#i just hate working with music videos or WORSE live performances

[autumnrory]

planned to do these lyric parallels as a gifset but idt it’s gonna look good and i’m like. maybe i should just do lyric screenshots instead

[m4sonn]

✧*̥˚ The outsiders Modern AU Headcanons *̥˚✧

- Credits to @stevelovbot on Tumblr for the inspo for this post! And also credits to my friend @peachyponyboyy who I collaborate with for these!! :3

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Ponyboy

• Is a big fan of the Simpsons and can quote almost any episode word by word.

• Says that The Godfather is his favorite movie ever but it’s actually Mamma Mia. He secretly loves musicals.

• Is the only one with a Tumblr account and he’s pretty active in there.

• Definitely writes fan fiction or character studies in AO3.

•The only person that knows about that and gets to read them is Johnny.

• His pfp always matches Johnny’s in any social media platform.

• When he feels annoyed/pissed by his brothers, he likes signing them up for random ass newsletters and whatnot, making sure they get spammed constantly.

• He loves digital books and owns a Kindle but he feels like nothing compares to real books.

• His bi awakening was watching hunger games with dally and seeing peeta, made things worse when he saw the fnaf movie, he’s just a wh0re for josh hutcherson. (He would’ve made the whistle baby edit /j 😣😣🔥🔥)

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Sodapop

• Is the only one who can actually use TikTok and he’s pretty popular. He loves doing trends with the gang, probably forcing them to do the cinnamon challenge. (they agree bc they're all stupid)

• Loves avocados a lot and gets teased for posting pictures of his meals.

• His favorite game is Assassins Creed but isn’t a big fan of the community and fandom around the game. He just wants to play it and have fun.

•Facetimes the rest of the group whenever he wants, specially Ponyboy and Darry.

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Darry

•He’s the owner of the only Netflix and/or any other streaming accounts of the group and is the one who pays for it. The rest of the gang add their own profiles and watch everything they want. (Or they share one account, there is no inbetween)

• Likes to keep up with the news and current affairs, so he follows a lot of reporters and activists on Twitter and Facebook. He’s subscribed to lots of newsletters for sure.

• Was the biggest football star of his school and got a scholarship thanks to it. He went to college but had to stop playing football eventually due to a freak accident on the field. However, this didn’t sadden him, since he got his diploma and works in things related to football anyways, he works as a coach for the local youth football team.

• His phone password is Ponyboy and soda’s birthdays mixed together.

• He is a big fan of No Doubt, when he found out that they were performing at Coachella, he absolutely lost it and started saving for a ticket immediately. When he went and saw them in the front row he cried, absolutely WEEPED.

• Constant listener of destiny’s child and connects with survivor on a personal level and he’s not scared to admit, you’ll sometimes hear him singing it while he’s doing stuff around the house while listening to music

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Dally

•Has been blocked by multiple celebrities on Twitter AND instagram, on various occasions.

•Is a very big fan of The Hunger Games and one of his favorite characters is Peeta.

•Makes sure to be the first one to text Johnny on his birthday, even if they’re standing next to each other.

•Loves crime/serial killer podcasts and has good knowledge about these topics.

•Hates going to the dentist. There is a very embarrassing video of him being out of it after getting one of his wisdom teeth removed that Johnny recorded (Dally forced Johnny to take him since he was scared).

•Is always listening to music and doesn’t like sharing his earphones unless it’s Johnny.

•Has practiced a lot of sports during his life and his favorite one so far is boxing.

•Got drunk one New Year’s Eve and confessed that Darry was like the brother he wished he had had, and that his New Years Resolution was to make it up to Darry (He never did, since he had forgotten). and nobody has ever let him live it down.

•Secret fanboy of the neighborhood, one time he thought nobody was home and started singing daddy issues at the top of his lungs, two-bit has it on video and never lets him hear the end of it about it.

• Still enjoys stealing and robbing old ladies and young children and still enjoys annoying random pretty girls on the street (so basically still and ahole)

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Johnny

• Wears denim overalls with cute sweaters and loves jackets with lots of pockets.

• Loves spicy food and is the only one in the group who can actually eat it without any problem.

• Has always wanted a puppy or any kind of pet but his situation at home always made it impossible. Because of this, Pony gifted him a goldfish one Christmas and they set the fish tank at the Curtis’ so Johnny could visit it as much as he wanted without risking getting his parents angry.

• He gets really attached to that fish pretty fast and treasures the gesture behind it. Pony and him name is Frost.

• Pony and him use Twitter DM’s just to send memes to each other and store them.

• He has a private Twitter account that only Pony gets to follow.

• Can speak Spanish and French.

•Owns a leather jacket that had been Dally’s a couple of years ago and takes care of it as if it was made of gold.

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Two-Bit

• He’s the reason why Darry had to get a Disney+ account.

• Knows all the songs from Frozen I.

• Wanted to have a mouse as a pet (since…mickey mouse, duh.) for a while but Darry refused.

• He doesn’t admit it, but he loves sweet drinks made of fruits and cocktails more than beer.

• His socks never match and they all have at least one hole in them.

• Is the one that gets the most excited about Christmas. He’s not particularly religious but he loves the decorations, and the lights, and the whole mood in general. He’s the one that always makes sure the rest of the boys have presents, even if it’s something small.

• His first time going to disney world he bawled his eyes out, like full on mental breakdown inside the park, Ponyboy and Sodapop saved up all their birthday money, allowance, and paycheck money for about a year and a half to buy the tickets. (they wanted to get a fast pass and like the entire deluxe trip for him, that's why it took so long.) Ponyboy was SO embarrassed from two-bits crying, “You’re 22, Stop. Crying. Over. Mickey.” but still was happy for him.

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ : Steve

• He tells everyone his top artist is Limp Bizkit but it's actually Queen, his top song was good old fashioned lover boy.

• Wakes up early to watch the F1 races and has never missed a season of Top Gear since he was little. His favorite was Hamilton, but ever since he saw that race with verstappen vs hamilton, his opinions have changed…

• He’s the best at playing video games, and he especially likes horror ones like Resident Evil. (absolute wh0re for Leon Kennedy, i am too tho so no shame)

• Sodapop and him are always playing online together and they sometimes let Ponyboy join them. Him and Sodapop gave ponyboy an unplugged controller once and said it was wireless (for the shitz and giggles and to see how long it took for him to notice), he realized half way through the game and told Darry who then yelled at them for 5 minutes.

• Doesn’t like TikTok and is always going about how Vine was just much better. (He’s stuck in 2014..)

• Gets angry when his texts go unanswered in the group chat (they do it on purpose since they know it pisses him off.)

• He listens to cotton eye joe on repeat, change my mind.

[phanfictioncatalogue]

Completed Chaptered AU Fics (2) Masterlist

part one

88 keys (ao3) - bluessunset

Summary: After years of saving up his money and asking his parents, Dan Howell finally has a chance to attend a boarding school for musical arts. The only thing he dreamed of for years. But the experience is a lot more than he imagined it to be.

a night to remember (ao3) - tinyalligaytor

Summary: roxie, who prefers the label exotic performer over stripper, is a star amongst people who are out when the sun goes down. who better for a close-minded phil who has despised what he labels as lowlifes to suddenly obsess over than Roxie himself?

aka the one where phil gets pathetically hung up on dan, better known as roxie and is desperate to get to know him better.

A Rose of Winter (ao3) - Nefertiti1052 (Succubusphan)

Summary: All Daniel wanted to do was escape the stifling life as a Stark of Winterfell and travel the world. Between the looming threat North of The Wall and the den of lions in the capital, he unexpectedly finds love in the midst of a war set to tear Westeros apart. Caught between loyalty to his family and duty, he is torn in a thousand directions that all point to one man: Philip Flowers.

A Stolen Ring (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Dan’s not normal. Why?

He's not human, he has a mysterious ring, and he hates Phil Lester. They have a strange past, one filled with bullying and avoidance, but when Dan turns into an incubus, everything changes. He struggles with his identity and cries himself to sleep most nights, yearning to be normal. And somehow the universe makes it worse by bringing him and Phil together - in the most literal sense.

Between The Lines (ao3) - Koolhotsweetloveberries

Summary: Attorney Dan Howell is faced with winning an impossible case or loosing his job.

All evidence points towards his client being guilty. Except for critical evidence provided by Forensic Linguist, Phil Lester.

The man Dan turned down a year ago.

Dan the Personal Assistant (ao3) - blissedoutphil

Summary: Dan has to submit an application video to be an assistant for a company President, Mr. Lester. But what happens when he accidentally sends a wrong video?

Forever Frozen Still (ao3) - jestbee

Summary: Phil is a wedding photographer, capturing the beauty of people’s weddings day after day even if it’s beginning to wear a little thin. Then he meets Dan, a cynical and irritating wedding planner who doesn’t believe in love and finally, he finds something that inspires him.

hooked (on you) (ao3) - calvinahobbes

Summary: Rentboy AU. Dan is a hooker trying to make it on his own in Manchester. Phil is his customer who ends up becoming more involved than he expected. What started out as a business transaction ends up being something neither of them anticipated.

I Fell For You (ao3) - TheWolfWithinMe

Summary: Thrown out of Heaven, Dan walks the streets of London, caring about nothing. Absolutely nothing. Except a blue eyed, black haired boy standing on the edge of a rooftop. Angel!Dan Suicidal!Phil

In My Way (ao3) - INeverHadMyInternetPhase (BirbWatcher)

Summary: Daniel Howell is 21 and Britain’s newest star. He’s just been cast in the much-anticipated film adaption of Last Man Standing, the popular teen fantasy novel with a huge fanbase hanging off his every tweet. In other words, Dan has made it big.

Phil Lester couldn’t care less. He’s a stressed out PHD student working part time at a bookshop while he struggles to get into post-production. He’s 26 and still lives in a tiny flat on the fifth floor of a building with a lift more broken than it is in use. He loves books, but he thinks big film adaptions screw with the plot too much.

Needless to say, Phil is less than impressed when Last Man Standing is getting filmed in his hometown. And he certainly doesn’t want anything to do with obnoxious, arrogant, so irritatingly perfect leading actor Daniel Howell.

Just Like Magic (ao3) - waylesssad

Summary: There is a lot more to magic than waving your wand and saying a few funny words.

Mind Reader (ao3) - orphan_account

Summary: Dan's head was always filled with noise. He'd been blessed/cursed with the power to read minds, but not the power to control it. He heard the thoughts of everyone near him, and the constant voices in his head were close to driving him mad.

That is, of course, until he met Phil Lester, the only one who could make his mind go silent.

My Spirit Love (ao3) - MySecretsX

Summary: If you fall in love with a spirit who drains you both away, do you live together for twenty years, or stay alone each day?

Phil has lived in his house since he was born, but it was when he turned seven he met Dan for the first time. It's all childish games and the muse of a naïve brain until your fifteen-year-old son claims to have fallen in love with the boy you've never seen.

Is anything possible for love?

scratch bark bite (oh, love me, i lied) (ao3) - Tarredion

Summary: Music & Drama teacher Dan Howell has a well-known rivalry with his coworker, English teacher Phil Lester.

