Chapter 8 Of The Gang Gets Severed Is Out Now!! Go Read It!!! It's Called Charlie Gets In Trouble!!!

Preface (please read!):

This one's pretty fucked up gang. TW for UNNATURALLY BENT/BROKEN/DISLOCATED LIMBS.

This is based on a one-off phrase by Jon Matteson in his TGWDLM watch party during Let It Out where he said "Was that bones breaking?" I'm assuming he meant bones cracking, as in the sound, but this got me thinking of an interpretation of Let It Out in which Pokotho breaks Paul's bones to make him pose and dance.

When I showed this to my partner his only comment was "Davy Jones High School Musical Prom King"

Anyway, still feral about this musical and pumped for The Guy Who Doesn't Like Musicals Reprise <3

Please Reblog, but Don't repost without asking please!

i just think it’s so brilliant that the show about emotionally stunted codependent losers is also the longest running live action american sitcom.

i don’t think i’ll ever be able to articulate this fully but. they could have very easily made something short and cynical. something strictly satirical. something like veep, or arrested development, which, don’t get me wrong, are both shows i love, but they are shows where the audience just laughs at the main characters’ misery. and yeah, most of it is that. most of it is traumatized kids who aren’t kids anymore drinking themselves to death in a dive bar. but it’s also mac coming out to his dad after so many years of shame and dennis finally getting something for valentine’s day and dee telling a joke that actually lands and charlie alone in the rain until he isn’t and all of them walking off of that mountain together with their arms wrapped around each other. sometimes it’s that. but you only notice those brief, saccharine moments when you’ve been watching something long enough — living with something long enough — to do so, and suddenly you’re crying on the couch because dennis bought mac a dog even though dennis hates dogs. i would take something breathing, something with empathy over something bitingly satirical and efficient and short any day of the week.

there is probably nothing in that crate outside, but hey, let’s look in it anyway. there’s a stain on this wall and it looks like a miracle.

My desire to see the foster girls happy + my soul-deep need to put paul matthews in situations have collided in a cataclysmic and frankly irreversible way and i've decided i'm going to make it everyone's problem. what you're telling me this man doesn't deserve a "world's okayest dad" mug ???

i've fine-tuned the lore to this incredibly silly au yapping abound under the cut

the gist is pam is both lex and han's mom but only paul is hannah's father. it was a one night stand which didn't go well (that's the last time paul ever gives in to ted's goading to "loosen up" and "do something crazy"). paul eventually takes lex in and adopts her because of the few times he's seen the way pam treat her + he wants the sisters to be able to grow up together. Normal Man went from a recent college graduate in a brand new job with no immediate plan or intention to have kids to a seasoned father of two in the span of like a year. idk but if u ask ME this is the universe's way of saying paul matthews was meant to be a girldad he's just unlocking his full potential

thinking about the gangs social media usernames and this is what i've come up with.

dennis – @/thegoldengod of COURSE.

dee – @/jokesondee. she just like. cannot let it go. maybe one day her comedy will get rlly popular and this username will make sense to normal people... but probably not.

mac – either @/macmcdonald or something absolutely ridiculous like @/badass.ass.kicker. but his first username was @/jesusjackedme. he had to change it because dennis was like, "dude, this sounds like ur saying jesus jacked u off!" "no dude! thats disgusting! jesus jacked me UP, spiritually, physically and mentally!"

charlie – charlie doesn't use social media. he can't read or write much less TYPE and its just overall too confusing. however the gang tried to set something up for him and just asked him what username he wanted. he picked @/nightmancometh and never used his accounts a single time.

frank – @/richdaddy69. he bought this username. he also pays for verification!

One last edit before I go to icbiballtay and my life changes forever

hug the homies goodnight. maybe even a smooch

sunny doodles!

the idea of Ruth as a trans allegory has me crying in the club

(SPOILERS FOR NERDY PRUDES MUST DIE GO WATCH IT ITS AMAZING)

the idea of discovering something more to yourself that you want to show the world, but feel stuck in what people say you need to be rather than what you really are hits really close to home

Max Jagerman saying “you’re a nerd cause I said so. i willed it into existence.” represents how the more acceptable, “normal” people project what someone is supposed to be onto them without considering what they truly are, to keep them in a box, a box that Ruth is trying to break out of

when Max is presumed dead, it represents those expectations being lifted off of those who were affected, allowing people like Richie to be confident in who they are and make friends

even though Ruth doesn’t know exactly what she is yet, she finds her passion for being in the spotlight at the beginning of “Just For Once”, singing about how she now knows she wants to be in the spotlight

lines that talk about her character growing old, talking about how she’s disappointed with where her life is, maybe reflects how she’s feels about growing up herself, being scared of a future where she has to live as someone she isn’t or with someone she doesn’t want to be with

her repetition of “just for once,” in the song reflects many of the thoughts that other trans people have, often imagining ultimatums like “if only I had a button that turned me into a (preferred gender)” or “if I could just wear this outfit just for one event,” or “if I could just be a (preferred gender) for one day”

“just for once I’d feel the spark that I once knew” reflects feelings of many trans people who realized they weren’t cis around high school, where Ruth is, and searched to find that feeling again, but felt trapped by expectations by parents or others

“should I flip the burgers now? should I double check it’s well done on the outside, not within?” her indecisiveness reflects one of her main character traits, that she is riddled with anxiety, a common struggle that trans people experience, her anxiety makes scenarios that even though people are starting to accept her after Max’s death, that she’d still be ridiculed, or that it isn’t right for her to be who she is

her musicality shows her in bursts of confidence, like at the end with her lengthening the last note and letting it trail off, setting it free, only to go completely silent, highlighting the duality of her confidence in her new self, and fear of change (the last note always kills me it makes me tear up everytime)

what makes it even more gut-wrenching is that she isn’t able to feel the freedom of living her dream

the trailing off repetition of “i used to dance” after talking about giving away her tap shoes, representing her surrender to anxiety and fear, giving up on her dreams of being a performer, before being killed by Max

“Life is fine, if only it were mine.”

Holloweane, because I've been rewatching Nightmare Time and it reminded me how much I love them.

Redraw of this beautiful work by Jon Whitcomb ✨