#The other Every Single Album bit I was fascinated by

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

I've also been thinking a lot about closeted pop stars (including Harry) in the time of Chappel Roan. Mostly unformed thoughts but very eager to see what's next for all of them

You sent this a while back anon - and I keep thinking of answering it and each time what 'in the time of Chappell Roan' has shifted slightly and so my answer has got more complicated and the fundamental differences between Chappell Roan and Harry have become more obvious.

I think there's an emotional landscape question about what it means to be a closeted pop star in this moment. I don't know if we can imagine the complexity of this answer - and when we try it's important to include the push back against the fan gaze that is coming from queer artists.

The other side of this question is what it means for his career. And here I think it's worth asking what does it mean that Harry is going to be making pop music in this moment. It's been a time of these massive, interesting, female pop acts. All of whom in their own particular ways say something about themselves and something about pop with their art. It's been a time that Taylor Swift, who has baked cookies for her fans in the past, has told fans to fuck off in songs.

None of this is very Harry Styles. One of the things that has been really interesting to me watching the pop landscape shift this year - is that has really made me define what Harry does. These are I think the key elements to his proposition:

With each album he has had a very big song that spoke to the moment we're in

His aesthetic is striking, interesting and playful (thanks Harry L - but also thanks to hiring strong artists with a point of view for key tasks such as album photography)

In his music there's a lot of space for people to project onto, with particular space for fantasies

The core of the fantasy is the live show and its place of joy

And certainly there's a huge gap between that - and what we've been seeing from other artists recently.

I was listening to a recent episode of Every Single Album and Nora and Nathan were talking about Harry Styles for a while (I can't remember which one and would welcome pointers, because it's not clear from the episode description). And Nathan in particular was suggesting that Harry would need to think carefully about how he presented himself in this space and it wouldn't be enough to be projected onto - he needed to share something of himself. Here Dua Lipa is used as sort of a cautionary tale of what happens if you don't have enough Lore.

It's not that I entirely disagree. I think there's a lot that Harry address in his music that would be thrilling, if he was interested in sharing. When you think of songs like 'But Daddy I love him' or the 'Girl, So Confusing' remix - and imagine what would happen if Harry was interested in playing even near that playground - that's something I'd look forward to. I also think the most effective way to address the way people do and don't talk about his sexuality - would be a song that had an element of fuck you in it.

But I think there are multiple dangers here - and not having enough lore is only one of them. I also think there's a worry of losing what people want from you, by trying to be what people love in other people. (I think this, far more than anything, has been Katy Perry's problem. She's trying and failing to be a more relevant version of herself - but she'd be far more relevant if she'd kept doing what people love from her.

I really think the 'if he's interested in sharing' is the key point. If he has any interest in writing any music that comments on his life in a way that is intelligible to listeners - then I think there's real potential. But I think nothing could be more fatal than doing it for the lore.

To come back to Chappell Roan - I just listened to the popcast episode about touring, and read Jon Caramanica's review of Chappell Roan's show in Tennessee. In that he compares the show with the on-line discourse - and basically argues that the way forward, the way to build a career that matters - is to ignore the people who want to talk about you and focus on those who want to be part of the collective experience when you make music.

I hope that this, more than anything else, is the message that Harry takes forward. If he has anything to say, then I'm all for him saying it (although I think the response to Chappell clearly shows that people don't really want popstars to say things). But I think the most important thing for his career will be him continuing to do what he does well.

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

tuesday again 2/13/2024

writing cover letters like "Market Research Firm 953989464860, will YOU be my Valentine?"

also, a fallout 4 femslash fic for femslash feb

listening

Fresh Blood by the Eels off their 2009 album Hombre Loco. i would say this is another "i think a vampire probably wrote this low, grooving track" but there are several howls featured. wikipedia says it is about a werewolf. this song sounds like it has a simple bassline and simple drums but it knows what it's about. it's probably secretly really complicated but i specced in knowing about fabric, not about music.

it makes me want to ice skate really fast and also sounds like watching broken highway lane dividers go by late at night. fascinating that the back half of the four-plus minute song is fully instrumental. definitely a song for when you are traveling, or perhaps proceeding. spotify

Sun down on the sorry day By nightlights the children pray I know you're probably gettin' ready for bed Beautiful woman get out of my head I'm so tired of the same old crud Sweet baby I need fresh blood

i've been mainlining The Black Keys' album Brothers so it makes sense this popped up on my Discover Weekly spotify playlist

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reading

in 2015, the year i dropped out of college, the closest comic/weird nerd shit store was a forty minute drive from my house. i bought the first issue of the serialized anthology comics magazine The Island bc i liked the Moebius-esque cover by Brandon Graham, before i knew who either of those artists were or that i liked them. i think it was ten bucks, and having to show my drivers' license really sticks in my brain for some reason. the point i am slowly approaching is that the magazine only ran for fifteen issues, and i didn't buy any other copies bc ten bucks a month was too dear for me, but it was a tremendous incubator for artists i would end up loving. about half the time i stumble across a lovely self-contained book that knocks my socks off i find out it started life in The Island.

All his life, Hank Cho wanted to join the ranks of the Habsec—the rulers of the orbital habitat his people call home. But when he finds a powerful, forbidden weapon from the deep past, a single moment of violence sets his life—and the brutal society of the habitat—into upheaval. Hunted by the cannibalistic Habsec and sheltered by former enemies, Cho finds himself caught within a civil war that threatens to destroy his world. A new barbarian sci-fi adventure by SIMON ROY (PROPHET, JAN'S ATOMIC HEART, Tiger Lung), originally serialized in ISLAND MAGAZINE.

Simon Roy's Habitat asks: do you want to hear a story about a generation ship gone wrong? this is a guy who really knows how to draw mechs and all their fiddly bits and loves doing it, which is a really transferrable skill to lovingly detailing the crumbling brutalist neo-mesoamerican architecture. the Habsec cannibals and their bits and pieces of scavenged armor blend in so well, it's genuinely shocking when we see someone in full, kept up, incredibly colorful armor. gorgeous, gorgeous book. love a fucked up generation ship.

found while perusing the stacks of the library that was closest to a bunch of other admin errands i was running, bc i finally have a tx drivers license and can start collecting tx library cards

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watching

im also asking myself why the hell i'm watching yellowstone with my bestie and her husband. it has every trigger warning and a lot of them would make me decline the experience had i looked them up beforehand. however, the inevitablilty of each little tragedy feeding into the circular threshing maw that is the Dutton family is really clicking for me. like well! that mom sure did die in the most traumatizing way possible! and wow that really does go a long way toward explaining why the daughter is self-medicating to an alarming degree AND why no one else is doing anything about it bc they're all still mad at her for being very tangential to her mom's death!

the amount of Stuff that happens per episode is truly astonishing. one of my favorite parts of the ttrpg Beamsaber is the downtime between missions, bc you get to have some really bonkers interactions with people who don't usually interact. despite its huge cast, Yellowstone doesn't yet feel incoherent or like it's jumped the shark in its first season bc it's really successful at getting its huge cast to have unexpected interactions with each other. this sounds a little bit like praising it for knowing how to be good television, but this is a neowestern about a land grab that's also a familial dynasty drama that's really leaning into the familial dynasty part of it. it would be very easy for this to become incoherent or bad at switching between storylines, but so far it's really good at it. it's not beamsaber or black sails bc nothing will ever be beamsaber or black sails but it's really scratching that itch of many small rapidly shifting factions and rapidly shifting political goals bc each child is their own horrible little faction and they have a lot of time where they're trapped in cars or helicopters together getting around their ranch, which is simply too large.

we're trying to watch the yellowstone franchise in release order, and the yellowstone prequel with tim mcgraw came out between the first and second seasons. we will not be continuing this. this is a bog standard wagon train western. cripplingly boring after the brazen insanity of the first season. also i think it is in poor taste at best and irresponsible at worst to show a suicide on screen.

i said i don't know why i'm watching this but i do know why i'm watching yellowstone, and that's bc my bestie keeps seeing tiktoks about it. sometimes im influenced in real life

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playing

changed my sheets this week and didn't chortle at the TOP OR BOTTOM tag which is how i know im having. a brain time. another way you can tell im having a brain time are these screenshots of the Breath of the Wild map. as you may or may not remember from last week, last week i had very little of the map filled out.

now is this EXPLORED? good heavens no. i have under 40 shrines DISCOVERED. i have simply beelined to each tower and went VERY fast. or was very sneaky. the three towers i have not bothered to climb yet are the ones i would have to actually fight some guys about. fuck the akkala tower for real.

i love to accidentally get way too close to dragons and die. some fun things about this run: incredibly, exceptionally rainy. except for the stint in the literal desert and the five minutes in the snowfield it has been raining about 70% of the time, which has made climbing very annoying. another fun thing about this run: exceptionally low ancient shaft drop rate, which makes getting ancient arrows to safely kill guardians from afar very difficult. bc as discussed above i have optimized this little blond boy to be very fast and very sneaky to get up the towers very quickly in the two minute spans of time it is not raining.

another fun thing about this run: not very good at successfully spitting out riders next to horses. you can only see the tip of spinch's hat bc he is underground.

