#but it's harder to pinpoint which is the best overall episode

[fictionadventurer]

Top 5 Arthur episodes?

D.W. Goes to Washington: It's a very close race between this one and #2, but I gave the edge to this one because almost every line here is classic. It's full of hilarious Imagine Spots and great D.W. zingers.

The Rat Who Came to Dinner: Another episode that's full of great jokes. The dynamic between Ratburn and Arthur's family is comedy gold.

The Contest: The pastiches of different animation styles alone puts this one in the top five, but it's also in service of some wonderfully absurd mini-stories with classic jokes. ("My brain was on cruise control" is the Arthur quote that gets the most use in daily life).

Buster Hits the Books: The pastiches of the different books are hilarious.

Arthur's Almost Boring Day: I had a very tough time choosing the fifth episode. I went with this one because the fighting between Arthur and D.W. reaches a hilarious fever pitch that goes beyond any other episode.

[marciego]

Top 5 favourite and least favourite SL characers this far (since you haven't finished the show) and why

im doing a tiny break in the drabble thing to answer some top 5 questions i have left! sorry for the late reply and thank you for the ask <3

so i gotta say, it was pretty easy to decide which characters i like, but the least favorite top is a bit harder because i mostly don't feel anything for everyone outside of the characters i like, so this is more a "top 5 characters that annoy me at times" than a least favorite/most disliked characters you know

5. nina

i'm sorry for this one, i don't know how to explain. i've tried, i've really tried, and there ARE scenes where i think she's cute and all, but i have such a hard time with nina and i don't know why. her vibes are just off to me idk, i don't...like her, and i can't pinpoint why

4. ricardo

listen he's not a bad guy but he annoys me a lot. also i really liked tamara and she started becoming super annoying when she started dating him, and now there's this weird thing with mora and i love mora and i'm afraid ricardo is gonna do the same thing to her so i'm definitely blaming him. i wish his scenes were shorter because i honestly don't enjoy him

3. matteo

he's a dick, plain and simple. sometimes he's funny so that's why he's not higher, i enjoy his scenes with gaston and sometimes simon. i wish i could stop him from interacting with women

2. tino/cato

if you skipped every single one of their scenes the episodes would be 15min shorter without changing anything to the plot. they're not funny, they're annoying and their attitude is often borderline disrecpectful, both towards amanda, miguel and monica, or even luna and it's just annoying. the only thing i like about them is that they actually care about luna, i think it's cute, but that doesn't save them

1. daniela

i know i don't have to explain this one but i will! legit hate her ass because she has no goddamn point. she's so bad. like you know sharon for exemple, she's a bad person but she's such a GOOD antagonist and she's genuinely one of my favorite soy luna characters because i love me some fucked up but interesting women. she's abusive and manipulative, she's the worst, but she has goals, she has a personality, she girlbosses gatekeeps gaslights and i LOVE watching her do this, even when it's towards ambar and it breaks my heart.

but daniela? she has none of that, she's just a genuinely awful person and an awful character, everything about her arc was so bad, she had...no point. like bringing lumon together i guess but the way they did it was genuinely so bad. bad writing overall, i hated her arc so much i HAD to spoil myself, and thank god she was only there for a few episodes because if this arc was longer than that i would have seriously considered dropping the show because of how unbearable she was to me

favorite:

5. ambar

i cannot tell you how excited i am for her character arc, i enjoy how complex she is, how many layers her character has. so far she's not a fav fav but i feel for her a lot and i know my enjoyment of her will only grow

4. luna

she's a very cute mc!! i think she's overall such an endearing character, she has flaws but it just makes her more interesting in my eyes, and the writers could tone down the main character syndrome a bit but i expected it so she's a really good surprise so far, i like her

3. simon

best boy!!! i really like him! he's cute and wholesome and while there are things i wish he would have done differently regarding his feelings for luna, it was such a nice surprise to see him not fall into the nice guy trap. it'd be so easy for him to do it so when i see he mostly avoids it very well it's !! finally a decent man in a telenovela. outside of that i think he's super cute and i really like him

2. delfi

i couldn't tell you why i like her so much but i DO. she has such an interesting character arc too, it's one of the most natural in the show imo. she's changed a lot since the beginning of the season, but i adore everything i saw about her. i love that she's kind and caring with those she loves but still is very bitchy, she's super cute and interesting and just!! i love her!!

