#also this side of paradise is their song i do not accept criticism

[gwendolynnderolo]

chapter 4: underneath the pale moonlight

But right now, he’s here. Sitting barely three feet from Liam, infuriatingly and effortlessly attractive, the moonlight casting his features into sharp relief, accentuating the slope of his cheekbones and the contour of his jaw, the curve of his lips and the long line of his throat, and Liam can remember the taste of Theo’s sweat on his tongue, can remember sinking his teeth into his flesh until he could taste blood, and Liam thinks he might actually die if he he doesn’t get his hands on Theo right now.

[theladysilvermoon]

10 Facts about Andreas "TIX" Haukeland from Norway:

article from wiwiblogs

01: International song writer:

As well as being a performer in his own right, TIX is also an established songwriter for other artists. Most famously, he was part of the team behind American singer Ava Max’s hit 2018 single “Sweet But Psycho”. TIX also co-wrote Flo Rida’s sporty 2017 single “Game Time”.

02: Tourette syndrome:

Otherwise known as Andreas Haukeland, TIX has been open about having Tourette syndrome and OCD. His stage name comes from a childhood nickname that referenced the involuntary tic movements he experiences as part of Tourette syndrome. It’s also why he wears his trademark sunglasses — to help disguise the tic movements he sometimes experiences with his eyes. Being open about his Tourette syndrome and OCD has also been helpful for his fans dealing with similar issues. TIX said, “Even if I only get one message from a parent saying their child is doing better because of me, I know I’m doing something right.”

03: Party Music:

Anyone who has seen the hit Norwegian teen drama series SKAM will know about Norway’s Russ party culture. TIX got his start in the mid-2010s making music that would be the soundtrack to wild Russ parties. His debut single was the controversial “SJEIKEN 2015”, which sang the dubious praises of drinking heavily and shagging. However, TIX has since reflected a lot on his Russ phase and said he accepts that, in retrospect, he should have “used other words and phrases” in the songs. He also accepts his position as someone with influence, and said “I am now in a position where I can do a lot of good for people through my music and message – that is what I intend to focus on in the future.”

04: Paradise Hotel:

In 2019, TIX was a VIP participant in the Norwegian edition of the popular reality romance show Paradise Hotel. He also penned the theme song for that year’s series. The song, “Kaller på deg”, was a hit in Norway and reached No.1 in the singles chart.

05: Four Number One Singles:

TIX hit No.1 in the Norwegian singles chart in 2019 with his debut solo single “Jeg vil ikke leve” (I don't wanna live). He has also had No.1 singles with his Paradise Hotel song “Kaller på deg” (Calling for you), his lockdown “Karantene” (Qurantine) and the Norwegian version of his eurovision 2021 song "Ut av mørket" (Fallen Angel).

06: Mental Health Issues:

TIX openly talks about the mental health issues he has faced in recent years. He has spoken about feeling isolated and anxious while hiding behind the confident rock star persona of TIX. But he is determined to no longer hide, being more open in both his music and his public life. TIX recently said, “I made it my mission that instead of trying to fit in, I would put mental health on the agenda”. In turn, TIX has been praised by Norwegian mental health experts for speaking out about his issues.

07: Lucky Dice:

Viewers may have spotted the giant golden dice TIX wore at the grand final of Melodi Grand Prix. All sides of the dice showed a single dot. This was a reference to the reaction towards TIX from Norwegian music reviewers who had rated “Fallen Angel” only one out of six dice. One reviewer even declared he would “eat TIX’s headband” if the song won MGP. TIX turned the low rating into a piece of bling that brought him good luck. After TIX won Melodi Grand Prix, the critic who bashed him was forced to eat a trademark TIX headband live on TV.

08: Most Streamed artist in Norway 2020:

TIX’s music is super popular in Norway. Last year he was the most-streamed artist in Norway, proving more popular than international pop icons such as The Weeknd, Juice WRLD, Billie Eilish, Justin Bieber and Eminem, and fellow Norwegian stars Kygo, Alan Walker and Astrid S. Even Ava Max couldn’t beat the might of TIX!

09: Norwegian Idol:

Last year, TIX put his expertise as a hitmaker to work and joined the judges’ panel on the Norwegian version of Idol. Sitting alongside Tshawe Baqwa of Madcon and music journalist Silje Larsen Borgan, TIX helped mentor the acts competing in the 11th edition of the popular talent show.

10: Artist of the Year 2020:

In 2021 TIX won The Norwegian Grammy Artist of the Year 2020. After years of work in headwinds among critics, TIX from Norway has been widely praised for his efforts as an artist. His two songs "Karantene" (Qurantine) and his Paradise Hotel song “Kaller på deg” (Calling for you) was nominated for song of the year, and his songs had been streamed more than 70 million times in 2020, making him the most played musician in Norway.

[aion-rsa]

How Dear Evan Hansen Changes the Musical’s Ending

https://ift.tt/2XGJPiD

This article contains Dear Evan Hansen spoilers, both for the movie and the stage show.

No matter how you come to the story of Dear Evan Hansen, and regardless of the medium, things always have to end at the same apple orchard. It’s fitting since Evan’s first major lie about Connor Murphy, the boy who killed himself, was that they spent whole days in the then-abandoned orchard, talking about girls, boats, and whatever other fantasies Evan could concoct. And it’s here that Zoe Murphy, Connor’s younger sister, requests Evan meet her for the story’s final scene.

This is true of the stage show, which took Broadway by storm five years ago—winning six Tonys including for Best Musical and Best Actor for Ben Platt—and it’s the same for the movie, with Platt’s Evan coming to a now renewed orchard and sitting with the cinematic Zoe (Kaitlyn Dever). Among the trees, Evan can see at least one good thing that came out of his lies: The Connor Murphy Project reopened this small slice of paradise.

Yet how Dear Evan Hansen gets to that moment in the movie is drastically different from the stage musical. Then again, so is the world in the five years since the musical’s Broadway debut (and six since it was first performed in Washington D.C.). Hence why director Stephen Chbosky and screenwriter Steven Levenson, who adapted his own book from the stage, have attempted to adjust to our current social climate. The new ending addresses the harshest criticisms about the Evan Hansen character, and the values his tale might promote. This is, after all, a musical about a troubled young man who exploits the suicide of a stranger in his school to increase his popularity and to insinuate himself into the dead boy’s family.

But is the new ending an actual improvement? Well…

How Dear Evan Hansen Ends on Stage

The entire narrative of Dear Evan Hansen pivots on a misunderstanding between Evan and the Murphy family as the latter grieve over the suicide of Connor. When Connor’s parents, Cynthia and Larry, first misconstrue Evan’s letter to himself as their son’s suicide note, Evan attempts to correct them. However, they seem so heartbroken, and Evan is so desperate to please and be accepted—by anyone—he quickly goes along with it and begins spinning tales about his and Connor’s intimate friendship.

The musical is thus a rising crescendo that builds as Evan climbs higher and higher off his mistruths. So the inevitable moment where his house of cards comes crashing down is the narrative’s real climax. And yet, in the original version of Dear Evan Hansen, the story more or less ends right there. After Evan confesses in the song “Words Fail” that he lied about the letter and his entire friendship with Connor, the horrified Murphys walk away from him one by one, with various degrees of disgust. He then comes clean to his mother in the final big song of the show, “So Big / So Small,” where she comforts her son. She’ll never walk away.

The musical then quickly jumps one year into the future, with Evan revealed to be working part-time and attending community college, hoping to save up enough money to someday attend a university. Zoe, who’s now a senior in high school, invites Evan to the orchard where he thanks her family for never revealing his secret to the public—never telling the world he lied about Connor. And, rather incredulously, Zoe absolves Evan and the audience of any guilt. She says, “Everybody needed [the lie] for something.” She even goes so far to say it “saved my parents.” It brought her family closer together.

So while it’s still bittersweet since Evan’s relationship with the Murphys, including Zoe, is forever severed, there are still no real consequences for Evan other than Cynthia and Larry won’t pay for his college education. Even his guilt is assuaged, and he can brag to Zoe that he’s been reading the 10 books Connor said were his favorites in eighth grade. The show more or less ends in a figurative group hug by omitting through a time jump all of the messy fallout from his choices.

How Dear Evan Hansen the Movie Ends

In the film, “Words Fail” is still the climax of the story, with Evan confessing his sins and Zoe walking away. However, in one telling addition, Cynthia (played with delicate fragility by Amy Adams) is barely able to whisper, “I think it’s time for you to leave” while holding back tears. Since she was Evan’s biggest champion, that she is now the one who states explicitly he is disinvited from their home hits hardest.

Then after Evan’s heart-to-heart with his mother (Julianne Moore), we actually see Evan attempt to make amends for his misdeeds. For starters, the whole reason the truth finally came out in both versions of the story is because of the machinations of a schoolmate named Alana (Amandla Stenberg in the film), who accidentally unleashed a whole social media mob on the Murphys, with randos on the internet blaming the parents for Connor’s suicide.

On stage, this plot element is entirely dropped after Evan confesses to the Murphys, who presumably bear the brunt of the social media hate in quiet while protecting Evan’s secret. In the film though, Evan actually attempts to talk to Zoe in school the following week and she asks him to leave her alone. She also reveals the only reason her parents haven’t unmasked what Evan did is because “they’re afraid you’ll do something to yourself.” Like Connor.

Thus Evan gets on Twitter that night and tells the world, “[The Murphys] don’t deserve your hate. I do.” He confesses. Afterward, he again becomes a high school pariah, but we learn in montage he is more content this way as he tries to make further amends to the Murphys by not only reading Connor’s favorite books but tracking down someone’s phone video of Connor during his stint in rehab. Evan even finds footage of Connor playing his guitar, a feat he hid from his parents. The new song “A Little Closer,” which scores the final montage, is revealed to be a melody Connor wrote and sang in rehab, and Evan is able to at least mail that to Connor’s parents. He’s finally given them something true that they didn’t know about their son.

Only then, before the current school year ends, does Zoe invite Evan to an apple orchard and they reminisce about what might’ve been.

Does It Improve Evan Hansen and the Story?

The clear implication for adding these sequences, plus a song that the real Connor Murphy character can sing, is intended to fix the moral and thematic slipperiness at the heart of Dear Evan Hansen. Through a series of hummable ballads by songwriters Benji Pasek and Justin Paul, and some heartbreaking performances, including by Platt in the original cast, the stage production relies on the power of its emotions to overwhelm logic or deeper analysis. Some might even say it manipulates.

Yet over the years, the musical has had its fair share of detractors who pointed out how calculating and toxic the Evan Hansen character can appear. And the fact the musical just ends on the emotional high point without actually bothering to sift through the wreckage of what Evan did has always been a cheat.

Conversely, there are a few fleeting sequences in the stage version where the musical at least briefly seems to consider its darker implications. Evan’s loose group of (bad) friends in Alana and Jared contribute to this element in the song “Good for You,” where they sing in unison, “Well, I guess if I’m not of use, go ahead, you can cut me loose. Go ahead now, I won’t mind.”

The Alana relationship is particularly interesting in the show since it is only after she demands of Evan “how” will he raise $17,000 that he shows her Connor’s “suicide note.” He immediately protests after she decides to post it online, but did he not on some level show it to her in order for her to use it to raise $17,000 and reopen the apple orchard? After this scene, Alana ghosts him, suggesting she was herself only using Evan to brandish her social clout in the school and, eventually, her college applications.

The Dear Evan Hansen movie tries to wipe even this thorniness away. The context of Evan showing the note to Alana is handled slightly differently, but as a consequence there’s no ambiguity on why he showed it to her—he did not intend for her to share it online. She also, like Evan, is softened around the edges when she does answer Evan’s ringing phone on-screen and cries that she tried to take the letter down but it’s still all over social media.

The logic behind the change would seem to make both Evan and Alana more purely sympathetic and blameless for their mistakes. In Alana’s case, she isn’t a master manipulator, and in Evan’s case it is beyond his control when others take things too far. He then puts in the work to help the Murphys, beginning by admitting to the world his dishonesty.

Read more

Movies

Will Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story Reignite Love for Movie Musicals?

By David Crow

TV

Hawkeye Trailer Finally Brings Captain America Musical to the Stage

By David Crow

These were obviously conscious choices made after the five years and full lifetime which passed since 2016—a year where Barack Obama was still president and the #MeToo movement hadn’t yet occurred. Now in an age where social accountability, especially in online life, and alleged authenticity are valued more than ever, having a hero who lies to the world and gets away with it is inherently problematic. So the flaws in Evan’s choices, and even Alana’s, are “fixed” with crocodile tears of regret from Alana, and then Evan making an actual effort to atone for his mistakes.

Yet I would argue it doesn’t actually improve the fundamental issues with the musical. In the case of Alana, having a character show the ugly side of social manipulation, even among ostensibly sympathetic figures, was one of the truer impulses in a story that otherwise glorifies the healing power of finding validation from strangers on the internet. While both the film and show also depict the downside of online life with a discordant singing hydra coming after the Murphys, it’s only because of a couple of misguided mistakes. And in the case of the stage show, the larger message is Evan’s musical platitudes are simply too powerful (or profitable) for the Murphys to shatter.

In 2021, Evan and his creators make the choice that he can admit his mistakes. Yet the story still attempts to justify Evan’s actions, which ironically puts the film at odds with itself. It basks in the splendor of Evan’s self-help ballad, “You Will Be Found,” and then shows him suffering comeuppance for lying—even if Zoe still gives him final absolution.

The one significant change that clicks for me is Evan at least seeking out some hidden truth about Connor, and sharing it with the real people who actually loved him instead of strangers, who in turn would only again offer performative gestures and signaled virtue toward a kid they otherwise ignored. Hearing Colton Ryan’s Connor sing for himself—for the first time in any medium—and not merely be a puppet for Evan’s self-serving fantasies was a significant, moving improvement over how this thread is resolved on the stage.

Still, I think going further in that direction with Evan realizing the crassness of what he created, and the emptiness of his bromides, would’ve made this a more interesting narrative. But what do I know? My instincts wouldn’t have turned this into a Broadway anthem for Generation Z. So how about yourself? Do you like the new ending to Dear Evan Hansen?

