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nonbinary-octopus · 6 years ago

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This morning, I started thinking about one of my older characters again.

Her name is Paige Penn, she’s 15, and she writes about her secret agent characters Justin and Nick to entertain herself. What she didn’t expect was to one day wake up in her fictional world, and meet the duo.

Of course, they were absolutely surprised and a bit worried to find that some teenager was inside of their secret base and knew who they were. Paige ended up being held in a room for questioning later, and throughout the course of events, she got really mad at Justin. (He may have acted like a jerk, I’m not sure.) So she grumped for a while, and then decided to blow off steam by writing a story where Justin has an absolutely rotten day.

Conveniently, Paige had her notebook and a pencil in her pocket, so she just got that out and started writing. After she’s been scribbling away for a bit, Nick came to check up on her, and asks what she’s writing. After some hesitation, Paige told him about being mad at Justin and wanting to blow off steam because there’s not really anything she can actually do about it, and writing a story where he has a bad day.

Nick commented offhandedly, “Wonder how it compares to the actual bad day Justin’s been having.”

This, of course, got Paige curious, and she asked Nick to tell her about it.

So Nick told her, without diving into the details, what’s been happening to Justin. He spilled his coffee, lost a report out a window, tripped and dropped another cup of coffee, got hit by a door…

Paige, listening, was stunned. Wordlessly, she handed Nick her notebook so he could read it. And once he started, he was stunned too. Within these pages was an exact description of what had been going on, down to the words exchanged. But how could she have known what was happening? It was impossible for her to have seen any of it from inside this room!

Finally, Nick, a bit freaked out, said that either Paige has some sort of… prophetic vision or something… or she actually caused the events to happen. And he’s leaning more toward the latter, given that Paige had been annoyed at Justin when she started writing.

Paige was also a bit freaked out. What are you supposed to do when someone tells you you might have reality-bending powers? Well… it might be a good idea to test that theory, Paige decided. “Give me my notebook back,” she said. “I want to try something.” Nick was, of course, hesitant to do so, but Paige added, “Something nice.” and he handed it over.

Paige started writing again, turning the story around with the arrival of a coworker with cupcakes. And, though neither Nick nor Paige could see it at the time, it actually happened! Justin, of course, was concerned that somehow this was going to go wrong as well, but it didn’t, and he actually got to enjoy a cupcake without dropping it or discovering that it was actually his least favorite flavor or a prank somehow.

Paige didn’t let Nick read over her shoulder as she wrote, so he was starting to get a bit anxious about just what was going on in that notebook. However, after a few minutes, someone knocked on the door to the room the two of them were in to offer Nick one of the cupcakes. At this point, Paige stopped writing and grinned.

“It worked!” she told Nick as his coworker left again.

“What did you write?” Nick asked.

“Just… the cupcakes, and that they’d bring you one,” Paige said.

Nick eyed the cupcake in his hand uneasily. He wasn’t sure he wanted to eat it, since it had apparently been summoned by whatever power Paige wielded. So he gave it to her instead.

The two of them had very different feelings about this discovery, for obvious reasons. Paige was still feeling weird about the whole thing, but for the most part, she thought it was pretty cool. Nick, on the other hand, was stressed. If Paige could make Justin spill his coffee on himself by just writing that it happened, what else could she make happen?

And then a thought occurred to him. Was it Paige who had the power, or did it rest in her notebook or her pencil?

They tested it. Nick got Paige a blank piece of paper and an ordinary pencil, and she let him write a bit in her notebook. They both agreed to only write a short snippet, and see what happened. The thing Paige wrote happened, and what Nick wrote did not.

Which meant that the power rested in Paige. Nick did not like the realization that a teenager held their lives in her hands, especially since they didn’t even know each other really well, and he had no idea what she was going to do. But he decided that it would be a good idea to try to keep her happy, and also to tell at least Justin about it.

Justin agreed that it would be wise to stay on Paige’s good side. Knowing that she had directly caused his bad day, and that she could easily do it again, made him very nervous. And, like Nick, he realized that she could probably do much worse than spilled coffee and a bruise. He did ponder whether it would work to just keep her away from anything she could write on, but realized that that would be a good way to make her annoyed and make it worse when she actually did get her hands on a piece of paper.

So begins a story with two secret agents, who are very good at their job, living with a teenager who wields unimaginable reality-warping power that terrifies them.

As time goes by, the agents learned that Paige was from a different world, where they existed only as her characters. That she had created them. As if knowing that a teenager had control over your reality and could make things happen at will wasn’t frightening enough.

Also, some random scenes from somewhere in the story:

***

Nick and Justin tend to swear. They do try to tone it down around Paige, cause she’s a kid and also doesn’t appreciate profanity, but they do swear. One day, after they had (more or less) come to terms with being her characters, Justin asked Paige how she dealt with them swearing in the stories she wrote.

“Varies,” Paige said. “Usually, I just put something like ‘he swore.’ If I’m doing it in comic form, I use grawlixes.”

Justin didn’t know what grawlixes were, and Paige offered to show him, if he’d give her some paper.

“Oh no,” Justin said, “I’m not just gonna give you the tools to warp reality.”

“Look, Nick’s going to cut his finger whether or not I draw a picture of it,” Paige said. “But, if you let me have some paper, I’ll tell you where the bandaids are.”

Since this was punctuated by a loud swear from the kitchen, Justin did as she asked.

***

Paige was bored. She was on the couch, moping, when the agents got back, and Justin raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’m bored,” she told them.

“What do you feel like doing?” Nick asked, and Paige shrugged.

“I dunno,” she said. “I mean, normally when I’m bored, I write something, but…” she looked up at them expressively. “I have two very good reasons for not doing that right now.” The agents quickly agreed, and Paige sighed. “I mean, on the one hand, I have an idea, and it would probably be fun to write, but it’s angst, and we all know what happens when I write things.” She groaned. “This was so much simpler when you didn’t actually exist.”

“What’s ‘angst’?” Justin whispered to Nick, who was more active on fanfic sites and tended to know these things better. Nick grimaced.

“Something we should be glad she’s not writing,” he replied. To Paige, he suggested tentatively, “Do you have any ideas for… domestic fluff?”

Paige considered that, looking up at them. “...yes,” she said finally.

“Why don’t you write that, then?” Nick asked, and Paige nodded, going off to her room.

“Wait, what’s domestic fluff?” Justin asked, turning to Nick worriedly. “I get the word domestic, but does ‘fluff’ mean?”

“For us? A peaceful evening at home,” Nick answered. “Probably a movie. Maybe more conversation about personal stuff than we’re comfortable having a teenager overhear, but no fights, no mission. Basically just a feel-good fic.”

Justin nodded a bit, still disquieted by the knowledge that Paige was about to be meddling with their lives once again. “And giving her permission to write a ‘domestic fluff’ story is better than the risk of her thinking too hard about her ‘angst’ idea?”

“Much,” Nick said.

“What exactly is angst?”

Nick paused, thinking. “I’m… not sure I can describe it, but I can tell you, we don’t want to go through it.”

Justin sighed, pulling out his phone to look up what ‘angst’ was. “A feeling of deep anxiety or dread,” he read, and looked over at Nick. “I’m guessing an angst story is one that induces such feelings?”

Nick nodded. “It’s a general bad time,” he said. “Could just be something like the bad day she gave you when she first showed up, or… it could involve a stay at the hospital.”

Justin winced. “Yeah, let’s not,” he said. “Domestic fluff sounds much better.”

#original #my writing #my ocs #Paige Penn #Nick #Justin #team secret agent man #Justin has a boyfriend but it's probably not Nick #They are close friends though and very good partners

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swiftgronmasterpost · 4 years ago

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GRYLES!!!

Rebuilding the Gryles Timeline expertly crafted here because I’m always afraid of broken links and people going private and losing data.

Not only is there a ton of great evidence that these guys were dating such as Harry leaving Nick’s place in the morning wearing the same clothes as he’d worn the night before, I’ve also got a friend who works in the UK music industry and she did tell me these guys did date. Nick is 100% out as gay so it really does all add up.

Gryles very obviously takes place during Haylor, debunking Harry as the 1989 muse, and if it’s not Harry you do have to wonder... who with green eyes and an obsession with Alice and Wonderland was heavily featured in Taylor’s life and then disappeared before 1989 - a breakup album about someone with green eyes who seems to relate to Alice in Wonderland drops?

You get it.

Anyway here’s Gryles:

This is a little game I like to call "let's talk about Nick/Harry dates and how they line up with Harry leaving and entering the country".

06. February 5th 2012 - Harry and Nick go to a Super Bowl party together.

One Direction in Sweden February 12th - 14th. (Came home by train on the 14th.)

07. February 14, 2012 - VALENTINE'S DAY!

08. February 18, 2012 - Stella McCartney Fashion show with Nick's mom.

09. February 21, 2012 - Brit Awards!

10. February 22, 2012 - They attend a party together. (Nick might have been DJing?)

11. February 23, 2012 - Harry spotted leaving Nick Grimshaw's flat in the same outfit he was wearing the night before.

The morning of February 23rd One Direction flies to the US for their tour and doesn't return to the UK until April 24th, 2012.

This trip is supposedly where Haylor 1.0 happens. Harry supposedly meets Taylor at the KCA’s on March 31 and they fall for one another. Taylor supposedly goes to NYC to be with Harry (even though she spends the whole time with Dianna) during the first week of April. Then they supposedly enter into a long distance relationship that is broken up because Harry was seen out with another girl.

All the while the last thing Harry does before he leaves the UK is spend the night with Nick and then the first thing he does is goes back to him.

Yeah, I’m not buying Haylor 1.0 it seems pretty clear to me that Taylor wanted to pin I Knew You Were Trouble on Harry as a big pop anthem to support her transition to pop. I think it’s even possible they faked Harry being spotted out with that girl or perhaps he and Nick had some kind of agreement. I’m not saying Gryles was always exclusive (they may have been), but regardless I don’t see Red era Taylor being cool enough to share her boyfriend with a man.

12. April 25, 2012 - Nick and Harry out together the morning after he returned.

Harry also calls into Nick's radio show on the 25th and confirms that the first thing he did upon returning on the 24th was meet up with Nick and Matt Fincham for drinks so one can theorize he probably crashed w/ Nick that night.

Harry goes to LA by himself on May 1st and returns to the UK on the 5th.

May 5th, 2012 - Harry out with Annie Mac and Nick. (Thanks to my anon for clueing me into this little gem of information.)

13. May 7th, 2012 - Harry and Nick out with friends

One Direction goes to Sweden from May 10th to May 16th.

14. May 17, 2012 - The Sun reports Harry driving Nick to work.

Also out shopping together

15. May 19, 2012 - Nick posts a picture to his instragram from the Kanye West/Jay Z show at the O2.

Who cares right? So he went to see a show. But then.

Hey guess what happened the very next day? One Direction flew to Boston on May 20th, 2012 to start their summer tour in the U.S. They're gone from the 20th to July 3rd.

16. July 5, 2012 - Nick and Harry attend the launch of Tinie Tempah's shoes line.

There's some downtime and vacation time here where Harry disappears for a week while Louis is France w/ Eleanor, Niall goes to Spain, Liam and Danielle are on vacation, etc and then One Direction goes back to work July 11th recording and doing photo shoots.

17. July 19, 2012 - Harry goes out with Nick and Aimee and tweets this.

18. August 10, 2012 - Harry attends Nick's 28th birthday party at La Bodega Negra.

Pregaming before the party!

Outside La Bodega Negra

19. August 11, 2012 - Primrose Hill picnic

20. August 20, 2012 - One Direction visit Nick at BBCR1 to announce their headlining of the BBC Radio 1 Teen Choice Awards.

21. August 25, 2012 -

Nick and Harry go to lunch. (Would also like to point out that they are switching places and that Harry is going to the driver's side of Nick's car :333)

and then to Reading Festival

then Nick accompanies Harry to Liam's party at Funky Buddha

and then they leave together and go see Rita Ora at G.A.Y.

22. August 26, 2012 - The morning after, Nick tweets a shot of his hangover breakfast from Harry's Range Rover (Nick owns a Mercedes).

then a lunch date with several people

They spend this entire day together and this is the day the pics of them in the grocery store are taken where Nick buys Harry a banana, etc

and then Harry drops Nick off for his nighttime show and picks him up again to take him to/stay with him while Nick DJs at Wonderland nightclub.

(Although, lbr. Given what we learn from Nick's final nighttime show about how often Harry hung around the studio, he probably never left.)

Wonderland! (the only time that fucking song has any bearing on Harry and he’s off being a MLM king)

23. August 28, 2012 - Leaving Nick's flat

spotted in the studio w/ Nick at BBCR1

24. August 30, 2012 - Harry films the Breakfast Show advert for Nick's #Team Grimmy commercial and then they go to Mahiki Club that night.

25. August 31, 2012 - Harry goes with Nick to his DJ gig at Paradise

and then to karaoke afterward

The lo and behold One Direction flies to Florida the very next day to film their Pepsi commercial. They're gone until September 11th.

on September 6, 2012 Taylor has Sushi with Ed and Harry in LA supposedly signaling the start of Haylor 2.0 as if Harry is not fully boyfriends with Nick.

26. September 12, 2012 - Nick's final nighttime show. (this was a gif of them being cute and playing around but I was too lazy to bring it over, you get it they’re touchy, flirty, and playful):

Nick and Aimee go on vacation together from the 14th to the 18th.

27. September 18, 2012 - This dude says he spotted Harry Styles waiting in arrivals at the airport while waiting for his sister's flight to arrive insinuating perhaps Harry was traveling with Nick and Aimee:

28. September 20, 2012 - iTunes Festival where One Direction was interviewed by Nick and Annie Mac

29. Harry calls into Nick's first Breakfast Show on September 25, 2012. Then they meet up after to see Perks of Being a Wallflower together. I can't find the tweets from the ladies who saw them there, but Nick and Emma Watson confirm later that Harry was indeed there.

30. September 29, 2012 - Spotted at Waitrose together and then the following morning Nick regales his listeners with the tale of a Spinach pie he made for a ~friend~.

31. October 5th (or 6th?), 2012 - Preparation for Ladz FM

But also on October 5th, Taylor is on Nick’s show:

32. October 6, 2012 - Ladz FM

Supposedly on this show Nick gives Harry hell for Taylor, the Haylor timeline I like puts it this way:

“One Direction and Harry make an appearance on Nick’s show the following day, and they talk about Taylor on-air for 4 minutes straight. Nick teases Harry by saying “Ol’ Swiftyyyy” over and over again when she is brought up in the conversation.” Yup that’s right, Nick was giving his own boyfriend shit about his fake girlfriend 😭😭😭 this is why I fuck w Nick’s energy.

then they went for lunch in notting hill (no Taylor? why not Harry aren’t you so happy to be back with her and in love w her?)

33. October 7, 2012 - BBC Teen Choice Awards

One Direction doing promotion for the new album.

Paris - October 11, 2012

Ireland - October 12, 2012

Manchester - October 16, 2012

Leeds - October 17, 2012

34. October 19, 2012 - Lunch in London

October 31 - One Direction in Spain

Early November One Direction goes to the US for Ellen, X Factor USA, and The Today Show. After The Today Show Harry flies to LA while the rest of One Direction goes back to London. Harry writes a song with the lead singer of Snow Patrol and rumors start flying about him hooking up with Taylor Swift.

Harry arrives back in London on November 16, 2012.

35. November 16, 2012 - Children in Need benefit concert

November 30th One Direction goes back to the U.S. for one off shows and MSG show. Haylor happens.

Harry returns to London on December 8th via Taylor's private jet and plays the Jingle Ball with the rest of One Direction. Harry and Taylor tour the UK together until December 15th when Taylor leaves for France. Meanwhile Dianna heads out on a mystery 14 hour long flight on December 14th.

36. December 16, 2012 - Roast Dinner!

One Direction returns to the U.S. for the X Factor USA finale. Harry stays in the U.S. and goes on a ski vacation with Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, and Selena Gomez.

He returns to the UK on December 24th.

37. December 25, 2012 - Late night Christmas leftovers. (Yes they’re spending Christmas together, that’s boyfriend behavior!)

