#more like jeremy recaps things but

[ginger-canary]

Hey D20 fans here's a heads up about what's happened with Gabe Hicks (message from Jeremy Cobb, Three Black Halflings)

#d20 #dimension 20 #gabe hicks #freckles says things #more like jeremy recaps things but #cw abuse #cw manipulation mention #cw cheating mention #cw sa mention #shriek week

[mac-lilly]

Mega Con London BTS Recap

Since this is a more personal recap of MegaCon London (and a bit of a comparison with Back to the Musical World con by Dream It), I didn't include it in the JATP info dump from yesterday.

BTTMW backstory

Let's do some backstory first. As you may know, the official JATP cancellation was announced at the first Back to the Musical World con back in 2021. I wasn't there for multiple reasons including Covid but also I just got into the fandom and it felt weird. I'm socially awkward - I cannot look into people's eyes, I stutter - especially when talking English - or ramble and I struggle to just touch strangers which is not helpful for photo ops.

So what I was supposed to do there? These people are actors - strangers I have nothing to do with. They aren't the characters I've fallen in love with. Yeah, not my thing, I thought.

However, when the BTTMW2 got announced, I was like 'You know, let's go to just show the cast how much you loved the show'. It was supposed to give me some closure. So I went.

And while the con was a fucked-up disaster in terms of organization and schedule - on Sunday, Charlie signed autographs until 10 pm, and Owen would have done the same if his mom hadn't cut off his line. (On that note: Never mess with a German mom protecting her kid. You'll lose.) But meeting the cast was an entirely different experience. I'd never interacted with them before, so I was anxious as fuck. However, they were so nice and considerate - and seeing them goof around was just adorable.

(And this pic is still one of my fav pics ever.)

And not just the cast. I met so many amazing people there who are now my friends. Big shoutout to them!

So, despite my hatred for Dream It, I went to BTTMW4 (and thankfully it was less chaotic than BTTMW2). But I was also determined to go to MegaCon bc I knew Jeremy wouldn't come back to Paris. (Unlike the other JATP cast members, he's done plenty of other cons before and knows that you shouldn't be so drained that require alcohol to make it through the day.)

BTTMW vs MegaCon London

So, just in general: MegaCon was clearly the better experience.

Firstly, it was cheaper than DI. Much cheaper.

(Note 1: The * prices are from 2022 since Jeremy wasn't at BTTMW4. In 2023, the photo with Madi, Owen & Charlie was already €180. All four would have been over €200 for sure.

Note 2: The prices for MegaCon were originally in £. The price in € is what I paid according to my credit card.

Note 3: Even though not 100% accurate: € = $)

Obviously, Charlie canceled later. But I automatically got a refund. So bonus for MegaCon.

Unlike with Dream It, you were allowed to film and take pictures everywhere, which was cool. And since the panels were exclusively in English, you actually got way more content. The panels were also much longer, and it seemed like the cast was more at ease. For example, Owen started to play body drums on stage, and he initiated the boomshakalaka without being drunk. This is such an incredibly sad thing to say, but I've never seen him that relaxed during a panel.

Also, shoutout to the many fans that were at the Saturday panel. According to the hist, it was the largest crowd they had on Saturday. (If MegaCon had been smarter and had announced the Sunday panel before the people got their passes, it would have had a huge audience, too.)

The autographs ran smoothly, and there was always a queue, which was good bc Own confirmed that it was Jeremy who convinced MegaCon to invite him and Charlie. (Madi got invited later - I assume after people haunted them on IG about her.) MegaCon was wary about it bc they had no idea if the cast was worth the money. I hope the audience on Saturday, the lines for the autographs, and the massive delays at the photo studio caused by the JATP fans (and technical issues) convinced them.

Side note: After Charlie canceled, I got an email from MegaCon. And obviously, I know they just used some phrases to placate us. But I still hope they meant it when they wrote,

MegaCon, you won't read this. But if you get them again, I'll be there!

(And again shoutout to the amazing people I met in London. To my fellow German tumblr friends: I loved meeting you guys and hanging out with you!)

So the only thing that wasn't great were the photo ops. Yeah, most of the Saturday photos are terrible bc of the fucked-up lighting, and due to technical issues, there were so many delays. (Though to be fair, BTTMW also had issues with photo ops.)

So overall, I genuinely enjoyed MegaCon, and I'm very excited to head off to Dublin on Saturday to give Jeremy the birthday card. To all the people who signed it: THANK YOU!

Some other random things that don't fit anywhere

Not Owen assuming that Deutsche Bahn must always be on time bc Germans are always on time. Bro, I know it's been a while since you visited Germany ... but please, that was mean.

When I gave him ghostie!Willie, Owen told me how much his family loves the little ghosties 🥹🥹🥹 (which explains why his dad was in my IG stories after he posted the pic of the ghosties.)

It's random, but this con was so much more balanced in terms of fans. I remember fans being kinda uninterested in Jeremy at the BTTMW - some fans even got angry at him bc he refused certain poses. At MegaCon, the interest was equally split between those three, and it made me happy.

Here's the lovely ghost merch I bought at MegaCon. Obviously, the pride ghost and the skateboard ghost are Willex, the couple is Juke, and the ghosts with the kitty and the one with the pumpkin are both Reggie! (I talked to the guys running the stalls, and they were so baffled about all the JATP fans - a few Fantoms came over from the US and Canada just for this con.)

#jatp #julie and the phantoms #jatp cast #personal

[just-a-normal-regretter]

I'm really interested in hearing more about 'New Kid' and 'Odd is Alone' AUs from your Odd-shots.

The concepts sounds really fun

Thanks for the ask! o7

Recapping the AUs I'll talk about below:

New Kid - "William falls for Odd in S2" AU

Odd is Alone - "Canon!Odd gets thrown into the William/Odd roleswap world" AU

Let's talk about New Kid first:

New Order gets turned on its head just a bit. William is the new kid and he's going through the motions of learning just about everything that Kadic has to offer.

He's not gonna figure out everything from day 1, though Yumi is pretty chill with him from the get-go. She's the one who tries to show him around before classes get going. Then there's Odd butting his nose in, curious about the new student in town.

William gets a brief time to spend with both Odd and Yumi. Then things shift when it's time for the class trip for Mrs Hertz project.

Odd pities Ulrich floundering in his "will they won't they" relationship with Yumi. That and he pretty much knows that Ulrich will likely brood if he catches William and Yumi together.

So he nips that right in the bud and pairs up with William, Kiwi secret be damned. This leaves Yumi and Ulrich to pair up, while Aelita and Jeremie are set to pair as well.

At first Odd is just a neat friend. William is awed in how much Odd goes against the rules too given he's instantly exposed to Kiwi. Kiwi's pretty much an open secret to the student body, so Odd's not too worried showing him to William.

Odd's chatter makes the assignment go by pretty quickly. William didn't mind hearing more about the school at all, nor did he mind the constant topic shifts. Honestly, it was nice just to relax for once after all this change.

At one point, it isn't just Odd's chatter filling the air. William joins in as well, talking about his previous expulsion, how Delmas was pretty forgiving in letting him attend a new school, etc.

Things have a way of diverging from here. In one timeline, Odd has to take off to help find Aelita. Ulrich and Yumi get trapped and nearly boiled alive. William's interest flounders given Odd up and leaves without warning while he was talking.

Another timeline plays out given a return to the past. William's heart soars at the time spent with Odd. He wants to get to know him more. He thinks he's in love all over again.

Meanwhile Odd's just trying to settle back into this rewind. It doesn't really register how much he's bonded with William given the RTTP shot him back mid-conversation.

Thus post-New Order the hijinks will begin to ensue. William's case is interesting because I treat this affection towards Odd initially as puppy love. Throughout S2 he'll get to know Odd better than just from the first day and will constantly insist that it has to be love.

I imagine that A Bad Turn is where Odd's part of the crush starts to kick in. Although William getting out of "puppy love" stage -> actual potential relationship type of love would likely be around Ultimatum given the whole conflict in that episode.

In the meantime, it's mainly William being a dork trying to profess his love. Odd's oblivious here and just thinks William is being a good friend. It doesn't really register that the time spent together allowed the boy to crush on him so fast haha

Ulrich and Yumi are reading the room differently. Yumi understands that William is crushing on Odd, but given she's also heard about why William got expelled from his last school she worries that him getting involved with Odd would lead to a ton of issues (especially when it comes to XANA).

Meanwhile Ulrich isn't getting the memo much either, he accidentally comes to the conclusion that the boy is crushing on Yumi. It takes til Marabounta to clear this up by William having to flat out spell it out for Ulrich. After that Ulrich is still incredibly snarky but doesn't get on William's case. In fact, he teases the other about Odd's obliviousness.

Aelita and Jeremie are the only sane people here lmao, at first Jeremie was in a similar boat with Yumi re: William (i.e. nothing but trouble, could be bad for the group) but Aelita convinces him to give it a chance and see if it even works out compared to flat out disagreeing with it.

"New Kid" probably wraps up in Revelation rather than The Key.

Alright as for the "Odd is Alone" AU:

This guy I have planned out wayyy too much compared to some of the other Odd-shots. I think Cherrybird and Trio are AI AUs are the only ones that have a ton to them that can compare to this one besides like Drain/Adaptation which are akin to true one-shots.

This story takes the concept of "Triple Trouble" and just fucking books it into the complete other direction haha

Also headcanon's galore re: Odd's family. This fic in particular (and technically Cherrybird too) consider Odd's family as rich folk. They're happy with their jobs given they can provide for their kids, but sometimes their too in love with it. Practically to the point where they neglect their kids.

Hence Odd getting raised mostly by his sisters rather than parents, etc etc

So "Odd is Alone" runs with the idea that Odd is peeved for more reasons than just feeling useless on Lyoko. His parents forget his birthday, sending their well wishes way too late.

This rubs off on his Lyoko performance and well, this just makes him feel worse. The kill counts are joked about and Odd doesn't want to bring up why he felt terrible heading into Lyoko, so he instead blames his lack of power.

Next day things still aren't going his way and then Jeremie obviously comes in with the solution of a new power.

Off to their last sector, the Mountain Sector, Odd and Aelita await the all clear by Jeremie. Once it's explained a bit more to Odd he cheerfully tells Aelita he'll see her around. Then he activates Teleportation and it all falls apart from here.

Odd opens his eyes and he can instantly tell something's wrong. The place he envisioned himself landing at has completely shifted. It was supposed to be a rocky mesa with a simple tree.

It should not have been a large plateau instead decorated in specks of sand and snow. The tree that he saw before his teleport had grown tremendously, its roots ripping through the ground enough to truly highlight just how much the ground had changed.

...and yeah, if I keep going I'd just flat out try to drabble this haha

Just imagine a sector that is all four in one. That's only one of the major shifts in this AU because reasons I don't want to reveal yet if I ever do write about this properly.

"Odd is Alone" kicks off from there. There's some instant conflict that he gets exposed to between his copycat self, the crazy ability his other self exhibits to create and control new monsters at whim, and of course his friends are not exactly his friends right now. Although some things seem to stay the same, given he does save Aelita from the Scyphozoa as per usual. Then Ulrich devirtualizes him and it sinks in that this is very much not the world he lived in.

Odd integrates himself in this new world given he can't help his curiosity one bit. He looks at a life where he arrived way later at Kadic than what he did in his world.

He gets to interact with a William who joined the group from the get-go, a more closed off Ulrich (him and William don't hit off their friendship compared to canon Odd and Ulrich... plus, the love triangle did its damage), a very paranoid Jim, dealing with this version's Sam, etc.

Yumi is also interesting here given Cruel Dilemma didn't happen. Although with what occurs in this version's Just in Time... well... there's certainly some shifts.

I mentioned this the first time I chatted about this AU but the other Odd got to keep Kiwi on Kadic grounds without him being illegal. His parents are much more involved in his life after Louise sold out just what he planned to do earlier (hence why he didn't go to Kadic that day). William's parents didn't really accept his rebellious nature and sent him off to Kadic from the get-go on the day Odd should've attended.

Oh and don't get me started on how the polymorphic Odd clone is. Triple Trouble forma de three Odds existing at the same time in one world haha

It's funny at first but then it gets a bit depressing when the world is very much against that given the conflict to send Odd back to his world is a) his body is disappearing and b) getting devirtualized rewrote his programs to try to match his other self. He uh, lost Teleportation for Future Flash all over again. Whoops!

Rest goes from there if I keep going I'll just spill the entire plot at this point lmao

Thanks for the ask and uh sorry for the very long post (it was even longer than this before I trimmed down how much I talked about Odd is Alone ;-;)

Also thanks for reading everyone o7

#code lyoko #code lyoko au #odd della robbia #william dunbar #willodd #ummm do i tag anything else here idk #right uh #odd is alone au #new kid au #categorize the boys wooo #you can tell i haven't truly tumblr'd until now given my insanity in the tags lmaooo #answered ask moment

[storytellingdreamer]

Watching Granada Holmes: On David Burke as Dr Watson

Okay so before I watch the next Granada episode, Empty House, I need to say goodbye to David Burke as Dr John Watson. David Burke couldn’t continue with Granada’s adaptation after FINA due to scheduling conflicts, which led to him helping them find his replacement, Edward Hardwicke. 

This post is me processing that in the hope that I can learn to love Edward Hardwicke as Watson without feeling too disappointed he’s not David Burke.

You see, going into Granada Holmes, I’d already been informed that Jeremy Brett is the Sherlock Holmes. This is definitely true. However, at this moment, all I can say that for me, David Burke will be the Dr John Watson. 

My tag for David Burke is “he smiles with his whole face”. Right from the start, his expressiveness intrigued me, and made it very easy to feel like I was part of the story. His openness invited me as the audience in. It also doesn’t hurt that he has a very fine voice - I’ve memorised the way he says “Holmes” and other words like “black moods”. They’re very fun to say in his accent! 

Watching the Granada Holmes series has felt very personal. For starters, watching TV shows or movies are always immersive experiences for me, due to the way my brain processes information. I get “sucked in” to the story very easily - it feels like I’m another character, almost, observing. It’s also hard because I’m having to process the audio-visual information, the language, the social information, the emotional contexts - and anything they trigger in me from past experiences - all at once. 

Granada Holmes is a very safe way to do that, because most of the time, the bad guys get their comeuppance in the end, and the client of the week has resolution, and perhaps catharsis. 

It also feels very safe because Holmes and Watson guide me through it. I’ll say more about Jeremy Brett at the end of my entire watch through, but for David Burke, my “oh, you’re my Watson” journey really took flight with the end of Solitary Cyclist. 

See, the thing about David Burke’s Watson isn’t just that he’s very expressive. He’s very reassuring. Steady and dependable, but also openly delighted in Holmes’s brilliance. A perfect foil for the audience. 

He’s the one who instinctively knows how to handle clients (see: any Woman in Need episode), and takes care of Holmes almost before Holmes knows he needs it (see: Norwood Builder) - and when he’s protecting you/ the client, by goodness do you feel it. 

You’ll recall that I had plenty to say about Solitary Cyclist, so much so that I wrote two posts for it. One about the episode recap, and another, which I wrote first, of my feelings about the episode’s context. Look, the Woman In Need episodes always strike a little close to home for me for various reasons. And after my first experience of that in Solitary Cyclist, one of the things that comforted me after was remembering, well, this moment: 

[Image description: Watson holds the drugged Violet Smith to him protectively with one hand while holding his gun with the other, a very serious look on his face. /end image description.]

Followed by this one: 

Watson: “You may call that love. I call it selfishness.”

[Image description: Holmes and Watson sit side-by-side, staring in disgust at one of the baddies of the story. /end image description.]

In the first scene, Watson was Violet Smith’s physical protector at a time when she couldn’t defend herself. His words afterward, a delightful castigation of the villain. As a woman, hearing someone say those things (and keep saying them in other episodes), whether to the perpetrator as a scold, to the client/ victim in comfort, or to Holmes about how very serious the situation is, has been good. 

It helps that Burke’s Watson also has this “softness with a core of steel” energy. The sort of energy that makes one think, if I was in trouble, I would very much like to have Burke’s Watson protect me and tell me it wasn’t my fault and such (while Brett’s Holmes solved the problem that had trapped me in the first place). 

Basically, I would very much like to be their friend. Or their honourary relation (which is what they are to the Women In Need). 

We see the Sherlock Holmes stories through Watson’s eyes, as he is the Narrator. (A fact brought home by Granada’s adaptation of The Final Problem.) Having David Burke in the role has been very comforting - and fun. We experience his emotions with him, and I have deeply enjoyed it. 

#david burke #david burke smiles with his whole face #granada holmes #watching granada holmes #storyteller’s thoughts

[veliseraptor]

April Reading Recap

so apparently I read a fuckton in April. I put that on the week off for Passover and also a number of very fast reads last month. here goes

The Spite House by Johnny Compton. Might be the best horror book I'd read in a while, and I did not see the twist coming for a long while. Good and very spooky on the whole, but the "creepy kids as ghosts" thing took some of the luster off it. Still, some good and original ideas here and I'll be watching for more books by this author.