1. ramiro

ok so ramiro was THE surprise in this show for me. i watched the first ep and saw him interact for one second with jim and yam and sighed out loud, expecting him to be unbearable. and here we are now, at the first place of this top 5. i LOVE his personality, i feel like he brings such a distinctive light to every scene he's in, i love his arrogance and his charisma and how down to earth he is at the same time. he reminds me a lot of s1 leon in the way that his character development is never shoved in your face, it's never the focus of anything but it's probably one of the most important ones. his development is so natural and interesting, i LOVE his relationships with everyone else and he just makes me smile a lot. like watching sl is sometimes a bit taxing to me, because i'm not that attached to a lot of characters, but then there's a scene with ramiro and it's such a breath of fresh air. i love him, i can't wait to see what's next for him in s2 and 3.

[leonawriter]

Okay so there’s this thing that’s kind of... not quite “bugged” me for a long time, but has been difficult to pinpoint. As a lot of things with Dazai are. 

(I still remember thinking that during the fight against Kyouka, Akutagawa was talking about Dazai - which in retrospect doesn’t make sense with the added context the anime gives, because of course he wouldn’t assume to know what Dazai was feeling or thinking. That’s not how Akutagawa works. But I needed that extra context to be sure.)

In this case, the thing is that there’s a marked difference in the way Dazai acts here, in Ango’s car and right before the collision, and the two times just before and afterwards, in the parking lot (where he outright threatened Ango, albeit with a gun he knew had a high chance of being unloaded) and later on in the hospital, when Ango asks him if he had been the one to mess with the airbags and ensure [Ango] needed medical treatment.

Also, for extra reference, the same scene, same moment, but in the manga:

So, the assumption from these faces (two, really, since it’s such a split second) is that Dazai was very concerned, very worried. 

In fact, with the addition of what the narration gives us in Mayoi’s visual novel-style retelling of the episodes, I’m pretty sure that’s confirmed! “But Dazai’s eyes widen. Ango’s words don’t seem to reach him.” That suggests that even for Dazai, who is always paying attention to everything and is always having his mind track several different ideas at once, he’s unable to focus on anything other than a single thing right now - and that’s what’s coming, and that he can see and Ango can’t. The oncoming collision.

Now, the thing is? This kind of flies in the face of what happens later. Because later, we get...

This, when Ango asks about the seatbelts. 

A face that screams “wouldn't you like to know” and “so what if I did?”, and it’s easy to assume that this is what’s going through his head, and the truth of the matter. That we were, just like Ango, misled. That Dazai shows one face to the ADA, and another face to the people he still sees as his enemies.

However... I feel that this is giving too much credit to Dazai’s ability to mask.

And, yeah, I do mean that in the way of “to put on a mask, to play a part.” Because that worry at the collision isn’t faked. It’s real! We see it in the narration, we sent it in his eyes - there are times when a small-yet-clear eye means just as much danger as a dark one in this series, but this ain’t it.

I’d say that it was probably far harder to decipher this before the Dark Era novel/episodes came out, and no one had any idea what Ango meant to Dazai, what he’d not forgiven him for, and so on. You’d only have their present day interactions to go by, which don’t lend to a positive slant at all.

But with the knowledge that, despite how things ended and how things still are, Ango used to be Dazai’s friend... that slight pause before Dazai turns around in that mini connecting panel above is far more important - as is the very real worry.

We don’t know what sort of face Dazai was making before he turned around. We are specifically not shown. Dazai is meant to remain partially a mystery, and one you can only decipher if you choose not to take his word for things.

My personal take is that up until the collision, Dazai had been angry enough still with Ango to honestly attempt to threaten his (former) friend’s life, to run that thought through his head. Even if he knew he wouldn't be capable of following through - more because that would damage his own standing than anything - it was a decision that he’d probably been planning for as long as it took Ango to arrive. In fact, Dazai was likely in a sour mood all the while during that car ride. Took the time to tamper with things. It wasn't as if he didn’t want Ango to suffer, after all. Ango had made him suffer, so why not turn it around?

But, as soon as the Guild’s vehicle is in sight and he knows what’s about to happen? Dazai starts... I won’t even call it “panicking.” He just goes to his unhappy place. He likely knows that there’s no getting out of this - or if there is, he’s unable to think quickly enough or to react fast enough for it. He hesitates, he stares in the face of uncertain doom for both him and Ango, who had just been telling him to take his colleagues and run, and to be honest... I think it’s one of those times when everything slows down, like you’re watching it all happen to someone else. The world probably sped back up to normal afterwards, which is when this happens-

It seems clear from this image, despite it being apparently from Ango’s point of view, that Dazai’s either shouting, or talking loudly. His mouth is open wide for louder sounds, and although we can’t see his eyes (and thus, we can’t see his state of mind) he overall seems vaguely disheveled. It’s just conjecture, but given how Ango looks - a bleeding head injury for sure isn’t a good thing, and given Dazai’s past head bandages he’d know that - Dazai was likely talking to him to keep him awake until the ambulance arrived.

