting to see how her art has changed from the first issue aka the last time I saw her art not on a cover.  

This is an image from Saga #1:

Here’s one from Saga #46:

It might be hard to tell from my shitty phone pic of the second image, but if you look at the chins in both images you can see it.  Her style has cleaned up quite a bit since the first issue.  Her lines are a lot smoother now, and there are a lot fewer of them.  Which is fine.  But one of the issues that is constant in Staples style is she makes these soft kind of smudgy backgrounds that really hamper your ability to like visualize the world Saga takes place in.  And it makes sense that she is that kind of artist, because her strengths are in her forms.  She’s really good at facial expressions and body language.  Her characters are pretty good actors.  People like that don’t per se need to be fussing with backgrounds that much because they can evoke so much dramatically with the acting.  Like a great example is a lot of Guido Crepax comics.  Which have no backgrounds generally, but rather focus on body language and whatever mechanisms are interacting directly with the body.  As a reader, with an artist like that, you can totally fill in the backgrounds with your own imagination.  The issue here though is this is a sci-fi setting, being done by a writer who doesn’t seem to have a lot of aptitude for building a coherent space narratively, so the weight of the setting is put so much on Staples, and it goes against what she is most effective at as an artist.

And then her ability to make these trashy character designs for Saga into something that at least looks like it belongs on the body it belongs on comes from this same family of artistic predilections.  I mean each individual creature in Saga looks like you just put different body parts into a blender and then drew what came out.  Even down to the clothes people wear. The fashion is all over the place.  Horned girl in this is wearing like this asymmetrical cut dress with boots and leggings, and then the TV guy is wearing a suit with huge tails, and then the family later in the comic just look like standard comic clothes from like the background of a Spider-man comic.  And then the like horse people wear western cowboy clothes.  And then the fox doctor doesn't wear any clothes? 

 The effect of all of that is that you don’t really get much of a sense of culture or like “this is what this world is like because people dress that way”--like Star Wars, for example, takes place across so many planets but there are kind of basic style points that the series coheres around and then the differences just delineate that “oh this is a desert planet, this is a forest planet” ect.  So without that kind of coherency in the character design you spend a lot of time on a Saga page scrambling for a foothold, and usually you could skate on this kind of fashion if the backgrounds were there to say “oh this is where we are at” but they aren’t.  So the flaw of the incoherent designs is only amplified because they are the only defined thing to look at on a page.  So the effect is a mushy undefined sci-fi experience that looks as ill defined in issue one as issue 46, and that’s coupled with the scripting conventions which cram in all kinds of anachronistic political concerns from present day earth USA.  Like in this one issue we get an abortion debate and an argument about romance novels? And there are cowboys talking with a shitty southern accent?  Huh? But I digress.  My point about Staples art was that in cleaning up her line and going more minimalist, she’s stripped her work of the element that was propping up everything else.  That rawer dirtier line, and those thick scattered ink brush strokes gave her work a POV, a focus. Like I said, her strength is the form(just look at her cover work), so those lines being the only thing with edge on the page gave her figures more force than they have in this later issue.  Back with the older more jagged style her backgrounds still faded into nothing mush, but that was fine because you had shit on the bodies that you were focused on.  It was interesting to look at those lines and those brush strokes.  You didn’t NEED backgrounds.  But you can’t not have backgrounds, AND draw your forms in a clean smooth style AND expect to carry a writer who is all over the map(even though obviously no one cares since she and the book win every award they go up for--so why not simply things I guess?  You get paid either way--so from a practical drawing 50 issues of a thing point of view I think it makes a lot of sense--but it is quite cynical toward the reader I think).  

Which this was my general reason I never got into Saga to begin with: I just couldn’t find the anchor point.  As a sci-fi world this is like sub-serenity, which is also something I hated.  There’s something cynical to Saga in that it feels like it’s just a cut and paste of things people liked on tumblr five years ago, and it just keeps going refusing to die, at this point I guess carried on by it’s own momentum because I would imagine if you’ve read 45 issues of Saga, you are going to read 145 really easily.  But I don’t get why people aren’t asking for more.  Like Twin Peaks ended the other day, and I’m pretty sure I follow everyone who was watching the show.  Like Lynch made something truly great and amazing.  And...nobody watched it or gave a shit.  I get that that’s a thing that has always been that way.  And will always be that way.  But so, comics are this niche nerd thing, which has as its flag standards things like Dune, Star Trek or Star Wars--how is milquetoast space opera skating so easily?  I’d have thought that if there was one genre that comics really exercised discernment on it would be space opera sci-fi.  

