#born to be silly and watch youtube forced to think about my life plan (or lack of)

[kerosene-saint]

brain hears "[fob started in] 2001, my junior year of high school" from Patrick and goes YOU NEED TO LOCK IN AND START A GAY BAND RIGHT NOW. WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE? YOU WANT TO GO TO COLLEGE??? FUCK NO. FIND A DRUMMER, BASSIST, AND ONE TO TWO GUITARISTS GO GO GO

[slashingdisneypasta]

Slashers / Horror Villains as: Animated (Children’s) Movie Villain Songs

+ A Nightmare Before Christmas 

First of all, its mostly Disney. Second of all, I hope you know that this was a struggle for me. 

Also, note, Bubba will be the only Leatherface in this post and Billy and Stu will be the only Ghostfaces. There is Norma Bates though, so sort of a consolation. 

There are links to videos on YouTube ^^

~~~

Billy Loomis and Stu Macher / Ghostface: Playing With the Big Boy’s Now (Hotep and Huy, Prince of Egypt) 

Well... they’re part of the ‘big boys’, now! They are part of the Slashers group that, uh, ‘inspired them’. Imagine instead of Egyptian Gods, they’re chanting Slasher names. 

[HUY] Pick up your silly twig, boy [HOTEP & HUY] You're playing with the big boys now! Ha ha ha ha!

[EGYPTIAN PRIESTS] By the power of Ra Mut, Nut, Khnum, Ptah Sobek, Sekhmet, Sokar, Selket Anubis, Anukis Hemsut, Tefnut, Meshkent, Mafdet... 

Chop Top and Nubbins + Bubba Sawyer / Leatherface: Kidnap Mr Sandy Claws (Lock, Shock and Barrel, Nightmare Before Christmas) 

I mean... they aren't Drayton’s minions, but they are like this XD 

I say that we take a cannon, aim it at his door And then knock three times And when he answers Sandy Claws will be no more

Yes you're so stupid, think now If we blow him up to smithereens We may lose some pieces And then Jack will beat us black and green

Kidnap the Sandy Claws Tie him in a bag

Chucky / Charles Lee Ray: In The Dark Of The Night (Rasputin, Anastasia)

Mystical man? Check! ‘Betrayal’ (As far as he sees it)? Check. Made them pay? Check; I think Nica, Sarah and all the other families he destroys throughout the franchise can attest to that. And ‘One little girl got away’? Well Andy isn’t a girl, but yeah. Check. 

I was once the most mystical man in all Russia When the royals betrayed me they mad a mistake My curse made each of them pay But one little girl got away Little Anya, beware Rasputin's awake

Drayton Sawyer: Don’t Fall In Love (Forte, Beauty and the Beast: The Enchanted Christmas) 

Its such a crochety, unessessarily rude way of describing relationships to someone! I mean, I understand completely and resonate deeply with the desire to be alone and not be responsible for anyone else, but- come on! Beast doesn't share your view! Let it go! 

Its just like Drayton’s reaction to Bubba having a crush. Super cool video too! 

As soon as your heart rules your head Your life is not your own It's hell when someone's always there It's bliss to be alone

And love of any kind is bad A dog, a child, a cat They take up so much precious time Now, where's the sense in that?

Freddy Krueger: No More Mr Nice Guy (Rothbart, Swan Princess) 

A man with an uncomfortable relationship with the main female character pretending to be normal and not homicidal for a while before unlocking more power and letting there inner bad guy loose and taking great pleasure in it? Sounds familiar. They also have a similar vocabulary- except of course Rothbart is rated G. 

I'll become that nasty, naughty, dirty, spiteful Wicked, wayward, way-delightful Bad guy I was born to be

Lyin' loathesome, never-tender Indiscreet repeat offender No more Mr Nice Guy That's not me 

Inkubus: The World’s Greatest Criminal Mind (Professor Rattigan, The Greatest Mouse Detective)

‘Inkubus’ is literally a movie about him listing all his crimes over the centuries and messing with the police force because he has a bone to pick with a detective. Sounds pretty similar to me! Listen to the song! ^^

Now comes the real tour de force Tricky and wicked, of course! My earlier crimes were fine for their times But now that I'm at it again An even grimmer plot has been simmering In my great criminal brain! 

Jason Voorhees: Despicable Me (About Gru, Despicable Me) 

I... this is all I could think of!! But the more I listen to it and read the lyrics... it f i t s Jason so well! XD Please just let this slide; I know Gru isn't really a villain but he is at the start!! Let me have this. 

Why ask why? Better yet "Why not?" Why are you marking x on that spot? Why use a blow torch isn't that hot? Why use a chainsaw? Is that all you got? Why do you like seeing people in shock? But my question to you is "Why not?" Why go to the bank and stand in line Just use a freeze gun it saves me time. I'm havin' a bad, bad day It's about time that I get my way Steam rollin' whatever I see, Huh, despicable me I'm havin' a bad, bad day If you take it personal that's okay Watch, this is so fun to see Huh, despicable me

Jennifer Check: Trust In Me (Kaa, The Jungle Book) 

She’s a succubus demon. Tempting boys into a safe-feeling, docile state so she she can strike is her thing. 

Will cease to resist Just relax Be at rest Like a bird In a nest

Trust in me Just in me Shut your eyes And trust in me

Mayor Buckman and Granny Boone: Savages (Governor Ratcliffe and the Colonizer’s parts, Pocahontas) 

Obviously, because of the (Inaccurate) historical relevance of both movies (Different time’s, same terrible prejudice,) and also because there is definitely a very cult-ish feel about both Governor Ratcliffe’s song and Buckman’s leadership. How easily they’re able to gather support from their people for the most horrible reasons. How horrifying it is to audiences and historians. 

They're only good when dead They're vermin, as I said And worse

They're savages! Savages!

Barely even human

Savages! Savages!

Drive them from our shore! They're not like you and me Which means they must be evil We must sound the drums of war!

Michael Myers: The Gospel Truth II (Muses about Hades, Hercules)

In a Disney movie, Michael would have others sing his song about him as he goes about his silent, determined walking XD 

If there's one God you don't want to get steamed up It's Hades 'Cause he had an evil plan He ran the underworld But thought the dead were dull and uncouth He was as mean as he was ruthless And that's the gospel truth He had a plan to shake things up And that's the gospel truth

Midnight Man: Oogie Boogie’s Song (Oogie Boogie, Nightmare Before Christmas)

A song about a “Gamblin�� Boogie Man” is perfect for the Midnight Man! He and Oogie could be pals. 

Woah! The sound of rollin' dice To me is music in the air 'Cause I'm a gamblin' Boogie Man Although I don't play fair It's much more fun, I must confess When lives are on the line Not mine, of course, but yours, old boy Now that'd be just fine

Norma Bates: Mother Knows Best Reprise (Mother Gothel, Tangled)

Norma is soooooo so so so unbelievably manipulative towards Norman (And Dylan. It just works better on Norman) and this song absolutely presents that. She can go from sweet, loving mother to spiteful, heinous bitch in two seconds if Norman or Dylan don't do what or react the way she wants them to. 

Likes you? Please, Rapunzel, that's demented

This is why you never should have left! Dear, this whole romance that you've invented, Just proves you're too naive to be here Why would he like you? Come on now, really! Look at you, you think that he's impressed? Don't be a dummy Come with mummy

Pamela Voorhees: My Lullaby (Zira, The Lion King 2)

In a opposite approach to a villainous mother to Norma, we have Pam, who was heartbroken by the camp councillors letting her son die and vowed to get revenge. She didn't know she was teaching Jason to be the Crystal Lake killer like Zira did, but she did, and the whole song does have her kind of feel to it also. 

Sleep, my little Kovu Let your dreams take wing One day when you're big and strong You will be a kingI've been exiled, persecuted Left alone with no defense When I think of what that brute did I get a little tense But I dream a dream so pretty That I don't feel so depressed 'Cause it soothes my inner kitty And it helps me get some rest

Patrick Bateman: Cruella De Vil (Arthur, 101 Dalmations) 

Never before was there a song that described audiences reaction to watching Patrick living in his daily life and hearing his thoughts better then this one. 

Cruella De Vil Cruella De Vil If she doesn't scare you No evil thing will To see her is to Take a sudden chill Cruella, Cruella De Vil

The curl of her lips The ice in her stare All innocent children Had better beware She's like a spider waiting For the kill Look out for Cruella De Vil

Pennywise (Both): You’re Only Second Rate (Jafar, Return of Jafar)

Mostly for the video and Jafar’s energy in this scene actually XD So many transformations, so many tasteless puns! I was going to give this to Freddy but its the closest thing to Penny I could think of. 

Go ahead and zap me with the big surprise Snap me in a trap, cut me down to size I'll make a great escape It's just a piece of cake You're only second rate You know your hocus-pocus isn't tough enough And your mumbo-jumbo doesn't measure up Let me pontificate upon your sorry state You're only second rate

Sheriff Hoyt / Charlie Hewitt: Hellfire (Judge Claude Frollo, Hunchback of Notre Dame) 

A nasty filthy man who think’s he’s in the right despite being the biggest creep and monster ever? Mhm. 

