#i just think it is very weird to disregard a whole genre of art

[stinkrascal]

the worst take i have ever seen is when someone on here said that basically anything horror related is just goreporn and theres no reason for things like that to be in art and, worst of all, people are bad if they enjoy things like that. like idk how else to tell you this, but disregarding an entire genre of storytelling just bc you think its icky is the antithesis of art imo. im sorry not every story follows a disney formula so its easier for you to grasp the main point:( must be rough

[psychotrope777]

if i could give an example one thing ive been thinking about a lot recently was a few years ago when it was like a common talking point on mineblr whether or not villagers are antisemitic caricatures? and its like. obviously im not jewish ive never experienced antisemitism personally so im never going to completely disregard it because ultimately what do i really know and i think it is good to be mindful of how things can come off but. i really couldnt always help but feel like... what? 😭 and it's like again it's not really my place to speak + a lot of people who are either bigoted and / or hear something they dont want to hear about the piece of media they like will always try and downplay criticisms like this and i really dont want it to sound like thats where im coming from. fantasy as a whole has a huge racism & antisemitism problem that basically permeates throughout the entire genre. look at LOTR, TES and D&D. but its like here the argument was they have unibrows, big noses and are greedy. the first two is like. yeah, they do but whether or not that approaches the level of an antisemitic / racist caricature is contextual just like any fictional depiction of any real life feature that people have. and then the third thing is kinda just... there's nothing to suggest that? villagers dont really have any personalities in basegame. i think theres an argument to be made that they dont really do anything besides trading but they also arent really needed to do anything else and while i do think it would be cool giving them bigger personalities in basegame might go against the philosophy of it being a sandbox game and ruin the experience of the player being able to project their own original stories / traits onto them. i havent played them but from what i understand the sidegames do develop on the "canon" personalities of the villagers which. i dont know a lot about so i cant really say anything about them actually but generally seem to be generic "peaceful commoners". like i think i can see greed being extrapolated from shit trades but thats mostly because mojang hates us. or the only other thing that even kind of computes is theyre greedy because they use currency and have material goods which is bold but im willing to hear it out. the gamer subculture is as a whole infected with bigotry, it definitely used to be worse but its still frankly quite bad. i have definitely seen shitty comments abt villagers before and i have seen people characterizing villagers as greedy and unscrupulous because they have big noses and unibrows which is antisemitic and racist but from an objective standpoint i think i can say pretty confidently that theres not a lot of that in the source material

i will say that on a personal level it feels kinda weird to me because i do depict big noses and unibrows a lot in my art. i take a lot of inspiration from cartoons like spongebob, ren & stimpy and tgaobam with similar styles. its also a bit of a personal thing because i have a big nose and big eyebrows and i like those things about myself. i was insecure about them for a long time but now i think they r Cool and i think other people should think the same way and if anything thinking they are mildly funny is still way better than people thinking they are like hideously unattractive. (i will admit that cartoons tend to abuse unibrows in design but they are fun to draw.) one of the core tenets of cartooning is exaggeration and a lot of artists who have a similar design philosophy tend to depict the features theyre most insecure about in themselves, like zits, double chins or weird boobs and its the same idea. im still very careful with what i depict and i do my best to be socially conscious but at the same time its honestly incredibly annoying to see people jump to the worst possible interpretation of what to me feels like a very innocuous feature & i also dont see how it helps to fight the demonization of certain features to react with performative outrage when those features are depicted...? there was a lot of suggestion that villagers should instead have button noses and plucked eyebrows which like. why!!!!! why is that your answer!!!! why is that the most intelligent response that you can formulate!!!!

and again most of the people who were doing this in the moment were like white 14 year olds just discovering social justice who also werent jewish and had no real frame of reference for what they were talking about besides very basic debriefings on what antisemitism is. it really doesnt help anything that most of this websites userbase is white americans. there is a lot to criticize about minecraft which i will probably get to eventually but like that was so strange to me sorry for writing an essay

its good to be mindful of if something might look bad but still whenever i see someone on this site deliberately reaching to show they condemn the worst possible interpretation of something that is also clearly not what's going on it just kinda leaves me at a loss bc like what do you even say to that. its usually people who are pretty young tbf but its like come on man you cant be doing that

[androgynousblackbox]

God, I keep getting recommended that goddamn killing stalking video. No YouTube, I actually *dont* want to watch a video essay about some dude who did fuck all research talk about why he doesn't like this comic I really enjoyed. I bet he ignores the fact that it's one of (if not, the only) popular queer media that focuses on horror. Yes, queer people and horror are very much intertwined, but this is the only piece of media where its explicitly queer by having the two main characters be queer men. Sorry, I'm just really upset by people not doing a lick of research then getting up on their high horse to preach to us about how shit something is. Ugh.

To be fair (and this is the only point I will give him because fuck that guy), he doesn’t criticize the manwha on itself. It’s a little annoying that he defines as a stritctly psychological horror and completely disregard the Boy Love portion of it’s genre, either because he doesn’t know or decided that it was irrelevant, which is a little disrespectful considering it’s a an asian genre and his western ass kept acting as if the idea of this being considered anything BUT horror was just wrong. Like, his whole shtick really REEKS of someone who hasn’t ever even read BL but still dismiss it all the same because his comprehension is limited by his own ethnocentrism. I mean, the fact that he could only mention three other works that “romanticize abuse” and they were all western was pretty fucking telling. Besides he was talking about how it was “weird” for Koogi to publish sexy/shippy art of her own characters on her social media because it’s a horror, which... I didn’t get at all to be honest. Like, what is weird about an artist doing fanart of her own work? “But why would she do that if that is meant to be psychological horror, I don’t know, I don’t get it, let’s ignore that” To be someone who brags about how knowledgeable he is, he sounded EXACTLY as your average teenage anti here on tumblr who literally discovered yesterday that shipping exist. No, the real point of that video is that he “criticizes” the fandom and how wrong fans are to see anything romantic on the manwha, enough that we would ever want to ship the main characters. The concept of whump is completely alien to him. The idea that some survivors use it as coping is not even an option (in fact we are harming survivors of abuse, the usual). The notion that some of us like the disturbing shit BECAUSE it’s disturbing never enters the picture, despite the fact that he made two whole fucking videos talking about queer people enjoying horror. The story is fine, the characters are fine, but we, the fans and especially the shippers? The one who supported Koogi from the start? The ones who spend months and even years theorizing about every single piece on each panels, analyzing colors, expressions, and kept talking about the many instances the abuse is shown and how masterful it was the way of Koogi to do it? We are reduced to nothing but teenage girls “fetishizing gay men” on Tiktok, because he is an outsider who clearly has no experience with transformative fandom AT ALL, doesn’t know what shipping is besides just really liking an already established canon couple and yet still felt the need to act as if he just knows so much better than all of us. The fact that he decided to frame us like that AND literally put himself on a position of superiority is so disgustingly misogynistic I  am appalled that no one else calling him out on it. The comments of that video are nothing but “I read the story, I liked it, but the fandom was just awful, man, nothing but uwuw shippy shit, why would anyone like that, it’s so abusive uwuw”. It really shows that as long you paint a group as teenage girls then you can always dismiss them entirely. If he had attacked the manwha itself, I could calmly refute it, but he grabbed a sample of the fandom from the worst source possible, didn’t even THINK about bringing our perspective, thoughts or feelings into the table for discussion and declared himself the owner of the right way to see this manwha, which, you know, feels pretty fucking insulting.

[mlmiii]

@green-dragon-ramblings​ tagged me to add TRPG campaigns I’m DM’ing/characters I’m playing to the ask post from earlier so

Pokérole 2e Campaign (DM: Me, Playing: Sabrina Duncan):  This is one I’m wrapping up this week--I made a custom region and then ran out of steam around the fourth gym. I made the mistake of promising to do custom pixel art for all of the gym leaders the way I often do for my players’ characters. Unfortunately, I’m more of an illustrator than an artist, and I wasn’t giving myself enough of a character concept to work from on the gym leaders. Additionally, while Pokérole has stellar implementation of Pokémon Anime Combat, a party of four including my DMPC just breaks the system apart, as constant 4v4 Pokémon battles aren’t fun and all 4 players challenging the gym leaders and trainers in series has too much dead time for me to enjoy running it. As a Very Final Episode I’m letting them skip the remaining gyms and get straight to the Big Legendary Fricks Everything Up fight that the games have been doing since Hoenn, a couple cutscenes to properly contextualize the fight, and then doing the Champion fight for those still interested. The gist of the plot is that the native inhabitants of this central USA-inspired region fought and imprisoned some eldritch abominations just over a millennium ago and a Kalosian noble family is pulling a big enough British Museum of Natural History to unwittingly throw the sealing wards out of alignment, resulting in the Big Bads getting loose after the 6th gym. The party will be fighting 1 of the 4 abominations this Friday, and the other three will just be left in Sessions That Never Were because I’m too tired of how gym battles were working here to actually play out the whole thing. 

The character I played in that campaign is Sabrina Duncan, who started out with a Houndour and wound up with a team of Houndoom, Mandibuzz, Crawdaunt, Scolipede, Toxicroak, and Dragalge. She’s very much a biker girl archetype, and pretty quickly realized that she was the Team Mom by default, largely by virtue of being the oldest and most emotionally stable. As a DMPC, I frequently left her silent so the players could interact with the world, but she’s a fairly calm character anyway so it wasn’t too far off of how she’d normally be. Since Pokérole is about the Pokémon just as much as it is the characters, a brief rundown of her team:

Brimstone the Houndoom is the team sweeper, and a bit standoffish due to her Lonely nature. While her luck suffered some in gyms, her high Initiative, accuracy, and Evasion let her get away with being a glass cannon. 

Phosphate the Mandibuzz is the team’s support tank, with obnoxiously high defences, Tailwind to buff the party’s Dexterity, and Nasty Plot to get her own Special Attack up to workable levels. 

Deuterium the Crawdaunt is the team’s Ranger-esque skillmonkey, though he can technically off-tank reasonably well, which fits his Timid nature just fine. 

Cyanide the Scolipede is the physical counterpart to Brimstone’s artillery strikes, and unlike Brimstone, he’s had amazing luck in gyms. Given his relaxed nature, I played him as something of an Emotional Support Centipede to Deuterium, which is... not how Scolipedes usually are XD 

Formaldehyde the Toxicroak didn’t get a lot of screentime, but I was planning to have him be a luchador in Tough contests. He did manage to solo a Kingdra in the water gym as a Croagunk with some stellar luck though. 

Mercury the Dragalge similarly was cut short, but she was intended to be the team’s plague rat, throwing debuffs all over the place with Toxic, Smokescreen, Water Pulse, etc. 

Star Wars Saga Edition (DM: Friend from middle school, Playing: A9G-M028 “M0″ (pronounced “Mo”)):

M0 is an A9G Archival droid reprogrammed to be a field medic, and spent a few years as the property/coworker of a mercenary band up until a few months before the campaign, when a sudden engine failure in their airspeeder resulted in everyone being stabbed through the torso by the twisted metal of said airspeeder’s wreck. M0, being a droid, survived long enough to patch themself up, but had to watch hopelessly--while being a medical droid--as their crew/masters bled out slowly. M0 met up with the party over a run-in with Jabba’s water collection goons, and things... got out of hand. M0 just wanted to team up with these idiots to minimize casualties, and then suddenly there’s four dead gangsters, with another barely stunned unconscious. Highlights after include spending a session trying to get the gangsters a proper burial while the team planned the heist, accidentally burning Jabba’s summer home down while trying to escape the heist (I thought the room was made of sandstone! I left one loaf of bread and an egg, stacked on a pan b/c M0 doesn’t know how to cook, on the oven so the guards would get distracted with the smoke!), spending all night repairing a speeder only for the party to bring it listing back at 4hp, and getting in a theological debate with some Tusken Raiders about how a being with no mouth is supposed to partake in not-quite-Communion. Another thing of note is M0′s insistence on setting their pistol to Stun, despite that doing half damage to organics and no damage to droids--they’ve gotten a couple other party members in on the stun train, and with any luck we’ll be able to cash that good will in on some mercy returned if the party is ever captured. 

The Jawas we’ll be fighting next quest, however, will not get this mercy, as M0 considers their tendency to capture, memory wipe, and resell droids as profiting from both genocide and slavery. As it so happens, M0 has enough money to buy a low-end spaceship, and Jawa Sandships don’t have anti-air defences...

I don’t quite think the DM realized what happens when a droid with a strong moral compass is told to retrieve another droid from a Sandcrawler. 

Starfinder Campaign (DM: Me, not playing a character):  As someone who loves sci-fi and runs a lot of Pathfinder games, you’d think I’d love Starfinder, right?