An unforeseen event flips everything Dan thought he knew about Phil and himself on its head. Slowly but surely, the grudge withers, and the two of them cross the line between enemy and friend. But what will happen when their true intents and feelings get revealed? And was what they had ever really a rivalry? Was it even mutual?

Sidetracked (ao3) - phanimist

Summary: Dan and Phil are both contestants on ‘The Bachelorette’, but fall in love with each other instead of the girl.

Siren Call (ao3) - natigail

Summary: Beware of the siren’s call, they tell you.

Dan had heard enough horror stories about sirens to be thoroughly terrified. He never wanted to go near the water, but as fate would have it, Dan’s father had to sign him up for on a merchant’s ship bound for the siren’s passage. Dan had a sinking feeling that he was not going to survive an encounter with one of the deadly predators. Those touched by the siren’s kiss were bound to drown. Except… it doesn’t go quite like that.

The Canary (ao3) - galaxy_ash

Summary: Dan is a famous singer called The Capricious Canary, but known as The Canary by his fans and the public. Phil is a paparazzo who hates his job and is assigned to stalk Dan to get insider pictures.

To Dwell on Dreams (ao3) - carltzmann

Summary: “Taking in the whole image, though, it hardly hurt. Watching this perfect version of himself smile and wave and talk to his friends, bathing in success and appreciation, Dan suddenly started to believe that maybe all that was possible, even with the confirmation of a terrifying secret.”

Dan and Phil meet at the Mirror of Erised.

Trust Me, I'm Broken Too (ao3) - natigail

Summary: The Lesters – the royal family of his homeland – was nothing like Dan thought they would be. Well, the King was just as horrible as he had heard but the King’s brother’s son, who was third in line for the throne, was nothing like Dan thought he’d be. Dan had been adrift for three years going from one “place of employment” to another, only his life was seen as worthless and he was more property than an employee. He had never imagined he’s end up as the property of Prince Philip.

The Prince had no intention of ever taking on a personal servant, which was a fancy name to disguise the fact a law essentially enslaved people. Phil often had to do things he didn’t want to or risk being removed from the succession to the crown. If that happened, who knew who his tyrant of an uncle would pick as a successor? When pressured into the choosing, he’d wanted to go for the most innocent, young girl, but hard brown eyes caught his attention instead.

where we belong (ao3) - parentaladvisorybullshitcontent

Summary: “Only you,” Martyn says.

“Only me what?”

“Only you could end up stranded in the middle of nowhere with a gay author who writes gay books. Jesus Christ, Phil.”

In which Phil is snowed in with nobody but the mysterious dark haired author next door for company.

[mpregbts]

I think I might make a few posts venting about my carpal & cubital tunnel syndrome on this blog. I will tag it "carpal tunnel" and "cubital tunnel" if you'd like to block it! It's more for me organizing my thoughts than anything else. Anyway, I'll start under the cut.

I have carpal tunnel, but it's pretty minor. My primary issue is cubital tunnel, which is very similar but is in the elbow instead of the wrist.

It started around freshman year of high school, ~5+ years from today, with very minor pain when holding my phone. It felt like my phone was bruising the middle of my forefinger when I typed for too long, and my thumb joints would feel uncomfortable.

About a year later is when I noticed the next escalation. I was having pain when I played my oboe. I talked with my teacher about it after months of ignoring it and she recommended some ways I could shift my hand position. They felt better in the short-term, but because it engaged muscles that were weak, it would hurt more after what I considered extended practice. For me, because I was a sort of unmotivated student, "extended practice" meant anything approaching an hour.

My hands were hurting when I wrote for too long, but that's true of everybody. It's just, the "too long" was getting shorter and shorter, but I wasn't noticing the change.

By junior year, I sort of figured I had carpal tunnel. What clued me in was just how painful it was to play video games or use my phone. And it only got worse from there.

I began regularly complaining to my teacher about how painful it was to play oboe. It got to the point where I could only play for ten minutes at a time. If I was lucky, I could squeeze 30 before my hands would begin shaking under the pain. I stopped being able to take my reeds in and out of my oboe by myself, so I started using my teeth, which my teacher hated. Both of us thought I just wasn't doing it right; I can't possibly be that weak. In retrospect, I can see that my grip strength was failing.

Freshman year of college, I tried to minor in music. That didn't work out, mostly because I found that I wasn't actually that passionate about the oboe. It was also because my professor sort of refused to believe me when I said I had carpal tunnel that was interfering with my play. She explained that many musicians play their entire lives, way more than I do, and they never develop it until they're far older. She said that, as a musician, claiming to have carpal tunnel was extremely serious and career ruining.

I still found oboe fun, though, and wanted to continue it as a hobby. I have never touched it since the performance final for that class. Even though I did like it and had fun with it, I associate it with pain. Where I am now, I can't imagine picking it up and playing a scale. I legitimately don't think I would be able to play it for more than a few minutes, if at all.

My other hobbies include drawing and bullet journaling. I may get into it in another post, but bullet journalling especially was VERY important to my lifestyle. During my first semesters of college, I stopped because my classes were too overwhelming to do either. Yet I found that, when things cooled down, and I tried to pick them back up, I couldn't.

The pain is the obvious issue. Holding the apple pencil is painful, let alone trying to control it on a slippery glass surface. At the same time, with bullet journalling, the friction and resistance of the paper against pen or pencil required too much force for my hands to produce easily.

The less obvious issue is accuracy. I couldn't draw or write with any accuracy without gripping the pen extremely tightly and going very slowly. Nowadays, my hands just sort of... move? God, this is THE thing that frustrates me the most regularly. Trying to fucking type on my phone. First of all, my phone is rather heavy and it HURTS to hold. Not just for a long time, I mean it hurts to hold AT ALL. But more frustratingly, my typing accuracy is horrendous now. I have to type, legitimately, every three words over again, at least once. Imagine that. Imagine every text you send out, having to retype 1/3 of it. AT LEAST. At the end of a bad pain day, it can be as much as every other word or EVERY WORD. I'm serious. It makes me want to cry.

I rely on autocorrect to get me through this issue. Without it, I really don't know what I would have done. I'd probably use voice-to-text exclusively. Autocorrect really doesn't cover that much, though? And it's rather inaccurate and can actually make things worse. I used to pride myself on typing well and using good syntax (I never really cared whether other people did, it was just a personal standard), but. When your phone corrects every single "its" to "it's", regardless of context, even if you had to already retype it 3 times because your thumb kept spasming and hitting the j key, and now you have to retype it AGAIN, and you're just staring at the screen wondering why you even bother. Grammar stops mattering as much.

Yknow, I don't respond to people sometimes. Sometimes my girlfriend texts me and I have a lengthy response I wanna give and I just don't because what's the point. Why would I type out how my day went in detail, bring us closer as partners and share that aspect of myself, when it hurts so goddamn bad. And it takes forever. Because I can't type with any speed or accuracy anymore.

And, okay. I loved to take physical notes. Things stick better in my brain if I physically write them. But that's too painful now. So I do everything on OneNote. Except I'm a fucking engineering major!!! I know all the shortcuts in Office's equation editor, I can type equations FAST, but it's just not feasible to keep up with the professor when lowercase rho is one flick of the wrist for him and 4 keystrokes for me. So now I just focus on getting things typed so I can't even LISTEN to the explanations because I'm 3 slides behind and surely it's online somewhere.

Calculus 1-3 had written exams. We had about an hour fifteen. I always get done with exams rather early & go back and check them thoroughly. I tend to make really stupid mistakes with math and it usually saves me a good 5 points if I check my work, cuz I can be really sloppy. But I found that I was having to take WAY more time every problem simply writing it legibly. I have to go soooo slowly so that my hand doesn't collapse under its own weight. In my head, I was so bored, because I knew the next 4 steps, and I could have been DONE already if I could just write up to a normal speed! I almost never had time to check my work. I worked up to the last five minutes nearly every exam.

In case you're curious, I have been to a hand specialist. My city has an internationally renowned hand clinic that I've seen and they were fantastic, to be sure. For a variety of reasons though, I haven't been able to properly keep up with treatment. To keep it brief, and maybe I'll explain more later, here's the main treatments:

Surgery. This is what I want desperately. However, for cubital tunnel, recovery can be anywhere from two weeks to several months. My major doesn't give me summers off. I do 3 semesters a year with two to four week breaks in between. Sure, I might be able to squeeze in a surgery if I HAPPEN to be able to get a date EXACTLY at the beginning of a break (at a clinic that people TRAVEL HERE to get in with), but what if I need more recovery time. What if I need to pursue physical therapy to get back the ability to write. If I fall behind I'm going to lose my scholarship. So? Okay? Guess I'll just wait until after I've graduated. In slightly less than three years, not counting my masters program.

Steroid shots. I have trauma surrounding needles and now have a phobia that I've gotten under control via therapy. I can get vaccines now without sobbing and all that. According to my dad, who got them for the same condition I did, they were extremely painful and did not help very much. I KNOW that statistically MOST people find them very helpful and it eases symptoms but. I am really scared about triggering my phobia and having to redo therapy for it. If I have a bad experience with needles I don't think I'll be able to do it again without therapy. It'd suck to lose this progress.

Physical therapy. I actually did do this and it worked very well. Between my stretches, exercises, and heat therapy, my symptoms had become...not manageable, but WAY less bad. It really did work. But people who have gone through physical therapy will understand... once my therapist said I was good to stop seeing her because she had taught me everything she could... I just. Didn't keep up with the exercises. They take like 15 minutes and you need to do them 2-3 times a day. It's really not that bad and definitely worth the effort but like... I dunno. It's weird. I just. Can't get myself to stay on top of them at the end of an exhausting day.

Okay, that's all for now. I need to go to bed, and my joints are swollen from typing this lol. If you read this far, thanks for hearing me out!