*Note: I honestly didn't notice the deformed baby, Quasimodo/Thomas link until the day after I wrote this. Don't know how I feel about it. I mean, Hoyt is actually nice, in his way, to Thomas so the connection isn't totally there but onwards:

Beata Maria You know I am a righteous man Of my virtue I am justly proud

Beata Maria You know I'm so much purer than The common, vulgar, weak, licentious crowd 

End of Post! 🌼

(Bonus’ under the cut) 

I did think of other connections which I obviously didnt landed on but still have merit! Here! 

Billy Loomis and Stu Macher: ‘Gaston’ was considered, but that would have just been a joke XD I don’t think Stu is quite as obsessed with Billy as LeFou is with Gaston. 

Chucky: Friends on the Other Side. Obviously! That link was actually what inspired me to make this post. In The Dark of Night fits to a T though. 

Freddy Krueger: You’re Only Second Rate! Ah, its perfectttt. But No More Mr Nice Guy fits better. If I ever do a Slashers as Disney Villains post, he’ll be Jafar for sure. Or Hades. Or Scar. Or Oogie. Probably Hades. You know what? Without the gore and blood and explicit sexual references, Freddy could be a Disney Villain himself. Its not like Disney hasn't towed the line before with perverted villains. >_> (Jafar and Frollo) 

Jason and Pamela Voorhees: Mother Knows Best! Of course. 

Jennifer Check: Love is For Peasants (Barbie Island Princess) Because Jennifer thinks like this: 

Men? <<< Literally anything else. 

Patrick Bateman: How Can I Refuse? (From Barbie Princess and the Pauper) XD If Patrick were a kids movie villain, he would totally join the ranks of corrupted usurpers pretending to be trustworthy royal advisory staff. Also ‘Let It Die’, that little interruption part of another song that O’Hare sings in the Lorax and ‘How Bad Can I be?’. 

[shemakesmusic-uk]

Simpson is a Richmond-based singer and rapper who you may also know as Babe Simpson, one-fourth of the Tumblr-born rap collective Barf Troop. They dazed the internet back in the early 2010s with their uncensored, forward-thinking rhymes and aesthetics, and even got the attention of Drake. Though the collective has gone silent in recent years, Simpson has since cultivated her own steady following around her soft, and ruminative tunes. Her latest is 'Cherry Ice Cream Sundae,' a song about "treating ourselves with as much tenderness as we treat everyone else," she says, and is backed by a lush landscape of jazzy guitars and drums — a sound that could be considered a close sibling to the rap lullabies of Noname. Simpson's now sharing the song's peculiar video, which features a charming but eerie cast of marionette puppets. Over email, Simpson explains that she wrote the song after experiencing "a feeling that I’ve always been trying to put into words but I don’t think I was mature enough to be able to sing. I reached my breaking point where I was like, f*ck it, whatever happens, happens, and I’m gonna look on the bright side everywhere I can. I’m going to 'smile because I can.' I actually changed the original opening lyrics from 'The world is in the shitter' to 'Life is kind to who’s kind to it back.' The world has always been in the shitter, but that hasn’t made it any less special or sweet. I think that’s made me much more of a realist. I recorded it tipsy, upside down, hanging off my bed as a freestyle, and it felt so natural saying and listening to it back made me feel so proud." [via NYLON]

Earlier this week, Lana Del Rey revealed the artwork and tracklist for her new album Chemtrails Over The Country Club. Back in October, Del Rey shared the album’s lead single 'Let Me Love You Like A Woman.' It was the first song she shared from the album after postponing its planned September release. Now, she’s sharing the album’s second single and title track. She’s also announced that Chemtrails Over The Country Club will be out March 19. In a lengthy interview with BBC Radio 1 — during which she talked about the Trump insurrection and her album cover controversy — she mentioned that Jack Antonoff produced much of the album, minus 'Yosemite,' which was produced with Rick Nowels. Watch a music video for the album’s title track, directed by BRTHR, above. In a different kind of statement, prior to the release of the 'Chemtrails Over The Country Club' music video, Del Rey explained why she is wearing a cast in it: "When you see my second video for this album, don’t think that the fact I’m wearing a cast is symbolic for anything other than thinking I was still a pro figure skater. I wiped out on my beautiful skates before the video even began after a long day of figure eights and jumps in the twilight of the dezert. Anyways my fracture isn’t that bad kind of goes with my new bucket hat. Thanks to my beautiful family for my gifts." [via Stereogum]

Joining forces for the new uplifting track, G Flip and mxmtoon are sharing new empowerment anthem ‘Queen’, produced by Rostam Batmanglij. "'Queen' was written about the strong women around me, the queens that raised me and the queens I’ve met through my years,” G Flip explains. “My idea of a queen is not necessarily linked to gender; queens come in all forms and walks of life. To me a queen embodies power and strength; they embrace all they are fiercely yet gracefully. The song was written one sunny day in LA, I was chillin on Rostam’s lovely white couch and he turned around to me and said ‘how about we write a song about Queens’ and I replied with ‘F@!K yeah!’. I’m also super stoked to have mxmtoon on the track with me, she is an absolute queen. I first was introduced to her when I was trying to find ukulele chords to a Khalid song and found her cover on YouTube years ago. She makes awesome music and her voice has such a cruisy timbre to it so I was thrilled to have her jump on 'Queen' with me. She is also an avid croc lover and part of the LGBTQIA+ community, so obviously it just made sense!” mxmtoon adds, “So happy to be a part of ‘Queen’ with G! she and Rostam were such a joy to work with and so so much fun to collaborate with on creative as well. I’m so glad that it’s still possible to make art and music with someone even when they’re on the other side of the world, and I’m lucky that I got the opportunity to feature on G’s song. ‘Queen’ is a power anthem for any person, and I’m so excited for people to love it as much as we do!” [via DIY]

With her hotly-anticipated new album Magic Mirror out now, Pearl Charles gave us our latest teaser of what to expect earlier this week, sharing new glitzy bop ‘Only For Tonight’. “‘Only for Tonight’ tells the story of a currently bygone era of wild nights out on the town - the highs and lows of one night stands and the crashes of the morning after,” she explains. “The music video, directed by Bobbi Rich, leans into those excesses, paying a sparkly homage to the late-night musical television shows of the 70’s, from Soul Train to The Midnight Special, as well as the gauzy, Vaseline’d lens of ABBA’s music videos. With an added sprinkling of VHS special effects, you’re likely to feel like you’re watching a home-taped recording of a lost episode of Top of the Pops.” [via DIY]

Alt-pop trailblazer dodie has shared her new single 'Hate Myself' in full. Everything the songwriter touches seems to turn into melodic gold, with her debut album Build A Problem landing this Spring. Out on March 5, it's led by new single 'Hate Myself', which made its bow as Annie Mac's Hottest Record In The World. It's an apt title, with this instantly-viral moment offering an "inner monologue" that touches on some of dodie's inner-most feelings. The song depicts "someone who seems to find themselves in relationships of any kind with people who deal with their feelings internally - unfortunately resulting in assuming the issue is with them." dodie co-directed the video alongside Sammy Paul, shooting at the Cornish seaside village Polperro. The pair "excitedly landed on the silly idea of the training leading up to becoming a post-lady, and thoroughly enjoyed planning the many bizarre exercises she would have to perfect. Our excellent Art Director, Louis Grant, worked on bringing her home and training station to life. Though jogging on cliff tops in the rain, carrying a large sack and slipping in the mud was certainly cold and exhausting, I think I preferred it to slowly feeling sicker, licking stamps on a swaying boat by the Excel." [via Clash]

Berlin-based indie five-piece People Club are back with new single and video 'Francine', following on from their last release 'Lay Down Your Weapons', which focused on police brutality.  The new single 'Francine' tackles the topics of addiction and lovelessness. In the words of the band: "The song speaks from the voice of a lamenting partner whose lover (Francine) is helplessly addicted to drugs. Francine lost interest in her relationship with the narrator a long time ago. It's a song about commitment and how love can fade away leaving only wickedness behind."  Regarding the visuals, the band said "The 'Francine' video is a play on the old idiom of 'being your own worst enemy'. A phrase which quite beautifully captures the inner critic which we know so well, especially during the course of the pandemic - we've had to learn to each give ourselves a break. The video was shot in the depth of the harsh Berlin winter, in the depth of the pandemic." Director Felix Spitta added "I love the band and I love the different personalities. It is always heaps of fun working on creative output together. Riding through Berlin only with bikes and all the film equipment in the freezing cold almost felt like a masochistic idea from Saxon. It's inspiring to be surrounded by so many creative minds.”

