#I LOVE DRAWING HARDBASS

[sosilliest]

OMG OMG HI I YOUR NEW FOLLOWER I JUST SAW YOUR ART THEY ARE AMAZING BUT CAN I PLEASE HUG HARDBASS THEY SO COOL!!!!

his reply to ur question hehehe…

BUT TYSM AHHH IM SO GLAD U LIKE HIM AND MY ART AHHH I APPRECIATE IT SMMMM!!!

[gyaruxqueer]

♡ Hello!! ♡

My name is Stars☆, and welcome to my gyaru blog! I'm a genderqueer man in my late 20s starting to explore the world of gyaru after a great deal of research and soul-searching to see if this is the right lifestyle for me--and as of right now, it is! I am for SURE still a baby gal but I feel very drawn to ganguro and feel so at home within myself when I dress in gal☆

My pronouns are it/its but he/him is also super. I have been a kandi kid for what feels like forever and in my heart, rave and gal r siblings♡ I live by PLUR and have always been intent on breaking the mold and refusing to conform to society's standards of beauty and normalcy, so when I discovered gyaru I was naturally very curious about it.

This tumblr will serve primarily as a place for me to compile images of other gals, style and makeup inspo, and occasionally fun little aesthetics and other miscellaneous posts that resonate with me and this particular aspect of my life. Its secondary purpose is for me to talk about my journey as a gal! In time I may start posting selfies but as I'm still starting out and figuring out how I want to style myself I may not do it very often.

This is a sideblog! I will like and follow from @drunkstarscreamofficial , and my personal blog is @mimikyubestie . I also have a Skyrim blog @boethiahsboytoy and a blog for OC posting @starscreams-drunk-oc-blog . If you need anything tagged, let me know! My ask box will (probably) always be open, so feel free to stop by to chat at any time!

Thanks for stopping by! If you've got any questions just shoot me an ask. Have a great day!! ☆Stars☆

Some fun facts about me (under the cut because wow do i love to ramble):

I've known I was queer since I was a wee little lad and I am still exploring my identity (and predict I will for a very long time!).

I am asexual and demiromantic with a preference for men--so I'm also a gay man!

I use a cane to help relieve chronic (undiagnosed) back pain! I REALLY want to save up for a plain black cane and TONS of cute things to decorate it with--stickers, jewels, etc.--to match the gyaru lifestyle. But my favorite one is my orange lava cane that my husband bought me♡♡

At the moment I'm super broke 😭 I work part time in retail but have to pay for my meds and hormones (and my doctors appointments and labs related to them) out of pocket, so my shift into the gyaru lifestyle will be slow as I lack the funds to add pieces to my wardrobe that I want. I will be focusing more on new makeup and accessories than clothes however, as I loooove altering my own clothes and have many ideas of how I can change up my wardrobe just by using what I already have.

I can't wear big dramatic falsies (for the most part) because I need glasses. I can't afford to see an optometrist to get contacts (and couldn't afford contacts anyway😭), so I make do by drawing on lower lashes and decorating under my eyebrows with cute eyeliner stamps or glitter!

My favorite color is orange, but ironically I don't style a lot my outfits with lots of orange! However some of my Signature Looks are ALL orange, so I think that makes up for it ;P

My favorite movies are Pride and Prejudice (the 2005 one), Pacific Rim, and The Bye Bye Man. My favorite movie genre is horror, and I REALLY like comedy and found footage horror especially.

My favorite genres of music are hardstyle, hardbass, happy hardcore, and eurobeat. My favorite musicians and bands are The Sounds, DJ S3rl, Headhunterz, Uamee, and Unleash the Archers.

I did drag for a bit, but after a while wearing a full face of makeup started giving me really bad sensory issues. Now I pretty much only do eye makeup and slap on some lip gloss (and occasionally lipstick if I feel up to it).

I am mixed white (specifically Welsh mostly) and Filipino, though unfortunately have no real significant ties to my cultures :( But I do love Filipino food !!

That's all for now! If you read this far you're a fucking champ 😭😭 Stay safe out there!!

[x-katastr0fa-x]

Testing testing-

Helo c: I'm just trying to figure out this platform, thought I could see what it's all about by posting a cover I made for my comrades' new track 🙌

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Have a good day 🤙

[honnojis]

go forth friend. ramble about your favorites of the SV cast (w warnings where absolutely necessary ofc!!)

i wanna hear ur opinions of em !!!!

OUGH okay i will. put all of that under the cut bc i'm definitely going to talk about big spoilers AND IT'S GONNA BE LENGTHY BECAUSE I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS. SV may be a mess in some aspects but the story is the best it's been in many gens, if not the best story in any Pokémon game

i gotta talk about the two elephants in the room first; RIKA AND ARVEN.

For Rika; She's giving me gender envy bc like. god i wish that were me. But also I want to marry her because oh my god I love her and her design so much GAMEFREAK WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME. Why do they always keep getting away with this shit EVERY GOD DAMN GEN that there's a character I end up being down bad for LOL... She's so chill!! But she's also so nice!!! And I'm ough. I really hope any future DLC will give her more screentime or at LEAST let me rematch her because why the fuck can i not fight the E4 again!!! sir!!! lemme see her!!!!!!!!!