Well, problem is, it’s kinda... bad. Unsalvageably bad. “Just do Pathfinder, but in space, using the Starfinder environmental and hacking rules while disregarding literally everything else there” bad. Originally I was going to do a custom campaign, but as enthusiasm bleedover from playing Rimworld started drying up when I realized that the genres didn’t match well enough to cut-and-paste gameplay rhythms, I decided instead to shift plotlines a bit and use the Dead Suns adventure path. We got through the first book (with some... notable absences here and there, since the party was both underleveled and unoptimized) before I put it on hiatus to run the Pokérole campaign, and now that I’m playing with timeskips, I plan to run the party through the interesting parts of the adventure path, with maybe some episodic sessions scattered here and there to allow for more character development, if the party gets invested enough. Once that’s done, I plan to get back to the other game I have on hiatus.

Pathfinder Play-by-Post Campaign (DM: Me, Playing: Morsel): On hiatus since December, since one of the players got busy with a more standard campaign, is a campaign I made into a play-by-post to work on without needing to deal with scheduling issues. If it weren’t for who I was playing in it, I’d’ve just let it die, but...

Well.

It’s Morsel. 

I’ve posted about Morsel before, and you can read her backstory there, but suffice to say that I’ve been trying to get this fungus child some freaking therapy since 2013 when I made her and I’m not about to stop just because one of my players went missing. Add to that that she didn’t talk to her parents before running away this time, and her lack of need of sleep meant that she heard them crying themselves unconscious some nights, well... there’s a Lot of angst Morsel’s going through. 

As for the campaign itself, it’s a collision of Morsel’s long-term plot to resurrect her first meal/adopted sister, the party mermaid’s long-term plot to reclaim artifacts stolen from her people when the Deep Ones did enough murder/pillaging to nearly wipe her people out, and an episodic monster-of-the-week plot, since the party was hired into the king’s League of Extraordinary Ratcatchers, aka The Dudes Wot Get Thrown At The Weird Noises In The Woods

[astharoshebarvon]

I am just so disappointed and sad by what I read in a shoujo manga. I couldn’t understand what the characters were saying but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what the author was insinuating.

I thought there was serious homophobia going around in it before but I thought maybe I was overthinking the whole thing. I know I wasn’t I was just trying to make myself feel better.

But now it seems like I was spot on with my observations.

Never thought some shoujo mangakas are going to sink so low as to make a character who seems/is gay try to break up the marriage of the main straight couple. Like seriously, you ran out of all cliché, lame ass bullshit that makes up most of shoujo manga plots that you had to drag a gay character into the mix.

God, just say you hate gay people and get out. No need to make them villain like in your story. Take lessons from Clamp if you really want to write same sex relationships or a lgbt character. Or maybe from the author of Hana Kimi. Because you are doing a shit job of portraying them the way you do. How can anyone even write garbage like this in 2020 and get away with it?

If you don’t know how to write lgbt character just write them out, do not include them. It’s annoying, highly disrespectful and gross.  

No wonder many fans of shoujo/shonen are also of mind : same sex relationships can be used for humor or comedic effect. We don’t want any real, serious relationships. We don’t like them.

Why are there so many shonen ai, yaoi, shoujo ai anime? Where are straight fucking anime?

Just shut up! Literally all animes are straight! Are you being willfully blind or stupid? There are so few shonen ai, yaoi anime. What the hell are you on to write such horrendous lies?

Ugh. I am still so disgusted by these comments.

Are writers really that upset because more and more people are liking shonen ai, bl, yaoi manga that they have to resort to these petty, horrible tactics in their manga to insult a genre that badly?

I was of mind to buy the manga because the art was very pretty, but now. No way in hell I want that homophobic trash in my collection. Pretty art will only go so far.

This behavior isn’t even surprising if I am being honest here. I have come across a lot of FM stories/fics which literally use derogatory words, slurs for gay people. And, yes, it’s mostly for MM relationship not FF. There is also apparently selective homophobia going around too. FF is fine, it’s MM which is wrong.

FF is fetishized like anything by straight story writers. It’s just so gross to read the straight guy fantasizing about two females as if they exist to make your gross fantasies true. Eww.

Then you have the real winners, the so called writers who want change, diversity in MM ships by turning one character into a freaking girl.

Just say you want straight sex, tons of babies and the dominant male spouting how much he wants to fuck the OFC and  see her round with his babies or some other cringe worthy dirty talk.

There’s the hard core truth which will never change, the genderbent characters are OFC. They are just self-insert to live your fantasies with the other guy. At least admit the truth.

Harry is a boy and will always be that. No amount of fem harry bullshit will turn him into a girl. Some even have the audacity to give the oc a brother who is exactly like Harry. Just say you hate Harry and same sex relationships and get out.

I sigh every time when I see the crack stories appear in my pairing, HP/TMR, tag. Just be brave and list them as oc fics. They are that and always will be that. Stay deluded forever thinking fem Harry exists. Why are they even part of the real, slash ship tag? Who the fuck is femHarry?

I wouldn’t be surprised if in said shoujo manga the male lead humiliates the seemingly gay character, or makes fun of him or does something equally loathsome. After all he has made his braindead, stupid, completely garbage of a wife cry, insecure. He deserves to be hurt.

The fem lead is just so stupid it’s not even funny. Most people read it because of the handsome guy, that’s the truth. The girl is so weird and dumb that I am surprised someone even came up with her character.

Then again most shoujo heroines don’t have anything between their ears. They are the ultimate Mary sues, doormats, crybabies or bamfs like anything. They share quite many features with the cracky ofc/genderbent females in fics.

Thank God for mangas like Akatsuki no yona! I would lose faith in shoujo genre if it weren’t for such good stories.

Since we are on the topic of bias, let’s talk about that too. I wouldn’t even be surprised if that weird as hell thing happens in that fanfic sequel anime. Straight ships get away with any bullshit, no matter how weird or strange they are.

There would literally be opposition if the same was shown in any same sex relationship.

Giving the example of Twilight to justify yourself, seriously? Bella tried to kill Jacob after she realizes what he has done. It was weird that he had feelings for Bella then all of a sudden his whole world is Bella and Edward’s daughter. Does that not sound strange at all? (VK has same bull. Ai was first after Zero, then became fixated on his daughter who also returns her creepy affections. Zeki and airen are just so bad. I’ll take Zero/Kaname any day.)

I read a very good post once and it may have been a joke post but it was so freakin true. Why didn’t Jacob feel any attraction towards Edward? Why only Bella? Renesmee was part of both of them or am I supposed to think Bella somehow made her on her own?

Not to mention it’s hilarious as hell when one self insert creepy ship tries to tell another self insert ship we are better than you. Nah, you are both trash of different varieties. One is a pedo ship, one is gross as hell. Thinking the only logical choice for someone is that person’s brother’s wife is amazing. They are both garbage ships who shat on every other ship of this disgusting pedophile.

These shippers vile, gross comments are all over deviantart and other sites. 

Not to mention the blatant disregard these assholes have for Inu no Taishou’s legally, wedded wife, Izayoi, Inuyasha’s mother. It’s truly shocking how vile people can be. We get it, you hate Touga/Izayoi because you all wanted what these two lovely people had, a marriage full of love and devotion which you all never got.

Lady Izayoi was no ones mistress, Inuyasha was never ever a bastard. Inu no Taishou/Touga married Izayoi, he loved her and his child so much that he died for them.

Die mad insulting them, they will always always be one of the best couple in this series. Pedo ship, sister in law /brother in law ship can only wish they were like them, they will never be like them. They are both vile.

Certified pedo’s mom was either a one night stand, or had friends with benefits relationship with Touga. He didn’t commit any infidelity, he didn’t betray her, he didn’t two time her. Her ass is chilling in her palace and has absolute no animosity towards him. The greatest disservice to her character will be if they were to make her a creepy pedo enabler too. I hope she never shows up.

Mates don’t exist in inuyasha, she was no one’s mate. More likely, youkai have no such things as bastards. Because that’s exactly what the certified pedo would be if that were not the case, Inu no Taishou and inukimi were never ever married.

I just hope they won’t bring back Touga and Izayoi in this disgusting and vile sequel, they are the only two people left in this series who are not goddamn pedo enablers.

No wonder they called the creepy woman, Zero. She is a fucking loser and a jealous bitch. Touga didn’t owe anyone, anything. He and Izayoi were good, happy, couple who loved each other and people can stay mad about it. She is wife, she is his wife, his only wife who he loved so much he died for her and their precious child. Inu no Taishou adored his wife, Izayoi, and their precious child, Inuyasha.  

I always thought Touga loved his sons equally and all the trials he put his first son through were so he realises he is wrong about many things. But now, it’s more likely he made as many plans as possible to humiliate him because he knew somewhere in his heart he was gonna turn out to be a fucking bitch. 

[amphtaminedreams]

Film Tier Ranking 2019: A Bad Year for Bird Films

Hi to anyone reading,

I’ve finally put it together: my 2019 film tier ranking! I know tier rankings are a bit 6 months ago but seeing British crisps sorted into god, good, mid and shit tier all over Twitter, the format really resonated with me and I was like I MUST USE THIS AT SOME POINT! And I guess since there probably isn’t much of an audience for crisp tier rankings on Tumblr, it makes more sense for me to do it with films instead, especially as doing a 2019 year in film review was something I previously claimed I would do; here’s to 2020 and following through on my proposals.

I think 2019 in general was an okay year for film, with the end of the year definitely outselling the beginning. One thing to bear in mind is that a lot of films that I would’ve been able to see in 2019, I.E Little Women and Parasite, didn’t come out until 2020 in the UK so they won’t make it onto this year’s list. It’s not a snub by any means. I more fall in line with the Elsie Fisher Film Awards school of thought than the Oscars, which have yet again disregarded several incredible performances this year: Florence Pugh in Midsommar, Taron Egerton in Rocketman, Lupita Nyongo in Us, and of course, Greta Gerwig’s direction of Little Women. I’m sure there are many more but those are the first few that come to mind. Oh to be in 2017 when nominations made fractionally more sense.

This list also includes films that weren’t necessarily released this year, but that I just got around to watching; there were a couple of disappointments but also a lot of films I can’t believe it took me this long to finally watch and have definitely made their way into my favourites. My goal for this year is to get through even more of the films on my verrrry long Letterboxd watchlist, and more specifically, watch said films without going on my phone, which is a really bad habit of mine. I find it hard to sit still! Let me live! 

I also want to try and put aside my prejudices about visual quality and watch more pre-2000s movies this year; it’s really bad but I never managed to get more than half an hour into Psycho, of all films, solely because I couldn’t deal with the black and white. In 2020, I am going to stop being a whiney Gen Z/cusp millenial-er and give older films the chance they deserve.

So, without further ado, here is my film tier ranking of everything I watched in 2019! If you make it til the end and have any thoughts or disagreements, let me know. I love to hear other’s opinions and get new perspectives on things and am totally open to any criticism. Happy reading:-)

God Tier

Knives Out (Rian Johnson, 2019)

Knives Out. What a film.

I feel like I waited forever to see this at the cinema. They must have started showing trailers for it in, like, August, and I had to wait til mid-November to see it. How are you gonna just dangle a film with Toni Colette and Lakeith Stanfield in my face and then make me wait 3 months? Totally unethical.

But that being said, when it finally came around and I did see it, as much as I love Toni and Lakeith, there was one stand out and it wasn’t either of them: ANA DE ARMAS. I have to admit I’d never heard of her before but she acted the shit out of a role I feel I’d ordinarily find irritating and gimmicky. Daniel Craig, whose character seemed annoying as fuck in the trailer, was actually surprisingly funny.

Stylistically, it was a very cool film and I liked the subtle commentary on class that was running throughout. Also, I thought the ending was very clever. My issue with a lot of whodunnits is that they just pick someone who doesn’t make sense for shock factor *cough, Bobby Beale in Eastenders, cough* but the shocks here were more in the details. 

Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria, 2019)

There wasn’t one single moment of Hustlers I didn’t enjoy and it’s quite amazing that there wasn’t one single point in this film about strippers that I felt gratuitously sexualised women. THAT is why you fund female directors. It made the whole thing look like a calculated art form, which I think the unsexy amongst us can all agree that it is. Constance Wu was a fantastic lead, J-Lo was kind of robbed for a supporting actress nom, and Keke Palmer and Lili Reinhart were hilarious too. 

Midsommar (Ari Aster, 2019)

Midsommar was such an experience that it took me a good few days afterwards to decide whether I actually liked it. I saw it the day it came out because I loved Hereditary so much and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I kind of had an idea of the way it was going to go, we could all kind of guess evil cult was the route that was being taken from the trailer, but I just didn’t realise quite how weird it’d get. 

The gore was great, the visuals were stunning and the character arcs were surprising and for that reason, I think this is another game changer for horror from Ari Aster. I didn’t love it like I loved Hereditary but it continues to play on my mind and 7 months later I still can’t resist a good “Things you Missed in Hereditary” or “Hereditary Themes Explained” Youtube video essay. That’s how you know a film fucked with you and that’s the ultimate goal of going into a horror for me. Put that on my headstone after I inevitably get myself into some mortally dangerous conflict because I want to “get fucked with” a little bit.