I’ll also add that from here on, Dazai’s interactions with Ango are on a much more even footing, and especially in later arcs becomes closer to a friendship which has trust, rather than Dazai needing to twist Ango’s arm to get what he wants.

So, that said, I think it’s incredibly likely that it’s this very moment in the car, right from when Dazai sees the oncoming car about to crash into them to the time when he’s ensuring that Ango stays awake after the crash, that he comes to a realisation - that he, Dazai Osamu, does not actually want Ango dead. That he may not have forgiven Ango, and maybe he never will, but that Ango dying - or suffering like that - brings him no joy.

In a sense, he slipped back into his mafia ways for a while here. Twist someone’s arm. Make them suffer. Hurt them. As he says at the end of the incident with Q at the rail track, “Even I can’t afford to play nice anymore.” In this case, “playing dirty” means he likely knew he’d have to go to severe lengths to ensure the Special Ability Division’s cooperation to this level. In a way, we could say that he’s showing how, no matter how much he hates Mori, the man was right in saying that they’re similar, because this connects very closely to the Mafia Boss’ “as long as it profits the organisation, I will commit any atrocity” creed, although Dazai stops short, and therein lies the difference between them.

So Dazai has his realisation. Both about Ango, and about himself. And yet he still looks at Ango like that, because - Ango expects to see him unrepentant. He might as well live up to that expectation.

But... I think that this also plays into what he later says to Kyouka over the comm system. “What do we do when what we want to do, isn’t what we’re best at?” - what Dazai does best isn’t just “killing people,” but also manipulating people with no care to how they feel, or the pain he puts them through. By experiencing this with Ango, I’d say that’s another step he’s taking in the direction of not just redemption, which yes, is still ongoing for him, but also atonement. Because it’s impossible to attain either unless you are put in similar situations, and then you actively choose something different from what you originally would have. And this here has him recognise that he can’t just rely on dirty tactics like he used to, not just because Odasaku (someone else) tells him not to, but because he himself isn’t comfortable with those methods, or with using them on someone he still has trouble thinking of as a friend.

As much as he may try and put across a scary face that says “hate me, be disdainful of me and expect the worst, I will only live down to your expectations,” that’s just as much a mask as his super-comedic “clowning” mask he puts up when he doesn’t want to address something and laughs it off instead.

Not being able to read what is a mask and what isn’t, and the difference between one mask and another, is what makes Akutagawa see him as unreadable, and barely human.

Accepting that he does have masks, just like the real life Dazai Osamu and the protagonist of No Longer Human, Yozo, did - that’s when you start to understand that Dazai is human. Can worry and be scared and can love like one, too.

[malachi-walker]

Some Really Heavy Thoughts on the Relationship Between Scorpia and Catra

Fair warning, guys: I'm gonna get into some deeply personal stuff involving abuse recovery and past mistakes here. I will not be making excuses for Catra or her treatment of Scorpia, but well... Let's just say there's a reason why their relationship has always me wince. Because it touches on some stuff that is likely relevant to a lot of ex-abuse victims.

This entire meta stems from an epiphany I had while discussing with @johannas-motivational-insults how I have a really hard time writing Scorpia, and me trying to pinpoint what exactly makes me so uncomfortable working with her or looking at her relationship with Catra in detail.

Let me back up a bit. We all love Scorpia. She's a big cuddly sweetheart without a mean bone in her body. She's fantastic, a bright point in the overall suckage that is the Horde, and she gives GREAT hugs. So why does their relationship bother me so much?

Well... It's because I've been there once before in my own life. And it's one of my deepest regrets, so seeing that play out on screen and instinctively knowing where this is going fucking sucks.

Personal stuff under the cut.

We've already covered Scorpia being a good kid. That said, I feel like a lot of people just flanderize her into being this perfect wonderful friend who wholly accepts Catra (and conversely either woobify Catra or make her a horrible monster who doesn't appreciate a good thing) but... the truth is a lot more nuanced than that.

Scorpia doesn't wholly accept Catra because in order to truly accept someone you have to see them for who they really are, warts and all, and Scorpia doesn't. She idealizes Catra and either ignores or downplays her very real flaws and problems, and tries to excuse any actions she commits that don't live up to that constructed image, which is of course what she confronts in s4 (and I’m proud of her for that.) It's not done with any ill intent, but it's still not a good thing in any relationship; romantic, platonic, familial, any kind.

Here's where things get real personal. Also, I wanna specify that I am not forcing myself to talk about this, even though it still hurts in a lot of ways. Though I am probably gonna bring this up with my therapist when I next see her.