Arven.............. he is my son now. That whole last stretch of the story in area zero really REALLY solidified him as my favourite of the main cast because man he's been through a lot and this guy can't catch a fucking break!!! Had to go years without seeing his parents only to find out that the one parent he remembers and saw only very occasionally as a kid died years prior to the game's events protecting the mirai/koraidon you've been traveling with all this time. And the whole thing about Mabosstiff!!! The titan questline had me tearing up on several occasions. im AUGh.... I'm so SO weak for characters like this who appear a bit standoffish at first but then open up to the player and they're just beans that have gone through a lot and are trying to help. And his own resolution to become a chef with the knowledge he now holds over the herba mystica to help others felt like the most logical course of action for him to take so i'm glad he found what he wants to strive for next!! anyways sorry not sorry if i end up drawing him a lot LMAO he lives in my brain rent free. son boy allowed

Then there's Nemona!!! She's so fucking head empty no thoughts and I love her. And if there's something in that head of hers it's just a brick with the only thought being violence and battle. And you know what? good for her! good for her. She's really funny and probably one of the most fun rivals we've had in recent history for pokemon. I like that she's not just super talented either, she literally explains to the trainer when you talk to her in postgame that she had to work hard to even get to this point. She really feels like a mirror to the player but she just took her journey of becoming a champion a year or two earlier than the player did. But also wow same lady ur just like me fr fr

Penny!! she's just a bean that cares for her friends!!! And the team Star story stuff really felt nicely done. Trying to help her friends that were painted as bullies because of a misunderstanding and mismanagement at the school while the team Star members aren't bad people at all. I also absolutely love her sass when traveling with her in Area Zero (and subsequently the dynamic between Penny, Nemona and Arven as a whole, they're best friends now your honor)

AND ALSO CAN I TALK ABOUT HER BATTLE THEME FOR A SECOND BECAUSE ?????????????????????

THEY PUT HARDCORE/HARDSTYLE IN MY POKEMON GAME

I genuinely was not expecting that but hearing the hardbass i was like wtf holy shit they went OFF with this track!!! The track is an absolute banger too but definitely felt unexpected for a character like Penny. Good for her though!! She's got one of the best themes in the game and im jamming

And then Turo! I played Violet but I'm aware that the same thing happens with Sada in Scarlet so it's easy to just replace names. Man... I could talk about this part of the story all fucking day. The professor is probably one of the most interesting "villains" in Pokémon as a whole and I'm SO GLAD that the series finally went down this route, because they absolutely nailed the story telling with this. Area Zero blew me out of the fucking water and was so unexpected!!! This whole segment has "REJUVENATION" written all over it!!! I was literally WAITING for Jan to get to this segment after completing the game, only for him to say the same exact shit LOL. I was not expecting this from a main series Pokémon game at ALL and frankly I'm so glad it did because this whole story segment with made Violet easily one of my favourite pokemon games in the series.

AI Turo stimulating the player from the background to find the herba mystica with arven and them becoming stronger but not really wanting to talk to Arven because-- just like his original counterpart-- he's too focused on the goal of the mission to care for the son of his original counterpart (though him being an AI also might hinder processing emotional attachment even MORE than the original Turo already had problems with). The reason why Turo hasn't visited Arven in years being that the original is dead and AI Turo literally cannot leave the crater due to him needing the power of the Tera crystals to stay functional. AI Turo, despite being the same in almost every possible way, realizing and coming to agree that there's no logic in the original Turo's decision to want to introduce future Pok��mon into the ecosystem KNOWING that it'd destroy the old one, making him a better person than the original was-- and painting the original Turo as the villain in this situation due to that his obsession with the future as written in the Violet book drove him to ignore how wrong he was for what he was trying to do, even after death. AI Turo knowing that he himself is part of the security system and needs to be fought in order to put a stop to the time machine, hence why he stimulated the player to keep training and taking care of Miraidon. AI Turo realizing that he needed to go in order to put a total stop to the time machine because his very existence is keeping it active. He says "I want to see the future" and leaves the present day in order to stop the time machine, but there's some deeper implications here; in practice this is AI Turo taking a massive risk by sacrificing himself to save Paldea because on the chance he ends up outside of the crater, he'll cease functioning and will practically die. And you know? The revelation that he's an AI powered robot actually makes total sense if you paid attention to his animations and speech mannerisms; he's the only character that doesn't have a breathing animation (it's not even there in the first video transmission you see of him! and it's the same for Sada in Scarlet) and is constantly identifying the player & friends through student ID's and biometrics rather than acknowledging them as actual people. BUT ALSO THAT BATTLE WAS SO FUCKING COOL!! Genuinely challenging too since you had to figure out his mons' typings on the fly, AND HE'S GOT A BANGER BATTLE THEME. Toby Fox you've done it again you madman

honorable mention goes to Clavell and Grusha, the former because Clavell is fucking funny as hell and I'm so glad he ended up being more involved in the story than I expected. Sir you're a little behind with the times AND YOU ASKED ME WHAT CHEUGY MEANS WHICH KILLED ME but you're all the funnier for it. thank you. Grusha gets the mention because he caught me off guard by having the highest leveled gym team out of any of the gym leaders with having mons at level 47 while I strolled up with my mid-30's team and got my ass blasted. thank you sir. i will now never make the mistake of thinking you're a lower tier gym leader just because TPC advertised you early. good god

All that being said, I could go on about every other character but these really were the ones that stuck out the most in my mind. i have so many thoughts about this game and i swear the brainrot's going to be around for a LONG ASS TIME

[aprilpillkington]

What you will see in this article is really the very beginning...