Booksmart (Olivia Wilde, 2019)

So here’s the thing with Booksmart: I was getting progressively more and more drunk throughout it so I might be a little biased when I say I loved it. That being said, worth revere seems to be a commonly held opinion so I’ll stick to my guns. Plus, movies like this, which just focus on girls living their lives, are few and far between. Why have we had to wait THIS long for the female Superbad?

IDK. But Kaitlyn Dever, Beanie Feldstein and Billie Lourd proved it’s definitely a genre worth investing in so hopefully we see more lighthearted female-led coming of age comedies. One Ladybird per year isn’t enough for me.

The Favourite (Yorgos Lanthimos, 2018)

I included The Favourite in my 50 Films You’ve Got to Watch that I made earlier this year so I don’t have all that much to say about it that I haven’t said already. To summarise, it’s an instant classic: the cinematography, the cast, the lines, it’s all perfection. 

Suspiria (Luca Guadagnino, 2018)

I also included Suspiria in my 50 Films You’ve Got to Watch list so sorry if I’m repeating myself, but I adored everything about it. If I had to sum it up in one sentence I’d say divine feminine energy, but inverted. Plus ballet. That dancing scene in the mirrored room will probably never leave my mind (if you’ve watched it, trust me, you’ll know the one I'm talking about), and if there were awards given out for creepy montages in horror, this would win all of them. It still blows my mind that Tilda Swinton played 3 characters in this film; 2 of them are so distinctly different, if anyone put two and two together without prior knowledge of this fact then I’ll blow my own head up too. This is why I got so mad when there was all that discussion around her being the new female Doctor Who and there were people asking who she was. How can you not know who Tilda fucking Swinton is!? She’s a legend! 

Sorry, is the wannabe film snob in me showing?

Annihilation (Alex Garland, 2018)

Though I initially watched it because it’s branded as a horror, Annihilation ended up being a surprisingly introspective take on human nature and our self-destructive tendencies. Nothing really went the way I expected it to, even though I was constantly trying to guess that trajectory from beginning to end. 

Visually, Annihilation is magnificent. Like, it’s tense, and where exactly the plot is going is shrouded in mystery, but most importantly, it’s super fucking pretty. Sure, the only thing that was mildly horrifying was the *SPOILER* end result of that bear scene but I didn’t mind too much because there was always that edge-of-your-seat possibility something like that would happen again. 

Also I realised that Gina Roduriguez is really hot in this! I would just say in general but that video of her saying the n-word kind of took away shot at real world magnetism. WHY SUCH A SHITTY APOLOGY VIDEO!? WHY?!

Assassination Nation (Sam Levinson, 2018)

So I didn’t clock until I was looking up directors that Sam Levinson, Euphoria director, also directed this, and suddenly everything makes sense in the world. They both have that dreamlike, exaggerated feel that perfectly captures the emotional rollercoaster that is being a teenager, only in Assassination Nation obviously the threats are a bit more...tangible. As in its actually other people trying to kill our protagonists this time round, not just angst. 

Not gonna lie, it’s not a patch on Euphoria because that show is probably the best thing I watched all year, but I did thoroughly enjoy it, even if I did feel the social commentary, despite how in your face it was, got a bit lost in translation at times. I think it’s the kind of film that, once again, would’ve felt more genuine coming from a female director, however that’s not to take away from how witty, modern, and completely relevant it still is as we move into 2020.

Sorry To Bother You (Boots Riley, 2018)

Right. WHAT THE FUCK!?

Why don’t more people talk about this film? Like it has Tessa Thompson and the world’s best earrings! Lakeith Stanfield getting more than 10 cumulative minutes of screen time! Armie Hammer being that bitch we all knew he was irl (probably)! Scathing critiques of late stage capitalism! It’s insane, in the absolute best way.

SPOILERS AHEAD: I had a mini paragraph written about the last hour of the film and the descent into pure unadulterated chaos, and how it’s like, the internet’s best kept secret, because ordinarily you lot can’t keep your mouths shut about a film or TV’s shows most crucial reveals for more than 5 minutes and THEN...My FBI agent must be feeling real cheeky because THIS tweet pops up on my Twitter timeline. 

Fuck this shit, I’m out. Onto the next film. MI5 stop peeping my drafts. 

Eighth Grade (Bo Burnham, 2018)

I don’t want to repeat what I said about Eighth Grade in my 50 Films you Should Watch list but Elsie Fisher’s performance in this is why I wish the Oscars also had some kind of rising star award category à la the BAFTAs. Honestly, every 13/14 year old should watch this; it’s a reminder that although feeling like an outsider is by its nature quite isolating, it’s prolific enough that a 29 year old man, 10 years out of “high school”, gets it.

American Animals (Bart Layton, 2018)

My sister and I absolutely loved this film so you can image our disappointment when we turned round to our parents at the end and our enthusiasm wasn’t matched...as in, I’m pretty sure they were both asleep for a lot of it. WHICH I DON’T GET. Because to me, there wasn’t a dull moment. American Animals is what happens when a group of university age boys with the finesse of the American Vandal Turd Burglar try and apply that to an Evil Genius stye heist, part Netflix, talking head abundant documentary, part live-action film. Splicing a stylistic reenactment with interview footage of the men who really attempted to commit the crime elevated what I probably would have put in the Good Tier™ to the God Tier™; seeing the guy Evan Peters is playing alongside Evan Peters playing him, now only the remnants of the arrogance we see in the reenactment left behind, sharply reminds you of the fall from grace these boys deservedly went through. Plus Barry Keoghan from The Killing of a Sacred Deer is in it, proving that unsettlingly stiff is NOT in fact his natural state. 

Gerald’s Game (Mike Flanagan, 2017)

I wish there was a shorthand way to say I wrote about this in my 50 Films You Should Watch list so I’m gonna keep it short but here we are! This was great! If The Haunting of Hill House isn’t proof enough, Gerald’s Game (not to take away any credit from Stephen King) is a reminder that Mike Flanagan is the king of subtle, niggling sensation in your stomach that something is about to go very wrong horror. I hear he and Ari Aster have a timeshare situation going on with the crown.

The Ritual (David Bruckner, 2017)

Okay, so this is the film that made me realise we should all be very scared of forests. Nope, all the documentaries into the Aokigahara Forest weren’t enough, apparently. I subjected myself to this too, as if my unfit, cold-blooded, bug-fearing, scared of the dark ass doesn’t already have enough concerns about my survival odds in the great outdoors. 

Really though, setting aside, this film maintains the sense of dread throughout and keeps you guessing what’s going on until the very end. Much like The Descent, the group dynamic and characters are realistic enough that it adds to the believability of a scenario I, in principle, know would never happen to the extent that I might keep away from vast, wooded spaces for a while just in case.

Dumbo (Tim Burton, 2019)

If film Twitter came across this post and saw I’d placed Dumbo in a higher tier than If Beale Street Could Talk I can only imagine the outrage. And sure, the latter is probably a much higher quality film. But sometimes a movie, for reasons you can’t quite put your finger on, gets you right in the sweet spot, and Dumbo did that for me. Maybe it was that the CGI elephant reminded me of my cat (I know, leave me alone), maybe I was emotional that day, I don’t know, all I know is that I cried like 5 times and was smiling for the rest of it-to be fair, the exploitation of animals for our entertainment is something that is still very much going on and that was something that was playing on my mind a lot whilst I was watching it. IRL Dumbos should be free too. Dumbo rights.

The VVitch (Robert Eggers, 2016)

This film taught me that there’s nothing wrong with joining a coven of young witches and getting naked and levitating around a fire. And that’s an important life lesson. Plus it gave us the quote “wouldst thou like to live deliciously?”, which is not only so perfectly creepy and simultaneously empowering that I had to get it tattooed but also, created ASMR. I just made that last bit up obviously but Black Philip getting his own ASMR Youtube channel?

The Descent (Neil Marshall, 2006)

For me, much like The Ritual, The Descent is a perfect horror film: it’s got the ghouls but the situation the characters find themselves in is also terrifying by its own merit. The reason The Descent made it onto my 50 Films list and the Ritual didn’t is because, let’s be honest, it’s 2020 and you can get mobile signal in most places. You could probably at least make a 999 call if you got lost in a forest. If you DID get stuck in an underground cave and it collapsed in on itself, you’d be pretty fucked; the idea of it makes me shudder and I will never set foot in an underground tunnel at any point in my life for any amount of money EVER after seeing this. Also, the women in this are great and the creatures in this are genuinely quite terrifying, especially the first time you see them. 

Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2003)

Ah, Chicago, the last film on the God Tier™, proving that this list is in no particular order. Because WHAT A FIM. WHY DON’T PEOPLE TALK ABOUT THIS MORE?! Like don’t get me wrong, I know it deservedly won Best Picture in 2003 but I’m talking about right now! I mean, fucking Titanic is still out here getting referenced left, right and centre and yet Chicago gets paid dust! Can you tell I’m mad and that I think Titanic is hugely overrated?! Is that maybe coming across?!

ALL the songs are bops, Catherine Zeta-Jones is hot (I saw someone on Letterboxd say that Catherine Zeta-Jones in this film was their bisexual awakening and honestly, if I hadn’t already known I was a raging bisexual, same, because I FELT things in that All That Jazz opening) and Cell Block Tango is the revenge fantasy anthem I never knew I needed. Smart, tongue in cheek, beautifully shot and makes men look like little bitches which is probably why my dad hated it but what did I expect.

Good Tier

Zombieland: Double Tap (Ruben Fleischer, 2019)

Onto the first film of the good tier, Zombieland: Double Tap definitely exceeded my expectations. I was super worried about the prospect of a sequel as I love the first one so much and assumed it would be crap. Obviously, it doesn’t match up to the original because the original WAS so original, but it was still a fun, easy, witty ride. And I was SO glad they didn’t *SPOILERS AHEAD* kill off Tallahassee at the end because I really thought that was coming and it seemed so predictable and unnecessary. Highlight was the introduction of the lookalikes at Graceland.

Judy (Rupert Goold, 2019)

So, this is the first of two consecutive rants I’m about to go on about Oscar nominations and people’s reactions online. Prepare yourself.

I’ll start with the underlying message: just because you think something else deserves the praise more, doesn’t mean the film/album/*insert whatever artistic medium you wish here* that IS getting the praise is shit. 

Like people are angry that Lupita Nyongo wasn’t nominated for best actress for her performance in Us which is COMPLETELY valid as she carried that film on her back. In the same vein, people are also angry that more women of colour haven’t been nominated for best actress. Also valid; I’ve yet to see The Farewell but I’ve heard great things about Akwafina’s performance and I love her so even though I haven’t seen it, I’m gonna take the general consensus that she should’ve been nominated too. The Oscars definitely has a problem with recognising the work of POC. BUT, because of this, people are angry that Renee Zellweger has been nominated for her performance in Judy, saying that it’s typical “Oscar bait”. I agree, it is typical Oscar bait. However, a lot of the people saying this will in the same breath say (or tweet rather) that they haven’t actually SEEN Judy. 

How can you possibly say that Renee Zellweger doesn’t deserve any of the praise she’s getting when you haven’t even seen the film? Don’t get me wrong, the film itself is good but not outstanding (hence its place in this tier), but you can see Renee genuinely put her heart and soul into this film; it was powerful, and it was sympathetic but it was also nuanced and subtle where they could’ve just capitalised on all the sensationalised stories of the actions of a woman clearly deeply suffering in her final years and had it be full of shouting and screaming. The Wizard of Oz has always kind of felt like home to me because of the childhood nostalgia factor and so I’ve always been interested in Judy and I think Renee captured her heart and her spirit in a way she would be deeply honoured by. Maybe the film itself doesn’t deserve the acclaim it’s getting but I think Zellweger definitely deserves the nom and I think most people who’ve actually seen it wouldn’t contest that. 

Joker (Todd Philipps, 2019)

Okay so second rant. I’m sorry. I have a lot of feelings. Most of them aimed at the annoying tendency of internet users, Film Twitter™ and Letterboxd users I’m looking at you in particular, to be wildly exaggerative. 

There just seems to be no nuance online. It’s not just yeah, I didn’t like the film personally and the message could be perceived in a certain way by certain individuals, it’s I HATE THIS FILM AND IT’S DANGEROUS AND THE DIRECTOR FUCKING SUCKS. I noticed this trend when La La Land came out (which if I had watched last year would certainly be in God tier for me). It’s like, if a film initially receives a lot of praise and buzz, there’s almost this wave of compensatory vehement criticism in response that’s usually disproportionate to how controversial the film actually is. People didn’t like that Joker was popular because they didn’t like Joker so suddenly it’s the worst film ever and the possibility of it getting any critical acclaim is wrong. I even saw people berating Todd Philipps for channelling Martin Scorsese as he’s the only person to ever be influenced and take direction from one of the most dominant figures in film of the 20th and 21st century. I mean, what’s wrong with that?! If it was any other director, it’d be called homage. But because everything has to be seen through this malicious lens, its copying. 