Pale Waves are back with 'Easy', the third single to be shared from their highly-anticipated second album Who Am I?. Lead vocalist Heather Baron-Gracie describes the new track as "a song about how love can change your whole entire perspective on life itself. It’s saying ‘being in love with you is so easy, you finally make sense in my life because nothing did before'." The new single is accompanied by a James Slater-directed video that shows Baron-Gracie performing at a Tim Burton/medieval-style wedding in an abandoned church. Baron-Gracie adds, "I wore a wedding dress throughout and we shot the video in an old abandoned church. I’m really inspired by the gothic medieval aesthetic and at the time I was thinking of the video I was watching a lot of Tim Burton films whose creativity really inspires me." Pale Waves' second album will follow their 2018 debut LP My Mind Makes Noises. Baron-Gracie says of their upcoming album, "For me, music and art is for people not to feel so alone and isolated. I want to be that person my fans look up to and find comfort in." [via the Line Of Best Fit]

The official video for Zoe Wees’ new single, 'Girls Like Us,' is online now. Like the song, the clip sends a message of togetherness and solidarity to girls around the world who are feeling the pressures of society. Zoe Wees says, “It’s not always good to think about how you look to the rest of the world. It’s much more important to think about how you feel inside. It is not easy to call yourself beautiful but being confident helps you to accept and love yourself.” The 18-year-old Hamburg, Germany-based artist adds, “We’re walking through a world with blinded eyes. At the end of the day, we all go to bed without make-up with the ugliest clothes and wake up with the messiest hair on earth.”

Julien Baker has shared a new taste of her forthcoming album Little Oblivions by way of a new single ‘Hardline’. Julien says, “A few years ago I started collecting travel ephemera again with a loose idea of making a piece of art with it. I had been touring pretty consistently since 2015 and had been traveling so much that items like plane tickets and hotel keycards didn't have much novelty anymore. So I saved all my travel stuff and made a little collage of a house and a van out of it. I wanted to incorporate it into the record and when we were brainstorming ideas for videos we came across Joe Baughman and really liked his work so we reached out with the idea of making a stop-motion video that had similar aesthetic qualities as the house I built did. I don't know why I have the impulse to write songs or make tiny sculptures out of plane tickets. But here it is anyway: a bunch of things I've collected and carried with me that I've re-organized into a new shape.” The video for ‘Hardline’ was directed by Joe Baughman, who notes: “Man, even after having spent 600 hours immersed in ‘Hardline’ and having listened to it thousands of times, I am still moved by it. It was a fun and ambitious challenge creating something that could accompany such a compelling song. The style of the set design, inspired by a sculpture that Julien created, was especially fun to work in. I loved sifting through magazines, maps, and newspapers from the 60s and 70s and finding the right colors, shapes, and quotes to cover almost every surface in the video.”

Teenage Joans are staying true to their world and unveiling 'Something About Being Sixteen', a new single that's sure to cement their 2021 as victorious. It's the perfect successor to 'Three Leaf Clover' and a track that makes it two-for-two for Teenage Joans, further capturing the excitement and energy within Cahli and Tahlia as they trade catchy riffs and thriving choruses with the combo of light-heartedness and intimateness that seems to define Teenage Joans' work, and how they're able to look in at themselves (and out at the world around them) through a lens that keeps it fun and digestable. "'Something About Being Sixteen' is undoubtedly Teenage Joans' great take on the classic coming of age rock tune, generally closing our live sets with audiences singing along every time without fail," the duo say on the single. [via Pilerats]

Kate Hollowell took a risk going by the moniker Number One Popstar when she released her debut single 'Psycho.' However, Hollowell didn’t mind if that choice set her up for failure or not. She goes with the flow. Luckily, that mentality has advanced her even farther. Now, Number One Popstar releases her second single, 'I Hate Running.' New Year’s resolutions are, most of the times, created for the wrong reasons. It’s also no surprise that majority of people’s goals center around exercising and weight loss. 'I Hate Running', however, challenges that mindset, satirizing the toxic nature of exercise industry and diet culture. Hollowell said herself, “The song explores facing the hard, emotional work instead of the physical.  I really don’t enjoy running, and I wanted to troll the exercise industry and write an anti-motivational song.” In terms of sound, 'I Hate Running' shares similar vibes to her first single with its classic 80s pop of saturated synths. But, this time, there’s a hint of disco with the zealous psychedelic guitar and electric drums and keys. The interludes consist of a symbolic, robotic, and almost sinister snippet from a workout instructor. It all complements well with Hollowell’s escapist lyrics. Even though the lyrics say otherwise, the track’s sound might just spark that motivation to workout or dance, doing mindful movement that makes us feel good. Exercise should never feel like a punishment, and Number One Popstar is here to remind us. She makes us want to stick it to the exercise industry, proving to it that we will only work out for the right reasons. [via Earmilk]

Alt-pop riser Chloe Rodgers has shared her new video 'The Algea' in full. The Nottingham based talent sparkled in 2020 in spite of the pervasive gloom, releasing two startling singles. Her third release could be her best yet, with 'The Algea' hitting streaming services just before Christmas. The video captures those mid-winter chills, while providing a platform for Chloe to express herself. Constructed alongside creative director Kate Lomas, it was shot at Newstead Abbey in Nottingham. Chloe comments... "I wanted to use a music box in the video to represent being objectified and getting stuck in the same cycles, as that’s largely what the song is about. I wrote the song when I was 18, but didn’t add the verse at the end about claiming my power back until a couple of years later when I felt a bit stronger. We tried to reflect this in the video too with the Chloe in white sort of protecting the other Chloe of the past." Kate Lomas adds: "This was such a joy to watch come together, the video concept is based around the idea that Chloe is the character in a music box, she’s the performer that’s spinning round on an endless cycle for other people’s entertainment. The video tells the tale of Chloe definitely breaking this cycle and no longer playing this role." [via Clash]

Jaguar Jonze has announced her ANTIHERO EP will be released on April 16 via Nettwerk Records. With the EP announcement, Deena shares the official music video for her latest single, 'ASTRONAUT,' the follow-up to two previously released videos for 'DEADALIVE' and 'MURDER'. Each of the five music videos for the forthcoming ANTIHERO EP will come together through bold-palette videos that transform into an antihero character “in a cyberpunk, anime, futuristic, graphic, almost sci-fi world,” says Deena. Deena adds, “as ‘ASTRONAUT’ delves into my anxiety, I wanted the film to reflect that in a simple way that helped portray how my anxiety can sometimes manifest - a contradiction between feeling lost in vast spaces and trapped in claustrophobic spaces. I had a specific idea in mind, which meant that I had to undergo stunt training with professionals and learn how to maneuver in a wire harness. Most of the video had to be shot in a single take because of the stunts' nature in safety preparation, time consumption, and impact on the body. I'm still recovering from the bruises, but it was all worth it, and the team was amazing in pulling it all together. I'm proud of this one as it is 3 minutes of my rawest vulnerability, visually interpreted. I'm also finally ready to share it.” 'ASTRONAUT' is the sound of Deena liberating herself from a lifelong battle with anxiety.  “It is a human trait. It’s how we survive in the wild,” she says. “We’re all wired as humans to be quite anxious.  As females more so, because we’re more susceptible to danger.”

Rising star Mulay shares the smoking visuals for her new single, ‘Antracyte’. It’s the culminating release in a three-part video series from the Berlin-based alternative R&B singer-songwriter/producer/artist, ahead of her highly anticipated EP, which comes out at the end of the month via Groenland Records. Mulay explains about the single, “'ANTRACYTE' is the intro and title track to my debut EP. It’s the soundtrack to the birth of a villain and captures the moment of complete honesty to yourself about the awareness of doing wrong by the ones you love while feeling the inability to turn around. It’s about the desire to taste forbidden fruits, to cross and explore what lies beyond the line and the self-empowering feeling of playing by your own rules defeating the fear of consequences and the power of moral concepts. 'ANTRACYTE' tells a story of contradicting emotions, a story of love, lust, pain and a longing for more. It’s about facing your own darkness and sins, about self-revelation, emancipation and about paying its price, resigning to your fate.”

Only a band like shallow pools could make a blast of 'ice water' sound refreshing and necessary in the dead of New England winter. But the Massachusetts indie-pop group is usually pushing against the current of what we’d normally expect, and now the quartet hits us with a dose of cold reality through their new single and video. 'ice water' is a vivid new single that confronts the mental health struggles brought on by quarantine and isolation, and even the shallow pools aesthetic has reflected this by shifting from bright glowing neons to a more subdued color palette of beiges and browns. Call it a sign of the times, and call 'ice water' the sound of now; upbeat and jovial on the surface, a comet of pop smarts and hooks, but with the darker shine that resides in our lives when we’re positioned away from the screens and digital scenes. As Glynnis Brennan sings “Every day’s the same and / There’s no breaking out / Like I’m stuck here / Going through the motions now” well, we feel that. shallow pools describe “ice water” as “a departure from the music we’ve made in the past, but it’s the perfect bridge between our old and new sound.” That is certainly the case, and 'ice water' continues to showcase the group as one of New England’s sharpest, following a string of 2020 singles that included pop standouts like 'Haunted' and 'Afterlight'. “We wrote the song with our friend and producer, Chris Curran, and learned a lot about the type of music we want to be making in the process,” the band adds. “The song is about the impact that the state of the world has had on our mental health, specifically in the last year. We’re excited to share it and hope that anyone who has had similar experiences will find some comfort in knowing that there are others who can relate.” [via Vanyaland]

[meremennen]

baby talk

*** a bellarke modern au (drabble)  * married bellarke and some #angst ***

Clarke is being an idiot. She knows, she is being an idiot. If anything, talking to Bellamy about this topic should be so easy, considering silent communication has always come naturally to them.