Harry and Nick both leave London on the 29th (Nick for Puerto Rico and Harry for NYC) Harry spends New Years with Taylor and Nick spends New Years with Pixie, Aimee, and the rest of the hipster crew. Harry and Taylor then fly to Gorda British Virgin Islands where they are supposed to vacation until the 7th. Taylor leaves on the 4th and Harry goes to Necker Island alone. Tabloids say Harry and Taylor have broken up.

And that’s it for Haylor!

Harry arrives back in the UK on January 8th

38. January 8, 2013 - Sushi lunch date! (tweet confirming nick was also there.)

and harry with the girl who tweeted it.

39. January 10, 2013 - Tinie Tempah's GQ dinner.

The party was for people on the British GQ best dressed list (Nick was on it. Harry was not.)

Jessie J puts a picture of the table cards from her table on instagram. Harry doesn't have one which, you know. I'll just be here imagining him as Nick's + 1.

One Direction fly to Ghana on the 12th or 13th and return on the 15th. On the 16th Harry calls into Grimmy’s show to talk about how Fincham DOES NOT LOOK LIKE A MEMBER OF ONE DIRECTION. Finchy asks Harry when he’s back and Harry says “in a couple of days”. (Small side note here that I don’t think Finchy and Harry are at the level of friends where they keep track of one another’s schedules so the only way Finchy could have known that Harry was heading back out of town to Japan that very day is if Nick told him.)

One Direction in Japan from January 16th to the 20th.

I'm not going to count this as a time they were together because I have no hard evidence, but the night of January 20th Harry was spotted in a grocery store buying wine and Annie Mac mentions on her show that Nick ditched coming over for dinner that evening to have a friend round to his house instead. We assume it was Harry, but w/o actual proof I don't want to say it concretely.

40. January 21, 2013 - Baking for Radio 1! (Tweet confirming the friend was Harry.)

Nick tells this story the morning of the 22nd about how he forgot he had to bake, so he got up from bed, went to the store for supplies, and forgot eggs. So, he texted his friend who was coming over to bring eggs and then Nick baked while his friend yelled at him to add more butter.

41. January 22, 2013 - Watching Great British Bake Off

Do what you will with this one. Obviously there is not definite way to tell if this is Harry or not, but given the evidence of the amount of time they spend together that has been laid forth thus far, I feel comfortable saying those are indeed Harry's legs.

42. January 31, 2013 - Out for Harry's birthday at La Bodega Negra (the same place they celebrated Nick's birthday.)

Nick also went to Groucho Club afterward with Harry and mentioned on his show this morning that he hadn't slept at all. (He was still wearing the same outfit.)

43. February 1, 2013 - Aimee tweets about being in the car with Nick en route to play Laser Quest. (Can't imagine who they might be playing with.)

Nick tweeted this :)

Never

Getting

Over

This

February 19, 2013 - PreBrit Awards Dinner Hosted by Nick!

THEIR SMILEY LITTLE FACES. :3

Legit SHARING A TAXI ON THE WAY HOME

2/20/13 - At the Brit Awards together!

Leaving an after party!

taking a cab to Nick's house so Nick can change for work

hands hands hands

At Nick's flat

2/21/13 - On The Breakfast show the morning after the Brits!

Harry on The Breakfast Show!

2/23/2013 - Nick attends One Direction's first show at the O2 in London

THE DROUGHT IS OVER!!!

8/21/2013 - Nick interviews Harry, Zayn, and Liam for TBS

Then Nick and Harry hook up later for dinner.

September 12, 2013

Harry gets off the plane from LAX, gets on the tube and meets Nick at an Elton John concert

Harry and Nick's dad at the concert, posted to Nick's instagram.

September 13, 2013

This person says they saw nick and Harry at Apartment 58 (members only club) together

https://twitter.com/LightbownL/status/378610145271771136

But, Sadie Frost also posted a picture of her and Nick getting ready to go out for LFW with no mention of Harry, so the tweet could be false facts.

But then! September 14, 2013

Sadie posts this picture of Nick sleeping on her sofa

Followed by this picture of Harry posing with her daughter

And then Nick and Harry went to Henry Hollands show at LFW together

Then to a pub with Gemma, Kelly Osborn and others

Then to dinner with James Corden and his wife

September 15, 2013

September 17, 2013 - Fashion Show East in London

November 9, 2013 - Breakfast with Anne and Robin at the Wolseley.

So Anne tweeted this in the morning. You can see the Wolseley logo at the top of the plate.

Then this girl got a pic with Harry at the Wolseley during his breakfast with Anne and Robin.

and she confirmed that Nick was eating with them https://twitter.com/alexandra_imper/status/400204985222193152

Then off to Selfridges to shop!

At Alexa Chung's birthday party!

November 10, 2013 - Ladz instagram and Aimee Phillips birthday party!

LADZ VIDEO!

November 30, 2013

Harry playing with Puppy at Nick's house.

Poppy Delevingne's hen party!

Leaving Groucho club.

December 1, 2013

Primrose Hill lighting ceremony!

Nick with Daisy Lowe and his dad!

Then this girl met Nick

https://twitter.com/rpcheald/status/407224559687852032/photo/1

and saw Harry

https://twitter.com/rpcheald/status/407209332858552320

Class of '92 movie premiere

Nick and his dad on the red carpet

Harry meeting Beckham!

December 4, 2013 - London Fashion Awards

February 17, 2014 - Taking a random taxi ride?????

and leaving Nick's flat

March 29, 2014

Sleepover at Harry's house!

Nick posted this on instagram

http://instagram.com/p/mHpTBdPJyt/

At the time we weren't sure it was Harry's drive but...

https://twitter.com/cuppanarryx/status/481310537817399296/photo/1

Hiya, doggie.

Also Nick's tweet from the morning after just because.

https://twitter.com/grimmers/status/449814322399940609

May 24, 2014 - Radio 1's Big Weekend

May 28, 2014 - Barry's BC London

And link to post about the other tweets x

June 8, 2014

Nick attends One Directions show at Wembley Stadium.

June 12, 2014

Harry at Nick driving around London in a Ferrari.

and another tweet about the Ferarri sighting.

https://twitter.com/ItsJustMikey/status/477133631602065408

Then later that evening Harry went to Nick's for his World Cup barbecue and fans took pics with Harry outside Nick's house.

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thestylesindependent · 4 years ago

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The following is an excerpt from A Field Guide to Internet Boyfriends: Meme-Worthy Celebrity Crushes From A to Z (Running Press) by Esther Zuckerman, senior entertainment writer at Thrillist. Opinions expressed are those of the author.

It’s virtually impossible to dig into the history of celebrity crushes without discussing boy bands. Stemming back to the days of the Beatles, boy bands have been crush incubators, known as much for their music as for their ability to pose on posters that hang on teenage bedroom walls. While the modern idea of boy bands existed before the ’90s, the decade turned boy bands into an industry with the likes of Backstreet Boys and *NSYNC eliciting mobs of screaming fans. For the first decade of the 2000s—after the leftovers from the ’90s faded from relevance—it seemed like the era of the boy band was over. And then a couple of lads from England—and one from Ireland—came along.

One Direction was not born organically. Each member of the fivesome auditioned for The X Factor as a solo act. Then Simon Cowell had a genius idea: Individually, they would probably generate some amount of buzz. Together, they would be unstoppable. Cowell was right. One Direction mania jumped across the pond and initiated a new era of boy band worship. This group was different from its ’90s predecessors. They were shaggy and didn’t really dance. But their fans were also different. These were kids raised by the internet, and they expressed their love for Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Zayn Malik, Liam Payne, and Niall Horan as such. Stanning for One Direction involved slash fiction and Tumblr.

But when the time came, One Direction faced an age-old boy band question: What happens when they break up? Who becomes famous? For years, the pinnacle of post–boy band success had always been Justin Timberlake, crying a river all over the radio. (He also found controversy along the way. No, we will never forgive him for throwing Janet Jackson under the bus at the Super Bowl.) But who becomes the Joey Fatone? One thing was always certain: Harry Styles was a goddamn star. Styles had always been the likeliest candidate for post-One D fame. He was the most rambunctious of the group, as at home palling around on talk shows as he was crooning on the stage.

Still, no one could have predicted what he was about to unleash. Styles, on his own, somehow surpassed the prom¬ise of his early career. The individual that emerged was like the love child of David Bowie and Stevie Nicks, all flowing blouses, wide-legged pants, and funky vibes. He occupies a space in between the masculine and the feminine and is an ally without being obnoxious about it.

When he left the womb of One Direction, his goal was to write his own material. The sound that emerged was not Timberlake’s white boy soul or the radio-ready pop of his bandmate Zayn Malik. Instead, it was a throwback hybrid of folk rock and pop—not a complete copy of an era that was not his own, but more indebted to his predecessors than his contemporaries.

The narrative around Harry Styles is that he is a Very Good Boy. It starts with his devotion to his mother, with whom he is reportedly very close. More proof of his sweet¬heart status can be found in the story about how he ended up being a polite houseguest to his friend The Late Late Show with James Corden producer Ben Winston for twenty months. As his star was rising in One Direction, he was crashing with an Orthodox Jewish family. “That period of time, he was living with us in the most mundane suburban situation,” Winston once explained. “No one ever found out, really. Even when we went out for a meal, it’s such a sweet family neighborhood, no one dreamed it was actually him. But he made our house a home. And when he moved out, we were gutted.”

It’s anecdotes like this—revealed in the singer’s first Rolling Stone cover story, written by none other than Almost Famous director Cameron Crowe—that frame Styles as a superstar who is relatively down to earth, a nice person who cares about being good to those around him. I mean, one of the songs on his recent album Fine Line is titled “Treat People with Kindness.” Styles once said: “There are others. People who are successful, and still nice. It’s when you meet the people who are successful and aren’t nice, you think: What’s yer excuse? Cos I’ve met the other sort.”

Styles gives off the impression that if you were to hang out with him you’d probably have a pretty pleasant and slightly wild time. Profiles of Styles tend to include stories about parties on beaches where nudity or clothes swapping is involved. He’s spoken about how doing mushrooms influenced his latest record, Fine Line, and once led him to bite off the tip of his tongue. But even though that detail sounds like it might belong in an outtake from a seedier history of rock ’n’ roll—think: Mötley Crüe—it’s bizarrely wholesome coming from Styles, who has gone out of his way to promote a message of inclusion.

Though he’s publicly only been linked to women, he’s never exactly declared himself straight, either, and has alluded to bisexuality in his lyrics. One time, he declared, “We’re all a little bit gay, aren’t we?” Regardless of how he himself identifies, he’s made it a mission to promote a safe-for-all environment at his shows. On one tour stop, he took note of a girl in the crowd’s sign which declared she was going to come out to her parents because of him. He asked her mom’s name, quieted the room, and shouted, “Tina, she’s gay,” triumphantly. It’s an especially welcome development for someone whose early celebrity was defined by slash fiction with which some of his bandmates were openly uncomfortable.

His style started to evolve with his own fluidity as well. He took to wearing ruffles and low-cut shirts with wide-legged trousers. The effect was circus ringmaster mixed with ’70s Laurel Canyon chic. There’s a cheekiness to the look, evidenced by photo shoots in which he affects like he just told a dirty joke. He has said he dresses this way not because he’s trying to allude to anything, just because he thinks it looks cool. And, the thing is, it does.

Harry Styles may have been made in the confines of the boy band universe, but when he struck out on his own, his message became freedom. He makes the music he wants, wears the clothes he wants, and encourages everyone around him to love who they want—even if that’s just Harry Styles.

#harry styles #a field guide to internet boyfriends #nov2020 #billboard

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kingstylesdaily · 4 years ago

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'A Field Guide to Internet Boyfriends': Read the Harry Styles Excerpt

source: Billboard.com

#kingstylesdaily #Harry Styles #hs: news #hs: billboard #november 2020

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jamesvanriemsdyk · 4 years ago

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hi James, love your blogging! just wondering, did you ever make an updated-through-the-2021-season version of that Leafs primer you had last year? if not, would you happen to know anybody on here who has made something like it? looking to give my roommate a crash course on who everyone is before they watch the game with me tonight. if you don’t have anything, that’s totally fine, enjoy the game!!

hello. the answer to both those questions is no, but i will literally do one to two sentence player summaries under the cut right now, and i will keep a tally of how many times i have to google. it will not be many.

let me just start with the big four:

auston matthews: #34, first overall in 2016 and first line center, won the richard this year with 41 goals in like 53 games or something crazy. highest drafted latino player ever, theres lot of baggage here, im sure u can explain all this to ur friend but itd take too long to get into it here

mitch marner: #16, fourth overall in 2015, best playmaker on the team, first line rw. human energizer bunny and the best player on the team. hella sexy on the pk, i love him.

william nylander: #88, eighth overall in 2014, second line lw, best skater on the team, also best at zone entries. severely underrated and notoriously hated by the toronto media and also don cherry.

john tavares: #91, second line center, drafted 1st overall to the islanders in 2009. signed w the leafs in 2018 (hometown boy!!! johnny toronto!!!), best captain ever, sexiest man on the team. i love him.

and uh now i will finish the first two lines and then go into lines 3 and 4:

zach hyman: #11, drafted by the panthers and then signed w the leafs because fuck the cats (jk i like them so much but zach didnt so. toronto), lw on the first line, penalty killing KING, the sparkplug of the team. bounces around the lineup but not because hes bad, hes genuinely that versatile of a player. also jewish, which is cool. king.

nick foligno: acquired at the trade deadline, plays rw on either the first or second line depending on injuries, i love him. was the captain of the cbj for like a while, which is neat because he left them for the team they knocked out of the bubble last year. hilarious.

alsx galchenyuk: my beloved. #12, my favorite number, will probably be out of the lineup for at least game 1 because the leafs are literally too good. has a whole saga involved w his career, but used to be a hab and was drafted 3rd overall by them, which is important for this playoffs. king.

third line:

mikheyev-nash-kerfoot

ilya mikheyev: #65, penalty killing king, cannot score shorthanded to save his life but he DESERVES it. signed in the 2019 offszn. i love him.

riley nash: #20, another cbj newbie. originally acquired for cap shenanigans, going into the lineup because hes a veteran and great defensive center. we'll see how this goes.

alex kerfoot: #15, acquired in the kadri trade, another great pker. i love him, he has more points than pld this season, hes great.

AND NOW FOR THE OLD MAN LINE.

jason spezza: #19, actual literal hall of famer, was with the sens and then the stars and now hes HOME, and i love him, and hes amazing. my dad.

joe thornton: #97, another literal hall of famer, was on the sharks FOREVER, now is here and very excited about it. has been decent this season, which was surprising to me, and i love him now. my friend sarah thinks hes hot.

wayne simmonds: #24, my beloved, used to be a flyer, he was exactly who i wanted dubas to sign this offseason, i adore him. my mom.

aaaaand now the dmen:

morgan rielly: #44, dating tessa virtue, the team's best offensive defenseman. people are mad at him rn because hes kinda sucked. we'll see how he does, but i love him either way.

thomas james brodie: #78, i love him i love him i love him i love him. signed from the flames this past offszn, best dman this team has seen in probably decades. i love him.

jake muzzin: #8, acquired from the kings, i love him deeply. will punch a bitch in the face and crush them also. love him.

justin holl: #3, works hard loves the game (and the boys), underrated as fuck. been in the organization forever and a day. i love him.

travis dermott: #23, boyfriend material, also been in the org forever, i love him deeply. third pairing/seventh d guy, does his job stupidly well for the disaster it must be to try to do it.

rasmus sandin: #38, drafted 29th overall in 2018, king king KING, hes amazing, holy shit hes so good especially for how young he is, i love him so much, king of my heart, king of this entire blog. i love him.

ben hutton: #55, acquired at the trade deadline, just happy to be here, will maybe get into the lineup if theres injuries, i love him.