And not only is Saga skating, it’s winning every award it can.  To most people in comics, they would say this book is a testament to the possibilities of the medium.  And I don’t know if that’s a taste thing in terms of I don’t have the right taste for comics(and I get it on both sides, it's like every year the Eisners and the Ignatz awards have a competition to see who can give more trophies to shit I give less of a fuck about), or if the people saying those things have just never read the things I have and if they had they’d feel differently?  I think it’s the former, because I feel like if I made the biggest Saga fan read Queen Emeraldas they’d not understand why I like it.  

Am I doing it wrong?  I bet the average Saga fan is much happier about life than I am.  Like it must be really cool to live in a reality where the things you like are award winning and wildly popular.  That must be insanely validating. Which none of this is to say I hate Saga.  Or maybe I do.  I don’t know.  I just feel nothing towards it.  And it’s a testament to its success that despite feeling nothing about it, the book is such a force in comics, that I still ended up writing about it. 

 And I mean, how great would it be to love a book like this and get so much out of it? And I'd have so many people eager to talk about it.  I wish I loved it or  I wish I hated it.  But I don't. Also this is a lame kiss to take up a whole page for:

Like I get that a kiss between someone with a mouth and a screen is difficult, but that is actually something that should be an opportunity to draw something pretty terrific, particularly for the last dramatic page of a book.  The scale is also not saying anything.  We are caught between love in a giant fantastic world, and great love in a mundane place if that makes sense.  If you zoom in more the focus can be more the mechanics of the kiss.  If you zoom way out, it’s like this dramatic camera spinning moment on top of a mountain.  But at this shot it’s uncommitted I think, and I think with the characters centered in the frame so much as well it’s just not very dramatic for such a moment that is I think supposed to be dramatic.  Instead of being the truth of what this moment means for these two characters, I think it lands more like the idea of the idea of a kiss between these two ideas.  A cliche.  It’s especially disappointing because as you can see going through Staples cover work, and hell most of her interiors, something like this should be a real playing into a real strength.  But I think the mushiness of the decision making of scale screws it up.  The only way this page hits with you is if you have as a reader really bought into the idea of it happening enough to carry the image in your mind.  But that shouldn’t be enough, and I think it’s worth asking for more. 

And this is a lame thing to write:

#My Writing #Sarah Horrocks #Saga #pop comics

[ithaqualabs]

Twitter | Tumblr | Official Website | Patreon

Greetings!

It's been a little bit here since our last update. Balancing art, coding, emails and various public relation things can be quite a handful, and most days I just opt for doing work instead of talking about it!

That being said, I am more likely to update our Twitter with misc. progress and various things that plague/amuse me that are at least mildly game dev related.

Another round of auditions ended, and the results are as such!

Jordan Haro as Vasco Anairis Quinones as Felicia   Ben Balmaceda as Preston   Caitlin Buckley as Nik Juza as Knife SungWon Cho is now voicing Krok!

The other sprites are still being rendered. Pale Spectrum has 27 character folders at the moment, not counting small extras. I'm getting through the game at a decent pace, but it'll still be a bit before everything is shiny!

One entire route of the game is coded (if bare bones in places) into the game, with the other routes creeping along. This amount of writing sits at just under 100,000 words. The last lines for a handful of main characters were commissioned, and some were even sent in!

It is the beginning of the end, and it has been quite exciting.

On the same hand, we have been dealing with construction on the house that we're renting, and so the last ~two weeks have been a strange, randomized sort of torture involving hammer men for as little as 1 hour to as long as 11 hours a day, weekdays and/or weekends included. The sheer randomness and extended nature of this construction, a lot of energy has been spent on not going insane, as our little two person studio works from home. Having your home being hammered on from up to two sides at a time is incredibly distracting, and has played a number on our sleep/work schedules.

Fear the hammer men.

That being said, I've thoroughly enjoyed playing through the game's newer chapters that are less polished, as it means I haven't read it more than once or twice. Some of the voice lines coming in catch me so delightedly off guard that it just brightens my day, or sends me into giggle fits. It's a lot of work, putting in voices, but definitely a delight.

As inspiration and time has struck me, I've begun working on later chapter cgs.