Verbal, not so much.

On the contrary; it took them years not to misunderstand each other “on purpose” and ‘stop being idiots’ as Harper put it.

‘You’re like magnets ... soul magnets. Drawn to each other by this invisible force of mother nature or something. There is nothing you can tell him that would really upset him. And even if it takes a bit of time to understand... You are pretty important to him. He is it for you and you are it for him. He will want to see this through with you.’

She‘s been happily married to Bellamy Blake for almost two years. They have talked about kids and having a kid - maybe a puppy first - eventually. Bellamy is a natural with children and she must admit he looks unfairly attractive (let’s name it: hot) with a little bundle in his arms. When Octavia had her first son, Bellamy happily stepped into the role of the godfather. She never thought baby talk could be attractive, and it’s not like Bellamy was babbling or cooing with baby Sebastian; but the opposite. His entire face lit up, beaming like the goddamn Sun, just holding and watching the baby, his nephew and godson, sleeping or doing mundane things like yawning or flapping his tiny hands.

She was unable to look away.

It wasn’t a conscious or even a heat-of-the-moment decision to want a baby with Bellamy Blake. It kinda crept up on her.

And after Raven got pregnant, with her and Wells’ son, Bellamy and Clarke are half-seriously discussing the possibility of a baby of their own.

They are sitting on the couch, knees brushing against one another, Bellamy aimlessly clicking on random YouTube videos when he brings it up. “I wanna make one of those time-lapse videos.”

“Huh?”

He readjusts the screen to show her. “Here. See? Take a picture of you with your rounding belly every day until the baby is born.”

She honestly doesn’t know how to describe the love she has for this man. He is so warm and caring. He is the best man she knows. He would be a great Dad. She’s just not sure she is ready to be a Mom, yet. The thought scares her.

*

They don’t really talk about it. Not explicitly and not with as many words. But it’s hard to ignore the remarks from Octavia, or Clarke’s parents, in particular mother. (It’s upsetting.)

But, a year after the ‘time-lapse night’ and she feels like - like maybe it is time to revisit the baby thing and try.

She just doesn’t know how to bring it up.

Of course, she could choose the direct, very direct approach and say “I want you to put a baby in me.” (She blushes at the thought.) It’s not wrong, she knows that. He is her husband and they are married, and they have a very satisfying sex life, thank you very much.  And even if they weren’t married, there is no one else on the world (scratch that, the entire universe and beyond) she would rather have or could imagine having a child with.

Then, one night Bellamy comes home from work and at dinner, he casually drops, “My boss asked me when we plan to have a baby.”

She stops chewing.

She is a little upset because it’s not Miss Sidney’s any fucking business. How dare she ask something so private?

She swallows the food, still half-chewed in her mouth and watches her husband, carefully. He is poking at the salad with a fork. Decidedly not looking at her.

And? “What did you say?”

He heaves a sigh.

“Nothing.”

She reaches for her cup and takes a sip of water.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I’m not sure I want to bring a child into this world. ... I’d be too worried about having a daughter and ... I don’t know if I could handle seeing them getting hurt.”

Talk about a punch in the gut.

*

They don’t talk about it.

(But she would be lying to say, she is not a little bit hurt (somewhere illogical, but still) over it. It’s a thought pressing in the back of her mind; and maybe she is overthinking it a lot, but she cannot help feeling worthless.

*

In the end, she breaks.

All it takes is scrolling through her Facebook feed after not having logged in for months. And the next thing she knows is pulling up WhatsApp on her phone. She writes:

I cannot talk about this but also not talk about this so please think about it.

Do you want to ever have kids with me or not?

Because it is stressing me out.  

If it is a no, just let me schedule an appointment with the doctor and then it’s dealt with forever.

He reads her message within the hour and leaves her on read.

She sends, Coward and considers deleting the app.

*

Bellamy comes home late that night. She doesn’t think it is on purpose, particularly because of the unanswered messages - his job is demanding lately. Plus, his boss is away on business, so temporarily, he is the boss. Working later than otherwise is not alarming yet.

She is in the kitchen, just having finished rinsing and putting away the dirty dishes in the dishwasher when the lock to the entrance turns, and she hears his heavy steps thanks to the rubber of the winter shoes.

He gives him a kiss on the cheek in greeting.

“Do I get dinner?”

The plates and silverware are already laid on the table, he has an undisturbed view at them. She could just say something and break her silence. Instead, she nods.

*

At night, she tries to scoot to the edge of the bed. Bellamy narrows his eyes and reaches for her, in an attempt to pull her closer. She doesn’t budge and keeps her distance. They usually sleep tangled together, but with the messages still untouched and lingering like a suffocating shadow between them, her anxiety is wearing her down. And the last thing her stubborn mind remembers is, Bellamy finding the small of her back under the covers, a warm palm a comfortable presence on her skin. And he says, voice so sincere it never seizes to make her feel warmer: “I love you, Clarke.”

She sighs but doesn’t say anything in return.

She loves him too. It’s just not something she can voice right at this moment.

*

The next couple of days are spent in a similar manner. They work, he arrives home after 8 p.m. Once, due to a traffic accident when the trains are delayed. Other times it’s just due to his generally increased workload.

They eat dinner mostly in silence, interrupted only by silly chit chat.

At night, she cuddles her big body pillow, very deliberately not facing him. Regardless, his thumb is rubbing slow circles into her lower back and she lets him. But by morning they end up pressed together, no distance between their bodies. Clarke being the little spoon, Bellamy so close, so very close, practically enveloping her like a blanket, sharing his body heat in full force.

They depart with a small kiss before work. He says he loves her.

*

After the third day, her app is lighting up with a new message:

I’ll try to make it before 8 tonight

We talk? You and I

*

She’s already changed into a pink hoodie and dark blue pants with silver and black stars when she recognizes his footfalls on the stairs.

He is hardly even through the door, still fully clothed in his scarf and heavy coat, when she buries her face into his neck by way of greeting. His skin feels cold from the outside chill of the air.

His hands come up to cup her head with one and pull her closer with the other. She feels his one-day stubble catch in her hair.

“Dinner first?”

She nods. They can do this.

*** *

A/N: All mistakes are mine. 

[purrincess-chat]

Moving On

Putting this all under a cut because I don’t know how long it will be, and it’s mostly just me brain dumping. I’ll probably delete it later, but just some things I want to say in order to get them out of my head and finally start healing. I know to some people it might seem silly to be this upset over a cat, but I think a lot of people underestimate the role that pets play in people’s lives. I live alone in a tiny one bedroom apartment. I have a couple of friends here that I see fairly regularly, but my really close friends and family all live an hour or more away which means if I want to see them, one of us has to drive. Which usually isn’t a big deal, and I visit often on the weekends, but weekends are only two days out of the week, and all of the other five days a week I spend alone. 

I get up. I go to work. I come home. I might see another local friend once or twice a week, but most of my evenings I spend in my apartment on tumblr, discord, or youtube. I write, I watch videos, I play games, I scroll aimlessly down my dashboard looking at the same pictures over and over and over. Most days I have no one physical to converse with at home, so I chat with strangers on the internet. And I’m okay with that. I’m okay with being by myself and being about my own agenda, in fact, most of the time going out with friends a lot is draining. I like my quiet time, but that doesn’t mean I don’t get lonely. 

Most of my days are pretty mundane. I’m in a weird transition point in my life between one step and the next as I figure out where to go, and while I love the time I get to myself, sometimes I do crave some sort of interaction. No one can be alone all the time, and that is why I got a cat.

I got Penny a little under a year and a half ago. She was just a tiny little kitten at the time, and ironically enough, I inherited her from a coworker who almost ran her over. She was loud. She was stubborn. She was bratty. But she was also snuggly, affectionate, and immensely attached to me. Often times, I would stick my face in hers to give her kisses before leaving for work every day, and after a few months, she started licking my face any time I leaned down to kiss her. She would get fussy if I came home and didn’t kiss her hello right away. She liked to sleep in my dirty clothes because they smelled like me, and she never showed much interest in the clean ones. She spent a lot of time in my bed, especially if I was in it because she wanted to be close by. She used to sleep on my face at night, or sometimes I’d wake up to find her curled up on my chest. She liked to be close to me. She liked to be touching me. It was comforting for both of us because that way neither of us felt alone. 

However, despite all of my best efforts, Penny was a wild cat. She was born in the wild, and although she was raised indoors from a young age, she still longed to be outside. I was wary at first, living in an apartment, so I would leave the door open in the evenings if I was cooking or doing dishes and let her push her boundaries a little at a time until she inevitably came running back inside. As she got older, she got braver and wandered farther, but she always knew where her home was. Every night, I would let her out (and she would demand that I do so) and every morning she would be waiting right outside my door, ready to come in and have breakfast before curling up someplace comfy to sleep for the day. I got used to listening for her cries at the door to be let in, but no matter how long it took, she would wait for that door to open because she knew that I would always come back. We learned to trust each other in that sense, so I let her out every night because I knew that in the morning she would be waiting for me.

