I have been searching high and low for this video and cannot find it. From what I recall, the video is from some comedy special, about 30 minutes long, that is largely CGI and hosted by a comedian I believe named Bob.
The video opens with a real kid going into his bedroom and booting up his computer, when suddenly a CGI character pops out and pulls him into the internet. After some flashy stuff, the CGI character lands in some CGI setting, and transforms into the real Bob to introduce the show. Past that, I remember two skits. One was where the real Bob was doing stand up in a CGI comedy club to CGI characters and creatures. The second skit I remember was a CGI skeleton talking to a lady in a car after their date. If anyone can help find it, it would be much appreciated!
Additional notes: I feel like the comedian’s name is Bob O-something, but Bob Odenkirk interferes with those results. The video might be from the late 90’s, I’m not entirely sure.

In this dream, I was a prince of a nearby kingdom. As part of my engagement ceremony to the lovely Lady Yumi (yep she's the same girl who's in most of my dreams. It's always her.) I had to sneak into her dad's castle.
I and another guy who I assume was my best man, climbed up a rope ladder Yumi had left for us. We crossed this really long balcony that had magic cameras that shined wide laser beams across where it could see.
We hid behind boxes and under blankets as we made our way over, and it burned every time the camera passed over us.
We climbed into an open window into the hallway outside Yumi's room. I left a fancy decorated wooden sword, a rose, and a real shield belonging to my kingdom leaned against the wall next to her door. That let the guards know who I was and why I was there.
We walked into Yumi's room, and the guy with me drew on mine and Yumi's faces with a red marker. He left, telling us congratulations.
I took off my shoes and thick tunic thing, climbed into bed with her, and slept beside her.
In the morning, her father the king woke me up by poking me with the wooden sword. We then went through some cliche skit about who I was and why I was there, sounded like some Shakespeare play. It was cute.

The Harlem rapper released his sixth studio album on May 12, 2009, via Diplomat Records, Asylum Records, and Warner Bros. Records.
With production mainly handled by Skitzo and AraabMuzik, the album proved to be successful, charting at #3 on the Billboard 200 selling an estimated 45,000 copies its first week.
Tracklist:

1. Crime Pays Intro
   
2. Cookin Up
   
3. Where I Know You From
   
4. F**k Cam #1
   
5. Never Ever
   
6. Curve
   
7. Silky
   
8. Get it In Ohio
   
9. Who
   
10. Grease Skit
    
11. You Know What's Up feat. C.O and Sky-lyn
    
12. Spend The Night
    
13. F**k Cam #2
    
14. Woo Hoo feat. Byrd Lady & 40 Cal
    
15. Chalupa
    
16. Cookies-N-Apple Juice feat. Skitzo & Byrd Lady
    
17. My Job
    
18. Homicide
    
19. F**k Cam #3
    
20. Got It For Cheap feat. Skitzo
    
21. Get It Get It
    
22. Bottom Of The P***y
    
23. F**k Cam #4
    

Discussion:

1. Where does this rank among your favorite Cam'ron albums post-Purple Haze?
   
2. Is Get It In Ohio the ultimate rap anthem of the Buckeye state?
   

🪞
Welcome back to the Asylum write-up, where we explore the decade-long slow-motion car crash that is the Emilie Autumn fandom.
Sorry this installment took so long to upload! Just a heads-up, I may take some time to deliver the last one too – these posts take forever to format on Reddit's finicky-ass editor, and my dumb real life is currently keeping me from precious Internet time. Thank you for your patience! You have my word that everyone who pre-ordered the final installment will receive a PERSONAL, HANDWRITTEN letter autographed and illustrated by me, a list of the snacks I consumed while composing this write-up, some exclusive behind-the-scenes secrets, and a pony.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4.1 – Part 4.2 Part 5

Places, everyone This is a test Throw your stones Do your damage Your worst, and your best (...) And if I had a dollar For every time I repented the sin And commit the same crime I'd be sitting on top of the world today (“God Help Me”, 2006🎵)

Quick recap of where we left off. First, there were five to ten halcyon years of pleasant and meaningful interactions between EA and her blossoming fanbase, prominently by way of her official forum. Then, circa 2009-2010, EA's online presence shifted towards sudden anger outbursts, ban-hammering, and an increasingly top-down communication style.
This created a sort of primordial rift within the fanbase, between those who supported EA's right to speak her mind and regulate her own fan spaces however she pleased – and those who thought that her reactions were rude and inappropriate (at best), and that even fan spaces should allow for reasonable, non-abusive criticism of the artist.
Between a poorly-handled book release (see Part 3), the controversial (Part 2) or dubiously true (Part 4) contents of said book, and serious shade from various former collaborators (Part 5), more and more fans had pressing thoughts about EA's work ethic and choices. EA attempted damage control through drastic forum rules that made it virtually impossible to voice any “serious” critical opinion. It didn't work, of course: instead of squashing the mutiny, she created a schism.
Critical fans and active haters started congregating on unofficial platforms.

“WITH MUFFINS LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS ENEMIES?”: TROLL LIKE A GIRL

So here we were, the early 2010s. The official forum (which had about 700 members in 2006, if you recall) was now thousands-strong, reaching just over 12,000 registered users in 2012 – not all of them active, but still. In terms of sheer numbers and content creation, the party was POPPIN'... but increasingly in parts of the Asylum that escaped EA's jurisdiction, such as Tumblr, where they could speak their mind freely.

You play the victim very well You've built your self-indulgent hell You wanted someone to understand you Well, be careful what you wish for, because I do (“I Know Where You Sleep”, 2006🎵)

In one wing of Asylum Tumblr, a smattering of call-out blogs emerged, which laid out EA's various lies, faux pas, shitty takes, and general deep-seated terribleness in detailed timelines and screenshots (or, short of that, long-winded bullet points). While many such blogs framed it as “serious” whistleblowing and did their best to remain as fact-based and neutral as they could, there was some genuine disgust, animosity and creepiness towards EA on that side of Tumblr; for some ex-fans, “exposing the truth” was mostly justify obsessive hatred, prying and verbal abuse. Some, for instance, felt the bizarre need to side with EA's mother in their estrangement. (One user, with the URL “emilyautumnfischkopf”, argued in a serious and down-to-earth tone - but with zero sources - that EA's upbringing had been nothing but peaceful and supportive until she ungratefully kicked her loving family to the curb for no reason at all. They were later revealed 🔍 to have an alternate handle as “eaisalyingcunt”.)
Either way, through these blogs, a number of potential drama bombs that had mostly flown under the radar were dredged up from over the years – some of which were hard to ignore, even for supportive fans. Where to begin?
There was that nonsense in-joke song, captured twice on camera during the 2009 tour (to very little outrage, at the time), crassly called “Manatee Retard”📺. Or EA's scathing response, in print, to a wheelchair user who found it insensitive that she used a bedazzled wheelchair as a prop to do sexy acrobatics on stage. (“Your offence taken at my hard-won self-acceptance proves that I indeed have something to fight against”, she wrote). Spoken word tracks where she made trivializing knock-knock jokes about serious mental illnesses she didn't have, like schizophrenia and OCD. Multiple instances of calling Britney Spears a “bimbo” and a “Hollywood fucked-up”, resentfully claiming that she only shaved her head because she was “hopped up on drugs” and certainly not because she was “bipolar”, a word the press liked to wield as an insult anyway. (“That's almost like calling someone a retard!” Yeah, heaven forbid.) The meanest, most distasteful paragraphs in the book. Basically everything problematic EA had ever said or written.📝 In retrospect, it had been a long time coming, but it was a lot to take in – and certainly more off-putting, even to less emotionally invested fans, than silly lies about her age and last name.
In another wing of Asylum Tumblr, some fans had had it up to here and just wanted to have fun. 🎵 If Plague Rats had learned one valuable lesson from EA, it was how to crack a joke in the face of absurd tragedy – and the general state of the EA fandom certainly warranted a few.
In 2012, Fight Like a Girl was released. After six long years, three of which had been peaceful, the Opheliac era was officially over. The new album and ensuing tour confirmed that the Asylum had entered a process of glamorous Broadway-style militarization. 🎵📺
The mood board was “Roman general meets Vegas showgirl meets Victorian street urchin”.🪞 The color palette was, to naysayers, “musty pink and rotten, stale piss yellow”. 🐀 The keyword was “REVENGE” (through the power of... self-expression! sorority! brutal assault with rusty medical implements!). The chorus of the title song had an intriguing run-on line about getting “revenge on the world, or at least 49% of the people in it” 🎵 – which seemed like an awful lot, and was widely interpreted (to cheers, boos, or uncomfortable sighs) as a misandrist jab at literally all men on Earth.
The show was essentially a demo version of the musical, in that the setlist vaguely reflected the order of events in the story – but prior reading was essential in order to get what the hell was going on on stage. This one Broadway reviewer had not perused the literature before seeing the show 🔍, and hated: the set, the choreography, the skits, the plot, the lyrics, the music, the concept. (Seriously, you should read the review. It's not even my show and I feel like quitting show business.)
Pre-show VIP encounters, now violin-free, were lorded over by EA's new manager🐀, whose official title was “Asylum Headmistress”. (Interesting choice – she sounds fun!) The swag bags were less substantial than before, and the “greet” part of the meet-and-greet was rarely more than a quick hug and photo op.
On Twitter, EA continued to embrace her “I am very badass” fronting attitude...

Often wonder if cyberbullies r aware they’re fucking w/ a girl who’s BFs w/ maker of the SAW films & is marrying a knife-throwing scorpion. (🐀📝)

...and her taste for needlessly inflammatory statements. About an aisle sign in a supermarket:

If this does not infuriate you, then you're a fucking potato.

(Again with the confounding crypto-ableism, EA! 🔍) She also went through a phase of raging against Lady Gaga 📝, who had stolen her idea of using a wheelchair on stage as an able-bodied woman. 🔍 That failed to convince anyone that she wasn't the histrionic diva that haters made her out to be.
Spurred on by EA's rallying cries and “us vs them” mentality, loyalists turned the white-knighting up to 11. On Twitter, some Plague Rats got into cat fights with Lady Gaga's Little Monsters (what a time to be alive). Others tried to balance out the Tumblr negativity with initiatives like “Spreading a Plague of Love” – a “positive-only” confession blog, whose extreme fangirling, comically drastic rules and hyper-defensive tone📝 did not debunk the increasingly popular notion that “true Plague Rats” were a bunch of authoritarian and hopelessly brainwashed fanatics.
EA truthers and other anti-fans started lashing out at anyone who dared express any positive opinion of EA, solidifying claims that the backlash against EA was just a conspiracy of bitter, hysterical bullies.
All this to say: every passing day brought new reasons for fans to get mad at EA and each other, and everyone in the Asylum was in need of a laugh. It's not easy having a good time.🦠
Leading up to Fight Like a Girl and in the years that followed, user-submission-based meme blogs took off, most notably “Spreading a Plague of Lulz / Troll Like a Girl”. A lot of the early submissions were absurdist humor and toothless, cheezburger-Impact memes (a style that was, oddly, already dated at the time). Those often originated in good fun, and from loyal fans, on the official forum. But there was also true snark, satirizing EA's questionable ethics, outrageous claims, and easily spoofed artistic gimmicks. A new slang of Asylumspeak emerged: Glittertits (slight NSFW), GAGA!!, EA Gusta and all its memeface variants, Get outta mah house!, Are You Suffering?, Fight Like A Goat, [Random celebrity] copied EA (a subgenre in its own right), ...
Most of the “trolling” was directed at unrepentant bootlickers and, to a lesser extent, red-in-the-face haters and creeps. Meme blogs would post joke comments under “serious” or gushing submissions on Wayward Victorian Confessions, and taunt loyalist accounts by tagging them in their posts. When a few people complained on WVC that almost all of the Bloody Crumpets to date had been thin white able-bodied women, and a few fans responded by sharing their dream-casts for a more diverse line-up, the blog was flooded for days with confessions that “X should be a Crumpet” (candidates included RuPaul, Mitt Romney, Nicki Minaj, EA's therapist, and the WVC admins). Farcical shenanigans like that.
Ah, but some people will always cross the line, won't they. EA threads popped up on merciless, bully-friendly snark platforms like Lolcow, Pretty Ugly Little Liar, and Encyclopedia Dramatica. Snarkers with a mean streak and obsessive haters mingled in some of the more aggressive, 4-chan-spirited retaliation against EA – which would be called “brigading” in modern parlance. This included flooding EA's Goodreads page with one-star reviews (see part 4), repeatedly editing her Wikipedia page to include her legal name and birth year, and ensuring that Googling said name would bring up current pictures of her.
All of this compounded agitation fragmented the once-united fandom beyond recognition.🦠 Through substantial disagreements among fans, personal bickerings, layers upon layers of inscrutable in-jokes, and cross-platform telephone games, the Asylum morphed into a booby-trapped Escher room.
Satire blogs were taken in earnest. Earnest fan blogs scanned as satire. Memes would get called out as abuse. Appreciation without attached criticism would get mocked as bootlicking. Obvious jokes made by EA would be taken at face value. One divisive confession could trigger days and days of debate, to the point that WVC eventually banned confessions in response to other confessions. New waves of infighting created a confusing web of rival sub-factions🐀, each accusing the others of being toxic, cliquish, and delusional.
The shared fantasy was broken, the collective vision had crumbled, no onez was speaking the same language anymore. Fans would jump down the throat of other fans who held almost identical views about EA, except for that one thing she said or did that one time. Everyone had differing thoughts on what should or shouldn't acceptable to discuss, question, excuse, make fun of.
War is hell.

SCORCHED EARTH SHENANIGANS: HONEY, I SHRUNK THE ASYLUM

Would you tear my castle down Stone by stone And let the wind run through my windows Till there was nothing left But a battered rose? (“Castle Down”, 2003🎵)

Haters vs sycophants is not really the kind of conflict where one side can come out on top (if you're participating, you've already lost). But in the long tug-of-war between “grassroots” and “EA-sponsored” fan spaces, the ultimate winner is obvious – in that the former is gasping in agony, a shriveled husk of its former glory, while the latter... is non-existent. This is due in no small part to EA's tendency, like the Czars of old, to settle conflicts by setting Moscow on fire.🔍)
That's not entirely fair: unlike EA, the czar only did it that once.
By early 2013, as EA was gearing up for her third Fight Like a Girl tour at the end of the year, the official forum was... not as lively as it once had been. Not just because of the stifling rules and disgruntlement towards EA, or because EA herself hadn't really posted anything on there in years; the Internet was also changing, and forums in general were fast becoming passé.
This made it difficult for EA to create a safe space where she could talk to fans, and fans could talk to and about her, in a way she deemed suitable (ie, a space she could gate-keep and regulate enough to keep it completely free from negative criticism). Social media was a minefield; she still posted regularly, but didn't interact very much. So EA and the Headmistress came up with a way to filter out the unbelievers: an official fan club📝, aptly called the “Asylum Army”, with a $100 entry price.
Joining the AA came with a dog tag, a sew-on patch, and a lifetime membership certificate signed by EA and – for some reason – the Headmistress. (Unlike EA's best friend and sound engineer back in the forum's heyday, I don't think fans ever really embraced the FLAG-era manager as part of the Asylum in-group. She came across more as a coordinator / businessperson / adult chaperone, at best.🐀) So, slightly better goodies than you'd get by joining the other AA 🔍 ... but not by much. The main appeal was that members would have access to exclusive content, special merch, giveaways, early bird tickets for future shows, and regular video chats with EA.
The concept itself drew a fair amount of criticism, as you can imagine. Between the name🐀, the price, and the inherent gatekeeping of a pay-to-join fanclub, many balked at the monetizing of a concept that had once (like, three years back) been significantly more DIY, grassroots, and inclusive. 📝🐀
Then again, many also longed for a positive, drama-free space where fans could just be fans. And while the creation of the AA was generally recognized as a quick cashgrab, a lot of people were surprisingly cool with it. EA was trying to finance her dream musical, after all – although a number of fans wished she had gone about raising funds in a less sketchy way.
So around 400 fans shelled out (which, according to the Headmistress📝, “basically cover[ed] the cost of running the fanclub itself – keeping the database up, website, etc.”). Enough for a close-knit, but sizable community. But already, there was a conflict of interest: a high fanclub entry fee essentially demands that you pledge loyalty to the artist over loyalty to your fellow fans, who wish to join but can't afford to. Sharing, caring, and ensuring no one felt left out were some of the more positive values cultivated in the fandom... but leaking exclusive content would surely piss off other paying members🐀, and make EA feel betrayed all over again. (And she had barely just started to mellow out on social media!)
...But then again, this is the internet. After the first month of secret AA drops (lyric sheets, some photoshoot outtakes – nothing too juicy, really), there were, yes, some leaks. EA was predictably miffed, and retaliated by... ghosting the fanclub for weeks at a time in its first few months of existence (great look!). She eventually found the “solution” to her problem, by providing something you couldn't right-click-save (and which had been part of the promised perks to begin with): live interaction.
Over webcam, she was her usual in-person bubbly, charming, funny self. Everyone seemingly had a good time during the fanclub video chat, and this gave people faith and hope.
There were a few more events, giveaways, etc. As promised, ahead of the fall 2013 tour (the last one to date, it would turn out), AA members got priority access to show tickets and VIP bundles. The latter were much pricier than before, and only included soundcheck, a photo-op, and three goodies: a tin of loose-leaf tea, a signed printer-paper setlist, and a small flag that said “F.L.A.G.”.🔍 Some stuff continued to leak – but, as some of the outlaws pointed out (scroll down to the Disqus comments), they were mostly relaying information that was relevant to the entire fanbase, such as updates about ongoing projects (the dragged-out recording of the audiobook, for one).
In early 2014, lifetime memberships were closed, and replaced with monthly, quarterly and yearly subscription tiers. Bizarrely, you ended up paying $3 more per month if you bought a $99 yearly subscription📝 – but it did include the patch, dog tag, and piece of paper!

Sometimes I kind of want to be part of the cool kids and register to the Asylum Army. Then I remember how it came about, what you could get for the same price a couple years ago, how the whole thing was and is handled, and that I won’t support any of this bullshit. (And then I roll around naked in all the money I’m saving.) (🐀)

Still, a number of fans rejoiced at the affordable monthly option, and joined – if not for the exclusive content and merch (which were... okay, but not much to write home about), then for the friendly, drama-free exchanges with an artist they actually did love, in spite of all the frustration.
For the still-too-poor or still-undecided, there was always the forum! It wasn't as active as it used to be, but a few die-hards still managed to keep the lights on... until, inevitably, Someone Did Something and Ruined Everything. (Once again: EA's wrath is spectacular, but rarely completely unprovoked.) The incident features one notable figure in the Asylum community. Let's call him the Collector.
OK, so maybe you remember the meme I linked to in Part 4, with Christian Grey and the ginormous EA hoard. Well, that's the Collector's collection. The “Violin” promo that I called the "Holy Grail of the fandom" in the same paragraph? Also his. The handwritten lyrics that went for $940? Guess who won that auction. Over the years, the Collector had probably spent five figures on EA merch and shows, and although that fact was a little unsettling, he was a very active, easy-going, and generally well-liked fixture of the fandom.
One day in 2012, shortly after the Headmistress had replaced EA's old Chicago BFF as main forum admin, the Collector's account got banned or restricted over something dumb. When the ban wasn't lifted as quickly as he hoped, he took it... the way one takes things when one is unhealthily invested: he started spamming Headmistress and the mod team with increasingly rambling and abusive emails (lost to time, probably for the best). When that didn't work quickly enough, he tried a different route.
One of the many auctions that the Collector had won, some years prior, was EA's old iPod Touch📝 – which contained all of her favorite tunes and, buried somewhere in the data cache... a phone number. Which the Collector tried calling. And wouldn't you know it: EA picked up. She congratulated him on his sleuthing skills, listened patiently as he made his case, apologized for any distress caused by the unfair account restriction, and then they got married.
Kidding! She freaked the fuck out, hung up, and banned him for life from the forum and all EA shows and events.
After his ban, the Collector allegedly still tried to attend at least one VIP pre-show (one source in the comments says he was allowed to buy some merch, refunded for his ticket, and escorted out). He joined the Reform forum to bitch about EA and try to rally people to his cause, possibly made revenge posts about her on darker snark forums, and continued to hound the Asylum mod team. So in June 2014, EA came up with a radical and unexpected fix to the Collector problem.