[godiswithuss]

i think my biggest problem with “tiktok” songs is the fact that it’s so hand fed. tiktok kudus to them, have created such an expansive platform where old songs like that one miguel song, deep michael jackson hits, RADIOHEAD and SADE. are not popular songs with the young generation. but, the way they found it is so handfed that it bothers me so much because I HAD TO LOOK FOR THAT SHIT!?!?! DO YOU KNOW HOW I HAD TO FIND RADIOHEAD MUSIC??? first i listened to kanye west, then i listened to bon iver because kanye was inspired and worked with him, then i listed to james blake because kanye was also working with him, then i found out kanye was inspired by thom yorke and finally i listened to kid a for the first time in my life in August of 2018 and my life changed forever. and while i was working my way through radiohead, i found out more about kanye i found out about bon iver i found out about james blake and found these amazing songs and videos and live performances from them. if the car behind you, can’t make you love, vh1 storytellers. and all of this led me to find radiohead. but now, some 14 year old “and this is when i REALLY start sounding like a fucking boomer” just scrolls on tiktok, finds a sade song without having that experience of finding it on its own or someone cool asf sharing it with him. i know there’s this big thing of hate keeping and not letting anyone put you on which… TRUST I DO THAT SHIT TOO!!! but so many people showed me new music. and people on twitter as well which shows the hypocrisy in my words. but my ex girlfriend showed me mac miller, yunglame put me on to pharrell in may of 2018 which is now one of my favorite albums, this cool girl on twitter who’s username used to be ughgaby posted a lot about the smiths which introduced me to it. but i feel like tiktok has completely stripped that experience away which i felt was such a human experience. sharing music, finding music, that rush of searching through songs good and bad and you hear a song that immediately sweeps you and over time becomes your favorite song. there’s just something so wonderfully human about that.

this also sprung up another “problem” or rather just deepened a trend which is, the death of album. and to be fair, even i’ve succumbed to it. in 2015 prince went up on the grammy stage and said “like books and black lives, albums still matter” at the time streaming was getting more and more popular and artists and music lovers were fearing that albums would be going by the wayside as now artist were more focused on making that 1 billion stream hit and now a cohesive album that is personal to the artists. which made artists like beyoncé, kanye, and drake have different takes on this. beyoncé tried to go the traditional route, kanye announced the death of physical media with tlop and drake would put out a “playlist” called more life. all of this was happening when i was 14/15. and now that i am 21, i think prince would kill himself if he saw the current state of albums. after the rise of tiktok, it has become even WORSE. because, while these old artists have increased in popularity, it’s only select songs. while i’m sure that some in the young generation have gone out and listened to artists which,hey maybe i’m wrong, maybe this is how these teenagers are founding these artists and diving deep into their music, i would argue that most kids now listen to a playlist where they put all of their favorite songs in the moment and never think twice about listening to an entire album. and tbh, even i have succumbed to it. in 2020, my most played songs were stringed from albums. you would see 8-9 tracks from my favorite albums in the year. this is before i had tiktok. now in 2023, i have a list of just singles that i’ve been playing because even now i listen to a playlist of new one off songs and i can’t even remember the last time i had an entire album playing or even listened to an entire album. a clear personal example is astroworld vs utopia.

this is another BSCK IN MY DAY story. but wtv. on August 3rd 2018, ASTROWORLD came out. one my favorite albums of all time. one of the most anticipated albums in my lifetime. there was not a person at my school that didn’t listen to it, wasn’t taking about, and didn’t post it on their snapchat story. i listened to it at least once a day and it didn’t leave my rotation until october and november and even then, sicko mode wouldn’t die off until 2019. now let’s take utopia, another one my most anticipated albums, something that i’ve been waiting for 5 YEARS for. i listened to it at 10PM july 27th 2023. i even live posted my reaction on tumblr. it’s september 14th and i have not listened to it all the way through since. BUT I PUT MY EYES AND TELEKINESIS IN MY PLAYLIST!!! and it’s not because it’s a bad album, i actually LOVED the album when it came out but it’s just not in me to play it. i’ve changed so much that i don’t even listen to full albums anymore. which i get that people will say “bro stfu you just changed how you listened to music” but i feel like it’s the why i changed i feel like tiktok and others influenced me to listen to more “singles” than albums which i fear because albums are the most beautiful thing an artists can make and i’ll carry my favorite albums to my tombstone.

idk, maybe i’m just waffalling and i know i’m fucking 21 and i already sound like fucking “WELL BACK IN MY DAYYY” but that shows just how faster generation to generation are changing. for the most part i can relate a lot to how a 26 or 27 year old grew up. we had the same pre social media internet and we had the same technology more or less

but i’d love to hear what other people have to say and i know a lot of youtube always go” LWAVW A COMMENT ID LOVE TO KNOW WHAT YOU TJINK” and they don’t give a fuck but i’d love to hear others opinions especially kids in Gen X who are growing up now and have no recollection of what culture in 2016/2017 was and if you’re like 28 stfu i already know your opinion this isn’t about you.

p.s this whole rant was inspired by a tiktok of iniesta with weird fishes by radiohead which reminded me how much music and how i had to listen to the entire album to find that song while some fucking kid knows it from a football compilation on tiktok…. (sigh… at least i’ll always have go slowly 😌) maybe i’m just jealous of how easy it is now lol.

i guess another thing im curious about is, do you like the song or do you just like this certain part? can you listen to an entire song are you still listening to a build to the beginning to the verse not just the hook?? i feel like it’s too many hook music which i remember when X put out ? and a few people were upset at the length of the song and some people called it from a mile away that this is the direction music is headed and tbh… THEY WERE RIGHT, popular songs usually are shorter and just try to get to the hook as fast as possible and even starting with it sometimes

- October 25, 2023

[icedsaltedcaramelcoffee]

i keep seeing clips from the l3 ss3raf!m documentary and maaaan i have thoughts

i don't think they realize that they are shooting themselves in the foot. Like i obvs feel that they have the right to express how they feel and hardships. Also, i know the entertainment and esp the idol industry play up/dramatized, but at the same time le sserafim isn't special.... like chaewon being on ivs when it feels that is a news story each week for another girl in a girl group. which is terrible(!), but not unique. like the girl group hate train has went after other groups and you don't see them locking comments and all that.

Not that they should leave hateful comments up or not turn them off, but at this rate they should leave them turned off. like the haters are still making videos shitting on them. like i think hate is bad and antis are stupid for the record.

Also, sakura saying shes upset people are saying she improved instead of just being good or whatever. which i get it since it is a back handed compliment, but some of those performances werent great and ngl i do expect a lil more from her since she has been an idol for so long. She should know how the industry works at this rate yknow. commenting that shes getting better not good is hurtful, but i dunno man

Also, yunjin being upset that people are throwing her own words at her is so ??? "I want to change the idol industry" like yes kpop fans are too stupid to realize change wont happen overnight, but at the same time i was expecting her to try and tip the industry a bit more. Again, tho she is a part of a big label so lets be real, how much would actually change. I also think since yunjin is chronically online, for worse, is/was/is exposing herself to the hate more.

I think their concept of trying to be like badass girlboss' also makes seem something? like thay had fuck off haterz songs and they are antifragile and shit. like i dont want to seem like im downplaying the girls work and the hate, i think they work hard and people arent realizing they are people, but this documentary seems so mhm a choice. it def feels like hybe/source music is trying to get pity points instead of whatever they think it was supposed to bring to the hate mob. i think le sserafim is brave for sharing this side of the industry and themselves, but also i feel the label should be doing more. giving them more breaks, changing the music to actually fit their voices, choreo that allows them to sing and dance, and so on. like im blaming the label more for allowing this to happen and pushing them to be under these circumstances than the girls themselves. they are the ones having them perform their songs out of their range then saying fuck em when they have to do it live.

again the haters are using clips of them almost collapsing or eunchae hyperventilating with text like "man all that practice to sound like that" or worse. even the subtitle "make it look easy" when people were saying that derogatorily like....i don't think higher ups thought about this fully and this is just going be worse on the girls. like some of the quote retweets were so rude and hateful! they are gonna read those comments and feel worse!

Again, i don't think the girl's deserve the hate they got. They had some shitty encores and live performances. both can be true at the same time which has happened to most groups at one point or another. i dont think le sserafim cant air out their problems or how they feel or whatever, but making it seem its only a le sserafim issue is crazy!

i mean i want the best for the girls and hope they are able to move past it, but unless their next cb is a banger i fear its just going be a cycle of this shit. like i feel like the label is making things harder for them.

lmao to add to a longass post already i guess they have been making documentaries for a while, i didn't follow them that closely, so its not strange for them releasing another, but man i wish they put a lil more thought into it. like i just feel like fans feel for the girls while haters are doubling down not really turning the tide like they maybe hoped. tbh i only see the hate dying down once a new group is here to hate (sadly).

cannot stress enough i have no ill will toward the girls and what them to be successful and they do not deserve hate. hate and constructive criticism is to completely different things.

[sympatheticvibrationsfic]

The Concertmaster

So now, we know that a concertmaster is:

the first chair of the first violin section

the leader/"team captain" of the orchestra

But what does a concertmaster actually do?

Before we answer that question, let's first answer: Where is the concertmaster?

The concertmaster is always the violinist directly to the left of the conductor. The person to the concertmaster's left is the associate concertmaster/second chair, while the person behind them is the assistant concertmaster/third chair.

When you watch a classical concert, you'll notice all the members filing out to their seats. But there's always one violinist who goes out last. That is the concertmaster, who then leads the orchestra in tuning.

I remember how my mother would always say she hated this part because "it looks so unprofessional, tuning in front of the audience." But instruments are sensitive creatures, Mum! Because anything from the humidity to the stage lights can mess with an instrument's body, the orchestra has to tune on the spot to concert pitch (A, or 440 Hertz).

Once the tuning is over, the conductor steps out and shakes hands with the concertmaster. This is an old tradition that's meant to symbolize respect between the conductor and the orchestra.

During a performance, if you look closely at the string players, they might keep discreetly looking over to the concertmaster. Using very subtle gestures like nods or lifted brows, the concertmaster also quietly leads the strings... or even the whole ensemble, if worse comes to worst. This is especially so if the orchestra isn't vibing with the conductor (which, unfortunately, does happen). If it gets really bad, the concertmaster might even make baton-like gestures with their bow.

Outside of the concert hall, the concertmaster also has other tasks. One of the most time-consuming is notating the bowing.

When the strings all move together as one and their bows all go up and down at the same time, the effect is very pretty both visually and aurally. But this isn't possible without the concertmaster, who has to painstakingly decide all the bowing directions months prior to the concert.

The bowing should remain true to the composer's intent and the style of the time period, to be played as accurately as possible. This requires expertise in different musical styles (and, if not, a load of research). Working closely with the librarian, the concertmaster has to make sure the bowings are ready on all the individual players' sheet music before the first rehearsal.

In a serious emergency where the conductor or any of their substitutes can't make it to a concert, the concertmaster must also step in and conduct the orchestra. This is rare, though, and concerts are usually just cancelled. But hey, if the show must go on and the concertmaster can do it, why not?

An underrated but crucial responsibility that falls to the concertmaster is being the role model or "parent" of the orchestra. Though the players are expected to conduct themselves like professionals, sometimes there might be somebody at rehearsal playing games on their phone, reading a book, or even sleeping. It's up to the concertmaster to discipline them. (In private, obviously. Don't humiliate your kids in front of the house guests.)

At the same time, the concertmaster must stand up for the musicians in cases where there are disputes between the conductor and the orchestra. This tends to happen if the conductor doesn't actually know how an instrument works (watch this video of Lenny Bernstein being completely incapable of instructing a pair of percussionists how to play the triangle the way he wants; Classical Cringe Hall of Fame, for sure).

You can't always blame the conductor. Their expertise lies in leading the orchestra towards a unified vision of the piece, not in actually playing each individual instrument. So the musicians will always know better than the conductor how to play the instruments they've slaved their entire lives over. That being said, the concertmaster has to make sure things don't get ugly. A calm rehearsal where disputes are handled politely and maturely makes for a day not ruined.

For better or worse, the concertmaster always has to be there to save their fellow musicians.

[athenamariee]

Hello my beautiful people! It is your friendly neighborhood OT5/ Camren stan and I am going to give my opinion on this video entitled “How Camila Cabello Derailed Her Career”. So without further ado, here we go!

