#I’m a dumb gay mess your honor

[bi-and-bottom]

If she ever looked at me like this I would forget absolutely everything

[anonzentimes]

hi ur like the komaeda phd on my dash so i was wondering something that might be a dumb question but idk

i’m chapter 2 komaeda gives this big speech about how people who aren’t “chosen” to be talented or symbols of hope will never become worthy. how would that connect to how he sees izuru kamukura, and the kamukura project as a whole? because that project is essentially artificial talent— an Ultimate Hope created in a lab.

I just see most people assuming that he’s worship him or something as an ultimate hope, but it’s something I think about a lot idk

OKAY, SO, I'VE ACTUALLY BEEN THINKING ABOUT THAT RECENTLY TOO LOLOLOL??? Also it is an honor to be called the komaeda phd on your dash LMAO

People hearing this probably would assume he'd hate Izuru for disrespecting the hierarchy, but that doesn't seem to be the case? Unfortunately we don't fully know if in Chapter 4 Nagito knows the full extent of the project, and in the anime he has no clue who Izuru is until he shows up and gives him gay panic which doesn't give much clarification lol. Like, It's implied he knows about the project but it's never really clarified to what extent which is a little confusing. If he does know he still treats Izuru fine after waking up, so I don't really think he has any gripes Izuru's existence?

In fact, Nagito is shown to be extremely fond of Izuru and this idea is pushed often?

If he had any gripe specifically with the person being tempered with maybe he'd be upset with Hajime for messing with the hierarchy? He's more upset at Hajime in Chapter 4 because he feels betrayed and is conflicted. He's confused on why he cares about a despair inducing terrorist, let alone a person who barely means anything.

He could be upset about him disrespecting the hierarchy too, but that's never really clarified and may not likely? There's nothing really implying he has distaste for the project at all honestly. I wonder if he doesn't really see any issue with it or if he just somehow doesn't know the finer details. If he has no issue with it maybe he thinks it's an exception or special case because he is a lab rat for hope's peak and they're very capable?

Basically in short, we have no clue what he thinks about the project specifically or if he knows all the details. If he knows, we don't really see him be distasteful or positive about that specific aspect of it and he might not even care too much? It's a little messy with the details overall. At the end of the day he seems to be extremely fond of Izuru and care dearly for Hajime, despite everything I don't think the concept of the project interrupts or overrides any of that Lol.

Thank you for your ask!!! Hopefully this answers your question enough to be satisfactory lol <3

[dear-departed]

The Innocence of an Outlaw [Dutch]

A/N: I'm back! After what, a year or something? I don't really know what happened, or why happened, but it happened. Um, I finally played RDR2, after procrastinating, of course. But now I'm obsessed with these stupid little dumb gay cowboys. Without further adieu, here's a short Dutch Van Der Linde thing.

Desc.: Downtime with Dutch starts pretty uneventful until he remembers that his darling isn't a smoker. In his eyes, hilarity ensues; in yours, pain and coughing.

Word count: 1.15K

Genre: Fluff

Pairing: Dutch Van Der Linde x GN! Reader

Dutch- innocent outlaw 

Life in the gang was never easy. The downtime was rare, but that’s to be expected. Somebody always needed him or needed a hand with something; which you usually were chosen to help with. After all, Dutch Van Der Linde’s partner is never exempt from carrying their own weight, at least that’s how you saw it. 

Despite how popular it is, you were never a smoker, nor a drinker. It was something you simply never took nearly as much pleasure in as others. Both activities burned, and one made you less aware. Dutch, on the other hand, can almost never be spotted without a cigar in hand, or a bottle of surprisingly pricey bourbon or whiskey near him. He almost never got drunk, but that’s not to say he didn’t enjoy a drink every so often.  

On this rare occasion where you have him all to yourself, you and Dutch sit in his tent at Horseshoe Overlook. It’s a pretty place, and if you were being honest, maybe even a little nicer than the west. After the whole mess in Blackwater, it was refreshing to move east. A relief, even.  

He sits next to you, one hand sitting idly on your thigh, his thumb caressing the fabric of your clothing. As per usual, rings adorn his fingers, thick gold rings. Something about the way they looked on his callused fingers drove you wild.  

“You know…” Dutch starts, taking a long drag of his cigar, “I’m so glad you’ve stuck with me through all of this. Through Blackwater. They say someone shows their character in a time of panic or need, and you’ve proven yourself to be real’ trustworthy. I appreciate your faith in me.” He speaks. Curse his silver tongue, the way he makes you swoon with every word that comes out of his smoky breath. Every time you consider leaving the outlaw life, he drags you back in with his words, his charming looks and his rich voice keeps you anchored to him. The way he spoils you rotten when he gets the chance and ignores you right after.   

Thank you, Dutch... you’re too good to me.” You mutter, leaning into his warm body, one arm snaking around his waist. “Do you want a puff?” he asks, holding his cigar out to you.  

You furrow your brows, slowly shaking your head. “No thanks, you know I’ve never been much of a smoker.” You say, slowly closing your eyes.  

” Oh?” he asks, quirking a brow, as if your words surprised him. “Go on, it’s an honor. The amount of times Sean or Arthur have asked for a drag off me... they’d be jealous, you know.” He says softly, grabbing you by the hips and pulling you into his lap. His cigar hangs from his mouth, tendrils of smoke curling into the air and wafting up into your nose. Almost everything that resides in Dutch’s tent has cigar smoke in it, permeating any material. Leather, cloth, metal, it doesn’t matter.  

“Alright, alright, I give.” You say, reaching for the cigar, but he takes it from his mouth and moves it away.  

“Hold on now, allow me...” He says, one side of his face quirking up into some sort of grin. “Open up.” He says, and you obediently oblige.  

He adores the way you listen, the fire in your criminal heart burns everyone but him. To Dutch, you’re but a wood stove, contained and comforting. He puts the cigar to your lips, resting one hand right beneath the back of your neck. You inhale the smoke- rookie mistake. Immediately it burns your lungs and throat, and you start hacking and coughing, curling over yourself. 

Dutch quickly pulls the cigar away, a chuckle coming from his lips, “you’ve only ever smoked cigarettes? You don’t inhale cigar smoke, it’s different.”  

Of course, he would know that 

He passes you a cup of water from the crate beside his cot that acts as a nightstand. You eagerly gulp it down to soothe the burn. Dutch rubs your back while you hack and cough, tipping some of the ash from the cigar onto the floor.  

“I hate to make light of your pain, but I think it’s adorable how inexperienced you are... such a ruthless outlaw, but a cigar can topple you...” He teases, lacing his fingers through your hair. He tugs softly, not enough to hurt, just enough to make you jerk your head up to look at him with teary eyes.  

“You’re fine. Just watch me.” He says, putting the cigar to his lips. He lets the smoke sit in his mouth for a moment, before slowly blowing it out, a plume of smoke coming from his mouth. “See?”  

You nod, finishing the last from the water cup. “Yeah. Can I try again?” You ask, reaching for the cigar.  

“Of course.” He once again pulls the cigar away from you, taking another slow drag from it. He puts one hand behind your head and pulls your face close to his, pressing his lips to yours. Of course, you kiss back, even as he slowly blows the smoke into your mouth as you absentmindedly get a little more comfortable in his lap.  

Dutch slowly pulls away, placing his index finger on your lips. “Just taste the smoke for a moment, no need to rush.” he croons softly into your ear. He revels in the way you choke down coughs; just for him. “You’re alright, doin’ just fine there... alright, now blow.”  

Slowly, you let the smoke flow from your mouth, right in his face, out of spite. He fans away the smoke with a hardy laugh, “you did it! With my help, of course.” He comments, giving you a smug grin. He’s enamored by the way you cough again, some of the smoke you’d just blown out reentering your mouth. His thumb rubs against your chin and on the side of your lip lovingly. You can’t quite pinpoint if it’s because you have something on your face or if it’s because he’s simply feeling affectionate. Either way, the attention feels nice. His warm callused hands upon your dirt-smudged face. “You’ll get used to it... trust me, I much prefer a pipe to cigars, but I left my old pipe in... Blackwater.” He mutters the dreaded city name underneath his breath, avoiding your gaze as he huffs softly.  

“Why don’t you buy another one? I’m sure Saint Denis has some ‘real nice pipes. I’ve seen the ones- men in those big top-hats, they have these pretty mahogany pipes.” You suggest.  

He simply shrugs, “I have, none of them feel quite right. The last one fit my lips perfectly.” He recalls. You swear you could see drool coming out of his mouth. This man was a tobacco fiend, that much you knew.  His hands absentmindedly caress your thighs, his fingers kneading, like an affectionate cat.  

"You owe me a back massage."

"For oh-so-generously offering you a drag from my cigar?"

"From not telling me you're not supposed to breathe."

"Fine."

[khaotungthanawat]

hi hi, it's your secret santa! 🎁 the week is basically the start of the holiday season for many people, so i hope no matter if you celebrate that you can cherish the this time and can at least round out the season and the year in your own way of celebration, may it be fun or communal or restful (or all of it!) <3

i just love hearing you talk about the shows you love, that's why asking you questions and reading your answers is so much fun! kinnporsche also got me in all its messy, sometimes weird, sometimes boastful, always a lot of fun and action and emotional glory! vegaspete has something to it that is so compelling, i so agree with you, and just to see the dynamic play out was quite the journey. they really put all the tropes in one basket and said, let's just see where this gets us at the end of the day (and somehow it worked and i think it's in no small part to the actors too) ... and vegas deffo had it all from his hannibal lecter moments to getting a tray to the head and somehow finding love at the end as well. whew. that really was a show.

for this week, i saw you like nct (so do i!), what are your favourite songs and who's your bias? do you have songs from any artist or group you relate to your fave shows / characters? or can you watch a show and basically build a soundtrack for it in your own head? and another question: top 5 fave drama characters of all time for you?

hope these are fun to answer !! 🌞🌞🌞

hello again stranger! 💕 yeah crimbus is breathing down my neck and i’m so stressed out lol. it’ll all work out somehow. also the moon sickness is upon me and it’s REALLY wringing me out. bleh. 

i’m glad you like my ramblings! i’m not very good at meta or anything, but i do love to run at the mouth about stuff i love. yeah, i was not expecting to love kinnporsche but then vegas and his good hair and blousy shirts and pathetic tendencies bewitched me and now i’m a mess. i indulged in a bunch of spicy vegaspete fic over the weekend because i deserved a treat. 

i do! i love nct! they’re my first kpop group, really. i’d managed to outrun the kpop wave for a long time, but then one day i was on here and a gif was on my dash, and i was like, “WHOMST IS THIS???” and a helpful anon informed me that it was taeyong from nct and their video for “make a wish”. i finally remembered to check it out a few weeks later and.........i haven’t been the same since lol. i also love monsta x (i saw them on tour earlier this year), exo, shinee, and bts. 

but yes! nct! 

some of my fave nct songs (not unit-specific):

superhuman

kick it

highway to heaven

time lapse

the 7th sense

action figure

focus

cherry bomb

hot sauce

make a wish

baby don’t stop

my bias? doyoung! 

(gif by me)

my slim jim. my doie. i love him. 

(dumb side note: so i got an ita bag this year and started getting pins for it, and i have a pin of doyoung that says “now i know” and it cracks me up every time i look at it.)

i think he’s so handsome and his voice is sublime. *sigh*

ANYWAY!

i think a lot of mitski’s songs fits jwds really well :)

top five fave drama characters of all time? that’s a difficult question! kdfjhdfk okay i’ll try to narrow this down. *stress*

lee dong sik - beyond evil (most character of all time!) (+bonus han joo won)

vegas theerapanyakul - kinnporsche (my pathetic meowfioso) (+bonus pete saengtham)

lan wangji - the untamed (poor dumb gay horny baby)

im ryung goo - tomorrow (my sardonic little meow meow)

wen kexing - word of honor (seriously let gong jun follow his bliss and play little gay sugar babies exclusively he’s so good at it)

yeah, i know i cheated by adding han joo won and pete as bonuses. but i cannot think of one without the other, soooo. 

these were fun to answer! i hope you have a good week, my mystery friend! 

[rphelperblog]

Station 19 Quotes

“Every day is a damn pole day. Starting now.” 

Do you think if we hadn't of had messed up parents that we could've made it? “

you're not your mom, alright?”

No, I'm not. And you're not my dad.”

this program that you fought for, it's all we have left of him! I'm not going to let you sabotage his legacy. Go home!”

That siren means life, okay? In this situation, In this moment, that siren means life. He's alive.”

If your son is not safe from his father, and if you are not safe from his father, it's time to leave, it's time to leave.”

If you're using me to make him jealous or spice up your situation, I'm totally fine with it.”

I hate to be the type of person who cuts and runs.”

I don't know, if something doesn't feel good, it's okay to let it go.”

No, it should be yours. I want to have a little you I want them to have these eyes, and this nose, and this freckle. I want to have another version of you I can count my blessings on.”

You want to be the one who carries.”

I wasn't trying to get a job or anything else. I slept with him once, and I was letting him down easy.”

Under my watch, this station will feel comfortable for everyone in here.”

Why can't I stop feeling this way?”

I was weak. I have no excuse. I was weak, and you deserved better. You were a delight. Your father was so hard on you, not just when you came out, but your whole life.”

Hey, he was afraid if he told you it would ruin the friendship.”

You couldn't honor him and what he wanted in his life, please honor him in his death.”

You want me to hand my only granddaughter over to you, so she can lose another father. How dare you!”

We're going to fight? We're going to fight for her. “

It's not that he's gay, you know? “

I thought living there would just keep him close, but it makes it worse.”

I see you stopped bathing too.”

As much as it pains me to say this, if all of this is truly about protecting that little girl, then we're standing down.”

Thank you for dinner, and for looking after my granddaughter. Take care.

We can do this, I can do this. Let's have a baby.”

Yes, there's family that blood makes, but there's also the family made of shared experience, and familiarity, and love.”

Life is pain, there's no two ways about it. There's love and there's grief. It's love and it's grief. It's love and it's grief. Our job is to make sure that love is as big as the grief.”

I might break both my legs but maybe I'll get lucky, hit my head, and never wake up.”

No one would even miss me”

You're punishing yourself for not being in love with him back something your brain knew because you are not dumb. You were afraid of what would happen if it was true.”

ou guys always feel better when you talk to me. I don't understand why you fight me on it first.”

he was in love with me it turns out. “

Why did everybody know that but me?”

It would just be nice if someone would be on my side.”

Why am I the only one around here that isn't allow to process his feelings?

You are having an affair! Gay or straight, it doesn't matter!”

Yeah, that's daddy. That's your daddy. “

Your daddy is with my daddy, and they both love you very much.”

Normal? No, that was not a normal day.”

If you love someone, you tell them.”

you saved my life. I love you. You're my brother, and I love you, okay? “

This is going to get worse.”

I don't want to leave you. I don't want to leave you. Come with me. “

I mean, I don't want you to go, but I don't want to go with you.

Why do I even come here? Why?”

My wife is mindblowing in bed.”

Oh, so address the problem of inequity, you're saddling me with more work?”

Wow, you’re really the hero of your own story, huh?”

I like you, and I know that I broke your heart, but I didn’t have the guts to love you back, and now that… I’ve been looking at myself a lot lately, I realize that maybe I wasn’t as brave as I thought I was, so I like you, and I want us to be more than friend.”

I’m sorry. I just really like being friends.”

“So, if you can’t get the rest of the department up to speed, the least you can do is not give some sub-par outsider the keys to our castle.”

“Don’t rely on anybody else to have faith in you. You did what’s right, that’s what matters.

“You know at some point though, you may be ready to move away from being a cheerleader and just start being a leader.”

“You’re strong and you can handle this, OK? Just like the toy car. You’re tiny but strong.” 

“Excuse me, I’m afraid things have escalated.”

“I am dark, and I can’t see the light. Everywhere I look it’s dark, and I can’t see.”

“We’re in the middle of a wildfire, use your imagination.”

“I’m telling you we can make it look like an accident. People disappear in these woods all the time.”

“Next time my dad suggests a bonding trip, maybe try a waterpark.” 

You are a surgeon. Save the life you can save. We both know that's not mine.”

I lied before about having regrets. I don't. Not with you. I won.”

I think it's complicated for me because I haven't felt the way he makes me feel in a long time.”

I get to drive now. BOOM! You see rookies don't get to drive, new guys don't drive. I get to drive now. Me!”

I don't want slow. I should. I've tried. I know it's complicated, but I don't want a slow burn. Tomorrow I could be trapped in a garage trying to stuff a turkey.”

Pull it together. You stand up and figure a way out of there. You do that. You do that for me. Right now!”

Embracing your badassery! My job is done. Until I apply for lieutenant. Give you a run for your money.”

You're not MY captain!”

Let's start with breakfast.”

“i’m picking sides.”

I wasn't trying to coddle you or treat you like any other patient's family. I was treating you like my family.”

Don't be a fool, he's a catch!”

We don't say a word to them, they'll have to report you.”

Hey, we do what our captain says. Let's go!”

That was ridiculous!”

Yeah, and it's working like a charm. Everything's fine.”

I've been watching you avoiding fires, basically every shift for weeks.”

If I had known about the two of you, I would've never put you both up for the captain position.”

Okay. When you have something to spill and you don't spill, you make Iittle angels cry.”

I prefer puppy man.”

I stop coaching you for 72 hours and this is what happens?!”

Sir, her incident report wasn't damaged.”

You want us to avoid using water on a fire?”

Are you asking me to run extra drills with you? Voluntarily? In a video game?”

Basically he wants to get laid.”

I'm not a kindergarten teacher. Do better!”

Buttering me up won't get you in my daughter's pants.”

You're lucky you're my daughter.”

I can't do it again. I can't bury another parent.”

Ok, that's enough. Put your game face on. We got your dad. Now you go be brave for them.”

she's in charge of me. I hate it. I hate it. "

"I'm the definition of consent".

“This is why women shouldn’t date men”

I don't want to push you away. 

“Are you in love with him?”

Listen, I know you've been going through a lot lately, and I've been trying to be there for you. “

“It’s like we went from getting to know each other to sponge baths, not the sexy kind. So, you know, whatever fun, steamy steps there are before the sponge bath stage in the relationship, we skipped those. It usually takes a while to rip those Band-Aids, but those Band-Aids were ripped and changed. He literally changed my bandages.”

[basilhearsanoise]

pleaseee elaborate on your homophobic sam take. it’s very compelling. i always thought sam’s early plotline with the demon blood was a queer allegory, but your explanation for his attitude towards dean’s bisexuality makes a lot of sense now that i think about it

WOW I'M A REAL SUPERNATURAL BLOG NOW YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND HOW MUCH THIS MADE MY DAY I WILL ABSOLUTELY ELABORATE THANK YOU

there are So Many Layers i probably won't even be able to get them all down but here's some major ones. from the get-go, sam is The Opposite of dean on so many issues, and essentially throughout the show they flip. this is most notably demonstrated by the fact that sam starts out as a Devout Christian (or at least we are to assume that he is christian given his approach to prayer, god, angels, etc) and by the end of the show sam is completely and utterly devoid of faith. whereas dean is like If There's A God In Heaven, What's He Waiting For? - Elton John.mp3 in the beginning of the show, and by the end he's like "i have faith in humanity, in spirituality, in CASTIEL, in MY SON JACK," by the end. but this is just one of the MANY issues they flip back and forth on, or just slowly and surely change their perspectives to be more like the way the other brother started.

1. should we tell people there are monsters? dean says "we can't tell anyone they exist the whole world will panic" vs. sam says "they have a RIGHT TO KNOW WHAT'S OUT THERE"

but also. are all monsters evil? dean says "yes, they kill innocent people and they killed my mother and destroyed my life, they ALL deserve to die" but sam says "SOME of them must be good....it's not THEIR FAULT they're disgusting, evil and eat people uwu"

monsters/cryptids/spirits/folklore etc have virtually always been, in some way shape or form, a queer allegory themselves. the shapeshifter arc spoke to me as a trans person on a deep personal level. dracula was essentially racist propaganda. so if we take this allegory to supernatural, and say, "acceptance of monsters = acceptance of queerness" dean's hatred of them is a hatred of himself, his own inner monster, his own internalized homophobia - in addition to the fact that because he IS a queer man who has been VICTIM to REAL VIOLENT homophobia before, it would make sense that he is #antifa #acab #kill all the nazis forever #don't waste time trying to make monsters good when you could save good people from them instead. which is like. a reasonable response to have to a group of people that systematically try to kill you. but that also makes sam's "oh pity the monster dean, don't kill it, FORGIVE, JUST GIVE THEM A CHANCE TO ~ REPENT ~ THEIR SINS" ....like, even in later seasons he is saying stuff like this, and while it's true that dean SHOULD forgive some of the monsters that sam says this about, it still reads to me as two major red flags of 1. forgive your abusers to be the better person and 2. "hate the sin, not the sinner" rhetoric. sam doesn't actually give a shit about any of these monsters he gives a shit about keeping his own ideological purity. he sounds like scary youth pastors i had as a child.

this is further demonstrated by the fact that as dean becomes more accepting of his sexuality as the show goes on, he becomes more accepting of monsters. that's benny's ENTIRE EXISTENCE AS A CHARACTER: "i accept this vampire because he is honorable, and manly, and looks really fuckin cute in suspenders." that's also why sam hates benny so much even though he's the one who's been like "but monsters can be good T__T" this whole time. what the fuck other reason would he have to hate benny so much?

this is also CLEARLY the ENTIRE subtext of the Demon Dean arc - Sam FLIPS OUT about him going off with crowley because he could FORGIVE one little crush on an angel, because of the fact that he's an angel, and also because dean wasn't "shoving his unholy lifestyle down everyone's throats" but demon dean is....loudly, angrily, gay. demon dean is a manifestation of all the gayness that dean has suppressed his whole life and now he's "too indecent" for sam. this is FURTHER demonstrated by the fact that crowley literally yells at dean to "pick a side" after demon dean sides with the slighted wife in a demon deal instead of the cheating husband, literally because of the fact that the husband says "men are just supposed to sleep around" and dean gets so mad about this sexism that he kills him.

this is dean not only rejecting sexism more than sam literally ever actually does in the show (everything he says about it reads to me as idle posturing Fake Woke Shit whereas dean is a sleazebag, but he's an Equal Opportunity sleazebag) but also his rejection of being pigeonholed as gay when he is, indeed, bisexual. crowley represents the biphobia that gay people enact on bi people, sam represents the homophobia that straight people enact on all queer people.

this brings me to the next part of sam's Not Niceness - he's like, actually 100% more misogynistic than dean is. i know i'm Not A Woman but like i am trans, queer, and not dumb. sam is a fucking sadist serial killer man who treats women like garbage the SECOND they are no longer useful to him, this is most clearly demonstrated when he doesn't have a "soul" but it existed in him basically from the get-go, he is painted as the "more emotionally mature one" but that reading became so inaccurate the show literally started making fun of his character for thinking that sappy fake shit could pass as sincere care for another human being. dean actually talks to women like they're people with feelings. he routinely identifies with the victims and is paralleled against them, especially if they are victims of childhood sexual assault. sam does not talk to women unless they serve some kind of purpose to his goals and is much more routinely depicted weirdly enjoying killing enemies that are women. sometimes not even for plot reasons, it's just weird shots that nobody thought to red flag because this show is. A MESS.

anyway. another example is the one that i mentioned in the post about the confederate soldier, the fact that sam is fucking racist and dean is at least, within the narrative, less racist.

ANYWAY, THERE'S STILL MORE I COULD TALK ABOUT BUT I'LL LEAVE IT AT THIS: sam is constantly telling dean that he's not being sensitive or poltically correct but every single time it comes off sounding like a straight person telling an actual gay person how not to be homophobic. like, please, sammy, touch grass. dean says: touch grass, kill nazis.

[twigg96]

Heyy bestie!! so i got a situation for you: how do you think the boys would react if they had a pop star significant other and the boys were invited to go the show?

Thank you so much @jordyndoomstar for another great question!! This was so much fun to think about!! If anyone else has another ask like this please ask away!!

Nathan: This man loves to see you happy. He may not always love the music you make. Pop isn’t always brutal. But he’s willing to try and listen to some. Finding that he actually doesn’t really mind it if you’re the one singing it. If you invited him to a concert of your he would be so completely honored and stoked. He’d wear all the merchandise he could find and stand proudly wherever you told him to watch the concert from proudly telling anyone that would listen that he was your boyfriend!!

Pickles: Having experimented with various genres of music, Pickles would be more willing and open to your Pop idol status than most of the others. He’d give you tips and tricks from his experiences both from Snakes and Dethklok mostly to keep you safe from any harm or dumb decisions he made in the past. If you invited him to one of your concerts he would be thrilled to attend. Seeing how other bands/musicians work back stage is one of the many things Pickles loves about his job. As you preform though, Pickles eyes only land on you. Watching you preform awakens his love for you in a whole new light.

Skwisgaar: The Swede was never a huge fan of Pop music. He wouldn’t say he hated it but he really didn’t like it. When the two of you started dating, you hit it off in the strangest ways. In his eyes at least. Neither of you knew who the other was. You didn’t know Skwisgaar was this guitar god, a ladies man, or one of the richest men in the world. And he never knew you were a world famous Pop star, an idol to many a screaming fan. He knew you had a singing talent when he took you on dates to karaoke or when you two danced together. And when you offered to take him to a concert he was elated until you mentioned that it was pop music. He nearly turned you down until you handed him only one ticket. Telling him to trust you, you left him confused until he read your name on the ticket leaving him shocked and amazed. At the show, Skwisgaar would hide backstage as to not pull attention away from you and your show. But his full attention would be on you. And suddenly he’d like pop music just a little bit.

Murderface: This man is a huge pop fan please tell me I’m wrong. He will fight you tooth and nail about how it’s gay to listen to and then turn around and listen to it anyway. But it’s his obsession with Pop that drove him to find you. He listened to every album, and every song of yours. When a meet and greet came by Mordhaus Murderface took his chance to come meet you. Being who he is he was able to get a one on one claiming the signed album was for Toki but you were able to see through his lie. It wasn’t long before you asked him out (because he wasn’t about to any time soon). If you invited him to a concert, Murderface would instantly blurt yes. His fanboy nature kicking in before he could stop it. Watching you preform live backstage while knowing you were his and his alone. Murderface would watch you with so much pride that he could control or contain his emotions later. He’d be a blubbering mess of emotions spewing admiration and love as he laid sweet kisses all over your face.

Toki: The two of you meet at a kids awards ceremony. You were being honored for cutest pop star and Toki was cutest metal star. The slime would stick you your skin and clothes but Toki would compliment you all the same. When you start dating, Toki listens to all your albums. He studied them making it so he knew all the words and could ask about them whenever needed. If you invited him to a concert he’d honestly be so happy you thought of him. He’d do his best to listen to your every word so he didn’t break anything and as your set started he’d stare in awe. Albums only did music so much justice he knew that. But he love your singing in real life.

[chalkrevelations]

SO. Word of Honor, Episode 10, and everyone is deep in their feelings … well, their feeling, which is misery.

First, due diligence, and I really mean it on this one: SPOILERS not just for this ep but for the entire show. Out of the car, for now, and come back later, if you want to watch the whole thing unspoiled.­­

Well, it’s the breakup episode, y’all. Everyone is wallowing in misery, and Our Couple is taking that out on themselves and in some cases (:cough:WKX:cough) ­on everybody around them. We open on sad-sack Wen Kexing digging sadly in the dirt with a sword, the bodies of the Four Sages of Anji laid out beside him as he gives a RIP speech about how you have to be careful when making friends, because they’ll turn out to be bad news, which is clearly yet another warning about himself, because I don’t think anyone in the mob who killed these aging hippies in the last ep was a friend (although I suppose it could be argued that WKX is talking about their friendship with Gao Chong getting them killed) and anyway, you have to understand that WKX is a demon under the skin, not even really human, you guys, and he’s only ever going to disappoint everyone. Has he not made this clear by now? His sword breaks at this point, which probably ought to tell him he’s not going to be able to bury any of this mess. Then Zhou Zishu shows up and is understandably unhappy at the way his decision last ep to walk out on faith for this guy has gone completely pear-shaped, and he asks some rather pointed questions about whether four dead Sages of Anji is what WKX wanted and if he’s happy now – questions that sound, my dude, a little confrontational. I mean, I think you’re entitled, given the situation, but I’m just sayin’. WKX flings off ZZS’s hand and wants to know if “Leader Zhou” has only ever killed bad people, which is a hit that lands, and it hurts, just like it was supposed to, and this is definitely one of those nightmare scenarios where everyone just keeps digging themselves deeper. ZZS is all, FINE THEN, and leaves. Again. Because WKX is apparently a demon in human form who’s only ever going to disappoint everyone. Including his zhiji. I love you with all of my heart, ZZS, but a little bit, you come off like you only showed up to twist the knife, my man. Anyway, ZZS stomps off to go mope at Yuefan Tower, the scene of his bad decision to trust this guy BEFORE finding out he sets up revenge murders for fun. We’re treated to a flashback sequence of some of ZZS’s Tian Chuang state-sanctioned violence, including a pile of bodies in a burned-out house with a little girl who reaches out to him and calls him “shushu” (which I think is a reference to something that actually happens in Qi Ye); killing that official dude and making Jing’an drink poison, from Ep 1; inserting the Seven Nails into Bi Changfeng - a whole bunch of bad shit that WKX has dug back up way more successfully with a few words than that grave he was trying to dig with his broken sword. ZZS sighs mournfully and unfairly beautifully (your FACE, my dude) over the fact that he thought he found his soulmate, but he was apparently WRONG, and meanwhile, we see Han Ying lurking worriedly and devotedly in the background.

Then, both of these morose motherfuckers proceed to drink themselves (even more) stupid over each other, WKX in a brothel and ZZS moping by himself downstairs at the (No Longer) Getting Lucky Inn, leaving poor Han Ying and A-Xiang to eventually deal with them. ZZS is literally falling over as he calls for more wine – you are a sloppy drunk, laopo, although I have to admit, you’ve worked your way through a lot of bottles, so I suppose it’s understandable – and WKX proceeds to drink his four ... five? ... four, I think, girls under the table and clearly has no intention of sleeping with them, because it might interfere with his waxing drunkenly and mournfully about finding a thing you thought you’d lost forever but not being able to keep it at the price of giving up your big revenge murder plan you’ve been working out since you were 8 years old. (Also because he’s gay af. I’m just sayin’.)

So, yeah, Han Ying and A-Xiang eventually have to deal with these two, and for my money, the single most important scene of the ep - thematically, at least - is the one we get between A-Xiang and WKX, where a couple of big things are going on. One of the themes I see again, running through this ep, is the separation between the human world and the world of “ghosts,” and how that line is policed, and how Wen Kexing tries to maintain it as a bright line, in order to maintain his own distance from Zhou Zishu and the world. Now that things have gone so spectacularly wrong with ZZS, he’s going to dig in on the “ghost” side of that line for all he’s worth – much harder than he was digging that grave for the Four Sages of Anji, given he breaks the sword and gives up halfway through on that one, but this one he’s determined to get all the way to the bedrock on. So yes, in this scene we get the theme made explicit again, of human-ghost separation - which will echo and rebound throughout the rest of the show, until we see its awful, gory truth made manifest when it turns out WKX is horrifically correct and A-Xiang is NOT, in fact, going to be allowed by “humankind” to leave Ghost Valley and walk up to the human world with her lover, while meanwhile, if WKX is going to get out of the valley, he’s not staying in the mortal world but is going to end up on the icy remote mountaintop. BUT ALSO, this may be the first time we really see the show put A-Xiang forward as a proxy for Wen Kexing. This is going to be an increasingly weighted Thing as we go on, of course, but what I didn’t remember on my first watch-through - even after I realized what they were doing with the A-Xiang/Cao Weining and Wen Kexing/Zhou Zishu parallels further down the road – is that, in this first time we really see it, it’s not even about their respective love interests, it’s about their respective relationships with Chengling. I mean, clearly, clearly, when WKX is being a drunk asshole to A-Xiang about how she’s been too long in her human skin (and huh, interesting that, when we also have instances where fake skin disguises are literal), and DON’T EVER FORGET WHO YOU ARE, HEARTLESS AMETHYST FIEND GHOST VALLEY MASTER HEARTLESS AMETHYST FIEND, and who among them would ever pity you me you, he’s really talking about his recent breakup with ZZS, in which he got called a crazed psychopath just for setting up a few amusing revenge murders. But here’s the thing – what triggers the diatribe is A-Xiang saying she feels sorry for Chengling trapped in Yueyang Sect, in the course of nattering on about what’s up with Chengling, and what she and Chengling have been doing together, and how much Chengling misses WKX. Which is, A-Xiang tells WKX, a lot. After which WKX puffs himself up and proceeds to be a drunk asshole to her, because of course, he’s not worthy of having anyone care about him, they might think he’s human, or something, and then he’s only going to get hurt again when they find out he’s NOT. So, all that happens. We also find out in this conversation that Changing Ghost was responsible for the pile of heads; that A-Xiang was at the Funeral/Wedding Game and saw Deng Kuan become the last survivor and get set free in much better condition than he later showed up at Yueyang Sect, so what the hell’s happened to him in between; and that A-Xiang definitely thinks her Murder Dad master is crazy but isn’t afraid that he’ll end up killing her someday. I mean, let’s be clear, I don’t think she’s absolutely positive that he won’t go crazy and kill her – she’s just not afraid of it. Zhou Ye is fantastic here, because she has A-Xiang give WKX this gorgeous little smile that’s so simple yet just so filled with love and trust and faith and everything that must have kept his heart alive all those years, the one that she probably gave him even after he burned her mouth on congee that was too hot, and I end up clutching my chest because I think she’s killed me. And then in a horrible twist on what’s eventually coming down the pike, she tells him that she’d follow him even if he’s crazy, and that if he killed her, she’d even follow him in death, and GOD. MY HEART. Because we’re going to see that in fact, he’s going to almost follow her into death, and then he’s going to dream of her leaving him instead of actually staying with him after death, and the only thing keeping me together at this point is the idea that Nian’xiang will actually be A-Xiang reincarnated so that she can be with WKX and the rest of her family again.