Our lovely musician Johnathan Johnson, who composed for both Brilliant Shadows and Pale Spectrum, recently launched his own studio's Kickstarter for a game filled with lovely, unique ladies. It was wildly successful and you can take a peek at what they're up to here, if a political drama / romance visual novel sounds like something you'd be into!

With some shiny new software upgrades to help speed up his composing, he was nice enough to create a short, epic track based off of Brilliant Shadows' theme which he was kind enough to let us use in the game.

>You can click here to listen to it.<

And lastly I suppose I'll drop this here.

For anyone interested in behind-the-scenes stuff, such as the time-lapse of this image, you can check out my Patreon for various tidbits. The highlights of these tidbits will show up in the Art Book, once that gets started/finished!

James Larabee, the amazing voice of Sword and a truly awesome individual in general, prompted me for some convention merchandise, which got me thinking. We don't have a huge amount of it in general, so this image popped up in my head and I'm going to get some post-card sized prints of it, as well as use it as a CG during one of the final chapters. I may raffle off one on our Patreon for funsies in the near future.

I have officially started the sketch for the poster of the game, and I'm thinking I'll actually end up making two posters, possibly? As this first one has 12 characters in it, and while it is lovingly busy, I'm also thinking of a simpler one of just our lovely lady protagonist, Belinda. Sketches of this will likely show up on the Patreon shortly, if I'm ever confident enough in the mess to show it before completion!

Well, now that I've written you all a small book! Hope everyone's having a nice week.

-Geckos

#artists on tumblr #english visual novel #book of gray magic #pale spectrum #update #kickstarter #patreon

[loulougoingsolo]

Aftermath

- or a slightly rhinky fanfic which made me blush while writing -

‘Wow, that got weird!’ These were the first words from Link’s mouth, right after the cameras stopped rolling. ‘Man, I’m never gonna get rid of this freaking lipstick! It didn’t even start fading!’

He turned his back at Rhett as he stepped out of the set and started actively going through stuff to find make-up wipes. He was just a little nervous he would have to go home to Christy looking like this. He had a feeling it wouldn’t end well. ‘Hey Rhett, have you seen ‘em wipes?’

Rhett finally stood up after silently following Link’s tantrum. He was more quiet than usual, but Link didn’t see this until Rhett finally spoke. 'You should calm down, you’re never going to find anything like that.’ Then he pushed Link to move him away and reached for the box of wipes. He gave Link a little lopsided smile and handed the wipes to his friend. 'You know, you really shouldn’t worry, you know you look good with lipstick.’ Then he walked away to their office.

Later that day, Rhett and Link were both sitting at their office desks, going through their emails, working in a relaxed silence. This was their own time, the crew were elsewhere doing their stuff, preparing for the next episode. At home the guys rarely had a chance to just browse the internet without one of the kids constantly looking over their shoulders. Link was reading an email with an interesting business proposal, when he heard a really odd sound from Rhett’s side of the office. It was something between a surprised 'Ow!’ and a little grunt. 'What’s up, brother? New pics of Beyonce’s belly?’

A moment of hesitation followed, then a confusing 'Not quite.’ Link raised his eyebrows and stood up, then walked over to Rhett’s side. 'What is it then? Can’t you just tell me?’ Link focused on Rhett’s screen not knowing what to expect. First he was surprised to see Rhett was at his tumblr page - going trough the fan blogs was more of Link thing, even though they both had their secret tumblr accounts. It was their secret leisure activity to browse the #rhink tag sometimes, just to see what came up, and to have a few laughs at their fans imagination. Usually, however, it was Link who logged in first - it seemed like Rhett was a bit hesitant to see those posts most of the time.

A gasp of air, then an ‘Oh, wow!’ burst from Link’s mouth. ‘Didn’t see that coming.’ Right in the middle of Rhett’s screen was a photo of them two kissing passionately. An uncomfortable stir went throug Link’s stomach - the kind you usually get at the top of the roller coaster. Link firmly pushed the feeling aside and focused his eyes on the screen. ‘Gosh, the Mythical Beasts really know how to photoshop.’

Rhett was still being oddly quiet. He knew he should say something to take away the awkwardness of the situation, but just for a little longer, he just stared at the photo and slowly stroked his beard. He couldn’t turn his eyes away from Link’s hand on his face, and their lips touching. He felt a little tingle where that hand would have been, had this really happened. He reminded himself, once again, that this did not happen in real life. The weird feeling in his gut from earlier that day just wouldn’t go away. He had been feeling funny ever since he had stopped in the middle of that kissing scene to watch Link doing his magic on that mannequin. It was a feeling of butterflies in your stomach, but also a feeling of worry - what were his eyes saying at that moment? Did the fans, the crew, or - oh gosh - Link, see what he felt? He swallowed, closed his eyes for a brief moment, and finally spoke.