i have unlocked the elephant and the falcon, i haven't gotten much farther than finding painkillers for the goron boss and stalled out at the yiga clan stealth mission. bc despite liking being a sneaky fast sniper out in the world, i fucking hate an enforced stealth mission. i don't think i ever got past this part in my other run either.

not jacked enough to unlock the master sword, i think you need twelve hearts? i would rather have more stamina so i can get faster horses + the princess's horse.

after i unlocked a bunch of towers i spent a goofy amount of time in the Lake Floria system herself hunting for treasure chests (there are easily fifty chests in the water. wild) to get the 10k rupees to unlock the last great fairy. i also spent several real-life hours video game mining video game ore. this was deeply annoying bc i sold off all my gems to get 10k rupees and then had nothing to get those sweet sweet high level upgrades with. this was the point on sunday night where i realized i was getting irrationally annoyed with a game that is supposed to be fun, and is NOT meant to support the kind of grinding i was doing. that was enough video game for one day thank you.

did you know there's a korok in the shrine of resurrection? me either.

also did you know magnesis ACTIVATES on the windmills in Hebra but i can't figure out how to get close enough to any of them to do anything about it. annoying.

this has got to be so funny from ganons point of view. i unlocked the elephant and the falcon in under a week of in-game time and then spent several in-game months mining and collecting clothes. would that make ganon more or less anxious d'you think

making

cross stitch update. this confetti in the rover square. i am dying. here’s what it will look like finished, and a link to buy the pattern

i had such high hopes for pin stitches as a thread finishing method but i had to rip out a mistake near a pin stitch and accidentally ripped out the entire pin and single confetti cross stitch. so what the fuck. i am an insane woman who likes to fully submerge and lightly hand wash projects before they get framed to remove all the oils (yes i wash my hands before stitching, i do get paranoid) and i am not confident pin stitches will hold up to that. oh well. the loop method is pretty great in halving the number of ends i have to weave in, even though i feel like it is extremely wasteful and leaves me with lots of short useless lengths my cats would love to eat. so the gains from halving thread management are really not offset by the meticulous cat management i must embark upon every time i do my fun relaxing hobby.

and the back, which is a horror. and will only become more of a horror. but once this is framed no one will actually see it so it's FINE. i am FINE with this. i started this knowing there was going to be lots of confetti. that's the point of this masochistic pattern

i wrote the first chapter of this fic last summer and outlined the emotional beats (but not much else) while procrastinating moving and have finally lightly polished the first chapter and threw it on the archive. im trying to let things molder less and just fucking post them in the hopes this activates the writing part of my brain again but who could say what's going on up there. this is still something that hasn't quite returned to me post-covid round 2

this will eventually be an E-rated 5+1 fic fixing all the fucking bullshit around Cait Fallout4's companion quest. she will NOT go in the magic chair that tortures her into not being a junkie and being the perfect waifu. she is going to stumble backwards and accidentally into some harm reduction and get railed by a mean top. the mean top and the harm reduction won't fix her but they certainly won't hurt.

[extraordinaryhistories]

#20 - 'Joy! Joy! Joy!' (A Sun Came bonus track, 2004)

Here’s the scoop, kids: there is no personal heaven. Jesus died to redeem you, but he also died to redeem everyone; in the eyes of the Lord, all are equal. That means that everyone on Earth has equal responsibility to pray, to worship, to love, to show mercy, to show grace unto their brothers just as they would have it be done to them. Issue is, some people need a little more of a nudge towards their God than others. How’re we gonna do that, then? How do we bring all the peoples of all the nations towards peace and a divine understanding?

Answer: we do it via synthesisers, drum machines, and a million vibrant flecks of technicolour.

And in this way, the annoyingly-punctuated ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’ is a real sea change, quite unlike anything on the album it’s appended to – or anything that Sufjan was trying at the time, really. Don’t let its status as a bonus track on A Sun Came mislead you: ‘Joy! Joy! Joy’ was recorded in 2001, right around the recording of the Steve Reich-meets-Kraftwerk sophomore release Enjoy Your Rabbit. Its deeply electronic stylings make a lot more sense when considered in that context. And yet they don’t, because ‘Joy! Joy! Joy’ is something that every song on Enjoy Your Rabbit decidedly is not: a structured, melodic, vocally-driven conventional song, with lyrics and chords and a lot of synths. Not at all a shock for Sufjan to write a song like this, but certainly a shock for him to write it at this period in his development - this could pass as a Silver and Gold song, or even an Age of Adz b-side, produced some nine years before his most iconic bloopfest was released. It bears repeating that that’s the beautiful thing about this era of his music. Sufjan’s unyielding experimental drive is the very reason he has become who he is today, and you can see his fledgling brilliance in these early off-cuts, nicked and scuffed though they may be. More simply: to get to an ‘Impossible Soul’, Sufjan first had to write a ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’.

There is no doubt that ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’ is a fascinating curio, but to leave its appraisal there would be to patronise what is a genuinely endearing, adorable, good-natured bit of songwriting and production. Age of Adz is a very crowded album, with detritus seeping out of every corner of nearly every song, but ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’ is ‘I Want to Be Well’ on various exotic varieties of crack cocaine. At its peak it is absolutely frantic and brickwalled to high heaven – one gets the distinct impression a lot of time was spent on this one, because holy fuck is there an abundance of stuff going on here. Warbling synths release bubbles; computers glitch; vibraphones execute code; guitars scream; layers upon layers upon layers of drum machines attack the song’s pulse. When it all piles up, the sound is frenzied. I suppose this is the song’s weakest feature – there’s no single instrumental element that stands out from the sludge of the production, and it all gets a bit tiring – but there are far more egregious sins committed on songs around this time.

The surprising thing about ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’ is that it doesn’t feel tokenistic. We can say this in retrospect far more easily, of course, now that we have a wealth of Sufjan electronica to pull from (and that one of those pieces of Sufjan electronica is considered by many to be his absolute finest work.) But short of the too much-ness of the production, this one actually feels complex and lived-in, and each individual element feels like the work of someone with far more experience in synth-based music than 2001-era Sufjan. That’s just emblematic of something mysterious that happened to the young songwriter around the turn of the millennium – a sudden, dramatic leap in songwriting prowess, as if all the relentless trial and error forced a switch to flip somewhere in him. The Sufjan of 1998 would have almost certainly made a mess of this song.

The Sufjan of 1998 would have also failed in another crucial way: he would not have been able to nail the song’s emotional thrust as well as he ended up doing. No prizes for guessing it – ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’ is an ecstatically hopeful piece of music. Glee seeps out of every corner here, from the idiosyncratic computer glitches that fill the void between each drum hit at the song’s outset (a very well-done element reminiscent of classic Autechre) to the insistently major key chord progression. This is also true for the vocal melody. The verses have one of the odder and more out-of-character melodies I’ve heard from Sufjan; the note that he resolves to at the end of every other line (‘yes, I would like to be a man’) carries with it this sort of child-like clunkiness, saccharine even by Sufjan standards. No hints of the relative minor anywhere in this song, right through to the chorus, which neatly resolves the final syllable on the root note each and every single time. It is a resolutely positive-sounding song, almost awkwardly so – not that anyone should expect anything different from a song named ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’ (so! many! loud! exclamations!). Not nearly as listenable as any of his later contented melodies, though. No pentatonic major to be found here.

Though I suppose that’s in keeping with the song’s lyrical themes. This is, like much of Sufjan’s earliest material, a Christian song, and one that insists on Christian orthodoxy in a way that seems very unhip to us modern heathens. When one thinks of Sufjan’s reckoning with his Christianity in music, one tends to think of the moments where he doesn’t appear so Christian at all. Sufjan Stevens is probably the greatest Atheist-baiter in all of popular music, and I suspect this is part of the reason that he is still so revered among the chronically God-hating cadre of online music snobs. We think immediately of ‘we lift our hands and pray over your body, but nothing ever happens’, or ‘don’t do to me what you did to America’; the moments where Sufjan expresses righteous doubt, direct challenge to God. Us atheists like it, I suspect, because we feel as if Sufjan is batting for our team here. Hell yeah, we say, you stick it to ‘em!  

I feel as if Sufjan has become viewed this way for a while now – indie music’s resident self-hating Christian, t.A.T.u. for lapsed Catholics, the man who keeps implying that one day he might just do it! He might just go ahead and cast out God once and for all! (I remember a few interviews around the release of The Ascension in which the interviewers really pushed this angle.) It’s a tempting narrative, and more importantly, an easy narrative to latch onto. Apparently too easy. Because Sufjan really is one of the most, if not the most, dyed-in-the-wool Christians in the ‘cool’ modern music scene. If his songwriting and interviews are anything to go by, he is a progressive Christian in some senses, but he is a flaming fundamentalist in most others. This is most evident in his earlier, less studied work. ‘We Are What You Say’ presents a God that will strike down nonbelievers with the force of a small supernova. ‘A Sun Came’ does exactly the same. And then there’s ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’, which is literally a song about the importance of reading the Bible closely. Like, very closely ‘Every letter, every line.’

