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a3day · 3 years

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A3Day Extended Commentary: CL “ALPHA” (2021)

DISCLAIMER - An Album a Day is my exploration into the Korean music scene. This blog, just like my podcast, will cover mainstream, indie and some underground artists within the scene and provide both factual and opinionated commentary. The biggest benefit to sharing my thoughts this way is that it will hopefully expose you to more great music and exploration of your own.

I have -- WE... we have waited, Blackjacks and GZBs.

Arguably one of the most long-anticipated solo returns in all of K-pop, multi-hyphenate artist Lee Chaelin (CL) globally released a full-bodied, 35-minute album entitled “ALPHA” on October 20, 2021 from her own label, Very Cherry, in conjunction with Sony. And y’all, it sounds like nothing we have ever heard from CL before.

Let me fangirl for a minute. MY BITCH IS BACK. LONG LIVE THE QUEEN, PEASANTS!!! WHEW!!! *Gross sobs* WHEWWWW BABY WE WAAAAAAITED UGGGGGGHHHHHH. We ain’t know what the hell to expect, CL? Eh? Not a damn clue? Tracks been all over the place for years, not a damn clue of what to expect was really revealed! HOW’D YOU HOLD THE HAND FOR SO LONG?! THAT’S ALPHA SHIT, I’M GONNA VOMIT FROM ENTHUSIASM~~~

*Clears throat.*

Distance was made fully from idoldom. This is undeniable. She is not under the thumb of the machine (that once was and is now reorganized), that of the Big Three. She is not on the fence between artistic representation. She is 30 years old, and anyone who’s lived long enough to get into and/or surpass this decade of life knows that you step into your cu- I mean your self awareness, in new ways. If you missed the memo when she did “Hello Bitches” and “Doctor Pepper” (both in 2015); and if you missed per-my-last-email reminders with everything that was done from then until now, well... mama’s letting you know for damn sure that she’s grown-grown.

The track list, as listed from Wikipedia, is still updating credits at the time of this blog post. I believe it’s always important to give a nod to the team behind the vocals, ya know? The song lyrics, the rap verses, are nothing without a composition to suit it and talented ears to engineer the sound to perfection.

In context of sound, “ALPHA” is warm and structured nicely. There are production choices that are boomy (big on low end sounds) and boxy (big on midrange tone) but this album moves, bish. You’ve heard me talk about musical movement before but for the unacclimated: each performance -- both CL and music on its own -- emotes. There is a feeling that ebbs and flows appropriately from one track to another. Structuring an album to ride from start to finish without skips is already an art as it is, so you can’t fail the artist and the listener by tossing any ol’ shit together, especially pieces of work from an artist notoriously known for using her mother tongue (Korean) with her second language, English. “ALPHA” wins in this area.

As far as the artist goes, CL doesn’t depend much on low octave vocal stacking, as she maintains the same level of vocal power and tone through most tracks we’ve heard her on over the course of her 14-year-long career. However, there are moments of nice effects on the vocals. So let’s get into these tracks, non-Korean speakers. I won’t talk too-too long, I don’t want to impede upon your own vibes.

1. Spicy -- fun to nod your head along to and say the bits of relevant English

Albeit that this is the first single consumers received from this album, it’s the third we’re familiar with. Much like its sibling “Hwa,” it was a choice. Truth be told, this song ain’t for Us (a...every song isn’t for the majority or other minority groups in other countries, lol) and I respect the hell out of that. It’s for the Asian community, specifically South Koreans, to feel that swag, that drip, and all the other pop culture terms for instilling cultural pride within oneself. Bringing in Baauer to handle the production gives it that dance bass/bounce that is needed.

2. Lover Like Me -- the song on the soundtrack of your life post-breakup that you’ll later hear and memories won’t hurt as deeply

See my review here.

3. Chuck -- the track that you won’t understand until you read the lyrics in your own language and then go, “Ohhhh. Hmm. Okay.”

Nothing like calling out fakers. The word “Chuck” is the sound of the Korean word for “pretend” [Romanized: Cheok] and she’s being playful with the liars and fakers trying to reach her. If you’re not a person who believes err’body has at least one hater, then it might not resonate too much. When you’re 76+ listens into the album, this might be the one you’ll skip over regularly. Might.

4. Xai -- the song that CL decided to snap about grown folk activities

This is the standout track of the entire album. It’s foreplay, without an over-saturation of sex. It sounds airy and her tone is commanding but vulnerable. The vocal arrangement is relaxing and I will be replaying this until my ears bleed, thank yew.

5. Let It -- Another life soundtrack song. Insert the appropriate scene in your head from the film, TV show, or M/V you exist within

“Don’t worry! I can just flow away, always do what I feel like.” Refreshing, and about as youthful as CL sounds anywhere on this album, it has the capacity to take you back to 2NE1′s “Happy” or “Gotta Be You” (both in 2014) with the cadence of her rap, the song structure, and the live instrumentation.

6. Tie a Cherry -- the track where she’s reminding y’all WTF she is

Endurance is essential in the entertainment industry and CL’s letting you know that “no one can see what [she] can see,” as it comes to this next phase in her career. You know what? I have to agree with her from that Owen Meyer’s piece for Billboard from earlier this year, where she said, “I know exactly where I’m going, what I want to do. Of course it’s not going to be the same.” This doesn’t sound like 2NE1, past features, nor does it sound like the other singles she’s released just a few weeks before this album. This track is placed perfectly in the middle and creates a good transition for the remainder of the ride.

7. Paradise -- trap, trap, throwaway Rihanna track

Could’ve gone to Ri and it would’ve worked just as well. Could’ve gone to Migos, Desiigner, or Future and I wouldn’t have complained. As a Westerner, the production style of trap music is immediately identifiable. I’m not mad at this song at all, I can only hope that you have the proper headphones to hear this in its full glory. It bangs. The vocal refrain and the ad libs is it. “My God, that’s a paradise!”

8. My Way -- the song that she tells you off-rip that she’s doing things her way

This genuinely could’ve been named “Alpha” and I’m not unconvinced that it wasn’t the name at some point. It feels like the personification of the album’s title. This shit is gritty, features a rumbling bass, and accents the vocal effects with traditional Korean instruments. It belongs on a/your workout playlist for the days you need the adrenaline boost, truly.

9. Siren -- you think you’ve heard this song before and that’s intentional

The VOCAL ARRANGEMENT!!!! Listen. No, really listen, at least this time it’ll be easy because the song’s fully in English. You hear that piano over a gurgle? You hear how it sounds like the end of her lines travels around you? What about those programmed strings? Oh oh, that little construction sound in the back? This song was crafted to sound like indie pop tracks that you catch a snippet of in a commercial or promo video and you’re clawing to find it again. It’s beautiful, the construction of it. She’s trying to salvage a relationship but I’m telling you this is your guilty singing pleasure playlist entry.

10. Hwa -- South Korean flexing for South Koreans.

We don’t/won’t touch songs that will hit different for the core demographic.

11. 5 Star -- the unexpected summer love bop

Chile, just tell us when you and That Man are marrying and let us join via Zoom. Thank you, Tablo, for lending your pen on this one.

My Official Ranking

K-pop fans, on a scale of 1 to 5 where 5′s essential listening and 1′s not worth mentioning, the A3Day ranking on CL’s debut album is 5. While hoping there would’ve been more to the writing, the album is an impressive return that delivered nothing expected to an audience well-aware of who she is.

#multifacetedacg #a3day extended commentary #a3day #CL #cl alpha #kpop #blackjack #gzb #long live the queen

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enamoured-x · 4 years

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#25 with mr. angel OR ezekiel reyes, i’m leaving that up to you maybe it’s set a couple months after a break up and like the reader ends up going to riz’s birthday party and the reader reveals she is seeing someone blah blah blah CUT TO a somewhat heated argument and reader goes, “you do realise there’s dick and tongue that’s better than yours right? maybe i’ve found it.” NOW- WBK the inner brat creeped out.

I felt like the quote definitely fit better with Angel. Enjoy! (gif not mine)

Warnings: NSFW

Ending things with Angel was for the best. At least that’s what you told yourself when you found yourself thinking about him throughout the days after your breakup. It had been three months since you broke it off with him. It just wasn’t working out. You loved him, you really did. But he kept his secrets and it was weighing heavily on your relationship. You struggled to trust him. The days sucked when you realized he had to go to Mexico for a while and it sucked even more when you heard he had been getting close with some woman over there. You were always keen on communication so you brought it up to him and he assured you nothing was going on. And you believed him. Because you knew Angel loved you. But you didn’t think that love was enough to make you stay and put you through more restless nights and more lies told straight to your face. Club business was one thing but you felt him pulling away. You felt like he wasn’t all in like you were anymore. So you left him. It hurt like hell walking away from him. But you weren’t going to live that way anymore. Things didn’t change, if they did you would’ve made it work but it seemed like Angel didn’t care to make it work anymore. He didn’t let you leave without a fight though. Begging to make it better, begging for you to stay. But you needed him to know you were serious and besides, you had heard that shit before. He would have to learn the hard way. And if this space didn’t open his eyes, then maybe it was just better to be separated.

Three months. Three months without Angel and it took you two to start seeing someone again. He was a sweet guy and he made you smile. It seemed you had a type, your friends making comments about how you couldn’t stay away from men covered in ink and smooth words falling from their lips. Mike was cool though. You enjoyed spending time with him and the sex was pretty great. You weren’t exactly together but it wasn’t too casual either. But regardless of how happy you felt with him, you couldn’t help but think of how much happier you were with Angel. At least until he started to pull away. But you tried to make it work with Mike. At least you tried.

You were still very much close to the club. The guys were your best friends and despite your break up with Angel, you still hung out with them and saw them often. Angel wasn’t going to keep you from them. When Coco invited you to Riz’s birthday party at the clubhouse, you said yes without a second thought. You loved Riz and of course you’d be there to celebrate. You debated inviting Mike figuring it wouldn’t hurt to introduce him to your friends. But he had work and you took it as a sign that it was better to just show up solo. Who knew what trouble would stir up if you brought Mike.

“Hey, birthday boy.” You said to Riz as you walk into the clubhouse and walk over to him. He smiled brightly and pulled you in for a hug.

“You made it!” He said.

“Of course! And I brought you a present.” You held up the box and he took it from you.

“Thank you, mami. You didn’t have to do that.” You shrugged at his words.

Bishop and Taza pulled you into hugs as they had been standing around with Riz.

You talked to them for a few moments before making your way over to Coco and Gilly. They greeted you with hugs as well. Angel was talking to Ez by the bar but you could feel his eyes on you. You always made it a point to just ignore him when you visited the clubhouse. Ez walked over to say hi and hand you a beer. You thanked him with a hug and he went back to Angel.

“So, how’s the boyfriend?” Coco asked and you nearly choked on your beer.

“My what?”

“That man you’ve been seeing. It’s a small town, people talk.” You groaned at Gilly’s words. People needed to mind their own damn business. You realized what this meant. Angel knew about him.

“He’s not my boyfriend.” You said and took another sip of your beer. You thought about how you were going to bring him tonight, it definitely wouldn’t have been a surprise to them.

“So what? You two just fucking?” Coco asked with a smirk. Before you could answer, Angel walked up.

“Talking about your boy toy?” Angel asked. He had seen better days and you knew you were the reason for that. No, actually he was the reason for that. But he still tried to hide it behind his cocky smirk.

“So what is he to you?” Gilly asked. As close as you were to them, you knew ultimately their loyalties lied with Angel. And you couldn’t really ever be mad at them for that.

“He’s… it’s complicated.” You didn’t know why you were entertaining these questions. You can’t believe you were gonna bring him if you simply couldn’t handle mere questions about him.

“You either fucking him or you ain’t.” Angel said and you couldn’t help but bite back.

“I am.” You couldn’t help yourself. Angel didn’t need to know who you were or were not fucking but he was pissing you off and you wanted to wipe that damn smirk off his face.

Coco and Gilly seemed to take that as their cue to leave, leaving you with Angel.

“You’re quick, mami. It’s only been a few months and already you’re giving it up to some other man.” Your jaw clenched at his words. How dare he.

“Like you haven’t fucked anyone since we broke up.” You countered.

“I haven’t. Because I fucking love you. And I know you love me, I know one of these days you’re going to come crawling back to me. No one makes you feel like I do.” You were shaking with anger now.

“You do realize there’s dick and tongue that’s better than yours right? Maybe I’ve found it.” You hated that you reminded yourself that it wasn’t true. No one had made you feel like Angel. Although to you, it was clearly a lie, he was seething.

“What did you just say?” You knew that voice. The voice he usually used with you when you were testing him and he was close to putting you across his lap. You didn’t know what to do with the fact that you were actually starting to get turned on.

“You heard me.” You still couldn’t help but be that brat you always were when he got like this.

“Nah, I don’t think I did. Because I know for a fucking fact no one can make you come like I can.” he was only pissing you off further. For the sole reason that he was right.

“Mike can, better even.” His stare was murderous now. Before you knew it he was grabbing your wrist and dragging you outside. You didn’t protest, not wanting to make a scene in front of everyone and ruin Riz’s party. You figured you should’ve been having this argument outside anyways. Once you got outside he didn’t stop when you got onto the porch. He dragged you to the side of the house and pushed you against the wall.

“What the fuck is your problem?” You asked as you pushed his chest.

“My fucking problem is your lies.”

“Oh, that’s fucking rich.” He had no right to talk to you about lying when lying was what drove a wedge between you two.

“Don’t fucking start with me, mami.” He pointed at you. You slapped his hand away and next thing you knew his hand was around your throat, shoving you back up against the side of the house. Your breath hitched. It had been a long time since his hands were around your throat, you were sure it was your greatest sin to have missed it as much as you did.

“Don’t. You’re fucking pushing me. As bratty as ever.” His breath fanned your lips. You clenched your thighs. You missed him. You missed him bossing you around and you missed him touching you. You hated that you wanted to give in.

“You like me bratty.” You argued. You felt yourself slowly slipping back into rhythm with him.

“I like you fucking listening to me. I like your mouth wrapped around my cock instead of fucking talking back.”

“Is that what you want, Angel?” Your tone had him squeezing your throat. You bit your lip and let out a little moan. That was enough for Angel to realize he had you where he wanted you.

“Get on your knees.” He released your throat and backed up an inch. And there you were, sliding to your knees for him.

He cursed under his breath as he quickly undid his pants and got out his cock. He was already hard and ready.

“Do what you do best.” He said before you started to stroke him and lick his tip.

“Fuck…” He placed a hand on the wall behind you as he looked down at you. You licked up his length, teasing the tip as you placed open mouthed kisses on him. He grabbed your hair with his other hand and urged you forward. You let him as you finally took him into your mouth. You met his eye as you placed your hands on your thighs. Your signal for him to take what he wanted.

“Tap if you need me to stop.” Is all he said before he shoved himself down your throat. You gagged but tried to control it as he started thrusting into your mouth.

“Fuck, mami. Always so good for me.” He groaned.

You tried to get him closer as you met his thrusts. You moaned around him and his thrusts faltered.

“I’m gonna come. You gonna swallow for me like a good girl?” He continued using your throat. Spit now collected around your mouth and dripping down your chin. You hummed in response to his question.

“God, you look so beautiful like this.” He said before he pulled you forward to take him all in as he thrusted deep a few more times before finally coating your throat with his come. You gagged as he finally pulled out. You swallowed. He caught his breath before he tucked himself back in his pants. He then helped you off the ground, your knees aching from the release of pressure on them. He took out his bandana from his back pocket and handed it to you. You wiped your mouth.

“I’ve missed that mouth.” He said as he ran his thumb along your bottom lip. You stayed quiet, not sure what to say. You gave in to him. You wanted to. And damn did you miss him.

“I don’t have to prove that I can make you come better than he can. Because you know I can. I also don’t have to prove that I can love you better than he can. Because you know that too. But I will prove that I deserve your love. Please come back to me, mami.” You weren’t expecting his words. He cupped your face and you placed your hands over his. Not to move them but to keep them there, to press them further against your skin.

“Angel…” He didn’t let you talk.

“I know I fucked up but I’ll do everything I can to get you to trust me again. Everything, mi amor. Just give me another chance here.”

“Okay.” He pulled you in for a kiss after the words left your lips. His tongue immediately making its way into your mouth.

“Never letting you go again.”

And he never did.

#angel reyes x you #angel reyes x reader #angel reyes #mayans mc

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padfootagain · 4 years

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Girl Crush (X)

Chapter 10: An Impatient Forsythia

Here we go again, new chapter, hooray! Cute, cute, very cute again, no angst, just cuteness!!

I might take three days instead of two to post the next chapter this time, because I've been writing ahead in the story for the past few days, so the next chapter isn't ready. It will be ready before the end of the week though, considering how inspired I am by this mess…

I hope you like this chapter! Tell me what you think about it, please!

Word Count: 3960

Five minutes left.

300 seconds.

Harry wanted you by his side. It was an important moment, and if there was one person he wanted with him now, it was you.

He hadn't slept at all, he hadn't eaten in the past 24 hours, he felt sick and yet overexcited.

Putting some music out there for the world to hear was nerve-wrecking, and he loved it. He turned towards Jeffrey behind him, inflating his cheeks with air before releasing it in a long sigh.

Only a few minutes left before his first single was out there. Less than a week before he would perform it live for the first time.

He chased the latter thought away, though. He already had enough to worry about.

One minute left.

He reached for your hand without looking. He knew you were next to him, he could feel you being there, somehow. Then, it was nothing new. He seemed to always know precisely where you were whenever the two of you were in the same room, no matter if he could see you or not.

And indeed, his fingers found yours naturally, without any difficulty, holding on your hand as if it were his lifeline. Your gentle squeeze was reassuring, solid, a silent way to show him that you were for him. He felt so grateful for it, for your presence by his side, for always being here for him… he reckoned he could never thank you enough for that.

And suddenly the song appeared on the screen of Harry's computer. It was up. For the world to see. His first single as a solo artist was out.

A piano ballad… what the hell had he done?

"It's done, mate," Mitch patted Harry's shoulder.

"Now that it's out, you can't go back," Sarah added with a teasing smile, to which he replied by sticking out his tongue at her.

Hugs were exchanged across the room, and congratulations, although for now the anxiety was still high. No one knew what people would think about it for now.

In his round for hugs, Harry saved you for last, a smile forming on his lips as he finally looked at you.

"It's done," you nodded before wrapping your arms around him, bringing him close for a tight hug. "Congratulations!"

"Don't congratulate me yet. It's out, doesn't mean it's good."

You rolled your eyes.

"It is good though. Excellent even."

He closed his eyes and threw his head back a little, a cheeky smile piercing through his nervous expression.

"Hmm… yes, the narcissist in me is listening, keep going."

You laughed, nudging him for being an idiot, and dropped a kiss to his cheek that he hadn't expected, and he turned away to hide the way he blushed at the gesture. Because he was surprised, that was all… right?

"It's an amazing song, and people will love it. Maybe not as much as I do but then I'm biased, as I am your best friend."

He chuckled.

"See? You are blinded by your loyalty towards me. That's the only reason why you like my music."

You nodded, chuckling, while he rested a hand on his heart, faking to be hurt.

"Ouch… and here suffers my narcissistic side…"

"Good, otherwise your head is gonna get even bigger than it already is, and that would mean that you would probably not be able to walk through doors anymore."

"Alright, alright, that's enough, that's enough!" he fought back, struggling and failing to refrain a smile.

You laughed at him, before taking his face in your hands, hold tender and gentle as you brushed your thumbs across his cheekbones, making his smile settle on his lips for good and his heart beat faster.

"More seriously though, it's an amazing song. And I'm very proud of you, so I reckon that you can embrace the narcissist in you for this one. I'll squeeze your head to help you walk through the door."

Ten minutes.

600 seconds.

It had been ten minutes since Harry had finished his first performance of his song. Was he happy with it? No, he could pinpoint every single thing he had done wrong, every note he had missed, every time his voice hadn't been as strong as it should have been.

He heaved a deep sigh, sitting down in his dressing room before taking off his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt.

Well, it was done now, no need to beat himself up over it. That's what he tried to persuade himself into doing after every performance, and failed to accomplish every single time.

He took his phone, taking a few minutes to relax before changing into casual clothes again and leaving the studio. He was exhausted, and the stress accumulated for these past few days suddenly leaving his system seemed to only amplify the feeling.

His stress level wouldn't be down for long though, only a few days to catch his breath and he was due to perform on another show. And then another. And then another.

The thought led him to plan all the things he had to work on for the next performance, and he could feel his anxiety going right up again.

He didn't have enough strength to deal with that.

He had several notifications from friends and family who had watched the show, but if he smiled at the sight, it was only because he was looking for your name through the list of texts.

And indeed, there you were.

Seven unread messages.

He was smiling already.

HARRYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!

He couldn't refrain a chuckle.

THAT WAS AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also, you've got to stop being this hilarious

and charming all the time, it gets annoying

after a while :(

He rolled his eyes, but exploded with laughter at the next text.

How's that ego of yours after that comment?

Oh dear… what have I done?!

More seriously, it was amazing. I'm very proud

of my best friend right now. Congratulations.

And as you wanted to see my reaction,

here comes.

He scrolled down to reveal the picture of yourself that you had sent, while he chuckled and shook his head with amusement. He had joked about the fact that he wouldn't be able to see it on your face if things were going ill, and you had replied that you would send him a pic of yourself at the end of the performance. He didn't think you would really do it, the two of you were simply being silly, and yet, there you were.

In those purple pyjamas with tiny cats all over them that he loved because they were so soft when he held you then, your eyes red and tears still shining on your cheeks but a smile on your lips and what he could only call pride softening your features. You had a thumb up, but you were also clearly holding a Kleenex.

He was still mad at himself, but he felt better already.

He typed his answer with a smile, despite his disappointment.

You are way too kind. I completely

fucked up.

It only took a few seconds for your answer to pop up on his screen.

Don't say that! It was alright.

The end was a pure catastrophe and

the rest was barely any better.

It was your first performance!

You'll get it right next time. It

was still okay.

See! You're going from amazing to

okay.

It was amazing, I still loved it.

Next time will be perfect. But it

was still great. I loved it.

You are supposed to call me out

when I do things wrong… as a

friend.

That applies if you go apeshit and

do something morally wrong. Also

for relationships. Not for SNL

performances. Then I'm the fairy who

delivers tons of encouragements.

Does that mean you have a magic

wand or something? Butterfly

wings?

Everyone says it's butterflies wings

but that is for the godmothers. The

encouragements fairies are closer to bees.

Now I'm imagining your face on the

body of a bee and that is the most

terrifying thing I have ever thought of,

thanks for the trauma.

You're welcome ;)

He laughed again, before he would redirect the conersation towards your day. He wished you were there with him. Why did the U.S have to be so damn vast?

He didn't notice how time was flying, and for the next twenty minutes, he was simply texting with you back and forth, talking about your customers and googling what the hell was a weigela.

And for as long as he talked to you, he didn't think about the notes he had missed that night, nor the upcoming shows, nor anything but you.

One week left.

Seven days.

Seven days and his first solo album would be released. The thought made his head spin…

As he walked towards your flat, the thought tortured him all over again.

Dear God, he couldn't imagine that time had flown so fast, and yet it had.

He held the plastic bag in his hand a little tighter.

You were going to listen to it all for the first time. And he wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Was he dead anxious? Yes. Was he properly terrified at the idea that you wouldn't like his songs? Obviously. But he was also overexcited at the idea of you liking his songs. At least some of them. He wondered if you would guess which songs were about you, or at least had been started because of you, although the story had been amplified and torn around certain pieces to take it further from reality and closer to how he felt. He wondered if you would read into this, or if you would assume he was simply talking about an ex of his.

Anyways, the excitement to see your reaction was stronger than his nervousness, so he would stay while you listened to it and study every single one of your expressions.

He hoped for you to love all of his tunes, of course, but he also knew that it was hard to make an album with no songs worth of a skip. As long as you didn't hate one, he reckoned that it was okay. You had loved his first single, so all was fine.

He also couldn't wait to show you your name written on the album as a songwriter. He reckoned your reaction would be priceless.

He climbed up the stairs to your flat faster than he ever had, took a deep breath before entering, not bothering to knock, knowing that your door was open for him. You were expecting him after all.

"Y/N!" he called from across the hall, but you were rushing towards him in the blink of an eye.

You were a little dishevelled, and seemed overexcited to say the least. You were wearing an oversized t-shirt with a pair of shorts. Harry could feel his heart speed up at the sight, but he chose to ignore his reaction. He was simply happy to see you and excited at the idea of making you listen to his music, that was all. Nothing more…

You spotted his bag and squealed, clapping your hands and reaching to grab it, but Harry pulled away.

"Hey! Nope! Not for now!"

"Harry! I've been waiting for this for months."

"Well, I'm sure you can wait for a little longer then, huh?"

"No," you pouted, and gosh, were you adorable.

Annoyingly so. You were annoyingly adorable and he was annoyed now… that was why he had this feeling in his stomach. He was annoyed by you… right?

"Can I at least take off my jacket?" he laughed, and you humoured him as much.

"I've already ordered food, it arrived five minutes ago."

He smiled at that, a tender gesture that he hid by turning to hang his jacket next to yours. He took a deeper breath and recognized the scent of Indian food indeed.

You made your way to your couch, and he sat by your side. You were still eyeing the bag, but Harry was taking way too much pleasure torturing you, a cheeky smile badly hidden on his lips.

"So… do you want to watch TV?"

"Harry, I swear to God, if you don't show me this album right now, I will slam this chicken right into your face!"

"Alright, alright," he laughed, reaching inside his bag. "But… I have something else for you first."

"Really?" you asked with a frown.

"Yeah… I… we have our merch ready, and I thought… as you like being comfy… I thought you'd like this one."

He pulled out of his bag a black hoodie, and handed it to you.

You traced the letters embroidered in the soft fabric…

Treat people with kindness

Yes, you remembered that he had mentioned that phrase before, that he wanted to turn it into his mantra.

Dear God, your eyes were watering already. But then, it was Harry's fault, why did he have to be such a kind soul all the time?

"It's lovely!" you grinned and put the hoodie on.

It was soft and comfortable and warm, and you knew you would spend many evenings wearing it whenever you missed Harry too much. You wiggled happily, making your friend's smile broaden.

"Thank you. I love it!"

"Yeah? You like it?"

"I love it. It' very comfy indeed. Thanks, Harry!"

He extended his cheek out of habit, expecting the familiar peck that always followed whenever he offered you something. Every time, without fail. Always his left cheek. Always lingering against his skin for a mere second. But you didn't move this time.

Instead, you tutted, shaking your head.

"You still need to give me my album," you chimmed, making him laugh, and he had to yield this time.

"Ready?" he asked one last time, but your grin was so bright, he didn't need a spoken answer. Your excitement and joy were painted all over your features.

"Alright."

He finally took the album out of his bag, and handed it to you, this time earning a kiss to his cheek.

You took the vinyl in your hand, careful, as if it were a precious piece of porcelain. Your heart was beating so fast…

"The cover is so beautiful," you commented, letting your fingers wander across the item.

"Thanks. It's me," he answered, making you laugh.

"Really? I thought it was Mitch!"

You both doubled with laughter at that, and Harry shook his head.

"Come on, we both know he's not that good looking."

"It's just your back for now…"

"Still, can't you tell?"

You nudged him playfully.

You opened it, took your time to admire the vinyl and what it held. Until you finally got up to place the vinyl on your turntable.

You waited until the first tune would start to walk back to the couch and took your seat by Harry's side again.

It took you 56 seconds. Harry hadn't realized he had been counting, and yet he knew how much time had passed between the moment you sat down and when you reached to lock your arm in his and rested your head against his shoulder.

He moved to drop a kiss to your hair, but thought better of it.

You didn't speak. You didn't say anything through the whole song, and at first he thought that it was because you didn't like it. He nervously twisted the fabric of his trousers between his fingers, waiting for you to react, to make a clever remark, even to mock him, anything…

It's only during the last chorus that he heard you sniffing and realized you were crying.

What was he supposed to do?

Meet Me in the Hallway was replaced by Sign of the Times, and Harry moved to stand and go skip the song, as you had heard it before, but you held him back, shaking your head.

"No, please, don't. I love it. Let it play."

Your eyes were reddened and a little puffy, you were sniffing again and your cheeks were wet with tears. Your eyes looked bigger now, under the yellowish light of your lamp. So, he nodded, sat back fully in the couch. He couldn't have denied you anything with you looking at him like this, wide-eyed and so fragile, and the thought was a little scary, if he were to be honest. He reached for the box of tissues on his right and handed it to you. You thanked him with a smile, but didn't move from your position against his shoulder.

"Did you like it? The first song?"

You checked the title on the cover, but nodded.

"I loved it. I really did. Are you aiming for making me cry through all 10 songs?"

Harry chuckled, relaxing against you.

"Only for some of them."

"How generous…"

You snuggled closer to him, and he wrapped his hand around yours, letting Sign of the Times play. He noticed that you were mouthing the words and humming the melody, and he felt a wave of pride and joy washing over him.

He had written songs that you liked, that you had learnt the lyrics of, that you hummed along to. He reckoned it couldn't mean that they were bad.

Carolina followed, and you looked up at him with raised eyebrows at the change of pace compared to the previous songs.

"Huh… nice…"

"Nice?"

You listened more to the song, but nodded, smiling as the chorus hit in.

"Oh that's nice," you nodded, starting to move with the music without breaking your hold on him.

You reached for your food on the table, and Harry didn't need to check which box to choose. He knew the one before him was his. He knew you had gotten him his favourite. He knew exactly what to expect when he opened the lid. Just like he knew what you had ordered for yourself.

Two Ghosts and Sweet Creature followed, calmer and soothing and making your heart ache and making you close your eyes to listen to them. And Harry smiled with the memory of how some of lyrics were born thanks to you.

You were jumping on the sofa and laughing and dancing like two fools for Only Angel and Kiwi, and Harry knew from your reaction that he had been right. Kiwi would be amazing to perform on stage.

Ever Since New York had you lying on the sofa with your legs resting on Harry's laps while he played with your jeans and traced meaningless forms on your shins. You remained like this to scream to Woman.

And then it was already the last song, and you were back against Harry. You recognized the tune that you were humming that day, when you had eaten lunch with him, thousands of miles apart, through your computers. You looked at him with a stunned expression painted all over your features… You had never thought that… he would… actually make something of it…

Even my phone misses your calls, by the way

Your verse was there too… later in the song…

Maybe one day you'll call me and tell me that you're sorry too

But he didn't say anything. Even if he could read a thousand questions in your eyes, he remained silent. Instead, he merely handed you the vinyl again, and pointed at the credits for the last song.

Y/N Y/L/N

Your name was written right there, printed on the paper, as one of the writers for the song.

You looked up at him again, on the verge of tears, and you had no words, really, to describe how you felt when the last notes of From the Dining Table echoed through your home.

"You… you really did use that?" you breathed after a long silence.

He shrugged, a little shy all of a sudden.

"It was a good tune. Good lines too."

"You… you wrote my name on your album."

"Well, you did come up with the tune, and a few lines of the lyrics. It's normal. I mean, it wouldn't have been legal for me to not credit you for it."

You chuckled, brushing your tears away.

"I wouldn't have been mad, wouldn't have sued you or anything, if you hadn't added my name."

"I'm not a thief," he shook his head. "Besides, your name looks great on there, doesn't it?"

"Yeah… yeah, I reckon that it does. But I've barely done anything…"

"You have. You've done so much already."

You both knew that Harry wasn't talking about the song anymore, but you didn't comment on it. Instead, you went to lean against him again.

You heaved a sigh, holding your hoodie and Harry closer.

"So? What do you think?" he asked after a couple of minutes spent in silence.

"I think it's really… really good."

"Yeah?"

"Absolutely."

"Are you being the supportive fairy again, or…?"

"No, I really love it. It's amazing."

"Thank you."

"Anyway, even if I didn't like it, too late to change it, right?"

He burst out in laughter.

"Yeah, I'm afraid so. What's your least favourite song?"

"Least favourite? Why would I tell you that? It's a happy moment, I'm not going to tell you my least favourite."

"So, you have a least favourite…"

You rolled your eyes, pinching his arm to shush him, and he playfully struggled against your gesture.

"What's your favourite then?"

You considered the question for a moment, but then, the answer was pretty obvious.

"I mean… I've helped making one so… I feel like it has to be my favourite, you know? Besides, it brings back good memories. You remember that day?"

"I wrote a song after what happened that night, of course I do," Harry laughed, resting his head on the back of the couch, and closing his eyes. "Your pesto was a disaster. I could smell it burn from across the globe."

"Oh, shut up!" you chuckled, making him laugh too, the gesture making him tremble under you.

"It's my favourite too," Harry let out in a breath.

"Really?"

"Yeah. I like it a lot. I'm happy with it."

It was true that he was particularly proud of what From the Dining Table sounded like. But maybe, just maybe, it was his favourite because he could see you there, your frame painted all over his computer screen, your hair a mess, your kitchen even messier, humming happily despite how much of a disaster your recipe was turning out to be. But that was just a maybe.

"I'm glad you're the first person to listen to it," he went on.

"Am I?"

He nodded, humming softly.

"First person outside the studio to hear the whole thing. I'm happy you like it."

"I love it," you corrected him with a grin. "Thank you, for trusting me with it."

"That's more than alright."

You should have asked him when he was leaving for London. His first show the day after the release of his album would happen there, and you reckoned that his flight was booked in less than two days. You should have told him about how you wanted him to meet Gareth properly.

But you didn't. The moment felt too nice. Harry was so relaxed by your side, peaceful with his eyes closed like this, dishevelled and with the ghost of a smile gracing his lips. And you were too happy to just be holding him for a little longer.

So you didn't talk about any of the things that you should have said.

"Harry?"

"Hmmm?"

"Would you like to play monopoly with me?"

His smile widened and widened until it turned into a full toothy grin that could have lightened up the entire room.

He opened one eye to look at you.

"Challenge accepted."

********************************************

Tag list : @ponycake27 @horsesreign @xinyourdreamsx @jbluevelvet @notkeppeki @daynigt-dreamer-stuff @fudgeflyss @stuckupstucky @snek-shit @suchatinyinfinity @i-padfootblack-things @buckybsarmy @heyohheyitsgabi@jigsawlover10 @emyyjemyy @addictedtofictionalcharacters @staringmoony

@madamrogers @cronias13 @stylesfics-xx @mellamolayla

#harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles series #harry styles imagine #fanfic #fanfiction #writing #series #imagine

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doomedandstoned · 3 years

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Italian Doomers BRETUS Tell Ghostly Tales on New LP, ‘Magharia’

~Doomed & Stoned Debuts~

By Billy Goate

Artwork by DamianaMerante

Hailing from the City of the Two Seas, Italian doomers BRETUS return with a new album of ghost stories. Longtimers know that Bretus and Doomed & Stoned practically grew up together. Though the band has been active since the turn of the century, our first exposure came with their debut full-length 'In Onirica' (2012) and subsequently we formed a friendship with the Catanzaro doomers that continues to this very day. It's hard to believe they're already over two decades old (okay, 20 years young, if you like). And what do they have to show for it? A handful of LPs, an EP, and a split with fellow Italianos Black Capricorn.

If you're as much a fan of vintage horror movies, H.P. Lovecraft lore, mysticism, and the occult as Zagarus (vox), Ghenes (guitar), Janos (bass), and Striges (drums), there's a whole world of story and sound awaiting your deep dive into the Bretus catalog. Adding to their already excellent discography, a fifth album now reveals itself: 'Magharia' (2021).

I won't spoil my interview with the band (see below) if I tell you that the album concerns, shall we say, several tales of the supernatural variety. An ominous gong is struck to the backdrop of monastic chant as Magharia opens in epic fashion "Celebration of Gloom," a song characterized by a chugging proto-trash tempo, trve metal stylings, and Gothic vocals appropriate to it's subject. It's a rather grim account of a certain sacrilegious priest and his daliences with young women of the church. As a preacher's kid, I've seen this kind of thing play out a hundred times and can assure you these sweeping romances between clergy and laity never end well. In this case, it winds up with a ghoulish rite and a victim's vengeance.

"In the sky lightning strikes...wicked laments rise from the ground." Welcome to "Cursed Island." True to the spirit of the lyrics, this track really let's it all hang out, with quasi operatic vocals that occasionally erupt in maniacal laughter (reminding me vintage Reagers-era Saint Vitus, with its lusty swagger). And why not? This is after all about the mystery that surrounds one of the most haunted islands on earth.

Thus far, the record's been sporting a pretty up-beat pulse, so surely you're ready for some good old fashion doom? "Moonchild's Scream" concerns a albino girl accused of being possessed by the devil for her appearance. One day, she disappears in the dungeons of a castle and legend has it that her cries can still be heard every five years during the Summer Solstice. Doesn't get more doom than that, folks!

After a brief interlude ("Necropass"), we arrive at my favorite track of Magharia. "Nuraghe" concerns the spirit of a woman judged and condemned for a crime she was innocent of still roams among the ancient stones. Boy, the ancients sure did have a hang-up with free-spirited, independent women, didn't they? The song itself is possessed by the spirit of Pentagram in its biting guitar work and rhythmic attack. Love the riffage on this one! Some of it could have been played out just a little more for my taste, like the all-too-brief Soundgardenesque motif at the two-minute mark. It returns a minute later, again in brief. C'mon Ghenes, let your inner Kim Thayil loose! Maybe we can convince them to improv at this point with a bitchin' guitar solo at their next festival appearance. Then again, perhaps this fits artistically with the song, which speaks of obscure "grim dancing bats" and a ghost that haunts through swift shadows passing over glimmers of light. Once again, Zagrus expressive song style comes through to distinguish this as a gem of the genre. I shall be revisiting it on my personal playlist often.

"Headless Ghost" strikes graceful Goatsnake groove as the yarn is spun about the restless and tormented soul of an ancient Roman warrior who has risen from his place of rest. All he wants is the skull that was looted from his place of burial. Give it back to him! "No one will be spared tonight," the lyrics warn, as the song shifts down to a dire doom dirge as the night unveils a strange moon and the wanderings of a cursed soul, seeking his head and not more. "He is living again in this hell."

"The Bridge of Damnation" is one of the creepiest of the record, said to be about "a bridge, a young boy, and his three torturers." The mood is quite dark, with esoteric atmosphere, reverberating vocalizations, guitar and bass trading off notes. Oh, and did I mention this tale from the crypt involves death and resurrection, as well? The riffmaking and drumming are absolutely on point, as is the singing -- which by now in the record I'm not only am accustomed to, but have grown to admire. Another keeper!

"Sinful Nun" winds and grinds as Zagarus croons about the inner torment of a Sister who has never gotten over her beloved, who died under such unspeakably tragic circumstances that she decided to consecrate herself to God in celibacy. However, her vows are in vain as she still pines for her long lost lover. The verses are sung to the accompaniment of a galloping tempo, which seems to represent the fevered anguish of a soul forever stricken by grief and the haunted memories of lost love. This is juxtaposed in the chorus by a cursed riff that seems to speak as the Hand of Fate itself. "Farewell to this life," are the Sinful Nun's final words.

At last, we reach the album's namesake and though "Magharia" is entirely instrumental, it would be a mistake to assume you know what it's going to do. Around the four-minute mark, I had to check and make sure I was listening to the same album, as dark synth busted out a metronomic rhythm, leading to a declamatory section of keyboards to accompany the math-like guitar play and an improvisation of almost creepy seventies-sounding prog, which after its playful fit dissipates suddenly in a bluesy collapse.

Bretus have cooked up a remarkable horror soundtrack that, though it speaks of ancient lore, is very much a fitting backdrop to the unreality of our own times. Fitting somewhere on the stylistic spectrum between Candlemass and Paul Chain, Reverend Bizarre and Cardinals Folly, Margharia may be the band's finest effort to date. Certainly, it rewards repeated listens, and will haunt you for many years to come. Look for the record to drop this weekend (pre-order here), with multiple physical formats releasing via The Swamp Records (compact disc), Burning Coffin Records (cassette), and Overdrive Records (vinyl). Until then, you can stream it all, right now, right here!

Give ear...

Magharia by BRETUS

An Interview with Bretus

What is the concept behind the new album and what themes do you explore?

Musically the new record is most "in your face" than the previous album. Also our approach to the recording was different. We rehearsed and arranged together more than before. The result is an album more raw to us. It is a concept album born around different italian old ghost tales. Some of these is supposed to be legend or myth, who knows.

When did you write it? Was it during the pandemic lockdowns?

We had more ideas about new stuff long before the pandemia arrived. We spent this time working on the pre-production of the tracks.

Can you give us a track-by-track explanation of each song on the album?

For sure!

"Celebration of Gloom" is a strange song because there are many influences in it. Including a solo flute in the middle of the track. However is a very loud and gloomy song.

"Cursed Island" probably is the most rock 'n' roll song of the album. If you know what I mean. Rock in the attitude. Also the first video of the album.

"Moonchild's Scream" is 100% pure Doom with a heavy mid-section.

"Necropass" is like Caronte travelling the damned souls across the Stige River.

"Nuraghe" is a heavy oriented track with a very dark feeling.

"Headless Ghost" has a more stoner trend than the others and in the end there is a psycho riffing.

"The Bridge of Damnation" includes our '80s dark influences into our sound, probably the most haunted track of the album. The story is based upon an old weird story that happened in our native city, Catanzaro.

"Sinful Nun" is like an experiment and neither of us can explain really what it is... ah ah aha! For sure the most heavy track of all.

Finally "Magharia." You cannot believe it but the idea comes from a Who's album, Quadrophenia. Either of us wrote a part of the song. The result is a kind of horror soundtrack.

Magharia by BRETUS

How do you feel that your basic style or approach to song composition has changed since you first started writing songs in the early days?

You already know a lot of things about us, we know you from so long ago! Please don't ask how old we are. (laughs) Basically our approach is the same from the beginning. Of course we listen to a lot of new stuff during these years so every album brings different "colors."

Where are you most looking forward to playing live once pandemic restrictions are eased?

Everywhere! We are angry for live gigs or simply to drink beers with friends.

Follow The Band

Get Their Music

#D&S Debuts #D&S Interviews #D&S Reviews #Bretus #Catanzaro #Italy #doom #metal #doom metal #horror #occult #stoner rock #HeavyBest2021 #Doomed and Stoned

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cruddyborderlandstheories · 4 years

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so i’d really like to finish my guardian takedown lore analysis, but honestly the game isn’t really fun to play at the moment anymore (even with the health debuffs they added) so I think im going to be taking a break for now because I’m just not having fun anymore.

this game has a lotta mechanical problems i think need to be addressed so im gonna summarize it as bullet points below. I’ll play the new dlc when it drops, but idk if i’ll be on more than that (grinding, end-game stuff) until they make some serious changes. I’ve been playing (near) daily since launch, followed the patch/hotfix notes every single week, and my patience has finally, FINALLY run dry, especially with that really disappointing Phase 1 Patch and then the hotfix this week not adding anything else. What is the balancing team doing??? 😩

tl;dr: FIX THE VAULT HUNTERS!!!!

anyway. That’s all I needed to get outta my system. I might log on to this blog every now and again to post some random shit that pops into my head (probably with regards to my AU), but I’m not going to be actively playing and posting for the time being. Goodbye (for now), and here’s hoping the new DLC is good!!

guardian takedown only problems:

there’s a lot of waiting around, and sometimes it’s not explicitly stated that you’re waiting for something, so you’ll be lost on what to do next (not sure if that’s a dialogue glitch or not)

the crystal charge insta-death is bull. just. what the hell. at least make it so you just have to start over. killing ur players for failing a “puzzle” that they then have to fight all the way back to is so infuriating.

dying because you fell off a platforming puzzle is also bull.

i remember playing the first DMC on my playstation in middle school and having a conniption over the part in the observatory(? it’s been a hot minute since I played DMC 1) with the disappearing/invisible platforms. I h a t e jumping puzzles. why are they in a section of the game where death is semi-permanent and a detriment to your teammates. i tried the takedown 2x with friends and both times one friend didn’t make the first big jump to the temple and had to wait for our inevitable deaths. that’s so unfair to them.

there’s absolutely no reason for a boss to have 12 fuckin immunity phases. 4 per health bar with 3 health bars? Who the fuck designed this? *pumps shotgun* i just wanna talk.

i appreciate a tasteful immunity phase every now and again (the ones in the Valkyrie fight are actually p reasonable), but christ. that is overkill. I don’t mind the main boss fight, since u can end those early through certain actions, but jesus. the mid-boss fight is annoying as hell. you spend more time running from the immunity phases and finding the damn boss than u do actually shooting it.

drop rates are crap, which I guess should be expected given what happened with the Maliwan Takedown and the handful of months it took for them to fix that, but also you think they’d have learned.

in the maliwan takedown there’s a sense of progression thru the facility after you kill each area’s batch of enemies, but in this one it’s... dampened by the crystal charging sequences. you kill all the enemies in an area, press a button, and now you have to kill 3x that number of enemies in the same area, expect you’re just standing there motionless. It’s not fun.

the crystal charging stuff is just not fun in general. standing in a square is not entertaining. it’s worse that it was clearly designed for 3+ players when a majority of people play/grind solo

i gotta admit the boss fights just aren’t as fun as the Maliwan Takedown fights overall. I felt like a real badass fighting Wotan for the first time, but the main boss for this Takedown is kind of a bitch. Wotan’s fight is chaos, there’s so much shit happening at once and you don’t really have time to process everything and I love it. This one is p meh...

This would be fine and I’d 100% not care that much if there weren’t all these OTHER problems

General Issues with the Game

There’s no endgame stuff to play outside of the takedowns.

I assume they’re working on the first raid given some stuff I found in the Guardian Takedown files, but I really wish they’d keep the seasonal events/areas. They give us the option to disable/enable them while they’re ‘active’, just give us the ability to do it whenever we want.

when i hop on i either run through Athenas (my favorite map), or farm a boss or two. I have all the loot i really need from the maliwan takedown/elsewhere, and the guardian takedown just... isn’t fun atm, so i have nothing to do.

I’ve reset my playthru multiple times to play the main story at m10, but u can only play it (and the dlc) so many times

Mayhem levels and modifiers are a hot m e s s

a majority of the modifiers just aren’t fun to play with

they incorporated like 2-3 fun modifiers (from the community), then added a bunch that straight-up aren’t. I’m fine with the game being more difficult, but at least give us modifiers that make it more entertaining to play at a higher level instead of more annoying. I like the ones that have trade-offs or add new ‘enemies’, but I hate the ones that just straight up reduce your damage output.

a majority of the weapons with the mayhem 10 anointment (scaling) do not work on mayhem 10 (we’ll go more in-depth with this later)

Player Characters (Vault Hunters!!!) are also a hot mess and a lot of problems plaguing them haven’t been fixed SINCE LAUNCH

theyre literally the basis of the game and its balance. why havent you guys fixed them yet. stop adding new content until they’re fixed. no new skill trees until the base 3 trees work ON EVERY CHARACTER.

seriously. Why is amara p much limited to using Phasegrasp. Why does Iron Bear not matter to Moze except to proc anointments. MAKE ALL ACTION SKILLS EQUAL AND HAVE HEFT.

i wrote an essay here about it bc i feel that strongly about this

SERIOUSLY FIXING UR VAULT HUNTERS WILL MAKE BALANCING SO MUCH EASIER PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU THEY ARE THE BASE OF UR BALANCING WOES

ZANE IS STILL UNUSABLE WITHOUT THE SEEIN’ DEAD CLASS MOD!!!!!!!!!!!

MOZE IS SCREWED BC HER DAMAGE IS TOO RELIANT ON ASE ANOINTMENTS!!

AMARA DOESN’T HAVE A FUCKING MELEE BUILD AS THE ADVERTISED MELEE CHARACTER???

FL4K’S HEADCOUNT SKILL IS S T I L L BROKEN EVER SINCE THE RELEASE OF THE MALIWAN TAKEDOWN

ARE YOU GUYS LISTENING TO THE COMMUNITY *PLEASEEEEEEE*

BUFF AND FIX THE GODDAMN VAULT HUNTERS

Anointments were a mistake. Damage end-game is wayyyy too reliant on them

anoints should have a maximum of, like, a 20% damage bonus. the damage necessary to kill enemies *should be coming from the VHs themselves*. i don’t care if you have to revamp every single Vault Hunter’s skill trees and buff them all by 9000%. THEY DESERVE IT AT THIS POINT

at the moment in m10 there really isn’t much build diversity *even between Vault Hunters*. We’re all using the same 5 guns (OPQ System. Kaoson. idk. fuckin brainstormer? is that still a thing? jesus fuck) with the same 3 anointments (100% on ASE, cryo while SNTL, and 300% while 90%).

you want to diversify builds like you said during the gameplay reveal???? you want our choice in Vault Hunter to actually fuckin matter???? FIX THEM!!!! THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO DEAL DAMAGE WITHOUT STUPID POWERFUL LEGENDARIES AND ANOINTMENTS!!!

Anoints also shouldn’t be common. At all. They should be, like, Pearl rarity. To let that happen, their damage needs to be tuned way the fuck down (again, 20ish % bonus MAX) and ALL ANOINTS NEED TO BE USEFUL IN SOME WAY

NOBODY IS GOING TO USE THE AIRBORNE OR SLIDING ANOINTMENTS JUST REMOVE THEM ALREADY AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

obviously these changes can’t happen because they fucked up and buckled down with everything being anointed in m10, but still

imagine a world where the VHs actually did damage on their own without anointments and the damage buff from them was just an incentive to grind for the 100% perfect weapon and NOT A REQUIREMENT TO DEAL DAMAGE

>:(

A majority of gear is borderline worthless at M10

I’m fine with the difficulty of M10, i should let it be known. The enemy health isn’t really the problem IF ALL GUNS ACTED THE SAME AS THE OPQ SYSTEM

ffs.

you know, if you fixed ur vault hunters so they all did damage with just purple weapons (abt the same damage as legendaries w/o special effects) and removed the anointment requirement from late-game play, balancing your guns would be sooo much easier. you know. just saying.

right now only 10% (im being generous) of guns in the game are viable. 90% are worthless. We need AT LEAST 60-70% viable at M10. WHERE IS MY BUILD DIVERSITY. WHY ARE ALL LEGENDARIES NOW JUST “HEY THIS GUN IS STRONGER THAN THE LAST 4 WE RELEASED. HAVE FUN”

how to fix this problem? do as above: BUFF YOUR PLAYER CHARACTERS. MAKE ANOINTMENTS LESS STRONG.

then, at least the 10% already strong weapons would be stupid strong and OP as fuck, BUT AT LEAST WE COULD HAVE BUILD VARIETY!!! I don’t care if other people are dummy strong one-shotting everything in sight. I don’t! so long as they don’t play with me, I couldn’t care less!!! I want to be able to play with the unique, interesting legendaries. instead of the OPQ System. which, by the way, I dislike compared to the normal Q-System. let me use the frozen heart shield and the infiltrator mod. I don’t wanna be chained to the Seein’ Dead anymore :(

honestly at this point im starting to think removing slag was a mistake bc then at least we could use guns that aren’t solely damage-based guns. you know how fucked up you’ve got me that im thinking maybe slag wouldn’t be so bad this time around??? YOU GOT ME FUCKED UP B A D.

FIX THE GAME

IM TAKING A BREAK

MAYBE I’LL BE LESS UPSET WHEN I COME BACK FOR THE DLC BUT HOT. DIGGITY. SHIT.

#borderlands #bl3 #whelp #i needed to get that out #still frustrated...#just... fix the game #please #its so disheartening to see this STILL going on #like i know bl2 had the same problems #with the balancing #remember when they nerfed zer0 and buffed salvador?#but like christ at least they were messing with the vault hunters #now they're trying to brush their problems under the rug and it's really sad to watch #you would think they'd have learned from bl2

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writeyourownlifestory · 4 years

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L I GH T S U P

Chapters: 1/20 Fandom: IT Rating: M Warnings: No warnings at this time Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Beverly Marsh/Ben Hanscom Additional Tags: PunkRocker!Eddie, Writer!Richie, Beveddie!Friendship, No Clown Written by: myself & @ahardlife Tag list: @richietoaster, @beproudtozier, @that-weird-girls-blog, @s-onora, @s-s-georgie, @bellarosewrites, @iamcupcakefrosting, @reddieonwheels, @bi-gemini1983

Puff piece writer Richie Tozier is given the chance of a lifetime to interview his celebrity crush: Dr. K, the lead singer of punk rock band, Trashmouth. Dr. K is about to release his first solo album and Richie wants to get all the dirty details. But all is not what it appears to be and the two realize they know each other from a different time, in a different place, when they were both very different people.

One: Cruel To Be Kind: Nick Lowe

Oh I can't take another heartache Though you say you're my friend, I'm at my wit's end You say your love is bonafide, but that don't coincide With the things that you do And when I ask you to be nice, you say

You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure Cruel to be kind, it's a very good sign Cruel to be kind, means that I love you, baby (You've gotta be cruel) You gotta be cruel to be kind

Richie Tozier didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life.

That wasn’t a very unique statement but Richie wasn’t a very unique person. An average guy who was as blind as a bat, born in bumblefuck nowhere and eventually making it out of there and into the big wild city, making a living working at a big-name magazine.

Okay, the last part was pretty impressive, but he didn’t actually work very hard for that job.

He used to dream of writing comedy. Of telling jokes or writing for amazing shows like Saturday Night Life or something on Comedy Central. He wanted to be a comedian. To make people laugh. Sure, he is seen as the funny guy around the watering tank, but thats just because the rest of the people he worked with were a bunch of yuppies with impressive college degrees and no real personalities. They’re no better than the robots who work for Buzzfeed.

They had paperback covers and an app for people who didn’t want to go to the store to buy an actual copy. They had their own YouTube channel that hit millions of hits thanks to interviews and other shit that Richie took part in.

When Bill decided he wanted to make this into a real thing, he wanted it to make some sense. It wasn’t some balls to the ball insanity mag that people read for juicy gossip. It was real. The people who subscribed were real and the people featured in it were real.

Richie’s writing, not so much.

He mostly did puff pieces. Little things that didn’t take a lot of effort but were mostly filler in between the larger stories. It was something Bill had done for them after the magazine got big. You see, he and Bill had been buddies in college. Both young and naive about the world. Neither really knew what they wanted, but they had dreams and that was all that mattered back then.

It was Bill that had the real talent with writing and despite publishers being interested, he never took into account just how much time, effort, and money went into getting a book published. Richie, always believing in his best friend, decided to give him all the cash he had saved up for spring break so he would make the first move on getting his novel out.

He didn’t mind much as he found that he could eat, sleep, and drink on the couch the same way he could out on the beach.

That novel ended up being a best seller and skyrocketed Bill’s career. Bill always remembered that, so when his second and third books became such a thrill, he decided to take the chance and create a magazine and brought Richie along for the ride.

It was easy work and he made good money for doing very little, but he found that was the main cause of his quarter-life crisis. He wanted so much more than he had been given that Richie was actually feeling guilty for wanting more.

He had done stand up in the city and even took an improv class, but nothing seemed to stick to him. Now he was over thirty and found himself in a rut. He lived alone in a small apartment filled with things he didn’t need but purchased because he thought they would bring out a sense of excitement.

He was single, though that was a whole nother issue as it took Richie an embarrassingly long time to come to terms with his own sexuality. Growing up in a small town where people were cruel and the world didn’t understand left marks on an impressionable kid. It wasn’t until he was halfway through college that he did anything with a guy and well-passed gradation that he realized that it was more than okay to be gay, it was normal.

So yeah, he was open and fine with it, but still lonely as hell. He had been with people in the past, but he found that he mostly just shut himself off from the world. He wasn’t happy about anything anymore and it seemed the only thing that got him by was that ending it all would have proved his teenage bullies right; that he was better off dead.

And if there was anything Richie wanted to live for, it was spite.

And also music.

Despite not being musically inclined at all, Richie loved music with all his heart. He spent a good portion of his time listening to records as a kid. He used to go around carrying a walkman and CD player and Zune throughout his life. He paid for the mom's gigs on his phone because he needed to have all his favorite songs ready to blast at the tap of a finger.

While they already had a guy that wrote specifically about music for the magazine, he had always been able to sweet talk Bill into allowing him to have a few moments to shine and write something about some artist. Those were the pieces that really mattered to him. The ones that gave Richie the chance to dive deep into the thing he loved.

Sure, he had written a whole expose on Street Fighter and perhaps he did make a big deal out of the Star Wars franchise, but it was the moments when Richie could reel back and listen before writing that got him going.

They rarely did full-length articles on performers as the magazine was something of a clusterfuck of topics. Bill Denbrough never wanted to settle on just one thing. Paper Boat was more than just one specific topic. It was everything and they would be damned if they ever settled on its something.

But of course, now and then something would come along and the whole team would be scrambling to put together a magazine dedicated to that one specific person. It wasn’t always a celebrity. Bill meant what he said when he wanted to keep the magazine aimed at the everyday people.

Their biggest seller to date had been when they put out issues all about Ben Hanscom the architect. Richie had no idea why anybody would want to read about the guy other than to enjoy the pictures that were taken of him, but low and behold, the world wanted to know.

As it turned out, Ben was a decent human being who just wanted to make the world a better place and he also happened to be extremely hot while doing it. Who knew that was possible!

The physical copies sold out everywhere and the website crashed thanks to all the promotions they did on it. Like, what the actual fuck?

Bill was that good at what he did and it also helped that he was writing his books on the side. He had people from all over coming through wanting to see what they could do and it only proved to be more impressive as time went on.

Now the magazine needed something new, something fresh and it seemed Bill had it all planned out.

“Here at Paper Boat, we don’t choose a good looking celebrity because we want to make money. You know, I’m not going to call up Jennifer Aniston and ask her to do me a favor -- I could, but I won’t -- because that isn’t what we do here.” Bill explained as they went over the board meeting for the next issue. “The people featured on our cover are interesting. People who want to bring the world together and make a change. Or maybe they’re just batshit insane and look good while doing it. Who knows.”

A small array of laughter came over the place. Richie leaned back in his chair, half paying attention. He knew how these things went. Bill made a big, exciting speech before revealing who or what they’d be focusing on. The assignments would be passed around and Richie would be given something soft and fun.

He got the dumb shit that got the people who didn’t want to read involved. Sometimes he’d do interviews while vlogging. They’d try food they never tried before or do something stupid. One of the most interesting had been when he got assigned to interview Kristen Wiig while bobbing for apples. Certainly interesting and the flow to the website was wonderful.

Richie was the writer they went to when they wanted it to seem kitsch and gimmicky. Enough for it to garner actual attention, but nothing worth anybody's time.

He tossed his stress ball up in the air, catching it as it followed the natural path and came back down. He got bored easily as meetings like this and he waited for Bill to just get on with it and assign everybody their respected jobs.

Bill hit a button on his computer, revealing a picture that Richie was all too familiar with. It was of a punk rock band that he had followed since he graduated from college. Trashmouth was one of the greatest bands that had ever come into Richie’s life. They were like if Queen and the Ramones were put together, had a baby, and then that baby had a baby with Green Day: that weirdly insane combination would be Trashmouth.

There were five members, but the main focus was and always had been the lead singer and guitarist Dr. K. Nobody knew why he went by that nor did he ever give an answer. Richie had googled him a couple of times, wanting to find out more, but the guy was a fucking mystery. It was like he just appeared on the scene, completely out of his mind with cut off sleeves and steller vocals.

It was safe to say Richie had a big gay crush on Dr. K.

And that was fine because Dr. K was just as gay.

He had never been seen with anybody, always choosing to keep his personal life private, but his songs were obvious enough even if most of them seemed pretty genderless. He had done one interview where the person asking the questions kept using the term ‘she’ or ‘her’ until finally, the guy replied that he writes songs about guys.

That took the world by fucking storm and Richie Tozier had never been the same.

“Some of you may be familiar with Trashmouth. Multiple Grammy noms and wins. Always in the top 40 listings despite repeatedly being told that punk rock was dead.”

“Please tell me we’re going to be featuring the band,” Mike, the music specialist for the magazine, piped up eagerly.

“I can’t because we won’t,” Bill replied. “Our focus is on him.” Bill hit another button and a solo picture of Dr. K popped up.

Richie’s mouth was watering and he sat up straight. He had the same picture in a small poster in his apartment. It was set up alongside some other pictures in what he called his “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Wall” because he was just that big of a fan. He looked at it often, always finding himself thankful for all the music that had been created and got him through some pretty dark days as a kid.

Did it also help that Dr. K was incredibly attractive and gave Richie a little bit of encouragement just by looking so good? Yes, yes it did.

“It seems Dr. K will be going off on his own. My sources tell me he’ll be putting out a solo album by the end of the year and I want to know everything about it. Mikey, that’s your job. Speak to whoever you have to to find out what is going to be on that album. Audra, speak to the rest of the band, find out how they feel about the ending of an era. Georgie, get your camera ready because we’re doing a photo shoot with him in three days.”

“Who is doing the main exposé?” Greta asked, popping her gum as she spoke.

Bill smirked, turning back to his computer. “I’ll pick someone later. For now, you’re all dismissed.”

The group got up from their chairs and left Bill’s office. All except for Richie, who was too fucking flabbergasted to do a damn thing. As Bill began to head out, he finally scrambled to his feet to follow him. His long legs led him there quickly, though he mostly sidestepped around his coworkers to finally reach their boss.

“Bill! Big Bill! Wait up.” He called, following him to the elevator.

“What's up, Rich? I’m about to head out for lunch.” Bill said, turning to face him. “You hungry? We could check out that new sandwich place that opened across the way.

“Oh, no. I’m time. Stuffed.” Richie patted his stomach lamely, offering a large smile to his friend and boss. “Hey! So, just checking in to see about that latest pitch.”

“Oh right,” Bill paused, hitting the elevator button. “You were a fan of that band, right? Oof. Sorry about the breakup buddy. Haven’t you seen them like six times?”

“It’s sixteen, but that’s not important right now.” Richie corrected. “Bill. Buddy. You have to listen to me.”

“You got it, Rich.”

“I know you only trust me with the puff pieces because I’m not as talented as Mike or even Greta, but I need you to trust me on this.”

“You can do the exposé, Rich.”

“I have gotten better over time and I swear, if you just give me the chance, I promise. I won’t do a single embarrassing voice or anything to get Paper Boat blacklisted.”

“I’m sure you’ll embarrass yourself in one way or another, but that’s your issue. You have two days.”

“Until what?”

“Until your interview with Dr. K,” Bill said, stepping into the elevator as the doors opened. “If you’d stopped rambling you would have heard me tell you that you’re going to be the one doing the expose. You’ll be meeting him in two days, so you better come up with some good questions.”

“Holy shit,” Richie muttered.

“Holy shit, indeed Tozier,” Bill smirked. “I know you’ve been in some sort of funk lately, so I hope that this will shake you up a bit. Better keep your fanboy boner under control.” Bill warned, smiling as the elevator doors closed between them.

Whether Richie realized it or not, Bill believed in him and his writing ability. He may not have the raw talent like himself, but he knew what Richie was capable of. He has a way with people that allowed them to loosen up and relax and nothing was better for a good interview than someone comfortable with the person asking the questions.

Bill couldn’t think of a single person who would be better for this specific project and having Richie be an uber-fan of the artist was just a bonus. If Richie made an ass of himself, that would be his problem, not the magazines.

Richie stood there, not knowing what to do next. He looked to his watch, realizing he had less than 72 hours to come up with a buttload of questions for his idol. He ran back to his cubby to brainstorm.

#Lights Up #Reddie #Reddie fanfic #my fanfic #au #reddie au #Eddie Kaspbrak #Punk!Eddie #Richie Tozier #Writer!Richie #bill denbrough

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saventhhaven · 5 years

Text

Going Under

Pairing: Sam Winchester x reader

Tags: hurt!reader, near-death experience, worried!Sam, protective!Sam, drowning, hypothermia

Word Count: 2,030

(Gif not mine)

"Eugh." You crinkled your nose in disgust as the vampire's head fell to the ground with a plop. Its blood stained the pure white snow a sickening red as it rolled away from you. Well, at least that was the last of the nest. It would be a lie if you said you hadn't been worried about this hunt. You had been. It wasn't that you thought that you and the Winchesters couldn't handle it - the opposite, actually. Between the three of you, you were a force of nature. Together, you had saved the world several times before. But that didn't make regular "milk run" hunts, as Dean would call them, any less dangerous. Especially with weather conditions like these. The snow was coming down so heavily, you could barely see ten feet in front of you, which was a problem. Still, the monsters never rest, and that meant you couldn't either. You had managed to take out four of them without so much as a scratch. Now you just had to hope that the boys had gotten just as lucky.

You unclipped the walkie talkie from the waist of your jeans, and raised the device to your mouth, pressing your finger down on the button.

"This is Amidala, I just finished up my last vamp. Skywalker and Solo, do you copy?"

"Skywalker, reading you loud and clear," Sam came in after a brief pause. He sounded out of breath, which meant he had to have finished mere seconds after you.

"Star Wars, Y/N?" Dean's voice came through with a crackle of static. "Really?" You grinned as you flicked the remaining blood droplets from your blade into the snow. "Listen, the radios were a great idea. I like 'em. I do. But next time, I’m picking the code names." Before you could get out a snarky remark, Sam chimed in.

"Dude, you're one to talk," he pointed out. "'Agents Ford and Hamill from the U.S. Wildlife Service?' Come on." For a moment, only silence ensued, and you chuckled softly. You could practically see Dean grinding his teeth together from wherever he was.

"For the love of God," you complained into the receiver. "Would you two quit bitching so we can get home already? It's fuckin' cold!"

"Come on, princess," Dean teased, "can't you handle a few vamps? I know you're a little rusty, but still." You grumbled to yourself, flaring your nostrils involuntarily. If there was anyone who knew how to push your buttons, it was Dean fucking Winchester.

"Vampires? No problem. Rusty? Hell no," you replied. "It's all this damn snow I don't like."

"Yeah, I'm with Y/N on this one," Sam put in. "I can barely see my own feet." You grinned. Cue the relentless teasing from Dean.

"Sammy, you'd be with Y/N if she told you that she thought sticking your hand into an open flame was a good idea." And there it was. Dean wasn't wrong, really. It was no secret that there was definitely something going on between you and the younger Winchester. The problem was, neither of you knew what that "something" was. Putting your heads together to figure it out probably wasn't the worst idea in the world. A beep came from your radio as Dean continued. "I just wish you two would get on with it already, so-" Your eyes widened, and you jammed your finger down on the button, effectively interrupting his signal. After a few seconds, you released your grip.

"You done?" You asked, clearing your throat awkwardly.

"Yeah, I'm done," Dean answered, sounding more than a little amused. Damn him.

"Good," you said shortly. "Then let's get the hell out of here before one of you gets hypothermia."

"Y/N, with how much you made us layer up, I don't think that's possible," Sam retorted. Again, you rolled your eyes. Before the three of you left the bunker earlier, the boys had been complaining about how many extra layers of clothing you made them put on. You weren't sure if it was a masculinity thing, but you didn't care. Even Winchesters could freeze.

"So I care about both of you. Sue me. But you never know," you cautioned. "If all this snow is covering a pond or something, and you don't see it, all it takes is one wrong step to-" With a loud crack, the hidden ice under your boot gave way, and you were plunged into the dark, frigid waters, the radio sinking down into the depths. The water seeped through your thick layers in seconds, and icy knives stabbed into your skin, bringing flashes of pain all over your body. As cold shock set in, you had to force yourself not to gasp in a lungful of water. You had to get your head above the surface and get out.

Years ago, you read an article about a girl in Minnesota who had drowned in a frozen lake. At the bottom of the page, there had been instructions on what to do if you ever found yourself in a similar situation. Focus your energy on getting out immediately. Staying in the water can shorten your survival time by 50%. You kicked your legs furiously, muscles screaming in protest. You were on your own. Even if you hadn't dropped the walkie talkie, the device wasn't water-proof. When your head breached the surface, you took in a huge gasp of air, spluttering as you reached blindly for something to latch onto. Mercifully, your hand brushed against something solid, and you held on for dear life, attempting to pull yourself up with your elbows. Through the pounding of your heart beating in your ears, you heard your name carried over the wind.

"Y/N!" Dean. Thank God.

"Dean!" you screamed as loud as your wheezing lungs would allow.

"Sammy, she's over here!" you heard him bellow. The snow was coming down harder now, getting into your eyes, and making it increasingly difficult to see. "Y/N!"

"Dean!" you called out again. What kind of fucked up Marco-Polo game was this? With the upper half of your body out of the water, you had bought yourself a little more time. Now, you just needed to pull yourself out. Using the adrenaline to your advantage, you worked up a few more forceful kicks, trying to bring yourself to a horizontal position. As you prepared to hoist yourself up, the piece of ice that had been your refuge broke, and you were plunged into the water once again. Panic rose up in the back of your throat as your legs failed to cooperate. Swim failure. A whole lot of help that article was now. Here you were, mere feet from safety, and you couldn't save yourself. Then, a hand broke through the surface of the water, well within your grasp. You reached up, taking the hand desperately, and the warm fingers closed around your own, pulling you up. The first time you went under, you hadn't gotten any water in your lungs. The second time, you hadn't been so lucky. You coughed violently as your body purged itself. When you were finished, you were left with a pair of aching lungs, a spinning head, and a shivering body.

"We need to get her to the car now," Dean said, his voice more serious than you had ever heard him. Your rescuer lifted you into his arms, and you looked up to meet Sam's concerned eyes.

"You're okay," he reassured as he tightened his grip on you. "We're gonna get you warmed up."

The journey back to the Impala was a quick one, thankfully, and the first thing Dean did was blast the heat. As he tore down the road, Sam sat in the back of the car with you, helping your frozen limbs out of the wet clothes.

"We've gotta get these off of you," he stated as he unzipped your thick coat. You nodded, teeth chattering as you tried your best to undress. It seemed counterintuitive, but you knew that staying in these clothes would stop your body from getting warm again.

"I-I'm still sh-shivering," you pointed out. "That's a g-good sign." Sam nodded, forcing a smile as he tried to hide the worried expression on his face.

"You're doin' great, sweetheart," Dean said from the driver's seat as he pressed his foot down harder on the gas. Sam unzipped your hoodie while you kicked off your boots and wet socks.

"I t-tried to get m-myself out," you explained with great difficulty.

"I know. I know." Sam's hands hovered over the button of your jeans, eyes asking you for permission. You nodded quickly, smiling to yourself. Even in a situation like this, he was ever the gentleman. As he fumbled with the pants, you stripped yourself of the still-dripping hoodie, revealing a long-sleeved shirt underneath.

"Jeez, Y/N, how many layers are you wearing?" Dean asked.

"I w-wanted to s-stay warm." You shook your head. "D-didn't work." The older Winchester snorted.

"I'll say. Sammy, I threw some blankets back there before we headed out."

"Yeah, I see them." He reached for the bundle of fabric as you pulled off the wet shirt, leaving you only in your bra and panties. "Dean, don't look back here, okay?" Sam said.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Sam bobbed his head toward your bra, making an effort not to look.

"Y/N, we have to-" You nodded.

"I know. F-fingers won't work," you stated. "Help me?"

"Yeah, Y/N, of course." Giving another small nod, you turned so Sam could access the clasps of your bra. When the tension in the piece of clothing released, he wrapped a blanket around your shivering body, careful not to reveal anything. You reached down and kicked off your panties, now completely naked. Without any hesitation, Sa took off his shirt and raised his eyebrows questioningly. Again, you nodded your permission. Mindful of the fact that Dean was still in the front seat, you opened your blanket shawl, allowing Sam in, who immediately took you into his warm arms. You shivered against him as warmth began to flood through your frozen skin.

"How's she doin'?" Dean asked, keeping his eyes on the road. "Still a Y/N popsicle?" You laughed, relieved that some of the tension from the situation had finally diffused.

"I th-think I'll l-live."

"Thankfully," Sam put in.

A little while later, your skin was still cold to the touch, but the shivering had lessened to a minimum, and your heart rate and breathing were back to normal.

"You know," you started, "this is not how I pictured you seeing me naked for the first time." Sam's eyebrows shot up into his hairline, and Dean cleared his throat from the front seat.

"All right," he said awkwardly, "we're almost back."

"You mean, you've..." Sam swallowed thickly. "You've pictured me seeing you... naked?" You grinned up at him slyly.

"Okay," Dean cut in again, "still, uh, still here, you two." You chuckled.

"Dean, weren't you the one complaining that you wanted us to 'get on with it already?'"

"Okay, seriously, we're almost there, so can't you wait just, like, five minutes? You don't have to..." Dean trailed off, waving his hand through the air vaguely. You caught Sam's eye, who looked just as amused as you did. As he looked at you, the amusement faded from his eyes, replaced with seriousness.

"I thought we lost you today," he said. "I... I thought I lost you." You squeezed him gently in response.

"You didn't," you replied. "Thanks to you." You cast your glance at Dean. "Thanks to both of you."

"Don't worry about it, Y/N," Dean dismissed. "We're just glad you're okay." The car sunk into a melancholy silence as the seriousness of today's events washed over you. You could have died today. Hell, you almost did die. It was a scary thing to think about. If Sam hadn't pulled you out... You forced yourself from your thoughts. You didn't want to think about the if. Glancing at Dean in the rearview mirror, you grinned wickedly.

"So, about the whole naked thing," you started.

"Three minutes!" Dean yelled loudly. "Just... shut up for three more minutes!"

Thank you so much for reading! If you liked this, please leave feedback! I love when you guys talk to me :)

As always, links to my taglist, masterlist, and inbox (requests are open!) are in my bio!

Sam Darlings:

@cole-winchester @alexwinchester23 @1-am-made-of-stardust @thorukindig @fiftyshadesoffandom6783 @hobby27 @immafangirlmess @indigyptian @youshrimpdickfucknugget

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#Supernatural #Supernatural fanfiction #fanfiction #Dean Winchester #Sam Winchester #reader #original female character #female reader #Sam Winchester x reader #Sam Winchester x female reader #Sam Winchester x original female character #near-death experience #protective!Sam #worried!Sam #drowning #cold #vampires

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putschki1969 · 5 years

Text

Hikaru Tsumugu ~ Live Report

Notes: Got a 2-hour train ride ahead of me so I thought I’d use the opportunity to write up a little report. Please note that I was very exhausted during the live so I wasn’t able to pay as much attention as I usually would. Also, I didn’t know 7 out of the 17 performed songs so I had a hard time appreciating them properly. I didn’t cry which kinda surprised me. Maybe I was too tired. Hikaru did get a little teary eyed during the Kalafina section but aside from that, she was mostly happy and excited. Overall I think this live was much more powerful and cheerful in comparison to Hikaru’s birthday event from last year. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t as tearful. Then again, I know quite a lot of people who were sobbing like crazy. Anyways, let’s get this thing started:

Goods: I didn’t buy much tbh. The pamphlet, the tapioca set, the pen and the badges. The other stuff looked a little cheap if I am being honest. A little disappointed with the quality of the pamphlet. Quite expensive but very thin and it’s made up of some sort of rough paper material. Some pages have ugly printing marks (;_;)

Stage production: Pretty simple I’d say. The musicians were lined up on either side of a small staircase. There were some walls in the back and curtains/fabrics on top. They played the PVs of Hikaru’s songs during each H-el-ical// performance, it was nice to have the lyrics on screen to sing along. and for the other songs they mostly used elaborate lighting.

Hikaru’s look: As you can see from the pictures, she had her hair down for most of the live. It was styled very nicely with big curls. She wore a bold red lipstick. The live started with her wearing the white gown/coat. Pretending to take a drink, she went to her little table and all of a sudden she started stripping XD (it was like the Blue Day “signal” performance). She quickly dropped the coat during her MC before “Fili” and revealed a sexy red dress which was very reminiscent of the old Kalafina days (laces, corset style). After the instrumental she returned with a long blue dress that kinda reminded me of Kalafina’s 9+ONE denim style outfits due to the colour scheme. For her anisong section she surprised us once again by dropping the dress and revealing the sexiest outfit ever!!! Black high waisted leather pants and a black leather bralette. *nosebleed* During the encore she wore a black denim skirt and a long sleeved H-el-ical// shirt. Her hair was up. I wish they would have sold that shirt too since it looked much nicer than the normal t-shirts she was selling. As for shoes, she wore shiny black pumps with white laces. Speaking of laces, laces were definitely the main theme of her outfits that night. The coat, the dresses, her leather outfit and even her pumps had laces everywhere. Guess it all boils down to Tsumugu = Spinning. In her pamphlet you can see all the threads spinning around so I guess she was trying to go for the same vibe regarding her fashion. So glad Hikaru was kind enough to provide pictures of everything!!

Musicians: Everyone was in such a good mood!!! Gussy (Hikaru’s composer and one of the guitarists) was particularly hyped, he seemed to be really into it. Was a lot of fun to watch them perform.

Overall sound: I think for the most part, the live sounded great. Hikaru was in good shape and sang her songs well. If you don’t like the studio version though you won’t like the live version either. Hikaru pretty much used the same singing style which she used for the recording. The backing vocals were playing in the background to create a little more harmony. I think Hikaru was far more concerned about having fun rather than delivering a technically perfect performance! Hence, she ended up sounding a little off key or frail at times. Nothing that took away from the performance though. With someone as engaging as Hikaru I really don’t mind if the singing is less than flawless. Just seeing her having a blast was making up for any missed notes XD Wasn’t a particularly big fan of her anisong section because I didn’t know the songs and she got quite shouty there but I guess that was on purpose. Apart from some slightly screechy shouts she also did some very powerful shouts!

Random observations: The live was completely sold out! BANZAI!! The goods were also sold out (including the H-el-ical// CD). So happy for Hikaru’s “major debut“. I hope many people will watch the anime so she can have a lot of success as H-el-ical//. As has already been established, Keiko and LiSA were there to support Hikaru. They sat in the first row of the second floor (at the very left). Akihiro Tomita was also there. I think he might have taken up the role of producer. Masayuki Ohashi was also there. He was the one taking the picture of Keiko and LiSA. Then we have Takeshi Kato of course. I am expecting a SPICE live report very soon. When Hikaru did her infamous goods corner she also introduced her CD. Once again she mixed up Kalafina and H-el-ical// when she said that there were eight tracks by Kalafina included (during the SPICE broadcast she also mixed up the two if you can remember). It was super cute. Old habits die hard.

Amanhecer: Great start for the live, I LOVE this song. She sat on top of the stairs and sang it beautifully. It almost seemed like she was sparkling in her white coat. Like an angel.

Splendore: The pace really picked up here. Hikaru was running around on stage, jumping up and down. It was amazing to see her so happy. You can tell she was born to be a solo performer (something that cannot be said about Wakana XD).

粉雪 (Cover: Remioromen): Didn’t know the song but it was quite beautiful. Hikaru did a great job. Definitely one of the more memorable performances of the night.

WINTER SONG (Cover: Dreams Come True): Another song I didn’t know, unfortunately I didn’t particularly like it. Can’t really remember any details.

Fili:The first unreleased song from the CD. I loved it. Hikaru said it made her think of the earth. Too bad I can’t listen to my CD while I am in Japan.

Avaricia: Probably my second favourite H-el-ical// song. Awesome performance. Her dress was perfect for the more mature and jazz-y vibe of the verses. But of course my favourite part of the song is the chorus!

yolcu: Hands down the best H-el-ical// performance of the night (and my favourite song so far). This is such a good song!! Can’t believe how much I loved it! The way she was pushing her arm in the air, I literally felt power surging through me. Also, damn, Hikaru was so sexy moving to the exotic rhythm in her red dress.

Instrumental: That was kinda all over the place, didn’t really like it. It started with some sort of extension of “yolcu” and then it became very slow with just Hirotaka Sakurada and the violinist. Then the pace suddenly picked up again and everyone was playing. No idea if it was a special song or them just playing random stuff. I didn’t recognise it.

ARIA & blaze & sprinter: The Kalafina section was super special as expected. Hikaru said that she consulted Yuki Kajiura on the matter, about whether or not it would be a good idea to sing Kalafina songs. Everyone agreed that she should sing them if she wanted to, after all, they made these songs together (as long as the songs aren’t released on DVD/BD I am guessing Hikaru is free to sinf as many Kalafina songs as she wants). Only fitting that she should sing them. Also, her live is called “Tsumugu” which means spinning. It’s about the future of H-el-ical// which she is spinning right now but also about everything that has been spun so far and of course that includes Kalafina. It was just Hikaru, Saku-chan and the violinist. They used the acoustic arrangements from past performances. “ARIA” sounded different from her Birthday Event performance though. It was even slower and more dramatic. I LOVED it. Every time I hear a new version of “ARIA” I fall a little more in love with the song and Hikaru. If you have seen that short snippet of “blaze” in the 10th Anniversary Film then you get an idea of what it sounded like. “sprinter” was super emotional. Not as tear-inducing as during the Arena Live or during Hi’s B-Day Event but still, incredibly powerful. I definitely teared up and so did Hikaru!! “ARIA and sprinter” were shortened considerably since Hikaru didn’t sing any Kajiura-go parts. For the most part she also didn’t sing the Wa/Kei lines. I think she sang“blaze” in its entirety though (except for the bridge).

History Maker & Paradise Lost & 青空のナミダ: I have a hard time saying anything about these songs. I knew “History Maker” from the Birthday Event but the other two songs were completely new to me. No idea how the originals sound like but Hikaru certainly knew how to make the songs her own. I just wish she would have chosen songs better suited for her voice. Occasionally her singing sounded quite off. Or maybe I am wrong and the original songs simply sound like that. Most popular anisongs sound quite noisy to my ears. Whenever I am in Akihabara I have to cringe due to the loud not very pleasant sounding music playing in the background (I feel like it’s always something by Ao Eir or LiSA...no idea)...Hikaru was sexy as hell with her leather outfit so I mostly focused on that. Thank God I brought my binoculars. She was really bad-ass during the anime secret so it was a joy to watch.

Existence: I don’t remember anything about this song tbh, except that it had a very rock-ish vibe. I actually thought it was another anisong at first but then I kinda recognised Gussy’s trademark style and concluded that it must be the other unreleased H-el-ical// song. I probably won‘t be relistening to this a lot.

pulsation: Nice powerful ending! Nothing else to say about it.

This is me: I had heard that song before but I couldn’t really place it. Either way, it was a very engaging performance! There are a lot of ooohhh parts in the song, Hikaru would sing one part and the audience would sing the other part. Everyone had a blast!! This was probably the most active song of the night in terms of audience interaction. Otherwise the audience was pretty tame I would say. Everyone remained seated during the entire live.

TSUMUGU: Not as emotional as I had expected, however, the lalala at the end killed me. We didn’t really sing along properly (neither were we asked to) but it was nice to have everyone waving. More teary eyes but no proper tears.

#hikaru #long text post #no read more because I have no idea howto add it #kalafina #report #hikaru solo live tsumugu #I am writing this while half dead #sorry for the weird formatting

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interesting-blog-name · 4 years

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SLIGHTLY NEW ALBUMS I LIKED (Little Simz - GREY Area; Monsune - Tradition; Backxwash - God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It)

More loose reviews that I write and instantly want to get out of my Word document and into Tumblr without much of an overlaying theme between the albums or any planning as to which ones I’ll be releasing at which point, but it is what it is. This time I’ll be compiling some recent-ish albums I’ve enjoyed, two of which I’ve come to know from TheNeedleDrop (I try not to watch reviews before writing down my opinion btw), and one EP from an artist I like. Here it is.

Little Simz – GREY Area

Little Simz, the 26-year-old British rapper, is an artist I’ve loved the first time I heard her, when I listened to Selfish for the first time and saw her cover of Feel Good Inc. in triple-j’s Like A Version. Today, May 30th, I was planning on listening to White Chalk by PJ Harvey, but from what I read, it’s a pretty depressing album, and I’m not in the mood for that right now, so I picked GREY Area from my future listening list.

It’s really nice to hear a rap album like this once in a while. The instrumentation is organic and well thought out, her flow is amazing, and her lyrics have so much substance and personality to them, ranging from the happier, more reminiscent tone in 101 FM to the much more aggressive tracks Offence, Boss, Venom and Pressure, she’s always giving her take on life, telling the experience of what it’s like being a black person with big dreams in England, seeing friends die while she tries to go somewhere in life through music.

The main tone she picks for her self-narrative is an unapologetic view of the world around her; she tells the listener: “’til now I ain’t ever been the selfish type, ‘till now I ain’t ever told nobody no, don’t get it twisted. This shit ain’t happen overnight” in the biggest song off here, Selfish, featuring the most calming and lavish pianos and violins in this album, and an amazing feature by Cleo Sol on the hook. Pressure features an amazing batch of verses all about. Same thing with the intro, Offence, with its bold, empowering chorus; although the track comes off more playful with its cartoonish sound effects nearing the end than the raw message of the track mentioned previously. A great, high-spirited track to start off the album.

What isn’t as high-spirited is the next track, Boss, or, to be fair, almost all the other tracks in the album. Boss is a big fuck you to anyone you might dedicate the song to: the hook has Simz’s most aggressive delivery in the whole record, and the entire message is about getting over those who hurt you and coming up. The second verse is something else.

Wounds, featuring Jamaican singer Chronixx, deals mostly with the gun/crime problem ever-so-present in marginalized communities all around the world, and she tells the story from the perspective of both herself and as a companion of the “gun man”, repeatedly mentioned in the song (“When a gun man only knows self-hate, them bullets show no love”). I’m not super crazy for Chronixx’s hook, or the much slower tempo of the track, but it fits well with the groovy instrumental. Venom, on the other hand, is a super exciting, menacing song. She goes all out over the violins playing in the background, but unfortunately, the track burns twice as bright to last half as long.

To lighten the mood a bit, 101 FM brings the most electronic instrumental, with cheerful, banging 808s and synths, and lyrics about her come up as a rapper, probably the verses where her British accent and slang dominate the most, giving them a more personal feel somewhat. Pressure doesn’t feature the most compelling instrumental or hooks in here – the Little Dragon refrain is mixed very poorly and the vocalist just doesn’t do a great job -, but the verses compensate for that, especially the first one, probably one of the most heartfelt and important ones in this album. Therapy talks about Simz’s struggles with finding comfort in therapy. The instrumental is average for the project, but still slaps, so that’s nice.

Sherbet Sunset is an ode to a broken relationship, and a theme that could be handled so poorly by other artists is handled masterfully by Little Simz. In three verses, she displays so many sides to what I assume is one relationship, so many emotions and thoughts that she shares, it really feels like she’s transcribing something of a focused, bright mind rush over the track, and it amazes me how she can reveal her feelings so well on a track like this, progressing from the regret of not seeing how it’d go wrong, to the anxiety that comes from spending all that time for seemingly nothing, to coming to terms with it in the last verse (although not quite). It’s a stunning song now that I listen to it again.

To close it all off, we have Flowers, mainly a tribute to various artists from the 27 club, with mentions of Jimi Hendrix and Amy Winehouse in the verses, trying to relate to their struggles with drug addiction and quick fame. It’s incredibly powerful and a great finisher.

I don’t dislike one track in GREY Area. It’s well conceived, a great statement, it really feels like she gives her all to make every track memorable, and even though her delivery is mostly monotone throughout the whole album, that also works to her favor, as she has a very unique and recognizable voice. So the lyrics are extremely well written, and the only reason I don’t give more examples of that is because I got a whole lot of school shit to do, the instrumental work is clean and precise, and I don’t have a whole lot to complain about. Check this shit out if you haven’t.

FAVORITE TRACKS: 101 FM, Venom, Selfish, Offence, Boss, Pressure

LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: lol nah

8.7/10

“Why you wanna all dress lies as truth? Have you ever seen what silence do? I don’t wanna see no violent troops putting out fires that haven’t been started”

Monsune – Tradition

Damn I did not expect to like this as much as I did.

Monsune is a Chinese-Canadian singer who has recently been gaining some popularity from his amazing song OUTTA MY MIND, which features a funky bassline and high-pitched guitar playing that some have compared to Childish Gambino, specifically his album “Awaken, My Love!”. I decided to check out this short EP by him to see if he had anything more to offer, and it’s safe to say, he does.

The first track off Tradition already shows what this guy can do with his production. It starts off with the same vibe off of his previously mentioned biggest track, but on steroids: a prominent bassline, pitch-altered backing vocals, sunny guitars, and drowned out drums. His voice is also reaching higher notes in this song than in OUTTA MY MIND, but then in the middle of the song it all slows down for a very welcome beat change that shifts the song from this summer anthem to a very chill R&B tune. It’s amazing stuff, although I don’t understand why he chose to put some very noticeable autotune in this part.

CLOUD is my least favorite from the EP, but it’s still a very solid song, it’s just not amazing. The bass is still very strong, and the bridge later on in the song is addictive as shit. After that track comes OUTTA MY MIND, and then his style completely switches in MOUNTAIN, which starts off with some solo guitar and his low, beautiful singing. It’s actually really moving for some reason lol. It then picks up in the hook, the drums kick in along with what I assume is a keyboard, and his voice reaches the top of his range for the backing vocals, it’s a very well-made song.

JADE finishes Tradition off extremely beautifully, with a smooth acoustic guitar intro over a nice-ass bass, some ethereal, trippy scenes of Monsune floating over the ocean and appearing out of thin air in front of you (probably not you, the listener). And then all of a sudden this madman screams off the top of his lungs in the middle of the track and I fucking love it.

The flaws this EP has are mostly related to the mixing, which I think can be a little too harsh in some sections such as the big breakdowns in JADE and MOUNTAIN. Plus, I know lyrics aren’t a focus on a project like this, but it would be nice to get something more than love songs in the future perhaps. Still, loving this EP, so glad I checked Monsune out. You should too.

WORST TO BEST: CLOUDS, 1998, JADE, OUTTA MY MIND, MOUNTAIN

8/10

“Don’t you wanna come down? Cause I’m so bored of walking on the same old sky”

Backxwash – God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It

God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It is an album by American rapper Backxwash, who received a new wave of attention after Anthony Fantano reviewed this album in his channel and gave it a decent 8. I haven’t watched the review yet, but I was interested in checking it out because of the high score, and especially since when I looked it up on Spotify, the songs only had around 8000 views.

Dark subject themes and the whole dark trap aesthetic are the core of this album. I, personally, have always been a fan of aggressive, heavy rap music, from more underground names like gizmo and Fukkit, to the more mainstream variant of these sounds, like XXXTENTACION. This album, however, operates in somewhat of a separate lane.

Many of the dark, edgy rap I used to listen to religiously back in the day was borderline mindless. Shit about ripping someone open, hollow flexing, except separated from mainstream rap only because the rapper in question is screaming their brains out when talking about designer clothes, instead of mumbling like your average Lil Baby, and, of course, personal problems, depression, being mad about whatever it was. Unlike its other contemporaries, however, it seems Backxwash has much more thought and elaboration into what she wants to yell about. Instead of hiding behind bass-boosted rather formulaic instrumentals, she takes the more scenic route, with still very dark, but more intricate gothic beats, sampling various religious speeches and implementing them into songs about black magic and overall unhappiness. The Black Sabbath sample that opens up this album should be enough for any listener to immediately understand what they’re about to get into, as the title track brings heavy percussion and some of the most graphic lyrics in the album, which it already doesn’t lack. Lines about downing pills and vodka, contemplating suicide, and blank vocalizations of anger (“I want war with these bitches, I want corpses and weapons”).

The track that resembles an average edgy Soundcloud rap song the most is Black Magic right after, with its own interpretation of the “ay” flow, shouted with a tone reminiscent of someone like Craig Xen. The big difference comes with the much grander production, especially the growling guitars that get introduced halfway, reminding the listener of Backxwash’s skill as a producer. From what I could tell, she was responsible for the production of the tracks in here, and considering there are no vocal guests except for Malldate’s quick appearance in Into The Void, I’m assuming the features listed in the tracklist are all producer credits as well, the feature in this track being Ada Rook, providing the amazing guitar work for this song.

Spells is mixed for me. I don’t enjoy the attempted singing in the chorus, and it falls completely flat to my ears; the beat is hard as ever, but the lyrics feel slightly disconnected with each other. At one point, she’s talking about going to Hell to her mom, at the other she mentions doors opening and closing in an office and how there’s no one in some corridor, and it doesn’t go anywhere from that, with lines such as “heart is so dead with tissue” not exactly evoking any sort of emotion or imagery.

Black Sheep is the most effective song out of the first four; it seems to filter all the positive aspects of the other tracks and package them into one quick serving. The beat is chaotic and in a constant state of unrest, the lyrics are centered and aimed at various of Backxwash’s problems in life, such as her father, people who want to bring her down and put her “in line on the X and O’s”, and overall venting. After that comes a brief interlude, the first of two that don’t have much use in the album except as pallet cleansers. It’s followed by Into The Void, a track that mentions her paranoia of being harassed and possibly killed when walking around in the streets and the deli. It’s haunting, and definitely the best song in here; it is laser-focused in the exact way I wished the previous tracks would be. Her vocal delivery is extremely expressive, and she tells the story in a way that gives the listener a brief, but at the same time immense glimpse of the reality that trans people face and have to go through, in a morbid fashion.

Adolescence is very short and eases the pace a bit after the intense emotions of the last. It’s a message to her younger brother that quickly descents into a confession of her inner struggle, mentioning possible overdoses and being too old for the 27 Club and fearing going to therapy. What’s great about this song is the fact that, even in such a short amount of time and with a less explosive instrumental, Backxwash manages to evoke her emotions so well; this is definitely what she does best in this record, and it overcomes the times where her delivery is flawed and her words are slurred and hard to understand. After this comes Amen, and holy fuck is this an angry song. Criticizing the hell out of the church, Backxwash comes at greedy pastors and their irresponsible spending when the churchgoers who support him are in need. My big problem with this song is the fact that the hook, as impassionate as it is, doesn’t do much for the subject, and the verse is way too short to have any impact with its theme. Lines like “these politicians politicking” don’t help much either.

The very distorted second interlude, Heaven’s Interlude, takes us to the last track, Redemption, the least intense song in here, which is appropriate as a sendoff. She expresses her frustrations towards her dad’s frustrations towards her being trans, and while the entire sentiment of the song is great and well formulated, I can’t find a way around the lines “Fuck these fucking boomers, fuck these fucking losers. Fuck theses motherfucking fuckers in their fucking two truck. Fuck these fuck(sic)abusers, and fuck these fucking rumors.”, they just emanate Limp Bizkit energy.

God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It is a very passionate, real, well produced and well-conceived album; it bears themes that are immensely important to be brought to the music scene, and by mixing that message with its explosive and polished production, it amplifies it a ton. However, as powerful as her deliveries are, I believe Backxwash can go much further with her songwriting and song structuring in the future, as well as her intonation, because that was really all that was keeping this album from being legendary. If she can do more of this in songs that are longer and super focused around whichever topic she decides, she can make something legendary. And thank God she got reviewed by Fantano, I hope she can take this opportunity and make something huge out of this.

FAVORITE TRACKS: Into The Void, Black Sheep, God Has Nothing to Do With This Leave Him Out of It, Adolescence, Black Magic

LEAST FAVORITE TRACK: Spells

7.7/10

“Chosen one, sad bitch, lowest scum. Coldest, huh, black sheep talk to ‘em. If the situation changed I would have said the same shit, exactly the same.”

#little simz #grey area #monsune #tradition #backxwash #god has nothing to do with this leave him out of it #album #review #albume review #ep #ep review #rap #uk rap #dark rap #indie pop

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mantra4ia · 5 years

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The Rise of Skywalker: Expanded Reaction Episode II (spoilers ahead)

A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, I must preface my opinions with the one central point of view that has never wavered: you can be a Star Wars fan and a film critic simultaneously.

Dislikes (big and small)

So in this new trilogy, does everyone know all about the secretive Sith? No one knows where Exogol-Sith-home-world is without a wayfinder. Yet some random spice traders know who the Sith are and that they have a runic language, but nearly the entire Jedi culture disappeared until the tale of Luke Skywalker revived it. This dislike is not isolated to RoS, but it's so odd considering that in the prequels and OT, the Emperor did not put the knowledge of the Sith right out in the open.

Too much telling, not enough doing. I detest plot reveals via exposition, because a majority of the time explain-y dialogue is far inferior to natural conversation. But for two-thirds of the movie, I couldn't settle into the world because I felt like I was being told a Star Wars story instead of being in it. Case point 1: Poe's argument that Rey is training instead of being on the front line to try to verbally push the narrative that she's not just naturally too-gifted. Case point 2: Explaining Force heal to the audience (via droid) after its already been demonstrated as if we can't interpret how it works. AND YET we get no planet captions? Who's advice are you listening to? Disney could spell everything else out in dialogue when it was unnecessary and borderline condescending to audience, but when it mattered you couldn't give us planetary captions so I blinked and missed the fact that we opened with Kylo Ren kicking a** and taking names on freaking Mustafar! That was a great scene. Epic. Kylo’s on a mission, and there ain’t no questing here - it’s as fast and direct as the throat punch. He’s tired of being jerked around, he’s in a position of power to demand answers, and he’s going for the head of the Emperor, all while I was like...was that Mustafar, that was Mustafar, except now we just left Mustafar. DAMMIT.

We see the repair on Kylo's mask but not the repair of Luke's saber, or Rey building her own saber? TLJ broke the most iconic lightsaber and RoS just fixed it off screen (see point above)? I suppose this shouldn't be shocking since they introduced Palpatine IN THE CRAWL, but it was disappointing.

Did like the opening crawl, did not like how it was used as Palpatine’s business card. I think my exact words were: did they really, what kind of movie am I here for?

Leia's death. I don't buy for a second that establishing a Force visitation with Kylo across the galaxy was enough to kill her. TLJ (in my opinion) demonstrated enough to establish her as a powerful force user, which Rise of Skywalker doubled down on using the flashback training scene. So no, I don't think the exertion of it was enough to take her life unless it was inferred that she either wasn't recovered from the events of TLJ or that the Force sensitive impact of Luke's death was taking an extended toll on her, or that she was somehow already overdoing it trying to use other Force abilities behind the scene to protect the resistance/ reach out to Luke. I understand that with Carrie Fisher's (rest in peace) sudden death it would make certain practical sense for Leia to die if fitting, but put all that explanatory dialogue to some good use for once and build up tension so that Leia's death makes sense.

Luke's Force ghost being underutilized. From the beginning I didn't have a problem with Luke's conclusion in Last Jedi (minus a subtle eyeroll at the noble sacrifice trope being easily confused with honor) because it doesn't bother me whether a character is living or not as long as they are still growing. I thought, I hoped, I legitimately put money on the fact the Rise of Skywalker would use Luke in the training of Rey or the haunting of Ben and that he would play an active Force ghost role. He was used for damage control. That was infuriating.

Han Solo. I recognize the irony of this moment being in both my likes and gripes. While I liked seeing Han bestow Ben forgiveness, even if he was just a memory and not a ghost, it quickly became a hollow sort of nostalgia. FULL POST HERE.

Why in the world is there an arbitrary 16-hour frame before the Exogol fleet strike? The Last Jedi gave us a slow space chase and now what, the executive team thinks that the polar opposite is the answer? So you already have to wrap of an entire saga in a 2-3 hour real world runtime, and you've decided to amp up the pace and cram that into 16 hours of Star Wars time just for funsies while the Emperor broadcasts propaganda to kill morale? Rushed, forced, we just spent a chunk of the movie at Fyre Festival in a space desert, don't tell me there wasn't more time to allocate for imminent doom.

So essentially, we had a StarKiller base in TFA, mini-Death Star canon in TLJ, and a thousand Death Star planet killing cannons on Star Destroyers? LET that part of THE PAST DIE!

The execution of Leia training Rey. The idea was wonderful...in practice you can really tell the dialogue was built around her, and the scenes suffer for it. Execution, for the sake of preserving the character Carrie built, may have been accomplished by Tricia or Joely Fisher or her friend Meryl Streep as a way to still honor her.

A case for triple / quadruple convenience. Star Wars has always been a universe of happy coincidences, but Rise of Skywalker takes them to new extremes to the point it smacked me out of the movie. Every movie has it's own unique level of “good faith reserves” after which point plot conveniences elicit “you've got to be kidding” reactions. This happened to me during the setup of Force healing. FULL POST HERE.

Execution of Finn's character. Apart from his force-sensitivity and connection to the trooper defectors, I think Finn's plot regressed in this film each time he had to follow in Rey's wake every time she went solo, (going after Rey in the sciff, yelling Rey in the Death Star battle, Rey I have something to tell you). I thought that we had gotten past this in TLJ when Finn found purpose in the Resistance and something worth fighting for, but old habits die hard.

Scavenger hunt questing and the damn Sith Dagger. If part of this was in the crawl, that might have been good with me. I get that Rey's a scavenger – it's good to see her in her element like TFA, climbing through the Death Star at the culmination – but it's far too time consuming to do the double header of dagger/wayfinder and coincidental. She could have been standing anywhere on Kef Bir, the oceanic moon of Endor, but she happened to be standing exactly where she needed to be with no reference to force power, and the tides hadn't moved any part of the wreck and the topography hadn't changed at all for the protractor on the dagger to work?! I’m a nerd about mathematical, logical tools, but they don't work well in a Sith alchemy plot! Even when we try for logic, the convenience appears, which could have been passable if I still had good faith. In the words of John Mulaney, “you spent it already?!”

Nostalgia aside, where are the stakes? They're trapped in a sand cave / wait, no they're not. They're being hunted through Fyre Festival and they don't have a get away ship / oh yeah they do, and its fully fueled, parked in the open, not stripped for parts. There are about five different “fake” deaths where the tension releases so fast, and two real deaths of spies that should have been given beats but were skimmed over: Chewie's dead / but no it was the wrong transport, 3PO's peril / never mind we've got backups, Zori wants to turn Rey in for bounty / then they have the quickest fight in Star Wars and are on good terms. Instead of taking big risks and getting reward, this film banked on unraveling the plot by the flip of a two-headed coin and settling for surprise “Oh, they did wot now?” instead of awe.

“Retconning” The Last Jedi / plucking it out of the timeline. Rise of Skywalker, in many ways, feels like a direct sequel to The Force Awakens. Direct slaps to TLJ include but not limited to: Holdo maneuver “one-in-a-million,” and Luke plucking Rey's saber from the fire. “A Jedi’s weapon deserves more respect (except when its Kylo’s),” and Luke lamenting about going into exile as a mistake. Concepts that could have been accepted, some even verbatim foregone conclusions from TLJ, were it not for terrible execution clearly framed at goodwill appeasement.

So, the Knights of Ren were window dressing? They just follow Kylo around like bouncers and when he turned to the light, they turned on him? A) Like the praetorian guard for Snoke, they are supposed to be loyal to Kylo and if they’re not we should get to see that, B) they just made Ben look boss as he took them out. Epic saber fight, lackluster idea, especially when the Knights were so speculated on and could have had mythos. Take them out of the film and put Luke's ghost in. Problem solved.

Rey as a Palatine / OP (Overpowered) Rey. All the one-ups that ensued between Rey and her grandfather. No thank you. I don't mind that she has power and is very naturally and diversely talented, don't let lineage play a factor. It was vastly more meaningful when she was ‘ordinary.’ I could go into a whole dedicated post on this.

Hux as a spy? No, I can't imagine that's what TFA set him up for. Interesting concept - I don’t want you to win, I want Kylo to lose - terrible setup. The Last Jedi did it better, Benicio del Toro is one of the only things I'll give Canto Byte credit for.

What even is the point of Zori apart from a character used to deliver a plot point of security clearance? She is very much used to prop up Poe's story. I like the idea of the character, I don't dig her role, and even more so I don’t like how the destruction of her planet first was used to fish for emotion. Invest more in Poe's struggles ascending to acting general.

Palpatine overall, from his intro in the crawl to his motives – He's such a cool, larger then life character, it shamefully never feels like we JJ knows what he wants out of the Emperor as his villain. Palpatine's motivation for decades was the dark, unnatural Sith ability to live forever sought by his master Plagueis before him, yet in RoS he's so utterly content to say “kill me so that you can ascend to Empress and I can flow through you (possess you)” – and then the discovery that draining the “Dyad in the Force” can regenerate him changes the plan immediately. Principally its an interesting idea using him as a puppet master to tie *all* the trilogies together, but for me it didn't work as nothing else about his character felt cohesive. And then when his own Force lightning is blasted at him, hasn't he learned to stop using it (throwback: Mace Windu) and pick up a saber and fight. Fool my once, shame on you, fool me twice and I'll cut you down. Wouldn't it be so great if, despite his wizened state, he still had latent combat skills? We were sooo robbed of that opportunity.

“Undermining” Anakin’s arc as the chosen one. I don't think bringing in Palpatine undoes Darth Vader's sacrifice – because Anakin still brought peace and balance to the Force when he sent Papatine back to the shadows. Balance restored by nature is not a permanent state, so it makes sense that the balance Anakin brought would eventually be challenged - but it does take away from the satisfaction of his story, especially considering that we do not see him return in physical form.

I get the "Be with me" use of Force ghost voices from all the Star Wars mediums. It was teed up right in the very beginning of the training montage. But you’re STAR WARS, you are making history. Go big, take a risk, PUT THE FORCE GHOSTS ON SCREEN (or at least a few from the central saga)! Give me Obi-Wan, Anakin, Yoda, maybe Mace, Luke, and Leia bestowing their energy on Rey, or go home! I mean my goodness, the Emperor had Snoke clones, but they were just sitting around as props in tank. If you wanted to go really big you could get all the clones of his main Sith disciples on screen (Snoke, Maul, Dooku), and have him force drain them to illustrate Sidious matching the power of the Force ghosts. But instead Disney played it safe.

Rey’s return to Tatooine and taking on the name Skywalker. FULL POST HERE with better options than appropriating the name Skywalker, especially considering that the plot does plenty to fulfill the film’s marquee during the Final Order Battle on Exogol when Rey embodies the Force of the Jedi and they will her to RISE. Taking on the name by contrast seems to trivialize via overkill what was delivered on (imperfectly, but powerfully).

The death of Ben Solo / “the redemption”: This depends on largely on what how you define and merit redemption. I can see why some loved it and others hated it – if you define redemption as “Kylo turned good after all that universe wrecking carnage and now he has access to light side force ability?!” then I can see where you didn't like or want his redemption arc, and might be satisfied with his death as a conclusion. If, like me, you didn't see Kylo's redemption not as the act of turning good but rather turning to face his own reflection / the thing he most feared – himself – exactly like Rey – and that's what allowed him access to the light side abilities to heal, that's fascinating as h***. My gripe is I don't think Ben needed to die for the redemption to work or as a way to finish his arc. (FULL POST HERE) Again, why another Luke-themed noble demise? It could have worked for Luke’s character because Rise of Skywalker follows TLJ and gives you room to breath and play. But there’s nothing after this episode for Kylo in the same way.

So peace was created by defeating Palpatine and his fleet? Nah. First of all, Rey killed Darth Sidious exactly like he “wanted” her to and yet he didn't possess her as promised, while an order of Sith stand around watching– okay, was the Emperor really that attune in his Force Cognizance that he expressed with full confidence to his followers “whatever happens, the ritual will be complete. Don't move, sit back, enjoy the show”? And there's still the fragmented First Order (see the previous point above). Not every First Order officer and ship were loyal to or trusting of the Emperor and his comrade General Pryde, so it would stand to reason they didn't all heed the call to the final order and join the fray. What happens to them now that their Supreme Leader (Kylo) abdicated and then died? Yes, they are far fewer in number and they no longer have the firepower of Exogol behind them so they retreat into that shadows and regroup like opposition always does. I don't believe for a second that they all gave up or were defeated by the groundswell of Resistance. And now we are right back to where Return of the Jedi left us almost beat for beat.

Initial Reaction *** Episode I *** Episode III

#star wars #star wars saga #star wars ix #rise of skywalker #sw: the rise of skywalker #dislikes #reaction'd #star wars spoilers #rise of skywalker review #tros #leia's death #ben's death #anakin skywalker #rey skywalker #force ghost #empress palpatine #mustafar

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hey-have-you-heard · 5 years

Text

Hey have you heard these 50 songs from 2019

I really enjoyed this last year so going to give it another go for ‘19. I put quite a lot of thought into what actually a ‘song of the year’ for me when I was first constructing and then heavily editing the playlist that came to be my Top 50 of 2019. I think the most important thing is that above all it’s a track that I’m glad exists, sometimes this is because of the songwriting or composition, sometimes the performance, sometimes the lyrical importance and sometimes just because it sparks joy.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6bFJOjL8b8Zc2s5r1oJbsk?si=UJdqSXOTR3SQ8D3IwcmV2g

Explanations for each tracks inclusion below the fold…

100 gecs - 800db cloud 100 gecs channel a mix of Crystal Castles and Sleigh Bells with a Death Grips level appreciation for noise. It’s an absolute rush and that outro is just absurd.

Natalie Evans - Always Be Natalie Evans soft melody and sing song vocals are sublimely sweet on this heartfelt track of lost love, longing and nostalgia.

Petrol Girls - Big Mouth “If you fight back or disagree you’re the one with the fucking problem” this hits home, hard. Big Mouth is a rallying cry to speak out against oppression and discrimination, to raise you’re voice and be heard, not to be controlled.

Charli XCX ft. Lizzo - Blame it on your Love Charli has a midas touch when it comes to pop, combine that with Lizzo who has just about been the most fun thing in music this year and you’ve got a 10/10 banger.

Poppy - BLOODMONEY Poppy’s music just keeps going further down the rabbit hole. Originally playing with blending elements of nu-metal with bubblegum pop, she now seems to have transcended genre altogether to create whatever BLOODMONEY is, it’s absolutely ridiculous and I love it.

Body Hound - Bloom Get on that GROOVE! So proggy it hurts, this track from Body Hound is a technical wonderland of metamorphosing rhythms, gargantuan riffs, and just the tastiest of chord progressions.

Can the Sub_Bass speak - Algiers Word of warning, this is not an easy listen. A freefall tumble through genre and tone accompanies a stream of consciousness monologue full of racism, prejudice and political and artistic critique.

Elohim - Buckets Buckets is an onslaught of trap influences, emotional outbursts and aggressive distortion. I’m a big fan of this sound.

VUKOVI - C.L.A.U.D.I.A I know very little about VUKOVI as a band, but that riff is absolutely massive and this track has been a constant throughout my year on that basis alone.

Show Me The Body - Camp Orchestra Apparently more hardcore bands should use Banjos, because this is a damn good sound. Slowly building from a single bass line this track builds into a powerful demolishing force.

clipping. - Club Down Having thoroughly proven themselves able to do afro-futurist scifi on the Hugo nominated Splendor and Misery, clipping. now turn their considerable talents to horror core and unsurprisingly nail it. Daveed’s flows are tight as ever as he brings to life a decaying city backed by tortured screams.

Dream Nails - Corporate Realness YOU ARE NOT YOUR JOB. WORK IS NOT YOUR LIFE. YOU ARE NOT WHAT YOU MUST DO IN ORDER TO SURVIVE. Dream Nails are great and exactly what we need right now.

ControlTop - Covert Contracts This track positively bristles with an anxious energy. A fitting sound for the subject of the information overload we find ourselves locked into everyday.

Cherry Glazerr - Daddi There’s an icy coolness to ‘Daddi’, a disconnected sarcasm that falls away to reveal the anger and torment in the chorus, it’s a masterful bit of emotional storytelling through musical tone.

The Physics House Band - Death Sequence I Listening to Physics House latest release, the Death Sequence EP feels like a physical journey. This opener is a perfect example of this, as you’re plunged straight into a heady and disorienting mix of rhythms and counter-melody’s, the Sax guiding you through the turbulence until you land in a placid midsection, before that bass riff drags you forward through rhythmic breakdowns into an absolutely absurd brain melting saxophony and then it just keeps on going from there…

Witching Waves - Disintegration I saw WW back in the early summer, they were a bassist down so it was just a guitar and drums duo. They started with this track and it was one of the most pure punk things I’ve experienced, drummer/vocalist Emma Wigham bashing the absolute shit out of her kit . A great no-nonsense lo-fi banger.

Lingua Ignota - DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR Another, not particularly easy listen here. DO YOU DOUBT ME TRAITOR is a dark and angry brooding track, building in intensity to release the primal rage, fear and horror of the abused. Its deeply chilling and instantly arresting. This track and the entire CALIGULA album stands as an absolute must listen.

Carly Rae Jepsen ft. Electric Guest - Feels Right I love the instrumentation on this one, those chunky piano chords and screaming guitar lift the track out and make it the highlight of an already great album to me.

Orla Gartland - Figure it out Dialing back the intensity slightly, Orla chronicles the frustrations of having to deal with someone in your life who you’re done with. The choruses burst forth in beautifully fuzzy explosions of noise. That vocal flair at the start of the final chorus is chef kiss.

Battles - Fort Greene Park Battles are at their best when they keep things simple. This is evident on 2019′s Juicy B Crypts which features some incredibly cluttered moments, but this just makes Fort Greene Park stand out all the more. A delightfully spacious piece of math rock, from some of the best in the business.

Dogleg - Fox Boy howdy, do I love me some midwest emo. Catharsis in musical form, it just makes me want to mosh my troubles away like I’m 16 again.

Tørsö - Grab A Shovel Tørsö go hard, I can appreciate that. An absolutely brutal track about the destructive power of depression and self-loathing.

“Pijn & Conjurer playing Curse These Metal Hands” - High Spirits “We were like, are we Pijn and Conjurer, or are we Curse These Metal Hands? I think we’ve settled with ‘we are Pijn and Conjurer playing Curse These Metal Hands’ …whatever that means!“ what it means is one of the most joyously triumphant pieces of metal music I’ve ever heard. Some of the guitar lines in this absolutely soar.

Lizzo - Juice Lizzo has won 2019, her message of self love, acceptance and body positivity has won her both critical and cultural acclaim and permeates her music in a way that makes it impossible to not love.

COLOSSAL SQUID, AK Patterson - Kick Punch Colossal Squid is the name given to Three Trapped Tigers drummer, Adam Betts’ experimental project. After a solo album of percussive wizardry Betts has now teamed with vocalist AK Patterson to give us something else entirely.

Evan Greer - Liberty Is A Statue Evan Greer uses the a folk punk sound to deliver an essay on the damaging influences of cis-normativity and social inequality. Of course I like this one.

Taylor Swift - Lover I wasn’t on board with this song for a fair while, but then I kept listening to it and kept coming back to it because of a roughly 50 second section which ties the track and the whole album together. Yeah, this is on here purely for the bridge, which is just beautiful.

Dodie - Monster Monster is an incredibly well written and delivered study on how perception changes with resentment and it makes me cry.

The Y Axes - Moon Moon is a delightfully dreamy piece of pop that glitters with infectious melodies, it’s lyrics a blissful embracing of cosmic nihilism, need I say more?

Ezra Furman - My Teeth Hurt My teeth hurt is a song about tooth ache, about that pain you carry with you everywhere and can’t get rid of, that ruins your days and and is one hell of a mood. Yeah it’s about gender dysphoria.

Nervus - No Nations Speaking of things being a mood, this track hits the nail squarely on the head.

Cultdreams - Not My Generation "Everyone ignores me Unless I’m on a stage talking Because they put me on a pedestal And pretend I’m just performing“ Lucinda Livingstone calls out the misogyny in our culture with a singular ferocity.

Lil Nas X - Old Town Road If there’s one song that’s dominated 2019 this is it right here. Who ever had the idea of putting that NIN Ghosts sample to a trap beat and cowboying over the top of it is an absolute genius.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - Planet B It’s impossible to predict where King Gizzard’s sonic influences are going to take them next I doubt even they know half the time. Whatever they turn their hand to though they do it as if they mastered the sound decades ago Planet B is an all out thrash track with a strong environmental message.

Kesha - Rich, White, Straight Men Okay, I’m about to compare Kesha to John Lennon here but HEAR ME OUT… As ‘Imagine’ asked us to consider a world without conflict or capitalism, Kesha now posits that we should tear up our conceptions of our society based on its formation by a privileged group and imagine what kind of utopia could be built if we gave the underprivileged and minority groups a say.

Allie X - Rings A Bell The chorus here sounds like it could have been off Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, and I’m all about that sound. Combined with Allie X’s dreamlike vocals make this a certified bop.

Poly-Math - Sensors in Everything Sensors in Everything is a beast of a track spanning over 14 minutes of absurdly dense prog. Having recently enlisted keyboardist Josh Gesner. Polymath make use of the new sounds and textures available to them, at times imitating a sort of Hammond sound not unlike John Lord to the chaotic maelstrom of noise.

Calva Louise - Sleeper Big hooks on this one. Sleeper has a confident swagger to it’s sound which stands apart for the bands previous work. It’s an absolutely huge track.

Slipknot - Solway Firth Slipknot didn’t disappoint after the tease of 2018′s “All Out Life”, following up with an album which blended old and new aspects of their sound to create one of their best to date. Solway Firth is a perfect example of this matching the punishing heaviness of Iowa with the melody driven sound of All Hope Is Gone.

Clt Drp - Speak To My Seeing Clt Drp perform live was one of my highlights of the year. The filthy guitar tones, powerhouse vocals tight as heck drumming and the _grooves. _Absolutely like nothing else I’ve seen. Just an incredible band that deserve so much more recognition.

Black Country, New Road - Sunglasses Black Country, New Road released two tracks this year and now I just want more. Dense wordy lyricism plays off against ever evolving instrumentation to present a raw cut of emotional storytelling.

Her Name Is Calla - Swan Her Name Is Calla are a band that have always been on the edge of my radar, my Dad is very fond of them and saw them live a couple of years ago, but never went back to relisten to any of their stuff, then they started an album with this. I was sold instantly.

black midi - Talking Heads Talking Heads (the band) are an obvious inspiration on this track. Both David Byrne’s vocal style and the Talking Heads penchant for sharp angular melodies are on show here. But given an extra ounce of chaos through Black Midi’s delivery.

Amanda Palmer - The Ride The ride is ten minutes of bundling up all your fears and anxieties of where we are and where we’re going and just, accepting them as part of the ride. Written off the back of a prompt from Amanda asking her fans what they were afraid of right now.

Kim Petras - There Will Be Blood Okay, let’s have some out of season spookiness. Love the squelchy synths on this, there’s a huge amount of energy on this track and with it’s commitment to the horror conceit it makes for a super fun bop.

Kate Nash - Trash Kate Nash’s sound is like bathing pure nostalgia,here she spins the toxic-relationship narrative central to her work to deliver a bigger story about humanity’s, quite literally toxic relationship to our planet.

American Football & Hayley Williams - Uncomfortably Numb The other side of the “midwest emo” coin. A melancholic song built on a soft bed of arpeggiated chords and clean harmonics, Uncomfortably Numb is a heartbreaking track of losing everything and of cycles persisting thorugh generations. Employing the clever metatextual trick of referencing Pink Floyd’s comfortably Numb to mirror the generational similarities.

Glenn Branca - Velvet and Pearls Disclaimer, Glenn Branca was a musical hero of mine, his approach to music and composition being solely responsible for influence a vast number of my favourite bands. Released posthumously, Velvet and Pearls is taken from a live performance by Branca’s ensemble and perfectly captures the sense of sonic disorientation, conjuring aural illusions through an assault of intricately crafted noise. It’s an exhilarating piece that should be played as loud as humanly possible.

Brutus - War The raw emotional strength of Stefanie Manneart’s vocals instantly made me pay attention when I first heard this track. Then the song exploded into a barrage of riffs and breakneck drumming.

Valiant Vermin - Warm Coke Another slice of throwback pop, Valiant Vermin proved with “Online Lover” how much of an ear she has for pop and has proven it once again with Warm Coke. Is a real good bop.

———

Welp there it is, 50(+1) songs, I had to limit myself to one track per artist in the main 50 because according to Spotify I listened to [checks notes] 1082 new artists this year. There are a small handful of tracks I wanted to highlight from the same artists though as they offer something quite different to the tracks in the playlists, so here they are quickly with 3 word descriptions.

Petrol Girls - Skye (dead dog, sad) Amanda Palmer - Voicemail for Jill (Talk about abortion) Ezra Furman - I Wanna be Your Girlfriend (Trans Torch Song) Battles ft Jon Anderson & Prairie WWWW - Sugar Foot (Batshit Prog Insanity) Poppy - Choke (Dark Minimalist Pop) Show Me The Body - Forks and Knives (Anxious nightmare punk) Lingua Ignota - CALIGULA (the whole album.)

———

Closing Statement

Cultdreams - Statement

There has been a shadow over the entertainment industry the latter half of this decade. Whether film, music, TV or video games, the late 2010′s are filled with stories of people coming forward to bravely tell their stories about being abused and manipulated by men in positions of power. The #metoo movement as it’s come to be known has been a powerful force in giving marginalised people a voice and the ability to call out oppressors and in starting the groundwork to root out the misogyny in the seats of power, but this is a battle far from won.

While there are thousands of stories out there I want to focus on one in particular.

In 2016 a number of women spoke out about various forms of abuse by a well-known musician in the punk scene. It’s now over three years later and this group of women are in the midst of a long fought claim of defamation from this musician. If this case goes through it sets a precedent for silencing marginalised voices in the industry. They have been fighting for so long and with no legal aid available for the case they have had to finance their defense from their own pockets.

This is where Solidarity Not Silence comes in. Solidarity not silence is a crowdfunding effort to help take the case to trial without the women bankrupting themselves entirely so that they don’t have to give in to this mans demands. You can read more about Solidarity not Silence and make a donation (if you feel so inclined) here: https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/solidaritynotsilence/

You can also follow them on twitter here https://twitter.com/solnotsilence

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matthewlance · 6 years

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not ready to be found | solo

What felt like ages was actually only a couple weeks since he had last seen Kara after his little incident at her place. Matt was almost like a walking corpse lately. Routinely, all he did was wake up, working out, work, and come home to drink. He had barely even stopped by to see his mother even after his bruising had gone down. He just wasn’t in a mood to talk or seen anyone. He wouldn’t say he was in any sort of depressing funk. However, what he would say and what others would say are two completely different things. Ever since that night at Kara’s, all he could do was replay the moment when she revealed her feelings to him over and over and over again. It kept him up at night, as lame as it was.

No one had ever held any sort of feelings for Matt. No, that was a lie, but the feelings were usually hatred, frustration, or jealousy. Never had it been feelings of actual adoration towards him. Deep down, Matthew always had this sinking suspicion that Kara might have had some deeper feelings towards him, but he was always too scared to admit it or to face the truth. Now the truth smacked him right in the face and he had no clue how to even begin to process it. That was exactly why he told her he couldn’t do it and that was why he had isolated himself from the rest of the world. It wasn’t like he was very social to begin with, but now he hardly wanted to talk to his mother or take up much clients. He barely wanted to work out and that said something.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost missed his mother calling for him. Well, actually he did miss his mother calling for him. He only realized this when Lindsay smacked Matt from behind his head. “Hey. What the fu–” That earned him another smack from behind his head. “Mom!” he called out, rubbing where she had smacked him. “What the f–What was that for?” he asked, sitting up straighter as he looked over at his mother.

After keeping to himself for so long, his mom had finally been able to convince him to join her for dinner. Reluctantly, Matt had agreed. So there he had been sitting down waiting for the food when he felt his mother’s hand at the back of his skull. “Are you finally going to tell me what’s been going on with you? And don’t you try to tell me nothing, Matthew. You know I know you better than anyone.” Sighing, he looked down as Lindsay placed a plate of food in front of him. As he picked up his fork, he began to play with his food, keeping his gaze away from his mother. “Just got a lot on my mind. That’s all. Got a lot going on.”

Hoping that his answer would be enough to appease his mom, he took his first small bite out of the food and drank from his water glass. Of course, it hadn’t been enough for Lindsay, who ended up scoffing at Matt’s answer. “Now tell me what’s really going on. Does this have to do with Kara?” the blonde woman asked, making him snap his head up at her direction. “W-what? No. What are you even talking about? What?” he rambled, shrugging and shaking his head. It was like he turned into some other person at the mention of Kara’s name and he did not like it. The girl already spent too much time on his mind. He didn’t need her to be brought up outside of his head.

His eyes were cast down at the table and it wasn’t until he heard movement and sounds that he looked up, his mother now at his side. Eyebrows furrowed before Lindsay cupped her son’s face between her hands. “Matthew, I can see it in your face and I can see it in your eyes when I bring her up. Don’t even get me started on those faint bruises I can spot.” Slowly, his eyes shut as he took in a rather shaky breath. “She told me how she felt and I ran. I… I just left. I guess it isn’t surprising considering who I am, but I… I can’t stop thinking about it - about her. She’s stuck on my mind and I can’t stop replaying the look on her face and… I hurt her so much. I hurt her so badly and I care so much and I don’t know why. I’ve hurt people plenty of times before - never a second thought about it. Kara… It’s unsettling the way I hurt her. She told me how she felt and I told her… I said I can’t do this.” With a sigh, he pulled back.

Lindsay remained where she was, eyes slightly wide at the news she had received. Although, deep down, she could see something between them - yes, even on Matt’s side. “You like her,” his mother said. It wasn’t a question. It was a flat out statement. Matt didn’t say anything, eyes simply cast over to her.

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. I can’t do it.”

“Why not, Matthew? Why are you so against allowing yourself to express what you feel.”

“Because…”

“Because what?”

“I…” Matt’s voice trailed off, unable to bring himself to say his deepest fear. “I don’t want to do to her what he did to you. A-and spare me the bullshit about me being nothing like him. I’m exactly like him. I drink all the damn time and not to mention my temper. How many holes on the wall have you had to fix up? How many times have you had to fetch me from the drunk tank? How many bruises and busted lips have you had to tend to? I’m just like him.” As his hands shook a little, he clenched his fists as a way to calm himself. “That’s why, mom. That’s why I close myself off and act like some asshole because I choose to be. Choosing to be the way I am is a lot easier to swallow than it happening because it is who I am. I can’t bring Kara down into a life like that - a life that we had to go through. I can’t have myself turning into him or have her see me turning into him. I just can’t.” Running a frustrated hand through his hair, he then covered his face.

Lindsay’s face showed clear hurt as she listened to her son, doing her best to keep the tears at bay. After she sucked in a quiet yet deep breath, she grabbed Matt’s chin to make him look at her. “You listen to me, Matthew. You are not, have never been, and will never be like your father. You hear me? You’re an angry boy, but that doesn’t take away from how good you are. And being around Kara makes you less angry. I’ve seen it. She brings out the part of you that only I’ve been able to see and it is time for you to see it.”

Matt stared at his mom, not really knowing what to say or do. He always had a tendency to agree with his mother, but when it came to the way she talked about him, that he could never agree with. He always chalked it up to her simply being biased - she was his mother after all. “No, I…” He stopped talking, his mother’s words playing over in his head. Maybe she was right this time. She was right in some aspects - Kara did change him. She changed him even when he didn’t want to admit it. Maybe it was time for him to give his feelings a chance. Maybe it was time for him to admit his feelings to himself.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” he finally said, releasing a breath he was unaware he had been holding in.

“Apologize. Apologize and tell her the truth.”

“What if she doesn’t want to hear it?”

“Give her a reason to.”

Gazing downwards, he bit the inside of his lower lip momentarily before his eyes met his mother’s once again. “Thank you,” he said, reaching forward to hold Lindsay’s hand. “Don’t thank me, I just want grandbabies.” Rolling his eyes, he sat back and shook his head, a small smile forming on his lips. “Slow your roll, mother. I’m not even on the first step yet.” Picking up his fork, he took a bite out of his food, noticing that his mother was still looking at him.

“What?”

“What are you going to do?” his mother asked curiously.

“I don’t know, mom. I’m barely trying to wrap my head around the fact that I care about the girl. Figuring out what to do is… I’m not there - yet.” Taking another bite, Matt let out a small breath, his mind racing once again.

#para #solo para #not ready to be found

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atc74 · 7 years

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Without Love

Summary: Y/N has been singing with the boys for a while, but is nervous to do it on stage. Rob promises her anything if she’ll sing at SNS with him. Rob better be prepared to pay up.

Written for: @spnfluffbingo and this request from the beautiful @evansrogerskitten: Rob x Reader request please :) a fluffy first time on stage singing with Rob at SNS. Maybe "Long Train Runnin" which he sings with Jason on his new album? Yay! Thank you :) (Who am I to tell Ash ‘no’?!)

Square Filled: Right in Front of Your Eyes

Word Count: ~1425

Warnings: Slight angst, performance anxiety, FLUFF

A/N: I have used Ruth’s likeness, cause she is just so damn adorable. No disrespect to Rob or his family; this is a work of fiction and should be regarded as such. Your feedback is greatly appreciated!!

Y/N had been a guest on a few episodes of Supernatural and after her first convention, she had been invited back time and time again, quickly becoming a fan favorite. She loved her job and had just received the news that she would be an addition to the cast of Wayward Sisters, starring alongside her friends, Kim Rhodes and Briana Buckmaster.

Not only did the fandom love her, but she was great friends with most of the cast and was frequently a guest singer at the ever popular Saturday Night Special. She performed with ease as part of a group, but had not done anything solo before.

“Just sing with me once. Whatever song you want, your choice, just...please?” Rob pleaded with her one convention weekend to sing with them on stage. “I hear you sing all the time; you are fantastic. Your voice is strong and solid and I love hearing you sing. Please?”

Y/N had been friends with Rob Benedict for a number of years, since before Supernatural. They had guest starred together on a couple different shows, always stayed in touch, and both were thrilled that they got to spend time together at conventions.

“Rob, I haven’t sung in front of anyone but you guys for years, I don’t think I could do it,” she told him one afternoon in the green room.

“You are an amazing singer and actress. You can totally do this! I will do anything you want,” Rob continued to pester her all day, even go so far as to use the puppy dogs eyes he no doubt learned from one Jared Padalecki.

She was honestly tired of listening to Rob beg that she finally relented. “Fine. One song. I choose and if I am terrible, it is all your fault!”

“You won’t be terrible, Y/N. This is going to be brilliant! Let me know what you want in return,” Rob threw his fist up in victory as he, Rich and the band prepared to go back out stage to announce the next guest.

“Finally wore her down, huh, Robby?” Rich smirked.

“Yep! And it didn’t even take as long as I thought it would,” Rob boasted, feeling pretty proud of himself.

“Ahhhh hmmmm,” Rich just hummed in agreement. Everyone agreed that those two were so clueless. “What song did she pick?”

“Oh shit! I forgot to ask!” Rob ran back into the green room, returning a few minutes later with his answer. “Long Train Running.”

“Good choice. She’ll harmonize great with Jason,” Rich added.

“What? Why would you say that? She agreed to sing with me,” Rob was utterly offended and Rich took great pride in badgering his best friend.

“Ohhh! She said she would sing with you? I didn’t know, Buddy. Sorry about that,” Rich clapped him on the back as they walked through the curtain.

Rob just stared after Rich, his mouth agape. He shook it off and stepped out on stage. They introduced Kim, Briana, Ruth and Gil, then ducked off stage and back to the green room.

Y/N had already done her panel on Friday and was now looking forward to the Saturday Night Special. The hours quickly ticked away and the closer it got, the more nervous she became. She didn’t want to screw this up. She just needed a drink or two to help settle the nerves. The song she had picked would not be a problem; she knew the words backwards and forwards. It was her singing partner she was worried about.

Sure, she and Rob had great chemistry on and off screen, but they would be nothing more than friends. Still, they were close and she did consider him one of her best friends. Rob was the person she confided in about every job, every date, every failed relationship for years. She confided in Rob about everything. Well, except one thing; that she kept to herself.

She should not have been surprised when he kept pestering her to sing and she had been wanting to sing with him for so long. Jason Manns had even asked her sing on this new album, but she had declined; she was not ready for that kind of audience. Much like the SNS she was nervous about, she was afraid that everyone would see right through her.

The lyrics of Long Train Running were so many things, but to her, they spoke volumes about her relationship with Rob, at least from her point of view. It was a song about waiting for something. A melody about love and longing. She thought long and hard about that one line: ‘where would you be without love?’. Maybe tonight was the night she finally spoke up. Maybe tonight was the night when she finally told Rob exactly how she felt about him.

The entire cast had dinner after the convention that night, like they do every Saturday of a con weekend. Y/N enjoyed a couple of beers with dinner, but as the night wore on, she realized she might need something a bit stronger to help her keep her resolve. She sat across the table from him at dinner, admiring him; his strength, his sense of humor and his fierce loyalty. All of those qualities made her realize what she really wanted was right in front of her the entire time.

Back in the green room, she poured herself a glass of bourbon and relished in the slight burn as she swallowed the warm amber liquid. She had at least an hour before she would have to be on stage, so she sipped her drink and engaged the others in conversation, trying to keep her mind off, well, everything.

“I would like to bring someone special on stage with us tonight. She is no stranger to you folks, but this is the first time we have been lucky enough to have her grace us with her presence as a singer. Supernatural Family, please welcome to the stage our newest Wayward Sister, Y/N Y/L/N!!!” Rob announced her debut and she walked out on stage to cheers and applause from the crowd.

“Thank you all so much for that warm welcome. It is great to be here! Rob, what are we singing again?” she turned to look at Rob, who just shook his head and smiled, banging his head on the microphone. She finally knew what she wanted in return to letting Rob talk her into this. “Oh, that’s right! Silly me. You guys might recognize this from Jason’s new album. Hit it Billy!”

The music started and she could feel herself start to relax. Rob stepped up to the mic and started the first lyric, her joining in at the chorus and then the third verse. She was really enjoying herself and kept her eyes on Rob’s the entire song. Her mind was free from all the thoughts that had kept her from doing this for so long. The song ended sooner than she would have liked and the crowd applauded her off the stage.

The concert was going so well and she was the first one back on stage next to Rob for the final song. She held his hand as they exited the stage together. When everyone headed back to the green room, she stopped, Rob running into her and almost knocking the both of them over.

“What the-?” Rob righted himself before he landed on top of her. “Are you okay, Y/N?”

“I’m great. You were totally right, Rob. This is something I should have done a long time ago,” she smiled up at him. “I know what I want in exchange for letting you talk me into singing with you.”

“You were fantastic! I told Rich you would kill it!” Rob exclaimed, throwing his arm around you in a celebratory hug, but when he released her, she didn’t let go. Y/N pulled back slightly, just enough to look into those bright baby blues that she had come to love so much. “What do you want?”

“You. You have been right in front of me the entire time and I was too stupid to say anything,” she whispered. “I was too scared I was going to lose you. Tell me I am not going to lose you, Rob.”

“You’ll never lose me. I have been waiting years for you to make the first move because I knew I couldn’t. I’m sorry I didn’t, but I am so happy you did,” Rob revealed. “Can I kiss you now?”

“You better.”

Forever Tags: @iwantthedean @d-s-winchester @just-a-touch-of-sass-and-fandoms @just-another-busy-fangirl @mamaredd123 @ellen-reincarnated1967 @tankcupcakes @katymacsupernatural @winchesterprincessbride @chelsea072498 @meeshw777 @tmccarney @ruprecht0420 @theoriginalvicki @nanie5 @docharleythegeekqueen @megansescape @notnaturalanahi @impalaimagining @mrswhozeewhatsis @blacktithe7 @emoryhemsworth @bringmesomepie56 @devilgirlsarah @spnbaby-67 @myoutletforfanfiction @deansangelgirl @jerk-bitch-and-an-angel @kayteonline @percussiongirl2017 @fanfreak07 @sandlee44 @moonstar86 @squirrel-moose-winchester @growningupgeek @charliebradbury1104 @evansrogerskitten @feelmyroarrrr @itseverythingilike @smoothdogsgirl @supernatural-jackles @ryantherandomhero @love-kittykat21 @kathaswings @crispychrissy @paintrider13-blog @bethbabybaby @ravenangel33 @shaelyn102 @roxyspearing @nosleeptillbucky @x-waywardaf-x

Rob Tags: @natasha-cole @shanghai88

Bingo Tags: @luci-in-trenchcoats @hexparker

#spnfluffbingo #Rob Benedict #Rob x Reader #Rob Benedict Fanfiction #Rob Benedict x Reader #rob benedict fluff #RPF #Rob Benedict RPF #supernatural fanfiction #supernatural rpf

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flickwatches · 3 years

Text

Overwatch 2 Opinion

I'll get to this weeks Toronto games later on (Na1st and Michelle are monsters). But I want talk about my issues with 5v5. Yes, I hate it. I started hating it. Listened to the opinions about it. Slept on it. And than I hated it even more. This will be a rant piece I am sorry.

"It will bring a refreshing change to the game".

Now this opinion almost kind of got me. It will change the game, it will create a new start, a relearning period for the player base. But at the cost of losing all the knowledge we've grown so far. We've created so many theories, metas, and raw ideas. From double lucio double winston to double fly, double sniper, double main tank. Sym koth maps, Torb sections, DPS retaking as Rein pre role lock. Solo tank metas and quad tank metas. Solo ana, beyblade, hackfist, double sniper, dive, poke, brawl, double shield. All this amazing game knowledge. And its going to get erased. Restarted. The depth of this beautiful game will be artificially changed.

"More tank heroes will create the need for specialists to master all the tanks".

Bruh, double bruh, triple bruh. You could have 500 tank heroes but you only get to select one. If having more tanks was possible they should of done it 5 years ago over having 5 tanks 5 supports and 53 fucking DPS heroes. Competitively at the pro level having specialists super telegraphs your strategy and makes what you do predictable. Also it hurts overall team synergy. Its why we don't see a Dva specialist and a Zarya specialist. You don't have a fucking lucio specialist and a mercy specialist. They learn both or don't play. Metas with vast hero pools means 1 player learns multiple heroes not that you use multiple people to play multiple heroes. Until you can sub players in mid match mid map this is a horrible argument.

"This will help supports find more time to do things besides healing tanks."

This one tilted me and I'm already tilted. They used an opinion of a Mercy deciding if they should heal a tank or not and a fucking mercy should never heal a tank. At any moment the worst a Mercy can do is stack heal with another heal to help burst a tank up like Mercy heal and Harmony. This breaks down to the casual player base needing training wheels to play the game better. If support duos of Lucio/Mercy are struggling to keep Rein/Dva tank duos up thats because lucio mercy is a bad tank duo. Its not good. I don't care if people enjoy it, have won games with it, or are used to it the majority of the time. Its bad. Torb hammer only wins games doesn't mean Torb should be played hammer only. You can enjoy playing the game wrong but that doesn't mean they should change the game to make it easier for you.

"Less tanks will make supports jobs easier".

I aint fucking done talking about this. SUPPORTS ARE THE STRONGEST ROLE IN THE FUCKING GAME. THEY DO MORE DAMAGE HAVE MORE SUSTAIN THAN ANY OTHER ROLE IN THE GOD DAMN GAME. Bap and Zen delete everything better than like 2 DPS heroes. Ana is immortal currently. Ana is super strong. Mercy amazing. Lucio great. Brig great. Supports are overtuned and it should be normalized for people to die in Overwatch.

"Less clutter on screen"

NO ONE CARES.

"More opportunity for DPS to pop off"

That's a reach. Not a horribly bad reach. But still a reach. My favorite parts of the gameplay reveal were double sniper full holding a choke while everyone else pretended to play the game. And when the Dev said "Yeah Reaper is really strong in this" like that was an ok statement to make. Bitch probably because HE ACTS AS A 2ND TANK AT 250 HP, FADE, AND SELF HEAL. Creating an artificial health pool over 250. Out here making me watch gameplay of Soldier and Reaper.

"It will help balance the game"

YOU THINK DELETING A TANK IS THE SOLUTION TO PROBLEMS. WHEN YOU OUT HERE LIKE "We don't have to over define the way people play the game and let them have freedom." NAH BITCH ITS OK TO GIVE PEOPLE KNOWLEDGE AND THE FREEDOM TO MAKE THERE OWN CHOICES. DON'T JUST HAND PEOPLE 2 STICKS AND BE LIKE FIRST TO MAKE FIRE WINS. YOU COULD BE LIKE AVOIDING WET AND WINDY PLACES INCREASES SUCCESS. THE SAME WAY YOU COULD CLASSIFY MAIN AND OFF TANK. HITSCAN, PROJECTILE, FLANKERS, MOBILE, MAIN SUPPORT, UTILITY SUPPORT. HEY THE ENEMY TEAM IS RUNNING PHARAH ECHO HITSCAN HEROES HELP IN THIS SITUATION IF YOUR STRUGGLING BRUH. THIS GAME THAT HAS REFUSED TO GIVE THE PLAYER BASE ANY FORM OF INFORMATION DOESN'T EVEN HAVE DAMAGE NUMBERS IN THE GAME. NO SCOREBOARD IN MATCH. A SHITTY TUTORIAL YEAH YEAH YEAH DELETE THE 2ND SUPPORT TOO SO THE GAME ISN'T TOO COMPLICATED TO UNDERSTAND.

"Wait, and see."

BITCH ITS BEEN 5 YEARS AND THEY'VE BEEN TRYING TO BUFF MOIRA THE LAST 2 YEARS FOR NO REASON. PLAY TESTED BRIG. TOOK LITERAL YEARS TO FIX BRIG AND BRIG STILL HERE. THOUGHT A 5 MAN RES WAS COOL. KEEP BUFFING SOMBRA. HANZO STILL UNTOUCHED. MCCREE 225 HP. SUPPORTS SUPPORTS SUPPORTS SUPPORTS!!!!!!!!!!!! TAKES THEM MONTHS TO PAY OUT CONTENDERS. BARELY ANY PLAYER RIGHTS. OJEE THOUGHT IT WAS GOING TO BE A BATTLE PASS ANNOUNCEMENT AND HERE WE ARE. 5V5 1 TANK. BECAUSE WE ALL KNOW THE GREAT DPS DUO SYNERGY IS JUST TOO FUNDAMENTAL TO THE GAME TO REMOVE.

IN CONCLUSION I'M FUCKING ANGRY AT THEM FOR MAKING 56 DPS HEROES AND RELEASING 27 MORE DPS HEROES LIKE "LOL NO ONE WANTS TO PLAY TANK SO WERE DELETING A TANK"

Sorry for anyone who read this. Sorry for the all caps typos. Sorry for this hot mess of anger I am pissed off at this disillusion from basic knowledge. This fucking ignorance. What is this Blizzard? Not the consequences of your own decisions!?!?

They don't know what the player base wants yet refuse to actually act on the advice of the experts. I'm sorry the pro who has spent 20k hours in the game 6 days a week for the last 5 years devoted to this game has a little more experience than me and you. Gold players matter but it doesn't mean you make decisions based on jimmy the junkrat main and sarah the orisa 1 trick. Because infinite mines because there hard to hit and taking zero damage for 10 seconds everytime your Orisa shield breaks aren't good ideas.

#Overwatch 2 #Overwatch #Sorry not sorry.

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boo1a4 · 7 years

Text

11 question tag!

Hey guys so I was tagged by 5 of my fav gals to do the 11 questions tag (THATS 55 QUESTIONS WHY ARE YALL LIKE THIS) but anyway I was tagged by @s-lay-ing @sambashua @achuu-nice @indiepoptime and @yongpal-i (this tag is fucking eternal help me)

Cloud’s Questions!

Do you know a ksong by heart? (bc I don’t :x I can hum a trillion tho)

Blackpink’s As If Its Your Last, Heize’s Star, Day6 I loved you and You Were Beautiful, most of seventeens title tracks and most of their ballads, lastly Pristin’s Aloha! I'm sure my pronunciation is way off but those are tho the ones that I've taken the time to actually sit down and learn!

When it comes to friendships, are you low or high maintenance? (As in your friends gotta talk everyday with you or you’ll feel like the friendship is dying OR if you can spend days without talking to them yet you still remain close)

Ummmm I think it depends on the friendship? also I think I can tend to be a bit of both (cause I'm an insecure ass binch), tho I don't ever feel like my friendships are dying lmao

Do you have a secret that you will take to the grave? (Ofc I’m not asking you to reveal it)

not that I can think of?? like I'm sitting here thinking if there is anything and like honestly no????

Recommend me 5 songs (not necessarily kpop songs)

Dracula Teeth - The Last Shadow Puppets(honestly cloud just listen to all of their music is so great) Daydream In Blue - I Monster (this is honestly one of my all time fav songs I love it too much) No Way Down - The Shins (you know I can't go 2 mins without mentioning them, some great lyrics right here tho also give September a listen in beautiful) Beechwood Park - The Zombies (I'm assuming you know the zombies cloud but on the off chance that you don't BINCH THEY ARE MY ACTUAL FAVORITE well beside cream and zeppelin but they are up there) Kimbra - Miracle (kinda of a random one but this song just never seems to leave me!) Big Bird -Hyukoh (oh that was 6 BUT THIS SONG IS SO GREAT also listen to wing wing!!)

What do you prefer?: first, second or third gen kpop songs?

I generally prefer second generation??? I think????? I like a bit of all of them tho. but like there is no definitive answer to when each of the generations start and end so like I don't even know??? but most of my fav groups as far as music goes are older around 2nd gen but a fair amount of them are gen 3, I have a really strong love for kpop that was released between 2009-2014.

What’s the cheeeeeeeeeesiest thing you’ve done? (one time a former friend of mine was telling me about a problem she had and at the end of our convo I kissed her in the forehead bYE)

girl idk just my whole fucking life tbh, but my family members and irl friends will all tell you I do this thing where I yell sing songs and change the lyrics to their names this includes badly sung kpop songs IM SCREAMING THO CLOUD WHO ARE YOU AHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA

If you were asked to participate in a variety show, which one of the following would you pick and why? (Pick two!): problematic men, master key, hello counselor, weekly idol, one fine day, law of the jungle

um probs ofd?? id say weekly idol also but damn the hosts would literally be like who is this weird binch!

Your top 10 kpop songs of 2017?

In no order but 1. Would U - Red Velvet 2. Let’s Hang Out - SF9 3. Night Rather Than Day - EXID 4. Aloha - Pristin 5. Missing You - BTOB 6. I Loved You - Day6 7. Teenager - Got7 8. Habit - Seventeen 9. As If It’s Your Last - Blackpink 10. You, Clouds, Rain - Heize

Would you rather live in a huge mansion or a compact studio house?

Im a real messy binch so definitely compact studio

Tell me a fun childhood story (I’ll start! One time an aunt gave me money to buy ‘papas’ (potatoes) at the grocery store so bc I’m obedient af I went and asked the counter lady how many of em could I buy with the money I had so she went ‘uhh, not many tbh’ so i ended up getting like two and when I returned to my aunt’s house she laughed her ass off and said: I meant ‘papas fritas’ (potato chips) Not those! - and uh yeah this is funnier in Spanish but it proves that I’m such an innocent angel I mean wow)

ok so I spent a lot of time at my aunt Lori’s house when I was a kid (like summers, and after school) and my cousin was the BUG queen so she hand made leashes for her pet toads (that she caught) and we walked them around on leashes for like a week but I was always so afraid of them and also hurting them so I WAS NOT ABOUT THAT ahahaha dumb story but it makes me laugh alsoalsoalsdo they had this bench swing in their back yard and my cousin my sister and I would swing on it together for hours at a time and one time we were swinging real hard (REAL HARD) and the links?? or whatever that held it to the ceiling it was hanging from snapped and the three of us of us flew off of it and we all collectively blacked out??? it was so weird but I woke up to my cousin stuggling to get me off of her and then there lays my sister underneath the bench just blacked out chilling (she was fine) then my aunt came running out cause she had just heard the loudest crash ahsdfasdf not long after my uncle put stronger links on it and that bench is still there! From time to time when the three of us get together this story gets brought up its still the most hilarious thing ( ALSO CLOUD YOU ARE SO PURE I LOVE)

If you were offered to start a band, would you accept?

yeah I love music so much why not! not sure I would be able to contribute much lmao

Mir’s Questions!

If you could travel anywhere, but were completely by yourself, where would you go?

hmmmmm do you mean like I wouldn't be visiting anyone and just traveling alone?? or like going someplace where I know no one?? ok cause for the first I would book it straight to az TO SEE YOU MIR!! AND SISTER!! but for the second I would love to go to Japan (my cousin lives there tho so that also doesn't technically count lmao)

What inspires you?

Music, books, and tv shows! Also really well written characters or just interesting people I guess! but on like a ??spiritual?? level my mom?? she's just that binch you know ( like seriously Ive never met anyone kinder or more driven and hard working in my life she's wild)

How many pets would you have in your ideal future? Any specific names or types in mind?

47 KITS, no realistically I want 2 kittos and they will be named Bellamy and Murphy cause I got too also lowkey want to name a cat rami or Elliot or also kaz or Inej damn all the good names wow. Also the name Calloway is my fav name of all time and I WANT SOMETHING WITH THIS NAME

What are you opinions on fedoras

um eww?? what other opinions are there?? what is this question mir I'm???? but like ngl when worn in a none cringe manner then can look nice!

how many spoons can you balance on your face at once (picture or video proof preferred (i’m trying to get someone to do it pls anyone))

girl I've done my time (lowkey did you put this on her cause I told you about my gravy spoon today???)

What is your favorite type of tree?

I like Birch trees!

If you could convince one person to like kpop who would you convert?

damn MY MOM cause then she might listen to something other than bruno mars once in a while

What are three things you are normally associated with and/or what are three things you want to be associated with?

art, sleeping, reading and um idk?? tbh??? like maybe not being shitty and being funny??? idk??? like I don't know????

If you were in a kpop group what position would you hold (ie. leader, main vocal, moodmaker, etc) feel free to tag your mutuals and who they would be!

um hm im a moody binch bonch so probably moodmaker?? mir is main dancer cause yes duh ivy is leader cause she's the only sane one kennedy I feel would be a great rapper like she got that chic thing going she could do it I feel??? and cloud would be our talent tbh??? nom would be the maknae cause she's small I feel! Jeddy would be my happy virus bud cause she's a fun and funny gal ( I love) Jamie ALSO ONE OF OUR TALENTS wow yes I feel a main vocal here she’d go solo and be singing ballads left and right! JESS WOULD BE THE SWEET MOTHER MEMBER THAT EVERYONE LOVES AND IS JUST THE SOFTEST,,,A SUNSHINE GAL.

If you could have any wild animal as a tame pet what would it be?? (i’m ocelot loyal all the way)

damn idk I'm like horrible at taking care of things (including myself) so like honest id just stick to the kit kats

What is your opinion on mint chocolate chip ice cream? (for maj)

The best ice cream (tho I can't eat it anymore and its very cursed)

Nom’s Questions!

how are you? :D

I’m good Nom thanks for asking!

sad ballads or happy upbeat songs?

Im a ballad ho these days they are honestly all I listen to anymore, but I do love me an good upbeat song I'm just slightly more picky about them!

fave anime movie?

ok tie between Whisper of the Heart and Howl’s Movie Castle, I honestly need to see more that arent Ghibli!

dogs or cats?

Cats! (my dog is practically a cat tbh)

do you keep stuffed animals in your room?

I have one! its a portal companion cube! its not technically an animal BUT I LOVE IT ANYWAY ITS ALL IVE GOT!!!! also if you count tsum tsums I've got a few big hero 6 ones!

someone you miss?

My dad, its been especially hard lately.

describe your phone case?

its like rainbow watercolor! I have a pop socket that matches

favorite lore/myths?

Not technically myth or lore but Beowolf! I've seen the movie at least 40 times and I've read the epic! generally I find northern european mythology/literature to be more interesting than southern. but if we’re going for like ubran myths tbh not really my thing ahahaha.

eardbuds or headphones?

both for different things! but when I first listen to an album I like to listen with my headphones!

can I steal your heart?

you already have ~~~~~~~

favorite thing about your ult bias?

His sensitivity and kind heart! I love a sweet boy! Also I'm really here for Boo’s cheeks!

Jamie’s Questions!

If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life what would it be and why?

ohhh there are a few songs that I really really love, Heize’s Star is a song that I listen to daily and I feel like I could listen to it for the rest of my life! also September by The Shins! Miracle Aligner by The Last Shadow Puppets also. Idk man I just really love songs with a mystical quality to them.

If you were in a kpop group what would your group be called and what would your fandom name be?

BINCH AND OUR FANDOM NAME WOULD BE BONCHES

If you could acquire mastery over ONE skill instantly, what would you pick and why?

Singing!! its just about the only kind of musical talent I think I’d be any good at! Im a vocalist ho I just want to be like my favessssss

First reaction if you spotted your favorite celebrity on the street?

I would literally hide so fast omg

First reaction if your favorite celebrity followed you on your favorite social media site?

SCREAMING ALL THE LOVE FOR BOO SEUNGKWAN 24/7 and literally only doing art of him and nonstop posting it

Snap your fingers and you get to steal your favorite outfit off of a kpop idol. What outfit do you pick, off of whom, and why?

OK literally all of Soonyoungs airport looks cause damn that boy does not get enough credit for his fashion (he's the best dressed in the group fite me)

If you were to get a painless tattoo that you could remove with the press of a button, what would you get and where would you get it?

umm probably something really pretty? and colorful? I'm not sure what put I like arm tattoos!

What is your most prized possession?

probably my laptop?? also my collection of sketchbooks!

What’s a YouTube/online challenge that you have always wanted to try?

Im always interested to try those youtube art challenges, I've done the three marker challenge before and the draw this again challenge also!

You get a guarantee that your favorite celebrity will see your social media post but you only get 100 characters. What do you say to them?

I would literally just send my art to them! I feel like it says more than 100 characters can!

You wake up in your dream room. What does it look like?

LITERALLY A LIBRARY AND LIKE NICE AND DARK AND WARM BUT NOT TOO WARM LOTS OF BLANKETS

Kennedy’s Questions!

Make a 10-song playlist for your current mood.

it is here

What vine do you quote the most?

what is that?? who you fighting?

What do you value most in a friend?

I like people who are good listeners! but also people can keep a conversation going! But really tho just genuine kindness and openness.

If you could learn any kpop choreography instantly, what would you learn?

DAMN THIS IS HARD, so many great ones that I love a lot but probably Red Flavor?

If you go to your Tumblr activity page, who does it say is your “number one fan?”

damn Idk them so I'm not gonna like tag them or something lol

What is your ideal clothing style?

I like simple dark clothing that is comfortable.

What is your favorite Snapchat filter?

I really like the ugly ones tbh I don't use them enough

What subject would you like to study, but wouldn’t necessarily want to make a career out of? (for example: I really want to learn about botany!)

psychology, I really love learning about how people work.

Would you rather be constantly half an hour early to everything, or constantly 15 minutes late?

early of course, I hate being late

Would you rather have a single day to spend with your top bias or a week to spend with your number 2 bias?

damn neither??? ahahah no a day with boo would be very blessed!

If you could bring back any disbanded OR inactive group, who would you bring back?

F(X) BINCH I NEED MORE MUSIC

My Questions!

if you had to chose one kpop stage outfit to wear for the rest of your life which would you choose?

favorite music video aesthetic?

Group you are most excited for in 2018?

Recommend me some underrated kpop songs/groups?

If you could join any group other than your bias group who would you join and why?

Favorite soloist? and some song recs?

Childhood Story? (thanks Cloud)

Were you in any fandoms before you got into kpop, if so what were they?

Favorite Comeback/debut of 2017?

astrological sign? Myers Briggs type? Hogwarts House (I'm a Gemini, infp, and Gryffindor)

Random question but what are your favorite names?

Tagging : @s-lay-ing @sambashua @achuu-nice @indiepoptime @yongpal-i (y'all can do mine if you feel like it!) @forgetjunnot @babybyuny @kae-popx @kiheehyunie @jeonwoooo @trbldean130 @howcaniwait @joshhjs @maetaamong and if you’ve already done this you don't have to do it again ahahahaha I feel like everyone has done it already lol

ok thats it do it if you want!

#ok so this literally would not post help me #thanks again for the tag #BYE #tag

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