#and i love the bridge because the production reminds me so much of their old songs

[pardonmydelays]

ok, so i just listened to "loom" by imagine dragons, and i'm sorry but i only like three and a half song

[forestdeath1]

Hopelessness

@prongsfoot-microfic

It turned out that this microfic is 1600 words long, so if it's more convenient for someone to read on AO3, here's the link.

It's jilypad.

---

Sirius kisses Lily’s belly, stretched by a muggle T-shirt with Black Sabbath on it, his gift. The air's filled with the light scent of jasmine from the open window, letting in the cool June breeze. Lily isn't really into Black Sabbath, but Sirius hopes the band's symbolism might somehow influence Harry’s musical taste, since he’s got no hope with Lily and James. As Lily recently said, she wears that T-shirt solely because it features a "handsome vocalist" who reminds her of Sirius.   Sirius is quite pleased with that outcome.

They're sprawled on a wide sofa under a soft blanket, Sirius snuggled up beside Lily. The quiet of the Potter home, only interrupted by the ticking of antique clocks, always puts Sirius in a peaceful state. Lily gently strokes her rounded belly, while Sirius, with his arm around her waist, draws patterns on her skin, occasionally leaving soft kisses in response to the baby's sharp kicks. James, sitting opposite in a battered chair once favoured by Fleamont, reads the newspaper, his eyes scanning the pages gloomily.

"Oh," Lily exhales lightly. "He's been kicking all day. Extra lively today."

"Harry," Sirius murmurs softly, amazed at the depth of feeling he has for a child not yet born. "My handsome, smart boy."

"When did you get so sentimental?" James asks, not looking up from his paper.

"Since you married this incredible woman and started your own amateur production of 'Tiny Humans.' Even my frostbitten heart had to defrost for the premiere."

"Oh, my love," Lily, smiling softly, reaches out to gently ruffle Sirius's hair, "sometimes I think, what if I'd married you instead of James? How much prettier would my child be?" Lily's light, carefree laughter makes Sirius smile.

"Hey," James perks up, pretending to be offended. "There’s a lot of Blacks. And only one of me. Harry's gonna have the most unique hair in all of Magical Britain."

"And the dullest sense of humour," Sirius shoots back, still focused on the belly, speaking in a teasingly sweet tone as if talking to Harry. "Hopefully, you’ve got a better one. You got a bit short-changed on the genes from one side, but I promise to teach you."

"At least my humour doesn’t make people want to off themselves," counters James.

"You adore my jokes, don't kid yourself."

"Haven't heard one yet."

Sirius flicks his middle finger at James, who just chuckles, then removes his glasses and rubs his nose bridge in mock exasperation.

"Everything alright?" Lily asks him, concern in her voice.

"Yeah," James replies, trying to mask the worry in his voice. "Just going to make some tea."

Rising from his chair and heading to the kitchen, James leaves a trail of unspoken thoughts behind him. Sirius watches him go, and Lily, with a soft sigh, shakes her head.

"He's like this all day. Lost in thoughts about the war. Sticks to me like glue. Fancy taking him out somewhere? Hit a pub? Even stay out all night. He needs to get out more. He can't keep guarding me from God knows what," Lily adjusts a stray lock of Sirius's hair, a simple, familiar gesture.

"Alright, but not tonight," Sirius responds tenderly, kissing Lily's belly one last time before gently running his hand over her soft skin and carefully standing up from the sofa to not disturb her.

"Patrol?"

"Yeah," Sirius glances at the old wall clock, "and I'm already late."

"Why don't you move in with us?" Lily stops him with the question she poses every month.

"Don’t start," Sirius says with a light reprimand. "I'd end up covered in old people's dust here, sipping teas and reading newspapers. Tea? Seriously? When was the last time I drank tea?"

Her laughter, bright and full, fills the room, reflecting off the warm glow of the candles. She could easily shift from a pensive mood to mirth, and really, it took nothing to make her laugh. Lily was always so light, Sirius adored that about her. Like an autumn maple leaf playfully dancing with the wind – always ready to soar at the slightest breeze.

"Come here," she extends her arms, and Sirius leans in, allowing Lily to plant a tender kiss on his lips. "I love you," she looks at him, her gaze filled with care and tenderness, "Be careful."

"You too," Sirius smiles and ruffles her hair. "Look after Harry."

Stepping into the hallway, leaving Lily resting on the sofa, Sirius grabs his jacket from the coat rack and pulls it on, whistling a tune he caught in some noisy muggle café.

"James! I’m off."

James peeks out from the kitchen, holding a pack of tea.

"Not staying for tea?" he asks, knowing the answer already.

Sirius isn't much for tea, yet James has been offering it to him for years. In an attempt to make the drink more appealing, he once even started spiking the tea with Firewhisky. That gimmick worked for a while, but soon not even Firewhisky could dispel Sirius's irritation with the whole tedious, monotonous process.

"No, got patrol."

James looks slightly disappointed, tosses the tea pack onto a table cluttered with books and newspapers, and approaches Sirius.

"Lily suggested we should hit a bar," Sirius mentions.

James shrugs, adjusting his glasses absently.

"I can't leave her alone. Every time I go on patrol, you know it’s torture for me. I keep thinking something might happen, that they might attack our home, and…"

"I know," Sirius cuts him off. "That’s why I’m not inviting you. Just passing on Lily’s words."

James gives a soft smile, tilting his head slightly.

"You’ll come over on Friday?" he asks.

"Yes."

"And stay the night?"

"Of course."

James nods and hugs Sirius, pressing his face to his neck. Sirius leans into his ear, kissing it and breathing in the scent of earthy moss and the morning forest. James's scent always carried the notes of their moonlit adventures, as if his skin had absorbed the essence of those nights. They stand in silence for a moment until the soft hum of an old radio playing a vintage jazz tune Lily adores drifts in from the living room.

"Everything will be alright, James, hear me?" Sirius whispers, probably a bit too roughly patting James on the head as his movements have grown more abrupt lately. "I promise. Everything will be alright. With Lily, with you, with Harry."

"Yes," James says, rubbing an eye then running a hand through his hair. "Of course. It'll be alright. With you too."

"I'm not that important."

"Don't talk like that," James responds in a strained voice.

"I’d do anything for you, whatever it takes," Sirius says in a matter-of-fact tone, as if they’re discussing a Christmas dinner menu, not talking about things people usually don’t say to each other when everything’s fine.

James steps back, looks up at Sirius, and smirks, chasing away the worried shadows from his face.

"Have I mentioned you’ve become sentimental?"

"I've spent too much time around a mushy sod like you," Sirius grins, shrugging. "Bad influence."

James laughs, shoving Sirius's shoulder then pulling him in close, as if wanting to hide away in Sirius's broad embrace.

"I love you, you idiot," he kisses him, fingers threading through Sirius’s hair, tousling it. "Don’t be late on Friday. Lily’s making your favourite blueberry pie."

"I won’t," Sirius breathes out huskily.

James nods, and Sirius steps out the door. The June air hits his face, a warm breeze flicking a lock of hair from his forehead. The scent of night flowers mingles with the smell of fresh paint – someone nearby decided to give their fence a fresh coat.

Sirius moves a few meters away, casting one last glance at the Potters' house. James stands in the doorway, leaning on one shoulder against the frame. Sirius catches his worried gaze and nods subtly in response.

A moment later, Sirius apparates, but James's troubled face lingers in his mind like an echo. Usually, James's face brings peace, but this time it leaves a quiet itch, a reminder that Sirius is missing something, yet can't quite grasp what it is.

The war makes everyone nervous, anxious, and lost, and Sirius knows better than to succumb to these draining sentiments. But seeing those feelings in James – the person who made Sirius believe that even in the coldest winter, there's an unbeatable summer living inside him – Sirius realizes things are grim.

Of course, Sirius will come over on Friday. Perhaps he'll stay for the weekend, and they'll spend it together, like old times, before the threat of war knocked so clearly on their doors. They'll wake up to a late breakfast in the garden, reminiscing about school under the rustling of green leaves and birdsong, and perhaps even making plans for the future where the war is just a distant memory—a future where Sirius already knows exactly how to raise Harry and what gifts to give him from the very first months of his life.

A future where they're together.

After breakfast, they'll apparate to the lake, where James will set up broom races, beating Sirius yet again.  Lily, always rooting for Sirius, will put on a theatrical display of disappointment and spend the day cheering him up, recounting for the hundredth time the tales of James's rare Quidditch misplays at Hogwarts—as if Sirius didn't already know each one by heart.

After dinner, James will suggest a game of wizard chess, and Lily will pick out a book to read aloud by the fireplace. Soon, she will head to bed early, as has become more common since she got pregnant, and James and Sirius will go out to the garden, lie on the grass, and spend the night forgetting all worries, remembering that it's moments like these for which they're fighting and ruthlessly suppressing the hopelessness that seeks to consume their souls.

[classymurderteddy]

Just a random headcanon I thought up in the middle of the night- :'p

This headcanon had come to me after rewatching a movie that came on the TV yesterday, that I forgot even exiSted, as I hadn't seen it in .. like .. 7 yeArs, and it unlocked a whole childhood trauma I forgot I had, sooo .. yeH-

Now I'm making a headcanon inspired by it, because instead of being trAumatizEd by that movie like my 10[ or 11? Probably 11, as I can't at all remember if I watched this in January or not- ]-year-old self was, I now instead both love and hate this movie for the absolute trAuma it gave me- :D [ And before people try to come at me saying this ain't loRe accurate, lemme just remind you what a hEadcaNon is- ( Saying this thanks to some idiot a year or so ago on Wattpad attaCked me over a darned hEadcaNon- ) ]

Now-

We all know William Afton was an awfuL man-

Like .. that's no secret-

But his first victims were after the deaTh of his soN [ which, of course, was his fault, as when iSn't a death his fault-? ], and his second victim was Gabriel. The reason he killed Susie is really only known by him. Now, this was all way back when Fredbear and Freddy were still in production. HecK-

Chica was hardly a blueprint yet, and forget about Bonnie and Foxy-

They came waY later-

Anyway, Susie and Gabriel died in a relatively short time from one another. Maybe just a few months apart. And possibly the worst part was with these first two deaths, William actually planned them. Susie's involved him leading her under a nearby bridge with the excuse he found her dog there, and wanted to return it.

With Gabriel, it was a bit more personal, rather than just an itch of a mind that was slowly descending into grief-driven madness. In a way. Gabriel was on the Spectrum, much like his own son. However, unlike his son, Gabriel loved the animatronics. Back with Golden and Springbonnie, he could watch them for hours. And even after the place closed after the .. inCident, he started coming to watch the progress on rebuilding the Diner into the whole Fredbear's Family Diner thing. They'd even made little teasers for what was to come with the animatronics to build up recognition or whatever. Maybe it was because he was reminded of his own son, and wanted to keep him forever in some twisted way, or something complretely different- This was Afton, after all. Who's to know-?

And Gabriel was most excited for Freddy, out of the three animatronics they had planned for the time. Gabriel liked magic, and they'd said Freddy was going to be programmed for sleight of hand.

Afton, well, he'd been watching Gabriel [ ;; coUgh ;; stalking, more like ... ] for a while. Really ever since Susie got unlucky enough to follow him-

So one evening, Afton came up to him and told him that he had a surprise. Now, keep in mind, Gabriel was only 7, and had been relatively sheltered by overprotective parents. And Afton seemed trustworthy enough.

Then, to make a long story short, after being promised a special surprise that only special Freddy fans were allowed, Gabriel followed Afton into the nearby woods to an old shack Afton had built in his spare time just for this. Then Afton dropped the act after Gabriel started getting the feeling he'd really messed up in following, and .. well, let's just say the half-finished Freddy in the corner got a new, permenent fan- :1

And then, when Chica was at least half-created, Afton took whatever remained of Susie and gave her the same treatment as Gabriel. But after that, since the place was open and had customers when Bonnie and Foxy came along, and Afton found a new hobby that definitely didn't prove he was sane, he instead lured Jeremy and Fritz together into the backroom rather than the elaborate planning the prior two had required.

[bisexualhobi]

exo - exist review

i just wanna start by saying that this comeback is the highlight of my year already. i did have high expectations because after all, this is exo and their discography is easily at the top of the entire industry... and for groups that debuted over a decade ago they're one of the last still standing, so after a 4 year old hiatus the expectations were high to say the least. did they manage to meet them? let's find out!

the title track deserves a whole paragraph so:

cream soda - a high paced r&b pop song with a luscious instrumental and a collection of high notes that flex the strengths of the group. it definitely packs a punch and i think it would benefit from getting a slower intro but even so, the song doesn't disappoint. it kinda reminds me of a maroon 5 song during their golden years and i think it's the perfect balance of "grown men r&b" and playfulness (coupled with less than subtle sexual innuendos about popping like a soda bottle this is a great evolution for exo, who have been known to always make pussy popping music but have struggled to shed the high school boys image sm is so fixated on giving them). rating: 9/10

regret it - literally straight out of the pcy1 vault and you can't convince me otherwise. soooo happy to hear an r&b jam straight out of the 90s since that is literally exo's blueprint. i love the production on this track because it has enough elements to keep it interesting and the chorus is super catchy. chanyeol takes the crown for me for obvious biased reasons but i love kyungsoo and jongdae's runs in this. rating: 10/10

hear me out - sounds much better like this. like now i get 100% the reasoning behind this song and the style it has. it's really such a chill vibe and a welcome breather after the one two punch of the previous songs. i feel like the prechorus and post chorus of this song could have been amped up way more and a breakdown for the bridge would've made it ten times more fun tho. rating: 9/10

random observation i noticed: the resting silences between songs are a tad too short for my liking. we need to let this marinate and sometimes it does feel like the album is sprinting towards the end.

private party - chanyeol opening the song AS HE FUCKING SHOULD. this beat is nasty... it's the perfect combination of exo's r&b sultry side and a hot sexy beat to shake ass to. it's just fun and good and takes you on a sonic ride from start to finish. i did expect the weeknd vibes from the title alone but i'm glad with the result here. rating: 10/10

cinderella - oh marz. oh you.... i knew exactly what the beat drop was gonna sound like from the second the song started and i'm not mad about it! this is another old school r&b infused serenade song while giving it a fresh modern style with the synth arrangements. taking a point off just because the mixing is too compressed and the synth takes over the landscape in an overbearing way (happens all the time with flume too so i get it but i feel like this could've been prevented here). rating: 9/10

no makeup - okay so the whore music run of this album from private party to no makeup is insane. we get it. these men fuck. they made sure to let us know they're in their 30s and it was about DAMN time. that post that's like they melted their dick and balls into a flashdrive and fucked the console in the recording studio.... yeah. the background harmonies are TOP TIER too but i didn't expect anything less from exo. props to jongdae, minseok and chanyeol cause they were working overtime layering these vocals. rating: 10/10

love fool - deadass was expecting this to be the slower snoozefest of the album... but exo are intent on making every track off this album COUNT. this is such a classic exo jam... every element of this song works in their favor. great melody, great instrumentals, great topline, great chorus. this is PURE quintessential exo. rating: 10/10

another day - this is good song! a great song even. my notes for this one just say "good song. really like it" it's just not something that stuck out to me enough to analyze it further. i think that's fine. the layering of vocals is once again great. i don't love the topline specially for the chorus (feels super nct 127 past their peak) but it's still a good song. rating: 8/10

let me in - this is their boyz ii men serve of the year. perfect closer. perfect slow ballad and i'm not a fan of those in the first place. definitely the vocal highlight of the album. that's all i can say. exo did it once again kids. rating: 9/10

[meatcrimes]

Nineteen years. That’s almost two thirds of my life you’ve been gone. I’ll never forget the hot pavement on that sunny, unusually humid July day. I forgave you for this years ago, but if you had known your death would have been a catalyst for so much trauma and pain for your entire extended family, would you have been more careful?