But Tuesday night was unlike any other night she had experienced. 

For the most part, it was a typical Tuesday for me. I let her in in the morning, fed her breakfast then shuffled off to work. She slept inside all day on the back of my couch on a coat of mine that I’d tossed there days before. I came home for a little while after work and took a nap because I’ve been doing my damnedest to get over these stupid allergies. After a while, I got up and went out to dinner with friends just like we normally do, and when I came home, Penny was waiting for me on the arm of the couch. It was a cold, wet night, and she seemed a little hesitant to go out at first, and I waited until she was comfortable and certain before closing the door. I didn’t expect her to stay out long in such weather, but to my surprise, I never heard her howl at the door once. 

I went about my usual business, keeping an ear out in case she ever wanted back in from the cold, and before I went to bed for the evening, I peeked my head out the door to see if she was waiting. She wasn’t, and she didn’t come when I called either, but there were many nights where similar situations occurred, so I didn’t think much of it and went to bed, figuring I would get up in the middle of the night and check again in case she finally wanted in. 

1AM came, and I woke from my sleep as I often do to usually let her out on nights where she stays in longer. I poked my head outside, but she was no where to be seen. Again, I shrugged it off, figuring she was out exploring and doing her own thing. 5AM rolled around, and I woke up again, but I figured that I would be up in a few hours anyway, so I rolled over and went back to sleep. My alarm went off at 7, and I turned it off. Another alarm at 7:30 at which point I finally sat up. Most mornings, Penny would sit by my door and listen for sounds of movement then she would begin howling for me to let her in, so I sat in bed on my phone and kept an ear out in case she called for me. But she never did. After a while, I got up and opened the door, but she was no where to be seen. Again, I didn’t think too much of it because sometimes she did that too. Sometimes a couple minutes after I shut the door, she would come running up because she knew that I was awake. 

But she never came.

We were due for inspections at my job that day, so I had planned to go into work early, and a little before 9AM, I thought it odd that she hadn’t come in yet and started to get a little annoyed. I messed my coworkers that I was going to hunt down my cat then head into work, so I took my trash out to see if maybe I could coax her out of wherever she was hiding. I called for her as I walked to the dumpster, but she never came. So I went back inside from the cold and wet and waited a few minutes to see if she would finally come. She didn’t. At this point, I am exasperated, but starting to worry, so I got dressed in something more substantial than my pjs for the cold, grabbed her container of treats and headed back outside. I walked the length of my complex and back, shaking her treats and calling for her, but she never came. 

I walked to the frat house next door because she often times liked to hang out in their yard, but she never came. I walked a little further down to the bar thinking that maybe she went a little further to avoid the cold, but still no sign of her. I kept telling myself that she must have found someplace warm and dry to curl up and that she would turn up eventually. When I went back to my apartment, I decided that I couldn’t hold off any longer. I needed to go to work. I decided that my morning walk in the cold and mist warranted a trip to the donut shop for donuts and hot chocolate, so I put out some food for Penny in case she showed up while I was gone and wanted food and took a different route from my normal one, going the opposite way up the street than I normally would have. 

Just as I arrived at work with donuts and hot chocolate, I received a text from one of my employees that our inspectors had arrived. Perfect timing. I rushed inside, set my breakfast on my desk, and immediately took over placating them as quickly as possible. Inspections weren’t pleasant to say the least, but we at least passed. With that out of the way, I was left to worry about Penny as the day was only supposed to get colder with more rain showers leading into an eventual freeze overnight. I told myself that if she didn’t turn up that I would check the local shelters in the morning (today). I decided to use some of my sick time to take the afternoon off when my employees changed shifts, and I sat at my desk picturing Penny waiting for me back by my door when I went home. 

Time seemed to move in slow motion, and I debated leaving before shift change numerous times, but after some time, my next shift worker offered to come in early so that I could leave and go wait for Penny to come home. I agreed, and left an hour earlier than I intended, and I don’t know if I would call it fate or coincidence, but leaving at that time, in that exact moment allowed me to pass by a certain truck stopped in the road at an exact moment. 

Now, my complex is situated kind of awkwardly along the road, and most of the time, you have to make a u-turn if you are coming from the opposite direction to get into the entrance. I was coming from the right side, so I didn’t have to u-turn, but as I approach the median where the turn is, I notice a white city truck parked in said turn lane, and something in my gut told me to pay attention to him, and as I got closer, I notice that he is raking leaves out of the road. When I glanced down at his pile of leaves, I notice a mass of black fur that catches my attention, and just as I pull level with him, he scoops his pile up to eye level with me, and I see a small face with a pink tongue sticking out for a split second as it is tossed into the back off his truck. 

My stomach drops, my heart skips, my throat closes, and a quick glance in my rear-view mirror tells me there is no time to stop lest I risk causing an accident. So I pull into my complex quickly, but there are no places to park on the side I pulled in on, so I am forced to drive all the way around to the other side where I pulled into the first available spot. I rushed from my car back to the main entrance, hoping to flag him down, but he is gone. For a moment, I stood on the pavement, too stunned to move, but after a moment, I find my bearings and slink off to my apartment, noticing the bowl of untouched food still sitting outside my door. I go in and shrug off my coat and crawl in bed, processing what I had just witnessed and rationalizing any possible way for it not to be true. But deep in my gut, I feel that sinking confirmation because even though my glimpse was brief, it combined with Penny’s lingering absence were confirmation enough for me. 

My friends and family kept telling me that maybe it wasn’t her. Maybe she would still come back. Keep hoping. Stay positive. But maybe my brain has just never worked like that because I knew that Penny was that cat in the road, and that she wasn’t coming home. It then became a mission of figuring out of there was a way to track down that truck and potentially get confirmation, but after a few phone calls, it became clear to me that the truck was gone and so was Penny. 

I checked with my office just in the building right next to mine just in case, but they had no knowledge of a dead animal reported, but the moment I mentioned it, my landlord gasped in horror, “You don’t think that was your cat, do you?” I shrugged, but the look on my face seemed to confirm my thoughts, and her next words nearly broke me. “I just can’t believe that. She was always waiting for you outside that door. Such a good cat. No matter how long it took, she would always be waiting for you to open that door.” Swallowing back tears, I thanked them for their time and retreated back to my apartment. 

Several times, I almost cried, but I didn’t.

My best friend several towns over dropped everything, left work early, and drove an hour and a half to come spend the night with me. We went out to dinner. We talked and laughed. We came home and ate peanut butter from the jar while watching She-ra. Then we went to bed, and I lied awake for a while unsure of whether or not to cry. I don’t like to burden people with those things, but after a while of being misty eyed, I fell asleep. The next morning, we woke up and made breakfast while watching another episode of She-ra (because hey this is pretty good) after which my friend had to leave to drive back home and go to her own job. As she left, I picked up the abandoned bowl of food from my patio, accepting that Penny was never going to come back and eat it.

I sat in bed for a while on my phone, trying to distract myself from the emptiness of my apartment, still listening for those exasperated mewls outside my door but knowing they would never come. I got up after a while, avoiding the litterbox and bowl of dry food that I’d filled the morning before in preparation for her. I got dressed. I packed my bag. I grabbed my keys, and as I opened the front door, I turned to look back at my apartment, a habitual phrase catching itself on the tip of my tongue. 

“I’ll be back later.”

I stopped before the words left my lips, realizing that there was no one there to say that to now. My heart broke, but I shut the door and carried on. Work was dull. Time passed slowly, and I was left to my thoughts. I tried to write on paper, but didn’t get very far. Even though I had accepted the fact that she was gone, part of me still hoped to find her waiting for me when I got home. But she wasn’t. As I climbed back up the stairs and approached my door there was nothing but my faded welcome mat waiting for me outside the door. I went inside to find an empty apartment with no sassy scrap of fur standing on the end of the couch to greet me with a dissatisfied mew. No face to lean down and kiss, no rough, sandpaper tongue to lick my nose, no purring chin to scratch. Just furniture that didn’t match, discarded jackets and shoes strewn about carelessly, and traces of black fur littering her favorite spots. 

I went in and shut the door, kicking off my shoes and coat and abandoning them with the others as I crawled back into bed. My apartment is quiet, and for a moment, I am left with my thoughts, recounting all of the things Penny used to do around the apartment. 

And that’s the hardest part about moving on.

Living with ghosts, remembering how she used to trot up and jump on the bed with me. How she used to curl up next to me while I sat on my computer, sometimes curling up on me. How she would start to purr when I’d look over at her every once in a while, and she’d blink at me happily. How she would follow me to the kitchen when I went to cook dinner. How she would run and jump on the bathtub when I went into the bathroom. The stupid way she would smack her water bowl before drinking from it that required me to move it into my bathtub. How she would sit on the corner of my desk and watch me from afar, watching curiously as I would toss an empty water bottle or a used tissue in the direction of the trash can. How I instinctively go to hide my hair ties under my pillows when I pull my hair down for the day but realizing that there’s no one here to try to eat them anymore. Realizing that when I come home at 7PM that I can lock and latch my door because I won’t be opening it again for the remainder of the evening. Thinking that maybe I can finally do all of my puzzles since there’s no one to knock them over anymore. Small things. Tiny, insignificant little things that most people wouldn’t think twice about suddenly leave a gaping hole in my chest. Routines that are no longer necessary. 