The Nine Eyes of Lucien by Madeleine Roux. Not very good writing and a good third of the book was rehashing the events of the end of Campaign 2, which I just watched. It was fine, I guess? But I didn't find it added much.

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. I've had this one on my list for literal years - it's a retelling of the Biblical story of Dinah, Jacob's one daughter. I kind of wish I'd read it sooner, when (a) I was less burned out on retellings/reinterpretations of familiar stories, and (b) when I would've been less bothered by the flavor of gender essentialism of the text and could have appreciated other things about it without getting stuck in feeling iffy about that. I am trying to work out why it bothers me so much that Diamant chose to change the reading of the text from (an implied) rape to a consensual love affair, and I'm not quite sure I can explain that.

It's an interesting book and I'm glad I read it but I don't think I'd recommend it without disclaimers; I think in some ways it's more interesting as an artifact of the cultural movement it comes out of than anything else. Would analyze in a class about Jewish feminist responses to stories in Tanakh (or Talmud, tbh).

Six Myths of Our Time: Little Angels, Little Monsters, Beautiful Beasts and More by Marina Warner. Fascinating collection of short essays originally given as lectures on the BBC, apparently - the one essay about the way the West conceptualizes the simultaneous purity/monstrosity of children was particularly interesting to me. Interesting piece of work I picked up totally by happenstance because it was short and looked interesting and it lived up to both qualities.

Gallows Hill by Darcy Coates. Good spooky horror recommended by @cigaretteburnslikefairylights and actually legit scared me in places, which doesn't happen all that often to me anymore when I'm reading horror. (I'm still a weenie watching it.) I actually...liked this one start to resolution and am going to be looking up more of Darcy Coates' writing, because if it's not, you know, doing something super ~innovative~ it is good spooky reading and that's really what I've been craving.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester. Reading this book was a weird experience. I went into it just thinking "ooh, book about an interesting natural disaster, I love volcanoes" and came out of it going "whoa, surprise Islamophobia," checked the publication date, and learned it was 2003, whereupon I was miserably unsurprised. I don't know why the author felt like he needed to make colonial apologetics and blame the post-eruption upheaval on Islamic fundamentalists manipulating the natives into uprising against their Dutch masters but apparently he did. (I'm exaggerating. But not that much.)

The geology stuff was interesting. Mr. Winchester should've stuck with that and the reportage of the eruption itself and left politics out of it.

Violent Phenomena: 21 Essays on Translation ed. by Kavita Bhanot & Jeremy Tiang. This might be my favorite book I read in April, honestly. It's a really good collection of essays about the concept of decolonizing translation, and what that means, and whether it's possible, and the uneasy and uncomfortable relationship between translation and imperialism. I didn't agree with all the essays in here, and they didn't necessarily all agree with each other, but all of them at least had something interesting to say. I would recommend this one to people who can find it - it's by a small press - who are interested in translation or who frequently read in translation. The writers have a lot to say that I think is worth thinking about.

She Is a Haunting by Trang Thahn Tran. I think I just need to give up reading YA books with the realization they're generally not for me, though this one almost had me. It's something about the...I know there's a range of styles, I can't generalize style across the genre, but there is a texture to YA writing that doesn't quite work for me.

I love the concept - diaspora horror, colonialist horror, some really fucked up body horror stuff that got surprisingly gruesome - and would love to read a slightly different book about it, but alas, that book wasn't this one.

American Midnight: Democracy's Forgotten Crisis, 1917-1921 by Adam Hochschild. Another contender for favorite book I read this month though I think this one loses out to Violent Phenomena and possibly Gallows Hill, though comparing horror fiction to historical nonfiction feels kind of unfair. Anyway, I knew some of what this book was digging into - the Sedition Act and the intensely violent repression that was going on in the United States during World War I - but I learned a lot more here.

The depressing thing about reading this, though, was watching (so to speak) the brutal crushing of a once fairly robust American Socialist Party such that it never recovered. Not to mention the grinding down of the labor movement, which I think was at its most powerful during this period of time and hasn't been as strong since.

Just looking at that and wondering what might've been if Woodrow Wilson wasn't such a fucking dick.

Elektra by Jennifer Saint. I feel so funny about this book. I read another mythology retelling even though I swore not to because a Tumblr user I respect mentioned it being good; my experience was that it wasn't bad and it didn't actively bother me like some other retellings I could name, but I don't know that I'd actually call it good. Mostly I'd say I wasn't annoyed, just uninspired.

Of the three narrators, Elektra was definitely the best, and I really did like the construction of her relationship with Clytemnestra, which really felt like the meat of the book. (Perhaps, considering the House of Atreus, that's a bad turn of phrase to use.) The Cassandra sections felt like a distraction, mostly a way to keep the reader up with what was going on across the sea and provide some action in between the familial drama. Ultimately I just felt like those sections took away from the Elektra/Clytemnestra dynamic, leaving insufficient meat.

Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law by Mary Roach. I went through a period of time where I was reading all of Mary Roach's books, and was kind of obsessed with them, so this was sort of returning to an old and familiar friend. I found I wasn't quite as enamored with this one as I remembered being of some of her others (I think I remember Stiff being my favorite), but it was an interesting look at the intersections between human and animal - which is really more what this is about than law, per se. It's about what we do when animals cause problems for humans, from monkeys to bears, and the questions that are raised about the best way to handle those issues.

Nero: Matricide, Music, and Murder in Imperial Rome by Anthony Everitt & Roddy Ashworth. I'm so confused by this book. From the insistence on referring to Nero as "princeps" throughout the book, to the random dropping of French in places it really didn't need to be, to the frankly credulous approach to the sources, particularly when it comes to sex, even when the author mentioned how sex is often a proxy for politics in Roman historical writing, the weird sideways digression into "did Rome have gay marriage?", the weird "maybe she got what she deserved" aside about Messalina's death...

I learned a fair amount, I can say that, I'm not as knowledgeable about this period's Julio-Claudians. Frankly I think Agrippina (the Younger) was the real star of this book, despite Anthony Everitt's heroic efforts to make Nero the protagonist. Buddy, I see your point, but you're pushing a little too hard here.

Anyway. Weird reading experience, I'm tempted to recommend it just so someone else can either validate it or go "what are you talking about, this was a perfectly normal history book."

---

woof long post, but hey it was a lot of books. currently reading A Fever in the Heartland for more American racism in the early 20th century. I have a stack of library books that are waiting for me and I think the next one is probably going to be The Social Lives of Animals, which will either be really enjoyable or annoy the hell out of me, possibly both.

#reading recaps #sometimes i read things #long post for ts

[loveabledirtbag]

1.08 - Braciole

Uffda, we’ve gotten to the end of season one of the bear! and it’s only now that i realize all the things i wanted to say, and still haven’t as we’ve gotten to the end of the season!

i might have to do a whole season recap and final thoughts post too! AND THEN we get into season two! uffda…i might finish this before season three comes

but anyway, let’s get into it…

i love the surrealist intro we get. it’s just a little different than most of what we’ve seen up to this point. there is a sort of lucid, dreamlike air over the whole season, but getting this really intense, disturbing cooking show nightmare scenario followed by bears in the background is just….it hits different.

but the slow descent into horror, and bleeding into his panic attack as carmy has flashbacks to his behavior in the previous episode. it’s just so well done.

the fact that he’s wearing a different color shirt when not at the restaurant, or having come from the restaurant or going to the restaurant. i like that touch. it gives the idea that carmy’s white t-shirts truly are his uniform. and his life is just so engrossed in the beef that he’s almost always on his way to, currently at, or coming home from being there. but we now have confirmation he has a shirt that’s just for him. an at home piece. plus the fact that it is black when compared to his usual white is probably significant too. we’re coming off the fact that carmy just had a major blowup at work, descending into every learned character trait from his traumatic family upbringing and working experience. he’s at his darkest moment: no longer the good knight trying to save a restaurant that means something to a community and help bring the people who work there to their fullest potential. he’s now the villain that yells and is abusive and harms those around him.

the fact that he looks at his cook books to come down is also so telling. thinking of the dishes inside of them, potentially dishes he’s made from reading them. it’s just continuing to show how broken and single minded he’s been his whole life and how harmful being so one-track can be.

hearing mikey, and (maybe? maybe not) carmy speaking as carmy is spiraling and trying to come down from his anxiety attack: hearing “let it rip” which is clearly mikey but also, “i’m gonna burn this fucking place down” which i think might be mikey but could also be carmy? honestly? not sure if anyone has confirmation on it. but with carmy’s themes of fire this season, it might be him. but of course, we also know mikey had his own fire story (which we’ll talk about in season two when we the audience learn mikey also has stories about starting fires…)

it is good, and showing on carmy’s part of how he wants to grow and change for the better, that when he woke up after his bad day and his ongoing panic attack he went to an all family meeting for al-anon. i still think it’s so weird that so many people shit on carmy for being so abusive and toxic (which he is!) but don’t talk about how he’s trying so hard to try and get better.

listen. carmy’s 8 minute long, one-take speech is absolutely, unequivocally one of the greatest things put to film. i don’t even know how to properly talk about it. but it is absolutely at least 50% of the reason why jeremy allan white deserved best actor, and why the bear deserved every award it won (and maybe a few more). it’s stunning. go watch it. now. go. this will still be here when you get back.

i think it’s interesting that carmy talks about mikey’s charisma and how everyone liked him. because we get that sense in the quick flashback we see of mikey. BUT we don’t really see that when we spend more time with mikey in season two for the “Fishes” episode. i’m curious if we’ll see a sort of marrying of the two mikey’s as the show goes on. how did the charismatic “everybody’s best friend” mikey turn into the depressive, animalistic, explosive mikey, before finally dying by suicide before season one begins. (it’s one of my notes, that maybe i’ll talk about in a later post)

but we get another little tidbit in carmy’s psychology that shows how he likes torturing himself. there’s been a few examples throughout the season that carmy actually likes all the shit he goes through. i know i mentioned them in the concurring episodes, but the one that comes to mind is when he’s talking to nat on the phone and she asks him about working at the restaurant in new york and he talks about throwing up before work every day, and when she sympathizes with him he says “i kinda dug it”, and then when he notices her reaction to him saying that he says “oh, no, no it was horrible.”. but in his monologue he talks about having oily and dry skin, having greasy hair, and getting knife cuts and garlic and onions in the cuts, and callouses and his stomach was fucked and it was….everything. like there’s something that carmy feels when he’s going through shit; a twisted love for going through pain. i think it’s a really nuanced, balanced, and deep character trait that they thread throughout the show. where you hear him say something once and you might not pay close attention to it, or maybe you’re like “oh, yeah. i kind of get that feeling. like when you work really hard and accomplish a goal.” but when you stack all of the times he makes a comment like that together you go, “ohhhhh….thats not good.”

which, i think that’s what happened with mikey. mikey was charming and charismatic and fun! but the people who were closest to him knew that he had a drug problem, and had moments of dark depressive episodes. and maybe they were far and few enough between that no one thought anything of it. and then one day mikey was dead. i think that’s one of the hardest things to realize and understand and then see with the people around you. sometimes you gotta stack up comments on top of each other with context and go, “oh. hey. everything okay?”

what follows after the 8 minute monologue masterpiece (that i will forever be jealous i can’t use in my high school theater class, but whatever i’m over it. i’m 30. i’m not THAT mad about it) is honestly an almost unsettling chill episode. and that might sound wrong or stupid to those who’ve seen it, knowing what is coming. but the way it’s filmed, the way it’s presented on screen, the way the rest of the episode plays out is this really calm, muted, sorta quiet, oppressive episode.

it sorta feels like when you have a manic episode and then what follows immediately after is a depressive episode. the anxiety hangover. we had this loud, fast, angry, explosive previous episode and what follows is the exhaustion that comes afterwards.

“she just missed the asshole. like, what happens if you get stabbed in the asshole? you can’t sew an asshole.” “i’ve seen assholes.” GOD. ebra is a comedic genius of a character and there’s never enough of him in each episode.

telling everyone that dinner service is canceled because you’re hosting a bachelor party THE MORNING of the event is a douche move. and i FULLY understand that this is TV logic of moving plot succinctly, but in real life that’s about as big a dick move as anything carmy does the whole season. which might sound severe, but private events are the FUCKING WORST. because the tips for the FOH (front of house) go out the door, and you don’t get to go in a groove of people come in and out, which means your BOH (back of house) becomes bouncers and waiters and caretakers to the guests. which they all hate doing. plus, the large amount of money you get upfront when the group rents out the place is immediately stretched thinner as the night wares on and the people stop ordering more food, but you’re also missing out on potential rushes and money. PLUS, they’re not even making money from the event, because they’re paying off a debt to cicero, so they’re losing out on all that money, AND they’re not making anything from a down payment. i wish they had thrown a line into the show of like carmy saying he just found out the news that morning too, just so the hate i feel doesn’t burn towards carmy. but i know -i know- that this is just TV stuff to make everything move along faster so we can move past it to the main plot of the show.

i do enjoy the dinner that syd and marcus have. it’s very pleasant. i also get romantic vibes here (which we’ll keep talking about in season two), and it makes things complicated because i don’t think i’m reading too deeply into things? there are ways that editors and directors craft scenes so that when you’re watching at home you pick up a vibe and like….i pick that vibe up….? is it just me? (i mean, it’s clearly not just me, because of season two. but again….more on that later)

for the entire essay i wrote on the last episode, syd and marcus complaining about carmy really rubs me the wrong way. because a lot of the stress that came about that day was their fault, and then made worse by their walking out. NOW, if i were syd or marcus would i be doing the EXACT SAME THING with my coworker? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY! and yes, carmy does deserve some hate for how he reacted when it all went shit. but like…i still think they’re conversation shows they feel absolutely no guilt or shame for their own actions and failings that caused a lot of problems last episode, and that has always rubbed me the wrong way. like…shit on carmy. he was an asshole, he deserves to be shit on. BUT LIKE…not even a line of like “i wish i had double checked the to-go orders and made sure it was turned off for preorders.” “i wish i didn’t become obsessed with donuts so much that i stopped doing my job for weeks straight. and then when shit hit the fan, i continued to make donuts as if nothing else was going on.”

“my moms like that…” i think this is the first reference to sydney’s mom. with everything we learn in season two, i wonder if this is sydney lying, or sydney remembering and using the present tense to pretend her is still alive? (sorry for spoilers for season two).

ok. so, the dish sydney makes. LOOKS INCREDIBLE. but we get a shot of the dish, and it’s just sitting in oil. just like a puddle or a small soup of oil. not the end of the world, not wrong or bad in and of itself. BUT THEN SHE DRIZZLES MORE ON? like, syd! that’s so much fucking oil! now, once again, i know that they have a real life, talented, hardcore chef who made sure everything was as perfect and realistic as possible. which means that this HAS TO be some sort of TV thing. like, they want to keep sydney moving as she talks to keep the scene dynamic, so they have her drizzle something before she serves and because of the specific dish she’s making the only thing she could drizzle without ruining the dish is more oil. but like….idk, maybe choose a different dish then? it has bugged me since the first time i watched this show and it’ll never not bug me. because it’s not only wasteful, and gonna make this dish just so incredibly oily, but like….you don’t garnish a dish with something you already added as the base of the dish. you don’t make an ice cream sundae and then on top drizzle MORE vanilla ice cream! it’s just weird.

tina checking in with carmy is so sweet. it’s speaks so much to how good the show is that my LEAST favorite character could become one of my favorites in like the course of two episodes. love mama bear tina.

the calm, familial love between richie and carmy that has slowly but surely been prodding itself out more and more each episode is just so beautifully done.

listen, you might say to yourself that violence is never the answer, but tiny pipsqueak carmy jumping into every fight possible to stop people from fighting is the most noble thing ever. like…what hope does he ever have of stopping these tall midwesterners from fighting? he just continually gets the shit kicked out of him for trying to stop people fighting and i kinda love that about him. and richie coming in to the rescue both times is also a vibe. love that about richie, stepping in as a protective older brother.