‘Yeah, impressive work. It looks almost authentic. Like that would ever happen for real!’ Link turned his eyes at his best friend as a small idea came to his head. ‘You know, maybe we should try how it feels, get it over with. I mean, what’s the big deal? Right?’ The words just came out before he could control himself. A loud alarm started ringing in his brain. No, you don’t want that!

But the words were out there, and could no longer be erased. Rhett looked at his friend, blinked, and looked away. ‘Yeah, it’s not like we’re into it, so what’s the harm in it?’ He had no choice, Link had dared him, and as always, he couldn’t resist the challenge. At the same time, thoughts were bouncing in his head: ‘Do not do that, no!’ He was slowly being torn apart, it was so completely against everything he had been taught, ever since he was a child, by his parents, by the ministers, by the society. He thought about his wife, Jessie, who trusted him over anyone else, and Link’s wife Christy, who was his dear friend. He thought of all the reasons he should not be tempted. And then he looked at Link.

Link was feeling more and more tense every second, watching his friend clearly going through something private in his head. The problem was, he knew Rhett inside out, he knew his thoughts, and he shared most of them. But then again, those butterflies in his stomach were flapping their wings wildly. When Rhett raised his eyes to look at him, he felt his heart stop for a second, then start beating like crazy. There was a wicked smile on Rhett’s face. ‘Yeah, what the hell, we should just kiss each other.’

Link suddenly got really nervous, he did his best not to look at Rhett’s face, and took a tiny step away from him. Avoiding eye contact he made the mistake of looking at the computer screen again. He bit his lip when the image of Rhett’s hands and lips touching his was forever scorched in his mind.

Link had no chance of turning back now. This had been his idea in the first place, so he only had himself to blame. He looked at Rhett, who was already standing up, looking just as nervous as Link felt. His heart was beating so loudly, he could barely hear Rhett’s silent whisper as he stepped closer, closing that last barrier between them. ‘Are you ready?’ Link took a step forward, meeting his friend half way.

Air stood still in anticipation, as their hands slowly, carefully reached for a touch. Link’s gentle fingers were shaking just a little bit as he framed his friends face. Why did it look so different now, after all these years? Yet the feeling of his beard and warm skin was so familiar - he had touched Rhett’s face before this way, why was this time different?

Rhett reached for his friends face, unable to breeth, images and thoughts bouncing in his brain wildly. This was insanity, this was wrong, in so many ways, and yet it felt so right. His eyes locked with Link’s beautiful blue eyes as he caressed the face he had seen almost every day for the past 30 years. There was nothing wrong with this, he realized, more sure about himself than ever. With a tiny smile on his face, still looking deeply in to Link’s eyes, he finally went for a kiss.

All confusion was gone. This was home, and they knew it.  At first it was just gentle, tiny touch between their lips, but it soon got deeper. Rhett’s hands mover higher to touch Link’s hair, the way he’d always wanted but never been able to. Link’s arms were all over Rhett’s body, pulling him as close as he could. Electricity made tiny sparks around them, all the new sensations sent them to a turmoil of emotions, arrousal and excitement. They couldn’t stop, they didn’t want to stop. All the forbidden feelings, once locked deep inside their souls, were now out in the open, and could never again be locked away. Everything was different, but they didn’t care. They just wanted this feeling of perfection to last forever.

Finally, after what must have been minutes, they forced each other to pull back. Out of breath, they looked at each other. Link’s face was all red after being scratched by Rhett’s beard. A tiny drop of sweat was running down Rhett’s temple. They were flustered, exhilarated and anxious for more. Link brushed his messy hair with his fingers, when Rhett just said ‘Whoah!’ Link looked at his friend and future lover, flashed a wild grin on his face and said the first words that came to his mind. ‘Let’s talk about that!’ And then they laughed like they never had before.

The end

I’d love to hear your comments, since this is my first try at this genre. There may be more coming, if things get any more wilder on GMM, so please, if you liked this, follow me :). Thanks for reading!

#didn't see this coming #but here it is #gmm 1065 #rhink #very much #hot and bothered #had to get this out of my head #so there you have it #gmm #gmmore more #my stuff #aftermath #fanfic