This video talks about her in fifth harmony and says they were not really a breakout group but still had some success with hits like ‘Sledgehammer’, ‘Worth It’, and ‘WFH’ but they had no standout qualities like other girl groups. He goes on to say that things were getting muddy when she was doing solo projects and the other girls were not and goes on to say that ‘IKWYDLS’ and ‘Bad Things’ were the gateway to her leaving and having creative freedom, which we all know is true. He also says that she did plan to stay in the group while working on what then was ‘The Loving, The Hurting, The Healing’ but is now her self titled album ‘Camila’. She left because they would not let her write or explore that side of her while in the group and it furthered my theory that she never wanted to leave the group or her tour family but was forced to choose between a career that she loved and a career where she felt stuck with no help. She is definitely not an overnight sensation because she had to find her voice again. 

The creator starts listing reasons why she started to derail as an artist and I am going to list them here as well. The first reason being her past with racism and how that resurfaced right around the time romance was released. She did issue an apology and she has grown. Nobody really thought that this would affect her career but it did, which is honestly surprising because there are so many racist singers and actors that still have their careers but she is one of the only ones that have really taken a major hit to their career and has negatively affected her image. He says that cnizers would attack normani (which did happen) and she would say nothing about it but the thing is, she is not responsible for our actions and even if she did denounce them for being racist and tell them to stop, they were not going to stop and their actions hurt the rest of the actual camilizers who know how to actually behave ourselves. As we all know, mani spoke out about it and it breaks my heart to see her say that Cam didn’t care but we all know why she didn’t address it as soon as possible and that is because she doesn't go online that often and she also doesn't have full access to her own social medias at the time and still does not have full access but it was way worse back then. 

Romance is the next reason he lists and he says that the record has very few good tracks and the autotune for this record was not good and neither was her vocal processing. I say that was a lie and that the album did not have very good promo. We all know that her management hates doing promo for her and I feel like we didn't get the proper promo for this one. All of her songs she can and has sung fully live and this record was to just play with her voice and her sound a little bit. Every musician has that album where they like to play with their sound a little and this one was it for her. We start to see her full range on this album. This era was definitely rough seeing as this is when the circus started and this was also around the pandemic. This was also one of the shortest musical eras that we got from Camila and it was one of my favorites. This era was where she started to get into the R&B sound and a lot of people didn’t like it. This album underperformed because of all the singles that were put out before the album even dropped (thx management) and it just didn’t have the hype that it should have, overall making this era kind of a flop, but this era had the best aesthetic in my opinion.

Shawn Mendes was ALSO listed as a reason that her career derailed and i 100% agree that they were a publicity stunt and they most definitely played it up when doing live performances and in the music video. They had intertwined too much of their careers and it got annoying to say the least. The songs, documentary, pap pictures, were all too much and it was super fucking gross. 

The video ends by saying that her career is still far from over and that is very true. I would love to see her act more as well as a couple more albums before she retires from music and being in the spotlight

That is all my loves! And remember to smile and say fuck it! Until next time, Athena <3

[wannajointhecrabcult]

Masks and Music

(Part 1)

Part 2

I didn't think that my last post would've gotten ANY notes at all, so imagine my surprise when I find out that people actually liked it. After that suprise I thought why not and make another one so here we go! This is a Miraculous/Batfam crossover.

Imagine that Damian gets sent to Paris because the fam doesn't want him to become an emotionally constipated sad boi like Bruce and think that a change in scenery would help.

They don't know about the whole Hawkmoth situation because SOMEONE from the justice league decided that the while thing was a prank DESPITE that it was an ENTIRE CITY calling instead of a single person.

Like, aren't you guys supposed to be the world's greatest heros or something?

Who hired you?

Damian being the grumpy lil kid that he is holds a grudge and decides to not accept any calls or video chats from his family or tell them about Hawkmoth because that's what you get when you send someone across the world against their will.

(and because of plot convenience shhh)

Anyways, Damian goes to school as instantly adds Lila onto his mental list of people he needs to get rid of.

I mean, seriously, he's only been is the room for what, 15 seconds and he's already getting a migraine?

Great. Juusssttt great.

He sits in the back of the class with what seems to be the only person with brain cells in this room.

The dark haired girl just looks over and sees the disgust at Lila written all over his face and gives him a silent empathetic nod.

'This is unfortunately normal here.' she tries to convey through the small action.

He just nods back to show his understanding before turning around to observe the others.

In a few minutes Ms. Bustier walks in the room and asks him to introduce himself to the class.

It looks like the teacher never told the class that they were getting a new student because they all have to do double takes when they realize that there's a new face in the room.

He gives them the bare basics, telling them that his name is Damian Grayson, he's from America, and that he doesn't want any of them to talk to him before sitting down.

Clearly the teacher wanted him to say more or scold him for being so rude but a glare shut her up.

Later during a break period Lila tries to flirt with him and brags all about how she's met so many different celebrities and her achievements.

He tells her off and tries to move away but her nails are digging into his arms as she tries to convince him that he should stay away from Marinette.

Before he can maim her, the dark haired girl comes out from behind him and starts spraying Lila down like an unruly cat with some sort of strong smelling liquid from a spray bottle.

Lila screeches and stomps away.

When he turns to his hero the girl explains.

"It's a mixture of shredded lemon, expired maple syrup, vinegar, and pomegranate juice. I call it People Repellant but Thot Begone works too. Oh, and I'm Marinette by the way."

He eyes her hand before shaking it.

"Damian, though I assume you already know that. Can I get some of that by the way? I know a couple insufferable annoyances that would benefit from a spray down.

Marinette just blinks for a second before she bursts out laughing and that was the start of a great friendship.

Together they:

Make fun of Lila in the back of class.

Help eachother with homework (they only cheat off eachother when they REALLY need help)

Prank Lila in odd ways (Hey, just because she found hundreds of furbies hidden around her house that turn on one by one in the middle of the night effectively scaring the crap out of her when she's trying to sleep doesn't mean that it's their fault. She had it coming.)

Break a couple laws (shhhhhhh. Those toy stores don't need those furbies anyways).

Dare eachother over stupid things (they still insist that the cereal incident was caused by the other).

And overall become closer as friends.

They bring out the overdramatic chaotic gremlin child in eachother.

One time when Damian goes over to Marinette's place to work on a project he finds her singing a Disney song to herself on her balcony.

This isn't the first time they've caught eachother singing.

One time Marinette caught Damian in the art room at school humming one of the many annoyingly cheesy and catchy songs that Dick likes to listen to.

Despite him explaining the embarrassing situation to her she still teased him for weeks after.

He'll never get to live it down.

Damian shakes his head to get rid of the flashback when a devious smirk spreads across his face as a revenge plan comes to mind.

After carefully placing his stuff on the floor he sneakily makes his way across the space until he's right behind her.

That's when he joins in.

Screaming at the top of his lungs at first, effectively giving her a mini heart attack before eventually quieting down to a normal singing volume.

She glares at him, annoyed by his loud and obnoxious entrance before she starts singing again.

They eventually end up full Disney movie dramatically performing around her balcony with dance moves and over dramatic acting.

Is it bad that actual birds and other animals are appearing and joining in?

Damian totally kept one of the pigeons.

He named it Dolores.

(He later trained Dolores to attack Rossi on sight.)

When they're finished they end up on the floor out of breath.

They stay like that for a few minutes before Damian sits up.

"That. That was fun. I don't think I've actually ever sang before."

Marinette jolts up in suprise and turns to face him.

"Really? I never would've guessed. You have a really nice singing voice."

He would deny till his dying breath that he blushed when she said that but he covers it up with a smirk.

"Well I guess that's just because yours is so terrible in comparison."

He squawks when she jabs a finger in his side.

"Pshh. As if. Besides, my singing skills can't be worse then your gaming skills." She challenges with a cheeky smile.

"ExCuSe mE?!"

And that's how they spend the rest of the day playing video games, leaving the unfinished project to be completed on a later day.

Good thing it isn't due until 2 weeks time.

After a couple of hours playing video games, creating many possible Lila murder plans, eating pastries, and joking around, it's time for him to leave.

As Damian left for his place he got a feeling that something big was gonna happen.

Marinette also got the feeling but they both ignored it.

Little did they know, someone just happened to walk by and starstruck by the amazing singing they recorded the performance before posting it on the internet.

Imagine the duo's suprise when they wake up the next day to find themselves trending on the internet.

Luckily the video quality was pretty trash so their faces weren't identifiable but the audio was loud and clear.

The world was talking about the cute couple singing to their hearts desire on a balcony. If that's not cliche and adorable then the world doesn't know what is.

The assumption about their relationship status left them looking like tomatos but that didn't stop them from wonder why they didn't notice a creep recording them.

Damn Disney songs and their unnatural ability to distract people.

Of course Lila took advantage of the rising popularity of the video and talked about how she taught the two people in the video how to sing and gave them tips.

The two just walked past the idiot squad and sat down in their seats, making a mental note to come up with a prank later, when the akuma alarms came on.

They fall into their normal routine of Marinette running out to find a place to transform as Damian covers for her.

Oops did I forget to mention that Damian found out her identity because she crashed through his window in the middle of the night still transformed and asked him what's the answer to question 24 in their science homework because she just defeated an akuma by herself and was running on 20 minutes of sleep?

My bad.

Anyways it turns out today was the day Marinette had officially had enough of Chat's bullcrap.

It was gonna be a normal akuma situation.

Ladybug trying to fight the poor butterfly victim while chat noir either doesn't show up, tries to do everything on his own to impress her and ruins the whole plan, or just watches and complains about how she needs to get over her denial and date him BUT

This time he decided to actively try to push her in the akuma's way therefore putting her in SO MUCH MORE DANGER than she was already in.

Now she had to dodge out of the akuma's way AND CHAT'S!

WhAt ThE fUdGe?!?!

You think possibly killing Ladybug and trying to force her to beg for you to save her is gonna make her like you?!?

Just how hard did you hit your head when Gabriel dropped you on the floor when you were 2?

After the akuma was eventually defeated Ladybug told Chat to meet her on an abandoned rooftop that night because they needed to talk.

Chat being the oblivious person that he is (I swear I don't actually hate chat noir, this is for the plot I'm sorry) thought that it was for a love confession and became overly smug before leaving.

Making sure that he isn't following her, Marinette meets up with Damian at his place (school's over because of the attack) and asks him to help.

Later that day when the two miraculous holders meet up Ladybug distracts the Catboy by flirting with him while Damian uses his ninja skills for something other than sneaking up on her and giving Marinette mini heart attacks.

From behind he quickly hits a pressure point causing the other boy to fall unconscious.

Using her ALMIGHTY GUARDIAN OF THE MIRACULOUS powers, Ladybug takes Adrien's ring away and places a spell on him that makes it so he will never be able to use another miraculous ever again.

After they take Adrien home Marinette gives Damian the ring and Night Prowler is born.

He promises to do everything in his power to make sure that Selina and his family doesn't find out for the sake of his pride.

We'll see how that goes.