The official Asylum Fan Forum has been shut down permanently. I have personally paid thousands of dollars each year to keep the forum safe and secure for you ... Unfortunately, the forum has not been kept safe and secure for me, a truth which disappoints me greatly, instead becoming a place where people who have physically threatened myself and my staff prey upon forum members, pressuring them to contact me and my staff on their behalf. If the gullible wish to humor my stalkers (who live in their parent’s basement at age 30 something) and thus put me in danger, they may do it on their own dime. They may also fuck off, because stupidity can kill, and I won’t be your victim. To those who enjoyed the forum, you know who to thank for its closure. (“On the closing of the Asylum Forum”)

Voilà! This is how a decade-long archive of shared history ends: not with a bang, but with a dirty delete and a sod-off communiqué.
The obliteration of the forum took everyone by surprise...

I was actually on the forum when it was taken down. I was navigating between posts and when I went to click on a different board, an error message came up. I honestly cried a little, I'm not ashamed to say. (WVC admin on Reddit, 2024)

...and I do mean everyone:

Chicago BFF / ex-admin, the next morning: Whoa, EA forum shut down? Ex-mod: It turns out that if someone spends enough years actively “waging war” to destroy what they can’t have, eventually they’ll be successful. * eye roll * Not even mods got prior warning. Just all the sudden, poof, gone. BFF: Really? She did not let the moderators know?! This is sounding worse and worse. Uggh. I’m so sorry. Such a loss. (...) Ok, threats are serious, but why not just put it in archive mode so no one can post? (...) Sad. I shall light a candle in the forum's honor. (Facebook posts; scroll down for screenshots)

It was a gut punch, especially for people who had poured countless hours into the community, or could have used some prior warning to save years of their own writing from the role-playing threads. One last chance to take a look around the place that had meant so much to so many.

From the wording of the announcement of closing the forum and a number of other things, it sometimes seems like EA doesn't like her fans much. :/ (🐀)

Three months after the forum was nuked, Battered Rose (a venerable EA fansite, which had been around since the Enchant era and had one of the most complete EA galleries online) announced that it was shutting down too.📝 The admin, who had also been a long-time forum mod, cited a lack of “time, energy, passion, or money” to keep the website going... and being upset at the sudden disappearance of the forum. It was, truly, the end of an era for the Asylum.
...Well, no point in living in the past. For those who could afford it, and still wanted to talk to/about EA after that (not everyone did 🐀), there was always the Asylum Army fanclub!
Over the summer of 2014, EA held regular live chats and Q&A's, and... many attendees really enjoyed them, and thought the AA was well worth the money after all. She also quietly parted ways with the much poo-pooed Headmistress around that time.

Just spent over 4 hours giggling, drinking tea and playing guessing games in chat with EA and other Asylum Army members ... No griping, no downers, just lots of fun. I think I like the way the ‘new fandom’ is going and now I’m really glad I finally decided to join the Army. (September 4, 2014🐀; Battered Rose had closed the day before)

The forum was lost forever, but perhaps that was a chance for a fresh start. Could this fanclub thing really be the Asylum Renaissance that fans had been longing for?

...I have come today to a very difficult but necessary decision, and that is to discontinue the Emilie Autumn Official Fanclub. The site itself, and the community chatroom, will remain open to you indefinitely, but I will no longer be making updates to the site. (Newsletter, September 8, 2014📝)

...Never mind, then.
Turns out the fanclub had been the Headmistress' idea all along. EA had been reluctant from the start, and although she really enjoyed the live chats with a safe community of people “who are there for the right reasons”, she couldn't overcome her fundamental discomfort with the concept. Lifetime and regular members would receive a bunch of digital downloads and a -35% coupon on the Asylum Emporium for their troubles. EA said she would definitely pop back once in a while for live chats, for free, just for fun, but to my knowledge, she never did.
And so the most devoted fans were left standing in the rain...

She is happy, she made it. She is fulfilling her dreams, found love and happiness after all the pain. I understand that she now doesn’t need “us” anymore ... That doesn’t change the fact she broke my heart with taking the Asylum Army and the forum from me. Yet, I am happy for her. (🐀)

...while naysayers pointed and laughed, Nelson-style.🦠

I don’t feel sorry at all for the people that paid for the Asylum Army fan club. Most of them knew that EA is an atrocious business woman and has broken many promises before. In fact, I laugh at them. They seriously thought that EA would actually stay consistent with this? (🐀)

EVERYTHING MUST GO: THE ASYLUM WHOLESALE

EA fans were left without an “official” home for about three years. This gave them plenty of time to be annoyed at EA for: not releasing the audiobook on time, not materializing any new project for a while... and the new sin of peddling random, ridiculously marked-up AliBaba jewelry as “merch” on her official store. Think faux-antique cameo pendants and $30 Big Ben rings (...because the Asylum story is set in London, get it?).

The whole accessories section looks like a tacky overpriced English souvenir shop. (🐀)

The fanbase lost a lost of steam in those in-between years, because there wasn't much to stick around for. As evidenced by the positive reception of the AA live chats, even in the midst of unresolved drama, out-loud interactions in a friendly environment have always been EA's saving grace. Considering the amount of online hate, there are shockingly few accounts of bad IRL encounters with EA: most people say that in live conversation, she comes across as a fun, warm, and genuinely sweet person. Some report that their negative opinion shifted after meeting her.
But there were no chats or live shows anymore. There was only social media, where she ignored questions and vague-posted about overdue projects – and the newsletter📝, which was all saccharine love-bombing to promote bland dropshipped trinkets. For fans who remembered the handcrafted merch (and two-way communication) of the early years, it was a bitter pill to swallow.

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

​

About DJ
[](https://imgur.com/a/MzsJJtM) I live in the Midwest (apologies for my region of the country) and write M/M romances about everyday life but extraordinary love featuring a variety of queer characters, from gay to bisexual to asexual. I spent more than a decade in the newspaper industry before pursuing my first dream to write fiction. I am a lifelong introvert and avid reader, and I continue to get my social fixes through books and a screen more than any other way!
I’ve been published since 2015, but I wrote my first piece of fiction in second grade. It was a skit about dental care, and the teacher had the class perform it.
About DJ’s Books
I write low-angst, tropey, fun contemporary M/M romance. I’ve gone through some evolutions as an author, and in the past couple of years, I’ve been writing more quirky small-town romances with tight-knit groups of friends, nosy neighbors, “punny” business names, and old ladies who make a nuisance of themselves but have big hearts!
I really enjoy the world building in these types of books where the town is like another character that readers enjoy. But I also have quite a few books in my catalog that are not so focused on the small town aspect. Thrust into Love, for example, is about college students and app hookups that go awry in all the best ways.
My newest book is Dock Tease, Book 1 of Swallow Cove, set in a quirky lake town in the Ozarks. I am also writing a Rom-Com Reboot series inspired by Hollywood movies. Sexless in Seattle is out now, and You’ve Got Male is dropping May 22.
My most popular series is Games We Play, about a group of friends in small-town Granville stumbling into their HEAs via party games like Never Have I Ever and Truth or Dare. Two Truths and a Lyle, a prequel novella that launches that series, is free!
My entire catalog is in Kindle Unlimited (except for Lyle, which is free). I also have a growing selection of audios, some of which are distributed wide.
Where to Find Me

• Visit my website ReadingDJ.com
• Visit my FB group, D Town, or find me on Insta
• Newsletter + free bonus content
• Join a membership to get your HEA’S sooner with early access to WIPs, advance ebooks, and more.

GIVEAWAY
To show my appreciation to everyone for being here, I’d like to give away your choice of an ebook or signed paperback of my newest release, Dock Tease! As long as you’ve asked a question below during the hours of this AMA, your name will be entered to win. The winner will be chosen at random after the AMA and contacted through Reddit!

1. Fremont Street Experience - 3 stages with Live bands, plenty of street performers, 2 OG casinos (1 of which lets you take a picture with $1,000,000) plus plentiful bars/restaurants. Spending money is not required. We didn't make it at night, but from what I understand it is a good show. During the summer there are more popular artists that perform in the area.
2. Buy a bus pass. $20 for 3 days of unlimited rides. Bus stops at most casinos on the strip as well as Fremont Street. It can get crowded, but it is far cheaper than Lyft/Uber or parking your own vehicle.
3. Plan on having cash on hand for tipping. They gave us a booklet with recommended tipping amounts for just about any potential service you could require. On a budget you don't want to be that tourist that doesn't tip when expected, but you also don't want to overdue it. Just a quick few (Bellhops $1-$3 per bag, Housekeeping $5-$10 per day you have them clean, Buffets $5-$10 per person)
4. Just about everything else can be purchased using Credit/Debit cards. Even a lot of the street performers take digital payments now (Zelle, CashApp, Venmo, Paypal)
5. High Roller observation wheel - If you are 21+, I would recommend getting the "Happy half hour" tickets (Cost a bit more but include unlimited drinks on your ride) which can be used at any time of the day, but definitely go at night. Pods are supposed to hold up to 40 ppl, but when we went we had about 12-15 people besides us. Plenty of room and plenty of time to get your drink on.
6. Wear comfortable shoes, When looking at a map it can be deceiving how far things are from each other. You will find out quickly that you will put some mileage on. My wife and I averaged about 9-10 miles of walking per day, and that was with us trying to avoid it due to medical issues.
7. Hotel - We stayed at the Hilton Grand Vacations, it's a very nice hotel. Our room was massive, included a full kitchen, dishwasher, dishes, washedryer, and an in wall safe. Be aware, they will ransack you with signing up for a sales presentation. If you are willing to sit through the presentation you will score some goodies, like free show tickets or free dinner, etc. You are under no obligation to buy anything, but if you want free... this is a good way.
8. Speaking of washedryer in our room, check your booking closely to see if you have one. If you do, make sure to not overpack. We stayed a week and probably could have packed for 3 days and been just fine.
9. Book a room with a full kitchen if possible. We went grocery shopping after checking in and stocked up enough basic foods for the week so we didn't have to eat out every meal. When every meal is going to cost you a minimum of $15-$20 per person basically everywhere, it can add up quick. Plus all of the dishes were included, we just had to wash them. They also provided dishwasher detergent.
10. Resort Fees - Be aware of the hotel charging resort fees. As far as I am aware, every hotel on the strip at least has resort fees. HGV had one at $30 per night (Which literally paid for our "complimentary"Wi-Fi, having a phone in our room, and being allowed to self park) Valet was $40 per night billed on our hotel tab.
11. Do not engage with the sales people on the streets unless you are truly interested. It is easy to get scammed and you aren't getting your money back. They also will hound you if you show the least bit of interest in what they are doing. If you bring kids, be aware that there is a TON of pornographic material/cards being handed out or offered in newspaper style machines. Not to mention the "showgirls" that are wandering around with very little on offering to take pictures with you (for a fee of course), there are also BDSM women that walk around and offer to spank you, in front of everyone of course.
12. If you are a people watcher, be aware there are limited areas to sit and just people watch unless you sit at a barestaurant. There are surfaces around to sit on in some places, but I wouldn't count on it.
13. Our 2 favorite restaurants on our trip. Margaritaville (Which we were informed will be closing down it's current location due to their lease expiring, but they are looking for a new location.) and Heart attack grill. If you don't know what either of those are, go on youtube and search. Heart attack grill is a themed restaurant and it is geared towards unhealthy eaters (or fat people if you will). Food was delicious though. Margaritaville had great food, great atmoshere, and great service.
14. Buffet - If you are tempted to spend $$$ on an expensive buffet, be aware they really aren't worth the cost if you are on a budget. We went to the Wynn buffet ($75/person) which included our non-alcoholic drinks. If I had known then what I know now, I honestly would have ONLY gone for dessert. While there is a large assortment of really good food, it is all designed to fill you up quickly and there is just about zero chance you get your $75 worth unless you are a professional eater (or eat like one). But going for desserts, you have so many different choices to try and the portions are smaller being desserts. If you were to buy these desserts at a normal restaurant, they would price between $5-$25. That means you can quickly get your $75 worth without overeating. As of this post, Wynn buffet is the 2nd most expensive buffet, behind bacchanal. We only ate at the Wynn buffet, but there are also more reasonably priced buffets around $30-$50 per person.
15. Blue Man Group - If you haven't heard of them, look them up. They are a comedy show, but not stand up comedy. It's skit based, involves lots of music and crowd interaction. There is NO TALKING from the members of the blue man group, they only act. Which just adds to the show, we loved it. It's a little pricey, I paid about $135 each for tickets... but it was pretty much the highlight of our trip.
16. Any restaurants you plan on visiting, make reservations. Most you can make online. It may not be needed, but if you show up and there is a line down the block, you get to skip the line. Well worth it, just make sure you are there on time or you lose your spot.
17. Avoid buying tourist trap excursions off websites claiming to give you a deal. 99% of them are either the exact same price as if you walk up to the venue or possibly even slightly more expensive. Not to mention, they are literally called a tourist trap for a reason. If you have money to blow, have at it. But on a budget, you won't miss out by not getting sucked in.
18. At basically every restaurant there will be a photographer walking around offering to take pictures. Don't be fooled into thinking these are free photos. They will give you one complimentry photo that is tiny, like as small as those instamax cameras (1x1 photos). They will offer you 2 larger photos (4x6) in a (not so) fancy cardboard photo frame. At the time of this post, it was $20 per photo. *Tourist Hack* If you want the photos, tell them you do not want them and they will offer you both photos without the cardboard frame for $20. This worked at every single restaurant that we hit. Although, we only purchased twice, because how many restaurant photos with logos and crap on it do you need?
19. If you really want to save money, do things OFF-strip. Everything on the strip is pricier, I do mean EVERYTHING.
20. All gift shops have basically the same things. We visited the "Worlds Largest Gift Shop" and also one called ABC gifts (or something like that). Honestly, the Worlds largest felt crowded and overwhelming. The ABC shop we went to had some nice things in it that we bought, I would recommend them.

*edit*
Look ladies and gents. This is not a TOP 20 list, it is not a must see/do list, it is not comprehensive nor complete. These are SOME suggestions based on experiences we had during our recent trip to LV. If you don't like them, that's cool. You do you, enjoy your life the way you want to enjoy your life. We didn't go to LV to gamble, we went to enjoy ourselves, and we did. If you have constructive criticism, I would be will to listen to your opinions and suggestions. Don't knock what my experiences were just because you don't like them. List your experiences, your sugestions, your opinions.. but don't put others down. But I digress, I hope each and everyone of you enjoys life the way you want to enjoy life. Don't take my word for it, make your own decisions and enjoy yourself.

hello! im currently looking for a comedy show(or something) for my mom that she watched as a kid, i have no clue how to find it so i figured my best bet was coming and asking on here
all she remembers are a few bits of some of the skits, these include:
“where the hell did that come from and why me? what /motivated/ you?”
some lady talking about making jello something along the lines of “half cup warm, half cup cold, this is hard” or something
and someone saying something about if you want to streamline your morning routine, put toothpaste on your bagel instead of cream cheese, just dont drink orange juice with it
edit: she has now also mentioned there being a stage, so i think it may have been stand up? she said something about a lady jumping across stage
edit 2: she has confirmed it was stand up comedy on a stage! she also specified she thinks its from the LATE 80s /maybe/ early 90s, like 91 at the latest
no clue what these are from but i really want to find it and see if i can watch it somewhere because i know it would make her and my uncle happy if you can help thank you so much, if not thats okay :D (i did originally put this on comedy but was told posting it here might help)
edit 3: she has also now said it was not on Nickelodeon

hello! im currently looking for a comedy show(or something) for my mom that she watched as a kid, i have no clue how to find it so i figured my best bet was coming and asking on here
all she remembers are a few bits of some of the skits, these include: “where the hell did that come from and why me? what /motivated/ you?” some lady talking about making jello something along the lines of “half cup warm, half cup cold, this is hard” or something and someone saying something about if you want to streamline your morning routine, put toothpaste on your bagel instead of cream cheese, just dont drink orange juice with it
no clue what these are from but i really want to find it and see if i can watch it somewhere because i know it would make her and my uncle happy if you can help thank you so much, if not thats okay :D

The first ten qualifiers have been decided. Today, the media, accredited fan press and later this evening the first live audience get to watch the second semi-final in full. Our team also has accreditation and will be covering both dress rehearsals today for you to enjoy!

How will this coverage work?