GOALIES:

jack campbell: #36, the only goalie that matters, actual sunshine on skates, id let him **** me (thats big for me), i adore him. hes amazing. broke a carey price record this season. king.

freddie andersen: #31, i wish he was still good but he just isnt any more, it makes me deeply sad. hes still sexy tho

dave rittich: #33, BIG SAVE DAVE, acquired from cgy at the deadline, im very fond. will only get into the playoffs if theres insane injuries.

ok so i didnt google any of this but i did check the nhl app like 3 times for numbers. so. i hope this works lmao

#answered #also i see u in my notes all the time and ily #leafs primer #kinda #ok to rb also

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deadcactuswalking · 4 years ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 15/05/2021 (Coldplay, J. Cole, Trippie Redd & Playboi Carti)

I’m awful at predicting this chart, I really am, but most of that is probably down to how I only make vague predictions at the end of each episode without even considering most releases that’ll actually chart. Let’s just say I didn’t expect nine new arrivals this week. At the top, however, little has changed as the absolutely huge “Body” by Russ Millions and Tion Wayne with a remix featuring whoever the hell is spending its second week at #1. The rest of the chart, however, gets a bit more interesting. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

The biggest story to effect the chart this week is of course 2021’s BRIT Awards happening this Tuesday, which I’m sure boosted a lot of songs during the mid-week. I also actually covered the awards show on that day if you’re curious, with some of my observations, predictions and opinions. We can very clear see – or hear, for that matter – the impact of the BRIT Awards in this week’s chart, as it did cause a lot of gains and new arrivals that shook up the chart right in the middle of the tracking week. Firstly, we do have some drop-outs from the UK Top 75, which is what I cover, only one of them, “Paradise” by MEDUZA and Dermot Kennedy, being all that important given it was a top five hit but we do have a handful that lasted five or more weeks or peaked in the top 40, like “Medicine” by James Arthur flopping embarrassingly, “Addicted” by Jorja Smith dropping out to prepare for the rebound next week given her album release and “Solid” by Young Stoner Life, Young Thug and Gunna featuring Drake.

Speaking of Drake, he also provides the singular returning entry as “Wants and Needs” featuring Lil Baby is proving to be the actual hit from that three-pack from March, coming back to #65. Scaling down the chart, we also have some notable losses, songs that dropped at least five spots on this week’s chart. Those that fell include “Your Power” by Billie Eilish dropping harshly to #15 off of the debut, as well as “Your Love (9PM)” by ATB, Topic and A7S at #18, “Confetti” by Little Mix to #21 off of the return (with Saweetie, the artist quite literally solely the reason it’s had this second wind, still bizarrely left without a credit by the UK Singles Chart), “My Head & My Heart” by Ava Max at #27, “Titanium” by Dave at #31, “Wellerman” by Nathan Evans and remixed by 220 KID and Billen Ted (yes, THEY’RE credited) at #36, “Patience” by KSI featuring YUNGBLUD and Polo G at #42, “Heartbreak Anniversary” by Giveon at #44, “We’re Good” by Dua Lipa at #47, “Way Too Long” by Nathan Dawe, Anne-Marie and MoStack at #49, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #51, “Beautiful Mistakes” by Maroon 5 and Megan Thee Stallion at #55, “Don’t Play” by Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals at #56, “Calling My Phone” by Lil Tjay and 6LACK at #59, “Commitment Issues” by Central Cee at #67, “You” by Regard, Troye Sivan and Tate McRae at #69, “Get Out My Head” by Shane Codd at #70, “Hold On” by Justin Bieber getting ACR’d at #71, “Streets” by Doja Cat at #73 and finally, “6 for 6” by Central Cee at #75.

Filling up the room for those losses, however, are the gains, always a tad more interesting, as the songs that rose at least five spots on this week’s chart – or make their first appearance in the top 40, 20 or 10 – are usually having the BRITs to thank to some capacity. The climbers include “Summer 91 (Looking Back)” giving Noizu his first top 40 hit at #31 (and I’ll admit, the song is growing on me), Griff also getting her first with “Black Hole” at #35 thanks to her win and performance at the BRITs, “WITHOUT YOU” by The Kid LAROI rebounding to #13 thanks to that once-again uncredited remix with Miley Cyrus and finally, entering the top 10 for the first time is “Anywhere Away from Here” by Rag’n’Bone Man and P!nk at #9, getting the boost from a perfect trifecta of gains: Rag’n’Bone Man released his album on Friday then on Tuesday had the closing performance of this song at the BRIT Awards with additional vocals from the Lewisham and Greenwich NHS choir, who are also now appearing on a new release of the song the day after, prompting a whole lot of sales, of which I assume and hope are going to charity. It’s Rag’n’Bone Man’s third top 10 hit, P!nk’s 21st(!) and interestingly enough, the NHS choir’s second top 10 hit as they had the Christmas #1 back in 2015. With all of that out of the way, I suppose it’s time to get to our varied array of new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

#74 – “Dick” – Starboi3 featuring Doja Cat

Produced by Nius and SoFLY

This week is kind of a weird week if that wasn’t immediately obvious as our new arrivals are kind of all over the place, starting with... well, I think I could say less about the song than the title does. Starboi3 is this SoundCloud rapper from New Jersey who made a song with Doja back in 2019 – I assume she was more accessible for features back then –and it didn’t blow up at all, really, giving Starboi3 some additional traction but not until 2020, in which Doja Cat got her #1 hit and TikTok picked up this explicit single as a new sound. Sadly – or thankfully – the song was never released officially onto streaming until very recently, meaning, surely, the hype’s over by now? The answer to that is no, as it’s climbing up charts in both the UK and the Bubbling Under in the US... so there’s got to be something good about this song, right? Well, no. Not at all. Of course, that is subjective, but I do question your sanity if you’re honestly enjoying this unlikeable nobody shout “Dick!” over a basic, no-melody trap instrumental with heavy 808s not too dissimilar to drill, before going into a beyond basic chorus and verse about, well, you can guess, with rhymes sounding either like an awful freestyle or a kid with a rhyming dictionary. “She not with him tonight, she not with Jim tonight”? Of course, that’s in the post-chorus because if there’s one thing this song needs, it’s a freaking post-chorus. I also don’t think Starboi3 realises that making her scream for her parents is quite the opposite of sexy – or even raunchy and mindless, as it’s actually just creepy and terrifying. Speaking of terrifying, Doja Cat is here and not even she can add a less basic flow with a verse that just ends up going in one ear and out the other, even if I do like the seductive backing vocals that at least try to make this not a slow, joyless slog. However, I do NOT like the Pickle Rick reference. To be fair, this was 2019, but also to be fair, never reference that again, I am begging you. This is a disaster on all fronts and probably one of the worst tracks I’ve had to review in this series. Good start!

#64 – “Freaks” – Surf Curse

Produced by Surf Curse

This new song is actually even older, being released initially as a deep cut from this Nevada duo’s 2013 album. As you’ll probably tell, this is charting off of people streaming after hearing the song on TikTok and, I mean, at least the song’s actually good this time, careening off of a clearly surf-inspired clean riff surrounded by some basic drumming and a good bassline. It’s not great as it does feel increasingly basic as I said, almost like one of those local bands that don’t get much national attention or traction but do play some gigs and get some love at those places, to the point where it’s kind of big if they play shows outside of their region... which makes sense because that is exactly what they are. This is just some band from Reno but here it is charting on the UK Singles Chart and while it’s here, I should say whilst there’s not much here to discuss given how minimal it is, Nick Rattigan’s vocals are fittingly desperate for the theme of social alienation and particularly rejection as it’s pretty obvious he’s aiming venom at himself for a bad break-up, although given the sound and tone of the song, probably his first, with that double meaning of the mantra in the outro, “I won’t wake up this time”, potentially being a crushing line for someone in similar circumstances. That’s not me, exactly, so this doesn’t hit, but I’m glad that Machine Gun Kelly song from last week got replaced with some actually decent alternative rock on the chart. I hope this does well.

#60 – “One Day” – Lovejoy

Produced by Cameron Nesbitt

“One Day” is the biggest track from new English rock band Lovejoy’s debut EP, Are You Alright?, and whilst I was planning on not mentioning the fact that the band is fronted by Minecraft YouTuber Wilbur Soot, that is the only reason it’s charting – and he’s charted with “Your New Boyfriend” a couple months back, a song that I actually kind of liked. It’s also immediately obvious in the writing that this comes from an Internet personality, with some not-so-well-woven detail and increasingly gratuitous self-awareness that eventually cycles back and ends up as seeming like they have none at all... okay, like most indie bands but that’s beside the point. This happens to be Wilbur’s least favourite song on the release – one that I haven’t listened to because even if I’m not too old for mindless pop music, Minecraft YouTuber alt-rock may be where I draw the line – and I can completely understand the distaste for this given that it starts with the line, “Why’d you have to kill my cat?” I also have some qualms with the song sonically as it may be the most derivative rock single I’ve heard on this series, given how obviously it rips from indie rock bands of the 2000s, with an oddly clean mix that doesn’t exactly fit the obvious stream-of-consciousness lyrics and Wilbur’s erratic delivery. Also, there’s a whole lot of trumpet on this song, which I guess is a surprise, but that doesn’t make up for a drummer who can clearly play very well but has to chaotically play over a song with practically no groove. I do like that second chorus in how it builds up to a somewhat anti-climactic guitar solo but as a full song I do not really get the appeal of this that I don’t get out of other post-punk revival bands from decades back who are still pumping out music. This isn’t bad – I swear, don’t dox me – but I just want something more compelling from this. I will always be glad regardless of the quality that we have more rock on the chart, though, even if this’ll be gone by next week.

#57 – “It’s a sin” – Years & Years and Elton John

Produced by Stuart Price and the Pet Shop Boys

One of my favourite performance from the BRIT Awards this year was Olly Alexander of Years & Years sharing the stage with the iconic Elton John to cover Pet Shop Boys’ “It’s a Sin” which had renewed interest from last year as it was the namesake for a hit TV series about HIV/AIDS, for which this fittingly played a role and has kind of been recontextualised as a gay anthem, which makes complete sense if you look at its lyrics about the Church telling Neil Tennant “how to be”. It’s also one of the Pet Shop Boys’ most camp and theatrical songs, so giving it to Years & Years and Elton John to cover for the BRIT Awards make all too much sense. No, they’re not able to live up to the theatricality of the original, especially if Alexander’s vocals are going to be this clearly manipulated at points, but with Elton John’s piano laying a perfect foundation for the rising intensity of the track, we do get a sense of that original melodrama, with the synth-work and house groove coming in before Elton John’s voice, sounding smokier and wiser with age, and in my opinion, more compelling as a vocalist, especially if they’re both going to sell this song with the most convicted of deliveries. I don’t think a cover could ever live up to that original iconic track but if anyone’s going to get close, it’s Elton John. Expect this to rise next week.

#50 – “Never Left” – Lil Tecca

Produced by ThankYouWill, Taz Taylor and Cxdy

I’ll always be annoyed that Lil Tecca blew up as a rapper instead of a producer, as I don’t think this guy has any likeability or charisma about his flow, cadence or delivery, and that’s only after you get over how dry and whiny his voice can get. However, he can make some great and incredibly infectious beats for other rappers, including a song I see becoming a hit soon in SoFaygo’s “Knock Knock”, which I will bet on at least making the Billboard Hot 100 if not the UK Singles Chart. It’s unbelievably catchy. With that said, Tecca is here in the form of some SoundCloud raps over a boring synth pluck and vaguely tropical Internet Money trap beat, sounding and flowing way too much like Gunna for his own benefit, or Gunna’s benefit, if we’re honest, as this shows how easily he can be replaced. I usually don’t write off this type of rap and will absolutely defend it, but this song isn’t even catchy or unique. I mean, I don’t like “Ransom” either but at least it was kind of fun and I still know the lines in the chorus a couple years later. I’ll forget all about this by next week if it doesn’t stick around. At least he shouts out Chief Keef. God, I hope he charts sometime, that’d be funny.

#45 – “All I Know So Far” – P!nk

Produced by Greg Kurstin

So, P!nk is back but not with a studio album, rather an upcoming live album in which the two new, original songs are about or featuring her daughter. This is the second single from said album and is probably coasting off her appearance at the BRITs in terms of a relatively high chart debut. I’ve never been that big a fan of P!nk but she has her classics, none of which are in the past 15 years but that’s beside the point. This single in particular is an acoustic ballad dedicated to her daughter in which P!nk provides a rapid intensity alongside pretty great-sounding acoustic guitars, pounding drums and strings that sells the content about empowering yourself, with some nice lyrical detail about always being yourself, basically, which would come off as cliché and preachy if it weren’t for some oddly specific lyrics in those verses and the chorus that basically just tell her daughter that despite the fact the world will constantly try to crack down on her and everything she does much like life does to anyone but especially women, she should stand up for herself and what she believes in. However, none of that cuts deep when she’s being raised by a millionaire, huh? There’s little Hell to be put through when you’re born with a silver spoon, huh, Willow? Regardless, this isn’t a bad pop song and its content isn’t as misguided as it is just sang by the wrong singer, although I’d find it hard to get a singer with as much rasp and wisdom in the mainstream to sell this as convincingly as P!nk does – vocally, not lyrically. This is a couple steps above that last single, “Cover Me in Sunshine” at least, which was just insidious. Next.

#32 – “Miss the Rage” – Trippie Redd featuring Playboi Carti

Produced by Loesoe

Okay, so all of our last three new arrivals are in the top 40 and we start with... o-okay, well, it’s 2021, anything can and will chart and I should know this by now, but it’s still surprising to see a song by these two guys debut so high, especially since Whole Lotta Red produced absolutely no charting hits in the UK outside of “@ MEH”, which doesn’t really count. This is Trippie’s highest-charting song ever in the UK that isn’t fronted by KSI, so I guess streaming must have been that good – also, the charts are still weak. For what it’s worth, I do like both Trippie and Carti to their respective extents, and I am aware that this is only as big as it was because of the hype from the leak, which also featured Mario Judah, and that in itself was a big song but it took years for Carti’s feature to be cleared by the label, as is infamously true for much of Carti’s work and even his last official collaboration with Trippie that was actually deleted after release. I’m still hoping on an official release for his verse on Yung Lean’s “Yayo”, but whilst we have this instead, I might as well talk about it and... Well, let me explain to you what I see as the appeal of these two rappers. That appeal is, mostly, that they don’t rap even though they both very much can. Trippie yells, moans, growls, screams and spends most of his work singing in his typical raspy, venomous voice, whilst Playboi Cart spits and coughs his way through substance-less ad-libs to the point where any actual wordplay or lyrical detail gets you excited for that brief moment. In this song, Trippie and Carti don’t eschew the typical role of a rapper and both just... rap normally, which would not be a complaint if they weren’t so bland in that role, which is the whole point of their unique, phlegm-filled deliveries in the first place. As a result, this song just ends up feeling empty, even if this awfully-mixed, bass-boosted beat with some lovely distorted video-game synths and hardly audible trap skitters does go incredibly hard. Don’t get me wrong: this is still catchy and Trippie flows very well over a beat that sounds made for him and Carti. Hell, Carti has grown on me so much recently that my fondness for this might just be me eating anything he releases up. With that said, he’s the worst part of the song as his baby-voice style emphasises how lacking this song is in just anything. I do like the wordplay at the tail-end of the verse as, yes, that happens, perhaps not as iconic as some of his other oddly profound or clever lines on his last record but at least it’s something. At least this is some interesting American trap, unlike...