Night Prowler first officially appeared during an akuma named 'Break Dancer'.

Ironically, she was a ballerina that had to drop out of the finals in a competition because she broke her right leg the day before the show.

She could turn civilians into back up dancers and forced them to perform against their will.

They also worked as minions who would attack the duo for her while she stayed a safe distance away.

It was pretty obvious that the akumatized item was the music box held inside the bag that Break Dancer had slung around her shoulders but the real question was how could they get to it without becoming attacked by the backup dancer or becoming one of them.

Luckily (eheheh), a car with an open window playing music just happened to pass by before driving off.

Before it drove off, the music coming from the car was loud enough to play over the music box which caused some of the minions to become free again and run off.

Ladybug called her lucky charm and a Bobby pin landed in her hand.

As she looked around she noticed a store a couple blocks away that had a couple radios.

Unfortunately, the store was locked and closed.

Fortunately, she knew how to pick locks and a Bobby pin did come from her lucky charm soooo......

Who is she to deny literal gods.

They break into the store and grab a radio, and a speaker and rush over to where the akuma was causing chaos.

They turn on the radio, connect the speaker and turn the volume on as loud as it can go before flipping through the stations for a good song.

If they're gonna fight with music in the background they're gonna be picky about it and wont settle for anything other than epic.

While fighting they eventually get swept up in the music and end up singing along.

It's nothing less than full on majestic.

When the fight is over and the akuma is purified they find out that someone recorded it and posted it on the internet as well.

Now everyone knows that the beloved hero of Paris and her new partner were the two people singing on that balcony.

Ummmmm.....

Good thing that the video quality was trash right?

If it weren't for that their identities would've been busted the moment they started singing in hero form.

Luckily there aren't many people other than Damian that know what Marinette's singing voice sounds like so they're okay.

Well.... They WERE okay,

Until a certain rockstar and his agent came across the two videos and put two and two together.

So now King Sting (bee!jagged) and Peridot (turtle!penny) have joined the team.

Poor Penny, now she has to deal with two gremlin children and a some sort of bizarre man-child.

The next akuma confused the group quite a bit.

He didn't really do anything but sit on a rooftop waiting for the miracle team to show up.

They were all suspicious of him at first but when they did reveal themselves to him he explained his situation.

He was akumatized because his favorite rock band broke up but he didn't really want to take their miraculouses away.

He just asked if they could perform another song for him and he would give his akumatized item to them.

They all sorta looked at eachother and collectively went 'screw it why not' and sang another song.

If they were great before, they are absolutely AMAZING now.

Well that's what happens when you add a famous rockstar to a team of singing superheros I guess.

The akuma was blown away and true to his word handed over the rolled up picture in his pocket and was purified despite of Hawkmoth's nagging.

Haha screw you Hawky.

This time the ordeal was recorded by a news station and the 'hand over the akuma in exchange for a song' thing became a trend.

There were still normal akuma's that didn't follow follow it but those were far flung between.

It seems like Hawkmoth was getting annoyed by this so there started being less akuma attacks over the months.

Because of this some people were actively trying to get upset to attract one of the purple butterflies.

They traded one good thing for another I guess.

To stop that from happening the group started performing in public as superheros during concerts and festivals.

Because of this they became quite well known outside of Paris as well.

Is it ironic that more people know them as a band rather than a superhero team now?

When Marinette learned that they could change what their superhero costumes looked like if they put enough will into it she squealed.

Marinette designs superhero performance costumes for them whenever they have a festival to play at.

Whenever asked about their outfits they always reply with MDC.

Marinette's business gets really popular after that.

And since no one knows who MDC really is, she doesn't have to worry about the whole "Oh no me and my family are gonna be in danger!" thing

It's a win win!

Overtime they basically become a second (or third for some people) family to eachother.

Damian becomes more 'kid like' and open to others,

Marinette becomes more confident and overall happier,

Jagged gets to hang out with his awesome niece and her 'maybe more than just a friend',

And Penny gets a new outlet for stress and has so many more crazy stories to tell people.

One day while she's in the living room on the sofa watching 'The AristoCats' Damian just barges into the room and dramatically flops over onto of her.

He just lays there with his head in her lap and the rest of his body sprawled on the couch.

After everything that has happened this is normal for them now.

Without asking any questions or talking at all they just watch the movie together with the occasional remark or quip between them.

Around half way through the movie Jagged kicks down the door, effectively scaring the crap out of the two teens, while Penny follows behind him with an apologetic look on her face.

At first Jagged was yelling about something having to do with'Fang' and 'Dragon' and 'Miraculous' but after taking in the domestic atmosphere of the room he just sits down on the floor and joins in on watching the movie.

Penny, shaking her head in both amusement and exasperation, sits down on another chair and does the same.

While combing through Damian's hair with her fingers Marinette looks around the room.

'My life can't get any more complicated, can it?'

Oh boy, she just jinxed it.

This is just an idea I've had bouncing around in my head for awhile and I couldn't resist the urge to write it out. I AM planning on making a part 2 so if you like this keep an eye out for that. I'm by no means a fast writer though so it will take a while. But then again not many people will probably read this soo.... Yeah.

[goldnkuro]

´ ´ noir’s backstory  ` `

warning: mental abuse, some physical abuse, stalking, paranoia, cussing, crying, panic attack (it isn’t detailed, although i have it written on another note), child neglect

a/n: i think this was the one who took the most of my brainpower, but i guess i’m pretty satisfied with the result. this is pretty lengthy btw, i think the word count reached to 3,7k words.

[ early life ]

kwon soo-young was born on september 16, 1998 in quebec, canada. daughter of the current ceo of a popular conglomerate company, kwon changmin, and of a renowned interior designer and administrator, kwon hannah, and younger sister of kwon young-joo, who is an entrepreneur that many consider to be a genius.

to say that soo-young never had the greatest relationship with her parents is an understatement. the only moment the older kwons ever paid attention to their younger child is when the media is involved or when she did anything that would disappoint them (even if it was a small thing that normal parents would consider to be meaningless), which they would punish and degrade her for it for weeks until they forget completely about her again. it would soon be common in soo-young’s life for her parents to heavily compare her with her older brother and say how she should be exactly like he is, which wouldn’t help her mental health in the future.

many would think that because of the comparison always present in her daily life, she would dislike her brother or even hate him, however, it’s actually the very opposite. even in her very young days, she would consider her brother to be her only light, how could she hate the only one in her family that genuinely cared about and for her. nowadays, while she’s always teasing him, she always reminds him how much he matters to her, more than anyone.

but not everything is a bed of roses, the bad news arrived when soo-young was 10 years old, young-joo was being sent to live with his uncle in south korea by his parents so he can prepare to study in a university his father chose. when the day came, and the siblings had to be separated for an unknown time, she knew that she had to endure hell for the coming years.

and endure it she did but at the cost of her mental health. the verbal abuse she suffered from those who were supposed to care for her just became worse with her brother’s departure, and it took a few months for her father to start abusing her physically, but not enough to cause permanent bruises.

only 2 years later that soo-young started getting a deeper and genuine interest in music after watching a band show that her school was hosting for a celebration she didn’t really care about. the way the band was being passionate even if it was performing for a bunch of kids intrigued soo-young. ever since, she started to get deeper and deeper in music until she found a kpop video, to be more specific, songs from boa, girl’s generation, and super junior. it was basically love at first sight, or first listen. that was the moment that she knew what she really wanted, she wanted to be part of that.

luckily for her, at the age of 14, soo-young's older brother was able to invite her to live with him in south korea, and of course, soo-young jumped at the opportunity to stay away from her parents while being able to get physically close to her newfound dream. in the beginning, soo-young’s parents didn’t allow the idea, but all it took was a little chat with young-joo, until this day, she never knew what her older brother said to their parents, all she knows is that he somehow was able to convince them, and she won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.

[ life in korea ]

now living in incheon, soo-young started working on her korean right away, she took a whole day to memorize at least the basics while her older brother was finding a decent school for her.

the first week at school was rough for soo-young for 2 reasons, 1. she was in a new country that spoke in a language she wasn’t fluent in yet, and 2. she was aware that most of the kids there weren’t that open-minded towards foreigners, even if they looked asian, so it was really hard for her to make friends at first. but there was one kid who approached her without caring for the whispers about her, song mingi, who was 1 year younger than her. he admitted that he was shy to approach her at first, but they “clicked so well together, it was as if they were friends forever!”. mingi was a breath of fresh air for soo-young, even with her broken korean, he was still patient enough and helped her to communicate with him, it didn’t take long for both to become inseparable.

in the same year, mingi one day showed soo-young a leaflet showing that near their school there would be an open concert of a group of people who would perform local songs, with both of them interested in similar fields and soo-young wanting to show mingi – who never went to any show – how exciting it is, they wasted no time to ask their guardians to go watch. after that day, both friends started looking for places to take dance lessons, as mingi was more interested in rap while soo-young was more interested in singing, the two found a happy medium with dancing, and out of countless attempts, both were accepted into one of the joy dance and plug in music academy units in incheon.

in the beginning, soo-young was a goner when it came to dancing, only her vocals (which wasn't even that stable) saved her, and because of that, she used all her free time to practice non-stop, of course, she also rested so she wouldn’t go to her classes completely exhausted. but she would be lying if she said she regretted signing up with mingi.

unfortunately, young-joo was sent by his father to move to seoul, as there was little time until he was able to finally start working, so he thought it best to send the older sibling to live closer to his future job. and being responsible for his younger sister, young-joo had to take soo-young along, which broke the hearts of the two inseparable friends. before moving, soo-young – with her brother's help – bought two farewell gifts for mingi, one of the gifts was one of the most expensive cell phones at the time so they could always stay in touch, and a pair of rings, she told him to wear the sun ring on his pínky that she would do the same with the moon ring, and the two promised that they would be successful in the music industry.

[ the seoul life ]

soo-young's life in seoul was difficult, young-joo started to spend less time in the apartment they shared, so soo-young had to learn to cook to make it easier for the eldest, she had to continue to dedicate herself strongly to her studies so she wouldn’t irritate her father, and because of that, she didn't have time to look for another dance or singing academy, so she had to improvise. in terms of her dancing, she always watched as many videos and went to as many public performances as possible, soo-young always recorded dance covers on her cell phone for her to review later, so she could see the minor and big mistakes and fix them as quickly as possible. in terms of her singing, she would review what her singing teacher at plug in music academy taught her, and from there, soo-young started testing her vocal limits, like how high she can hold a chord without straining her vocal cords, and the lowest notes she could manage without making it sound bad for the ears.

[2013] just before graduating from high school in 2013, soo-young wished to see how far she could go with her own efforts and decided to audition to an entertainment company, wanting to try her luck, she auditioned at one of the big guns, which turned out to be sm entertainment. honestly, she wasn’t supposed to pass the audition since her dance skills weren’t really the best, but soo-young was told that “it would be a shame to lose such a gem just because it’s unpolished, and when we can polish it to the max”, and therefore, soo-young was accepted as the new trainee at the company.

during her time at sm, soo-young has always been dedicated to all her activities as a trainee, while never forgetting to take care of her own health. and apparently, there were some trainers who seemed to favor soo-young among some of the other trainees, rumors said that those trainers had a soft spot for the more passionate trainees, and it is known between the trainees that soo-young was one who had the most passion.

of course, she also made some friends while training to be introduced at “sm rookies”, most notable ones were won soo-jin and lee taeyong, they were the ones who helped soo-young the most and were able to conquer their place in soo-young’s heart.