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

The post How Dear Evan Hansen Changes the Musical’s Ending appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2ZlN281

[sortavibing]

what the haikyuu!! boys/girls favorite songs/bands are📼

hello! this is my first post so i hope im doing it right :P anyways enjoy!

karasuno💾

daichi: Don’t Stop Believin’ by Journey. he’s such a typical dad holy shit so yeah he 100% listens to this i don’t know what else to say like- 🤠 yeah he probably sings it in his minivan (you cannot convince me that he doesn’t drive a minivan)

sugawara: WAP by Cardi B. yes we stan this bad bitch. he LOVES this song like he can do the dance and everything and he pulls it off like the baddie he is please someone animate this i NEED it anyways yeah he doesn’t really sing it but he 100% has done the dance in front of daichi.

asahi: Lullaby by Johannes Brahms. this baby hes such a slut for classical music and he always listens to it before a big game to calm his nerves. he pretends that he’s listening to something “tough” but everyone knows that he listens to classcial, they just pretend to not know.

nishinoya: Old Town Road by Lil Nas X. yeah, he hasn’t gotten out of the old town road phase and he unironically sings it and does a yeehaw dance. no one can stop him because everyone (except tanaka) is too embarrassed to be around him when he sings and dances, so he thinks it’s ok (honey, no), also, tanaka sometimes joins in and it’s painful to hear and see.

tanaka: GOOBA by 6xi9ine. he thinks it’s “badass” and tries to rap it whenever it comes on, and he fails horribly, but nishinoya always hypes him up saying that he did a good job, causing him to start singing again please save karasuno from hinata, nishinoya, and tanaka’s singing

ennoshita: Cough Syrup by Young The Giant. though it may not seem like it, but this man has got music TASTE like- yes. anyways yeah this song is a vibe and he really likes it. he once tried to introduce good music to tanaka and nishinoya, but they said it was “boring” and “sappy” and he never wanted to beat them up more than he did then.

kageyama: he listens to like play by play volleyball games or podcasts that talk about improving your skills because he’s a hoe for that volleyball shit try and prove me wrong i dare you

hinata: Red by Taylor Swift. he has terrible music taste and he literally just listens to what’s popular and like what his sister listens to. he likes to sing outloud and his voice is worse than oikawa- like karasuno cannot handle hinata singing at all it’s literal earrape.

tsukishima: Fancy by Twice. tsukki is a hardcore kpop stan, and he 100% listens to twice religiously, like that's the majority of his playlist, and he refuses to play his music out loud, and everyone thinks he listens to like rock or some shit like that. only yams knows that tsukki listens to it and he was sworn to secrecy.

yamaguchi: Sports by Beach Bunny. he likes to hum it quietly to himself because he really likes the beat and the lyrics. tsukishima has this song saved on his playlist just for yams and he plays it whenever they share headphones.

kiyoko: Body by Megan Thee Stallion. i dont know what to say, she is just a baddie who loves the confidence boost she gets from listening to this song as she should kiyoko is amazing she even learned the tiktok dance to this song and she performed it to yaichi yaichi.exe has stopped working but she won’t show it to anyone else anyways shes just a baddie and we stan.

yachi: Green by Cavetown. yeah she really likes the calming peaceful vibes this song has and she likes to sing it quietly when she is in a public place, like a bus or a subway to calm herself down and she also plays it when she studies.

aoba johsai 📼

oikawa: Bubblegum Bitch by MARINA because it just raidates that “i’m hotter than you” energy (just like he does our twink king). he prob sings it in the locker room while everyone is changing and his singing bursts everyones eardrums omg the whole team hates oikawa’s singing so much

matsukawa: Toad sings WAP he’s such a memer like- yeah so he and makki probably obsess over these toad sings video because 1. they are funny as hell like it’s some god tier comedy and 2. they say oikawa sounds like that when he sings it’s true tho

hanamaki: Toad sings Sweet Home Alabama. he and mattsun have a running debate about which one is better, and they ask the opinions of literally everyone they meet about it. so far more people have chose maki’s favorite song and he’s a little smug about it.

iwaizumi: Ride by twenty one pilots. this is probably like one of his secret pleasures. most people think he listens to like rap or something like that, but he really likes this song. he hopes that oikawa will never find out about this, because he will never hear the end of the teasing, so he just listens to this song while he is by himself, or just without the team.

yahaba: Walking On A Dream by Empire Of The Sun. idk this just feels right, like i really have no explanation why i think this works it just does🤠

kindaichi: Wake Me Up bye Avicii. this man is borderline bad taste, but we will let it slide for now, so yeah again, he just gives me the avicii stan vibes, he probably thought he would like rap more, but one day he heard avicii playing on the radio and he was hooked. he still pretends to like rap because he has a “reputation”

kunimi: Advice by Cavetown. this man gives absolutley zero fucks about everyone’s opinions you bet your ass he listens to this song. he 100% puts headphones in to listen to this while someone is talking to him because he just doesn’t want to have a conversation with them. everyone hates when he does that, but again, he doesn’t give a shit.

kyotani: We Will Rock You by Queen. yeah this is probably his pump up jam and he always listens to it before a game to get hyped up. if anyone dares to talk to him while he has headphones in, he will not hesitate to bite their head off i know this for a fact.

nekoma💾

kuroo: Yarichin Bitch Club OP. ever since kenma introduced him to anime OPs, he’s been obsessed, and he loves the yarichin op becuase 1. it’s dirty and he thinks that’s funny and 2. it actually slaps like why does it go so hard i’m in awe- anyways yeah he always sings it in the most public places just to get attention bc he’s a whore for the spotlight like that 😌. he also sings it with bokuto whenever they are together bc we stan the dumbass duo.

yaku: Arms Tonite by Mother Mother. yeah he is kinda obsessed with mother mother but this is hands down his favorite song. lev once heard yaku listening to this song and made fun of it, and let’s just say lev got the ass whopping of his life, yaku takes no prisoners- anyways yeah he just vibes with it and it’s great.

yamamoto: Who Let The Dogs Out by Baha Men. the whole nekoma team HATES his music taste, and they never let him play any music becasue- it’s just so bad i’m sorry this man has no taste like have you seen his hair? (the slander is real :))

kenma: Hikaru Nara (Your Lie in April OP) kenma loves to listen to anime ops while gaming bc they are highkey all bops and he says they help him concentrate. he tried to get kuroo to listen to the songs with him, and kuroo started to like listening to anime OPs, so they usually listen to them together.

fukunaga: he listens to like john mulaney comedy shows becuse he’s a little dork like that and (timeskip spoiler) he becomes a comedian later on so it just fits 🤠

inuoka: Roar by Katy Perry. again, it’s just the vibes that i get from him, i can’t explain it, he just seems like a big dork who would like this shit. so yeah, he probably sings this song really loudly when it comes on and the whole nekoma team just has to tolerate him when he does it.

lev: Ra Ra Rasputin by Boney M. he probably started listening to this song as a joke because he’s Russian, and the songs about Russia, but he genuinely started enjoying it and whenever it comes on, he starts singing. his voice isn’t actually that bad but yaku still gets annoyed as hell when he does it and beats the shit out of him.

fukurodani 📼

bokuto: Mr. Brightside by The Killers. he gets really excited when this plays and always gets up to sing it really really loudly, and do a really energetic dance. akaashi calm your child please he’s not a good singer, but he’s not a terrible one either, so the team has just gotten used to it.

akaashi: This Side of Paradise by Coyote Theory. eep akaashi the hopeless romantic we stan- anyways yeah he found this band in like his first year of high school and has been addicted ever since. he doesn’t really share his taste in music with others, but the one time he let bokuto listen to music with him, bokuto got way to excited and accidentally dropped akaashi’s phone and cracked it.

konoha: Spirits by The Strumbellas. idk i just feel like he would listen to this song. he would never play his music out loud though, because bokuto always takes the aux cord/ speaker before anyone gets the chance to.

shiratorizawa💾

ushijima: he doesn’t listen to music. like if tendou offers to play music with him, he’ll accept, but like he’s just confused why people like listening to music so much, so he will just listen with that face he always makes (😐) while tendo is jumping around, dancing, and going batshit crazy.

semi: All I Wanted by Paramore. he is flat out obsessed with this band and he learned how to play this song on his electric guitar and has went to a couple of their concerts. semi 100% makes fun of his teammates music taste as he should

tendou: Yoda CBT remix (i linked it if you want to listen), ok but seriously, i think money machine by 100 Gecs. tendo is so chaotic and i think his music taste reflects that. he cannot listen to music without dancing or singing, and he always plays his music on full volume (hearing? what’s that?) tendo never gets the aux cord, because the last time they gave it to him, the speakers almost broke.

goshiki: Eye of the Tiger by Survivor. this little dork omg i really don’t have an explanation for this, it just fits and i take no criticism on this because y’all know it’s true.

shirabu: Cigarette Ahegao by Penelope Scott. semi introduced him to this song and he pretened he didn’t like it but he���s secretly obsessed. i think he generally doesn’t like music but this song- this song is such a vibe that he has to like it. (anyways yeah go listen to this song its so good)

inarizaki 📼

kita: Animal by Neon Trees. he isn’t really open about listening to music, he only listens to his songs when he is alone and when he has earbuds in, and if someone walks up to him to talk, he takes his earphones out (we stan a respectful boy). so yeah, he isn’t a big fan of music, but he still likes to listen from time to time.

aran: You Know It by Colony House. he will never listen to music in front of anyone because whenever he hears this song, he has to sing, and he doesn’t like singing in front of people (the miya twins are annoying he can’t do anything in front of them🙄), but yeah, this songs really good we stan this man’s music taste.

atsumu: Girls in the Hood by Megan Thee Stallion. this man LOVES this song like- he is obsessed. if you ask him something, he will literally reply with “can’t talk right now, doing hot girl shit” and he just walks away and ur just like- what the fuck bro. anyways yeah he thinks he’s a bad bitch but he really is just a dork.

suna: 505 by The Arctic Monkeys. yeah, the basic choice would probably be “why’d you only call me when you’re high”, but i feel like he would like this song better because it starts off kinda vibey, and then it goes into this great guitar bit, and just- the v i b e s so yeah i think he really likes this shit.

osamu: cooking podcasts. like he literally doesn’t listen to music, just shit about cooking. atsumu makes fun of him for it and he is just like “bitch shut up and go do ur hot girl shit 😐” and just walks away and keeps on listening to his cooking shit. (we stan this petty bitch)

others💾

saeko: E-GIRLS ARE RUINING MY LIFE! by CORPSE and Savage Ga$p. this is self explanatory, she just is a bad bitch and this is what bad bitches listen to 😌 she def has played this song while getting it on with someone.

terushima: Bust It Open by Lil’ Wil. we all know terushima listens to these thirst trap songs and tries to do the tik tok dances that are associated with them. he probably posts videos to these songs on tik tok and they get a good amount of likes (cough cough he has a following of many thirsty girls).

sakusa: 24 hours of nothing yeah he doesn’t listen to music he just puts this on with headphones so people won’t bother him. he finds the silence relaxing and hates it when people interrupt him (cough cough atsumu)

btw: for some of the songs that aren’t on basic streaming services, i linked the youtube video for them.

anyways, i hope you enjoyed my first post [eep finishing this made me really happy]! have a nice day!

bye for now🌊

[floraisann]

ateez reaction: you’re addicted to animal crossing: new horizons

➣ requested? ✓

➣ genre: fluff, humor

➣ masterlist

sorry that some of these are kinda dry 😔 i am try

❅♩♬♩❅――

❥ kim hongjoong:

lets you do your thing tbh

you’ll probably just be vibing in the living room with the switch hooked up to the tv and everything’s great when hongjoong just,,,, moves his work over without saying anything

you’re just ???? and he’s just :)))) the “just another tuesday” grin, you know?

after long enough if you ask him why he moved, he just says he “likes the soundtrack” like bro we do be bopping to the animal crossing ost out here in this quarantine joint

watches you play, only making comments when a villager says something REALLY cursed

really likes marshal— he’s funny

not the type to hate villagers either except chops, fuck chops

once yunho shows him how the custom qr code outfit designs work you’re about to have the most stylish lil mayor that ever roamed the earth

probably also borrows your switch to make your town jingle

overall is just confused by the game dynamic, but likes the music and how happy it’s making you :)

you’re gonna have to put the switch down on your own honey, he’s too caught up in bopping to the music while doing his own work to realize you’ve been playing for eight hours

❥ park seonghwa

has the game too, probably bought it for you so you could build “couple islands” and be THAT cute gamer couple

still probably nags you for gaming too hard if too many hours pass and you’re ignoring basic needs to like,,,, get lolly on your island or something of the sort

but lolly’s cute give him 5 mins to fall in love w god cat

sends you cute in-game love letters when you’re headass six feet away from each other in real time

but it’s ok they’re cute and he likes making you blush

brings his pretty flowers to your island he also steals yours but that’s okay

dumbfounded by your blatant aggression towards certain villagers

offers to “trade” villagers with you to make you happy and marshal scares him please take marshal from him

yes he’ll bring you cute snacks as if you were studying

overall happy that you found something you enjoy together, but will make you take frequent breaks so you don’t put off whatever you actually have to do too much

❥ jeong yunho

didn’t get the hype at first. bought the game since he thought it had to be super fun if you were ignoring him for hours at a time to go bug catching LMFAO

yet when he downloads it there’s a catch

mr epic gamer, unlike you, has the luck of a god and generates an actual island paradise and probably gets a ton of shooting star fragments too 😔✊🏻

you’re the one stealing from his island, but it’s okay he loves you 💕

and he doesn’t quite understand the game yet

gives you star fragments because you can’t get any and he doesn’t want you all sad because you can’t make a wand!!

has all the cute villagers, but if any try to move will give them to you

pays off your tom nook debt because with his luck it probably takes him less than an hour to get filthy rich in game

also figures out the qr code outfits early on. yes he’ll try to make you one, yes he’ll make himself match

overall, he gets the game because of you but does it better because it’s yunho why wouldn’t he xoxo

still makes sure you’re doing what you need to before you go off to work on your island for six hours; the type to offer game rewards he magically obtains as a prize for you after you finish your daily work

oh to be jeong yunho

❥ kang yeosang

the president of the epic gamer club

probably persuaded you to buy it with him so he could rob your island of all your goods

makes you both reset the game until your islands both have good items but are different

so he can steal your fruit :D

“y/n, you— no, restart. you can’t have peach trees, i already have peach trees!”