Why should you read every letter, every line? Because it’s the only way to truly live in adherence to ‘the Kingdom’s will’. It is, as Sufjan curiously sings, also the solution for those who ‘would like to be a man’ – interesting because it directly pushes the song into somewhat atypical territory for Sufjan, where issues of gender and masculinity are directly (not implicitly) considered. I suppose this line can be read in two ways. Reading Scripture affirms one’s masculinity directly – God inherently consecrates, validates and solidifies our identity, making us all more comfortable in our own skin – and implicitly – to be an ardent follower of the text is to develop discipline, attentiveness and a fundamental ‘knowing-ness’, all traditionally masculinist qualities. Or perhaps Sufjan speaks of ‘man’ not as man-the-gender but as man-the-species, and thus argues that humanity was born from, and should naturally return to, God’s word. It is one of the more interesting lyrics from Sufjan’s early work. Plenty of ambiguity there.

The remainder of the song is less ambiguous. The four variations of the chorus here: ‘I believe in page’, ‘I read every page’, ‘I believe in peace’, and ‘I believe in joy’. The links between these lines are very clear. This is a song about joy, but it’s a song about the Bible as a conduit of joy, the only path to a sustainable world happiness. We get this spelled out to us quite explicitly in a sort of adorable quasi-bridge section that only a young Sufjan would have come up with. In a sudden transition to spoken word, Sufjan glibly asks Sharia Nova (his long-time backing vocalist and frontwoman of My Brightest Diamond, who was already involved with his projects in this early stage) what she believes in. The answer? ‘Peace and justice for all’, immediately followed by a chaotic drum break. Get your asses on the floor in the name of peace and justice!

I find this moment endearing because it is the sort of knowingly-schlocky juvenilia that Sufjan would call back to on his 2016 tour especially. Its naïveté fits the song snugly. The answers to life’s hardships, sorrows, dilemmas and difficulties? Not so difficult after all, actually. You’ll find them if, and only if, you read every page. Cause and effect. Read God’s word, find peace. Find joy.

And so ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’ is one of the most uncomplicatedly, unquestioningly Christian songs in Sufjan’s entire body of work. It’s a crowded field, but this one very much stands out: a song about the glee of orthodoxy and the orthodoxy of glee, a welcome inclusion amidst countless songs that view Christianity with reverent dourness (pre-Illinois) or direct cynicism (post-Illinois). The unyielding torrent of sugar that composes ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’ will inevitably be off-putting to many; its dearth of subtlety and promulgation of an approach to Christianity that many modern faithful no longer subscribe to can only have limited appeal, if we treat this song only as a lyrical product.

Part of what makes Sufjan so outstanding is that everyone can find a part of themselves in his best music. It’ll be hard for many people to find a part of themselves in ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’. Fair play, then: judge ‘Joy! Joy! Joy!’ by its musical merits alone. There are plenty of them. Unbridled happiness is everywhere here, and it’s created by way of a musical style that makes this one so ahead of its time that it seems absurd to find it as a bonus track on A Sun Came. So much so, in fact, that I am almost surprised that Sufjan never considered playing this one on any of his late period synth-heavy tours. Not the smoothest or most listenable song that Sufjan has ever created, but it is better than it has any right to be. It executes its message with a startling clarity:

This is the happiness that God has given us! Rejoice! Rejoice! Rejoice!

[bellewintersroe]

thanks so much for writing a part 2 to the xNurse reader(i loved it)

and for giving grant some love.And if you are going to do more parts i would like to request that you add alton moore,christenson and moe alley because they are so underrated/like i Can Barely find any fics about them/And sorry english is not my first language

Hey I’m glad you enjoyed it! Thank you so much for your request, I’d love to write for these men, sorry if it’s not super good as they for some reason never got as much screen time in Bob:( but I love to do more research and give some underrated boys some attention hehe.

Also no need to apologise!! Your English is perfect!!

Band of Brothers x Nurse Reader, Part 3:

Alton More:

Okay off topic but this guy was biggggggg for looting, how do you think he got hold of Hitlers personal photo album LMAO.

like that smirk after Speirs has finished telling him off just makes me feel like he’s a bit cheeky.

Like I can see all the nurses being introduced to the men and he just smirks directly at you immediately. His attention isn’t on any of the other women, you’re the only one he’s got eyes for.

some how, he attempts to make his way over to speak to you, but you’re ushered away quicker than he expects.

The rest of the evening, and however long it is before he sees you again he’s probably thinking about you. (He married his childhood sweetheart so I think he himself is a huge sweetheart). He’s a hopeless romantic and is already head over heels before he can put a name to your face.

“Ahhhh, did you see her, Malark? Like, her hair and everythin’??? She was gorgeous.”

He’s thinking about every single detail about you. “Ya gonna scare her away the second you speak to her.”

Much to More’s surprise he doesn’t. Hes super tall and handsome, with a smile to die for, a total dreamboat. He’s stunned when you’re stammering and blushing around him.

I think to speak to you he’d ask you loads of questions about nursing in the army and how you got into it. He’s genuinely fascinated, and when he finds out he’s a year or two older than you, he teases you about it.

would definitely be a little more shy and slower to make a move than some of the other boys. But you’d grow close because of this, he would harass you, he’s harmless and charming and sweet- I think as a nurse in Easy it would be hard to resist him.

so there’s this story that Malarkey has told about when Alton was looting, and he found a pair of knitted, baby boots and completely broke down and started to cry.

I think out of everybody Alton would feel the most comfortable coming to you, and when you just appear in front of him and he’s stood with red eyes, you couldn’t help but engulf him into a hug.

well it’s more like him engulfing you because he’s much taller, but instantly you’d ask him what happened and when he expresses himself you’d leave kisses all over his cheeks and cuddle him a lot.

after that act of vulnerability the two of you would be like two peas in a pod, feelings would be admitted and he’d be super protective over you, especially if you’re out on the field, he feels like his hearts in his throat whenever he watches you run out to treat somebody.

Burton ‘Pat’ Christenson:

christenson genuinely sounds like such an interesting person, and Michael Fassbender is gorgeous omfg.

From what I’ve seen he seems like quite a happy, outgoing guy, so maybe you spot him before he spots you?? Like for a change, you’re the one admiring somebody from a far and feel like you have to chase them.

it’s not that he doesn’t think you’re stunning I think because you’re on the quieter side he doesn’t notice you, but when he does, holy fucking shit ur so fucking drop dead gorgeous and what???

would buy you a drink and comes and sits next to you in the pub, engaging in conversation with you about anything.

He has such a sparkle in his eye and he doesn’t open up about it at first, but he’s got so many interests.

Physically, he was one of the top men in easy which is super attractive to you, (Pat smirks about this) but he’s also artistic, can play the guitar and he can sing?!! He’s a guy of many talents and I think you’d beg him to sing- which he’s too modest about so he doesn’t sadly.

Would probably be super playful with you as a way of flirting.

I think anything was to happen, it would be later in the war during/ after Bastogne.

everybody’s morale is down, but your closest friend seems to be completely and utterly exhausted and close to the brink of a breakdown. When you learn he’d been hit by shrapnel and was too exhausted to move you’re a panicked mess.

You didn’t know whether to slap him or cry when he’s asleep in the field hospital bed. You watch over him and let him sleep peacefully, patching and cleaning him up.

At some point, I think his hand would sneak into yours, half asleep as he’d ask you to stay in a husky voice. Now if that didn’t make your heart leap, I don’t know what else would.

He’s just so soft and gentle, and he’s a really kind guy, so you’d do anything for him except, “Pat, we’re in the hospital, I can’t get in bed with you-“ “I love you though.” Oop- “N-no you’re half asleep.” “Y/N, I love you.”

Would definitely fall hard and fast, you’re his own personal nurse for a couple weeks, and you’re his rock after he lost his closest friends.

After the way you took care of him, he wants nothing more than to spoil you for the rest of your life after the war and bring you home to a comfortable lifestyle where he can give you whatever you wanted.

I think physical touch is his love language, so he’d have a lingering finger wrapped around yours, or a hand on your shoulders at all times.

James Moe Alley:

What a handsome man. Seriously all three of these men are SLEPT on.

I think Moe is a more quieter guy, especially when it comes to women, he’s a little shy and intimidated around you, similar to how Babe is.

let’s say you first meet when you do his physical, you’ve seen so many handsome men so he doesn’t think you’d be the slightest bit interested; but there’s an audible shyness behind your voice, and James is relieved you’re similar to him.

You had to have your hands all over him, and the examination ended up being slightly giggly and awkward. After, it takes a while for either of you to speak one on one, without being in a group.

I think Moe would get a little saddened and disheartened when he see’s other men flirting with you, he sips his beer as he watches you laughing at what they’re saying, questioning why he can’t be that confident around you.

nervous about jumping out of the aeroplane (he had to be pushed out when jumping!) I feel like you’d be able to tell and you’d approach him and soothe his shaking hands.

“Ya’ scared, James? Don’t be scared, I’ve seen a million guys do this and they were all fine.” Knowing you were on the ground below, and you’d just held his hands, he felt like a child, smiling to himself as he plucked enough courage to throw himself out of the plane during the practice jumps.