…of course this time richie almost kills a a guy and gets arrested so. not the best.

if you had put “richie gets arrested for assault, with possible charge of manslaughter depending on if the customer he punched to break up a fight” on your bingo card, good for you! i didn’t see that coming.

that richie “bad news” uses his one phone call to call his ex wife, and then realizing that he always calls with bad news decides instead to NOT tell her that he’s in prison, but instead apologizes for the argument he got in with her dad at some point in their relationship…wow. it breaks your heart all over again. richie is just such a broken, sad guy.

that carmy is waiting for richie, asleep in the foyer is just…precious. it’s family. that’s family. that carmy used the shop’s two week parachute money to bail richie out, meaning that financially the beef has gone right back to where it started in episode one is…well, again. it’s family. a shop, when doing it right, ACTUALLY cares about its employees. because carmy feels like the person who would have done that for anyone in the beef, not just richie. i know owners and managers saying “we’re family here” has turned into a red flag that is code for “we don’t pay you enough, we take advantage of you, and we emotionally manipulate you”. but what family ACTUALLY DOES is when battling the evils of capitalism, and struggling to get by, you use what little you had saved up to help those who make it possible to do what you do. i wish more places actually did things like this. paid for bail, or medical procedures. but the only businesses i’ve heard that have done this are small ma and pa, independently owned restaurants. and it’s probably because you work so close to these people all day every day that they really do become your family.

the fact that we then symbolically and visually go back to the beginning of the show: they’re getting ball breaker ready for a tournament, they have no money, carmy’s on the floor hand scrubbing stains again, lu fucks up their meat order. the same song from the first episode plays. we zoom in on the ever present and oppressive clock.

ok. so marcus returns, and carmy literally goes out of his way to say he’s so sorry and he’s glad he’s back. carmy proves that once again, he is trying to be better, he’s trying to rise above his family, above his old bosses and be the bigger and better person and apologize for his mistakes and show that he does care about marcus….but marcus doesn’t say anything back. AGAIN, i know that carmy’s blowup is visually, and thematically way bigger and more prominent. but marcus couldn’t have said like, “sorry that i took advantage of your trust and your belief in me. that while you were working 24/7 to try and make sure this place didn’t go under you still allowed me to purchase and explore and do whatever i wanted with my workday, and all i had to do in return was make the cakes that were my idea in the first places, which i then repeatedly didn’t do. i’m sorry about that.” like…it blows my mind that the writing team, director, producer, and everyone else didn’t have a moment where they were like “should marcus apologize for what he did at all? like, he hurt the store which was already hurting? he put the shop at more risk of closing because of his actions. should he apologize for that?”

the beautiful conclusion to the braised short rib dish. in an earlier post i talked about how there’s an ongoing subtle storyline with it that is deeper than carmy just being an asshole and saying it wasn’t ready without giving pointers to make it better. and we see as he covers sydney’s shift he finds her little black notebook with the recipe and that’s when he learns what’s wrong with the dish: that it needs acid. he didn’t know before. when sydney had him try it, he knew it was missing something but he wasn’t sure what. it might have been his own pride: he didn’t want to admit syd that he didn’t know what was missing. and he didn’t want to ask for her recipe to find out, because he’s supposed to be the best. he should know every ingredient that’s in the dish, and he should know what’s missing and what needs to be added. and he didn’t. so he couldn’t ask syd for her recipe, he couldn’t tell her he didn’t know what it needed. and maybe, there was a part of him that didn’t want her dish to succeed, because he saw her as the competition, like he admitted in his monologue earlier in this episode. but it comes from such a place of trauma, and pain, and self-hatred. it’s so well done and so sad.

what i think is truly fascinating is that we get this scene where we see the staff deep cleaning everything. soap and water. the whole kitchen looks amazing. we cut to the lowboys, we cut to the floor, we cut to the shelves with all the plates. spotless. and then in just a few scenes carmy is looking around and it’s wrecked. it’s filthy. and i wonder….is it actually wrecked, or is it in carmy’s own perception of the place. because one interpretation could be that; well, you’re a restaurant. you’re gonna clean, it’s gonna get dirty, you’re gonna clean, it’s gonna get dirty. and carmy is just sick of the repetition. that he’s getting worn out from it all. the other is that he’s in such a hole in his own head that he thinks the place looks like a wreck when in actuality it’s still cleaner and nicer than it was when he started working there.

i personally like the second option. for one, it mirrors the truth of the shop. we get a lot of repeated themes and moments from the first episode. carmy is probably feeling like he’s right back to where he started. he just spent 7 episodes “cleaning up the place”, and now it’s “dirty again”. but in actuality, he has a staff that has fully embraced his system over mikey’s, he has an updated menu that is making strides in the community. i mean, in seven episodes he was able to get ahead of the tidal wave of debt and bills to create a two week parachute while trying to fight for everyone’s respect and loyalty in the shop. now he has their respect, so he should make that parachute back up even faster. but he’s so emotionally and mentally drained and damaged that he can’t see that progress, he can’t see how much “cleaner” the shop is. he just sees the filth.

this is backed up, in my mind, that while carmy is having his anxiety and depressive episode, stuck in this cycle of dread, we get clips of everyone else crushing their jobs. they’re refilling condiment cups, they’re prepping eggs for cake, they’re dicing and cooking onions, chopping into a chicken. they look like a well-oiled machine. and then we cut to looking at carmy from the side, and the kitchen behind him looks clean. white. crisp. it makes me think that all the grime and disgusting stuff we saw was only in his head

HOWEVER; we also see an olive oil squeeze bottle on its side over the stove dripping into it, and then in the next scene when carmy turns the stove on it instantly bursts into flames. so. maybe it’s not fully in his head? idk, i go back and forth on this one.

i wish they could make a realistic cgi fire. i’m not sure if it’s because fire already kinda looks fake, so to then make fake fire becomes impossible to make look real? or if they simply didn’t have the budget to make it look real. but the two times there’s been fire in this show it has looked so fake.

i think the theme of fire that we see from carmy is interesting. carmy talked about how the day after he won a james beard award he started a fire and watched it burn for a moment. we get that quick snippet in the very beginning of this episode “shoulda let it fucking burn down” which i dont know if it was mikey or carmy saying that. carmy almost set his own apartment on fire while cooking. there’s a lot about fire in this season. (and a lot about trying to put the fire out next season…but more on that later…)

but i love that when everyone comes to put out the fire (which….thats symbolic, right? for community? carmy needed help, he started a fire, and they came around him and put his fire out), richie comes up to carmy and instead of being angry, or sarcastic, or mean, just wants to know if carmy is ok. because he understands now; richie has been going through a lot because of mikey, so obviously so is carmy. he’s thinking about others now for the first time.

and that’s when richie gives carmy the letter from mikey that he found in episode two. because richie finally realized that he’s not okay. and that because richie knows that he’s not okay, he realizes carmy is not okay. and that instead of the two of them not addressing why they’re not okay, it’s time to heal and move forward. so he gives carmy the letter. and i love that there’s a moment where carmy is a little mad; richie knew about a letter that mikey made out to carmy. but richie admits the truth: he didn’t want to give it to carmy because it meant that mikey was really gone. and carmy’s not mad anymore, because he understands. it’s a shared moment of intimacy that i just love how subtle and slow and quiet and understated it is. the care between carmy and richie in this moment, and sorta in the episode overall is just kinda beautiful. this episode does such a good job of not being in your face like the rest of the season is, even while arguably more intense stuff happens this episode than in any of the previous ones.

call it friendship, call it a budding romance, call it emotional dependency that is unhealthy (i’ve seen cases for all three), but i think it means something that carmy has this letter from mikey, and instead of reading it first he instead texts syd. this sort of thing will happen again in season two, and we’ll talk about it. but, i think it means something that before he can address and face mikey’s last words to him, he needs to make sure he doesn’t follow in mikey’s footsteps, he needs to make sure that he doesn’t leave anyone hanging with unneeded or unwanted anger without resolution. and top of his list is syd.

also, not important. but the outfit that syd is wearing this scene, while COOKING and making sauces that is splatterig, IS SO COOL. i don’t often notice outfits, unless there’s something deeper in the outfits that speaks to characters (carmy’s white shirt uniform, richie’s sweat pants and beef t-shirts), but syd’s shirt is fucking fire

“i love you dude. let it rip” is so….so. like it speaks volumes and it’s so mikey and its just a hit to the heart. but at the same time, that’s all he said. no long heartfelt goodbye. just i love you. let it rip. and family spaghetti recipe on the back. the same one carmy axed from the menu in episode one. it’s really nice touch that carmy decides to honor his brother, finally coming to terms with his death, by making the dish for family dinner. plus we learn why there’s so many smaller cans of tomato’s when bigger ones are cheaper per ounce! mikey thought they tasted better…

also. we get a quick cut of marcus making the cake again. and the first time we see him drizzle the chocolate on it looks SO DRY, but this time it actually looks moist and tasty!

i love that once again there’s like a…undercurrent of charge between fak and richie. fak is talking all low and quiet about how cool it was that richie got stabbed and walked it off, and i can’t help but think….do these two secretly love each other?! wouldn’t be surprised.

there’s $300,000 hidden in these cans of tomatoes! which, when i learned that, my very first thought was “didn’t carmy toss a can in episode one??? how much money was in that can! is there like 100 cans? that’s like $3,000! FUCK! even if there’s like 300 cans, that’s still $1,000? not great!

i think it’s pretty fair and fitting to say that in a capitalist society, all of the problems we just went through over the course of 8 episodes magically disappears because of money. like, these working class people are suddenly without a problem because $300,000 fell into their lap.

but that also brings me to one of my only guilts for this season. the deus ex machina of: we go through 8 episodes of problems and trying to climb out of this hole by the skin of our teeth, and ope! instead of accomplishing it ourselves we just found $300k. and everything is (sorta) wrapped up nicely. and yes, the way it all sorta gets revealed is done about as well as could be. the threat of making the spaghetti, carmy wondering about why they get the smaller cans, going over the books and seeing this weird amount of payments to KBL electric for the amount cicero gave to mikey. it all was leading here: finding the money. and it’s not superb genius twist, i assumed something was up and then was like “oh! the money!” before the money was revealed. but it also doesn’t need to be a super plot twisty thing. the bear isn’t going for that. so they do a great job with the plot point, it’s just not my favorite plot point.

but i do love that sydney comes back; for what, we’re not fully sure. to ask for her old job back? maybe. to pick up her last check and be done? possibly. but she stumbles upon this group of rough around the edges lovable dirtbags surrounded by tomato sauce and money and richie (and it’s perfect that it’s richie) is like, “hey! you’re part of this family! get a can opener and let’s boogie!”

i also loved that carmy and syd just look at each other and they without even questioning it start designing the new restaurant. but i have to believe that i wasn’t the only one that when syd asks, “okay, what do we call it?” and the camera holds for just a second too long on carmy’s face, i immediately yelled “OH SHIT! THE BEAR!”

and then it ends perfectly. the whole family eating pasta and laughing because they’re finally gonna be ok. the beef is gonna close, the bear is gonna open, and it’s gonna be amazing.

i also love the meaningful shot of carmy walking out of the kitchen and for the first time we see him pull the towels off his apron, and take his apron off. he’s not cooking. and everyone is smiling, and everyone is happy.

and then we get this shot, and it means something. because carmy is wearing a black shirt again, and he looks up just past the camera and smiles. and then we cut to mikey, who turns to look just past the camera and we realize that mikey and carmy are looking at each other smiling.

and then it ends. *chefs kiss*

i do……..think it’s a little glossed over that mikey knew about carmy’s dream of opening a shop together, loved that idea and would talk to him about it. and then realized that the beef was poison, so he hurt his relationship with carmy to keep carmy away, which sent carmy onto a path of fine dining. mikey saw that, knew that carmy could fix things, so he borrowed $300k from cicero, then took his own life and gave carmy the restaurant so that carmy would then uncover his plot and be able to start the restaurant of his dreams. i understand mental health plays a lot into this, but uffda. mikey. there are other ways to do this…other ways that are also just a smidge less convoluted.

but that’s the episode! and not just the episode, but the season! uffda. i honestly think it’s just about as perfect as perfect could be! yes, there are a few gripes, but man those gripes aren’t enough to even come close to stopping this from being my favorite show ever and one of the best shows ever made. i love it. i love it so much.

season two awaits! someday…

SEASON ONE: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven

SEASON TWO: one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine | ten

#the bear #the bear fx #the bear hulu #carmy berzatto #carmen berzatto #the bear tv #blog #live blogging #live blog #live blog tag #essay #syd adamu #sydney the bear #sydney adamu #the bear richie #richie the bear #richie jerimovich #the bear season one

[little-miss-buffy]

closed starter for @mysticfallsresidents (for Damon)

That is NOT Angel, Buffy inwardly reminded herself for the millionth time as she listened to the conversation between Bonnie and Stefan, the boy Elena had started seeing.  Buffy had already met him once. He was nice, but the resemblance between him and Buffy's old boyfriend was uncanny.

In fact, the more Buffy thought about it, this was the third thing in Elena's life that paralleled hers back in Sunnydale. The first was that she lived in a town full of vampires (which was why Giles encouraged Buffy to stay in Mystic Falls) and the second was that her best friend might be a witch. Buffy shrugged it off at first, but when Not Angel walked through the door and she heard about an “animal attack” at a party Elena and Jeremy were, she started to worry.

Buffy did her best to keep this part of her life from Jenna, Elena, and Jeremy.  If they knew, they would automatically be dragged into this part of her life and she didn’t want that for them. Especially not for Elena and Jeremy. They were still in high school. She didn't want then to be worrying about vampires crashing Parent-Teacher night, swim team monsters,  or devil dogs at the prom. So far, they had no clue.

"What do you think, Buffy?" Stefan interrupted her thoughts. "I'm sorry, what?" Buffy was a bit embarrassed. "Witches, cool or not cool?" Elena prompted her. Buffy smiled. "My best friend is a witch," she said.  "And she's pretty cool." Her smile faltered for a second after mentioning Willow. She missed her. She missed all of the Scoobies. "I think that settles it," Elena turned her attention back to Bonnie. "Witches are awesome."

The doorbell rang making the blonde jump a bit. “Were you expecting anyone else?” she asked Elena. “No?” Elena got up and answered the door. "Surprise!" Buffy heard the voice of Caroline, another one of Elena's friends. "Bonnie said you were doing dinner, so we brought dessert." When a male voice spoke, Stefan immediately stood up and walked to the door, growling in frustration. "Who's the man voice making Stefan all growly?" Buffy asked Bonnie. "Stefan's brother, Damon," Bonnie answered. "We're  just finishing up," Stefan was saying, barely hiding the distain in his voice. Buffy could feel the tension from the kitchen.

"What's going on out there?" Buffy called out jokingly as she stood up and walked into the front hallway. "Someone order an apocalypse?" She stopped short when her eyes immediately locked with ice-blue irises belonging to a tall, dark-haired guy who she assumed was Stefan’s aforementioned brother. Objectively he was gorgeous, but there was something about him that made Buffy feel uneasy. His smile gave her the chills and not in a good way.

"Buffy, hi!" Caroline pushed past the elder brother and hugged the other blonde and then turned her attention back to him. "Damon, this is Buffy," she said.  "She's Elena's cousin from California." The other blonde said "California" like it was the coolest thing ever. Buffy managed a small smile in Damon's direction. "Hi," she said, holding her hand out. "In case you need a quick recap: I'm Buffy and I'm the uncool cousin that tries too hard." Almost immediately, Elena said, "You're the ONLY one who thinks that."

#mysticfallsresidents #damon salvatore #//i hope this works! #//season 1 where he and Caroline crash their dinner

[bloody-wonder]

omg im the tsc anon, i literally sent it cause i knew from the past aftg opinions you shared - you'd likely feel similarly to the way i did about tsc

neil outshines jean to such a shocking degree when he only has a handful of scenes... neil is a fantastic protagonist so ofc it's hard to live up to, but come on 😭 jean has such a weaker personality imo? he does/says less interesting things, but also has a less interesting perspective on things. his lack of standing up for himself when the trojans badgered him constantly and talked behind his back bothered me to. can u imagine neils reaction if the foxes had been sharing his secrets over a group chat?

but just in general. tsc felt like a sanitised version of aftg, if that makes sense? scrubbed clean of the controversial and unconventional aspects. and it's those aspects that, in my opinion, played a huge part in what made aftg so good. noras a very talented writer, but i can not comprehend the decision to make tsc... all that it was, yknow? it feels almost like it was written for the 'andreil say ily' part of the fandom...

neil really saved this book for me icl. outsider pov of him is fascinating. and while andrew barely said/did anything even when he was there, i actually kinda liked that? it puts into perspective how ig off-putting andrew can appear to those who don't put in the effort with him. 'creepy little goalkeeper' is so funny and so accurate, he IS a creepy little goalkeeper and i love that for him.

idk, some things i had anticipated - the trojans being who they are were never going to match the foxes. jeremy x jean was never going to match andreil (and ive seen ppl comparing them already... the blasphemy.) but there were things i was surprised weren't there. i had expected kevin and jeans relationship to be a lot more tense ig? i had thought jean would harbor a MUCH deeper resentment towards kevin, but i suppose its just not his character? but when i was reading, i couldn't help asking what would the fan reaction had been if that had been the case? if kevin and jeans past relationship, and places in a cult hierarchy, had shown through in a much uglier and uncomfortable way? i can see why she didn't do that, i don't even necessarily want that, i think i was just desperate for this book to have some sort of deep conflict between the characters.

on the subject, kevin felt quite different from how he was in aftg. but i can't quite put my finger on why.

anyway, it is nice to see someone else have mixed feelings towards the book. i enjoyed it, but i was shocked how many people seemed to really love it. not because it was bad. but because, to me, it was so fundamentally different from aftg.