“dates” where you guys lie on his bed with your consoles, literally just exploring each other’s islands

y’all practically end up sharing two islands. that’s how much you play together

invites you to go raid the other members’ islands

cursed humor carries into the game; like he’ll send you crackhead mail when you least expect it and the content WILL be something that’s only funny because it’s Yeosang

“you make me so incredibly happy, y/n. almost as happy as when tom nook first handed me my nookphone. almost”

celebrates with you when you’re both rid of the ugly villagers

overall impartial to your obsession, rather he’s glad he has someone to steal from share with

still will make you take breaks with him. he loves that you’ve got a pretty island but you need to take care of yourself sweetie

if you don’t listen he will randomly come on your island to beat you up with a shovel xoxo yeosang luvs u 😘

❥ choi san

would not mind the game at all if it weren’t making you IGNORE HIS NEED FOR CUDDLES >:(

tbh san would probably whine about being attention starved for an eternity 15 mins until he realizes his whining isn’t working, and he has no choice but to cuddle up to you while letting you do your thing

by that i mean he’s backseat gamer all the way, no i do not accept criticism

he’d probably just plop down next to you and cuddle into your side or lay on top of you— just positioning himself in some way that he can see your gameplay

the type to cling to you while you play while bothering you until you accept his game opinions as fact

can and will make you kick out the villagers he thinks are ugly

“i just want you to kick that smelly limberg out, is that really too much to ask?”

probably spent 10 minutes absolutely losing his shit over the animal crossing language

“WHY ARE THEY TALKING IN KEYBOARD SMASH?”

takes the next half hour to learn how to speak it

so next time you play too long and ignore him, will shut off your switch then lay down on you and scream acnh villager language gibberish in your EAR

"you didn’t have a problem with that voice three hours ago when you were talking to that cat rosie!!” :(

if you really ignore him and never stop playing NOTHING is stopping him from being dramatic and saying smth like “y/n, i can’t take this anymore! choose, me or him!”

“him” is tom nook

why the fuck would you pick tom nook

❥ song mingi

knows the game is popular but wasn’t bothered to try playing

so when he sees you, curled up on the couch in the same position he saw you two hours ago just with one less family sized bag of chips, he quietly sighs to himself and sits next to you

“is the game really that interesting?”

when you nod, he ends up like san and kind of chills with you, backseat gaming mode

except he isn’t yelling at you to kick out the ugly villagers, he can already see you trying on your own

gets shocked when the first tarantula appears and you get bitten

occasionally gives input on what he thinks you can do to have a better island

makes you go on an island tour so he can see what you headass just spent the last week making

actually is impressed by how much work you put into your virtual island

congrats! you’ve unlocked an achievement! : gaming livestream date for song mingi

will decide for himself who the cutest villager is then act cute and ask if he looks like them. it’s probably gonna be kid cat. tell him he does. please, Tell Him he looks like kid cat

basically i don’t think he’d be that put off by you getting addicted to the game because!!! acnl is the most relaxing game ever he likes to watch you while he unwinds after a long day

if you play too long though he won’t really say much, just sit by you pouting like :(((( “lov me”

pls love him, the big babie 🥺

❥ jeong wooyoung

another member that probably has the game, but isn’t as obsessed as you

will beg you for shooting star fragments if you get any though. please get this man a wand

does not get WHY you’re trying so hard on your island layout. literally only wants one villager, his island can go to shit so long as he has that one villager

that one villager is probably gonna be molly or something

another member who learns how to imitate animal crossing speak, except his voice is already in the correct pitch

makes fun of you complaining about a villager you hate but it all comes back to bite him in the ass once moose shows up on his island and he gets it

you guys are having a competition to see who can get sprinkle on your island first

spoiler alert: he wins, he stole her from seonghwa

(he steals a lot from seonghwa)

overall happy with the fact that you guys have a game to play together

but if you grind too hard on your own and ignore him for hours at a time can and will invade your island to steal your fruit and trample your flowers. AND send you spam mail

sorry

❥ choi jongho

doesn’t care for the game, and he’s mostly chill too so he’ll probably just vibe in the other room while you play, waiting for you to finish so he can do something with you

comes out a few hours later when you’re (still) lying on the couch, angrily button mashing while muttering curses to yourself

he’s really confused tbh, he’s seen yeosang play, he knows you don’t gotta go that hard to be a successful mayor, so he HAS to ask what the fuck you’re so mad about

“i’m TRYING to catch a blittering at the moment, but i keep getting these stupid carps!!! i have a debt to pay off, god!!”

becomes infinitely more amused with the game after that point

he thinks its so funny how someone could get heated while playing through probably the most relaxing game ever

watches you fish; he enjoys the puns and seeing you get frustrated when you keep catching those goddamn carps

probably takes the switch from you at one point to try his hand at it and catches a koi fish in his first five minutes

“i guess you just suck at fishing, y/n”

overall pretty unbothered by your love for the game until you start ignoring him

then he will threaten your in-game apples, saying he’s .2s away from stealing one of his members’ switches just to brawl with your trees

and we all know who’s gonna win between jongho and apples

[prinz-alexiares]

Deputy Blair R. O’Connell

I’ve had this OC since, like, 2018 but I was too lazy to assemble her design together so here she is lol

BASIC INFO

Name: Blair Rhiannon O’Connell

Nickname: Deputy/Dep, Blair, Ree (only by family)

Age: 26

Birthdate: January 19th

Gender: Female

Ethnicity/Nationality: Irish-Welsh-American

Height/Weight: 172 cm / 68 kg

Blood Type: B

Occupation: USAF Marksman (former), Deputy Sheriff of Hope County 

Hair Color: Black with red-brown undertone

Eye Color: Grey

Likes:

Winter

Guns ‘N Roses

Rain

Open nature and mountains

Spicy food

Canine animals

Warm bath

.50 cal firearms

Dislikes:

Sweets

Summer

Crowded places

Being teased/played with

Shotgun

Empty desert

Hobbies:

Outdoor related activities such as fishing, hunting, camping, and hiking

Looking at animal memes

Randomly wandering outside or sit somewhere in the forest and do nothing

Reading peculiar books

Petting all the dogs in the ‘hood

Fixing/cleaning/modifying her weapons while blasting classic rock songs on the radio

Soaking herself in a bathtub full of warm water

Personality:

Blair has a bold style and vibe, and she carries a rather thuggish demeanor. She looks and acts more masculine, although she also shows her femininity in a lot of ways as well.

She is somewhat reckless, often acts first before she thinks. She introspectively sees this as her weakness, as she repeatedly made bad decisions in the past that negatively affected people around her. But on a brighter side, she comes out as an ‘action’ person who gets things done. It also makes her seem more courageous and reliable than most people.

She can get very selfish. A lot of decisions she makes would consider her ideals stronger than anything else. But the good side is that she always wants to do the ‘right thing’ by helping others or solve problems, although the result still relies heavily on her own judgement.

She describes herself as ‘childish and mature at the same time’, hinting at her recklessness and self-centered tendencies as being ‘childish’, while her natural leader and calculating nature as the ‘mature’ side. Her service in the USAF had helped her to polish her leadership and logical thinking skills, although they sometimes are hindered by her emotions.

Five Songs in Her Playlist:

Metallica - Nothing Else Matters

Guns ‘N Roses - November Rain

Queens of The Stone Age - Make It Wit Chu

Guns ‘N Roses - Paradise City

Radiohead - High and Dry

‘GET TO KNOW THIS FELLA BETTER’ SECTION

Childhood

Blair was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to a devoted Catholic family as an only child. Her business consultant father was an immigrant from Ireland, and her teacher mother was a Welsh-American. They enrolled her into all-girls Catholic schools throughout her elementary and a half of her junior high-school years. However, that didn’t stop her from developing interest in hobbies more commonly enjoyed by boys. She enjoyed baseball, soccer, wall climbing, skateboarding, and plenty of other outdoor activities. She also made friends with boys around her neighborhood and used to walk her dogs with them as well.

During her school years, she was very competitive at school and very confident with herself. She liked presenting her work, actively asking and answering questions during lessons, and she was becoming more and more critical about her surroundings. Her teachers disliked her boldness, as it was seen as a sign of disobedience. They tried to shut her down by treating her differently than her other peers; giving her more disadvantages and having her voice ignored in the classrooms. Young Blair got discouraged and frustrated that she threw a lot of tantrums and started to become less and less compromising when she was faced with problems. She then began to show her violent tendencies as she repeatedly involved in fistfights and physical bullying. Her parents were mad at her once she was given detention from school, but upon learning the truth, they moved her to a mixed, secular private school.

However, her violent tendencies were never addressed properly thus carried until later in her life.

Before Eden’s Gate

Blair was first introduced to open nature, firearms, and hunting when she celebrated winter holiday at her grandfather’s place in Montana. He was a Vietnam War veteran, and through him she learned about the old M1903 Springfield and Winchester Model 70 for the first time. Blair had been visiting him almost every winter holiday since she was 13, learning all the stuff about guns and hunting. She was very fascinated and inspired by her grandfather that she planned to follow in his footsteps to live as a hunter.

But her metropolitan parents were against her ideas, which disappointed her. They later discussed her future and agreed upon a condition that Blair would return to formal school, taking defense studies, and/or enlisting herself in the military or police department. She did enlist to the USAF, spending about 4-5 years in service. She was in the marksman course and tasked as sniper for an Advanced Designated Marksman team in the Middle-East. She was known to be a formidable marksman with plenty of kill records. Although she didn’t experience much combat, it was enough for her to see how complex and dangerous things were, and killing people because she was told to do so wasn’t a pleasure. She also lost her teammate once; a spotter, shot by an enemy sniper.

Once she got home, she spilled the surprising news to her parents that she quit the military. She tried to seek redemption from the extreme guilt she brought home from the war. She went to Montana and stayed in her late grandfather’s cabin while thinking about what to do next. She then applied to several police and sheriff offices in Montana, wishing she’d make things up by protecting people as a police officer. Not long after, she got accepted in a sheriff office located in a remote county, telling her that they’re in dire need of someone capable of handling civil unrest situations. She wondered why, and chose to go.

PEG Turmoil

Blair tried to make peace with her past, but being involved in PEG turmoil forced her to relive her past instead. At first, seeing no way out, she decided to play along; rescuing resistance members, destroying PEG infrastructures, and becoming the pawn for the local residents’ revenge against the cult. But the more people she killed, the more destruction she created, the more frustrated she became. She started to put the Seeds’ words into her consideration. She also spoke to some of the locals who wished there would be another way to deal with the Peggies instead of going all out civil war.

She is stuck between acknowledging that the cult is probably right, that what she’s done is a severe crime and makes her no different than the cult, but she can’t leave behind the people and everything she has been fighting for.

Relationships:

Joseph Seed: The man just feels unsettling for her. Like there is something about him that makes her guts tell her how he is a trustworthy person. But her brain tells her he’s a psychopath who murders everyone to get his way with the world he resents. She hasn’t figured out whether she can trust his words or not.

John Seed: She thinks of him as a typical upper-class man with enormous wealth and power in possession who likes to exploit those who are more inferior than him. He has a superiority complex, perhaps, and Blair has heard about what happened between him and his adoptive family. She also knows his ‘obsession’ towards her, and she prefers to use it as a weapon to taunt him.

Jacob Seed: The Seed she can relate to the most, but also feels like an intense rival of hers. She has complicated feelings about him; she respects him. His values and views make sense to a certain extent, but she can’t deny that he IS a war criminal and he must be held responsible for all the horrible shit he has done. But after all the destruction she created, she comes into terms that they both are of the same kind after all. However, she won’t be intensely facing him off if not for the brainwashing trials and his hunting rituals.

Faith Seed: She feels nothing but pity towards her. She has heard what Joseph has done to her, and what happened to the previous ‘Faiths’. She treats Faith as nothing more than Joseph’s pawn, who probably has no freedom in making any decision at all.

Trivia:

Her name ‘Blair’ is of Scottish-Gaelic origin. It means ‘plain’, ‘field’, or ‘battlefield’, while her middle name ‘Rhiannon’ is of old Celtic origin which means ‘divine queen’. Her surname ‘O’Connell’ is a common Irish surname which means ‘wolf’ or ‘hound’. 

When her hair isn’t tied up, it has medium length that almost reaches her shoulders.

She equips red and grey-checkered MBP .50 with cylinder suppressor, cherry-painted silenced M60, red-painted silenced SMG-11, and a red-painted RPG. When she isn’t in her stealthy mood, she packs Jacob’s rifle and M249.

She has had a smoking habit since high school. She stopped smoking for a while during her service in USAF, but continued after she quit the military. Her favorite cigarette is Lucky Strike.

She is addicted to eyeliner.

She wears her military dog tag as a memorabilia.

Her type of man is someone who can tame and handle her ‘chaotic side’.

Unlike her family, she isn’t religious.

She believes that she is sterile, that’s why she feels like less of a woman.

I want to add some more details but shit isn’t this a freaking long post. I’ll just update them later. Procrastination is the key to better original character design.

[clarasimone]

Just before leaving my Iphone in a friggin’ taxi

I cannot believe this: my life is on that IPhone... Have alerted the taxi company (I HOPE I lost it there), am frantically awaiting news by my fiend’s phone... My Knight wants to go on a rampage but I need him by my side ;-)... It’s so bizarre to be able to see most of the pics I took this evening because they had time to make it on the cloud and then on my computer. So, from me, to you, the red carpet and screening of Terrence Malick’s testament film A Hidden Life :

Needless to say, I risked my reputation taking Jorah’s pic from inside the Grand Palais LOL I was seated front row (They show us the remaining of the red carpet on the big screen while we’re inside) What follows is from before and after but selfies are now forbidden while on the red carpet, a good thing because frankly it was becoming surreal the last few years...

Love this pink trail I was hypnotically following :-)

Here’s a pic from the film, a true masterpiece, so moving ! @myloveiainglen, it’s even better than Days of Heaven !!