What you will see in this article is really the very beginning of hardbass culture. Hardbass is essentially sub genre of electronic music, which obviously originated in Russia, someplace in 2000’s. It is defined with fast pace, strong bass beats (AKA donk bass), with periodic lyrics. Dress code is generally budgety outfit, the majority of typically Adidas tracksuit. Holy carriers of hardbass culture are gopniks, which are typically seen crouching in groups, drinking and, obviously, doing hardbass. Here in next few minutes you will learn everything about the normal gopnik specimen in his natural environment. As we said, hardbass began to establish in Russia, precisely in St. Petersburg, with leaders like DJ Snat, Sonic Mine and X Job. After few years, it began to spread out through VKontakte, Russians version of Facebook, and by 2010, numerous “copycat” artists and videos of EDM songs began to sprout all over Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Individuals were crouching and pump dancing in classrooms, busses, work stations, malls, basically everywhere. In the future, people began doing this pump dancing thing at famous landmarks and places in their home town to reveal something in your city that you’re proud off, and to show that you like your city. In some nations hardbass was used for a slightly different purpose, like a form of public rebellion, such as in Serbia, where people were utilizing it to oppose about Kosovo, or Chile, where trainees utilized it to protest against the federal government cutting funds for education. However, in all fairness, EDM music is a type of (hillarious) dance and we should use it and comprehend it as a type of socializing and home entertainment, while expressing yourself! A few of the most popular artists nowadays are DJ Blyatman, XS Project, Hard Bass School, YURBANOID, Celebration Factory etc. Get in your Adidas, get a bottle of beer and hardbass the night away! It all began as a type of joke that went too far– four people from St. Petersburg were trying to mock stereotypical gopniks (low-life Russian criminals) but ended up winning their appreciation rather, and after that the entire thing went viral worldwide. You have actually most likely seen it, a minimum of in a video. A number of men and sometimes ladies worn tracksuits, their faces frequently covered with masks or balaclavas, collect in a circle and move their bodies (or in some cases just their heads) to really loud and primitive music with unique basslines and a quick pace. The whole picture is attractive as hell.

What is a Gopnik?

Gopnik is a stereotype and subculture in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other former Soviet republics to describe boys of sometimes lower-class suburban areas originating from families of poor education and earnings.

Ignore ballet. In the 2010s, it was an uniquely Russian kind of music called hard bass that conquered the world. However before this, it discovered its way to the hearts and ears of countless Russian individuals. In a very unusual way. As frequently happens in Russia, people took something foreign and then Russified everything the way to the bitter end. Hard bass traces its roots back to pumping house, a Western-born genre of techno with a fast pace and rhythmic bass area (Klubbheads are a good example of pumping home). But then it encountered some severe Russian culture phenomena. Paradoxically, for the innovators of hard bass, integrating Western rhythms with the tracksuit clothing used by gopniks (petty goons or scallies) was simply the method to have a laugh. As Lenta.ru put it, the hard bass movement was originally planned as mockery of the “rave gopniks” who would participate in huge rave parties however had no concept what rave culture was originally about (peace, love and techno). Therefore it was that in 2010 4 young people living St. Petersburg published a video on Youtube teasing the absurd dancing of gopniks– moving your ankles around and stomping your legs back and forth. While dancing, it is also essential to make an unique gesture with your hands clenched into fists and just a thumb and little finger extending. The “song” that they carried out to was quite simple: “Raz-raz-raz, eto hard bass!” (something like “Hey-hey-hey, this is hard bass!” in English) but it likewise consisted of a bit of healthy lifestyle propaganda. The guys pointed out that their archenemies are different kinds of chemically produced drugs and that they drink only kvass. Obviously, this too was a joke making fun of gopniks’ pride in their apparently healthy lifestyle– healthy primarily in the sense that they wear tracksuits every day.

Perhaps the paradox was too subtle though because lots of real gopniks who viewed the video didn’t detect it and related to it on a genuine level. No drugs, a basic dance and music to run over the ground to– what’s not to like? Therefore it was that this weird new design, purposefully elegant and ridiculous, started to grow in popularity. With time, the circumstance grew pretty intricate, with 2 separate kinds of hardbass music fans emerging– those who sincerely liked it and those who were teasing it. In some cases the line between them was (and is) very thin, so now when you see the latest funny video with a lot of individuals dancing to hard bass in tracksuits, it is hard to inform if they are severe hardline gopniks or simply fooling around. The hard bass fan website hardbas.ru informs us “It is the pursuit of favorable energy and objection to fool oneself with drugs that lags the hard bass philosophy. Hard bass will help make your life better and more favorable.” That seems a little pretentious, but who we are to evaluate? Then suddenly, the author diverts off in a dubious political instructions: “In numerous cities, hard bass is likewise a Russian alternative to Lezginka (a nationwide Caucasian dance that people of Caucasian origin in some cases perform in the streets).” There are conservative activists amongst hard bass fans, and in 2013 they even attempted to perform “a hard bass protest” dance in the center of Moscow but were apprehended by the authorities. Nonetheless, hard bass is, as a general rule, not about politics. It helped Russia draw attention from the West, albeit in a strange method. Numerous Youtube blog writers now simulate the Russian accent and explain how to behave like a real Russian patsan (a more considerate term that gopniks usage to describe each other) by squatting, consuming sunflower seeds, using Adidas tracksuits and, naturally, dancing to some premium hardbass music. Just remember that this all began as a parody. What basically began as a Russian take on hard house has spread out across the world through social networks and developed into a form of viral demonstration. Local hard bass crews arrange flash mobs called “mass attacks,” where packs of masked youths “pump dance” strongly in public while baffled passerbys pick up speed and try their finest to prevent eye contact. The entire routine is filmed and published onto YouTube, where– instead of curl up and pass away under a barrage of keyboard warrior hate– it’s managed to motivate new hard bass crews that have sprouted westward across the continent.

What is hardbass music?