thank you for sharing your thoughts! i suspected you might have written me bc i used to be the resident notorious contrarian of the fandom lol

yeah neil is a textbook example of a protag who drives the plot forward, he has that main character energy which jean totally lacks which makes sense since jean was originally a minor side character. at the same time the differences in their characterization make complete sense in universe due to the different ways they were brought up and the different trauma they faced. so it all comes down to each reader's personal preference: for me, neil's arc is a self-indulgent power fantasy. i think i have a strong sense of self and when i can't achieve something it's due to circumstances so far out of my control it's impossible to overcome them. it's therefore very satisfying to read about neil facing impossible odds and winning thanks to the sheer force of his personality, whereas jean's way of dealing with trauma feels less fun by comparison. but other readers can relate to him more and all the power to them. i do however think tsc does a disservice to its new characters by opening with a rather lengthy recap of how cool the foxes were in the last act of tkm and closing on a chapter where neil comes along and reminds us who the real hero of this story is🤷‍♀️

i don't think tsc has been entirely scrubbed clean of controversial aspects - i saw plenty of reviews complaining about the amount of dark content (in book 4 of a series known for its dark content, le gasp) - but i do think the handling of certain things was less nuanced than in aftg. for instance, both stories have a plot bit about someone unknowingly exposing a character to their abuser which leads to them being retraumatized (jean himself comments on the similarities between drake and grayson). in aftg that someone is nicky - a person andrew knows and trusts, a person the readers grew to care about (lol not me but certainly some other readers) - so his role in the tragic sequence of events is that much more upsetting. rape and abuse is terrible but the fact that a person who means well can exacerbate the issues bc they don't have the framework to understand the other person - that hits so much harder for me personally. so in the end drake is just an evil rapist but nicky is a much more nuanced character bc through him nora questions whether being nice and having good intentions is enough, whose feelings should be centered on in such a complex situation, whose emotional needs should be prioritized etc. by contrast, in tsc that person is lucas - someone we basically just met, who is nothing more than an antagonistic stranger to jean and who we therefore don't care about. which is why when he leads grayson to jean it's like, first of all, duhh. but secondly, bc it happens against the backdrop of the other ("good") trojans' cheerfully patronizing attitude it doesn't come so much as a shocking twist that puts the ways how we deal with complex trauma into an unconventional perspective than as a culmination of everyone disrespecting jean's boundaries all the time - which is likely what nora intended but the overall constellation feels much less interesting to me.

ig this ties into your point about the book lacking the kind of deep conflict aftg had - but maybe that was intentional too, maybe it's supposed to be aftg light in that sense, sort of a post canon character study fic. which i am not opposed to, not everything has to be high plot and tension and grey morality, but unfortunately the emotional core the story relies on in the absence of the plot just didn't work for me. i can accept jean's "weaker" personality, i can understand him not being able to stand up for himself even tho i can't admire it, but i draw the line at how forced his friendship with jeremy and the girls ended up feeling. like, i still can't get over cat's sex toy joke right on the heels of jean being badgered into admitting he had been sexually abused - the info which jeremy promptly spilled to the girls. if something like that happened to me i would never be able to trust these people again, much less call them friends so soon. it's such a bizarre contrast between how neil joining the monsters in tfc despite their problematic initiation rituals feels valid bc the narrative earned it both plot-wise (we're now facing a bigger enemy together) and character-wise (neil pushing back, talking about why they did it, nicky apologizing) on the one hand - and how jean accepting jeremy, cat and laila as his new friends feels rushed and artificial despite them being so very nice and domestic and wholesome on the other hand. idk maybe it's bc i'm inherently skeptical about disingenuous cozy/hopepunk subgenres in modern lit bc they usually have a darker underbelly people are loath to confront but ngl the words sanitized and conventional did come to mind while reading and so did the idea that tsc will especially appeal to a certain subset of fans which found the (at times uncomfortable) complexity of the original trilogy too much to handle. well, i hope they're enjoying their fantasy of healing a survivor of cptsd by cooking and shopping and hugs - i certainly got to enjoy mine in aftg, there's plenty to go around lol

besides, tsc being so different/separate from aftg makes it really easy to just not engage with the fan content and discussions if it starts feeling like they veer into the annoying territory too much. tbh my primary concern when tsc was announced was that it could contain some retcons about andreil and aftg which i wouldn't agree with - and that didn't happen, my boys are still very much in character, so i can just retreat to my enclosure and leave tsc to jean stans who are its main target audience in any case.

#aftg ask #aftg mine #book tag #all of this makes me want to reread aftg #neil is The Best #but the absence of andrew was felt acutely #like #if you think jeremy is a better or more interesting love interest we can't be friends lol #where's the finesse where's the showmanship #anyways #i'm also wondering about people's reaction to how the trojans are a queer friend group - almost to the point of caricature?? #idk how i feel about that #if anyone wants to share their thoughts on that i'd love to read them

[boysplanetrecaps]

Build Up, Ep 5 Recap: The Neglected Performances

Welcome back to the one of the top twenty best Build Up recaps out there! In the previous one, we saw an adoring junior take on his senior. In this one, we’ll talk about the four performances that MNET saw fit to skip almost completely. 

So yeah, MNET saw fit to just unceremoniously fly through a total of four performances in less time than they spent on most of the other single performances. I’m so mad I feel like I could spontaneously combust. Where is Junyheok and Yeo One’s fire extinguisher? 

MNET spent about a minute per round (ie, less than 30 seconds on each performance) but I’ll go through a little more carefully. 

First up is Hyukjin and Jeong Inseong versus Lee Minwook and Jang Intae.

I’ll remind you who everyone is as we go along, since MNET hates all eight of these guys for no reason.

Hyukjin is from an unfortunately VERY nugu group called Fave1. He was in the Power group, V22, the one who sang that heavy metal sounding song. I mean, he frickin’ went for it, I’ll give him that. He wore that red suit on the first day. He performed in the Kajima Kajima (Don’t Go) group, and was made Low Tier just because everyone else did a bit better, not because he did badly. He seems to have lightened his hair a little bit since the Pre-4 round.  

Jeong Inseong is from a group called KNK. He was a V6, in the Allround section, and I remember really liking that first performance (my notes just read, “ooh, I like!”). He was in Breath, and along with Hwanhee, was sort of a go-to backstage reaction king during the whole Pre-4 mission. We didn’t hear what the judges thought of his performance one where or the other, but I thought he had a smooth, rich voice. 

They’ve decided to sing a song called Still Love You, originally performed by Lee Hongki and Yoo Hweseung. If you watched either You’re Beautiful (the Hong sisters k-drama) or Produce48, you’re familiar with Lee Hongki; he was Jeremy in You’re Beautiful and he was the cool, Japanese-speaking vocal coach in Produce48. But of course, you might know him as a member of FT Island. Hweseung was on PD101 Season 2. Now he is the main vocalist of N Flying, and I think he has a glorious voice. So yeah, I like both these guys.

The song itself isn’t my thing, but that’s fine, it doesn’t have to be. The lyrics are just typical K-ballad material -- “I love you and I’ll miss you and I will never forget you but I nobly hope you’ll be happy” blah blah. You know the drill. 

Full version here.

My thoughts:

Overall, I actually like their version better than the original. I’m not a huge fan of the song itself, but I like the way they sing it. 

Hyukjin is the weaker of the two vocalists, which is a bummer because I root for anyone who gets less than 10,000 views on his MVs. He still has a very nice voice. He just has a bit of sharp nasality occasionally that kind of spoils his tone. He also could slightly improve his agility. His straining high notes at the end were not… great. On the positive side, he has a really nice natural vocal color when he’s not straining, and he has excellent pitch and breath control, allowing him to hold -- and control -- long powerful notes, as long as he doesn’t push the high pitch too hard. I wish he’d sing more in his lower register, because that’s what I think sounds best. 

I really like Inseong’s voice. It doesn’t quite give me the tingles like Jay’s voice, or Neon’s, or Euibin’s, but it’s so nice. It’s just so rich and nice to listen to. He varies his dynamics, singing softly and cleanly sometimes, and loud and powerfully other times. He uses just the right amount of vibrato for my taste. I just think he’s a great singer. 

Their harmonies sounded really pretty; you can hear both of them, so they’re blending just right. 

Ok, so let’s see what we see on the show. 

The editors made sure to include Hyukjin’s not-too-great high notes. Sigh. They get an 87 from Wendy and a 65 from Jaehwan! Way harsh, Tai!

VCG says, “You should have made the best use of your weapons, but since you used it too often, it didn’t seem like a special move.” I assume he’s addressing Hyukjin, and I think I get what he means. Hyukjin kept the emotional level at 11 the whole time, and didn’t really vary up his dynamics. I think that’s kind of how the original version of the song goes, as well, but maybe they could have adapted it a little more. 

Poor Inseong. He sang so beautifully. Even if that one high note of Hyukjin’s wasn’t great, poor Inseong got dragged down with him. 

Next up is Minwook and Intae. 

Lee Minwook is from a group called Newkidd. He was in the Soul group, V9, and you guys, that little performance has been living in my playlist ever since. He wore a bunch of vests, including that bright blue vest that sort of gave gym-class jersey vibes. I really like his voice, but I guess the other guys didn’t because he was tied for 33rd in the vocal check in. He ended up in Something Like That, where the judges praised him effusively and he was chosen as Top Tier. 

Jang Intae is from the Allround group, V31, and is one of the mysteries of the show. I don’t even know his age. He actually came in last in the initial vote after the vocal check in, with only 5 votes. He was in the Every Moment group, along with Bain and Seunghun from CIX. Unfortunately, I haven’t exactly loved his singing on the show so far. In my opinion, his voice is quite nasal, and he lacks both agility and breath control. Solar disagrees with me, though; she voted for him as Top Tier (everyone else voted for Seunghun). 

The song they’ve chosen is Universe by EXO. This may shock and amaze you, but I really like this song. What? ME? LIKE A SONG BY EXO? WHAT NEXT? 

Anyway yeah, it’s a great song. Sure, the lyrics are basically the same as those of most k-ballads -- I lost you but I’ll look for you forever, blah blah -- but the chords are complicated and interesting and there’s a drive and power to it that make it feel authentic. Plus they look like this:

Was there ever a more delightful concept than just “they’re dressed for fall and holding steamy mugs”? Sigh.

Anyway, I’d be scared to sing this song because the original was sung by some of the best vocalists in the world, but I really like Minwook, so let’s see what he can do!

Full version

Mostly, very nice, and since my ears can’t help but compare them to D.O. and Chen and Baekhyun and Suho and Xiumin and Chanyeol, for me to say they did well is a big compliment. I do think they were both a bit nervous. This is still really nice, but their soft notes were shaky for both of them. 

Intae did better than he did the other times I’ve heard him, and Minwook didn’t do quite as well as other times, so they ended up a balanced pair.

Intae, left, and Minwook, right.

Minwook starts off a bit shaky. His tone is very pretty, but he actually hits the wrong note at about the :27 mark in the Youtube version. If you haven’t listened to the song 1000 times like I have, you may not notice, but I noticed, and I feel like the judges might have noticed too. (I thought about it -- was that a purposeful change on his part? And all I can say is that if it was meant to be purposeful, it doesn’t SOUND it, so the effect is the same.) His belts on the chorus also seemed a little harsh and out of control. But his natural vocal color is really nice, and he has a nice way to him, where he’s not overacting or straining all the time. 

Intae was still a bit nasal for my taste, but less so than other times I’ve heard him. He also uses more vibrato than I prefer, but not all the time. He has a lot of power to his belts and 

Their harmonies sounded really great, even the ones I think they worked out on their own that weren’t in the original song. I think they were smart to drop the octave right after that one long note. 

In the brief glimpse we see of them in the actual show, they look great. We only get a tiny bit of commentary, and it’s from Solar, who gave them their high score of 96. It’s not clear who Solar is addressing, but she tells someone -- maybe both of them -- “you have a great voice, and your manner and style of singing is also good. I think it was even better because you created it together.” Again, Solar is the same one who voted for Jang Intae in a previous round. She just really likes him for some reason. Seungkwan gave them their low score of 78, but we don’t hear from him.

We get the final score, and it’s 543 to 589 in favor of Minwook and Intae. If you do the math and subtract out the high and low scores, the average score of the other five judges was 83 for Minwook and Intae, and it was 78.2 for Hyukjin and Inseong. 

Round ten! Ding Ding!

Next up is fan favorite and Boy’s Planet survivor, Lee Hwanhee of Up10tion, paired with soldier and Pixar character Jo Hwanji. Hwanji isn’t dressed as a soldier today; he and Hwanhee are both wearing leather jackets instead, and Hwanhee has decided to a 90s scene girl looking choker. They’re going up against Lim Sanghyun and Taewoo.  

Team Hwan-hee-ji has decided to sing Four Seasons, originally by Taeyeon of SNSD.  Here’s the Full version on Youtube.

My thoughts:

Ok, I’m not the biggest fan of jazzy singing, but this seems really nice. They seem to be enjoying what they're doing and it comes across kind of classy and cool. 

I think Hwanhee uses a tiny bit too much vibrato for my taste here, and he gets a tiny bit shrieky, but it feels like a stylistic choice. Hwanji’s voice is so clean and lovely except for his kind of painful shrieky high note at about 2:57 in to the Youtube version. Neither of them are nasal and both have good breath control and sense of pitch. They also brought bounce and interest into it with their facial expressions and dynamics.

They did a thing where they sang one line back and forth to each other, and it kind of makes sense when you know the lyrics are “We longed for each other / We got sick of each other.”  And their cute punchy harmony section right after that sounded great. 

The MNET edit is downright cruel. It makes it seem like they did that “trade lines back and forth” the whole time, but that was just one little part. The on screen captions say things like “the two voices do not sound in harmony.” Who writes these captions? What are you talking about? 

We find out that their high and low scores were 79 and 69 respectively. I don’t get what the judges are annoyed about. It just feels like they were tired and cranky here in tenth round, really. Because 79 high and 69 low feel punitive. Are you really saying that they were worse than Woong and Seokhwa?  Yeah, Hwanji had that one bad note, but come on. 

Wendy gave the high score of 79, but we don't get to hear from her. VCG, who gave the low score, says “I couldn’t hear the lyrics. ‘I’m good at this’, ‘this is how good I am,’ ‘This is how high I can go and I can sing a little jazzy,’” he says in a mocking tone. “I think it was a performance that only showed your skills.” 

Genuine question: Were they not supposed to show their skills? What were they supposed to show? I’m confused. If they hadn’t shown their skills, you would have said “I wanted to see your skills.” What was bad about showing their skills? What is bad about showing that they’re good at this? 

Also, I am far from fluent in Korean, but I could compare what they were singing to the lyrics I found online and I didn’t get lost along the way, so they were pronouncing it well enough for *me* to understand them. 

Hwanhee and Hwanji take their bad scores with grace. Hwanhee has been on dozens of these shows by now and is just like, sure, whatever. 

Next up is Lim Sanghyun and Taewoo. They both performed in the Beautiful group. I enjoyed Sanghyun’s soft, gruff tone, but couldn’t quite get behind Taewoo’s “YG” style with its sharp, nasal tone and swaggy affectations. 

They’re singing Downpour, the song I.O.I. used as its sort of “goodbye” before it disbanded. The lyrics mark it as a fairly standard k-ballad about a breakup, comparing the sadness of a breakup to a temporary downpour, but it has a lovely melody. Fun fact: It was co-written by Woozi of Seventeen!

Full version without reactions

My thoughts:

I still am not really on board with Taewoo’s style of singing, though I think it would have a time and place. It’s not that he’s a bad singer; it’s just that I don’t much like the manner of his singing. He does this little sigh thing at the end of each line that is very YG feeling and not something I like, and he is unpleasantly pitchy on his falsetto and shrill when he employs his mixed register. Note to note his voice can sound really different, and some of the ways it can sound is nice, but he’s affected and stylistic when I think his natural color might be his nicest voice.

Also, why don’t people open their eyes? What is this singing with your eyes closed thing so many of them do? And I’m aware, they probably don’t have completely closed eyes, but if that’s how it looks on camera, then… they should be aware of how it looks, right?

Sanghyun is still more my style. His voice is just so soft and pretty in a smoky kind of way. He does kind of drop off at the end of lines sometimes, but not all the time, so I won’t hold it against him or anything. Sometimes his voice reminds me a little of Baekhyun’s, so that’s a compliment, right? I really don’t have a lot to say just because it’s such a nice voice -- not nasal at all, not pitchy, good breath control. None of the bad things, all the good things.

I do actually think their voices sound nice next to each other, but I wish Sanghyun had a different partner. 

In the MNET edit, we see a few moments with the caption, “A stage with very different voices but good harmony.” They get a high of 100 and a low of 85, so it’s pretty clear that they’ve won. 

We can’t see which judge gave them which score, but I assume that Solar may have given out the 100. We get to see her saying, “When different people come together like this, a truly unique team will emerge. That’s what I felt watching the performance.”

The final score is 641 to 515, which is just… ouch. That means that Hwanhee and Hwanji got the second lowest score of the whole round. It was just unnecessarily harsh for no raisin.

If you take out the highest and lowest scores and find the average of the remaining scores, the other five judges gave Team Hwan-hee-ji an average score of 73.4, and gave Sanghyun and Taewoo an average score of 91.2.