I was able to capture the director’s proud reaction during the 10-minute long ovation after the film (he’s so modest, he didn’t walk the red carpet coming in, only his two leads did)

his actors, as shown on the big screen during the ovation

Coming out of the Grand Palais, I took these amazing pics of the moon with my Knight but they’re not (yet ?) appearing on my macbook/Icloud :-(

God I hope I get my phone back...

Here is the Los Angeles Times piece of the film. It just flabbergasted me and everyone there... It’s a deeply spiritual film.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-cannes-terrence-malick-hidden-life-20190519-story.html

Cannes: Terrence Malick’s ‘A Hidden Life’ is a return to form and a spiritual call to arms

In the eight years since Terrence Malick won the Palme d’Or at Cannes for “The Tree of Life,” his magisterial drama about childhood’s end and the spirit’s awakening, the standard critical line is that he has become an artist lost in the wilderness, stranded in an artistic limbo of his own making.

His most recent features — “To the Wonder,” “Knight of Cups” and “Song to Song” — are wispy, fragmentary tales of romantic ennui and moral drift, full of visual beauty but absent a comparable sense of transcendence. I admired them more than many of my colleagues did, though it would be disingenuous not to admit that I, too, was left wondering if this great and singular filmmaker would ever give us another movie to love.

I wonder no more. Sunday marked Malick’s return to Cannes, and it felt like a homecoming in more than one sense. His extraordinarily beautiful and wrenching new movie is called “A Hidden Life,” a title that quotes from “Middlemarch,” though one that could easily be misinterpreted as a reference to this famously press-shy auteur himself. But it also sounds an echo of “The Tree of Life,” which may be more than mere coincidence: If that 2011 film was Malick’s most personal and autobiographical work, then this one feels like a decisive return to roots. It’s at once a linear, almost classically structured drama and an exploratory, intensely romantic work of art.

“A Hidden Life” tells the story of Franz Jägerstätter, a peasant farmer from the Austrian village of St. Radegund who was imprisoned and executed in 1943 for refusing to fight for the Nazis. It’s the writer-director’s second World War II picture, after “The Thin Red Line,” except that here not a single shot is fired. The focus is entirely on Jägerstätter and his family, his growing discontent as Austria falls into Adolf Hitler’s grip and his heroic, ultimately fatal decision to become a conscientious objector.

After some brief archival footage of Hitler at the height of his powers, the movie settles down in St. Radegund, whose rolling green pastures and mist-wreathed mountains may constitute the most astonishing vision of earthly paradise Malick has given us, which is saying something.

You will recognize some familiar sights and sounds: the babbling of a brook, the rustling of wind in the leaves, the orchestral blasts of Bach, Beethoven, Handel and Dvorak on the soundtrack. And you will settle into the movie with a sigh — or perhaps a groan, depending on your persuasion — as Malick immerses us in yet another blissfully idealized evocation of family life.

Pushing plows, threshing wheat and taking care of livestock is hard work, but Franz (a haunting August Diehl), a man of joy and contentment, also loves chasing and playing with his wife, Fani (Valerie Pachner) and their three young daughters. But the family’s deep ties to the land and the surrounding community are disrupted when their fellow villagers take up the call of “Heil Hitler,” submitting freely to the grip of a murderous totalitarian regime. When a local bishop urges Franz to submit as well, he makes a decisive break with the church — though not, crucially, with God, whom he continually presses and wrestles with in prayer.

I am still wrestling with “A Hidden Life” myself, and imagine I will continue to do so long after its eventual release. The lengthy middle act, in which Franz finds himself called up for military duty and imprisoned after refusing to fight, feels lumbering and oppressive, which may of course be entirely the point; the claustrophobia here is physical and spiritual. Given the ensemble cast, which includes the late Bruno Ganz in one of his final roles, I wish that Malick had simply committed to shooting entirely in German, rather than a mix of German and English. (A particularly nagging choice: The Nazis are often heard barking in German, while Franz and Fani’s mellifluous voice-overs are in English.)

But the conviction of this movie would speak forcefully in any language. “A Hidden Life” is both an intense portrait of Christian devotion in practice and a damning study in how religious institutions, among others, can align themselves with evil. Malick sees no contradiction between these two truths; for him, sincere doubt and serious belief have always gone hand-in-hand. When a character murmurs, “To follow Him is insanity” — the first and not the last time the movie quietly broke me — you register fully what it might mean, and cost, to obey a doctrine of peace in violent times.

Malick may be making the same movie he always has: a gorgeously expansive cinematic poem that is forever carving out fresh emotional tributaries, but which always cycles back to the despoiling of Eden, the fear of violence and mortality, the calm acceptance of the unknowable. But if his camera is still given to flurries of ecstatic movement, it also seems more stationary, more grounded than usual, as if the director were pausing to gather his thoughts and clear his throat. He has an awful lot to say.

At its simplest level, “A Hidden Life” exists to disprove the snarling Nazi soldiers we hear telling Franz that his act of protest is meaningless and that no one will ever remember him. (They have admittedly already been disproved, thanks to the scholarship of Gordon Zahn and Thomas Merton, as well as a 2007 papal declaration of Jägerstätter as a martyr.) But it is also a call for moral vigilance in any era, the present one very much included: It is hard to watch this movie and not think of the rise of far-right and nationalist movements across Europe, or the Trump administration’s chokehold on evangelical Christianity.

That particular charge may be implicit, but it’s also unmistakable. Unless you are allergic to near-three-hour running times, there is nothing particularly difficult or elusive about “A Hidden Life,” nothing too cosmically elevated or metaphysically overreaching, to cite some of the dismissals frequently leveled against this director’s work. If we understand pretension as an attitude that leaves no room for humility, then is there any filmmaker working today lesspretentious than Terrence Malick, any artist more generous and unassuming in the way he exalts the beauty of the everyday?

Just as importantly, in our era of ever-expanding options and decreasing patience, is there an audience still willing to accept that challenge and see that beauty as he does? Even when tarnished, Malick’s legend looms large at a festival like Cannes, where he can be dismissed as a scourge and hailed as a god, but where he will never elicit an indifferent response. He deserves an equally impassioned reception when this imperfect, wise and entirely heroic movie comes out of hiding.

[musicatheart12]

A Closer Look at Hayley Kiyoko

"I'm Hayley Kiyoko and you're watching Disney Channel." While this isn't where her career began, it's where her fame began. Before I take you back to where it all began for the now well known "Lesbian Jesus" (I'll get to that) let me tell a little story.

Junior year of high school, a friend of mine tells me to watch a music video. It was called "Girls Like Girls" by Hayley Kiyoko. At that point, the name didn't ring any bells whatsoever. The moment I see Hayley Kiyoko's face, forget bells, there was an alarm going off in my head. I had seen her before, but where? Of course, Google always comes in handy, and I found out she was also in Lemonade Mouth, a Disney Channel Original Movie (DCOM), a relatively famous Disney movie from 2011. I remember exploring some of her music for a few weeks after that, but she slowly drifted away from my mind. Or maybe not, because the name would somehow always come back to me and I'd listen to her music again until the thought went away. Forward to this past summer. Hayley Kiyoko releases a song with Kehlani called "What I Need."

Hayley Kiyoko is back in my mind, and this time for good. I start learning things about her, like her impact on the LGBT community, her being known as "Lesbian Jesus", and 2018 being known as 20Gayteen. My story gives a little bit of an outline of her fame from 2011. But let's dive deeper into her life as an artist.

Kiyoko's creativity doesn't come from nowhere. Her parents had very creative jobs that stemmed from their own passions with "her dad, Jamie Alcroft, work[ing] as an actor and comedian while her mother, Sarah Kawahara, is a figure skater and choreographer. Hayley Kiyoko started performing when she was five years old, as a child actor on Disney Channel and Nickelodeon, and then got more teen acting roles on Disney. But that's acting. Her music career was a bit different.

The whole reason she started singing was to tell stories and to validate her own feelings. She had known for most of her life that she is gay but had a difficult time coming to terms with it. She even told her parents in sixth grade but didn’t get the reaction she was hoping for. A common story for many of the people in the LGBT community. Kiyoko used music as her outlet when she had no one else, and nowhere else to go. Thus, begins her music career. With *NSYNC as her inspiration, she joined a girl group called the Stunners in 2010 and even went on tour with Justin Bieber after landing a record deal. Unfortunately, the band broke before they could release any albums. At this point, she was also still working with Disney and released a few solo songs, along with the Lemonade Mouth album that went along with the movie. But she couldn't really do what she wanted to do. As a Disney star, and not out about her sexuality, she felt restricted. "She was hesitant to be so open about her sexuality in her music" and even stated "I didn't want to lead with [my sexuality] because I didn't know what people were going to think. I felt like people weren't going to accept me as a pop artist." In 2015, with her song "Girls Like Girls," Kiyoko comes out of her shell and explores the kind of artist she wants to be. And here begins her route to becoming "Lesbian Jesus."

After releasing "Girls Like Girls," Kiyoko spent time writing This Side of Paradise and then went on tour. Each moment she has spent working on her music has been towards executing her vision of being an LGBT pop artist. There were 3 years between her EP and her debut full-length album, Expectations. While that's a lot of time, she had gone through a diagnosis that had to do with a concussion which led to the slowdown in work. But that didn't matter. With the impact she had had, her fans stuck by her, critics raved about her album, and she reached Number 12 on the Billboard 200! She toured with Panic! At the Disco and was given the name "Lesbian Jesus" by her fans for providing LGBT stories that are lacking in the entertainment industry. She even named 2018 20gayteen, which has become an iconic name for the LGBT community.

Hayley Kiyoko as grown exponentially, especially within the last year, and has become an LGBT icon. From her Disney days to now, there hasn't been a moment where she lost her vision and has only grown as an artist. I can only hope she becomes even more famous and uses the platform to create change through her music.

[dogmapod]

01 Falun Gong

Hey everyone, welcome to the show Dogma: A Podcast About Cults, I’m your host Denis Ricardo.

This show is about cults. The origins, practices and abuses of cults. So, if you are uncomfortable with descriptions of sexual, physical and mental violence and abuse, this is not the show for you.

I’m gonna try to keep it light and fun, but this stuff can get kind of dark… so you’ve been warned.

Today we’re gonna look into a cult by the name of Falun Gong. It’s one that not a lot of people have heard of, but are surprisingly very familiar with.

It’s a fairly young cult, not more than 27 years old. It began in 1992 in the northeast of China and was founded by a guy by the name of Li Hongzhi. I’m going to apologize on the pronunciation of some of these proper nouns, I am really bad at pronouncing the tones in Chinese languages.

The cult all began with Li Hongzhi running a public qigong seminar in the city of Changchun.

Qigong is an ancient Chinese practice of meditation and slow movement for the purpose of self-healing. It was and is still used in many Chinese communities as a form of alternative medicine.

The modern qigong movement started in the 1950s, shortly after the Cultural Revolution started by Mao Zedong.

Mao was a pretty hardline atheist, and believed that superstitious practices were not good for the advancement of China and communism. So, soldiers in Mao’s army adapted qigong to just be about meditation and focus, taking out all the of the spiritual elements of it. The practice was pretty popular and remains very common to this day.

Li felt a little differently about qigong, though. He feels as though the spiritual elements should be restored. So, he did just that.

Falun Gong was actually in the Chinese Communist Party’s favor, and initially saw it as a good movement. But they quickly changed their mind after they thought the movement was getting a little too independent. The Chinese government is notorious for monitoring the religious practices in China. So, in 1999 the Chinese Communist Party branded Falun Gong as heretical and began a massive propaganda campaign against the group. It mostly focused on negative articles in state-run press, which Falun Gong was quick to protest.

In April of 1999 10,000 Falun Gong protested outside a government compound in the capital Beijing demand that the government recognize them as a religious movement and stop persecuting them.

In China there are only 5 officially recognized religions because it is an atheist state. Those are Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism and Islam.

Side note, just because I’m formerly Catholic,

China’s relationship with Catholicism kind of interesting, China does not recognize the power of the Holy See’s authority to appoint bishops. So Catholics in China aren’t “Roman” Catholic or “Orthodox” Catholics they’re “Chinese” Catholics. Their relationship is contentious, but China has granted the Pope the right to reject any of the Chinese appointed bishops.

But moving on… at this point, the leader of Falun Gong, Li, was already in New York at and he was getting the cult off the ground here in the US.

But things were pretty bad for Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Reports of forced re-education, extrajudicial executions, harvesting of organs and attacks by the Chinese police at the behest of the Communist Party against Falun Gong practitioners surfaced. But, it’s not the easiest to corroborate these claims, because neither Falun Gong or the CCP are necessarily the most upfront about their practices. The New York Times has said there has been at least 2000 deaths in 2009, though Falun Gong claims that number is nearly twice that. An independent investigator, Ethan Gutmann estimates there were at least 65,000 Falun Gong members killed for organs based off of interviews. Chinese authorities do not publish statistics of Falun Gong members killed or not killed.

OK, do some less depressing stuff, Falun Gong’s main practices.

Falun Gong is a blend of traditional Chinese beliefs, Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism.

They have three central tenants of power Truthfulness (真, Zhēn)*, Compassion (善, Shàn)*, and Forbearance (忍, Rěn)*. Thank you, Google Translate. These are achieved through meditative exercise and performance.

*these words were reproduced with Google Translate pronouncing them

Falun Gong’s teachings say that everybody is innately good and divine, but that we have descended into darkness and accrued bad karma. Reincarnation is handled by different gods for different people and ultimately the goal is to be released from the cycle of samsara and to reach enlightenment.

This sounds pretty normal for an Asian religion like Buddhism. So far so good? [With hesitation in their voice] Yeah, it gets a little weirder.

Falun Gong emphasizes traditional Chinese teachings and disregards scientific claims like evolution. This also explains why they are vehemently against communism because it is not Chinese, it’s a European philosophy.

As I said before China is an atheist state, and typically Buddhists do not have an issue with evolution and Buddhism. I couldn’t find any numbers specifically citing the public acceptance of evolution in China, however. But I have found that it is taught in school like here in American coastal elite public schools without much of a hitch.

David Ownby, a professor at the Center of East Asian Studies at the University of Montreal interviewed the leader Li Hongzhi and said that Li claims there are 10,000 supernatural powers, such as clairvoyance, precognition, levitation and transmutation and these can be achieved by humans.

Li stated at a lecture in Australia that

“…homosexuality, organized crime and promiscuous sex are not the standards of being human.”

His stance on homosexuality lead to the rescinding of a Nobel Peace Prize nomination by San Franciscan legislators back in 2001.

Li and Falun Gong have also been criticized for their teaching of mixed-marriages. A New York Times article from 2001 states

“[Li] said interracial children are the spawn of the ‘Dharma Ending Period,' a Buddhist phrase that refers to an era of moral degeneration. […] he said each race has its own paradise, and he later told followers in Australia that, 'The yellow people, the white people, and the black people have corresponding races in heaven.’ As a result, he said, interracial children have no place in heaven without his intervention.”

Many practitioners of Falun Gong have denied this and have pointed out that many of its members are in mixed-race families.

But, let’s not forget the aliens.

So Li in general seems to be against most modern things. In a 1999 TIME Magazine interview in he said:

“The aliens have introduced modern machinery like computers and airplanes…everyone thinks that scientists invent on their own when in fact their inspiration is manipulated by the aliens. In terms of culture and spirit, they already control man…the ultimate purpose is to replace humans. If cloning human beings succeeds, the aliens can officially replace humans”

Li also thinks very highly of himself. The BBC, quote:

“…he is a being from a higher level who has come to help [mankind] from the destruction it could face as the result of rampant evil.”

Having a leader proclaim to know the way to save humanity is one of the signs that the leader’s group is a cult.

So, remember when I said that another one ways to get to their three central tenants was performance? Well, you know how they do it? By selling you $150 tickets to see the spectacle of 5000 years of traditional Chinese dance while listening to anti-atheist, anti-communist propaganda… it’s Shen Yun.

So apparently Shen Yun ads popping up everywhere is now a meme, but I’ve grown up in California all my life, and I swear I’ve been seeing these things since at least 2008. These things aren’t new to me. But I guess they’re finally getting to middle America, so people can joke about it.

I said before Falun Gong was anti-Communist and anti-evolution? Well, it shows up in the performance

Here’s a sample of lyrics from a song in the show called “Awaken”

"So long ago you came down to this world For millennia you have reincarnated here Fighting to get ahead, the true you has faded Self-interested actions have cost you your purity Atheism is a pack of lies The heresy of evolution now eclipses the Divine word Amidst disaster, people complain that the gods have forsaken us Do not use science to drive humanity toward danger You came to this world for salvation, your destiny To return to heaven is your soul's deepest wish You came to this world for salvation, your destiny To return to heaven is your destiny."

And, as I said before, the group is condemned by the Chinese government. The Chinese embassy made a post on their website, calling Falun Gong an anti-communist cult, that it undermines US-Chinese relations and that Shen Yun is a political tool for this cult and is anti-Chinese agitprop. This was all in English, and I find it a little weird they’d call it “agitprop” because that’s typically reserved for communist propaganda. So I found it a little strange.

But clearly this is also propaganda, it’s a statement by a government body, and all reports on its more outrageous beliefs are from western publications so there is a bias. But straight from the horse’s mouth is the anti-evolution message and we know that these performers don’t get paid.

In the end, it’s hard to classify this as a cult. It has cult-like elements, like surveillance by a government, a savior-leader. But it lacks a hierarchy and I could not find anyone who had left the movement and faced consequences for it, which are typically signs of a cult.

It’s got some very out-there, potentially dangerous beliefs, but is it a cult? [With hesitation in their voice) Personally, I’m gonna say yes, though I don’t think it necessarily ticks all those checkboxes, so maybe it can’t really be classified as a cult.

Now comes the fun part, where I get to beg you for money. I come to you hat in hand to maybe just consider throwing a dollar or two to my Patreon. I can’t offer much right now as far as donor rewards go, but I will try my best to give you access to episodes early and maybe some other fun side projects that I have available that are still loosely related to cults. That you so much if you decide to be ever so gracious.

Thanks so much for listening, that was the first episode. I will put all of my sources in the description. Most are from Wikipedia, but I checked to see if those sources were legit, so lay off me.

New time, we’re going to be focusing on a cult a little closer to home and maybe some of you remember this cult very vividly.

All right, take care and goodbye.

Citations:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Falun_Gong

http://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/atheist-hub/shen-yun

https://culteducation.com/group/1254-falun-gong/6922-is-falun-gong-a-cult.html

https://www.jewishpolicycenter.org/2010/11/30/china-conundrum/

http://faluninfo.net/category/persecution/killings/individual-cases-of-falun-gong-deaths/

https://www.amnesty.org/en/countries/

https://books.google.com/books?id=Bwqkwx4SWS0C&printsec=frontcover&dq=ownby+falun&client=firefox-a&cd=1#v=onepage&q&f=false

Song Credits:

“Frozen Jungle” and “Dreaming of You” by Monplaisir under the name Komiku (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Komiku/)

“我们是毛主席的红卫兵 (We Are Chairman Mao’s Red Guard)” found at Songs of China’s Cultural Revolution (http://academics.wellesley.edu/Polisci/wj/China/CRSongs/crsongs.htm)

“Dies Irae” found on Archive.org (https://archive.org/details/GregorianChantMass

“Ride to the Party” by Monplaisir under the name Anonymous420 (https://chezmonplaisir.bandcamp.com/album/this-is-not-you)

Consider joining the Patreon!

[thoseflashinggreeneyes]

Themes of secrecy in Reputation

Anyone who’s remotely paying attention knows that Reputation is absolutely brimming with references to secrets, duality, double meanings and private revelations. The album explores these ideas from a lot of different perspectives, and I thought it would be useful to get some analysis in one place. Let’s take it song by song, shall we? 

“...Ready For It?” -- This song has obvious public/private parallels that I’ve written about before, with the verses tracking Taylor’s dark public bearding and the choruses tracking her light, airy private loves. (ht @bikertaylor for being the first to point out to me that the verses and choruses seemed to be tracking two different ideas.) The theme of secrecy that I’m interested in exploring here, though, is even more personal: When Taylor writes, “In the middle of the night, in my dreams, I know I’m gonna be with you, so I take my time,” she’s writing about a hope so dear to her heart that it’s buried in her subconscious, bubbling to the surface only in her dreams. (Of course, a dream can also reference a wish or a fantasy, but I think the literal meaning is interesting here and shouldn’t be overlooked.) If you read this song as a conflict between Taylor and her own inner desires, fighting to break free, the music video can be read more literally as well: This song is about a fight Taylor’s having with herself. The battle rages within her own heart, and the “you” in the title might refer to us (her fans, the world) being ready for her to reveal her secrets -- but it might also refer to whether Taylor herself is ready. 

“Endgame” -- The line that piques my interest here is, “I bury hatchets, but I keep maps of where I put ‘em.” The first reading here is about her seeming apologies for her public dramas, a joke that she forgives but doesn’t forget. Many of those dramas, though, concern heartbreaks and bearding narratives -- and I’m really interested in the idea that each of these might be considered a hatchet, a weapon, an instrument of pain but also a tool of survival. She buries these hatchets one by one, but she doesn’t forget them, and they become a map of her psyche,

“I Did Something Bad” -- The line that sticks out here is, “For every lie I tell them, they tell me three.” A lie is of course one kind of secret, and it’s telling that Taylor and her “boyfriends” so regularly keep secrets from one another. Additionally, I like the way “every lie I tell them” might connote that she’s telling the same lie over and over -- namely, the lie about the true nature of her feelings and their relationship.

“Don’t Blame Me” -- This song is absolutely rife with themes of darkness, secrets, and hidden truths, and I love how these references are overlaid with religious iconography: “the darkest little paradise,” “halo hiding my obsession,” “I would fall from grace just to touch your face.” This song is also a continuation of Taylor reckoning with her own desires: “Lord save me, my drug is my baby, I’ll be usin’ for the rest of my life” isn’t a lyric about wanting to return to her past self, the one who plays by the rules; this is a plea to find acceptance for who she is and who she intends to be for the rest of her life. That’s why this song makes more sense as an LGBTQ narrative than, for example, a song about pre-marital sex -- once you get married, you would return to the “halo” state of playing by the rules, but if your “baby” is a queer relationship, you can’t play by the rules without changing who you are. That’s why Taylor’s name is whatever you decide, and that’s how she changed from an existence that was poisonous to herself and others into a daisy, a symbol of innocence. She��s using words associated with nature (and therefore associated with paganism and lesbianism) to redefine the traditional religious ideas of innocence and sin, darkness and light.

“Delicate” --  This is a song about a literal secret relationship (or the beginning of one), so of course I’m more interested here in the metaphorical lines, namely “Is it chill that you’re in my head?” and “Are you ever dreaming of me?” In this song, the first on the album that seems grounded in specific details of Taylor’s current relationship, Taylor is creating a distinction between the secrets she keeps from the public (that the relationship exists at all) and the secrets she keeps from her lover and even herself. 

“Look What You Made Me Do” -- Hear me out on this: What if LWYMMD is a song (at least partially) about bearding? Read this way, we can see that Taylor hates being made to play the role of the fool who can’t make a relationship work, that she had to get smarter and harder in order to protect her real relationships, that she accepts her role as an actress pretending to be someone she’s not. Many critics and listeners have commented that the chorus leaves them cold -- without a melody, without emotion, without the payoff promised by the rising action of the pre-chorus. But if Taylor is telling us that “what we made her do” is live a fake life pretending to be someone she’s not, it makes perfect sense that the chorus would feel lifeless and robotic. The fact that it’s a sample of “I’m Too Sexy” could also be a clever nod to the fact that the performance she’s giving is as a conventionally acceptable, heterosexual being appropriate for consumption by mass audiences. 

“So It Goes...” -- Now we come to the part (i.e. the majority) of the album where secrets are no longer subtext; they are straight up text. The brilliant lyrics about magicians and illusionists show us that the secrets Taylor is keeping are now public -- she is being honest with herself and her partner. No longer is she in her head and her dreams: “I know what you know, we can feel it.” This song marks a transition in the album, away from Taylor reckoning with her own secrets and toward her reckoning with how to keep those secrets away from prying eyes.

“Gorgeous” -- Our explicit secret here (“you touching my hand in a darkened room”) leads to an opportunity for Taylor to confront her own emotions about having to keep this relationship secret: She uses the words “furious,” “hurts,” “hate,” “sad,” and “mad” -- not exactly the kind of language one typically uses to talk about the excitement of meeting a new love. These negative words are juxtaposed against a joyous beat and melody (typical Swiftian genius), but we shouldn’t overlook the fact that Taylor’s circumstances are clearly making her feel horribly upset. Is she upset by meeting a new person? That doesn’t make a lot of sense -- it’s much more likely she’s upset that she can’t be with that person in public.

“Getaway Car” -- I like reading this song as an accurate retelling of her switching beards from CH to TH. “A circus ain’t a love story” is a great way to think about the media circus surrounding all of Taylor’s het relationships, and the narrative of she and TH being criminals fits with them perpetrating duplicity and lies. (More secrets!) Once we get to the outro, though, we see the true emotions behind this lighthearted heist: She was crying and dying in that car. If she didn’t have feelings for TH, as this song would suggest, and if she was ready as hell to leave her ex, why was she so upset -- if not for the deeper secret she was keeping?

“King Of My Heart” -- “Your love is a secret I’m hoping, dreaming, dying to keep. Change my priorities, the taste of your lips is my idea of luxury.” Here we see the unity of Taylor’s inner hopes (her dreams) with her outer identity: She has found the solution to her secrecy problem -- glass closeting. She changes her “priorities” to her “friendships,” and is then able to bring the person who rules the kingdom inside her room out into public. 

“Dancing With Our Hands Tied” -- This is where we get into the dark side of glass closeting, namely kissgate. This song is all about secrecy: “I loved you in secret,” “picture of your face in an invisible locket,” “I’d kiss you as the lights went out.” All those golden secrets Taylor and her partner keep tarnish and revert to poison when brought to the light of day. The “sacred oasis” of Taylor’s relationship is subjected to biblical plagues -- fire, avalanche, flood -- when they dance in public. Their only option is to go back into hiding.

“Dress” -- And, as it turns out, keeping secrets can be hella sexy! This feels like a yin/yang pair to DWOHT, the ecstasy of getting away from public toxicity and back to a golden secret paradise. But though their kingdom is small and secret, Taylor takes care to note its permanence with lyrics like “a golden tattoo,” “carve your name into my bedpost,” and “inescapable.” If a “beard” is the woman a man wears to seem straight, then it only makes sense that a queer woman would wear a “dress.” In that reading, J*e is actually Taylor’s “dress” -- the costume Taylor bought to show a good public face, while in private she removes her armor and becomes her true, permanent self with the person she loves.

“This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things” -- Here again, I’ve got a suspicion that Taylor is writing about more than her public feuds. “I’m shaking my head and locking the gates” feels like the same retreat into private described in DWOHT and Dress. What if -- in addition to the obvious narrative -- this song is also discussing why Taylor can’t have the life she wants in public, and we (her fans, the media, etc.) can’t have the true details about her life that we crave?

“Call It What You Want” -- Taylor taketh away but then, oh then, Taylor giveth. Because this is the moment where she lifts the curtain and lets us spend time with her in her golden oasis, behind her crumbled castle walls, her guard evaporated. She’s got her code here (het pronouns), but otherwise her secrets are all gone. I’ve written before about the language she uses in the chorus to reinforce the idea that her relationship is a secret escape, but the beauty of this song is that she invites us to run away with her -- if we’re willing to see the truth. Karlie what you want to; her name is whatever we decide.

“New Year’s Day” -- A circus ain’t a love story, but this song is -- literally! “Don’t read the last page” means that Taylor already knows the ending: she’s going to stay with her partner for the whole long road. In private moments cleaning up the apartment after a party, squeezing hands in the back of a taxi, recognizing each other’s laughs, they have found comfort, longevity, and lasting love in their secret world. They will hold on to each other, and despite the deep fears that the world would divide them, their joy and their memories see them through. 

This album is one long rumination on secrecy and how it affects us -- the secrets we keep from ourselves, from our lovers, and from the strangers who think they know who we truly are. In the introduction to Reputation, Taylor writes very explicitly about this idea -- but in her lyrics, she gives us an intimate view into her own emotional process in grappling with the secrets that have dominated her life. The album charts a beautiful progression from Taylor coming to terms with her own secrets, finding someone else to share those secrets with, and, finally, finding a comfortable and happy way to live with those secrets despite the public and the media bearing down on her from every angle. In refusing to give interviews during this era, she is living the solution she has shown us on this album. 

To state the obvious, Taylor’s het relationships are public by definition, charted in press releases and pap walks. It just doesn’t make sense to me that she would write an entire album about the idea of secrecy unless her life were riddled with secrets. Taken with the specific ways Taylor uses gendered language on this album, it seems abundantly clear to me exactly what secrets she’s keeping.

[dontfindyourcenter]

Chapter Twelve:  In which I accidentally do three chapters worth of things all at once

Rules: https://dontfindyourcenter.tumblr.com/post/177027661290/rules

Previous Chapter: https://dontfindyourcenter.tumblr.com/post/177618516610/chapter-11-running-on-empty

Konikoni City seems to exist just to taunt me for putting in that rule about not being able to exchange money for items.  All around me are shops for TMs, incense, herbs, even evolutionary stones and fossils.  It all makes me feel very hard done by.  The fact that only half of these items would actually be useful to me is irrelevant to this feeling.  Anyway, Olivia’s Probopass hands me a note telling me that I’m to pop over to the Ruins of Life and meet Olivia there.  Is there any reason Olivia couldn’t have told me this a few minutes ago, when I saw her at the other end of Diglett’s Tunnel?  I guess she just wanted me to say hello to her massive-nosed pokemon.  Fair enough; it can’t have many pals with a nose like that.

I swear to god, the closer to full health my party has, the faster my pokemon get hurt.  It’s like a really depressing version of osmosis.  Case in point; on my way through Memorial Hill, a little old lady fights me with a comfey, which - through a combination of the moves wrap and sweet kiss - manages to bring Hedwig from full health down to seven HP.  Seven!  I had to use my first ever hyper potion just to keep my strongest pokemon from fainting against a bloody flower crown!  What’s that about?  Side note: this battle made me think the phrase “lei’d to rest”, and I’m very angry about this.

At the end of Memorial Hill, we meet Aether Branch Chief Faba, the one member of the Aether Foundation that the game doesn’t even begin to pretend is a goodie.  Total creep, this guy.  He’s in an argument with a couple of Team Skull Grunts, and frustratingly, I’m not allowed to join forces with Team Skull and beat him up.  Instead, I have to fight the Alolan Raticate of one of the Grunts, and it’s actually a surprisingly strong one.  I even have to use a revive after it gets a critical hit against Mr Nancy the araquanid.  Luckily, Digit Al the magnemite finishes it off, and gets promoted to Digit Al the magneton as a result.  Score!

Now we’re in Akala Outskirts, where I pick up a T.M. for Leech Life, a very useful move indeed for Mr. Nancy, especially since it takes the strain off those healing items I’m running so low on.  I mess around for a little while making him use the move against anyone who comes too near, until he’s back on full health for the Grand Trial.  Lovely.

Before the Grand Trial, though, is a battle I’d clean forgotten about; Team Skull Admin Plumeria wanders up and tells me to stop beating up her teammates, who she quite correctly points out are cute and as dumb as rocks.  I absolutely adore the fact that her title is “Team Skull Admin”, by the way.  I just have this image of her being really pissed off on a laptop at the back of Team Skull’s base in Po Town, performing mind-numbing data entry tasks while the rest of the team are having a whale of a time trying to eat tide pods and suchlike.

Plumeria is tough, but not too tough.  Digit Al beats her golbat and Donna the marowak beats her salandit.  Her team beaten, Plumie admits that I’m strong, but warns me not to mess with the Skulls again.  Why do recurring characters in pokemon games always wait until after they’ve proven that they can’t beat you before warning you not to do something?  How much of a threat do they really think that sounds like?

Now we’re finally at the Ruins of Hope, and Lillie and Burnet come and heal my pokemon.  Such a lovely pair.  Burnet does that thing I mentioned last chapter where she overcompensates by loudly asking what the Masked Royal looks like under “that mask.”  Interesting that she doesn’t assume male pronouns, no?  Burnet is definitely suspect number one, imho.

And it’s time to face the big Kahuna!  Olivia - oh I get it, she’s called Olivia because olives have stones in them!  That’s cute - sends out a nosepass first, which is quickly dispatched by Mr Nancy with a couple of Bubblebeams.  Next is her midnight lycanroc, who Digit Al beats with a Mirror Shot or two.  Third we have a boldore, who Hedwig beats with a Grass Knot and a Razor Leaf, and… oh.  That’s it.  Not much for a grand trial, was it?  Slightly less grand than every single regular trial on the island, frankly.  She should have sent out a bloody comfey, they cause me way more trouble.

Shan’t complain though - I get a rock z-crystal and a stamp in my passport out of it, and now that there’s no more plot left to uncover on the island, I’ve been invited to go to the Aether Foundation and meet Lusamine.  It’s very exciting to meet the worst mum in a series of games full to the brim of mothers who kick their children out of their houses at age 10.

I do make a quick pit stop in Konikoni City before going there, though, because I know that now that I’ve beaten Olivia, I can have a battle with Trial Captain Lana.  It’s a fun one, too - since Lana has a chinchou (which resists electric types) and an araquanid (which resists grass types), there are no pokemon types with an advantage against all her pokemon, which always makes for a more dynamic match.  Olivia could really learn a thing or two from her.  Anyway, Hedwig beats the chinchou, Digit Al beats the shellder and Wash just barely survives a Hydro Vortex from the araquanid in order to beat that, too, and that’s the end of that.

I would have gone up against Mallow as well, but as I’ve never played Pokemon Moon before, I don’t know where to find her and don’t really care enough to find out.  Instead, I take that trip to Aether Paradise that that one evil guy offered me earlier.  Bye, Akala island!  Thanks for only killing two of my pokemon while I was on you!

When we arrive on Aether Paradise, Faba tells me that I will not be able to use any of my Poké Balls within Aether Paradise, since a jamming signal is broadcast throughout the facility to prevent them from functioning. This makes no sense at all; he’s just told me that the Aether Foundation develop poke balls on site, and while I’m no expert, I’m pretty sure it would be nearly impossible to invent something in a building where that specific thing can’t do anything.  And sure enough, he’s almost immediately proved wrong; the second that a Nihilego comes through an ultra wormhole and attacks me upstairs, I’m able to send out my pokemon from my poke balls to defend myself with no problem whatsoever.  Hey Faba, is your name Selena Gomez?  Because you’re a Bad Liar.  ...No, I know your name’s Faba, it’s a… I was referencing the 2017 hit song, Bar Liar, which was sung by…  actually I don’t think her music is as bad as you’re making it out to... oh, forget it.

I beat the Nihilego with a couple of bonemarangs from Donna.  Fun fact: throughout this word document, the words “Digit Al” have been underlined every time I’ve written them to tell me that I’ve misspelled them, but the word “bonemarangs” has been accepted as a completely legitimate word.  Alrighty then.

At this point, I was going to save the game, so that I could be prepared to travel to the next island on a completely fresh chapter.  That didn’t end up happening, though; I had to button-mash my way through heavy foreshadowing about Lusamine’s villain turn later in the game, get given a T.M. for psychic by Branch Assistant Wicke, watch a weird cutscene of Hau eating his food really excitedly, AND beat Hau in a pokemon battle, all before I was given the chance to take a breather and save the game.  When I finally got out of the waiting room, my doctor wasn’t remotely amused.  

(The Hau battle went fine, by the way.  Donna, Hedwig and Nina beat his raichu, brionne and flareon without any real trouble.   He also healed my team both before and after the fight.  Do you expect anything else from Hau by this point?)

End of chapter twelve.

[mercurialmist]

About Togetherness, About Forgetting, Friederike Steinert

I still remember Claudette’s voice. That’s all. No matter how long I try to evoke an image of her face, my mind draws a blank. I know that an image of her must still be stored somewhere in my brain but it is buried under layers of faces and anecdotes which have left a far less important mark on me. It’s funny how one’s brain is going through the memories that constitute our life, randomly trashing things that have made us the person who we are, or wanted to become, while keeping an endless array of side notes, song lyrics and embarrassing incidents we’d rather forget. On an especially boring afternoon in the early 90s I learned the lyrics to It’s my life by Dr. Alban. I didn’t even like the song, the lyrics were on the back of a magazine and I memorised them because I didn’t have anything else to do. I still know these lyrics. 

I also know that Dr. Alban was a Swedish dentist. But no matter how long I think about it, I cannot remember what Claudette did for a living. That’s not everything that is lost. I can’t remember most of my childhood either. I can still remember that I told everyone in kindergarten that Elvis Presley was my father. I can remember this, because my lie was met with total and complete indifference. Nobody even knew who Elvis was; my lie had met the wrong target group. Maybe because of this accident, I have become a terrible liar. I nearly never try to do it, instead I am blurting truths out. I wonder if my truth telling has become a weapon. And if so, if it’s a weapon for or against myself. 

Claudette loved beating up people. While I have always been scared of violence her eyes sparkled when there was a fight. She was also really good at beating up people. Everyone had heard about that one time when she got angry with her boyfriend because he tried to come to her rescue while she was in a fight with a guy. Claudette was very feminine, just not in the way I had been brought up to think about femininity. She was fun and violent and caring. Once, when I was kissed by a man that I only kissed back because I, and all men in my group, were scared of him, Claudette was the only one who asked if she needed to do anything about it. I was too ashamed to admit that I needed help. To this day, I still regret not taking her up on her offer. It might have been the first time in a line of moments in which I needed and accepted help. As it is, I would still need Claudette, but even if she passed me on the street, I would not recognise her. I hope that she is okay. 

I still remember how tall R was before he got ill. That one night, when we were slow dancing in a Karaoke bar in Kreuzberg, everything was perfect. Someone made a photo of us that night. I am  wearing brown tracksuit bottoms and a Moldy Peaches t-shirt and I look up at R like I’ve found paradise. On the same evening F, J, R and I decided that we would never die. Thinking of this night, I sometimes wonder if paradise is not a place but a state. I also wonder if this state can last longer than a day or a night. I don’t remember any other time I met R during that time in my life and I’m not sure if this is because any encounter was so pale in comparison to our Kreuzberg slow dance or if these meetings were drowned by a sea of non-events. Like Atlantis.

Dr. Alban had another hit. No coke. The song was forbidden in my boarding school, as teachers felt that the pupils had reversed the drug critical lyrics and sung along ironically enough to turn the whole song into a pro drug anthem. I hated going to school and I stopped participating sometime in fifth grade. Even if I wanted, I cannot access the patience, the ability to sit through endless school days without participating. I have forgotten how I did it. What I still know is how I longed for the weekends, when I would leave for the city and go to Soul Allnighters and dance for hours on end. (I don’t go out anymore but) This longing is still part of me - now it often leads nowhere. Around two am, I would go and eat a vegetable kebab and some fries. I would meet Claudette on my way there and for the rest of the way to the kebab place I would imagine her life as mine. And then another cheap beer on the street, another song, another scuffle. Bobby Hebb would sing about a slow dance and a kiss, Sam Dees about his loneliness post break-up and the Tempos about the forcefulness of their love. There was no need for patience, there was not even a need for paradise. At least this is what I make myself believe. The truth is, I cannot remember. 

See more of Friederike’s work at: https://www.everythingforever.net/friederike-steinert

[oogaboogaspookyman]

Seems cool, les go, got nothin' bettah ta do.

3 2 1 let's waste some time ig-

T - The Chattering Lack Of Common Sense by whoever made the song, can't remember very well fml- (@esmam1ss2n9shu773r now i know about it cuz 'a you, i thank thee)

H - Heathen by also whoever made this, same reason, i hate that too.

E - Enemy by Imagine Dragons (these NU-)

Space~

P - i dunno.

R - Ruler Of Everything by Tally Hall (love this song so much! Yes i found it via memes! Omnisexual ftm trans people exist so it shouldn't surprise you! Yes i also referenced Ace whose made by @martysgachaworld , i have free will! this is long-)

O - Out Of Touch by whoever made it, i don't check anything... But hey, i did include Out Of Touch so ya, i consider myself forgiven.

J - nothing.

E - eh.

C - Cradles by... h-hey can someone tell me the bands? I'm too lazy to search them up and besides i don't wanna add "who made Coolswag" in my search history-

T - tid lol (how did my life come to this XD)

✨ <- these are stars, they're found in space.

A - AAAAAAA (no thoughts head empty)

N - Natural by... Imagine Dragons i think- yeah Imagine Dragons.

D - Dejection, Friday Night Funkin': Wednesday's Infidelity, i don't accept criticism.

✨

T - To The Bone by JT Machinima i think- (i got no other ideas, i'm making do with what i got)

H - Ha by Joker (this is a joke, i am descending into madness /j)

E - Everything by someone idk (there's bound to be at least one song named this)

Aaaaaaaaaa

G - gfdi i should listen to more music fuck-

H - HHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHFEK-

O - Other Side Of Paradise (i think it's named that, been years) by Glass Animals (that i do remember!)

S - Sgshdhhshdhdjdwhshhgghshhssvvhedjdhsg (no thoughts head empty 2)

T - Technophobia, The Blueballs Incident, i'll pay you $30,000 to not say a word /j.

That's all, i most likely will delete this.

@whoever wants to do this just go ham, you know more songs than i do anyway.

thanks @skullsulker for the tag! ♡ only took me a billion years to actually do it ahdjska

rules: make a new post and spell out your url with song titles, then tag as many people as there are letters in your url. thank christ i don't have to do my old url holy fuck. pspspsps selfship homies (only if u wanna!) @whats-amata-you @greghouse @terrence-self-ships @spideygal @salsflore @sanandthefam @lady-drakey @szayelapowo @sunstar-of-the-north @anthonyshope @aphnatasha + my irl @pheonixcawcaw ♡

M: Miniskirt — AOA

I: I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles — The Merry Macs

N: Notice — Moe Shop

T: Terrible Things — Brick + Mortar

B: Baby Blue Shades — Bad Suns

L: Little Pistol — Mother Mother

O: Ode to the Bouncer — Studio Killers

S: Show It 2 Me — Night Club

S: Spit It Out — Softcult

O: Oleander — Mother Mother

M: My Body Is A Cage — Arcade Fire

[tuiyla]

Hey, I've loved reading your long Bubbline rants, do you have anything to say about their interactions in Elements and Ketchup? (Also, Marceline's presence in Bonnibel Bubblegum). As of now, where do you think their relationship lies and where do you think it's headed? Do you think they'll become explicitly canon before the show ends?

Hi there! You don’t know how amazing it is to hear that :D Thank you, it’s always great to hear that my rants aren’t just nonsense to others. I’m going to rant again to show how grateful I am, just a quick note first.

The reason why it’s been a while since I posted a rant about Bubbline is that I started doing regular reviews for Adventure Time about a year ago, and so that became my “AT thoughts” outlet. Well, I actually began with retrospectives and I’ve been doing reviews for new episodes since Season 8 premiered. I try to contain myself at least a little bit with these, although my inner shipper still shines through when talking about stuff like The ShirtTM, because who can resist that. I did write about “Elements” and “Ketchup” there, but I’m so glad you asked this because this way I can rant just about the Bubbline aspect.

It’s also a really convenient timing as I’ve been wanting to write about Bubbline, based on discussions I’ve had with friends and other ideas. Some of those might still happen, but at least this gives me an opportunity to voice some of what I’ve been thinking about.

Indeed, I do have a lot to say about their most recent episodes. First of all, can I just point it out that literally all of Marceline’s appearances since the beginning of Season 7 featured Bubblegum as well? Whether they are both main characters like in “Varmints” or “Broke His Crown”, minor ones like in “The Music Hole” or even cameos like “President Porpoise is Missing!” and “Wheels”. The only exception since “Varmints” is “Everything Stays”, where Marcy only mentioned PB, or I guess you could be really critical and say that “Ketchup” doesn’t count. But nitpicking aside, these last three seasons seem to have an agenda.

Not that I don’t see how the lack of Marceline as an individual character has been alarming but from my perspective, the last seasons are clearly going somewhere. I declared after “Stakes” that it’s basically canon and that feeling only grew stronger after “Broke His Crown”, but with that also came a worry that this might be it. After all these years of waiting for the creators to do something, I, along with many others, was worried that “blatantly obvious for those who want to see it but not quite explicitly stated” is the best we’ll get. How do I feel about this following Season 8? Well…

“Elements” wasn’t exactly about Bubbline itself of course, but it contained plenty of small moments that serves as further “proof” for those wanting Bubbline to become canon - and make no mistake, I’m a proud member of that group, but it still wasn’t actual proof, was it? We had Marshmeline staying loyal PB and being constantly by her side, her humming “Greensleeves” and even wearing the famous “What Was Missing” outfit. Uncivilized Elk did a wonderful analysis on what the use of “Greensleeves” might mean, and though I don’t necessarily agree with all of it, I definitely think that the choice of song is intentional and further develops the Bubbline relationship, even if only in a subtle way.

“Ketchup” is much more interesting in that it details what happened before “Elements”, in its own whimsical way. When reviewing the episode I mentioned how Marceline’s story could be interpreted in many ways, but an obvious choice is to take what she said with a grain of salt and apply it to how PB transformed into the pure candy elemental. I absolutely adore this episode and how it lets Marcy process her thoughts and feelings, I love how much she’s grown and how her relationship with PB– sorry, Lollipop Girl is portrayed. What we see is that Marcy fought against the elemental spell and tried to snap Bubblegum out of it (might or might not have even confronted Patience about it) but ultimately gave in so she could be by Bonnie’s side as the spell washed over Ooo.

What’s great about this is not just the very heavy implication that Marceline cares this deeply about PB. Well, that’s great, but it’s mostly just amazing to see how far she’s come since “I’m Just Your Problem”. She still has her own way of coping with things and some stuff is still too hard to talk about (like her mother at the end of the episode), but she’s trying. She admits how much this affected her and she admits how much she cares about Bonnie. This might not seem like a big deal now, but think back to Season 3 Marcy. Even though Bubblegum is strictly speaking not even in the episode, “Ketchup” is yet another milestone for these two.

I didn’t know how to incorporate my thoughts on Marcy into the “Bonnibel Bubblegum” review so here we go. It’s a shame she didn’t have any lines but that was most likely down to real life voice acting reasons, maybe they didn’t feel like dragging Olivia Olson into the studio for two lines. But even without saying anything Marcy’s presence is significant for the same reason that “Ketchup” was: it shows us how far our characters have come. The episode is clearly about the eponymous character and her past, but the scenes set in the present tell us that Finn, Jake, PB and Marcy (along with BMO, sometimes) just hang out as casual friends. Again, think back to “What Was Missing” and how they were almost forced to hang out together.

That being said, I have another thought regarding this most recent episode and the end of the show in general, which leads us into the last section of this answer. Where the Bubbline relationship lies right now and where it’s headed, hmm. Where it lies now, if you ask me, is in limbo. Throughout Season 7 we saw them talk through their problems, become close friends again and ever since then it’s been a ship tease and subtext paradise. I guess if you’re reading this I don’t have to explain how almost every one of their interactions could be interpreted as a couple, so just take that for granted. The subtext is there, hell, it’s this close to being actual text. But it’s not actual text, is it? And that’s annoying me more and more as each episode passes.

Look, Adventure Time only has 12 episodes left until the end. Around two hours worth of TV is all we’re going to get, and I would love to trust the creators but I’m growing anxious. There are a few characters arcs and storylines that need resolving and Bubbline is one of them. With episodes like “Marcy & Hunson” plus the inevitable battle of wits between Bonnie and Uncle Gumbald coming up I’m not really afraid of them not getting well-deserved conclusions as individual characters. Wouldn’t it be a damn shame though not to have a final scene between just the two of them though? And I’m not talking Korrasami level last scene, neither of them is the protagonist so I get that they are not the main focus of the show. But for all this build up to go nowhere, to stay in this limbo of just enough to see that there’s something but not quite there yet, now that would be a narrative nightmare.

I couldn’t hide the fact that I ship them even if I wanted to, so I’m saying this as a proud fan but also as someone who tries to view it all objectively: Bubbline has to happen at this point. Where do I think it’s headed? Well, it’s headed towards them being a couple, it’s been heading there for years now. From a narrative point of view, it makes perfect sense (this is one of the posts I’ve been wanting to write but haven’t had the time yet). It wouldn’t just be fanservice or giving into the pressure of representation - if anything, this would still be viewed as a move against societal expectations. I’ve talked about why it would mean a lot for Bubbline in particular to become canon, but it’s not just about the LGBT+ aspect of it. Every scene shared between these two have been heading towards a moment where they finally admit their love for each other.

I don’t mean to sound ungrateful when I say all that we’ve had so far is not enough. If anything, all that’s happened since “Varmints” was unimaginable for me back when I started watching Adventure Time five years ago and the only major episode Bubbline had was “What Was Missing”. Even after “Sky Witch” I wondered if they were ever going to go anywhere with this great relationship. But they did, we’ve already seen such beautiful scenes between the two and by no means am I trying to undermine the importance of their friendship. The way these two found each other again after what was clearly a bad falling out is amazing. They mean the world to one another and no matter what happens, that’s canon. Bonnie and Marcy canonically care so much about each other that they are willing to face their own personal demons to keep the other safe.

So I do appreciate what we have right now and honestly if it wasn’t for the blatant “sub”text and the many signs, I would be happy with a Bubbline friendship. I would still ship it romantically, but if I didn’t see signs that the creators want to go for it I would be able to accept that. As I keep saying though, it’s too much at this point for it to go nowhere. I think they have to become explicitly canon before the end, in a way. If they don’t, all of this was for- well, not nothing, but for an underwhelming conclusion.

I’ve been thinking about this lately: what would I do if AT ended without Bubbline becoming canon? Would it affect the way I view the end of the series as a whole? Probably. And maybe this is more the shipper side of me speaking, but I don’t think I would be satisfied with the way they wrap things up if Bubbline doesn’t happen. Even if it does there are still ways in which the finale could be unsatisfactory, but at this point, Bubbline has also become a major factor. 

Because of all of this I really, genuinely hope that Bubbline does become canon by the end. I have faith in the creators and I don’t think they would queerbait knowingly. Would I say I’m sure it will happen, though? Not really. Again, 12 episodes left and so much to resolve, but the best we can do for now is appreciate what we have and keep on hoping. Hey, I never could have imagined Korrasami would truly happen, despite wanting it so bad and seeing the subtext, but maybe it’s safe to start expecting stuff like this.

Anyway, sorry I kept you waiting with this answer, but I hope you’re reading this, Anon, and that you have a great day!

[liveforthesound]

Albums That Changed My Life

This is not a list of my favorite albums or the best albums I’ve ever listened to. These albums didn’t serve as a portal into a new genre the way listening to Etta James introduced me to jazz and blues. These are the albums that helped shape me during critical points in my life. Much of their power come from supporting me in navigating these formative experiences. I hope you enjoy!

Life for Rent/No Angel by Dido

I got Dido’s two albums within months of each other after becoming completely obsessed. Before Dido, my musical tastes jumped all around and was more centered on a single song than an album or artist. Yes, Dido is definitely not the coolest artist around, but she spoke to my middle school heart. Beyond being my favorite musical artist for the better half of a decade, Dido’s music also taught me about life, love, and relationships. To misquote Love, Actually “Dido taught this repressed little Boston Irish boy how to feel.” My dad consistently commented on how mournful her voice was and I enthusiastically replied that’s why I like her. Through her lyrics I found the power in words to concisely capture the tempest of emotions we call puberty. She inspired me to write lyrics which developed into poetry and journaling and a welcome respite from the impossible work of defining oneself at 15. She taught me that music and words can speak to us and for us when nothing else can.

Songs to Change a Life: “Isobel,” “See the Sun,” “See You When You’re 40,” “I’m No Angel” and “Closer.”

P.S. I still listen to Dido on the regular and love it. Plus “Stoned” helped me get over my first boyfriend with the excellent opening “When you’re stoned baby/And I am drunk/We make love/It seems a little desolate.”

Music for Tourists by Chris Garneau

I discovered Chris Garneau in the Boston Globe when the arts writers all got to highlight a little known artist for people to check out. Chris was described as a male Regina Spektor and I immediately set out to buy his album. Chris was the very first out gay artist I listened to and it was a seismic shift. No longer was I co-opting the feminine experiences of women but the experiences of a gay man unafraid of his feminine side. Moments like in “Relief” when he sings “Nose to nose/Eyes all closed/This is what I said/Would never ever end” with a different male vocalists echoing each line felt like transcendence. He spoke to experiences like depression and repressing feelings that are so common among gay men, especially those still in the closet. I have a visceral memory of singing along to “We Don’t Try” and meaning every word someone else had written:

 If you pretend everything’s fine

I won’t hurt myself or lie

To you or mom or dad

Just pretend that I’m not sad

And we’ll work everything out

Even all the stuff we don’t talk about

Be easier if we cried 

We’d feel bad for ourselves. 

Yes, the lyrics and rhymes are a little on the nose but that’s the point. So often when we talk about depression and coming out, we speak in code. Here was someone saying exactly what I was living, let’s pretend I’m fine even though it’d be easier to let it all out. Garneau also laid out what lived on the other side of talking about all that “stuff.” Snapshots of life like “Saturday” with lines like “How long can a Saturday keep meaning all the same things?” and “So Far” with its whirring dish washer were so deeply intimate that they became my vision of life after coming out. This life was never perfect but it was mine to take. 

Songs to Change a Life: “We Don’t Try,” “Relief,” “Baby’s Romance,” “Castle-Time”  

Ceremonials by Florence + the Machine

Okay y’all, here’s the start of the suicide section so trigger warnings and such.

In October of 2011, one of my best friends Justin killed himself changing my life forever. The next three albums were all critical in helping me process and survive the experience. 

I loved Florence + the Machine from the very first song I heard and was so excited for her follow up to Lungs. Weeks before it’s release was when I lost my friend and it felt like divine intervention that the album started with “Only If For a Night.” To be honest, I listened to that song about 3 times and then skipped it every time for about two years. It cut too close to the core. My friend is the most practical ghost and it’s only now with time that I can treasure what feels like a real gift.

The truth of the matter is I found solace in the howl of this album. Many have commented on how little this album lets up and how hard Florence pushes her voice and that was exactly what I needed. In a time when so much felt hollow, I found ultimate catharsis screaming and yelling along with Florence. “No Light, No Light” allowed me to channel the anger and rage at being left in such a way. “What the Water Gave Me” allowed me to play the role. I would play those two songs at the highest volume, sing along, and jump in dizzying circles in my own not-so-secret ceremonial. I’m sure I didn’t ease my parent’s fears yelling “Lay me down/Let the only sound/ Be the overflow” but it felt like nothing else in a time when snow wasn’t cold in my hands. 

Songs to Change a Life: “What the Water Gave Me,” “Only If For A Night,” “No Light, No Light” 

The Sea by Corinne Bailey Rae

Good Bye Paradise

When I looked up to see when this album came out, I was shocked to see it was released in January 2010, over a year before I have any real recollections of it. I know I bought this album when it first came out cause I’m rather fanatical in my devotion to Corinne Bailey Rae, but I simply don’t remember a time when this wasn’t connected to Justin. Rae wrote this album in the aftermath of her husband’s death and the wound is still fresh. Within these songs, Rae taught me hard lessons in how life must continue to be lived after loss. Opener “Are You Here?” felt like a prayer in its build and plea for response from someone who never will. “I’d Do it All Again” encompassed the bittersweet experience of reliving the good times with the knowledge that no more will be shared. Throughout the album, Rae pushes on in life and love with an overarching melancholy for an unreclaimable time. There is a tidal spirit in songs like “Diving for Hearts” and “Love’s On Its Way” that speak to the push and pull of memory and emotion (”Love’s got a hold on me/Can’t forget the thing’s I’ve seen). The album closes with Rae’s warmest voice buoyed by autoharp accepting her peace “The sea, the majestic sea, breaks everything, crushes everything, cleans everything, takes everything... from me.”

