#The lyrics are occasionally fun (in 1/3 songs so far lol) but the production is so lame and inert

[timetravelstudies]

LIBERATO flopped M¥SS KETA flopped and me i feel also not so good

[altraes]

Tagged by @avenger-hawk @renamon15 and @koukenkage . Thank you :)

Rules: Answer the 11 questions you were asked, write 11 questions and tag 11 people.

(this is going to be long, sorry)

Questions by avenger-hawk:

1. What’s your favourite book? The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Siddartha by Hermann Hesse. Lord of the Flies by William Golding. Russian Roulette by Anthony Horowitz. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson. A Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde.

2. What’s your dream job? Becoming a sustainable and/or preservation architect. Want to be able to make artworks and write preferably fiction (and fanfiction XD) on the side.

3. Favourite and least favourite food? Favorite: Apples. least favorite: bitter pickles

4. What’s the thing you like the most about yourself? These days, nothing really.

5. And what’s the thing you hate the most about yourself? Ah, many things. I’m under-confident and indecisive. I mostly make decisions based on my feelings rather than logic and practicality, which is not smart at all but I can’t help it. I’m reluctant and wary of change. I am slow and absent-minded. Etc etc

6. If you could go back in time what era or moment in time (both general and in your life) would you choose? @renamon15 same. I’d like to go back to my childhood and live life with the mindset I’ve gained till now.

7. If you had the chance to get to know one thing that has been hidden so far, what would that be? (like are aliens real? or conspiracies or gods or whatever lol) All the mysteries that comprise the deep sea. Not helpful for me in any way but I’ve always been intrigued by it and find it surprising how little we know.

8. How many languages do you speak? Is there a language you’d like to know? Four (not completely fluent in speaking two of these). I’d love to learn French, Japanese and Russian.

9. What’s your favourite music genre/artist/artists? These days I only listen to indie music, soft rock, jazzhop, asian-traditional fused with modern. I listen to the occasional song too. And I don’t have particular favorite artists or bands etc, it really depends on the songs/music and my mood.

10. What’s your favourite word? I don’t know ^^’ I don’t really think about this, mostly because it changes with my mood too.

11. What’s your favourite quote? “When we hit our lowest point, we are open to the greatest change” by Aang in The Legend of Korra. (there are many others but that’s the first one that came to mind.)

 Questions by renamon15:

1. Is there a song that describes you, or song you can relate to? Stay in the Dark by Lambert. I’m not sure if it describes me or it’s something that I relate to, but I find it soothing.

2. Your first pet? (If you didn’t have a pet, did you wish to have one?) It was a goldfish named Poly, lol. I want to have a sassy/curious cat and a chill af dog.

4. Is there something you liked in the past, but you regret it now? I used to read more in the past, nowadays I don’t read as much, which I regret.

5. Is there something bad/embarrassing that happened to you, but you laugh about it today? Uh, I forgot to lock the door when I was showering and my mom walked in on me ^///^’. THANKFULLY IT WASN’T MY DAD OR ANYONE ELSE. It still makes me cringe to this day. I’m often absent-minded so ^^’

6. One guilty pleasure? I like to stay up very late. I really try not to, but it’s when I’m most productive in terms of writing and drawing.

7.How do you reward yourself after accomplishing something big/important? Any among these things: have ice-cream, watch a movie or anime/TV show, take a walk if it’s a nice day. Start a book (if I have the time).

9. One dream you can’t forget (like one that was really scary or pleasant, or one that for some other reason stayed engraved in your head)? It’s disturbing that I sometimes see nightmares as if I’m watching horror movies. I see people I’ve never seen/met before and places I’ve never been to. I see creatures and events that flit by one scene after the other in quick succession. They’re terrifying and very vivid. I usually wake up screaming and with sleep paralysis. Till now I’ve seen three of such distinctly horrific dreams and have even written them down, but I don’t think I will post them anywhere. (I think I watch too much horror movies lol.)

