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koskela-knights · 6 months

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I’m trying to make my own AW2 playlist of chapter ending songs—do you have any recommendations? Feel like we’re similarly obsessed with the spiral…

Thnx for your question! And well yeah I might be a bit obsessed with the spiral/loops and its endless possibilities & scenarios that could've been 👀

Besides the official ending songs the game already provides, there are some other songs that give me general AW/AW2 vibes or specific feels for certain characters! I've been pondering about songs to share for a while, so this is a great opportunity! Thnx again for the ask!

Also feel free to share your own songs in my inbox if you feel like it :D

It's gonna be a long post so buckle up 😅

This is the moment to share my love for Lord Huron, specifically their Strange Trails album but also Vide Noir one.

Strange Trails is, to me, an album about being lost and cursed and it's about love. Honestly, I don't think The Night We Met is a good representative about the entire album.

Meet Me In The Woods

This entire song just screams Alan Wake to me.

I took a little journey to the unknown, And I come back changed. I can feel it in my bones. I fucked with forces that our eyes can't see. Now the darkness got a hold on me.

(...)

How long, baby, have I been away? Oh, it feels like ages though you say it's only days. There ain't language for the things I've seen. And the truth is stranger than my own worst dreams.

(...)

I have seen what the darkness does. Said goodbye to who I was. I ain't never been away so long. Don't look back them days are gone. Follow me into the endless night. I can bring your fears to life. Show me yours and I'll show you mine. Meet me in the woods tonight.

Like, how can you read those lyrics and not think about our boy Alan.

2. Way Out There

Drifting in a land time forgot If you think that I've changed, you know me not I belong bodily to the earth I'm just wearing old bones from those that came first I been unraveling since my birth

Those lyrics and partially the song in general remind me of Alan in the Dark Place trying to escape. How many loops has he been through? (Thus in this context, kind of wearing 'old bones from those who came first, aka older iterations of Alan himself) Also, the theremin they use is so fitting and it's an instrument often used in horror movies so <3

3. Vide Noir (both album itself & song)

Where can you go when it’s all in your head? These are the last words that I ever said Where can you go when it’s all in your head? These are the last words that I ever said

Tbh, this album also gives off major Control vibes with its themes and songs about the Astral plane & the black void. Many other songs on the album talk about the main character getting lost and drifting in-between time/space and living/dying

4. War by Poets of the Fall

You might be familiar with the song already and its music video 👀

I like how all the Poets were involved in the video as Taken (have you seen BTS shots of Olli with a fake beard?!!) Anyways, the song makes me think of how Alan has to remember that there are people out there who want to help him. That there are people out there fighting against the Darkness, even if he is mainly unaware and might even feel he doesn't deserve external help. It also reflects Alice being Alan's bright light in the darkness, and the reason he wants to keep fighting to get back to her.

In a similar vein, Lust For Life (also PoTF haha) this song could also be seen through an Alan/Alice lens, the shared shoebox mechanic and Alice trying to help/guide Alan back to the real world.

What is lost may be found Safe and sound

5. Hello Cabaret by PoTF

Now this song is maybe one of my faves of the Ghostlight album. Relistening to my fave lyrics of the song, it reminds me of the Koskelas and Ilmo specifically.

For when you come calling Dancing on my grave For all my choices made Judging me for how I played The hand you dealt me Stains the blood that flows

(...)

Of all I once did love but lost Nothing comes without a cost The wise fool said that's just the way it goes

(...)

Most will never comprehend Till' they're in the very predicament

To me, Ilmo at the end of the game is heartbroken and dead inside now that his other/better half is gone. The 'you' in question here might as well be the player or Scratch/Alan and he feels judged by the narrative of his previous actions. He's made decisions and sacrifices and used the Cult as a palpable 'villain' for the greater good. Something many probably didn't/wouldn't understand unless they were in his shoes.

6. Chasing Echoes by PoTF

It's a fun coincidence that in AW2 you have literal Echoes to chase huh.

Is this a role or disguise seeking mercy in creation? Just another device or truly a time when we will rise? Oh one and all, to the occasion And bridge the gap to see the other side?

The more on-the-nose/literal meaning aside, I think this song can be read as another one about Alan trying to escape the DP/spiral upwards toward ascension. Again, there's a 'you' in this song that could be interpreted as Alice who is a light inside Alan's darkness.

7. Brother by Lord Huron

How long have I known you, brother? Hundreds of lives, thousands of years How many miles have we wandered Under the sky, chasing our fear? Considering the spiral and the historical background of the Koskelas and their (indirect) ties to the Huotaris, they might as well known each other/been brothers for longer than what we see in-game. Some kind of trouble is coming Don't know when, don't know what I will stand by you, brother 'Til the daylight comes or I'm dead and gone

(...)

I know we can't stop what's coming But I will try, oh how I'll try Will you fight with me, brother One last time, one last fight

We know Ilmo got visited by the Dark Presence and has had nightmares about killing Jaakko. Luckily, he rose above that (as far as we know) but I think the dread and fear of losing Jaakko keeps lingering just underneath the surface. Personally, I enjoy the thought of people sometimes remembering the previous loop/spiral and that those affected/remembering would try anything to keep the loop from repeating.

8. You Belong To Me by Cat Pierce

If you're a fan of Alan/Scratch, this song has that obsessive/possessive vibe to it that seems to be a dialogue/mix between them.

I've heard allegations 'bout your reputation I'll show you my shadows if you show yours Let's get it right dear, give a good fight dear We'll keep it all up behind closed doors

(...)

I must confess to you, I want to possess you Feels like we're dreaming, we're tripping and reeling Just say that you belong to me I could get lost in the feelings we're feeling Just say that you belong to me

#anon ask #alan wake 2 spoilers #alan wake 2 #alan wake #alice wake #TLDR: Lord Huron Strange Trails/Vide Noire albums and PoTF's Ghostlight album <333 #koskela brothers #ilmo koskela #jaakko koskela #my posts #my ramblings #songs I listen to for years now and always like to reassign to the fandom at hand

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thefauxsport · 2 days

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Ok, so, here is the long awaited breakdown of the Danny Amendola story. I'm going to call this....

Friends Don't Let Friends Date... Danny Amendola

Maybe we turn this into a series about other athletes?

Anyways, here we go (this is long because I'm legit transcribing what's going on in this podcast and I probably shouldn't, but this is how I take notes!)

First off, I am relistening to the Barely Filtered Podcast with Aurora Culpo and Kristen Louelle Gaffney. Olivia was on their show that came out 5/24/2023 where she spoke at length about a previous "abusive" relationship. She never specifically names Danny Amendola as the culprit, but Kristen gives it away very early on in the episode.

For the uninitiated, Kristen is married to a guy named Tyler Gaffney, who at one time, was a bench warmer on the Pats. That's how Olivia and Kristen know each other. Tyler went to Stanford, that's how he knows CMC. They set the two up after she ended things with Amendola for the last time.

Now, the first question she gets about the topic is Kristen saying that she knows Olivia spoke on her show about being in an abusive relationship and how she has grown so much since they met. Kristen asked how she got out of that part of her life.

Olivia said it was challenging, and said that in hindsight she was addicted. She was in a cycle, and she couldn't break it. She said as it went on her self esteem plummeted and she became a shell of herself. "When someone beats you down so much, mentally, and then you become susceptible to that treatment and it doesn't stop. You get addicted to the highs because the highs are so good and the lows are so low and you know you're not supposed to be in it. But you hold out hope for those small positive moments."

She said she had to work at it a lot, to love herself enough to get out. "Very, very, very, very bad situation". She recalled being in a hotel room, praying on her hands and knees for clarity, and that was the moment she knew she was done. She said is was praying to her family that passed on for help in figuring out what to do, and something clicked and she was done. She said she blocked this person and never saw him again.

Then Aurora tells a crazy story. This was the part of the podcast that really stuck out to me. She was telling the story about how she had just given birth to her kid, I think the second one, and Olivia was with Christian, but they were still pretty new. They were going to go visit her, so she asked them to pick up some diapers on their way. They had just started dating. She bumped into Danny while at the store. Olivia interjects at this part and goes, "we think he was following me".

Apparently, Danny bumped into a diaper laden Christian. She said it must have been nuts because her ex also played football, but arguably not as well as Christian. So to imagine this guy bumping into his ex girlfriend's new boyfriend who is better than you and he just goes "hey. uh, you had a good season" and CMC just said "yea" and that he was going to go check out.

The next part of the podcast goes into how CMC helped get her out of rock bottom. Aurora said part of it is not manifesting the same relationship. She then asked how she could find happiness with a normal guy after the drama train that was Danny. Olivia admits to having some PTSD, and said she's afraid to talk about this person because he's scary. She said she struggled at the beginning and would cry because she didn't like who she was coming out of that relationship. She said she was scared Christian could be capable of that, but that was because she wasn't whole after escaping that relationship. She also admits to not being super confident in her relationship, but she can acknowledge that. He has his read receipts on and his location on.

Apparently, she'd wait up at night because Danny would be out there cheating on her "with tons of people" and she'd just be sitting there waiting for him to get home. "It's hard to be naive and think that everybody is going to have your back when you go through something like that because you really do figure out that wow, people are really capable of horrible things".

Aurora said that some guys would view the location on and read receipts on as being a red flag in girls. She said that people shouldn't apologize for needing some things and that Christian realized she was asking this of him not because of him but because of the trauma she had. Not sure I agree totally, but to each their own.

Apparently, Christian researched the cycle of abuse (which he probably already knew because if you listen to his mom's podcast, his grandfather was an abusive drunk).

This is when she mentions Danny being abusive. She said it's easy for people to question why you didn't leave when he broke her things, or when he was scary and threatening and "horrible things that I am not going to get into".

Never ask a surviver of DV this question, ya'll.

Also don't like that she takes blame for staying there, but I digress.

Aurora said part of her problem was Olivia would send her some of the things Danny would say about her to ask her if it was true. Belittling her and her career. "These are the guys, they want the hot bikini model on the internet, but they don't want you posting hot bikini pictures on the internet."

Olivia talks about the cycle again and reminds Aurora to not get into it too deeply again.

They (Aurora and their friends) started to try and gather evidence of all the times he was cheating by looking at photos and spotting his hand or his bracelet in girls photos and figure out when he was with other girls. They didn't want to go to Olivia with half evidence, and Olivia admits she saw some of it on her own. And apparently, people started to get annoyed because they would tell her what he was doing and she'd ask for advice and then ignore it all. Said that sometimes you might be done but the person in the relationship needs to get there on their own.

I think I'm getting a sty, which is annoying me at this point. So is the reference to Marianne Williamson. Quack.

