#also like half my profs worked on care bears at some point which is really funny to me

[habken]

prof offhandedly said “I used to work on a show called backyardigans” like it’s nothing.. like it’s just some random show…

[hegglespeggles]

How to write an essay you could not care less about in 10 steps

Hello. I have an essay to write.

I am also, (unfortunately) the kind of lazy, apathetic burnout who will only do my FUCKING work if I get really worked up. Usually that ends up meaning all of my papers are spite-fuelled tirades but my profs seem to like them so fine. I hope you find this particular raging tirade useful.

Today, I would like to educate the 4 of you that will actually see this on a fine art I have perfected over the years. Writing a paper, about which, you do not give a single, solitary, crumb of a fuck about. This is (you may have guessed) and excellent way for me to procrastinate doing a paper that *I* do not give a single solitary crumb of a fuck about. For best results, I recommend doing this NIGHT-BEFORE-PANIC like, a week in advance so you can fix all the NONSENSE that your more reasonable brain will undoubtedly find. But if it’s the night before and you are shit outta luck, this will get ‘er done. And with practice, you can even pull good grades outta these bitches.

 Dissociating? I gotchu. Woke up the day of the deadline to feel like absolute utter garbage? Search no more friends.  

  FAILING GRADES ARE BETTER THAN ZEROS JUST FUCKIN DOOOOOO ITTTT

1.    Go get the prompt.

I fucking mean it. Even if you are like 1000% sure you know what the prompt is asking, go to the FUCKING assignment, and copy that shit into your word document. Got the assignment on paper? TYPE THAT SHIT UP MOTHERFUCKER.

(Do you see what I fucking have to deal with)

Boom?

BOOM.

Congratulations, you now have a document, and whats more, there are WORDS in it!! You aren’t starting from scratch anymore kiddo. Fringe benefit, you always know EXACTLY what the assignment wants because its fucking Staring You Down. Not saying you have to do exactly as it says, mama didn’t raise no BITCH and I aint scared of fuckin CALLING PROFS OUT but if you wanna break the rules you gotta know what they are first

(Disclaimer: I have also been kicked out of class on numerous occasions for fighting with the prof and had full classes where the lecture WAS me arguing so maybe take my opinions of conformity with a grain of salt.)

2.    Math THE FIRST

I know, this is an essay and not a fucking calculus test. But some of this shit is USEFUL OKAY

Take the paper in question. How long does it have to be? Mine is 5 pages. A page is generally accepted to be 250 words (double spaced because we FUCKING LOVE OURSELVES) so 5 x 250 = 1250 wds. That’s the goal. That’s the pinnacle. That’s your new holy grail.

Time to split this bitch up

  3.    Yarrrrrr, CONTENT

And finally, we get to the part that is the reason why you are being an absolute bitch baby about this essay (maybe. I might be projecting. Your life is your life and im sure youre doing your best.) I Hate this part, but now with our magic number we don’t need to pull 5 pages out of the ether.

This part really requires you to know your vibe. Is this something that you have a lot of little opinions (read: evidence) about or like, only 2 or 3 big bois? Look deep into your soul and figure out which is the easiest for you to shit out, a rant or a list. a  great way to do this is to WRITE ANYTHING YOU GOT OUT

Here you can see I’ve put all of the thoughts I have about the question into a list, slapped some standard “opening” and “closing” shit around it so I can FUCKING FIND IT AGAIN and given it a good hard look. Whats the common thread in all of my opinions? That the prompt is fucking stupid and makes no sense is asking 2 different questions. Congratulations: you found your thesis. This essay, like many of my essays, bears the thesis “this is a weird question to be asking” (which falls under my broader category of “bitches aint shit” essays.)

Congratulations you have the bare bones of your skeleton.

  4.    MATH THE SECOND

 The magic number returns. All hail our glorious leader. 1250 right?

So heres how I break this down. Break off a small chunk at the beginning. For this essay im gonna split off the 250. Split that baby in half. Congratulations, now you have a word count on your opening and closing. Personally, I know I like a lil extra space at the end to get all ranty, so Imma split this puppy up 100 for my opening and 150 for the closing. WARNING: You will think that you will be able to write enough in your opening and closing to take up lots of space. You will feel the urge to give them both the same amount of words that you give your points. This is misguided and foolish. Not only will you 1) not be able to do it but 2) even if you did, that’s like getting a sandwich which is all bread. No one wants that. Don’t be that dude. Fight the urge.

 RIGHT SO. We’re still left on the other 1000 words.

If you have an idea that like, is bigger than the others, go ahead and give that puppy more of the word count than the others, fractions are your friend here and you wanna think about how much of your final product each of these babies will be. If you, like me, are an utter buffoon with no clue what youre doing, open your calculator up. Divide the remaining word count by the number of points you have. Congratulations. Youre doing the essaying.

If this is enough to get you started, GREAT! See you at step seven. BEFORE YOU GO I would like to give you this tip

5.    CITE YOUR INFORMATION AS YOU ADD IT IN.

It doesn’t need to be a full citation, just literally a footnote with something that will help you remember where its from and for the love of god WHAT PAGE IT IS ON. The you of 3 hours from now will thank you.

  6.    Filling in the skeleton

 I don’t know about you, but I cant exactly riff off of a single sentence. Like, I know what the VIBE of my point is, but like, I cant pull it out of a hat. The name of the game here is whittling down your arguments into thinner and thinner chunks that are easier and easier to bullshit. This is how you avoid that “burning building found in flames during Brooklyn fire” bullshit that memes. You don’t wanna meme. You wanna pass. So, figure out what the things you are gonna say and in each bit, keep track of how many words you are gonna write. EITHER

a)      You put how many words you think you can write on any point beside the point as you go and just keep developing points and shuffling word counts around until it matches the total for that section

or

b)     You evenly breakup the word count between all the points and keep breaking them down until you look at a subject and a word count and go “yeah that’s doable. I can do that.”

I prefer the second so LEGGO.

Ta-Da!

7.    Write ‘er up

Ahhh glad to see we’re all back together again. Try-hards who can ACTUALLY bullshit papers, glad to see you’ve rejoined us! This is the part where you take all that shit you’ve broken up into nice little chunks and you turn it into something worth reading. You can do it. I believe in you. Try and keep your citations in place.

I like to do this as a question answer thingy, like an exam, so halfway through writing mine is gonna look like this

 The handy part about the numbers is that it gives you a frame of reference for how your bullshit is going. Realized you had a lot more to say here than you thought? Dope! Less bullshit somewhere else, take it out of a weaker point. This point didn’t give as much as you thought it would? Split the difference elsewhere! This way you have checkpoints and you can see how your essay is going

And then you can go ahead and delete your skeleton work. Its time. Its served you well. For extra drama, whisper menacing nothings to it as you send it into the darkness. Personal favourites include “no one will mourn you,” “your fate belongs to me,” and “so this is what you have come to”

  8.    Citations

Theres like a million ways out there to find out how to do your citations and its gonna depend on what kind of a paper you are writing. I use Chicago most of the time, including here. My advice? Use a site like, bib.me or something to do your bibliography, and then plaster that in the bottom of your document. Use that as the building blocks to do your footnotes. Let Purdue Owl be your guide. Purdue Owl Style Guide Is A Mighty Friend Indeed.

 Also your welcome for that, “putting the page numbers in as you put the info in” shit. That took me alarmingly long to figure out. It’s a wonder theyre giving me a degree.

  9.    Proofread that shit, ya bougie bitch.

If you wanna be time effective, getting a friend to proofread while you do your citations is a great way to go. If you have a few days, put your paper away and come back to it. If you are out of friends and time then https://www.paperrater.com/ is your last hope.

  10.       Slap a title page on that shit and GET IT SUBMITTED

 No joke, I have been using the same template for a coverpage all through highschool and my undergrad. There is only one title page and every time I write an essay I take the title page from the last paper I wrote. There is no beginning. Only title page. Title? Topic of paper: point of paper. For example, If I had to title this screed I’d call it Essay Writing: An exploration of mediocrity. slap the date and your name and the course and instructor on there and BAM. YA DONE.