10. Favorite game from your childhood? Hide and seek :)

11. If you could be possessed by someone, dead or alive, or even fictional, who would you like to be possessed by? No one? I find the idea of possession kind of weird. Also, idk why anyone would want to possess me lol.

 Questions by koukenkage:

1. What did you want to become as a grown up when you were a child? A vet. That changed when I learnt I would have to see sick animals all the time and I realised I wouldn’t be able to handle it ^^’

2. Is there a big dream that you had to give up to achieve your goals? Do you regret it? I don’t think I’ve given up any big dream. Right now I’m doing what I enjoy so I’m satisfied.

3. Is there a book/a movie that you’ve loved but couldn’t read or watch again? Citizen: an American Lyric by Claudia Rankine. I had a love-hate relationship with this book. It’s about racism faced by African Americans in America, and of course, I sympathize. However, the book is too serious and intense - it’s stressful. Of course, I suppose it’s supposed to impart such feelings, but still. The best thing about it, however, is her writing style: it’s one of the most unique I’ve come across - a blend of imagery, script and poetry along with dialogues between various photographs and artworks. It’s really an inspiration. But yes, would never read again, sorz Claudia.

4. If you could be someone else for 24 hours, who would that be? Can I be a happy eight-year-old kid thank you.

5. You can get your dream job in exchange for ten years of your life, do you accept? Nope. Time and youth is precious, I’d rather work and study the ten years to get my dream job. In the ten years lost, I feel like I’d miss out on a lot of things.

6. A meteorite is to destroy the earth in 24h, what do you do for dinner tonight? Be home with my family but they’re across the globe so this question stresses me D:

7. You can revive one human being, no matter how long ago they died, who do you choose? Someone of your family? Siddhārtha Gautama? Homer? Shakespeare? Jesus christ? Be wild (or not). Van Gogh. So that he’d get to see how much his art inspires people now. Poor guy was depressed most of his life and his art career was unsuccessful. I’m sure there are lots of artists/writers/activists etc whose works and deeds became appreciated only posthumously. Let them see that they touched people’s lives.

8. You can make one thing disappear from existence, what do you choose? (It has to be something concrete, not a concept, like the flue is okay, but not the concept of disease.) Mosquitoes lol

9. You wake up in the body of Quasimodo, what is your first thought? If we’re really talking about first thoughts then: I AM IN PARIS FFFF I WANT TO TOUR EVERYWHERE.

10. You are going on an adventure of unknown nature, but you are allowed to choose a fictional character to accompany you, who are you going to choose and why? Shisui. Because he’s intelligent and strong so my potato brain and unathletic body can rely on him ^^’. He’s also wonderfully optimistic and has a good sense of humor so he’d make the journey fun too.

11. You fall deeply in love with someone, then realize that this person has done something horrible that goes against all your principles, and you know that you’ll think of it every time you see them. What do you do? I wouldn’t be able to look at them the same way, but I’d be willing to give them a second chance for redemption (everyone deserves this I think). If even that doesn’t work out, sorry. It would have to end. This is all in theory, of course.

My questions:

1. When you’re most depressed, what do you do/think about to cheer yourself up?

2. What are some things you’ve touched that grant you immediate comfort/happiness? (i know, it’s a weird qt, lel)

3. What is one quality in someone that you’ve found really admirable and why?

4. What is one profession you’d like to practice instead of the one you’re working towards/working in?

5. One wondrous/disturbing/interesting memory or imagery from your childhood that you remember vividly.

6. Early bird or night owl?

7. If you could teleport, where would you choose to go first?

8. One good gesture you did today?

9. One thing you’ve regretted doing in the past and can’t get over it even now?

10. One superpower you’d like to have and why?

11. What’s the last book/movie/show/play etc you indulged in that strongly affected you (as in emotionally or made you reflective)?