The format will stay the same as on Monday. In this afternoon's thread, we will be trialling running our commentary a new way. I will be updating this thread after each performance with my rough thoughts on each rehearsal, with some additional thoughts and comments from some of the other mods too. Please keep refreshing this thread - new updates will be added to the bottom of the OP roughly every four minutes!
For this evening's jury show/dress rehearsal 2/evening preview, we will be covering the rehearsal via Reddit Live like we did last year. This will allow you to read a variety of voices and thoughts on the performances.
___
15:47CEST: The stream is now live! The show will begin with a recap of the first semi which is yet to be edited.
15:49CEST: After a short intro where Malin and Petra parody Tattoo and its staging from inside tanning cubicles, our hosts open up the show, a lot faster than for the first semi! We missed a skit in the first bit due to stream lag, but seems there's a joke about France/Italy/Spain all performing in the semi. Malin is in a yellow-pink short dress and Petra in a regal red gown. The press in attendance give a warm round of applause and the show begins!
Song 1: Malta
Postcard: The songs of choice are 1998 and 2021. Sarah is enjoying the outdoors in Malta, including a moment with a cockatoo!
Performance: Sarah is a little weak vocally but it sounds to me like she's saving her vocals, apart from the massive note at the end which she nails! Stream lagged for the second verse sadly so we missed it - before that there's a lot of green graphics which I'm not sure have been seen much in the galleries. Sarah is clearly enjoying herself and hitting the cameras well. Some of the camerawork is clever, but there's still a lot of wide and panning shots. A decent opening all things considered.
Song 2: Albania
Postcard: Afraid my internet is really not having a fun time, so we missed the first song in the postcard, but of course 2012 is the other one.
Performance: Besa has another new costume! A kind of aquamarine blue-green dress with a hood - it's better than the weird astronaut costume she first chose but I think I prefer the second rehearsal one. The stage feels so big and empty in this one and it's hard to put into words given there is a lot going on, from dancers who are stood in front of Besa, to hands and other dancers on the backdrop and stage floor. She encourages the audience to sing along in the first chorus. Vocally she's fine apart from a couple of duff vocal acrobatics at the end, but I think what's going on is distracting more than helping to amplify the song. She looks pleased with herself as she leaves the stage.
Song 3: Greece
Postcard: 1974 and 2005 are the songs of choice! Marina is enjoying the city, with images of classical Greek statues of course.
Performance: The performance starts of in a trimmed aspect radio like it's an instagram or tiktok video with heart emojis rising on screen. The main kicker here is whether the single camerashot works. It's working for fellow mod CaptainAnaAmari, but I'm a lot less convinced - it doesn't match the energy of the choreography for me. She's also pretty weak vocally, ever so slightly flat throughout. We finally get a different camerashot in the last minute with a really cool ceiling shot which goes inside one of the cubes, and then we get more conventional camerawork, with lots of wide shots and and panning shots. The stage is really pretty and colourful on the whole.
Technical Issues: Unfortunately, we've lost access to the livestream due to refreshing the stream too many times to combat stream freezing. We're trying to regain access at the moment by contacting the help desk but I'm afraid we're going to miss quite a few songs. We caught a very small bit of Switzerland, which confirms Nemo does indeed have a slightly different costume - it's still pink and furry, but with more of a collar if that makes sense? They were singing brilliantly as ever but afraid we saw too little to make much more comment.
We are now waiting for a response from the help desk (we know other people have also had this issue). Sorry for the lack of commentary in the mean time!
We're back! No response from the helpdesk but as many others were having the same issue (i.e. Discord, ESCUnited) it seems like they've stopped that restriction. No more stream refreshing I guess! We caught the end of Latvia, which is basically what was on the clip. Sadly that means no Switzerland, Czechia, France, Armenia, Austria, Denmark, Armenia and Latvia in this coverage, but we'll cover them tonight. We go straight from Latvia to...
Finalist B: Spain
Postcard: I missed the oldschool song due to the excitement of reviving the stream, but of course 2022 is the more recent one. A brief technical delay after the postcard and then we're in...
Performance: Mery and her dancers start off inside the cube. The press in the arena love it and are singing along, of course. One of the dancers (not the ginger one!) had trouble with his costume change and they had to pause their choreography whilst he tried to get rid of the stray trouser leg. Mery is vocally how she always is - just about on tune but flanked by a lot of supporting prerecorded vocals. The camerawork feels quite messy to me, although there's a cool top-down shot near the end. The final chorus has some light pyro.
Song 10: San Marino
Postcard: No ad break or skit before or after Spain, interestingly. The featured songs are 2014 and 2019 - how dare they erase 2021 like this!
Performance: Sounds to me like Kenzy is saving vocally here, she's basically just talking the chorus. The staging is so colourful and fun, there's some really cool camera angles and use of the cartoonish visuals, and there's also a slight revamp to the instrumental break and final chorus, and loads of pyro at the end! San Marino aren't here to play - if you liked the snippet, you will love the full performance. A couple of untidy camera angles but nothing they can't tweak.
Song 11: Georgia
Postcard: 2015 and my favourite ESC song of all time 2007 are the featured songs! (CaptainAna is also very excited by these choices)
Performance: Starts off very atmospherically with the stage very red and Nutsa on her pedestal. If you have 'projections of artist on the backdrop' on your bingo card then this is the performance for you. It seems from the backdrop also that the fire Nutsa is attempting to put out is in fact the sun. Nutsa's perfect, powerful vocals rise above a layer of support prerecorded backing vocals. Really polished - if Georgia fail to qualify again this year, they certainly can't blame Nutsa and the staging.
Song 12: Belgium
Postcard: Belgium's winner, 1986, and 2015 are shown. As my flair indicates, this is one of my favourites this year so I am very nervous!
Performance: The performance starts out with intimate camerawork focussed on Mustii in the dark - he's then illuminated and steps forwards towards the halo of mics. A slight change of costume - his hands look a lot more gold to me than before, and the shirt is different too. The camerawork is working for me, although I still think they could have done more given how good the video is. The chorus has a very isolated bit of dry ice which seems to just be on his platform and kinda masks him. Vocally he's about the same as he has been so far in rehearsals, a bit pitchy generally sadly, especially in the falsetto of the chorus. He's more on tune in the 'before the party is over' to me, although the stream was deciding to lag for the first time since we got back online. I still think this song is strong enough to make it, but he's not done enough here to persuade his doubters yet.
Song 13: Estonia
Postcard: 2001 and 2009 are shown.
Performance: Afraid as much as I love this song I've not learned all the guys names, sorry! #shoddyjournalism. Anyway, it starts off with the first dude off stage making his way to the stage. He's shouting the vocals more than singing and is pretty out of tune, although the nature of the verse means it doesn't matter too much. These shouty vocals continue all out from most of the guys sadly. The lads are having fun, but I really think this feels both empty and messy, kinda like Albania earlier. The guys doing the veisson are projected onto the background at one point too, but I just want a stable camera angle to focus on the dance and its brilliance instead of darting around all over the place. We love this song, but will the casuals?
Qualifier C: Italy
Postcard: Again, straight into Italy without an ad break here. 2021 got featured, unfortunately I missed the first one due to typing up my thoughts on Estonia.
Performance: And the stream freezing is back in full force - maybe other press are all focussing in for one of the favourites! Angelina is back in the costume for the first rehearsals. Not convinced it works still as it blends her and her dancers into the already too dark stage. The stream was dead for the entire first half of the song, but we came back to Angelina owning the camera on her thrown flanked by her dancers. Angelina is brilliant as we all know but she could do with some better camera angles - she and her dancers get lost in the wide shots.
Song 14: Israel
Postcard: Still no ad break, are we having an ad-free show?? 1991 and 1998 are the songs of choice.
Performance: Eden starts off in her circle seemingly alone before the dry ice clears and her dancers appear on the edges. It looks like they've toned down some of the more aggressive 'dance moves', though their general movements feel way too much to me still - kinda like Georgia 2010 where the vocalist is impressive but the choreography is distracting more than complimenting. Eden is vocally flawless including the scream notes. The song ends with an orange light on the back fading. An effective performance on the whole.
A brief break, finally! With Petra reminding us how to vote. But only for ten seconds or so, maybe they need extra time to remove the prop.
Song 15: Norway
Postcard: 1986 and 2009 are the songs of choice. The band are skiing and playing cards, not at the same time.
Performance: After a brief technical delay, we're off! The blue laser lights from the ceiling look really effective here and the stage floor graphics are very clever and atsmospheric. I can't help but feel like it's lost some of the edge and magic it had in MGP though where the pre-recorded film inserts really added. The camerawork, although again it could still be fixed, is still relying too much on wide shots and panning angles when I just want to be intimately in the moment with the band.
Song 16: Netherlands
Postcard: 1998 (robbed!) and 2019 are the choices.
Performance: Well, as you'd expect from Joost the stage visuals are a feast of gags, including a stretched version of Joost's face, the polygonal Joost running in the background, the 'this graphic is unfinished' and a couple of other gems. The bird is still there, the melodic 'Euro-pa-pa-pa-papa-pa-pa' bit is all prerecorded backings, and he's still allowed the subtitles for the final speech in the sad bit. No tears from Joost this time, but it's still an effective ending and the camera lingers on that poignant final note. It's good fun, but it is obviously nowhere near the ridiculously high level of heights his hype team built up and if you expect anything more than a fun, light-hearted performance you will be disappointed. For all the theories, there is no big surprise.
17:21CEST: Petra and Malin arrive and open the voting!
Recap 1: The snippets are all the same basically as what we've already seen, so unfortunately I can't glean much from the songs we didn't see. Kaleen freestyles a bit in addressing the audience but is vocally shaky. The sad outro is the Dutch choice of clips.
Interval: Sing Along. Malin and Petra introduce that Swedes love a good sing-along, and then try to get the audience singing along with the start of Greece 2005, which works about as predictably poorly as you'd expect with a largely empty auditorium. Then Helena Paparizou shows up to take over and is vocally immaculate - she's certainly not lost her talent with age! So good in fact that she made the stream die, hooray! Fortunately it's just come back and there's lots of images of fans singing along on the screen.
Then it's Charlotte Perrelli Nilsson's turn, another lady who can still belt our her winner! This interval probably fun for the audience but the lack of any exciting staging or graphics makes it all feel a bit dull to me. Finally, Sertab Erener appears, a little vocally off but it's still great to have Turkey back on the stage, albeit just through Sertab's guest performance. The three ladies reunite at the end to bow and thank the audience.
Recap 2: More minor observations: Kaleen is in her second rehearsal outfit, the silvery one. Armenia stands out to me in the recap. Kenzy's vocals are noticably out on the recap but like I said it sounded like she was saving generally. Georgia has chosen the ending. Norway of course uses the immense leaning back moment and looks immense.
Voting closes! Malin flubs and stumbles over her teleprompter lines, hopefully she'll be a bit more comfortable with the script tomorrow because it feels like she's not even read it before now!
17:50CEST: We then get a retrospective video like the ones from yesterday, this time focussed on songs which 'almost' got to Eurovision, mainly focussed on Sweden to start with, before we learn about Lys Assia's failed attempt to return for Switzerland in 2012 and a couple of German fun facts. Ralph Siegal gets a shoutout with a montage of some of his (many) songs which never made it to Eurovision. Our ears were indeed blessed to avoid them!
17:43CEST: Next is the montage of turquoise carpet looks again like we got for the first semi. Followed by a delay which almost certainly won't be there in the live shows.
17:45CEST: Petra's song 'We Just Love Eurovision Too Much' is next, which is... well, it's nowhere near as good as 'Love Love, Peace Peace' and will probably rub the people who were unhappy with Sweden's win up the wrong way, among other things. Lyrically it is very on the nose in its humour, with jokes about juries voting for Sweden, Eurovision being non-political and more. Charlotte Perrelli Nilsson appears again helping out in the vocals, as does Lynda Woodruff. They were just mentioning Kaarija and the Moomins appeared and then the stream has died, so who knows what happens next! The stream returned for the end, which is a big showgirls style finale. EDIT: Our Discord friends have informed us that Kaarija appears as part of the Finnish section here.
Qualifiers Announcement: Through a choppy stream, we watch the following songs 'qualify': Albania, Malta, Armenia, Switzerland, Belgium, Czechia, Latvia, San Marino, Netherlands and finally Greece! Of course these are completely random so don't read too much into them!
They seemed to drag out the qualifiers section more than on Tuesday to me, perhaps because the intervals are shorter.
Well, that was a weird old time. Thanks for joining us, and we'll be back this evening at 21:00CEST with coverage of the jury rehearsal, hopefully this time with less technical hiccups!
Except... it's not actually over as for some reason Herreys (Sweden 1984) are here to sing us out for the outro. Feels like a strange decision given we can still see the artists in the green/pink room behind the stage reacting to their qualification!

Greetings, Huntsmen, Huntresses, and gender neutral Hunters! Welcome to another week of writing prompts! If you are new here, this is a community-driven weekly event, and the purpose is primarily to generate creativity and have fun while doing so (whether you are a 100% real-meat person or not, we don't judge).

What will be involved Special Note for Spoilers!:

Each week, three RWBY-related topics will be posted (subject to ties and special events!). Participants can write a short piece of fiction or dialogue based on that prompt. When writing, the suggestion is to aim for 1k-3k words, however, this is not a requirement. There is no goal - this is not a popularity contest - just write and have fun! If you have any questions, feel free to ask! :)
SPOILERS:
Reminder that the spoiler embargo for Volume 9 and the Justice League movie has been lifted! You are all now free to make posts about the two without needing to spoiler tag it.

Rules (gore, NSFW, spoilers etc.)

The rules are the same as the sub's posting guidelines. Nobody here wants to see your story taken down, so please refer to them before contributing! If someone chooses to ignore these rules, the post will be removed.

Additional information

Pre-writing is welcome! /rwbyprompts is a sub with writing as a focus - there you will find an archive of all the threads as well as a somewhat fleshed-out wiki with odds and ends. :) A detailed spreadsheet of WPW things is here! Keep in mind that this houses a lot of the old prompts, but it also has links and things like early participation to previous WPW threads. We're trying this whole week-to-week thing in the face of the bajillion prompts we had built up. We might do something with them, or people might cycle them back in, who knows what could happen??
Find us on Discord at The Qrow's Nest! The permanent invite has been deleted due to Discord bot shenanigans, so dm shand if you want an invite!

The Prompts!:

• Blake tries to catch a mouse. Cue Tom and Jerry-esque hi-jinx.
• Nora and Ren get into a heated argument and start dividing team RNJR's camp in half with duct tape. Jaune and Ruby have to fix things.
• Glynda takes a day off, and comes back the next day to see Beacon in a state of...
• Jaune and Ruby have a Pokemon battle with NPR and WBY as their Pokemons.

Optional prompts that must be combined with one or more of the above:

• Blake discovers all of "White Fang" had apparently redeemed themselves via "The Power of Friendship"
• [Insert character] establishes the Revolutionary Insurrectionary Black Army of Argus.
• The heroes react to finally learning what Headmaster Theodore looks like.
• The unfortunate way Yang learned that flammable and inflammable mean the same thing.
• An event from your fanfic/AU described in the style of the Armchair Historian.
• A Hero and Villain go out on a date. What happens during the date?
• A meeting between Signal Academy Instructors Qrow Branwen and Taiyang Xiao Long with Beacon Academy professors Peter Port and Bartholomew Oobleck to discuss Yang and Ruby as potential students at Beacon.
• Blake enters a dating show where Ilia, Sun, and Yang are vying for her affections.
• A comedy skit with the different Grimm as characters with different personalities as they discuss about their life and interactions with the Human/Faunus characters of RWBY.
• Domestic Team WTCH.
• A character mentally rehearses a conversation they imagine having with another character. They quickly blow things way out of proportion.
• Jaune, Salem, and Hazel reenact the scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where the title character is forced to drink the Blood of Kali.

Next Week's Poll:

The Poll!

Previously, on Writing Prompt Wednesday:

The thread
The Prompts:

• Every tasme Ruby uses her Semblance, there is a 1 in 10 chance that one of her rose petals creates a palm sized chibi Ruby.
• Variouas upgrades to Penny's personality are tested with ... mixed results.
• Roman rants about why Mistral sucks in the style of that bar scene in “A Million Ways to Die in the West”.

Alternate-Secondary Prompts:

• It's discovered that Grimm actually prmilk aka "Grilk". How does this affect Remnant? (Yes, this is an inside joke from the Ruby Rose streams)
• Mike and Marty trash talk Salem.
• Instead of fulfilling Penny's last wish, Jaune hurls her through the portal. Then he wonders: 'Can a Maiden be overcharged? I don't know, but let's find out!'
• Weiss introduces Penny and Ruby to the idea of a spa day.
• The Battle of Beacon, but Quicksilver (Marvel Universe) is present.
• The show we know is actually just fanfic. Write the show it's based on.
• Adam tries to kill Blake at Brunswick Farms, but the Apathy change his priorities.
• RWBY Wacky Races!
• Team RWBY has to adjust after one of them has been fully taken over by a being that reincarnates, like Oz.
• "I told you before (Salem), I won't let you do it. I grieve with you... but I won't let you commit genocide."
• Emerald tries online dating, but Merc steals her phone and swipes right on a bunch of random people at Beacon. Describe one of these encounters.
• A Black Lantern ring latches on to a certain deceased Huntress’s body, saying “Pyrrha Nikos of Remnant. Rise.”
• "Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States!" … ______ walks into the room!

Upcoming Events:

New Year, new events! And now we have the quarter of spring leading into summer and the 4th of July FFA, I hope you all had a great holiday!

Important Stuff and Things!

I have managed to rescue /RWBYFanfiction from an untimely demise! If you would like to share your fanfic or make recommendations, head on over there! I know that I've said something special was coming for this, but Ruby on Rails is hard and not cheap to operate. The fanfiction indexer that I was trying to set up just isn't working and probably needs someone with more experience in RoR programming/design. I haven't completely put it to bed, but it might be a while before I can circle back to it. In the meantime, the fanfic sub has actually had a decent amount of postings - head on over and say hi! :)
No matter how bad things may get, words will always have meaning. Now get out there and write something, but most importantly, have fun! :)

Over the years I've searched and searched for this to no avail, and I'm not convinced it's been carried into the internet era, but I'm here to try once again!
This is a clip I saw on tv in the evening/night as a kid in roughly the mid-late 90's, I'd estimate around 96-98 but it could be further out than that. I don't recall the channel, but if I had to guess the clip had more of an ITV / Channel 4 vibe than BBC. I'm reasonably sure it was a terrestrial channel.
The clip was intended to be humorous, I can't tell / remember if it was a sketch, or a genuinely unearthed clip that had potentially been edited for comedic effect. It could have been part of a sketch show, or one of those late night shows that sometimes showed things from the past that seem humorous now...something like that. But I don't remember anything other than this clip.
The clip itself was black and white footage evoking 50's era television, with its token crackling audio. It depicted a lady in a kitchen, and she would address the viewing audience and pause waiting for a response (like Dora the Explorer does). I remember her saying "Would you like to bake a cake, children?" in a sweet manner, before pausing for a response. The pause was humorously and uncomfortably long, while she made an unflattering face looking off-screen during the wait, it may or may not have been paused. Finally after a while she'd break out of it and say "Gooood!" in a sweet manner again, once again addressing the camera. This gag happened at least one more time.
The only other part I recall is that once the cake was (finally) in the oven, to kill time while it baked she was doing this ridiculous march around the kitchen table after asking the children at home to join in, while saying "march! march! march!" over and over (again, longer than is comfortable / normal). I don't recall a laugh track playing during whole clip. As far as I can tell the lady was not someone who was part of a sketch show group. Again it had a feeling of old footage, whether or not it actually was I can't recall. She may have been an actress for the skit because of the odd face during her pauses, but again it was plausibly from that era and the pauses may have been edited to make it more humorous.
My mother who was also watching it (and me peeing myself) has no recollection, and every few years I return to the internet with an array of searches that never work. This is my first time asking reddit that I can recall, so please help! Even if I do find it and it's nowhere near as funny as I recall I have to know what it is.
Some things that have been suggested to me in the past that I've checked out and aren't correct are:
Fist of Fun, This Morning With Richard Not Judy, The Fast Show
I think if it has a laugh track it's probably not it. And again it might not even be from a sketch show, which makes finding this thing even harder.

Welcome to our first dress rehearsal press coverage of the year!

How will this coverage work?