#25 – “i n t e r l u d e” – J. Cole

Produced by J. Cole, Tommy Parker and T-Minus

The pandemic has affected the music industry to the point where big-name rappers release album interludes as lead singles. Said album has songs shorter than this interlude, with most of its dull filler feeling like additional interludes, quite unbefitting for such a big and hyped-up album from Cole which frankly is just another boring addition to an already consistently dull catalogue. I’m just not interested in what Cole has to say because he’s never been likeable and I feel like there’s better rappers that bridge the gap between old and new like how Cole sees himself as doing, the “MIDDLE CHILD”, perhaps, like, you know, Drake? If we want to go for a more direct comparison from lesser-known rappers, the direct comparison I use for this new record is Aminé’s latest, also made up of a variation of trap bangers featuring massive, charting names versus introspective, conscious lyrics, yet Aminé is an interesting character with quotable lyrics that aren’t embarrassing, knows how to write an actual hook and whilst he also brings on both classic and modern features, he’s never out-done by them, creating an actual bridge rather than just some guy who thinks he can write his own role in the industry and culture without his own music backing his case. Unfortunately for me, it works – every freaking time – largely because of his continually loyal fanbase but also a general public interest in the guy that I do not understand, especially when more than a decade into his career, he’s still pushing out mediocre projects. He cuts his album’s length by a ton and still ends up with a bloated record. I barely need to talk about the track itself, right? Even if it has as much structure and effort put into it as his normal songs do, it’s labelled quite literally as an interlude. Sigh, well, in this interlude, Jermaine raps over a drowned-out soul sample and admittedly, sticks to the topic of reminiscing on where he came from, the violence in Fayetteville, a similar violence of which was what killed Nipsey Hussle, who he compares amongst Pimp C and Jesus as they all died at 33. Cole himself is 36 so I guess for once he doesn’t think he’s Jesus. It took him a while to realise.

#12 – “Higher Power” – Coldplay

Produced by Max Martin, Oscar Holter and Bill Rahko

I assumed this would debut at #3 until the BRIT Awards performance gave it a boost to debut at the top but I guess everyone else had the same opinion of that awful opening performance as I did, because here it is at #12. Well, that doesn’t matter, right? Coldplay’s last album similarly underperformed... but at least that time, they had a genuinely ambitious album for once in their careers with some genuine experimentation and themes I did not expect to come out of Coldplay. It was a better album but not an accessible one, with its only pop single being a bittersweet anti-war anthem which trivialises bombing in the Middle East to onomatopoeia. It’s a great song but it wasn’t going anywhere, so it’s no surprise that their next lead single is a soulless synth-pop track produced by Max Martin. Admittedly, the synth tone in the intro is kind of unique in all its nasal 80s nostalgia, but, man, I thought we moved past just rehashing for a hit, Coldplay. This is pretty obviously just a crap attempt at being “Blinding Lights” which trades in its machine-gun loco-motive drum pattern for one that is a lot more stiff, and its iconic, memorable lyrics for a forgettable set of love-struck laziness. Oh, yeah, and Chris Martin is far from the Weeknd both in the studio and live at the BRIT Awards – seriously, dude sounded half-alive. This isn’t offensive, just a bore that is clearly a desperate label move ready for when they can tour again, and if their last record proved anything it was that Coldplay seemed like they were finally above that.

Conclusion

Well, that’s our week – again, a questionable one at best and kind of a bad one at worst. Either way, this is a strange array of songs and I do like how the UK Singles Chart subverts everything you’d expect of it so often that chaos becomes the trend, even if not all of it is any good. I guess Best of the Week goes to “Freaks” by Surf Curse, with an Honourable Mention to Elton John’s cover of “It’s a sin” with Years & Years. Surprisingly enough, J. Cole actually doesn’t get Worst of the Week as the album gets a lot worse than that interlude, so he gets a Dishonourable Mention alongside Starboi3’s “Dick” being crowned Worst of the Week, and honestly probably Worst of the Year so far, not that I’m keeping track of that. Here’s this week’s top 10:

What’s coming next week? More J. Cole, Olivia Rodrigo’s newest single and probably – and hopefully – some album tracks from Jorja Smith and Nicki Minaj. For now, though, thanks for reading. It’s a big week next week, and I’ll see you then!

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alindakb · 5 years ago

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Letters to my Parents - Friday 4 June 1993 - by Alinda

Friday 4 June 1993

Dear mom and dad,

These last two weeks have been unreal. First off, Draco kissed me. Like really kissed me, on the lips and everything. And now we can’t seem to stop. I love feeling his lips on mine. It’s the best thing ever. And I’m glad we get to do it whenever we want now because when he first did it, I thought it would be the last thing I do before I died.

Yes, I almost died and this time I didn’t want to. I was just so badly hurt and we thought there would be no way to rescue me on time. But I should start at the beginning, so you understand what had happened.

It was the week before exams would start when Draco figured it out. I had told him that I had heard a voice saying it was going to kill before all of the attacks. And he knows that Hermione was carrying around a mirror when she got petrified. The monster of Slytherin was a Basilisk. That was why I could only hear the voice. I’m the only one we know in this school that understands Parseltongue. A Basilisk kills you instantly with the stare of his eyes, but none of the victims had looked it straight in the eye. Hermione had used the mirror, Colin saw it through his camera, Justin was looking through Nearly Headless Nick and Mrs Norris had only seen the Basilisk reflection in the water that had been on the floor. That’s why none of them had died.

Draco showed me the passage in a book about the Basilisk and it all made sense. Hagrid had said something had been killing roosters, and the crowing of the rooster is fatal to a Basilisk. We only took some time to figure out how the Basilisk got around the castle. But after some brainstorming we knew, it was using the pipes. The voice I heard was inside the walls.

Later that evening, when I was brushing my teeth I remembered Myrtle’s story, about how she had died. She was in the bathroom and heard some boy say something in a different language. And when she opened the stall door she died instantly when she saw a pair of eyes. It must have been the Basilisk that killed her. She’s the girl that died fifty years ago. The entrance to the room must be in her bathroom.

I went to find Draco to tell him about Myrtle, but I couldn’t find him anywhere. He wasn’t in the dormitory or the common room. I asked around, but no-one had seen him in a while. Terence said not to worry, that Draco was probably just in the bathroom or something. But it just didn’t feel right. I went to bed and waited for a while for Draco to join me, but he never came. So I got up again to look for him. The common room was empty by now, just like all the bathrooms. Draco wasn’t in the dungeon. I was really worried so I decided to go to Professor Snape and tell him Draco was missing.

But I never made it to Professor Snape’s quarters. When I came out of the Slytherin dungeon I found Ron and Neville looking around in the hallway. Ron came running up to me, saying they had been looking for me. They had overheard Professor McGonagall and Professor Flitwick talking about a student that had been taken to the Chamber of Secrets. That there had been a message on the wall saying ‘His skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.’ So they followed them all the way to the staff room and then overheard that Draco was the student that had been taken.

I stumbled to the floor when they told me. I couldn’t believe it, I had only just got him back and now I was going to lose him all over again. And this time for real. He would die and I won’t be able to save him.

Ron kept talking, saying that all students will be sent home the next day and that the end of Hogwarts had come. He continued with saying that he couldn’t believe that the professors were just giving up. That nobody was going to try to find the Chamber and save Draco. It was wrong. So they had come looking for me, to go on a mission to find this Chamber and rescue Draco. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Ron, the boy that had dumped Hermione for hanging out with me, who had been sure I was pure evil for most of the year and who hated all things Malfoy had come looking for me so we could go safe Draco.

Ron already had a plan. Only the day before they had overheard Professor Lockhart saying he knew where the entrance of the Chamber of Secrets was, so we should start with him. So we sprinted to his office. And you will never believe it, but Professor Lockhart was packing all his belongings. It seemed that the other Professors had tasked him with rescuing Draco and he was running. He was going to leave my boyfriend for death. I got really angry and started shouting at Professor Lockhart. Accusing him from running away, even after all that stuff he had done in his books. And then we found out that he hadn’t done any of those things, he’d been taking credit for what other people had done. He tried to defend himself by saying it was a lot of work to find the stories, to track the people down, asked them what happened and then putting a memory charm on them so they wouldn’t remember doing it.

After that, he tried to obliviate us, couldn’t have us blabbing his secrets all over the place. So I reached for my wand and used the Expelliarmus spell to disarm Professor Lockhart. Ron caught the wand and flung it out of the open window. I was furious. Professor Lockhart said he couldn’t do anything to help Draco, because he didn’t know where the Chamber of Secrets was. I spit at him that he was in luck, because I knew and that I also knew what was inside. I told Neville to go find Professor Snape or Professor McGonagall and to tell them to find us in Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom. Neville ran off and Ron and I forced Professor Lockhart to come with us to the bathroom.

Myrtle was sitting on the tank of the end toilet when we came in and she was surprised to see me. She asked what I was still doing walking around alive. She thought I was dead by now since I hadn’t been around in weeks. I hadn’t thought about it, but I hadn’t been back there since she convinced me it was a good idea to slit my wrist open and kill myself. I had completely forgotten about Myrtle. And I was supposed to be her friend. I apologised to her and promised that I would come to visit her more often.

Myrtle wanted to know why I wasn’t dead and I told her we would discuss that some other time. She got upset about that and snapped at me ‘Than what do you want this time’. I asked her where she had seen the pair of great, big, yellow eyes when she died. Myrtle pointed vaguely toward the sink in front of her toilet and Ron and I hurried over to it to investigate. It looked like an ordinary sink; the only thing standing out was a tiny snake on one of the copper taps. Myrtle said the tap has never worked when I turned it. Ron suggested saying something in Parseltongue. I didn’t know if I could since I only managed to do it when faced with a real snake and I’ve never tried otherwise. But after a couple of tries, I managed to say ‘Open up’ in Parseltongue.

The tap glowed with a brilliant white light and began to spin as soon as I hissed the words. Then the sink sank right out of sight, leaving a large pipe exposed. The pipe was wide enough for a man to slide into. I told Ron that I was going down. I couldn’t not go, not if there was a change that Draco was still alive. I had to believe he was, the thought of losing him for good was daunting. Ron said he would come with me and I was thankful that I didn’t have to go down the pipe alone.

It’s then that Professor Lockhart spoke up, saying that it seemed that he wasn’t needed. I had completely forgotten about him. Ron turned towards him and pointed his wand at him, saying Lockhart could go first. He protested, but we had both our wands pointed at him, so he hadn’t a real choice.

Professor Lockhart went down the pipe first. I followed him quickly. It was like rushing down an endless, slimy, dark slide. Other pipes branched off in all directions, but none of them was as large as the one I was sliding down. In the end, the pipe levelled out and I landed on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel. We were miles under the school, and Ron thought we were probably under the lake.

I lighted my wand with a Lumos and told Ron and Professor Lockhart that they should close their eyes at the first sign of movement. Ron asked why and I told him about the Basilisk and how it could kill him with his eyes. We moved forward and discovered that the entire floor was littered with small animal bones. I struggled to not imagine what Draco might look like if we found him, what if the Basilisk had eaten him and there would only be bones left.

After a while, we walked up to a large shed snake skin that was from a beast at least twenty feet long. Ron and I were examining it when Professor Lockhart made a grab for Ron’s wand and tried to obliviate us again. But Ron’s wand was still broken from our little crash into the Weeping Willow, and it backfired. The wand exploded with the force of a small bomb. I slipped over the coils of snakeskin to get out of the way when great chunks of tunnel ceiling came thundering to the floor.

When I looked up again I was staring at a solid wall of broken rock. I made sure that Ron was okay, but Professor Lockhart wasn’t because he had gotten blasted by the wand. Ron couldn’t get through the fallen rocks so I told him to wait there with Professor Lockhart. I was sure that Professor Snape and Professor McGonagall would arrive shortly once Neville had warned them about where we had gone. They would be able to get through the wall of rocks.

I took off alone, past the giant snakeskin. The tunnel turned and turned and I was afraid I would never reach Draco in time. And even if I did, how was I going to save him? I had no skills to fight a Basilisk of even the person that had taken Draco. I’m just a mediocre wizard, I have no extraordinary skills.

Finally, after another corner, I came to a solid wall on which two entwined serpents were carved. I told them in Parseltongue to open. The serpents parted as the wall cracked open, the halves sliding smoothly out of sight and I walked inside. By then I was shaking and terrified of what I would find.

I was inside a very long, dimly lit chamber. Stone pillars entwined with more carved serpents rose to support a ceiling lost in darkness, casting long, black shadows through the odd, greenish gloom that filled the place. It was eerily silent and a chill went over my body. I pulled out my wand and started moving forward between the serpentine columns. My footstep echoed loudly and I was sure I wouldn’t surprise anyone. They would know I was coming, so I kept my eyes narrowed, ready to clamp them shut at the smallest sign of movement.

I found Draco lying on the floor, between the feet of a high statue of a wizard with a face that was ancient and monkeyish. It had a long, thin beard that fell almost to the bottom of the wizard’s sweeping stone robes. I sprinted towards Draco, begging him not to be dead. I flung my wand aside, grabbed Draco’s shoulders and turned him over. His face was white as marble and he felt cold to the tough. His eyes were closed and I was afraid I was too late. I hugged Draco against my chest and begged Draco to wake up.

A soft voice came from the side, saying: ‘he won’t wake’. I jumped up and spun around. A tall, black-haired boy was leaning against the nearest pillar. He was blurred around the edges and he looked at me with fascinated eyes. I asked him who he was and he told me he was Tom Riddle. I shook my head, that couldn’t be possible. Tom Riddle was the memory trapped inside Draco’s notebook; he could not be a person here in the school.

And I wish I had realised right then that Riddle was the one, but all I could think of was Draco and his lifeless body on the floor beside me. With tears in my eyes, I asked Riddle what he had meant when he said that Draco won’t wake. Tom said he wasn’t dead and I was relieved for a moment until he continued with a ‘but only just’. I took hold of Draco again and asked Tom for his help, telling him there was a Basilisk around and that we needed to get Draco out of there. I hoisted Draco half off the floor and then bent to pick up my wand, but my wand was gone.

When I looked up I could see that Riddle was holding my wand, twirling it in between his long fingers. A smile curled the corners of Riddle’s mouth and I got angry at him. This boy had helped Draco all year and now he was just smiling at us while Draco was dying. I screamed at him that we needed to go, that the Basilisk could come at any moment. But Riddle said in a calm voice that it won’t come until it’s called. I had to lower Draco back onto the floor, unable to hold him up any longer. And I was confused. I didn’t understand what Riddle meant and he also hadn’t given me my wand back. I was getting a bad feeling about it all.

Riddle his smile just broadened. He said I wouldn’t need my wand. And that he’d waited a long time for this, for the chance to see me and to speak to me. I told him we could speak later, that we now first had to get Draco to the hospital wing. But Riddle didn’t care. He said we were going to talk now. Something was wrong and I looked again at Draco, wondering out loud how he had gotten like this.

Riddle answered that question for me. He said it was an interesting question and quite a long story. He said that the real reason Draco was like this is because he opened his heart and spilt all his secrets to an invisible stranger.

The notebook. Draco’s notebook. I looked at where Riddle was nodding towards and I could see the little diary Draco had been writing in all year. About his fears and heartbreak. He had told me. And now Riddle was telling me that he had charmed Draco into trusting him, that it had been boring to listen to the silly little troubles of a twelve-year-old boy. But he had written back, had been sympathetic and kind, making Draco pour his soul into the diary, so Riddle could grow stronger. So strong that he became more powerful than Draco, and started pouring his soul into him. Riddle had made Draco open up the chamber of Secrets, had him strangle the roosters and had him write threatening messages on the walls.

I couldn’t believe my ears. Draco had been the one to do all that. And he had let the entire school believe that it was me. Why hadn’t he ever said anything?

So you will believe that I was relieved when Riddle continued his little speech and revealed that Draco had no memory of doing any of it. He hadn’t known that he was being used. It sickened me when Riddle bragged about how interesting it had been to read about how worried Draco had been, how he had questioned if he might be responsible for any of it. And how fun it had been to convince him otherwise. Until Draco had said he wouldn’t write to Tom again after an argument. But I had been so kind to almost kill myself, upsetting Draco so much that he started writing to him again.

And I felt horrible. When I had found the notebook, Draco must have tried to get rid of it and I had brought it back to him. It was my fault he was dying now. I could feel the tears stream down my cheeks by now. Draco was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. And it was all my fault.

Riddle looked at me with an angry look. He said I disappointed him. He had been so curious about me ever since Draco had told him that I had defeated the Dark Lord twice in my short life. And then I tried to kill myself, like a helpless little child. He just had to meet me, and seeing how much Draco and I care about each other, he just knew that I would come to his rescue if Draco would be in danger. So Riddle had made Draco write his own farewell on the wall and come down here. Draco cried at first, Riddle said, he thinks Draco finally realised that had been him all along. Only it was already too late, he had put too much of himself in the diary, into Riddle, so much so that Riddle could leave the pages of his diary, slowly killing Draco while he was waiting for me.