Tagging: @avenger-hawk @renamon15 @koukenkage (please, only if you want to ofc) @tsukiko-hibiki @littleunknowncrow @konohagakureship (also if you want to)

and anyone else who’d want to do this :)

[prixmiumarchive]

Rosemary, Verbena, Winona :D

Rosemary: what cartoons did you grow up with?

I watched reruns of things that came on Cartoon Network mostly. The first show I remember really “discovering” that had a major impact on my life was the Sailor Moon dub. After that, it was Digimon which was the first show I had Higher Than Original Rating headcanons for. The Lion King was the first film I saw in theaters and I was really into it.

Verbena: playlist for your life? 

Wow this is an ambitious question. I guess I’ll go with things that have been most important lately? Other than the DCTV and Expanse OSTs which I listen to a lot. I’m gonna pick like 10 in no particular order.

1. Hoodie - Hey Violet - I’m obsessed with this song for some reason? My friend @thethirteenthhouse​ made me this great playlist of music recs recently, and I got to this one and just listened to it like 200 times this month. I’d heard of the band before, but listening to this song made me start listening to that album a lot. Also, like fuck, the aesthetic of their music videos gets to me (although I don’t know why because it feels very idealized high-school-y at times and I am sort of horrified by high school now more than I was as a teenager lol). Link to the video.

Favorite Lyric: I can’t keep your love / I can’t keep your kiss / Gave you everything and all I got was this --

2. Praying - Kesha - I already talked about this song in my last ask from this ask meme. I just fell in love with this song the first time I heard it, and it has never faded. I just think it is such a powerful and important message about forgiveness and moving on and what to do if what something did to you was unforgivable. It is beautiful because it never equivocates about what it’s about, and the way Kesha performs it is just so raw and honest. It reminds me of several fictional characters I love which is often high on my criteria list for reasons to like something, but this song is also deeply personal for me.

I guess I talk about it less than I used to, but a lot of my life story so far (and, you know, more uncomfortably what feels like a lack of one) stems from the aftermath of a very short-lived but life-altering and worldview-shattering relationship with a boy in high school. Then more recently, the first hope I’d had of that kind of realigning itself and healing in terms of a romantic prospect was pretty casually and quietly shattered in a way that, in some sense, hurts more badly than abuse and coercion at the hands of what I now recognize was a disturbed and neglected teenager. I’m angrier about this more recent experience even if it was technically “less” abusive. It was a stronger break in trust that was negotiated and given, so I’m still this boiling kind of pissed off when I think about it, which is a mood I think really shines in this song and its performance.

This song just.... grapples with this really complicated feeling of caring about someone who abused you but learning to do so in a way that is no longer justifying, no longer equivocating, no longer excusing, and no longer hoping that it will ‘get better’ with you in the picture. It is acknowledging that you have a right to your experience and to tell whatever truth about it you want because you know the truth and won’t let them trick you out of your own perception anymore. It acknowledges that maybe you loved this person, maybe you currently love or currently hate them, but you can still find a way - either way - to wish the best for them and not to let a wish for vengeance make you bitter. This song is bitter and vengeful, but it is also triumphant. The revenge it seeks is simply in being honest about an experience and the person someone currently is. It doesn’t demonize or dehumanize the abuser, which might seem like a kindness undeserved, but it is an important kindness for the sake of one’s own humanity and one’s own perception of other people going forward. It doesn’t let the person get a cop-out because they were a monster. It doesn’t let them hide behind a boogie-man mask. It lashes out in a way that is perhaps even more frowned upon because it doesn’t excuse a person’s (or a man’s, let’s be honest about the context but it could apply to women too) villainous and wicked actions because of something innate to them which cannot be changed. It allows for the possibility of forgiveness, for change, and therefore insists that it is the abuser’s job to take responsibility and to change their ways, and at the same time it does not place the onus on the abused to be the one who enacts or grants that forgiveness. It just just one of the most powerful things I’ve ever heard on coping with being an abuse survivor of abuse that, at the time, felt voluntary or asked-for, and I love it with all my heart. It will probably be one of my favorite songs forever. This video is also the bomb.

Favorite Lyric #1: I’ll bring thunder / I’ll bring rain / When I’m finished, they won’t even know your name

Favorite Lyric #2: Sometimes, I pray for you at night / Someday, may you’ll see the light / Oh, some say in life you’re gonna get what you give / But some things only God can forgive

3. Break My Heart - Hey Violet (again, sorry for patterns) - This song feels like a silly favorite when I’m not in the right mood for it. It’s a break-up song, so the literal interpretation of the lyrics is pretty exclusively for fictional characters for me, but it also feels like this song that speaks to a certain kind of frustration and anger that I feel sometimes that it touches in a way that other songs don’t. It’s cathartic. It’s fun and sort of punk-pop-y in a way that makes me feel like I’m letting it out without hurting anything.

Personally, I can’t help that it reminds me of a relationship that was more platonic than romantic but which was really complicated and blurry for a while, then was nonexistent. This relationship has since healed back into something that is kind of doable. I’m glad it didn’t end forever, but I also fear that it’ll never feel as big and real as it once did. I love the person I’m talking about dearly, but it’s still a part of my history in the past couple of years that also colors my emotional health and worldview, so yeah. Also the night I realized we were probably going to have to let Rudy go back (which we did), I listened to this song over and over to block out or at least buffer the absolute tidal wave of misery that seemed relentless a few weeks ago.

On a relating-it-to-characters or just aspirational things for myself, I also think that it’s really cool that it sort of has this dissonance between its sound and its content. It also seems like it has a speaker/singer who’s not being entirely honest with the person she’s addressing. It has this very puffed-up kind of vibe that seems a little childish, endearing, defiant attitude of “Well fine, if you want to go ahead,” that is clearly not entirely genuine but that is no less a little bit brave. Even the ways in which this attitude seems doomed when looked at from an objective and calm standpoint are part of what make it a bit precious. Basically, it’s this steeling oneself, ripping the bandaid off, fake-it-til-you-make-it anthem for me and fictional people whose angst I find cathartic. Also this is the video that made me think all of Hey Violet’s stuff was probably not for People My Age, but I still love it. Kind of has this Sofia Coppola vibe to me without all her bullshit? That heart-shaped pinata and the baseball bat bit is like one of my favorite Aesthetic things I’ve seen ever. Also I love how she literally looks like she’s sobbing sometimes and it matches up with the sound of her vibrato.

Favorite Lyric: It’s like a test, it’s like a game / To see how much I can take / I’m curious to live and learn / So light me up and let me burn / Tell me you’ve never loved me / Tell me that it wasn’t real / Just say you found somebody else / I want to know the way it feels / Tell me you’ve never loved me / Tell me it was just a lie / I want to feel the pain / I want to see the light

4. Fuqboi - Hey Violet (let’s finish with them I guess, haha) - This song needs to be required listening/reading for every single girl on the planet who is even slightly romantically oriented toward boys/men. It is hilarious, but it has some really stinging truths about boys/men who are the products of their culture/toxic masculinity/etc. It’s really fun to feel like you’re insulting and condemning the right subsection of men without writing off men who are willing to grow, learn, empathize, and feel unfairly in a way that only furthers a stereotype and agenda of painting men as heartless and entirely useless and incapable of the previously-listed things. That kind of “misandry” literally has become, in my opinion, almost a movement that does only deepen the mire of toxic masculinity. This, however, is exactly the right type of #misandry that is cathartic and beautiful and fun. A lyric video here that maybe contains one or two errors.

Favorite Lyric: There’s this cute guy down my street / I always wanted to meet / So I went creeping around on his socials / In all the selfies he takes, his head is tilted the same / Oh yeah, and his favorite hashtag is #beastmode

5. She Used to be Mine - Sara Bareilles - This song is much more melancholy than the songs on this list so far. It’s hopeful but kind of feels a bit more like a self-pity song. That’s not to say that the lyrics themselves are self-pitying in their conclusion. Lately, my job is kind of hurting me, and my best friend’s job worries me on her behalf, so I really relate to it even though the Waitress references occasionally make it highly specific. It also is a really beautiful song, I think, about the transition between being, like, in your early 20s and feeling enchanted by adulthood and the challenges of it even if they hurt and then getting in your late-20s and beyond and feeling a little bit afraid of the loss of youth and stuff. Here’s a lyric video. 

Favorite Lyric: It’s not easy to know / I’m not anything like I used to be / Although it’s true / I was never attention’s sweet center / But I still remember that girl / She’s imperfect, but she tries / She is good, but she lies / She is hard on herself / She is broken and won’t ask for help / She is messy, but she’s kind / She is lonely most of the time / She is all of this mixed up and based in a beautiful pie / She is gone, but she used to be mine

The songs after the above on this list are less deeply personal (and Hoodie just is because I feel it so viscerally even though I don’t super relate to it - maybe it’s envy of people who can) and more, like, “this reminds me of a fandom thing” right now or “this sounds cool” so the tone will change.

6. Haunted Heart - WILD - Some random song I found on spotify that is #reylo and several other shippy vibes. It’s more ambient than anything else, but it can literally apply to a lot o fictional relationships we obsess over. Lyric video.

Favorite Lyric: As the shadows dance across the room / I pretend that in the dark it’s you / It’s all I have

7. Go - Grimes ft. Blood Diamonds - Honestly this song has been lowkey in my head for days, and I wanted an excuse and reminder to listen to it again. I just recently fell down another fiction/fandom rabbit hole in The Expanse, and the only part I could hear in my head was the chorus before the dub-steppy drop, but my brain for some reason was summoning and suggesting it as a song that would fit my vibe about this show. Sure enough, I am feeling it for The Expanse, and it makes me wish I could still make fanvids. The actual verse lyrics are more Miller @/Julie than anything else I’ve seen so far, so if you ship that a lot then maybe this is even more your song for this than it is mine, but for me what I like about it is the sense of this personal connection being very important but kind of interrupted by all of this noise. Maybe that’s me reading too much into the design of the song, but I love that the chorus cuts itself off until its last repetition. “When I go can I go with--” and then finally “--you?” Audio video here.

I don’t need to do a favorite lyric because it’s got so few but it’s the way they parse “When I go can I go with you?” through the music.

8. Let Me Go - Hailee Steinfeld, Alesso (ft. Florida Georgia Line) - I honestly feel a bit conflicted by how much I like this song given that it’s got heavy involvement from bro-country artists Florida Georgia Line, but I like what I like. As far as an association goes, it’s like my sort of heartbreaking Lauriver song honestly. I really like the idea that they could have been happy together, might’ve been soulmates in another world as is implied, but that it’s sort of irrevocably fractured in DCTV Earth 1. Now, if only they had let me have that, Olicity, and Merlance, I would have been happy forever. Lyric video.

Favorite Lyric: Chased that high too far, too fast / Picket white fence but we paint it black

9. The Night We Met - Lord Huron - The first time I saw some lyrics to this song it was on this edit for this sort of maybe American Civil War Era fandom I have never identified or known what the heck it was. But when I saw them, I had to know what this song was, and I knew we’d be in love forever. And indeed, I love this song. It’s just so simple and sort of that new-folksy thing that my kind of a hipster ass loves. I love it for fandom and shippy reasons because it touches on one of those hard-to-quantify and only slightly less-hard-to-qualify things that I love fanfiction and headcanon to tackle. That thing is this messy, awful (and awesome - we’re focusing on the word awe here, sublimnity) feeling that comes from having loved someone in an intimate, sexual way but then watching that totally and completely vulnerable bond erode into something where you can no longer touch that person in any sense of the word. It’s a terrible topic full of angst but it’s so much a human thing that happens and I love it. (Of course, in my fanfiction and roleplay and shit, I want it fixed, but give me all of it.) It also does that thing with unconventional but technically comprehensible syntax that I love.