In this afternoon's thread, we will be trialling running our commentary a new way. I will be updating this thread after each performance with my rough thoughts on each rehearsal, with some additional thoughts and comments from some of the other mods too. Please keep refreshing this thread - new updates will be added to the bottom of the OP roughly every five minutes!
For this evening's jury show/dress rehearsal 2/evening preview, we will be covering the rehearsal via Reddit Live like we did last year. This will allow you to read a variety of voices and thoughts on the performances.
___
15:45CEST: We are off! The show begins with a montage of all the artists of this year in postcard style, very wholesome!
15:49CEST: Eleni Foureira kicks off the show, emerging from the middle cube. She's pretty scantily clad and her dance routine includes a bit of handkerchief choreography a bit like Marina Satti this year! There's either fake applause/cheers going on for this first rehearsal or the associated press in the arena are very loud!
15:51CEST: Eric Saade is next, with a rearranged version of his 2011 song 'Popular', complete with a very playful nod to the glass-breaking moment from his original performance.#
15:53CEST: Chanel is next, dressed in a blue costume which reminds me of Albina's (Croatia 2021), with ample booty of course. The backdrop is also blue, and there's pyro for both her an Eleni.
15:55CEST: Our hosts have arrived! Malin is in a pink suit, Petra in orange. About Malmo hosting, Petra says: 'Don't blame me, even I voted for Finland!' They've redone their lines after a bit of improv which reminds us that this is very much the first dress rehearsal. The cheers do appear to be live as whole pockets of the audience have been made up of the press - shoutouts to the press people there in person for being very loud and enthusiastic!#
Song 1: Cyprus
Postcard: The postcard starts with a purple graphic of the world tracing from Malmo to the country in question, in this case Cyprus. There's then a clip from a couple of previous Cypriot entries (1997 and 2012 I believe), and then shots of Silia. It feels quite different but I quite like it!
Performance: This performance really makes the stage feel massive with the use of cyan flooding lights and some effective use of blue flashing lights. Silia is slightly flat throughout and sounds a little nervous in her vocals. Otherwise it's the same energetic open you'd expect. They turned the lights out on her a little too quickly at the end, will probably fix that for the live show!
Song 2: Serbia
Postcard: The songs featured are 2007 and 2022 (Bitti Zdrava!) We see Teya playing her piano in an old building. I quite like the nod to past entrants, but others have mentioned that it provides a comparison to 'greatest' hits which can be unhelpful for current artists. They do also look a bit cheaper than some other users.
Performance: Teya starts off sat down on her rock with some intimate camerawork, being ever so slightly oxymated by the dry ice. She also sounds ever so slightly off to me in the verses, though she's absolutely fine belting it out in the chorus. I must say that I'm not getting fully sucked into the performance here although admittedly I've never really connected with the song - the giant watermarks we get on the digital feed also impacts ability to engage with the performance. There is a very effective final shot though with a lila ramonda which they've kept hidden from the gallery pics! We also see the artists leave the stage at the end, which seems like an intentional new directorial choice.
Song 3: Lithuania
Postcard: The featured songs are 2012 and 2021 (no 2006? Shame!).
Performance: This is the same polished, hypnotic performance from the national final, with a couple of new cool graphical moments. Silvester sounds great too! Camerawork wise there's still too many wide shots (and the video compression is not enjoying all the flashing lights!) but the sound balancing has been pretty excellent so far to my ears.
Song 4: Ireland
Postcard: There's one of Johnny Logan's songs, afraid I missed which one in between messages and catching up typing things! The shots of Bambie are very artistic as you'd expect!
Performance: Bambie starts off with a witchly cackle before the soundtrack has even began (accompanied by a massive cheer from the press). Camerawork is very tight and there's lots of clever shots and imagery which we didn't even have revealed in the gallery - a great shot with a satanic star and with the moon in the background. Bambie is emoting fantastically, and yes there is a costume change! This is three minutes of unforgettable artistry, ending in Bambie's effective high kick from the NF and a massive 'crown the witch' graphic on the backdrop. This is brilliant (and the other mods watching agree). Effing said: 'Wow, Bambie went crazier than Hatari!'
Break: Malin mentions that Bambie is the first non-binary artist - it's kinda weird hearing such an American accent in the main production! Petra then claims to know every single Eurovision song off by heart in a skit where she proves that is not the case. Then the ad break ends and Petra introduces Olly with quite a quick 'Remember, you can't vote for this!'
Finalist A: United Kingdom
Postcard: 1967 and 2022 get shown. Olly is having fun somewhere outside.
Performance: Stream quality took a nosedive at the start so we missed the very beginning. There is lots of very clever 'gravity' choreography, tight dance moves, upside down camerawork and a lot of homoerotic dancemoves. If you found the rehearsal clip too much, you will probably find other parts of it too much although I still think it that clip is the most risque bit. They have stopped the weird facial expressions and open mouths now which helps. The new final chorus is completely revamped and so much better than the original track, with Olly and the dancers finally emerging from their locker room. This enable Olly to go for a vocal big moment which he was slightly off on but otherwise fine. Even then, the camerawork is fantastic, as are the lights and pyro. This is an unforgettable performance and they have elevated this song immensely from the studio. I'm a proud Brit right now!
Song 5: Ukraine:
Postcard: The featured songs were Wild Dances and another one (EDIT: It was Shum, thanks Effing!), afraid I was too busy recovering from Olly and collating my thoughts to notice much else. Interestingly they go straight from the UK into this without announcement.
Performance: Jerry is a little bit vocally weak here and sounds a bit nervy. The graphics are very pretty, with some cool silhouettes on the cubes. There's a couple of other awesome graphical moments, especially the final shot where they lie down on top of a graphic of other women, and a holographic Jerry moment. It's effective but I'd hazard to say not quite as brilliant as a whole as it felt like it might be from the clips seen so far (unsure if the other mods agree!)
Song 6: Poland
Postcard: 1994 and 2014 are the songs of choice.
Performance: This also seems to have gotten a slight musical revamp, with some added melody in the verses and also live backing vocalists providing harmonies which are slightly too loud in the mix. Vocally this is easily the best I've heard from Luna live, although she's still a bit breathy generally. As for what's going on stage, well, it's certainly distinctive. I don't think it's overly distracting in a negative way, but it also doesn't necessarily work either. The moments on the horse are good, but I'm not sure why we need the camera to stick on random chess piece people flailing limbs for so long. The ending seems pretty effective and Luna seems to be enjoying her movement.
Song 7: Croatia
Unfortunately the stream died in a major way at the end of Poland and didn't come back until towards the end of Croatia, and even then was buffering and skipping all over the place. So sadly we can't give any particularly meaningful commentary of this staging until tonight's dress rehearsal. It looked and sounded great from what little we did see though - I particularly love Marko's intonation which he's perfected.
Song 8: Iceland
Postcard: Again missed the postcard due to catching up on post writing! One of the songs was 1986 I believe, but I didn't catch the second one.
Performance: A bit more buffering but the stream seems to have largely recovered. There's some nice lasers and background lights and Hera is owning the stage, but to me she sounds ever so slightly sharp? There's also just not enough going on on stage really to make this engaging, especially after a heavy hitter like Croatia, and her backing singers are shrouded in darkness for some reason. The ending is slightly different with a long note which was ever so slightly off to me.
Ad Break: There's a little bit where they put Eurovision songs over (presumably famous, sorry for being uncultured) movie scenes, tying into Malin's acting experience. There's a shoutout to the many people involved in the technical side of the performance. Clearly the German staging needs a bit of a break as they're still setting it up behind Petra.
Finalist B: Germany
Postcard: Features 1993 (I believe, may have been 1994) and 2010, and Isaak being wholesome with a dog.
Performance: The opening is different to the studio track as he's performed in the preparties. Starts with a slow zoom on Isaak on his seat next to a big fire. Isaak is vocally brilliant and is including lots of extra vocal flourishes, but he's not really hitting any of the cameras and it all feels a bit too much like going through the motions to me. The camerawork is basically lots of slow panning shots around the flaming room. It's nice to see the backing singers appear at the end to do the run na na ay bits, and there's a nice bit with the lights shutting off at the end, but the overall product feels sadly lifeless to me.
Song 9: Slovenia
Postcard: Features 2001 and 2019, underrated gems!
Performance: Starts out very dark with Raiven lying down among some dry ice, but we get to everything being blue and bright rather quickly. The dancers are doing the same thing as in the music video. Camerawork really could do with being a bit more tight, the wide shots don't work for the atmosphere of the song. The ending shot is quite effective too. I don't think this is a write-off by any means but it's not as atmospheric as it could be.
Song 10: Finland
Postcard: Missed the first song due to buffering, but unsurprisingly Kaarija is the other choice!
Performance: Sounded a bit like Teemu was forgetting his words at the start with how he slurred them compared to normal. We do indeed see his ass in at least one camerashot, and there's a couple of moments where we can clearly see his flesh-coloured thong where the dancing/camerawork could do with being a bit tighter. Otherwise it's much the same in terms of visual gags as at UMK. The press in the arena are loving it, of course. The backdrop is surprisingly static and unexciting, as is the lightshow. 'Yeah, this is Finland!' he says at the end.
Song 11: Moldova
Postcard: 2005 and 2010 are shown, although every briefly! We see Natalia getting ready at a studio as well as boxing and going on a picnic with a giant teddy bear.
Performance: This has probably the most colourful and pretty graphics of every performance so far, including a really pretty shot from above with fish swimming around her. Sometimes the graphics and colours are a bit distracting, such as the giant butterflies on the cubes. She's singing well and adding in some extra vocal flourishes, but it really is a very static performance and lacks a clear 'vote me' moment. It was better than I thought it might be from the clips before, but as another mod said, it's lacking that Moldovan magic.
Qualifier C: Sweden
Postcard: No ad break, just a little introduction before Sweden. 1983 and of course 2023 are shown.
Performance: This starts off identically to at Melfest, with the LED walls either side of them and the same choreography and the boys' playful energy. It looks and sounds great. The difference is the end of the song, with the walls pushed right to the edge of the stage. The digital colours and flashing graphics here are immense and this will be a very strong way to start the final on Saturday.
Song 12: Azerbaijan
Postcard: They have a cat! The featured songs are 2009 and 2011.
Performance: Very effective opening here with the use of white and black light and a silhouette emerging from beneath the sea behind Fahree. The backdrop is really cool, as is the use of hands on the floor graphics. Unfortunately he's ever so slightly flat to start and on the very last note, and the camerawork goes full on wide shot city in the chorus which makes it feel a bit flat. You can also clearly see a stagehand rolling the giant hand prop onto stage behind Ilkin (who is perfect vocally). I'm unsure about this - some bits work really well, others feel a bit lifeless.
Song 13: Australia
Postcard: 2015 and 2019 are the songs of choice - poor Dami Im!
Performance: The lights give a kind of rainbow northern lights effects on Zaachariaha's dress, starting with some intimate camerawork which is quite good. It is pretty clearly low budget but they are making the absolute most of the resources they have - their own charisma and well controlled camerawork. There's lots of interactions between Zaachariaha and Michael, and a clever fade into the backing singers arriving. Zaachariaha started singing slightly behind the tune near the end which made it feel a bit messy, which is also how the entrance of the digeridoo bloke feels. Lots of vocal acrobatics too which aren't always convincing.
Song 14: Portugal
Postcard: Missed the first song due to buffering, but obviously 2017 is the second one.
Performance: Lots of stream issues at the start of this one I'm afraid so difficult to get a feel for atmosphere. However, the first shot is really effective in a trimmed narrow aspect ratio which frames Iolanda's expressions. As is the use of white colour throughout which is consistently interesting and adds to the send of intensity that the music gives. Iolanda is vocally flawless, probably the best vocal performance of the day to me. Altogether a very effective performance!
Song 15: Luxembourg
Postcard: 1965 and 1988 I think were shown but again I may be wrong, sorry! Tali is having fun with some friends in a park, and has her now-signature plats too.
Performance: The performance starts out drenched in a kind of pinky-red light as Tali is surrounded by a pink box with other boxes and her dancers around her. Pyro from the first chorus and some clever flashing lights for the revamped end of the chorus. Tali sounds a lot more in control of her breathing to my untrained ear, and she also generally looks and feels a lot more comfortable with what she's doing on stage (though she is a little out of breath at the end!). She's also not got her hair in plats for this performance, instead opting for having her hair tied back - it looks good to me! It's not a perfect performance - the giant CH leopard on the backdrop feels a bit random, and she's over-selling the 'emotional' stripped back penultimate chorus a bit, but this makes a strong end of the semi. Welcome back Luxembourg!
EDIT: Mods who are more familiar with female haircare than me say that this is probably just Tali without her hair done properly.
17:25CEST: Very efficiently, Malin and Petra kick off the voting. Europe, start voting now!
Recap: For now we see random volunteers standing in for the artists in the greenroom! The lady being Silvester Belt is loving it and hilariously it seems to be just a handful of volunteers changing seats! Most of the delegations have gone for the final chorus for their snippets. Bambie goes for the screamo at the very end. We must be cursed because the stream froze again in time for Croatia's snippet!
Interval Act: Johnny Logan gets a very complimentary introduction complete with emotional background music. Not quite sure why they decided to show clips of his winning performances when he's about to perform them again anyway. Ah, that's why - he's singing an orchestral ballad version of Euphoria, complete with an orchestra! It feels more Disney ballad than Johnny Logan ballad, but he's still got the pipes for it!
Green Room: Or should I say the 'pink room', to be more accurate. Luxembourg get a special shoutout and an interview with fake Tali about Luxembourg's victories. Tali's stand in is loving it! The point is made that this is the first time in Tali's lifetime that Luxembourg have participated in Eurovision, which is indeed a fun fact!
We then get a recap of some of the looks from the Turquoise carpet.
Recap 2: To clarify, UK/Germany/Sweden aren't shown in the recaps as they aren't 'competing acts' in this semi. To me, Ireland remains the clear standout because of how stylised the camerawork is, though plenty of other countries look great on the recap. The difference in quality between the first and second halves is pretty stark to me.
Europe, stop voting now! Petra and Malin end the voting by segwaying into a brief skit with the 'Australian commentators', who are upside down of course. After a brief technical delay, Petra has a brief skit about the app with a 'random member of the audience', and then Malin references Belgium 1973's husband and wife duo and dance moves and calls it the first 'Eurovision slay', which is a bit cringy. There's then a 'brief legacy of dance' in Eurovision, showing clips from a lot of different performances across Eurovision history.
17:49CEST: We're now back in the green room with Petra, who makes a joke about providing snacks including a baby lasagna and also refers to herself as 'mother' before giving some fun facts about some of the artists, including Bambie being half Swedish. Then back with Malin on the main stage, who introduces Benjamin Ingrosso...
Interval Act: Benjamin Ingrosso looks completely different to in 2018 - you'd think he's a completely different person given the vocal style is quite different to 2018 too! Not too much to say here, there's some cool angles with the ceiling lights and he performs some of his greatest hits well (including 'Kite'), though with everything else from the postcards to the skits referencing the history of Eurovision it does feel a bit out of place to me! The third song sees dancers finally emerge to join him on stage. The dancers and band are wearing what I'd described as 'Maneskin red' leather. This third song is very groovy and presumably the Swedes in the audience will be loving it.
17:59CEST: Malin and Petra introduce a brief recap through a series of random performances from the past twenty or so years, showcasing the breadth of genres at ESC, including Germany 2009, Serbia and Montenegro 2004, Italy 2015, San Marino 2019, Croatia 2006 and others.
Qualifiers Announcement: With Petra and Malin now equipped with the usual scoring table thing, the LED screen at the back finally opens up 2011 style to reveal the artists behind stage. Malin continues talking over it which is a little strange. Even Martin Osterdahl gets some emotional music for some reason, and a quiet splatter of applause to accompany his traditional 'good to go'.
The fake qualifiers (completely randomised) are: Portugal, Australia, Ukraine, Lithuania, Poland (with Luna offkey in the clip! D:), Azerbaijan, Cyprus, Serbia, Slovenia and finally ... Finland! Which would mean no Croatia which is not going to happen :P
When the qualifier is announced, we get a splitscreen of their reaction with a clip from their performance. As in previous years it slows down a little for the final three (although Malin jumped the gun a bit in announcing Serbia!).
Thanks for joining us! A couple of other mods will be taking you through the 'jury final' tonight from 21:00CEST using Reddit Live.

🫖 Welcome back to the Asylum write-up. This is where you live now. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
In this installment, we finally take a closer look at how Emilie Autumn's hyper-loyal fanbase gradually started losing faith in her as, among other things, it became more and more apparent that she... wasn't exactly a reliable narrator – in her semi-autobiographical book, or in general.

HOW IT STARTED: A WOMAN OF MYSTERY

Willow, weep for me Don't think I don't see This life I'm living in two But still it's something I must do I'm not unique in this Nor am I special, sweet, or kind I court a thousand smiles Yet I keep my own to hide behind (“Willow”, 2004 🎵)

I've previously referred to EA as an “expert vagueposter”, and this is relevant here.
For an artist who built her brand on a pledge of raw, rats-and-all honesty, EA has always been quite guarded about the specifics of her personal life. (Until her current partner, for instance, she always danced around calling anyone a boyfriend, even when the nature of the relationship was pretty obvious.) Her whole angle is telling “the truth”, but through whimsical fantasy. As early as the fairy-themed Enchant era, she had her own world, her own vernacular; she spoke in metaphors, in-jokes, and quirky anachronisms. Taxis were carriages, her electric keyboard was a harpsichord, she always capitalized Time and Art like Shakespeare does. On the Asylum forum, automatic word filters would change “fan” to “muffin”, “fairy” to “faerie”, “bra” to “teacup holder”, and “responsibility” to “ratsponsibility”.
She's a chatterbox who loves to share memories and funny anecdotes, but she usually keeps them short and sweet, Snapple-facts style. 📝 She's great at painting by touches in her storytelling, revealing just enough to let your imagination auto-complete the rest. 🔍 Even the most banal tidbits are very artfully told, very “on brand”, often dense with symbolism and foreshadowing – but also very abstracted.
She is especially elusive when it comes to her background and formative years. See the way she catches herself in this interview 📺📝 while describing her “favorite scar”, which is from an eel bite: “My – well, someone I knew... [gasp-laugh] had it as a pet, and...” (She was about to say “my sister”.)
In short, the way EA talks about her life is often very personal, but not all that candid – and sounds more like it's meant to provide a curated, coherent backstory for Emilie Autumn the character, rather than Emilie Autumn the person.

I'll tell the truth, all my songs Are pretty much the fucking same I'm not a fairy but I need More than this life, so I became This creature representing more to you Than just another girl... (“Swallow”, 2006 🎵)

In the beginning, this guardedness naturally contributed to the mystique. It made it all the more special when, once in a while, she would briefly drop the theatrics to share something earnest and relatively unfiltered. Like this composed, but vulnerable post from 2004 📝 about her father losing his battle to cancer, and her attempts at closure over their tense relationship. Or this 2012 anti-bullying campaign thing 📺 in which she opens up about being a target of intense physical bullying in elementary school, to a point that contributed to her being homeschooled at 9.
Fans in the early years were curious about her backstory, of course – but not too prodding or invasive, to my knowledge. I think there was an understanding that EA, like many performers, wanted to come across as human and approachable, while still cultivating an “aura” and retaining some privacy. But obviously, when she announced that she was writing a Tell-All Memoir in 2007, everyone was dying to read it. TEA TIME!

HOW IT'S GOING: A WOMAN OF... MALARKEY???

LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! LIAR! (“Liar”, 2006 🎵)

As we've learned, the original 2009 release of EA's book was highly anticipated, but somewhat tainted by a bunch of shipping delays and unfulfilled promises. From the start of her career, EA had always cultivated a close parasocial involvement with her audience; many fans had as deep an attachment to her, personally, as they did to her art. So, for instance, when EA tweeted about all the personal dedications she was lovingly writing in overdue books, only for the books to arrive many months later and unsigned with no tangible explanation, it wasn't simply frustrating: it was betrayal amongst kin!
Really, it wasn't so much about fans not getting what they paid for – it was about the lack of clear communication or genuine accountability. This is pure speculation on my part, but the poppycock that EA tweeted about signing the books strikes me as the panic-lie of someone who hadn't realized just how many heartfelt, personalized dedications she would actually have to write when she came home from tour. And then she just couldn't do it, because she was overworked, paralyzed, distracted, depressed, procrastinating, whatever. Which... you know... is unfortunate, but probably not unforgivable. Especially for a touring performer who is open and vocal about their mental health issues.
I'm confident that most fans would have been happy to tell her that her well-being meant more to them than an autograph, or something along those lines. Instead, EA's cagey and avoidant demeanor around this issue left fans very salty – and newly suspicious of their favorite artist's word.
Which was regrettable timing for EA, because they had just received their copies of her memoir.
Here's a cursory look at some key biographical points that didn't hold up to scrutiny when more and more vexed fans, over the years, started looking into them.
Content warning until end of post: family estrangement, death by fire, worsening physical health issues, mention of disordered eating / weight loss / thinspiration, and LIES! LIES! LIIIIIES!