 Anyway submit that shit an go to bed youre done goodnight

EPILOGUE

I’ve gotten this essay back, and when I wrote it, I was barely a human being. Barely capable of human speech let alone a coherent argument. I would forget the end of the sentence by the time I typed out the beginning. But I still for a 70%! is it the best mark I’ve ever gotten? no! but it is a hell of a lot better than the 0% I would have gotten if i hadnt done this. I get it. And i hope this helps. 

[rosegoldquintis]

Apricot

Pairing: Michael Clifford x Reader

Word count: 2.1k

Warnings: Swearing, violence? 

A/N: Sorry for being gone a while, but good news, graduation is next Friday, June 14th, so after that I’ll have more time to write and stuff! Also, If you want a second part you’ll have to let me know, mainly because I don’t want to waste time writing if no one enjoys it!

Also, there will probably be some spelling and grammar mistakes but im to lazy to prof read it 3 times.

We’re aslo closing in on 1.1k so that’s fun!!!!

(Picture from google)

Ever since Y/N’s first year at Hogwarts she had been alone, no one had really bothered befriending her. A lot of people barely knew she existed, until the first of September when she started her fifth year.

Y/N sat quietly in her compartment on the Hogwarts express. She dreaded going back to school but she couldn’t bear the thought of having to stay with her grandmother three more years. One of the bigger mistakes she had done was to wear a t-shirt when she arrived at the train station, you see, Y/N was a pure blood but she just didn’t know it since she was brought up by muggles.

For being in her fifth year she knew very little about witches and wizards which was why she didn’t know why getting a skull tattoo was a bad idé.

Sure anyone from afar might think it’s the dark mark but up close it was simply a skull made of smoke coming from a cigarette.

This year Y/N was lucky enough to be on her own in her compartment. She was drawing some of the tattoos she was planning on getting as soon as she got back from Hogwarts when the compartment door slid open and a boy with black curly hair popped his head inside and said;

“Do you mind if my friends and I sit with you, it’s full everywhere else.” He gave the girl a small smile but she just shrugged and went back to her drawings. As soon as on of the other boys stepped into the compartment they heard a hissing sound,

“What in the bloody hell is that?” The black haired boy asked.

“Apricot.” Y/N said in a quiet voice,

“I’m sorry what?” The boy with fuzzy blond hair said.

“I said.” Y/N said as she raised her voice. “That’s Apricot, my cat.” She pointed upwards towards the shelf above her and the blond boy who had sat down beside her. As soon as Y/N said cat. The boy with straight blond hair gripped his cat a bit tighter, almost like he was afraid that her cat might attack. Y/N looked up and saw the other cat,

“Oh. “ Was all she said before she stood up and reached for her own, when she had a good grip around the cat she moved him from the shelf to her lap. She put her notebook down without closing it which was a big mistake. The boy beside her looked towards the book and saw a drawing of a snake and a skull, he started to move a little to the right but he was only able to take a few centimeters before his friend asked him what he was doing. He pointed toward the book which made the other three turn their heads and before being able to stop himself the boy with brown hair said.

“Are you the girl everyone is talking about?” Y/N looked up from her cat with a questioning look.

“Wha- I do-, what?” Was all she managed to say before the boy interrupted her,

“Well, when we were getting on the train we heard a few parents talking about this girl with a skull tattoo and they thought that she might be a death eater.” He sat down between her and the blond boy before continuing. “And then Luke here saw that you were drawing a snake and he got a little freaked out.” And before he could continue Y/N said;

“What is a death eater?” When she said that she gripped apricot a little tighter as if someone was going to take him from her.

“You don’t know?” The boy with straight blond hair said with a worried look “Aren’t you in the same year as us? I mean Dumbledore have talked about them.” When he said that Y/N looked down at her cat in embarrassment.

“I’m Michael but you can call me Mike.” The boy smiled before sticking out his hand, Y/N slowly raised hers so she could shake it.

“I’m Ashton.” The boy with red hair and glasses smiled.

“And I am Calum.” The boy beside her said with a big smile.

“Nice to meet you, my name’s Y/N.” She smiled as she looked around at the four of them.

Once the train was an hour away from the castel the boys disappeared out of the compartment to change into their school uniforms. Y/N reached for her bag and pulled out a blush pink knitted sweatshirt, one she had pulled that over her head she grabbed her robes and pulled that on as well. Once she was done she sat down and waited for the boys to come back in. After a few minutes all of them stumbled in and sat down with her. Ashton was the first to notice that she wasn’t wearing her correct uniform.

“Aren’t you going to change?” He said with a worried look on his face, Y/N just smiled and shook her head.

“Nah, prefer not to.” She leaned back in her seat and grabbed Apricot for some cuddles.

“How are the other students supposed to know which house you’re in?” Hermione took her seat right in front of Y/N.

“They’ll simply have to ask.” She answered with a small smile on her lips.

After an hour the train started to slow down and everyone started to grab their stuff. Before anyone could react Y/N was walking away from the compartment and she was the first one off the train. The moment she was off the train she saw the friendly half gigant. She gave him a smile and said.

“Hi Hagrid, did you have a good summer?” When he heard the familiar voice his face lit up and he replied with a big smile.

“Of course I had Y/N.” Then she was off towards the carriages.

Once Y/N was seated at the Hufflepuff table in the great hall she watched as all the other students tumbled into the great hall, greeting friends as if they hadn’t seen each other for years. Y/N was seated so she could watch the Gryffindor table without having to turn around, this gave her the advantage as she could watch the four boys take a seat at long table.

A couple of days into the term Y/N was getting used to her time table but she couldn’t stand Umbridge. Y/N had already landed herself in detention with her and she was not looking forwards to it. Today had been one of the worst days ever, sure teachers knew that Y/N wasn’t following the dress code but according to Dumbledore they just had to accept it. Umbridge on the other hand did not accept it.

As soon as Y/N set her foot in the defense against the dark arts classroom Umbridge was walking towards her.

“Miss Y/L/N where is your uniform?” Y/N stopped dead in her tracks and looked at Umbridge.

“Not here.” She said looking down at her shirt. “That’s for sure.” Then she walked towards her seat and sat down.

“You will not be in my class if you aren’t in your uniform.” Y/N ignored her and looked at the blackboard up front.

“I am wearing my stupid robe, that’s enough.” She spat back at the old lady.

“MISS Y/L/N!” Umbridge yelled and when she did the whole class froze and looked at the girl in a blue knitted sweater. “I want you to leave my classroom and don’t come back unless you’re in uniform.” The girl stood up and started to walk towards the door.

“And Y/N.” The professor said in a fake sweet voice, Y/N turned towards her. “My office tonight after dinner.” And with that Y/N was gone. She decided that she was done with that class and she had only been there for a couple of minutes.

As she was walking down the deserted corridors she heard some voices further down. When she turned the corner she was met by a chest and someone grabbing her waist to try and prevent her from falling on her back, key word try. As she hit the ground everything turned black for a second and then she was met by green eyes and blond hair

“I am so sorry, are you okay?” The boy asked.

“Uhh… yeah, I think so.” She mumbled as she sat up from the floor. The boy reached out a hand for her to grab, which she accepted.

“You sure.” He asked “I can follow you to Madam Pomfrey if you want.” Y/N smiled.

“I’m sure Michael.” The boy smiled when she said his name.

“Shouldn’t you be in class?” He then asked.

“Yeah, I got kicked out.” She stated as she rubbed the back of her neck and looked down at her feet.

“What for?” He asked.

“As you know, I’m not in uniform but they never really cared but Umbridge is a bitch.” She said with a small laugh.

Later that evening after dinner Y/N was walking towards Professor Umbridge’s office, she had a knot in her stomach and it took everything in her soul to not turn back and hide away in her room. Before she knew it she was standing outside the hags office and she slowly raised her hand to knock. Before she could however, as voice from the otherside said.

“Come in.” It made Y/N take a few steps back but she still opened the door and stepped into the room. As soon as she closed the door and turned around to fully take in the room she was met by pink, so much pink.