I think one of the few very valid criticisms about Joker was that it further perpetuates the idea that psychotic people are dangerous, and I can totally see where they’re coming from. At the same time, we have to accept that whilst the majority of people who are psychotic aren’t a danger to anyone apart from themselves, most “dangerous” people don’t just become dangerous because they thought, fuck it, why not? A lot of people in the prison system ARE suffering with some kind of mental illness. The character’s psychosis doesn’t make him dangerous, it’s his underlying resentment and sense of entitlement that grows throughout the film that makes him dangerous, and I think a lot of people seem to miss this point. They say that the way the film ends implies Philipps is justifying the actions of the films protagonist. However, we KNOW the Joker is an unreliable narrator, he’s one of pop culture’s most infamous villains and that being said, both in film and in the real world, few villains see themselves as the villain. Joker is about why HE thinks he’s justified in doing what he does, not why he IS justified in doing what he does because he’s not, and that’s pretty clear from the moment he shoots someone in the head on live TV. Honestly, I think there’s a bit of wilful misinterpretation going on because people don’t like that film

I liked Joker. It was gritty, it was interesting, and sufficiently dark. I didn’t think it was the best film of the year but I understand why it got the praise it did. Obviously, it’s okay that people disagree and DON’T like it. But can we please get a bit more well-acquainted with the middle ground?

It: Chapter Two (Andres Muschietti, 2019)

Okay, essays over. Back to regular scheduled programming of less impassioned reviews. Though I will say I deserved better than my Letterboxd comment of “so you can just fucking roast Pennwyise to death?” getting absolutely 0 traction. One day my grand total of 5 followers, one of which is my sister, will recognise my brilliance (lol).

It’s hard to say how much I really liked this as I think my perspective of how much I did enjoy it is warped by how much I disliked the first one. Child actors really aren’t my thing and the only cast members I warmed to in the first one were Finn Wolfhard and Jack Dylan Grazer whereas the cast here were a lot more likeable, imo. Bill Hader, Jessica Chastain and James Ransone were all great, with the only let down being James Mcavoy; I love him, don’t get me wrong, but I just think he was really miscast in this role. 

Another thing I enjoyed a lot more about this instalment was that due to the more episodic/anthology-like/Creepshow-esque structure with each character conquering different monsters from their past individually, the narrative felt like it had a lot more direction, and it didn’t drag as much despite it having a significantly longer runtime. I haven’t read the Stephen King novels and I don’t know much of the pacing issues are down to them so this is me coming at it from a screenwriting angle but it felt as if the climax of the first film just kept going on and on. Every time I thought it had finished there’d be another confrontation between the kids and Pennywise whereas Chapter 2 seemed to have a more definitive third act and I appreciated that.

Rocketman (Dexter Fletcher, 2019)

So, here’s one where I WILL agree with the general online consensus: if Rami Malek got nominated for playing Freddie Mercury last year and Renee got nominated for playing Judy Garland, why the fuck didn’t Taron Egerton get one for playing Elton John? Why didn’t Rocketman itself get a nomination when Judy did? Though I personally preferred Judy because I’m more interested in her story, technically and narratively Rocketman is the better film in my opinion.  This was so cleverly edited and sequenced and told with such a brutal honesty on Elton John’s part (it was co-produced by his husband David Furnish and he was heavily involved in everything from the set to the script), that I can only come to the conclusion that the obligatory biopic nomination only comes when the focus of said biopic is no longer with us as a kind of honorary thing. Whilst something like Bohemian Rhapsody was much more of an easy watch (which just goes to show how glossed over Freddie Mercury’s life was in the film), the way the story was told, by the time we got to I’m Still Standing that happy ending felt so earned.

Aladdin (Guy Ritchie, 2019)

You can hate all you want, Prince Ali and Never Had a Friend Like Me are fucking bops and somehow they were even better in this incarnation of the film. I was initially hesitant about Will Smith being cast but rather than trying to impersonate Robin Williams he went his own route and it really worked. He was the highlight of the film. It was undeniably visually stunning too. Madonna’s ex did good.

Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)

Ah, I feel so conflicted when it comes to Us. Like, there were some really strong points and it’s definitely a good standalone horror movie. It’s just you can’t help but compare it to Get Out, and with that unsatisfactory exposition dump ending, I left feeling so disappointed. It seemed to me that Jordan Peele got in a bit over his head here with trying to tie such a vague social metaphor and the actual in-universe plot together, and so ended up leaving both a bit half-baked. He tried to OutPeele himself and for me, it didn’t work. 

The doppelgängers were so scary as this ambiguous, vaguely threatening presence that if you are gonna give us a full blown, sit down explanation of why they exist it needs to be really bloody good. And this explanation didn’t make much sense. For example, *SPOILERS AHEAD* I imagine that the tethered just not being able to walk up the escalator into the “real world” was supposed to be some kind of metaphor for social mobility but it’s not fleshed out enough to work. In our world, there are REASONS why the idea of social mobility is flawed. In the film, it’s just like gee, if they chose to just walk up the escalator and go on this murderous rampage now, why couldn't they have decided to do it years ago back before they all lost their fucking minds? Why were they just copying the originals for all those years? HOW did they know what they were doing? See, the metaphor as I understand it is supposed to be that we depend on the oppression of others like us in order to maintain our social status, but not only is this kind of too general a statement to try and use a feature length film to make, I don’t really understand how this dynamic works within the narrative of the film. Technically, there's nothing to stop the tethered and the originals co-existing apart from the tethered deciding not to walk up the fucking escalator. We’re not talking a bourgeoisie-proletariat relationship here. The explanation of it all just being a “government project gone wrong” was too vague seeing as the plot working seemed prior to this to hinge onto something vaguely supernatural and the eventual plan of the doppelgängers seemingly had no purpose or application to the real world like the climax of Get Out did. It just left me feeling kind of like...why? Why did this all happen? When the ending and the twist was that predictable (the old Pretty Little Liars finale style twin switcheroo was blatantly obvious from the mother’s “it’s like she’s a different person” line near the beginning, let’s be real), I was expecting some final revelation that flipped my expectation on its head or at least felt helped things click into place. Instead, it seemed a bit hamfisted and like I was supposed to feel things were deeper and more significant than they actually were.

All that being said, I appreciate that if anyone other than the writer of Get Out had come out with this movie, I probably wouldn’t have these issues. Us was funny, it was fresh, and the concept of doppelgängers is something I’m so glad to see brought back into our modern pop culture database. The people are right, Lupita was incredible in this and it is a travesty that she didn’t get nominated. My sister, who was so creeped out by her vocal performance that she had her fingers in her ears every time Red spoke, still won’t let me attempt an impression of it. And that Fuck the Police sequence? Iconic. 

On the Basis of Sex (Mimi Leder, 2019)

I apologise in advance for the shittiest “review” I’ll ever write, but honestly I can’t remember all too much about this film other than it being good. Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I’m sorry. You’re a cool lady.

If Beale Street Could Talk (Barry Jenkins, 2019)

EURGH, THIS WAS SUCH A BEAUTIFUL FIM. The score, the shots, the rawness. I imagine it’s devastatingly real. Like, *SPOILERS AHEAD* you think there’s going to be a happy ending but there’s not. It should be disappointing but it’s an honest choice. And side note: fuck those annoying middle aged white ladies in the seats behind me and my friend who lost their shit and started giggling every time the N-word was used, JFC. I hate living in a Tory stronghold. 

Cam (Daniel Goldhaber, 2018)

So, as I said, I’m a fan of the whole doppelgänger thing. It freaks me out. The point in this film where the protagonist is approaching her bedroom door whilst she watches HERSELF livestreaming from inside that same bedroom had my heart in my mouth wondering what she was going to encounter on the other side. And you see, the ending of this was a lot more ambiguous than the ending of Us, so I should’ve had less questions. Whilst I’ve seen other people saying it WAS unsatisfactory and that they felt like we were owed more of an explanation, I liked the simplicity of the answer we got and the wiggle room it leaves for our own interpretation. The way I see it, given that we were told by the fan the protagonist meets with in the motel room that *SPOILERS AHEAD* it was a case of some kind of software copying these women’s likenesses to steal their viewers and thus their profits, is that Cam is a kind of a commentary on the capitalist exploitation of women’s bodies and the demand for (and desensitisation towards) sexually violent content; we don't necessarily need to know who is behind the virtual cloning, which is terrifyingly believable given how realistic some of the deepfakes I’ve seen are, because it doesn’t matter. We're basically told money is the motive and we know the kind of lengths some people will go, and someone DID go to in Cam, to in order to make a shitload of money and that’s as true in real life as it is scary. On the other hand, if you want to believe there’s a more supernatural presence behind the events of the film, there’s enough left to the imagination that you can go down that route too. Some films are better left un-exposition dumped and this is the proof. My one criticism, is that, like many films, it would be even better if directed by a woman; I’ve seen people say that its portrayal of online sex work isn’t entirely accurate and though I can’t say with certainty that women working in this industry weren’t consulted in the first place, I imagine a female director would not only be more likely to listen to their concerns but could translate the confusion and fear that comes with being expected to makes oneself sexually desirable to get ahead in the world but then shamed and used for doing so even more viscerally. A few tweaks and it’d be God Tier.

Colette (Wash Westmoreland, 2019)

The costumes, sets, and Keira were so, so stunning. Also it was just an inspiring, beautiful story. The navigation of womanhood, so called “deviant” sexuality and self-expression against the backdrop of early 20th century Paris with a load of Edwardian era tailoring thrown in, it’s everything I could possibly want and more; 10/10 moodboard content. 

The Boy (William Brent Bell, 2016)

I can’t believe this film was made in 2016, and it almost makes me move it down to mid tier based on the fact that a lot of the allowances I made for cheese factor I made on the assumption it came out earlier in the decade. BUT, that being said, I was creeped out for a good portion of this film. Most horrors I watch and I’m probably a bit too chilled (a head comes off or some witchy ass ghost screams into the camera and my only thought is some kind of judgement of the SFX), and yet I felt like watching this behind my hands. I don’t know what it is about dolls and puppets, Chucky was my childhood fear even though I never actually watched the film, but something about the uncanny valley of it all makes me just spend the whole time they’re on screen silently praying they don’t start moving or talking. So in a way, given the resolution of the film *SPOILERS AHEAD*, the premise of The Boy was actually a lot scarier to me than the reveal of what was really going on. Someone hiding in my walls? NBD. That demons are real and that they live inside creepy old dolls? Terrifying. Why does everybody I debate this with disagree!? You can't call the police on a demon! At least with a human being you can stick them with the pointy ending of something! Regardless, I enjoyed the journey and trying to work out how things would end and if there IS anybody secretly living inside my house right now, even if you are a supposedly dead murderous family member (last time I checked I didn’t have any of those so I should be all good), kindly vacate. Thanks.

Oprhan (Jaume Collet-Serra, 2009)

So the fact that this film is based on a real life case makes this all the more terrifying. It was a bit campy and tacky at times but the shot of *SPOILERS AHEAD* Esther taking off her makeup in the mirror and revealing her true age will always be iconic. Plus I love Vera Farmiga, even though I did struggle to see her as anyone other than Norma Bates. 

First Reformed (Paul Schrader, 2018)

A hauntingly beautiful film with a lot of room for interpretation. There were so many gorgeous shots and so much subtext, this is proper 10/10 media studies essay material.

The Invitation (Karyn Kusama, 2015)

I would say the concept and implications of this film, which don’t fully hit you til the final shots, are a lot better than the film itself. It feels very realistic though and is definitely tense.

As Above, So Below (John Erick Dowdle, 2014)

I was so stoned when I watched this that a lot of the allegory and Dante’s inferno references went straight over my head, and it just seemed absolutely balls to the wall wild. I couldn’t buy that the characters would just KEEP GOING either when things began to get terrifying, like people in horror films really out here making the most nonsensical decisions and it drives me mad. But anyway, it was definitely entertaining and there’s a lot more to it in terms of plot and mythology than most similar quality horrors and I appreciate that 

Climax (Gaspar Noe, 2018)

Climax is an interesting one that I think I’ll have to watch again to judge how much I truly like it. As with Us, I know it’s a good film, but I think my expectations of what it was going to be left me slightly disappointed. See, when I read about the premise I assumed that the horror was going to come from seeing the perspective of the characters on said acid trip and that leaves so much room for any kind of terrifying visuals you want whether that be something based in realism or fucked up creatures of the imagination. Buuuuut, it wasn’t that at all; at no point does Climax take place from the first person perspective of any of the characters. Similar to Darren Aronofsky’s Mother, the horror comes from not being able to do anything but watch as everyone starts losing their minds and the situation gets increasingly more dire. It’s pure stress; the acting is so unnervingly good that you really do feel like you’re watching some unintentionally horrific incident take place. That’s not a bad thing-I like it when films make me feel something intense, whether that emotion be positive or negative. It was just a different viewing experience to the one I had precipitated. 

Mid Tier

Nativity (Debbie Isitt, 2009)

I find Mr.Poppy hilarious. Does that make me a child? Probably. I’m not really one for Christmas movies but this one’s alright.