Look at us, those of us who are left. Look at your brother, your daughter, your surviving son. Look at what they’ve overcome in the past nineteen years. Look at me, your niece, and my brother, your nephew who you never got to meet. Look what we’re still trying to overcome. I no longer blame you for the actions of other people done in the wake of your death, but the timeline shifted that day, and whatever track we were on before veered into the wrong lane at 100mph and ever since we’ve been picking up the pieces. I can’t say we would have been better or worse off if we hadn’t lost you, but I can say we all wish you were able to walk your daughter down the aisle at her wedding. Walk your foster son down the aisle at his wedding, because it became legal in 2015 for him and his husband to marry. You had no idea he was gay, did you? Neither did he for many, many years. And the trauma he experienced from your death influenced his own death in his early thirties. Now, you both left widows behind. You have more in common now than you ever did in life.

Look at your daughter, you probably won’t even recognize her, and not just from the weight loss. She’s now a devout Catholic, in a loving marriage with a man who values and respects her, with five beautiful step daughters that call her “mom”. It wasn’t easy for her to get there. She went through far too long of believing herself unworthy and unloveable, and far too many boyfriends who saw her the same way.

Look at your biological son. He’s in the national guard now, making something of his life and what has been left behind. He simultaneously never grew up and grew up all too fast, a lot like me. He doesn’t remember what your voice sounds like, and I wish I could transfer my memory of your voice into his mind. It isn’t fair that I remember your voice and he doesn’t. Really, none of this is fair, never has been, never to anyone. Your generation may have said “Life isn’t fair” with the connotations of “so there!”. Often a justification of their mistreatment of others. But us, we hear it in a different pitch. We hear “life isn’t fair” with “but with compassion and community we can bridge the gaps, even if we can’t close them”.

I don’t remember where I was going with this. I’m sitting in my old room at my dad’s house that he owns, that he bought with money he earned in a career that didn’t exist nineteen years ago. We live in a small town thousands of miles from our ancestral land, in a climate my body will frankly never get used to. I was built for the desert, biologically designed for the Great Basin region. Last time I went back, my anxiety was nearly gone, my acne cleared, my hair didn’t need any styling or products beyond a brush and shampoo. My thyroid condition was getting better at a faster rate than it was before. I thrived in Nevada. I am a Western Shoshone woman. You were a Western Shoshone man, no matter how much you or anyone else ignored it, or explained our genes with ancestry we didn’t share. Las Vegas is haunted ground now. My father plans on never going back, because it reminds him so much of you. And me? No matter how badly I want to return home, it’s not home anymore. It hasn’t been since we lost you. And I don’t think I can rebuild what was destroyed.

[a-moth-to-the-light]

Comeback Celebration: Current Top Ten Sunmi Songs

I noticed, while I was working on this, that I talk about Sunmi the way orbits talk about Loona--I think you'll see what I mean as we go down the list! I think it's the admiration I have for how creative & well-crafted her releases are. "Heroine" was the song that got me into Sunmi, though her most recent comeback at the time was "Lalalay" (I remember because the ponytail dance was EVERYWHERE). My admiration was secured after her 1/6 album--even though her discography is still small, I think that album really fleshed it out, to the point where I finally felt like I could understand her as an artist. Happy Sunmi comeback to us all!

1. pporappippam

This is my "Butterfly". I remember when this song came out, I remember when it changed the world, it's all things divine, it's my conduit to a romanticized version of my teenage years, it's a supercut of all the most wonderful colors you've ever seen in the sky at sunset. In all seriousness, though--I really don't get how people find this song boring. It manages to be a soft, ethereal track and an addictive pop hit, a perfect balance of peaceful atmospherics and unrelenting pace. This one is really special to me!

2. 1/6

This is my "Loonatic". I got dream pop with this song--okay, "1/6" might not exactly be dream pop, but it's soft and dreamy in a way that made me finally see the appeal of that type of song, like why someone would want to get lost in that hazy sonic world.

3. Siren

"Siren" is a piano crashing into you from a third-story window. Like, I don't know how it's ever possible to be emotionally ready for this song. Its brute-force approach is just so goddamn memorable, especially because Sunmi doesn't overuse it in the rest of her discography--she usually goes for subtlety, but her vocals carry a powerful chorus like this one just so well.

4. Narcissism

This one's also in the brute-force category, especially because the production takes this really messy, maximalist approach--and fuck it, it works. I love this song a whole lot: the soft intro; the weird schoolbell-through-intercom-static sounds; the way the chorus hits; the way Sunmi navigates the song's rapid rises and falls. If you miss old-school EDM (read: if you obsess over Dreamcatcher's "Can't get you out of my mind" like I do), I think you'll really enjoy this one.

5. Call

Yeah, no surprise here, I always love club music. But this club classic is particularly intricate, built on a really interesting contrast: Sunmi's gritty vocals over an exceptionally pristine house beat.

6. Black Pearl

This song is just cool. Like, that saxophone solo is just really, really cool. Like, I want to be a guy who has this song at the top of his most-listened list. Maybe one day!

7. Heroine

Yeah, the beat drop is kind of wimpy, so that part didn't age all that great. But Sunmi's PERFORMANCE here?? That prechorus is one for the ages. Five years ago, the emotion of this song absolutely captivated me, and it still resonates with me today.

8. Lalalay

In contrast, this one aged wonderfully! Now that I'm not being constantly overloaded with beat drops in every other song (thank you, 2019 Twice & 2021 Olivia Rodrigo!), I can really appreciate how interesting "Lalalay" is! I used to think this one was boring and lacking inspiration, but now that I'm revisiting it, I think the dynamics of the chorus are pretty compelling (yes, I think the beat drop is compelling, sue me)--like, do you hear how the weird note thingie is fading in and out? how the volume shifts? I love it so much!! My favorite part is the bridge, though--the flight attendant bit remains iconic, and the segue into the final chorus is breathtaking.

9. Heart Burn

This will forever remind me of a song from my childhood--the melody of the chorus is vaguely reminiscent of Taylor Dayne's "Tell It to My Heart", which my mom used to play in the car--so this song hits unfairly hard for me. Like, it's already a reserved, mysterious summer hit, but to me it sounds like a half-formed image of your old living room, or the voice of an elementary-school friend whose name you can't quite recall speaking from the void. Cloudy, surreal, a bit unsettling, but altogether sweet. Also, the color scheme of this music video is super striking, so "Heart Burn", despite its simplicity, gets a LOT of bias points from me.

10. What the Flower

This is like the evil twin of Red Velvet's "Good, Bad, Ugly". They both go for the lounge-singer vibe, but Red Velvet have really pure, sweet-sounding vocals, while Sunmi's voice, and her work as a whole, have always been very savory (like, anti-saccharine?). Both songs are great, and I especially love how both allow for some wonderful piano appreciation (shoutout to the guitar in "What the Flower", too!). The singalong bit at the end of "What the Flower" is really striking, so this one has stuck around in my head over the years, even before I could really appreciate its quieter sections.

Honorable Mentions: 24 Hours (obligatory), Who am I, Curve (also obligatory), Tail (Sunmi's charisma wins this one), Call my name

[slothquisitor]

Invisible String: Chapter Four

A Baldur’s Gate III Modern AU.

Chapter Summary: In which both Liv and Astarion learn something new about each other. And I make my case that Gale would love Kafka.

Read from the beginning.

Read on AO3.

__________________________________________________________

It’s a beautiful day in Baldur’s Gate, and Astarion hates it. The autumn sunshine is out in full force, and the leaves are just beginning to turn. Summer wears on him, the long sun-filled days a constant reminder of everything he’s lost and can’t have. Winter is easier. Not only does he prefer the fashion of a good winter coat, the days are much shorter and darker, it’s almost easier to pretend he’s not a vampire spawn. 

But they’re not there yet, so he spends the daylight hours pacing the empty apartment and wishing Liv was here to provide some measure of entertainment. He’s not sure when he went from avoiding her to looking forward to her being home, but it happened sometime between morning chats and movie night. 

Books>People has been largely quiet today, and he finds he misses that too. He can’t quite be productive because he keeps checking his phone, willing a message to come through. He’s ‘working’ when one finally does, though today that seems to involve more mindless scrolling of Chirper than actual work. 

Books>People: Is there a point where one ever gets used to seeing a man passed out over a trash bag full of spaghetti on the evening commute? 

FangtasticLover: Is there a point where you want to be the type of person used to seeing a man passed out over a trash bag full of spaghetti on the evening commute?

Books>People: Is that the Baldur’s Gate sanity test? 

FangtasticLover: Yes, that and knowing that you never go to Wyrm’s Crossing on a summer Saturday. 

Books>People: Good to know. I learn things about this new city of mine every day. 

FangtasticLover: Wait, you’re new to the city? 

There’s a pause then at his question. There is some sort of unspoken agreement between them, they don’t ask identifying questions. They are happy to banter and tease each other, but they don’t delve deeper than that. He likes it that way. He likes that she wants to know his opinion on movies and books and that she wants to know if he’s having a good day or not. It’s all surface level, all comfortable. There’s a reason he cuts these connections off before it can turn into anything more. 

Books>People: I thought my surprise at subway spaghetti man revealed that.

FangtasticLover: It didn’t. How do you like it?

Books>People: I still feel like I’m learning it, but I love the way it feels almost alive all the time. The bells ringing in Old Town are my favorite. Do you like living here? 

FangtasticLover: I’ve never really lived anywhere else. 

Books>People: A true local! You’ll have to teach me your Baldurian ways. 

FangtasticLover: Ugh. First, you want my gold-digging techniques and now you want me to show you the local customs?

Books>People: And I better still be getting all your mind flayer erotica recommendations too. 

He smiles at the joke from their first conversation. She does that a lot, these little things she refers back to that already feel like theirs. It makes him want to pay attention to follow these invisible strings weaving between them. Perhaps that’s why he is so lost when he cuts someone off on the app, the severing of those fragile threads must be like a wound. But he’s good at surviving those. 

FangtasticLover: Where’s your favorite place in the city so far?

Books>People: There are  a few good places, but that one pedestrian bridge just south of the Wide is pretty spectacular. I was there today with a friend. 

FangtasticLover: I know the place. Great views. But you have friends beyond me? I’m hurt.

Books>People: Oh is that what we are? Friends? I thought of you more as my gold-digging-dating-app-pocket-comrade.

FangtasticLover: That’s a lot of words for friend, but sure, if that’s how you want to talk about me to other people.

Books>People: Awfully presumptuous to assume that I talk about you to other people.

FangtasticLover: *Did* you tell your friend about me?

Books>People: Maybe. Would you prefer I didn’t?

Astarion smiles. She definitely told her friend about him. There’s something about knowing she might have that lights up something within his chest. She doesn’t even know his name, and he doesn’t know hers either but the idea that she might be telling someone about their conversations makes it all more real somehow. He’s not sure how he feels about that, how he should feel about that. 

FangtasticLover: I don’t mind at all. Just nice to know I’m being thought of even when we’re not messaging.

Books>People: At least every now and again, pocket comrade.

Later that night, when his nighttime wanderings take him across the city he knows so well, he finds himself on that bridge. The lights of Baldur’s Gate twinkle in the night, brighter than any stars. He snaps a picture on his phone of the skyline, and sends it to Books>People without a second thought. No comment, just the picture. 

Books>People: Wow, it’s even better at night. Were you just passing through or did you go all the way there to think of me?

FangtasticLover: Why not both?

This is why he likes the Weave. The way it collapses the distance between him and other people, but always within his control. He likes that he stands here on this bridge in the same place she was earlier today. He wonders what other spaces they’ve shared, knowing even now, he wouldn’t be able to pick her out of a crowd. 

Sometimes, he worries that he only likes people in the abstract. More in love with the distance than any connection he could make. He feels made up of only jagged edges that will never quite fit without wounding. He’s sure he wasn’t always like this, but years upon years of abuse and violence drown out the other memories. There is the before and the after, but the before feels slick, like trying to grasp at water. Now he’s just a jumble of memories and an after that he can’t quite navigate.

Books>People: Where’s your favorite place in the city? 

He doesn’t respond, not yet. Instead, he leaves the bridge and jumps on the train, riding it to the oldest part of Baldur’s Gate where the university crouches, its spires lit up against the dark navy of the sky. As he walks the empty cobblestone paths, he is filled with a certain wistfulness. This is the only place in the city that feels untouched by the passage of time. It’s the only place he thinks he might be able to forget the years spent beneath Cazador’s thumb. He snaps a picture of his favorite building, the large domed library beside the tall tower of the nearby tabernacle. The photo makes the stone buildings look more buttery orange than they are, but the sky is darker too, and it’s like the buildings are aglow. He sends it off. Her response is immediate. 