“Miss Y/L/N, how nice of you to join me.” The professor said in her fake, sickenly sweet voice, Y/N didn’t reply. “Have a seat please.” She then continued on and pointed towards the chair beside her desk, Y/N sat down and looked at the parchment pieces that was laying in front of her. She looked up at her teacher with a confused look on her face.

“You are going to write ‘I am not going to disrespect school rules again’:”

“How many times?” Y/N asked.

“Let’s say, until you get it.” She answered, Y/N grabbed one of the pens, which looked like regular muggle pencils and said;

“There isn’t any ink.” Umbridge looked shocked at the young girls statement and let out a laugh..

“Of course there isn’t you stupid little girl. You don’t need that for these kinds of pens.” She then went back to her own work and Y/N started to write. After about 5 sentences her non dominant hand started to itch, as she pulled up her robes to look she saw that the sentences she had been writing had been carved into the top of her hand. She looked horrified but continued. Once she had written about 50 lines of the same sentence she put the pen down and stood up. Umbridge didn’t look up from her work but said;

“You are to sit here until I tell you that you can go.” Y/N let out a frustrated sigh and said;

“You said I was allowed to go once I got it.” She ran a hand through her hair before continuing “And believe it or not, I got it.”

“Sit. Down. Miss.” Umbridge said.

“No.” Y/N said before opening the door and rushing out the classroom.

“YOU COME BACK HERE RIGHT NOW.” She heard Umbridge shout after her, once she was out in the hallways she thought she’d be safe since the students was going back to their dorms, she tried her best to blend in with the other students. Once she was about to turn a corner she spotted her train ride friends which waved at her. Before she could react she heard someone shout:

“STUPEFY.” And everything turned black for the Hufflepuff girl.

Calum, Ashton, Luke and Michael all froze in shock when they saw the girl fall towards the floor. Michael immediately took sprint and ran towards her. Once he was with Y/N he saw Umbridge walk towards them with her wand out.

“What the fuck did you do?” He hissed at the teacher.

“She should have listened.” Was all she said as she looked over them. No one in the hall dared to move. Ashton looked down at Y/N and saw something on her hand, he went to grab it and gasped in shock when he saw it.

“What happened to her hand?” But before anyone could answer a booming voice came from down the hallway.

“WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?” It was professor Mcgonagall and the headmaster who was walking towards the crowd. Dumbledore quickened his pace once he saw that someone was lying on the floor.

“Students should know that actions have consequences.” Was all Umbridge said before walking away.

------------

Tagging some friends:

@calsophat @panimation @futurewriter2000 @vipclifford @blahehblah @cal-pal-cuddles @lukeinblue @rosesfromcth @thiccboycalum @talkfastwalkfaster

[valianc]

❧ he was like the sun, burning with courage and light ❧

❝ Your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything. ❞ TOM MADEN? No, that’s actually JAMES SIRIUS POTTER. Only NINETEEN years old, this GRYFFINDOR alumni works as a CHASER FOR THE MONTROSE MAGPIES and is sided with THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX. HE identifies as a CIS MAN and is a HALF-BLOOD who is known to be IMPULSIVE, EMOTIONAL, and QUIXOTIC but also COURAGEOUS, STEADFAST, and COMPASSIONATE. { JANE, TWENTY-TWO, NZT, SHE/HER } [ james is a donor-conceived child ]

james is, without a doubt, the most thoroughly decent of my lot

eldest of the three potters!! fuck yeah!! sibs 4 life!! potter kids against the world!!

lily is the fire, the inferno, blazing and burning and raging ; al is the guiding light, the lighthouse, looking out for all the ships in the night ; and james is the sun, golden and warm, trying to be steady in his light

(sort of telling, i suppose, about gryffindors that the two lions are the types of light that can burn you — one in a scorching moment, one from being too close for too long)

(or maybe that’s just james thinking — three people he loved, all gone in one night)

grief tw, parental death tw, death tw // harry died. minerva died. kingsley died. in one fell swoop. his father is dead, and all james can think is — he let him down. his father has always survived, has always fought for what mattered, has always taken care of james—had, he reminds himself, had—and when it came to it, james couldn’t protect him. maybe if james had been something better and braver and more important, like an auror, or something, anything, anything but what he is, maybe he could have saved him. ( and sometimes james wishes desperately that he was better—not to be the best or anything, but just to be good enough to save them for once. ) the world has always wanted pieces of them, these children of war heroes, even if the war wasn’t really a war, even if his father stopped it before it could be — his father was still a hero, and it mattered, being the chosen one’s children, even if it shouldn’t have. and james has always walked that line, not naturally responsible, but something steady in his chest, with light in his laugh and teasing smirks and cheeky quips and a playful disposition, but that sense — in the quiet moments between breaths, or when the night is cold and they’re the last few people awake under the light of the moon and stars — of looking out for his siblings, his family. it’s like: there is a difference between being responsible for and looking out for someone, and james has always felt the latter, but never has it been a heavy weight to bear until now. it is not responsibility burning at him, not really, because he trusts his loved ones to take care of themselves, he trusts them with everything, but that sense he should be doing more pulls at him. looking out for them has always come naturally, easy as breathing, and part of that was always in the assurance of his parents’ presence, of everyone’s presence — what couldn’t they do, as a family? what could possibly make the world spin fast enough that he couldn’t keep his balance? but the world is different now. it is missing its pillars. and for the first time, james isn’t sure how to look out for them. it’s not that he doesn’t trust them, because that hasn’t changed. it’s just that the world is an unfamiliar place now, one that took away three of the pillars that held up his sky, and he’s scared he won’t be able to bear the weight without their help.  end grief tw, parental death tw, death tw //

oof that was a bunch

james used to be a gryffindor, captain & chaser / member of the art club, herbology club and comc club, but he was chronic for missing some meetings of all of them on occasion bc of quidditch duties and some detentions (he mostly made it, though, especially art club)

current resident of the fulham flat, along with fred weasley, arabella mcgonagall, quinn lacey, sage brown-patil and maddie macmillan-bones (?)

he is... too trusting

lmao

or like

he’s always trusted easily, and he’s not breaking the habit as quickly as he ought to in war time (plot op to fuck him up, ig // especially if you wanna make ezekiel gamp and kill two birds w one stone and be part of the ICONIQUE™ sibling duo w gemma gamp, pls @ ariull for more)

a lowkey chaotic, but good-natured

dog person extraordinaire (lily gave him a puppy for getting signed to a pro tam and he loves him w his whole heart. name is tbd but options in the flat have included: james 3, fred 3, pup, florida man, sir scooby doo the smartest, and james 2 until it was pointed out that james is actually already the second so it would be the third)

the flat has two goldfish named frozzle and grozzle

very big on fair play w quidditch

has flown over to charles in the middle of a match to angrily call him out on his players endangering people before

he’s signed with the montrose magpies and plays chaser — he did have interest from the appleby arrows and the caerphilly catapults, but the magpies are based in scotland and make it easier for him to just drop in on hogsmeade weekends

he visits hogwarts sometimes solely to see hagrid, and remembers to catch up with his family too

his favourite quidditch players are his mother, viktor krum and lucinda talkalot

the only potter kid you could reasonably accuse of being a romantic smh

also he and al are tall (esp al) and lily is tiny lmao

james is the friend who will thwart your drunken attempts at running across the road screaming FREEDOMMMMM

however, also the anti-mom friend who just says whatever the fuck he’s thinking when drunk, which can lead to impulsive ideas and unexpected directions and a lot of headaches for ara, who is trying her best to keep the flat alive, goddammit james, fred come back here, quinn oh my gOD, sage, please don’t teach any of them to pick locks—

needs to get better at believing or expecting the worst in people lmao

if you could mix his trustingness with lily’s lack of trust/suspicious nature, you might get a person well-equipped for life

things roll off him pretty easily in general, and he takes life with a lot of ease, but when something hurts his feelings, you can see it

just not great at hiding his emotions in general, tbh

me @ him always: u dumb fuck

actually rly good at transfiguration, could have one day been a prof in another life

v likely to eventually be a healer, either following a quidditch injury or something else

thank god quinn made him study well for his NEWTs huh

we stan a ravenclaw who breaks into gryffindor common room during study season

kinda feels like he should quit quidditch, like what is he doing still playing, he feels like it’s selfish and wrong of him, but roxanne has been yelling @ him to keep on track!!

ok i’mma stop here bc he’s a disaster sag and things will just keep rambling on if i don’t

4:23 am jane strikes again!!

