#and this is actually great bc I have less competition for instrument time this week

[athenasdragon]

In the lab doing my suffering martyr bit for being here by myself on a federal holiday even though I literally took yesterday off to compensate lol

[orchidsangel]

okay so i’m usually more of a silent follower (i’ve only like sent one ask ever) but i kinda love your posts/talks about things that you love (even if it’s not necessarily something i care about,,i just love it when people talk about their interests it’s amazing),, so i’m kinda curious about why do you think sos should have won over midnights,,, not saying that sos is bad or anything i actually love the album and sza but i was rooting for midnights honestly and personally think it deserves the title for many reasons,,, like i’m NOT saying that sos didn’t deserve to be aoty on the contrary, all the albums that were nominated are amazing and all had their big impact and the title is very subjective and ngl, this is one of those years where the nominees are all so good it’s actually quite a tough competition to choose between, but personally i found that midnights deserved it the most so i’m actually really curious to know your opinion on why sos should have gotten it

(i’ve already seen so much discourse about this for the past week on twitter but obviously. it’s twitter. so they don’t have any valable reasons except just pure hatred, misogyny, slut shaming and obviously racism)

Okay, so first off, thank you for sending in this ask and allowing me to speak about something I care about!! Second of all, when you added racism in the "don't have any valuable reasons section" what did you mean by that? I'm not coming for you or anything. I'm just curious if you meant racism towards Taylor or if you mean racism towards SZA.

anyways, now for my thoughts.

So, while I obviously agree that SOS is a great album, the part I disagree with is Midnights being a good album. I don't like it; I never did, and I probably never will. And this isn't me being a Taylor hater; I am a Taylor Swift enjoyer and have sat down and listened to a few of her albums. While none of them absolutely stunned me, I do think she's an overall good musician and can make a relatively good body of work. Midnights is a snoozefest. It's boring and doesn't hold a candle to the rest of her discography, which I feel fine saying because I know there are a significant amount of swifties and non-swifties alike that agree.

To me, midnights is nothing special, and most of the songs blend together. It's not completely bad, though; it has its good moments, but the many cons, i.e., boring instrumentals, mediocre lyrics, no super deep meanings, etc. outweigh the very few pros, i.e., Snow On The Beach ft. Lana Del Rey, but more importantly, Snow On The Beach ft. more Lana del Rey. And I just can't get behind Midnight's winning album of the year after being the pinnacle of mediocrity.

Now, if you wanna talk about impact, let's talk about impact. Midnights broke tons of records, most notably taking up all ten top spots on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, a feat that no other artist has managed to accomplish. But that wasn't because the album was good or because the general public was tuned in; it's because of streaming culture, because, like most fandoms these days, swifties are rabid and reaching for the charts. That, combined with the sheer size of Taylor Swift's fanbase, means that the album was bound to do well regardless of whether it was good or not.

SOS, on the other hand, obviously didn't chart nearly as well as midnights (although it definitely did chart, like, let's get that straight bc Snooze didn't leave the chart at all last year). But that doesn't automatically mean that it was less impactful, because charts aren't that reliable these days so you have to find other means of calculating impact, and this is when we turn to social media.

(I'll be using tiktok for reference as I feel that since the app relies on music as its #1 source of content, that's the best representation for my argument)

So I'm an avid TikTok user, chronically online, way too invested in drama that doesn't involve me, a loser, blah blah blah whatever, who cares. The point is that I spend enough time on TikTok to be able to observe many different trends going on at the same time and their musical origins. There are so. many. songs. on SOS that trended on tiktok. You could not escape SZA on that app, not even if you wanted to.

Kill Bill, Seek & Destroy, Low, Blind, Snooze, Ghost in the Machine, Shirt, I Hate U, Good Days, etc.

All songs that I've heard on TikTok at one point or another, some of them having their own designated trends to go along with certain lines, and I'm sure there's more I missed.

This specific point means so much to me because I need you to understand that I didn't listen to SOS in full until WAY into 2023 (the album came out in 2022 for reference), and each track was so familiar because I had already heard so many of them on TikTok.