Books>People: That is coincidentally my other favorite place in the city. 

FangtasticLover: Oh? 

Books>People: Well, it is a library. 

***

It begins with him. With his pictures that night, and it’s like he’s crossed an invisible threshold of their relationship, and now they send little pieces of themselves back and forth across their days. Small things: a coffee order or the cover of a book. But to Liv, it feels like a window. He feels more real now like showing the city back to her has sharpened his outline. She looks for him everywhere now as if she might find him in a crowd. 

But she doesn’t bring up meeting. There’s a comfortability to this, to the way they spend their days messaging. She is grateful for this connection, for having someone she feels like she can talk to, even if it is mostly meaningless. She worries about breaking the spell, at pushing whatever this is along too quickly toward their inevitable demise. And it will be a demise, that much she is sure of. 

And yet, with every message from him that comes through, she hopes a little bit harder. For what exactly, she’s still not sure. 

When she gets home from work on Wednesday afternoon, she’s surprised to find Astarion working in the living room. She catches a glance at his laptop screen while she deposits her bag in her room only to find the man has a truly ungodly number of tabs open on his computer. 

“Everything alright?” she asks, stepping back out into the kitchen. 

He sighs. “I’m trying to capitalize on a particularly viral meme while one of the stupidest patriars in the city held a press conference dressed in a suit that looks like it came from his grandmother’s attic. And not in the nice antique way…literally it looks like it was made for a woman thirty…fifty years ago…?”

Liv sinks down on the other end of the couch. “Is it like a marketing thing to capitalize on a meme?”

Astarion looks up at her from the glow of his laptop with confused disdain. “Marketing?”

“That’s what Gale said you did?” Liv says, suddenly mistrusting her memory of that initial conversation about Astaron. She feels like a bit of an asshole now because he’s mentioned working but hasn’t talked about it much if at all, but she’s talked about her job plenty. She’s lived with him for almost two weeks now, and is it really possible she doesn’t know anything about his fucking job?

Astarion’s answering laugh is high-pitched and delighted. “Karlach would tell people I’m ‘in marketing’. I owe her a drink.”

Liv has seen enough of Astarion not to be overly concerned that whatever he does will be a deal-breaker, but she is wondering if it’s strictly legal at this point. “Okay, so what do you do then?”

“Oh, I’m the GlamReaper, darling,” he says with a slight giggle bubbling out of him. 

It takes her a moment to remember why that would be familiar to her. Then it dawns on her. “The guy who roasts badly dressed men on Chirper?” 

He grins. “You’ve heard of me.”

“Yeah, you’re pretty popular on the internet…this isn’t information you typically lead with? It seems like a tidbit you’d be sharing with most people you meet,” Liv replies. Astarion loves attention, that much she’s figured out in the past two weeks. 

He clicks his tongue. “Judgy.”

It’s her turn to sigh. “I didn’t mean to make it sound like such a bad thing…you’d just think that you’d want people to know that about you.”

Astarion shrugs. “Anonymity is part of the job; it’s why it works.” 

“Don’t you have like a million followers?” 

“1.2, but who’s counting? And nearly half of them have tagged me in a video of this ridiculous patriar so my notifications are a mess.”

Liv considers what it might be like to have over a million people choosing to listen to what you might say at any given moment. “How do you manage to post anything knowing that many people will see it?”

“Easily,” Astarion says, pushing publish on his post to prove it. “There’s money involved, after all.”

“That’s…wild to me. Do you like it?”

He considers that, seemingly surprised at her question. “I’m quite good at it, so…yes. But I do like other aspects of my job a bit more. The virtual closet consulting is a bit more fun these days, actually.”

“Well, I live with the GlamReaper, who’d have thought?”

He pushes the laptop away and twists in his seat so that they’re facing each other properly. “It is something I’d prefer you not broadcast though.”

She rests her elbow on the back of the couch, propping her head on her hand. “Your secret is safe with me.” She means it. 

He looks like he believes her. “I…appreciate that.”

She scrubs a hand down her face. “I feel like an asshole for not knowing your job when I’ve told you at length about mine.”

“Are you looking to make it up to me?” He leans in toward her, flashing a grin that tells her he’s not truly bothered but willing to take advantage of it anyway. 

This close she can see the ruby red of his eyes and the fine lines in the corners. She’s not entirely sure of his age, but he feels older than her and probably has an enviable skin care routine. “That entirely depends on what you want.”

He taps his chin exaggeratedly in mock seriousness. “How about we just settle on a future favor?”

“That feels ominous,” she replies. But she knows she’s going to agree because he’s her roommate, and of course she’d do him a favor any time. Assholery or not. “But sure. A future favor it is.”

“Excellent. How were the books today?” 

Liv smiles. “As always, better than people.” He looks a bit confused at her statement, so she presses on. “The library is looking for a new exhibit for the spring, and I’m thinking of writing a proposal for it.”

“About?”

“I want to do something to show off the archives and all of the cool and rare things we have there, but also something that would be interesting to library patrons. I was thinking of an exhibit on the editing process. We have some really rare manuscripts and unpublished works marked up by the authors.”

He considers that for a moment. “That does sound marginally interesting.”

She sighs. “It will need to be more than marginally interesting to win out. I’m pretty sure Gale has a true winner with his idea for a Kafka exhibit. He wants to bring in actual bugs.”

“Kafka? Really?”

Liv shrugs. “Gale loves him.”

“I have only ever heard about Gale from Karlach, but he would.”

Liv laughs. “Kafka did want his work burned after his death rather than actually shared with the world, but after he died, his literary executor still published it. There’s an interesting moral quandary to explore there.”

“If you say so,” Astarion replies. “Your idea sounds more interesting than that.” The way he says it, voice dropped lower, filled with a certainty she doesn’t quite feel in herself makes her cheeks warm. 

Suddenly, it’s hard to look at him, and she looks down instead at the stretch of couch between them. “Thanks.”

***

Astarion is enjoying a rare evening home, alone. According to the shared calendar he still hasn’t bothered adding anything to, Liv is at dinner with her library coworkers in what sounds like the most boring dinner party imaginable. He’d been looking forward to having the apartment to himself for the evening. He and Liv have been spending most evenings together watching Crown of Shadows , and while enjoyable, sometimes it’s nice to be able to just be alone at night drinking blood without worrying about an audience.

Books>People hasn’t messaged him back in over an hour, so he half watches, half scrolls his phone while a movie he pressed play on and then promptly forgot the name of drones in the background. 

He’s surprised at how empty the apartment feels without Liv in it. She’s only been here about two weeks, but already her presence has become a sort of fixture of the place. He likes having her around. She’s easy to be around, and seems happy, if a bit bemused, to give him her undivided attention whenever he asks for it. Beyond her work though, he knows so very little about her. But she’s not home, and her room is open, and well, he could just poke around a little bit. Couldn’t he?

She’d never know. 

He doesn’t bother stopping the movie as he pockets his phone and approaches the darkened threshold of her room. From the light of the kitchen, he can see her neatly made bed with no less than three blankets draped over the duvet. She’s a rather tidy person, he’s gathered, and her room doesn’t look anything like his often cluttered, strewn about one. 

It’s bad form to go into her room and through her things, and he knows he’d be furious if she did the same to him, but the thought doesn’t stop him. He steps forward full of confidence and curiosity, and headlong into….well something quite solid. 

He can’t enter her room. 

He presses his hands up against the invisible barrier blocking him, full of confusion. “But I own the entire apartment!” He exclaims this to the empty air, not sure who exactly he’s talking to. 

He petulantly kicks the barrier, which does nothing beyond earning him a sore foot before returning to the couch and his movie. Well, it seems that he won’t be unrepentantly going through Liv’s things until she invites him into her room. That ought to be easy enough to orchestrate. He’s ignoring his movie while thinking through how to make that happen when his phone finally pings. 

Books>People: What movie did you settle on? Sorry for the delay, was out to dinner with some coworkers. 

He stares at her message for several moments. That’s odd…Liv is out to dinner with coworkers tonight too. Oh fucking hells. No, no, no, no, no. This can’t possibly be happening. It must be a coincidence. He fires off a text immediately. 

FangtasticLover: I’m unsure if I should offer encouragement or condolences. I guess that depends entirely on what you and your coworkers do.

She told him she worked for the university once…and…and now he remembers what Liv had said earlier…about liking books more than people. No. This isn’t happening. But no response arrives…for several whole minutes. 

Books>People: I think most people would assume that a dinner with a group of archivists would be boring, but we made do.

He reads the message through at least three times before tossing his phone on the couch and jumping up and away from it as if it’s a snake poised to strike. He begins pacing the room, mind filtering through possibilities. Perhaps it’s not Liv…maybe it’s just someone she works with. Oh hells, it’s not Lae’zel is it? She had been in the apartment once, so the app might have clocked their proximity. For all he knows Liv doesn’t even use the app. But Books>People had said she was new to the city. 

Oh gods. Oh gods. This is bad . 

Or is it? He’ll just sever the connection, go about his life and never tell her a damn thing. It’s fine. It’s absolutely fine. Nothing needs to change here and he gets to keep his roommate and not make things weird. It’s a win-win. 

It hasn’t even been two weeks since he matched with her, but the thought of cutting that connection off, of losing the ability to talk to Books>People. He doesn’t like that. Ugh. It’s a coincidence. Probably. 

He’s not going to panic. Not right now. When she gets home he’ll simply send a message to Books>People and if Liv’s phone goes off, he’ll know. That’s all. It’s fine.

The door to the apartment opens, and he stares at it, unmoving from his place standing in the middle of the living room. Liv walks in dressed in a dark green wool coat, frowning at her phone before looking up. 

“Oh, hey.”

He strides over to the couch, as if he had simply been on his way back instead of uselessly pacing the room. “Hi.”

He picks up his phone. And types out a message. 

FangtasticLover: Archivists? Well, that does sound dreadfully dull.

He presses send and doesn’t look away from Liv as she hangs her coat in the hall. The passing seconds feel like an eternity, and for a moment, he believes that it might have been long enough that he’s safe. It is a coincidence. But then her phone vibrates on the table. 

 No, no, no, no no. NO. But he knows, and no amount of denial will make it go away. Books>People is his fucking roommate. 

He can’t do this, not right now. So the moment she’s in the kitchen proper he strides right out of the apartment without another word.

[whenitsdarkweilluminate]

Luxembourg 1984

Host: Luxembourg Participants: 19 Voting method: 12-point system (juries only) Winner: Herreys - Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley Country: Sweden Language: Swedish Points: 145 (67.1% of highest score possible)

General Overview:

The production feels more modern this year. The presenter is 19-year-old Désirée Nosbusch, who has an unusually casual approach for the time. She's an efficient host too, since this year's runtime is roughly 2h15m. The postcards feature 1980s 3D animations that look horribly dated in an amusing way. The interval involves a dude interacting with a crudely animated horse. And the 1984 contest embraces big hair, synthesizes, and those hexagon drum kits.

The stage design is improvement from 1983, but literally anything would be. However, I don't like that we've returned to these big distracting objects in the background. There's an arrangement of mobile floating geometric shapes. Plus staircases on either side. This stage design should've been left behind in the 70s.

The opening video is the usual aerial views of the host country. This one keeps showing the RTL hot air balloon, so I guess there was a camera up there. Meanwhile, the orchestra plays a medley of Luxembourg's 5 winners + “L'amour est bleu”. I love that so much. I wish more of these older contests would acknowledge the winning song that brought the contest to this country. Luxembourg were masters at creating melodic French ballads. But it also signals the end of an era; because, aside from Celine, no other French ballad has won since then. And Celine's song had '80s elements in it anyways.

Ireland returns but Greece and Israel (due to a national holiday) are out again. The voting was a close race between Sweden and Ireland. And it's funny how Carola and Linda Martin reached top 3 in consecutive years… because they'll also win in consecutive years.

Otherwise, this seems like a forgettable year? There's still a good amount of songs I like, but there's at least 8 I don't care about. And why do so many lyrics mention trains? It's also difficult to find good quality audio of this year.

Sweden: Herreys - Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley (winner review below)

Luxembourg: Sophie Carle - 100% d'amour These vocals are AWFUL. I keep wincing at every missed note. Luxembourg clearly weren't winning back-to-back this time. Sophie's cutesy tone makes the song seem cheesy too. The lyrics are full of clunky metaphors. But basically, she's sick of bad news and heartbreak songs, so she wants to spread “100% love” and change people's perspectives. The only positive aspect is the '80s synthpop production, with the dramatic bangs, guitar hops, and elastic-y chorus.

France: Annick Thoumazeau - Autant d'amoureux que d'étoiles I always forget about this song. It's nothing new from France. The verses are gentle; while the chorus amplifies the drums/vocals/strings, with some catchy “il y a”s and a double punch. Then the sax appears later on. But I don't like that switch into the post-chorus longing. In the lyrics, Annick is confused about which way is right or wrong. But this person makes her happy regardless. She says the world is beautiful if you pay attention.

Spain: Bravo - Lady, Lady A comforting folk song and some catchy “lady lady lady”s puts Spain in the top 3! I like the storytelling, where this lady wastes years of her life, foolishly hoping this guy returns. The lyrics are very descriptive as well. The song's calming vibe conveys her delusion. I also like the acoustic guitar and '80s drum rhythm, the backing echoes, the stop when the chorus begins, and how the chorus intensifies midway (with the backing “ahhhh” and the singer's agonized vocal). The bridge bangs are effective too.

Norway: Dollie de Luxe - Lenge leve livet The staging is memorable for the karate outfits, but why are they wearing them? The arm swinging also reminds me of Belgium '83. Moreover, the vocals are kind of a mess. That opening scream hurts my ears. And the song is so flat. There's a consistent drum beat, some celebratory chorus horns, a mid-chorus rev-up, and the verse 2 guitar ricochets. But meh. The lyrics advocate for the preservation of life in this violent world.