[yakumtsaki]

CHILLIN LIKE A VILLAIN. Pleased with yourself, are you, Becky with the good hair?

-Oh quite, though I’d be more pleased if my damn arm would unglitch.

HA looks like it got stuck while you were putting your filthy hands on Wyatt. God’s punishment is swift. Know what else is gonna be swift? YOUR DEATH. Get him, Waylon Fairchild Dementia Raven Way!

-Ugh, no way, I’m exhausted, everyone is in love with me and I just want to be with Draco, ok? Why couldn’t Satan make me less beautiful? IT’S A CURSE

Waylon sis truly don’t even talk to me about curses and Satan right now, this entire lot is cursed and crawling with evil spirits and beelzebubian energies. Ever since we moved here my life has never known peace. Next thing you know snakes are gonna start manifesting in this house physically.

Well looks like the snakes are already here. FRANCES WILL YOU FUCKING STOP ALREADY YOU GOT WHAT YOU WANTED JOYATT IS DEAD NOW CEASE AND DESIST

-No way bitch, time to suffer. Look at it and weep, look at it with your own two eyes!

First of all I’ve been weeping since yesterday so joke’s on you. Secondly I still can’t believe you did this to me after I generously gave you this whole debonair look YOU’RE THE WORST

-La la la can’t hear you over the sound of your plans crumbling all around me!!

I’m seriously gonna murder you a thousand times. Wyatt what about you, you dumbass bimbo? What do you have to say for yourself?

-Not beaucoup, I honestly don’t know why I’m doing this, it makes absolument no sense! Huhu! 

I hate you both so fucking much I might actually vomit.

Ugh my poor Jojo </3 I’m so sorry that your love life has turned into a giant pile of crap.

-Please, who cares.. Definitely not me!

Yeah well that much is obvious! Are you sure you’re alright tho? Because you look, you know. worryingly expressionless and in denial.

-Oh no, I’m just focusing on my new proposal,“Project MKUltra: The Comeback”. It’ll be a cold day in hell before I have to deal with adulterous whores again!

Good, good, pour yourself into your art. Speaking of, maybe it’s also time to pour yourself a refreshing drink?

Attaboy, milk that cowplant, Jojo!

-Hmm this process feels oddly sexual..

Yea, I can tell by your massive erection, jesus, I mean even for you-

-Ew no what the hell? That’s just because Ti-Ning is dead!

Oh ok, that’s fine then!

-YES YEEEEES I FEEL THE POWER COURSING THROUGH MY VEINS

Hard to believe anything can course through your veins with all that ice in there but alright. Now we just have to wait..

..for the cowplant to get hungry again. I literally can’t with Daniel and Gunther constantly picking fights with Jojo’s former suitors, especially since Jojo doesn’t seem to give enough of a fuck to fight them himself. We are family, I got all my sisters with me!

Ugh I keep forgetting Daniel has 9 nice points, what a crybaby. How you gonna fight capitalism when you can’t even fight Wyatt?? MAN UP DAN

Nice, there we go! I’m truly living for Brit’s utter lack of interest in fights happening next to her. Her aspiration bar is about to hit the crapper bc I’m even worse at playing popularity sims than I am at getting couples not to whore around, so the time has come..

TO PARTY HARD, TOGA STYLE. I really threw this party thinking it would be a success and save Brit from aspiration failure, so obviously the time has come to acknowledge that I’m even stupider than Wyatt. Things get off to a good enough start with the profs tickling each other, which everyone knows is the mark of a wild college party!

Ti-Ning, gone but never forgotten.

-Hey Brit, want some Ti-Ning to wash down that pizza? 

-Please stop addressing me.

-That’s right, address moi instead! 

NO YOU DON’T WYATT. YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE

..........................................................................all I can say is LMAO

Wyatt, sweetie, full offense, exactly how dumb are you?

-What? I wanna marry Jojό! <3

Ok. Do you have any recollection of breaking his “heart” 2 hours ago, setting him on the path of a complete nervous breakdown?

-Oh, that was just a bump on la route, don’t be so dramatique!

-Does it count as a win if the only thing you put in the hole.. are your tears?

.....god.

Meanwhile and to the surprise of no one, Gunther is being sexually harassed by a professor, namely Down-With-The-Kids-Pink-Beanie.

-Sooo Gunther, half-alien professor told me all about you, you little ginger minx.. What do you say you and I adjourn somewhere private and I see if the carpet matches the drapes..

-EW forget it, lady, you’re not even in the art department and I only have one rule: no whoring without extra scoring.

Um what about the rule of monogamous dating which you are currently doing with Mel?

-RIGHT that too!

Once again...god.

The one person having a great time at this party is Kevin Beare, who eats half a pizza by himself..

..and then moves on to chips. He legit came here for the free food and didn’t talk to anyone the entire time, which is what I do at every party except with drinks. Live your truth, Kev!

Look who’s back from class and still glitched lolol

-Can you please reset me already, I had to take an exam like this!!!

Pfff grades??? There are so many more important things in life, Fran. Live a little, join the celebration.. party like there’s no tomorrow. CAUSE THERE ISN’T

I’ve no idea what happened here but Tiffany is non-stop bullying this 2006-Oliver-Sykes haired professor. Judging from Pink Beanie and sims professors in general it’s safe to say he deserves it. GET HIM TIFF 

-Why doesn’t anyone want to fuck me, Frank? What am I doing wrong? Has Woody Allen been lying to us about hot young women being uncontrollably attracted to neurotic, misogynist, mediocre intellectuals over 60?

Oh great, I thought this party was gonna end as a dud but I see we’re going for full-on disaster.

-I’ve just about had enough of you and your passé casquette, communiste! 

-My casquette is not passé, it’s classic!

-LADY STOP TRYING TO GET UNDER MY TOGA

-Aw come on, please? For mommy?

-You should use that line on Jojo where it might actually work!

Enemies, these bitches my enemies, not on my level so they just pretend to be, yes, why do you envy me? Cause I am the MVP, these bitches my enemies ♪

-FOR THE GLORY OF THE USSR 

Yea, seems about right. Whatever though, cause after the party..

COMES THE CAKE.

Goodbye Francis, it’s been nice, hope you find your paradise!

-Oh please, SEE YOU IN HELL BITCH. WAIT FOR ME CAUSE I’M GONNA FIGHT YOU THERE TOO

It’s a beautiful morning and our llama friend is back to spread some school pride and presumably some bodily fluids. We almost went an entire day without seeing him but here he is again!  GET OUT OF MELODY’S SHOWER YOU FUCKING CREEP

-FINE. YOU’RE GONNA APPRECIATE ME WHEN I’M GONE

Yea don’t worry that day is permanently coming as soon as we milk Frances out of the cowplant. Honestly this fucking llama is the last straw, the time has come for me to take back control of this house..

..starting with getting sweet, dumb Wyatt back with Jojo! I really think the Frances thing was a fluke, I mean W wasn’t in a committed relationship with Jo, he didn’t initiate it and he rolled the want to get engaged to him for the second time after it. So the whole thing = Fran’s + ACR’s fault!!!1 Also and more importantly we have literally 0 other viable options and college is almost done so it’s time for Jojo to put Lemonade on repeat and get over it.

Let’s bring out the big guns!

-Mom! it’s so good to hear your insufferably domineering voice. Did you get my latest murder pics?

-Ha! Yes they are great, thank you mom. Soon I’ll add the french courtesan to my album. Now tell me, in as much detail as possible, how proud of me you are!

-I don’t know how Wyatt is doing, he’s the french courtesan, I’m going to kill him! Are you even listening to me?

-What do you mean it’s probably my fault? Can you divorce dad already, his influence on your brain has been catastrophic.

-Love is a battlefield? Mom seriously. Divorce. Now.

-Ugh yes, I could imprison him in a gigantic safe for a few days instead of killing him, but what on earth would that achieve?

-Well I don’t care about having a husband! Worst case scenario, I’ll just marry Max!