Hardbass or hard bass (Russian: хардбасс, tr. hardbass, IPA: [xɐrdˈbas] is a subgenre of electronic music which originated from Russia during the late 1990s, drawing motivation from UK hard house, bouncy techno, Scouse home, and hardstyle. Hardbass has become a central stereotype of the gopnik subculture. Originating in Saint Petersburg in the early 2000s, hard bass resembles every other range of generic dance music popular with young Europeans who dress solely in budget plan sportswear: 150-160 BPM, four-to-the-floor beats, and tacky ‘90s synths. This is generally Russian donk. The only real distinction is that instead of hearing a Boltonion drawl chewing on a Greggs cheese-and-onion piece tell you to “put a donk on in it,” you periodically get a Russian MC spitting something in Cyrillic that I have actually been too frightened to penetrate Google translate. Championed by home-grown manufacturers like DJ Snat, Sonic Mine, and XS Job, regional record label Jutonish was your one-stop purchase all your hard bass requirements. By all accounts, hard bass would not remove beyond Saint Petersburg for the next couple of years, and even Muscovites appeared to prefer listening to the noise of rusting Soviet equipment grind into disrepair over the St. Pete’s sound, but eventually, hard bass’ mundanity would be what moved it into the international awareness.

The truth that you could drop a hard bass track at a gabba night in Holland, or a poky rave in Spain, indicated that there was a lot of cross-pollination in between the scenes, with European DJs dipping into hard bass celebrations in Russia and vice-versa. This is how Dr. Poky, the primary face at Sound Makers records, marched from a sea of gurning faces and ended up being the hard bass messiah, preaching the pump bass gospel through a grassroots Facebook marketing campaign. Initially from Russia’s eastern steppes, Dr. Poky first relocated to Madrid, where he went far for himself as DJ in the local “poky” scene, before ultimately settling in France. It was on an eventful trip to Russia that he first experienced the infamous hard bass “pumping dancers.” “When I DJed in Russia in 2009, I saw some video on the internet of two or three guys dancing in the street to hard bass as a joke,” Dr. Poky told me over Skype, “They put the video on the internet, on a program called VKontakte.” If you’re not familiar with bootleg social networks platforms, VKontakte is Russia’s answer to Facebook, with a 195 million profile-strong following, largely based in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Kazakhstan. Hard bass now had an audience, and as we’ve seen in the after-effects of “Gangnam Style” and Soulja Kid, with sufficient inexpensive laughs and a viral video, you too can leave your grubby mark on the worldwide linked loins of modern-day popular culture.

By 2010 copycat videos started appearing in Belarus, Ukraine, and throughout Russia. Pumping dancers were pump-dancing in class, in shopping malls, on public transport, on football pitches, and even on the actions of the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre in Minsk. Groups could be as small as three or four dudes (and it’s pretty much always men) or as huge as numerous lots, however the general goal is to get as lots of people as possible pump-dancing at an innovative location that nobody has ever tried before, or somewhere where you make the greatest problem out of yourself– and if you don’t get it on video, it didn’t happen. Simply in case you’re having trouble imagining pump dancing, let me simplify for you: think of a lot of hunched-over guys treading grapes, arms bent at the elbow, hands formed into beach bottom “hang loose” gestures, casually flailing their forearms up and down. That’s pump dancing. Straight from the off, a few common threads started emerging; the pumping dancers were constantly big on reppin’ either their country or their native city, and most of the videos were recorded at distinct regional landmarks most likely to include in regional tourist board pamphlets. “It has to do with showing the city where you live, the piece de resistances, to reveal it’s genuine. This is my city and I like it– we dance to hard bass here too,” exposes Dr. Poky. Another commonality was an overarching sense of masculine aggressiveness, and spending plan sportswear. Mass attacks appear like fight scenes from hooligan flicks like The Football Factory. In one Ukrainian video, two groups of hooded youths approach each other in a city underpass, hands raised overhead and chanting as if there’s a lot of obscenely overpaid professional athletes kicking a ball around nearby. After a brief pause, they charge at their equivalents in a relocation that reminds me of a wall of death that I saw at an Agnostic Front program when I was 15, before breaking into fits of pump-dancing upon effect. It’s like seeing a musical adaptation of the 2011 London summer season riots composed by Blackout Crew. In all fairness, this isn’t just special to EDM music; among gabba’s most significant anthems is “Rotterdam Thug” by the Rotterdam Terror Corps that samples the impassioned chants of Feynoord fans. Pondering hard bass’ withstanding appeal with football punks, Dr. Poky explains, “It’s simple for them to bring people and make a video. It’s low-priced promo to demonstrate how hard they are.” I’m pretty sure dancing hasn’t been utilized to intimidate people since the Jets and Sharks threw down in West Side Story, but whatever.

At some time in late 2010, hard bass slipped under the digital Iron Curtain and made its method onto YouTube, pump dancing into the cumulative worldwide consciousness. Over the course of 2011, hard bass teams sprouted in Slovakia, Serbia, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic. In Belgrade, one mass attack attracted around 200 barely-pubescent kids, while others took place as far away as France, Spain, and even Chile. Mass attacks were increasingly taking place outside of federal government buildings and, to the untrained eye, should have appeared like political demonstrations by means of ham-fisted line dancing. Were they trying to say something to political leaders? Dr. Poky explains: “Some people make videos due to the fact that they enjoy hard bass and want share it with the world, however some other people use it to promote their own program. In Chile, trainees used it to protest against the federal government cutting money for education, in Serbia for example, some of them used videos to oppose about Kosovo.” The first crew to explicitly use hard bass as a political platform were Russian group Hard Bass School,“ who saw themselves as an eastern bloc Minor Threat. As Dr. Poky elaborated: "You have some video on Internet with a man smoking cigarettes, then some person comes and states 'Why do you squander your money and time smoking cigarettes or taking drugs? You need to be wearing a Hard Bass School t-shirt and dancing to Hard Bass!’” Yeah, let’s get high on tee shirts! In Belgium, Jeune Nation, the Hitler Youth-esque junior wing of Francophone nationalist movement, COUNTRY, use0 electronic music in their nonstop battle versus Islam. With Halal dietary standards becoming progressively typical in supermarkets and school kitchens across Charleroi, they unceremoniously took the streets last April wearing pig masks and staged a mass attack in defense of their inalienable right to pork products. Political gains were limited, however sighs of exasperated offense were at an all time high. Over in the Czech Republic, anti-authoritarian hard bass teams are persuaded that the recession marks the start of a counter-cultural revolution, as Mord explains: “Society is staggering on the edge. Today’s financial crisis is not simply a cost-effective problem; it’s a crisis of culture. We believe that this crisis is a significant one which a huge social shift and transformation is on the horizon. We want to contribute.”