United Kingdom: Belle and the Devotions - Love Games This sounds exactly like a Supremes song. The harmonies, their signature stomping beat, the very prominent backing ad libs, the liberal usage of “baby”, the spoken word “oh darling”, the bells. The lyrics keep it simple as well, where Belle asks why did this guy lead her on. It's camp, but I enjoy it as a tribute act. The drum shake transitions are also effective. And the song is pretty catchy (“baby, baby, why!... ooooh!”) I don't like how Laura and Linda stand backwards for so long though. Allegedly they were lip syncing.

Cyprus: Andy Paul - Anna Maria Lena Well, this is bland and forgettable AF. Nothing in the instrumental or melody pulls me in. The strings, the twinkle bells, the “Aaaaaaanna”s, the “oooh”-ing bridge, and the “Aaaaaaanna .. MARIA LENA!” hooks fail to make impact. The only memorable aspect is Andy's hair. And the lyrics are nothing special – he's just in love with this “Anna Maria Lena” girl.

Belgium: Jacques Zegers - Avanti la vie I guess this entry is creative, but it creeps me out: the blank, zombie-like stares into the camera, the swaying, Jacques' tense deep vocal, the backing whispers, and the shadow lighting at the beginning. Plus how the instrumental is so static. The lyrics command us to keep moving forward in life and be free. Which is why the bass and drums persistently march forward through the whole song; with guitar reverberations in between. It can be hypnotic, but in an unrelenting way.

Ireland: Linda Martin - Terminal 3 Finally Ireland tries something different. The song's various switch-ups are really effective. The verses are urgent, featuring some guitar growls. While the sudden bursts of “TERMINAL 3: FLIGHT'S ON TIME” really grab attention. I like the horns that follow it. That chorus is super short and it sounds like an ad jingle. But it's enough to ease the tension. There's also a couple of daydream-y bridges and the anticipatory horn/drum intro reappears. I should note Johnny Logan wrote this. The lyrics follow Linda's anxious mind as she's about to reunite with her long distance partner at the airport. He asked for her to meet him there. There's plenty of plane and airport references too.

Denmark: Hot Eyes - Det' lige det The first of the duo's 3 appearances. The song isn't groundbreaking, but it's very cheerful, the chorus is catchy, and their interactions by the piano are cute. Kirsten also pushes Søren away during the key change, and he kisses her forehead at the end. In DMGP, she actually shoved him into a pool. In the lyrics, Søren's arrival cheers Kirsten up on a rainy day. He nervously uses the word “love”, then they run in the rain. Musically, there's a bouncy, foot-tapping groove, some whistle transitions, and a mid-verse piano jolt. The backing also emphasize the chorus nicely.

Netherlands: Maribelle - Ik hou van jou A slow ballad, but a gorgeous one. The orchestra builds in a captivating way, the melody really stands out, and Maribelle's tone is bittersweet. She really needs this person back and she offers her affection. The song moves at a steady and careful pace. It starts with just the piano, followed by the bass and strings. The chorus grows and intensifies, culminating in the cymbal crash. Then the song softens back in the second verse, besides the strings. And those expansive 1950s-style strings drive the climax.

Yugoslavia: Vlado & Isolda - Ciao, amore The wedding bells, the rapid claps, and the “Ciao-ow amore-eh... CIAO LJUBAVI” hooks are infectious. But Vlado's raspy vocals are unappealing. And the song/performance seem overly serious. Particularly those bells, the super formal attire, and their interactions. The lyrics describe the day they had to depart, where Isolda was waiting for the train, but that's not important anymore. I guess they're back together. Otherwise, the verses have this quirky computerized sound, the mid-chorus switches to a tambourine, and there's a sax outro.

Austria: Anita - Einfach weg A basic '80s pop song. With a string intro. The chorus “whoa oh oh yeah”s and claps are kinda catchy. I noticed the camera cuts to the backing every time it happens. But that chorus is such a “that's it?” moment, and then the song just... ends anticlimactically. The lyrics are about needing a temporary escape for her mental health. Anita leaves without regret or needing anyone's approval. But she clarifies it's not because of the subject.

Germany: Mary Roos - Aufrecht geh'n Mary Roos returns after 12 years. The lyrics have a good message – she resolutely rejects her ex to prioritize her own well-being, even if it's not emotionally easy and she hasn't healed yet. She even walks away on stage at one point. But the composition is so bland. The chorus melody is too ordinary and does nothing for me. While the orchestra doesn't do anything noteworthy. She has a decent voice at least.

Turkey: Beş Yıl Önce, On Yıl Sonra - Halay Much better than Turkey's last 3 entries. I find this one intriguing; with the bass, the whip sound effects, the Turkish harmonies, the “Ha-al-ayyyy” hooks, the chorus horns, the sideways turns, and the hand holding. I just wish the chorus had more to it. The lyrics invite everyone to join this lively dance, no matter where you come from. There's even a short dance break. The group's stage presence is what sells this.

Finland: Kirka - Hengaillaan Finland copies Yugoslavia '83, but it's a fun entry regardless. The energy on stage makes me smile. And the song rotates through various catchy sections. There's the dramatic stops and triangle dings in the pre-chorus, the drum escalations, the flooding chorus melody, the “babada babada babada dododododo” hooks with the horns, and the backing “ha ha ha haha”s. Krika also pulls out the harmonica at one point. In the lyrics, his friend group misses the last train. But instead of stressing about it, they party all night long at the station. There's timestamp updates throughout. They even miss the morning train lol. I like the message.

Switzerland: Rainy Day - Welche Farbe hat der Sonnenschein? Boooooring. I immediately forget how this song goes after hearing Italy. The chorus harmonies are so 'blah'. The production is kinda '80s, but uhhh, that's all I got. The lyrics are pretty cheesy too. They wonder how to paint a picture of the world, because it has both beautiful qualities and war, hunger and misery.

Italy: Alice & Franco Battiato - I treni di Tozeur This is so 'out-there' in a strangely alluring way. It's the combination of the hypnotic '80s drum beat, the heavy strings, the deadpan delivery, the intense rising chorus melody, and the very random and unexpected opera singers in the bridge. Those opera singers also quote Mozart and wear Italian flag colours. I don't like when Franco creepily stands behind Alice, but it doesn't bother me as much as Belgium's creepiness. The title references a train track that the Tunisian king commissioned for himself; wasting government resources and endangering lives in the process. The lyrics describe a deserted, abandoned place.

Portugal: Maria Guinot - Silêncio e tanta gente The Portuguese Adele before Adele was even born. It's a very honest, personal, and beautiful piano ballad. The melody isn't the most accessible, and the backing vocalist is unnecessary, but Maria opens up completely in her performance. And I love when her voice expands and contracts. The lyrics are deep and introspective, where she notices love during the silence and finds her life's purpose among the crowd.

The Winner:

So Sweden racks up their second win during the 10-year anniversary of “Waterloo”. They actually weren't all that dominant in the intermediate years. Carola was the one who brought them back into the top 3 last year, and Sweden will land there again next year.

Herreys are a wholesome trio of brothers. While the lyrics are about one's life improving upon discovering a pair of golden shoes. The song title is also meaningless. So I wonder if this was meant as a joke, because the audience won't understand Swedish anyways. The Nordics could sing literal nonsense and no one would know back then. I say this because I get the impression the Nordics were tired of the language rule around this time - Herreys even switched to English midway through the winner's reprisal.

Regardless of the silly lyrics, “Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley” is still a catchy bop. The '80s drum 'pew-pew's, the orchestra responses in the verses, the call-and-response between the brothers, the way the chorus pushes through, the chorus claps, the “diggi-LOO diggi-LEY” emphasis, and the key change are all effective. Herreys also appear bright and happy on stage. Their colour designated shirts, white pants and golden shoes are memorable; as is their coordinated arm choreography.

Buuuuuut it's still kind of a dumb song.

Winner rank: "B" tier.

My points go to.... 01. Ireland: Linda Martin - Terminal 3 02. Italy: Alice & Franco Battiato - I treni di Tozeur 03. Finland: Kirka - Hengaillaan 04. Spain: Bravo - Lady, Lady 05. Netherlands: Maribelle - Ik hou van jou 06. Portugal: Maria Guinot - Silêncio e tanta gente 07. Turkey: Beş Yıl Önce, On Yıl Sonra - Halay 08. Sweden: Herreys - Diggi-Loo Diggi-Ley 09. Denmark: Hot Eyes - Det' lige det 10. United Kingdom: Belle and the Devotions - Love Games

11. Yugoslavia: Vlado & Isolda - Ciao, amore 12. France: Annick Thoumazeau - Autant d'amoureux que d'étoiles 13. Austria: Anita - Einfach weg 14. Germany: Mary Roos - Aufrecht geh'n 15. Norway: Dollie de Luxe - Lenge leve livet 16. Cyprus: Andy Paul - Anna Maria Lena 17. Luxembourg: Sophie Carle - 100% d'amour 18. Belgium: Jacques Zegers - Avanti la vie 19. Switzerland: Rainy Day - Welche Farbe hat der Sonnenschein?

[tenaciouspostfun]

 Twelfth night theater Review

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Twelfth Night

Effective Modern Play.



By Robert M Massimi. ( Broadway Bob).Published about a minute ago • 3 min read

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"Twelfth Night" at the Axis Company Theatre brings front and center just what The Bard had intended when he wrote this glorious piece. The play is riff with mistaken identities and great frolic.

In this production, I was reminded of a great company back in the early 80's that used to be in residence there; The Ridiculous Theater Company. Much of "the business" that the actors had poked fun as well at farce towards the characters that they were playing, and it all tied together nicely indeed! Much of the success of this brilliant, shortened rendition goes to the producing director Brian Barnhart. In making use of the full stage, crisp entrances and bawdy gestures, the direction always keeps the audience engaged, always.

"Twelfth Night" is not an easy show to produce; the reason we see so little of this timeless piece is that it can be cumbersome as well as confusing at times. The Axis Company cutting its length and bringing the most relevant to the forefront at 90 minutes gives us just the right amount of story (adaptation by Marc Palmieri)

Karl Ruckdeschel's costumes capture the period and are extremely creative. So too are the wigs and makeup Leone Gagliardi and Will Vicari. In both the costumes and wigs, the audience gets to go back in time and relish the period in which this was written. I am not sure we can call this a modern piece because it holds to Shakespeare's vision of this play. Shakespeare often poked fun at the times in which he lived; he brought the tawdry front and center in many of his works, and here in "Twelfth Night", Axis brings all the good stuff in this writing.

The story is based on Viola, (Britt Genelin) separated from her twin, Sebastian, (Eli Bridges) dresses as a boy and works for Duke Orsino, (Jon McCormick) whom she falls in love with. Orsino is in love with Countess Olivia, (Kathy Frame) and sends Viola to court for him, but Olivia falls for Viola instead. Sebastian arrives, causing a flood of mistaken identity, and marries Olivia.

To say that all the main characters are excellent is an understatement; this is the way off off Broadway used to be in the 80's and 90's... a crisp cast with really good actors. Unfortunately in today's off off Broadway we get more showcases that run for a short period of time and often are politically driven towards climate change and or the LGBTQ community. Call me nostalgic, but this play is old school with raw talent, great writing and something you can sink your teeth into. Whereas much of today in the Village we get mise-mosh of writing and acting, Axis brings a professional body of work in this play.

In a simple set, but an effective on, Randell Sharp is very creative in how the blocks ebb and flow. Even the jail scene is well appointed, as is how the actors carry about both stage left and stage right. His set gives us options on where we look throughout the performance. Michael Birnbaum's sound hits the emotion of the play at the right times. The play is sometimes suspenseful and other times eery. The sound pretty much captures the direction here. The lighting at times does not hit the actors properly, however. We sometimes lose the actors with weak focus on their faces.

"Twelfth Night" is one of the best performance I have seen in the off off Broadway space in a long time. Where this realm of theater used to be edgy, in your face and creative has now gone by way of mediocrity and it seems that little thought is put into the acting and writing. Here at Axis, however, we get a masterful and creative piece that is worth seeing again and again!

ART

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About the Creator



Robert M Massimi. ( Broadway Bob).

I have been writing on theater since 1982. A graduate from Manhattan College B.S. A member of Alpha Sigma Lambda, which recognizes excellence in both English and Science. I have produced 14 shows on and off Broadway. I've seen over700 shows

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More stories from Robert M Massimi. ( Broadway Bob). and writers in Geeks and other communities.



The Great Gatsby. No Bull With Raging Robert.

"The Great Gatsby" at the Broadway Theatre is a grandiose musical replete with fantastic sets and glittering costumes. Steadfast to both the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald and the movie, the songs complement its plot in this two hour and fifteen minute whirlwind of a show.This Broadway version had its book by Kait Kerrigan, music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Nathan Tysen

RMM(BB

ByRobert M Massimi. ( Broadway Bob).20 days ago in Geeks



Before Sylvester the Cat, there was Sylvester the Dog

Sylvester was a Merrie Melodies canine Sylvester, the Cat, is a beloved Looney Tunes character who debuted in March 1947 in the animated short Life with Feathers. The iconic Mel Blanc once said that he enjoyed voicing Sylvester, one of his favorite characters. The cartoon short that was near and dear to Blanc's heart was Bird's Anonymous which starred the popular cat.

CEP

ByCheryl E Preston27 days ago in Geeks



Tujhpe Main Fida Web Series Review: Nothing Fresh Here

Guys, yesterday I spent almost the whole day in Dehradun, and as soon as I arrived, I started watching a web series on miniTV, Tujhpe Main Fida, which is based on the theme of romance and has a total of 15 episodes.

AV

ByAyush Verma5 days ago in Geeks



The Road to Nowhere

Trigger warnings: Violence, Death. "May the Sun burn your tongue out, woman," Fredrick's father screamed the curse into his mother's ear as their elegant little carriage rumbled along, its polished wood and gilded trim glinting in the torchlight. They had just left the small village of Saffron and were on an unnamed road to the capital for the Royal wedding. Fredrick leaned back in his plush velvet seat to escape into the passing landscape, but across from him sat the servant boy, a scrappy lad named Jack. Jack's eyes held a mixture of awe and fear, the kind that only a commoner could feel in the presence of nobility. Jack looked up and caught Fredrick's gaze, offering him a sad little smile before reaching into his pocket and retrieving a little caramel treat. This candy was no doubt stolen from the kitchen treat cupboard; if he was caught with it, he would be locked in the box as punishment.