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (André Øvredal, 2019)

I get that it’s based off a book so it’s not exactly like the “monsters” were a secret in the first place, but for those of us who didn’t read the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books as a kid, my main beef with this film was that they basically revealed all of said monsters in the trailer. Like how It: Chapter 2 spoiled the scene with Beverly in the old lady’s apartment but with EVERY. SINGLE. CREATURE. The only one that wasn’t was the “jangly man” and the only takeaway I have from him is the “jangly in the streets, but is he jangly in the sheets?” Letterboxd comment I read afterwards. Like the creature designs are the selling point of this film and by showing us them all before we’ve even seen it, any anticipation that would’ve built up from their reveal was kind of gone. Plus, it definitely felt like the writers were trying to ride on the hype train of “It” when they wrote this-only they made it even more childish. I mean, I know it was classed as PG-13 in the US which is maybe part of the reason it was so tame but the Woman in Black was a 12 when it was released here and it could be the bias of my 13 year old brain but I remember that being terrifying to watch in the cinema.

Also, I found it weird how *SPOILERS AHEAD* a couple of the main characters died and there didn’t really seem to be any consequences? Idk, maybe that’s because I found them all a bit one dimensional but I’ve seen others make the same criticism so I don’t think so. 

Don’t get me wrong, this wasn’t a BAD film. It just wasn’t super good.

Charlie’s Angels (Elizabeth Banks, 2019)

I’ve never seen the 2000s Charlie’s Angels so I really don’t have anything to compare to, but I don’t think this was THAT bad. I was fairly entertained throughout and I enjoyed Naomi Scott and Kristen Stewart’s characters. My main issue was the unnecessary inclusion of Noah Centineo, and that weird ass montage at the beginning of stock video shots of girls just...doing miscellaneous things. Why, Elizabeth Banks, why!?

Toy Story 4 (Josh Cooley, 2019)

In some ways, I see why Toy Story 4 was narratively necessary: co-dependency had been a running theme throughout and we needed to see Woody (I feel stupid saying this considering he’s a fucking toy but allow it) realise that he can exist independently of Andy, and that there’s more to life than pleasing somebody else. The way Toy Story 4 ended felt like a satisfying conclusion to his character arc, and as well as the animation being top tier, Forky was a hilarious addition to the cast. However, I don’t think it carried the emotional weight of the 3rd Toy Story, which I think people had accepted as the last instalment and had used to say goodbye to the franchise, and therefore the sceptic in me thinks that the obvious purpose of this addition was a cash grab. I don’t doubt that a lot of people worked incredibly hard on it-I’m just saying that the propelling force behind the film probably wasn’t “the people need to see Woody’s character growth” and that was quite apparent throughout.

Doctor Sleep (Mike Flanagan, 2019)

There were some really beautiful scenes in Doctor Sleep; the astral projection sequences in particular were magnificent and I loved Rebecca Ferguson as the villain. Stylistically, though I didn’t find out he was the director until I was writing this up, you can definitely tell it’s Mike Flanagan, and like I’ve said, he does horror very tastefully. Unfortunately, I just wasn’t all that interested in the premise and I wasn’t hugely invested in grown up Danny Torrance either. The execution was great and the return to the Overlook was brilliant, of course, but the story just wasn’t for me and nothing much sticks out as being a particularly intriguing plot point.

Mary Queen of Scots (Josie Rourke, 2019)

What to say about Mary Queen of Scots other than...yeah, it was alright. I mean, I really should’ve liked it more than I did, because these specific events were part of the Edexcel A-Level history curriculum (Can I get some Rebellion and Disorder Under the Tudors students representation up in here!?) and I usually love seeing history translated onto screen, plus it centred around Margot Robbie and Saoirse Ronan. It was just very...meh. I feel like there’s so much more complex a story here than was told. Both women were undoubtedly a lot more complicated than this film made them out to be and I think to reduce Mary Queen of Scots to a Mary Sue-ish heroine was a disappointing choice. Plus, if we’re gonna talk historical accuracy (which all the racists came out of their caves to discuss at the time), Mary and Elizabeth never actually met; I’m sure there was a more creative way to explore their dynamic than by forcing an interaction that never actually happened.

Apostle (Gareth Evans, 2018)

There were elements of this film I really liked; the mythology behind the cult, I.E what the townsfolk actually worshipped when you stripped away all the secrecy was pretty interesting. However, I felt it depended too much on atmosphere and not enough on plot, and I didn’t warm to any of the characters.

Searching (Aneesh Chaganty, 2018)

It’s difficult because technically, Searching is obviously an ingenious film. My issue is the way it ended, which was imo, super anti-climatic, and honestly pretty predictable in that it seemed like the writers just went out of their way *SPOILERS AHEAD* to make the culprit the person viewers would’ve ruled out by default for shock value, and then work out WHY that person was the culprit from there. I was expecting something a lot darker to be behind the protagonist’s daughter’s disappearance-irl, these situations usually are-and so maybe it’s just me being a bit of a sadist but I was disappointed by how things resolved themselves.

Deliver Us from Evil (Scott Derrickson, 2014)

So, this isn’t boring. It’s interesting to have a horror navigated through the lens of something as procedural as a police investigation. But ultimately, the acting isn’t great, there’s very few scary moments, and it’s a little cheesy. As horrors go, it’s pretty shallow-it is what it says on the tin.

Dumplin’ (Anne Fletcher, 2018)

I watched this right at the beginning of the year and I can’t remember all too much about it, but I remember not hating it? See, looking at the cast, Odeya Rush and Dove Cameron are both in it which would suggest I’d come away hating MYSELF instead but yeah...I got nothing. 

Lights Out (David F.Sandberg, 2016)

The concept is very scary, the execution not so much, and the actual storyline is a little cheesy. I found myself just being like OH MY GOD, IT’S BELLA’S DAD FROM TWILIGHT! And then *SPOILERS AHEAD* getting mad that they did Charlie Swan dirty like that by killing him off in the first 10/15 minutes.

The Goldfinch (John Crowley, 2019)

So I LOVED the book of The Goldfinch. I read it after the Secret History and even though most people seem to prefer the latter, the former hit me right in the sweet spot. The length was almost one of my favourite things about it; I felt by the end that I came to know the character so well he felt like someone I knew in real life. When I heard Ansel Elgort was cast as Theo, I was really happy; I’m not necessarily a huge fan of him as an actor, I've only ever seen him in shitty teen-y dramas which I forced myself to like at the time E.G. The Fault in Our Stars and Divergent, but he looks kind of exactly how I pictured Theo looking. Almost like an Evanna Lynch as Luna Lovegood situation. And then honestly, the actual film came around, and I found myself much preferring the young Theo sections. I get that Theo is quite a muted character and I hate to properly slate anyone’s performance, but Ansel as him felt a bit flat. The casting in general was pretty whack; I love Nicole Kidman but she didn’t feel right as Mrs.Barbour and it seemed that they added a lot to her character to the detriment of Hobie’s character who was a much bigger part of Theo’s life in the book. Also, can we talk about Finn Wolfhard as Boris? I’m sorry, but that accent was godawful. Really bad. Boris’ accent was always supposed to be kind of ambiguous but this was just butchered Russian. Another gripe that my friend and I, who also read the book, had with the Vegas section of the film (which was otherwise probably the best part) was that they never properly explored the complexity of Boris and Theo’s relationship. Obviously I’m not saying that I want 2 minors to shoot a sex scene but it could have been referenced when they reunite as adults because the kiss on the head when they part in Vegas seemed misleadingly platonic. It was heavily implied in the book that there was some kind of love that went beyond friendship between the two and I didn’t get that in the film at all. 

Ultimately, when you try and adapt a book as long as the Goldfinch, you’re always going to have some pacing issues and people complaining that things were left out or that X or Y character didn’t have enough screen time. But in ways, I think the fault here was trying to stay TOO faithful in the limited time available. They definitely could have focussed less on certain relationships and more on others, and when it comes down to it, I think we lost a lot of the grittiness of the original book for the sake of pretty visuals. 

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

Don’t get me wrong, this would 100% be in shit tier if it wasn’t for the last hour or so of the film and all the Manson lore which is so disappointing because I love Tarantino films and I love that era. As for the first couple of hours, I loved the vibe and I love Margot Robbie, and I think it was very respectful towards the Tate family (if anything radiated through the screen more than anything else it was Sharon Tate’s sweetness), but I just wasn’t that invested in Leo or Brad’s characters-it all just felt a bit pointless. I really like Brad Pitt and even that couldn’t really save it for me. Maybe if you took away the remaining 2 hours and 20 minutes of Leo DiCaprio making vague allusions to his own career to a girl only slightly younger than the combined age of all girlfriends past I’d enjoy it more but then I don’t think there’d be much footage left. I guess we should just be grateful that Tarantino managed to refrain from unnecessarily sprinkling the N-word into every other line of his script this time, right?

Also.

SO. MANY. FEET.

But then again, this did result in Brad publicly mocking Tarantino’s foot fetish during his speech at the SAG awards so...I’ll allow it. Sometimes kink shaming is okay. Especially when it’s this guy:

Isn’t it Romantic (Todd Strauss-Schulson, 2019)

I guess as romantic comedies go it wasn’t AWFUL because it was self-aware but still just not my cup of tea and it didn’t really make me laugh. Plus, I feel like it did just follow the plot of a conventional rom-com in the end so...what was it all for, you know?

Green Room (Jeremy Saulnier, 2016)

I think my disappointment with this film was a case of too high expectations. It wasn’t as gory as I hoped, in fact, there was very little on screen gore at all. I was just expecting something very messed up and I didn’t get that. But then again we did get Maeby from Arrested Development singing a fuck Nazis song so I guess that was a nice surprise?

Shit Tier

Birdbox (Susanne Bier, 2018)

First the disappointment of the Goldfinch, and now Birdbox (although they were chronologically the other way round but for the sake of this review, let’s just ignore that). It really is a bad year for bird films. 

It’s weird because when this first came out I remember everyone hyping it up and making memes about it and stuff and then I actually watched it and dear god, it was boring. Honestly, who paid you lot to pretend you cared enough about it enough to make content? And where can I get in on this action?

I mean it didn’t start off terribly but then they killed off SARAH FUCKING PAULSON and somehow managed to make SANDRA FUCKING BULLOCK unlikeable. How does one do that? The mind baffles.

Pet Sematary (Kevin Kolsch & Dennis Widmyer, 2019)

The kid acting was bad, the leads were meh and there wasn’t one creepy moment. This should be SO MUCH MORE hard hitting than it actually was given the subject matter and it just fell completely flat. I will say, though, *SPOILERS AHEAD* that the ending was appropriately doom and gloom and even though I’ve seen lots of others say they hate it it was probably the only thing I actually liked.

The Lion King (Jon Favreau, 2019)

Seth Rogen and Billie Eichner were the only good things about this which is sad because I fucking love Donald Glover and I was so excited when he was cast as Simba. Like, it was pretty but empty and unnecessary and I’m not one of these people who think CGI remakes always have to be this way-I loved Dumbo and I liked the live-action Jungle Book too! I just think the people who made this cared too much about good CGI and realism and less about heart. There was no personality whatsoever and it’s such a waste when you think about the fact that they had Donald and Beyonce on board. 

Red Sparrow (Francis Lawrence, 2018)

Eurgh, I hated this. I think Jennifer Lawrence is stunning and I usually love her films but every shot of her in this felt so male-gaze oriented, even the ones which were sexually violent, which I found to be completely unnecessary in the first place. At times it felt almost torture-porn-y which was not what I expected at all seeing as the marketing made it seem like some kind of female empowerment movie.

It Comes at Night (Trey Edward Shults, 2017)

I literally can’t remember fucking anything from this film. Clearly there is a very, very fine line between atmospheric and boring.

Warm Bodies (Jonathan Levine, 2013)

Maybe it’s because I watched this about 6 years too late and the whole human-girl-falls-in-love-with-supernatural-creature hype train has long since left the station but I couldn’t even finish it. Cutesy necrophilia ain’t for me, sorry Nicholas Hoult. Still love ya. You’ll always be Tony Stonem to me xoxo

Million Dollar Baby (Clint Eastwood, 2005)

I’m pretty sure this movie won a lot of awards so I’m sure this is a very unpopular opinion but the way this film ended was so...depressing. SO depressing. Did it have to be THAT depressing? The Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode outsold.

This is the range Oscar winning actress Hilary Swank wishes she had.

Would You Rather (David Guy Levy, 2013)

Started off well but became cheesy and predictable as it went on. The acting wasn’t great either plus there was another unnecessary attempted rape scene here too. 

Christmas with the Kranks (Joe Roth, 2004)

So I watched this movie in the run up to Christmas because my best friend and her mum were referencing it like it was this cult classic (which I guess for some reason it is?) and I’m sorry to her and her mum but what the hell is this shit?! It’s not even so bad it’s good. It’s just bad.