[2014] finally introduced as one of the “sm rookies”, soo-young started to feel deep in her gut that something wasn’t right. she ignored it, of course, in her mind, if it was truly important then she would’ve remembered. but then the days went by and she started feeling eyes on her, even when she was by herself. she kept it to herself because she didn’t want to burden her friend and her brother, and because she wanted to confirm her suspicions. everything was going right according to her plan until one night she received a few messages from an unknown number, in there was a single “don’t think just because you’re living in another country, they won’t know. they will be always watching you.” and then there were lots of photos of her in her daily life, going to the company with her two friends, enjoying ice cream with her brother at a park, even more private photos like ones where she was cooking, when she was putting makeup after waking up, and even when she invited soo-jin to a sleepover. how this person was able to get such photos when she was living on the 10th floor, she didn’t know, all she knew is that she was right from the very beginning, she had a stalker and a creepy one at that.

that day was when soo-young had her first panic attack, and she unknowingly called her friend from incheon instead of her brother, mingi stayed with soo-young on call until she fell asleep and he hurried to inform young-joo about what happened. and it was like that how soo-young discovered from her brother that their parents hired someone to “always keep them updated about their dearest children”, and that was the official day when soo-young developed an unhealthy paranoia, knowing that every day from now on, there would be someone to report every thing she does to her parents.

[2015] almost 2 years later, soo-young was able to earn herself the internal title of one of the best female trainees in sm, due to her rapid development, wherein the beginning she was an "okay" level and now many considered her to be able to debut in a possible future female group of the company.

however, to the surprise of many, a new group debuted, but soo-young wasn’t included in the line-up. that was okay, soo-young was a bit sad at that but she soon got over it, there were a lot of other female trainees that in her eyes were way better than her, and the girls in red velvet totally deserved debuting. but then yeri was added to the group, and soo-young couldn’t help but let the jealous feeling and insecurity take over her at the moment. both soo-jin and taeyong did their best to comfort their friend, and at that moment soo-young was really grateful for having such great friends. but soo-young knew that one of them was hurting from this as well. while soo-young wasn’t even considered for the debut line-up, soo-jin was being prepared to be the 5th member of red velvet, only for the company to substitute her last minute for yeri, and while soo-jin didn’t show it, soo-young knew she was hurting from this.

in the same night, soo-young and soo-jin were cuddling together while binge-watching some disney movies at soo-young’s apartment while they were waiting for her older brother to bring takeout for them. soo-jin suddenly came with the news that someone from her family could easily get some spots for both of them to become trainees at cube, and that soo-jin already claimed one of those spots because she wanted a fresh start and wanted to know if soo-young wanted one too. soo-young was confused at the sudden talk but she still understood her friend’s point of wanting to start fresh after all that happened. it took some thinking, but soo-young decided to postpone her decision, she still wanted to have some faith in her company, and she also didn’t want to leave taeyong behind, but at the same time, she didn’t want to completely decline the invitation.

for soo-young, training felt a bit emptier without soo-jin training with her, but she was able to handle it by being more productive in the year. soo-young registered at a dance studio which was also located in seoul and had caught her attention when she learned that lia kim, one of the well-known choreographers that she admired, was the one who founded this studio that known as 1MILLION. there, she knew she would receive dance lessons that she would take for the rest of her life, as well as she could also evolve enough to create her own choreographies.

[ things started changing ]

[2016] one day, the ceo asked to see soo-young and another trainee she didn’t meet but definitely saw between the trainees. the ceo came with a proposition for both her and park eun-chae, the other trainee with her, for them to participate in a new survival reality show that mnet would host named produce 101 while representing their company. maybe the ceo chose both of them because he knew they would be desperate to debut soon since he wore a satisfied expression when both trainees didn’t hesitate to agree.

even when both soo-young and eun-chae never talked properly, when they started to train together to prepare for the show, they had a certain natural synergy, it was as if they trained together since their first days as trainees.

the d-day arrived and soo-young couldn’t be any more nervous, she and her duo weren’t the first ones to arrive and because of that, there would be other trainees from other companies who would see which company they were representing, and it would only be natural to have high expectations on soo-young and on eun-chae, which placed a heavy burden on the former.

everything was going okay while in the program, or at least, it was what it seemed to be for outsiders, but actually, soo-young was a pile of nerves during the eleven episodes. there was even a moment where she had a breakdown while training for one of the missions. she begged the staff to cut that part off of the episode and even asked her brother to back her up, who agreed with the condition she would tell him every single thing after the reality show was over.

fortunately, soo-young was able to finish on rank 4, therefore, she was a confirmed member of the debut lineup, soo-young was sad because eun-chae wasn’t able to debut with her, but soon she was assured that it was okay and she should enjoy the moment.

soo-young’s time during i.o.i was a dream come true, but she knew it wasn’t going to last forever since that was sadly a temporary group, so she enjoyed the times with her girls to the fullest. the last show she performed with the other 10 girls was one of the saddest days of soo-young’s life. but, life goes on.

[ things started changing, the sequel ]

[2017] some things happened at sm entertainment while soo-young was busy with i.o.i, eun-chae left the company and joined another one which soo-young didn’t catch the name of, taeyong debuted and became leader of nct u and 127, which soo-young congratulated him a lot and made sure to let him know how proud she was of him.

with her friends either busy with his own group or at another company, it didn’t take long for soo-young to start feeling really lonely, then she remembered the offer soo-jin made to her 2 years ago and decided that it was time to really consider it. one phone call and a deep conversation later, soo-young had her mind already set, she would leave sm and join cube.

said and done, it wasn’t difficult at all to convince the ceo, which made soo-young wonder if the ceo only seemed to care for her when she was in produce and on i.o.i, but she didn’t put any more thoughts on it since she was now out. now she did a few more phone calls and sent an audition video to cube so they could evaluate her, and now it was official, the 2soo duo was back together again, this time to wreak chaos upon cube.

to soo-young’s double surprise, she found out that eun-chae was actually on cube as well, and yet again, the ceo called soo-young for a “quick chat”, but this time with soo-jin and another japanese trainee, whose name she learned to be haruko, this chat was an invitation for yet another survival show, but the difference was that this one was going to be basically girls vs boys. soo-young almost declined, but soo-jin was able to convince her to at least give it a try, and so, soo-young was ready to face her second survival reality show.

preparing the songs for the audition was a piece of cake with soo-jin and haruko, soo-young used to train with soo-jin, so they already had a synergy, but haruko was quite helpful, although she was pretty quiet and didn't talk much, but she listened and did her role well.

the day came when the oh so great yg’s ceo, yang hyun-suk, alongside seungri came to cube as judges for the audition. soo-young was confident that the three of them were going to pass, they made sure to train enough and soo-young knew for a fact that soo-jin and haruko are really talented. both soo-young and soo-jin were able to get into the debut bus while haruko was placed with the other trainees.

to soo-young’s surprise, the bus’ next stop was at kq entertainment, mingi’s company. to say that soo-young was excited was an understatement, she heard stories about his group of friends, and they seemed like they were cool guys. while watching the group’s performance, soo-young couldn’t hold back the proud look on her face. when she heard that he was going in the trainee bus, she almost jokingly asked if she could exchange seats with either soo-jin or haruko just so she could talk with her old friend.

soo-young’s time while on mixnine while it wasn’t as rough as it was in produce 101, it still wasn’t a walk in the park. she managed to pull through thanks to her friends, mingi, soo-jin, and haruko, and also to the friends she made while in the reality show, who were there to help her with her struggles.

[2018] unfortunately, mingi was eliminated from the reality show, and so was haruko, soo-jin and soo-young were able to get to the final line-up but their team lost the boys’ team, so they weren’t able to debut. however, soo-young can confidently say that she didn’t regret joining mixnine, she had a lot of fun, met wonderful people, and felt the thrill of a survival show once more, of course, she pitied the male trainees that were chosen for the final line-up since their debut was canceled.

the next few months were pretty productive for soo-young, she spent most of her time getting even closer with haruko and eun-chae and other trainees at cube, she practiced and even choreographed for some songs, which many were uploaded on her personal sns, and that was how she met one of her sunbaes.

a few days after she was tasked to create a choreography for btob’s ‘only one for me’, and she met peniel while she was using one of the free practice rooms so she could brainstorm since she found herself stuck at some parts, apparently the other members were busy doing something and he wanted to check on her. both of them spent most of the day chatting, but at the same time peniel was really helpful, he gave his opinion on the choreography she had ready and gave some ideas based on a few options on which soo-young was stuck. their close friendship came naturally as they talked more. she met the rest of the group on the day she had to teach them the finished choreography, the boys were very receptive and it wasn’t difficult to teach them, although the fact that soo-young was a very good teacher did help, the atmosphere was light and it felt like they knew each other for years, which was a very good thing in soo-young’s eyes (even nowadays, peniel jokes around saying that eunkwang adopted soo-young the moment they first spoke to each other).

as if life wasn’t done rewarding her, a month later, she received the news that she was chosen as one of the girls who would debut in a new girl group that was being prepared, and it was asked of her if she would accept it, and her answer was pretty obvious, she accepted it. luckily for her, when she met the other girls that were confirmed in the lineup with, she knew most of them, with the exception of the youngest, and to soo-young’s surprise and happiness, eun-chae, soo-jin and haruko were in the lineup as well.

soo-young suffered and shed a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get where she is now, but now she has a place to call home with people to call family, and she couldn’t be happier.

[krreader]

BTS reacting to another member defending you when he’s not there to do it himself.

pairing: bts x reader fandom: bts warnings: bullying genre: angst ; fluff word count: 1.3k+

a/n: hello sweetheart, I really hope you like your request ♥

kim seokjin

They were shooting a music video today, but right now they were all having individual shoots.

Hoever, Jin wasn't feeling very well. It might just be a cold, but you feared it could turn into the flu, so you had decided to join him on set today to make sure he was okay since he still had to perform in front of the camera. No rest for the wicked..

And while you and him were in the car and you were gently brushing through his hair while he slept with his head resting against your shoulder, a few of the make-up artists decided to run your mouth over you outside.

“She can't give him space at all.. he's a grown man, he can take care of himself,” one of them said.

“I know right? It's like she's his mother at this point.”

“Why are you being so mean?” when Jimin entered the room all eyes were suddenly on him, then they all started bowing apologetically, “We should all be grateful that she's here and that she's taking such good care of hyung.. he's in good hands.”

You didn't get enough credit, people thought dating an idol was easy, you just had to enjoy the ride. But he knew that wasn't true. You had things to do too, but you decided to take that day and spend it with Jin instead to make sure that he wouldn’t be fainting or something like that.