Now they move onto social media and stuff and a lot more surface level stuff.

I'm gonna end this here, because I'm pretty sure this was all they talked about on him. BUT, I feel like she also touched on it on the Not Skinny pod, so I may relisten to that this week and if there's more to add I'll add to it!

Drop the next name you want me to delve into.

#friends don't let friends date #danny amendola

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lycanlovingvampyre · 1 year

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MAG 109 Relisten

Activity on my first listen: putting up a new fence

Haha, funny coincidence! (I probably already said this in S1?) Julia's statement is MAG 9 and Trevor's (first) statement MAG 10. And now their mutual statement is MAG 109! Like... 9 and 10, 109?

Episode title "Nightfall" - On one side it seems to be late in the evening or already night when this recording is happening (the crickets) and on the other side it's of course a statement involving the Dark.

JON: "And, and, and if I run?" TREVOR: "I’m very much hoping that you do." Hunters wanna hunt, not catch.

JON "I read your statement, you know, you, you don’t kill people. Only monsters." TREVOR: "The line gets blurrier every day." Daisy does the same. Justifying her murders with ever lower and lower growing standards to what qualifies as a "human". I wonder where Jon would draw the line since it’s something that bothers him?

JON: "I, I mean, yes… but the situation has changed quite a bit…? Last I heard, you were dying of lung cancer." TREVOR: "I was." JON: "And now…?" TREVOR: "I’m not. (heh)" JON: "And that doesn’t strike you as… odd." TREVOR: "Not much I see these days isn’t “odd” somehow or other. Not gonna turn my nose up at one bit of it worked out well for me. I hunt monsters; my lungs don’t kill me. Seems like a fair trade. No big job, is it." There it is, the hypocrisy of the Hunt. The inability for self-reflection. Also I think it's unfair that the Eye let Gerry die of his cancer and Trevor was saved, that seems like a bad deal! (Yeah, yeah, something about choosing to stay human...)

JULIA: "What is it, do you think, that makes people so obsessed with horrific things happening to other people?" I know Julia exclusively talks about true crime here. Can't really talk about that specifically, cause I don't really watch much true crime stuff. It actually upsets me cause I know it was real. Especially cases that happened not too long ago. I've thought about people, who knew the victims, seeing videos on Youtube and how they must feel more than once. But there is a bit of an overlap in "fans" of true crime and horror and the supernatural (e.g. Buzzfeed Unsolved. It started out as a true crime show I think, but then got into ghost hunting). Have you ever noticed that there are a lot of people in the horror community, who have experienced something horrific happening to themselves? Some kind of trauma. There's a reason for that. On a meta level it's dealing with the trauma in a safe and contained way.

Just quickly throwing in that I love the crickets in the background. So soothing, the sound of them. Reminds me of summer.

JON: "Uh, um… (nervous laugh) Yeah… it’s, uh… it’s… what do you do for money?" JULIA: "(annoyed) Sorry?" JON: "I, I just, I-I doubt roaming around killing things pays all that well, What do you do to support yourselves?" Capitalism is the real enemy!

JON "Uh, yeah… o-o-okay, uh, Mustermann, or whatever your name is" Oh, Jon(ny)’s the only one saying Mustermann with the German pronunciation of the U - like moo-ster (m-uhn)!

MUSTERMANN: "Maybe not, but are you sure you know what’s listening in?" JON: "Do you?" MUSTERMANN: "No. But I don’t like it." TREVOR: "What’s he mean, 'listening in?'?" It may be a coincidence again that it’s a Stranger pointing out the tapes and questions who’s listening in via those (last time it was Nikola, MAG 101). The Stranger just really got a lot of screen time. Last episode I said I enjoy TMA providing canon explanations for.. just things which are necessary for a good narration. We already found out, why Jon’s acting his little heart out during the statement and why all those statements are written like the people have a degree in creative writing. And now the tapes are getting addressed more and more. Everything just clicks wonderfully into place and I love that in a story.

@a-mag-a-day

#a-mag-a-day #mag 109 #tma #tma spoilers

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the--highlanders · 1 year

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good luck with moving! heres a question for you. 2 actually. firstly tardis team 2 movie night whos choosing what? secondly do you think polly/ben and victoria and zoe would get on? (btw your fics are insane. ben jamie freindship my beloved)

ahhh thank you so much!! ben jamie friendship my beloved also, I really really need to write something longer about them. also relisten to the selachian gambit because it's so good for ben-jamie brotp content

I'm SO sorry this has taken so long also!! but I have been thinking very hard about what their movie picks will be. ngl I don't think I'm enough of a movie person to like, pick specific movies but I've been thinking about Vibes

jamie is just like, impressed by movies in general, especially in s4. so he'll go for basically anything that the rest of the gang put on. especially since a modern/futuristic real-world setting is likely to be just as unfamiliar to him as scifi/fantasy setting! he probably doesn't always distinguish them super clearly because some of the scifi stuff is closer to his actual experiences ghfdkj. I feel like he'd quite like comedies/more light-hearted stuff though? & some action stuff/jumpscare-y horror is just a no-go because he's not super used to non-live media making noises on its own, and sudden loud noises/being suddenly scared doesn't always play nice with his trauma. he'd just rather avoid it. also I feel like he'd really like documentaries!! he's super curious about everything and it's a nice way for him to absorb information through auditory processing which he's good with/used to and without the issue of learning to read. sometimes he'll disappear for a bit and the others will end up finding him curled up on a sofa watching a documentary on the most random stuff

two also has super eclectic taste but in a more out there/esoteric way. he claims he just has super refined taste when the others won't watch some artsy 12-hour martian epic with him (and then falls asleep or wanders off like, half an hour in because he doesn't actually have that sort of ability to sit still). he will put on the weirdest alien stuff that's totally incomprehensible to everyone else though. but he's also into like, silent comedies. he's such a chaplin-esque character, how could he not be (though he denies any similarity to himself!). and he's more into fantasy than hard scifi - it's impossible to watch any sort of serious scifi with him unless you want to hear a constant commentary on the inaccuracies in it. (by series 6 jamie has picked up on this habit, albeit with his much more limited knowledge. zoe finds this super disconcerting).

ben is absolutely the instigator of two and jamie's comedy enjoyment. he's Also a silent comedy guy. but I think he'd like action/adventure films as well? he's got like, a whole host of them that he really loves and is always trying to get the others to watch. I feel like he's the biggest movie watcher of the tardis team honestly, like going to the cinema was something he did a fair bit pre-canon? maybe it's something he did with his father while he was still alive, so he has fond but kind of bittersweet memories of it. & tbh I feel like being interested in the heroes as well as the love interests was part of his bi awakening. so he'd be the one pushing for the movie nights to happen, and maybe also more inclined to pick out alien/futuristic stuff than polly is, because he wants to see what else is out there.

polly is probably the one who comes the closest to appreciating two's more esoteric movie picks?? like they're not necessarily her favourite thing but she'll sit down and watch them with him. it's bonding time for them. they paint each other's nails and hang out. I think she'd also like kinda film noir/darker stuff. juuust enough that two and jamie like to tease ben about how many films she watches where the wife kills her husband. (ben takes it in pretty good humour. he's a wife guy like that he would support polly for this). also she's a bad romcom watcher in the sense that she likes to yell at the screen about all the dumb decisions the characters make, why the main couple wouldn't work out, that sort of thing. it's stress relief for her. she gets the others into it and the four of them sit there shouting like they're watching a sports game

#replies #anonymous #this got kinda long hjkfd #anyway!! will be flying tomorrow night so #tis all happening

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asexualzoro · 2 years

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☕ favorite podcasts and why you like them

ill open this with admitting i dont actually listen to many podcasts! i much prefer reading to watching stuff, so my preferred media to binge is more webcomics or writing. so this list wont be super long, but i do have stuff

my all time fave podcast is obviously the magnus archives! i'd wanted to get more into horror, and i really loved the anthological approach of tma, as well as the worldbuilding and slow-till-it's-not introduction of an overarching plot. i love mystery a lot, too, so i had a lot of fun with that aspect as well. the wide range of fears touched on meant every episode had a completely different effect on me, from "you couldnt pay me to listen to this episode a second time" to "this is terrifying and i will cry" to "this does very little for me" to "im barely even scared, i just adore thsi concept, this is fascinating" to "this is really funny actually" to "im terrified and i would listen to a whole series about this." and i never knew which one an episode would be. not to mention how much i loved basically all the cast, Jon especially. id do anything for that man. i could write a whole essay about him alone. Tim too, god i loved the whole s1 staff actually, and--

god. its just such a cool series. i loved the entities and the cast and the format and everything. i really liked it, esp as a reintroduction to horror as ive been avoiding ghosts and stuff for years. i just have a lot of love for this series

another podcast i recently listened to was alice isn't dead, which i listened to all in one day. id actually listened to the first two seasons as they came out, but somehow ?? missed that the third season had dropped and so never finished it. i forgot most of the series and had to start from scratch, which i did, listening to thw whole podcast in one day for 12 hours straight. i really loved it

nearly the only thing id remembered from the podcast originally was the episode "the factory by the sea," and god it was just as good on a relisten--god, i think about that episode all the time, and i have since i first listened in 2016. i'd also vaguely remembered listening to "mouth of the water" in 2017, and though id remembered disliking it, i actually loved it on my second listen. and "three nights at the old motel" was fantastic to listen to for the first time, i adored it. these are probably my favorite episodes out of everything in this series, but i cant think of a single episode i didnt like

since i’ve already said. very much. about these two podcasts i’ll leave it, but if you want specifics on anything just send me another ask!

#ask lew #anonymous

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forgottenyogurtgods · 3 years

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Author stuff: After much wait, here’s chapter two! I still don’t know how long this baby’s going to be. Everyone’s positive reactions so far is giving me tippy-tappy toes, so thank you!

Possible trigger warning! COVID-19 is briefly mentioned and, ultimately, the lockdown that came with it as well. (I’ll try to post all trigger warnings at the top here. If I don’t, give me a shout. I’m pretty easily accessible on the websites I post on.)

no body, no crime

by forgottenyogurtgods

Summary: [I think he did it but I just can’t prove it. No, no body, no crime But I ain’t letting up until the day I die.]

Adrien is a Swiftie. To be fair, who isn’t? And her Evermore album? Chef’s kiss! Except… one song put an idea in his head and now he can’t get it out.

Inspired by this tumblr post.

Chapter 2/?

Last chapter

Episode Two

Two years ago, Emilie Agreste vanished without a trace. Her car was found abandoned on the side of the road, just outside of Paris. All of her things were still inside.

No one has seen or heard from her since that night.