“EMILIE AUTUMN LIDDELL (BORN SEPTEMBER 22, 1979) IS AN AMERICAN SINGER-SONGWRITER...” (Wikipedia)

Every fandom has its Holy Grail. Because a number of EA's early releases were limited pressings put out through now-defunct record labels, the EA fandom in its heyday was a collector's wonderland. 📝🦠 At the height of her popularity, the original Enchant jewelcase (the one with the puzzle-poster) could easily fetch around $500 dollars on eBay, unsigned. The handwritten lyrics of an Opheliac B-side went for $940 in 2009. Don't even ask me about the hard copies of her two poetry books: those never even popped up over the five or six years that I had various alerts set up for all EA-related listings.
But the true crown jewel of EA rarities is the untitled promo version of her (also virtually unfindable) 2001 instrumental debut On a Day... No one knows how many copies exist. The darn thing is so rare that it's not even listed on Discogs. For a while, the only picture of the elusive “Violin” promo CD that was circulated online was this one.🪞 Go ahead, click the link. Notice anything odd? That black box where one composer's birth year should be?
I'm not sure why the notorious hyper-fan who originally shared this picture on the forum in the early 2010s took it upon himself to censor it before posting. I wasn't able to pinpoint when or why people started questioning EA's age, but clearly, something had already transpired to let him know that not redacting said birth year might, uh... cause an upset. In any case: at some point, people started digging – and eventually, the unredacted version of the “Violin” tracklist (as well as public records and literal receipts from eBay auctions) would be brandished as one more piece of damning evidence that EA was indeed (gasp!) two years older than she claimed to be.
“Okay, and?” you shrug. “What's the big deal?” I'm shrugging too! What can I say? People don't like realizing they've been fooled, even about something stupid. I will note that EA's fall equinox birthday (hence her middle name “Autumn”, yes) had been somewhat significant in the fandom. Over the years, EA's birthdays had been marked by online release parties, Q&A's, community events, special merch sales... A number of fans liked donning her trademark cheek heart on September 22. It felt a bit uncanny to realize that she had been announcing a false age on those occasions. It wasn't “a big deal” so much as it was incredibly odd.
Other than being appalled that Self-Proclaimed Staunch Feminist EA would give in to the cult of youth and not cop up to her real age, many fans were just plain bewildered: who would commit so stubbornly to such an inconsequential lie? What was even the point of lying by two years only? Why did she think anyone would care that she was 28 rather than 26 when Opheliac came out? What was she possibly getting out of this...??
My completely speculative theory is that, whether it was her idea or her then-manager's, the lie originated as a marketing strategy early on in her career. The “Violin” demo was recorded in 1997, when EA was 19-going-on-20. Per the liner notes of On a Day... 📝, which came out when she was 22, the demo's purpose was to be “a sort of calling card in the classical music industry”. Evidently, that didn't work out; EA claims, in the same paragraph, to have walked out on a classical recording deal at 18 because they wouldn't give her enough creative control.
Talented and unique as she was, she was trying to break out in a notoriously elitist and innovation-resistant milieu – and unlike her, most of the 22-year-old classical violinists she was in competition with had actually graduated from their prestigious music schools. But you know what sells better than an ambitious college dropout in her early twenties? Tweaking the truth just so to market yourself as an unconventional wunderkind, barely out of her teens! Any rendition of a complex, learnèd musical piece sounds more intriguing and impressive if you think it was played by an especially young (and beautiful) person. 20 was plausible, close enough to her real age, barely a lie at all, and such a nice, round number for a debut album.
Notice how much of the On a Day... liner notes, linked above, center on her precociousness, her uniqueness, and her savant-like dedication to her craft – a focus that seems absent from the promo version (from what I can decipher in those potato-quality pictures, anyway). These talking points would provide the basis for a lot of her early self-promotion and budding stage persona in the Enchant years. Even though the EP failed to make EA a household name in the classical world, the wunderkind narrative was her “in” to grab the attention and heart of a broader audience.
And I guess she's been running with it ever since.

“MY ANCESTRY IS POSITIVELY LITTERED WITH LUNATICS AND GIRLS WHO FALL DOWN RABBIT HOLES ... MY NAME IS EMILIE AUTUMN LIDDELL. YES, THAT LIDDELL.”

Oh, come on. Much as a fan may want to believe, isn't that a little on the nose? The anglophile with an obsession for tea, clocks, and madness... is literally related to Alice in Wonderland? 🔍 Curiouser and curiouser indeed.
EA came out as Emilie Autumn Liddell in The Book – of course – in a passage where she describes an interaction with a nurse. 📝 Note how she stresses the authenticity of her name, and how not-chosen it is (and the Alice connection, which just comes up organically) by disclosing it in a scene where she's filling out paperwork.
I'm pointing this out, because it would be tempting to allow room for creative license (and the slightest cringe) in a work of creative fiction based on personal experience. Buuut... TAFWG was not marketed as fiction. The main narrative in TAFWG, according to EA, is an actual fac-simile of the journals she kept during a harrowing stay at a Los Angeles psychiatric hospital following a suicide attempt. This is something that EA has stressed from the inception of the book (and throughout all subsequents re-issues, even as the main narrative was altered and reworked), even claiming that a legal team had advised her to redact some names to avoid potential lawsuits. So, no, she's not doing a bit there.
When, after it made the rounds a few times, it became apparent that the claim didn't really make sense 📝🔍, reactions were mixed. Some older, diplomatic fans downplayed it as a somewhat embarrassing, but harmless self-mythologizing – similar in nature to her insistence on calling her electric keyboard a “harpsichord”. Devout EA apologists (commonly referred to as “bootlickers” in an increasingly polarized fandom – oh, don't worry, we're getting to that!) invoked the “life as performance art” defense: when she said it was literally her first name, she meant it metaphorically, duh! And either way, she probably had her reasons.
But others took offense at the boldness of the lie, or simply became curious. Was Liddell even her name at all?
If you've checked the link just above, you already know the answer. Per the public California birth log (a somewhat demented invasion of privacy that could well have been avoided by... not repeatedly drawing attention to a name that someone in the book calls “right out of a movie”?) : yes, no, kind of.
EA was born Emily Autumn Fischkopf* on September 22, 1977. The name came from her father, a first-generation immigrant from Germany. Her maternal grandmother's maiden name was Liddell (but no, not that Liddell, or so remotely that it doesn't matter). EA may have had it legally changed at some point in the last decade, but as of 2012, based on the public log of foreign visitors to Brazil (where she toured that year), her passport still bore the name “Emily Autumn Fischkopf”.
*No, EA's birth name is not literally “Fischkopf”. It's a non-silly German name that begins with an F. I know that it's ridiculous to clutch my pearls about EA's peace of mind now, but triggering new and disquieting Google alerts for a name she clearly wants nothing to do with (and that you don't care about) just feels... distasteful? I don't know. That info has been floating around long enough, the point has been made; this write-up is not about EA's last name, but about the fiends we made along the way! So Fischkopf it is.
Let's track the evolution here! It appears that she went by “Autumn Fischkopf” for at least part of her formative years, if we are to believe the credits from Mark Ruffalo's middling film debut 📺 (she was the child actor's violin-playing body double) and this random article about a Nigel Kennedy performance in 1997. 🔍 (That last link – possibly her first ever mention in the press? – is a niche favorite of mine. Violin superstar Nigel Kennedy calls her a “talented fiddler”, which suggests that she did have some cred and promise in the classical milieu at a young age, and that there is at least some truth to her claims of being a wunderkind. It also cracks me up that, out of all the things she's reiterated over the years, “I was born in '79” was a lie, but “I was attacked by a pet eel” was fact-checked by Nigel Kennedy.)
At some point in her late teens, she dropped the Teutonic surname and adopted the French ending of her given name (she made it a “LIE”! how poetic) to form the moniker “Emilie Autumn”. I assume that's also when she started privately going by Emilie / EA for short.
So there you have it. The damning evidence. A performing artist... changed her name. To her grandmother's name. Riveting stuff!
And to think that her fans could have carried on naively believing “Autumn” was her last name, or assuming it was a romantic nom de scène she picked during her Ren Fair phase. Or perhaps, even, not thinking much about her name at all, like normal people.
But nooo, she just had to poke the hornet's nest by making a whole thing out of it.

“MY ENTIRE FAMILY DIED IN A FIRE.”

If you've never encountered a method-acting con artist or a person who struggles with pathological lying (I'll let you decide for yourself which of these, if either, applies to EA), you probably believe that you'd spot them a mile away. And in my experience, that's exactly why you wouldn't! Whether it's compulsion or calculated strategy, successful fibbers rely on people's natural social cues (like their assumption of good faith, their confirmation bias, their empathy, their desire for validation, their fear of awkwardness, ...) to subtly direct the flow and tone of the conversation. This allows them to short-circuit potential questioning of their claims.
One such strategy, for instance, I call the “I-will-not-further-speak-about-the-incident maneuver”. Out of the blue, you drop a graphic and incisive one-liner about something horrific that happened to you, in a curt or flippant tone that throws the listener off and usually shuts them up – thus sparing you from having to back up your claim with any convincing specifics. I'm not saying that every person who does this is a liar. Horrific stuff does happen to people, and I'm not here to police how they're supposed to disclose it. I'm just saying that if you wanted to fabricate an obvious Tragic Backstory™ and smuggle it past otherwise rational, discerning and reasonably intelligent people, that would be one way to do it. Full disclosure: it does work better in person than it does over the internet, especially when you've kept a blog.
When EA curtly dropped this bomb on Twitter (in response to an innocuous fan question that mentioned her parents – the receipt has sadly been X'd out of existence), and every subsequent time a new fan found out about her family's tragic demise (“I had no idea!”), the response was typically one of shock and sadness – and, in a few heartbreaking cases, commiseration from other survivors of family-annihilating events.
Many fans already had a hunch that something was up with her family, of course. She hinted at neglect and possible abuse in her book and lyrics. A number of her fans also came from dysfunctional households, so her not wishing to elaborate on the topic would probably have been a non-issue. But now she's saying they're dead? All of them? In a FIRE?! Holy macaroni! And you know it must have been awful, because EA – the same woman who got a dozen bangers out of a three-month-long toxic relationship, and based over a decade of her work on one bad hospital stay – had never, not once, felt called to share a song or poem about how it might affect a person to... lose all of their entire immediate family to a fire. Hmm. Meanwhile, the handful of older fans who had been following her since Enchant and remembered her dad passing in 2004 gritted their teeth and rolled their eyes. “Do your research. That's all I can say.” (We'll get into the culture of censorship free speech regulation on the Asylum forum in due time.)
Before more and more embittered ex-fans started compiling and circulating the receipts in the early-mid-2010s, investigating the whole “dead family” thing was a lonely journey – a coming-of-age expedition for the critical-minded Plague Rat, trawling through free background check websites and old Wayback Machine archives, until you went “Welp, there it is, I guess” and suddenly felt older, stupider, and a little bit hollow inside.
Although I don't remember how I personally made my way to The Truth (lol) back in the day, I still have a vivid memory of the moment I found the Facebook profile of EA's Very Much Non-Deceased Mother. It was mostly posts about her costume design work. A few candid pictures with EA's siblings and their kids. Christmas, birthdays, a wedding. Just... aggressively normal stuff. It was bizarre, looking in on this family of cheerful strangers with familiar cheekbones. Knowing that, somewhere out there, was an estranged eldest daughter, who had run off years ago to become a fiddle-wielding rockstar – and was now passing them off as having all died a gruesome death, while her fans secretly stalked their family photos. (Because I know you'll be asking in the comments: yes, EA's family is aware. Her mother once posted a picture of young EA and her siblings on Pinterest, sarcastically captioned “After most of us were killed in the fire.” 📝)
Again, it's tempting to discount EA's remark as a metaphor for family estrangement, taken too literally by neurodivergent minors who just didn't understand performance art. Well. First of all, even as a metaphor... let's admit, once again, that that 2000s edginess has aged like fine milk. It's a little crass to make a “metaphor” out of a plausible, life-shattering trauma that other people actually have to live with. (Veronica lost a beloved house to a literal fire 🔍 during her tenure as a Crumpet, for instance; no one died, but that alone seemed pretty rough.)
But, more to the point, evidence suggests that EA also told this to real people in her real, off-stage life – such as her Trisol manager, who backed the claim on the official Asylum Forum in 2007. 📝 When questioned about this post on a renegade forum in 2013, he had this to say:

I was the fool in this case. EA made that up of course. It’s just one thing on a long list of things she made up. Let’s agree she’s very creative with facts if she wants people to believe a story. (...) I once had a short chat with [EA's mom] and I got the strong impression she wasn’t dead at the time. Haha.

(OK, dude, but did you or did you not sell fake EA tickets on a scammy website in 2008? Because we never did get the skinny on that.)
Fifteens years on, EA continues to insist, unprompted, that “the fire” destroyed her childhood drawings and baby pictures. 📝 This more recent Instagram post is like a Greatest Hits of her most notorious yarns, to a degree that's either premeditated trolling or a subconscious call for help. She casually, yet pointedly mentions her age in relation to a specific year... and specifically draws attention to the signature, one that she used well into the Enchant era. In doing so, she made me notice, for the first time, that the A blends into an F. As one could expect from an artsy, Renaissance-obsessed teenager, her OG signature was a freaking monogram for Emily Autumn Fischkopf. It's like “The Tell-Tale Heart” for the digital age! AM I THE ONLY ONE SEEING THIS?? 🦠

A BIT O' THIS & THAT: MISCELLANEOUS CLAIMS

Just for fun, here are other sundry “citation needed” facts that EA has claimed over the years. All are originally from the book unless sourced otherwise. Some of them may have been jokes, some of them might even be true! Whatever that word still means!

• She suffered near-fatal leukemia at age 2, but miraculously recovered. Doctors were baffled.
• She has perfect pitch and tone-color synesthesia. 🔍
• She also had a photographic memory before Ativan ruined it. That's how she remembers what the sky looked like on the day she came out of the hospital leukemia-free.
• It is well-known and well-established, among the bipolar community, that bipolar people all over the world will regularly and inexplicably wake up at 4 in the morning. 🎵 On the dot. No one knows why, but they do. Doctors are baffled.
• She can play the violin on horseback!
• The traumatic hospital stay happened before Opheliac until it happened after. 🔍 Doctors are time lords.
• TAFWVG “has been cited in text-books used as part of the psychology curriculum at Oxford University in London.” 📝 I would have intuited Oxford University to be in Oxford, but then again, I didn't go to Oxford.

ELECTRIC VIOLIN: UNPLUGGED

You know how whenever a musician starts behaving obnoxiously, old sages will come down from Mount Wisdom to advise disgruntled fans to “simply ignore [behavior]” and “just focus on the music”? Well, in the Asylum, “just focusing on the music” won't always preserve you from EA's shenanigans. This “claim” is a little different, but I've decided to include it because it is so odd, emblematic, and ultimately tragic. I also count it as “biographical”, because it involves a key tenet of EA's character sheet: the violin.
Being a kickass fiddler is one of EA's trademarks, and has always been central to her narrative; as of 2024, “world-class violinist” is still the first claim to fame she lists in the “Story” section of her official website. Which beggars the question: why won't she play it? And why won't she acknowledge that she's not playing it?
We got our hopes up in 2020, with that one post 📝 about her iconic 1885 Gand & Bernardel getting refurbished by a luthier – a thoughtful birthday surprise from her boyfriend – but despite the promising “More to come...” at the end of the caption, that turned out to be a false alarm. In truth, it may well have been over a decade since anyone has witnessed EA draw a single note from her cherished instrument.
The fact that Lord Autumn was able to sneak it out during lockdown without the Lady noticing tends to confirm that she hadn't been playing much behind the scenes. She seems to be under the impression that e-violin manufacturer Zeta is no longer in business (they did close down in 2010 🔍, but reopened under new management in 2012), which suggests that she hasn't been keeping up with the violin scene for a while. Besides, the fingernails don't lie. 🐀
As the live shows veered more theatrical with the release of Opheliac, the extended violin features from the Enchant era were cut to two main appearances per concert: “Face the Wall”, a seven-minute-short, Hendrixesque take on Arcangelo Corelli's “La Folia” – and “Unlaced”, an arpeggio-ed frenzy that was originally paired with a stilt-walking and ballet performance by the Crumpets. These two instrumental tracks remained a fixture on four successive tours. And on four successive tours, “Unlaced” was... well... clearly dubbed. 📺 She was holding her e-violin, her hands were playing the notes, but what was coming out of the speakers was indubitably the studio version.
There were possible explanations, of course. Some sound buffs pointed out that “Unlaced” has multiple violin layers, and that a live violin solo would have sounded harsh and unbalanced over the supporting tracks 🔍 – but then, why pick an unplayable song as a staple of the show?
The violin-miming wasn't even very hush-hush, she didn't try that hard to hide it – it was just never addressed or acknowledged. On “Unlaced”, Veronica was usually summoned to “play” the keyboard – and we knew that was make-believe, they had a whole skit about it. 📺 Ditto when EA would play the intro to a song, then get up from the keyboard as she started singing, and the harpsichord track just kept going. It was part of the theatrics, the suspension of disbelief; live playing just wasn't the focus.
Still, because playing two songs should have been in her wheelhouse, EA's choice to stand on stage and mime along with her own world-class violin skills was puzzling. We knew EA was capable of playing “Unlaced”: “Face the Wall” was proof enough that she could still shred like nobody's business, and some lucky fans got to hear her nerd out about pitch standards and rock some Bach at VIP showcases in 2011 (though it was always the same piece, and reportedly not always on point: “she made beginner mistakes, like weird jaw, wrist, elbow placement and tension...” 🐀). And sure, “Face the Wall” was an intense piece, but... it was one of two in the show. The same two, always. She was supposed to be classically trained...!
As EA's fabrications became more common knowledge among the fanbase, people took increasing issue with this odd staging choice – particularly after “Face the Wall” was retired partway through the 2011 tour, leaving only the pantomime, with nothing else happening on stage to distract from it. 📺 People started fixating on her constant and inexplicable tweaking of the truth. Fake name, fake age, fake promises, and now she was fake-fiddling and making a grand show of it? Was she outright mocking her audience, daring them to call her out? Milking a skill she had grown bored with, in the lowest-effort way possible, knowing that goo-goo-eyed fans would still pay to see it? Playing them the world's saddest song on the world's quietest e-violin?
The release of new album Fight Like a Girl in 2012 did little to soothe the Plague Rats' fiddle blues. The violin was much less prominent on FLAG than it had been on Opheliac and Enchant. There were almost no solos, which provided fewer opportunities for playing or miming on stage. “Unlaced” was retired from the touring setlist. One night in Texas during the 2012 tour, due to being on vocal rest, EA played the melody line of “Liar” on the violin. 📺 And that was pretty much the last time world-class violinist Emilie Autumn was heard playing her instrument, on stage or in recording – to the dismay of many fans who had loved her for it.