Unlike them, Jimin and the rest of Bangtan, were all glad you were here.

min yoongi

It had been a radio interview only a few weeks after Yoongi and you had made your relationship public. He wasn't able to be there due to health issues, but the interviewer must have assumed that Yoongi – even though the interviewer didn't say it like that – didn't have the balls to show his face after admitting to be dating an idol from a group equally as famous as his.

“I understand that Yoongi is not here, I wouldn't show my face to the public either if I were him. The amount of messages from angry fans of hers that we get every day is insane. Most of them are male fans, though. Jealous fans. Her fans.”

Namjoon, the amazing leader that he was, was the first to speak, “(Y/N) is a grown woman and can decide for herself who she wants to date. I know it's easy to see us idols as divine beings that are pure and will never be touched by anyone, so that people can continue worshiping them for the rest of their lives, but that's a fantasy. A toxic fantasy. Us, hyung, (Y/N) and her group and every other idol.. we are all humans and we fall in love just like everyone else. Jealousy is natural and I can't blame her fans for being jealous, but there has to be a line. We all deserve happiness, no matter where we find it or who we find it with.”

Yoongi was sitting in his studio as he was listening to the interview and his smile grew bigger and bigger and the more Namjoon talked, the prouder he was for being a part of this group.

jung hoseok

Hoseok had spent all day in his studio working, but now was about to have dinner with Jin, only the two of them tonight.

But when Jin entered, he didn't look happy.. at all.

“What's wrong?”

“Did (Y/N) ever experience.. people harassing her?”

“Why are you asking me that?” Hoseok got up, his eyebrows furrowed and worry lines all over his face.

“I overheard a few people talk about her. Saying that she's not caring enough because she's rarely here.. I told them off, though. I told them that she wasn't here because she felt like she was intruding. She wasn't here because she didn't want to make people uncomfortable and that assuming she wasn't here because she didn't care enough was unfair when it’s literally the complete opposite.”

Hoseok shook his head a little and closed his eyes with a heavy sigh, but then he smiled at Jin nevertheless, “Thank you, hyung. She deserves more credit, but people always seem to give her too little.”

“Just don't tell her people talk badly about her.. she doesn't have to know.”

“Don’t worry.. I want her to be surrounded by positivity, never negativity.”

kim namjoon

Namjoon was at home with you, you were napping beside him, while he was playing a game on his phone when the message came in.

“You at home, Namjoonie?” Hoseok.

“Yeah, why?”

“Don't come to the agency today, no matter who calls you.”

Namjoon sat up straighter, then decided to call Hoseok because whatever was going on, it seemed serious and he as a leader should always be informed about serious matters.

Turns out that one of the new producers said something really mean about you and Hoseok had overheard it. He had decided to talk to him about it and the producer had just continued badmouthing you. It had been clear to Hoseok that the guy was too stubborn to see the point of the BTS member, so instead of trying to convince him otherwise, he had just figured that Namjoon should just show him that the producer didn't nearly have as much power as he liked to believe, especially as a newbie. 

And indeed, an hour later the producer called Namjoon over to help him out with their new song, but Namjoon didn't respond.

For the entire day.

And it wasn't Namjoon who got in trouble later, but the producer because he didn't deliver what he was supposed to.

And you see.. BigHit didn't have space for producers who couldn't deliver results.

park jimin

Jeongguk had been the first to see the hate tweets.

Hate tweets about you, because you and Jimin had made your relationship public.

And he normally wouldn't do this, but Jeongguk hated how other relationships from his hyungs had been accepted, only yours and Jimin’s relationship seemed to be a problem. Was it because Jimin was deemed to be 'more popular' than some of his hyungs? More.. desirable to the public?

Whatever twisted mentality these 'fans' had, Jeongguk was not having it.

He wanted Jimin to open his phone and see something nice.. something positive.

So what Jeongguk did, was post a picture of you and him at an amusement park, smiling from ear to ear, with the caption: “I'm the luckiest guy alive that my one best friend is dating my other best friend. Thank you for being happy. You make me happy too.”

And indeed, the first thing Jimin saw was this tweet.

His night could have been a lot worse, but all he could do was be happy about this tweet and the support that he received from the maknae.

kim taehyung

“Why are you looking so angry here, hyung?” Taehyung showed Yoongi the picture that he had taken of him from a while ago.

The answer surprised him.

“Someone said something bad about (Y/N) before that.”

“What?!” Taehyung instantly lowered the camera, his eyes widening, “Why.. didn’t you tell me about this?!”

“You don't have to know the details or who said what, I don’t want you arguing with someone that isn’t important. I took care of it and that's that,” he was so honest about it, “Don’t think about it too much, jealous people will always say bad things. They can’t help it.”

The younger member let out a sigh, “Thank you, hyung.. for looking out for her.”

“She's a friend.. and more importantly.. you love her. That's all that should matter to us,” Yoongi smiled a little.

jeon jeongguk

Jeongguk had only gone to the bathroom, he had only been gone for maybe.. five minutes. But in those five minutes, a massive argument must have started, because Taehyung immediately wrapped an arm around his shoulder when the maknae left the bathroom and pushed him away from the staff members.

“What's wrong?” the youngest member asked in confusion.

“Let's just be on our own for a little while, okay?”

Taehyung later told him about what had happened, or more specifically about what has been said. He told him how he defended you in all this and that he was sorry that people were saying such bad things about you.

He was angry before, but now Taehyung was just sad as he watched Jeongguk's shoulders drop more and more at the thought of someone being mean to you behind his and your back.

It just once again made him realize that you probably deserved more.. a better environment with nicer people around you. 

[ouyangzizhensdad]

Hey, feel free to ignore this, but I'd love to hear your grievances against Bridgerton? I saw some of the fashion posts you rbed, but I'm especially intrigued by the "fails on all aspects" parts? Thanks!

Hi there,

There is honestly so much that could be said and analysed in finer points but the short version of it is just that it is a bad story wrapped in the glitz of high production value but surprisingly little good technical execution despite all the money shoveled at it. Bridgerton is the type of show where the petty, mean side of me would delight in a detailed and cutthroat list of all of its flaws but for which I do not care enough to be actually invested in hating it. It’s just a thing to be puzzled and petty about: people think Bridgerton is good. Wild.

Now let me first say that I have no inherent problems with anachronistic creative choices, or the idea of a contemporary take on period dramas. After all, all period dramas are inevitably told through a contemporary lens, to different degrees. It’s also not like they were the first big production to do it either: has everyone just forgot about The Great Gatsby? or tumblr’s favourite Hamilton? I honestly think this kind of mixing already has so many cool outcomes when it comes to music (like this, this or this and this), I do believe we could get something really interesting out of creative anachronism in mainstream visual media. I’m also more forgiving with newer forms of experimentation, because sometimes new ideas need to be worked out before they reach their full potential. But the way Bridgerton does it.... so clearly lacks a clear creative vision and dedication to the concept imo that it makes it harder to excuse the ways it fails since the failures seem to originate from that lack of vision and dedication to storytelling. For instance, there is seemingly no logic as to when the diegetic music will be an instrumental cover of a contemporary song or not--which does not even broach the topic of how bad those ‘classical music’ arrangements for modern songs were? Honestly embarrassing how lazy those arrangements were: hire a good composer (or any at all), you cowards. And then the costumes... once again, a lack of internal logic seems to permeate the choices presented in addition to a lack of care in its execution: so many of the dresses are ill-fitted, the characterisation through the outfits were all over the place (like the mom who wore a silhouette that no one else wore and had no basis in any fashion of the era) and so many of the fabrics/jewellery looked the opposite of expensive (kind of looked like a lot of it was polyester and plastic tbh), which is sort of a problem when you are trying to sell the fantasy of "The lives of the rich and famous but make it regency” imo although I suppose a portion of the audience just doesn’t notice lmao. Honestly I find that a lot of ‘costume historians’ who made video essays on Bridgerton were too nice with the show, perhaps in order not to come off as seeming to hate the costumes on the basis of them not being historically accurate, and as a result were way too forgiving imo. And this lack of real creative vision is also something we see in the cinematography and direction which.... seems often confused about the way it wants to make things feel fantastical and ends up dropping the ball on the execution of these meant-to-be extravagant or over-the-top shots.

But, again, the cinematography is just... middling at best, made only worse by the editing which is just plain bad. I guess you’ll have to just take me on my word on this because I am not willing to do an autopsy of all I find off about it, but lord jesus mary and joseph it was painful to watch at certain moments.

Bridgerton is not the first show to do colourblind casting, although I’d say it deserves recognition for fucking it up for no reason at all. Like, sure there are criticisms to be had about how it remains still a very white story that falls into certain tropes wrt darker skin characters or the glaring lack of south asian representation considering what the contemporary UK looks like, etc. but what I’m gesturing at is the totally unnecessary but mind-boggling “royal love solved racism” twist we get in the, what, fourth episode? (Broey Deschannel covered the topic quite well imo) The audience would have accepted that there were no in-world explanation for the colourblind version of the already-made fantastical regency that had them dancing to Ariana Grande songs. The colourblindness, racism-free society would have just been another aspirational aspect. They literally did not need to do this.

Honestly I don’t feel like I need to get into why the story itself is not very good or well-executed since it feels very obvious. I won’t begrudge on principle the show for using well-worn tropes and common-to-the-point-of-farce character archetypes, but I have to object to the way it uses them and in the service of what story. And not to make myself in a plot-hole-ding kind of person-who-has-thoughts-about-media, but this is not a story that holds up well to scrutiny or logic, let’s say. And any type of social or political commentary it tried to include was dumb to the point of farce: the Feminist Character Who Wants to Read not Go Dance was just.... a masterclass in bad, embarrassing writing. I am surprised at how unlikeable and boring the vast majority of the characters were, but perhaps less surprised at how a series that planned on having multiple seasons already sold the twist of Lady Whistleblow’s identity at the end of the first season, for what seemed to be no narrative reason at all. That being said, I have to give credit where it’s due and acknowledge that there is a skill in being able to produce stories that get extremely popular and well-loved.

(Do I need to mention the performances? So many underwhelming or embarrassing performances. It’s hard to tell sometimes whether it’s the actors themselves or the directing that’s the issue, or a mixture of both, but.... oof).

I guess in the end Bridgerton’s biggest transgression is it sits for me in the uncomfortable middle where it is neither trashy or campy fun nor is it an interesting work of fiction. Differently put, it is simply neither good nor fun.