-Yes, Max does look like dad. Yes, he is as dumb as him. YES, MOM, I KNOW. HONESTLY YOU’RE ONE TO TALK 

-Well, I have to go now, but you’ve certainly given me a lot to think about. And by that I mean which care home to put you in cause you’ve obviously lost it. Goodbye, mother.

As soon as Jojo hangs up the phone Melody runs over to autonomously lecture him. Nice move, Mel, let’s peer pressure him till he caves!

-Jojo this is an intervention but please don’t mistake it as me actually caring about you. Your bullshit harem drama has taken over the entire greek house storyline and enough is enough, we demand equal airtime. Just forgive Wyatt already, he’s too hot for you and you were literally dating 2 other dudes at the same time and you also treated him like shit and you are the worst and Gunther is the best and he’s gonna beat you for heir. Melody out.

Yes, powerful stuff, thank you, Mel. Now Wyatt, let’s apologize!

-I’m so sorry I kissed Frances, Jojό, I don’t know what I was thinking </3

That’s a great start Wyatt, now let’s try it facing the right way!

-I’m so sorry I kissed Frances, Jojό, I don’t know what I was thinking </3 Also I’m totally planning our wedding in my head you right now.

Ok, smaller steps, let’s get him to not hate you first!

If there’s one thing I hate about ts2 it’s how ridiculously hard it is to be forgiven for cheating, shit is unreal. Wyatt has been apologizing for about 3 years now and Jojo is still furious jfc, it’s legit easier to get forgiven for cheating irl than it is in this game.

-For the thousandth time, I’m so so sorry Jojό, honestly in the dark of the nuit at first I thought Frances was you and then it was too late!

-Yes, it was also broad daylight.

-Well you know I have bad eyesight, mon cheri :(

Wyatt seriously, we’ve reached the point where you’re throwing junk out there, so let’s take a break.. 

..from this fucking house! It’s date time! Time for dinner and public woohoo in that vegan restaurant downtown, cause I’ve ignored Gunther so hard his aspiration is currently scarlet red. Mel is doing great though, like all knowledge sims in uni, she’s legit never not-platinum. The adorable couple make themselves right at home, by doing literally what they do at home 20h a day. NOT WHAT WE CAME HERE FOR GET UP

-Maybe if we act like children they’ll think we’re under 12 and we’ll get a discount!

-We’re so in sync, babe, I brought my monster trucks with me for this very eventuality!

-Here, let me blow you a kiss, babe. A prelude of tonight’s blowing. 

-Honestly, every time you talk, I just see the eggplant emoji <3

I didn’t vomit from Wyatt/Frances but this date might actually do the trick!

-Do you think the waiter is mad that we insisted on lobster in a vegan restaurant and he had to go fishing for it?

-Whatever, babe, we deserve it. 

-We really do. I ship us.

-I ship us too <3

Good because I don’t anymore.

Yaas, aspiration problems taken care of! Mel’s shy ass hilariously had a fear of having her photo taken, but public fornication she has no issue with.

-Having your photo taken is unnatural! I’m just using the photo booth as god intended. 

Ofc, on the 6th day, god created the photobooth for people to publicly fuck in.

-Wow Mel, my reflection in your sunglasses is so beautiful.

-So is mine in yours, babe.

-I almost wish we could look into each other’s eyes but then it’d ruin our whole look. You know what, screw it..

-..I was gonna wait till we graduated it and were more mature and crap like that, but whatever, babe, when it’s right, you know. Will you marry me, Melody Tinker, despite the certainty that one or more of our kids will get the Komei nose?

-Oh my god, Gunther! I literally thought you’d never ask, because, let’s be real, you’re a gigantic slut.

-These days are gone, babe, I’m a changed man!

-This ring has been in my family for half a generation, ever since my mom stole it from Florence Delarosa who was obviously never gonna need it.

-Oh it’s beautiful and the fact it’s stolen makes it even more precious!

It’s morphin time! Let’s pretend the red around Gunther’s memory signifies passion and not a crippling fear of commitment. Congrats you gross, crazy kids!

It’s also morphine time, cause damn are we broke as shit. In hindsight perhaps we shouldn’t have gotten the lobster.

We return home, where I’m trying to fulfill Jojo’s longstanding wish to see Ti-Ning’s ghost but apparently Ti-Ning is an even bigger asshole dead than he was alive. Bitch seems to be deliberately refusing to scare Jojo, I mean we’ve been standing around playing ghostbusters for like 4 hours now and it’s just not happening-

-but some scary shit IS happening inside. WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS.

-What!? We’re just talking about our mutual interest in entertainment.

Brit seriously, don’t make me kill you cause I’ll do it, I’m kinda on a roll here and completely exhausted from this fuckery.

-Gawd, fine, I’m gonna go to sleep.

GO TO A DIFFERENT BED. I’ve noticed a sudden and disturbing reappearance of slutty wants in Gunther’s panel immediately after the engagement, which I’m guessing is some kind of regression back to his usual pattern, like he’s rolling wants to woohoo 10 sims and makeout with another 20 and idek. It’s extremely pissing me off and it’s also extremely not happening.

I JUST SAID IT’S NOT HAPPENING. FUCKING STOP IT.

-We’re just friends!!! Paranoid much?

CAN YOU BLAME ME 

Look here, THIS is the distance I wanna see between you two. It’s also NOT the distance I wanna see between Wyatt and Jojo, man this apology shit is taking fucking forever UGGGH

-Jojό, are you still mad at me?

-What do you think?

-No?

-Guess again.

-No?

-Ugh.

-Oh Jojό, I know you hate me but I’m gonna keep apologizing for the rest of ma vie, cause I really have nothing better to do. And also because je t’aime, Jojό.  Why can't I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold cold cœur?

YES. FUCKING FINALLY. I HEAR HEARTS I HEAR HEARTS!!!!!

THEY’RE JUST NOT COMING FROM THE LIVING ROOM!!!!!11

KILL ME. I WILL PAY SOMEONE TO KILL ME. DON’T TELL ME WHEN YOU’RE COMING JUST SHOW UP AND DO IT. TAKE MY CAT ON THE WAY OUT AND FIND HIM A GOOD HOME. I’M DONE.

[daemonmatthias]

"Get to know me" meme! 1, 65, 69, 91

1. What images do you have set for your desktop/cell phone wallpapers?

Well, my desktop is set to rotate between several images that represent my nerdy interests. I’ve got 2-3 Beauty and the Beast ones, 2-3 Kingdom hearts ones (and there is one overlap between those two), some Harry Potter/Hufflepuff ones, and 1-2 Studio Ghibli ones.

My cell phone lock screen is My Neighbor Totoro, and my wallpaper is Belle and The Beast dancing (from the new movie).

65. Which do you use more often, the dictionary or the thesaurus?

Definitely the dictionary. I can do the thesaurus stuff in my head, but sometimes I have to check the connotation of the word to make sure the synonym I’m thinking of works in the same way. Also, I have to google words to see what phrasing my students are going to find when they look up a word so that I can make sure my answer choices are not too far off from or too close to what google tells them.

69.  What’s the most memorable class you’ve ever taken?

You know what? That’s actually a really hard question…. I knew by my junior year of high school that I wanted to be a teacher, so that perspective has always caused me to focus more on the teacher than the class itself when it comes to memories…. and I’ve had a LOT of memorable teachers over the years. Here are just a few…

There was the professor I took two classes with in college. He was a Doctor Who nerd since like the 60′s/70′s and would slip in references (like “wibbly wobbly timey wimey” while talking about a book not in chronological order) even though I was the only one in the class who knew what he was talking about. His Literary Theory class changed my whole perspective on life/literature in the best way possible, and he fucking tore every paper we wrote to shreds to make us better writers. (He made it up grade-wise with stupidly easy reading quizzes with tons of bonus point opportunities- like fill-in-the-blanks for his favorite joke, which was “a skeleton walks into a bar and orders a beer and a mop”, btw- and we could keep turning in the essays for better grades as many times as we wanted.) I worked my ASS off on his last paper and got a B on the first try. I have never been prouder. I also took his American Novel class where I read some of the best and absolute worst books I have ever read. Rabbit Run was the WOOORST, but I never ever would have read Winter’s Tale or The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao without that class. And, I certainly never would have read Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chaing without him. It’s something I never would have found/noticed on my own, and I loved every single word of those stories. I still haven’t found another writer that can mix science/math, literature, and psychology in the same ways. I’m currently re-reading the entire collection, as I’ve been wanting to since I heard Arrival was coming out.Side note: You should have seen me when I first heard of Arrival. I hadn’t heard anything about it until the trailer came on while we were watching TV. Poor Robert. I cocked my head to the side like a dog and started to say, “Why does this seem so much like that story I read?”, but only got as far as “Why does-” before BASED ON THE STORY BY TED CHAING flashed across the screen and I just fucking lost it. “IT IS, ROBERT, IT IS!!!” “Is what?” “THAT WAS MY FAVORITE ONE IN THE WHOLE BOOK!!” He was so confused and I had to backtrack and explain because that class was like the first or second semester we knew each other and this was the first time I had been remotely excited by anything in months.