I've mentioned before in previous meta that I am an ex-child abuse victim who followed a very similar trajectory to Catra once I got out of that situation. I was angry, I was hurt, and I was ADAMANT that nobody get close to me again and fully prepared to lash out as much as I needed in order to make that happen. Occasionally people would slip through my guard anyway, but on the whole I was very successful at that goal and torpedoed a lot of bridges back in those days.

And as much as it kills me to admit it... I had my own Scorpia too.

Her name was Amy, and I met her in my freshman year of high school after I ended up in a private school for the “gifted and talented” (which ended up being its own mistake, but that's a story for another day.)

To put this entire situation into perspective: at the time I was struggling to process and cope with my abuse, I had just been misdiagnosed with major depression after an entire year of contemplating suicide, and I had been put on a ridiculously high dosage of the antidepressant Wellbutrin--literally the highest dosage they could legally give an adolescent without the risk of seizures--which cranked my rage up to a constant underlying simmer and also gave me horrific fucking nightmares, to the point that for about a year and a half I was consistently only getting two hours of sleep because I was waking up screaming nearly every night. This is not me making excuses for being such a dick, but I do try to keep in mind that younger me was dealing with an absolute shitshow when passing judgment on myself. I was trying to survive a situation that absolutely no one was equipped to handle at all of 14 years old.

And then here comes Amy.

Amy was one of those people who was relentlessly optimistic to an almost suspicious degree (more on that later.) The kind of person who will reply to any statement of "I'm having a bad [x]" with generic look-on-the-bright-side platitudes and a big smile without actually addressing anything you said. She was also one of those people who was aggressively Christian, not in a mean way, but in an "it was her answer for literally everything" way, which given that I was struggling with my own faith at the time was practically a recipe for disaster.

But for whatever reason, this girl latched onto me, no matter how much I tried to get her to do otherwise.

I wanna note that I wasn't wholly devoid of friends at the time; my best friend, Michael (who is still my best friend/bro to this day) had also gotten into the school along with me, but the rest of our friend group hadn't and those relationships drifted apart in the ensuing years, which only served to compound the underlying issues. And I will always be thankful that the guy was able to roll with the punches and stick by me even through my absolute worst, but it was also pretty irritating having to switch between my bro who understands me even if he didn’t always agree to my much tenser interactions with Amy. So back to her.

Basically, this girl just kinda inserts herself into my life, refuses to take a hint or back off, and any time I try to talk about my issues or get her to understand a little and make an actual connection, I'm met with the overwhelming feeling of "You're not really seeing me. You're not listening." So I responded by being a fucking bitch. I would ignore her, make fun of her, treat her like a third wheel, etc. In hindsight, it was a dick move, but at the time it made sense to me. I genuinely felt like it was her fault for never listening to me in the first place, so I justified it by telling myself I was just paying her back in kind.

I lost touch with Amy after I was kicked out of school at the tail end of freshman year due to a Wellbutrin-induced rage episode (nobody got hurt, but my attitude at the time was so consistently extreme that the school administration literally had an inch thick dossier on my behavior and what the other kids thought of me, so that incident was just what they needed to justify kicking me out.) Afterwards, my parents made the decision to relocate to another town since my expulsion meant I would be banned from going back into school for a full year unless we changed systems--and even then I was required to go into a continuation school to prove I had been rehabilitated, but I digress. Point is that I was uprooted from that environment and I didn't bother keeping in touch.

I actually found out years later from a friend who went to that same high school--though we didn't actually become friends until after my expulsion--that the reason why Amy was the way she was is that in the year prior to meeting me, her mother had committed suicide and she had been the one to discover her body. So in hindsight, her entire deal made sense: she was trying to survive in the only way she knew how and cope with a situation no one should ever have to, same as me.

But that didn't mean we were able to connect. The great tragedy of that situation, and the thing I regret the most about it, is that we were just two horribly damaged kids that were utterly incapable of actually seeing each other as we were at the time. And it ultimately wasn't anybody's fault, which ironically makes it even harder to accept.

I regret the way I treated her. I wish I could have made her life a little better, and I still hope and pray she got the help she needed elsewhere.

That's what makes Scorptra so incredibly tragic to me as well. Scorpia is a good-hearted person who does genuinely care for Catra, but she also willfully blinds herself to the things Catra is dealing with and her relentless optimism often just ends up rubbing salt in the wounds. Catra is wrong to treat Scorpia so badly, but I also fully understand those feelings of resentment and anger you develop towards someone when they consistently refuse to see you as you are, because I've been there. And that's also why I've always had a hard time with Scorptra romantically (though if you ship it, good for you! I honestly wish I could), because those issues have always been present in their relationship and made it unsustainable from the very beginning.