Well, I’m so glad we spent so much time watching Geonu and Soomin make up a handshake, and watching Inhyuk and Joohee smack talk, and had instant replays and reactions drag things out the whole time, and wasted time with people wondering what the score would be just seconds before the score is actually shown, etc. 

Imagine if we’d used that time to watch the SINGING on a SINGING SHOW that would have been TOO MUCH SINGING FOR A SINGING SHOW PLEASE I only want to watch people MAKE UP HANDSHAKES AND SMACK TALK ON MY SINGING SHOW The word “SING” stands for “SMACKTALKING IS NOW GOOD” and “MUSIC” stands for “MAKING UP SHAKES IS CRUCIAL” I guess

Why do I watch these MNET shows?

Oh yeah, that’s why. 

Ok, I’m going to cut it off here for now, and my next post will be an Elimination Special! See you then!

XOXO

BRP Unnie/Noona

#mnet build up #bpr recaps build up #build up mnet #build up #up10tion #lee hwanhee #knk #newkidd #Inseong #Jeong Inseong

[mlobsters]

supernatural s8e1 we need to talk about kevin (w. jeremy carver)

new season, new me. *silent wish goes up for smaller sideburns*

of course they had to include "dick is coming" in the recap. we can't let the opportunity for a dick joke slip out of our hands

very xfiles

okay i threw this in lightroom real quick to make it less dark because what is going on here? it's very... strike a pose, for feral!dean. and the kids are like from a painting. it's very dramatic. maybe i will paint it some day.

well the infamous benny appears. i also didn't realize purgatory was gonna be a time jump like hell. read something not too long ago that was fairly evocative of the environment of purgatory so i was thinking some of the show happened there (though i suppose flashbacks are also a possibility).

lol i'm already upset, broad strokes know how this goes with their reunion emotionally.

this is so ridiculous. i was just complaining how i felt so blah with the end of s7. well here we go, let's hurt my feelings with brother conflict stress and i'm gonna be upset about it? make up your mind

okay so some fics i've read are like "sam didn't look for dean while he was in purgatory" but i did not pick up that for all intents and purposes, sam had no reason to assume he wasn't dead.

there's a lot going on in this scene. like the semi dodging the cas questions, how he got out, etc.

SAM Yeah. Yeah, I – you were gone... Dean. Cas was gone, Bobby was dead. I mean, Crowley even shipped off Kevin and Meg to parts unknown. DEAN So you just turned tail on the family business.

are you kidding me right now, dean? like he should carry on hunting because it's the family business??? i'll chalk this up to being mad and fucked up for being hunted for a year.

SAM Nothing says "family" quite like the whole family being dead. DEAN I wasn't dead. In fact, I was knee-deep in God's armpit killing monsters, which, I thought, is what we actually do. SAM Yes, Dean. And far as I knew, what we do is the thing that got every single member of my family killed. I had no one – no one. And for the first time in my life, I was completely alone. And, honestly, I-I didn't exactly have a roadmap. So, yeah, I-I fixed up the Impala, and I just... drove.

💔

DEAN After you looked for me. Did you look for me, Sam? [SAM looks away.] Good. That's good. Now, we – we... always told each other not to look for each other. That's smart. Good for you. Of course, we always ignored that because of our deep, abiding love for each other, but not this time, right, Sammy?

well i can see now why fics harp on this point. so i'm assuming sam thought dean was in heaven. would dean expect sam to try to get him back from there too? tucking 'deep and abiding love' into my pocket

okay right i've talked about this before too, how sam is always the fuckup begging for forgiveness and dean is the righteous man. and i'm tired of it! this thing with the voicemails from kevin tran is just... cruel. i don't like the point they're making.

real life, anyone in sam's situation would be a fucking mess. i still don't really think sam would flake on the phones with kevin like that.

whoa whole new desktop. so long untitled 1 and 2

oh we get urls now in the new web browser! and look at that, already an invalid web url http://www.searchtheweb/main missing your tld, friend 😔 1 out of 2, at least

lying about the dog in the car too. all right

okay, purgatory flashback after all. umm. what happens when you die in purgatory? respawn there? or is that the way to the big empty i've heard about

DEAN Hmm. So what was it, hmm? What could possibly make you stop just like that? A girl? Was there a girl? SAM The girl had nothing to do with it. DEAN There was a girl. SAM Yeah. There was. And then there wasn't. Any more questions?

*heavy sigh*

not getting through this episode tonight. reconvene tomorrow

#supernatural #spnwatch #spn 8x1 #fuckup vs righteous man #spn desktop background update #jeremy carver

[cosmicpines]

Happy Code Secret Santa, @votederpycausemufins ! You asked for some slice of life friend group but also mentioned you liked Sissi, so I wrote you this piece :) hope you enjoy it! Sorry if the formatting is bad — I’m finishing this from my phone. I will fix it later when I post it to Ao3.

There was no way this could fail, Sissi muses with a satisfied smile as she, Nicholas, and Herve walk down the snow-laden streets in their knitted hats and thick coats, shivering as they made their way into town. Her new boots crunch with every step over the first snowfall of the season, and the frost in the air is doing a number on her lips, she realizes as she runs her tongue over them. With trembling fingers encased in her bright pink mittens, she pulls out a tube of chapstick and, after failing to open it with her slippery mittens three times in a row, holds it out to Herve. He pauses mid-sentence in his conversation with Nicholas, (Something about math homework? She didn’t even realize they had math homework. Whatever.) takes it from her, pulls the cap off, and hands it back, wordlessly and thanklessly, before turning back to Nicholas. Sissi applies a thin layer, recaps it, and shoves it back in her pocket.

“I sure hope we’re going the right way,” she says, cutting Herve off again, who dutifully shuts his mouth. “The last thing I want is to wander around in the cold looking for a bowling alley that doesn’t exist.”

“I looked it up before we left,” Herve sighs, “Don’t you trust me?”

“No, I don’t.” Sissi says, bluntly, “Not after the Burger Barn incident.”

Nicholas starts snickering, and Herve’s cheeks, already tinged pink from the cold, darken even more, and he tightens his scarf. “We got there in the end.”

“I don’t need to dignify that with a response,” Sissi huffs, “All I know is if I’m late to impress Ulrich, I’ll never forgive you!”

He mutters something under his breath that Sissi misses, and Nicholas snickers again. Sissi purses her lips, but decides to ignore them, opting instead to daydream about her plan. Yesterday, at dinner, Sissi was at her usual table, one over from Ulrich and his gang, and doing her daily half-talking to her dweebs,  half-eavesdropping on the other dweebs routine. It was easy enough to overhear that Odd blabbing about how they just “needed to take a day off” and “why don’t they go somewhere together over the weekend.” Jeremie said something about… something… computer-y… but his sweet little Mrs. Einstein  had managed to convince him.

Really, if they didn’t want her to follow them, they shouldn’t talk so loudly.

It was obvious what her course of action should be: meet them at the bowling alley, wearing her new skirt and festive sweater, bowl in the alley right next to them, do a better job than anyone, have a better time than anyone, and totally humiliate them all. Ulrich will be impressed, he’ll come talk to her, and one thing will lead to another and they’ll be in love and everything would be better!

Okay, maybe the plan wasn’t foolproof, but it was an opportunity. And if there was one thing Sissi Delmas never let pass her by, it was an opportunity.

After trudging through the snow for nearly an hour, the blast of cheap heating that hits the trio’s face as they enter the bowling alley could be heaven. Sissi pulls off her hat with a sigh as feeling returns to her face, and she peels off her mittens and shoves them in her pockets. The building is dingy sort of place. The air smells like sweat and pizza. Music that was popular 5 years ago is blaring through the speakers, interrupted by the crashing sound of bowling balls and the screaming of children and, of course, the yelling of one Odd Della Robbia.

“Oh, look out, trouble is here!”

Sissi turns in the direction of his shrill, annoying little voice, and she sees the whole group sitting a few lanes away — two benches facing each other, with Aelita and Jeremie facing her on the far bench, Ulrich glancing over his shoulder and scowling on the close bench, Yumi looking over her shoulder as she stands to take her turn, and Odd leaning against the ball return, waving at her. Ulrich let’s out a loud groan that is audible from across the room as he turns back to their game, but Sissi knows he’s just playing hard to get, as per usual. Ulrich just doesn’t seem to understand that there should be a “get” part of “hard to get.”

Her rehearsed lines from the walk over are pouring out of her mouth in a second as she walks towards them, “Oh, what a coincidence!” Sissi says, meandering over as she pulls off her coat, showing off her white sweater with a smile, Nicholas and Herve following in her wake, “I never expected that you five would know a good way to spend your weekend. Is this where you’re always hiding when you’re not on campus?”

“If it was, it wouldn’t be anymore,” Ulrich mutters, pointedly not looking at her.

Yumi tosses the bowling ball and hits a reasonable chunk of the pins, leaving three on the left side. She walks back towards them, scowling, “Sissi, I’m warning you, if you’re just here to ruin our day, you can get lost.”

“Yumi, dear, I cannot believe you would say that!” Sissi turns to look at Nicholas and Herve, feigning shock, “When have I ever tried to ruin your day?”

All of the others start talking at the same time, listing off different occasions, and Sissi interjects with a, “Okay, okay, okay! Point taken.”

She continues smirking, her plan to make a scene and sow discord working perfectly. Of course, she had expected the resistance from them; they weren’t wrong that she was usually around them to cause friction. It was just that they all misunderstood why she was doing these things! Aelita and Jeremie go back to chatting with each other, Yumi goes back to bowling her second shot, Odd’s glinting eyes fall off of her, and Ulrich continues sitting there, watching Yumi.

“Well, we’re going to bowl here, if you all don’t mind.”

They ignore her. She speaks louder.

“I don’t care if you mind, actually. We’re going to do it anyway.”

Aelita rolls her eyes.

Sissi’s blood boils at this more than them jeering. She’s just preparing to walk over and give them a more clear, direct insult when —

 “Ay, over there. You renting shoes or what?”

Sissi blinks and turns to see a man as grubby as the bowling alley leaning on a counter next to the register. Behind him are rows of bowling shoes of varying states of repair. He’s leaning on a half-shaven face with drooping, baggy eyes, giving her a disappointed glare that would put Ms. Hertz’s to shame. She walks over the carpet to the counter, pulling her wallet out of her pocket.

“The three of us,” she says, gesturing to Nicholas, who has already started taking his shoes off, and Herve, who nods, “Would like a lane for two games.”

The man furrows his brow, looking over her shoulder at Ulrich’s gang, “You not with them?”

“No, we’re not,” Sissi scowls, “Not that we’d want to be.”

“Well, we’re outta lanes, so you’re outta luck.”

“Excuse me?”

“We’re outta lanes,” the man repeats, gesturing at the bowling alley with his free hand, “It’s a freezing cold Saturday, this place books up fast. You shoulda called ahead. Don’t know when anyone will be done. You can either rent shoes and bowl with your friends over there, or you can come back later, probably in a few hours.”

“This – I – ,” Sissi sputters, feeling her face turning pink and her grip on her wallet tightening. How had she not thought of this beforehand? Her plan was –

Was –

Well, even she has to admit, her expression deadset on fury to mask the embarrassment, this wasn’t one of her better plans. But she had been so fixated on getting herself to the bowling alley that she had to admit that she hadn’t thought of what she’d actually do when she got here. She hadn’t even stopped to come up with a list of insults to throw back in Odd and Aelita’s faces when they insulted her. And she’s wearing chapstick, for crying out loud! Not even the flavored kind! If she really wanted to impress Ulrich, she’d be wearing her new glittery lilac lipgloss! That tube cost $8!!!

“Well, it looks like you just struck out, Sissi!” Odd sneers, laughing at his own mediocre joke, the others joining in. Their laughter rings in Sissi’s ears louder than the crashing of bowling pins, and she turns, mouth opening to say an insult she knows isn’t there, before Aelita cuts her off.

“Yeah,” Aelita adds, “A few p –,”

And she abruptly stops.

All of them do, actually – each of them has a momentary confused look in their eyes, looking around the bowling alley, before they go back to ambling about. Jeremie mutters something Sissi can’t hear from across the room, and Aelita squeezes his shoulder; whatever roast she was about to serve, apparently completely forgotten.

“What was that, Mrs Einstein?” Sissi snaps, trying to break them out of whatever stupor they were in, a shot of… something… coursing through her heart, and Aelita cringes, looking up, “What were you about to say to me?”

“Look, girl,” the man behind the counter interjects, and Sissi spins back around, “You need to leave, alright? There’s no lane for you, so write your name down and back in a few hours and –,”

“Actually,” Ulrich interrupts him, clearly and pointedly, before he turns around slowly, facing her properly for the first time. He looks tired – far more tired than Sissi had assumed he was, carrying some weight behind his eyes she couldn’t identify – but the half-formed smile he gives is sincere, “Those three can join us.”

“…What?” She mouthes, dumbly.

 “Yeah,” Yumi says, shooting a quick smile at Ulrich, a sight that would normally infuriate Sissi if she wasn’t so perplexed, “I’m all bowled out, actually. Sissi can take over my spot.”   

“Yeah, and Herve can take mine!” Odd says with a hand raised, “Jeremie said he was tired earlier, so I’m sure he wouldn’t mind –,”

“Yes,” Jeremie blurts out, relief heavier than getting out of a social obligation on his face, “Yes. I’m happy to watch.”

“What are you playing at?” Herve asks, snapping Sissi back into the realm of logic. Yes, this must be a trick or a prank from them of some kind – some prank they all just thought off at once and –

And –

Aelita’s smile is so sweet, like the one she offers to her friends at dinner that Sissi always stares at with a twitching pounding in her chest.

“Hello? Hello? Are you renting shoes or not?”

The man behind the counter’s glare is back, anr, throwing caution to the wind, Sissi pulls her wallet back out of her pocket. “Yes. I’m a 6 and a half, he’s a 9, and he’s a 10.”

Sissi is awkwardly poised on the very end of the bench where Ulrich is sitting, left heel tap-tap-tapping the floor in slightly-too-small bowling shoes, as she watches Nicholas spend far too long angling his shot. Her first turn is coming up next and, for some reason, she has knots in her stomach like she’s waiting for her execution. She sneaks a glance over at Ulrich, who she’s startled to see is staring right back at her. His expression is slightly puzzled, like he’s trying to figure something out about her. Sissi keeps his gaze as he raises an eyebrow and she’s about to say something – accusatory, maybe? Ask him what he’s staring at her for that, maybe, something like – when there’s the crash of bowling pins and a gasp from the others.

“WHAT?” Odd exclaims amid – and Sissi can’t believe this either – cheers from the others, as she turns and sees that Nicholas, the little silent mystery that he is, has bowled a strike, “I should have let Nicholas take over my game! This isn’t fair!”

“Sorry, Odd,” Jeremie says, who has been slumped in his seat since the three of them were invited over, leaning on Aelita with her arm slung protectively around him, the image of public PDA that she can’t believe Jeremie is accepting, “Not everyone can have a champion as their partner.”

Nicholas, grinning ear to ear, comes back and sits on the floor next to Jeremie. Jeremie grins that stupid grin of his back at him, as if they were – were –

“Sissi, it’s your turn.” Yumi suddenly says from right behind her, and Sissi jumps out of her seat instinctively.

“I know that,” she spits back, and Yumi shrugs, easing into the seat she was just in, leaning over to whisper something to Ulrich.

Sissi stalks over to the ball return and glares at it. She can’t balance left from right anymore and she doesn’t know how or why she’s so stressed about all this. She hefts up the green ball Nicholas had been using, a sticky, heavy thing that she can barely get her hands into.

“You want a lighter one,” Ulrich says from his seat.

Her face burns. “I know that!”

“Here.”

And – what is happening – Ulrich walks up to her and takes the ball out of her hands, his fingers brushing against hers for a heart-stopping second. He picks up a blue one instead, holding it out. He has that infuriating little smirk on his face, “Come on, don’t tell me you’ve never bowled before.”

“Of course I have,” Sissi takes the ball from him. It’s still hefty, but it’s much more manageable, and her fingers fit into the holes with just a little wiggle room.

“Show us what you’ve got, then,” He inclines his head towards the lane, and Sissi walks away, the tapping of her shoes louder barely louder than the beating of her heart. She had bowled before, obviously, just not for a while. It wasn’t that hard. It couldn’t be that hard, she thought, her grip on the ball tightening as she ambles over to the center of the lane. No weakness, she thinks to herself, just do it. Winding up, throwing, watching – it’s all one swift motion that she trusts herself to pull off, and watches with bated breath as it – no – curves too far right, barely avoiding hitting nothing as it plinks the rightmost pin in the side, falling and knocking over – please please please – three other pins.

A quiet breath of relief escapes her throat, and, spinning around on her heels with a casual shrug, she gloats, “Not that hard, really. Knocking out the back row is a very important strategy.”

“Follow it up, then,” Aelita says, raising an eyebrow, and Sissi, practically prancing back to the ball return, picks up her ball, raising her nose at her.

With a wink, she says, “Gladly,” and walks over to do her second toss. She screw up her face, focuses, and throws.