There was also that Short Story class where the prof told us she wanted it to be a discussion class even though she’s terrible at discussion classes (her own words). That whole class was a hot mess. We discussed things so thoroughly that she couldn’t figure out how to write tests because she wanted them to be over what we hadn’t discussed about the story. We once had an essay test that asked us about “male enlightenment in Kate Chopin’s “The Storm”.” She started passing them out and everyone was like, “typo?? female??” “No. Male. Like the boy characters.” And we were just like…. uhhhhh ok then….” and when we left three of us got barely out of earshot before one asked us, “so what shit did you make up???” (I had bs-ed something about becoming enlightened to the fact that if mamma ain’t happy ain’t nobody happy.) The entire class pretty much bonded with mutual sarcasm over how awful the class was. It was a very unique environment because we all did actually enjoy discussing the stories with each other and we really got to know each other because the bond made us share more than we usually would with strangers. 

In high school I had the same teacher for AP Psych and APUSH. He was exactly my kind of sarcasm. I kept a “quote book” in high school, which was about 10% inside jokes and stupid shit we said, and about 90% Mr. A quotes. It was stuff like, “So we had the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. What does “entente” mean? Alliance. So we had the Triple Alliance and the Triple Alliance- BUT IN FRENCH.” I had both classes with him the same year, and he always connected the two by drawing on historical people for examples in Psych and mentioning (or using!) the Psych to teach us history. It helped me a lot in both classes. We also had to watch Phillip Zimbardo videos in Psych and we complained every single time because “He looks like SATAN and he scares us!!!!!” 

The was also the AP English teacher my junior year who most people hated because she was mean. (My friend who knew a bunch of upperclassmen said, “Oooh, you got The Wass. I’m sorry.” when he saw my schedule.) Only I got in the class period with the like 10 most sarcastic people in the entire grade and it seems like we were the only class to figure out that she wasn’t really mean- she was just one of the most deadpan sarcastic people I’ve ever met. We had a lot of fun because we realized she was really just sarcastic and would be sarcastic back. She asked us one day, a test day, after absolutely refusing to tell us how she was going to test us since we all read different books, “Do y’all wanna… draw a picture or do an interpretive dance for your test?” One kid immediately jumped up saying, “I wanna do an interpretive dance!!” and doing some kind of weird wiggle-dance. Her response was simply, “Too bad; you’re drawing a picture.” (And we really were.)

My senior English teacher was also pretty awesome. He completely scratched the normal AP Lit reading list and made a new one. It was full of awesome literature that I probably never would have read on my own and I loved most of it (especially The Tempest). He was also sarcastic and I’ll never forget how he would let us explore the literature as a class. I’ll also never ever forget his first poetry lesson. It was early in the year. He passed out copies of John Donne’s “The Flea” and read it to us. Then he goes, “what does this mean?” *Silence* “What is it about?” about half us are like ?????? while the other half are like uhhhhhhhh. He goes, “It’s ok, you can say it…” so one kid finally goes “….Sex?” “YES! Now how did you know that?” and the half that hadn’t been confused started pointing to certain lines, which he used to make us backtrack until he could give us a name of a device or explain about rhyme scheme or whatever. John Donne became my favorite poet because of his class. (We also read several of his holy sonnets later in the year and watched clips of Wit in class.) There was also the day he gave instructions for a timed write and then said, “OK? And while you do that, I’m gonna keep looking for a care bear costume that isn’t sexy.” We all laughed except one kid who goes, “How do you have a sexy care bear costume????” We all just looked at him until my teacher finally said, “…you know, it’s like lingerie with bear ears?” He also taught me the limited value of page minimums in writing. I didn’t quite make the page minimum once and got like and 85 on the paper or something. When we conferenced he walked me though all his comments about my organization and whatnot. I asked, “Ok, and just for my own reference, how many of these points were taken off for not meeting the page requirement?” He said, “Huh? Oh, none. None! You covered everything effectively and I don’t want to read the extra half-page of fluff.” Absolutely changed my perspective on writing papers and I aspire to make my teaching style much like his (when I’m teaching somewhere that can handle class discussions anyway…).

(Sorry, not sorry. You had to know that one was gonna be long! lol.)

91. What is your favorite word?

I think my favorite word is “persnickety”. It’s fun to say and applies to soooo many situations in the education world. I learned it from A Series of Unfortunate Events and have loved it ever since. :)

[thesinglesjukebox]

SAM HUNT - DRINKIN' TOO MUCH [5.33] What've we got here? Why, it's a CONTROVERSYBOMB!

Ramzi Awn: A bold experiment with a few good ideas, "Drinkin' Too Much" employs dark moments of candor to highlight a muddled mix. [5]

Olivia Rafferty: The heart and soul of country music is storytelling, which is why this track works so well. "Drinkin' Too Much" shifts the typical country subject of alcohol abuse to the context of sad man R&B, aka Drake's genre. The spoken verses contain a rawness that could only be conveyed with that style of delivery, and the lyrics themselves are so vivid. Lay this over a subtle blend of 808s and slide guitars, and you have a solid attempt to influence the direction of country music. Let the genre-mashing begin. [8]

Anthony Easton: John Prine, in a recent Rolling Stone cover story, spoke about how Dylan's Nashville Skyline broke apart country music for him (he was a folkie at the time): "Man, there's something there where their two paths crossed. My stuff belongs right in the middle." This is also in the middle: between soul and hip-hop, between the drinking and heartbreak of Nashville and the fame-wasted ennui of Kanye and Drake. But it's also at the bottom: the bottomed-out production, how Hunt trips over details, how he extends stories, how he never quite brags about his money, how his self-loathing bubbles up like swamp gas. It's the opposite of all those party songs, the opposite of Moore and Eldredge and Gilbert. It has a singular voice -- a songwriting voice, but also how he sings, a gravelly push that reinforces his production choices. It is the smartest thing he has done, and maybe the most heartfelt. [10]

Alfred Soto: I'm no country corn pone. I like electronic whooshes and the kind of manipulation of space more common on Drake or "Climax"-era Usher, but Sam Hunt can't even talk-sing without his sockless boat shoes tripping on his ill-lettered cadences. He comes off like a lunkier Chainsmoker, in the market for any hook that'll get him on the radio and laid -- two of his more admirable virtues. Find better songs, dude, and don't try so damn hard. [4]

Thomas Inskeep: This non-single posted on SoundCloud is the audio equivalent of a viral video, and like many viral videos, it's also essentially a journal entry set to music. Frankly, it's not up to snuff: this is him doing his rhyming couplets (he loves rhyming couplets) with a woozy rhythm track from Pro Tools or whatever. It also sounds a lot like a demo for Justin Bieber. Most of all, this is slightly creepy oversharing; I want a Silkwood shower after listening to it. [0]

Elisabeth Sanders: Everything about this is deeply embarrassing, and that's why I love it. While I can't pretend I like this as much as anything off Montevallo, it makes up for it with "I wish you'd let me pay your student loans," and I'd like to submit this as a great entry into a music category I'd like to call "voice-memo pathetic-wave." (The other artist in this genre is Mike Posner with his great, deeply pathetic album At Night, Alone.) The song approximates, sonically and with almost nauseating accuracy, the feeling of being just too drunk enough that the room is spinning a little, being very sad about something that might be your fault in a crowded place at 2 in the morning. BEEN THERE, SAM. [7]