[ilhoonftw]

I still see people (like, not twitter trolls) backhandedly diss btob's looks, it's always "their ~visuals are weak~ but vocals!! and they're funny!!" and it pisses me off so much that they're the one group it's apparently totally acceptable to do it to, try saying any other idol has "weak visuals" (god I hate that phrase) publicity jfc

and not to be equally shallow but even when I try to be unbiased I cannot grasp how btob are soooo much worse-looking than 90% of other idols, other than being short kings I guess??? are there groups made up entirely of yook-looking models that I don't know about??

i agree, it's very weird! for some reason people can't comprehend you can have it all... sing well, be nice to others and look good while doing so. also a factor could be how mellos dont fall for the bait, i don't really see that many fandom vs fandom meltdowns. it's always some internal bullshit 😔also it's just mean. what did they do to you. the whole visuals discourse is crazy because 1. chances you will see those people irl are low 2. beauty standards all around the world are different 3. they are people not dolls jfc. i know idols aren't singers but i'm still mostly interested in the music. i don't even watch mvs anymore 😭 idc if the group has five yook knock offs, they arent btob. like bigshit stole minhyuk's face and for what. for huta to get annoyed at 'he looks like that text file guy' 'i thought it's that guy' comments ppl leave on his videos or lives... annoyed enough to speak on it.4th gen visuals have the styling benefit, sns benefit, fancam benefit plus cosmetic procedures are even more advanced so healing takes less time and it's easier to perform subtle tweaks. sometimes someones nose gets smaller season by season 😔 crazy how that happens!idk people like to believe their faves are the best. i saw so many tweets about how some okay looking dudes are The 4th gen bermuda triangle? or 'x group has no visual holes' yea just like swiss cheese has no holes lol. btob members aren't afraid to look ugly while a lot of idols rely on cakey makeup and good lighting. hyunsik's vibe alone makes you ignore he forgot to shave today lmaoofor me the cube male idol face is a standard i really vibe with. they are all handsome, age well and their looks aren't intimidating or make them seem unaproachable. like pentagon to me is the golden standard of bg visuals in general??? they are all pretty boys, every one of them is goodlooking in his own way. blue box scouts work hard 😔

also sorry it took me a while to answer, when i first typed all this tumblr ate it and i got upset 😅

[spongebobafettywap]

So I guess I had a major age anxiety attack at the start of 2021 I had realised that 2020 had been taken away as a result of the Pandemic so I couldn't do all that I wanted to do in that year as I wanted to such as making my album, performing live and making music videos and other videos and going to more social events and hanging out with people I met online basically with the latter i wanted to expand my journey of my early 20s when I was getting out more. I wanted to do all of this at 24 but I just couldn't so I squeezed as much as I could into doing that at the tail end of being 24, the positive of 2020 admist all the death and hate was I had a large group of online friends, a community that I felt a part of and that I could just talk to about anything I loved talking to these people I really did.

But 2021 and turning 25 it seemed like I was gonna have to do all that I wanted a year later but unfortunately due to certain events my community of friends broke apart and a lot of them turned against me into some really hateful people who tried to harass me. It was a hard thing to go through as I was setting out to do all that I wanted but without the people I wanted by my side to do it with, and I've been betrayed by people before, but this was worse because it was way more of an active presence against me. I felt all the time that I wanted to go back to 2020 and being 24 I wanted to feel safe again but the irony is that being 24 wasn't 100% a good time for me either I was stuck at home for most of it and I had to deal with being ghosted and blocked by my ex after my first real relationship and emotionally that feeling stagnated a lot due to the lack of ability to go out and not clear answers as to why it happened but my friends in 2020 were a glimmer of light in a bleak time. I guess in the end I just miss those people even if most of them turned out to be awful people looking for any reason to stab me in the back I felt before that we were on the same wavelenght and I felt like I belonged for once, there’s still some i used to speak to that i just don’t anymore and it wasn’t out of malice it just felt like we had got to different points in life and it was time to move on maybe with those people I’ll one day get to see and speak to them again.

There was also a lot of other personal tragedies between 2020 and 2021 a few of my distant relatives in Bangladesh were dying from Covid, and one of my childhood friends lost her mother to it too in 2021 and I had a distant relative being murdered and knowing a friend of mine from work committed suicide around 2020 it was all so senseless and felt like I was seeing a lot of people were going before their time and all of this could have been prevented had we lived in a world were we had people who cared about us in charge. 

I feel more at peace being 26 and getting over the personal hell that was 2021 sadly its come with its own problems due to certain personal issues that happened to my friends right now, it feels as though this is a time where i can do more than I could do in 2021 and I don’t have as much age anxiety as I did at 25 and I don’t compare myself to others as much.

[gayenerd]

These are “outtakes” from Billie Joe’s 2010 Out Magazine interview. The link is still up, but for some reason they took out his answers about masculinity and femininity????? And those are obviously the most interesting answers! Anyway, here’s the whole thing I had saved in a doc

March 19, 2010

Billie Joe Armstrong Tells All

Photo: Kurt Iswarienko

Our April Broadway issue features Green Day's front man Billie Joe Armstrong chatting about music, politics, and the new musical, <i>American Idiot,</i> based on the band's last two albums. The writer of the piece (and former Popnography editor) Shana Naomi Krochmal filed the following exclusive extras from her interview with Armstrong that didn't make it into the piece. In them, Billie Joe touches on masculinity, his queer influences, and meeting Lady Gaga:

ON MASCULINITY:

Out: Is masculinity important to you?

Billie Joe Armstrong: I think it can come in handy, if it’s used the right way.

What’s the right way?

I think you learn a lot from Little League baseball. Like how to be a good team player, what do you do in situations when you’re at bat and it’s just you and another person. When you lose, how do you deal with losing? When you win, are you a good winner? And a graceful winner? How do you contribute to a team situation selflessly? I think there’s a lot of leadership skills in that. I don’t know if that’s masculinity or just good leadership or just life lessons. I just used Little League baseball because it’s male dominated.

Do your kids play?

They did. My oldest is done now, and my youngest one does. It was a real good bonding experience. I think masculinity is a lot more feminine than people give it credit for. Or it can be. Jim Morrison seemed very masculine to me, but also completely feminine at the same time. That balance in between -- and it’s not those morons on the bus in Borat. That’s not masculinity, that’s insecurity at its worse. Masculinity is something that women can have.

What is feminine about you?

I’m not sure. Let me think. It’s all about being a well rounded a person. I think being a singer is very feminine. Being a singer is a very feminine thing -- performing is definitely. Women have a lot more courage I think than men do, in a lot of ways -- if you think about what Madonna does or Lady Gaga or Beyonce. Women have a much easier time of reinventing themselves than I think men do. Hmm, I think -- a little bit of eyeliner. [Laughs] But I think there’s a big difference between vanity and femininity. I think that feminine side has served me a lot more than my masculine side has in a lot of ways.

ON PERFORMING AT THE GRAMMYS:

That was such a great night. There’s a whole thing where you’re worried about the awards part of it, and it can make you kind of irritable, kind of stressed out. But the great thing is that we had a chance to play with the cast, which has never really been done before.

ON THE MOST EMOTIONAL PARTS OF THE SHOW:

When Rebecca [Naomi Jones] sings “Letterbomb,” that really blows me away. The scene where Tunny’s on the gurneys and they’re singing “Before the Lobotomy.” And “Last Night on Earth” is an amazing scene with the couple doing this heroin dance. Tony [Vincent] is singing the song -- the first verse while they’re slamming smack -- and then the next verse is Mary coming out with a baby that she’s had with a guy who turns out to be a loser father. I get chills thinking about it right now. The juxtaposition between the two scenes is like -- wow.

ON WRITING AN ORIGINAL MUSICAL:

I’d definitely be interested in it. I think we’re in a really rare situation where this is gaining momentum. I don’t want to screw it up by working on something else. I’d love to do something with Michael [Mayer]. I’ve always wanted to see what it would be like to score a film -- but this, this is even more special, I think.

ON KNOWING TOO MUCH:

When you start getting into politics, what I’ve realized is that if it seems to be black and white, it’s shooting off into so many different directions. You can’t really keep up with what’s happening in the House of Representatives. Things like Hurricane Katrina, Haiti, troops in Afghanistan, financial crisis -- even Tiger Woods. It seems to be one thing after the next.

ON HIS QUEER INFLUENCES:

My uncle. There were different punk singers, from a guy named Cretin Chaos in Social Unrest to guys like Morrissey. And also guys that would genderbend a little, like Bowie, or Mike Ness from Social Distortion wearing makeup. I’ve always liked music that was non-gender specific, like the Replacements song called “Androgynous.” It was just always those little things or people that were willing to make you think, whoa, that’s not what I’m hearing on the radio these days.

ON MEETING LADY GAGA AT THE MTV VIDEO MUSIC AWARDS:

She had this outfit on -- she had so much shit on her when she walked by! She couldn’t move her arm because she was going on to do her performance, and it was like shaking hands with someone in a cast. She had this handler that was like, “Don’t touch the costume! Don’t touch the costume!” She said something about how she loved Dookie so much she used to lick the pages. I thought it was really cool. She’s influencing a lot of young people, and she’s doing it in a way that’s provocative. And a lot of people don’t realize that she’s an artist, and she’s been one for a really long time. She’s taking something that Bowie or Madonna did and taking it a step further.

ON WHAT IT MEANS TO BE “PUNK ROCK”:

That’s like a 10 part answer. I think of it as something that you need to have of your own. For me it’s about community. I think it’s kind of spiritual in its own way, because people fight over it so much and the meaning of it. It’s a sense of self-discovery. But also a new set of ideas and a new poetry, a new music that you discover that you notice that no one else is really into, or goes against what other people are normally into. It’s like you’re free to be an individual and taking on new ideas and challenging old ideas. I think it has a lot to do with burning down the establishment to create something new. But at the same time, you find relationships within that too. It’s something that’s supposed to empower you. It’s about starting something new. Part of the problem with a lot of punk rock is that people believe that it’s supposed to be one thing. Everything for me starts off with punk rock when I’m writing songs -- it’s almost like I’m stripped down to the bare bones of music again. It’s kind of in my DNA in this point.

ON HIS WIFE, ADRIENNE:

She’s great. She’s beautiful. Without her, I don’t know what I’d do. She empowers me to challenge myself in a lot of ways. She inspired the song “American Idiot” by playing me this Midnight Oil song that she really loved. She runs a store called Atomic Garden, all about sustainable living. She’s really active in NRDC, politically. Sometimes I think she’s a hell of a lot more interesting and a cooler person than I am.

ON HIS “MISERABLE” HIGH SCHOOL EXPERIENCE:

Academically you have to completely re-figure out how to prioritize your life. And suddenly you feel like the whole fucking world is against you because they’re prioritizing for you. And it’s forced on you. And if you don’t get it at that age, if you don’t catch it -- that’s what happened to me, I didn’t prioritize anything. I just got to a breaking point where it was like, by my later high school years, “You’re all full of shit anyway. Everyone’s full of shit. I know what I’m doing, and fuck school, and fuck schoolwork, and I’m not going to go to fucking college anyway, and I’m gonna play in a rock band, and you’re all gonna be sorry.” You get vengeful -- it’s a natural instinct, all those hormones going and shit.

ON BEING HAPPIER AT AGE 38:

I kind of feel like things are getting better. It goes in stages. I loved my early twenties. I hated my late twenties. I was a drunk. I was trying to figure out how to be a father, a husband, but I still wanted to live my life like a crazy punk rock rock star. You start noticing things about yourself. You have to change your health habits. But you don’t want to change. In your twenties, change is hitting you over the head whether you like it or not. Right when I got to about 30 I was like, thank God that’s over. But it gets complicated again.