The police are officially calling it a missing person’s case.

I am your host, Adrian Agreste, and I plan to use this podcast docu-series to find out what happened to my mother and prove to the world that my father killed her.

This all kind of started with Taylor Swift.

You know, country music star turned pop singer turned alt-folk-rock singer? The one who’s won an award for almost every album she’s ever released? Yeah, that Taylor Swift.

And you can blame some of my classmates on this, too. Specifically, Mylene and Rose.

I’ve always been a Swiftie. Her music helped me to actually learn quite a bit of English. And my mom used to like singing her music with me, so Taylor kind of has been… important in my life, I guess you can say.

As a Swiftie, I was perfectly obligated to join my classmates in our discord chat to stream the albums together. Because, you know, COVID-19 is a thing.

[Future Adrien here! Hey, if you’re from the future and listening to this, first off, hello! Second, thanks for stopping by. Third, yes, I made this podcast during the COVID-19 pandemic. That was a… questionably strange time. Of being isolated to my house once again — we’ll talk about that later in the series.

Anyway, back to the show!]

Classes were over for the day, and we were all just helping each other get through our homework. As I said before, Mylene and Rose kind of started it.

And everyone went along with it, because they’re Mylene and Rose. They’re just… I can’t really explain it. You just can’t say no when they ask to stream the latest Taylor Swift album over discord for everyone to listen to.

I don’t think anyone was really paying attention to the music much at first, we were just talking over it. I actually didn’t really notice “No Body, No Crime” until the chorus came in for the last time.

I ended up buying the album later that night and relistening to the whole thing while I was supposed to, umm, be working on my English. Which, technically, I was. Just not in a way that was approved by my English language instructor.

Anyway, “No Body, No Crime” kind of stuck out to me. And it stuck with me. For a while.

And it got me thinking about my mom again. About how she was never found, and no matter how hard they searched, no new information was ever uncovered. How her case is still open and unsolved.

Okay, so I think about my mom a lot, just in general, but I was thinking about the night she disappeared and how everything played out after that.

Something… something just didn’t sit right with me. I couldn’t place what, but just that something had been off.

Things just didn’t add up.

So, like any sane person, I ordered a transparent dry erase board and markers. I also printed out all the information I possibly could when I had some spare time.

And I looked over all of the details that had been available to the media and, essentially, the public. As well as the conspiracies that can be found on Reddit and other forums.

We’ll, uh, we’ll get to the conspiracies in a later episode. Those kind of deserve their own episode. They really, really do.

Where was I?

Oh, right. Getting everything in order.

I ended up recruiting outside help. Not just my friends, like Nino who is my producer and editor, or Marinette who actually designed a really cool logo for this podcast. I’m actually getting help from one of Paris’s akuma-fighting heroes — Chat Noir!

[Dude, when did you even get a chance to talk to Chat Noir?]

Oh, uh, a couple of days ago.

[Alya is going to freak out. You know that, right?]

Yeah, I, uh, kind of figured she would.

I should… probably explain who Alya is and why she’d freak out. Alya loves superheroes. More than me and Nino, and trust me when I say we binged the entire Marvel and DC movie universes. So many hours…

Anyway, Alya.

Alya runs a blog — the Ladyblog — that reports on Paris’s own superheroes, mainly Chat Noir and… and Ladybug. She’s been faithfully reporting on everything since day one. News reporters all over the world rely on her for not only information but live footage from every battle.

She has actually been really useful in helping me organize everything.

And it’s because of Alya that I finally figured out what was so wrong with my mother’s case. The thing that had been nagging me at the back of my mind.

The investigation on my mother’s disappearance wasn’t that deep of an investigation. It barely scratched the surface. It was all for show.

No one was putting in any effort to find out what happened to her. But why?

Author stuff cont’d.: So! This being kind of a story told through a podcast was heavily inspired by a few true crime podcasts. Most notably In the Dark (both the Jacob Wetterling case and the Curtis Flowers case) and Up and Vainished (the Tara Grinstead case), as well as To Live and Die in LA (the Adea Shabani case).

Also available on

[Ao3]

[FanFiction.Net]

[Wattpad]

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous ladybug fanfiction #miraculous fanfic #miraculous ladybug fanfic #fanfiction #fanfic #mlb fanfic #mlb no body no crime

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aflyingcontradiction · 3 years

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The Magnus Archives Relisten: Episode 80 - The Librarian

Leitner: English was always my first language. I used to adopt an accent sometimes when meeting people, a sort of personal joke, but truth be told, my Norwegian is terrible.

This is obviously an attempt to avoid the inevitable "You said Leitner has an accent but the voice actor doesn't at all!" so it is a little clumsy but about as non-clumsy as you could get, trying to retcon that. Better than Johnny's dad attempting to put on a bad Norwegian accent!

Leitner: The arrow, however, was not mine. The ‘Not!Sasha’ had come down several times.

I'd totally forgotten that the arrows were the Not!Sasha's work, specifically.

Leitner: Three years ago, I made the mistake of spending a full night outside my safehouses. I was almost beaten to death by an angry goth.

I'm sorry but the description of Gerard as 'an angry goth' and the incensed tone in which Leitner says it is hilarious - like the experience would somehow have been less upsetting if the person beating him within an inch of his life had had a more mainstream style of dress or something.

Leitner: I was born the heir to great wealth.

Yeah, he would've been - he sounds exactly like the sort of arrogant arse who has been told he's better than other people since birth and who fully believes it despite never actually proving it in any way. He also burns up other "lesser" people to light his own way with little to no remorse whatsoever.

Leitner: It was shortly afterwards I hired my first assistant. A dour man, by the name of Albert Stross. He barely lasted a fortnight.

He sounds so fucking BORED about it, too.

Leitner: And these people, they were… wrong somehow. They didn’t move as people should move, and their cadence was very strange when they spoke. They almost always forgot to blink.

So agents of the Stranger, presumably? Some more John Doe-s?

Thomas McMann was stabbed through the throat by something with too many teeth and limbs like knives. Mary Johnson was pulled into a cavernous maw that opened beneath her. Gregory Todd ran into a door that shouldn’t have been there. A great hand reached down through the roof and plucked away Leandra Toulouse. And there was one other assistant, whose… whose name I don’t recall, but the last I saw of him, he was being pulled into a great, pulsating pile of meat.

Okay, let's analyse this. The first avatar could be the Hunt or the Slaughter, maybe? The second one sounds a little like that Flesh maw that is mentioned in multiple episodes BUT there's already another avatar of the Flesh here and there's no mention of glistening or teeth or what-not so I'm thinking the Buried? The third one is obviously our dear Distortion, so the Spiral. The great hand could be the Vast, can't really think of anything else it might be. And the final avatar is very obviously of the Flesh. So between that and the presumed Stranger avatars above, we've got at least avatars from 6 different Entities working together to destroy Leitner's library.

Perhaps I was sensible enough to steer clear of the rooms that had fallen into darkness, or burned with a fire that seemed to leave the books untouched.

And here we have the Dark and the Desolation, so that brings it to 8 different entities. And the Eye very well could have been involved cause somebody figured out what Leitner was doing, even though he was trying very hard to keep it under wraps (but that could easily just have been Leitner fucking up somewhere along the way).

Jon: Like a… a, a muscle, spasming on reflex? Leitner: Yes, that’s actually rather good. Jon: It would explain Michael’s identity issues.

Oooh no, there's so much more to it than that...

Jon: Gertrude was going to destroy the Archives?

Now, that was a "Wait ... WHAT?" moment on the first go!

Jon: This place belongs to one of them, doesn't it? (...) Jon: And I ... Leitner: You belong to it too. Jon: I… Uh… I… I think I need some air.

Yeah, fair enough! That's a hell of a revelation to have about oneself!

Leitner: I’m not sure you would have liked him, you know. He’s paranoid enough. But I don’t think he’s got the stomach for it.

Yeah, unlike Gertrude, Jon is definitely not eager to sacrifice others, even "for the greater good".

Elias: How much have you told him? Leitner: Enough. Elias: About Gertrude? Leitner: No. No, I didn’t have time.

How does Leitner lie to Elias with such ease? Is it the power of one of the books?

Tim: Any sign of the woman? Martin: I don’t think so. We should have helped her.

They saw Helen, didn't they?

My impression of this episode

This episode is a little on the info-dumpy side but at the time of my first listen I had been looking forward to finally understanding what the Entities were and what was going on (because, yeah, I had been a little spoiled but had avoided extensive spoilers) that I didn't really mind. The worldbuilding of TMA was (and still is!) interesting enough on its own to hold my attention, even if it was perhaps a bit much to reveal this amount in a single episode. And there's ... well, there's a whole lot going on aside from that, not least the murder of Jurgen Leitner by Elias.

#tma relisten #the magnus archives

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ashes-in-a-jar · 3 years

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Tma relisten Episodes 6-10

(Still really long)

Alot of really important details that are going to be very relevant later on. Very facinating how early on you find these out. Relistens are good.

Episode 6 squirm

It's a good thing tma doesn't do much of sexual encounters and their connection to entities. While I'm sure that's a thing that in any realistic universe would exist avoiding it was a good choice. This statement was *shudder*

Interesting that she had no visible mark on her. Also being repulsed by police stations because the sectioned officers could have helped.

Naked in the streets after lighting his apartment on fire. What an image.

So technically the worms were in the archives 3 times: when Jane made her first statement, when Timothy hodge made his and when Jane attacked. The worms are very familiar with the magnus institute.

"This story is concerning. Not because of Mr. Hodge’s experience, although I’m sure it was very upsetting." ace Jon talking very technical about "experiences"

" though obviously it’s a tragic loss of life, etcetera, etcetera." Jon being Jon.

Ecdc are aware of Jane and corruption typical attacks which is off the bat interesting world building.

He's skeptic here because of lack of evidence but does admit the existence of a threat in Jane Prentiss

Also! He knows of her from before probably when he was a researcher. This confused me on first listen because I was trying to remember if she was ever mentioned before this. But she wasn't.

Episode 7 the piper

Wilfred kind of sounds like martin in some way but maybe it's just me assigning poetry to anyone like him.

But he hated apathy which might be very Martin like

Gentle sadness and creeping fear from the music. For violence of war... Is that what it means to immortalize it?

It's really cool that the concept of music in this podcast is associated specifically with war and unwarranted violence. There's a very strong statement in there somewhere that needs to be explored.

God this statement was intense. Lying for such a long time in that trench surrounded by violent death. But what's most interesting is that this statement doesn't feel like a supernatural one and yet... The piper was with Wilfred throughout the various battles and bouts of violence until the moment it was officially over. But in a very subtle way.