He wanted to know how I, a skinny boy with no extraordinary magical talent, who even wasn’t smart enough to kill himself properly, managed to defeat the greatest wizard of all time? How had I escaped with nothing but a scar, while Lord Voldemort his powers were destroyed? I asked him why he wanted to know and he told me he was Lord Voldemort. That it was the name he had fashioned for himself, a name he knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak when he had become the greatest sorcerer in the world.

But he wasn’t the greatest sorcerer in the world and I told him so. I told him that headmaster Dumbledore was the greatest wizard in the world. That everyone says so and that Voldemort was still afraid of Dumbledore now, where ever he was hiding these days.

Something amazing happened then. Music was coming from somewhere that kept coming closer. It was Fawkes, headmaster Dumbledore’s bird. It dropped the sorting hat at my feet and then landed on my shoulder. It made Riddle laugh, mocking the items that Dumbledore had to send me. But for me, it felt like I had a change. Even though the objects seemed useless, I felt like I might be able to somehow defeat Riddle now and save Draco. All I wanted was to save Draco.

After that things became a bit scary. Riddle asked me how I had defeated him before. He tried to keep me talking, but I knew that the longer it would all take, the more life was slipping from Draco’s body into Riddle. So I told him he was useless, that my muggle-born mother had saved me. Riddles concluded out of that that there was nothing special about me and send for the Basilisk. It came sliding out of the mouth of the statue that had opened wide to make a huge black hole. I shut my eyes and I could feel Fawkes take flight. I was going to die, I was sure of it. If Fawkes would take of what did I have to defend myself with?

I could hear the Basilisk’s heavy body slithering across the floor. I kept my eyes shut and began to run blindly sideways, keeping my hands stretched out. Voldemort was laughing when I tripped. Something heavy hit me then and I was smashed into a wall. I was sure the next thing I would feel were some fangs biting me and killing me. But that never happened. I could hear mad hissing and something thrashing wildly off the pillars. And I couldn’t help myself; I had to take a look. And you will never believe what I saw. Fawkes had punctured the Basilisks eyes.

The next thing I remember is holding the Sorting Hat, while the Basilisk was coming after me. I pulled the hat on my head and just thought ‘help me’. There was no voice but the hat contracted and something very hard and heavy thudded onto my head. It almost knocked me out. It was a gleaming silver sword and I took it out and used it when the Basilisk lunged for me. The hilt drove into the roof of the Basilisks mouth, making it keeled over sideways, twitching to the floor. I slid down the wall, my arm hurt so badly and when I looked I could see one of the poisonous fangs of the Basilisk sticking out of it. I crawled toward Draco. I was going to die, I knew it. A white-hot pain was spreading slowly from the wound and my vision started to become foggy. It was a lot like when I had slit my wrist and the world had started spinning while the blood pulsed out of my arm.

I made it to Draco and took his hand in mine. If we were going to die I wanted to hold him, know that he was here with me. I tried to ignore Riddle’s laughter and mocking. I just wanted to tell Draco one more time that I love him. Fawkes came flying by then and he dropped the diary into my lap. And without thinking I wrenched the Basilisks fang out of my arm and plunged it straight into the heart of the book. I wanted to hurt the awful book that had used my Draco, manipulated him and was now killing him. There was a long, dreadful, piercing scream and ink came spurting out of the diary. Riddle was writhing and twisting, screaming and flailing and then he was gone. My wand fell to the floor with a clatter and then everything was still. I lay down on the floor and closed my eyes, not expecting to open them again.

The next thing I remember is Draco holding me in his arm, begging me to wake up. I opened my eyes and was happy to see that Draco wasn’t as white anymore as when I found him on the Chamber’s floor. I asked him if we were dead. He told me we weren’t and that I had to stay awake. Draco was crying and I knew he had seen the wound in my arm. He was begging me to stay with him. I said I was sorry. There was no way to save me. It hurt so much hearing Draco pleads, begging me not to leave him alone. I told him I love him and he said it back to me. I knew I hadn’t long, I was in so much pain and Draco’s face was fading in and out of focus. I remember whisperings ‘please kiss me’ and the next thing I know is the feeling of Draco’s lips on mine. It made me forget the pain and despair reaching inside me. I could only feel his warm breath against mine, his lips pushing against mine, opening slightly and biting on my bottom lip. It was perfect. And I thought that this was not a bad way to go, with the boy I love kissing me.

Only Fawkes had another plan. He had landed next to us and was pushing Draco away from me. Draco fought it at first and then he was gone. Only his hand stayed entwined with mine. He said everything was going to be okay and I believed him. The pain was leaving me and I could open my eyes again. The world was coming back into focus and I could see Draco sitting next to me, a smile on his face. Fawkes had his head still on my arm and a pearly patch of tears was shining all around my wound, only there was no wound anymore. And then headmaster Dumbledore’s words came back to me, phoenix tears have healing powers. I wasn’t going to die. I was so happy that I leapt at Draco and found his lips again and this time I kissed him back with all my strength. We laughed and kissed and it was perfect. We were both going to be okay and Voldemort and the Basilisks were death.

After a while, we got up and walked with Fawkes on our tails out of the chamber back towards Ron. Ron had managed to move enough rocks in the time I was gone to make a gab where Draco and I could climb through. Professor Lockhart was also still there. Ron said his memory was gone, that Lockhart had no clue who he was or where he was.

For a moment none of us knew how we were going to go back up the long pipe, but Fawkes helped us out again. Draco was still holding my hand and Ron grabbed the back of my robes, holding Professor Lockhart’s hand with his free hand. I took hold of Fawkes tail feathers and then we flew upwards through the pipe. And when we reached the top I could see Professor Snape run into the bathroom with Neville on his heels. Myrtle expressed that she was disappointed I wasn’t dead and Draco gave her an angry stare.

And then Professor Snape pulled Draco and me in a hug. It was the weirdest thing that had happened all night. Professor Snape was hugging us and Ron and Neville were staring at us blankly. I must say I was glad when Professor Snape let go of us. It’s just weird, him hugging us.

He took us to headmaster Dumbledore’s office. Draco’s parents were there and it was clear that his mother had been crying. She took Draco in her arms as soon as we entered the office. Headmaster Dumbledore was also there, just like Professor McGonagall. The headmaster made Draco go to the hospital wing to get checked out and his parents went with him. And then they asked me to tell them what had happened. I told them everything, up till the moment that Professor Snape found us in the bathroom.

After that headmaster Dumbledore awarded Ron and I both Special Awards for Services to the School and he gave out points for the house cup. Neville got 100 points for finding help, Ron got 150 points for facing danger to save a friend and he gave me 200 points for bravery and courage to face the Basilisk to save the boy I love. Professor McGonagall escorted Ron and Neville back to their own common room and Professor Snape took Professor Lockhart to the hospital wing, leaving me alone with the headmaster. He first thanked me for showing real loyalty to him and then he told me something disturbing. The only reason why I can speak Parseltongue is because Lord Voldemort can, as a last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin. Headmaster Dumbledore thinks that Voldemort has transferred some of his own powers into me the night he killed you. I don’t know what to think of that. It scares me. I wondered if I was only Slytherin because of that part in Voldemort inside me since you both had been Gryffindors. Headmaster Dumbledore assured me that the hat would see more than just the little part of Voldemort that is inside me and that I myself had qualities that Salazar himself valued in his students, like my determination and cleverness. He also said that I cherish the once I love abidingly and unconditionally and that that was very Slytherin of me. And then he continued that I could have also been in Gryffindor because I also have a lot of traits that are part of that house, like my bravery (even though I don’t feel brave most of the time) and my heroic actions last year and now. And the fact that I had pulled Gryffindor’s sword out of the head should tell me that house placements aren’t as black and white as we would like to pretend. And that I shouldn’t worry about the small part of Voldemort inside me because that was not what made me the person that I am or determent my placement in Slytherin.

It was time to sleep after that and I was happy to see that Draco was also back in our dormitory and we could slip into my bed together. The next morning I woke with his arms around me and the news we would have a feast that afternoon to celebrate the end of the terror at Hogwarts.

The feast was amazing. The Mandrakes had matured so all the petrified people were there and Hermione had joined Draco and me at the Slytherin table. It was good to have her back and she was pleased to see that Draco and I were now boyfriends. Ron and Neville also joined us halfway through the feast. It was a bit awkward, seeing Ron and Hermione trying to be civil for my sake, but it was fun. Daphne was very interested in everything that had happened and Greg wanted a word by word account. And at the end of the feast, Hagrid walked into the Great Hall. I got up and ran towards him and hugged him, glad to have him back.

Sunday we had to get back to studying, because or exams have started since Tuesday. Hermione was in a panic on Sunday, afraid she wouldn’t do any good because she had missed so much while being petrified. Draco told her not to worry, that he had no problem with taking over her number one position. She hit him with a book after that and Daphne and I just laughed at them. Greg tried to cheer Hermione up by saying she would still do better than him and that just made her determent to tutor Greg for the rest of the Sunday afternoon.

Just one more week of exams and then we can relax until the results come in.

I have to go now, Draco is here and he is going to quiz me on Potions, to make sure I don’t mess up our practical exam on Monday.

Love you both,

Harry James Potter.

#letters to my parents #drarry #Harry Potter #Draco Malfoy #chamber of secrets #first kiss #basilisk #ron weasley #professor lockhart #severus snape #tom riddle #almost dying #hermione granger #AlindasStories

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iwannabeastarshipcaptain · 6 years ago

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“Mr. Schuester, Brittany and I have an idea,” Tina called out.

“Make it good. This is the last song,” Mr. Schuester teased.

“Oh, it is.” The girls giggled. “We’ve talked it over and all us girls think that, if we’re going to perform across the country, then Sam has to resurrect the Justin Bieber Experience.”

Sam hid his face in his hands.

“The what?” Sebastian asked.

“I don’t believe I know anything about this.” Blaine smiled at his boyfriend and loved the way he was blushing.

Brittany spoke up for the group. “Sam’s first big number in Glee Club was his impression of Justin Bieber and it is spot-on accurate and, in our opinion, much better than the original.”

“I wanna see it!” Lily screamed.

“Me, too!” Jessie called out.

“Guys, it’s been two years since I did that. But, if I agree, we have to mash it up with ‘Somebody to Love’ so that the Justin Bieber Experience is more than me. I can Bieberize Nick, I know. Probably Blake and Jake.” Sam turned to his right. “And I’m sure Sebastian has a Bieber in him, too.”

“Please.” Sebastian rolled his eyes and spoke low enough that only Sam could hear him. “We both know I’d be the one in him for sure.”

--Chapter 18, A New Reality In Direction

#glee #the justin bieber experience #a new reality in direction #blam fan fic

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girlbookwrm · 6 years ago

Text

James Rhodes and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

THE MIGHTY ENDGAME REWATCH CONTINUES WITH IRON MAN 2

Typing this up the morning after The Roommate @goteamwin and I watched Iron Man Two and upon reflection, the movie is about 800x better if you think of Rhodes or Nat as the POV character, with Tony as the main villain -- because let’s face it, Tony is always the main villain of the Iron Man franchise (and other franchises too, sometimes)

ANYWAY ON WITH THE REWATCH.

Ivan Vanko hiding with his face in the corner, clutching a bottle of Vodka is extremely hashtag relatable. Also, is he feeding his dying father vodka-soaked ice chips? is this an old Russian folk remedy? The Roommate says: it’s a nice foil to CATFA: “ah yes. you haff procedure tyomorrow. make sure you haff plenty of vodka. stay nice and hydrated.”

hey we saw all this last time. back in the days when Marvel still felt the need to recap. now they’re just like “HOPE YOU DID YOUR HOMEWORK BITCHES.”

Tony Stark is dropping out of a plane, in a weaponized exoskeletal suit, over New York City, in 2010. I know he's Tony Stark , but he should not be able to do any of this. (but tbf presumably Pepper arranged this YEARLONG EXPO (holy shit) and Pepper Potts can do Literally Anything.)

The backup dancers feel like another callback to CATFA but this came out BEFORE CATFA so maybe the backup dancers are a callback to this???? but in-universe, it's the other way around???????

i mean of course Tony built a specialized gadget to test his blood toxicity but also TONY YOU BUILT A SPECIALIZED GADGET TO TEST YOUR BLOOD TOXICITY??? GO TO THE DOCTOR

is that olivia munn?

pooOOTERRRRR

IS THAT KATE MARA??

oh no gary shandling noooooooo

“he insists it’s a shield” ohohoHOHOHOHOHOHoho burn.

but no, actually a burn because it’s deffo a callback to the Great Works that Howard Stark Did.

RIGHT RHODES!!!!!!!

ah yes. an LG starkphone. before Vevo got their dirty paws all over the Avengers product placement money

it’s nice of JARVIS to sum this up for us. And So Snarkily!

seriously, Tony is giving away his worldly possessions, talking legacy, quitting his job... HOW DOES PEPPER NOT SEE WHAT’S HAPPENING HERE

Natalie Russian?

The Roommate points out that she hated ScarJo the first time she saw this, but now literally cuts her hair to look like ScarJo

this got me thinking about what this scene is like from Nat’s POV. She’s a KGB assassin, trained from (birth?? probably?) and she’s been with SHIELD no less than a year (if the Winter Soldier shot her while she was working for SHIELD in 2009)

And now she has to do this shit.

elon musk?

Tony literally looks HIMSELF in the eye and says: “You got any other bad ideas?” TONY IS THE VILLAIN OF THIS PIECE.

in what way is tony qualified to do this

Poor Nat. “Get close to him” they said. “evaluate him for the avengers initiative” they said. “a plush assignment” they said. fuck you nick.

Vanko: ~cool guys don’t look at explosions~

TONY YOU BROUGHT A CHAIR TO A WHIP FIGHT. TONY YOU’RE A HOT MESS. YOU LITERALLY ARE. YOU ARE ON. FIRE.

I love the way the iron man suits keep getting smaller. i feel like this is a real reflection of how technology has evolved in the real world -- keeps getting smaller and faster and more advanced.

good work to the blonde extra standing behind justin hammer she is giving 112%

Vanko in his budgie smugglers here. He had literally no plan? he’s just, like, making it up as he goes? actually, wtf was he doing on the racetrack anyway? he didn’t know tony would be there??

~cool guys don’t look at explosionsss~

So Vanko Sr got shipped back to Russia but Zola gets to stick around long enough to turn into a bank of computers?

RIGHT RHODES!

Q U E E N S

the scene where Nat’s helping Tony get ready for the party:

The Roommate: See this is why I didn’t like Natasha the first time she turned up. I thought she was going to break up my OTP. Like. What-- what’s she doing here?

Me: It’s a test. It’s all a test. It’s always a test. And Tony. Is. Failing.

Tony. what are you doing. tony. stop.

James Rhodes And The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day, but also.

wwwwwow, rhodey is

Very.

Hot.

Tony yelling at his own reflection again, because he’s a strong independant protagonist who don’t need no villain he can be his own villain, clearly.

They crossed the streams!

Rhodey manages to make the Iron Man mask look Disappointed. *patrick stewart voice* ~acting~

eyyy! it’s that guy from IM1!

hey let’s make an aside here, because earlier in the movie Tony mentions Uncle Sam and let’s just all agree right here right now that Rhodey and Sam definitely know each other. They know each other before Sam becomes an Avenger. first time Steve brings Sam to the tower and Rhodes is there, it’s like “OH HEY MAN HOW ARE YOU? STILL FLYING WITHOUT A PLANE? GOOD TO SEE U DUDE.”

they’re going to get along so well with Carol I’m already excited

oh hey Fury’s here.

I love how proud Fury is of his daughter.

his adopted russian daughter. Such A Proud Dad.

“a vodka fueled rage” he says. “not a good environment to raise a kid in” he says. And what kind of environment was tony raised in?

“you can solve the riddle of your heart” they sure did make Samuel L Jackson say those words.

PHIL’S HERE

god i love phil

I love that Rhodes takes the arc reactor out before Hammer gets here.

“I call it the Ex Wife”

The Roommate: ugh of course you do.