The plot, the characters, EVERYTHING, it’s ridiculous on every level. I wasn’t into it enough to suspend my disbelief that anyone’s neighbours would actually care THAT much that they weren’t celebrating Christmas. Go on your damn cruise, take me with you whilst you're at it, ease my seasonal depression! I wouldn’t mind so much if it was funny or if the protagonists were likeable but it wasn’t and they’re not. Nobody’s actions made any sense. It didn’t put me in the Christmas spirit at all it just made me angry that Jamie Lee Curtis’ agent made her do this shit. She’s a scream queen goddess and she deserves better.

ANYWAY.

I’m now realising that I should have started on shit tier and worked my way up to god tier because now this post has ended on the rather sour note of me getting worked up over Christmas with the Kranks, lol. As always, these are just my opinions and I love to hear other people’s; when it comes to something like this, it’s all a matter of preference and there really isn’t a right or wrong answer, so I’m open to discussion!

With the Oscars less than a week away now I rushed a little to get this out on time, so apologies in advance if anything doesn’t make any sense or there’s any typos, I will look back over it at some point over the next couple of days to check. 

But if you read to the end thank you! And stay tuned for my overview of Paris Haute Couture Week S/S 2020 if that’s something you’re interested in as that will most likely be next post!

Lauren x

[kpopchangedme]

You agreed to meet Jinyoung for a coffee date, what could go wrong? Surely you are not going to run into Im Jaebum on the way there… Right?

Starboy-Masterlist || M A S T E R L I ST

Protagonists: Baseball player Im Jaebum / You / Dr. Park Jinyoung

Word Count: 2.2k

Genre: SFW | University | Baseball | Romance | *Socially offensive language* – Mini-Series

Lysandre’s note: Repost because I wanted this chapter on my main ;)

Staring at your reflexion, you barely have time to avoid the pair of rolled up socks Makayla throws at your head. She boos, sitting on the small bed of your dorm bedroom with her arms crossed, clearly disapproving your choice of outfit.

“At least show some cleavage. Let the poor shaman have hope!” Laughing, you pull your black sweater over your head to change into something more appealing under her expert gaze. “I thought you hated dating by the way…”

“He’s still a doctor, not a shaman! And I do hate dates... And I totally told him that...” Although, you didn’t exactly mention to Jinyoung about your last messy breakup. You choose a cute embroidered raspberry blouse, slipping it on and showing it off. “He said that if we met by ‘coincidence’ in a coffee shop it wouldn’t be what he’d call a date –” Makayla frowns, skeptical. “– but fate.”

“Ugh. Are you kidding me?” You laugh at her cringe, deciding her lack of comment meant she approved of the blouse. “Did he actually say it aloud or texted you that corny crap, what century are we–”

“Aloud.”

“Well, fuck me.” She finds her phone in the sheets of your unmade bed to tap at the screen, angrily. “And I can’t even get a text back!”

“Sungjin would text you back...” You pull your tongue at her, siding with your classmate for his desperate crush on that hopeless girl. “He’s a decent guy, it’d changed you from those football players.”

“Joke’s on you, my last victim is a golfer! I don’t know y/n… I kinda live for the thrill of being left on read.” At that, you can only shake your head in disbelief.

She might like to tease your dating phobic ways, but she’s as bad as you when it comes to commitment. While you usually avoid guys altogether, Makayla always seems to only get involved with the ones she knows will never be interested.

“You should wear that with your pale jeans, your ass looks fantastic in those!”

“Ooh, great idea, thanks!”

“Also, please put on lingerie!”

“Tst – This is a coffee non-date! I won’t jump him or any–”

“Hot guys can sense that shit.” You hesitate, pouting as Makayla wiggles her brow suggestively. “What if he drops his coffee on you and gets scared when he sees that horrible skin-coloured monstrosity through your soaked clothes?” Makayla rolls to the side to grab a lace bralette on your headboard and throws it at you. “Wear that, he’ll love it! That one screams ‘Please doctor, pour hot liquid on me!’.”

You study the pink floral lace between your fingers, feeling heat rush to your face as you remember the last time you wore it. You can still recall the feel of Jaebum’s hands; his fingers sliding the straps off your shoulders, his lips sucking your nipples through the thin lace...

“Yeah – Um, I think I’ll just go with the ‘monstrosity’ for today, it’s the only one that doesn’t show through the fabric.”

What’s with you, thinking of that stupid pitcher like that? You’re about to go on a date with a handsome med Resident. Somewhere on the floor, your phone dings from under a pile of rejected outfits. You hurry to fish it to look at the text, anxious.

Park Jinyoung: I’m going to be getting coffee at a very random coffee shop (the one on the corner of Wall & College) in about 15 minutes… [18:44PM]

You smile dumbly reading it just as another one comes in.

Park Jinyoung: (Not that I would ever expect to see you there... This isn’t a date or anything!) [18:44PM]

“Oh my god. You’re smiling at your damn phone y/n! Just leave already, before I kill myself!”

___

10 minutes later and you’re standing in front of the coffee shop, too nervous to move. It’s been a while since you dated – not that this could be considered a real date – almost two years. You run a hand on your blouse, smoothing imaginary wrinkles. Unfortunately, it’s when you finally decide to enter the coffee that he, exits it.

And Jaebum isn’t alone, he’s with another one of his teammates, one you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet. When he sees you, there’s a flicker of dread in his eyes, but in a second, he’s back to his usual composure. Which is horribly unfortunate, because now he’s walking straight at you and you have virtually nowhere to hide.

“Hey y/n”, he smiles sheepishly, disregarding the fact that you were evidently trying to walk by without greeting him.

“Hey.”

“Hi”, the player you don’t know nudges his friend with his elbow. He’s a bit shorter and very very handsome. Although, beautiful would probably be a more appropriate choice of word. “I’m Mark,” his smile is so white and wide it almost blinds you.  “And you are... Y/n...”

“Yes… That’s me…” You deadpan reddening, and Jaebum wiggles from one foot to the other. Now you’re unhealthily curious about what is said of you in their locker room, you bite your lips.

“Y/n”, Mark repeats as if you needed to be reminded. Does the baseball team have a secret black book with conquests names, or what? Clearly, that guy is in the known somehow. Tilting his head towards Jaebum, he adds: “The Creative Writing girl...” Mark giggles, the sound surprisingly irritating and you stare at him, shocked.

Creative Writing; a class you took to force yourself out of your comfort zone after your break up forever ago. You didn’t socialize, so it’d be surprising that guy remembered you at all – if you truly were in his class.

Mark turns to the pitcher, poking him with his elbow again. “I wasn’t aware you guys knew each oth–”

“I really wanted to tell you, about that night at the club,” Jaebum ignores him, keeping his baffling coolness despite the obvious teasing. “I’m so sorry, I was horrible. I’m a jerk and I wanted to apologize ever since, but I don’t have any way of contacting you or–”

“It’s okay Jaebum, it’s in the past – I don’t care – So don’t feel bad about it, these things happen. We were both drunk.” You clench your teeth, forcing a polite smile. If he truly felt like apologizing, he knew you worked at the clinic, he knew where to find you. It took you three weeks to digest his outburst, but you’ll stick by your not caring resolution. Even if in the end it truly makes you a bitch.

“The club…” Mark looks confused, gaze darting between you two until something seems to connect in his mind. “Oh, the club! Y/n!”

“Right, we’re fine then”, Jaebum’s sly smile falls and he brings his left hand up to scratch his neck, uncomfortable. Despite yourself, you note that he still seems able to move his arm and bend his elbow easily – not that you’d care. “Thank you... For forgiving me, it’s a relief.”  

“It’s nothing!” You take a step in the direction of the coffee shop, but Jaebum moves aside at the same time, blocking your way. “I a-actually need to go.”

“Yeah, sorry”, he avoids your gaze, inadvertently moving at the same time as you again.

“Our campus is so small”, his friend Mark makes the same high pitch giggle sound again, causing you to turn to stare. “The girl from Creative Class is… Y/n.”

“Are you sure?” You ask, surprised he seems so entertained by all this. “I took that class forever ago and I–”

“One year”, he grins, overly confident, “with Mr. Yachnin, you sat next to us for the whole trimester.”

“You were in that class too?” You frown at Jaebum with skepticism. You’re pretty sure you’d remember if a guy looking like him sat next to you.

“I… guess so...” He shrugs, exchanging a look with his friend. “Anyway, sorry again, have a great day!” Finally stepping away from your path with success, Jaebum pushes Mark forward, forcing him to walk.

“Bye, y/n the Creative Writing girl. I hope to see you around a lot more!” The other player laughs again, obeying his teammate reluctantly. “Come see us play Saturday!”

AH! As if.

You wave back at him, frowning. It’s so weird to think you shared a class with them without knowing. Of all the classes related to sports you took over the course of your studies, you had a random art class together. Surely that’s why Jaebum said he thought you were in the Art Dep the first time you met. It makes a lot more sense now, but he’d have to have recognized you. Again, he was right that night when he said you knew nothing about him. You don’t even know what he’s studying, you just assumed it had to do with sports since most athletes are in Physical Ed.

You’re almost pushing the door of the coffee shop when you decide to do something completely useless. Jaebum and Mark have stopped walking and are now absorbed in a heated discussion, several meters away.

“HEY, I almost forgot!”, they both twitch when you yell, although you only keep your eyes on the tallest one. “Im Jaebum!” He opens his mouth perplexed, and you laugh, entertained by his confusion.

“I do know your last name, Starboy!”

Without waiting any longer, you push the door of the coffee shop, leaving the two confused baseball players behind. Jinyoung instantly stands up and waves when you walk in, looking so handsome you stop in your tracks. Your wide smile, a remnant of your amusement freezes a bit, turning to an awkward grin. You can do this. This is just a coffee break and Jinyoung seems like an amazing guy.

You can totally nail this non-date.

“Hi y/n,” The young doctor tilts his head to the side, smirking as you walk up to him, “fancy running into you here.”

“Hi,” you giggle, sounding like the stupidest girl in the whole world, but he doesn’t seem to mind, gazing at you warmly. This time, you don’t feel as intimidated as he takes you in. Your makeup and hair are on point, clothes evidently carefully selected for this very moment. You are okay, you are in control of your variables, or so you repeat to yourself mentally like a mantra.

“Wow, you’re gorgeous.” Jinyoung sighs, slightly dazed, as though influenced by your thoughts.

“T-Thanks,” His eyes crinkle as he flashes his perfect teeth, watching you get shy, “you too.”

His compliment sounded sincere whilst yours is half-mumbled, unable to do him any justice. He’s even more handsome than the first time you met him. Today he ditched the dress shirt in favour of a casual white tee, dangerously tight on his chest, and pale jeans. He also came without his glasses and, although he still looked godlike with them, it seems to make his eyes pop-out even more. You struggle to hold eye contact, too flustered, hopefully, you won’t be awkward for the whole date. You want to feel less anxious, be more comfortable, but don’t know how. It’s been too long. Jinyoung doesn’t even seem to notice how out of it you are when he puts his hand in the middle of your shoulder blades. He barely touches you to guide you to the lineup in front of the register, but it still makes you mentally freak out.

“Since we’re both here at the same time, only by pure chance. I think we should grab a cup of coffee together, y/n. Surely it’s a sign.”

“Oh, a sign?” You laugh stiffly at his joke, nervousness perceivable. “Right, what were the odds of us meeting here, today, at 7pm? It’s not like we planned this.”

“Well, I like to make my own odds.” Jinyoung nods, eyes anchoring themselves in yours with all the confidence in the world. At the moment, you can tell he’s not the type to ever have been hurt or rejected by a girl. How could one say no to such a guy anyway? “My father always says we should never play the waiting game and should strike while the bat is hot.”

“The iron?” You snort, reassured a bit by his easygoing playfulness. It’s true that Jinyoung was nothing but smooth and funny on your first encounter. You have no valid reason to feel so stressed when he’s obviously trying to make light conversation. “Your father sure sounds like a wise man.”

“Not at all.” Jinyoung chuckles, shaking his head slightly. “I probably shouldn’t listen to what he says, he’s both awful at relationships and idioms.”

“I see.” His palm is warming your back, and you lean closer to his shoulder, unthinkingly.

“Either way, date or not,” Jinyoung talks softly this time, for only you to hear in the crowded coffee shop, “I’m glad you said yes, happy that you’re here with me now.”

Your heart skips a beat at his confession, but the doctor just smiles, turning to the lineup in front of you as if it was the most natural thing to say. Unbeknown to him, you stare at his profile in awe, finally allowing yourself to be happy you came too and starting to relax.