Now, I'm not saying that there weren't any songs on midnights that trended on TikTok. Obviously, there were. i.e., Karma, bejeweled, Midnight Rain, that one part in The Great War, etc., but when I say that most of the songs from Midnights that trended on TikTok were pretty much always used in the context of Taylor Swift, I mean that. I cannot stress this enough. If there was a song from Midnights playing in the video, then I can guarantee that Taylor was being mentioned in that same video, whether it be the eras tour, speculation about her and Joe Alwyn's breakup, her and Travis Kelce, speculation about which Taylor's version album was coming out next, or literally anything pertaining to her at all.

You might think that this is a stupid point, but to me, it's a good example of the fact that it wasn't an album the general public was interested in. And I think for an award like Album of the Year at the Grammys, the album in question should be one that is either objectively good, incredibly poetic, and thoughtful with a deep message, or beloved by the general public, and midnights wasn't any of those.

As for the misogyny and slutshaming, I'd never in a million years agree with that and don't condone that by any means. Pure hatred, if unwarranted, isn't something I really care about either because I'm a hater at my core and have a lot of one-sided beef with people who don't know me. But I will say that most people I know who don't like Taylor Swift do actually have one or two valid reasons. It's not that hard to find them, what with white feminism, not using her platform for good, dating a known racist, and committing ecological warfare, amongst other things.

If the racism you're referring to is in regards to people bringing up her privilege as a white woman, and it bothers you that people are bringing it up, then I'm sorry, but I'm not the person you want to talk to about that because I won't agree. The Grammys have a history of snubbing black and POC artists in general to favor their white counterparts; in fact, the entire music industry has a history of it, and this situation isn't any different in my eyes.

Anyway, that's most of all I have to say. Thank you for asking again, I'd love to hear why you thought Midnights should have won.

[drblackgaard]

Characters to Whom I Relate

(tagged by @echoofmidnight over a year ago to do this, finally doing it, now with 100% less ending prepositions in the title)

In which Devon probably definitely massively overshares about his problems

unlike the original I’ll actually add a brief(?) explanation and not just their name and photo. one might also notice some overlap between this list and character’s I’ve cosplayed, for obvious reasons.

im tagging @messed-up-polkadots @moss-effect @duchashka @writingpikachu @tanosoka

Ryugazaki Rei (Free! Iwatobi Swim Club)

This will probably be the only long one? When I was first tagged in this post, Rei was probably the first character that came to my mind. I love all my Free boys so dearly, but Rei is my least favourite out of the Iwatobi boys, which makes it interesting that he tops this list so definitively. (This list contains lots of characters considered the “smart one” (roughly 10/13 on the list, arguably). That is not the primary reason that I picked any of them, just for reference.) When I first watched Season 1 of Free!, I was at the very beginning of my first year away from home (2nd year of post-secondary). Like Victoria and I literally started watching the show while my family was dropping me off in Vancouver. My social situation/mental health situation was really not great in high school, especially not as a combination. I felt like Rei’s struggles of s1 captured my experience bizarrely well. Not the learning to swim, but Rei was faced with this social situation where he awkwardly entered into a pre-formed social circle where he was the only one without this shared history. As time goes on, he increasingly realizes that he’s the outsider, not just in skill, but in years and years of shared experiences, and as everyone talks about their issues concerning Rin, Rei’s increasingly confronted with the fact that he doesn’t belong in this circle of friends like any of the others do. He’s an outsider looking in, always 4 steps behind what’s going on, and no one’s ever bothered to fill him in on the things that have happened. When the finale rolls around, and Rin has the chance to swim the relay with Rei’s team; the team that he’s trained with and built up all this work for, Rei makes the huge sacrifice play and sits this incredible moment out, isolating himself so that his friends can hang out with their other friend and he can watch from the sideline. This whole situation was very much like my social situation in late high school, but more depressing in general, more acquaintancey than in Free, but the finale really got to me, and I could immediately think of so many times that I’d bit the bullet and had to sit out on participating or make sacrifices that really hurt to help people spend their time with their Rin’s instead of with me, because I know that they’d much rather do that than be around me. Rei’s story was really emotional for me in s1, and I probably resented it to a degree for that, but it was nothing if not relatable. Also, Rei’s real gay. Ok, now for shorter things(?)