I feel like he’d need a bit of a push to make a move on you? Maybe one day he sees somebody being rude or disrespectful to you, they’re clearly taking advantage of how nice and reserved you are, so he intercepts, physically barricading his body between yours and the guy harassing you.

“She ain’t interested, pal. You better back off.”

After he’s huffing and puffing, storming away from the annoying guy once he’d finally left you and you chase after him, grabbing his shoulders. to stop him.

“Moe.” With a soft call of his name, you’re on your tip toes kissing him with both your hands on either of his cheeks.

Feels like he’s been kissed by an Angel- holy fucking shit.

after that there’s a genuine connection growing between the two of you, but I feel like it gets cut short when he’s injured in Operation Market Garden.

seeing him like that was horrible, you couldn’t stop crying and Winters had to move you away from treating him because you were too worried. Thanks to your quick action and care he survives despite having 32 shrapnel injuries.

he never has chance to thank you because he’s borderline unconscious and shipped off to a hospital for the next two months.

In the mean time you’d write to one another, James is more confident through writing, and warns you a billion times that he’s gonna ‘bust the fuck out and go AWOL to get back to Easy’.

And he does.

it’s in Bastogne; but hell seeing him again would make you weak in the knees. Alley feels like he’s gonna fall when he sees you and he engulfs you in the biggest cuddle ever. You’re skinny and look exhausted, but you’re alive and safe.

The relationship is so comfortable, you love each other very dearly and Moe never ever forgets how you saved his life when he was injured. Never stops thanking you.

————————————————————————

omfg ??? Im in my feels so much writing about these men? If anybody has any requests surrounding these guys specifically, please let me know and I’ll get writing!!

[mtdthoughts]

Possible References to The Carpenters (Migi & Dali Analysis)

Before I begin, I'd like to credit and dedicate this post to the wonderful @moscasines for messaging me and pointing out the series of observations that will be discussed below. This post would not be possible without your help, so thank you very much! 🫶

As always, spoilers for Migi & Dali are discussed!

This post is also a bit on the longer side...

To begin, the subject of this post is The Carpenters, an American vocal and instrumental duo consisting of Karen Carpenter and her older brother Richard Carpenter. You can find more info on Wikipedia here.

The Carpenter siblings started their career in 1965 and achieved major success in the soft rock, easy listening, and adult contemporary music genres with hit singles such as "(They Long to Be) Close to You" and "We've Only Just Begun".

They've also toured continually in the 1970s, including in Japan where they performed at the famous Budokan in 1974.

This article gives some interesting insights into The Carpenter's influence in Japan, and I'd recommend checking it out! Namely, the Carpenters were known for their melody-oriented sound production that fits Japanese sensibilities, excellent vocals and English pronunciation, and their songs that give off the image of a good old American family.

In fact, the 1972 song "Top of the World" by The Carpenters was used as the theme song in the 1995 hit Japanese TV Drama "Miseinen" ("Under Age"), showing how The Carpenters' influence persisted in Japan even after their joint career abruptly ended in 1983 with Karen's tragic death from heart failure brought on by complications of anorexia.

Anyway, because of The Carpenters' influence in Japan, it is possible that Sano may have taken inspiration from them and their songs when creating Migi & Dali, and here are some possible references:

One of the characters is literally named Karen, who also possesses musical talent but specifically with the piano. As it turns out, Karen Carpenter is four years younger than her piano prodigy brother Richard, which seems to around the same age gap between Karen and Eiji. Furthermore, some have claimed that the root cause of Karen's anorexia was her overbearing, perfectionist mother who clearly favored her 'musical genius' brother Richard; this idea seems to parallel Reiko's obvious favoritism for Eiji and her relative disdain for Karen, someone who "never resembled Akira or Reiko" ---

One of the most iconic foods in the story other than cherry pie and omelet is jambalaya, which was featured in the first chapter and Episode of Migi & Dali. Interestingly, The Carpenters featured Hank William's song "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" on their album 1973 album Now & Then, which sold well in the US, UK, and Japan. The song is about lost love, life, parties, and Cajun cuisine. ---

The fact that the Carpenters are American, plus the remark about the songs giving off the the image of a good old American family could somewhat explain why the setting of Migi & Dali resembles a (relatively affluent) American suburb. ---

"(They Long to Be) Close to You" is song expressing the yearning to be close to someone you love, emphasizing how special and unique that person is. Some of the lyrics are particularly interesting, such as "Why do birds suddenly appear / Every time you are near?" and "So they sprinkled moon dust in your hair of gold / And starlight in your eyes of blue", with birds being Akiyama's fascination and "hair of gold" and "eyes of blue" describing the twins' appearance. Perhaps this song references the Sonoyamas' and Akiyama's longing to be close to the twins. ---

"Rainy Days and Mondays" is a melancholic song that describes one's feeling of melancholy and loneliness and being unable to fit in, but finding comfort in knowing that another person loves them. Some notable lyrics are "What I've got they used to call the blues / Nothin' is really wrong / Feelin' like I don't belong" and "Funny, but it seems that I always wind up here with you / Nice to know somebody loves me". This could be a reference to the loneliness that Dali suffers, though he does find comfort in Migi's love for him. ---

"Top of the World" is an upbeat and joyful song about the feeling of being on top of the world due to being in love. It could be a reference to Migi's infatuation with Sali. ---

"Superstar" expresses longing and heartache, telling the story of someone yearning for a lost love using the example of a fan and a rock star. Some lyrics that stand out are "Don't you remember, you told me you loved me, baby? / You said you'd be coming back this way again, baby". This song could be a reference to Migi's feelings towards Sali, especially after Migi was rejected for Eiji. ---

"Ticket to Ride", a song by The Beatles that the Carpenters covered, is about someone leaving a relationship with a metaphorical ticket to ride, claiming that her partner was holding her down and that she would never be free, as her partner is left upset singing that "my baby don't care". This song could be a reference to Migi's separation from Dali as Migi literally rides away with his new freedom. ---

"Goodbye to Love" explores the sadness of lost love and the realization that one might not find love again, and one notable lyric is "I'll say goodbye to love / No one ever cared if I should live or die". It could be a reference to Dali when he believed that Migi would never love him again (especially when he was about to die), or to Eiji after he killed Reiko, believing he had no one left. ---

"Hurting Each Other" is a ballad that addresses the pain and difficulty of a troubled relationship where both parties are emotionally harming each other despite their love for each other. It could be a reference to some aspects of the twins' relationship, including their fight where they literally hurt each other despite their love for each other. ---

"We've Only Just Begun" explores the optimism of a couple beginning their new life together while mixing cautious introspection for the future. Some notable lyrics are "Before the risin' sun, we fly / So many roads to choose" and "And when the evening comes, we smile / So much of life ahead". It could be a reference to the twins' reconciliation after their fight, heading towards their happiness despite the danger ahead. ---

"Merry Christmas, Darling" is about the longing and fervent desire to spend Christmas together with a loved one that is apart. Some lyrics that stand out are "Merry Christmas, darling / We're apart, that's true / But I can dream and in my dreams / I'm Christmasing with you". This could be a reference to Migi's desire to live together with Dali while Dali was isolating himself in the shadows. ---

"Please Mr. Postman", a song by the Marvelettes that The Carpenters covered, is about the excitement, impatience, and eagerness of waiting for news of a loved one far away. It could be a reference to the twins in the short sequel manga. ---

In general, many songs that were covered and sung by The Carpenters share themes of love, lost love, longing, and loneliness, which also happen to be important themes in Migi & Dali.

I encourage the reader (including myself) to check out all of the songs I listed and more, as it's very fascinating to notice all the different connections to Migi & Dali and perhaps understand the characters better. There may be more songs that deserve to go on this list, so I may decide to update this post later (and of course the reader is very welcome to let me know if I missed any 😊)

Given these potential connections, The Carpenters might be another cultural reference that had a significant impact on Migi & Dali that helped Sano shape the characters and the direction of the story. Of course, I can't discount the possibility that all of this is just a big coincidence and that this post is just a big load of crap, but this wouldn't nearly be as interesting 😜

With all this in mind, I think that Migi & Dali would make a great musical, and it's interesting to imagine the characters singing songs like these in the anime. However, I've never seen a musical before, so I know nothing about them, but I have a good feeling that a Migi & Dali musical would be good. I'd probably see it.

[howam-i-theparent]

Logan headcanons!

second one to “form”, as curiosity tho, not logic (You know how babies try to eat everything trying to figure out what it is? That was Logan)

latter was renamed to “Brain” when Thomas started to do more long term learning/memory stuff

Has a library of all of Thomas’s memories in the mindscape, and each night while Thomas is dreaming, organizes it into “long term”, “short term” and “discard”, for any memories that are unnecessary.

Their library is open to all of the sides, Patton uses it to look through old memories (stored like scrap books/photo albums) for nostalgia. Roman + Remus use it to pick out bits and pieces for dream Ideas. Virgil sometimes looks through the most recent memories (or sometimes really old ones), and causes Thomas to get less sleep, Logan tries to calm Virgil down with more realistic views on the events, or tries to navigate Virgil to less important mistakes to fret over so any major things can be ignored for the time being.