Okay, however isn’t pump dancing a bit of an unclear way to make a declaration? Why do not you make some banners and scream cute slogans like everybody else does? Team member Mord argues, “That’s simply another system-approved form of habits. How can you protest against the system if you continue to play it’s game? How you want to alter rules if you behave by the rules? Take a look at the Occupy Wall Street motion. Where are they now? What did they in fact attain?” However how precisely is rhythmically simulating the early stages of the red wine making procedure a much better revolutionary tactic than civil disobedience? “Think about the symbolic power! Groups of masked individuals making noise and dancing where they’re not supposed to is a lot more outrageous than ten times as many individuals marching with banners and screaming slogans! We are provoking people to think a bit more about what they see around them; people are desensitized to opposing crowds, however everyone responds to hard bass.” Though Nenad, from Serbia’s hard bass team, included a more level-headed answer: “To us, it’s a type of interacting socially and home entertainment and it lets us reveal our viewpoint. We won’t alter anything, but at least we get to reveal our position.”

What is EDM music?

Electronic dance music, likewise known as dance music, club music, or simply dance, is a broad series of percussive electronic music categories made mainly for bars, raves and festivals. And I guess that’s the real point of EDM music– it’s just kids trying to run the hormonal onslaught of adolescence as best they can and hope it brings them some sort of purpose and belonging. When one Prague hard bass crew got together to go garbage selecting in a regional forest, I don’t think a lot of them really provided a shit about the environment, or dreamt of trolling Japanese whaling vessels with the Sea Shepherd Preservation Society, they probably simply wanted to hang out with their pals. Due to the fact that, basically, adolescence sucks and not everybody gets to be prom queen, so why not indulge in hard bass?

What you will see in this article is really the very beginning... published first on https://the4th3rd.tumblr.com

[rawliverandcigarettes]

Writing Questionnaire

Hello people, it’s been a while. I was tagged by the delightful @natsora in this one ! I tag @stories-of-arani, @kiranwearsscienceblues, @autodiscothings and @bronzeagelove if you haven’t done it and feel like doing this.

Short stories, novels, or poems?

I like all three, I have slowly warmed up to short stories over the years, and now I really appreciate this form as well.

What genre do you prefer reading?

I kinda prefer nonfiction like essays or autobiographies, and literary fiction. It’s been a while since I read a scifi or fantasy book that really managed to caught my attention, mind and heart (which is a shame).

What genre do you prefer writing?

I recently discovered I had a crack for realism, as in the french literary movement, of bringing out the mundane out of the extraordinary. It might seem super counter-intuitive, but I really feel like we get to touch the absurd and the heartfelt out of the human experience when we bring it down to just... living, and what it costs, and what it does to us. But that’s more for the general feeling; in terms of genre, I really like to write scifi, literary and horror/thriller.

Are you a planner or a write-as-I-go kind of person?

I do both, and it totally depends. I write short stories with very few preparation and I mostly pants them, but novels require more planning to remain coherent.

What music do you listen to while writing?

What goes with the scene. It can be indie rock, it can be soundtracks, it can be dark electro. Or, when I’m very very tired and need to hold the night writing, I can even turn to the unglory of eurodance and hardbass so I can bounce around as I write in absolute shame and agony.

Fave books/movies?

For the movies, I think my heart will forever go to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, which amazed me with new things to discover in storytelling, sound design, cinematography and much more every time I’ve seen it again since my first viewing at age 8.

For books, I’m not sure I could pick a favorite one, because let’s be real folks -I skipped reading a lot those past few years. So I’m going to go with Drawing Blood by Molly Crabapple, which is a fantastic autobiography that talks about politics from the 2000′s and later (the Occupy Wall Street movement, Greece, etc), the burlesque stage of New York, her life and self discovery as an artist and an activist, and fueled me with a fire to do things that matter. It’s maybe not my favorite book, but it’s the one that shook me the most those past few years.

Any current WIPs?

I have 3-ish at the moment.

Halfway Home is obviously the big one. I haven’t posted an update on this for the longest time, but I’ve been very busy doing anything but working on it, but I’m slowly carving the final outline. So much has changed you guys. I’m finally embracing structure a little bit more, and I think it does good to the story. 4 years on this bitch, still a mess. I really love it, but I’m starting to tire, not gonna lie. Still, I really need to get it out in 2019, because after I’ll be too much of a boring adult with regular income to do it justice.

I also have another project, for an original novel. I have the global outline already, and even though I need to research and polish a few details, I’m amazed at how fast it came together and how crisp the story is. It’s a major departure from the messy slug that is Halfway Home, and I even have good hopes to get it published someday. But I’m not getting to it before finishing Halfway Home, otherwise I’m afraid I will never find it in me to get back to the pain of it.