I can always get another cat. In fact, I probably will some time soon. But new cats bring new adventures. New routines. New quirks. I’ll never have the same ones again. I’ll never experience those things with Penny again. And that, to me, is the hardest thing to come to terms with. I’ll get to love another cat again, but I’ll never get to love that cat again. Never get to kiss her face or awkwardly juggle her and my laptop in my lap. All of those days are over.

At some point I’ll have to clean that stupid litterbox. I’ll have to pick up her food and clean her diva bowl then put it away in the cabinet until the next one comes along. I keep replaying the day in my head, watching how all of the events unfolded in such a way that leaves me wishing that I had done things differently. That I had taken my usual route to work and passed by that place where I maybe could have seen her. That I had left work earlier when my gut told me to so that maybe I could have beaten the trash man and found her myself. That I had stopped sooner and waved him down so that I could see if it really was her or not despite how damning the evidence is now that she’s been gone for two days. That I had gone out to look for her before I went to bed and insisted that she come in from the cold. That I had maybe walked the other way during my morning search. 

I don’t know how long she was in the road. It could have been a few hours. It could have been since the night before, shortly after I let her out. I think not knowing whether or not I could have found her and saved her that morning is something that haunts me. I think not getting to say goodbye is what really breaks my heart. I knew the risk of letting her out, but I never thought that she would venture out into the street. She never showed interest in it before. It was always too noisy, too busy, too crowded. But the night was cold and wet, so who knows if she maybe ventured out seeking shelter. Who knows?

If you’re reading this and thinking that it’s melodramatic for a cat then, hey, maybe rethink your priorities because you kept reading. You could have stopped, but you didn’t. And that’s your fault. 

I think all in all I’m okay. I have my moments where I get misty eyed, and maybe that’s my way of crying. I’ve never really been good at it anyway. I don’t think I know how to feel. I think part of me is still in denial. I still expect to see her every time I open my door. I still expect her to be waiting when I come home even though I know she won’t be there. I guess part of me still hopes. 

I don’t like to feel sad. I don’t think that it’s productive. I don’t want to spend my time lying in bed crying over something that I can’t change. Because no matter how hard I wish it, I can’t go back and change any of it. It’s done, and all I can do now is move on. 

To all of you out there with fur babies who bothered to read this far, hug them close. Give them that extra treat, let them lay on you even if you have to pee or your leg’s asleep or they’re unbearably hot. Because you never know when it’ll be the last time you see them. 

[graceknowlesmmu-blog]

Research for solo

I knew from the start I wanted to a solo about Gender about the differences between stereotypes and actual people, and talk about my experiences with my own gender exploration. This got me on to looking at drag artists, both male and female and the elements involved in the illusion of being the ‘opposite gender’. I looked at a few video clips on YouTube. (here, here and here) This made me revisit a character of my own that I had created a few years ago, named Rusty Bucket. Rusty is my way of exploring masculinity and enjoying the more silly side of my personality. He’s a way to be free for me.

I read ‘The PowerBook’ by Jeanette Winterson. Winterson is a writer who often explores gender and the politics within it. Her website can be found here.

Below are my notes that I first made to explore:

 Start with gender reveal party for someones kid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUHG_pzDQxY

it went wrong!

From point of view of the kid who’s reveal went wrong, their parents didn’t know what gender they were so how the fuck were they supposed to know

Once born, doctors decided this kid was a girl, mum and dad gave them girly things dresses, barbies, pink bedroom, and as the kid got older they were encouraged to stay in line with girly activities, learn make-up, don’t go and play sports, perfume, sleepovers and boys and girly things.

This child didn’t like that however, and would defy these choices at all opportunities. Going shopping with girl friends, they’d come home with boys t-shirts and shorts, playing on their fathers ps2 and stealing his aftershave to smell… different, they joined the hockey and rugby team in school, prompting the school to start girls teams, which while not as involved were still amazing, going to an all girls secondary school and still playing rugby, still no contact, hearing that girls are too fragile for that sort of thing, but somehow they weren’t fragile enough to beat the shit out of each other at every chance, throwing themselves into the male roles in the school plays, cutting their hair short and then shorter and more masculine. when they came out to their friends and family at 14 (not by choice) the tomboy-ish acivites were put down to the sexuality and trying to fit a stereotype, the child, now a teen was not allowed to feel like they were who they are because they wanted to be, but that they were being that way to suit other peoples expectations of what they should look and behave like, because of a sexuality. They knew that, just because they had the sex of a girl, that it didn’t make them a woman. That the way they dressed and cut their hair and behaved, wasn’t because of some preconceived notion of defiance, but that their sex and their gender was different.

But they didn’t feel like a man either. They didn’t want to be a man, they wanted to be…. Them.

At the age of 15, they’d constructed and elaborate plan with their friend, to get out of wearing a dress. 3 days before Prom, they’d bought and given their friend a suit, which the friend would take with her, so the teen’s mother would allow them to go to prom without argument. The mother made them wear their hair a certain way, put on make-up, take a clutch bag with them.

Sneaking a suit into prom, and that’s when Rusty Bucket was born.

Start with the finale?????

 RUSTY BUCKET

-        Reveal and then deconstruct?

-        Then reveal me???????????????????????????????

 End with my own gender reveal balloon box that’s empty when I open it

“well. That clears that up…”

Here’s my script for the voiceover:

1. That’s not very ladylike

2. Look at this dress

3. Why don’t you wear a skirt to school today?

4. Come inside, you’re covered in mud!

5. Get down from that tree!

6. Little girls shouldn’t behave like that.

7. Isn’t that a mans shirt?

8. But it’s your prom you’re supposed to look beautiful

9. Are you sure you want it that short? You don’t want to look like a dyke or a man

10. Sorry sir, I mean… madam

11. Are you a boy or a girl?

12. So if you’re gender neutral, does that mean you’ve got a penis?

13. You want me to buy you make up? Finally!

14. This is a womens toilets… not a mans

15. So are you trans then?

16. Being queer is trendy nowadays

17. Tranny

18. So if you want to be a man why do you have such big boobs?

19. You’ve made an effort

20. Gender is like the twin towers, there used to be 2 of them but now it’s a sensitive issue.

21. Bloody hell, you sure put it away for a girl

22. Close your legs!

23. You eat like a tramp

24. Dyke

25. Shemale

26. Freak

27. Have you had the op?

28. What bathroom do you use?

29. Do you still get your period?

30. Its just a phase

31. A person cant be a man if they have a vagina

32. You used to be a pretty little girl… and now?...

33. Girls are good for 3 things, cooking, cleaning and PUSSY

34. When I was younger I thought that a transgender was a transformer, you know, like MEGA DONG

“I met some people who spoke to me about gender neutrality, having third gender, sort of both or neither or all. And I liked that. Drag is a recognised vehicle used to explore gender fluidity and it gives me a sense of liberation. It gives me the option to be whoever I want to be. That’s why I love it.

I’ve been mistaken for a guy all my life so I just wanted the last laugh”

I also wrote a poem which while not used in the performance was a nice basis for exploration:

‘Please choose one’

That’s what it says at the top.

Right under name.

A page of black and white boxes.

With so many options and one simple order.

‘Please choose one’

A form that will correctly describe you to anyone who reads it.

A form that is you.

A black and white form with black and white boxes.

With a black pen in your hand to decisively tick who you are.

‘Please choose one’

But how can you write where you fit when you don’t?

When ticking a box places you inside of one.

How can black and white define you,

When everything you are is a beautiful burst of colour

Every colour creating a combination so undefinable,

So unique that how can a box define you?

How can you,

‘Please choose one’?

Ticking that box that says you’re between the ages of 18 and 25

Doesn’t tell the story of how when you were 11 you fell off your shed roof,

Cutting your knee and leaving a scar as white as that page?

The box saying you’re ‘White British’ can’t explain your rich heritage of a family that has lived and travelled across the continents,

And met people as wildly different as you.

Or the one about your lack of job, doesn’t enlighten us to that fact that,

You’ve been dreaming of being an artist all your life.

But that sometimes reality can hit a little harder than dreams,

And applying for jobs to make ends meet is more important than wishing on stars.

‘Please choose one’

That box saying female can’t possibly make anyone understand,

That growing up being forced into dresses but longing to wear a suit,

Cutting off all your hair and saying fuck it to what has been expected of you all your life,

Is so much harder than anyone ever thinks.

That even once you wear that suit, you still don’t feel like you.

You still don’t feel like you belong,

When you’re caught between being what you want to be and being who you are,

Where do you go from there?

‘Please choose one’

One that’s been chosen by a thousand others and placed there for you to tick and allow them,

To categorise individuals as groups.

To categorise you.

One that makes you not a one but a two, and a four and a hundred and more.

It’s a box that’s you.

But also hundreds of others.

Detailed

Complex

Humans.