Agender/Aromantic/Asexual/Autistic (me? Projecting? Never), and does not understand why they would ever need to follow any of the “normal” ways of doing things, they are a side after all, not an actual human, but will try to be a near perfect reflection of Thomas, in the mentality of “I am a part of Thomas, so I need to be as close to Thomas as possible”

They/Them pronouns (but allows Roman and Remus to come up with some neopronouns to use for them (they are allowed to veto anything they don’t like tho))

Knows how to walk in heels that would make Barbie herself trip (no one knows how they are able to do this (maybe not even themself))

Their main goal in life is “Making Thomas as efficient as possible without causing burnout” for this reason, they try to maintain healthy relationships with all of the other sides, so things can run as smoothly as possible.

With Patton, they usually bake together, but not cooking. (Baking is an exact form, cooking is more “try and see what happens”, therefore baking is like chemistry, something Logan can understand)

With Roman, they usually work on scripts together, but if no work is needed to be worked on, they both share Mythology stories (Roman likes the story parts, Logan I’d fascinated with how they used those myths to explain natural phenomena)

With Virgil, they are quite content with just sitting in the same room and vibing (Logan usually does research/read, and Virgil is usually napping w/ headphones in, or scrolling through memes)

With Janus, they will have “debates” about real-world going on’s, and possibilities of how Thomas would need to respond. (They usually just bounce off of each-other with similar ideas, there is not much disagreement most times)

With Remus, Remus is very willing test subject for more of Logan’s more “dark” curiosity’s, mostly human experiments and explosions (Remus would try to make real to life simulations in the imagination, in cording to Logan’s instructions)

Logan actually recognizes that empathy is needed to make a solid and logical argument, but is trying to help Thomas understand that he should not allow every single decision to be overwhelmed with emotion.

Logan struggles with regulation of emotions themself, where most may think that they do not care about something, they actually care very much, and has trouble expressing that. But also, sometimes they will have an outburst of emotions, which leave the others confused because “why was such a small thing, such a big deal?” (Logan feels immensely bad afterwards and tried to avoid the problem/topic)

The other sides do recognize that Logan feels very passionate about some things, and try not to interfere (Crofters for one, but will also allow them to talk about their special interests (stars/space) when Logan finally does get around to talking about it)

Doesn’t watch a lot of TV (not because “it rots your brain”, they just find that most action/romance/emotion driven plot to be frustrating) but they will watch documentaries for hours, and forget other things around them if the documentary is not interrupted in some way. (The others were very concerned about them when they watched the entirety of Planet Earth in one sitting)

They can feel all of the injuries that Thomas gets, to the full extent, but is not affected by “imaginary” injuries (The Remus episode, do I need to say more?)

Sometimes just needs to be alone for a bit, just being in their room, reading, doing research, working, watching documentaries, sleeping ect.

Tries to follow the “perfect” sleep schedule, as an example for Thomas, but gets easily wrapped up in work or a book, and that causes them to stay up latter than they intended.

Their favorite comfort food is of course crofters, but also enjoys goldfish, orange popsicles, and cantaloupe.

Their unicorn onesie was a gift from Patton that slowly turned into a comfort object, they sleep in it every night when it’s not too hot (will turn up the air conditioning and fans in their room, just to be able to sleep in it), and will get frustrated when they can’t wear it to bed (curse the Florida weather)

When the sides started making small changes to their appearances, they got a bit taller, and their hair got darker, as well as their eyes turning a dark blue color. (They use contact lenses while filming, and the perspective+ lighting causes the other changes to not be that noticeable)

Also has a light blanket at the foot of their bed that is navy blue with different constellations with their names on it.

That’s all for now, may or may not do more latter

[torrtimandi]

Writing summary of the 2023.

The 2023 was a year filled with a lot of anticipation for Justice's new album and with a lot of digging for every little bit of news. It was also a year full of writing for me, completely dedicated to the Gas/Xav tag, as I didn't write for any other fandom this year.

Posted works to ao3: 5

-La Balestra (7668 words) Started this year by posting this particular one shot, although I'd written most of it back in 2022. Still, it's worth mentioning, as I'm quite proud of it. It was very fun to write. Lots of fluff, sweet moments, intimacy and some tender smut, but also fencing! Some of you may not know this, but Gaspard actually used to practice fencing and that was one of the inspirations for this story.

-Strangelove (8668 words) Even though half of these words weren't written by me, I'm going to let myself talk a bit about it, because it's another story I had a lot of fun writing, my parts at least. Written in collaboration with dear lesreptiles, born out of a silly joke. But well, being the very serious writers that we both are, once we started writing it, it wasn't a joke anymore. Yes, the plot is kinda funny, with Xavier being a Jehovah's Witness and visiting Gaspard's house, the hot af bi metalhead, to spread some Jesus' words, only to enter the gay panic mode very short after. And sure, it was mostly just an excuse to write some smut, but I promise! It was a very seriously written piece with still quite lots of interesting points and some actually quite tender moments. Very enjoyable, this one.

-Goodnight Lovers (789 words) Something actually very short and not containing any smut. Just a quick and fluffly drabble written in like an hour. It's set in a cabin in the middle of nowhere and it's a part of my unreleased Cabin Tales series. There's not much plot going on in any of the stories and honestly it was just an excuse to write lots of fluff and tender, yet domestic romances in a peaceful, carefree setting. But I like it. Sure, it's not a thought-provoking kind of a read, but still very comfort one and God knows those are very needed sometimes too.

-Love Emergency (146 844 words but only 43 519 written this year) Oh, I could talk about this one for long hours. My sweet, giant child that I spent almost two years on... Finishing LE is definitely one of my accomplishments, personal victories of this year. Not only because it's such a long story, but also because it's a display and proof of my determination, passion and affection for Justice, and not only. This is the story that allowed me to be a little honest, and the story that allowed me to spread my wings as a writer, improving my style and flow as the chapters rolled in. Though maybe it was also a bit selfish of me at times, as I allowed myself to mix my two loves there; medicine and Justice, which is quite a niche combination I bet. But I still love it the way it is, and I'm definitely proud of it.

-Beside You In Time (12130 words) And finally, the last one! I had very little of rest between finishing LE and starting this one but I don't mind. I really enjoyed writing about Gaspard the Knight and dwelling some more into this medieval world full of majestic castles, shiny armors and pretty nobles. I hope it makes a good homage to one of Gaspard's many fascinations, that this knightly aesthetic is.

To sum up, the total word count of 2023: 72 774

Very, very nice and quite a lot, though a bit less than previous year, if I remember correctly. But still very good as this year was much busier for me, overall. I think I can easily say that this year was actually quite successful for me as a writer.

I don't promise to repeat this result next year though, because I'm trying to rest a little now too. But I'm still sure that 2024 will be a great year for all of us as fans. The new single is almost out, soon pre-orders, more pictures, more interviews (and the gay food I bet), then finally the album and the tour. I plan to see Justice live quite a few times and can only wish you the same.

Happy new year! Cheers!

[josephlikesmusic]

Bando Stone and The New World - Childish Gambino (2024)

Besides the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure brainrot surfacing, causing me to accidently call this album "Dio Brando and The New World" multiple times, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this album. I don't tend to love original movie soundtracks on their own, especially when it's all done by a single artist, but I found the bits of dialogue scattered throughout the track list helped push the narrative along. I also enjoyed the variety of genres that Gambino explores on this album, although I think that I'll enjoy this feature even more when I go see the movie. Speaking of the movie, while I did enjoy listening to this album alone, it is hard to really judge a soundtrack when you haven't watched the film that goes along with it. Like I mentioned earlier, this album does work as a standalone project, but having the knowledge that this is a soundtrack for an unreleased feel makes the listen feel somewhat incomplete. I may or may not re-review this album once the movie comes out just to see if my feelings change, but between knowing that this is supposed to be Gambino's final album and that this isn't the completed project, I definitely wasn't completely satisfied with the album.

Despite my grievances, this album had many songs that I will definitely return to on their own. Lead single Lithonia surprised me on my first listen, with a slow, chill, pop-rock vibe and such a straight to the point message: nobody gives a fuck. But I think that the most shocking element of the single was it's music video and it's sudden twist that I won't spoil here. And of course we can't forget about Fartbuckle. Such a wide variety of emotions for a song that is so blunt and straightforward.

Other songs that surprised me instrumentally were No Excuses and Happy Survival. No Excuses brings on composer Ludwig Göransson, who is easily the highlight of the track. From the percussion throughout the beginning of the song, to the unexpectedly amazing saxophone solo, Göransson took a great track and made it an incredible one. As a drummer, and someone who spent his high school years in the band room fascinated with each and every percussion instrument, I appreciate how Göransson incorporated so many instruments that we almost never see in music as mainstream as Gamino's. As I mentioned earlier, Happy Survival was another instrumental that I would never expect from an artist like Gambino, yet I found myself jamming out to the bossa nova groove, with it's incredible vocal riff from Khruangbin. While I didn't find Happy Survival to be as groundbreaking as No Excuses, it's a nice, simple groove to chill out and dance to.

I've already mentioned Ludwig Göransson's work on No Excuses and Khruangbin's vocals on Happy Survival, but Bando Stone is filled with great features throughout it's runtime. I adore Jorja Smith's vocals on In the Night, especially in the post-chorus where she really shines. Smith is the highlight of this track and I wish she had more solo vocals. I also love Flo Milli's verse on Talk My Shit, a more straight forward rap song compared to the other tracks on this album, but still a super enjoyable song that features many modern references, yet doesn't feel dated.

Bando Stone and The New World surprised me with it's variety of genres, great percussion, and amazing storytelling, but I think that this album is going to need the film alongside it in order to really be a fulfilling final album for Childish Gambino. As I've mentioned before, the knowledge that this is a soundtrack rather than just a concept album makes it a bit difficult to fully judge, especially since there isn't even a known release date for the film at the time that I'm writing this. The soundtrack did get me more pumped up for the movie than the trailer did, and knowing how talented Glover is I do think that it will be an enjoyable watch, but until the film's release I really have no way of knowing. The album wasn't my favorite to be released this year, but I still enjoyed many of the individual songs and the concept surrounding them.

[whiskeyswifty]

it's so fascinating, because i feel like the reverse is true for 1989 for a lot of swifties? critically acclaimed, incredibly solid and cohesive, but i've seen a lot of fans call it boring / overhyped / not deserving of its success (i've even seen people think reputation is her best pop album, not 1989). i think it really goes to show how some of them truly cannot separate their attachment to taylor's life from the music (which is understandable, i absolutely have artists i feel that way about) and it's so interesting

oh for sure, and i always say taylor wrought this upon herself by utilizing the almost "whodunnit" aspect of who she's writing songs about to generate interest in her early years. very smart, as the subjects were often other famous people and it made her music very juicy. and once she got you on the hook and you started listening, the songs themselves were excellent and you fell in love with them regardless of, and sometimes in spite of, who they were about. amazing marketing tactic, however self sacrificing it was!

but not everyone advanced to that level unfortunately, and a lot of superfans are in that bucket. it's so funny because they'll act like they're the most protective of her, the most adoring of her, and the most dedicated to her happiness, and yet they dissect every song, every article, every *ahem* surprise song, and every single breath she takes to definitively say they know what she's thinking and feeling. which is.... insane to think you know that... because.... of a facial expression she made for a split second in a grainy tiktok video?? but because of that, they assign a meaning to certain songs/eras that simply isn't there, or a conclusion they feel they "uncovered" thanks to "clues," that was never corroborated by taylor herself. those arbitrary and completely unfounded meanings weight their opinions more or less in different directions, often little to do with the song itself. meanwhile the rest of the world is just listening to the music and forming opinions based on their opinion of whether or not they like the music and if it resonates with them. that accounts for the often canyon sized gap between public opinion and swiftie superfans' opinions.

I think there's also a little bit of the unique ownership phenomenon thing as well. that happens in fandom spaces all over. you see it particularly when a body of artistic work or content finds wide appeal, and the "core fans" may feel anxious that they're being lumped into the masses and that they need to prove how they love The Thing in a deeper or more dedicated way than those stupid, bandwagon masses. prove to themselves even how long they've been there, how they know the content in an intimate way that everyone else doesn't, etc etc. so a lot of times, they'll reject something that maybe they once loved but turned out to have extremely wide appeal, like a main character or a popular single/album. instead, they will latch onto one of the least widely appreciated aspects of body of work, the deep cuts if you will, and claim ownership over it. that's their song or character or whatever. to them, the fact that they loved it the most when nobody else did signals to other casual fans or even fandom members that they deeply appreciate this body of work in a way that is soooo dedicated. they may genuinely love it, which is great, but they then assign this outsized "you don't get it but IIIII do" meaning to it. that's where the bias skews reality, that The Thing is actually a secret masterpiece and only their super dedicated brain could unlock it via their deep and unparalleled connection to the material.... or in this case self described direct connection to taylor herself. which is...... well exactly what it sounds like.

but once again, not their fault, as reputation specifically was almost a return to form for taylor, marketing-wise. she's the one that poured gasoline on that feeling every night on tour, telling the audience that they were the most loyal, they understood her while the rest of the world didn't. because of that, reputation will always be special between her and you, the most loyal fan. she assigned an outsized meaning outside of the music, or even the purported subject of the music itself once again, not the fans really. it's very effective, and you can see the echoes of that impression she made on them to this day in the unique way the rabid ones will defend an album that means something very carnal to them inexplicably and disproportionately to the rest of her work.

it's not all rep fans, certainly not. just like any other album, some people simply genuinely like it and they're very normal about it and are people who just like music like a normal person and don't care if someone else doesn't like it. they can take criticism of it, and critique it themselves, and may also enjoy 1989 equally! but the rabid ones, the ones who will defend rep in the "you don't get it" way, their whole defense of rep, unlike any other album in her oeuvre, has little to do with the merit of the music and more to do with this deeply impactful experience they had. which is fine and i'm happy for them that they had an experience that they remember fondly, but how strongly they cling to it makes for someone who isn't very good at having a genuine, productive conversation about an artistic work.

also i'm always like, getaway car is in my top songs for sure, why are you yelling at me. i wouldn't trade reputation for anything if it meant giving up my beloved getaway car. we are on the same team here why are you fighting with me!!!

[allamericansbitch]

Okayy so I have a lottttt of thoughts but I won't share ALL of them since that'll get too much but I will however share some positive ones because I always feel when I send you an ask about taylor, it's always something negative that happened so I want to be a bit nicer today

1. I'm not the biggest fan of the two piece colored 1989 fit BUT she wore the color combo yellow and blue which are Swedens flags colors so that was something thoughtful

2. Her note belting (I'm taking about real belting, not screaming into the mic like during dbm) during the ttpd set where she sang "BUT WHAT IF THEY DID" or "IVE BEEN DOING IT SINCE HE LEFT" or "YOU DESERVE PRISON" gave my chills all over my body

3. The visuals during down bad are probably imo the most expensive and most fascinating visuals she's ever done because I was sitting very much at the top and from there it literally looked like she was floating and getting beamed up by the ufo plus projecting the ufo like that must've been very hard so yeah I was impressed

4. I already mentioned this yesterday but getting my two fav songs off 1989 and then a great red song AND HOW DID IT END was genuinely the highlight I think

5. This isn't something crazy but I love how she learned like those little phrases for every single country she's been going and how she changed little parts of her performances (cam saying "like ever" in different languages or her normally welcoming the crowd in different languages) based on the countries she's performing in. She literally learned how to say "fuck you guys are amazing" in Swedish and that was funny when she said it out loud lol

6. I know I criticise her for a lot of stuff but I will never deny the fact that she can put on a show because she's there on stage for 3 1/2 hours and just having the time of her life and you can see that. I'm not saying there isn't any other artist doing it like her but there are however a lot of artists that are on her level who just stand there and sing for 1 1/2 hours without really moving which is completely fine too! i just admire how she put big effort into this tour

Okay I'll stop now or else this will never end lmao but I'd love if you'd give your individual opinion on each things too! You mentioned that you're going to another eras show in Canada right? I'm sure there you can see what I mean with points 2 and 3

aw yayy! im so happy you had such a good time, all of these points are so true and rightly very impressive/cool. and yes im really interested in seeing points 2 and 3 in the future for my show in december (hopefully she doesnt change it up and take them away lol) the ufo visual looks so cool and as someone who's been pretty regularly disappointed/unimpressed with taylors visuals (like with album covers/merch/etc) it's extra exciting to see something so cool.

[a-moth-to-the-light]

Giving Itzy An Album

[my top ten itzy songs]

Okay so, I've been wanting to do this for forever! I'm a really big fan of Itzy, and, like every fan of Itzy, I see SO much unused potential in their music. The members have this ridiculously attention-grabbing presence on their songs, and I just think they would be fantastic rock stars!! (I was there when "Nobody Like You" dropped, and I'll never forget it.) So, through this post, I'll be making my Itzy-rock vision a (sort of) reality.

Album Title: kiss & cry

Concept: Your dad's hazy memories of the 70s. Brightly colored, heavily romanticized, aggressively chill, a tad bit psychedelic!

1. Round & Round -- iiso

I mean, this is a kpop album! So I wanted the album intro to be something that's trippy in a house-music kind of way, on-trend but still blending well with my carefree, psychedelic-rock-inspired vision for this album.

2. WORLDEND -- negoto (TITLE TRACK A)

When I say Itzy are rock stars in my heart, I mean this. I love the members' vocal tones, but so many of their releases don't seem to have any idea at all about what suits them. Negoto, though, has vocals that I find beautiful in the same way I do Itzy's--they're unusual, fascinating, and they bring SO much energy to the table. And that's why I've been dreaming of hearing Itzy on this song for three years now! With a melody like this, already designed to bring the best out of a whiny vocal style, I think Itzy would sound absolutely wonderful. This song is very pop-leaning, and there's just SOOO much energy in that chorus--Itzy deserves a song like this, 100%.

3. Scarlet Begonias - Live at Barton Hall, Cornell... -- The Grateful Dead (PRE-RELEASE)

Yes, I'm going to leave this song exactly as it is, except for adding Itzy's voices to it. Yes, there will be a two-minute sample at the beginning, consisting of The Grateful Dead asking the audience to please take some steps back. (It fills me with joy every single time I listen to this song. You can't make me get rid of it.) Yes, it will be 11 minutes long. (Look, after a release as boilerplate as "Cake", I reserve the right to make this one a little weird! I don't even mind "Cake" as much as most people seem to, but let me have my thing.) With its cheery melodies and humorous youthfulness, I think "Scarlet Begonias" fits Itzy better than you'd expect!

4. Ah Yeah -- Hyolyn

I don't know, this one just felt right! It's light and fluffy and a little strange--that weird distorted instrumental is so Itzy to me! I also love the way rapping & singing kind of overlap, running into each other, in the prechorus. I think the members could really show off their skills in this one! I actually think its vibe fits quite well alongside "Scarlet Begonias", too, despite all the genre (and era) differences!

5. shinkaigyo -- The Back Horn (PROMOTED B-SIDE)

"Ringo" but better. Though a lot of the other songs on this album aren't super dance-y, a choreography to "shinkaigyo" would be KILLER. So much intensity, and that BASSLINE??? I love that this track brings Itzy weirdness to rock, and it also has this really satisfying chorus that, I dare say, we all loved so much about early Itzy tracks like "Wannabe".

6. Love Spell -- GFRIEND (TITLE TRACK B)

Itzy's music tends to lean into these cool-girl personas, with lots of attitude & ad-libs, but I've strayed away for it from most of this album--"Love Spell", though, has that classic Itzy attitude, with some great rock influences, too! (guitar go grrrrrrrr it brings me so much joy)

7. I Know I'm Not Wrong -- Fleetwood Mac

A little silly, a little angsty, with absolutely incessant energy in its instrumental--I can see Itzy having SOOO much fun with this!

8. BEEP BEEP -- Ruann

What's a psychedelic-rock inspired album without some gorgeous tropical house to zone out to? Okay, yeah, this album would probably be fine without it. But like, it fits too well? And after "Bratty", I need more cutesy music from them!

9. Chill -- Chung Ha

Itzy's vocal power that really draws me to them, and I think "Chill" is a perfect song to center that. It's straightforward, with melody lines that are blunt & heavy-hitting--I think it could be pretty easily rearranged into a ballad/soft song that would bring out the best in the Itzy members' vocals.

10. joyrider -- second thoughts

Peak Itzy + guitar agenda--this song is just so much fun?? It's not really a happy song, but it feels just as euphoric as classic Itzy hype tracks are, and I think their vocals have the perfect energy to carry a half-angsty, half-humorous chorus like this one.

11. Stop Making This Hurt -- Bleachers

This track is literally made for screaming karaoke on the highway, and I know Itzy have the energy to do it justice & make it our comfort song of the year.

[lesbianmarrow]

Even for the artist, in a world stripped of transcendent unities, the strategy of collage, of juxtaposition, makes the best of a bad situation. It is both recognition of, and romantic protest against, the idea that the world is finished, worn out. The best art coaxes a distinct unity out of juxtaposition; bad art deposits scrap upon scrap, endlessly reshuffling the cultural givens into pastiche, as in Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Whether in fin-de-siècle assemblage or surrealist juxtaposition, in Rauschenberg or Larry Rivers, the style of conjunction is central to modern art. In poetry we see it in the fragments of Eliot's "The Waste Land" and Pound's Cantos, in John Ashbery's breathless swoops from image to image. The nervous editing style of most contemporary film has shaped every other art form. In the novel, we have the pop-cultural dumping grounds of Joyce, the luminous lists of Jorge Luis Borges; in architecture, the postmodernism of Michael Graves and Philip Johnson among others. In a single building, postmodernism shamelessly combines the classical (columns and pediments), the decorative (ornament and trim), and the Bauhaus (simplicity and angularity). In museums, as Susan Sontag points out, the Paris Beaubourg is built with movable partitions, so that the relations between distinct exhibits can be redefined at the curator's will. The high forms of popular music are unified recombinant albums—the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Who's Tommy—and more recently, Blondie's 1980 album Autoamerican, which contains songs in big band, reggae, rap, religious-portentous, and rhythm-and-blues styles. Such albums with their peculiar unity assert that order can be assembled only from the juxtaposition of shards. They echo Eliot's line, "These fragments I have shored against my ruins." In fashion, the New Wave extends the conventional assertion that all styles are born equal and juxtaposition amounts to wit. Anything goes with anything else—tuxedo jackets with candy wrappers, leg warmers with sandals—mocking and extending the recombinatory mode at the same time. In the background stands the ultimate recombinatory form: television, the medium that perpetually levels, juxtaposing Holocaust to a soap commercial, news of cluster bombs in Lebanon to an appeal for hemorrhoid medicine, converting each bit into a sequel to the last and a prologue to the next, composing unintended and hitherto unimagined wholes out of parts and proposing that all images are related to all others. Scarecely a punk rock or New Wave album is complete without a song decrying television, satirizing the singer's dependency on it, skating along the slippery edge where irony and subjugation melt together. The fascination TV works on its most furious bewailers is the fascination of meaninglessness raised to a universal principle. Yet the mind-sets of network gatekeepers and New Wave songwriters may not be so different at least in one respect. They are both haunted by the half-felt premise that nothing is new under the sun.

Todd Gitlin, Inside Prime Time

[leatherbookmark]

i have been tagged! by @lansplaining, @thatswhatsushesaid and @aeide-thea, thank you! the templates are a tiny bit different but i'm just gonna smush them together ( ‵▽′)👍

last song: this post took me a LONG time lol, so shatter by dreamcatcher when i started, to be by your side by nick cave (i know it from the bird movie) approximately in the middle and suga's interlude by halsey and, well, suga right now as i'm finishing it.

favourite color: yellow! warm tones in particular. i was very into red (not pink!!! not pink!!!) as a kid, then blue and purple and, gasp, pink, but at some point i realized i'm drawn to warm yellow objects because they just feel so happy. so. 💛

currently watching: this one youtuber does yearly videos on their favourite and least favourite kpop album packaging, and the one for 2023 came our like, yesterday. it's a surprisingly fascinating topic! (darts a look at my most recent book on polish typographic book covers. darts a look at another book i have on polish Boxes and Packagings. or maybe i'm just interested in that stuff. hm) i also kept on nodding along almost every sentence, because I Too am ridiculously opinionated about album packaging, lol.

last movie/show: the new percy jackson show!

sweet/savoury/spicy: complicated question, need at least two business weeks to ponder. but if i had to rank them, it'd be sweet > savoury > spicy? i don't care about spice, tbh! but that might be because i'm pretty bad at handling it, lol. when i cook ramyeon, i have to add half of the soup powder packet and additionally soften the spice with coconut/rice milk :')

relationship status: single, and unsure if i'm sad about it or glad i don't have more stuff to be anxious about lol.

last thing you googled: "tag piping", after some posts about how ao3 doesn't do it for the silmarillion characters anymore, apparently. i think it's supposed to be like, appending aliases/other names to the tag, like my | jgy, but i'm not sure why it's called that exactly. i also went to check what the tags look like now and hm. i'm not sure if adding (tolkien) to the names of very obviously tolkien characters is much better, but i don't really go there, so

current obsession/s: my lads my dudes my little guys ateez, i guess! but that aside, hmm. i don't currently have any microobsessions, but before, it was mechanical pencils and their leads. oh! analog cameras and identifying them on photos of kpop lads is also somewhere out there. whatever this is. my last.fm account. gifmaking and how the hell do people make their gifs so sharp and crisp? actually, um, let's define an obsession, shall we...?

tagging: feel free to do it, feel free not to, etc, @natandacat @madtomedgar @labyrynth @crashorpie @gloriousmonsters @raise-me-up-take-me-up @woobifiedvillain @paperchamomiles @mariposakitten

[canmom]

Animation Night 147: the music!

🎼♫♪ it’s animation niiiiighhhttttttt♫♪

Old hands at Animation Night may recall the two big playlists of animated music videos we used to draw from at the end of every night! Compiled by the indomitable @mogsk​ and scattermoon, they took us on a fascinating tour of visual and musical styles. Animation and music are good friends... at least in short form.

And occasionally, musicians get the idea of doing something a bit grander than a single music video. Like a whole movie. We’ve seen a couple of these before - funnily enough both British - with The Wall and Yellow Submarine on AN #86. For the other landmarks in this tiny genre, we gotta go to... Japan!

Let’s roll back to 2003! Anime is just entering its computer era, and household-name electronic music duo Daft Punk have decided that the thing their new album needs is an animated film by Toei, resulting in Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. Or in Japanese, インターステラ5555, Intāsutera Fō Faibu, "Four Five".