The description of the piper is really intense with the 3 faces. I think I missed it the first time but hearing that representation of war and fear is something I'm going to look for in artistic depictions now.

Wait. Who is Joseph Rayner? I know of Maxwell but never heard of Joseph.a victim instead of Wilfred? Collaborator with the Slaughter? Hmmm

I wonder how Accidental it was that the statement from 1922 was filed in the 2000s. Maybe to show that the piper never really leaves and the war never really ends. Ever.

Episode 8 burned out

Wow Hilltop Road already! I forgot how many of the first episodes were so important to the plot later on.

"That side of the road backed onto South Park with fences marking the bottom of each garden." this is wrong btw. Hilltop Road in Oxford does not run along Sount Park but is perpendicular to it, meeting it in the corner with Divinity Road which meets with Morrell Avenue which is the road running along South Park. Just FYI because I had to look this up to get a good picture. But I guess Morrell doesn't sound as exciting as Hilltop (which isn't even at the top of the hill smh)

Ivo lensik describes Raymond fielding as white which makes me automatically think he is not. Just a thought that popped in my mind.

Huh. His family had a history of schizophrenia. And his dad was obsessed with fractals. Being followed by The spiral (all the bones are in his hands) was also part of this story really interesting.

Agnes had mousy brown hair and looked like Raymond! Not red hair ( at least at first) like I pictured. Also she was a hell of a creepy child...

So did he time travel? Seeing the moments of Raymond's end? Seems like time doesn't work right in that place anyway.

Web person being devout church goer is also an interesting touch

Father Edwin Burroughs! I forgot he was here too! The knock reminded me of Mr Spider *shiver*

The priest explaining that the church exorcized demons but what not decisive if ghosts exist was hilarious. Jon dismisses paranormal but asks Martin if he's a ghost is opposite of the church.

Hmmm the web pushing him to cut the tree to uncover box from antique table...

Apple full of spiders ugh. Maybe something web was trapped in there by Desolation and ivo managed free it as Agnes was dying.

"We cannot prove any connection, but Martin unearthed a report on an Agnes Montague, who was found dead in her Sheffield flat on the evening of November 23rd 2006, the same day Mr. Lensik claims to have uprooted the tree." wow that's an obscure thing to find well done Martin!

Jon still looks for credence for this story despite the schizophrenia that could leave him skeptical.

"while I trust Mr. Lensik’s testimony of his own experiences about as far as I can throw a bleeding tree," again Jon with his special brand of jokes.

Episode 9 a Father's love

The Montauk's story! I always thought their family had one of the most tragic ones. The hunt is a really cruel patron with its forced hunger and having other entities use them as tools.

Julia telling the truth of the story to the Magnus Institute instead of the police is also heartbreaking. How desperate and alone she must have felt drowned in that awful literally unbelievable story. The magnus institute feeds off of those people too.

So many of the hunt end up in police it's just... Such a strong statement against that establishment. What do we do to make that less of a horrible, unjust, all consuming system? That feeds on the hunger of some and the abject fear of others? And it doesn't have to be supernatural. It's interesting how season five, of all seasons, is the one that gave us that perspective. The non supernatural one on the subject while the world itself is so far away from the natural. God everything about this idea is so heavy and painful.

I kind of hate Julia's fate because of her background and how much alot of its beginning was out of her control. It's like Daisy. The hunt can never be forgiven no matter how compulsive it is.

The dark that took her mother turned her into part of it? Like the dark liquid?

A dark room to develop his photos of his victims huh? A play on words here.

Oooh they put a heartbeats in the soundscape really cool actually.

So Montauk killed other dark members that tried to leave? For the ritual? Like Julia's mother?

The hunt compelled him to keep the hearts as trophies? which is very self destructive of the hunt to do. Or is it part of the dark ritual with the sacrifices that the heart had to be kept?

I think Montauk was trying to slow down the ritual as revenge that night, rendering the sacrifices he helped create useless. Which is why pitch came after them that night and dissappeared once Montauk finished his ritual.

Sourcing the Serial killer enthusiast community. Love that the archives use whatever source of info they can access.

So Maxwell dissappeared in 1994 from public eye land yet the cult kept working towards a ritual. But now in secret? Their timeline always confused me.

Episode 10 vampire killer

I never noticed Trevor came right after Julia! Oooh this is so much connecting the dots so early on!

Vampires are so disturbing here makes you ever wonder how the hell media like twilight were ever created. But hehe the monster ****er community has always been a vibrant one. Not these vampires tho.

Trevor is so sassy I love his statements. Like Julia it really makes me sad how consumed he became at the end and how awful his death was. Once again the tragedy of the Hunt.

"I taught myself to read, I read as much on the subject as I could, and it isn’t covered often or clearly in those books I have found." can you imagine what kinds of books he might have found during the sexy vampire Era? This is a hilarious picture to paint.

So vampires feed off of blood and not fear which is an interesting creature to have in this kind of universe. Although hunters are also like that but there is still alot of fear and awareness involved with that while the vampires try to conceal themselves until the last moment.

There's alot of mosquito imagery in these vampires which is... Ugh

Also interesting how many time Trevor just uses the vampire's full name. Never shortened and never talked about in another title. Sylvia McDonald this Sylvia McDonald that. Also the other vampire. They always had a name that was psychicly imposed on the victims to be remembered fully. Very Stranger behavior.

Ahhhh the one vampire weakness... Drrrugs.

It's also very flammable which sets interesting precedence to setting unnatural things on fire to make them disappear.

Alard dupont comes in a later statement right? Yeah in 56

Martin was there when the statement was given which was 2010 and in 2016 he's 29 so he worked there for a while! At least since age 23 perhaps we'll find out even earlier. And he was still scared to be found under qualified after all this time! Oof...

I wonder how draining it is to give a statement that it kills someone who is sick.

The government is in on this! Looking for the teeth Trevor gave the institute... Somehow that strikes me as hilarious in the world building of this podcast. And it really leaves Jon no choice but to concede that there is something to the statement even if he refuses to use the term vampire like Trevor did so freely.

#Pfft i was so into this one i forgot to tag #Tma #jonathan sims #Tma hiatus liveblog #magnuspod #julia montauk #trevor herbert #Jane Prentiss #The magnus archives #hilltop road

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alywats · 4 years

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My Definitive Ranking of Panic! At The Disco Albums

Here we are again, I guess. I did this with Taylor Swift albums, and it was kind of a good exercise in Writing About Music, so I figured the next logical artist to rank was Panic! At The Disco. I used their six studio albums, exactly as they were first released, and I did a full relisten to their discography as I did my ranking. Again, there will be personal taste biases as well as nostalgia biases, but I tried to stay as objective as possible. I genuinely love all of their albums, so this was DIFFICULT, but here ya go:

1. Pretty. Odd.

This album is the pinnacle of what Panic! At The Disco is. Unique, pushing the boundaries of what genre means, and Keeping Us Interested. Released in 2008, this album is full of Beatles-on-drugs vibes, with folk and baroque styles meshing together with a definitively pop rock foundation. The lyrics border on incoherent in some places, as they are very surrealist, but have just enough grounding to make the ethereal mood work. But the purpose of Pretty. Odd. isn’t to be relatable “emo mood” pop punk anyways, it’s purpose is to be a whole and complete work of art that is sonically interesting and the lyrics are just a facet of that. That said, there is still emotion keeping you invested in the story of the songs. Pretty. Odd. is cohesive as an album, in a way that almost no other album (ever) is, but simultaneously, every song is unique and has its own artistic merit that contributes to the landscape as a whole of the album.

Best Song: When the Day Met the Night, I think this one of the strongest songs lyrically in Panic!’s discography, and it’s so sweet! The instrumentation is beautiful and complex and so representative of the atmosphere of Pretty. Odd. as a whole.

2. Vices & Virtues

Vices & Virtues maintains the elements of uniqueness that I associate with Panic!, and I think is a great follow-up album to Pretty. Odd. It lets us know that no, they really will be doing whatever they want, that Pretty. Odd.’s ~oddness~ was not a fluke. This album was released in 2011, and although still very unique in its instrumentation, it is the band's first real step into a more pop sound. This was the album after Ryan Ross’s departure, and… lyrically you can tell that we have a new songwriter. Besides the bold artistic choices (ahem… the elevator music at the end of some songs?) that define the album, the best thing about it is Brendon Urie’s vocals. They get to shine in this album more than any other album, I think. This album is the definition of ambitious, but they met the ambition with solid sound and lyrically interesting tunes. We love to see it.

Best Song: Nearly Witches (Ever Since We Met...), it is instrumentally detailed and atrfully crafted, lyrically brilliant, and has such a grand/sweeping melody that makes you FEEL and SING ALONG, truly one of their best songs.

3. A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out

Panic! At The Disco’s debut album is pop punk like you’ve never heard it before. Released in 2005, this album is very original in concept but still a cohesive unit split into a traditional half and a more electronic half with the seamless Intermission. They are definitely trying to make a statement that they are UNIQUE, and here to make an impact on the scene. They have long titles, weird lyrics, and literary references all woven into a baroque pop/theatrical sound because they just ~aren’t like other girls~ and you know what it WORKS. It is a very impressive debut album. They swore to shake it up, and we swore to listen.

Best Song: But It’s Better If You Do because it fits so seamlessly into the album as a whole, is catchy, has great lyrics, and can be turned up LOUD. But honestly a lot of the album is equally as good as this song, in my opinion.

4. Death of a Bachelor

Death of a Bachelor, released in 2016, feels like a comeback album for me. Not that TWTLTRTD was really that disappointing, but the return to a more definitively rock sound was welcome. This was also sort of the return to the theatrical, Vagas-y feeling that A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out provided, and the return to the Panic! At The Disco roots allowed more pop punk energy to come forward. This was needed, as this was the first album that was just Brendon Urie on his own, without bandmates. I think this album is lyrically weaker than most of the early stuff, but it’s certainly not bad. Death of a Bachelor is scream-able and head-bang-able in your car or live on stage, and that’s all we can really ask for.

Best Song: Emperor’s New Clothes because when I heard this song for the first time I was so excited by it that I sent it to my friends. It was catchy and lyrically interesting, goes HARD and shows off Urie’s vocal range like never before.

5. Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!

You know, the autotune on Brendon’s voice was a choice.... but there are still some absolute bangers on this album. This is Gospel, Nicotine, and Girls / Girls / Boys are three iconically Panic! At The Disco BOPS, and they pull the weight of the entire album. Yes, this album is much more dance-pop and electronic than before, leaving the baroque elements and instrumentations behind, which to me is a step in the wrong direction. Combining that with the less developed instrumentation and less “deep” (for lack of a better word) lyricism that defined the previous three albums, it’s hard to put TWTLTRTD at the top. Released in 2013, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! was meant for parties and roadtrip scream-alongs. Standing alone, it falls short, but within Panic!’s discography it is an integral part.