Seen as one whole.

Defined by some marks on some paper.

It’s impossible to know where you fit and who you are if you

‘Please choose one’.

My video for performance - here

[cutsliceddiced]

New top story from Time: We Watched Every New Show on Quibi. Here’s What to Watch—and What to Skip

Like it or not, Quibi is here. The new streaming platform, launching April 6, offers short-form content—”quick bites,” hence the portmanteau, that run 10 minutes or less. These shows are designed to be watched exclusively on your phone, whether you’re on the subway heading to work or sitting in the waiting room at the dentist’s office—places, in other words, that most people won’t be able to go for some time yet in the era of social distancing. But despite the fact that very few people are, for the moment, on the go, Quibi has held fast to its planned debut, launching, by our count, 50 scripted series, documentaries, reality shows and news programs on April 6 with plans to roll out 175 shows over the course of the year.

Quibi is casting a wide net to court various types of viewers: there are soothing cooking shows designed for the boomer crowd, while celebrity-studded reality series aim to lure Gen Z off of TikTok. Television critics have been busy debating whether the Quibi model signals the end of quality television or the wave of the future. But it’s clear the platform is hoping sheer star power alone will entice some quarantined television lovers to download the app. Jennifer Lopez, Idris Elba, Lebron James, Chance the Rapper and Chrissy Teigen are among the celebrities set to star in Quibi content, and filmmakers like Steven Spielberg, Catherine Hardwicke, Paul Feig, and Guillermo del Toro have content on the upcoming slate.

The streaming service, which also features proprietary new technology that allows viewers to switch seamlessly from landscape to portrait viewing, will cost $4.99 per month with ads and $7.99 without ads, though a 90-day free trial is available if you sign up in April.

Quibi gave journalists a glimpse at some of their content launching on April 6. We watched everything available to screen in advance (in most cases, around three chapters; “Daily Essentials” like news shows were not available in advance as they will cover news as it breaks). If you’re thinking of subscribing, here’s what you should watch and what you should skip.

What to Watch

Gayme Show! (unscripted)

Gayme Show! has a deceptively simple premise: it’s a gay game show. That’s it! Hosted with with aplomb by comedians Matt Rogers and Dave Mizzoni, each episode features two straight contestants competing in gay-themed challenges in an effort to be crowned “Queen of the Straights.” The jokes are plentiful, and if you’re not well-versed in gay Twitter—references to Dua Lipa, Laura Dern’s salmon button-down from Jurassic Park and Cynthia Nixon’s wife whiz by—you might have to Google to catch up. But even if you don’t get every joke, it’s hard not to let out a guffaw watching contestants like Demi Adejuyigbe prance around the stage in a unitard during a game called “notice me father”—actually a bespectacled Rogers softly weeping. The conceit is goofy, silly and exactly what you want it to be—and that’s a great thing. —Kelly Conniff

Nightgowns (documentary)

Lately it seems like everyone who’s ever come within 10 feet of RuPaul’s stage is getting their own show, but don’t hold the deluge of drag content against Sasha Velour, a Drag Race winner who stands out even from that talented pack. While her gender-fluid performances can be transgressive, Velour, who takes a big-tent approach to drag, has a heart of gold. As she adapts her Brooklyn-born revue NightGowns for a bigger stage, this docuseries profiles the queen and an inclusive troupe that features performers with a wide range of identities and styles. Each episode of the show—the only Quibi title I screened that feels particularly suited to the medium—ends with a beautifully shot production number that does Velour proud. —Judy Berman

Prodigy (documentary)

You don’t have to be a sports fan to appreciate this docuseries, which covers a different young elite athlete in each episode. With artful cinematography and well-paced storytelling—especially compared to the frenetic quality of many of the platform’s other shows—Prodigy is less concerned with the specific athletic achievements of its subjects (no. 1 ranked high school basketball player in the U.S., five-time national junior boxing champion) and more focused on the sacrifice and singular dedication of these athletes’ family members. If you cried during that Procter & Gamble Olympics commercial thanking the moms who drove carpools and gave pep talks so that their children could get a shot at the podium, this one is probably for you. —Eliza Berman

Punk’d (unscripted)

This third revival of MTV’s prank show has been winningly updated for millennial and Gen Z sensibilities: it’s slightly more absurdist, slightly less cruel and involves way more animals. YouTuber Liza Koshy ruins a bat mitzvah; rapper Megan Thee Stallion gets attacked by a gorilla. Chance the Rapper—who in the wake of Netflix’s Rhythm & Flow, has rebranded his once-innocent persona to include a mean streak—brings a mischievous energy to hosting duties, and his laugh is infectious. —Andrew R. Chow

The Sauce (unscripted)

Dance—particularly street dance—doesn’t get enough mainstream respect. The Sauce has something to say about that. Each episode pits two dance groups against each other, judged by talented dance duo Ayo and Teo, with the lure of a $25,000 cash prize. The lack of polish is endearing, as is the raw skill on display; you’ll wish you could spend more time just watching these young athletes move their bodies in ways that have no respect for the laws of physics. Kudos to executive producer Usher and the hosts for making sure to explain regional dance styles, as it’s high time these art forms got their due. Constant camera cuts and stylized editing seem best suited for the TikTok generation, but it’s a joy to watch these dancers in motion in any format. —Raisa Bruner

Shape of Pasta (documentary)

Now this is my sort of short content. I’m a devoted Bon Appetit Test Kitchen subscriber, Alison Roman Instagram story watcher and Anthony Bourdain worshipper. So, yes, a show about a chef traveling across tiny towns in Italy to discover forgotten pasta shapes is my jam. I can’t get my head around the tone of this show—it’s extremely self-serious, so much so that it’s maybe supposed to be making fun of other food shows? Or perhaps it’s just one of them. No matter. The show has many nonnas teaching Felix Trattoria chef Even Funke how to make pasta in shapes you’ve never thought of but are centuries-old traditions in picturesque Italian towns. It’s delightful! —Eliana Dockterman

You Ain’t Got These (documentary)

Lena Waithe takes viewers on a thoughtful, well-researched and star-studded tour of the world of sneakers. As the show conveys, sneaker culture is about much more than style. “Your footwear is your ID now in the black community,” Carmelo Anthony tells her; Nas, Run DMC, Hasan Minhaj and a cultural historian reflect on the legacy of icons like Michael Jordan and the relationship between hip-hop and commerce. Questions about branding, exploitation and value are tackled head-on. For sneakerheads it might be mostly recap, but it’s still fun to hear Rev Run reminisce about securing his Adidas deal—and for everyone else, it works as a solid introduction to a foundational part of contemporary American culture. —Raisa Bruner

What to Try

Chrissy’s Court (unscripted)

In this ode to Judge Judy, Chrissy Teigen rules over petty cases brought by local randos. Each episode is extremely dependent on the personalities of the plaintiff and defendant. Most of the “contestants” are actively awkward (or actually mad, which is bizarre given the TV show’s unserious premise), and Chrissy and her mother Vilailuck Teigen (as bailiff) have to work double-time to counteract their discomfort. The humor often feels forced. Chrissy’s Instagram is more entertaining—at least there, she has total control over the cast of characters, namely her husband John Legend and their two kids, all of whom are way more natural in front of the camera. That said, if you like Teigen and are already churning through her Instagram stories every day, this is a fine way to get some more. —Eliana Dockterman

Fierce Queens (documentary)

Reese Witherspoon narrates mini wildlife documentaries made with BBC Studios Natural History Unit, each focused on the female members of a species. Some of the lines veer into cheesy girl-power territory: “Getting that belief in yourself and gaining confidence: that’s what growing up is all about. These big cats totally nailed it. Walk tall, fierce queens!” she sings out after a surface-level episode about adolescent cheetah sisters. But thanks to truly beautiful footage and surprising subject choices—unless you already know all about the life cycle of the ruthless, cannibalistic queen honeypot ant?—viewers who want a quick hit of nature and some new fun facts about animals will be satisfied. —Raisa Bruner

Flipped (scripted)

After one episode, this one looked like it would fall squarely in the “skip” bucket: two incredibly annoying self-anointed visionaries, a married theater director (Will Forte) and Home Depot-esque associate (Kaitlin Olson), are both deservedly fired from their jobs for asserting their own artistic purity over things like appropriate subject matter for tween thespians (in his case) and customer service (in hers). (Think the kind of kooky, self-serious characters you’d find in a Christopher Guest movie, minus the great ensemble to balance them out.) But a hastily paced sequence of events—they decide to try to be house flippers, buy a foreclosed-upon property and find stacks of cash in its walls, which turn out to belong to a drug cartel—leads to the introduction of Broad City‘s Arturo Castro as an organic-apple-eating overlord, which might just elevate this bonkers ordeal from grating to promising. —Eliza Berman

Gone Mental with Lior (unscripted)

The mentalist Lior Suchard lacks the theatricality or scale of other famous magicians like David Blaine or Criss Angel, making him perhaps the perfect match for a low-stakes platform like Quibi. It’s agreeable enough to watch him catch basketballs while blindfolded or exactly guess the number of coins in Ludacris’ hands, but his tricks won’t haunt your dreams, either. —Andrew R. Chow