Favorite Lyric: Take me back to the night we met / And then I can tell myself what the hell I’m supposed to do / And then I can tell myself not to ride along with you / I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you / Take me back to the night we met

10. Ophelia - The Lumineers - On the topic of folksy-or-something feeling music that feels like it’s touching on weird, underbelly human emotions that no one knows how to describe or wrestle with, there’s this song. It is one of those songs that makes you want to dance in the rain life throws at you. It sounds happy or melancholy depending on when you’re listening to it and what you’re bringing to it, and that is probably why it has been on Spotify’s “Your Top Songs” compilation it makes for me at year’s end for two years in a row. And gosh the instrumentation. I know nothing about instrumentation technically speaking, but gosh. It feels like going to church, driving down a country road, being in a bar, and crying your heart out in a bathtub all at once. This is probably the most playlist-for-life song on here because it is just really one of those songs that it feels like you could carry in your pocket to soundtrack a lot of moments in your life when you’re quiet, observant, and just paying attention to it. It’s not really about anything, but it kind of feels like it’s about everything. Lyric video.

Favorite Lyric: And I don’t feel nothing at all / And you can’t feel nothing small

Winona: favorite quote? 

I actually answered this one earlier, but let’s see if I can come up with another answer. My friend @morethanprinceofcats​ did a cute thing I forgot to do where she talked about text posts that come to her mind and sort of get stuck in her head, and I’ve got those too.

One I really should refer to more often is this one: http://burninglianyu.tumblr.com/post/169380411461/angel-ani-setheverman-what-is-the-january

And for the part of me that occasionally wants to become a surreal, non-human entity that dwells in the space before the alarm clock goes off and never has to move past it, this one: http://burninglianyu.tumblr.com/post/167821073666/sarah531-the-first-time-i-ever-heard-take-me-to

Oh, and I have no idea how it didn’t come to mind earlier but, like, the entire novel Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov? I always feel like there is a certain kind of shame-narrative attached to genuinely liking that book. Sometimes it’s for good reason like people who are using it to romanticize CSA beyond what the book already does as a means of justification. However, when I think the text is really read honestly and compassionately it does a lot of those things that I was saying above the song “Praying” does for me. It does so in absolutely gorgeous prose that certainly is worthy of a murderer with a fancy prose style.

I think I love it because of the way it shows the villain as protagonist and gives him this beautiful way with words that forces you to understand his point of view while conscience and even the foreword charges you never to condone it. I also think that its aesthetic quality and attention to detail of, I guess, mid-century (1900s) America and the trappings of suburbia and the places that live alongside interstates just enchants me. There’s something about that part of the description that reminds me of feeling some kind of visceral mix of pleasure and discomfort that comes from just existing in the summertime for me on a day spent outside. It reminds me of something and some time I lived through in the last 90s that I think has since passed into oblivion -- the experience of living in an America before the internet and cell phones’ prevalence or something. Suburban anonymity and the creepiness of that but also the strange, transient beauty of plastic, neon, and trying to get anywhere in a car across this absurdly big country.

The quote that came to mind this time was this one (warning for mention of child sexual abuse):

We had been everywhere. We had really seen nothing. And I catch myself thinking today that our long journey had only defiled with a sinuous trail of slime the lovely, trustful, dreamy, enormous country that by then, in retrospect, was no more to us than a collection of dog-eared maps, ruined tour books, old tires, and her sobs in the night — every night, every night — the moment I feigned sleep. 

Basically it just encapsulates that vibe I was talking about for me except, of course, for the banal horror of that list item.

Also, pairing the words “rust and stardust.”