Nanase Haruka (Free! Iwatobi Swim Club)

There’s definitely something to be said that Haru is half of my all-time main OTP and Makoto is my #1 fictional husband and the whole thing where your ships say a lot about what you relate to/are looking for in relationships and what a big part Free! was of me coming to terms with being gay and all of this is extremely highly interconnected. The main point I want to make on this one, though, is Haru’s relationship with his talent. The very first episode opens with a monologue about how Haru wishes that people would stop putting him on a pedestal. He’s the only sports anime protagonist I’ve seen who despises competing in the sport the show’s about. [continuous grumbling about the s2 finale and haru’s arc’s ending but hey tokyo makoharu is enough for me to be happy with]. Haru is exceedingly talented at swimming, yes, but he doesn’t want to do it for a living; doesn’t want it to be about the numbers and the competition. Obviously this was much more a thing in s2. Haru’s very talented in so many other areas: all forms of art, cooking, he’s consistently in the first class of his grade throughout middle and high school. It’s clear to me in s2 that he just wants people to remember that he actually has other talents, so many other career options besides professional swimming, which is why he gets so upset when even Makoto of all people broaches swimming first as what he should be looking at for the future. I am very smart, plainly put. I hate embellishing my gifts but the point is that I’ve always been put on a pedestal for being years beyond my age in academic and emotional intelligence. After a point, you really wish that people would remember that you have any other skills or talents whatsoever. I knew that I didn’t want to build my identity on my brains, and tried to push so hard to get people to recognize more parts of who I am, but it’s still usually overshadowed by my brain. Being a Christian in a close Christian community social-wise, I’m very frequently in situations of mutual encouragement, compliments, and such, and every time that someone identifies my smarts as my peak characteristic, I die just a little bit inside. Once at a youth leader’s retreat with some of the closest friends I had (very relatively speaking), we were given someone else’s name and had to pick a single word to describe that person. I was expecting something intellectual as always, and received the word “loyalty” as a singular concept I represented to her, and I think it might still be the most lasting compliment that’s stuck in my head, now 6-ish years later. That one was also really long, but it dovetails nicely into the next one. Oh, and Haru’s also very gay, and in love with Tachibana Makoto. Very relatable.

Eugene Meltsner (Adventures in Odyssey)

Obviously I really like Adventure in Odyssey. It’s my #1 fandom, Victoria and I run a relatively popular fan podcast for it, and we just listen to it a whole lot. When people ask who my favourite AIO character is, which happens frequently, they usually assume Eugene, because he’s smart and I’m smart [which is annoying to me, re: above]. They are actually correct about the character, but wrong about the reason. The reasons Eugene’s my fave are actually mostly unrelated to why he’s included here, but the above point does connect well to Haru’s spiel. Likewise, that spiel connects well with Eugene’s insecurity regarding his mind. I said above that I try hard not to build my identity on my intellect, but obviously there are times that that effort has failed me. Coming to UBC was a big part of that. In my teeny hometown, I stood out greatly in high school. I graduated with about a 97% average, 2nd highest in my grad class, bilingual diploma, and almost double the minimum credits I needed because of all my extra-curriculars. I was fluent in 2 languages and excelled at 2 instruments. My last math teacher said I was tied for the smartest student he’d ever taught. First year of college was at home, did alright, then I came to UBC. For reference, the university has about 8 times more undergrads than the population of my hometown. I quickly realized that I was not the smart one anymore, just another one of the crowd. I made friends with people whose intelligence casually dwarfed my own by orders of magnitude. I didn’t have an existential crisis or anything, since I’d already tried to proactively guard myself against that kind of false life foundation, but insecurities are always there to creep in. I often think of Eugene in Truth, Trivia, & ‘Trina. One of Eugene’s arcs in that episode (which was obviously in many others as well), was getting over his compulsive need to prove his worth through his intelligence, of understanding he had value without needing to info dump on everyone all the time. For Eugene, it obviously had deep rooting in his relationship with Leonard and the ways that was left unresolved for Eugene after his parents’ disappearance, but that’s another dissertation for another podcast episode. The point is, while I recognized this fact in theory, I’ve always had a lot of trouble internalizing it. I know my worth comes from who I am in God, not on my own talents, but that doesn’t stop me from compulsively seeking validation through my brains or my humour or literally anything else I can possibly do to receive affirmation from others. Also Eugene loves neologisms and beautiful, convoluted sentences and I can really get behind that.