Best Song: This Is Gospel, I think this is such a sad beautiful song and I cried both times I saw it live and it just has a special place in my heart. Specifically the piano version on YouTube is one of the best things that exists!!

6. Pray for the Wicked

Alright, Pray for the Wicked is not as good as the rest of the Panic! At The Disco albums… But it's still a pretty good album. All the tracks on this album are catchy, even if some artistic integrity is lost (see: Dancing’s Not A Crime). When this album was released in 2018, Panic! At The Disco was mainstream in fame, so they went mainstream sonically which lead to a very mainstream pop vibe. And keeping with that theme, every song has about five writers on it which leads to a very overproduced sound. I am hopeful that the lyrical genius and instrumentational ambition is still in Brendon Urie, because we still have glimpses of that in Pray For The Wicked, and when he puts out another album I will listen without any hesitation!

Best Song: Say Amen (Saturday Night), although I was tempted to say Roaring 20s because of my own personal love of that song as related to ~my~ 20s that are happening in our current “roaring” 20s. But, Say Amen (Saturday Night) is a bop, a banger, a slap, if you will. And that’s simply all there is to it. Most of this album is on even footing.

#panic!#panic! at the disco #patd #p!atd #album ranking #pray for the wicked #too weird to live too rare to die #death of a bachelor #a fever you can't sweat out #vices & virtues #pretty odd #Brendon urie #beebo

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actuallyrandomperson · 4 years

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My thoughts on the Sanders Sides Spotify playlists- Janus Edition!

Note: this is Purely me saying whether or not I like the songs, not theorising about any deeper meanings. I’ve done them all, so just click on the names to see my reactions to the others: Virgil, Patton, Roman, Logan

Impressions from looking through the playlist: Ok. So I am pumped by some of the songs on this playlist. Seriously. Prepare for my excitement over certain songs.

1: ‘Black Hole Sun’, by Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox, Haley Reinhart. So, this made me realise the original version of black hole sun isn’t in my 32 hour playlist, even though it’s an iconic song, so that’s been remedied! This cover was really cool, and also somehow more Janus-ey. Also I was gonna call bs on Janus’ intro just based on hearing this one song, but then I remembered lyings kinda His Thing so it was probably very purposeful. This is now on the 32 hour playlist.

2: ‘It Seemed the Better Way’, by Leonard Cohen. I mean, it’s Leonard Cohen, so obviously I liked this. It’s Leonard Cohen. It only made it to the 32 hour playlist though.

3: ‘Anywhere’, by The Scarring Party. This was jaunty, and another one I could easily imagine doing tap to! It ended up in the 32 hour playlist, but I don’t think I’ll specifically seek it out at any point in the future.

4: ‘Talking At The Same Time’, Tom Waits. This one I was a bit iffy on. It was interesting, it just wasn’t necessarily my cup of tea. I wouldn’t skip it in the future, but it’s not on my 32 hour playlist.

5: ‘all the good girls go to hell’, by Billie Eilish. This one was already on the 32 hour playlist, because Billie Eilish is iconic. Relistening to it on here prompted me to put it on the 10 hour playlist. Honestly, most of Billie Eilish’s songs belong on the ten hour playlist. I might go ahead and add them all. They are where they belong now.

6: ‘Denial’, by The Vaccines. This song was a bop!! It’s on the 32 hour playlist now, and I snorted at the combo of title and band. (get vaccinated, kids!)

7: ‘Trust In Me’, Scarlett Johanson. I haven’t seen the live action jungle book, but this song was good! It’s been ages since I saw the original as well, so I couldn’t tell you if i liked it more or less than the og version, but I liked it enough to add to the 32 hour playlist.

8: ‘Razzle Dazzle’, by Richard Gere. Over ten years of doing dance means that I’ve heard most of Chicago’s soundtrack through my jazz classes. This was no exception, and is on my 32 hour playlist now although it also made me feel sad again about the fact that I had to quit for medical reasons (but didn’t make me as sad as all that jazz, cell block tango, or we both reached for the gun would have). God I miss dance.

9: ‘When the Chips Are Down’, by Anais Mitchell, The Haden Triplets. One day, I’ll be able to watch hadestown. I mean. It’s a Greek mythology inspired musical. It‘s gotta be iconic. And also, this song was cool! It’s now on my 32 hour playlist.

10: ‘Mandy Goes To Med School’, by The Dresden Dolls. This one was interesting! It took me a while to work out how I felt about it, but I eventually decided I liked it enough for it to at least go onto the 32 hour playlist.

11: ‘I Put A Spell On You’, Nina Simone. Does anyone not like at least one version of this song? Because if so I’d like to meet them. This got added to the 32 hour playlist.

12: ‘Evil Night Together’, by Jill Tracy. This was cool as hell, very dark Disney-villain esque. It’s now in in my 32 hour playlist!!

13: ‘Cabaret: Don’t Tell Mama’ by John Kander, Joel Grey, Jill Haworth. Y’all can probably guess my thoughts on this song if you’ve read my other reactions, given it’s a showtune. It’s on the 32 hour playlist now.

14: ‘You’re a Cad’, the bird and the bee. The title of this song made me smile, and I ended up really liking it so I was glad! The only reason it’s not on my 10 hour playlist is I can’t decide if it feels like ‘normal people’ music enough. I might just add it, I think my mum would get a chuckle out of it if it played while we were baking together at least, and it feels like it would garner more amused looks than confused ones.

15: ‘As Far As I Can See’, by Phantogram. This song was a Bop! An unusual bop, but a bop nonetheless. ‘Tis now on the 32 hour playlist.

16: ‘Criminal’, by Fiona Apple. This song was a vibe. I really liked it!! It was only added to the 32 hour playlist, but it was cool.

17: ‘Change’, by Lana Del Ray. I really liked this one! I mean, I’m not shocked as I don’t think I’ve heard a Lana Del Ray song and Disliked it, but I liked the vibe of this one. It’s one the 32 hour playlist now!!

18: ‘Devil In The Details’, by Bright Eyes. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this, given I really didn’t like the Bright Eyes song on Virgils playlist, but I was pleasantly surprised by this one! I didn’t love it, but I liked it enough to add to the 32 hour playlist.

19: ‘Come Little Children’, by Erutan. Y’all know how at the start I got Really Excited about a song being on this playlist? Yeah. That was this one. An online friend sent me two of Erutan’s songs late last year (this one and the willow maid) and I Loved Them. I should probably add the rest of her songs to my 32 hour playlist. I just,,, hhh they’re So Good.

20: ‘Into The Unknown’, by The Blasting Company. This song was really good! It made me sway lightly in my chair, and got added to the 32 hour playlist.

Final thoughts: Before I actually looked at the songs in this one, I was not expecting to end up liking it this much. At the start, I figured I’d like Roman’s or maybe Patton’s the best. This one, however fit more into the corner of music with one off songs I love, rather than the music that I just like. My favourite New song would be you’re a cad. 19/20 were added to the 32 hour playlist, and 2 to the 10 hour one. I’ll reblog all of these posts later (when more people are likely to see it) with the updated times of said ‘32’ and ‘10’ hour playlists, as well as a link to said playlists in case the couple of people that see these are interested.

@thatsthat24

#sanders sides #sanders sides playlist #sanders sides spotify #janus #janus sanders #deceit #deceit sanders #thomas sanders #janus playlist #janus’ playlist #janus’s playlist #deceit’s playlist #deceits playlist #sanders sides deceit #sanders sides janus #janus’ playlist reaction #deceit’s spotify #janus’ spotify #spotify

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zitrolena · 5 years

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Sick of losing Soulmates: a song-inspired Crisana fic

youtube

Decide for yourself if you want to listen to the song before, during or after reading. Hope you enjoy! :)

-----

"So how long do you think Harry Styles' hair would be if he hadn't cut it when he did?"

Questions like these have increased dramatically since Cris relistened to a song by One Direction and hadn't stopped to listen to any of their members songs yet. It's been a week.

Joana sighed and looked to the weird girl that was sitting cross-legged opposite to her looking at her phone. Cris was a fangirl now - she came to the dark side and Joana had no idea what to do with that information.

Joana was not used to fangirls and it was especially new to her to be in a relationship with one. Fangirls were like a different species for Joana. For her it seemed as if they sometimes put other people's problems over their own or often even internalsied them as if they were their own.

But thinking about it she actually loved that Cris was a fangirl, or overall that everyone kind of was. What would humanity be if we didn't adapt and think about other people's problems? It just wouldn't be the same. Joana wouldn't be sitting here, wouldn't be medicated and definitely wouldn't be with a girl that she had given a thousand reasons to run. Life wouldn't be the same. Life wouldn't be as good as it was right now.

"What a strange being you are", Joana laughed and grapped Cris' legs, sperated them and put them around her own waist.

"Are you trying to distract me from my life-changing question with your weird Dangerous Liaisons Spanish accent again?", Cris asked looking up from her phone. She tried acting annoyed but it was obvious to both of them that the smile on her face didn't help her act. Cris was never a good liar.

"Well.. no. At least not on purpose", Joana answered leaning into Cris and kissing her on the mouth. Her lips were soft, covered with a smile and she tasted like the salt of their popcorn they've both shared before.

"Well", Cris mocked Joana when she leaned back again "This isn't answering my question either"

"I don't know, Cris", Joana sighed "I'm not as great of a fangirl as you are"

"You know, I actually could be an amazing fangirl, if things were differently. I would be the kind of fangirl that had their whole walls plastered with posters and I'd know all the lyrics! And I'd be on twitter 24/7"

"You are on twitter 24/7", Joana interrupted her and rolled her eyes "But yes.. God knows where I would be if you hadn't found me sitting all alone in the dark aswell."

Cris laughed and tapped Joanas feet "Yeah. That was a weird night". Did I ever tell you that I've done a screenshot of you the same night and kept looking at it and it drove me insane?"

"Wait, what? Where did you find a picture of me?", Joana asked confused.

"You were on a picture that Viri posted and you can't tell me you didn't try to be on it because You seriously looked straight into the camera", Cris chuckled.

"Oh you mean that photo", Joana laughed remembering the photo she saw on Viris' account "And for your information I didn't try to be on the photo. I'm just that photogenic that the camera always finds me"

"Ah well, of course. My bad!". Both started laughing and all of the sudden all the memories from the past month came flashing back in Cris' head. Her looking at that photo far too many times to be straight. Their first kiss that made her not wash her hair for 3 days because she was not ready to forget the smell of the water that Joana had pushed her in. The breathtaking moment Joana told her that she broke up with Eloy. Those two days when she forgot everything bad in the world cause she was just that happy because she finally had Joana. The back and forth and the I love you's. They've built so much history in such little time and she could only dream about the future. Their future. It's going to be so different than what Cris would have imagined a couple months ago.