I also love how deadpan he is. “I think I’ll take it.” “Which one?” “All of it.”

The Roommate: James Rhodes here, continuing to be Very Sexy. Don Cheedle is definitely sexier than Terrence Howard FIGHT ME.

Me: why would anyone fight you on that YOU’RE RIGHT

To answer my earlier question: A scotch-fueled rage.

Howard 2.0 being very Walt Disney here.

“I didn’t come here to apologize” MAYBE YOU SHOULD, BUDDY.

Pepper: No.

The Roommate: Pepper’s superpower is calling the authorities and saying no.

i love that pepper and nat are bros now, like. it’s like that story when the girl meets her boyfriend’s side chick and they become BFFs.

Tony figuring out the thing with the pavilions:

The Roommate: Tony really actually is smart, but it gets lost in all the bullshit.

PHIL’S HERE

Fanboy Phil.

“Not that much.” God I love phil.

B I C E P S

tony should always wear tank tops

always

side note: this is tesseract material, right? i mean we’re all agreed that the element that Tony rediscovers is whatever the Tesseract is made of. right?

Justin Hammer: Maybe I’ll get laid.

The Roommate: You Will Not.

Pepper and Nat in matching outfits I love this.

Ok as soon as that glass starts falling -- i mean. all these people are dead, right? everyone who came to the expo is pretty much dead now.

JAMES RHODES AND THE TERRIBLE HORRIBLE NO GOOD VERY BAD DAY

Pepper and Nat are the real dream team here.

“nice work kid” SO CUTE

OMG PROPERTY DAMAGE????

We Do Not Care for ScarJo’s Wig Here. This scene would’ve been so much better if she left her hair in that bun it was in earlier. her hair is all in her face all through this scene NAT WOULD NEVER BE THIS CARELESS, HAIR LIKE THAT IS GOOD FOR GRABBING AS EVERY WOMAN WHO HAS EVER WALKED IN THE DARK KNOWS

subnote: happy she does not require your assistance.

Tony and Rhodes are literally playing a video game here, they might as well be back at MIT in Rhodey’s dorm room playing call of duty or whatever game they played back in the day.

they’re crossing the streams!

The Roommate: I like the little vroom vroom noises the suit makes

“you deserve better”

Me And The Roommate: Yeah, she does.

“you couldn’t afford me.” Dat Ass, Tones. Dayum.

JAMES RHODES IS A NATIONAL TREASURE, GARY SHANDLING, GOOD OF YOU TO NOTICE

oh hey phil’s here

#the mighty pre endgame rewatch #iron man 2

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needsmoresarcasm · 6 years ago

Text

A Review of Crazy Rich Asians Before Seeing Crazy Rich Asians

And several years ago, she had been e-mailed a humorous list entitled ‘Twenty Ways You Can Tell You Have Asian Parents.’ Number one on the list: Your parents never, ever call you ‘just to say hello.’ She didn’t get many of the jokes on the list, since her own experience growing up had been entirely different.

That’s the passage that sold me on Crazy Rich Asians. I know, it’s no “Life lilted to the sounds of her soliloquy, skipping across lily pads, seeking to fill her soul with elusive validity” or whatever nonsense collection of pretty sounding words sells people on books these days. That’s all to say, for me, the thrill of Crazy Rich Asians does not rest in sparkling prose but in its revolutionary ordinariness.

You see, in that passage, Rachel, a first generation Chinese American, is reflecting on the differences between herself and other Asian Americans, as a result of considering her differences with Nick, her Chinese Singaporean boyfriend. A character in a story saying “I’m not like all the other [girls/boys/teens/football players/handsome men named Chris in a comic-book based superhero movie]” is hardly new ground. But an Asian American character specifically contemplating her differences from other Asian and Asian American characters? I feel pretty comfortable betting that you can’t even name another instance of it. Because that would require at least two Asian American or Asian characters, and then a recognition that those characters did not encompass the entire experience of all Asian Americans.

I’m confident making that bet because there are so few mainstream stories that include enough Asians to make that opportunity possible. Only 11 percent of network TV shows in 2015 even had more than one Asian actor in its main cast. There have only ever been three network sitcoms featuring an Asian American family. Ever. There have been that many network sitcoms featuring a group of predominantly white friends with the word “Friends” in the title in the last decade. And that’s not even including “Friends”! (Best Friends Forever, Friends with Better Lives, and Friends with Benefits, in case anyone was wondering. Yes, I watched every episode of them all, in case anyone was wondering again.) And TV is the medium where Asian actors are doing the best. Want to know how many major studio films featured an Asian actor in the leading role in 2015? Zero. None. In 2015, only 3.9 percent of characters were Asian, the same as in 2007, despite the fact that Asians are the fastest growing demographic group in the US.

That’s hardly shocking, I hope, because we’ve all been outraged about whitewashing for like a solid two years now. It’s exhausting, and I don’t know that I need to rehash it. But, for the sake of propriety, let’s just see how many movie characters were whitewashed in say… the last ten years: Allison Ng in Aloha (Emma Stone), Mindy Park in The Martian (Mackenzie Davis), The Ancient One in Doctor Strange (Tilda Swinton), Light Yagami (nee Turner???) in Death Note (Nat Wolff), Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell (Scarlett Johansson), Khan in Star Trek: Into Darkness (Benedict Cumberbatch), Hae-Joo Chang in Cloud Atlas (Jim Sturgess), Boardman Mephi in Cloud Atlas (Hugo Weaving), the Archivist in Cloud Atlas (James D’Arcy), Aang in Avatar: The Last Airbender (Noah Ringer), Lena in Annihilation (Natalie Portman), Goku in Dragonball Evolution (Justin Chatwin), Keiji Kiriya in Edge of Tomorrow (Tom Cruise), Kyo Kusanagi in The King of Fighters (Sean Faris), everyone in 21, and everyone in Speed Racer. In the last ten years. And that’s not even counting the characters who were not necessarily whitewashed, but were still inexplicably white: The Last Samurai, The Great Wall, the random white person POV in the Bruce Lee biopic Birth of the Dragon, those seven seconds on the Internet when the Mulan script had a white dude. I guess what I’m saying is, thanks Ed Skrein for opting out of Hellboy.

And so, Crazy Rich Asians is revolutionary. Sure, its satirization of class is nothing that Pride and Prejudice hasn’t done. And it’s got a Game of Thrones convoluted web of familial relations. And a Tolkein-esque love of a tangential backstory for a tertiary character (no one ever needs to know anything about Bernard Tai). But it’s not a bunch of white people in Regency era England or Westeros or Middle Earth. It’s a bunch of Asian people in the 21st century. And so when Rachel says she doesn’t identify with a Buzzfeed list, I not only get the reference, I feel it. It’s a mundane aside that feels written for me--not written for an Asian audience generally, but written for me specifically. It’s the kind of representation you only get when identity assumes the role of a character’s foundation, not a character’s personality: when you can no longer win a game of Taboo by giving the hint “the Asian one.”

It’s the type of representation that allows me to feel no pause about decrying how Eddie should just be written out of Fresh Off the Boat (send him off to college, already) because that show still has the rest of the Huang family. The Fresh Off the Boat gag about not knowing the dishwasher was more than a drying rack? That’s the hardest I’ve laughed at a TV show in ages, as a person who hadn’t run a dishwasher until he was 24, despite having grown up with one in the house. The extended bit about having to prepare for Asian glow? Still funny, but I’ll die of alcohol poisoning before there are any signs that I’m visibly drunk. When every joke is from the perspective of an Asian American family, I don’t feel lost when a few aren’t for me.

I love Fresh Off the Boat because it’s a great family sitcom. It’s funny and heartwarming and totally accessible. And as a network sitcom entering its fifth season, that’s all it needs to be. Because if you’re looking for a different flavor of representation on TV? Try Master of None or Kim’s Convenience. Or The Good Place, in case you identify with a sweet, dumb molotov cocktail or a fancy British giraffe. Or Superstore, for either sass or sadness personified. There might not be a buffet of TV sitcom representation, but at least the prix fixe menu has some decent options.

And books are much the same. Crazy Rich Asians (and then China Rich Girlfriend… and then Rich People Problems) is fun, pop spectacle. It’s propulsive, with drama escalating through multiple storylines until they can’t help but burst into each other. It’s a great beach read. It’s a story you could live tweet. But you’d be disappointed if you were looking to read a rumination on identity and place in America or scrolls of lofty prose. The great thing about books, though, is that there are so many of them. So if you want those things? You could probably find it somewhere.

I don’t know that I realized how truly powerful it was to feel like something was crafted just for you until devouring Chemistry by Weike Wang. Chemistry is about an Asian American PhD student who leaves her PhD program in part because she feels like she lacks the motivation to dedicate her life to answering single research questions. She’s frustrated by lab work, by the unpredictability of scientific research. When she leaves her program, she tutors kids in science - and she so clearly loves science, as she peppers scientific trivia throughout the narrative. Her voice is deadpan and her thinking analytical. Switch some pronouns around, and I’m pretty sure I just wrote an autobiography circa 2012.

It’s hard to describe just how much feeling that catered to entirely changes the power of a piece of art. Honestly, it’s not something I’ve had much occasion to think of. Of course, Chemistry is great for so many more reasons. The writing is breathtaking in its economy. As an author, it feels like Wang can take the same five words and rearrange them into the world’s best joke and the world’s saddest tragedy. Every observation feels elemental - like chemistry, a fundamental truth of this world that Wang has just discovered. And as any good scientist, Wang has published those truths for the benefit of the public.

Celeste Ng has a similar knack for observation that’s on full display in Little Fires Everywhere. Now, Little Fires Everywhere is not primarily about Asian American characters. The only prominent Asian character does alight the most dramatic narrative in the book - a custody battle smoked in class and race wars. Still, I can’t say I particularly identify with the character, a Chinese immigrant so impoverished she leaves her child on a doorstep. But that’s not to say I don’t identify with the book. Because Little Fires Everywhere is a book about white identity, written from the outside looking in. Set in a midwest town in the 90s, race smolders in the background. Instead of merely being the default setting, the characters’ whiteness is a clear choice. It’s on full display. Much as it’s impossible to not notice the Asianness of a Mr. Miyagi, it’s impossible not to see the Richardsons’ every move as coded with whiteness.

And that perspective - the one that notices when things are particularly white - is something I can identify with. Little Fires is much more subtle about noticing whiteness than I am though. Where I muttered “this is some white nonsense” when a bar trivia category was “songs with the world ‘sail,’” Ng has the McCulloughs promise to feed a child Chinese food to connect her with her culture. Or has Lexie, whose boyfriend is black, declare that it’s so great that no one sees race in their town. Or has Mrs. Richardson feel entitled to barrel headfirst into affairs she has no business being part of. It’s in the claustrophobia that builds from the deliberate confines of the setting: a utopic, white-picket fenced community decidedly apart from the less desirable fringes of the town. A subtly observed us vs. them, where the central characters are almost certainly the “them.” In its hyper-awareness of whiteness, Little Fires gives its reader a sense of what every person of color lives through.

For me, Little Fires Everywhere and Chemistry and Crazy Rich Asians and Fresh Off the Boat are excellent forms of representation, even as they’re all incredibly different. And I am so grateful that all of these things exist. They’re great as independent works of art. And they’re even better for me, because I get to have the joy of being on the inside of the inside jokes.

But still. Not a single character in any of the works I’ve referenced is Japanese American. Not a single character in any of those works is a fourth generation Asian American. But I don’t blame those works for that. Those works are at least giving me something I recognize - an outsider's perspective on whiteness, a former PhD candidate, an exasperation with Buzzfeed lists, a family that doesn’t use their dishwasher. I would just like more. And when it comes to movies, I would just like any. Crazy Rich Asians is at least something. And all I’m asking for is something. And then, well, and then I’d like more something.

Because I am so glad that a story exists where an Asian person sees-and then rejects-a list of items that attempts to encompass every Asian American. Oh and as a last note? My parents really don’t ever call me “just to say hello.”

#crazy rich asians #little fires everywhere #fresh off the boat #chemistry

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mrsspidermanmaryjanewatsonparker · 6 years ago

Link

...let’s do this...

“Dan Slott’s decade-long tenure on writing Spider-Man recently came to an end, swapping the prolific writer out with former Captain America/Secret Empire scribe Nick Spencer. The first issue of his and artist Ryan Ottley’s much hyped run, Amazing Spider-Man #1, took Peter Parker back to the basics. The hero has lost Parker Industries, is under investigation for academic fraud, was fired from the Daily Bugle, and other New York heroes hate him because they think he’s buddy-buddy with Kingpin of Crime turned New York mayor, Wilson Fisk.”

First of all Peter lost Parker Industries during Slott’s run so i dunno why this ‘article’ is framing things as though that is a development from Spencer’s run.

Second of all heroes hate Spidey because Kingpin made it look as though they were friends, its not as though Spider-Man really was friend with Fisk as this article frames it.

“The issue ends with the two kissing and Peter declaring that this is “their story,” emphatically saying what the suspicions have been for some time: the new run of Amazing Spider-Man will begin to undue the events of the controversial “One More” and “Brand New Day” storylines that Slott became infamous for, which saw Mephisto destroy Peter and MJ’s marriage in exchange for bringing Aunt May back to life.”

*pinches bridge of nose* ohmygodohmygodohmygod.

Okay so...Dan Slott WASN’T RESPONSIBLE FOR OMD OR BND!

M**********r Wikipedia could have told you that! HOW?! HOW do you not know that Joe Quesada wrote OMD!

HOW do you not know this piece of comic book osmosis that everyone knows! My God!

Furthermore aunt May didn’t effing die in OMD. That was literally the point. They mad ethe deal to SAVE her from death. Not undo it!

I know people who’ve not even read the story and THEY know that!

Also Dan Slott became infamous but it had nada to do with OMD but other stuff.

Also also the story hasn’t shown or promised to undo anything yet but clickbait gotta clickbait.

Also, also, also UNDO ISN’T SPELT THAT WAY!

Holy fuck how do you write for the front page of the biggest comic book news site, get paid for it and not spell check shit?!

“And like those now infamous wedding issues for Batman and X-Men, the move to bring Peter and MJ back together doesn’t really work. There are couples who’ve gotten back together after a time apart, but the issue itself piles so much misfortune on Peter’s doorstep it feels like Peter should be looking into a therapist or anxiety medicine instead of making out with his ex.”

-Is what someone who’s never read Spider-Man would say.

Like Peter went though a lot of bad stuff in ASM volume 5 #1 but:

a) Asshole please, this is nowhere near the worst most stressful or therepy worthy shit Peter has lived through. Supporting his sickly recently widowed mother figure financially whilst going to school, getting bullied, having a crappy boss, dealing with an unreasonable girlfriend and ALSO fighting crime in a city that feared and hated him for no reason. THAT is anxiety and that is also known as the start of Spider-Man’s entire story you fucking hacks!

b) So when you’ve had an awful day and everything has fallen apart getting TLC from someone you deeply love and who deeply loves you...doesn’t make sense. Okay sure.

c) Justin Carter where the fuck did you learn how to read subtext? Shit, nevermind the subtext, where did you learn to read the text bro! The story spells it out for you. Peter’s life is bad, he keeps making the same mistakes again, he wants things to change to be better. So he steps up to the plate and puts the effort in to MAKE it better, specifically by chasing the thing he wants most, the thing he’s yearned for and literally dreamed about (as CLEARLY SHOWN on the first effing pages!). He reunited with the love of his life. For the fuck is that something that DOESN’T work!

d) Exempting the X-Men wedding the Batman wedding issue in my observation totally worked from a characterization pov even if it wasn’t the result fans wanted to deserved.

“Peter and MJ Are A coulee Again! And It's The Wrong Move...”

It isn’t the wrong move and I see no reason why anyone should take this article’s claims that is is seriously when it can’t even spell the word couple!

“Like all relationships, the ones between superheroes and their non-powered partners are full of drama. In the decade since their split, Peter and MJ had many relationships that provided what neither could offer the other at the time. MJ got to date men who were reliable and had the stability that Peter couldn’t entirely provide, and Peter was with those who were more accustomed to or in the line of superheroic work as he.”