Something was always destined to break between them. And that's what makes it so damn hard for me to write Scorpia as a character, because in many ways she reminds me of one of the things I regret the most in my life: how I treated someone else who had the best intentions horribly when I was at my absolute worst. These days I try to be kind to my past self as part of the healing process, but when I think of my actions in that year it is really fucking hard. I don't like to think about it, even though I know I feel like I need to (which is also why this meta exists.)

Neither Scorpia or Catra were at fault for the fact that they couldn't see each other properly: it was just a really bad case of wrong place, wrong time. And that's what makes it hurt.

Also, if you made it this far, I'm sorry this was so depressing. Please have a happy cat and scorpion to hopefully feel a little better. Also huge shoutout to @yesbpdcatra for encouraging me to get this out there. You're the best, fam.

[theblankest123]

Ok, so I know it's not the smartest for me to post stuff about Steven universe when most of my followers don't really watch it but here's this thing. So, as I was re-watching The Answer, I couldn't help but notice the gems in the background. I decided to screenshot them and then decided to give them at least some sort of an identity (along with horrible nicknames). I'll probably be doing more of them and I want to draw how they could look like. Now, about the gems. 1. Droplet. I can't really decide what gem she could be, but I find her kinda adorable to be honest. She could be a quartz soldier, she could be an agate (tho she seems too small for that...), she could be a pearl (tho she seems to have more muscle mass than pearls tend to have.) 2. Neckie This gem looks nice and friendly in my opinion. She is definitely calm and maybe somewhat quiet. Now, people seem to think that she lost her calmness once Ruby and Sapphire fused, but I don't really think that's the case. She says ''Unbelievable'', which indicates that she's suprised, not discusted. She then becomes angry once Blue diamond says to Ruby that she (Ruby) will be broken for fusing. It's also hard to say what gem she is, but she might be a blue Kyanite. She could also be a moonstone, although I have my doubts... 3.Light indigo. This gem seems to be smaller than most of the other gems, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't have any authority. Personally, even though I don't have the same opinion as her on fusion (she finds it outright discusting), I do like her style of clothing and hair... (Definetly looks like me to be honest) It's harder to pinpoint what her gem type exactly is due to her gem not being shown, but color wise Blue moonstone and Tanzanite fits. 4. Pink Zircon. Now here's a gem that I can exactly pin point what gem type she is. My reasoning for why I think she's a Zircon is that: -her hair is similar to Blue Zircon -she's quite tall and somewhat shinny -she's pink and her gem is on her navel, which resembles her diamond the same way Yellow and Blue zircons do. -he gem is rectangular in shape. Now on to her personality. She seems to be quite though, determined, but easely angered. These might not be the best traits for a lawyer, but she most likely somehow gets away with them. Definetly an angry lawyer. 5. Side Buns. This gem is most likely an agate. She looks somewhat terrifying, she has similar hair to Holly's and seems to be strong overall. It's hard to say what type of agate she is, but she could be a blue lace? Maybe? Not much to say about her. 6. Blue diamond's guards. The only times we could see these two is when they were standing in front of Blue's palanquin and when they tried to stop Pearl. Their gems are on their right eyes. They seem to have some strength, so they might be some kind of a quartz (their hair and body type also point to that.) They can even be Cat's eye quartzes. 7. Pointy. And last, but not least is this gem. It's hard to exactly say what gem she is, but I think that she could be an agate. She might not seem as though as Side buns (5.), but she seems to have at least some authority. Weirdly enough, in one picture, because of her pointy hair, she kind of resembles a cat, so she might be a some kind of cat's eye gem (tho this seems to be a bit of a stretch.) She looks strict, but somewhat nice? In the episode, she says ''This is unheard of!'' which makes sence I guess. I don't have anything else about her. That's all I have for now. I might do more of these later, since there are more gems in the answer.

[top10listsak47]

Top 10 Albums

This kind of list is always going to be contentious, as it is easy influenced by your favorite genre and the age you grew up in. That being said, several of these albums outdate my existence by a decade or two. Most are critically acclaimed with a couple that aren’t as well-known. And, aside from number 1, I don’t attach a specific order.

On to the list!

#1: Rubber Soul- The Beatles (1965)

What? You may be asking. Not because I have a Beatles album at #1, but that it’s not Sgt. Pepper’s or the White album. Rubber Soul is the transition album, from the poppy A Hard Day’s Night and Help that preceded it, followed up by the highly psychedelic Revolver. (Seriously, from my own experience, I’m not sure how enjoyable Revolver would be to someone who has never done LSD). Rubber Soul is home to my two favorite Beatles songs in their entire collection (Norwegian Wood and In My Life). It’s a nearly perfect album cover to cover from one of the best bands ever. It would also inspire Brian Wilson to release Pet Sounds. The easy #1 choice.