"What the hell would I be without you?", Cris leaned in and kissed Joanas nose then her left cheek and then her right. It was like their own kind of making the sign of the cross, their own special handshake, the things only meant for them. "I mean seriously, who the hell would I be?"

"You'd be a fangirl who's not over the fact that Harry Styles cut his hair years ago. Next question"

"No seriously" Cris grabbed Joanas face in both of her hands "You made me grow so much it's almost weird to think about the past me"

Joana looked away embarrassed and closed her eyes "I'm sor-"

"I swear to god Joana don't say you're sorry now.", Cris laughed and shook Joanas head with both of her hands as if it was the only way to make her understand it "You changed me. You changed everything! And that's a fucking good thing"

Joana grabbed Cris' hands and took them off her face. "You grew because I put you through shit. That's not a good thing"She could feel the stunning pain in her chest again and she wanted it to stop immediately but it was easily said than done. Joana knew there was no reason to freak out. Cris made her choice to be with Joana and it was no one's choice but her own to do so. But it still hurt to think about all the bad things she had to go through because of her.

"We both grew, Joana.. We grew together". Eventhough Joana didn't look at her anymore but stared at the floor instead, Cris knew that Joana was fighting a battle inside of her. "Isn't that exactly what soulmates do?".

Both were surprised by that word but still Cris couldn't whipe her whipped smile off her face. She loved how romantic Joana made her and how all the romantic movies she made her watch actually rubbed off on her. "A soulmate is someone that wants to grow with you and who chooses you over and over again and will love you through good and bad. Love is about making it work, isn't it?"

Joanas frown vanished and changed to the smiley one Cris oh so loved. "I think a hopeless romantic overtook the body of my girlfriend and I'm not sure how to cope with it"

"Well all that could have been avoided if you would just have answered my question".

Cris grabbed her phone again out of protest and started scrolling through twitter when Joana tackled her and landed on top of her with "It would be long, okay? Very very long. Rapunzel-like-long. And soft. Just like yours", she said while she brushed over her hair.

Cris chuckled and let her phone fall onto the soft sheets of the bed "You gonna be a fangirl with me, now? Sure you want to suffer through the pain?"

"Yes.. or at least I'm gonna listen to you obsess over them. Cause I'm sick of losing Soulmates, so where do we begin besides understanding that we both have problems. I know I have some and now I can finally see, you're as fucked up as me. And if letting you fangirl over Harry Styles makes you a romantic, I'll gladly take that kind of suffering". Joanas voice felt hot in Cris' cheeks "This specific fangirl right here", she said while brushing her nose against Cris' "Won't be alone again"

"I like that", Cris said before Jaona finally leaned in to give both of them the kiss they've been waiting for.

#skam españa #crisana #crisana fic

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jortsman · 5 years

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Yooo 2 and 13 for before the century was stolen?

yessssss love both these! I’m gonna answer 13 first because 2 is long, hah

13. What music did you listen to, if any, to get in the mood for writing this story? Or if you didn’t listen to anything, what do you think readers should listen to to accompany us while reading?

I listen to so so much, except certain scenes when I’m getting really into them, I turn everything off and get into this super-focus mode. But! I actually have a playlist for writing this (though I throw in random stuff all the time) and here is that playlist. It’s 2 hours, hah, but that first song on there especially gets me into some feelings that are very blupjeans appropriate (like, put in some headphones and close your eyes and just chill while listening to that song and get totally emotionally wrecked. The song after it is pretty oof too).

2: What scene did you first put down?

It was their conversation in the lab in ch.14 (I’ll post the scene below the cut). I just finished relistening to TAZ and got blupjeans super stuck in my head, specifically during Stolen Century, and I read all of the fic that I could find that was in that particular vein of what I wanted to read. But, my brain was still all wrapped up in it and I was running scenarios in my head while doing my mindless job, and then was like... what if I wrote this down? I felt positive that I couldn’t actually write a legit fan-fiction or stay committed to a thing, but I convinced myself to just write this one scene, and it ended up being way longer than I thought, and I actually kind of liked it.

But then I got really into the idea of figuring out how/why things got to a place where they would have a conversation like that and started forming all of these ideas. And then I thought maybe I should actually try writing something for real, figuring that I probably wouldn’t be able to stick to it for very long, but it would be good writing practice. But now it’s been *looks at watch* 5 and 1/2 months, and I’m still so invested in this, and I’m just really glad that I allowed myself to write that first scene, because I was really close to not doing it and speed-running sudoku instead. But anyways! The scene is under this!

The lab was filled with a low, warm, golden light. Barry had obviously been hard at work since before the natural light from the couple of small circular overhead windows had disappeared into darkness.

Barry had the automatic lighting of the Starblaster disabled in the lab; sometimes he would need it to be completely dark or to have light focused only in a certain spot, so he used his own, manual light sources. That night, there was only one dimming, dying bulb on above his work space. Lup wondered if maybe he needed more light and was just too engrossed in his work to notice, but she was really digging the atmosphere; it was very homey and not so clinical or science-y. Lup was sitting in the swivel chair on the opposite end of the long, curved counter that made up the back half of Barry’s workplace. She kicked back away from the desk a bit, fully slumped in her chair, arms hanging off the armrests, fingers almost dragging on the floor, looking very obviously bored. She straightened and scooted towards Barry, who was moving between plant samples and his notes every few seconds.

Lup kicked at the ground to roll towards him, almost knocking her chair into his. “Baaaarry. I want something to do.”

Barry looked up from his work for the first time in over an hour. “Oh damn, yeah sorry, I was so involved in what I was doing that I forgot to catch you up on -- what it is that I’m doing. Which is not a great way to get your help,” and he chuckled even though he was obviously nervous and blushing. He was getting back to being a little bit more open after having clammed up some over the past couple years. He was talking with her so much more and frequently joking again instead of stammering out apologies over and over. And his laugh. She was getting a lot more of that lately, and it was the best laugh and she did what she could to hear it often.

Her boredom dissolved and she lit up knowing that he was about to teach her something new or just get her involved in some shit. And, that she had his attention. No, no, no. It was about learning and working, not about Lup being noticed. Lup was always noticed, but she didn’t always get to learn and gain new skills; that’s what made it exciting to spend time with Barry in the lab.

Time with Barry was productive and fun. Time with other people was about being noticed and the center of attention, which happened without her even trying or necessarily wanting that. But, there was something about having Barry’s attention that felt so different, and she couldn’t figure out why that was.

“So, I’m trying to develop a way for us to be able to determine if uh, starting with plant based food I guess, if we can find out what’s safe to eat in a more efficient, and faster way and with clearer results, y’know. This stuff is hard; testing things according to our standards and our knowledge of biological makeup of plant matter when we’re literally on alien planets. But, I figure I can do this now while we’ve got some down time, and it can save us time in future years. Figure the faster we can know what’s safe when we start a new cycle, the sooner we can get to real work.”

He was obviously genuinely enjoying working on a project that he came up with and assigned to himself apropos of nothing. He could have been using the opportunity for some rest, as most of the others were. Not Barry, though; he loved to work. But, she was also there, looking to him and his work to solve her boredom, so what did that say about her? He was about to talk, but she cut him off before he could expand on his idea.

“So, you came up with something to work on now, so that you can get to other work faster in the future. And I’m gonna guess that it’s probably so that you’ll have more time to work on other things between and after work? Maybe some things that will, hmmm, let’s see; give you more work?”

“What can I say,” he said brightly while shrugging, “I’m not livin’ if I’m not science-in’.” He laughed faintly, not because what he said was at all funny, but just because he was happy. Obviously, visibly happy.

After he he had spoken, while still wearing his goofy smile, he transitioned seamlessly into a fake, stereotypical, super nasally nerd voice and pushed up his glasses -- not in his normal way, but in a well timed, intentional way, and said “Me and science are best friends.” And Lup died laughing.

He was in such a fun mood and uncharacteristically confident and Lup was ecstatic.

“You!” she said with lingering emphasis, through a huge smile. “Are. SUuUch a NERD!” And then Lup did something that she’d done tons of times before; socked him somewhat gently on his arm. And then Barry did something he’d never done. The same thing, back to her.

And Lup was surprised. In a good way, but definitely surprised, and Barry saw her surprise and realized what he had just done.

“Oh gods, Lup, I am so sorry, I-I-I I don’t know why I did that or why that happened, what is wrong with me, I-I-I-- ” he was spilling out bits and pieces of words impossibly fast, his brain exploding as he saw flashes of their entire friendship collapsing within a moment. Lup interrupted him by leaning forward a bit and grabbing him by the shoulders. He stopped talking, but his mouth was still slightly agape and his eyes clearly showed the immense shame and panic he felt.

“B-a-r-o-l-d,” she said his name firmly and drawn out and with emphasis on both syllables, as if she was trying to wake him from a trance, which she might as well have been. “That. Was hilarious. I am so into this Barry that you are Barry-ing tonight, and I do not want you to freak out and never be like this again. Because one, it’s fucking cool and two, I don’t want you backing off from our chill hangs again, like last year.” He visibly calmed, though still a little nervous. Only really enough for her to be able to tell though; she’d become an expert of reading his face.

“Look. You shouldn’t ever feel bad about reciprocating, yeah? I punch you in the arm, it’s fair game to punch me in the arm. We are buds and it is okay! And, Barry?” She waited for him to make eye contact with her, and she was glad that his eyes had relaxed and were meeting hers in such a natural way; it was kind of distracting. “If anything ever did happen between us that wasn’t okay, I would let you know and we would talk. Listen. I would never throw our friendship away or let it change over some tiny thing. Or even a medium sized thing. Medium-Large, though? That could be taking it too far.” She smiled and he smiled with her.

He pulled in a deep breath as she let go of his shoulders and leaned back into her chair. He exhaled and said “I’m sorry I can be so, I guess easily shaken, and sorry that I --”

“Hey, Barry?”

“Yeah?”

“ Stop apologizing. ”

“Heh. Yeah, I’ll try. That’ll be a tough one,” and he drew in another deep breath, trying to pull his body back into sync, his adrenaline still a little bit off.

“I’m sor -- nope, stop,” he caught himself and partially covered his face with his hand in exasperation and momentarily closed his eyes, trying to think of how to say what he felt needed to be said without tearing himself down or apologizing profusely; things he had never even thought about working on before Lup.