Songs to Change a Life: “The Sea,” “I’d Do It All Again,” “Are You Here?” “Diving For Hearts”

Tall Tall Shadow by Basia Bulat

When recording the follow up to the amazing Heart of My Own, Basia Bulat’s close friend passed away. Bulat has said that she scrapped all of the material she had been working on and created this album out of the experience. Opening with the pound of “Tall Tall Shadow,” I recognized that this album would be different from anything Bulat had done before. The gospel-like urgency of the repeated title phrase felt like church to me and illuminated the ways in which loss had cast a shadow on everything in my life. “It Can’t Be You” spoke to the betrayal I felt from losing someone to suicide while “Paris or Amsterdam” spoke to the hidden shame of denial I still engage in. The hum of “Someone” was the presence I felt in my life, not ironically or half-heartedly but in a deep spiritual way. However, it’s in “From Now On” that this album truly changed my life. Basia’s voice is raw and you can feel the finger tips on the piano as its played. The lyrics read like a letter to the friend she lost, the type of letter we all end up writing some day. The first time I heard the song, I started crying immediately upon hearing “For those of us who know it, October is closer than any one of us can admit.” It felt like she was singing just for me in that moment. “From Now On” helped me recognize that losing a friend to suicide is not a hardship you overcome but an experience you live with for the rest of your life. Those that are close to you will always be there to lean on and you will pass the lessons you learn down to your children, but October will always return. 

[yvkkao-blog]

Family Proverbs & Poetry Anthology

Family Proverbs (we don’t have many, I’m afraid):

-If you fall, pick up a handful of dirt (to keep) on the way back up.

-We’re slow, but we finish.

-Kaos are not quitters.

-Penny wise and pound foolish

I do love poetry, but I will admit that I have some unconventional ones and a couple of song poems. I think they count, and they have meaning to me.

#1) My first poem find to share:

William Butler Yeats – “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,

And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

      And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

     I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,

I hear it in the deep heart’s core.

#2) Poem #2 – Cyrus Cassells’s “Return to Florence” 

How do I convey the shoring gold

at the core of the Florentine bells’

commingled chimes? 

     Vast as a suddenly revealed

field of wheat,

that up-and-away gold

is equivalent to the match-burst

morning I returned,

intent as doubting Thomas,

to my old classroom terrace,

open to the showy, blue yes

of the bustling Arno,

to my timeless, sun-laved

Basilica of Santo Spirito,

and discovered

ebullient citizens reciting,

at a hundred different posts,

the same unbetraying passage

of Dante’s Paradise.

#3) Song: “Danny Boy”

Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling

From glen to glen, and down the mountain side

The summer’s gone, and all the flowers are dying

’Tis you, ’tis you must go and I must bide. 

     But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow

Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow

’Tis I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow

Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so. 

     And if you come, when all the flowers are dying

And I am dead, as dead I well may be

You’ll come and find the place where I am lying

And kneel and say an “Ave” there for me. 

     And I shall hear, tho’ soft your tread above me

And all my dreams will warm and sweeter be

If you’ll not fail to tell me that you love me

I’ll simply sleep in peace until you come to me. 

     I’ll simply sleep in peace until you come to me.

#4) Walt Whitman’s “Song of the Open Road”

1 Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.  Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune, Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing, Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, Strong and content I travel the open road.  The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them.  (Still here I carry my old delicious burdens, I carry them, men and women, I carry them with me wherever I go, I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them, I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)  

2 You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here, I believe that much unseen is also here.  Here the profound lesson of reception, nor preference nor denial, The black with his woolly head, the felon, the diseas’d, the illiterate person, are not denied; The birth, the hasting after the physician, the beggar’s tramp, the drunkard’s stagger, the laughing party of mechanics, The escaped youth, the rich person’s carriage, the fop, the eloping couple,  The early market-man, the hearse, the moving of furniture into the town, the return back from the town, They pass, I also pass, any thing passes, none can be interdicted, None but are accepted, none but shall be dear to me. 

3 You air that serves me with breath to speak! You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape! You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers! You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides! I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.  You flagg’d walks of the cities! you strong curbs at the edges! You ferries! you planks and posts of wharves! you timber-lined sides! you distant ships!  You rows of houses! you window-pierc’d façades! you roofs! You porches and entrances! you copings and iron guards! You windows whose transparent shells might expose so much! You doors and ascending steps! you arches! You gray stones of interminable pavements! you trodden crossings! From all that has touch’d you I believe you have imparted to yourselves, and now would impart the same secretly to me, From the living and the dead you have peopled your impassive surfaces, and the spirits thereof would be evident and amicable with me. 

4 The earth expanding right hand and left hand, The picture alive, every part in its best light, The music falling in where it is wanted, and stopping where it is not wanted, The cheerful voice of the public road, the gay fresh sentiment of the road.  O highway I travel, do you say to me Do not leave me? Do you say Venture not—if you leave me you are lost? Do you say I am already prepared, I am well-beaten and undenied, adhere to me?  O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, You express me better than I can express myself, You shall be more to me than my poem.  I think heroic deeds were all conceiv’d in the open air, and all free poems also, I think I could stop here myself and do miracles, I think whatever I shall meet on the road I shall like, and whoever beholds me shall like me, I think whoever I see must be happy. 

5 From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently,but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me. I inhale great draughts of space, The east and the west are mine, and the north and the south are mine.  I am larger, better than I thought, I did not know I held so much goodness.  All seems beautiful to me, I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me I would do the same to you, I will recruit for myself and you as I go, I will scatter myself among men and women as I go, I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them, Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me, Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me. 

6 Now if a thousand perfect men were to appear it would not amaze me, Now if a thousand beautiful forms of women appear’d it would not astonish me.  Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.  Here a great personal deed has room, (Such a deed seizes upon the hearts of the whole race of men, Its effusion of strength and will overwhelms law and mocks all authority and all argument against it.)  Here is the test of wisdom, Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof, Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things; Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.  Now I re-examine philosophies and religions, They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.  Here is realization, Here is a man tallied—he realizes here what he has in him, The past, the future, majesty, love—if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.  Only the kernel of every object nourishes; Where is he who tears off the husks for you and me? Where is he that undoes stratagems and envelopes for you and me?  Here is adhesiveness, it is not previously fashion’d, it is apropos; Do you know what it is as you pass to be loved by strangers? Do you know the talk of those turning eye-balls?  

7 Here is the efflux of the soul, The efflux of the soul comes from within through embower’d gates, ever provoking questions, These yearnings why are they? these thoughts in the darkness why are they? Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood? Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank? Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me? (I think they hang there winter and summer on those trees and always drop fruit as I pass;) What is it I interchange so suddenly with strangers? What with some driver as I ride on the seat by his side? What with some fisherman drawing his seine by the shore as I walk by and pause? What gives me to be free to a woman’s and man’s good-will? what gives them to be free to mine?  

8 The efflux of the soul is happiness, here is happiness, I think it pervades the open air, waiting at all times, Now it flows unto us, we are rightly charged.  Here rises the fluid and attaching character, The fluid and attaching character is the freshness and sweetness of man and woman, (The herbs of the morning sprout no fresher and sweeter every day out of the roots of themselves, than it sprouts fresh and sweet continually out of itself.)  Toward the fluid and attaching character exudes the sweat of the love of young and old, From it falls distill’d the charm that mocks beauty and attainments, Toward it heaves the shuddering longing ache of contact.  

9 Allons! whoever you are come travel with me! Traveling with me you find what never tires.  The earth never tires, The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first, Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop’d, I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.  Allons! we must not stop here, However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here, However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here, However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while.  

10 Allons! the inducements shall be greater, We will sail pathless and wild seas, We will go where winds blow, waves dash, and the Yankee clipper speeds by under full sail.  Allons! with power, liberty, the earth, the elements, Health, defiance, gayety, self-esteem, curiosity; Allons! from all formules! From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests.  The stale cadaver blocks up the passage—the burial waits no longer.  Allons! yet take warning! He traveling with me needs the best blood, thews, endurance, None may come to the trial till he or she bring courage and health, Come not here if you have already spent the best of yourself, Only those may come who come in sweet and determin’d bodies, No diseas’d person, no rum-drinker or venereal taint is permitted here.  (I and mine do not convince by arguments, similes, rhymes, We convince by our presence.)  

11 Listen! I will be honest with you, I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes, These are the days that must happen to you: You shall not heap up what is call’d riches, You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or achieve, You but arrive at the city to which you were destin’d, you hardly settle yourself to satisfaction before you are call’d by an irresistible call to depart, You shall be treated to the ironical smiles and mockings of those who remain behind you, What beckonings of love you receive you shall only answer with passionate kisses of parting, You shall not allow the hold of those who spread their reach’d hands toward you.  

12 Allons! after the great Companions, and to belong to them! They too are on the road—they are the swift and majestic men—they are the greatest women, Enjoyers of calms of seas and storms of seas, Sailors of many a ship, walkers of many a mile of land, Habituès of many distant countries, habituès of far-distant dwellings, Trusters of men and women, observers of cities, solitary toilers, Pausers and contemplators of tufts, blossoms, shells of the shore, Dancers at wedding-dances, kissers of brides, tender helpers of children, bearers of children, Soldiers of revolts, standers by gaping graves, lowerers-down of coffins, Journeyers over consecutive seasons, over the years, the curious years each emerging from that which preceded it, Journeyers as with companions, namely their own diverse phases, Forth-steppers from the latent unrealized baby-days, Journeyers gayly with their own youth, journeyers with their bearded and well-grain’d manhood, Journeyers with their womanhood, ample, unsurpass’d, content, Journeyers with their own sublime old age of manhood or womanhood, Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, Old age, flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.  

13 Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless, To undergo much, tramps of days, rests of nights, To merge all in the travel they tend to, and the days and nights they tend to, Again to merge them in the start of superior journeys, To see nothing anywhere but what you may reach it and pass it, To conceive no time, however distant, but what you may reach it and pass it, To look up or down no road but it stretches and waits for you, however long but it stretches and waits for you, To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither, To see no possession but you may possess it, enjoying all without labor or purchase, abstracting the feast yet not abstracting one particle of it, To take the best of the farmer’s farm and the rich man’s elegant villa, and the chaste blessings of the well-married couple, and the fruits of orchards and flowers of gardens, To take to your use out of the compact cities as you pass through, To carry buildings and streets with you afterward wherever you go, To gather the minds of men out of their brains as you encounter them, to gather the love out of their hearts, To take your lovers on the road with you, for all that you leave them behind you, To know the universe itself as a road, as many roads, as roads for traveling souls.  All parts away for the progress of souls, All religion, all solid things, arts, governments—all that was or is apparent upon this globe or any globe, falls into niches and corners before the procession of souls along the grand roads of the universe.  Of the progress of the souls of men and women along the grand roads of the universe, all other progress is the needed emblem and sustenance.  Forever alive, forever forward, Stately, solemn, sad, withdrawn, baffled, mad, turbulent, feeble, dissatisfied, Desperate, proud, fond, sick, accepted by men, rejected by men, They go! they go! I know that they go, but I know not where they go, But I know that they go toward the best—toward something great.  Whoever you are, come forth! or man or woman come forth! You must not stay sleeping and dallying there in the house, though you built it, or though it has been built for you.  Out of the dark confinement! out from behind the screen! It is useless to protest, I know all and expose it.  Behold through you as bad as the rest, Through the laughter, dancing, dining, supping, of people, Inside of dresses and ornaments, inside of those wash’d and trimm’d faces, Behold a secret silent loathing and despair.  No husband, no wife, no friend, trusted to hear the confession, Another self, a duplicate of every one, skulking and hiding it goes, Formless and wordless through the streets of the cities, polite and bland in the parlors, In the cars of railroads, in steamboats, in the public assembly, Home to the houses of men and women, at the table, in the bedroom, everywhere, Smartly attired, countenance smiling, form upright, death under the breast-bones, hell under the skull-bones, Under the broadcloth and gloves, under the ribbons and artificial flowers, Keeping fair with the customs, speaking not a syllable of itself, Speaking of any thing else but never of itself.  

14 Allons! through struggles and wars! The goal that was named cannot be countermanded.  Have the past struggles succeeded? What has succeeded? yourself? your nation? Nature? Now understand me well—it is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary.  My call is the call of battle, I nourish active rebellion, He going with me must go well arm’d, He going with me goes often with spare diet, poverty, angry enemies, desertions.  

15 Allons! the road is before us! It is safe—I have tried it—my own feet have tried it well—be not detain’d!  Let the paper remain on the desk unwritten, and the book on the shelf unopen’d! Let the tools remain in the workshop! let the money remain unearn’d! Let the school stand! mind not the cry of the teacher! Let the preacher preach in his pulpit! let the lawyer plead in the court, and the judge expound the law.  Camerado, I give you my hand! I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me? Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

#5) J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Roads Go Ever On”

Roads go ever ever on, Over rock and under tree, By caves where never sun has shone, By streams that never find the sea; Over snow by winter sown, And through the merry flowers of June, Over grass and over stone, And under mountains in the moon. Roads go ever ever on, Under cloud and under star. Yet feet that wandering have gone Turn at last to home afar. Eyes that fire and sword have seen, And horror in the halls of stone Look at last on meadows green, And trees and hills they long have known. The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with eager feet, Until it joins some larger way, Where many paths and errands meet. The Road goes ever on and on Down from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone, And I must follow, if I can, Pursuing it with weary feet, Until it joins some larger way, Where many paths and errands meet. And whither then? I cannot say. The Road goes ever on and on Out from the door where it began. Now far ahead the Road has gone. Let others follow, if they can! Let them a journety new begin. But I at last with weary feet Will turn towards the lighted inn, My evening-rest and sleep to meet. Still 'round the corner there may wait A new road or secret gate; And though I oft have passed them by, A day will come at last when I Shall take the hidden paths that run West of the Moon, East of the Sun.