She watched it roll, and roll, and veer right again, and…

“Yikes,” she hears Herve’s sniveling little voice say as it clunks into the gutter, and she doesn’t dare look at what the others are doing.

“Shut up,” she snaps back, talking faster than she can process, “I was just warming up. You’ll see; next shot will be good. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m getting a soda.”

With a huff, she walks away from the lane.

Her hands are trembling and her eyes are warm as she orders a Diet Coke, and she furiously pulls out her chapstick for something to do to calm them down. Idiot, moron – why is she even here? What even was her plan? Why were they so willing and able to make a fool of her and why – why –

“Hey Sissi!”

Blinking, she rubs her eyes furiously at the voice of that Odd. She absolutely could not let him see that she was – not that she was – it was just something in her eye that was bothering her, was all. She, thankfully, has pulled off her deception of nothing well, as no jeering came from Odd as he sidles next to her, leaning over the counter, “I’ll have a slice of pepperoni pizza and a Dr. Pepper.”

“It was fine, Sissi,” he says, and she knows he’s taunting her as the cashier hands her her drink, “You should have seen Ulrich’s first round. All gutters! You at least got a few.”

She doesn’t reply, opening the can and taking a jerky sip. He’s an insufferable, cruel, horrible person who is just going to make more fun of her as he takes that disgusting pizza from the disgusting cashier in this disgusting bowling alley.

“You know,” Odd says, finally, turning back to her with his plate, “If you want to hang out with us, you can just ask.”

“What?” Her bowling shoes squeak under her as she leans back, aghast, “Why would I want to hang out with you? We’re just bowling together because there are no lanes left.”  

 “Sure,” Odd shrugs, walking over and pressing the ketchup dispenser to dump a disgusting amount over his pizza slice. Sissi wrinkles her nose and Odd snickers, before continuing to talk, “I’m just saying! Sometimes it feels like it would take, oh, I don’t know, a life-threatening situation for you to admit how you feel.”

“What? That’s stupid. I can say how I feel whenever I want.”

“Sure, sure,” Odd is still smiling at her. That pesky, knowing smile that she has no idea what he’s going on about for. He picks the abhorrent little pizza slice up and shoves it into his gaping mouth, still smiling, and says, through disgusting chews, “So how do you feel?”   

 “How do I – huh?”

 She sputters, staring at him and his ease and his smile and his friends behind him, cheering for Herve and she — she —

“You’re all acting so weird!” Sissi cries, “Freaks!”

 Odd laughs at her, nudging her with his elbow as he heads back. Her hand closes around her soda can and it’s crushed between her fingers, the cold sticky liquid falling over her hand and onto the floor as she stands there, alone.

#code lyoko #code secret santa #sissi delmas #I love sissi so much it’s unreal #poor emotionally stunted girl #Mary writes

[just-a-normal-regretter]

Can. Can I ask to hear more of the it was only Tuesday AU? It sounds really neat (plus powers in the real world is my JAM).

Thanks for the ask anon! o7

And yeah, I'd be happy to talk about one of my many crossover fics (seriously I have a ton lmfaooo).

Recapping "For Me, It Was Only Today": CL/MLB AU with combining lores, Lyoko powers sprouting irl, and some Odd/Adrien rarepair shipping

Okay I'll admit straight off that I didn't realize how much content I made in the trio AUs for a CL/MLB crossover. I thought it was just Cherrybird with all the stuff I wrote up but I'm looking at this one and Strays and it's hitting me my notes are so deep haha

They were so thought out that I got stuck for a moment thinking about how I'd explain this but here I'll try my best:

I mentioned this above but this fic of the trio I do plan to mix the lores together without going uh, too crazy. I don't want to reveal my hand given it's supposed to be a big plot point properly unveiled in this version's take on the episode Franz Hopper (I had to specify episode but it's also fun adjusting Hopper the character in this lore shift).

If this got posted this would likely be a fusion type of crossover I think.

This fic in particular is limited to Ulrich's POV given I want to have the story be about the Warriors seeing Odd's shifting relationship with Chat Noir. The wacky lore is just stuff that goes on in day-to-day. Also sorta open ended to leave room for additional content given the lore of this particular fic is pretty big + the cast leaves ample other stories to tell from their perspectives.

But I digress, we're talking about the Ulrich POV for this fic in particular.

I'll first start off by focusing on the format of this fic in particular. There should be about 12 chapter to match up with the Subdigitals album because I'm a bit corny and wanted to pair that up haha

Each chapter takes the premise of a episode (whether it be CL or MLB) and meshes it together with the crossover/lore shift.

An example I can throw out is the first chapter, which would just be Ulrich and Odd chatting while watching some of the events of Prime Queen happen from their phones (given Nadia did host her segment etc etc).

The CL powers though I agree I'm also a big "powers in the real world" enjoyer haha. Sometimes I just think about this AU in a bubble without the crossover and ponder the shenanigans that can crop up if you just play the power exposure as comedy instead of the angsty potential it is.

Love this AU because the kids are not alright. They have to adjust to shifting into things very much not human, despite having some of the basic human traits.

Odd gets the worst of it given he's a literal cat-boy in Lyoko. The Digitization process is subtle at first but then it becomes extremely difficult to hide that he's growing purple fur, he's nursing intense migraines whenever a Future Flash decides to crop up, his vision nearly landed him some glasses, etc.

Yumi and Ulrich don't have it as bad, but the pains that settle in once Telekinesis and Super Sprint respectively show up for each of them is exhausting. Their clothing tends to get shifted by their exposure, so there's a bit of a running gag of swapping shoes out so they don't constantly lose them (at one point Ulrich has more sandals than shoes lmao)

I also toss in some new abilities because as they grow older aka as the chapters progress in the fic. Odd deals with camouflage that glitches whenever his emotions get out of control (it changes the color of his purple fur like it's a mood ring), Ulrich has to keep a certain mask on him (the one on the back of his S1-S3 outfit) just to make sure he's not phasing through the earth every few minutes, and Yumi has to be very cautious when it comes to stepping in shadows in fear of getting stuck in them.

Digitization (i.e. the term Jeremie coins to explain the shifts the four are going through) is not completely defined all at once. It takes time and as they grow older, their forms will only grow stronger and more defined.

The process isn't immediate for anyone. It shows up with frequent scanner usage, though it isn't until the events of Frontier that it truly settles in that Odd, Ulrich, and Yumi are not exactly humans anymore.

Will also mention that I abuse the concept of TransWatches that Evolution introduced and rehash them to be a temporary solution to let the kids blend in as proper humans. It doesn't prevent some of their glitches from leaking out though, just hides away their outfit changes or their cosmetic changes (i.e. Odd's fur or Yumi's makeup).

Aelita does not immediately experience Digitization given she only used the scanners once then stayed on Lyoko for a long time. Throughout S2 she'll deal with her own changes and will catch up in time with her creativity ability being very uh, destructive when it comes to her nightmares making the power flare. This fic in particular glosses over it given it's not her perspective focus but I feel like I should mention Aelita since I don't give her a lot of love in these recaps ;-;

I also feel extremely bad for Jeremie since he always has the weight of the world on his shoulders all because of his decision. He's the leader of the group and sometimes his plans don't pan out which result in him being extremely cautious to give them another shot unless he's forced to.

One of these plans was trying to enlist Ladybug and Chat Noir for help at the very beginning of this mess. A RTTP stopped the duo from trying to get rid of the machine to prevent XANA from ever harming the real world again. So it's obvious why he wouldn't be the biggest fan of Odd turning around and trying to court Chat Noir.

I'll talk about the Chat Noir in the room. Why him? Why not Ladybug? Well besides my own shipping agenda, I do have a bit of a fic logic haha

The fic in particular starts in the midst of MLB S2. Ladybug and Chat Noir have been established in Paris enough. The whole reason Adrien gets involved is due to Fluff.

She's the one able to sense all this time phenomenons and wants to know more. Fu is already busy with training Marinette to be the Guardian atp, so he decides to give this investigation mission to Chat Noir to satisfy Fluff's curiosity.

Hence Adrien gets his own time companion and has to keep this secret from Ladybug (Fu doesn't want it to leak out to anyone that Chat currently possesses another Miraculous, that and he worries Ladybug would become distracted if she found out that Chat is working on other things not involving her).

MLB S2 is working around the same time as CL S1. So thanks to Fluff's Miraculous, Adrien can feel the time shifts too. He just can't completely remember things.

This is how Adrien gets to remember some of his interactions with the Warriors, and how he and Odd start to bond a bit. A Great Day is when Fluff can finally fulfill her satisfaction and Burrows herself, Adrien, and Plagg into these Time Phenomenons.

After that the shenanigans can properly ensue where Adrien can remember everything after a RTTP has been done. He also has to give Fluff back as she's perfectly fine with these phenomenons now that she can properly access them in her Burrow.

Adrien couldn't leave well enough alone though, way too curious about why these things were happening in the first place. It's why he continues his investigation to the other plot points that happen generally in the fic.

I'm sorry if this one seems pretty jumbled haha. I have been having some issues with sleep so my brain was just all over the place trying to convey this recap without like giving up everything plotted out.

Once again thank you for the ask anon, and thanks to anyone who reads this o7

#code lyoko #code lyoko au #odd della robbia #ummm #mlb au #chat noir #adrien agreste #oh boy tagging another fandom to this lmaooo #fmiwot au #grrr how about #album au #that's better ig #ulrich stern #man how do i tag this #adriodd #oddrien #maybe one of those is the ship tag idfk lmaooo #chatodd #answered ask moment #anon ask

[itgetsbetterproject]

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Not gonna lie - with more than 150 bills introduced in 35 states in 2023 that aimed to restrict student access to inclusive and diverse books and other library materials, the theme felt pretty radical.

And you DELIVERED. With the help of our Youth Voices (amazing queer youth activists from across the country), we compiled your amazing submissions of poetry, short essays and letters, visual art, photography, and more into Queerbook 2024. Like a yearbook, it captures what queer youth are feeling, going through, and hoping for - right here, right now across the U.S.

It's also no accident that it's the perfect small-ish size to stash in your locker or backpack so you can crack it open any time you're looking for some queer connection. :3

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#itgetsbetter #queerbook #lgbtq youth #queer youth #trans youth #queer lit #lgbtq books #studyblr #lgbtqia

[ginnyrules27]

Recap of Paris trip!

(warning, long post a coming! May or may not contain multiple pictures lol! Apologies to my followers who may not care about the Back to the Musical World convention!) 

Alright! Well I’m back home in the US feeling more than slightly horrible because as luck would have it, of course I caught a cold. Thank Gods my job still does WFH and I’m off all next week for Thanksgiving but anyway, you all probably don’t want to hear me vent about that lol! 

Paris Trip recap time! 

Thursday: Thursday was my main travel to Paris day so mainly spent most of my time in the air. Got some nice shots of clouds, the country side and an attempted sunrise photo though lol 

Friday: Finally arrived in Paris! Made the mistake of thinking I could walk to the convention center and got very much lost in Paris. Got some nice photos though (and eventually caught a cab to the convention center--Ginny, remember for next year: Uber is your friend). My hotel room was pretty nice too! :D 

(That bathtub was evil! My first time climbing out of it, I slipped and landed straight down!) 

(Do I know what that is? Nope! But it was pretty at night so I took a pic! :D) 

Saturday: Day one of the convention! I can’t tell you how much I wanted that rose that they were offering in the raffle but I had to fly home and something told me it wouldn’t end well. The Descendants fan in me loved the purple and green chairs (Mal’s colors!) and all the guests were super nice! Owen commented on the ring I had on my necklace (it was my HS class ring but it stopped fitting comfortably so I just found a necklace chain that didn’t have anything on it and converted it to a necklace) :D Vanessa was the sweetest person, smiling and just looking happy to be there even though rumor has it she wasn’t feeling well (Vanessa, if you gave me this cold...wait, actually I’d be okay with that lol). I told Sacha I liked his rings and he said he wanted to get another one while he was in Paris! And of course I had to get a photo with Sunset Curve and we did the apology pose from JATP! Jeremy even sang the first part! 

And yeah, I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again: Brenna liked my shirt! It might seem like a small thing but I’ve never really had...’fashion’ sense before. More like I wore what I liked as a kid and drove my mom mad. Most of the fights I had as a teenager were over clothes because she wanted me to wear more fashionable stuff. But now...an actress from one of my favorite franchises liked my shirt! Teenage me would be jumping for joy! When I told Brenna I got it from Amazon, her eyes got wide and she just gasped and said ‘Oh my God, I love them!’ and of course I told Brenna how much I loved her jacket too (and then Mitchell said that he liked it as well lol) 

Oh Gods Mitchell...that man is Ben. Full stop! In the meet and greet, he started going on about how much he loved Hamilton and how he’d seen it when it was in Australia and he was singing the lyrics under his breath and getting dirty looks from the people around him lol! Of course we then teased him about having him go teach the cast the choreography for Did I Mention and he said ‘don’t even tempt me, I’d love to do a Descendants/Hamilton crossover’. I jokingly said that the Revolution would have been over quicker if one of our men could turn into a dragon and Mitchell said ‘oh yeah, they’d (the British) be like ‘okay that one turned into a dragon and that one turned into a beast and that one’s casting spells...let’s just go home’. To which then we suggested Kenny could direct that and that’s when Mitchell went into a story of when Kenny got his star on the walk of fame and Lin Manuel Miranda sent Kenny a video message but Mitchell had Kenny’s phone because he was just trying to stay out of the way! 

Apparently Mitchell’s a huge LMM fan so he was pretty much just star struck and then Kenny asked who was on the phone so Mitchell showed him. To which Kenny said that LMM was an old friend! 

We had a group photo after the fact (taken by the translator in the room so I don’t have it but hopefully they’ll post those photos soon) but I didn’t realize that Mitchell had his hands on my shoulders for the photo until after the fact! The fact that I didn’t melt into a pile of goo is something to be proud of! 

After that, I went down to get Vanessa’s autograph (mainly because her queue wasn’t crazy long) and then it was lunch break. Dream It Con, as nice as it is that you provide lunch for the guests, how about at least selling water for the people attending?! Especially when there’re people not from Paris who’d like to not get lost in the city!

After lunch was when things started to get off the rails a little--I still had fun though but disorganization annoys the hell out of me. If you have a schedule, stick to it (though in fairness apparently Mitchell and Charlie were holding everyone up with autographs and photos and knocking everyone off schedule). But I did the board games with the Descendants cast and it was basically just a 30 minute game of Jenga but the cast just...there was no divide you know? Like how some actors seem friendly but you can still tell that they’re famous and they know it? Brenna, Dan (Beast), and Mitchell had none of that! It was like playing Jenga with family members! 

I remember when it was my turn to go up and I had seen this piece that was just sticking out and Mitchell was telling me to go for another piece and I was just like ‘nope, I want this one’ and went straight for it! Of course at first the tower wobbled but I inched it out and Dan said that he’d never seen anyone take a Jenga piece out with such care! 

After that, I had the aforementioned photoshoot with Mitchell and Brenna and then I had to rush over to my meet and greet with Dan (who remembered I was from the US from the Descendants panel that morning!) He was great and he shared a lot of memories of Cameron that I had to work to not cry right then and there. 

And then came the dance class (I’d missed my meet and greet with Vanessa and Jeremy and my Kenny/Vanessa photo because of the disorganization (boo) but you know, can’t have everything). Corbin was the one leading it with Kenny and Lucas helping and Bart just being a goof ball, and I think I spent the entire time hoping I wouldn’t trip over my own feet. Especially after Brenna and Jeremy joined in! 

I left to get ready for the party after that but came back to see Mitchell and Charlie still signing autographs before they too got ready for the party. And look I’m tiny so parties with lots of people? Not exactly my comfort zone. But Bart (Coach Bolton) was literally the life of the party and whenever an HSM song came on, he was jumping around and just acted like a kid! It was easy to forget my trepidation of being around so many people (seriously, under 5′0″ and in a room with a lot of people? My first thought is how do I avoid being crushed?) 

(Tell me those aren’t Descendants themed chairs! :D) 

(The irony of the photo with Mitchell being the one I’m the most at ease in is not lost on me :D) 

(Charlie, you know doing that just makes the height difference that much more apparent don’t you Mr. 5′8″? Lol) 

(First photo of the day--and of course I didn’t realize we could take off our passes for the photos!) 

(Alex finally got his hug! :D) 

(We’re sorry, so sorry, we’re crazy stupid sorry! :D) 

(...Kenny had his hands on my shoulders? My shoulders have been brushed with greatness twice? Dear lord I’m unobservant lol) 

(Again, you do not need to crouch you giants lol--no but seriously Sacha’s like 5′6″ I think.) 

(...oi past me! Relax would you? You look like you’re being forced to take that photo! Also, the height difference is not helping the heart they’re trying to make lol) 

Sunday: Day Two of the convention and honestly my focus was pretty much autographs...and one on ones and meet and greets...and catching my breath because I’d overslept and almost arrived late. Thankfully I got there just as the opening ceremonies were happening! I did get some pics though! 

Oh yeah and Charlie started the convention off with his antics that had me almost dying with laughter. If anyone temporarily lost their hearing or dogs started barking, my bad! 