FE

ByFrank English6 days ago in Fiction

Written by Robert M Massimi. ( Broadway Bob).

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[rantsintechnicolor]

Now arriving…

The wind blew cool and moist up Market Street from the Embarcadero, but by the time it reached my nostrils it had lost all its shoreline odors. Now it smelled like nothing. The financial district was more scrubbed than the neighboring Tenderloin, though the occasional whiff of sewage was evident near the gutters and manholes. Some of these manholes hissed steam that smelled like laundromats, which I thought smelled very similar to gunpowder. I remembered what my parents told me when I was young: dragons in the sewers.

Arriving at the bus connection to the train, the other passengers were gathered and were rather subdued. Perhaps still waking up and waiting for their caffeinated beverages to invigorate them. Perhaps hiding their foul mood at being up so early, hiding that they were not morning people. They didn’t acknowledge anyone but the driver, who began giving instructions. 

“We will board the bus in two groups. First the six-fifty-five group. Then those of you with a ticket that says seven o’clock.” The driver had to repeat this a few times to passengers that hadn’t been close enough to hear. I waited and was the last to board the bus after a tall, skinny, bespectacled Asian man and an athletic looking black man. On the way through, I did notice a young woman, rail thin in an oversized, dark red Grateful Dead hoodie. Her hair hung straight and limp around her face, perhaps still wet after a shower. She had tears on her face and whimpered quietly. I wondered about this woman. What was her story? What happened to her? Did someone die? Is she going through a breakup? Is she detoxing and in withdrawal? Mental health break? More than one of the above? Will she be okay? I walked by toward the back of the bus, hoping her seatmate would be kind and gentle with the sad woman. I felt like I had been this woman once, on a coach full of strangers, unable to keep my emotions from making them uncomfortable, unable to keep them from spilling over and out of my eyes. My chest tightened with grief for this woman and the woman I had been.

Everyone continued to be silent on the bus, like you do with a bus full of strangers, as it slid confidently between the tall buildings. The horizon became rosy as we transited the bridge, the glow making the city sparkle, reminding all of us that she was gorgeous. Ferry building, Coit tower, Alcatraz, and the Golden Gate in one money shot that I missed while trying to be in the moment, and because my phone was deep in my pocket. On the other side of Treasure Island, the bay was dotted with ships and boats. The tiny pilot boat, larger tugs, and crane ships before the port of Oakland, bristling with cranes already working tirelessly in the hands of the longshoreman to unload the container ships. I saw the large hull of an EVERGREEN, a company infamous for one of their ships blocking the Suez during the pandemic, and the hot pink hull of ONE shipping company. I do love that hot pink was the color chosen by that company for their ships. Very hip. Very gay. I wondered how the landscape would change with the new fuel-efficient cargo ships with sales dominated the port.

On the hills a few landmarks stood out bright while still in shadow. The Mormon Temple looked like a spaceship with four tall spires equidistant around a taller fifth one. Then the Claremont Hotel, still a beacon of white as it had been when it was built. My eyes slid further south from these to the old gravel quarry that was now filled with houses. The house I grew up in was somewhere below that on the hill. My parents were probably finally asleep as they kept the hours of college students rather than those of a productive society-- but, well, retirement. Still much further in the distance to the east, Mount Diablo, a now dormant volcano, poked its peaks higher into the sky. It had dawned a very clear day indeed for it to be so easily viewed from the Bay Bridge. 

Traffic was light on the lower deck out of the city. It moved sluggishly on the upper deck, gridlocked at the toll plaza and backed up all the way to the interchange. There were already emergency and CalTrans vehicles en route to solve whatever calamity was already happening on the morning commute. Sun wasn’t even fully up yet. But our bus zoomed by on the freeway, almost smug.

We disembarked the bus at the end of the platform at the train station, passengers still moving silently, like ghosts, and some murmuring thanks to our driver. Some went inside while others preferred to stay out. It wasn’t that cold though some people hunched their shoulders. There were benches for sitting. Several folks trickled across the pedestrian bridge from the public market parking lot opposite the tracks to join those waiting. Some came out of the station with coffee cups. One old woman walked the length of the platform and back, banishing her arthritic stiffness or getting her steps in. The crying woman came out of the station still looking stricken and miserable, and was not seen again the rest of my trip. Large sparrows, California Towhees, foraged in the curbed and landscaped vegetation islands. When I approached they hopped to a higher perch and one of them was missing some toes on its right foot, which didn’t keep it from being aggressive toward the other Towhee. Crunchy leaves moved on the breeze, rattling and scraping on the pavement. A horn blasted in the distance and it sounded like it was coming from the north. Minutes later, the train came in from the south, heralded by the sound of bells where it crossed the road. 

The station agent ushered them onto the train over the loudspeaker. As we boarded, the conductor read the stops and instructed us on how not to be left behind. “Now boarding for Richmond, Martinez, Antioch, Turlock-Denair, Madera, Merced, Fresno, Hanford and Bakersfield. All aboard.” I loved him. His voice was crisp, joyful, and gay. I might have suspected he was using a “white voice” like from that movie Sorry to Bother You, but when I saw the rainbow Amtrak pin on his conductor's hat, I knew it wasn’t that-- well, maybe a little of that. He was a broad, round black fellow with a kind face that moved easily and confidently. He knew what he was about. Classy as fuck in his uniform. When he misspoke the stops and included one we had already passed, he made his mistake funny for the benefit of his audience but also to be clear so as not to confuse us. 

The sun crested the hills as the train left the station. It moved through mostly industrial manufacturing and warehouses before traveling along the edge of the delta. The trash in the silty mud was what you might expect; tires being the most numerous, followed by a few shopping carts, and a whole couch. In the small beaches dotting the shoreline folks were actually fishing and beach combing with metal detectors and a digging basket. Mostly the shoreline was rocky, dotted with small marinas, some better kept than others. The skeletal remains of piers, a few ruined boats, and even the twin engines and cam shaft of an old ship, as if the outer hull had just melted away and left the guts, or perhaps it had been cut down and sold for scrap. The industry along the water was dominated by oil, transport and refining, with refineries looking like a city scape at a distance.

As the landscape changed to marshes, the wildlife became more apparent. Great egrets, blue herons, Canada geese, black stilts, avocets, white pelicans, killdeer and mallards. A female Northern Harrier swooped low on the grasses, sedges, and rushes, hungry and hunting. Not much left in the mothball fleet that used to be in Benicia. All sold or repurposed as scrap. Only two or three (of what must have been thirty) ships remain.

Much of the fence line bordering the train tracks had a sign on it. “If you are thinking of Suicide please call 988,” it said. I guess a lot of folks try to take themselves out using a train. My mind went back to the crying woman and hoped she would be okay.

The landscape changed yet again into farmland. Corn, grain, grapes, but mostly almonds. Some farmers were clearly feeling the strain of the drought. One of the sections had almost dead trees. They had turned off the water. Later they would drag all the trees out of the ground and bulldoze them into large piles to burn when the weather was appropriate. The next orchard over was green. I saw a red-tailed hawk perched on the ground in one of the rows, serious and regal.

Each time the train stopped the conductor would say, "Now arriving..." I would stare out the window at the station stop and feel like the train was moving backwards. A strange sensation, though I knew the train wasn't moving. It's like getting off a ship after days (or even a few hours) at sea, and feeling like the ground is moving when you know it isn't. The conductor would call, "Now departing... All aboard," and instruct us where we should sit if we were able bodied and that there was no smoking on the train as the train pulled out of the station.

“Now arriving Hanford. If Hanford is your stop, please gather your belongings and make your way downstairs. Thank you for riding Amtrak.” I exited the train and paused on the platform to get her bearings. I looked back at the train and saw the conductor. I waved at him before I turned to leave the station. He waved back.

[evil-wild-lesbian-wizard]

C-section? More like skill issue

Flicks a can, slut

I was doing my job last night, your moms new name is Job

Ok just because I don’t want the wardrobe monsters eating them; doesn’t mean I like them

You know you’re dead when you hear the jazz music slowly approaching

Sings seven nation army jazzily

That’s not jazz!!!! It is now mother fucker

Wiki how is corrupting you

If you didn’t want me to eat your knee you shouldn’t have been such a Whore

Are you consuming the propaganda

Thou shalt not eat propaganda right up there with thou shalt not get impregnated with the baby of

satan in a Walmart bathroom

It’s lovely day out. I’m gonna kill my self

Not all of us are cowards Blair. Drink some milk

Are you high on a lack of brain cells??

I hope your bathbomb is a toaster

I’m gonna baptize people from the inside out

Do it pussy boy

I have no authority to say things but I do have audacity

Drinks water: yep, still soapy

Ur moms a metaphor

I don’t have pockets so have to put it in my mouth

Hey! No conflict without me

It’s not my fault, I just keep saying iconic things

No you can’t eat that! Well fuuuuuuuck you too man

Banished to the cheese dungeon for a thousand years

You were in a music video and you were just losing the argument

I give zero fucks, I will lick your hands. ^they’re probably salty^

I don’t wanna be sniffed!!!

Oofles buddy

Toyota more lil get fucked

Toyota local boob jobs

Toyotathon more like titython

Don’t guilt trip him! No I am.

We don’t eat spicy sky rasins

Hey don’t be sad the my soul cock is bigger than yours

I shit myself on the strip in Las Vegas and all I got was this lousy Tshirt

Have you ever seen a non Arab Muslim? Yes. OH SHIT THEY’RE COLONIZING

I guess if you have dick cheese….

If you take viagra and your dick starts crunching we have problems

Before and after riger mortis I’ll smash

GIVE ME YOUR VAGINA!!

Suck my dick fingers

Thou shalt eat silica beads

I just want them to use a condom

My back is not crackin shlackin

What scares you the most? Women.

What is wrong with you? 👍🏻

I washed my hair this morning. YAY!! In a Starbucks bathroom. NO!!

Do I support gun violence?

I like grapefruit because it reminds me of vagina

Your fangs need some viagra

Your old soft ball teammates dad killed three people on a motorcycle while he was high on crack

I got bit by an old person, I am not friends with old people

Are there bugs in my eye?

Honestly the school needs to serve more cunt

So I saunter up to the dragon all sexy like

He’s got the shotussy

Who here considers me their father?…. That’s concerning

Product of turkey? You’re telling me a turkey made this

If you are curious about how much cannabis you can transport in your car, the answer is not 82 pounds

It’s not violence if it’s vehicular manslaughter

That’s a lie I’m no cashier, burger maker is I

Diversity wins! The gay person can catch

The lama is gay!

You lost hydration privileges

I heard something about the devil, are we talking about the devils lettuce??

Wake up it’s time to overthrow the government

Ugh shoulders? You’re not being a good catholic

If you drink holy water do you sweat catholic?

Jesus will airdrop you a copy of the constitution

Lying: the foundation of every good thing

Sure just beat up the twink..wtf

Just gonna drink my monster and judge you

I’m gonna spend the rest of the day on ao3

You ever just look at a banana and think damn those sexy lady hips

Poland disagrees

Is bread masculine

I love the smell of superiority in the morning

To whom it may concern you suck

WERE UNIONIZING!!

you can’t have a child labor cult without any children.

The trans masculine urge to jump off of a bridge

The only difference between god and my asshole is that people worship my asshole

Get that bread you funky little stripper man!

It’s gonna hurt but we’re gonna be closer because of it! That’s just trauma bonding Jess!!

Breasticles in my testicles

Might I see thine fair breasts on this yonder morn my dear lady

Tits are too funny, breasts are too formals, Tatas just aren’t it, so idk man

Why do you know what pegging is?? INTERNATIONAL WOMENS DAY DUH!?!??

Boat captain do you have a long or short tow rope? HOW BIG IS YOUR PENIS???

Mother said can’t have glitter so I got GLITTER

Imma call the pope and be all “yo Francy, what’s up come snatch this Whore”

YOU CANT RAMEN IN A STARBUCKS CUP WITH LUKEWARM WATER

Damn green waste material always turning my blood the wrong color

Don’t flirt with your sleep paralysis demon

Serve that crusty cunt

No!! I have to refrigerate my bull semen

WHY EOULD YOU KILL MY CHIKD

Abortion? More like eviction notice

If you remove your scapulas are you free from sin? Yes that’s how you become a true Christian

Man Carry the weight of the world on their shoulder and women carry the weight of their sins

(Whispered) *genital herpes*

Don’t worry it’s not my dildo, it’s the schools!!

I fucked god he’s not impressive

TOUCH THE FETENOYL BUNNY LOGAN!!!!

My goal in life is helatitis b

Diseases? GOTTA CATCH EM ALL!!

We’re gonna be so ready to march on the captial with our legion of screaming armed smal children

“Whawhawha” all I hear is fascist dictator!! I NEVER KILLED ANY JEWS!! THATS WHAT HITLER SIAD YOU FLOPPY COCK

Go on, test me, “I know where you sleep”

Booooo

That really resonated with the girlies

No he was not “the one the got away” he was the bastard who stole my catalytic converter and kissed me in a Wendy’s parking lot

Vagina!🥳

I wanna guilt trip old people Into buying me things

I love chickens but I don’t feel bad about eating them

I’m gonna find a fish and it’s gonna end up in your face

After being slapped in the face by so many fish I can’t help but hate them

Are you a pescatarian because you love animals or because you really hate fish ?

No, her soul is an orbee

R:”It’s cuz the salad was underdressed”

M:*staring at salad with extreme disdain* “slut”

“Can I do the dishes? No. YOU NEVER LET ME DO ANYTHING”

No solar energy for naughty America it doesn’t fit the Reagan aestethitc

They wish they had my ramen swag

The children want drugs

Feed the children addictions, cuz they were born to crack whores

Being nice gets your ass deported

Nothing but good vibes bitch

Bella I don’t think you have a boyfriend I think you have a toddler

I am your best friend you chicken fried fuck

And what is your costume? Slut

*with sticker of forehead* I’m special, and I’m allergic to these

How can I be a Whore when the only thing I pull is a push door

I’m starting an only fans to find my build a bear addiction

Live laugh love- eau de old people

Ohshitfuckdickwhoreholecocksuckingmotherofdouchesarghhhhsmmmmmmmdickdickdick

Yo can’t just say girl math and justify all your actions yes I can!!!