Then I have a short novel horror collection, in french. I have three quarters of the first novel, which might be the weirdest thing I ever wrote, about parasites and showers and green beans. It’s called “Gant de Toilette” (washcloth? I think it’s the correct translation), and I don’t even know.

If someone were to make a cartoon out of you, what would your standard outfit be?

Black top with long sleeves, black shorts, stockings and high heels, which is my standard everyday thing when I go out. Maybe my chainsaw necklace, even though I lost it recently :(

Create a character description for yourself:

She becomes colder the closer you get. Not much, but there is a flicker in the soul, the muscle tension -what was warmth and rageful empathy now comes with an afterthought, a plastic film maybe. You wonder if it’s egotic, if it’s dissociation, if anything before was ever true or meaningful, but you don’t ask, because if you ask, you suspect she wouldn’t know what to reply. After all, she lives within, so what does she know of herself.

(agreed, this is maybe not the most flattering portrait I could have made))

Do you like incorporating people you actually know into your writing?

I’m inspired by people I know, and I do incorporate parts of how I perceive them in my writing, but I don’t think I would straight-up pluck out someone I know from real life and put them in my story. It would feel wrong to me, and kind of uninteresting too.

Are you kill-happy with characters?

Hmmm good question. I think I am, like I enjoy killing off characters in meaningul ways and crafting the situation around, but it really depends on the WIP and whether it calls for it or not.

Coffee or tea while writing?

Both. Not at the same time, obviously, but I alternate. Cappuccino is also awesome.

Slow or fast writer?

Fast when I do write, which has not been extremely often lately.

Where/who/what do you find inspiration from?

.Everywhere really, since inspiration is but a patchwork of stuff we get to experience. Dreams are a big one; some of my most vibrants ideas come from dreams. Otherwise, reflexions on poeple, anxieties about the world and personal experiences are what drives me most of the time.

If you were put into a fantasy world, what would you be?

A low nobility in that subplot that isn’t going anywhere but still seems desperate to make a point.

Most fave book cliche? Least fave book cliche?

I think I just love the weird family of outcasts trope way too much for it to be reasonable, and I hate unnecessary romance or family links revealed to actualize characters’ relationships, because I feel like it often cheapen things or flatten them.

Fave scenes to write?

Two characters bonding bittersweetly. I can’t find any other way to describe that sort of scenes and I apologize.

Most productive time of day for writing?

Night. No question asked.

Reason for writing?

Self discovery, a way to make sense of the world, a way to speak to others with deeper layers than speech alone, and for the made up character my mind feels obliged to.

[gothrapxxx]

What you will see in this article is really the very beginning of hardbass culture. Hardbass is basically sub category of electronic music, which naturally originated in Russia, somewhere in 2000's. It is characterized with fast tempo, strong bass beats (AKA donk bass), with periodic lyrics. Gown code is typically budgety clothing, a lot of frequently Adidas tracksuit. Holy providers of hardbass culture are gopniks, which are typically seen crouching in groups, drinking and, naturally, doing hardbass. Here in next couple of minutes you will discover whatever about the normal gopnik specimen in his natural environment. As we stated, hardbass began to develop in Russia, specifically in St. Petersburg, with leaders like DJ Snat, Sonic Mine and X Job. After couple of years, it began to spread out via VKontakte, Russians variation of Facebook, and by 2010, different "copycat" artists and videos of EDM music began to sprout all over Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. People were crouching and pump dancing in classrooms, busses, work stations, shopping centers, basically all over. Later on, individuals started doing this pump dancing thing at popular landmarks and places in their home town to show something in your city that you're proud off, and to reveal that you enjoy your city. In some nations hardbass was utilized for a somewhat various purpose, like a form of public rebellion, such as in Serbia, where people were using it to object about Kosovo, or Chile, where trainees utilized it to protest against the government cutting funds for education. However, in all fairness, EDM is a form of (hillarious) dance and we need to utilize it and understand it as a form of socializing and entertainment, while revealing yourself! Some of the most popular artists nowadays are DJ Blyatman, XS Project, Hard Bass School, YURBANOID, Party Factory etc. Get in your Adidas, get a bottle of beer and hardbass the night away! Everything began as a type of joke that went too far-- four men from St. Petersburg were attempting to mock stereotyped gopniks (low-life Russian goons) however ended up winning their praise rather, and then the entire thing went viral worldwide. You have most likely seen it, at least in a video. A couple of guys and sometimes females worn tracksuits, their faces often covered with masks or balaclavas, collect in a circle and move their bodies (or in some cases just their heads) to really loud and primitive music with distinctive basslines and a quick pace. The whole picture is stunning as hell.

What is a Gopnik?

Gopnik is a stereotype and subculture in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other previous Soviet republics to refer to young men of often lower-class suburban areas coming from families of bad education and income.

Forget ballet. In the 2010s, it was a distinctively Russian kind of music called hard bass that conquered the world. However before this, it discovered its way to the hearts and ears of countless Russian people. In an extremely strange method. As typically occurs in Russia, people took something foreign and then Russified everything the method to the bitter end. Hard bass traces its roots back to pumping home, a Western-born genre of techno with a fast pace and balanced bass area (Klubbheads are a good example of pumping home). But then it ran into some serious Russian culture phenomena. Ironically, for the innovators of hard bass, integrating Western rhythms with the tracksuit attire worn by gopniks (minor goons or scallies) was simply the way to have a laugh. As Lenta.ru put it, the hard bass motion was originally meant as mockery of the "rave gopniks" who would attend big rave parties but had no idea what rave culture was originally about (peace, love and techno). Therefore it was that in 2010 4 youths living St. Petersburg published a video on Youtube teasing the ludicrous dancing of gopniks-- moving your ankles around and stomping your legs backward and forward. While dancing, it is also important to make a special gesture with your hands clenched into fists and only a thumb and little finger protruding. The "song" that they performed to was quite simple: "Raz-raz-raz, eto hard bass!" (something like "Hey-hey-hey, this is hard bass!" in English) but it also included a little bit of healthy way of life propaganda. The people mentioned that their archenemies are various type of chemically produced drugs and that they consume only kvass. Naturally, this too was a joke teasing gopniks' pride in their supposedly healthy way of life-- healthy mainly in the sense that they wear tracksuits every day.

Maybe the paradox was too subtle though because lots of actual gopniks who viewed the video didn't detect it and related to it on a genuine level. No drugs, an easy dance and music to squash the ground to-- what's not to like? Therefore it was that this strange new style, purposefully elegant and unreasonable, started to grow in popularity. With time, the scenario grew quite complicated, with two different types of EDM fans emerging-- those who regards liked it and those who were making fun of it. Sometimes the line between them was (and is) really thin, so now when you see the current amusing video with a bunch of individuals dancing to hard bass in tracksuits, it is hard to inform if they are major hardline gopniks or just fooling around. The hard bass fan website hardbas.ru informs us "It is the pursuit of positive energy and aversion to trick oneself with drugs that is behind the hard bass philosophy. Hard bass will assist make your life more vibrant and more favorable." That seems a little bit pompous, but who we are to evaluate? Then suddenly, the author diverts off in a suspicious political direction: "In numerous cities, hard bass is likewise a Russian option to Lezginka (a national Caucasian dance that individuals of Caucasian origin in some cases perform in the streets)." There are conservative activists amongst hard bass fans, and in 2013 they even attempted to perform "a hard bass protest" dance in the center of Moscow but were apprehended by the authorities. However, hard bass is, as a general guideline, not about politics. It assisted Russia draw attention from the West, albeit in an unusual way. Many Youtube bloggers now mimic the Russian accent and explain how to behave like a real Russian patsan (a more considerate term that gopniks use to explain each other) by crouching, taking in sunflower seeds, wearing Adidas tracksuits and, of course, dancing to some premium EDM music. Simply keep in mind that this all began as a parody. What basically began as a Russian take on hard home has spread out across the world through social networks and developed into a form of viral demonstration. Regional hard bass crews organize flash mobs called "mass attacks," where packs of masked youths "pump dance" strongly in public while baffled passerbys get speed and try their finest to avoid eye contact. The entire ritual is filmed and submitted onto YouTube, where-- rather than curl up and die under a barrage of keyboard warrior hate-- it's handled to motivate new hard bass crews that have grown westward across the continent.

What is hardbass music?

Hardbass or hard bass (Russian: хардбасс, tr. hardbass, IPA: [xɐrdˈbas] is a subgenre of electronic music which originated from Russia throughout the late 1990s, drawing inspiration from UK hard house, bouncy techno, Scouse home, and hardstyle. Hardbass has become a central stereotype of the gopnik subculture. Coming From Saint Petersburg in the early 2000s, hard bass resembles every other variety of generic dance music popular with young Europeans who dress specifically in spending plan sportswear: 150-160 BPM, four-to-the-floor beats, and cheesy '90s synths. This is basically Russian donk. The only real distinction is that instead of hearing a Boltonion drawl chewing on a Greggs cheese-and-onion piece tell you to "put a donk on in it," you periodically get a Russian MC spitting something in Cyrillic that I've been too horrified to penetrate Google translate. Championed by home-grown manufacturers like DJ Snat, Sonic Mine, and XS Job, local record label Jutonish was your one-stop shop for all your hard bass needs. By all accounts, hard bass wouldn't remove outside of Saint Petersburg for the next few years, and even Muscovites appeared to choose listening to the sound of rusting Soviet machinery grind into disrepair over the St. Pete's noise, however ultimately, hard bass' mundanity would be what moved it into the global awareness.

The reality that you might drop a hard bass track at a gabba night in Holland, or a poky rave in Spain, indicated that there was a great deal of cross-pollination between the scenes, with European DJs dipping into hard bass parties in Russia and vice-versa. This is how Dr. Poky, the primary face at Sound Makers records, stepped out from a sea of gurning faces and became the hard bass messiah, preaching the pump bass gospel by means of a grassroots Facebook marketing campaign. Originally from Russia's eastern steppes, Dr. Poky first transferred to Madrid, where he made a name for himself as DJ in the local "poky" scene, prior to eventually settling in France. It was on a fateful journey to Russia that he initially encountered the notorious hard bass "pumping dancers." "When I DJed in Russia in 2009, I saw some video online of 2 or 3 people dancing in the street to hard bass as a joke," Dr. Poky told me over Skype, "They put the video on the internet, on a program called VKontakte." If you're unfamiliar with bootleg social media platforms, VKontakte is Russia's answer to Facebook, with a 195 million profile-strong following, mostly based in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova and Kazakhstan. Hard bass now had an audience, and as we have actually seen in the aftermath of "Gangnam Style" and Soulja Young boy, with enough inexpensive laughs and a viral video, you too can leave your grubby mark on the globally connected loins of contemporary popular culture.