I Promise (documentary)

By all accounts, LeBron James’ I Promise School in his hometown of Akron, Ohio, has been a resounding success: Its students, who were picked to attend after underachieving in the city’s public school system, are testing better and seem to be thriving in their new environment. This show, however, comes off as a surface-level feel-good advertisement for the school. —Andrew R. Chow

Run This City (documentary)

Jaseil Correia grew up with the dream of becoming the mayor of his hometown, Fall River, Mass.—a city of around 90,000 most famous as the home of Lizzie Borden. At the remarkably young age of 23, he achieved it. But what sounds at first like an uplifting story of millennial striving turns dissonant when Correia is indicted on fraud and extortion charges. It’s an intriguing story that could have made for a fascinating hourlong documentary. Unfortunately, the Quibi format requires director Brent Hodge (I Am Chris Farley) to chop the saga into equal-sized, eight-minute “bites” that drag in the middle before ramping up to exaggerated cliffhangers. The result is a micro-docuseries whose rhythm always feels a bit off. —Judy Berman

Singled Out (unscripted)

I like host Keke Palmer. I like Joel Kim Booster, who serves as the Jenny McCarthy to her Chris Hardwick. I like that all three episodes I watched had queer contestants but didn’t feel as though they were pandering to an LGBTQ audience. The best one featured a fully decked-out, super-charismatic drag queen looking for a man who could handle her at her most femme. But the best thing about the original MTV show was the unscripted banter, both between the hosts and among the competitors. And there just isn’t room for that in an already-rushed seven-minute show. —Judy Berman

Thanks A Million (unscripted)

There’s not much here that you can’t already get from watching YouTube clips of Ellen DeGeneres giving out life-sized checks on behalf of name-that-corporation, or soldiers coming home to reunite with their spouses/children/dogs. But if you’re going to subscribe anyway and want a cathartic cry in two-minutes flat, watching celebs like Jennifer Lopez, Kevin Hart and Nick Jonas give deserving people $100,000, then watching the recipient give half of it to another deserving person, and so on, should do the trick. If you think too hard about it, the magic starts to fade—how much of this will get eaten up in gift taxes, and how many phone calls is this person going to get asking for a loan after receiving such a large sum on, well, if not national TV, whatever Quibi is? Yet seeing an apparently kind, hard-working person get the chance to pay for infertility treatments, or a house, or more resources for their therapy dog program, is far from the worst way to spend six minutes. —Eliza Berman

What to Skip

&Music (documentary)

With its sweeping landscape shots, ambient background score and pseudo-philosophical ramblings, &Music seems to want to be the Chef’s Table for the random-dudes-connected-to-the-music-industry set. The show spends each episode with a behind-the-scenes collaborator of a star: there’s Ariana Grande’s choreographers and Martin Garrix’s light guy. But while there are one or two poignant and revealing moments, the show is mostly slick, overproduced and vacuous. There are plenty of music documentaries that are far more worth your time—and that you can watch on a big screen with proper speakers. —Andrew R. Chow

Dishmantled (unscripted)

Dishmantled is a cooking show, minus the main ingredients that make cooking shows so satisfying: interesting and empathetic contestants to root for and, much more fatal to the whole endeavor, the cooking itself. Hosted by Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt‘s Tituss Burgess, the show invites two blindfolded chefs into a small chamber where a mystery dish is blasted into their faces; they have to taste the exploded shrapnel, figure out what it might be, and make a dish replicating what they think they’ve eaten, to be judged on both taste and accuracy by celebrity judges like Dan Levy, Antoni Porowski and Jane Krakowski. But the quick format makes this far from a nutritious meal; viewers don’t have time to get to know or get invested in the contestants, and the cooking itself sails by without any attention to technique or ingredients. The most drama you’ll get here are lines like: “This all comes down to…is this a zoodle or is this a noodle?” —Eliza Berman

Memory Hole (unscripted)

Will Arnett makes fun of terrible pop culture moments from history that nobody remembers for a reason (like that time Alan Thicke appeared in a corny tribute at the opening of a Canadian superdome). It’s unclear who this show is for or why it exists. The references are so obscure that even people who lived through them will have forgotten and the quips feel like something you’d hear at a high school open mic. I spent the entire time watching this show thinking about another, much better show, BoJack Horseman. In that Netflix animated series, Arnett voiced a washed-up ’90s sitcom star struggling to stay relevant in Hollywood. Memory Hole feels like a project that an investor in Quibi would have blackmailed BoJack into doing after BoJack accidentally threw up on him during a bender at a wedding. —Eliana Dockterman

Most Dangerous Game (scripted)

This show is so obvious, it’s almost funny. These are the exact roles SNL would cast Liam Hemsworth and Christoph Waltz in for a skit—cancer-ridden former athlete with a pregnant wife and an evil billionaire who wants to pay said former athlete to be hunted by rich people. Since each episode is seven minutes, these are not character revelations that slowly come out over time. They are blatantly spoken by the actors to one another in every scene. Don’t come to Most Dangerous Game expecting The Game-esque twists or any subtle dialogue. What you expect is exactly what you will get. Unless you expect fun. You won’t get that. —Eliana Dockterman

Murder House Flip (unscripted)

Despite the name, there’s nothing original about Murder House Flip. The series is essentially two types of reality shows unceremoniously jammed together: one part home redesign show hosted by two perky designers with a surfeit of canned jokes; one part true crime docuseries filled with the requisite pan and scan over vintage photos and newspaper clippings. This uneasy juxtaposition results in awkward episodes that often feel like a Saturday Night Live parody, especially when one of the hosts brightly announces: “Our goal was to take this murder house and turn it into a happy home.” And a focus on the grisly nature of the crimes reflects the worst parts of a genre that too often obscures victims. Is there a world in which this show could have managed to strike the right tone? Possibly. But as it stands, Murder House Flip is too flip. —Kelly Conniff

Nikki Fre$h (unscripted)

“Wellness has a new voice. A black voice,” Nicole Richie’s rapper alter ego says in the first episode of Nikki Fre$h (and then immediately clarifies that she’s referring to herself). The resulting show is part poker-faced satire of the goop lifestyle and part honest assessment of organic produce and artisanal honey. Her attempts to draw attention to food waste and the plight of bees are well-intentioned, but cameos from the likes of Bill Nye can’t save the show from falling flat; Richie helped pioneer awkward reality TV on The Simple Life with Paris Hilton, but Nikki Fre$h lacks that show’s schadenfreude appeal. —Raisa Bruner

Skrrt with Offset (unscripted)

If you like looking at nice cars, you might get a kick out of Skrrt with Offset. Otherwise, there’s not much point. The show has a thin premise (the Migos rapper Offset does stuff with cars) and is executed with even less imagination. When his wife Cardi B shows up for an episode, overflowing with sass and charisma, you wonder why they didn’t just give the whole show to her. —Andrew R. Chow

Survive (scripted)

Before watching the first five episodes of this thriller about a disturbed young woman preparing to kill herself on the flight home from a mental institution, I might have said something like, “I’d watch Sophie Turner do anything.” Well, Turner is great in Survive—but neither her performance nor the impressive production values manage to redeem a story that, whether intentionally or not, revels in the bloody, nihilistic aesthetics of suicide. A twist (one that’s “spoiled” in the trailer) that has the plane crashing and Turner’s character teaming up with an obvious love interest (Corey Hawkins) to, yes, survive only heightens the absurdity and introduces plot holes. —Judy Berman

When the Streetlights Go On (scripted)

It’s the summer of 1995—a stiflingly hot one—when things start going wrong in sleepy Colfax, Ill. That fall, a beautiful high-school mean girl (Kristine Froseth) and the teacher she’s been sleeping with (Mark Duplass) get carjacked, forced to strip and gunned down by their masked assailant. The weirdo sister (Sophie Thatcher) she used to bully wanders around unmoored. A jock sometimes-boyfriend (Sam Strike) is brought in for questioning. Narrating this murder mystery is the student journalist (Chosen Jacobs) who found the bodies. Period signifiers like Nirvana and ck one abound. Every once in a while a show formed entirely out of genre tropes and nostalgia for the recent past is executed well enough to exceed the sum of its parts (see: the first season of Stranger Things). But after three trite, predictable episodes, I’m not holding out much hope for this one. —Judy Berman

Other Shows Headed to Quibi

The titles below are Quibi’s “daily essentials,” more information-oriented programming covering news, sports, weather and entertainment. Screeners were not provided in advance for these series:

Around the World by BBC News Weather Today by The Weather Channel Morning Report by NBC News Evening Report by NBC News Saturday Report by NBC News Sunday Report by NBC News The Replay by ESPN NewsDay by CTV NewsNight by CTV Sports AM by TSN Pulso News by Telemundo For the Cultura by Telemundo Close Up by E! News Fresh Daily by Rotten Tomatoes Speedrun by Polygon Pop5 by iHeartRadio No Filter by TMZ: AM No Filter by TMZ PM Last Night’s Late Night All The Feels by The Dodo The Daily Chill The Rachel Hollis Show Sexology by Shan Boodram The Nod with Brittany & Eric Trailers by Fandango

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste