#but then i remember that i live in australia and we'll be on fire by then

[isthatrealleather]

So my hand slipped and I accidentally ended up binging the last 6 episodes of protocol and dear god I may need to be contained im losing my mind

OUGH i got spoiled for Celia so I wasn't surprised, but damn thats ruthless. She didn't actually choose to go through with it but considering how the talkers are rareish shes been stringing Sam on for a while. Interesting how the balance thing (sorta having to do an evil to get what you want but putting it on someone else instead of yourself) ties in with the voilin and the dice statements. Hope sam enjoys the ptsd world

Going off the epilogue presumably Freddie ate Colin. I hope he didn't completely die maybe he's just gonna be stuck listening to jmarts pixalated yearning or something pretty please

Idk why but the reference to the fearless ones got me i swear like that's OUR guyss EEEHH (I love Melanie fight me)

Anyway losing my mind screaming crying throwing up EXTRAVAGANTLY 10/10 would recommend

[calicoaidan]

Eurovision 2023 - the (pre-show) verdict!

So a few weeks back I fired my Eurovision takes for the first half of 2023's songs, it's time for round 2 with the full rankings from 1-37 down below!

Songs I adore from the second half: • Finland - Cha Cha Cha is purely a banger. It manages to be both aggressive and catchy with the staging just amplifying that. I don't have any more notes to offer, I just adore this. • Netherlands - Burning Daylight - With a lot of bands and general up-tempo stuff featuring this year, there's a window for a good ballad (strong emphasis on the word good) to catch the eye. Burning Daylight pulls it off, if the live version in Liverpool is this clean then we'll have a hit. • Sweden - Tattoo - I don't think this is as good as Euphoria and I'm a little dubious about how much of a bookies favourite it is, but jaysus the staging they used at Melodifestivalen looked so good. • Austria - Who the Hell is Edgar? - Fun with a deeper point, I worry that the point might be missed without some clever staging in Liverpool but I can see this being a hit post-Eurovision. • Germany - Blood and Glitter - Industrial Metal meets Eurovision in a way that just works, I really hope this gets a decent televote.

Songs I'm not so keen on: • Poland - It's bland, the national final performance was dreadful, and there's allegations that TVP (the Polish equivalent of the BBC) really tipped the scales in favour of this song. I'm not going to link to every song I dislike but have a gander, you be the judge. • UK - Sorry Mae, even with this song being put last in the running order (which typically helps for public voting), I just don't think the song itself will stand out (it's not an issue with the artist, I just don't think the tune works) - expecting a bottom 5 on Grand Final night. • Serbia - This has a lot of the fan love right now and it's unique, but I just get very little from it. Remember when Portugal sent Conan Osiris (who I loved) in 2019 and it flopped with the televote because the general public seemingly couldn't engage with it? I fear the same here, especially with it being the third song in semi-final 1 (which is an absolute bloodbath this year because of the overall song quality).

Anyhoo, enough of that...

It's ranking time!

Here's 11th to 37th in order: 11: Estonia 12: Greece 13: Iceland 14: Croatia 15: Ireland 16: Spain 17: Malta 18: Portugal 19: Latvia 20: Italy 21: Azerbaijan 22: France 23: Serbia 24: Ukraine 25: Switzerland 26: Norway (I know for a fact this will finish way higher, it just doesn't do anything for me personally) 27: Israel 28: United Kingdom 29: San Marino 30: Armenia 31: Moldova 32: Cyprus 33: Denmark 34: Albania 35: Georgia 36: Romania 37: Poland

I'll do the top 10 in reverse order:

10th (1 point) - Austria

9th (2 points) - Lithuania

8th (3 points) - Belgium

7th (4 points) - Sweden

6th (5 points) - Germany

5th (6 points) - Netherlands

4th (7 points) - Slovenia

3rd (8 points) - Australia

2nd (10 points) - Finland

1st (12 points) - Czechia

The whole top 10 is fantastic and no matter the way the semis break down, the Saturday night in Liverpool is going to be a great occasion.

The above is all subject to change as some folks will massively elevate their performance for the live shows while others struggle, but oh my - what a Eurovision we have to come!

If anyone has some face value tickets going, I'm all ears. 😅

[lestappenwdc]

Australia unserious serious race overview

If you're new here i decided to do a short recap of each race after it's done on here, mostly for my own sake so I dont forget what happened in each race.

This recap will be less unserious since the results were 😐 not by my liking and I have serious topics to cover.

Bahrain part 1 Bahrain part 2 Jeddah part 1 Jedah part 2

Australia will be 1 part under a cut

1. Ferrari

Oohhh boy. Do I have thoughts.

Most of my thoughts are summed up in this post I made discussing how Charles not attacking was not due to team orders and how attacking would not have helped him. Now I'd rather move on from this since every time I think about who won I want to cry.