Starboy-Masterlist  ||  M A S T E R L I ST

[linkeai]

hockey boy → fan chengcheng ( nex7 / nine percent ) → summary: you know you should take your own advice and stay away from the hockey boys, but when he gives you that smile how can you say no? → warning(s): female reader, swearing, mentions of bullying (?), idk like nudes nd other messed up high school stuff,  → genre: hockey! au, fluff, bulletpoints → word count: 4,338

it’s not that there’s anything wrong with hockey players okay

usually, it’s a given that the boys who play on the hockey teams are irritatingly gorgeous for whatever reason

and there’s nothing like seeing the whole pack of them walk down the corridor in their jerseys, sporting flashy smiles and perfectly gelled hair

but that was all they really had going for them

they were pretty, sure - but hockey is a smelly sport!

not only that, but there’s also the stereotype that boys with pretty faces use them to do ugly things

and as far you were concerned, that’s exactly what the hockey boys at your school did

they were known for throwing expensive parties, getting an eyebrow-raising amount of instagram likes and snatching up all the pretty girls in the school

the thing was, once they got the girls, they never kept them around for long

they had this system - like a kill count

but instead of counting how many enemies they could take out on a video game, they counted how many girls they’d slept with

it was a pretty gross practice

sure, they were known for their pretty faces and their crazy parties

but they were also known for the group chats where they exchanged nude pictures girls had sent them - which regularly ended up with the whole school and probably more seeing the naked body of a poor girl who trusted a hockey player.

you were not going to be one of those girls.

you promised yourself when you went into high school that you would avoid the hockey players like the black plague. you had no time for their games.

it didn’t really matter anyway, it turned out, because you were never one of the girls they were after

until fan chengcheng

fan chengcheng was a winger on the team - with a bright smile and brown hair pushed back off his face

he was also ridiculously rich and when the hockey team was throwing a party, chengcheng was their man

he was one of the quieter ones though - when you overheard the boys talking about their gross little hobbies during class, he was always quiet with his face forward listening to the lesson

but you still rolled your eyes when he sent you the selfie you posted on your snapchat story with “ur cute lol wyd?”

yeah.. no thanks

and that was only the beginning

it had been incredibly awkward because he sat right next to you at the bench in biology - so close you were practically on top of him given the slight overcrowding of the AP class.

and when you went into the class the next day, you almost tripped over your own feet when he shot you a blinding grin from where he was already sitting in his designated seat, wearing the stupid red jersey with his chin propped on his hand

it really didn’t help that he was so attractive.

you mustered an awkward smile back as you took your seat beside him and started preparing for class

you almost stabbed yourself with your pencil when he swiveled his body to face you and said, “how come you didn’t answer me yesterday? that hurt my feelings, y’know.”

you swallowed, glancing over at him and seeing the pout on his lips and the sly look in his eyes.

and all you could think was, “guess i’ll die!”

“i, uh, forgot,” you chuckled weakly, opening your notebook and clicking your pencil.

he hummed, the tone suggesting that he didn’t believe you.

you were hoping the weird creatures in the jars lined up on the shelves would spring to life and eat you alive to save you from this situation.

he leaned forward slightly over the bench, forcing you to look at his face. when you did, you were startled into silence at how close he was.

“you’ll answer me next time, though, right?”

“uh.. yeah.”

dammit, y/n.

“cool!” he chirped, turning in his seat and flipping open his own notebook as the lesson started

somehow, you knew he was very serious about “next time.”

very soon after, you would found out that he most definitely was.

every day for the next week, he would somehow find you wherever you were and try to start a conversation with you

one day, you were in the art room during lunchtime finishing up a project when the quiet room was flooded with noise. looking up from your painting, you shrank into your seat as several boys from the hockey team traipsed around and crowded around a table where two other players sat finishing their projects quietly.

amongst them, one face you had been actively avoiding throughout the day

but you couldn’t look away as he looked up from his friends and started looking around the room like he was looking for someone.

was he looking for you?

you supposed he was, because when he saw you sinking deeper into your chair with a grimace on your face, he broke out into a grin.

he said something quickly to his friends and you winced as they all looked up, smiling wolfishly in your direction before looking away

oh god, why you?

chengcheng padded over across the room and chose the seat adjacent to you, completely disregarding the other girl who you didn’t know but usually sat with gawking at him in complete and utter confusion

“hey, y/n.” he greeted, turning the seat around and sitting with his arms folded over the back.

“hi,” you grumbled, trying to pretend like you weren’t flustered by both the situation and how devastatingly attractive he looked sitting in that position.

“woah, you’re really good at that!” he said loudly, shifting so he could get a better look at your painting.

you smiled, genuinely as you looked down at your painting of a park. it was coming along pretty good.

“thank you,” you said, not missing the gleam of determination in his eyes when you finally smiled at him.

“so, i have a proposal.” he says, clearing throat and looking at you seriously.

you raise an eyebrow, avoiding his face and touching up the shading on your painted lake. “okay..”

“go on a date with me.”

and just like that, there's a snake in the water.

you must have looked about as surprised as you felt because he laughed nervously, eyes avoiding yours.

“wait,” you said, setting down your paintbrush. “wait, like, really?”

he laid his head down on his folded arms, looking up at you like a puppy dog.

“yeah, really. i like you.”

“like me,” you sputtered before you could stop yourself. “why on earth do you like me?”

his head came back up and he tilted it slightly in confusion. “well I don’t know, y/n, why is the sky blue?” he said sarcastically. “I just like you. I think you’re cool.”

cool, you retorted inwardly. he thinks you’re cool

“and i also think you’re really pretty - and i like how you kind of keep to yourself, and also how you don’t seem at all interested in me.”

you blushed as red as the red paint all over the side of your hand - god, he was too smooth.

“when?” you conceded before you could stop yourself.

he smiled happily, and you watched, almost disturbed as his face glowed pink and he started mumbling and fidgeting in his pocket.

“um - uh, i mean, i’m free on like, wednesday?? it’s friday now right - hold on, why don’t you give me your um, number, i hate messaging on snapchat.”

you watched, amazed as he removed his phone from his pocket and dropped it on the floor with a muttered swear. he wiped his palms on his jeans before unlocking it and handing it to you with a nervous smile.

where did the confident hockey boy go?

you put your number in his phone and handed it back to him, watching as he fiddled with it for a second before sliding it back in his pocket.

“it’s supposed to rain on monday and i have practice on tuesday, so is wednesday good for you?” he asked, drumming his fingers on the table.

“wednesday is good for me,” you affirmed, stilled awed by the rich, handsome hockey player fan chengcheng actually blushing because of you - it was like you were in some weird alternate universe

his friends called out to him and seconds later the bell rang, signaling the end of lunch

he stood from his chair, already turning to leave when he looked back over his shoulder at you “so wednesday! how does skating sound?”

he was already walking away when you called back, “i can’t skate!”

halfway out the door, he just grinned and shouted “i’ll teach you!” before disappearing out into the noisy hallway after his rowdy friends

as he disappeared you slumped all the way down in your chair in defeat, closing your eyes before the girl next to you spoke to you for the first time.

“giiiiirllllll…….”

and that pretty much summed it up.

later on, you told your friends and they clowned you endlessly for agreeing to a date with a hockey player and breaking your own #1 rule of high school dating

somehow, you had a feeling you were going to be proven wrong by him, but a part of you still nagged that he was going to fuck you over

still, you couldn’t help but grin every time your phone dinged with another message from him or he sent you another snapchat of his face

from where you were standing, you had already fucked yourself over.

over the weekend and the two days leading up to your date, you texted him pretty much nonstop. he answered really fast, even telling you once on tuesday that he had to go practice because he was getting yelled at for texting you so much.

you were kind of confused - were you just falling for the trap? is that what these boys did? made you feel like they were different then broke your heart and added you to the kill count?

you couldn’t seem to ease the pit in your stomach as you waited for him to pick you up wednesday evening.

you had a pair of old white skates in your hand and you were dressed nice and warm for the winter - the skates were your mothers, and luckily they fit you well enough even though you had no idea how to tie them properly or, even more pressing, how to fucking skate.

chengcheng arrived in his beloved black truck, hopping out and jogging up to your door. you watched in amazement as he greeted your parents with a bright grin and a promise that he’d have you home before it was too late

your heart was beating painfully hard as you followed him down the driveway and got into the passenger side when he opened the door for you.

you saw the sheepish smile on his face as he closed the door after you and jogged around to sit in the driver's seat.

he got in and turned on the heater, rubbing his hands together and turning on the radio.

you were expecting the ride to wherever he was taking you to be awkward as hell, but chengcheng was full of surprises as always and launched into a detailed, passionate story about how one of his “dickhead friends” had hit him in the back with their stick the day before at practice and then something about his sister

you kind of missed the last part, mostly because of your heart falling out of your ass when he pulled up to a pond instead of a rink.

you were panicking inside as he unbuckled his seatbelt and reached around to grab his skates from the backseat.

he stopped to look at you before he got out, confused by you sitting frozen in the passenger's seat

“y/n?”

“right,” you said quickly, clearing your throat and unbuckling your seatbelt. “yeah, just hate the cold.”

he chuckled and you laughed nervously to mask the crippling fear that was overcoming you

you got out of the car and followed him to the wharf, slightly trembling as you stared at the few other people skating around on the frozen pond.

it was just starting to get dark, the sky was blue and everything looked sort of magical, but it was hard to feel the vibe when you were 100% sure you were going to drown

chengcheng sat down on a bench and took off his boots, slipping on his bulky hockey skates and tying them up with ease. you sat down beside him and awkwardly tried to mimic his movements.

he was finished quickly and looked around while you fumbled with your skates. you didn’t want to ask for help even though you desperately needed it

eventually, you sighed loudly and caught chengcheng’s attention, who immediately laughed when he saw the predicament you were in.

“you’re so cute,” he cooed and got up from the bench, kneeling in the snow in front of you. “here, let me help you.”

you bit your cheek as he propped your foot up on his knee and undid the mess you made and started tying them properly.

you were hoping the red on your cheeks could be played off as frostbite.

he finished quickly and smiled up at you, extending a hand and helping you onto your feet.

you clung onto his arm, relying on him to keep you from falling as you tried to walk with the skates on in the stupid snow.

as you neared the pond, your heart started to beat faster and you realized just how much you really, really didn’t wanna go on the ice

unconsciously, your once timid hold on chengcheng’s arm turned into a death grip and he stopped walking, turning his head to look at you.

“are you okay?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowed in concern.

you nodded meekly, swallowing the lump in your throat. you were so sure that you were going to fall in even though logic said you’d be fine

“no you’re not,” he frowned. “you’re scared. hold on.”

he brushed snow off a large rock beside you and sat you down on it, kneeling down so he could be at your level

you blushed bright red - to other people around, you looked like a scared toddler being consoled.

“it’s okay,” he reassured you sweetly, patting your leg. “is it the pond? did i tie the skates too tight? it doesn’t hurt, does it?”

you shook your head, looking down at the white skates on your feet.

“what is it, y/n? do you want me to take you home? is everything okay?”

he sounded so genuinely concerned that it hardened the lump in your throat. “no,” you said quickly. “no, i just…”

you took a deep breath, trying to talk over the embarrassment. “the ice.. it won’t.. it won’t break, right?”

chengcheng breathed a soft laugh, gripping your gloved hand in his. he was really warm despite the cold.

“y/n, i promise the ice won’t break.” he said gently. the hand not holding yours came up with his pinky extended. “pinky promise.”

you chuckled, locking your pinky with his.

he was still smiling, and you felt your heart tug at how cute he looked all bundled up with rosy cheeks from the cold.

“okay.. but chengcheng, i really can’t skate, like at all.”

he laughed again, pulling you up from the rock and continuing toward the ice. “it’s okay, i’ll help you.”

you sighed, steeling your nerves as he stepped out onto the ice with a scrape and turned back to you. he reached up and with two hands on your waist, lifted you over the snowy ridge and onto the pond.

you held your breath, gripping onto his arms when your feet were on the ice, sliding on the slippery surface beneath you and feeling entirely out of your element.

“it’s okay,” he reminded you quickly, steadying you and holding onto your hands instead of your sides. “see, it’s alright!”

you grimaced at him, feeling slightly sick at the idea of a few layers of meltable ice separating you from a cold, watery death

chengcheng chuckled

“come on,” he chided, skating backward and taking you with him. you hissed as you started gliding after him, holding onto his hands so tight it was a wonder he wasn’t complaining

“stop looking down,” he scolded you and you quickly looked up from where you were eyeballing the ice beneath your feet. when you met his eyes, he grinned that grin you’d become so well acquainted with. “that’s better. hi.”

you laughed, moving your feet slightly and accidentally skating a little to close to him. he quickly skated backward, avoiding the collision. “that’s good,” he commented, a nervous edge to his voice. “move your feet like you’re walking.”

he sounded so sure of himself that you trusted him enough to do as you were told, staring at his checkered scarf instead of your feet and taking baby steps forward.

“there you go!” he cheered, even though you weren’t really moving at all. he continued skating backward slowly with his hands in yours, reassuring you it was okay to take bigger steps

over the course of the next hour, he tirelessly encouraged you and taught you how to skate until you were moving forward in time with him moving backward.

“you’ve got it! watch -“ he let go of your hands suddenly and you screeched something that was a cross between his name and a swear, losing your balance due to the surprise and stumbling forward and crashing into him.

he caught you, stumbling slightly with a sharp scrape of his skates on the ice. he quickly stood you upright and steadied you. before he could say anything, you delivered a powerful punch to his arm that was mostly protected by his heavy coat

“ow!” he cried through his laughter, keeling over and laughing a loud, dumb laugh while still holding onto you with an arm wound around your waist.

