I’m at a this volunteer thing and sitting at a table near some staff. They’re chatting about bad names for kids, and have moved to naming kids after tv shows. Classic stuff about Game of Thrones names and then -

‘I know someone whose kid’s middle name comes from Supernatural.’

‘Oh, seriously?’

‘Yeah. Dean. She tried to claim it was just because she liked the name but everyone knew what her favourite show was.’

‘Well, at least it’s a middle name.’

‘She wanted his first name to be Cas, but everyone told her you cannot name a child Cas Dean.’

‘Too right. What did she end up calling him?’

‘Isa.’

‘That’s nice!’

‘It’s Arabic for Jesus.’

And then everyone took a moment of silence to contemplate the fact that there exists in this world a child named Jesus Dean (Supernatural).

‘At least it’s not Destiel’

Okay, look, I am aware that this meme format is passé, but I found some notes I made about it the last time I got really into Trails three years ago and I think I was right.

No I don't have any evidence for Dudley but you also can't prove I'm wrong

Went to see the RSC's A Midsummer Night's Dream this evening. It really is fantastic, incredible cast all around - particular shout out to the woman that played Puck on the physicality. Also, good lord, the lighting design! Should win awards, it really should!

Mathew Baynton was unsurprisingly excellent - wouldn't say he did anything that was especially different than what I'm used to seeing him do on TV, but what he does on TV is great and it was fun to see it in a live setting. There was an after show discussion as well and he talked about how he basically tricked the RSC into letting him wear false teeth in the show, which was very funny.

Also funny was a conversation that happened behind me during the interval. I was sat in front of two women who weren't familiar with Baynton, and were discussing why he was so prominent in the marketing. They seemed to come to the conclusion that it was likely an unimpressive stunt cast. By interval, though, they liked him. Specifically, one of them observed, that he is "the perfect shape for comedy". "Perfect shape!" the other one laughed, and then, after considering, "But yes. Wiggly."

Is Wald Wales a Good Antagonist Within the Context of the Rest of Trails to Azure?

No.

Is Wald Wales a Good Antagonist in His Own Right?

Eh? Kinda? He's not the worst, I guess.

Is Wald Wales My Personal Favourite Antagonist in Trails to Azure and Also Most of the Series?

Hell fucking yes okay listen listen you've got this guy right and he's this typical rebel-without-a-cause, not-terribly-bright young gang leader who hangs out in alleys with obnoxious friends and their nail bats and then one day this androgynous flirty little twink shows up and starts a rival gang that seems like it might also be a cult but also they own a billiards bar, none of it makes any sense, and also the little twink's name is, and I cannot stress this enough, Wazy Hemisphere, and he starts challenging our horrible delinquent street punk to fights. And it turns out, he's good at fighting. Really good. So Wazy and our street punk develop a kind of mutual respect for each other, and also Wazy keeps making their conflicts a l'il flirty, and so our delinquent boy becomes kind of obsessed with him for reasons he doesn't fully understand - they're just... they're rivals, okay, and that means they need to be equals and stick together and Wazy can't ever abandon him and oh look Wazy's abandoned him. To be a cop. And not just to be a cop, but to hang out with that one particular pretty boy detective that he's always flirting with. Uh oh.

So our terrible boy is very sad and challenges Wazy to a fight which he loses because oh, uh, Wazy's been holding back this entire time lol, and they have a very dramatic break-up in the rain even though they were never together, obviously, why would you even say that, and then our street punk gets extremely depressed and addicted to drugs and commits several atrocious crimes until Wazy and the cops beat the shit out of him and oh it turns out Wazy's a Secret Priest so of course the only reasonable next step for our awful boy is for him to also join the church so he can hang out with Wazy all the time do penance.

I just think it's great we had a villain whose entire motivation was that he was gay and repressed and in a very confusing situationship. I want more JRPGs where the bad guy is only like that because he has a massive crush and he's not handling it well. It's hilarious

I firmly believe what ever you’re obsessed with at 11/12 years old becomes a core part of who you are, regardless if you lose interest in it or not. Maybe some of you were lucky and were obsessed with warrior cats or smth, and if you’re real unlucky it was probably twilight.

I’m rewatching Crazy Ex-Girlfriend again (again) and while I’ve always loved the whole running thing where Rebecca can’t actually sing outside of her own head (…until 🥺), this watch through has been the first time I noticed the little detail that some of the other characters also occasionally sing in real life, and that they also, for the most part, cannot sing like she imagines

Went to see Peter Pan Goes Wrong this evening. I've seen the BBC recording a few times, but never the live version, so it was really interesting for me to see something I'm largely familiar with in a new way. I love that they bring the actual techies out at the end - it's such a technical show, they deserve that recognition.

Fun little story though - I caught something going wrong for real tonight. If you've seen the show, you'll know there's a quick change gag where a character is going back and forth very quickly between a dress and a maid outfit. She goes behind a door for each change, and the punchline is the change gets faster and faster until the door is opened too soon and we see her in her underwear. This doesn't really make sense because the change doesn't actually involve getting undressed, she's just covering one outfit with the other (which is even used a gag within the same sequence), but whatever, it's funny.

Anyway. Tonight, they really did open the door too soon. She was still completely dressed, and had to rip it all off with genuinely incredible speed so that the joke could happen. Just about managed to play it like she hadn't noticed the door opening.