Go fuck yourself CBR seriously.

Let’s start with Peter. What in the flying fuck is this shallow, Celebrity gossip rag, juvenile, simplistic, unlearned horseshit of a mentality towards superhero relationships over the last several years that has the absolute biggest hard on ever for the idea that heroes have to date heroes.

Especially Spider-Man.

Whenever the mere idea of Spider-Man dating another hero crops up that is literally the ONLY thing people talk about.

They have so much in common because they are both heroes.

Well shit...why doesn’t he date literally any of the women in the multiple Avengers teams he was a member of. No Carol Danvers doesn’t count, it was one date.

I’ll tell you why.

Because if any of these jackasses knew what the fuck they were talking about with Spider-Man’s character, both in terms of who he is as a person and the entire concept behind him, they’d know that civilian women are both his preference and more in line with the idea of him as a hero who could be you.

YOU in the real world do not date goddam superheroes. You date normal people. Therefore Spider-Man also dates normal people.

‘But what about Black Cat’, I hear you cry out.

Yeah Felicia let’s talk about her for a second shall we.

Felicia, the cat burglar costumed criminal. The one who tried to trick her boyfriend into a life of crime literally the issue after they hooked up.

Felicia, the woman who recoiled upon seeing Spider-Man’s real face.

Felicia the woman who lied and went behind Spider-Man’s back to get super powers that literally caused him cosmic bad luck even after they broke up.

Felicia, the woman who jeapodized Peter’s secret identity multiple times.

Felicia, the woman who literally got in bed with a mercenary (in every sense of the word) in order to frame Spider-Man for murder by seducing him.

Felicia the one and only girlfriend Peter had before he got married who was a fellow costumed person...and she was literally named after something that brings you bad luck.

It’s ALMOST like it was doomed to fail from the start.

It’s ALMOST like it was intended that way.

It’s ALMOST like it was a great big subtextual commentary about how Spider-Man is better off with normal non-costumed women.

Oh...but if only there was some kind of page or panel clearly spelling out the idea that Felicia the costumed person was wrong for Spider-Man but someone else, someone normal, someone rooted in the real world with all it’s relatable problems and activities, was right for him...

...if only...

And if only the comic book run most guilty of shipping Spider-Man with a costumed person post-OMD which was initiated by a hack writer had itself a page or panel spelling out that Spider-Man dating costumed people because they ‘get’ his lifestyle more doesn’t mean jack shit, showcasing even they recognize it to be a stupid shortsighted attitude to Spider shipping.

IF.ONLY!

Let’s move onto Mary Jane.

MJ dated exactly 2 men during the decade after OMD. Bobbi Carr and Pedro the fireman who was literally a poc fireman version of Peter.

Reliable and stable huh?

Tell me how exactly is the life of a rising A-list movie star ‘reliable’ or ‘stable’...even aside from the fact that he was a drug addict?

Tell me how exactly is the life of a firefighter whom would be rushing off whilst on duty and risking his life A LOT be stable for poor Mary Jane’s anxieties over his safety?

What? Reliable is steady job+regular hours?

That’s what Peter couldn’t provide so this reconciliation is bad?

...Didn’t Mary jane literally WORK for goddam Tony Stark, the globe/galaxy trotting superhero Avenger leader who went into a coma then disappeared?????????

And she took that job by effing choice? AFTER breaking up with Pedro the fireman?

How much ‘reliable stability’ does she really want or need?

Because assholes MJ dated and was married to Spider-Man for fucking years. And she liked it. Are we just IGNORING that?

Like assholes that wasn’t even the thing that they broke up over. MJ didn’t break up with Spider-Man in OMIT because he was unreliable and didn’t provide stability. She accepted that. She accepted that shit even in the nuclear levels OOC flashback sequences to their aborted wedding.

She broke up with him because it endangered her family. THAT was the rationale. THEN she got back with him in Superior. THEN she broke up with him at the end because she wanted normalcy but then she literally said pages later that she’ll never get it because she lived in NYC and because guys like the Goblin wouldn’t care if she was dating Peter or not. THEN she threw away normalcy by working for Iron Man FFS. THEN in Red Goblin she claimed she couldn’t be with him because I don’t even know, some bullshit about feeling guilty that she was keeping him away from being a hero.

So the stable reliability argument holds no goddam water to her pre or post OMD characterizations.

Basically the above paragraph boils down to:

“Peter and MJ getting back together is bad because they dated people who could offer them the stuff that neither could offer the other, even though there is nothing indicating either wanted that stuff in the first place.”

“Not all of these relationships were perfect, but they were signs of real change, something that isn’t typically allowed in big two superhero comics, or at least, not in any lasting, meaningful way.”

No they weren’t. They were signs of Marvel putting the characters on rotation because they axed the ACTUAL meaningful change that was the pair getting married and committing to a longterm permanent relationship that lasted 20 years.

Hence why literally none of these relationships had ANY lasting impact upon either character.

MJ was unchanged by Bobbi Carr dating her beyond it prompting her to return to NYC, i.e. return to her old status quo.

Peter was unchanged by Carlie Cooper, Liaeean Teaaen, Mockingbird and Silk. I mean my God this article bangs on about how Mockingbird was so important because she provided something Peter otherwise couldn’t get from MJ but the seires literally handwaves away their relationship. They don’t even get a major break up scene or issue. It’s just. “We broke up, brief flashback. That was it.”

“The last couple of times that Peter and MJ broke off their romantic relationship — after that one time Doc Ock jacked Peter’s body for over a year — it was because she didn’t want his, frankly, ridiculous life as a superhero to define hers.”

The article says the last couple of times they broke it off then lists one example because what is counting.

And as I said that was NOT the reason they broke up after superior. Hell they didn’t even really break up that time. Otto broke up with MJ in Superior ‘2, then she called him up to break up with him many issues later then she went to Peter when he got his body back to give a break up speech to someone she wasn’t even dating!

“More, she didn’t want to keep risking the danger the comes from being close to a superhero.”

And then she went to work for an even more famous superhero who didn’t even have a secret identity and who have much more powerful enemies many of whom would’ve targeted him even if they didn’t know he was Iron Man..before re-entering his friendship group in from Power Play onwards thus rendering her entire rationale for breaking away moot....not that it made any sense to begin with.

“If anything, his life has become even more crazy since their split, since his teacher is the Lizard and he’s a roommate with Boomerang.”

The Lizard was his teacher in the silver and bronze age too you goddam hacks and having a villain for a roommate is NOT crazier than your body being stolen by a villain for God’s sake.

“Both of those situations are going to end pretty badly, and that’s coming just before the “Spidergeddon” event that’ll bring together the Spider-heroes of the multiverse yet again in a fight for survival against evil vampires.”

I didn’t know CBR could see the future and also apparently knows that despite all current evidence to the contrary that Spencer would be doing a tie-into Spider-Geddon.

“Fans of Peter and Mary Jane as a couple aren’t exactly hard up for a comic about their exploits. The Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows series may be set in a new universe, but it’s been quietly operating as a book for the two to be happy together. Not only do they have a daughter in that universe by way of Annie Parker, the three of them are a crimefighting family where Annie is Spiderling, and MJ gained powers of her own and became Spinneret. ”

STFU CBR.

a) EVERYONE knew RYV had a limited shelf life

b) RYV is about Peter and MJ are a superhero family, which is a cool concept but also not what a lot, probably even most Spider-Marriage fans want to see. They want to see Spider-Man with a non-powered MJ in the main 616 universe because that is the original real versions of the characters and that dynamic is innate to the inherent concept of Spider-Man as a relatively realistic guy

c) RYV places a lot of focus upon Annie, probably more than on Peter or MJ, especially after the time skip

d) NOBODY who loved RYV was going to simply accept it as a suitable substitute for 616 Spider-Man and MJ not being together. Because as much as we love RYV Peter and MJ those are not THE characters. The specifics of each version of each character carry different emotional investments for the readers. And Marvel knows this hence why they didn’t permanently replace the 616 Spider-Man with Miles Morales, just the other Peter Parker Spider-Man who sold less and had been around for a mere 10 years. It is also the reason why Spider Marriage fans didn’t just say “Oh well at least I still have Peter and MJ in USM and Spider-Girl’ after OMD

“Even if Renew ends and is considered no longer needed, it’s provided the most logical endgame with the best outcome one could think of. Doing that all over again in the 616 universe comes across as redundant and the only thing it really does is reduce the amount of Spider books on the market.”

This one is a real headscratcher.

RYV is not the logical endgame because MJ with powers is not the logical conclusion. Merely ONE conclusion.

FFS RYV isn’t even the same as Spider-Girl despite the premises being similar.

You can take the same broad ideas and do them suitably differently.

Like I dunno exploring the inner dynamics and ups and downs of a couple who do not have a kid?

Focussing mostly upon that as opposed to the kid and all three of them working out how to fight crime together.

Not to mention from this point to even get to RYV (even pre-time skip RYV) would take effing years. Peter and MJ just got back together but it’s a write off because we’ve already seen Peter and MJ with an 8 year old kid so fuck following the trajectory that might get us there?

What kind of nonsense is that?

CBR nonsense, that’s what.

Just like the ‘it will reduce the amount of books on the market’.

Well fuck dude we used to have FOUR Spider-Man books every goddam month about literally the same version of Spider-Man. then 10 years later we had 1 book about Marvel Adventures Spidey, 1 about a high school Spidey, 1 about Mary Jane, then 3 about an adult married Spider-Man.

I THINK we can be okay with a Spider-Man who’s dating or married to a normal woman and another one where he is married to a super powered version of that woman and they are raising their teenage super powered daughter FFS.

And even if we do unfortunately lose Renew Your Vows the argument of ‘we’d be losing a Spider book’ doesn’t even hold up THAT much because...WE ALREADY HAVE TOO MANY SPIDER BOOKS!

Amazing Spider-Man TWICE a month.

Spectacular Spider-Man

Miles Morales

Spider-Gwen

Venom

Scarlet Spider

And soon to come

Spider-Geddon

Spider Force

Spider-Girls

Yet more bullshit I’m sure.

Like I don’t want to lose RYV but dear God we’ve already got TOO MANY Spider books as is.

“And it may have been better for them both to just stay friends, or at least not jump into getting together again so amazingly fast.”

10 years isn’t amazingly fast bro.

So to sum up this article is hot trash that utterly failed to justify it’s own stupid title.

Or maybe it just chronically misspelled it’s own title. Who effing knows. But burn it with fire either way.

#amazing spider-man #feature #Spider-Man #cbr #Comic Book Resources #mjwatsonedit #mary jane watson #Mary Jane Watson Parker #one more day #dan slott #nick spencer #Black Cat #Mockingbird #Bobbi Morse #Felicia Hardy #Superior Spider-Man #spider-man renew your vows #Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows

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peaches-darlingg-blog · 6 years ago

Text

Everyday by David Levithan || Book Review

Book Review by Angelica Sasil

Book Summary

David Levithan introduces a love story about "A", a teen who wakes up every morning in a different body and living in a different person’s life.

There is no warning if,where it will be or who it will be. And tell himself Never get attached to anyone and Avoid being noticed.

One day, "A" wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin’s girlfriend, named Rhiannon. In that moment, "A" broke their promise to themselves that never attached to anyone but no longer apply. But "A" and Rhiannon find out that they fall in love to each other.”A” attemps to have relationship with rhiannon with using multiple bodies. That means “A” is truly loves Rhiannon.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David Levithan (born September 7, 1972) is an American young adult fiction author and editor.His first book, Boy Meets Boy, was published by Knopf Books for Young Readersin 2003.He has written numerous works featuring strong male gay characters, most notably Boy Meets Boy and Niomi and Elly's No Kiss List.

BORN

September 7, 1972

(age 46)

Short Hills, Millburn, New Jersey, United States

OCCUPATION:

Writer, editorNationalityAmericanEducation

BOOKS:

Novels

•10 Things I Hate About You (Junior novelization of the 1999 film) (1999) [6]

•Boy Meets Boy (2003)

•The Realm of Possibility (2004)

•Are We There Yet? (2005)

•Marly's Ghost: A Remix of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, illustrated by Brian Selznick (2005)

•Wide Awake (2006)

•How They Met (2008)

•Love is the Higher Law (2009)

•Will Grayson, Will Grayson, co-written with John Green (2010)

•The Lover's Dictionary (2011)

Every You, Every Me (2011)

Every Day (2012)

Invisibility, co-written with Andrea Cremer (2013)

Two Boys Kissing (2013)

Another Day (2015)

Hold Me Closer (2015)

You Know Me Well, co-written with Nina LaCour (2016)

Someday (2018)

With Rachel CohnEdit

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (2006)

Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List (2007)

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares (2010)

The Twelve Days of Dash & Lily (2016)

Sam & Ilsa's Last Hurrah (2018)

With David Ozanich and Chris Van EttenEdit

Likely Story (2008)

Likely Story: All That Glitters (2008)

Likely Story: Red Carpet Riot (2009)

Anthologies and novels edited

You Are Here, This is Now: The Best Young Writers and Artists in America: A Push Anthology (2002)

Friends: Stories about New Friends, Old Friends and Unexpectedly True Friends, ed. with Ann M. Martin (2005)

When We Are, What We See: A Push Anthology (2005)

The Full Spectrum: A New Generation of Writing About Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and Other Identities, ed. with Billy Merrell (2006)

21 Proms, ed. with Daniel Ehrenhaft (2007)

We Are Quiet, We Are Loud: The best young writers and artists in America: a Push anthology (2008)

How to Say Goodbye in Robot, a novel by Natalie Standiford (2009)

Short worksEdit

"The Alumni Interview" (2004), short story in Sixteen: Stories About That Sweet and Bitter Birthday, edited by Megan McCafferty[7]

"The Good Girls", essay in Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys, eds. Melissa De la Cruz and Tom Dolby (2007)

How They Met, and Other Stories (2008)

"A Word From the Nearly Distant Past" (2009), story in How Beautiful the Ordinary: Twelve Stories of Identity

"Quiz Bowl Antichrist", story in Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd (2009)

"The Skeleton Keeper", story in Bones: Terrifying Tales to Haunt Your Dreams(2010)

"Your Temporary Santa", story in My True Love Gave To Me: Twelve Holiday Stories, edited by Stephanie Perkins.

"Day 3196", a story about the character A(from the Every Day trilogy), first published in the National Book Store edition of Someday (2018)

ANALYSIS

A is the main character of this novel. A is also the first person narrator, so readers are experiencing everything A sees, feels, and experiences. A is neither defined as a male or female, because A is a soul that transfers from body to body every day, never knowing who he/she will wake up in next.

Rhiannon:

Rhiannon is a 16-year old girl who truly cares for her boyfriend Justin. She does whatever she can for him, that is until she meets A. Rhiannon first meets A when A is present in the body of Justin, however, she has no idea. Rhiannon is the only girl A has ever loved. Rhiannon becomes the first person to know who A really is, she discovers A's secrets and for awhile she is the only person to ever know "A". Rhiannon becomes very much attached to A and wants love to conquer all their problems so that she can actually just be with A not the body A takes over, just A and A alone.

Justin:

Justin is a 16-year old boy who lives with both parents. He does not share an intimate relationship with his parents or his girlfriend, Rhiannon. Rhiannon is completely head over heels for Justin, and goes out of her way to prove that she loves him. Sadly, Justin is a slacker boyfriend. He does not give Rhiannon the love, respect, and appreciation she deserves. Overall, Justin does not fulfill his role as boyfriend to Rhiannon. And that's where A steps in to show Rhiannon that she should stop settling for a subpar relationship with Justin.

Nathan Daldry:

"Nathan is a good guy. Everything in his room is in order. Even though it's only Saturday morning, he's already done his homework for the weekend. He's set his alarm for eight o'clock, not wanting the day to go to waste. He was probably in bed by ten" . Nathan starts off as a normal every day guy, fairly smart, not very social, but seems to be very much a gentlemen. That is until A takes Nathan to a party and is found on the side of the road. Afterwards he believes, "THE DEVIL MADE HIM DO IT, local boy, pulled over by police, claims demonic possession" . Suddenly, A has one guy wanting answers and Nathan is not willing to give up till he knows everything.