I stayed for the HSM panel--and it became totally worth it when I found out Drew Seeley had been the role for Prince Eric on Broadway after HSM! Yeah I honestly don’t remember much from the rest of the panel, my mind just latched on that. 

For my Brenna one on one, as soon as I stepped through the door, she saw me and went ‘Virginia!’ since Dan had asked me where I was from in the Descendants panel the previous day (side note, every one of them seemed shocked by my answer--people, I came mainly for the Descendants stuff, doesn’t matter how long the flight or the cost!). We talked a lot about Descendants and she’d asked me how I got into it to which I told her about working at Disney World and how the DVD player kept playing Descendants and just sucked me in. I told her how much I’d related to Jane in the first movie, both of us being kinda timid at first in HS and then I joked that you know Jane got the glow up with cheerleading and I had stayed the nerd who wrote fanfiction and Brenna told me that Jane’s growth really came from loving herself and finding what she was good at, like planning Cotillion. And after the one on one she told me that she had been shocked when I said I got into Descendants at 21/22 because she thought I was 21/22. When I told her my real age, she just went ‘you take really good care of yourself!’ 

Brenna, I’m short with a baby face. Trust me, you can say it. At least you were more tactful than the passport guy who thought I was 16 when I was 21 and brought his colleague over to see me as well...wait what was I talking about? Oh right the convention lol! 

The one on one with Jeremy was really a one on two because his wife was there too! They are the nicest people ever (and I know I keep repeating myself there but it’s true!) Jeremy asked where I was from (since he obviously wasn’t in the Descendants panel) and after I told him, he asked if I came with anyone to which I said no because I hadn’t. Again cue the shocked reactions but they were really sweet! We all commiserated on the stupidity of Netflix and I wish I’d had a chance to tell Jeremy how much I liked his song Ghosted but stupid brain thought of that today. However his jacket is as soft as it looks! 

But on that note, when I had my photo with the JATP group (so Sunset Curve plus Madison), Jeremy immediately went ‘hey [insert my name here]!’ with the biggest smile on his face and Owen started chanting Bill Nye the Science Guy (I was wearing a Bills jersey and I almost burst out laughing at that which was a lot better than my reaction in my Charlie/Owen photo which was just...silence. Sorry Owen! I would have talked to you more about the Bills but there was a long line for the photo and my awkward self really didn’t want to take up people’s time). 

I had a meet and greet with Charlie and he kept jumping from topic to topic, it was honestly the funniest thing! Oh, so we were right next to the singing class with Lucas and Drew but Charlie didn’t know that so when we heard someone singing next door, he said ‘we should sing back. What should we sing?’ and I said ‘Edge of Great!’ and Charlie said ‘Great!...how does it go?’ so a room of 30 or so people started singing Edge of Great and then Charlie opened the door to the other room and we saw it was the singing class. 

Whoops! 

But between talking about his antics that morning and almost getting into a singing war with Lucas and Drew, Charlie talked about this project he was working on in Ecuador to help prevent turtles, dolphins, and sharks from getting stuck in fishermen’s nets while at the same time not ruining the economy of the villages who relied on fishing for food. Apparently LED lights have been helping the turtles/dolphins/sharks see the nets (especially in the dark) and they then swim away. There’s going to be a documentary on it soon (but of course I can’t remember the date that it’s coming out.) 

I also had a meet and greet with Madison that, due to the disorganization that struck again, ended up being at the same time as Kenny’s meet and greet. But they gave me extra time for my one on one with Kenny so that was all good. 

Can I tell you what we talked about in the Madison meet and greet? Nope cause out of everything, that’s the one thing my mind went poof you don’t need this anymore! 

In the Kenny one on one, I didn’t think it was possible to fit everything we talked about in nine minutes but we did! I got an answer about Ben’s suits, Kenny seemed surprised that I knew China McClain was going to reprising her role as Uma for D4 (apparently he didn’t know they’d announced it) and was also surprised that Chad was going to get a sister in D4 to which he theorized that she had been in boarding school during the events of the first three movies. I also learned that Kenny had not been involved in the Royal Wedding special because he seemed unsure if it had even happened. And then he asked me my thoughts on it when I confirmed it had. 

Kenny...don’t do that to me. I had to be as tactful as possible and purposefully didn’t mention the part we do not speak of (the bracelet scene where they talk about Carlos) cause I’m not breaking that news to Kenny freaking Ortega if he didn’t know about it! 

But speaking of movie sequels of projects Kenny had been involved with...let’s just say Hocus Pocus 2 is not going to be on Kenny Ortega’s recommended list any time soon. He wouldn’t say anything more because I hadn’t seen it and he didn’t want to spoil it for me. 

However, on a lighter note, he did share the story of how they cast Mitchell as Ben! 

And then came the one on one I was looking forward to the most-Mitchell! First thing the man does is bring me in for a hug (yeah I’m still trying to make sure that wasn’t a dream). And then, after we sat back down, he started talking about the question I’d asked the other day at the Descendants panel; telling me it was one of the best questions he’d ever heard at a Descendants panel before and he’d studied theater so when he heard me mention ‘Chekov’ he had perked up and had leaned over to Kenny to explain before telling him ‘just say yes’ lol. And then he asked me to go into my question and I explained that I was trying to see if Mal’s line had been foreshadowing since plot had established the confrontation with the pirates was twelve noon. And Mitchell said that since music and script were two separate entities, Kenny might not have been able to answer if he wanted to! And he said that apparently he’d said the same thing to some of the lyricists but about something else in the movies and he wanted to know how they came up with that foreshadowing before saying ‘...you actually didn’t mean to do that did you?’ to which the lyricist said ‘yeah we did’ but they didn’t! 

Accidental foreshadowing for the win! 

The last major thing was the Kenny Trivia with some of the actors (Mitchell and Charlie and Madison couldn’t make it because they were finishing up autographs/photos so it was with Corbin, Drew, Brenna, and Lucas). I was the only one on Lucas’ team but when Lucas pointed out that he only had one person on his team when everyone else had two, Kenny told him he was in good hands with me cause I was smart! 

Yeah okay Kenny, that explains why Lucas was the one to get us our first point lol. But I redeemed myself by being able to list 10 Descendants songs and six projects Kenny had directed. My team was tied with Corbin’s team and we would have won too had I not jumped the gun and answered HSM for the question of ‘What was the first Disney movie Kenny directed?’ 

It’s Newsies, I knew it was Newsies but you know Disney...Disney Channel...and Lucas said the same thing when I apologized for the loss. And then Corbin’s team teased him about being a sore loser and he said that he was trying to make me feel better lol. 

The only prize was joy so at least I didn’t miss out on anything...other than joy! 

After closing ceremonies, I was able to get Mitchell and Charlie’s autograph! I missed out on Owen and Lucas but you know what? 12 out of 14 autographs isn’t anything to sneeze at! I missed out on Owen’s autograph because of the queue for Mitchell’s was so long that by the time we moved, Owen had left). It was about 10 pm by the time I left the convention center! 

(The picture I should have had on Saturday turned into a Sunday one and the date specification turned out to be...pointless lol) 

(Another heart--and it was Brenna’s idea! Madison said the idea was ‘so cute’!) 

(Pose idea: Mitchell’s. And he looks about as exhausted as I felt lol :D Probably the best pose we could have done with Dan being 6′4″ and Mitchell being 5′9″) 

(From being Zac Effron’s singing voice to Ariel’s Prince! Also did you know the man is 40?!) 

(How it started...) 

(How it’s going lol) 

(Have I posted this photo already? Yes. I still love it and will post again! :D) 

Monday: Touristy time! Is Touristy a word? No it is not! Do I care? No I do not lol! I went to the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and climbed the 209 steps to the top of the Arcdetriomphe (and pretty sure I had a panic attack at seeing how high up we were). Let’s just say I took the elevator back down. 

(Hi Athena!) 

(Hi Hermes!) 

(Hi Zeus...I mean Jupiter!) 

(Hi Hera...I mean Juno!) 

(Hi Artemis!) 

Tuesday: I said Au Revoir to France and hello to the US as I made my way back home! Last two pics from the air as we flew over the Atlantic! 

And because I’m extra...here’s the food I was able to eat while I was there! 

(Beef stew with steamed potatoes) 

(Apple Tart Tatan) 

(Lightly seared sea bass with ratatouille and jasmine rice) 

(Duck leg with roasted potatoes and salad)  

So...how much longer until I get to go back? 

#dream it convention #bttmw2 #paris trip #dreamit con #apologies for the long post

[storytellingdreamer]

Watching Granada Holmes: The Greek Interpreter

This recap has been written in two parts due to a recent holiday. Unfortunate, as the episode itself was a bit of an odd one. 

The pacing feels slower, somehow, for starters. Despite the fact that it’s supposed to be an action/ suspense case, this only shows in particular moments. 

I suppose that suits the story that introduces us Mycroft, though, and I do like it when they get David Burke to read out bits from the canon stories as voiceovers. 

Oh, yeah. So this one’s category goes in the Case for a Friend/ Family category due to Mycroft. 

and due to both him and Sherlock being Holmeses, I’ll be using their first names in the recap more. 

Jumping back a minute, the opening is a good one - very Atmospheric. Gives you the “uh oh, something bad is about to happen” vibes right from the start. 

Creepy Glasses Man (Kemp, I think, but we don’t find that out until later) is Very Creepy. And then poor Mr Kratides is hit over the head! Uh oh indeed. 

Okay, jumping back to Holmes and Watson after Watson’s delightful voiceover... This is a Meet The Family episode. 

Again, coupley. The way it’s framed, with Holmes just dropping it into conversation, and Watson being all like, “I didn’t know you had a brother,” and Holmes’s little “oh yes”, before Holmes feeds Watson some more intriguing information to encourage Watson’s interest then ends with, “I suppose... you want to meet him?” Like that wasn’t your plan all along in bringing him up, Sherlock? :smirks:

When describing Mycroft and his club, Sherlock says, ”it is the oddest club and Mycroft one of the oddest men”. In the original canon, the word used was not ‘oddest’ but ‘queerest’. I suppose the Granada Holmes folk thought the original line might be a bit too obvious...

Watson is so excited to meet Mycroft, it’s lovely. I don’t think you properly prepared him for the silence of the Diogenes Club though, Sherlock. He’s rather befuddled by it all. 

Sherlock’s expression when he first enters the room and sees Mycroft, before anyone has spoken, easily convinces me that they’re brothers. (All down to Jeremy Brett’s microexpressions - the minute twitch of lips and eyebrows conveying a raft of emotion.)

The deductive game is of course amusing - a shame that’s one of the few true deductive scenes we get this episode. At least Watson enjoyed it, even as it turned into another Lesson in deduction for him. 

And then Mr Melas arrived and the rest of the plot got started. 

I do like how they use voiceovers and flashbacks in this episode. They’ve managed that part well. The suspense and fear caused by Kemp and Latimer towards Melas (and poor Kratides) throught the flashbacks and alternative POVs is excellent. The scenes at the house are particularly chilling. 

I like the character of Mr Melas - he is quick-thinking despite his fear, and his realisation of what he can do as interpreter is a good one which he puts to use well. 

As for Mycroft, well. For someone so smart, Mycroft’s blunder with the papers is easy to see. I’m with Sherlock on the wisdom of that idea. And then later, during Mycroft’s visit to 221b, it’s made plain that Sherlock understands the human cost better than Mycroft. (Again, Jeremy Brett’s microexpressions sell Sherlock’s concern in both scenes.)

I enjoyed the part where Sherlock and Watson are discussing the case so far as they walk - it’s another Detective Lesson for Watson, with Sherlock largely stepping back except where needed. 

I like the scene with Melas at his boarding house - if you’re familiar with the genre of story, you know that the gentleman his housekeeper announces is unlikely to be who he says he is. And yet, after the ending of the previous scene, there’s a little hope. Until there isn’t. If only the Holmeses and Watson had been five minutes earlier! 

The juxtaposition of the scenes of Melas, Kratides and captors + Holmeses, Watson and Gregson at Scotland Yard is well done too. Sherlock knows things are no doubt happening yet he’s forced to sit and twiddle his thumbs while they procure a warrant. And he hates it. 

and then bang! The warrant arrives and they are off, with Sherlock’s impassioned words delivered in strident tones by Brett: “And pray that we are not too late!”

Unfortunately, from here, the pacing collapses. We’re at minute 34 of a 50-minute episode, and instead of it being a race to the finish, it’s... well. A bits and pieces stagger. 

The race to the house, discovery of the villains’s flight, and then discovery of Melas and Mr Kratides is good. 

Watson shouting orders to help Melas is great. 

Holmes inspecting rooms was good too... 

And there are some small moments on the train (e.g. the deductive bits, and the way Sherlock introduces himself by introducing Watson) that are fun. 

But the rest is utter codswallop. The  screenwriter for this episode didn’t understand canon Holmes at all - which means the Sherlock you see in this episode is in parts influenced by the fanon Holmes. Read Plaid Adder’s review if you want to hear more details about why it’s just... not right. One imagines the arguments that Jeremy Brett must have had about saying those lines.

If I’d been adapting this for fifty minutes, I think I’d have added more alternate POV/ flashback scenes at the start - like a different writer did in Dancing Men.  This would mean that we would get Sofia Kratides’s story, and it would turn into what it almost was, a Woman in Need plot. In my adaption, Sofia Kratides’s story is tragic love gone wrong, where a young woman is swept off her feet by a dashing young man, only to slowly discover that he’s not as sweet as he appears, and really only wants her money. 

This would then mean that Watson’s “Holmes, they’ve consulted a Bradshaw” line would occur no earlier than minute 45 of the show... instead of minute 37. I would have also stuck a lot closer to canon regarding the ending, because Granada Holmes made a hash of Sofia Kratides’s character, and Sherlock Holmes’s in the process (as mentioned above). In canon, apparently, Kemp and Latimer escaped with Sofia Kratides, and then Holmes and Watson hear some months later that Kemp and Latimer are dead, with H&W assuming that Sofia Kratides must have stabbed them. You could certainly make a desperate train chase out of that, where the abductors escape by the skin of their teeth, leaving Holmes furious and the viewers shocked. Then snap-cut to some months later and have either a Watson voiceover or H&W reading the newspaper explain things. 

There. Fixed it. Glares.

Ugh. Anyway. It’s now well past my bedtime - I wanted to finish this recap so I could move onto the next episode. I’ve been looking forward to that one! Including the next episode, there are four more episodes left in the season. And I am really looking forward to feeling all the feels in the finale... 

But for now, goodnight. 

#granada holmes #the greek interpreter #watching granada holmes #storyteller’s thoughts #sherlock adaptations

[fatbiatchforever]

Secret Wars - Drailyter's Version (Pt. 2)

Part 1

“I’m Clint barton. I need you to come with me. Oh! and this is Natasha Romanoff.”

“Y/N?” Your manager called out. 

You looked at her, “Yes?”

“We’re waiting for you to continue,” the man in the black suit said with a smirk. 

“Y/N. I know you’re confused, but please stay calm.” You took deep breaths. The vest, the suit, her colored tips, all the same, and just how you know it. You shook your head and looked back at the table. 

“Uhm, it’s vital to start with minimizing time gaps.”

“How would we do that?” A member of the board asked. “We could,” You straightened up and tried recalling your plan, “The,”

“Glad you lasted thirty seconds, but it takes more than a sentence to show you’re good enough. Can we go back to discussing a stable plan for this?” 

You didn't fight. You knew it wouldn't help a bit.

You zoned out as hushed whispers and strong opinions surrounded you. He looked exactly like he did a few months ago. The same slightly irritated look with caution in his body language. All of this was too real and bizarre.

“Excuse me.” You weakly smiled at Hayden, concern written all over his face. “Bathroom break,” you mouthed before opening the door to leave. 

You rushed into a stall and flopped down on the toilet. You had your hands in your hair as you closed your eyes,

Just a bad morning. Nothing else. It happens, doesn’t it? 

Maybe I should take a break from MCU. But, what if I miss something big? Wait, what’s bigger than your mental health? UGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! It’s just MOM’s buzz.

“FUCK!” You had your back pressed on the toilet, as your eyes adjusted to the two in front of you. “NO! No, no, NO. I need to stop with MCU like right NOW! I can’t be going crazy.” 

“Y/N. Listen to me,” Clint calmly said. He bends down to your eye level, “We’re real. I don’t know if we’re in this universe, but we’re real. We’re from Earth-616. I know you’re confused and you have every right to be.”

You looked up, “This is a prank. WOW! I can’t believe they got both of you for this. Who’s behind this? Hayden? Rox?”

“Who?” Scarlet asked.

“I can’t believe I’m in a public washroom with Jeremy runner and Scarlett freaking Johansson! Thanks a lot for this guys. I finally have a cool old person story.”

“Nat, are you just going to stand there?” Jeremy turns to look at Scarlett, as she slanted on the wall.

You rolled your eyes, “Jeremy, stop already.”

“Fine. Y/N, we’re not who you think we are. I’m not ’Scarlett freaking Johansson’,” she points at Jeremy, “Not Jeremy Runner”

Your patience was starting to wear off, “Fine. Who are you guys then?”

“Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff.” ‘Clint’ said

“Fine. Why are you here? In this washroom?”

“We need your help.” ‘Nat’ said.

You chuckled, “My help?”

“We’re facing a multiversal threat Y/N. Nothing like what we've seen or faced before. We need you.. All of our realities depends on it.”

You snorted, “Okay. Just to recap,” you point, “Clint Barton. and Natasha Romanoff. Two people I’ve seen on screen as fictional characters since two thousand ten, standing in front of me, asking me to help to solve a ‘Multiversal problem”.”

Clint moved his head sideways, “When you put it like that,”

“Doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

Clint exhaled, “This isn’t even the hardest part of our plan.”

Natasha with slight irritation said, “I’m happy that you live in a world things add up but we don’t have that luxury in our world, and soon your world too.”

“What?” You whispered.

“Kang. He isn’t going to stop. Soon our realities will break. It’ll be like we never existed.” 

She can’t be lying.

Your head was spinning. Like lights were going off in your head with a warning- “INFORMATION OVERLOAD!”

“Did- did you fight Thanos?” You asked, your eyes covered by your hands. 

The movement was sudden but didn’t miss you. The slight waver of Natasha’s eye. Clint’s grip tightened on his knee. It was almost like it hurt them to even hear the name. “You know about Thanos?” Clint asked.

You nod.

Clint breathed out, “We did.”

You moved your hand away, “You won?”

Clint smiled, before he answered, “We did.” 

“But how did you get the reality stone?”

Clint had his eyebrows raised, “Those movies get everything huh?”

“And series now.”

Natasha stood straight, “Red skull.”

You swallowed the bile that build in your throat. Part of you believed, this. Whatever this was, it felt real. Like it wasn’t in your head or some mean prank two famous actors were playing on you. You felt something you never felt when you watched- Actual fear of things that seemed impossible.

You looked down at Clint, “How can I- what can I even do?”

Clint looked up to Natasha, who had her eyes glued to the floor, “We need you to come with us.” She looked at you, “To our universe. To stop Kang.”

You decided to ask the least problematic question, “Your universe? But- people will notice I’m missing.”

Clint gently patted your knee, “We’ll make sure you return at this same moment.” 

“Won’t the timeline branch then?” You asked before you could stop yourself.

Natasha rolled her eyes, “Trust me, the timeline’s already a mess. Few more branching won’t make it worse than it already is.”

“You sure I’ll be able to help if I come?”

Natasha laughed, “Really? Aren’t you worried about your life?”

You laughed, “My life hasn’t been safer. I’m in a bathroom stall with two avengers I’m eighty-five percent sure are real. I’ll be fine.”

“Y/N.” Clint called, “We need you to think. If you come with us, there’s no going back.”

You shook your head, “Clint, I know. Are you sure I can help?”

“Yes.” Both said.

“Okay. Open the portal.”

Natasha tapped on her watch and walked out. Clint stood up and extended his hand for you, “Welcome to the team kid.”

You took his hand and laughed, “We really got you right huh? Official avenger recruiter in every universe.”

“How’s me here?” Clint asked.

“Sweet, funny, and handsome.” You informed.

He walked out of the stall and turned back to you, “Ahh. Laura and the kids?”

“TV family. That’s something right?”

He shrugged, “As long as they’re happy and safe.”

“They are.”

Clint smiled and stood beside Nat, “She said ‘Scarlet freaking Johansson’. There was no freak for you, so I’m clearly better in this universe too Barton.” Nat teased. You pinched yourself. Fuck! You rubbed your arm, Definitely real.

“We’re actors here. I’m glad you’re better at it Romanoff.”

Natasha’s wrist beeped, “In three guys.”

You stood between them and tried to act not bothered by the star forming. It was so much more beautiful in real life. The white sparkle almost blinds you. You looked at Nat and smiled. She smiled back at you, “Let’s go.”

You blew air out and stepped into the portal.

Your heart beats so fast that you thought it was definitely out of your ribcage.

#marvel fanfic #marvel cinematic universe #marvel #mcu x you #mcu x reader #mcu marvel #natasha romanoff #marvel mcu #avengers #marvel studios #bucky x reader #bucky fluff #bucky fanfic #bucky barnes #james buchanan barnes #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x female reader #mcu #marvel 616 #avengers imagine #avengers fic #avengers x reader

[bowtiesnmusicals]

Here is my recap of the Rough Re-Entry (Audition) episode of the podcast.

This is the season 2 premiere episode of Glee.

After a couple months off, a tour, and a European vacation/press tour the cast went back to work. They went back to work in the middle of July or beginning of August.

This episode aired on September 21, 2010. This time the show was a hit. Fox moved them to an earlier time slot. They were moved into a prime time slot which meant more restrictions in what they could say or do.

They preface this episode by saying it did not age well. There were a lot of inappropriate jokes and statements. They don’t know how it flew back then. They want to acknowledge how far we have come and how much further we have to go.

Kevin remembers talking to some of their cast mates of color about the show in hindsight and realized his young white boyness insulated him from realizing the extent of what was being said in this episode. Watching it back it was like a checklist of things we can’t and shouldn’t say anymore. Jenna said a lot of the jokes were very Asian focused, very racist. Back then they just had to take it. It was very eye opening to her. She just took it which is kind of crazy. Kevin said it probably didn’t feel like there was another option. Jenna said she could have spoken up but she probably would have lost her job. She said we have come a long way in terms of the way things have become unacceptable. Even she felt like everyone is getting shit on. Everybody has jokes about them that were slightly personal and kind of true to what was happening to the real world. It felt like everybody was kind of doing it and it made it okay in that moment. It’s wasn’t though. Kevin said like if we are all getting made fun of then its fine. Jenna said they used racist things to make fun of her, Harry, and Jake. It’s an interesting thing to look back on and hopefully has learned a little more about the time and how we’ve grown and trying to do better. Kevin said you do see how you can do that successfully past this episode. In the first season their are crass jokes but they don’t rely on racism, sexism, or ableism or any of the things touched on in this episode.

Jenna said it’s interesting thing about Ryan’s shows are that he lifts up the unheard unsee underdogs. While we have all these things we are addressing and will learn from and move forward from their is a juxtaposition because he does uplift everybody and gives people a chance. It is an interesting contrast. Kevin said it feels outdated.

That was their long warning. They are both aware and dreading this episode. It was a hard watch.

The #1 song was Teenage Dream by Katy Perry (We will see it soon on Glee0

The #1 move was The Town with Ben Affleck and Jeremy Renner (Jenna doesn’t remember it being a smash. Kevin said vaguely remembers it.)

Kevin and Jenna were on Summer break at the time. They went to Monaco, London, and Paris. It was their first time in all those places. The trip to Paris was a mess. It was Jenna, Kevin, and Kevin’s brother. They were very hung over. It was one of the best summers of their life. Kevin said he probably shaved many years off his life. One of the heads of Fox International that traveled with them could just go. She knew all the best restaurants and clubs to hit up. It felt like Summer Camp for celebrities. Kevin named dropped a bunch of celebs like Nina Dobrev and Ian Sommerhalder. They made life long friends there and it cemented their friendship in a different way. When you can travel with someone successfully and not kill each other and become even closer let me tell you. Jenna said this was before they had really moved into together. They had moved their stuff in but then left. Jenna said things started to go uphill before it went downhill. Kevin said this was the cementing of the foundation of nothing is going to break up because we are so close and tight.

In London Amber and Chris were on their own European vacation. They each had their own security guard. It was the first time they had celebrity status. They had a van and security guard. His brother was going to university in northern England. He had been watching the show from the UK and didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. Kevin told him that they would have a van and security to go with them. His brother didn’t understand. They go to walk to a pub and it’s fine. The security guard is with them and his brothers are a little freaked out. By the time they leave they start to get mobbed by fans on the street. The security guard has to get them through the crowd into the hotel. Later that night they went to dinner and people were camping outside the hotel. They went out to a club and they lost Kevin’s brother, Timmy, in the crowd. Pam Jackson from Fox reached out and grabbed Timmy and pulled him into the van. There was paparazzi following them around everywhere by this point. It was an eye opening experience to see someone who hadn’t been in the US and was very close to Kevin look at him and see him experience these new things. The world changed. Going back into season 2 they realized they were famous now.

Jenna pointed out season 2 opens on everyone looking real tan with some real good hair. Rachel Berry is got mini skirts on and a blow out. Everyone had a bit of a glow up. It’s a crazy episode but at least everyone looks good. Harry’s abs looked real good.

This episode was directed by Brad Falchuck.

Cheyenne Jackson is in this episode as Dustin Goolsby.

Dot Marie Jones joined this season as Coach Beiste.

Jake Zyrus guest stars as Sunshine.

Last but definitely not least Chord Overstreet joins the show as Sam Evans.

They met a life long friend in Chord and Dot.

This is the start of something new.

They do a quick synopsis of the episode. Basically Will teams up with Sue to try to get rid of Coach Beiste because Principal Figgins give the football team more funding. The Glee Club is trying to recruit new kids.

Sue and Will order 25 pizzas for Coach Bieste during the first practice. It backfires. They play operation mean girl in the faulty break room and won’t let Beiste sit with them. Finn and Artie find Beiste crying in the locker room and Beiste yells at them. Artie wants to join the football team to try to get Tina back. He’s been a not great boyfriend to Tina. He was a pretty shitty boyfriend to Tina. Tina falls in love with Mike at Asian camp and Jenna said we will leave that right there. Kevin said he doesn’t disagree about Artie being a bad boyfriend. He said he would like to think he doesn’t remember doing the voice over at all. He heard his voice saying these words and gasped. He has no recollection of saying those lines. It’s also very racist. Jenna said we have to talk about the fact that Tina and Mike’s last names are the same and that’s not really correct. Chang isn’t Korean. Anyway we learned.

Jenna loved working with Harry. They had the most ridiculous storylines and Harry is fun to work with but why did the Asians have to be together.

Back to the storyline but Beiste takes Artie wanting to join the wrong way. She thinks it’s another prank by Sue and Will. Dot had an awesome intro. The way she can just cry like Romy because they wear their hearts on their sleeve and love so hard and so fully. It was weird to see Dot play someone so full of rage. Dot is just the best. Little did they know what a treat it would be to work with her for so many years. The crew gets bigger and the cast gets bigger.

Schue lays off prancing and being mean to Coach Beiste. The scene with Sue getting Brittany to accuse Coach Beiste of inappropriately touching her is really bad. The doll is funny but nothing else about the scene is funny. Kevin said he was shocked and thought surely this can’t be what is happening in this scene. Jenna said she did appreciate that we finally got the voice of reason back in Mr. Schue telling Brittany you could ruin someone’s life making these accusations. Sue is absolutely out of her mind.

Will apologizes to Beiste and Sue brings them dog poop cookies. Sue says, “Are you turning on me in public? The two of you are making a very serious mistake today. The likes of which have not been seen since Mexican Indians sold Manhattan to George Washington for an up-skirt photo of Betsy Ross.” Jenna said oh god. All the things that Sue says are wildly inappropriate and how did they get way with any of it. Kevin said it’s extra crazy going into the next storyline he couldn’t say damn in Billionaire. There was a lot they couldn’t say at 8pm that they could get away with at 9pm. The censorship is very strange and has specific rules. It was just weird what they could get away with and what they couldn’t.

The next storyline is that the glee club needs a new member because they lost Matt Rutherford. JBI wrote a blog about the glee club over the Summer and gave them a bad rap so no one wants to join. The JBI interview at the beginning addresses everything that was said about the cast online over the Summer. We start to see a lot more of the mining of real life details from the casts lives added to the storylines. Kevin said he thinks someone on set was intentional stirring the pot to get stories to bring back to the writers. He has never been able to confirm that but so much of their lives ended up in Glee. The whole blog, JBI confirming or denying the rumors is the cringe of the whole episode. Jenna doesn’t even want to go into the topics because it’s all really bad. It mirrored things that were made up about the cast.

This is the first time we see the courtyard. It’s at Bernstein High School which is near the Netflix Headquarters. They also get a bigger library set and the locker room is also new.

Jenna prefers the tour version of Empire State Of Mind. She doesn’t love the performance but she loves the song. It will live in infamy for her. Kevin said it was hilarious having himself, Mark, and Cory doing Jay-z. Kevin said he shouted his part every night during the tour. He had fun.

We see Sunshine and Sam tapping their feet to the song. Finn finds Sam singing in the shower very much in the same way Mr. Schue found Finn. Rachel finds Sunshine in the bathroom. Rachel says a lot of wildly inappropriate things. A lot of it was apparently taken from a Celine Dion interview they would watch a lot. Jenna loves the moments where Sue brings things back down like when she tells Rachel and Sunshine to shut up.

Rachel just wants an extra body but Finn is so wholesome in his attempt to get Sam to join. Kevin said the scene with the guys and Sam was very accurate to how the guys wee in real life.

The scene where Beiste yelled at Artie and Finn was where he remembers talking with Mark and Cory to Chord about him possibly being Kurt’s love interest. Chord said he didn’t know and had no idea. He remembers Chord looking at them like is that the role I auditioned for. Kevin texted Ryan and asked him if Sam was supposed to be Kurt’s boyfriend and he said no. Kevin said he thinks it was just a rumor amongst the cast and maybe it wasn’t true. Jenna said she thinks they were admits the casting of Darren’s role as well. They heard their would be a new cast member that would be Kurt’s boyfriend and when hot Chord came along they just assumed it was him. (I think there was more to this because that rumor had definitely spread to fans.)

Rachel tells Sunshine that auditions were at a crackhouse but it wasn’t an active crackhouse so its fine. Sam didn’t show up to audition because he saw what Coach Beiste did to Finn and sticks with football and becomes the the quarterback. Sunshine ends up being recruited by Vocal Adrenaline and we meet Dustin Goolsby(Cheyenne Jackson). Going back Sunshine does audition and sings Listen. Kevin said he just lost it watching Jake perform. They knew who Jake was and it was a big get for them. They ere so sweet and quiet and has an insane voice. The only person who had to act in that scene was Lea.

Finn is upset with Rachel for doing what she did to Sunshine. It’s really bad. Finn gives her a come back to earth moment and Jenna loves that scene. She loves Rachel and Finn. Rachel sings What I Did For Love and gives them all the tears and feels. Eventually the glee club will come around.

The other thing happening this episode is Quinn. Quinn rise to audition for the Cheerios again. Finn shows up to audition in one of the funniest scenes ever. Will tries to convince Beiste not to kick Finn of the team. Sue demotes Santana after finding out she had a boob job and makes Quinn captain. Jenna was howling watching Finn’s audition for the Cheerios. That was all Cory. It’s exactly who Cory was and it was not acting. It brought her so much joy to watch that scene. Kevin said he wishes he had a super cut of just Cheerios auditions.

Kevin said the other thing that was great was the fist fight between Santana and Quinn. They would quote it all the time. The delivery was just so right. Who doesn’t love a cat fight? This is one of the best if not the best.

If you can get through all that then we are set up for some conflict in the next 20 something episodes. We have some exciting things coming.

Tartie Takes:

Cringe Moments/Ouchies - There are a lot of them. You don’t speak English to Sunshine. The whole scene in the bathroom. Telephone was cringe. Asian camp. Rachel says Sunshine who is a Filipino. Also the Brittany doll. Kevins aid that and the entire d of the JBI vlog.

Worst Dance Move - Finn’s Cheerios Audition

Best Dance Move - Finn’s Cheerios Audition

Best Song - Empire State Of Mind

Best Prop. - Food

Best Line - She has a family, she’s a mother. Sue’s shut up. Brittany during the girl fight saying stop the violence. It’s so good.

Shit We Found On TikTok:

Someone made Glee versions of the Barbie movie posters. It’s very good. Mercede’s is This Barbie is a lover of Tator Tots. Santana’s is This Barbie is possessed by Snixx. Rachels is This Barbie is not homophobic she has two gay dads. They are very very good. Blaine’s is This Ken is wearing too much hair gel.

Next week is Britney/Brittany.

#and that’s what you really missed #atwyrm #jenna ushkowitz #kevin mchale #audition #glee #podcast

[itgetsbetterproject]

📚 QUEERBOOK 2024 is hereee! We made a book by and for LGBTQ+ youth! 🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

Last year, we asked LGBTQ+ youth: what's your idea of a "queer utopia?"

Not gonna lie - with more than 150 bills introduced in 35 states in 2023 that aimed to restrict student access to inclusive and diverse books and other library materials, the theme felt pretty radical.

And you DELIVERED. With the help of our Youth Voices (amazing queer youth activists from across the country), we compiled your amazing submissions of poetry, short essays and letters, visual art, photography, and more into Queerbook 2024. Like a yearbook, it captures what queer youth are feeling, going through, and hoping for - right here, right now across the U.S.

It's also no accident that it's the perfect small-ish size to stash in your locker or backpack so you can crack it open any time you're looking for some queer connection. :3

Read some more about the book and grab your own limited-run copy of Queerbook 2024 now here.

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