So things went right for the character but wrong for the actress playing the character who's playing the character so the actress playing the character who's playing the character made it right by making it wrong for the character playing the character.

I work on a theatre bar. A while ago, we had a customer who said something quite horrible to me that, due to my own personal circumstances, hit harder than he could possibly have known. I left to go and pull myself together in the office for a bit. When I got back, I explained why the situation was so difficult for me to my coworker that day.

My coworker is tall, and soft spoken, and calm, even when he’s also stressed and frustrated and exhausted. He responded to my explanation by quietly nodding and saying he was sorry, which was all I expected from him, there wasn’t anything else he could do. We got back to work on cleaning the bar, me trying to pretend I wasn’t still a bit sad. A customer came out and asked for a blackcurrant lemonade (not a standard drink at our bar, has to be made by mixing blackcurrant cordial with post-mix lemonade). After they left, I off-handedly mentioned that that was a drink combination I’d never thought of before, but it sounded nice. I turned round and started working on something else. A second later, my coworker tapped me on the shoulder and silently handed me a blackcurrant lemonade he’d just made.

I damn near started crying all over again.

A lot is rightly made of Phoenix’s infamous ‘y-yes Daddy’ line, but I think it’s worth remembering that in context he’s responding to an insult from Edgeworth that sounds like the sort of thing you would only hear from a particularly edgy Mormon twelve year old

Homophobia and its proponents are a horrifyingly strong force in this world. But you know what’s stronger?

Flamethrowers.

(also, love 🏳️‍🌈❤️🏳️‍🌈)

Had a dream there was a new Inside No. 9 episode where the twist was that the whole thing was just an advert for Volkswagen Beetles

Twitter used to have ads for like. Toyota Corollas

lmao

Depending on who wins Taskmaster 15, at CoC3 we may have an opportunity to see something unprecedented in British television history, something that has been merely dreamt of, something perhaps only mythical - the Inverted Panel Show (guest line up contains exactly one, and only one, man)

mine is five degrees separated from donald trump btw. yes it haunts me. you do have to tell me who it is in the tags because im nosy.

But above the gray website and the spasms of bleak recommendations which drift endlessly over it, you perceive, after a moment, the eyes of a homosexual duck

Hot take probably but I personally love it when Doctor Who gives up all pretence of being a science fiction show and just goes ‘yep, there’s magic in this one! straight up magic! what are you gonna do about it?’ I think it’s hilarious

I still feel this way btw. I knew as I watched it yesterday that that ending was going to be divisive. But I definitely didn’t take it as ‘abandon your found family for a nuclear lifestyle’ or anything like that. I took it more as ‘you can love and appreciate your family very very much and also not want, or find it practical, to live with them 24/7, all year round. Maybe you used to, but not these days, because things change. And that’s fine. It’s okay for periods in your life to end. But the people you love will still be there when you want to visit them at the hotel. Or indeed, the back-catalogue on BBC iPlayer.’

I am so happy with the conclusion of BBC Ghosts.

There were so many things I loved about the final series that I can't even keep it all straight in my brain, I'll have to rewatch it all (and the Christmas special, of course! Must remember it's the not the true end yet!)

But something I can immediately say I loved was what they didn't do. See, that line in the trailer that turned out to be from episode 5 - about there being a pattern to when they move on - worried me. One of the best things about the show, to me, is how there truly is not any reason at all to why the ghosts are there, or when they go. It's something the creators have said over and over, and that the show has always backed up; we saw so many times that, unlike in most ghost media, addressing unfinished business or achieving emotional resolution changes absolutely nothing. Pat hit some sort of emotional resolution three times. And Julian realised the importance of family, and Robin saved someone’s life, and Thomas discovered the truth of his death, and so on and so on. Finding closure isn't the end, and equally, the end isn't predicated by a climatic conclusion. It just happens. And the same is true for why people become ghosts. It just happens. And you exist, and fill your days, and then you’re gone. And no one knows why.

It's kind of the most agnostic television show I've ever seen.

I love that. Every other afterlife show I've ever seen has some kind of reward and punishment system. Or at least says that there's a reason for things, some kind of higher power at play, not necessarily a god but something like it. Even the American adaptation felt the need to bring Hell into it, which is why I need to specify that I'm only talking about the British version here. And I feel like a lot of fans wanted there to be reasons too, or felt like there simply had to be, that it wasn't even a question. I get why - it's not just because it's the standard for ghost narratives. It's really uncomfortable to think about the randomness of life and death. But Mary didn't go because of anything that happened before that day, and Cap was never going to go because he came out, and one day, when they've all gone, there won't have been a reason for it.

Because the real point of BBC Ghosts is that there is no point. You’ve just got to make it through the days, surrounded by people that irritate you, trapped in a confusing world where you’re mostly powerless. And it sucks, and you're angry, and sad, and bored as hell. And you also find happiness in the mundane chaos, and you get really good at chess, and watch the ants in the garden, and write bad poetry, and read terrible romance novels, and gamble money you don't have, and go camping, and play games, and learn French, and watch reality TV, and have sex with a decapitated Tudor nobleman’s body, and dance to old music, and look at the stars, and find that you actually really love all those annoying people after all, and that’s the point.