I am really pissed off today but not because of ferrari and team orders but because the one time charles is out of the front row in 8 races Max DNFs thus giving everyone else a chance. I know, I know I should want Charles to beat Max on track and that's probably what Charles wants also BUT it does not erase the fact that cs55 is so lucky with his front row starts that he is now 2/2 qualis he was better than Charles in the last 10 races that lead to Max/Red Bull having issues. What kind of luck do you have on your side? And can the rest of us get some?

On the positive side Charles is now closer in the championship to Max than any driver has been probably since Bahrain 2023 lol. And I will choose to look on the bright side and remember that after Singapore Charles obliterated Carlos in every single race and hope that this one sparks a similar fire in him. You got this Charlie.

2. Mclaren

They were good I guess. They had no one to fight with thanks to Mercedes. I feel like they had a slightly better race than the last 2. I will not talk about the team orders since they did undercut Lando with Oscar's strategy in the beginning. So I have.. no opinion on it. Especially since Oscar made a big mistake towards the end that everyone kinda overlooked with everything that happened after. He would not have been on the podium either way. He lost a lot of seconds there I dont remember how much but it was a lot. Lando would've overtaken for sure.

3. Aston Martin

Stroll had an amazing drive here 🙌. I like to hate on him sometimes but not today. Amazing quali amazing drive great points.

Alonsos move in the end? Extremely dangerous to do on a street track surrounded by walls. I'm happy he got the penalty (although I didn't expect 20 fucking seconds????? Idk what is happening with the penalties being so harsh this year but I like it)

4. Red Bull

Poor Maxie. We are so not used to seeing this that it felt like a fever dream. What the fuck happened? And on the race he was supposed to match his streak 😭. Anyway he'll live. At least now he gets to fight Charles (yes I'm delulu what about it)

Perez was invisible. Were RB slow here or is Perez just mid? Well I guess we'll never know (but we can take a wild guess). He could not pass the Mclarens? Really?

5. RB

YUKI TSUNODA THE MAN THAT YOU ARE!!!!!! I can not explain to you guys how happy I am with 6 points for Yuki jgjejxjwnd that's insane.

Daniel did ok I guess. He had a more difficult drive too but I only care about Yuki today. So so happy.

6. Haas

Did you guys see this drive by both Haases? Did you see what they did? They climbed the most out of everyone. Both in the points????? How did we get here? I don't know but I love it. Hulk is for some reason growing on me more and more. So is Kevin. Idk what happened. Double points for Haas. Who would've thought. Amazing. So excited for them.

7. Williams

James Vowles I'm in your walls. Men will do nothing but disappoint. Would Logan have done better than Alex? Probably not. Is it okay what they did to him? Absolutely not. And they didn't even manage to get a singular point. Disgusted disappointed and flabbergasted. Was it worth it James? Cos I don't think it was. Wasnit worth it for Alex to lose respect in Logans eyes? I don't think so either. And before someone goes but it wasn't Alex fault. If I was in Logans place I would lose respect for Alex for allowing this to happen I said what I said. I would never consider him on my side anymore if I ever did.

This coupled with Alex saying he'd rather have a teammate that's bad so he can get all the praise? Falling lower and lower. Not yet daniel-lando-carlos level of low, far from it, but still dissapointed in him.

8. Alpine

Woohoo can you believe they are not last on my list for once? They did something guys!!! The thing they did is they are not BOTH dead last. Only Este is. AND no one dnfed. Actually there is not much to celebrate. Next race I guess

9. Sauber

Idk what was in the air in Bahrain but Sauber are getting worse and worse. Zhou has completely disappeared. Bottas had another 1 min pit stop (what is it with bottas and put stops?????) And they were just... they were bad. This is starting to look very similar to last year and they gave me hope for .2 seconds for NOTHING!

10. Mercedes

Damn. Where do I start. So nice of Hamilton to park his car in solidarity of Max dnf ing. We love a supportive king. In all seriousness tho (because this is a serious race overview) Mercedes suck. The car sucks. First engine failure of the year and its their own car 3 races into the season. It's not looking good at all.

George oh my god. On one side it's funny bc this exact same thing happened in Singapore? That's insane? I'm ready to light some candles about how crazy it is. On another more important side, it was so so scary. The placement of his car was so dangerous. His radio was so devastating. I cant even imagine sitting there in the middle of the road and just waiting for a car to hit you at 300kmph without being able to do anything about apart for yell for a red flag and hope they listen. So traumatic. I hope he's okay mentally after this. I know these people are stronger than us and their relationship with death and fear is different than mine but this cannot be easy. God I have tears in my eyes just writing about it. Poor George 🥺

That's it. Thank you for reading. There is not conclusion to this I simply covered everything ND my thoughts on everyone ����

[the-firebird69]

Couple more things and I hand off to Thor and Freya

I'm afraid for my husband all the time he needs more assistance but he says he's working on it and others are too but I am deciding something I need to have my people do stuff he said that he said if you're worried that must have him do it and they can get approval and they are and I'm moving them in and I'm having to do things and leadership is noticing it's not bad ideas and they're doing their things and with their coverage it should be okay. I want to have a life with him and he said to slow down and we need to have a life here too and this is the moment to live in and these are moments to always cherish and remember how we helped each other and how he helped our friends and family and our people all the same or less something that intermediate family and to remember what it was like for others to learn by and was you running around here somehow I don't know maybe I'll run after you everyday and get back in shape. Lol. No seriously we'll have some rolls and I'm there anyways occasionally and you're glancing at me a little and you can't tell and I get mad but really they say that a lot Jesus Christ itchy. Can you please follow them and he's hitting them. So that's what they

-another is this pastored a lot so I noted it in the reports a lot of people are sending it in and had a meeting today and said they're pestering everyone way too much and it puts them on edge and was sent teams in and grabbed the people doing it and got the Intel and I'm going to adapt

-later on tonight the idiots plan on trying to attack here in the max know about it and they're preparing and they're going to try and kidnap her son I mean my husband damn it and no damn it I said the wrong thing I'm saying that too we're all your father and mother okay and I already told you I was so you do it again kind of the same way so what we have here is a failure to communicate okay Jersey girl they're going to try and kidnap me to what New Jersey. Is this starts sopranos they're all fired and it does not have to say it's Jason and his assholes. So the planning on it is real and it's bad and we know about it in the max snow and they're going to stop them they've tried this like four or five times in the past 2 weeks this time it seems to be larger and they have the numbers in these and it's growing and they want to kidnap him feel Australia or New Zealand so there's some rub there and or California Utah and so on so some of them are fighting and everybody uses it

I'm going to publish this

Hera

Few more things we got to get going it's almost 11:00 and I have to be very brief too

Thor Freya

Olympus

[deadkinwalking]

I've almost finished reading a book that looks at the effects of climate change in Australia specifically (Body Count by Paddy Manning) one of the chapters (titled Breakdown) looked at the effects on infrastructure, agriculture, etc. The other chapters were Fire, Heat, Flood, Disease (this chapter also discussed effects on mental health).

I cried a lot in the course of reading this book. It probably hit me hard because I remember most of the events being discussed, I lived through them, I felt the fear and uncertainty they caused. The book has increased my existential dread and climate fear a great deal.

However, I have one chapter left, which I plan to read tonight. The last chapter is titled Hope. After what I've read, and what we are seeing happen before our very eyes, I don't see what hope there could be. We'll see how I feel after reading the chapter I suppose.

[deep-hearts-core]

2020 vs 2021 part 1: repeat artists

originally posted 6/21/21

I've listened to maybe... 5 or 6 of the 2020 songs and I thought it would be fun to listen through all of them, as well as comparing them to their 2021 counterparts. Today we'll be listening to the entries whose artists returned in 2021!

Australia - Don't Break Me vs Technicolor Lyrically it's better than Technicolor, but... it's not better in any other aspect. I don't like it. The national final performance online is so painfully awkward, and musically I just like Technicolor better, I think she sounded better on that song.

North Macedonia - You vs Here I Stand I think audiences would have liked this one better. You and Here I Stand both sound kinda dated, but while Here I Stand showed off Vasil's vocal capabilities, You just... feels more likeable. I have no idea how they would have staged this though.

Slovenia - Voda vs Amen Amen and Voda are very similar songs. I think I prefer Amen because the chorus sounds better to me, it utilizes Ana's voice better. But ultimately my feelings are the same for both songs.

Lithuania - On Fire vs Discoteque The Roop's very... distinctive stage presence definitely served them better in Discoteque. In On Fire, the funny dancing just felt out of place. I remember that people really liked this song right before covid hit last year but I honestly cannot fathom how this was a frontrunner. It's just kinda alright.

Ireland - Story Of My Life vs Maps I hate when Eurovision songs try to be pride anthems. This is an issue I had with Technicolor that I didn't put my finger on until recently, and it's true for Story Of My Life as well. It's a perfectly decent song, if a little Disney Channel original movie, but the MV... like, ok, I guess? I think this genre suits Lesley better though.

Belgium - Release Me vs Wrong Place I like this singer. She isn't the right voice for their 2021 entry but it's still a shame she didn't come back, I like her voice a lot. This song is worse than The Wrong Place for me though, it's equally boring but doesn't have the rhythmic push that ultimately redeemed The Wrong Place for me somewhat in the live performance. Hooverphonic can write one kind of song and it's this.

Malta - All of My Love vs Je Me Casse Not as exciting as Je Me Casse, but the chorus of this is really catchy? I don't think this shows off Destiny very well, so much of the fun of Je Me Casse (and Not My Soul!) was her stage presence and I don't think she would have been able to show that with this song.

Azerbaijan - Cleopatra vs Mata Hari They really just copy-pasted this one for Mata Hari, huh... I think I liked Cleopatra better though. The verses here are really good.

Israel - Feker Libi vs Set Me Free I prefer this to Set Me Free, but I don't love either song. I think Eden would have been better served by something like this in 2021, it's more fun and reliant on stage presence rather than a vocal ability which, while she has, is hard to pull off live.

Romania - Alcohol You vs Amnesia I really enjoy the play on words here. Amnesia has grown on me as a song since the show, but I think Roxen would have done Alcohol You better live.

Ukraine - Solovey vs Shum It's solid! I think my ranking of the Go_A entries is Shum revamp > Solovey > Shum original. The vocal melody feels a little weird here but I like all the individual pieces and I feel like this would have scored well.

Greece - Supergirl vs Last Dance People on the internet seem to really hate Supergirl. I enjoy it, I think it and Last Dance are about the same in terms of how much I like it (a pretty good amount). This would have shown off Stefania's dance skill in a way that I don't think Last Dance did.

Estonia - What Love Is vs The Lucky One I like this better than Lucky One, I think. What Love Is is a solid ballad (power ballad? listen, idk), and I don't think Uku is straining as much to hit these notes.

Austria - Alive vs Amen YouTube comments here are comparing Alive to an SM kpop number. I agree! Unlike a lot of people, I liked Amen a lot and thought it was staged really well, but Austria might have been better served with a number like this where Vincent could have shown off the dance skills he's displaying in this video. They're both good songs though and I struggle to pick a personal favorite between them.

Moldova - Prison vs Sugar Prison is the better song between the two, but Natalia specifically was better off with Sugar. Judging from that live performance she's much more confident as a dancer and she brought a lot of fun to Sugar that Prison wouldn't have been able to use.

San Marino - Freaky! vs Adrenalina Senhit does a good job with this. I think Freaky! suits her better than Adrenalina does - although Adrenalina is an ok song for her already. I miss Flo Rida but ultimately I think I prefer this.

Czech Republic - Kemama vs Omaga Omaga was miles better. I just enjoy it more in terms of genre and instrumental and even how Benny's voice sounds on the track.

Serbia - Hasta La Vista vs Loco Loco Hasta La Vista has a lot of the same charms as Loco Loco. I like it a lot more on first listen than I did the first time I listened to Loco Loco, but ultimately I think I like the 2021 entry better.

Iceland - Think About Things vs 10 Years Relistening now that I know it's about his daughter makes Think About Things take on a whole new light for me. I've held this opinion since 10 Years came out but I think Think About Things just sounds nicer, even though they're very similar in a lot of ways.

Switzerland - Repondez-moi vs Tout L'univers As I've said about a couple of other songs - the 2021 entry is what worked best live, and it's good, but on a personal level the 2020 song is better. Verses are really good here.

Georgia - Take Me As I Am vs You THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN YOU WTF. Why didn't they go the rock route in 2021??? Tornike sounds so much better on this. Also, this is a decent commentary on, like, the idealization of Western Europe not only in ESC but in popular culture as a whole, even if that's not what it's trying to be, it still does that sufficiently.

Bulgaria - Tears Getting Sober vs Growing Up is Getting Old I am not incredibly impressed by either entry, mainly because I don't like her voice. I think she sounds better on this one though, her voice just sounds fuller, idk.

Latvia - Still Breathing vs The Moon Is Rising Lol I dislike both of these a lot. I don't like her voice and I don't like the drops. The backing vocals here are good and Samanta sounds good on the belts, but the drop in The Moon Is Rising worked a little better.

Spain - Universo vs Voy A Quedarme Side note, this MV is eye candy. Nah, but I like both these songs alright. Voy A Quedarme feels like it fits Blas Canto a little more but I have nothing against Universo really!

United Kingdom - My Last Breath vs Embers My Last Breath was so so so good. It's one of the few 2020 songs I listened to last year, and I really enjoyed it. I think the UK could have gotten a decent result with it, even despite the politics that were undoubtedly present in the voting. (Politics are not a bad thing btw, expect a post later.) In comparison, Embers just felt awkward.

Netherlands - Grow vs Birth of a New Age I deeply, deeply connected with Grow. I am a notoriously easy crier among my irls, but like... this did bring me to tears. And Jeangu has this beautiful voice. I ranked Birth of a New Age second for 2021 but honestly, Grow could have been my 2020 winner.