I would do so much if it weren’t for the Geneva convention

That is truly a pathetic man….. I want him carnally

But have you considered, war crimes?

You get appendicitis, you get appendicitis…. “You’re the Oprah of apecitis”

When I grow up I want to be cremated

*Shaking a can of Pennys* I’m sorry is my richness bothering you??

Wanna file joint taxes? No you’re not my type

What a little boy fail

What do you taste like???? Chicken

I’ll belike l whip that cunt out cowboy style

They blocked you?? Cowards

My favorite breakfast food is the souls of the undead what about you?

Waffles

Do not fuck the refrigerator

Stupid slutty refrigerator

Pumpkin spice in the off season is crack-cocaine for white girls

Where is my little girlfriend? Bitch where is your dad? Where is your father?? You don’t have one. FATHERLESS BEHAVIOR

You’re dulling my sparkle you hoe bag

When life gets hard, you must get harder

Scamming child labor companies, it’s for the children!!

It genuinely brings me joy to know that I’m making people suffer,……… am I a bad person?

For litterally fucking what??

Can we lock the math teacher in the closet

Baby he’s already there

It’s not rigging an election, it’s strategic voter persuasion

Friendship is getting hit by the same car

He was such a great guy, embezzling was a minor character flaw

If you ever get upset with a child just tape them to the wall

That was not so great

This is unlucky

I’m a cheese beggar

I hate everyone equally give me cheese

Is there a hight restriction for being a lesbian ?

Of course not

……. There should be

THATS THE CUNTY ONE, he slays the hardest

I’m fagging it up in my tranny little house

I don’t know how but I can tell he’s gay

It’s the homo in you

You are gay you have built in sparkle

Girl mid

(Alex) Things to do:

(Izzy) Kill myself

(Owens) is there anything concerning on Instagram

(Alex) everything about you is concerning

If they didn’t want me to call them a slut, why are they covered in blood??

*Assorted screaming* yeah that’s about right

Why are you crying?

I saw you

Mothman ate my whole ass in a dennys parking lot. It was a grand slam breakfast

You look like mothman threw up on you, fucking hot topic ass employee looking bitch

(Alex) I don’t think Kennedy’s was born, she crawled up from hell to torment us all

(Kennedy) Oh so that’s where we met all those years ago …. All those years ago

(Alex)Is that why you look so old all the time

None of the above kill them all

(Kennedy) Alex you should kys

(Alex) your fit is giving goodwill, so shut the fuck up

Your spirit animal is a spirit animal is a ninty year old woman

Old women mitosis… they’ll never see it coming

*tries to scream but only air comes out*

Pussy slay cunt boots slay the whole house down boots Houston I’m deceased

We watched a cadaver have breast implants

Did you just womp womp a girl with cancer?

That’s life

He’s such an icon

(Kennedy) fuck you!

(Alex) no thanks

My goal in life is to make everyone uncomfortable

I have done the world a great disservice and I’m very proud of it…. Like those war crimes I committed

Where were you September 9 2001?!???

Um…. In utero?

So you admit it!!!!!!

(Owen) how do you spell keel?

(Alex) K-e-e-l

(Owens) thanks

(Alex) that’s how you get the bitches

I want to donate my kidneys, I don’t want anyone to use them I just don’t want them anymore.

So you want one of our kidneys?

Hold on let me check the list

Me and my friend group would do miracles on tumblr dot com

[itsclydebitches]

This observation is probably (very) old hat by now, but I totally missed it on my first watch: the box used to present Nate his whistle is also the suggestion box he made with his niece:

The first screenshot isn’t nearly as clear, but it’s the same purple color, blue stripe on the front, yellow heart off to the left. The main difference seems to be that they’ve scratched out “Suggestion” to instead make it the “Whistle Box.”

(But the question mark that remains is an intriguing detail, like we’re asking whether Nate can really be a coach. That’s a question the series is still answering.)

Not to be emotional on main, but that detail just really got to me because it’s such a wonderful bridge between Nate’s biological family and the family he’s building here at Richmond. There’s been speculation about whether Nate’s sibling is the favored child, the one who has managed to secure his father’s attention while Nate continually fails. Beyond just being a way of expressing his frustration at the smiling box (stop looking happy while I feel miserable), this might explain why Nate sticks his tongue out at it. As a craft presumably made only by his niece — Nate doesn’t seem to recognize it when he comes in, commenting that it’s “cute” — it’s a tangential reminder of his sibling, perhaps the child who has done what he, right now, continues to fail at: securing his father’s pride.

Then here comes Ted who doesn’t just acknowledge and praise something Nate helped create — “Hey, look at that! ...This is lovely” — but repurposes it after others have continually demeaned it. Meaning, the suggestion box is largely a bust. No one is engaged with the idea during this scene and outside of the one note commenting on the water pressure, all the box got were versions of “Wanker.” Then, when Nate makes another box to collect money, Jamie gleefully puts his gum in there. Presenting the whistle is the first time Ted and the Richmond team as a whole have embraced one of Nate’s boxes and alongside that growth, the box itself is simultaneously a link between two families and a link to where Nate started out. It’s celebrating who Nate was even as he becomes someone new, with Ted clearly having saved and now creatively reusing something Nate made while “just” a kit man. That feels a lot like the coaching equivalent of Ted putting Nate’s drawings on his fridge. Sure, you’re a professional illustrator now, but I’ll always cherish the crayon scribbles you gave me (the fact that the boxes are, in part, literally a product of a young kid feels significant). The time when Nate was making suggestion boxes is just as important to Ted as this new Nate who makes calls with a whistle.

Which just makes the photograph hurt even more. Ted is clearly someone who takes gifts of all sorts very seriously. I think a lot about him going through the package from home and commenting that Rebecca can’t have his kazoo because he’s only got one — it’s from his son, he won’t part with it — but because he’s got a whole bag of these army men, he’ll give them out when he feels others need them, hoping it will give them some of the comfort he feels (and it does). Now, here comes Nate making craft boxes, just like Henry makes craft kazoos

so of course Ted is going to keep it. He’s going to put that silly box somewhere safe, like parents do with their kids’ creations. He’s going to put Nate’s picture directly beside Henry’s because that’s what you do when you have multiple kids. (Even if Ted’s relationship with Nate is a more complicated balance between father figure and peer.) There are many wonderful details that scream how much Ted loves Nate, but because of how he presents that love —  and the fact that he offers it to so many others —  Nate can’t see it. Ted essentially got lucky the first time around, unknowingly using the box in exactly the kind of way Nate wants: present it where the entire team can see, where everyone is reminded of how special he is to Ted. But when Ted keeps something for himself — the picture is for him to look at when he’s getting ready in the morning, the kazoo is for him because there’s only one — Nate assumes the love is gone. It’s been so obviously denied to him by his father, he needs it obviously acknowledged from Ted in order to know that it’s there. There’s no understanding that Ted loves him even when he’s not overtly expressing that love in public ways. If that love isn’t displayed to the world 24/7, it might as well not exist: “You made me feel like I was the most important person in the whole world and then you abandoned me.”

[mimi-cee-hq]

Laundry Days - Aran x f!reader

Summary: Three times you picked up his underwear and one time you missed doing it.

Genres, other tags: fluff, slice of life, humour, meet cute, domestic fluff, not suggestive lol, married under 25, neighbours to married lovers ;)

Words: 1.6k

Warnings: manga spoiler

This is for @neoheros & @coophi's 2021 Summer Haikyuu!! Writing contest. (Okay I'm pretty shy at first so it feels a little scary to tag you two but here's my piece.) I was going for the married under 25 prompt but ended up doing neighbours to lovers too. :D

Don't mind me spreading the underrated characters agenda as well. lol.

*****

A few articles of clothing spilled out of the dryer and onto your feet. Oops. Your neighbour must have forgotten them. You should've checked first.

Your own damp clothes sat inside the washing machine next to it, waiting for their turn to enter the dryer. It wasn't possible now.

You sighed, retrieving the phone from your pocket and scrolling until you saw the name of the neighbour who lived a floor below you.

Ojiro Aran.

You were sure this was the right person after a second look at your texting history. Who'd bring the garbage to the curb, where the lawnmower was kept, and keeping the duplex's stairway clear were some of the conversations you had with him.

You had yet to meet the guy, but he seemed amicable enough.

After shooting him a text, you thought to give him a call instead. Perhaps he'd think a phone call was strange. However, your clothes were damp and you shouldn't leave them for long. Was he even home?

You sighed. Crouched down, you returned the clothes on the floor back into the machine. A scarf, several socks, and a knit hat made their way back inside. But what was this?

Underwear. Men's underwear.

You scrunched your nose as you lifted it from the cold, tile floor. Was that a hole in it?

Click.

"Sorry I just saw your text!" a tall, dark-skinned man blurted out as soon as the door was unlocked.

"Oh! It's alright! I only texted you a few minutes ago!" you quickly explained, waving your hands in front of you.

You shouldn't have done that. The underwear was hanging from your hand.

"Ummm…" Aran scratched his cheek, eyes retreating from you.

"Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry!" you spat out, tossing the incriminating object to him. "It just fell out of the dryer when I opened it so I went to pick it up!"

Once in his hands, he recognized it as the one with the seam coming undone. "I… umm… should probably have thrown this one out."

"Umm… yeah… you probably should." Those words slipped off your tongue before you could catch them.

"I- I guess I'll go now," Aran said hastily.

He shut the door.

You let out a breath. That was awkward. Heat continued to linger in your body and you weren't sure who was more embarrassed by the encounter.

Wait. His clothes were still in the dryer. Did you dare ask him back?

The door slowly creaked open and Aran peeked his head into the room.

"I forgot something, didn't I?" Aran sheepishly asked.

"Yeah." The corners of your mouth lifted into a smile. "Yeah, you did."

"I'm Aran by the way."

"Y/n."

You never thought this would be how you'd meet your future husband.

*****

The office chair in your apartment was a comfortable spot for folding clothes. The webcam caught your face as you chatted with Aran whose image filled the monitor.

You smiled. Your husband was winding down after a long day with the team and decided to check up on you.

"I'm alright," you told Aran. "I miss you though."

"I literally just saw you yesterday!" he said. "I miss you too."

After that fateful yet awkward encounter with him in that laundry room two years ago, you had run into each other more frequently at the front doors of your duplex. Your classes ended at similar times four out of your five school days. You were surprised he even started a conversation with you. You wouldn't have been able to bear the embarrassment. Fast forward to a confession, a kiss and a rock-embedded ring, and you got a small, snowy wedding during winter break.

It was back to the books for you now, and you dreaded it. Chores seemed much better, easier. Plus doing them for your newly-wedded husband? You got giddy about that.

You quirked your brow, lifting a familiar piece of clothing from the basket.

"Hey, I thought you threw this one out," you mentioned to Aran, dangling his underwear in front of the camera.

"I did! That's, uh, probably a different one."

"Just how old are these?"

"Hey! Wait a moment! Are you folding clothes?"

You avoided the eyes on the screen. "Maybe."

"You have your paper due in a few days! I told you I was going to do it after flying back home."

"I know…"

Aran's eyes narrowed at you, a trademark expression of his. "You're procrastinating again, aren't you?" His tone implied disapproval.

"But I'm still being productive!"

"Y/n…"

"Okay, okay. I'll stop." Your foot pushed the basket away, sliding it across the floor. Maybe you could fold them after you hung up.

Aran must have read your mind. "Show me what the laundry bin looks like."

You groaned. He saw right through you. Complying, you removed the clipped webcam off the monitor and directed it at the pile of unfolded clothes.

"It better be like that when I get home."

"Alright," you said with a pout.

"Love you."

"Love you too."

Must he stop you from doing chores? They were a simple reminder you were married to him, as if the gold on your finger wasn't enough to show you.

You were his wife.

A smile snuck into your lips whenever that thought crossed your mind. The honeymoon phase was a peculiar, strange, lovely stage.

Yet it was fleeting.

*****

You groaned as you stood in the middle of the bathroom. Aran's white track pants hung off the counter, the red t-shirt he got for free from first year college laid on top, and of course his underwear, which likely went through hundreds of washes, remained on the floor.

Great.

You rubbed your temples, your headache getting worse by the minute. It was Saturday morning, and Aran, who was nowhere to be seen, had left his mess behind.

I'll clean it up later, he would tell you. You knew his mother had spoiled him, always picking up after him. You understood why he was like this, but why couldn't he just start doing it now?

"Do you have this problem?" you asked your friend through your wireless headset.

"What problem?" she asked.

"Does your husband always leave laundry around on the floor?" You pinched the bridge of your nose. "Aran never picks up after himself."

She laughed. You weren't sure if it was because you were a young, amateur wife or if she understood all too well.

Knowing her, probably a bit of both.

"Okay two things."

You listened.

"One, don't say always or never. That's lying."

"I'm not lying," you snapped back at her. You began to regret asking her.

"Are you sure he never picks it up and always leaves it on the floor?"

You left no comment.

"Exactly."

"Okay fine, but that still doesn't solve the problem. If only he just did it, it would solve everything–"

"Number two," she interrupted.

You groaned at her and she gave an amused snort in return.

"If you weren't picking up his underwear, it means he's dead."

You were aghast.

"You know I'm right."

Still aghast.

"What? No husband, no mess."

"I can't believe I asked you for advice."

"But it's true."

"Ugh," was all you could utter. She had several years more of marriage experience than you, yet you didn't want to acknowledge it.

You hung up the phone after you finished deciding today's outing with her, but you hadn't addressed the issue in front of you. Your head throbbed again.

Sighing, you picked up the underwear.

A few minutes later, the front door opened and you dipped your head into the hallway. Aran shuffled grocery bags through the door and into the kitchen. He yawned, placing the milk, eggs, and other items into the fridge.

A familiar coffee brand peeked out of a bag on the floor. Right. You didn't have your coffee yet because there wasn't any left.

You wrapped your arms around Aran and relaxed against his broad back.

"I can't put the food away like this," he said with a chuckle.