#2: Rumors- Fleetwood Mac (1977)

The perfect post-break up album. Which makes sense, given the behind the scenes stuff happening during the recording of this album. A highly personal reason I love this album- Stevie Nicks’ contralto vocal range is perfect for me to sing along to. I have no soprano range in my voice and my mom used to make fun of how badly I sung along to poppy hits of the 1990’s. Stevie’s rough lower range matches my vocals in a way I feel completely comfortable singing along, which is rare for female artists. Also Fleetwood Mac’s most critically acclaimed album, so I’m not in solo company here.

#3: American Idiot- Green Day (2004)

Now for something more modern, Green Day’s rock opera/concept album about the coming of age during the early 2000’s of the album’s “main character”, the Jesus of Suburbia. First, I love concept albums (see lower down the list) and second, it resonates with me as it came out when I was 17. Listening to it takes me back to the summer of 2005, one of the best times of my life. I could really relate to the Jesus of Suburbia character at that age and as I got older, the album’s ending, (lines like, “the rage and love, the story of my life. The Jesus of Suburbia, is a lie”) were an accurate reflection of how I see my younger self. Also a well received, critically acclaimed album with 5 singles released (as much as I love this album, I do not miss working at the grocery store and hearing Boulevard of Broken Dreams every hour).

#4: Marshall Mathers LP- Eminem (2000)

This is probably the biggest deviation from my usual “taste” (no other rap albums make this list). I got this album as a gift for my 13th birthday from my best friend and despite not relating to Slim Shady as I did with the Jesus of Suburbia from the previous entry, it didn’t matter. Eminem is too good on this 10/10 album (bigger fans of his than myself tend to agree with me that this is his best album of his career). It’s harder for me to explain why I like this album so much than the others that mostly fit into the rock genre. Em’s lyrical abilities are on point, the beats are catchy. It’s just a great album even if you’re not into rap.

#5: Bridge Over Troubled Water- Simon & Garfunkel (1970)

Well, this is a far departure from the last entry, but this list wouldn’t be complete without an album from my all-time favorite artist, Paul Simon. The melodies, the calming vocals, it’s just a beautiful album, cover to cover. I saw Paul Simon in concert with Sting a few years ago and they did a wonderful rendition of the song Bridge Over Troubled Water. I’m in love with this album and it would probably be the closest rival to Rubber Soul on this list.

#6: Spiritual Machines- Our Lady Peace (2000)

This is a bit of an oddball in this group in terms of mass appeal and acclaim. OLP was hugely successful in Canada during the 1990’s, and while they are probably one of the more internationally successful Canadian rock bands, not being American/British probably hurts their overall recognition. This album is a concept album (of which I noted my love of earlier) based off of futurist writer Ray Kurzweil’s ‘The Age of Spiritual Machines’ which is an intreging read. This is also the last album of OLP’s “golden years” (listen to their follow up album, 2002’s Gravity, and the style departure is obvious). Most OLP fans would probably rank Clumsy over Spiritual Machines, but for me, this is their best.

#7: Beautiful Midnight- Matthew Good Band (1999)

Keeping in theme of “great Canadian rock albums”, MGB didn’t break through beyond Canada the same way OLP did and thus is probably this list’s most obscure album. A great deal of their lack of publicity comes from front artist Matt Good’s loathing of fame and recognition (still actively recording as a solo artist, he is very open about his struggles with mental health issues, namely bipolar disorder). A “soft” concept album, I still own the hard copy CD I bought almost 20 years ago. A great album to listen to while writing.

#8: Pet Sounds- The Beach Boys (1966)

As this isn’t a strict numerical listing, this album really should be higher (ranked #2 on Rolling Stones’ Greatest 500 Rock Albums, a list most of the albums I’ve listed are featured on). As I alluded to in the #1 post, this album was the result of lead singer Brian Wilson hearing Rubber Soul and creating a response. Its musical complexity makes it difficult to pinpoint exactly why it’s so good. It just is.

#9: Bob Dylan- Blood On the Tracks (1974)

This was a difficult selection, picking one Dylan album. The deciding factor for me is the inclusion of Tangled Up in Blue, my favorite of his songs. I’m not really sure how to analyze a Bob Dylan and, as I said, there’s strong arguments to have a different album in this spot (Blonde on Blonde, Highway 61 Revisited come to mind).

#10: Honorable Mentions

I gave this a lot of thought, and I’m not quite sure what album should be in the final spot. Some of my favorite artists like Neil Young and David Bowie aren’t here, nor groundbreaking albums from artists I don’t favor as much. So, honorable mentions include Who’s Next- The Who, Thriller- Michael Jackson, The Wall- Pink Floyd, Moondance- Van Morrison, The Stranger- Billy Joel…and I could continue on.

Thoughts? Disagreements? In any case, it was fun writing up my first top ten list. Next up- top 10 Simpsons episodes (spolier- they’re all from the Golden Era)

[ihopeyourewell-blog]

Dear 25,

Dear 25,

My first vivid birthday memory is my 7th birthday party. I didn’t really have “friends” when I was 7, but I did have the girls in Mrs. Hudak’s 1st grade class. Mrs. Hudak was the meanest person I have ever met in my life. She would walk around the classroom and check to see if the inside of our desks were messy, and if your desk wasn’t tidy enough, she would flip it over in front of the entire class, throwing your books and belongings all over the floor. One time a boy’s desk was so messy, she flipped it over on top of him. He was 6 years old. Holy shit that was so fucked up!!! Luckily, she got knocked up and had to leave halfway through the year and was replaced by a straight up angel named Mrs. Hamski.

Even though I wouldn’t have considered any of the girls in 1C my friends (No one under the age of 12 has actual "friends", there are just people you play with. Friendship, much like the Real World, starts when people stop being polite and start getting real.), the trauma of Mrs. Hudak bonded us enough for me to invite all of them to a slumber party celebrating my 7th birthday. I was the first person to host a big sleepover in our grade, which, looking back on it, is insane because I wasn’t really cool enough to make such a bold social decision. I made the invitations on my family’s Gateway computer in some program that had invitation and greeting card templates (it would be so cool if I could remember the name of the program, but I friggin DON’T!). I would run home from the bus stop every day (the bus stop was literally outside of my house, so it wasn’t a far run. I don’t want you to overestimate the work I was putting in. I did have to run up my hilly driveway so there was a bit of effort, but not like a TON of effort. Ya feel?) to check to see if there were any messages on our answering machine from the mothers of my “friends” RSVPing to my party. Ugh I miss the days of telephone RSVPs. An answering machine RSVP was fun, but when it was a live action, directly speaking to someone’s mom on the phone RSVP, I felt like I was goddamn Miles Davis. It was truly a thrilling experience to check “yes” or “no” on the chart my mom had made for the party. Most of the girls had responded yes and I was very excited to show them my basement. My siblings and our Au Pair, Julia from Germany, had been working for months on drawing flags from every country and hanging them on the wall above one of the couches. I can’t imagine anything more exciting to a group of 6 and 7 year old girls than a wall of poorly drawn international flags.

I carefully picked out my outfit. I wanted to be cool and casual because I was in my own home, but I also wanted to look like the lost Olsen triplet. I think that's what every girl in the 90s was striving for. I decided on a long sleeve white shirt and velvet maroon overalls with a matching bucket hat. No shoes, just socks. I was ready to party!! Guests started arriving and it was the first time in my life I ever really felt cool. I am somewhat obsessed with being cool now, or just being perceived as cool, and I guess I can pinpoint it to that moment, that first taste of my own coolness. People thought my house was nice, and that my mom had ordered the right pizza and bought the right juices, and don’t forget I was wearing a velvet bucket hat INDOORS! I was a sleepover goddess giving these bitches the night of their freaking LIVES! We watched movies and played games that my mom and German Julia had organized. My brother and sister left us the FUCK ALONE and I wondered what shrine the girls in my class would make to honor the evening this sleepover made them all women.

On my perfectly designed invitation there were 2 options; you could come and be picked up at 9:30pm or you could spend the night (I guess there were 3 options, the 3rd being sucking ass and not coming at all). My mom figured that giving the option of leaving early would boost attendance for my party for the girls who weren’t comfortable sleeping over. I feel like I should mention that my mom got an almost perfect score on the SATs and is straight up brilliant, so of course she figured out how to maximize attendance at a 7 year old’s birthday party. Viva la my mom. At 9:30 half of the party left and the remaining warriors changed into our PJs. I wore a worn-in, white night gown covered in teddy bears, that I am pretty sure you could see my nipples through. I thought it made me look skinny (KNOCK, KNOCK! SOCIETY? You home? That is fucked up that a freshly 7 year old girl thought about how her body looked in pajamas in front of a group of girls. And this was BEFORE social media! Fix yourself please). A lot of girls asked my mom to use our house phone to call their parents to say goodnight. I remember the first time I slept at someone else’s house, I called my mom to do the same and she flat out said “why are you calling?” Damn. We watched a movie and then an episode of the Disney Channel Original Series So Weird. So Weird was kind of a spooky show and a lot of girls got freaked out, and 2 of them ended up calling their moms and going home. Up until this point, I had been so confident about how the party was going, but I began to worry everyone was going to go home. Luckily after the episode of So Weird finished, Christina Aguliera’s music video for “Reflection” from Mulan played on the Disney Channel, and everyone sang along, and I knew the party was still a hit.

The following Monday I went back to school and a few girls mentioned how much fun they had, but I kinda just went back to being the not so cool me. There was no first sleepover shrine built in my honor. Boys didn’t immediately start having crushes on me. No one asked if they could turn any of my replica flags into t-shirts. But it was an awesome birthday.

I’ve had a lot of incredible birthdays. My parents were amazing and threw me parties throughout my entire childhood. For my 9th birthday I had a party at an ice skating rink, and I made everyone watch me skate alone for an entire song. In 2005 my mom threw me a surprise 13th birthday at a kid’s dance club called Beat Street, and she threw the EXACT same surprise 13th birthday for my brother in 2003 and my sister in 2006. For my 14th birthday my mom took me to New York City to see Rent. For my 15th birthday my mom, once again, took me to New York City to see Rent. I had a massive country club Sweet 16 filled with mozzarella sticks and grinding. My 18th birthday was celebrated with a Jersey Shore themed keger in my basement (the wall of flags had sadly been removed by that point). I celebrated my 19th-23rd birthdays with some of my best friends in Chicago at the same restaurant year after year. For my 24th birthday I invited some of my closest gal pals to my apartment for a breakfast for dinner party and made everyone come dressed as me. I have been so lucky to have such incredible celebrations of my life, and even luckier for the people I’ve celebrated with.

I was so excited to turn 24. My birthday is January 24th, so turning 24 on the 24th meant it was to be my Golden Year. I had always thought "everything would happen” for me when I turned 24. I don’t know what I meant by everything, and I don’t know exactly what I thought would happen but looking back on my year everything and nothing simultaneously happened. It was a great year. Even my bad years have been great years.

25, I realize I have never thought about turning you. I’ve never really thought past turning 24. Like I said, I looked forward to turning 24 for my entire life because it was my Golden Year, but I’m realizing now that I never looked past that. I’ve thought about my life after the age of 24, but I didn’t think about turning another age. 25 sounds so much older than 24 to me. I know that sounds so silly, because 25 is still so young, but it’s a bit monumental, don’t you think? A quarter century! It feels steep and kind of weird. I am one of those people who gets a bit weird around their birthday. It’s funny, I love New Year’s Eve because I think the passing of time is so beautiful, but birthdays, specifically my birthday, scare me a bit. I guess I am okay with the world getting older, but not myself. For the week or so around my birthday, I almost mourn the loss of me at that current age. I will never be 24 again. 24 year old me is done. I had 366 days (hey, leap year!) to be 24, a full year to say “Oh, I’m 24”, and now I’m just not anymore. I don’t know why that makes me sad. I have a hard time saying goodbye to things. I have a harder time saying goodbye to people. I have to say goodbye to me at 24 and I’ll miss 24 year old me. And I know I’ll still be the same me at 25, but i just won’t be 24 anymore. This all makes so much sense to me and you’re probably just like “bitch, shut up and blow out your candles”.

This year I will turn 25 just four days after Satan officially becomes president. This year I will turn 25 on a cruise ship, the floating buffet I currently live on. This year I will turn 25 without any of my best friends to hug me or parents to throw me a party. This year I will turn 25 and have, quite possibly, my last year of good healthcare, because at 26 that shit is going bye-bye and who knows what the hell is going to happen. This year I will turn 25 and in 365 days I will mourn the loss of 25 year old me.

I never thought about turning you, 25, but it’s happening, just like every other age I have turned (and also all other humans and animals and trees and every fucking living thing has a birthday every year, even though I sound like an unreal narcissistic, whiney bitch making it seem like I am the only person  who has ever gotten older). It’s a little hard to be excited when our world is in such turmoil. So much is up in the air, and I’m kind of surprised that Mrs. Hudak wasn’t appointed to Trump’s cabinet to go around flipping desks on children throughout America. But even with all of the crap that is currently happening in the world, I am constantly in awe of the goodness within the people I love and admire, and I enter you (that sounds freaky and naughty) with confidence that 25 will be as good as every other year has been.

I hope you’re well.

Xoxo,

Jacqueline Felker