Can someone please grab this woman by her hand, lead her across her livingroom/bedroom/study, and point at that lonely forgotten dusty violin in a corner of hers so she remembers that she actually owns it? (🐀)

It was yet another bizarre, glaring inconsistency in EA's narrative that fans seemed expected to ignore. Another elephant in the padded room. (Personal anecdote that I don't have a receipt for: in early 2012, when I asked if there was a possibility of EA playing another baroque set for the VIP events on the upcoming tour, her then-manager responded that that wouldn't be possible because venues didn't have the proper acoustics.)
Through some her posts over the years , attentive fans pieced together the likely truth of EA's effective retirement as a violinist. It's actually quite sad, and may cast a different light on EA's artistic shift.
The 2011 tour was initially scheduled for late 2010. It was postponed because EA had been neglecting a jaw injury for years, and needed emergency surgery to avoid “serious and irreversible damage” to her one violin-holding jaw. 📝 She had the surgery early in September; in late November, she performed all over Latin America for six nights straight, and by January, she was back on tour. The same tour during which she made “beginner's mistakes” on the Bach partita, and retired “Face the Wall” for good after a few shows.
She underwent jaw surgery again in 2018, after three years of orthodontic treatment which she said had “prevented [her] from performing”. It was the first anyone was hearing of this (she said she hadn't been touring because she was writing the musical!), and it's as far as EA ever got in terms of half-addressing the obvious: that after dedicating a third of her time on Earth to her craft, after years of pushing through the pain night after night, rushing through recovery periods, and making compromises so the show could go on... she may not be physically able to play concert-level violin anymore.
Once again, something that should (and would) have elicited empathy and support from most fans turned into a point of frustration, speculation and mockery, for years – because EA continued to favor pretend-play and fantasy over the sobering, unglamorous truth. Well, at least everyone's unhappy.

CONTINUED IN COMMENTS

​

Ok so Tiffany you could rest your own content so you posted you and Pete on FB and created a news skit straight from SHIETALLI content page. Here is another idea for you to steal. Post the video that SHIETALLI made of getting your azz kicked and drug by your eyelids by Lady K. You have just shown everybody that you are a THIEF😂😂😂. The next video you need to create is the one when you put the LEASH not a damn LEASE on the dog. Girl please learn how to pronounce words. LEASH goes around a dogs neck and LEASE is the rent you pay on those shacks being held up by tooth picks you keep wasting people money on. Please BEG for money to buy hooked on phonics for you and family, seriously, no joke, for real for real, do it today, like right now, run to your nearest store and get HOOKED ON PHONICS.

I casually watch this TikTok crowd when bored or needing a distraction. It seems a lottttt of their followers are super young which makes sense and now I feel embarrassed for commenting but It’s hard not to see a lot of the mistakes I made in them. It’s almost like when you already know the ending of the movie and you just wanna scream it out loud but no one wants you to spoil it for them, they have to see it for themselves. So thus I reserve my comments.
They’re the same age as my youngest brother, however, since I’ve already been here and done it all and im bored today, here’s my full take on the whole situation. I think it’s really clear as day and it bothers me a tad no one fully calls it out for what it is.

1. Some of it is real, and more of it is real than what you probably think and what they admit to sometimes. They often will tell you it’s a skit, gaslight you for “believing them” when they’re embarrassed. Some of it is exaggerated or dragged out more than what it is. Some of it is completely fake and made up when they need gift money for rent, usually at the end of every month. I think most people notice this.
   
2. Sunny has a trauma bond with Des. Her abuse is reactive, she’s young, she’s let the trauma of that relationship make her into a toxic person. Des and Dedrick have something wrong with them which I will go into in a minute. She has a serious obsession with Des she will not let go. Bc of the trauma bond. I so relate to this and their relationship reminds me somewhat of my relationship with my daughter’s father when I was about the same age. She would rather date his brother and cozy up to his girl than let him go. No, it’s not because she genuinely fell in love with Dedrick at all. The way she looks at Des, she is constantly checking for his response and she does the same. Dedrick was only a way for Sunny to piss Desmond off and for Sunny to cling on to Desmond by literally going with the next best thing which is his twin. Dedrick is not nearly as responsible, has a drug issue and blows through an exorbitant amount of money quickly, and cannot hardly hold a real conversation of any value for long. He constantly hangs his mouth open as if he is in some sort of stupor. Sunny knows that sexually it might be an upgrade but it’s a major downgrade from a man that somewhat had his shit together compared to the problem twin. Dedrick is the problem twin 100% and Sunny really doesn’t want him, she really wants Des at the end of the day. She knows Des isn’t gonna take her seriously and I don’t think Des will ever trust her again to take her seriously. Alexia and Sunny may have previously been friends and Alexia was brought into the skit but I think the skit became real and that was why Sunny flipped out so bad when Alexia and Desmond first got together.
   
3. I genuinely believe Dedrick has some cognitive deficits (slow) and that he also has a serious problem with drugs. This is why he blew through $500,000 of Ashton’s money. When I first heard that I was like what? How on earth can you go through $500k that fast and you didn’t buy property or anything like that? They blew through it in just a few months I was shocked. The drug issue explains this though and it seems he and Des also spent a lot of time at the casino at that time as well. Desmond seems to lack empathy and I really wonder what their childhood was like. The mentality they have towards women is sick. It’s giving narcissist. I see it in the false allegations towards alexia when Desmond knows damn well 😂 he does that as an excuse to fight with her and deflect from the fact that he’s cheating. Oh you caught me with a girl in your house? Well you ignored my phone call so YOU must be the one cheating, im breaking up with you! And she falls for it every time and so many young girls are in the comments going for it too. This is standard narc behavior.
   
4. I don’t want to speculate on anyone’s trauma but I wonder why alexia only dated girls for the longest time and the first guy she takes seriously is someone like Desmond.
   
5. They’re also not making as much money as they were or say they are. A lot of people who have never been part of the creator fund or made gift money on LIVE aren’t aware of how little TikTok pays. Tiktok has more Opportunities to monetize your content than other apps but that does not mean that they pay more than the other apps, it’s just easier to make money because you have more methods of doing so. Getting paid for views is less than a penny per view, it’s like .0015 per view. This is why you don’t see them posting videos much anymore because most of the opportunity to make money is on TikTok Live at the moment. TikTok takes 50% of everything you make on the app. So that $5 gift you want, the creator gets $2.50 of that and if they battle then all of the money goes to the creator who wins and they still are taxed 50% when they withdraw the money, every single time they withdraw. the majority of legitimate influencers make their money on brand deals and marketing content/products but those are few and far between as the economy dries up. You will see Sunny and the rest of them give an excuse as to why they downgrade from luxury penthouses to regular white refrigerator apartments. You will see them on live for hours upon hours upon hours at a time, pressuring people to send dollar after dollar, you will see them become more sensitive to criticism because it affects their already dwindling bag when they get hate.
   

EDIT: I’m really not sure what they’re tripping over after I stumbled across the OF content on one of the other subreddits 😂😂😂 and I really can’t believe Des would expose his disability like that because sir 🍤 😂
Do better ladies. -Big Sis 💋

2018 boy here. Watching the archives and saved these for making media share vids. Wanted to share with you all. Enjoy. Thanks for everything Wubby and crew. Feel better Wubby.
Wubby talking about an ex girlfriend, her wanting to put things in his ass. “My butthole is a one way street my man.” (maybe use with future streams, out of context clip)
Someone makes a dono asking for wubby cups, Whats a wubby cup? (maybe use with a future gamer supps clip)
Wubby says imagine being 34, that’s old as shit (save for when hes 34)
Wubby asks kid if he pooped his pants and describe it
Wubby asks if he looks good without glasses (before tiny eyes meme) no one spamming tiny eyes in chat
------- https://youtu.be/nVwKgyzaSYs?si=QaoQWCwfvjM70sd5&t=11976 (haircut stream, no glasses wubby, pre tiny eyes, still no tiny eye meme)
Wubby says one of his goals is to have ice come out of his fridge
Iconic. wubby doing the mod tier list, “oooohoh wwooowo owowoo oh fuck what was that?!” clip
Wubby talking about woman that has rabies when he was in the hospital. he stands up, pulls shorts down, still has green suit on (skip to 51:40 for more)
Leg wax stream. Alluux washes wubbys legs. (use for out of context)
Maybe a mod can help with this one. VPN doesnt work. Wubby super highpitch girly giggle (banned in the US now? Wasn’t like 2 months ago)
Wubby gets a bunch of $100 dono’s, pours booze in his mouth and spits it upwards and all over himself
Wubby gets even more huge dono’s, does a heroic speech, does a wedgie with his pants/green suit. “words are hard clip”
More big dono’s, running out of funny bits for chat, tosses gong, takes his pants off
Ploot.
Wubby interviews a 15 year old. Plays Marvin Gaye.
Wubby does fill kid Friday starwars bit, says he will not be using the force on a child today, cuz star wars
Wubby explains the kind of porn he wants to see. “poison from dick to butthole, only cure is her tongue”
Whole clip is so rough, fill kid with the girl from next clip. Shes 15.
He asks how old she is and dies inside
Wubby has green screen on, takes off his shorts, looks funny af, PP jingle
Media share, KealPlays donated a cameo of Chris Hanson to wubby
Wubby tells future wubby that hes gay and to quit denying it
Wubby 2019 birthday, has suit on, says “yoink, cover that belly up” stupid funny laughs. Wubby 2019 birthday, has suit on, says “yoink, cover that belly up” stupid funny laughs.
Wubby takes a swig of booze, spits it all over himself again
He gets a dono that says stop peaking your mic, wubby drunk af, talks into his mic peaking super loud for a minute straight. Chat livid. (VOLUME WARNING)
Wubby birthday stream, drunk, shows a sacred forbidden video of him lighting sparkler fireworks and he says “im a white girl, I like black dick” to the camera
Favorite - Wubby wasted dancing to song, trying to set up his decorations, one side falls, he turns around to set the other, first falls, then second, over and over. Yells “what the fuck is going on” (in my top 5 favorite wubby moments)
Wubby plays sub train, stands up, takes shorts off, dances with green screen on, PP swingin
Wubby talking about his dirty chair, shows chat, chat says cum stains, he says when he cums, he catches it all in his mouth, does funny ass trance thing
Wubby gets a dono from Frenchie that says “kiss me-“ he insta kisses before the dono finishes then it says “im 12”. Wubby yells “fuck you dude”
Wubby talking about where hes moving, super long drum roll, says San Diego
Wubby jizzed and killed a Finch story. Few minutes later, the term “wub cub” was born. Few after that “radar” outfit for twitch con. He says Mulan story but changes to finch story.
Wubby throws tiny hand at gong, hits bullseye, also wubby titty.
(VOLUME WARNING) Wubby lowers cost of “stay positive wubby” to 10 cents and chat spams it
Wubby talks about his room smelling like shit, its probably his chair, can use this for an out of context clip
Alluux makes 14 month (in 2019) dono about wearing diapers and stuff. Wubby says “get it out dude. Oh wait, was that allux? That’s why it was so sweet”
Wubby goes off about women putting cucumbers up their pussies, eventually says “how you gonna fuck a spectrum remote?”
Wubby does weird ass yoga and tases the gong (doesn’t do anything but had to try it) (few minutes of this is good but 14:39 in is funny af)
Cheeto hasn’t been feeling good, sitting outside wubbys room. Calls him in, cute af, the little arm twitch before he runs is the best
Wubby fades out his image, yells into mic if chat can see him, then he yells “I don’t have much time” as his voice fades away. Few mins before this, this all began we he watched a dude fuck a dog. But can use this out of context
Classic wubby screenshot. Laying down in his chaigreen suit, with his crocks in the hair, ass off screen.
Wubby says he’s looking lean, looking cut, raises the camera more and more so you can only see the top of his head.
Wubby talking about the Toronto meet up. Talking about how a chick said “shes going to meet up with her BF” then wubby fades away.
Wubby doing a heroic speech in just green screen suit. Does the “NYA NYA NYA NYA” meme thing.
Wubbys porn tier list. Incest porn. Makes imaginary story about step mom and step sister. Whole thing funny, at the end he says “youre so much bigger than your father!”
Big dono’s, we live in a society speech, strips with green screen suit on, hits the gong with his PP
Feel good clip one. Goes with next clip, wubby getting mad dono’s, makes goofy analogy, gets cute emotional with chat
Feel good clip two - “the stadium is full of lava, and the lava is full of love” context: he was getting tons of donos. earlier he said everyone is in a stadium, he has the mic and hes going to list off names and wants chat to scream and cheer in chat. Gets more dono’s, fake tases himself
Feel good - wubby talking about the rocks inspirational speech
Feel good - wubby talking about the rocks speech, saying he felt like a failure when he only got 500 views but when he really failed was when he gave up.
Wubby saying that the speech he just gave will resonate with atleast one person and that makes him happy.
2019 skinny wubby!
Favorite - Speed dating, german girl says “oh daddy” in german. Context: question was what porn category they didn’t agree with. Talking about incest porn. (stream before this was porn tier list.)
Speed dating, chick into fashion, wubby asks her if the guy were to stand up, could she tell him a better outfit, he stands up, has bullet proof vest on and red/black plaid pajamas on
Wubby playing mario sunshine, bets his twitch that he’ll hit a star, if he doesn’t, he deletes his twitch.
Wubby talks about how he blows his grandpa everyday
Mario sunshine. Wubby bets his stream again.
Wubby talking about if someone puts a finger in your ass
Wubby talks about AI driven sex robot in 2019 (relates to today maybe)
Wubby talking about the ending of breaking bad. The beginning of his bad takes
Sub train wubby wail
Giant german donates a shit ton of subs, wubby humps the camera
Wubby watches the wubby wail clip, laughs, at the end it plays a tiny clip of mario sunshine, he jump scares thinking it’s a naughty clip
Wubby watches him humping the camera, he listens closely, can hear his nuts slap
Twitch getting DDoS’d, wubby ending stream, blue wubby bit
Favorite memory of mine - first link is being a pain. It's the song that plays at the very beginning of the stream - This song played a lot at start of streams, chat asks what it is never answers, one of my earliest memories of wubby. ---- https://youtu.be/E4x6HJS2wn4?si=p0LJV4pVhm9-oOYW
Major hype, tons of huge dono’s from people, and then this is the first video of media share
Super wholesome community video. Keep watching after the first video ends for a second. Need more like this. Wubby was baited by the luigi
Wubby shits himself on stream
Wubby looking at animorph books. Says one looks like Peanut
Wubby driving, asks if chat wants to hear an orgasm sound, he hits the brakes and makes alluux scream
Wubby driving and TT adds sassy cop to his window
IMO, the cringiest wubby moment ever - (lowbit rate moment but you still get it) Wubby driving to the escape room with alluux and hes trying to find it, going through a alley and he just stops and stares down some guys. low bitrate moment, then awkwardness,
Escape room with alluux. Wubby gropes a mannequin.
Escape room. Wubby tells alluux to go inside a room, he watches on camera. Calls her a monkey cuz shes hopping around
Sub train. Giant german donates 100. Wubby blind throws a baseball bat over his shoulder and hits the gong.
Wubby asks hair salon lady to wash his hair, he says it really bad, she asks how long its been, he beats around the bush, he offers $100, she wants to cut the sides first, changes the subject to how he wants his hair done
(some muted spots, volume warning when you see the dragons) First stream after 2019 twitch con. Wubby does a top tier intro bit.
Carlos the gardener (with some of Jevins footage) made a compilation of wubbys stream. Had some twitch con clips. Met ash and few others for the first time. Wubby gets emotional.
Wubby talking about checking out new houses, shits in the bathroom to test the toilet, chat tells him to get a bidet, wubby says “a what? A BID-IT?”
Wubby shaving his beard to mutton chops, dono comes in that says “I know you wont see this but I love you” wubby responds by fake waking off and drooling
Double chin mutton chop wubby
Sub train, wubby shoots his paintball gun at his wall and draws a penis.
Wubby dancing with his green screen on and shorts down again to “drop it likes its hot”
Start of stream, wait screen is on, song playing, certain part of the song hits, wubby turns on cam and does retard goofy face and claps, with double chin
(fun fact, first 90 day stream) Wubbys dono’s got botched earlier, some replaying, this dono about wubby raiding last stream plays for a second time so wubby makes a funny, yelling at him as if he was mad about repeating the dono but actually complementing him
Wubby lost to the Wheel of Bad, alluux spanks him with a spatula
Another spanking, but with shitty eyebrows
Wubby shoots his camera while its on with a paintball gun
(NSFW click)Wubby got mad dono’s so he plays a twerk video for his chat, chick twerking, wubby pauses it, drags his image to her butt and sniffs.
(NSFW click) Same clip, wubby pauses while saying “if shes 15” at a super revealing part, he says hold on, unpauses to change the image. Eventually says “prison is just a room”
(NSFW click) Dude twerking this time, wubby tells chat a good way to bait him, crop the video and play it on mediashare, he’ll think it’s a chick, then zoom out.
Wubby talking about how dick size determines whether you can get women or not, disses himself good.
Wubby talking about his sex doll, makes the “pbk pbk pbk, fucking cums everywhere” thing. Keep watching and hes talking about flushing her vag out with a hydroflask/Gatorade bottle.
Wubby has to get spanked by alluux, she walks in with the biggest grin on her face, he turns music off, volume up, gain up, stares RIGHT at the camera, gets spanked, moans.
Wubby being goofy. Previous stream, he was watching twerk videos and he sniffed one of the chicks butt, his rep said he might get banned, rep came back and said just a warning, wubby talks about it on stream, as his talking, he takes his sub counter on screen and blows it up huge while talking
Wubby singing to a song “got a squirt gun, gonna point it at the squirt son(?), make my mom, squirt it on her only son” then awkward funny face
Start of stream, wubby turns off the BRB screen, fakes hes on the phone with another streaming platform, says "I can give up being a partner, I can give up twitch, but its gonna be 7 digits, 5 year contract, I don’t have any loyalty, with shroud gone…” then fakes noticing stream is watching
Wubby fucking PUMPED, first stream in new house, got a 100 gifted sub dono, does funny dance, shoots gong with paintball gun with no eviction notice
His dryer broke, wubby tells his dad hes doing laundry at his house, his dad says “okay bring your green screen suit” wubby says his dad wants to be one of the boys. Maybe use this clip with a few clips that his dad is in later.
Wubby talks about doing a price is right (scuffed) stream for the first time. Maybe use this with another clip
Someone donates another language version of Rap COD, fat guy in the video, wubby says “yall are gonna make me do it, my body type is not that fat” changes his cam view to just his head but you can see him in the mirror
Wubby hyping up stream for Halloween, says “it’s the day before Halloween! Its so easy as a pedophile…” and goes quiet and awkward

Wubby says he said the same thing hes about to say when this song by Eminem came out. “if Eminem calls you a goof, its over for you” (Idea: play this video again and see what he says.)
Wubby shoots near alluux with a paintball gun
Wubby dancing to Michael Jackson, has green screen on, his cam is showing up on his stomach so you see his head, he looks down, opens his mouth like hes sucking his dick
Wubby talking about no nut November, he says bunch of funny shit. “they’re gonna call me young gallows”
Wubby taps his mic on his chin really fast and it sounds glitchy as fuck
Wubby talking about the first price is scuffed. It just makes me warm and fuzzy inside. Im so proud of him.
Price is scuffed 1, contestant won, delayed winning sound effect funny
Same contestant wins some money, wubby offers her $200/$300 to change her reward to opening a box of his with a prize, she chooses the box, its lactate, she tells wubby he can keep it.
Price is scuffed 1 commercials, Handsome boi Peanuts commercial
Price is scuffed 1. Wubby wants to spin, changes him mind and has alluux do it, she spins and contestant wins $1000 dollars, alluux says “is anyone hiring”
Wubby talks about how he went to dinner with some streamers and twitch staff and had to leave early and sushidragon called him out on his stream so Wubby called him out on price is scuffed 1
Wubby has a good take on Joker.
Wubby was tossing back and forth the idea of getting a pornstar for an interview in a hottub, he DM’d Reily Reid and botched his message, “hey. Wanna come show? Hottub (answer question?) wrong pornstar lol? You? How it be?”
Just a crazy watch. Wubby had a youtube video and he wanted to put this guy in it but chose not to, instead he talked about it on stream, the wiafu pillow guy, managed to interview the guy live on stream. Goes for about 2 hours 11 mins to around 3 hours 15 mins in.
Wubby reveals his first tattoo
Lil Cheeto having some health issues but wubby being a champ and taking care of him, spending stream talking about him, shows clip of him holding Cheeto up as a lil boi and doing the lion king thingy
Someone makes a dono about being depressed, wubby makes a joke and says the cure to depression is “just be happy”, triggers some people in chat, use for out of context
Wubby and Alluux takes chat on a date, two perfectly lined dono’s, one asks to marry him, another asks to hold his hand, plays “that’s amore”, alluux holds out her hand like its chats
Date with chat, chat wants half a tendie and milk to go, wubby opens the to go box to find the half strip in there, funny af
Wubby clown skit, some muted audio at the start, Twitch shut down and banned wubby for his live stream in the restaurant, 5 days, then sent him an email saying they were wrong, wubby set up a skit where he dresses as a clown, some context: alluux comes out with cleavage because of the twitch streamers with there asses hanging out but don’t get banned, then there was that other twitch streamer that fed vodka to her cat and didn’t get banned, cant remember what the baby was about, also, on the phone call when wubby says “just two sentences”, hes talking about how his response from twitch was very short
Wubby bought chat cake for his 200k sub milestone, does a skit, drops lots of cake
Wubby explains and demonstrates how he poops and wipes
Someone dono’s that dragonball Z song, wubby hypes it up huge and it ends right before the build up
The iconic meme, wubby sits deep back into his chair and sticks his feet up at the cam
Amazing wubby laugh, chat goes Christmas shopping, chat tells him to read comments/reviews on sugar free gummy bears, wubby laughs super hard
Wubby says if you have a big clit, suck it like a baby dick
Someone plays a clip of wubbys favorite 16 year old, he drags his head to her at times it perfect, she says “we all know dennis hides kids in his basement, don’t you dennis?”
Wubby tells an emotional story of him playing some games with his friends and they heard him shit his pants, he lied, and destroyed a blanket, he plays the audio clip, you can hear it clear as day over the mic/discord
Wubby talking about how hes never had a wet dream, says unless his brother crawled into his bed and gobbled it up.
Wubby does a PO box, someone sent him a lifesize danny devito, sets it up behind him, he turns around and it scared him
Wubby and alluux in NYC, wubby calls Carolyn cornsnatch, super funny youtuber, tiktoker, etc, asks to hang out, he texts her “are you with your parents”
Carlos pays a slap, wubby kills a mini boss for calros, dark souls
Wubby asking chat to not be assholes with crowd control and reset the whole game, someone resets it
My dono: I used stopdrinking a lot and my name was u/wubbysandwubbysonly, I made a post and a random person made a wholesome comment to me and ended it with “wubby7” blew my mind - still sober
Wubby giving a speech to chat, hes back to where he was earlier (2 links above)
Priced is scuff 2 intro
Priced is scuff, wubby just being a goof, some context: synapse is sponsoring and twitch asked wubby to be pg-13/not cuss, wubby being wubby doing a little strip dance. Keep watching till after the Synapse add, funny bit with wub, midget and alluux, keep watching again, wubby and alluux do a cute dance to xmas music
Wubby sings rap cod
Wubby does Twitch Sings, sings freeze a poop and put it in my ass,
Carlosthegardener and wubby do twitch sings
Last stream of 2019, first time wubby talks about HP
Wubby shows the dopest piece of art that Alluux got commissioned for him

Hey all ,genuinely can’t for the life of me find the episode where the two ladies are in the grocery store and the one lady keeps talking about her son and ,the other lady goes”ou ayeee that’s nah problem for my son ,my wee andrews a ninja 🥷or something around those lines “short little skit but very sentimental I’m just looking for the episode number /season
Cheers in advance 🍻

Greetings from Castle Goring, I have news from on high and I will intermingle my news with some questions. The bongo bongo drums are beating again.
Lady C, the Sussexes were all over the place buying domain names for their kids but Meghan forgot to acquire all the domains for her global brand? Something is not right here. Why? Well spotted. You are onto something. The thing you are onto is Meghan is on another publicity stunt. Meghan firmly believes that as long as she is in the news, it doesn’t matter what is said about her. She must never have heard the maxim that too much publicity is a bad thing. This whole thing has been calibrated to boost Meghan and Harry’s profile. By boosting A Royal Oik, this gets people talking. And anybody who mentions ARO gets a boost for their name also. Such as that famous A-List D-List actress Abigail Spencer. And Melissa McCarthy. I won’t go into too much detail, but you will recall that very disrespectful shit skit they did promoting Meghan’s defunct 40-40 initiative. Melissa McCarthy told Page Six people are threatened by Meghan. I will make this point. Melissa McCarthy is crass and vulgar from that skit she did. She has the depth of a teaspoon. People ARE threatened by Meghan. She has threatened the stability of the monarchy. She has threatened the reputation of the monarchy. She has threatened the legacy of the late Queen with the Commonwealth. Yes, Meghan is threatening. Not because she is wonderful or awesome. Not because they are envious. And Meghan is so smart huh Melissa? So smart that Meghan went from total popularity to no popularity. Idiots like Melissa McCarthy don’t seem to understand defending the monarchy is not hateful – it is responsible. Melissa McCarthy, people are not jealous of Meghan. People are threatened by Meghan because she is dreadful. She is awful. She is irresponsible. She is destructive. But you, Melissa McCarthy don’t understand these matters.
Lady C, Markle was never going to make it as a productive member of the Royal Family. Her personality would have precluded this. I now view Megxit as a blessing. Do you if Meghan had stayed in the Royal Family, the damage would have been greater? The question is too hypothetical to answer. The fact is Meghan could only stay as long as she was able to hack it. She wasn’t disciplined enough. She wasn’t altruistic enough. She wasn’t appreciative enough. She wasn’t humble enough. She wasn’t flexible enough. She wasn’t vocational enough. She wasn’t self-sacrificing enough. She wasn’t humane enough. She wasn’t generous spirited enough. Had she stayed as the person she actually is, she would have headed for a collision with the powers that be. There was the bullying of staff. There was Meghan’s commercial activities. Meghan and Harry were determined from within, to destroy the free press in the UK. And then there was all this business with the Meghalian bumps and clutching of the bumps and we won’t even go into that. But that caused problems as well. You see, it took a long time for the powers that be to realize there was a problem. They took their eye off the bump ball until it was too late. There was no way to fit it. She is a dominating hustler who is a lone wolf. She can dupe the Melissa McCarthy’s of this world but she could not dupe people who were smarter and more educated. Had Meghan been more disciplined, even with her malignancy, she could have done more damage because people would have compared her words against her performance. But as Meghan began her “revelations,” she did not understand she was revealing herself to the public. The mask came off. Remember to this day, she has not backed up any of her accusations with facts. Fortunately for us, Meghan is so revolting, she unmasked herself relatively quickly.
Lady C, I am disgusted by the hypocrites in the MSM. They are acting disgusted by his parody yet Meghan and Harry can malign their own families and nobody says anything. Do you think the MSM is talking about this to resurrect the conversation about the bump? Maybe. These media organizations serve the interest of their owners. The British media is totally gutless. The situation with Harry and Meghan is so convoluted that only people of integrity can navigate that minefield properly. Nothing will happen until one of them breaks ranks. Then all of them will pile on. There is an awful lot happening behind the scenes. Some in the media have their finger on the pulse and would like to report what they know. Most are terrified (because of Harry’s litigation with David Sherborne) and are cowards. There are other things also happening. Many members in the media have divergent interests. Some are pro monarchy and some are pro republic. Some members of the media prefer for Harry’s litigation matters to be concluded before they “put a magnifying glass” to Harry and Meghan’s behavior. In the US, they keep Harry and Meghan close but also are keeping them at arm’s length in case any stories regarding their behavior come to light. If you look at the Netflix program, it was poorly done and not vetted. Christopher Bouzy and Bot Sentinel are now known to be a sick joke. The claims he made on the Netflix show as an expert are now discredited. Ashley Hale and the claims made about her are not as concrete as presented at the time. She presented herself as a lawyer but she is not listed in California as a lawyer. Are fact and fiction intermingling? Samantha connected Meghan with Ashley in 2007. There are a inaccuracies as portrayed by Netflix. Ashley said she wasn’t allowed to be invited to the wedding which is a lie. My source at the Palace said they did not prohibit Meghan from inviting her niece and I believe my source. I think Meghan manipulated Ashley away from Samantha because Meghan was always jealous of her prettier older sister. Meghan also told her father that if he didn’t cut off Samantha and Thomas Jr. then he would not be invited to the wedding. Look at what Meghan has done to her own family. Look at what Meghan has done to the Royal Family. Meghan is a born saboteur. People who do not understand this are colluding with her destructiveness. This Redditor’s note: Lady C went into an explanation of how Ashley portrayed on Netflix that she was abandoned by Samantha to be raised by her paternal grandparents but Samantha said this was mutually agreed to have the grandparents as primary caregivers because Samantha and her then husband were working so much. I didn’t quite understand the full story but please watch if you are interested.
Toodles Sinners!

At twelve years old, I made the biggest mistake of my life.
I became a local child star in a town full of psychopaths.
I won't say it was my conscious decision. Mom had been pushing for me to attend auditions since I was a preschooler.
It was obvious from a young age that my mother wanted me to be on TV. Instead of toys, she bought me a camera to ‘film’ my own movies, and started a private social media account documenting my progress. But I was still a kid. I wanted to play outside with my friends, not drive for four hours out of town to an audition for a kids commercial. I made it clear I had no interest in being on TV. Even if it looked cool, the idea of being in front of a camera made me kind of nauseous.
However, my mother was pretty dead-set on me becoming a child actor when pre-teen and teen productions started airing on local TV. The TV studio in town was fairly new, expanding local shows to all demographics. Think of it like a bootleg Disney. The owner was an unknown Korean billionaire who, instead of setting his sights on larger cities, decided to build a kids TV studio right in the middle of our coastal town, which, ironically, became the heart.
This post would be a cry out for help, if our town existed. To you guys, we’re nothing, just a blip in the middle of nowhere.
You won't be able to find us or the shows, and that's why I'm fucking terrified.
The new studio was built on top of an old cemetery.
Initially, townspeople protested, until the owner poured money into the town itself, buying a new academy for the high school, and personally paying for every senior college tuition. This guy clearly wanted our town, and he would do anything to get it. Bright Smiles Studios.
Which is an ironic name, considering what they are presently.
Anyway, they had surprisingly good TV.
Their productions were original and fun, like Nickelodeon with a lower budget.
One of my favorites was called The Pirate King, a live-action game show where contestants would have the chance to become mini swashbucklers, under the guidance of the starry eyed pirate king.
That was the only show I wouldn't mind being on, but it was impossible to get an audition. We did try, but no matter how many strongly worded emails my mother sent the director, begging him to give me a chance, it was always a polite, No.
The main young crew members had already been established, so I had zero chance.
With The Pirate King being their most popular show, local kids either needed connections to become a contestant, or wealthy parents. I had neither, so I became a casual viewer, tuning in every Saturday morning to watch my favorite swashbucklers causing havoc.
The Pirate King ran for three years before being abruptly pulled off air for seemingly no reason.
I thought it was a dud at first.
Instead of showing new episodes of The Pirate King, they played the local news instead. Mom suggested they were taking a break, so I went to look for older episodes. But they were gone.
I strictly remembered watching the previous week, because Jinx, my favorite character, severed the head of the evil statue controlling the contestants. I remembered pausing halfway through to freak out, trying to show Mom. But that week’s episode was gone too.
I waited a whole week for The Pirate King. We were left on a cliffhanger, with the kid crew becoming official members and crowned with their pirate hats.
Them becoming an official part of the crew had been an ongoing plot point for a while as the show found its footing, slowly becoming more of a drama with scripted lines. I wasn't interested in the gameshow aspect, I wanted to know more about the world.
Topper and Jinx started as stowaways, and Leia was a princess from The City Of Diamonds. For a gameshow, the story easily pulled me in. The Adventures of four young stowaways joining the dreaded Pirate King’s group. They had come so far, and I could tell the pirate king had taken a liking to them.
Every episode, he started with a question: Will my four friends become official members of the Starry Eyed crew?
He paused, playfully pushing Topper to walk the plank.
“Or will it be over for them?”
And after two years of waiting, we were going to get our answer.
The last episode ended with Jinx, Topper, and Leia kneeling on board their ship.
The Pirate King made them take the pirate oath, gifting them with their own starry eyes, and, with a nod and wink at the camera, he announced his new crew.
*Join us next week where we meet a whole new group of young piratteesssss!”
The camera zoomed into the crowd of contestants, while the main crew members waved at the camera with wide smiles. I knew their starry eyes weren't real, but they looked so cool.
I never got to know what happened next because the show went off air.
Bright Smile Studios issued a statement claiming the four main crew members had come into contact with a mysterious illness. I thought it was the flu, though Mom told me they were very sick.
Apparently, during filming, the kids fell into the water and contracted some kind of bacterial infection.
I was already sceptical as a curious eight year old.
I could understand one of them getting sick, but all four?
At the same time?
The Pirate King ended with no satisfying conclusion, not even a scene with the kids being real pirates.
Saturday morning TV became boring. The studio tried to bring in copy-cat replicas, but neither of them were good enough. There was a gameshow with a similar concept, but instead of pirates, it was spies. It was for older kids, so there was a lot more drama.
But again, it wasn't The Pirate King. We had all grown up with Topper, Jinx, Leia, and Bellamy, so losing them was jarring.
Without their familiar faces on our screens every Saturday, the kids in my town slowly started to lose interest.
I was semi watching the spy show until the main leads died in an explosion escaping their evil parents.
In reality, the two left for college, abandoning their contracts.
Mom tried to get me to audition for that show, but you had to be at least fifteen.
Eventually, even Spy Children! devolved into another generic gameshow.
I got bored, and watched Spongebob on cable, instead.
For my twelfth birthday, Mom surprised me with an audition for a brand new production.
Cabbage Patch was Bright Smile Studio's latest attempt at making another Pirate King. This time for older kids, the age range for applicants was 11 to 13. I had seen advertisements and casting calls all over town.
Mom didn't tell me, but she had already signed me up and received a call back. So, instead of presents and birthday cake, I was being dragged to the other side of town for an audition I was barely interested in.
The whole thing was a full day process.
The first round of auditions in the morning were part of a group. I had to stand in a line with a group of kids and speak the lines on a crumpled piece of paper. Then we had lunch, and Mom ran off to grab snacks from the convenience store. The other applicants had already made friends, and the only kid who talked to me had thrown up from nerves and was cut from the process.
So, that left me standing in the main reception area, trying to force down a candy bar.
Mom bought me three candy bars, a can of soda, and a gas station sandwich.
She left me to join the other parents in a separate waiting room, which left me and my shitty tuna mayo sandwich against the world. The room with the rest of the applicants was too loud, so I ventured into the main visitors reception.
There were posters of all of the studio’s works, with the majority being their most popular.
I was admiring a huge framed photo of the pirate king himself, when the door opened and then slammed shut. I caught a shadow striding toward the automatic doors, before freezing in place.
“Luke.” the woman at the desk peered over her laptop, her tone a warning.
“Don't go wandering, young man.”
“I'm not.” The shadow grumbled, and I twisted around.
I wasn't expecting to see Jinx from The Pirate King.
The guy was a high school kid at this point, sixteen or seventeen years old.
He looked different from his kid self, taller, dark brown hair poking from a baseball cap. His present attire, a short sleeved shirt and shorts tranformed him into a normal teenager, no longer a shipmate. On the season 1 poster behind him, Jinx was a six year old swashbuckler with a laughing grin.
This guy resembled an average kid with a video game addiction.
His behaviour, though, was odd.
It was weird, like watching an episode of Animals Do The Funniest Things.
Jinx acted like a predator closing in on prey. He moved slowly, almost like a Pink Panther skit, taking long strides across the room. When he was caught, the woman shooting him a warning look, the junior pirate held up his hands in mocking surrender.
But he didn't give up.
After studying her movements and waiting for the exact moment her attention was caught, he tried again.
This time, almost like a cartoon, catapulting into an abrupt sprint.
He made it halfway towards the automatic doors, before, “Luke!”
Jinx stopped, freezing in place.
“What are you doing?” the woman let out an exasperated sigh, slamming the space bar. “Do you want attention?”
“No.” the boy muttered.
“Good.” she said, going back to her screen. “I know it must be extremely hard not to be annoying, but I'm sure you can find a way to entertain yourself.” the woman sighed. “Where is Evie?”
Jinx blew a raspberry. “Don't know, don't care.”
After eyeing the elevator behind her, the guy gave up, leaning against the wall by the exit with his arms folded, a sleek pair of raybans shading his eyes.
I half wondered if he was hiding his starry pupils. It was a nostalgia trip just being in his presence. Reality hit, though, and I reminded myself The Pirate King was fiction. Jinx was just a kid. Still though, he was looking pretty good for someone who had supposedly contracted a deadly disease.
I couldn't help myself, making my way over to him in hesitant strides.
“Excuse me,” I didn't mean my voice to squeak. Jinx was like my childhood hero. He made me realize I could be a pirate too if I sent my mind to it. Jinx revealed in season two that he suffered from ADHD, and the whole episode was dedicated to proving that kids with colorful brains could be pirates too.
I was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of seven, so Jinx’s speech really hit me.
Obviously, the content was kid friendly, with the usual life lessons coming into play. But it was a rush to see a kid just like me, defeating the bad guys and saving the crew. Jinx highlighted his struggles with concentration, especially when fighting, telling the audience, “Sometimes, my brain is too loud.”
When The Pirate King was kidnapped, along with the rest of the kids, Jinx had no choice but to believe in himself, accept his brain was beautiful in its own way, and save the day. And he did, managing to take out the bad guy of the week, single handedly saving his crew.
Until then, I saw my ADHD as a weight suffocating my chest.
In school, ADHD meant I was different.
But Jinx taught me I was more than that.
I was a special kind of pirate.
That's what I wanted to tell the guy, but my words twisted up.
“Jinx?” was all I could say. “From The Pirate King?”
The kid plucked off his raybans, and I swore I caught the slightest sparkle in his iris, just like in the show, like his eyes were filled with starlight. I started to get giddy, already choking on what I was going to ask him. Did he ever become a pirate? Why did the show end? What disease was he sick with?
But the one burning question that had been driving me mad since the cancellation managed to slip out of my mouth before I could choke it back.
“What do your starry eyes mean?”
I didn't realize I was yelling, until the woman working at the desk told me to hush.
Jinx lazily dragged his gaze to me like I was a specimen in a jar.
Instead of answering, the kid’s gaze snapped to the candy bars in my hand, his lips curving into a smirk. He scoffed, and something in me snapped in two.
The pirate was looking at me like the kids in my school. Jinx cocked his head, mocking his character's smile.
“Jeez, don't you have enough candy, Chubs?” he laughed loudly, and I felt my entire world crashing down. I had been struggling with my weight for a while. I never thought my favorite pirate would point it out so cruelly too.
Do not meet your heroes.
I was paralysed, my mouth still frozen in a grin.
“I'm a big fan.” I kept talking, choking on words flying out of my mouth, and I hated myself for it. I hated him for looking down at me like I was worthless.
Jinx nodded, his eyes going skyward. “Coooooooool.” he said dismissively.
I tried again, getting progressively more choked up. “You were my favorite pirate.”
“I’m not a pirate, Chubs.” he slipped his glasses back on.
“Luke.” the woman scolded, “You cannot blame Nibiru for your attitude.”
“I'm not blaming Nibiru,” Jinx retorted, knocking the back of his head on the wall with a groan, “Can't you see I'm talking to my adoring fan?”
He said fan like spitting venom, with a giant dollop of sarcasm.
I felt my cheeks going scarlet, my eyes filling with tears.
The woman sighed, her gaze glued to her laptop. “Be nice to the kid or you're going back into Q, young man. Your choice.”
Jinx groaned, jumping up and down on his heels. For a seventeen year old, he was acting like a child. Settling me with a patronising smile, the boy was suddenly bursting with energy, as if he'd just inhaled helium, jumping in front of me like a cartoon character.
“Aww, I'm so glad you like the show!” He said, forcing a painful grin, reminiscent of his pirate self. “That's like, suuuper great! Have a funtastic day, all right? Don't do drugs! Drugs bad!”
I must have looked on the edge of breaking into sobs when Jinx’s demeanour softened.
“Do you believe in God's, kid?” he asked in a low murmur.
His question took me off guard. “Like… Medusa?”
Jinx scrunched his nose up. “No, you idiot! Jeez, you're like, too stupid to function. I mean, like actual God's.”
“Luke, stop being a dick.”
Topper, another member of the Pirate King crew, was standing in the doorway. The last time I saw Topper, he was a prepubescent little kid giggling at the camera. This guy was hunched over in a sweatshirt and jeans, hiding under blondish curls. Like Jinx, he didn't suit modern day clothes. I preferred him in his pirate costume. Unlike Jinx, Topper didn't have starry eyes.
His smile wasn't exactly friendly, more of a quirk of amusement. Still, at least he wasn't being an asshole.
There was something in his face I wasn't sure I was allowed to see.
Darkness, evident in shadowed eyes and pale cheeks.
Jinx and Topper had been sick, but this was different.
Deeper, like something had twisted them inside out.
Luke ignored his pirate crewmate, shaded eyes on the ceiling.
“The kid doesn't belong here,” he grumbled, “You, of all people should know that.”
Ouch.
Two members of my favorite pirate crew were confirming my worst insecurities, and somehow, I couldn't move.
“But I didn't even want to be on TV,” I didn't mean for my voice to break, anger and pain twisting in my voice. “It was my Mom’s idea to bring me today.”
“Then leave.” Jinx didn't look at me, though I caught urgency in his tone.
“Fucking run.”
Topper nodded to me, pulling his hood over his curls. “Luke is being an asshole as usual,” he shot the other boy a pointed glare, “But… he's right.”
Gesturing to the door, his lips formed a small smile.
“If you don't want to be here, kid, I want you to walk out of that door, and don't turn back.” His eyes darkened.
“Run.” Topper repeated Jinx’s words, and it was the plea in his words, the slight twist in his lip that was trying to scream, but kept collapsing into a smile. That is what sent me backing away.
Jinx and Topper were both telling me to get out in their own way, and I was slowly starting to notice the slight glint in their eyes. They were scared.
Topper kept shooting glances at the woman behind the desk, Jinx inching toward the door.
Topper’s eyes reminded me of staring directly into a starless sky, a vacancy that had aged him way beyond seventeen.
They were scared, I thought, glancing at the mysterious woman behind the desk.
Of her.
I thought she worked at the studio, but the more I caught the boy’s frantic eyes, as well as Jinx’s strange behavior when I met him, trying to Pink Panther his way towards the door without being caught.
This woman was a guard.
Something ice cold crept down my spine, phantom bugs filling my mouth.
What did she say to Jinx again?
“Hey, Chubs.”
As if the kid was reading my mind, Jinx lifted his head, gesturing toward the door.
Go!
I did my best to nod, before I backed into something warm.
And smelled overwhelmingly of my mother’s perfume.
“How dare you talk to my son like that.”
Mom’s voice came from behind me, her tone startlingly cold.
Mom pushed past me, ignoring my attempt to stop her. “I don't care who you are,” she spat at the two of them.
“You're a pair of washed out ex child actors who haven't been relevant in a long time!” she laughed, and I wanted to bury myself in the ground. She ignored my attempt to drag her away.
“And you have the audacity to speak to my son like that!” Mom gently tugged away from me, using her stern tone, “Wen, let go of me, honey, these kids need to be taught a lesson.” I could already hear her voice breaking.
Mom was seconds from crying, and the two ‘pirates’ were barely paying attention to her. She stepped forward.
“How dare you tell my child he is not good enough!”
“Uh, Ma’am.” The guard spoke up, only for Mom to cut her off.
“Look at you!” She scolded the two guys, “I remember you when you were little kids.” Mom made a wet sounding sputtering noise. “Oh, how the mighty have fallen!” Mom folded her arms like she'd won. “I don't know why you're smiling,” she spat at Jinx. “You should be ashamed of yourselves! Two unsuccessful brats bullying my child.”
Jinx surprised me with a harsh laugh.
“You've got no idea what you're talking about, lady,” his tone darkened. His lips curled into a smirk. “In fact! Do you want to know the real reason behind our cancellation?”
Mom shrugged. “You were clearly big headed.”
Jinx winked. “Nah. It's a little crazier than that.”
“That's enough, Luke.” the female guard stepped in. “Go to the Q room.”
Her gaze flicked to Topper.
“Both of you.”
“Wait, what did I do?” Topper demanded. “He was the one being a dick!”
Jinx laughed bitterly. “That's rich. Throwing me under the bus as usual, Topper?”
Topper’s eyes narrowed. “It’s Ace!” he twisted to the guard. “It's not my fault Luke’s got the sea in his head.”
The other boy scoffed. “At least he speaks to me. And I'm not even twenty yet.”
“That's not a good thing!” Topper snapped back.
“Don't argue. Q room.” The woman pointed at the door. “Now.”
Mom nodded, satisfied. “Exactly what these bullies need,” she said, “A well needed time out.”
Topper made the mistake of rolling his eyes, and my mother blew up.
Luckily, I managed to grab her, pulling Mom away.
“I'm reporting the two of you!” Mom shrieked. “And to think children actually looked up to you!”
“Oh, please do!” Jinx said, the guard striding over to the two of them, grabbing both pirates like they were her own children. Jinx tried to snatch his arm away with an uncharacteristic hiss.
I could tell from the way Topper was wincing, the woman's grasp was a little too tight.
She marched them over to an elevator, the two of them stumbling with her.
“Get off of me,” Jinx gritted out, “I can walk on my own!”
When the door between us slammed shut, I caught the latter of Jinx’s words.
“Report us all you want, lady!” he yelled, “Ow, that hurts! You can't stop me from–” the boy shouted something unintelligible, his voice collapsing into angry muffle-yelling.
After whatever that was, I wasn't sure I could continue my audition like nothing happened.
Mom ruffled my hair and gave me a hug.
“Ignore them.” she said, cupping my cheek. “You're going to be great, Wen.”
The second part of the auditions were individual ones.
I stood in front of a panel of four adults, stumbling my way through my lines.
Mom told me I did so well. I wasn't sure about that.
Three days went by, and Mom got a call while I was watching TV.
I got the part of Dex.
I mean, that's what I guessed. There was no other reason why she would be trying to cartwheel across the kitchen.
I thought it was a joke, but nope.
The producers of Cabbage Patch, and the Mayor (who had a little too much creative control) wanted me to come for a chemistry read with the other kids.
Cabbage Patch was like a kids version of Friends.
Five friends living together in a colorful house. The show was primarily for young teenagers, so there was an educational aspect.
After reading lines with the other four chosen kids, I was given the role of Dex, the middle school drop out.
Cabbage Patch was filmed on a mock set in Bright Smile Studio's, and it became my second home. I was there from 7-12 every weekday, and Saturday morning. It was fun to film. It was basically a never-ending party surrounded by cameras. We were given candy and sugar to hype us up, and were encouraged to act as crazy as possible.
Think of Friends, but it's a colorful kids sitcom with educational aspects.
As the middle school drop out, I was usually the instigator for the rainbow sprinkle parties.
Cabbage Patch quickly became more popular than The Pirate King, with kids across town turning into the local channel every weekend to watch us throw food and learn about friendship.
Mom was convinced I was a local celebrity.
It did feel like it. The kids at school wanted me to shout my catchphrase, “What's GOING on here? Cabbage Patch party!” every time I stepped into class.
For a while, I was on the top of the world.
Fast forward four years, however, I was starting to understand why The Pirate King boys told me to run.
I was fifteen years old, sitting in an adult club, opposite the Mayor of all people. I had lost all my baby fat, and I could finally look at myself in the mirror without wincing.
Puberty had been good to me, but I never forgot Jinx’s nickname. Chubs.
By now, I was fully aware our beloved Mayor was more corrupt than a fucking dictator. Next to me, Harry, a member of the Cabbage Patch gang, was completely out of it, his head of red curls nestled on my shoulder, half lidded eyes skating the ceiling.
I met Harry as a bright eyed thirteen year old obsessed with Pokémon.
I nudged him, and he made a groaning noise.
I was already uncomfortable in a club full of adults.
“Boys.” The Mayor cleared his throat, dropping a baggie of white powder.
Harry leaned forward, sliding over the powder with his index. I didn't even know he was conscious. “Thank ya.”
I lost Harry when our director encouraged us to take cocaine to exaggerate the zaniness of Cabbage Patch.
He was fired, of course. But the damage was already done. I had lost my friend to constant paranoia, breakdowns, and sudden, abrupt bursts of energy. Harry was the best person ever when he was high, and a tyrant on a come-down.
In a town that clearly did not give a fuck about its kids, Harry’s problem was ignored.
The Mayor coughed promptly, jumping to his feet. I had a feeling there was another reason for our meeting.
He would send an assistant if he was just handing over drugs. “I was never here.”
Harry laughed, offering the man a two fingered salute.
“Aye, aye, captain!”
I got home that night, coming face to face with my mother.
“Wen.” she folded her arms. “You stink of cigarette smoke.”
“I was studying late,” I lied. “With Harry.” I shrugged. “He… smokes.”
Her expression brightened. Any mention of Cabbage Patch made her smile.
I wondered what she would say if I told her I was in secret detox.
“Well, get some sleep,” she said. “You have a recording in the morning.”
Mom kissed my forehead, and I mumbled at her to go away.
That was the last time I ever spoke to my mother.
Our last normal Cabbage Patch recording was mundane as usual.
I wasn't a fan of my costume for that day, neon pants and a bright yellow shirt.
Iris was talking to me about something, her girlfriend, maybe, I wasn't fully listening. I think she was talking about her outfit, another colorful explosion.
The four of us were squeezed together on the couch for the opening shot, and I was staring dazedly at a new light situated in front of us.
It was too bright, too invasive, like invisible tendrils poking at my eyes.
“What's that?” I nudged Harry on my left, who was still on a comedown.
We were getting better, but Harry was already addicted, already going out every night for his next fix. He was a coked up mess. The local gazette was going to have a field day with him.
“Dunno.” Harry responded in a dull murmur. Pulling his knees to his chest, he made a snorting noise. “I think it's to make us more zazzed.” His eyes lazily rolled to me, and he winked.
“Since coke is baaaaaaad, like, obvs.”
I could see so much of Jinx the pirate in him.
Not exactly a good thing.
“They're called concentration lights,” Iris murmured. “For Harry, clearly.”
Harry nudged her with a laugh. “You love me.”
The girl shuffled away from him. “You smell like Coachella.”
“Is he still using?” Matthew twisted around, whipping off his rainbow glasses.
I didn't reply, Harry muttering for the boy to shut the fuckety fuck up.
I should have been paying attention to Harry’s behaviour, the way he couldn't keep still, the slightly manic look in his eyes.
His lips slowly curling into a grin, dead eyes settled on the camera.
“Action.”
One word.
One light, bright enough to blind me.
We began our opening friendship song as usual, but once my vision had cleared, my body wasn't working the way it should. At first, I thought I was having a seizure, or a stroke. My body stiffened up, the left side of my face drooping. The world went deathly silent apart from a single ringing sound, like a coin rattling in my skull. Then… pain.
It hit me in writhing waves, first across the back of my head, creeping down my spine, an invisible monster clawing into my skull. Something wet, something ice cold, was running down my chin.
Blood.
It was all over my hands, soaking the front of my shirt.
My body moved like it wasn't mine, my neck snapping into place.
I looked directly into the light, hypnotised by its beauty.
Dropping onto the ground on my hands and knees, I was straddling something warm, a moving form that kicked and screamed beneath me, an animalistic shriek rattling my skull. But I shut it up, grabbing its shoulders and slamming its head into the floor. The moving form didn't have a face. I only felt its warmth.
Giddy, I ran my fingers across the surface of their skin and then plunged my fingers through, using my teeth to get deeper and deeper, until that warmth was in my mouth, slithering wetness dripping and caught between my teeth. Sound returned, slamming into me. I was screaming. No, I was laughing.
My mouth was full of something wet, something mushy and hard to swallow.
But I kept eating, gnawing into warm, slithering jelly that squelched at the back of my throat.
I was aware of panic around me, but it only motivated me to dive to my feet.
I started forwards, giggling, waving my hands in front of me, grasping slithering sausages.
In the corner of my eye, Iris was standing on the couch, bouncing up and down, half of her own face clenched between her nails, her lips spread out into a skeletal grin. Her movements excited me. I wanted to join her. But I also wanted to hide what was in my fist.
It was mine.
Crawling onto my stomach, I remember feeling like a wiggly worm.
I stuffed the warmth into my mouth, joining in with the others’ squawks.
It was a game for us, the others trying to snatch pieces of flesh from my fists.
In reality, I had chewed through half of the camera guy. His brains stained my hands.
I started towards our Mayor, who, to my confusion, barked at the cameras to keep rolling. “This is it,” he said through gasping breaths. “This is enough!”
His eyes went skyward, lips stretching into a cry of mania.
“Is this what you want, Nibiru?” he demanded. “Instead of our children?”
Half conscious, I grabbed him by the neck, sinking my teeth into her flesh.
She tasted so good, laughing, her giggles turning to gurgles.
“Now this,” he declared, when I dug my teeth in further. Harry was dead, his trembling body still writhing, his jaw moving like he was still eating, gnawing on thin air. Iris's head was there one minute, and gone the next, spraying me in scarlet. Matthew was a pile of wriggling mush on the ground.
“This is what he wants!”
Our director’s half lidded, mutilated eyes were on me.
And, sobering up, I became aware of what I was doing.
What I had done.
And why Jinx and Topper told me to fucking run.
It's been two years since Bright Smile Studio's officially declared ownership of me.
Nibiru, a God I didn't even know existed, has been pulling the strings since the start.
My town has been subtly giving him children through the years, in the form of contestants on Bright Smile Studio's shows.
But then he demanded the four members of The Pirate King's crew.
I watched it on TV.
What I thought was a fictional bit, I was witnessing them pledge themselves to thee pirate king.
Nibiru.
Our town told him he couldn't have them, and that's why we’re here.
Presently, I haven't seen my Mom in three years, and the sky above our town turned dark six months ago. The real world continues as normal, and we are stuck in endless, suffocating shadow.
A giant pirate ship sits in the centre of our town.
We’re told to ignore it, but I mean, who could ignore something like that?!
We’re not allowed outside (for our safety) but I only see hell through my windows.
I see crowds of people brainwashed by a God whispering in their heads.
I'm told to plug my ears, but I can still hear him.
His voice carries on an invisible wave, crashing into my mind.
Cabbage Patch is now the only source of entertainment for the Pirate King himself, the newly appointed Jinx, who was crowned seven months ago. There was zero point in trying to hide the pirate crew from Nibiru. He found them, and filled their eyes with stars.
Now, we are under their rule. Four ex local child stars given God-like abilities.
God help us.
Cabbage Patch has been twisted into a psychotic game.
Instead of ending with our friendship is magic song, we are forced to brutally eat sacrifices for Nibiru.
The worst part is, he just brings them back whenever he likes.
So, nobody really fucking dies.
It's not like we can control this.
Whatever that light was, mixed with drugs, it turned us into something no longer human, a God’s executioners.
Thankfully, I don't remember most of it.
We call it Zazzing. We start the song, zaz out, and wake up covered in blood.
During our first Zazzing, most of us died. Harry from blood loss, Iris's head blew up, and Matthew’s body turned to jelly. I can vaguely remember choking up mangled pieces of my own lungs— only to wake up two days later with nothing but a bad migraine.
To this God, we are dolls made of flesh and blood, dancing on strings.
I tried to get in contact with Mom, but I can't leave the studio.
The Mayor told me to not even try. If not, I would be volunteering myself to Nibiru. Except last night I broke down.
I needed to find my Mom.
I'm used to being covered in someone else after a recording.
Their remains stain me, and I feel every single person ingrained into my skin.
Blood doesn't even feel real anymore. It's like being covered in gunk.
After showering, I headed down to the main reception area.
The guard behind the desk was reading a scrappy copy of Metamorphosis.
I started toward the door slowly, holding my breath.
“Excuse me?”
I froze. The voice was a little boy standing behind me.
Deja-vu hit like ice cold water.
“Dex?” The boy wasn't smiling. His eyes were hard, mouth twitching into a scowl. “Why did you destroy our town?”
I was so fucking tired, and this kid was staring at me like I was a murderer.
Well, in his eyes, I was.
“My name is Wen.” I grumbled. “Get out of here, kid.”
He folded his arms stubbornly. “I want to join Cabbage Patch,” he said. “So, my Mom and little sister will be safe.”
“Aren't you like eight?” I said dryly.
“And a half!”
Instead of responding, I took the kid’s shoulders gently.
What I wished Jinx had done with me.
I marched him over to the door, and shoved him through the two guards blocking my way.
But I managed to catch a slither of the outside.
Iris and Harry joined me, the two of them freshly out of the shower.
I think they were looking for their parents too. We pressed our faces against the door, peering into the dark.
There was a thick fog in the air, a crowd standing on the streets, and among them, was my starry eyed mother.
She was like a zombie, her head tipped back, wide, moonlit eyes on the sky.
I tried to get to her, but the others dragged me back.
“It's not worth it.” Iris told me.
Harry punched me in the face, hard enough to knock me out. I didn't blame him. I was so close to stepping outside.
I woke up maybe 20 minutes ago.
Harry has an old iPad he's been using to play Genshin. But he's crashed.
It has the internet, so this is a call out to you, Mom.
I know you're in the crowd, and I know you worship our pirate king. I saw you, Mom, I want you to wake the fuck up.
I’m so fucking scared.
Mom. Please help me.
I don't want to be on TV anymore.