Anyway, all of this is apparently a dress rehearsal for WKX, because he then gets himself dolled up in some luscious green robes and proceeds to go to Tragicomic Ghost’s mansion in order to terrorize the troops and spread the misery. He requests a report from all of his top ten nine eight devils; credits them with three Funeral Games (I guess we don’t get to see the other two), annihilating Danyang Sect, destroying Mirror Lake Sect, killing Mount Tai Sect’s leader (Ao Laizi), and leaving a pile of heads for Yueyang Sect to find. He’s doing his best Lunatic Wen bit, but come on, my friend, do they really deserve credit for ALL of that? Do they really? It sounds like you have your suspicions, as well, because you want to know who was responsible for the Mirror Lake massacre. Everyone looks around, pointedly not meeting his eyes, so, hmm, it must have been Long-Tongued Ghost, right? Right? (Who we last saw getting killed and getting his (Danyang) Glazed Armor took by Wen Kexing while pretending to be Hanged Ghost.) Changing Ghost, who’s supposedly Long-Tongued Ghost’s superior and who’s smart enough to sense the wind shifting, even if he’s not sure in which direction, hastily says that LTGhost doesn’t listen to him anymore. (Yeah, because he’s dead.) At this point, White Grim Reaper is dumb enough to draw attention to himself, and WKX chokes him out just ‘cause. ‘Cause he’s Lunatic Wen, and fuck you, that’s why. Both Tragicomic Ghost and Beauty Ghost look more Completely Done With This Bullshit than scared – in contrast to the men, who are shitting their pants - which is an early indication that their relationships with WKX are different than his relationships with the male Devils. WKX also makes some pointed comment about how oh dear, he’s killed someone, and they were already low on manpower, but as a chief of GHOSTS, that’s all he has to work with, isn’t that RIGHT, Changing Ghost – which sounds on the surface kind of like policing that line between ghosts and humans, but really seems more like he has his suspicions about exactly who Changing Ghost is actually working with, because while he may not be as smart as A-Xu, he’s not DUMB. Now, let’s all come up with a plan to fuck over the Five Lakes Alliance during the Hero’s Conference. Aaaaand … end scene (and ep).

Meanwhile, Han Ying is dealing with his poor, drunk dumbass charge, and we see ZZS wake up in some richly appointed rooms, in some strange bed, and he’s clearly thinking “Oh snap. What I do last night?” Also, feeling the hangover. Once he manages to get his boots on, he notices a shrine, complete with candles, and just about this point, Han Ying busts in like he’s WKX or something (although to be fair, it is his bedroom), and wants to know exactly wtf is wrong with ZZS, getting blackout drunk with his actual face hanging out like he doesn’t care who recognizes him? (I just have to take a moment here, and point out that ZZS, who went all in, in the last ep, and who will continue to be the more open one as this relationship goes on, is being berated here for not wearing a mask, for showing his real self, while the issue for both A-Xiang and WKX is going to continue to be keeping on a protective mask/skin, even though WKX accuses A-Xiang himself in this very ep of thinking the mask is real and not just a cover for her true face. Anyway.) Oh, and also, My Lord, how is your injury? DO YOU NEED SOMEONE TO TENDERLY CARE FOR YOU? I like this scene, because Han Ying’s actually kind of angry at ZZS, and a little bit, he shows it, and we get to see that he’s not spineless, even in the (blindingly beautiful) face of ZZS, he’s just devoted. And if that means keeping this dumbass safe from himself, well, Han Ying will try to do that, too, even if it’s enough to drive him to find religion, as we also find out in this scene, explaining the shrine. I suppose he needs all the help he can get. Anyway, ZZS tells him that he’s too mean to die just yet, although he doesn’t expect any blessings on his path, and Han Ying responds – and I think this is important, given ZZS’s decision last ep to spend the rest of his life living instead of dying – that “any day we live is a day gained.” (HAN YING. MY BELOVED.) ZZS pulls some Glazed Armor out of his robes to give to Han Ying, and they both realize that it looks exactly like two pieces Han Ying already has his hands on, gdi WKX. At this point, ZZS reiterates that he just wants Han Ying to lay low and stay safe, Han Ying reiterates his undying devotion, and ZZS has clearly had it with these kids and their starry-eyed devotion. He tries telling Han Yng again to just live a good life - as if Han Ying is at all wired that way – before making some dramatic pronouncement about expecting to have to deal with what’s coming to him in hell and sweeping out the door in the last we see of him this ep.

Let’s see, other things that happened:

Gao Chong, Zhao Jing and Shen Shen confer over their complete loss of face in the run-up to the Hero’s Conference; Shen Shen gets very offended and denies killing Ao Laizi, which is the rumor going around town; Gao Chong says the Ghost Valley isn’t responsible for Ao Laizi’s death (which they are) or for spreading the rhyme about the Glazed Armor (which they are); Zhao Jing says Five Lakes Alliance can’t get a reputation for forcing other sects to do things (when he can manipulate them into doing what he wants), and Shen Shen wants to know WHY THE HELL NOT (oh, Shen Shen) when the jianghu has always been, and I QUOTE, “a place where the strong pery on the weak,” so again, I have to kind of side with WKX on this one about the hive of scum and villainy. Or I would if you guys seemed capable of actually accomplishing anything.

Elsewhere in Yueyang Sect, it’s been Bullying Hour again for Chengling, and A-Xiang is furious when she finds out, threatening to break the legs of whoever’s responsible for smacking him around (she really is like the most delightful Chengxian love-child, I have to say). She also has some Wolong Nuts – crispy and delicious! – for him. Gao Xiaolian shows up with some treats, but Chengling doesn’t want her food, and also he doesn’t want to marry her, because he doesn’t want to be Gao Chong’s puppet, which is kind of new, because he said a couple of eps ago at the Five Lakes monument that he would abide by Gao Chong’s decisions. I guess now that he’s found out from A-Xiang that their Murder Dads are still around, he thinks there’s still a chance to run away with them. Gao Xiolian runs away, crying. Harsh, Chengling, but it does give him the chance to complain to A-Xiang that he’s effectively under house arrest, WHERE ARE OUR MURDER DADS TO SAVE ME?

Last but not least, there’s this incredible scene with Yu Loser Qiufeng, leader of Mount Hua Sect, in which one of the Mount Hua Virgins (tm WKX) comes complaining that everyone is looking down on them. Yu Qiufeng tells him that the entire jianghu is falling apart and to suck it up, and then another Virgin (tm WKX) shows up to say that some people from Mount Tai Sect are here to talk about Dead Ao Laizi, because the Five Lakes Alliance killed him omg. Yu Quifeng’s response is literally “Tell them I’m not here,” and when the disciple wants to know how he can possibly say that, Qiufeng’s response is literally “Say I went out. Say I’m sick. Say I’m dead.” (OMG, Zongzhu can’t see you right now, he’s dead!)

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2020

You know, when I finished my latest list and realised every decade had the same pattern and that we were slowly going towards a series of great years for pop, I didn’t realise how good that year would be.

What’s at the top? Am I boringly predictable because I already said I loved that song all the way back in January 2020? Let’s find out.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will probably be stuff in French somewhere on this post. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

So. Uh. How was your 2020?

Mine was actually surprisingly good, considering. I’m lucky enough to have a job that I can partially do from home, and I was extremely paranoid from the get-go and nobody got sick under this roof so far. Turns out I’m even better at my job from home and I got permission to work from home one day per week even after the health crisis is over! My first name was also finally officially approved and I can’t tell you how happy I feel about that. I almost feel bad to have had such a good year considering the circumstances. I feel like an asshole just because I’m happy, haha.

The only frustrating part was that I was supposed to see Hatari in concert in Paris in early April which, as you can guess, was cancelled. I’m not too mad about it though, since their tour was called “Europe will crumble” and the message saying the tour was cancelled started with “since Europe is actually crumbling due to Covid-19″ and that’s hysterical.

Good or interesting albums that came out in 2020 now, let’s see.

Nightwish released Human/Nature, which was a huge letdown compared to their previous album, but I will relisten to it at some point to make sure I wasn’t just in a bad mood that day.

The Birthday Massacre released Diamonds, which might be their weakest album since their debut, but contained some real gems (I listened to The Last Goodbye on a loop, it floored me. Flashback and Enter are also very good).

The 1975 released Notes On A Conditional Form, and let’s be real, it’s a f█cking mess. You could cut half the tracks and end up with an excellent album, but as it is it’s like, yes, a collection of notes ; however there’s some truely excellent shit on it (see unelligible songs).

Thanks to a friend on a discord server I was exposed to Dorian Electra’s music and I haven’t been quite the same ever since. I’m so happy to be alive to see other enbies making such great music with an insanely good aesthetic surrounding it and asking so many interesting questions about gender. Also the arc the ‘gentleman’ character goes through over the course of the entire tracklist of the 2020 My Agenda album is absolutely hilarious, don’t @ me.

I also discovered 100 Gecs this year. Why are most of you guys saying it’s unlistenable garbage. It’s just as abrasive and over the top as industrial music is, but with none of the edginess or drama. I love it. What the hell. But yeah Tree of Clues was released this year. Good.

Speaking of industrial, in March 2020 Nine Inch Nails were like “hey remember when we released Ghosts I-IV a decade ago entirely for free and how amazing that was? Well we’re all in lockdown and bored as hell so here’s Ghosts V-VI and it’s also free. Enjoy” and I f█cking died instantly. And it’s even better than I-IV. What the hell was that year

Jonsi released Shiver. It’s strange and highly experimental. I’m pretty sure it’s a good thing I was into hyperpop this year, otherwise going from his previous material straight to this album would have been brutal.

Yadda yadda yadda After Hours by the Weeknd good yadda yadda.

I’ve joked about that already but if you had told me in 2019 that 2020 would have fires, a pandemic, riots, monoliths appearing and disappearing, and also a super good Machine Gun Kelly album, guess which part I would have found the most ridiculous. But yeah uh. Tickets to my Downfall good

So uh this year I tried to listen to some hyperpop and liked it a lot, and I also dipped my toes timidly into screamo and listened to Svalbard, who released When I Die this year, and the entire album was a very beautiful, very intricately decorated punch to the face. It sounds like God Is An Astronaut except with a shit ton of yelling. I love it. Open Wound is my favorite track on it.

But no, despite all of this, my album of the year was from a band I had never even heard about before that year, called Spanish Love Songs. The album is titled Brave Faces Everyone and it’s line after line after line of extremely relatable generational angst but yelled with complete sincerity and it’s so propulsive and energetic you can’t help but feel both exhausted and ready to fight the entire universe. I don’t know how it works, but it’s incredible. The entire album is wonderfully brutal, so it’s kind of difficult to pick my favorite songs on it, but Beachfront Property and the title track stand out.

Unelligible songs, now, and there’s, uh, quite a few of them too so I’m also gonna use bullet points. Good lord this post is gonna be long.

First, let me say I have literally no idea why Midnight Sky by Miley Cyrus wasn’t a bigger hit. It’s not on the year-end US top 100 and it feels extremely wrong. Would have made it to #4 on this list otherwise.

I still entertain the vague hope that stuff from Machine Gun Kelly will chart higher in 2021 but I doubt it will happen so I might as well tackle it now and say that Bloody Valentine and especially Forget Me Too are both excellent and that it’s a shame radios aren’t playing them more often.

Heaven by the late Avicii featuring Coldplay should have charted in 2019 and still didn’t chart in 2020 and that’s a real shame.

If the world was a bit less unfair, Lovesick Girls by Blackpink would have been a hit rather than the awful Ice Cream.

One day I will stop complaining about my bafflement concerning the lack of mainstream pop charts success of The 1975. Today is not that day. I just love how they keep making songs about extremely awkward relationships full of weird details, and I haven’t grown tired of that yet. So yeah If You’re Too Shy is about a guy who’s crush is asking him to get naked on Skype in his hotel room and he’s, uh, not too sure about that idea.

And Me & You Together is about a guy who never finds the right moment to tell his best friend he’s in love with her, and he manages to do so at the end and it’s cute as hell. My fave part is “I'm sorry that I'm kinda queer / It's not as weird as it appears / It's 'cause my body doesn't stop me (Stop me) / Oh, it's okay, lots of people think I'm gay / But we're friends, so it's cool, why would it not be?”. Relatable as f█ck.

And now for an international hit that should have been bigger in the US and/or in my country but wasn’t: Head & Heart by Joel Corry and MNEK.

I’ve heard Nos Célébrations by Indochine extremely often on French radio for months now so I was very surprised to see that it didn’t crack the local year-end list. What happened.

I can finally hear the appeal of Bring Me The Horizon. It took me ages. And also Death Stranding. The song Ludens isn’t in the game per say, but it’s among the ones you can pick to broadcast briefly when people drive by your constructions, and long story short it's been living rent-free in my head for months now.

Phew.

It’s time for a round of Honorable Mentions for elligible songs, containing a couple of guilty pleasures, which is saying something considering the kind of shit I put on some of my previous lists.

Ne Reviens Pas (Gradur et Heuss l’Enfoiré) - Heuss is a French artist that kept baffling me while making my lists for the previous years, and I was like “??? ok, that’s it then, I guess I’m getting too old to get what teenagers find funny”. This one worked for me, though. And the music video doesn’t hurt. Really dumb and really fun.

Adore You (Harry Styles) - Perfectly good little pop song, very pleasant to listen to, never outstayed its welcome for me.

Mood (24kGoldn) - This doesn’t sound like a very good relationship, my dude, but that’s still a super pleasant song.

WAP (Cardi B & Megan Thee Stallion) - This song is absolutely hilarious and I will hear no argument from any of you.

Control (Zoe Wees) - Was clearly a hit here. Should have been even bigger though. What a powerful but comfy voice. If I had better taste it would be on the list.

Hot Girl Bummer (Blackbear) - I. Uh. Listen. I keep saying I have bad taste and nobody believes me. Do you believe me now. But yeah. “F█ck you, and you, and you~, I hate your friends and they hate me too” is gonna pop in my head every single time someone is being a jerk anywhere near me now. It’s been happening all year already. Someone trashed my documents at work? Someone isn’t wearing a mask in public? That guy has filled his car with rolls of toilet paper? Brain goes “F█ck you, and you, and you~”. Every. Single. Time.

Come & Go (Juice WRLD & Marshmello ) - Damn, that’s a pretty good little song. I’ve seen plenty of people saying it’s ruined by the drop, but may I remind you I’m the person who loves Blue by Eiffel 65 with all my heart. If the song was ramping up consistently until the end instead of ending like that, it would have made the list, definitely.

And now, the actual list. This one actually feels pretty solid, I genuinely like everything on it, there’s no filler here for once.

10 - The Box (Roddy Rich)

US: #3 / FR: #23

Now this is a weird case, because for the longest time I couldn’t figure out why this song was so popular and I was completely neutral about it. Then, one morning in September, my mental jukebox (which always, always puts a song on a loop in my head when I wake up) decided to play it. And I was like oh wow?? I never noticed the atmosphere in that song before? It’s so great. And that hook too. Let’s listen to it.

So yeah, I don’t know what happened. It just clicked one day and everything fell into place, I guess.

9 - Alane (Wes & Robin Shulz)

US: Not on the list / FR: #93

Come on. You can’t do a remake of one of my previous #1 songs and let it chart in 2020. That’s cheating. Even with this subpar drop, I have to put it on the list, now.

I’ve already said my piece about the original, so I’m just going to send you back to my 1997 list.

8 - Kings and Queens (Ava Max)

US: Not on the list / FR: #76

[BBC documentary voice] After Lady Gaga decided to make piano balads and left her musical niche vacant, Ava Max quickly took her place as the top predator pop diva. Even after Lady Gaga was re-introduced to her natural habitat in 2020, she still hasn’t fully recovered in Europe, where Ava Max still reigns supreme on the charts -

(tldr I think it’s hilarious that this isn’t on the US Billboard while Lady Gaga isn’t on the French year-end top 100)

7 - Roses (Saint Jhn & Imanbek)

US: #19 / FR: #3

What an earworm. It doesn’t even bother trying to have an intro or an outro, so it loops almost perfectly. It’s like entering a party that started long before you arrived, and it will go on long after you leave it to go back home. Kind of hypnotic in a way.

And yes, my mental jukebox was very fond of using it to wake me up this year, so this is another song that’s here almost solely because of that.

6 - Physical (Dua Lipa)

US: Not on the list / FR: #69 (hehehe)

“Hey I’m not that old” says the guy who’s definitely a sucker for this kind of retro throwback that was so popular this year. Oh well.

I don’t have anything interesting to say about this one, though. Apart from the fact that everyone seems to have a different fave song on that album. Guess that’s quality for you.

5 - Rain on Me (Lady Gaga & Ariana Grande)

US: #48 / FR: Not on the list

That is far from being Lady Gaga’s best song, but it was a joy to listen to everytime it was on the radio anyway. Also Ariana Grande has surprisingly good chemistry with Gaga! This year was full of strange duets mostly made for commercial reasons, and this one isn’t an exception, but unlike a lot of them, it really, really works.

4 - Dynamite (BTS)

US: #38 / FR: Not on the list

I’m still not 100% sold on k-pop even if a ton of it sounds super good, but come on. Even if some bits of this song (especially the beginning of the second chorus) sound a bit like they were made on autopilot, it still sounds just as happy and fun several months after I first heard it and I never got tired of it. That’s quality. You hear it and you can’t help but tap your feet and smile.

Actually, I’m sure there’s people somewhere that don’t smile when they hear this song. And they must be avoided at all costs.

3 - Godzilla (Eminem ft Juice WRLD)

US: #62 / FR: Not on the list

What are you doing so high on this list, old man. Why are you still here in the year 2020. I thought we left you in the previous decade. Who gave you the right.

I’m gonna tell you who did, and it’s actually Juice WRLD. Because that chorus is incredible, and like a lot of people I’m pissed off because the guy died super young and this shit shouldn’t happen to anybody. No, his early material wasn’t great, but I’m sorry I’m gonna say it again: have you heard this damn chorus? It’s suspenseful and dark, it’s got this lowkey menacing quality, it’s an earworm and a half, and it’s more convincing in like six lines than Eminem’s own flexing is in the entire song.

The beat is extremely good as well, and the flow, obviously, impressive. The weakest link is Eminem’s writing, which is as usual full of puns and weird wordplay, except here a lot of it isn’t great, and that last ultra fast part at the end is technically impressive but it also drives the song up a cliff and stops it dead in its tracks once it’s over. But frankly the lines fly by so fast it’s difficult to be too annoyed by them.

Can I sincerely put this extremely flawed song so high on my list? A better question would be “did I spend hours trying to learn how to sing this shit without choking on my own spit?”. The answer is yes. To both.

2 - Heartless (The Weeknd)

US: #28 / FR: Not on the list

I’ve said it on my 2015 and 2016 lists already, but just for the record I’ll say it again: it took me ages to like The Weeknd, mostly because I found most of his songs fairly boring, or disliked the lyrics, or both. Also I never really liked the general vibe of his “sexy” songs like The Hills, they felt dark but in an unpleasant creepy way. Felt like miserable hedonism, if that makes sense.

So, because I’m a person with extremely consistent and logical tastes, here’s the exact same shit he was making before, except that this time I absolutely adore it.

What is he doing differently that makes the whole After Hours album click for me whereas almost all of his previous material failed to do so? Is it the energy? Is it the reverb? Is it the fact that the narrator sounds properly unhinged and, frankly, scared to be spiralling out of control? Why are the colors so beautiful yet full of anxiety? Why is that bridge so fantastic? How can you make your voice look like a glowstick in the dark?

I give up. I have no clue. At least I’m done talking about-

Oh.

1 - Blinding Lights (The Weeknd)

US: #1 / FR: #1 (listen sometimes something’s just that good, ok)

Surprise. Or not.

Wow, look at that, Johannes has put this year’s number one pop song at number one on their personal playlist. The audacity. The edge. What a hot take.

I discovered that song when it first came out at the end of 2019 and I adored it instantly. And I was so scared it wouldn’t be a hit. Which means I’m a f█cking dumbass considering it ended up breaking all sorts of records in 2020. But what can I say, overplay can be a blessing when you love a song that much.

Like every single song I put at number one on one of my lists, I will draw this one at some point and you will understand how incredibly satisfying it is to listen to a song called Blinding Lights, talking about city lights looking blurry when you’re driving at night, while looking itself like a bunch of blurry city lights passing by super fast. Perfect in every way.

Also it sounds exactly like A-ha, and that never hurts.

See you next year! Pretty sure it will be even better music-wise.

[s1utspeare]

Get To Know Me!

@foxofninetales tagged me in this ask game and since I LOVE HER i will now be doing it (i mean i’d do it anyway but now it will be filled with love for FOX i am not accepting CRITICISM ON THIS POINT)

Part I

name: Brigid! I’m named after the Irish goddess of like, poetry, healing, smithcraft, and protection, or the Irish saint (they’re both pretty similar it’s just whether or not you’re talking about Celtic religion or Catholicism). She’s very cool, and I think it’s a very fitting name for who I turned out to be!

pronouns: she/her

star sign: i’m an insufferable theatre kid of course I’m a Leo

height: 5'8″ babeeeyyy (172 cm). I’m not short like, at all, but all of my family members are over six foot, so I’m like. tiny in comparison. they all make fun of me all the time for it :(

time: 8:49pm! A delightful time of evening!!! 

birthday: July 31st, same day as Harry Potter lol.

nationality: american :P

fave bands/groups/solo artists: hnnnngggghhhh why would u ask me this I don’t KNOW jk i just have a lot uhhhhh all time faves would be Bastille and Mumford and Sons, but I’m SUPER into kpop right now, so my top groups are BTS, Stray Kids, and One OK Rock (who are technically jpop but I really like their stuff). I also am a Broadway BITCH (hello, theatre kid) so before this year all of my Spotify library was basically just show tunes. 

song stuck in your head: Get Away by VeriVery. I think they’re a pretty new group? idk i saw them on one of those tumblr promotional things and checked out the music video which is like??? really interesting conceptually? so I’ve just been listening to the song for a while lol. 

last movie you watched: Train to Busan! I’m gearing up to write a dmbj zombie apocalypse AU and so I was like “this is a popular zombie film! I’ll watch it for inspiration! :)” holy shit. holy shit i was so wrong. It’s one of the most viscerally affecting films I think I’ve ever seen, I was like. On the verge of an anxiety attack the entire time but in like the best possible way?? it’s a mastery of character introduction and action/horror and I cried for like the last ten minutes straight. SO affecting. I do NOT RECOMMEND IT if u are already made anxious by zombie apocalypse scenarios, blood, violence, and a Lot of Death. 

last show you binged: hmmm uh like I’m currently watching Mystic Nine but at like a normal pace, so the last show I probably binge watched was maybeeee The Uncanny Counter on Netflix? HIGHLY recommend that one, I made @cross-d-a watch it and I’m living for her liveblog reactions lmao. Idk most of my free time has been spent writing the past few months which. After months of only having the energy to watch shows is kind of really invigorating? the things u can do when u fix ur health I’ll tell you what

when you created your blog: in 2012 asldighalsdkfjladskjga i came on here to like burdge’s pjo fanart :)

the last thing you googled: "is it bad not to have an air cap on your tire” ALSDIGHALKDFJLADFJA FUCK ME (i learned that it’s not necessarily bad but it can get dirt and stuff built up in there so I went to the store after work today and replaced it)

other blogs: everything is here bc i am too lazy to create a sideblog! so sorry to everyone who does not follow me for cdrama content bc this is all I am now. 

why i chose my url: cause it’s my ao3 username and i wanted people to be able to find me more easily on tumblr! :) the long answer is because i love shakespeare and also i think that slut is a really funny word and concept for me especially because i am one of the most sexless people u will ever meet in ur life so slutspeare is like. an aggressively ace joke that only I think is funny. 

how many people are you following: 588

how many followers do you have: ah just over 200?!??!!? which is like. a lot for me. I think it was like 75 up until like last year omg 

average hours of sleep: my sleep app says I average around eight! which is very good for me! I do have to get enough sleep consistently or I will Have A Bad Time so my sleep schedule is pretty good and luckily I don’t have the Insomnia depression I have the Sleep Lots one which I am glad for bc idk what I’d do if I couldn’t Be Unconscious regularly. Die probably. 

lucky numbers: I don’t think I have lucky numbers?? my favorite number is 21 for no reason other than the vibes alone. 

instruments: i’ve played the piano for uhhhh.... eighteen years now? and I can play the ukulele and am surprisingly good with the recorder since I’ve had to play it in Multiple Theatre Performances. I was also an honor choir singer back in high school so I’ve done a lot of select ensemble stuff which was super fun! 

what i'm currently wearing: a Life Is Good long-sleeved t-shirt that says “Not All Who Wander Are Lost” that I got in a military surplus store like a million years ago and red Adidas athletic shorts that I found at the thrift store a couple weeks back

dream job: playwright! I just wanna be a playwright! playwriting is like drugs i literally go nuts for it

dream trip: I don’t know??? I don’t really like traveling tbh aslidhalkfdj umm I do want to see the grand canyon sometime before I die tho so maybe a road trip down there? I definitely like traveling solo so I’d probably just hang out with myself and drive and go to whatever places I want and see dumb tourist attractions and sing loudly in the car

fave food: CURRY i know i said eggs the last time it asked me this but I miss my local Indian restaurant I want to eat literal Platefuls of tikka masala at 12pm at the Indian buffet after my physics class again :(

top three fictional universe you'd like to live in: hmmm i don’t know, actually! probably one where I have Powers and could do Cool Hand Motions and make Lights Appear. If I were anywhere with like. An Actual World-Dooming problem tho I would not be helpful at all. I would just die. Besides, I already live in fictional universes half the time, I’m a writer! 

Part II

last song: Basquiat by Pentagon! The music video is like. Very whumpy. So if you’re into that... the song’s also a bop

last stream: i don't watch streams very often, I just watch clips from them, cause those usually just give the best parts lol 

currently reading: mmmmmbbbaaaaahhhhh literally nothing? I’m trying to get caught up on the backlog of dmbj fic I haven’t gotten around to so Binding by @vishcount is next on that list! oh I guess I’m also reading Johnny Tremain with my kids (one of them SPOILED THE END and I forgot how it ended and now I’m big sad). 

currently watching: Mystic Niiiiinnnneeeeee! love those gay history bitches. everyone in that show is so funny. I just finished the Fuba Side Plot tho and now we’re back to Politics so i’m like >:( someone give zhang baby rishan a hug (and then i write angst about him what is wrong with me)

what is antipoetry to you: antipoetry??? what the heck is antipoetry hold on... uhhhh that’s just poetry. who came up with this term. i guess like lyrical fiction would be the technical correct definition but idk I consider anything to be poetry! like that’s the whole point! poetry is poetry is poetry as long as it’s focused on intensity and emotions it’s poetry! a haiku? poetry. the random one-lined mess of words on my phone? poetry. a literal drawing of a cardinal with the word “bird” written next to it? poetry. idk I’ve been trying to teach my kids that there are no wrong ways to write creatively; if you’re expressing yourself and making emotions, then you’re writing! also like half of my work could be considered antipoetry lmao. I love emotionally supercharging the mundane.

currently craving: i have noooo ideaaaasssss i’m literally just vibing. uh. water? ok i took care of that one my water bottle was right next to me. 

AH IF YOU READ THIS MUCH THANK YOU???? i love u 

uhhhh no pressure tags for @xia-xueyi, @nope4ever, @bookjoyworm, @elletromil, and @gaiahenshin, as well as anyone else who would like to give the full-rundown on themselves! :D

[literaphobe]

What's your most chaotic interaction from tumblr? Like rate dumb things that has happened or something jkshceks

oh my god get ready because this took me looking through my asks back until early 2017. i got whiplash reliving some of these. narrowed many moments down to the best ones. behold some of my most chaotic/dumb interactions on tumblr, from most recent to least:

‘not to be an asshole but could you stop making content’ incredible. came for my entire life. for $8,000 i will stop. 8/10

‘why can’t adora be white? :( don’t us white lesbians deserve representation too? :(’ i wanted to die when i got this ask. i still am in disbelief over the fact that this happened. 9/10

‘read your fic - you’re gay’ yeah i got clocked for being gay. what the fuck :( exposed :( 7/10

‘can you flirt in the dms i’m too single for this shit’ getting scolded by anons for allegedly flirting.... yeah call me out! 7/10

‘i have reported you to the secret service for talking about assassinating trump btw’ was anon messing w me? did they want me to be scared? who knows. im not even american. 6.5/10

‘fyi i took a screenshot of one of your posts. ten minutes later my house burnt down so now a screenshot of your post is next to pictures of my house in flames’ 9.5/10. it was definitely my fault. im so sorry i caused your house to burn anon i take full responsibility. u didn’t even blame me for the fire but u should have 

‘how dare u say straights aren’t allowed in the b99 fandom. its 2019 fandoms should be inclusive and welcoming of people regardless of their sexuality????’ 9/10. still cannot believe till this day that i was accused of oppressing the straights 

‘jake is straight you can die mad about it 😘‘ 9/10. amazing. love it when straight people send me death threats for headcanoning characters as bi

 ‘how do you pronounce your name i’ve been saying it as mice hell’ 9.5/10. absolutely incredible that anon thought my incredibly common name michelle was pronounced like this

‘An hour or two? LOL NO. I browse tumblr barely for 15-20 minutes. Of which I have exactly 90 seconds to go through your blog and read dcau chapter if there are responses of new one. Which I do in hardly 45 seconds. So, I actually just skim through the chapter and absorb more than others who read it like twice/thrice. Also, I am writing this long ass ask because my girlfriend is making me wait in my car and wasting our precious time we'd be spending on our date instead. YIKES.’ 9.5/10. ok for context. i uploaded a 15k chapter for a fic and in the tags i told people to be prepared because the chapter might take them like an hour or two to read. and this anon was pissed off that i would dare assume they would take such a long time to read my fic. also they had to tell me why they took the time to send me that ask in the first place. it is so fucking funny

‘Fuck can't wait. You told Monday, now you're telling Tuesday tommorow you'll say Wednesday? Bitch.😠‘ 7/10 i told people i would post my fic on monday but then i delayed it and this anon called me a bitch. this ask is hilarious 

‘Not just to Andy but also every other stranger. Nobody should let you near them if they are uncomfortable. You are bisexual that means everyone should know that you are an equal Potential Threat to all females with all the harassing going on. Being bisexual has its own advantages and disadvantages. You too fall into the category of creepy males creeppin out other females.‘ 8.5/10. i said ‘i want to hug andy samberg’ once and anon decided i was a predator. like yes this is so biphobic but also the way they treated me like a dangerous threat for wanting to hug a celebrity is so funny

‘i just got home from getting kidnapped for 5 days (lol long story) but seeing that you updated your fic definitely helped!’ 10/10. probably the most iconic ask i have ever gotten. also anon was serious and came back in a second ask to explain a little bit more about what happened. i hope they are living a safe happy life now 

‘not to burst your fandom bubble but my child’s middle name was in honor of my father not b99′ remember when chelsea peretti roasted me for making an inaccurate joke about how the middle name of hers and jordan peele’s child was ‘gino’ because it was like the boy version of gina? remember how she slapped me in the face and i completely deserved it for making a stupid joke? my shitposts have definitely been the death of me. will i stop? no. 10/10

‘cocaine girl do not die in that earthquake’ okay so. cocaine girl was one of the funniest commenters i have ever had the pleasure of knowing on my most popular fic. one day in her comment she said ‘there’s an earthquake happening rn hope i don’t die sskksksks’ and then she vanished. she didn’t comment for several chapters. i was super fucking worried you guys i thought she died or didn’t like my fic anymore. according to my memory she came back like weeks later in my comment section like ‘lmao yeah something hit my head during the earthquake and i was in the hospital for five days im ok now tho’ 10/10

[haxxorz666]

List 10 different female faves from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people.  I was tagged by the lovely @filantestar -- this was a lot more difficult than I expected, so gee, thanks!

1. Femshep (Mass Effect) - i'm always shocked to discover there's a dudeshep. 2. Ellie (The Last of Us) - she's such a vindictive mess! 3. Rei Ayanami (Neon Genesis Evangelion) - what a stoic weirdo.  also annihilates the world. 4. Héloïse (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) - a grumpy brat.  except with marianne ... or maybe especially with marianne. 5. Morrigan (Dragon Age) - just make her gay.  holy fuck. 6. Dani Clayton (The Haunting of Bly Manor) - if she's into you, she will relentlessly flirt with your gay ass. 7. Korra (The Legend of Korra) - i get it.  you have back muscles. 8. Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) - the survivor timeline one.  she's brave, intelligent, and she will shotgun you point blank in the face. 9. Chloe Price (Life Is Strange) - i too would destroy an entire town for her. 10. Utena Tenjou (Revolutionary Girl Utena) - the perfect boyfriend.  brave, handsome, and dumb as a sack of hammers.

Honorable Mention: Kate Bush - a fandom on tumblr for kate?! why the hell not.  she is THE babushka.

Tagging (we're all aloof mutuals, are we not?): @3coffeecups @zero0-dawn @kixberry @long-gone-blues @leekimhoung @piratearr @horsedrawntank @bettydice @angelfood1995 @professorfudin

[savrenim]

mx savrenim! mx. savrenim! I have a writing question: Im writing a story about people who can see the future, and I'm wondering how you made it feels more like a memory not like, a gut wrenching tragedy? Its deffo painful, but Im pretty sure you mentioned wanting to give it a happy ending? If so: how. The concept of future vision is so cool but the implications and the way it plays out is horrifying and heartbreaking rip. I just wanna give my characters some chance at a happy ending

gods okay this is a good question that I have a lot of Weird Strong Feelings about bc time is the single thing that I have the strongest opinions about let’s go under the cut

so the thing that makes your question interesting to me-- “how do you make a story with future powers not a gut-wrenching tragedy”-- is that..... to me, at least, there is absolutely nothing inherent in the setup of future-seeing powers that should imply that the story should be a gut-wrenching tragedy? your problem is assuming that there has to be anything tragic involved. free yourself from that perception and you will be free to write whatever you want.

ifmlam is a gut-wrenching tragedy right now because the feeling that I was going for was “hmmmm the exact gut-wrenching feeling that The World Was Wide Enough makes me feel” and it’s having a happy ending because I decided to write a fic bc “goddamnit I need a fix-it, like, right now.” Seeing the future is cool but it’s also just a plot-and-setting device. and the story feels the way it feels because I designed how it works around exactly how I wanted it to feel?

my current other major project, trash novel, is about a seer who hunts down other seers for dramatic stop-the-world-from-devolving-into-war-and-maybe-ending reasons. except the vibes are... SO different. the vibes are “shit there’s like a dozen way way overpowered teenagers and twenty-something-year-olds who hold the fate of the world in their hands except they’re being dumb assess getting overly involved in personal drama with one another and are maybe going to blow up the planet.” and so instead of this quasi-religious worldwide honor around a single Seer and visions of the future that work one particular way and the main character being this poor fragile darling that needs to be protected and the reverence with which the plot treats the usage of future-powers, the main character of the opus series named herself “Fuck You” and has the power to see like ten seconds tops into the future and uses it to be really fucking good at magic fistfighting and accidentally gets involved in trying to take over a foreign/soon to be enemy government while trying to make friends with the ambassador that it’s her mission to protect him and like spy on that government to make sure they’re not messing with the future, but because he’s really pissed off at his ex and his shitty parents kind of for trying to force him to marry his ex and also his entire home country for siding with his ex he decides to take advantage of the fact that Saes thinks that overthrowing a government is maybe appropriate friend bonding activities to Take Revenge. and overthrow the government. meanwhile his cousin just outright admits in her second scene that she is trying to take over the first their government in then the world and is like 90% of the way there and really isn’t trying to hide the fact that she has committed to a plan that makes everyone think she is The Villain but Saes in particular bc Saes doesn’t want her home country to be conquered, but while Saes thinks this makes them moral enemies Asterna thinks that Saes is very hot because Saes is the single person who can beat her in a fistfight. they get into a misunderstanding fake-dating relationship for at ~80k words of the first arc. the ex is also trying to take over the government partially bc he feels the family pressure to continue their influence and partially bc he’s still in love with Luka and wants to try to win him back. at least three main characters have very poorly thought out one-night stands with other characters just for spite. there’s a character whose name is “Godkiller.” 

you can probably tell from the description that it’s very VERY different vibes from ifmlam. there are seers with more longreaching abilities than 10 seconds in the setting, who are trying to use their powers to seriously manipulate outcomes of events, and some deep political implications of that; it’s not all flashy ridiculousness. there are parts of it that get tragic (gods do parts of it get emotional and gods are some of those emotions tragic), but it’s never terribly tragic for very long, and it never feels like a heart-wrenching tragedy as a genre. everyone is a gay mess, extra emphasis on the gay AND the mess, and it reads like ridiculous action drama intrigue almost like a DnD campaign? 

and it’s because of both (a) the seer powers that are being highlighted work differently but also (b) the seer pov character has a fundamentally different perception of themselves. Aaron Burr sees himself as pretty much a McGuffin and he hates it and there’s a large portion of his character and character arc and hence the plot itself that revolves around him not feeling like he has any sort of control over his life or the impact of his powers. he’s afraid of himself and what he can do, he’s afraid of letting people in and being used, he’s afraid of the impact that he or someone wielding him might have on the world, and he doesn’t quite see himself as a person, more like a glass statue of one housing powers -- and that contributes to the tragedy and vastly affects the tone of the whole thing. when the viewpoint character feels helpless, when the viewpoint character doesn’t believe in themselves, when the viewpoint character is pretty much a McGuffin: incredibly powerful and useful to powerful people, but unable to control their own fate -- that gives the story a certain feeling.

Saes Imirin is nothing like Aaron Burr because Saes isn’t afraid of herself. Saes is completely at peace with what she can do, and actually thinks it’s pretty cool. She’s working for the people she’s working for because she’s decided that’s probably where she’ll do the least harm in the world, and also because she likes her apartment. if she changes her mind she changes her allegiance. she has stared down armies and has never really feared for herself, because she’s a fucking badass, and she knows that she can always pick the future where she wins so why should she ever feel afraid.

if you don’t want your characters to feel tragic, then don’t have them be afraid of themselves. don’t have them doubt themselves. but also, construct the way that future-seeing powers work so that they’re not set up to be a tragedy. the biggest being the most important pair of questions: how accurate/specific are the powers? and how unchangeable is the future?

Saes Imirin’s powers are 100% accurate and 100% specific, albeit contained to usually one to three but at most ten seconds. The future is also 100% changeable; the way her powers works is that she sees all possible futures and then physically moves the way that she did in the one where she’s won. Aaron Burr’s powers are..... death visions I’d put at, like.... 90sh % “accuracy”? in that they always show a possible and in fact usually most probable for the timeline we’re on now sort of death for someone. but they’re also very changeable. but time itself has a momentum and “pushes back” against those changes in the plot of ifmlam (someone doesn’t die in one duel will die in another, etc) which lends to a strong feeling of inevitability despite the relative amount of freedom those powers have. 

imo, future-seeing usually lends itself to tragedy when it’s about seeing something terrible/attempting to subvert something that cannot be fixed because it is the future. if you establish early on that all visions/prophecies must come true exactly, that will usually put a fair amount of tension on your plot and it will make things feel tragic, especially if characters end up getting a future that they really really don’t like. the more unchangeable things are, the more it usually tends towards tragedy.

(I say “usually” because, like. I’m still waiting for a story in which future-seeing is absolute and someone gets a prophecy that “and if you choose to go forward and step through this room your fate will be sealed, you will die on this specific day in this exact way and nothing in the universe can change that”, the character goes “cool”, does it, and promptly begins taking advantage of their immortality up until that day to do Utterly Ridiculous Things to become a weird hyper luck-based superhero of, like, “I can jump off this building bc in the vision I was fine and unhurt so I can’t get wounded in any sort of way that’ll make me unable to run and jump around” “I can totally try eating this mystery goo let’s see what it does” “hmmm the enemy fired their superbomb into the heart of our capital guess I just have to sit here next to it so that it will keep malfunctioning in some strange unspecified way and not going off because it can’t kill me here and now my fate is set in stone” etc. just. someone give me that comedy p l e a s e. I’m picturing Monty Python level of shenanigans.)

but yeah, usually, the more set in stone a future is, the more likely a story is to take a turn for the tragic, because when the future isn’t ~set in stone~ prophecies function more as useful warnings that can be interpreted to do useful things and save the day and not terrible foreboding omens of doom. high accuracy with high changeability is a cool superpower. low.... specificity, at least, leads to stories where usually you go “oH SHIIIIIT” afterwards as you get the end and the last thing clicks in place and now the entire plot in hindsight is So Much Different and they only lend themselves to tragedy if they’re useless as warnings and are just “fuck oh THAT’S what it meant and if I understood it I could have changed it”. and then inherent low changeability is both easiest to lend to tragedy and imo the hardest to write because you write yourself into a corner? (and you also make some pretty deep philosophical statements about determinism and free will depending on how you characterize time.) but so long as everyone has a chance to change things, the story won’t feel hopeless.

this has gotten long and rambly bc it’s ungodly o clock in the morning and, like, if the heart of the thesis of your story is “knowing the future is Fucked Up and Fucks You Up” and your story is on the deep seated societal implications about a world where some measure of seeing the future exists, like.... there are ways in which things might be tragic, but there are ways to counter that by making things mundane? a la lightening benders in legend of korra working at electricity plants. having seers with tiny mundane powers and/or who don’t really care about their powers and don’t use them too much or who just think of them as annoying side noise, but at the heart of it, oops stealing also from mob psycho 100 bc oops I just rewatched it and am mildly obsessed with it and its message and just dear gods how it manages to pull off its emotional impact....

psychic powers are just another trait. like people who can run fast or who study hard or sing really well or have strong body odor, or have psychic powers. they don’t make you any more special than anything else. who you are and what you do isn’t set in stone, it’s choices that you can make.

and finally, if your world is tragic bc you’ve decided to lean into the “the public perceives seers as special / dangerous / other “ and so you don’t want to adjust how the powers themselves work and how the public sees it, there’s always the trick of just, like.... let characters’ actions have meaning. let them win. and it won’t be a tragedy, not really.

[momo-with-a-knife]

So, welcome to the pinnedpost of my current project, a season 1 soulmate au where injuries on one soulmate appear on any others. It’s got Zukka, Kataang, Iroh being awesome, various characters written as autistic, and at one point Momo starts stabbing people. Also I think I may have made Lieutenant Jee just... super gay for Iroh? Anyways, a sample:

“I'm here to make you quit being stupid,” Sokka says. “You almost got us all killed by trying to convince Zhao everything's fine. You can't go back to being Zuko the Good Prince.”

Zuko snorts. “I've never been a good prince.”

Sokka has to fight the urge to hug Zuko this time. It comes up anytime Zuko talks about his childhood. And yeah, maybe this is why they're soulmates, because something in Sokka desperately wants to see what this shattered mess of a human being is like when he's been put back together.

“Zuko, has it ever occurred to you that maybe you're a perfectly fine prince, and your father is just such a bad Fire Lord that he can't recognize good?”

Zuko stares at Sokka. A flush of frustration  warms his cheeks. Iroh is constantly spitting out these nuggets of wisdom, but Sokka is... bad at it. He tries again. “I mean... Ozai is so... um... so bad that he thinks—“

“Please stop torturing that sentence,” Zuko interrupts, “I don't allow torture on my ship.” Sokka is about to respond when Zuko adds “that's why you're not allowed to sing, too.”

Sokka bursts out laughing, because yeah, that stings, but it's also really funny, and he has to admit that being a bad singer is one of the funniest shortcomings it is possible to have. He controls the laugh as quickly as he can and forces himself to be serious.

“Zuko,” he says.

Zuko sighs. “Fine. You're right. You and Uncle are both right, okay? I can have... I can't... I'm not getting... my father will never restore my honor. Not now that I've got... you.” He flops back, bloody hands covering his face. They're all pretty much covered. It's not like Zuko is making it any worse. “If I want to live, I have to fight the Fire Nation.” He peeks out from under his hand. “and I want to live. Uncle doesn't seem to think much of the Fire Nation  after all, and he seems happy enough. That means it's possible. Right?”

“Zuko, you're an asshole,” Sokka says. Zuko scoffs. “But never let anyone tell you you're a stupid asshole. I was expecting to have to fight you a lot harder on this. You're only kind of dumb, not all the way stupid.”

“Sokka, you are such a piece of shit,” Zuko says kindly. “Get out of my cabin before I give us both a new scar.”

[butididnottried]

I’m late to the party, but whatever. After a (ehehe he) few months of thinking about it, i finally watched netflixs “She-Ra and Princesses of Power”.

- Oh. Oh... Oh wow. Just wow. All these jokes and memes about Catra and therapy makes so much sense now. Like, even TOO much. This show have no business in showing all these issues so good, and yet, there they are.

- Scorpia is such a cinnamon roll. But she’s so stressed. She tries to play it cool, but man, her stress level is on some cosmic level. I have no idea how she do not lost it and not murdered anyone. Come on big girl, i’m going to be your best friend and you can hug me as much as you want. <3

- Hey Adora.

- I hope that Shadow Weaver will not pull some betrayal shit right now and will stick with the rebellion against Horde Prime. I don’t need her to be redeemed, she don’t really deserve that and probably don’t even want that. Also, she’s on the good side out of bad  motives, so that’s that. But her changing sides again would be just stupid and too predictable. It’s obvious that she will again try some shady magic to “save” the planet, while also at this same time gain more power, but i hope that will blow up in her face. Badly. Buuut. Since king Maika is alive and back at Bright Moon maybe he will have some good influence on her. Strongly doubt that, but its always a possibility. 

- Bows voice acting is probably my favorite in the whole show. The comedy timing with his voice, when it’s going a little to high and cracks up? That’s The Good Stuff.

- And i don’t really like Entraptas (not Entrapa, what) voice timbre. This voice actress is very good - like every other on this show tbh - but something about her voice alone annoys me. She also often sound like her nose is stuck? Which is a nope for me.

- Hey Adora.

- Ah, Entrapta, my adorable science baby. How someone so smart can be so dumb at this same time. I know that she’s autism coded, but im not talking about that. She figured out this whole The First Ones tech, this whole connection of magic, princesses and rune stones to the WHOLE planet, but didn’t thought even for a second that maybe activating this machinery could most probably blown everything up. Really? ReaLLY? But maybe that’s just a science people thing, being sooo much into it, that nothing else matters? Idk, i’m a dumbass, i do not get science very much. But when she was like “we need to turn this portal thing off, Hordak will understand” i was like “oh no, oh honey, no, he DEFINITELY will not” and this moment was kinda hilarious. Oh well.

- And they we’re lab partners. _^_

- I don’t really know why, but i like Hordak. He’s that good kind of dumb, angry and nor very well socialized villain. Well, he lived in a place not very well suited for proper socializing. Yeah, that - he got a nice, kinda different backstory. Usually when a character is a clone their big and dark torment is the fact that they’re a clone. But he’s even proud of that? Because the original one is powerful and magnificent Horde Prime, so it’s an honor to be his clone. His problem is that he is a defective clone, unworthy, when he was made for such grande purpose like conquering the galaxy. I can’t even very much blame him for his bending for murder and destroy. Not because he’s sad, but because he was made in a lab to be like that, more or less programmed - murderous, angry and destructive. In cases of characters like that it’s not very much like an explanation, but almost an justification (but hey, that’s me, about fictional people, so chill please (: ). It’s like blaming a not self-consciousness machine for going rouge. Well, Hordak is not a stupid, unaware robot, but idk, there’s no real analogue in real world for a beings like this, so i “choose” to feel like that about fictional characters being made to be put-there-whatever. Also, he’s physically so fragile? It’s hysterical. It feels like the faintest wind would blow at him, and every bone in his body would broke. 

- And what i wrote about Hordak i think also about Light Hope. Shes and AI, probably almost at point where she could obtain self-consciousness, but not quite yet there. And she did what she did because she stick to her main program, she really didn’t have a choice. But she had! This one time. Because she is capable of learning and grow beyond her program. I don’t now if younger audience is going to catch that, but i’m happy that AI was showed as it is - just an very advanced AI, and not a mean, bad person. Or maybe she is self-aware and i just didn’t noticed that. Also, her design. <3

- hEy AdOrA.

- I was so ready to like Double Trouble, and eeeh. The only magic here is acting. I do not copy, i perform. I put everYTHING into ROLE! I’m an Artist! ArTiSt! IT’S ART! asdfghjkl just go away with that you pompous prick. Uuuugh, this is just the worst kind of artists. But, i still appreciate how they do not have any sad backstory (yet?), and are there only for money, drama and spreading chaos. At least someone is having fun in all this mess.

- Adora is so gay for big ladies. When all this mess is going to end, she deserve some romantic plot with gentle butch. Give Adora some big woman to love, you cowards!

- One of Bows dad is wearing socks and sandals. That’s it. 

- Swift Wind was visiting madame Razz all this time, because shes and old lady living alone in the woods. My heart just melted. <3 Also, i really want to know whats going on with her. Like, no one cares that’s shes probably more than a one whole thousands years old? But it look more like she has some time bending powers, that she do not control? And it messes with her memory and mind? Poor lady. ): 

- I had this feeling deep in my guts that The First Ones are going to be revealed as stupid bitches. And hey, they turn a magical planet into a super weapon. Why these ancient civilizations are such ignorant morons?

- I know that relationships between characters are the most important thing in this show, but man, i was so much there for the worldbuilding. The more information they were giving, the more i was like “just tell me what’s going on!!!”. And wow, i’m not disappointed. A++. But tbh, if we put aside all this cute stuff like magic, princesses and shiny, magical stones, this whole shit is pretty terrifying.

- When during daring rescue of Glimmer and Bow in Fright Zone Perfuma admitted that working with Entrapta can be... kinda difficult, and Entrapta - with a smile! - just nodded in agreement. This. This is probably my favorite joke in this whole series.

- h e y a d o r a

- Seahawk. Much love. Much joy. Gold of heart, dumb of ass. Yes.

- Also Huntara. Damn, woman, can you maybe tune down your attractiveness? I’m trying to keep myself together here.

- Designs in this show are just top notch. Bon Appetit.

- I love how this world is inhabited by so many various creatures, not only humans. NICE.

[popculturebuffet]

The Casagrandes Reviews: Croaked!

Halloween Havoc rolls on as we shine a light on the other beloved holiday on October 31st, Day of the Dead! Sid and Ronnie Anne’s well meaning plan to help Sid’s sister Adelaide move on from her frog’s death ends up convincincing the small child she has power over life and death. I’m sure all big sisters do that at some point. More about the whole being dead thing under the cut. 

I’ve hyped this one up in both previous Casgrandes reviews, so as you can tell i’m excited for this one. As i’ve mentioned before but will repeat for anyone new here, I absolutley love this episode and when I did a binge a month ago for labor day of this show, it was one of the standouts by a wide margin. I only held off so long because why should Halloween be the only holiday I cover during spooky season huh? I mean yes it’s in my halloween coverage’s title but  there’s always room for incusivlity. Like jello or Wolverine. 

As for if i’m covering this show’s paired episode, the show’s episode for halloween itself...

Yeah I have nothing against the episode ITSELF, it’s just.. eh. I mean we do get bobby as a dracula and sid as a lobster, a cute dance sequence and Stanley griping about not getting to wear his costume at work, which is valid, and then wearing said taco costume at the end... it’s just wrapped around your standard “character blows off a family engagment for something that turns out to suck” plot, the only diffrence being Bobby being the best brother ever is supportive of Ronnie Anne going to a 6th grade party and gladly helps salvage the night at the end. And it wasn’t a plot I liked to begin with, so it had that going against it. And I Know, I tend to zero in on i’ve seen it before a lot.. but that’s because .. it’s OKAY to do a tried and true plot tha’ts been done a million times as long as you can do something entertaining with it.  Both She Ra and Avatar the Last Airbender are about a world tha’ts long been conquered whose long lost savior comes to turn the tide of the war.. but that’s about as much as they share in direct comparison and both are fucking fantastic for diffrent reasons entirely.  But as rehashes go that episode wasn’t BAD , just eh, and i’d rather focus on things I can write more about frankly. 

Speaking of which, yeah I love this episode, and like “Mexican Makeover” it comes from Lalo Alcaraz of La Cucharacha fame, a comic strip writer whose also the show’s consultant for mexican culture, and is part of why the former episode disapointed me: because this one was REALLY fucking good. So enough hype , pitter patter let’s get at er.  The episode opens with Rosa setting up a day of the dead altar for her Father, with Sid and Ronnie Anne wondering what’s up, with Sid out and out wondering if Day of the Dead is mexican halloween something i’m ashamed to admit I thought of it as for years and years, because i’m as white as I am dumb, and most cartoons didn’t go much beyond “the dead come back for a day” and get into the more metaphorhical aspects we get to here. I assume Coco is the exception, as is the book of life I just still need to watch both. And yes you may boo me over this, I certainly deserve this.  I do however like this line as it’s a common misconception, and gives a  lot of kids likely thinking the same about the holiday in the audience a surrogate.

Ronnie Anne also wonders what the altar’s for. Rosa, while minorly annoyed at the two is happy to edcuate explaning it’s a day for honoring your loved ones and inviting them back, metaphorically though the metaphor was lost on young me since both Mucha Lucha and El Tigre had the dead literally come back, via an altar with offerings of their favorite things. It’s a nice bit that not only explains the holiday for those in the audience who either forgot a lot of that (raises hand) or didn’t know any of that, and also helps explain how the holiday is metaphoircal, something I didn’t think about before because as we’ve established i’m kinda dumb. The point is I like it.  Sid however gets an idea: Her sister Adelaide has been down in the dumps since her Frog, Froggy died, likely named after Big the Cat’s frog but this Froggy’s penchant for running off probably just got him ran over since Adelaide lives in the city and Frogger is sadly inaccurate, as George Costanza leanred the hard way. 

So our ambigiously gay duo visit Addy, who being a 6 year old who just lost her pet is bawling her eyes out. So our duo tells her about day of the dead and they set out to get froggy’s faviorite things: From shoelaces to the hoppit, a frog themed version of the hobbit I both wish is real and belives is probably better than the second two hobbit movies, flies (with help from a dirty diaper because this show and it’s sister can’t resist poop jokes.. go with your audience I guess), and a lilypad. The result is this. 

I”m.. not going to ask why a 6 year old’s frog has the frog equilvent of a naked burt renoylds on a bearskin rug photo, froggy’s sexy secrets died with him. But unfortuntely nuance is lost on a 6 year old, so Addy assumed Froggy was actually coming back and just grieves harder now. So Sid comes up with Plan B B: bring froggy back from the dead at the old pet semetary. Though since they don’t want to defile his body they try a dead ally cat first instead.  

One Zombie Test Cat later, they decide sometimes dead is better and just go with plan b: Sid once had a goldfish that died and her parents got her a replacement, and since it worked on her, and apparently still works on Bobby, they decide to pull that. They rent a frog from the pet store. And if your asking “wait pet stores , even fictional ones, do that” and suprisingly.. no they do not, but Pete, the guy at the pet shop which is also named after him, likes Sid’s mom’s tour. Okay two questions: one is that little pete from the adventures of pete and pete all grown up? I mean I know what happend to his actor... 

But in universe we have no idea. And Brendon Small, the character and the actor, showed up on Clarence so it’s plausable. And secondly where can I get the job as owner of my own pet store near melissa joan hart doing a gator show. I may have a career goal now. 

So they sneak in subsittue froggy, and we get an adorable montage of Addy hanging out with Froggy the Second: Getting some son, eating flies (though Addy spits her’s out. She’s not Lana.), and watching the Hoppit.. as I wish to one day. I mean we see a trippy bit of it but not the actual thing.. I guess I can add seeing a full version to my small list of things related to this franchise that I only I want along with my a diffrent world-esque spinoff show following Lori and Bobby. 

Addy happily sleeps after that giant ball of adorable, and Sid and Ronnie Anne take Froggy 2 back to Creepy Guy at the Pet Store.. I mean Pete.. I mean Future Me. So Sid pats herself on the back metaphoircally for the plan.. which this being a sitcom, naturally has kinda snowballed. Now Addy thinks she has power over life and death. Guess she has the same Christmas LIst as Crow

As not to break a small child’s heart for the second time in two days, our heroines decide they have to bring back her wish list: Great Aunt Milly, Old Mr Woodburn, and Abraham Lincoln. 

Since they don’t have a time traveling phone booth, they’ll have to go with the next best thing, my boy Tio Carlos. Seriously why they don’t use this adorable nerd more is beyond me. But Carols being an adorable history nerd gladly agrees to play LIncoln for what he thinks is a play.. I mean greanted they could just tell him the truth. He’s a dad, he gets this kinda thing. Meanwhile our girls dress up like said aunt milly and shenanigans insue. It’s a really funny scene.. until it falls apart with the mr. woodburn impersination, revealing it was all a hoax, and sending Addleaide crying to her room understandably not wanting to talk to either of them. Still we got Carolos as lincoln. That’s not nothing. 

But yeah having made things worse by accident, the girls go to Rosa for help who while understandably annoyed at the mess they made, is more than willing to come with and help. Because Rosa is fucking amazing ,that’s why. She sucessfully coaxes Addy out and then takes her down to the Casagrande’s place to show off her altar and explain the true meaning of day of the dead: Thinking about your loved ones.. keeps the memories alive. Thinking about who they were, what they loved, what they meant to you.. it’s not raising the dead.. but honring them. It  not only made the real value of the holiday sink in for me but i’ts a good message for kids, and a good way to teach them about a holiday most probably didn’ know how it worked if they even knew at all. It’s a really sweet powerful moment, and the combination of alcaraz’s writing and Sonia Manzano really brings it to this scene. It’s easily the show’s best. Good stuff. 

Froggy II interupts the scene.. turns out a trail of bacon bits, that we saw left earlier, lead him back, and Pete’s been following him the whole way and is winded because of course he is. We’re in the same blobby shape I get it man your fine. So with Addy already liking the second froggy, and having fully come to terms with the first’s death, Sid offers Pete tickets to her mom’s show in exchange for Froggy II, whose named that in this scene and who we saw in uptown funk. As long as it’s the splash zone he’s fine with it and Sid knows her mom enough well enough to know Becca would probably gladly trade a ticket for her daughter’s hapiness. Plus it’s easier to get someone to willingnly sign the wavers about getting gator blood on them when they already want that so win win.  We end on a Day of the Dead party with the whole cast in day of the dead makeup, eveyrone happy.. except Carl who’se subplot of spreading marigolds everywhere I missed and he ended up at the Loud House. Why this didn’t lead to a crossover I dunno. I mean if Steve Urkel can jetpack into the family from step by step’s yard,  why not? I know the 90′s were a diffrent time but this was a missed opportunity. Funny gag anyway. And scene. 

Final Thoughts: I was pretty transparent with this one: I think it’s a wonderful, heartfelt, and well done look at day of the dead tha’ts educational without cramming the education part down your throat, like any good cartoon that teachs you something should do, and it’s also really funny and endearing.Not much else to say, it’s just really good and I was glad to highlight it and if you haven’t seen it, please do it’s perfect viewing for the season. If you want more Casagrandes I have two reviews under the nick tab on my blog, and will be covering the second batch of Halloween/Day of the Dead episodes later this month, along with the new loud house halloween special Ghosted. And if you can’t wait for either of those, monday i’ll be covering the new ducktales halloween special. Until we meet again, viva la muretos. Play us out Nimoy...