“Your friendship is really important to me. And I guess -- hitting you in the arm like that felt really disrespectful. And, Lup.” He purposefully met her gaze again, “I have so much respect for you. You’re an amazi-” and his adrenaline was flooding him and his heart was gearing up to go wild, and gods, why did he start that sentence? He took a short breath, lowered his tone a bit, and forced some calm into himself just be calm for a second, he begged his body. Try to summon some of that professor mentality from way back when, from a lifetime ago.

“You’re an amazing person. I am constantly impressed and surprised by your work and how unnaturally fast you can learn. You are a good friend, a good sister, and a good colleague to us all. You are so needed and cared about.” He took in a sharp breath and gulped. “By everyone. And I don’t want to do anything to disrespect you.”

The words had to be forced at times, and he was getting more and more light headed, but it all came out and nothing was stammered or unfinished and left hanging or surrounded by apologies. He didn’t say a word wrong or spontaneously forget a word completely. He said it all, and he felt good about what he said.

What a fucking feeling .

Lup was taken aback. Just by virtue of being Lup, she had gotten lots of compliments throughout her life. She didn’t believe them all and she knew some come from a place of self gain. Many others she knew she deserved. Absolutely no one aside from Taako had ever said something even close to that sincere to her before, though. Was it only because she’d let basically almost all of her barriers down around him? Would everyone be that sincere with her if she were even less guarded with them? No -- that was just Barry. And she was either going to cry or say something really stupid if she didn’t reel the conversation back, at least a bit.

“That means a lot to me Barry, truly. Even though that first half felt a little like I was getting a pep talk from a dad or a teacher.” She got a small laugh out of Barry.

“You need to loosen up around me!” She went on, trying to turn the flood of feelings into excitement and sincerity and to drown out anything else that was knocking around in her head. “I am never going to be put off or offended or uncomfortable about anything you do, I’m sure. I want Barry unchained, let loose, uncensored, free roaming, all natural 100% grade-A-Barold, got it?” He smiled and exhaled and gave a relieved laugh. He got it, and he knew he was going to do whatever he could to be that for her. They met each other’s eyes with mutual gazes of deep warmth and calm.

But, she realized; there was something else very important that needed to be addressed. Couldn��t end on a joking note quite yet.

Her face went soft and then formed a furrowed brow and slightly downturned lips. She took both of his hands into hers as they faced each other.

“Barry. What you said about not doing things like that out of respect for me…” and she involuntarily, abruptly paused, something forming in her throat and not allowing her to continue. It was not quite a lump or a hiccup but more like a strain; a sudden half-second restriction of her breath. Because she was barrelling head-first into “serious conversation” territory, and that was territory that she had successfully danced and tiptoed around for most of her life, save for the conversation with him back in their ninth year -- but that was all about him, not about her being vulnerable. Now she was walking around the edge of a boiling vat of her own vulnerability and was about to either decide to jump down to safety or intentionally let herself fall into it. And why would she choose to do that? To fall? Why was she definitely about to do that? Her eyes couldn’t face his; she was looking down at his hands in hers.

“...do you think that I don’t respect you?” And at the end of that sentence, there was definitely a lump in her throat.

There was a long pause between them and then Barry stammered through several different beginnings of a response that he didn’t have. His voice shook and he was even more nervous than usual because he was taken off guard by the question and by Lup’s sudden shift in demeanor (and definitely, and probably mostly, by her hands holding his) and also because he didn’t know how to answer, because either he had to lie to spare her feelings (but he could never lie to her) or… he had to admit that he didn’t feel like he was respected. It wasn’t something that he was angry or resentful about and it absolutely was not something he demanded or needed or even wanted. It was just something that was absent, though he wasn’t even actively pursuing it or trying to get it from anyone. It was simply a fact that he was aware of. That he was certain of. He wasn’t respected.

As he stammered and fidgeted, Lup took her right hand away from his and raised it to his face. She cupped his cheek and let her thumb lay over his mouth to hush him. It was an intimate and soft gesture that made him lightly gasp but also, as her hand settled perfectly around the curve of his cheek and her thumb lay still on his lips, made him warm everywhere and loosened all the tension in his body at once.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said in a voice softer than he thought was possible to come from his boisterous and loud friend, softer than when they had talked on a more serious level in the past. She sounded sad, and his heart dropped. And him being warm and without any tension and a heart that just free-fell, he completely melted and his shoulders dropped, too.

She was looking straight at him, searching his eyes for something, and Barry was looking into her eyes without glancing away or lowering them as he almost always did.

“Barry. I respect you immensely. You are one of the -- no, actually, the most intelligent person I have ever known. I have learned so much, just by being around you. You’re approachable and kind and willing to share your knowledge, without so much as a trace of pretension. There’s no stick up your ass, like most of the people I’ve ever known who thought they were smart,” she barely smiled and exhaled sharply through her nose in a kind of almost-laugh. Then she was completely serious again; a look that Barry didn’t know what to do with or how to react to.

“You are — so knowledgeable, and you utilize that and apply it to your work, to which you are dedicated in a way that I have never seen anyone be dedicated to anything . And you constantly push yourself to learn more, and you share and teach everything you can to anyone who wants to listen, and you do it with patience and kindness, and…” and then she was the one nervously rambling. That was not Lup. She let her hand drop from his face and scooped his free hand back up.

“I have a lot of respect for you, Barry. So much. And I trust you, completely. But,” she paused and felt like she was on the verge of tearing up. “I’ve never said that. And I’ve never done anything to show it.”

She sighed and looked back down at his hands in hers, feeling warm at the sight, but still guilty. Barry was trying to put together a response, to protest, to tell her that she did so many things to show her trust in him, but he couldn’t find the words. All he could do was sit there with a slightly agape mouth and sad eyes as Lup continued.

“I can’t just expect you to know how I feel. So, now I’m telling you. And if you know me at all, you sure as hell know that I wouldn’t say any of this or get this vulnerable if I didn’t mean it.” She looked back up at him and she was finally actually smiling; a little bit weakly and through slightly watery eyes, but a real, happy smile. Barry’s entire body felt like it was on pause. But then, she dropped his hands and raised hers to smoosh each side of his face, looking directly at him and putting on her best mock serious expression as she leaned in close. Barry’s heart shot back up and into his throat with Lup that close to him.

“But, now that you know, you will never see me this mushy again, Barold,” she told him in an assertive tone. “You only get one Lup heart-to-heart, and you’ve just burned yours, cowboy.”

And she laughed, and Barry laughed even though tears were free-falling from his eyes without him even crying.

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sleepymarmot · 6 years

Text

COUNTER/Weight liveblog, part 3

Finale +post-mortem

Am I glad to return to the political big picture! It's such a relief that the finale is in this format! Hopefully it won't devolve into another “fighting a giant robot” scene.

Oh, so the Chime are leading the faction game now! Somehow I completely missed the point of the two previous scenes that indicated Aria becoming the new leader of the Righteous Vanguard – I was very surprised and then 10 minutes later went “Oh that's what it was, time to go back and relisten”

Pronoun update: Austin consistently uses “they”, Art consistently uses “he”. End my suffering…

The sheer comedic impact of seven Makos, Larry and Lazer Ted all in a room together has healed my soul immediately. Can we end on this image so nothing bad happens

I'm so proud of Orth!! “I'm sorry, which one are you?” lmao

Oooh the relationship drama~ But how come Jacqui didn't know Jill was alive? Actually, now that I think of it, back then it was clearly said that Jacqui knows Jillian is back and is sad because Jillian doesn't remember her. This show's retcons…

Look I know shit must hit the fan pretty soon but for now this finale is just. So relaxing. I'm having a lot of fun listening to these squabbles. (The only exception were Mako and Orth – boys, stop fighting, why!)

That Cass & Aria scene was cool but please don't give me world leader old friends sneaking away for secret stress relief sparring sessions when I'm not supposed to start shipping them

Oh hell yeah, I was hoping that since Jacqui went with Jillian, Aria would go with Ibex. (Not very relevant here, but Ibex is from Kesh like Maryland, right? If so, there must be fanart of young Ibex and Maryland in 19th century outfits?)

Stop cryptically saying oh Sokrates isn't here, oh they aren't using their candidate name, like what's up with them?! Are they doing well? I'm worried!

Oh Orth wants to dance with Ibex huh *eyes emoji* Rematch! Rematch!

“I'll take anything” “Anything?” My mind, of course, autocompletes “Then perish”

THIS WAS A LOT and I need to take a couple of minutes to start breathing normally again. Also there just has to be a lovingly drawn fanart adaptation of this entire scene (in, like, fukcing Leyendecker style), come on fandom please say someone has done it

Jacq/Jill continuing with the heartbreaking scenes, I see

Mako doesn't like dancing now…… holy shit this is the most upsetting ball ever… (The cynical part of me must say that it's only Austin who talks about this connection, Keith doesn't and still sounds way less emotional about the whole thing than the others assume Mako to be)

I amend my previous statement, I also need fanart with snapshots of every dance: Orth firmly taking Ibex's hand and receiving a surprised but approving look, Jillian throwing her head back in laughter and Jacqui watching with a pained smile, sullen Mako leaning on a wall cross-armed and looking for an opportunity to slip away, Cass dropping his one-liner with a completely dispassionate face.

Wow Ibex is really getting ready for death. Sounds as if he knows the exact date.

HOLY SHIT THE DIVINES' ORIGIN STORY!!! FINALLY!!! I'm surprised they were all created by the same person…

I'm relieved Mako and Orth are on good terms again!

I love the new Aria as this competent politician who does a lot of swordfighting and dealing with old flames

Have I mentioned I really love the game they're playing? It almost synthesizes the best parts of the game they played previously – as if it was written just for this finale. It's so great how this show and specifically this campaign go through so many games, showing the universe and the characters from different angles, instead of having them be defined by only one game system and its limitations and quirks.

That's some real good mech if it can function for 80,000 years, Divines' body or not!

Okay, I fucking knew Liberty and Discovery would split up at some point (which is what I meant above by my expectations for AuDy's fate), but why is Liberty attacking Ibex?

Mako's robots!!! :DDD Now that's the real finale shit!

I CAN'T BELIEVE Keith missed Tower's brief appearance of all things. It's like a fucking scene from the show on the level of dramatic irony. They were truly not meant to be, even the universe in real life is saying that. Do you ever get rejected so badly that the guy you like runs away from you at the prom, and then lets you fall into a deadly portal with the rest of your planet, and then you get brainwashed, and then you are killed by an ally of that guy, and the person playing him doesn't even witness that?!