Like Yellow Submarine, Interstella 5555 is largely a frame story to set up the band’s songs. It tells the story of a pop band of blue aliens kidnapped by a dastardly human aristocrat in a scheme to mind control them and exploit their special musical talent to sell records. A young alien astronaut goes on a mission to stop them and free the band.

The film’s animation takes after Leiji Matsumoto, the incredibly infuential mangaka and director behind Space Battleship Yamato, Space Captain Harlock, and Galaxy Express 999. Matsumoto is credited on the film as a ‘Supervisor’, although I’m not entirely sure what that means.

I wrote about Leiji Matsumoto last week, so you can read about his origins in WWII comics before becoming the creation of the Leijiverse. His works were a big hit in France, where for example Space Pirate Captain Harlock came over as Albator, and there a young Daft Punk got to meet the galaxy of tragic long women and little bean guys...

...and they had enough money in their pockets to make it possible to create a movie-length tribute to Matsumoto, with a style that’s a deliberate call back. I’m not sure if Interstella 5555 belongs in the Leijiverse proper, but it definitely hits the style of his designs, not to mention many of the recurring motifs - humanoid aliens, spaceships modelled on unlikely Earth objects, the tragic results of coercive force (in space!)...

I’ve seen it once before but I was honestly too tired to appreciate it. If you’ve seen Interstella before, I hope it will be fun to see it again; if you haven’t, I hope you’ll join me in witnessing it with fresh eyes!

Alongside that we have Sound & Fury! Thanks to @mogsk​ for investigating this one <3

Sound & Fury is so far as I can discern a compilation of music videos based on the songs of country musician Sturgill Simpson. However, I know next to nothing about Simpson, and only came across him through music videos excerpted from this film. Here’s how the music is described...

Breaking with Simpson's established country style, it featured a fuzzy hard rock sound augmented by extensive use of synthesizers, influenced by psychedelia, funk, and electronic rock.[60]

The film as a whole - just forty minutes long - is directed by Junpei Miyazaki of Kamikaze Douga, known for their work on the OPs to David Production’s Jojo adaptation, and on Pop Team Epic. Kamikaze Douga handled a good chunk of the episodes themselves (in both 2D and 3D), and pulled in other studios for the rest - these include some I’m not familiar with, like Grayscale Arts. But one name I definitely do recognise, Michael Arias of Tekkonkinkreet (see AN 52). Arias is an American who went to America to work in anime at 4C; his work on this film seems to be with a much smaller team, actually in live action.

Moreover, two episodes bring in Henry Thurlow and D’Art Shtajio, some of whose work I think I showed back on Animation Night 21. Their selling point is that they’re the only Black-owned anime studio in Japan, and they’ve previous worked a lot on music videos and short films as well as contributing to various TV shōnen anime. It’s cool to see these guys again - unfortunately I don’t think their crowdfunded projects were successful, but I bet what they put will be pretty stylish.

That’s a brief summary of the credits - but what’s it actually about? Samurai, post-apocalyptic landscapes, and a lot of aesthetic stuff. I’m not sure there’s really a unifying story as such; in Simpson’s own words it’s basically a competition to show off cool shit...

Simpson said that while in Detroit, he was inspired after listening to Eminem to write "a bunch of mad shit-talking songs about how fucking awesome we are" but later began to think that what he and his band had produced was not "weird" enough, so came up with the idea to travel to Japan and "get the five most legendary animation directors in history together and get them all drunk and put them to competition to see who can outdo one another, and we'll just animate the whole fucking album"

Not long after finishing the album and film, he cut ties with his record label, citing burnout and criticising the music industry. Basically ‘good luck selling this guys’. It seems like kind of a mess so I bet it will be intriguing to take a look into.

So that’s the subject for tonight! With such a late start I won’t have a ton of extra time, but I’d like to revisit some of our favourite animated music videos at the end, so if you’ve got requests, make note of em! We’ll be going live at twitch.tv/canmom now, and starting films in about 20 minutes - would love to see you there!!

[unwelcome-ozian]

Are you familiar with Donald Marshall's story? If your comfortable, what are you thoughts on his descriptions of cloning, levels underground military base containing stadium arenas, and "cloning centers" where people are programmed and trafficked?

I have memories of being in underground stadium arenas, in the particular instance im recalling there was a stage in the center. I have no idea where I was on surface coordinates, I want to say it was Disneyland. It's strange to consider Disneyland a military base, but I've seen things similar to what Marshall is speaking about.

Is cloning humans, temporarily creating duplicates in the way Marshall describes, and using them like that within the realm of possibility? Do u know it to be happening? Philosophically that would be fascinating, but tech wise? I'm curious if that's a reality.

I’m not super familiar with Donald Marshall. I did a bit more research about him to answer your questions. 

I won’t go into deep detail about cloning but, give a brief overview.

Clones are organisms that are exact genetic copies. Every single bit of their DNA is identical.

Identical twins are just one example. Or clones can be made in the lab.

Reproductive cloning is defined as the deliberate production of genetically identical individuals. Each newly produced individual is a clone of the original.

“One good person there Bernie Mac comedian and actor tried to stand up for me speak up for me saying it's not right to do to a human being,... tried to have others join him in speaking out against the clone torture zone while there,... Elizabeth and Phillip had him tortured so badly there as an example of their "power" he had an aneurysm the next day and died.” -Donald Marshall-

After being treated in the ICU for three weeks, Mac went into cardiac arrest and subsequently died during the early morning hours on August 9, 2008 at the age of 50.

This would make Donald Marshall thirty years old in 2008. (They stupidly put my face on a Megadeth album, "The World Needs A Hero" when I was 23”)

“Half way through making this document they brought me there and introduced me to a man named TROY LANDRY, He is an alligator trapper from Louisiana on the tv program swamp people, he said if I sent this letter out he would take a power drill to my shin bone there and suck the marrow from my bones, kinda like a spinal tap, one of the worst things you can do to a clone besides burning, I said the letter will be going out, I have to escape this place, and so he did just that, it was excruciatingly painful, everyone just watched slack jawed in the crowd, Troy Landry is an insatiable child molester and an extra retarded clone, in Louisiana when he see's a young boy he likes he asks his name tells him he's an alligator hunter shakes hands, then asks his pedophile friends at the local cloning station to find the boys blood records to clone him, months later there are multiple identical boys grown for Troy Landry to victimize before the crowd of onlookers.” with Donald Marshall

This isn’t how cloning works at all. Clones are born the same way as other newborn animals: as babies. human cloning would most likely utilize "reproductive cloning" techniques — an approach in which a "mature somatic cell," most probably a skin cell, would be used, according to NHGRI. The DNA extracted from this cell would be placed into the egg cell of a donor that has "had its own DNA-containing nucleus removed."

The egg would then begin to develop in a test tube before being "implanted into the womb of an adult female," according to NHGRI.

A human clone would only have the same genetic makeup as someone else — they would not share other things such as personality, morals or sense of humour: these would be unique to both parties.

That was a quick search of what he’s posted. He also sounds like a complete arse. “Donald Marshall your a fag and a loser cody,... have fun licking your dads ass at the cloning center retard.” 

Cloning hasn’t been expanded on since 2006. In 2006 induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) were discovered. These are "adult" cells that have been reprogrammed to resemble cells in early development. The development in iPSC technology essentially rendered the concept of using cloned embryos both unnecessary and scientifically inferior. 

Oz

[babyjakes]

what can i do to ease into listening to taylor swift music? i get overwhelmed really easily and she has so many songs and albums and i've been wanting to listen to her music forever, but it's too much😭 i made a little playlist with the songs i've heard before and with some others with the same vibe, but i want to listen to everything :(

oh oh such a great question!! i can totally understand how it would be overwhelming to try to get into her music, there is SO MUCH of it and also swifties really set high expectations for “true fans” to know like every single song word for word. my best advice is to take it as slow as you need and don’t feel pressured to listen too fast or get through it all quickly just to say you did it!! take the time to enjoy each album. maybe start with whatever sounds the most appealing. i’ll give a little summary of each and maybe you can start with whatever sounds most interesting to you!!

her debut (“taylor swift”) is pretty innocent, old-school taylor with a lot of country components. fearless is still fairly country, lots of cute love song vibes. speak now is magical princess taylor, falling in love and getting her heart broken. red is hot girl energy, main character soundtrack stuff. less country this point. so is 1984, these two are probably my favorites hehe! reputation is hot girl taylor, badass and unapologetic. lover is sweet beautiful wonderful love songs, very “pop” genre now. folklore is taylor swift, cottagecore/indie version. evermore is a continuation of those vibes. midnights is back to pop, lots of magic and a bit darker vibes here.

you could also listen in order from debut to midnights, if you can’t pick. this would be kind of like experiencing her growth as an artist in chronological order, which i think is so fascinating and amazing to see.

just as a side note. i would stay as far away from swifties as you can at the beginning bc it can be a really toxic fandom and they are truly the queens (and kings, the royalty in general) of gate-keeping. which is so sad and it’s very unfortunate that it can’t be a more welcoming community but!!! know that it’s okay to be new to her, and to be listening at your own pace. i’m sure taylor would want you to take your time and not feel pressured any certain way when discovering her music 🫶 i hope this helped friend!!