"You left your clothes in the bathroom again."

"Oh shoot!" He dropped a bag and started towards the bathroom but you tightened your grip on him.

"I put them away already," you told him. His body relaxed and he caressed your arm around his waist.

The honeymoon phase was a fleeting phase, novel tasks turned mundane, but your love for him grew deeper still.

*****

Aran was away again, this time at Tokyo in preparation for the Olympics. He eagerly called you during breaks, wishing to see his favourite person – although your hands were full as well.

"I miss you," he told you, his smile displayed on the screen.

"And I miss picking up your underwear," you told him with a smirk.

Like clockwork, he narrowed his eyes at you with a comeback. "Why don't you say you miss me like a normal person?"

"Because I'm your wife. I'm special," you told him as he rolled his eyes. "I wish I could be there though."

"You wouldn't be able to spend that much time with me anyway," he said. "Besides, one of us needs to stay home."

"I know." You smiled.

"I gotta go," he said as Atsumu yelled in the background. Aran blew a kiss at you.

You snorted. How cheesy. You returned the kiss anyway.

Hearing a mischievous squeal behind you, you told him, "I gotta go too."

"Love you."

"Love you too."

After you hung up, you turned around and sighed. A soggy wet diaper sagged on the floor and the little guy jumping in the crib giggled at you as if he did the funniest thing in the world.

You rolled your eyes and smiled before picking up the diaper.

"Alright kid. Let's put a diaper back on you and wash your sheets."

*****

I hope you liked it. This is a little different from what I usually write but I hope you still enjoyed it!

I blame Aran's current concern for giving me this idea along with the person who suggested I write Aran fluff. (As well as the seasoned wife I know who told her husband, "If I wasn't picking up your underwear, it means you're dead." lolll.)

I hope you stick around my blog to check out my other works! My current work in progress is a fake dating Suna series. I can't believe we're on chapter 10!

If anyone is interested, I have a Google form for my taglist.

[thimbil]

Having some thoughts about the references and inspirations used for the Bad Batch’s designs.

So Boba Fett is my absolute favorite character and Temeura Morrison was perfect casting. I went to see the 2008 TCW movie in theaters because I was so excited to see him again, even if he was animated. You can imagine my disappointment. Whoever was on screen was not Temeura Morrison. You could sort of see a resemblance if you squinted and didn’t think too hard about it. They replaced Temeura with Racially Ambiguous G.I. Joe. If I didn’t know better and someone told me the animated clones are space Italians from the moon of New Jersey I would buy it. One Million Brothers Pizzeria and Italian Bistro. Not that there’s something wrong with being space Italian, I just don’t think it’s the right choice for the Fetts. The design got slightly improved by season 7 but it still bugs the hell out of me.

I did eventually get into the show later and (of course) got invested in the clones. Unfortunately, they were largely sidelined by the Jedi storylines. Out of the two new main characters created for TCW, Ahsoka definitely got more development and focus than Rex. When they announced The Bad Batch, I was excited to see a show specifically devoted to the clones… at least that’s what it said on the tin. We have all seen what lurks beneath those stylish helmets.

Jango Fett, you are NOT the father.

So who is?

Based on interviews with Filoni, it sounds like the Bad Batch was a George Lucas idea. And like all his ideas, it’s super derivative. The original trilogy directly lifted elements from sci fi serials, westerns, and samurai movies, more specifically Kurosawa films like The Hidden Fortress. For The Bad Batch character designs, the influence is obviously American action and adventure movies.

Now let’s get specific. Bad Batch, who’s your daddy?

Hunter

Sylvester Stallone as Rambo in First Blood 1982. That bandana has become an integral part of the iconic action hero look. You see a character wearing one and it’s a visual shorthand for either “this character is a tough guy” like Billy played by Sonny Landham in Predator 1987, or “this character thinks he is/wants to be a tough guy” like Brand played by Josh Brolin in The Goonies 1985 or Edward Frog played by Corey Feldman in The Lost Boys 1987.

Hunter’s model is closest to the original clone base. If you look closely you will see the eyebrows are straighter with a much lower angle to the arch. His nose is also not the same shape as a standard clone like Rex, including a narrower bridge. It’s certainly not Temeura Morrison’s nose. Remember what I said about space Italians? It didn’t take much to push the existing clone design to resemble an specific Italian man instead of a specific Māori man. The 23&Me came back, and Hunter inherited more than the bandana from Sylvester.

Crosshair

The long narrow nose, the sharp cheekbones, the scowl. That’s no clone, that’s just animated Clint Eastwood. Not even Young and Hot Clint Eastwood from Rawhide 1959-1965. With that hair, I’m talking Gran Torino 2008. The man of few words schtick and family friendly toothpick in lieu of cigar are pure Eastwood as The Man With No Name from Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns A Fist Full of Dollars 1964, For a Few Dollars More 1965, and The Good the Bad and the Ugly 1966.

In a way, this is full circle because the actor Jeremy Bulloch took inspiration from Clint Eastwood for his performance as Boba Fett in ESB.

Wrecker

In an interview Filoni lists the Hulk as an (obvious) inspiration for Wrecker. Ever seen the old Hulk tv show from 1978? Well take a look at the actor who played him, Lou Ferrigno. Would you look at that. Even has his papa’s nose.

You could make the argument that Wrecker was influenced by The Rock, an appropriately buff ‘n bald Polynesian (Samoan, not Maori) man. But look at him next his Fast and Furious costar Vin Diesel and tell me which one resembles Wrecker’s character model more.

Tech

Tech is a little trickier for me to place. If he has a more direct inspiration it must be something I haven’t seen. That said, his hairline is very Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 1988. His quippiness and large glasses remind me of Shane Black as Hawkins from Predator 1987. In terms of his face, he looks a but like the result of McClane and Hawkins deciding to settle down and start a family. Although, Tech’s biggest contributors are probably just everyone on TV Trope’s list for Smart People Wear Glasses.

And finally,

Echo

Oh Echo. Considering he wasn’t created for the Bad Batch, he probably wasn’t based on a particular character or movie. But if I had to guess, his situation and appearance remind me a lot of Alex Murphy played by Peter Weller in Robocop 1987. However, Robocop explored the Man or Machine Identity Crisis with more nuance, depth, and dignity. Yikes.

The exact tropes and references used in The Bad Batch have been done successfully with characters who aren’t even human. Gizmo from Gremlins 2: The New Batch 1990 had a brief stint with the Rambo bandana. I could have picked any number of characters for Defining Feature Is Glasses but here is the most cursed version of Simon of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Suffer as I have. Marc Antony with his beloved Pussyfoot from Looney Tunes has the same tough guy with a soft center vibe as Wrecker and his Lula (also a kind of cat). Hell, in the same show we have Cad Bane sharing Cowboy Clint Eastwood with Crosshair. I actually think Bane makes a better Eastwood which is wild considering Crosshair has Eastwood’s entire face and Bane is blue.

So we’ve established you don’t need your characters to look exactly like their inspirations to match their vibe. So why go through the trouble and cost of creating completely new character designs instead of recycling and altering assets they already had on hand? Just slap on a bandana, toothpick, goggles, and make Wrecker bigger than the others while he does a Hulk pose and you’re done. Based on the general reaction to Howzer it would have been a low effort slam dunk crowd pleaser.

But they didn’t do that.

So here’s the thing. I like the tropes used in The Bad Batch. I am a fan of action adventure movies from the 80s-90s, the sillier the better. I am part of the Bad Batch’s target audience. Considering what I know about Disney and Lucasfilm, I went in with low expectations. I genuinely don’t hate the idea of seeing references to these actors and media in The Bad Batch. I don’t think basing these characters on tropes was a bad idea. If anything it’s a solid starting point for building the characters.

The trouble is nothing got built on the foundation. The plot is directionless, the pacing is wacky, and the characters have nearly no emotional depth or defining character arcs. They just sort of exist without reacting much while the story happens around them. But I can excuse all of that. You don’t stay a fan of Star Wars as long as I have not being able to cherrypick and fill in the gaps. This show has a deeper issue that shouldn’t be ignored.

Why do the animated clones bear at best only a passing resemblance to their live action actor? In interviews, Filoni wouldn’t shut up but the technological advancements in the animation for season 7. So if they are updating things, why not try to make the clones a closer match to their source material? Why did they have to look like completely different people in The Bad Batch to be “unique”? Looking like Temeura Morrison would have no bearing on their special abilities and TCW proved you can have identical looking characters and still have them be distinct. In fact, that’s a powerful theme and the source of tragedy for the clones’ narrative overall.

Here’s Filoni’s early concept art of Crosshair, Wrecker, Tech, and Hunter. (Interesting but irrelevant: Wrecker seems to have a cog tattoo similar to Jesse’s instead of a scar. Wouldn’t it have been funny if they kept that so when they met in season 7 one if them could say something like “Hey we’re twins!” That’s a little clone humor. Just for you guys 😘)

None of these drawings look like the clones in TCW, much less Temeura Morrison. Let’s be generous. Maybe Filoni struggles with drawing a real person’s likeness, as many people do. But he had to hand this off to other artists down the line whose job specifically involves making a stylized character resemble their actor. Yet the final designs missed the mark almost as much as this initial concept. Starting to seem as if the clones looking more like Temeura Morrison was never even on the table. It wasn’t a lack of creativity, skill or technical limitations on the part of the creative team. I don’t think there is an innocent explanation. They went out of their way to make the final product exactly how we got it.

This goes beyond homage. They could have made the same pop culture references and character tropes without completely stripping Temeura Morrison from the role he originated. It was a very purposeful choice to replace him with more immediately familiar actors from established franchises and films. It wouldn’t shock me if Filoni, Lucas, and anyone else calling the shots didn’t even think hard or care enough about the decision to immediately recognize a problem. And I don’t think they believed anyone else would either. At least no one whose opinion they cared about. Those faces are comfortingly familiar and proven bankable. They are what we’re all used to seeing after all. They’re white.

Lack of imagination, bad intentions, or simple ignorance doesn’t really matter in the end. The result is the same. Call it what it is. They replaced a man of color with a bunch of white guys. That’s by the book garden variety run of the mill whitewashing. There’s no debate worth having about it. For a fanbase that loves to nitpick things like whether or not it’s in character for Han to shoot first or Jeans Guy in the Mandalorian, we sure are quick to find excuses for clones who look nothing like their template. Why is that? If you don’t see the problem, congratulations. Your ass is showing. Pull your jeans up.

[reviewsbynixx]

Midnights: A Track by Track Review (by a non-Swiftie)

Taylor Swift has been a seemingly omnipresent force in the music world since I was literally five years old. Her 16 year career has resulted in her being a rare breed of musician, straddling the line between the old tabloid driven celebrity culture of the 2010s, and the slightly more relatability obsessed culture of the 2020s. To me, Taylor Swift has perfected what it means to be a superstar in the modern era. Despite this, I have never been a particularly massive fan of her albums. I can respect her talent as a songwriter and acknowledge that her albums are not for me as I rarely love more than 60-70% of the songs on each LP the way that I see others do (the exception to this rule being Folklore, although again, it still has three or four songs that I am iffy about). With all this in mind, I decided that the first post on this blog should be a review of her latest record smashing album, Midnights, and I hope this provides a blind, outside perspective on her music. 

Lavender Haze

As an R&B fan, when I first saw frequent Kehlani collaborator Jahaan Sweet on the list of song credits, I was more than intrigued, and safe to say they did not disappoint. The song reminds me of I Think He Knows from Lover, from the production to Swift’s delivery and use of head voice. Thematically the lyrics are not anything Swift hasn’t written about before, but Lavender Haze is more polished and mature in its execution. Production wise this is probably my favourite song on the album.  9/10. 

Maroon

This song has grown on me immensely since the first time I heard it. It is a great deep cut that acts as the perfect follow up from Lavender Haze and precursor to Anti-Hero and just works as an album track. The delivery of ‘your roommate's cheap ass screw top rosé’ is just perfect. Not much else to say about this one, if you get it you get it, if you don’t I feel bad for you. 7.5/10

Anti-Hero 

I would consider this to be one of her best singles ever and possibly one of my favourite songs of hers ever. The introspective track features Swift pondering recurring themes in her work such as her struggle with celebrity and the fear of abandonment because of it. The bridge is so tongue in cheek in a way that Swift has perfected, and I think the song itself perfects the blend of personable and serious, soul baring storytelling (meaning you can also tell it was written by a millennial, but a very talented one). I know there’s been a lot of discourse about the sexy baby line, but since I heard it, its meaning has always been pretty obvious to me, even before I was told it was a 30 Rock reference, and I personally love it. Who hasn’t been a monster on the hill? 10/10

Snow On the Beach 

I have to confess I don’t particularly care for this one. I also do not understand Taylor’s female collaborations just being Taylor and a female artist on backing vocals and/or ad libs. I think Nothing New is the only female collaboration of hers where I have heard another woman sing what would be a normal amount for a collaboration and I would actually really love for someone to explain it to me because it just confuses me a little, maybe there’s a reason? This is all building up to me saying I wish we got a proper Taylor Swift and Maren Morris collab! Back to the song, it is beautiful, I love the verses, but it isn’t a song I would actively come back to in isolation although I wouldn’t skip it when listening to the album. 6/10

You’re On Your Own, Kid

I LOVE the pre-chorus and bridge - I’m a sucker for a pre chorus that changes lyrically as the song goes on and the production builds. The song feels super nostalgic, almost like coming home to a small town, and reminds me of ‘tis the damn season, one of my favourite songs from Evermore. I cannot wait to see the end of year coming of age movie edits on twitter that use this song in the background. 7/10

Midnight Rain

Initially I wasn’t completely sold on this one but the more I listen to it the more I realise that there are elements of it that I really appreciate. It’s not the most musically daring but the vocal distortion used here (and on Lavender Haze) is probably one of the more experimental things Swift has done in a while, and I think it pays off. I wish there was some kind of final chorus instead of an instrumental outro because its use here does make the song feel somewhat unfinished to me and it's short enough that more could be added, give me a Midnight Rain final chorus you cowards! 7/10

Question…?

Relistening to this for this review has made me realise just how much I love this song. 