Evan Hansen (Dear Evan Hansen)

I finally watched this musical for the first time less than a week ago and yeah, I feel like I’ve probably covered most of the reasons that connect me to Evan Hansen. high school: I was extremely alone, very depressed, frequently suicidal, and, more often than not, constructing elaborate fictional scenarios in my head wherein I had deep, intimate friendships with the people around me. I didn’t take it as far as Evan, and also was gay for Connor in this analogy. They can’t all be perfectly relatable.

Adrian Hlaváček (Always Raining Here)

This is where the list becomes a lot more loose lists of character trains. Adrian is: A Hot Mess™, really real gay, had that one crush that messed him up for so long bc you always fall for the straight ones and hope against hope it will impossibly work out and it obviously doesn’t and then you end up like the picture below, loves to sing, all about that Musical Theatre Life, seems like the innocent and pure one but then it turns out Oh you actually have a lot of emotional baggage that’s messing up your relationships in all sorts of unexpected ways, smart, lives in Vancouver, etc.

Wirt (Over the Garden Wall)

Wirt is: Anxiety+, poetry and concert band, the biggest nerd??, long walks through the forest, the older brother who will do whatever it takes to help his lil sibling, really stubborn, maybe never, maybe he’ll never give this up.

Amy Santiago (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)

Amy is: lover of reading, lover of Jake Peralta, cares so much about organization and protocol and actually enjoys filing and alphabetizing things, has a serious problem about putting people in leadership roles on pedestals where you just really want to be validated and mentored and spend time with them and maybe you just need to take a chill pill somethings and diversify your investment in people, super passionate about justice and doing the right thing

Jemma Simmons (Agents of SHIELD)

Jemma is: a biologist, really deeply truly fascinated by all sorts of sciency things and doesn’t really get when maybe that cadaver is a little morbid to others because LOOK it’s so cool! look at how that alien parasite burrowed into the brain like that why are you all turning green? what do you mean this isn’t a conversation for the dinner table?, would die for Peggy Carter also, mom friend, steadfast friend and a lot tougher than you realize until backed up against a wall, just such a huge nerd it’s incredible

Jake English (Homestuck)

Jake is: a dork, says the most outlandishly old-fashioned euphemisms completely unironically that no one else has said for 73 years, frequently has no emotional awareness as to his surroundings, just utterly oblivious at all times, very not straight, indiscriminate taste in most media

Ryan Haywood (Achievement Hunter)

Ryan is: (not actually a character but whatever), the “smart one” of the group but he actually basically never knows what he’s talking about and is usually just saying words vaguely related to the topic he knows and no one else realizes it, very doting friend, not here for any of your “wow look at that man and woman who are friends clearly they must be doing a romance there is literally no other option” nonsense, terrible diet, so much more of a nerd that he lets on 99% of the time, switches from really dark to really genuinely caring to really over-the-top at the drop of a hat, the theatre guy

Ben Wyatt (Parks and Recreation)

Ben is: Depressed+, really into so many different things, gets annoyed at people who act like mainstream fandom is anything other than mainstream culture at this point, it’s not a niche nerd thing anymore, sorry big bang theory, enormous romantic softie, puts a lot of thought into everything he does, likes terrible math puns, will correct your incorrect details about his fandoms. he wasn’t going to say anything, but actually it’ll bug him if he doesn’t. he’s not pretentious or a prick about it, he just cares a lot about a lot of things.

Marius Pontmercy (Les Misérables)

Marius is: literally me in our grade 12 production of Les Mis, and Lena you brought this curse upon me that I’m continually more and more like Marius how did you trap me like this? it’s awful. Marius is actually the Worst™ and here I am; my soul eternally bound to this fate. Marius is just the biggest mess in all of fiction, continually, every day of his life, and every post I read about his awful shenanigans in the book is too accurate to my life and I hate it. Ex: everything on this post

Carlos the Scientist (Welcome to Night Vale)

Carlos is the other one on this list I’ve cosplayed. To quote my sister when I told her I was doing it, “You ARE the gay handsome scientist man”. Carlos is quite literally me. A flamboyant brown scientist with impeccable hair who wears his lab coat far more than is professionally necessary and just really loves science a lot.