I thought Orth was going to challenge Kobus about Liberty…

“I have Liberty contained” *winces*

Every time it is asked what is Mako wearing I just mentally pull out the popcorn

“I welcome anyone to tell Cass that AuDy is a non-person”

Let me restate how much I'm loving how the scenes that in any other show would be minor fluff or short summaries in an epilogue are a legit fully rendered part of the finale

Sokrates & Orth reunion please!!

Aw Ted! It never occured to me that this comic relief character has, in fact, lost his entire planet and almost everyone he knows.

…I think I like Apokine Cass more than Chime Cass

That's a big lore dump holy cow! I'm glad Apostolosians are ex-humans after all, but I wonder how they turned into fish people

So what happened to the idea of Mako hacking Grace?

They just… went and straight up murdered two Divines… If it had happened early in the show I'd probably cheer, and no tears were shed for Grace, but Liberty… Just take a third of another player character and drive it into a sun…

Of course. I knew Sokrates is the kind of character who dies nobly in a grand finale.

I've spent all this time wondering how the piece of Voice in Mako doesn't get infected by Rigor, and it seems to finally happen and Larry seems to die repairing it, but what about all other Makos, aren't they in danger too?

This is way too easy so far, just sacrifice NPCs one by one to win.

This whole time I was assuming Mako saved as many clones as he could, not just his own… If he gets another turn I bet it's submit or die :/

Hello I'm crying over Lazer Ted! Choices in the campaign sound futile now: who cares which guy Mako saved – they both died anyway! All named NPCs did!

Except for Jacqui. Congratulations, the NPC Who Lived! (I mistyped “loved” at first, which is also relevant. And yes, I cried here too.)

How the hell would falling into a sun kill Rigor if it was previously not killed by a bomb that destroys hundreds of suns?

Poor Cass… Not only sacrificing yourself in such a difficult way, but to have a final conversation only just to learn that your friend, a passionate revolutionary further empowered by Righteousness, has deserted… The sheer contempt and disappointment he pours in just three words “Ibex told you”...

Welp. Mako's fate was not tragic like I feared! Good news I guess, but it's still kind of sad. And I think the saddest part is that Mako himself doesn't realize. Because it can just sound like the natural continuation of his character growth – after he had to learn to be the responsible one first in contrast to Larry and then to the other Makos. But it's not that, or not just that, and it's kind of chilling to hear that he never knows it, and never knows peace.

Executive Joie, oh my… It's so strange and cool how Aria somehow continues the legacy of Jace and Ibex at once.

The race is over. It's so strange that now there are no consequences to fear or spoilers to avoid.

I didn't like the final battle as much as the rest of the finale – I hoped for a more clever solution than just throwing bodies at the enemy (but I guess the intro warned me lol…). Especially since these bodies had very unequal impact – I'm not going to care about Diego Rose or Chet Wise or Orth's newly-created lieutenants or as much as I care about Jacqui -- so it felt unfair towards players/characters who had more important or likeable chracters in their faction. I'm opposed on principle to making the big confrontation feel important and emotional just by killing off characters (hi, J. K. Rowling and Russo brothers), I think it's cheap and emotionally manipulative, but in this case the emotional manipulation doesn't even work so it’s doubly disappointing.

If someone's reading this, you can see that what I expected or wanted from the story was not what it gave me, and that was frustrating or disappointing at times. But nevertheless, it was a wild ride.

I've slept on it and it still fucks me up that out of the Chime only Aria gets a genuinely happy ending! Cass is fucking dead, Liberty is dead while AuDy becomes a ghost, and Mako loses everyone and is lonely for the rest of his life!

It's so strange to listen to the opening theme in the post-mortem and think that this is the second-to-last time. (Relistens don't count, it's not the same thing.) By the way, I love that theme – it sounds like a half song with the words on the tip of my tongue, like space, or like city at night. Really atmospheric.

I love how everyone continues to be into that moment where Aria has the opportunity to kill Cass lol (I am too)

Yeah, thanks for reminding me about that coin toss moment for Kobus in the finale, that was so sudden and shocking I was completely losing it for the long few seconds it lasted

I'm glad someone asked whether Jack knew the Big Spoiler in advance – he was so calm about it in the following episodes that I started wondering

Oh so it wasn't my imagination that the players needed the comic relief of the Lazer Ted episode no less than the characters

After a sad talk about Mako's dead friends, Andi, cheerfully: “I love to kill and I love to hurt and I never regretted anything I ever did! :D” which won the least surprising comment of the hour award lol. Honestly, after that one scene with Diego I started to get a bit nervous whenever Andi announced they had an idea… C/w was fun because I now realize the cinnamon roll Aubrey was actually them playing against type.

I love that someone asked about Mako's first kiss and/or Orth's fandom life!!

Keith's answer is sad, though… He “had literally never considered Mako even being capable of kissing someone, like it wasn't something on the table” and that was unexpected to me. I'd mentioned several times that he sounded reluctant to play up the romance, but I was assuming it was the player's preference, not an innate trait of the character whose attraction to someone was a part of his character creation. How do I interpret it? Mako is aro? Mako never had a chance to properly grow emotionally because his youth was fake and for the rest of his life, all emotional connections were sabotaged by Rigour's shadow, and also literally all his potential love interests died? Ugh, I just keep making myself more and more upset.

Holy shit I forgot about Art asking if there's an old Apostolosian mech on September by any chance lmao

Cene always knew?! Holy shit w h a t

It's nice to hear Ali talk about her growth in confidence as a player because she's definitely kind of an inspiration – for years I've thought tabletop roleplaying is too intense and I'll never do it, but when I finally tried out it was not so scary, so maybe there's hope for me too!

The concept that the real challenge of the final battle was that the easier it would be to defeat Rigor, the worse shape would the world be afterwards sounds much better than what that battle actually felt like to me. Instead of paying for victory with the health of society and their faction's political power, in the actual gameplay they paid with NPCs from their circle and that was it; the political consequences came later and sounded entirely unrelated. Maybe if they had to go against their faction's goals or sacrifice its assets – e.g. “use Minerva's Rigor-tech mechs in exchange for the promise to leave them alone afterwards” instead of “sacrifice all Mako clones”… Aria had something similar with Weight, but it was the price of Jacqui's life, not the price of a victorious battle against Rigour.

It's very cool to learn where the sound effects in the theme come from! And god, every line as its own take? My head hurts just imagining that…

Austin getting distracted by the idea of fucking Rigor was hilarious, but I never, ever want to hear the word “daddy” in this context! What's with these jokes this season, ew, please stop.

Excuse me, Ali wanted to kiss Ibex as who exactly, Jace or Aria? Both options are equally crazy!

See, “You wanna say ‘Oh he was just doing what was necessary, he was just doing the thing that's good in the end’, and yeah that's him working on you” is exactly why he reminds me of Dukat! Literally the same mind game on the viewers/listeners!

Why is the link broken, I want to see AuDy in Titanfall!

Listening to team “Fuck Ibex!” and team “Fuck Ibex ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)” yell at each other is very entertaining

“Nobody on the Kingdom Come is cishet” is a nice sentiment but I'm kind of confused by which definition of cis Cass is not. Have I missed something about them changing pronouns in-universe? Just because English doesn't have exact analogies for the Apostolosian pronouns doesn't mean everyone who uses them isn't following their own society's conventions. And now Austin also's saying “We never wanted to say these pronouns are equivalent to gender” which is, a, not true, and b, sends the whole problem back to square one – because if that's not the Apostolosian gender then what is? This! Is! A! Mess!

#friends at the table #blah blah blah

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relictraveler · 3 years

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thinking about doing more retrospective posts on here to encourage myself to like. consume more media and not just rewatch/replay things incessantly lol. also to think more critically about media because i am unfortunately an english major and i need to get better at that.

i finished i am in eskew last night! went through the last three episodes in one go. more specific thoughts under the cut but generally it was a fantastic first podcast for me and id recommend it if you enjoy more episodic and “[laughs nervously] what the fuck” type horror

okay more spoiler thoughts now

definitely did not expect it to go quite as like. literary as it did. i knew going in it would read more like a novel, which really helped me settle in because ive never listened to an audio drama before, but even in just its execution this feels like something i wouldve read in a literature class. its so well constructed and theres so many underlying themes i feel like it deserves going back to really dig into the text and get to the true meat of it

on that note its also a really great piece from a critical disability studies perspective. it reads definitely as a piece delving into how we attempt to navigate an abled world as mentally ill people thats already so unkind to us. how we live in a complicated relationship with that world because it claims to care about us and give us what we need but those gifts arent really gifts at all, more pittances and inconveniences made to reassure the abled that they did help when it did no such thing at all. i also feel you could really dive in to how the body horror plays into this but again that would require a reread/relisten and i need to let it sit a bit lol

i will say though because the podcast increasingly relied more on that above message, which i still think it did fantasticly, it became significantly less creepy as it went on for me. i think i stopped having creep out moments after kenneth’s death. if i had to pinpoint a reason i would say its because the focus increasingly shifts toward eskew’s personal relationship with david specifically rather than how it just fucks around in general. it was more intimate, personal, which made it seem more controlled and knowable as opposed to earlier episodes where it’s david trying to navigate rules and “games” he doesn’t fully understand. i dont actually think this is a bad thing because again the mental illness allegory is so strongly written its just a difference

riyo is such a good character. i fucking wish we got to dive more into her psyche than we did but i also dont because then that would ruin the mystery and mystique. such an intriguing character. genuinely episode 28 might be my favorite i fucking loved every part of it. a great short story on its own and also just a fantastic exploration of her character. love her

weakest parts of the show are when we’re not in riyo or david’s perspectives. theyre fine and the writing is still solid i just personally did not have much of an opportunity to give a shit about what happens to them as opposed to david because im so removed from them? like david and riyo just narrate it to you directly. the first episodes of eskew are david trying to cope mentally with his experiences by keeping a kind of audio journal. theres not much narrative distance because theyre either narrating directly to you or youre experiencing their direct thoughts later on. the non-david/riyo episodes have way too much psychic distance from the events. it might be the third person actually. the shows built under the assumption its delivered by david specifically it doesnt really work as well under any other context i think lol

not sure how i feel about that ending. i think ill like it more the more i sit on it, because im more warmed to it now than i was when i finished, i just wish the reflection’s narrative importance had been... foreshadowed more? earlier? we hadnt heard from the other david since like his introductory episode. it just felt really sudden when i first listened to it. again im fine with it because the writing was so strong and im probably not yet Attuned to its greater literary meaning yet but right now im just like? sure? sure????

overall though great podcast. love that depressed bastard and his morally ambiguous partner in crime.

#personal #grey talks media #thats it thats my tag now

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