Jonathan Bradley: In which Sam Hunt pens a letter to Montevallo's Courtney From Hooters On Peachtree and proves himself to not be country music's Drake, but rather its Mike Skinner. The hook is the weakest part; it doesn't resolve Hunt's thoughts but elides them. (The austere "8pm" take works better and is worth a point or two more.) There is frisson in a lyric that pushes too far past the fourth wall, threatening to combust as it reaches the event horizon -- for the non-country, non-rap examples to which "Drinkin' Too Much" draws nearest, look to emo acts like Cursive's The Ugly Organ or Say Anything's "Every Man Has a Molly." "Hope you know I'm still in love," Hunt closes, except it's a correspondence that is only intimate the way a performance is, and so his words are combustible as well as heartfelt. The sour sense that this song bears too much truth is its most compelling point but also its most repellent; Hunt is too casual in his exhibitionism. [5]

Will Adams: It feels right; we've reached the level of bleakness in our pop music that songs can now just be actual shitposts with first draft choruses tucked in. [3]

Katherine St Asaph: Did we need another country "Marvin's Room"? In every country review I keep harping on artists telling the same generic story addressed to the same imaginary sorority girl, but here's a lyric and addressee that are certainly not generic or imaginary, and I'm not sure what to think. If Sam Hunt's byline didn't scare off the traditionalists, the first vocoded note is almost deliberately scheduled to shoo away the rest (none of the subsequent vocal is so blatant), leaving a smaller audience of fans and an explicit audience of one specific, named girl. There's something inescapably creepy -- voyeuristically creepy for the listener, manipulatively creepy for the artist -- about this, this couple chords and a tirade. Most of his target demographic will hear this as romantic, but for those unfortunate enough to have been stalked, the details are so familiar as to be textbook: presenting her with his un-rebuttable imagination of her life, in which she stages the Everytime video every time she wants to cry, in which there's nowhere else in Georgia she can buy peaches, in which everything reminds her of him, or at least does now; reminding her of her debt while holding Montevallo money over her head; apologizing for boosting her profile while writing her name into a huge triumphant chorus; pondering "whether it's OK to lie" while careful to mention none of the indiscretions that got him there -- merely their consequences, which now seem unreasonable. Better to address this as fiction, then -- like most "autobiographical" songs by celebrities, somewhere between songwriting exercise and publicity stunt, because you don't cross over into pop and stay without some dating drama. What's left is slapdash: accurate-sounding candor spewed over a couple identikit country choruses, each piece well-crafted but only assemblable by a real-life happy ending. Which is the point, and the problem. [5]

Megan Harrington: Too much of my instant dislike of "Drinkin' Too Much" hinged on the preposterous way Sam Hunt apologized for (more or less) doxing his then ex-girlfriend, now fiancé Hannah Lee Fowler on his debut album Montevallo, only to turn around and close the song by singing her name. In case there were any straggler fans out there who hadn't quite put her identity together, I guess. It was incongruous in a way that grated on me until I realized that it was the perfect synecdoche for the song, one that indulges overwrought production as 40 as it was country and several different singing styles, including plain old talking. It's right there in the way he names her his first fan and then cheats on her, the way he dismisses her sisters as "matchmakers" but hopes her dad still prays for him. Real life is messy and filled with leaps forward followed by half-steps back, relationships are chaotic and confusing, and Hunt captures all of it, ending hopefully with a (sort of, he hopes) romantic pledge to win her back. And it (sort of, I think) worked? [7]

Crystal Leww: The first time I heard "Drinkin' Too Much," I did not like it. I did not like the 40-esque production, the sad sap lyrics, the way that Hunt called out his ex-girlfriend. Then I listened to the 8pm version, stripped of the production flourishes, and figured that it was just the production that was bugging me. The lyrics were sad, but they were so specific: peaches in Pelham, a hotel room in Arizona, and that devastating, heartbreaking "hope your dad still prays for me," a reminder that breakups are the deaths of families, too. I've never liked the comparisons to Drake -- Drake is someone who has clearly never been in an adult relationship with a real woman rather than a built-up image of a woman, but Montevallo and "Drinkin' Too Much" feel like they're about real adults who have genuinely loved each other and created lives together. I still like the 8pm version more, but I've come around on the full version. It's dramatic, but I appreciate the attempt to appeal to a broader audience, and it highlights that Hunt's lyricism shines through anything, even snaps and strings. [7]

Josh Langhoff: A prof used to tell us, "People who are sorry weep bitter tears." I don't buy Sam Hunt's sorrow. Nor do I buy that this song has a melody or a beat, that it has any connection to country or R&B, that this is the same Sam Hunt who did "House Party," or that picking peaches is anything but the pits. More schnapps! [3]

Katie Gill: Look, I'm sorry, I can't hate this. With the exception of that "I hope your dad still prays for me" bit, the verses are awful, not singing but the Sam Hunt Spoken Word Poetry Hour. They swing between endearingly hokey and the awful Nice Guy sort of patronizing that was the entirety of "Take Your Time." But the chorus is AMAZING. It's so silky and smooth, perfectly mixed, and Hunt shows that he has a halfway decent R&B(ish) voice. But the two never really meet. The transition between verse and chorus is awkward every time, as the buttery-smooth chorus butts up against the not very smooth speaking voice of Sam Hunt. [6]

Joshua Copperman: I keep singing this title to the tune of Twenty One Pilots' "Ride", attempting to remember what little melody this song has ("I've been drinking too much, help me..."). Until the bridge -- which would make a better chorus -- nothing is worth remembering: not the strings, not the drum machine, and especially not the single strum of guitar to signify that it's still country. What made "Marvin's Room" work was the honesty and subtextual self-loathing that Drake would spend the rest of his career distilling. This seems less stream-of-consciousness and more trying to write stream-of-consciousness, which rarely works as well and results in lines like "I wish you'd let me pay off your student loans." The dramatic piano ending makes clear Sam Hunt's lack of shame in copying Aubrey, but that just makes him sound even less authentic, even though the backstory contains more than enough drama for something genuine. [3]

Edward Okulicz: The first time I misheard the line as as "I'm sorry for making the album Montevallo," but this sketch wouldn't be a repudiation even if he were sorry for that. And it's really not that much more than a series of lyrical fragments and a chorus, but I find myself nodding along at some parts, and being frustrated at the lack of detail in others, and going to the "Personal life" details of his Wikipedia article to see the resolution. So that means it's fairly compelling for its limitations. [7]

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[canaryatlaw]