Kelsea Cook:

Kelsea is a girl who is dealing with dark thoughts and depression. She lives with her father. Her relationship with him is not the typical “daddy-daughter relationship.” Kelsea keeps a journal where she expresses her deepest feelings about her unhappiness and suicide. As a whole, Kelsea's character is trying to cope with thoughts of suicide and the will to stay alive.

Ashley Ashton:

Ashley is described as a 16 year old "knock-out", with a gorgeous face and the body of Beyonce. Based on A's accessing of her, Ashley's life is defined by her beauty. Ashley contributes as an important character to the story, because she provides A with the opportunity to show Rhiannon what Justin is really like with other girls. A and Rhiannon argue about whether Justin would cheat on Rhiannon if he knew Ashley. A attempts to use Ashley's beauty to create a rift between Rhiannon and Justin. However, this back-fires when Justin does not fall for Ashley's attempt to kiss him. Instead, a rift is created between A and Rhiannon. Ashley provides A with the "wakeup call" that even though Justin is a lousy boyfriend, he isn't willing to cheat on Rhiannon. The situation between Ashley (A), Rhiannon, and Justin also makes A realize that Rhiannon must end things with Justin on her own. A cannot use another girl to cause the breakup.

Reverend Poole:

At first a side-side-character, the Reverend Poole becomes a major focus at the end of the book when, with help from Nathan Daldry, Poole confronts A and discloses the secret that Poole also has A's talent, but is also capable of spending more than one day in a body. Poole offers to teach A the secret, but in the end A rejects the offer due to the moral consequences

Alexander Lin:

On the penultimate day of the book, A wakes up in the body of Alexander Lin, a boy who has a loving family, good friends, and loves to read. Because A feels such a strong connection to Alexander, he decides to introduce Rhiannon to Alex as a sort of substitute to himself.

OPINION

If I'm in A's situation his/her life will be very difficult to live or adjust with. Different faces and lifestyle every day for your whole life. You can not live the way you want especially without ruining the original owner of the body. You can't even fall in love with other people, regardless the gender.

In A's situation, there is a big problem on how can he/she love Rhiannon without abusing the person's body. He/she can't just permanently possess the body of others that will be selfish and unfair.

THESIS ARGUMENT

What the author has said is that he created this book for everyone to realize that every morning is important in our lives, so people can appreciate the blessings of our God and for others to think that every one has the different abilities that God gives us so we can not compare ourselves to others.Think, if you are "A" in real life is very difficult because you can not live the life you want,and you have to pretend someone else.

CONCLUSION

I'm interested in this book because of the difficulty of the main character by moving every day to another body and another face that is not fully known. A is a soul that transfers from body to body every day, never knowing who he/she will wake up in next.this is the most difficult situation I know because first of all, you do not know who you are, your real name or even your gender. Every day you need to go with the flow so you can not be picked up by othersAfter I read this book I think about how he or she will get his own body and how will his or her sufferings be ended? or what is the way to keep his/her soul in one body?

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fandom · 7 years ago

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Fandometrics compiled the year’s top meme tags, but we know that memes are so much more than the metadata we measured. To add some color to 2017’s meme culture, we invited Justin and Nick, the moderators of Meme Documentation (@memedocumentation), to contribute their expertise to Year in Review.

2017 in Memes

Life is fleeting. Life on the internet even moreso. Because of this, my friends and I launched Meme Documentation in 2015. It was a place to document the memes that became popular on Tumblr. We were committed—even checking the Tumblr at our high school prom. After a year of steadfast dedication, we decided to take 2016 to focus on our IRL instead of the URL. We found we missed the memes too much and came back with a vengeance this past year.

2017 has been an exciting year of memes on Tumblr. We saw the popularization of “oh, worm?”, discovered Tom Holland may or may not be hiding a frog in his mouth, and debated the origins of the distracted boyfriend meme. We also noticed that many of this year’s most popular memes had one thing in common: the concept of nostalgia.

The year of nostalgia

Memes are more than just jokes made on the Internet. They’re a way people can connect and feel a sense of belonging. 2017 has been...difficult. It seems many of us have felt the need to look back on simpler times, and the growth of nostalgia-heavy memes reflected that. The floor is lava meme reminds us of the popular childhood game of the same name. The Woody Collective, in its own strange way, calls back to the films we enjoyed as kids. Even songs from nearly a decade ago began to resurface as new memes.

In February 2017, 2008’s “Shooting Stars” by Bag Raiders began to get repurposed in video remixes. Typically, the song kicks in when a person or character flies into space.

Over the summer, the 2009’s “Fireflies” by Owl City transformed into a text-based meme that riffs on the line, “You would not believe your eyes if ten million fireflies.” You probably recognize one of the more well-known posts: “you would not believe your pants if ten million fire ants.”

The Elf on the Shelf meme offered up a double dose of nostalgia, melding the children’s picture book and toy of the same name with 2015’s meme “You’ve heard of Bigfoot, now get ready for Smallhand.”

Memes in the future

All good things must come to an end, and that includes @memedocumentation. We’re moving on in 2018. That doesn’t mean documenting memes has to be over. Anyone can do it. If you love a meme and want to remember it, consider documenting it yourself. Maybe even tag it #meme documentation.

And remember, if you’re ever feeling nostalgic, especially about the nostalgic memes, Meme Documentation’s documented memes from 2015 and 2017 will always be here for you.

<3, - Meme Documentation (@memedocumentation)

#year in review #meme documentation #tumblr2017 #guest post

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hiccoras-ismoving · 6 years ago

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so i stole this idea from @cherrysbcmb but here’s what all my muses are going as for halloween bc im unoriginal and bored

robin - a criminal (and he probably makes kyuhyun go as a cop) lane - a family costume as a beekeper, a honeycomb, and skylar is a bee julius - carmen sandiego rowan - rob kardashian avery - wolverine alex - edward cullen kitae - al capone, probably hideki - light yagami ashley - wolf dell - juliet from gnomeo and juliet romeo - gnomeo (he thinks he’s hilarious) harper - edward norton’s character in fight club (he probably makes jude go as tyler durden) eight - the team probably does a costume together sajak - a price is right contestant cassie - lara croft rory - the old guy from the american gothic painting payton - jimmy neutron kieran - he doesn’t dress up but he has fun scaring kids in the park suehiro - L (matching w hideki) christian - nearly headless nick adrian - moaning myrtle nona - nona & clarissa dress as each other salome - fiona goode tirzah - ursula from kiki’s delivery service ara / haneul - daphne + shaggy (matching w heeyoung + youngsoo) ben - sam from totally spies (matching w his boyfriends) april - hit-girl taesong - doesn’t celebrate halloween cody / october / november / december - don’t dress up, chill in their demon forms all day september - penguin basil - abraham mingi - flower fairy bean - scooby doo (matching w his family + ara/haneul) yunseo - boo radley isaac - the glass bones guy from spongebob noah - american tourist doyeon / tucker - bob belcher & jimmy pesto max - max & chloe go as each other dana - cher from clueless kate - wendy darling nathan - devil character justin - steve the minecraft guy woojin - jake peralta eliza - angel woori - bob pancakes

#this took.... forever

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popwasabi · 6 years ago

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“Crazy Rich Asians” Review: Support This Movie So I Can Stop Being Angry

Directed by Jon M. Chu

Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Gemma Chan, Awkwafina

“Crazy Rich Asians” might be the first film I’ve ever been nervous about seeing.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust that director Jon M. Chu would properly represent Asian Americans in a way most Hollywood films don’t but I found myself worried not about whether I would like the movie but whether others would. You see, in the theater full of mostly Asian people I saw it with there was a row of five middle-aged white people right in front of me and my mind immediately went to the gutter thinking “will these people laugh at anything that isn’t a stereotype in this movie?”

(White people be all like: “Why do Asians all look the same?”)

Obviously that’s an unfair assumption to make but Hollywood makes it for them all the time. Rarely producing films that give being Asian any nuance or depth beyond being smart, martial arts masters or more infuriatingly submissive enablers of a white protagonist over their own stories.

A part of me didn’t care about enjoying it so long as it made an impression on Hollywood and larger film-going audiences; I needed this film to succeed because it could mean so much more for representation and inclusion down the line.

Luckily, from what it looks like, the film is trending well and in the end managed to warm my cold dead heart with its whimsical rom-com charm, even if parts of it devolved into the predictable.

Based on the bestselling book by Kevin Kwan, “Crazy Rich Asians” follows the story of Rachel Chu as she and her boyfriend Nicholas Young travel to visit his family in Singapore for his brother’s wedding. Unbeknownst to her, Nick hasn’t been completely forthcoming about his family’s lifestyle and as it turns out he is part of the richest family in Southeast Asia. Now Rachel finds herself in a battle to establish herself in front of his matriarchal mother and prove to her that she’s worth it to Nick.

In writing this review over the last few days it’s been very hard to convey how I’ve felt about this film without going on an angry tangent about Asian representation as a whole in popular cinema. It’s pretty much impossible for me not to talk about it so I’m going to try to talk about this as briefly as possible before I get into the film itself and where it stands personally for me.

(Me trying to avoid writing 10,000 words of pent up rage over the first couple drafts..)

There have definitely been better movies to come out, even in recent years, about the Asian/Asian American experience in the west and more than a few starring all Asian casts, writers and directors. Last year’s, much smaller film, “Gook” for instance gets much more personal about race and the ugliness of society.Even as far as comedies go “Seoul Searching” (which is on Netflix) is a funnier more relatable take on the issues and themes raised in this movie.

(Also, if you didn’t know already, Justin Chon is a GREAT actor and needs to be in more movies. Or at least directing them.)

But as many in the media have pointed out already, this is historic in that it’s the first MAJOR film of this kind since “Joy Luck Club” and to finally have a film featuring this type of cast, director and story with big corporate backing is huge for representation whether you find the film underwhelming or not.

Over the last couple years, whitewashing has become a more recognized topical issue in Hollywood than ever before as Asian American audiences are speaking up more loudly about problematic casting and writing choices that Hollywood and apologists find all kinds of excuses for. Despite plenty of evidence to support otherwise that “bankable” stars don’t guarantee box office draws and that Asian Americans are the largest movie-going demographic per-capita in the country, Hollywood still will place relatively unknown white actors in lead roles on huge box office productions (look at the history of Hollywood trying to make Armie Hammer a thing) while simultaneously telling people like myself that people who look like me can’t be mainstream draws.

If for nothing else, cast more Asian Americans because it’s the right thing to do. The representation and inclusion is waaay overdue and if I have to hear “Just make your own movie” or “People from (insert Asian country here) don’t care” one more God damn time I will tear my fucking hair out! Kevin Kwan had to FIGHT to keep the role of Rachel Chu in this movie Asian and Asians from the mainland and Asians in America, or more broadly in the West, don’t have the same lived in experiences. Not even close!

(Me failing often to maintain my decorum in polite company when these topics are brought up...)

One of the weirdest and most shocking revelations I had coming out of this film is that it was one of the only films I could recall seeing an Asian couple engaging with each other romantically in a Hollywood film for more than five minutes at a time ever. That’s. Fucking. Nuts!

I hope that with the commercial and critical success of this movie what’s left of the skeptics will come around finally (especially the ones in Hollywood) and stop with the dismissiveness. They probably won’t but hey maybe it’ll shut them up for a while at least…

(It gets me through this shit...)

Anyways, now that I’m (mostly) done ranting, as far as the movie goes this is a solid date-night romantic comedy that I’m sure everyone regardless of background can enjoy.

“Crazy Rich Asians” is fairly predictable, albeit with some minor twists, but it still manages to tell a story we’re all pretty familiar with in a unique and often dazzling way.

The first thing that pops out immediately about this film is its visuals as the movie displays a wide array of hues and colors that make the cinematography and the literal richness of the plot truly pop. Its visual eye-candy in the best way, even if it comes across as shallow at times, and if nothing else will keep your eyes glued to the screen as the films moves through its lush scenery.

The soundtrack also helps highlight this between the pop songs and Cantonese renditions of them and director Jon Chu does a great job of splicing it all in together with this group of characters and making their performances even brighter through it.

The cast is the true strength of the film, of course, featuring multiple well-known Asian actors and actresses as well as a few newcomers, who I hope breakout in Hollywood through this film. Constance Wu is delightful, sassy and strong-willed as Rachel Chu and helps shed the stereotype of the meek and submissive Asian women in this story by standing up for herself and not hinging her existence on a man, even one she loves. On the other side of things Henry Golding looks every bit like a star in the making and is charming as Nick Young (even if he is a bit of a Gary Stu character) while also smashing stereotypes about asexuality and unattractiveness in Asian men himself. The two of them have great chemistry onscreen and make a very believable romantic couple and it’s hard, even for an eternal cynic like me, to not be like “Awwwww true wuuuuuv” while watching their romance play out.

(*sniff* It’s so extra yet it’s so beautiful ;_;... *sobs at the extra-ness of the romance*)

There’s a hilarious cast of characters who support Wu and Golding alongside them as well. The always enjoyable Awkwafina plays up her role as the funny best friend very well, the Daily Show’s Ronny Chiang gets in some nice quips and Ken Jeong plays the perverted weirdo perfectly.

The indomitable Michele Yeoh does a great job as the menacing matriarch Eleanor Young but manages to keep it from getting too cliché as the writing adds some nice shades of grey to the character. Her love, even if misguided, is well acted alongside Golding and the two make for an interesting mother/son dynamic that I’m sure plenty will be able to relate to.

The real surprise star, and honestly the most interesting part of the story, actually comes from English actress Gemma Chan who plays Nick’s cousin Astrid. The sub plot involving Astrid and her husband sets up a unique and powerful message about the give and take in relationships and its reflection upon femininity and masculinity. Chan puts in a short but nonetheless thoughtful and sincere performance here and I look forward to seeing more of her in the sequel and hopefully other major film productions.

(That look you give when someone tells you a film starring a dozen or so Asian actors and actresses can’t be a huge box office success)

The film doesn’t have many profound things to say otherwise, it’s again a fairly by the numbers rom-com with a heavy dosage of opulence porn and not to mention some problematic elements, but the one message I hope white audiences take from this film, other than everything I mentioned earlier *gets back on soapbox*, comes from Rachel’s mother at the very beginning of the film.

In the lead up to Nick and Rachel’s big Singapore trip Rachel’s mother warns her about what people of the mainland will think of her when they see her. She states that she may look Chinese and speak Cantonese but, pointing to her heart, they see her as American.

This speaks to a lot of what growing up in this country feels like sometimes for us Asian Americans. That despite many of us being three or four generations deep now in this country we’re seen as foreigners and people from “our country” see us the same way. It’s a deep struggle for our identities and the perpetual foreigner syndrome is a real issue for many of us. Yes, as adults it’s easier for us to shake these insults and micro aggressions but that doesn’t mean it’s still not fucking annoying. Hopefully when white film-goers see this scene they begin to understand that we are as much Americans as anyone else and that seemingly harmless but nonetheless insulting comments like “no, where are you really from” need to be done away with.

(”Where are you from?”---->”Oh I’m from LA.”----> “No, I mean where are you from?”---> “Uhhh California?”----> “No where are you really from?”----> “The United States?...”----> “No where are you REALLY from?”--->*me^*)

I won’t stand here and tell you that Asian Americans have had it worse in this country than other minorities but stereotypes and poor cultural representation, or lack thereof, does contribute to a wide array of issues for us and hopefully this film helps hammer away those regressive viewpoints.

TL;DR “Crazy Rich Asians” is a good date movie and, if nothing else, support this movie so I can go on less rants about Hollywood shitting on Asian Americans.

It may be, at least on the surface, a pretty straight forward romantic comedy but its little nuances and unique commentary on this demographic of people (Even if it talks about a small section of it) makes it a film worth supporting.

Hopefully in the future this film will feel pretty ordinary as representation and inclusion become more accessible things for not just Asian Americans but for people of all backgrounds but until then this is a nice, waaaay past-due, coming out party for Asians across this country and abroad.

VERDICT:

4 out of 5

*Me awaiting the inevitable “Well actually...” comments that’ll come from this review*

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