By 2010 copycat videos began appearing in Belarus, Ukraine, and across Russia. Pumping dancers were pump-dancing in classrooms, in shopping center, on mass transit, on football pitches, and even on the actions of the National Academic Bolshoi Opera and Ballet Theatre in Minsk. Groups could be as small as three or four guys (and it's pretty much always men) or as huge as several dozen, however the basic objective is to get as many people as possible pump-dancing at an inventive location that no one has ever tried before, or someplace where you make the most significant nuisance out of yourself-- and if you don't get it on video, it didn't occur. Simply in case you're having difficulty picturing pump dancing, let me break it down for you: envision a lot of hunched-over men treading grapes, arms bent at the elbow, hands formed into beach bottom "hang loose" gestures, casually flailing their forearms up and down. That's pump dancing. Straight from the off, a few typical threads began emerging; the pumping dancers were constantly big on reppin' either their nation or their native city, and the majority of the videos were shot at distinct regional landmarks likely to feature in regional tourism board sales brochures. "It has to do with showing the city where you live, the piece de resistances, to reveal it's real. This is my city and I love it-- we dance to hard bass here too," reveals Dr. Poky. Another commonality was an overarching sense of manly hostility, and budget plan sportswear. Mass attacks appear like fight scenes from hooligan flicks like The Football Factory. In one Ukrainian video, 2 groups of hooded youths approach each other in a city underpass, hands raised overhead and chanting as if there's a lot of obscenely paid too much professional athletes kicking a ball around nearby. After a brief pause, they charge at their equivalents in a relocation that reminds me of a wall of death that I saw at an Agnostic Front program when I was 15, prior to getting into fits of pump-dancing upon effect. It resembles enjoying a musical adaptation of the 2011 London summer riots composed by Blackout Team. In all fairness, this isn't simply distinct to EDM; one of gabba's most significant anthems is "Rotterdam Hooligan" by the Rotterdam Horror Corps that samples the impassioned chants of Feynoord fans. Pondering hard bass' sustaining appeal with football hooligans, Dr. Poky explains, "It's easy for them to bring individuals and make a video. It's affordable promo to show how hard they are." I'm pretty sure dancing hasn't been used to intimidate people given that the Jets and Sharks threw down in West Side Story, but whatever.

Eventually in late 2010, hard bass slipped under the digital Iron Curtain and made its method onto YouTube, pump dancing into the collective global awareness. Throughout 2011, hard bass crews grew in Slovakia, Serbia, Lithuania, and the Czech Republic. In Belgrade, one mass attack brought in around 200 barely-pubescent kids, while others took place as far away as France, Spain, and even Chile. Mass attacks were progressively happening beyond government buildings and, to the inexperienced eye, should have appeared like political protests through ham-fisted line dancing. Were they attempting to state something to politicians? Dr. Poky discusses: "Some people make videos since they like hard bass and desire share it with the world, however some other individuals use it to promote their own agenda. In Chile, trainees utilized it to protest against the federal government cutting cash for education, in Serbia for example, some of them used videos to oppose about Kosovo." The first team to explicitly utilize hard bass as a political platform were Russian group Hard Bass School," who saw themselves as an eastern bloc Minor Risk. As Dr. Poky elaborated: "You have some video on Web with a guy cigarette smoking, then some guy comes and states 'Why do you waste your money and time smoking cigarettes or taking drugs? You must be using a Hard Bass School t-shirt and dancing to Hard Bass!'" Yeah, let's get high on tee shirts! In Belgium, Jeune Nation, the Hitler Youth-esque junior wing of Francophone nationalist motion, NATION, utilize0 EDM in their never-ending fight versus Islam. With Halal dietary standards ending up being increasingly typical in supermarkets and school kitchens throughout Charleroi, they unceremoniously took the streets last April wearing pig masks and staged a mass attack in defense of their inalienable right to pork products. Political gains were limited, but sighs of exasperated offense were at an all time high. Over in the Czech Republic, anti-authoritarian hard bass teams are persuaded that the recession marks the start of a counter-cultural revolution, as Mord discusses: "Society is staggering on the edge. Today's financial crisis is not just an affordable problem; it's a crisis of culture. We believe that this crisis is a significant one and that a big social shift and transformation is on the horizon. We want to contribute."

Okay, however isn't pump dancing a little bit of an unclear method to make a statement? Why don't you make some banners and yell cute mottos like everybody else does? Team member Mord argues, "That's simply another system-approved kind of habits. How can you protest against the system if you continue to play it's video game? How you wish to change guidelines if you behave by the guidelines? Take a look at the Occupy Wall Street movement. Where are they now? What did they really accomplish?" But how exactly is rhythmically imitating the early stages of the white wine making process a better revolutionary method than civil disobedience? "Think about the symbolic power! Groups of masked people making sounds and dancing where they're not expected to is a lot more outrageous than ten times as many individuals marching with banners and screaming mottos! We are provoking people to think a little bit more about what they see around them; people are desensitized to opposing crowds, but everybody responds to hard bass." Though Nenad, from Serbia's hard bass team, added a more level-headed answer: "To us, it's a kind of mingling and home entertainment and it lets us reveal our viewpoint. We won't change anything, however a minimum of we get to show our position."

What is EDM music?

Electronic dance music, also called dance music, club music, or merely dance, is a broad variety of percussive electronic music categories made mainly for nightclubs, raves and celebrations. And I think that's the real point of electronic songs-- it's simply kids trying to run the hormone onslaught of teenage years as finest they can and hope it brings them some sort of purpose and belonging. When one Prague hard bass crew got together to go garbage selecting in a regional forest, I don't think a number of them truly offered a shit about the environment, or dreamt of trolling Japanese whaling vessels with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, they probably just wanted to hang out with their friends. Due to the fact that, basically, the age of puberty sucks and not everyone gets to be prom queen, so why not indulge in hard bass?

[enemilps]

Spent some time with pals while drawing.

Experimenting and learning some stuff while listening to my dumb friends blasting effing hardbass in the background....

I love it!!