I love when artists sample/interpolate their own work because, why wouldn’t you? Especially if you've written a song like Out of the Woods. I think the subject of the song, hoping someone you were once close to still thinks about you and your relationship, is something done so frequently due to its universality but I love the way Swift approaches it here. Side note: we need more songs written in the second person. ONE DRINK. AFTER. ANOTHER. FUCKIN. POLITICS AND GENDER ROLES AND YOU’RE NOT SURE AND I DON’T KNOW! Just so good. 9/10

Vigilante Shit

Not listening to that. It’s just corny, I’m sorryyyyyy. It sounds like something that did not make the cut on Reputation and I already have my issues with some of the songs that did. 2/10?

Bejeweled 

I will say my opinion on this song has most definitely been swayed by its popularity on Tiktok because I did NOT like it when I first listened to the album but I admit, the chorus is super catchy. 5/10

Labyrinth

I won’t lie, I forgot this song was even on the album because I did not care for it on first listen and this is probably only my third or fourth time hearing it. Similarly to Snow on the Beach, I don’t hate it, I just think it's slightly boring but still beautiful. Nice outro.  6/10

Karma

I love this, I don’t even care. The melody is so fun and Swift’s triumphant yet peaceful delivery makes you believe that Karma is her cat/boyfriend/acrobat/god breezing through her hair and purring in her lap. The brightness of the production gives the song a youthful quality but the matter of fact way she sings the statements in the chorus breathe an air of maturity into the song - there is no uncertainty, she is so well acquainted with Karma that she knows she does not need to stress. I’m envious. 8/10

Sweet Nothing

Just so sweet. I love the faint horns used and the way the song paints this feeling of internal domestic bliss shielded from the bustling outside world. I’m just too soft for all of it :( 7/10

Mastermind

She’s kind of crazy (positive). This is another song I don’t particularly care for but I think it bookends the album in a nice way, and the themes of restlessness and questioning that are present lyrically here (and throughout the album) are well reflected in the production and tempo.6.5/10

Overall Score: 6.9

Standout Tracks: Lavender Haze, Question…?, Anti-Hero

I feel like this is somewhat appropriate for my experience with the album. I’m not sure where I’d rank it but it is definitely up there. To me anything above a 6 is an enjoyable album. I’m not reviewing 20 songs at once, but maybe at a later date I’ll talk about the 3am tracks, one of which is definitely one of my favourite and in my opinion one of her best songs ever. 

Thanks for getting through this lofty review. What’s your top 3 on the album? What should the next single be?  I think I might like Taylor Swift a lot actually.

[sprinklesandshatters]

A Review on NCT 127′s 3rd Album <Sticker>

So NCT 127 just came back with their 3rd Full Album <Sticker> and this is my first 127 comeback since I became a fan last year! Neozone is such a special album for me as it was their first album that I explored entirely. I've known NCT as the group who never fails any expectations so I've kept mine up although I know they'll exceed it anyway. And guess what, they did! I absolutely love their new album hence this review~

This isn't a technical music review—as I am not a musician myself—but rather a listener's honest takes, goofy notes, and interpretation on each of the tracks in the album. I admit I've also struggled to build my own opinions on some of the tracks until I listened to them over and over again.

I have also heard there are mixed opinions on the title track <Sticker> and a lot says it's another acquired taste. But I think it's not just that, as it can be a grower, just like how most of NCT's songs were for me. Maybe after a few listens and a right passage of time, it will grow on those people. The bottom line here is, I like it a lot! 😛

So I listed down the songs according to their respective track numbers and followed each with a bulleted list of my opinions and interpretations.

(Viewer/reader discretion: before you continue, minors, do not interact as there are few 18+ contents under the cut. Thank you.)

1. Sticker

THEY DIDN'T JUST PUNCH A NEW NOTCH ON THE BELT LIKE THAT

THIS SONG SLAPS, LITERALLY SLAPS… AND WHIPS 

The recorder at the intro boyyyy I thought something was wrong but then I remember it’s NCT lmao

It already stuck in my head from my first listen from the Instagram audio.

With Taeyong opening the verse with his divine rapping, I knew I'm in for a new ride.

STICK-UH STICK-UGH STICK-UGHGHGH

To those complaining it sounding like noise music, imagine it sounding generic. I don't think it would fit as the title track. Not a b-track or in their repertoire, even. They are called NCT because they define the NEO in the music culture and music technology!

It honestly was an unorthodox, just like all of their title tracks, which I’m inherently here for.

Literally, no one does it like them!

The growls and the vocal flexes and adlibs! (You can tell it has Yoo Youngjin's brand.)

The crisp metronome sound that’s consistently ticking except for the pre-chorus and the dance break adds depth to the soundscape. I love how it’s used instead of the usual snaps.

The production quality blew my mind. Like how can someone think those melodies would sound so exquisite? CAN I CALL THEM GENIUS?

The piano at the back, oh my God—Yes! It adds this mystifying element to the song.

I'm not sure if it's a midi violin at the pre-chorus, but it added thrill to the song. It was a great transition from the bass line in the verses to the combination of the flawless harmony with the same instrumental.

"You treat me like a boy, like a grown-up child chasing a dream" JUNGWOO BABY NO MORE HUH

Taeil, Doyoung, and Haechan—the bridge vocal trinity!

But why the heck are they cowboys? I dig the concept, but why? LMAO

BTW GUNSLINGER MARK I’M ON MY KNEES YEEHAW

This is easily one of my favorite tracks from NCT 127's entire discography 💚

2. Lemonade

(⌐■_■)

Jaehyun starting off this song with his deep voice eee

The song opens to a verse oozing with chill confidence. They're like, yeah you're lurking because we’re cool.

This is such a huge slap to their haters. NCT's not chillin' like a villain, nah they're the main characters!

Well maybe they’re villains, but still ya not cooler than them ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Funny enough how they could have just referred haters as simply lemons whose sour/bitter to the taste, but 127 squad's success is sweeter than all the haters' spiteful remarks so yeah, SIPPY SIPPY LEMONADE 🧃

"WOOF"

I might have just barked too wOW

Yuta’s vocals hooooO his voice just sounds so glamorous mhmm

Also Mark referencing their previous title tracks such as: Firetruck, Cherry Bomb, and Regular (it's Irregular in the lyrics) in his rap part 👌💅

I just love Mark's energy when he raps. HE RESOLUTELY BITES AND STRAIGHT UP EATS EVERY TIME HE DOES.

3. Breakfast

Now breakfast time, oh jeez!

AAAHAHFU—

Summer 127's bestie!

If Summer 127 talks about dancing all night long, Breakfast is the morning after.

You know what it is.

"Even if I gulp and drink you, it's not enough for me." oho Taeyong no you ha—STOP

Sexual innuendos aside, isn't it just sweet if someone tells you they'd want to have breakfast with you every day?  Okay maybe I'm melting at the thought 😩🙈💞

And I can see myself dancing to this song as I make breakfast (in the afternoon or at midnight bc I’m crazy)

This was an okay b-track for me at the first skim on the album, but boy it grew on me wildly.

Honestly one of my favorite tracks in this album.

4. Focus

Did I just invade a private call? LMAO

The analog voice filters make it like so.

Dude, this feels intimate in the level of eavesdropping a phone call between seasoned lovers. Then you realize you hear them whispering their kinks over the line and you're ooh, that's sexy! hfgklhfhf

My first listen to this, I almost went feral because,

"I can't wait to eat you…" when it's actually "I can't wait 'til we chill…" aahaha

"Baby call me when you want me." OKAY!

This sounds relaxing and chill. I'd love to play this on a late night drive or just before bed time along with Fly Away With Me, Sun & Moon, My Youth, and Long Flight.

Belongs to ‘make out session’ playlist  ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

That was lowkey a playlist recommendation, huh?

I'd be kidding if I don't say I could touch myself while listening to this song AHAHAFGHFJFJ

I didn't know this would grow on me this much lol I love love LOVE THIS!

5. The Rainy Night

Ooh, the holy melancholy!

Piano at the intro—I knew I'd cry to this.

This song isn't just about break-up, but the heartbreak after one.

The yearning; the remnant pieces from the shattering of what was once there.

I think I crumbled from this one.

This hit so hard I felt like I fit in the shoes with the lyrics throughout the entire song.

What’s fascinating is I clearly forgot the title when I mentally said this sounds like a sad rainy day song from the first listen.

Something I’d turn up when it suddenly rains, just because I want to feel the blues.

Taeil and Haechan singing in lower register? I wanna cry :( they’re just one of the best vocalists in K-music industry right now.

Could have been also nice if they added Yuta to the vocals.

"My selfish heart who waits for you to come back," OKAY WHO HURT THEM?

And the fact that they sang it so good that it translated every ounce of the emotions well even before I looked up for English translations is the reason why I love this song too.

6. Far

Hmm… What the hell?! Do I like this? Wait...

Alright!

The jumpy vibe from the first verse to the pre-chorus set the mood for this song. It sounds merry and heavy. It was honestly too much to take until I’ve reached the chorus part.

Honestly, I think this song could fit NCT Dream better, as it gives off a vibe similar to Hello Future's b-tracks. If some credible source say this could have made HF’s track list, I might believe you too fast.

Also Dream’s Deja Vu where they go na nananananana na na na~

Playful yet confident! That’s what I mean!

As usual, the vocals are insane! Vocal flex from left to right!

I swear Jungwoo sounded a bit like Taemin at the second verse that I had to replay it hahaha

I love hearing Johnny as a vocalist! SM, how many signs do you need until you utilize his vocal talent???

Taeil's part where he sings, "go nuts, go nuts, 'til we go bust, go bust" IDEK BUT I SNORTED A LAUGH AT FIRST LISTEN HFCAHKFHK

Not my favorite, but still great though!

But wait it’s actually stuck in my head???

7. Bring The Noize

Yes, they never beat those noise music allegations

HERE'S SOME NOIZE, BITCHES

I love me some noisy percussions. AND THE BASS YO

This screams so much confidence!

The build up from the pre-chorus to the chorus—FIRE!

This song reminds me a lot of SuperM's Super Car, especially with the engine roar samples and the battle cry-like singing at the chorus.

JAEHYUN RAPPING? You mean Jaehyun the visual, the vocalist, the actor, the model, the funny dude, aka my everything?! (markie bb look pls look away for a moment)

THEY DELIVERED IT STRAIGHT FROM NEOCITY THAT'S SOME NCT MUSIC RIGHT THERE NO ONE DOES IT LIKE THEM

When I said I'd play Focus on a late night drive, and if I add this in the playlist, VROOM VROOM SPEED LIMIT WHAT

OUTTA MY WAY

“We got no shame” ouh TAEYONG’S FLOW IS JUST VERY HIM AND HE’S IN A LEAGUE OF HIS OWN

You know what's so clever about this song? It's how it ended with Mark's final rap without any instrumental, leaving you  standing there with a doppler effect-like post experience.

A super car on a super speed just whooshed past you and you look its way as it zips through the road. It's gone in an instant but you're floored dumbfounded at a sidewalk. That's how I describe this song.

8. Magic Carpet Ride

This song… Wow. Oh gosh it's so beautiful.

Their harmony in the chorus—it makes me want to kiss someone so passionately that I'd cry.

This makes me want to feel love that transcends the universe. Literally, just please take me on a magic carpet ride :(

The background harmonies too oh my goodness—HEAVENLY.

Jaehyun's voice is so warm and soulful it fits perfectly with songs of this genre.

Okay alright Doyoung Grande!

And Taeil makes me feel like I'm listening to old school R&B.

The first time I heard this from the track video, I can't stop replaying because it's just that great.

This makes me want to love. I think that sums it up.

9. Road Trip

This is such a soothing song for me, especially how I easily become nostalgic thinking about the road trips I've had.

Whenever I listen to this, my brain immediately conjures up thoughts of my ideal getaways. Gazing at the sky through the car window, stirring up from a nap in the middle of the ride, and   eventually reaching your destination.

Oh, to travel around anywhere... (curse you covid-19)

Okay that's it. I'M PACKING UP.

But where do I go—

I could also imagine Mark playing this on the guitar and the other members sing along together, something like that.

Just Wholesome™ vibes.

I love how it evokes such a nice emotion within me effortlessly.

This isn't my favorite, but I still love this.

10. Dreamer

Eyyyy such a refreshing song!

This song is so bright it makes me want to dance. I play this first in the shower!

It reminds me so much of Elevator (from Neozone)

The horns make it more lively I think!

Yuta and Jungwoo's voice suits lively songs like this.

The background vocal in low register in Taeyong's part in the first verse is so good ahhfhf

Taeil, the R&B vocal king you are...

There's this part where Doyoung and Johnny harmonized, that at first listen they seemed to clash, but it sounded actually fine after a few listens. Maybe it's just that I've never heard them do it before.

And I think it's Doyoung's laugh at the end of the bridge? Oh my goodness I really love this too!

11. Promise You

MY FIRST LOVE AND MOST FAVORITE SONG IN THE ALBUM!!!

The first time I heard this from their NCIT Sharehouse Sitcom, I fell in love with the song already.

It sounds like something you'd feel from a warm, welcoming hug.

The lyrics are so beautiful and endearing. It's definitely a be-there-for-you type of song that will touch your heart.

It definitely sounds like a promise.

A song about platonic intimacy.

This really fits to be the closing song of the album. It's like the end of it but holds a promise that says “see you soon.”

Because they cherish their fans like that.

It's also like I've watched a movie with a happy ending, where the camera pans up to the clear sky and this song starts playing.

Speaking of ending, I would love to hear them sing this as an encore stage in their concert. You know, that moment just before the stage lights die down at the end of the concert where they send final blows of flying kisses to NCTzens. Then you come home smiling and crying.

This wasn't supposed to be this long since I originally planned to write this with just simple phrases and emojis but I got too engrossed lol. I also meant to include my own ratings but I figured it’s pointless since I can’t really decide about them hahaha

I really enjoyed the whole album and I love how they're progressively defining what NEO means by breaking through standards. It's not NCT music if it doesn't make you say "WHAT THE HECK WAS THAT?" But then you realize it’s stuck in your head and you’re enjoying it already.

✨ OVERALL RATING: 127/10 💚

if you’ve reached until here, thank you for letting me share you a braincell or two 💞