Today was pretty awesome. So small group sign ups for my church went live at 7:30 am and they always fill up really fast, so I set my alarm for 7:30 so I could do that and then go back to sleep until 9 when I had to get out of bed. Originally I thought I wasn't gonna be able to do one again because of all my night classes which I was sad about, but being that the mock trial team is heading to one of their competitions this week my Thursday nights will probably be empty now, so I managed to make one of the co-Ed groups work. It's not the one specifically labeled "20s and 30s unmarried" but there's also a whole other section for married couples, so hopefully not everyone in the group will already be dating? That's been my issue haha, everyone at my church is already dating someone, I swear. So my alarm goes off and I go to log onto it on my phone, but the damn page is down, probably because a ton of people tried to log onto it at once. I tried for like 7 more minutes before being like fuck it, I'm going back to sleep so when I woke back up at 9 I logged on again and snagged the last spot in the women's sign ups for that group (they separate it by gender to try and have a balanced number of both in each group) so that was good. Got ready, headed off to church and got there just a bit early, so I ran up to the nursery to make sure things were going alright. It was almost at the end of the 9:30 service at that point, and the 9:30 is always the busiest so I was a little worried about only having two people signed up, but apparently it was a first serve day which means there was a bunch of other people in there belong which was good. So then I went back downstairs and into the 11 o clock service, which it was really nice to be back in. I haven't actually been in the service since before Christmas break, so like a month now, which is just way too long (I just get too easily caught up in wanting to stay with the babies, lol, and then I was home for several weeks too). As I mentioned earlier my awesome pastor went out of his way to say how awesome he thought the women's March was and how he loved that many from our church participated, and very explicitly stated that "if you weren't aware, the church you're attending is not one that allows women to lead, it encourages women to lead." And I mean his wife is the co-lead pastor with him so they definitely live that out and oh my god it was so refreshing to hear something like that actually come from the pulpit. My parents themselves probably wouldn't have had a problem with those comments, but if they were said from the pulpit (or in any context) in their church there would be droves of angry churchgoers banging down the pastor's door and demanding his resignation (and I'm not even kidding). So it was really cool to be reminded just how different this church is and how it makes me feel that much more at home there. He also said that in addition to a full sanctuary we had filled up 4 overflow rooms this service, which is insane given that it's just one of then4 Sunday morning services they have. It's obviously booming and it's so full of young people in a time when all I hear about is young people leaving the church, so they're obviously doing something right. The service was about a passage in John where Jesus is taking about being the vine and God being the gardener, who cuts off branches that don't bear fruit and prunes those that do so they'll be more fruitful, which for a song from my crazy bible song childhood stuck in my head lol but it was good. After the service I headed back up to the sanctuary for the 12:30 service I was working. We ended up with 4 babies and there were two of us, so it was a good balance really. We initially had another girl but she hadn't made it to the service earlier so we told her she could go watch it instead. The baby composition was interesting, haha. There was a little girl, 6 mo the old, named like one of my favorite names that I want to name one of my daughters, and she was mostly complacent for the whole service, no crying so that was appreciated haha, she was cute. Then there was another little girl who was screaming bloody murder when her parents left and was totally inconsolable for a good 5 minutes before becoming distracted and deciding not to cry anymore, though for most of the time she just kind of sad there and wouldn't respond to anything we tried to get her interested in even though we knew she could understand us, lol. They had some bubbles this week though (in spill proof containers, of course) and that captivated most of their attention for a good chunk of the service. Then I finally got to see my tiny girl again, who I haven't seen in like 6 weeks so that made me happy and she's just so freaking cute I can't take it. She was again refusing to let me put her down, but was also like, getting upset when I'd go to play with another baby and pull her back to her haha and when I was trying to get the formerly crying little girl interested in some of the other stuff I would be like "can you go through that side and show her?" and kind of motion with my hands and she did exactly what I asked, when I'm not at all sure she knew what I was saying haha so I was impressed with that. And yeah, she was just typically adorable. She was calling me "mama" at various points, which is curious only if because I know she calls her mom "mommy." She doesn't really have a whole lot of speech right now, just a handful of words, so I was trying to encourage her to say "Rachel" but that tends to be a mouthful for babies just learning to talk, and my name usually gets designated a shorter version until the child can fully pronounce it (I know my little brother called me "shell" for a while, and my sister, inexplicably, called me "hatoo" for a solid six months) so I knew that probably wouldn't work. She also has this super cute habit of pointing some of the other kids and being like "baby!" even when they're like, older than her haha but she gets all sweet with the little babies and gah it's so cute. I'm trying to remember if she did anything else particularly cute, but be probably bored you all by this point so I'll move on. The fourth and final child in our care was a boy who was 23 months old, so about to move up to the toddler's classroom, and he was pretty big compared to the others. Strangely, he didn't cry when his parents left and was totally fine for the first half of the service, then just out of nowhere insisted on standing at the gate and looking out the door saying he wanted his momma and he just would not move, despite our many attempts at comforting/distracting (we did get him away a few times, but not for more than like 5 minutes before he would go back). He wasn't actually crying most of the time, but I would go up to him and try to comfort him and he'd just kind of collapse into my arms (it was so sweet) and cry a little and oh man, poor kid but it was really the sweetest thing. So I kept promising him his parents would be there real soon since there wasn't all that much else I could do. They did arrive soon enough, and I told them about how he was acting and his dad said he had gotten a really small amount of sleep last night (and that he was walking around Walgreens with him at 5:30 this morning trying to get him to fall asleep) and that would definitely do it, so hopefully it's just that because I know he's been in with us before with no problems. But yeah, most of it passed without a problem, which was a giant relief compared to last week's fiasco, the crying was kept to a minimum thankfully. Headed home and when I got here I knew I had to jump into my LARC assignment, which I had this feeling of dread about because LARC stresses me out like nothing else, and this was no exception. A big part of it was researching and finding cases to use, but it's not a terribly specific issue so there's a ton of cases to sort through, though very few of them are actually on point, so that was irritating. I spend a while searching through those and compiled a list of 5 because our prof said if we sent her 5 cases by midnight Sunday she would send us 5 back, so I got those in but then I didn't want to do anything on the case front until I get her answers because those will probably be the best cases to use. So I tried to do the other pieces, but kept getting caught up in the "legal writing" vs "LARC" problem. I'm good at legal writing, I do it all the time, but LARC is an extremely specific type of legal writing where every sentence has to service a specific purpose and there's no room for anything else and it's very difficult to make every case fit into that formula when not all cases were built for it. Plus in all likelihood it's not anything that would be required of us on that level in the real world, so it's not really worth much. I tried to write the pieces not involving the cases but kept getting caught up in the different pieces and what to put where that I eventually just got too frustrated and stopped. I have about 2 pages done, a little under 600 words, with a word limit of 1750, so it's a decent dent at least. I'm not happy about having to continue working on it during the week because during the week my time is very limited, but I can't do much else at this point until I get the cases back from my prof, so that will she to do for now. Sigh. I had set out some chicken to defrost in hopes of making a meal I could use for lunches/dinners throughout the week, so I grabbed one of the Campbell's skillet sauces, creamy Parmesan chicken, and I'm about to sound like an advertisement but holy fuck people, this stuff is so good and it's ridiculously easy. All you do is cook the chicken, at the sauce, let it boil for a few minutes, then mix in pasta or whatever else you want and you're good to go, and it just tastes so fucking good I can't even tell you lol, I was very pleased. Once that was done I moved on to the tv, I didn't necessarily want to start a new show because most of my shows are coming back this week and I'll be occupied by catching up with them (weeknight classes) for most of my weekends from here on out, so there wasn't much point in starting a new show, so I figured I'd knock off one of the movies on my list and went with batman v superman dawn of justice, just because I love superman (even if I don't love THAT superman) and I felt like a bad fan for not having seen it yet. It was interesting. It was a decent movie, but not a great one. I don't think they develop Clark enough as a character beyond being superman, and for most of the movie I didn't have much of an idea what the hell was going on in Bruce Wayne's head. The supposed doomsday monster at the end felt like a cheap shot, because it was literally just some random monster they tried to slap the doomsday label on in an attempt to tie it to canon, when it's just a fucking random monster. I did like Clark kicking ass to find Martha, and how Bruce immediately changed his tune after finding out Lex had her, even when he had spent most of the movie plotting against superman. Any sadness I would've had over superman's death is pretty much tempered by the fact that I know there's an upcoming justice league movie that he will undoubtedly be in, so there isn't much chance he'll be dead for long. But yeah, fine movie, but not one I'd love for such an iconic character (two iconic characters, really) and nowhere near on the level of the marvel movies (and I say that while being a DC girl through and through). It's a shame they can't seem to find the dynamic in their movies that they've found in their tv shows....if they were smart they would do what marvel is doing and tie in the tv and movie universes, which would be soooooooooo easy to do because they've already introduced the concept of the multiverse and different characters being from different earths, like it would be incredibly easy to introduce them as different universes that are now converging. Sigh. I know it's never gonna happen, but I can dream right? The other exciting thing that happened today was that I officially purchased my ticket to the Heroes vs. Villains Fan Fest in Chi at the end of March which happens to fall on my birthday, because Caity Lotz and a ton of other awesome people will be there and doesn't that sound like an awesome way to spend your birthday?? I have a kickass cosplay in the works (and by that I mean I'm buying one because I have no artistic skills whatsoever) so stay tuned for updates there. Okay, this is long and I'm tired and it's almost 2 am, so I'm gonna go to bed now. Goodnight loves. Hope your Monday doesn't suck.