“dickhead!” you bit, though you were laughing too.

he stood up and wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes, his laughter dissolving into giggling.

“sorry,” he apologized cutely. “that was so cute.”

“if i could skate away from you, i would.” you told him, faking anger and turning away to hide the smile on your face.

he chuckled, and your eyes widened in surprise as his other arm wound around your waist, pulling your back flush against his chest and placing his chin on your shoulder. “too bad you can’t,” he cooed against your ear.

feeling the hot blush dissipate all the cold from your body, you shrugged him off and pulled away, still holding onto his hand. the two of you giggled giddily and you felt a whole new batch of butterflies set loose in your stomach.

you skated around for another twenty minutes before you both returned to the bench and he removed your skates and then his. the two of you sat there for a while in the twilight, talking about a variety of different things.

you were struck by how pretty the pond looked at night - a few kids still skated around on its surface, their laughter filling the silence. everything was some magical shade of blue, and the lampposts spread around the pond shed warm amber light on the snowy trails that weaved around it. you stared at the skate marks in the ice and smiled, knowing that two sets of them were belonging to you and chengcheng

eventually, the two of you fell into a comfortable silence. something had been nagging at you all night, and in a moment of both bitterness and sudden insecurity, you said something before you could stop yourself.

“so, do you take all the girls here?”

chengcheng didn’t laugh. he was quiet for a long moment that forced you to look over at him. he was frowning, eyebrows drawn together as he scowled at the pond. sensing your eyes on him, he looked over. you swallowed thickly when you saw the playful glint in his eyes had vanished and was replaced by anger.

“what is that supposed to mean?” he asked coldly. he knew what you were hinting it and it appeared you had struck a cord.

“sorry,” you tried to laugh it off but it ended up sounding very forced. “i just.. i just thought..”

“you just thought i was another fuckboy hockey player.” he finished bitterly, looking away from you and back at the pond.

“chengcheng,” you said cautiously. you really hadn’t meant to make him angry.

“no, i get it, y/n.” he sighed, kicking his skate absently where it rested at his feet, “you know what my friends are like, right? so you figured i must just be another one of them.”

“yeah,” you admitted in a small voice. “yeah i guess i did.”

he laughed humourlessly, but you could see that you’d hurt his feelings. “do you still think that way about me? you do, right?”

he turned his face to look at you again and you nibbled on your bottom lip, examining his eyes. they were filled with hurt.

“no,” you said honestly. “no, i don’t.”

his eyes softened a little, but the air was still tight with tension.

“no,” he said, a little bit softer. “i don’t take all the girls here. there are no other girls.”

you pursed your lips, turning back to the pond and watching the kids skate around.

“why me, though?” you couldn’t help but ask. may as well get all the questions out on the table, you thought.

“i told you,” he said. “you’re special. i just like you.”

you smiled down at your feet. that was enough - it made sense. you felt the same way about him. there was just something about him that was special.

“i like you, too.” you said. “i’m sorry for assuming things. i trust you.”

you felt him looking at you and turned your head, feeling your heart jump at the soft eyes and smile staring back at you, no traces of the previous anger.

“it’s okay,” he forgave you. “i’m sorry for not making myself clear from the beginning.”

you fell into comfortable silence for another moment before chengcheng spoke again.

“um, i really wanna kiss you but i don’t know how that would look on my part.”

you laughed loudly, staring on in disbelief at the sheepish look on his face. how could you have ever thought such a sweet boy was just another asshole?

“i think a kiss is okay,” you said quietly, turning slightly to face him. your heart was racing faster now than it had been when you were on the ice, seeing the soft glazed look in his eyes as well as the nervous smile.

without another word, he pressed a gloved hand to the nape of your neck and brought your face closer to his, pausing for a second to look in your eyes before he closed the last tiny bit of distance and kissed you.

his lips were warm despite the bitter cold, though they were a little chapped. it made the kiss even better for some reason, and you found yourself chasing him when he pulled away.

he kissed you again, shortly and sweetly before he pulled away. even in the dark, you could tell that red flush on his face was from a little more than the cold.

from there, the two of you clambered back into his truck and laughed the whole way home. when you finally arrived outside your house, you were hesitant to leave.

he got out and came around to let you out and walk you to your door.

standing on the porch, he scratched the back of his neck and avoided your eyes before, sheepishly, he spoke.

“so.. do you think i could, like, take out again another time?”

you smiled, nodding your head quickly. “i think i’d like that very much,” you responded softly, still not wanting to leave and let the night come to an end.

he bit his lips like it would hide the goofy grin spreading across his face. he failed, and you both laughed nervously before his cold, gloveless hands took hold of your face and he kissed you one last time.

“goodnight, y/n. i’ll see you tomorrow.”

you watched on as he went down over the porch steps, still looking over his shoulder. you couldn’t wait to see him again already and he was still right in front of you.

“goodnight, chengcheng.”

you watched him walk back to his car and get back in the driver's side, starting the engine and giving you a wave before he pulled away. you watched his truck disappear, grinning like an idiot the whole time, standing on your porch in the cold winter night.

maybe hockey players weren’t so bad after all.

[bambyeol]

odds and chances

pairing/s:  hwang minhyun x you genre : fluff, college characters:  hwang minhyun, kim jaewhan, ha sungwoon, park woojin 

prompt:  Minhyun finds drafted love letters from a secret admirer while cleaning the lecture hall….

masterlist for other fanfics

note: Here’s my promise of finally expanding the pairings. Also, this would be the first time I’m writing a story using the pronoun ‘you’, and it felt weird while writing this so I don’t know if this would bring justice to your expectations, but I hope so!  (っ´ω`)ﾉ(╥ω╥)

song inspiration: Heart Shaker by Twice ( 트와이스)

Hwang Minhyun works part-time as a janitor in the local college, and his routine consists of picking up forgotten papers and throwing them in the bin until he picks up a torn piece of paper inside one of the desks located in the lecture hall for Visual Arts students.

Usually, he will follow his routine. Usually.

But today, his curiosity gets the better of him when “Hwang” peeks out from the corner of the paper. He opens and reads it, observing the lack of first name in the letter. He folds the paper neatly, light pink brushing his cheeks.

He just read a love letter.

But being the oblivious man, he disregards the possibility that it is meant for him. Instead, he lists out all the students in the department with the last name Hwang. There’s 3 or so, as far as he could remember…

He retrieves the pen from his pocket and begins editing the love letter, taking the time to sit on the chair and carefully ponder on the works of grammar and diction. To his defense, the letter contains grammatical errors, misspellings and improper tenses, but that’s because you are a transfer student who has only studied Korean for about a year.

Also, you have been crushing hard on the glorious Hwang Minhyun, the eye candy janitor of your department for about 3 months now, and you don’t trust yourself to properly convey your emotions without getting tongue-tied and driving the whole conversation to awkwardness probably because you might accidentally curse Minhyun with your pronunciation.

But Minhyun’s now reading your carefully drafted, dictionary-guided, google-translated love letter and he’s sighing for the nth time because you can’t seem to know when to use ‘you’re’ and ‘your’ and  you have questionable metaphors and symbolism to profess your love.

You smell like my freshly-laundered socks, and you give me happiness like that of my deceased grandmother’s smile. I didn’t notice you at first, but you my affection grew so fast like bacteria…..  

The list goes on....

He returns the letter back to the desk fully satisfied with his corrections, returning to his work.

The next day, you find yourself rushing to your chair to check if that is where you had left your love letter because damn you have been painfully denying about your little crush to your friends and classmates who constantly teased you because they just knew by the way you always recognize Minhyun’s figure, and how your eyes follows his body, or how you always find the courage to greet him when he passes by.

When you see the letter still intact inside your desk, you feel relieved, but unfolding it, you see neat marks amidst your messy handwriting. Below all the revisions is a message from your mysterious proofreader.

“Good luck on your confession! Tell me  Leave a letter if it goes well ^O^”

You smile despite the feeling of nervousness sitting on your stomach. Someone read your letter. And you even wrote Hwang. God, you’re such an idiot, and so for the whole period, you sit in your chair dazed and confused, doodling on another scratch paper as the teacher droned about Art History.

Once again, you forget your paper under the desk.. Minhyun rounds the classroom, checking every table religiously and notices another paper underneath your table He sees the doodle and is amazed by your attention to detail.

“Nice drawing. But listen to the teacher, okay?” he writes and returns the paper, a little pleased with his newly found past time. 

You notice the neat handwriting again, and an unknown force compelled you to reply. There isn’t a loss that you could think of. After all, your mysterious proofreader didn’t spread your little (open) secret. Apart from that, establishing communication would practice your language. Drawing is easy, but writing? Very challenging.

So from then on, you became the pen pal of Minhyun while being unaware of his identity, but Minhyun recognizes you. He would look forward to how your day has been, and you would look forward to that neat handwriting, savage comebacks and how he cannot resist to just correct your writing.

“Please erase the bacteria reference in your love letter. Do your crush a favor”

“Ok how about this? I really, really, really like how your eyes reflect the morning sun, how your skin is as white as snow and as smooth as pancakes,”

“Pancakes? Seriously.. You’re an Arts major, visualize.”

“What if I just copy paste some kpop lyrics in my letter? You think he would notice?.”

“If your song is referencing love with bacteria, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t recognize that,”

It was weird how you didn’t bother try to ask for his name. You liked the little veil of privacy that separated both of you, but as for Minhyun… he discovered your identity with a single glance on the lecture hall’s glass door. His eyes darted to your desk where he found you busily writing the letter for that day.

And maybe from that day, he would excuse himself from his coworkers when you had class just to check out your classroom. One day, Jaewhan catches Minhyun.

“Oi, Hyung, you left me in the left wing.. Oh, oh, who are you looking at?” calculating where Minhyun must have been staring.  Jaewhan smirks and slaps Minhyun’s back teasing him about it for the rest of the day and spreading the story to the other personnel.

Minhyun’s friends being the best wing men arranged the cleaning rotation so that Minhyun is assigned in the hallway of your lecture hall every time you had classes, and he would stand oddly near the door and pretend to clean the already polished floor while sneaking glances to check if you had walked out of the classroom.

And your eyes would always recognize Minhyun’s figure and you would send a little hello. He’d smile with a nod feeling accomplished for the day, and proceed to clean the lecture hall and read your letter..

“Wait…. She doesn’t know you?” Jaewhan spits his milk and Minhyun glares.

“He doesn’t have a dating experience remember?” Sungwoon laughs while biting his bread and Minhyun almost chokes him while Sungwoon would flail his short arms.

“But hyung, if you don’t confess about your identity then wouldn’t your relationship be the same as that one girl whom you text-dated?” Daewhi reminds with concern fueling Jaewhan and Sungwoon in teasing Minhyun’s awkwardness. 

He groans and buries his head in his hands unsure of how to approach you without becoming a mess of ‘uhms’ and ‘oh’s’ .

Meanwhile, you tell your friends about the curious case of your pen pal.

“Wouldn’t it be funny if it was Hwang Minhyun who’s your pen pal though?”

“That’s the most unlikely scenario, Riseul. Stop it.” But you considered the possibility, and damn it would explain a lot why there wasn’t a rumour that spread around your department.

Holy shit.

You cry in embarrassment, burying your face into your hands while mentally cursing your writing prowess that matched that of a five year old. You decide to unmask the identity of your proofreader and pen pal by asking to meet him by the university café. You even stated your attire, your name and your phone number (risky but Minhyun having your phone number? Take me)

But you didn’t know that Minhyun was absent that day, and it was Park Woojin who took his shift, so without batting an eye, he picks up your carefully folded, scented note and throws it away making you wait in vain in the university café.

You stopped writing that day feeling very embarrassed and pitiful. Minhyun didn’t understand why you wore a sad face when he passes by the lecture hall or why you stopped leaving notes. “Maybe she’s not interested anymore,” Jaewhan comments as Minhyun called for an emergency gathering about you because he honestly didn’t understand and didn’t have enough experience to understand the wiring of women.

“Or maybe she got creeped out by a dude who drops notes,” Sungwoon supports. Minhyun felt his heart sinking further. Woojin enters the room twirling his face towel  “Hey hyung, can you take my shift on Saturday?”

“Shh Woojin we’re discussing what might be the turning point in Minhyun’s single life,”

Woojin raises his eyebrow and asks curiously, “Why? What happened with hyung?”

“This romanticist thought being pen pals were cool, and now she’s not dropping notes anymore in the lecture hall and he’s panicking thinking about what he did wrong. 1 000 won for the possibility that she’s not interested anymore.”

“Notes in the lecture hall? You mean that hall for the visual arts students?” Woojin raises his arm remembering about the carefully tucked scented letter. “I might have thrown that away…..” he laughs nervously and Minhyun approaches menacingly. “Park Woojin you little…..”

You held the love letter in your hands feeling sweat seeping in the letter. You didn’t understand why you stayed up all night to write that letter, but one thing is certain, your little pen pal distracted you about your plan to confess.

But for all the days that you see Minhyun in the hallway and he greeted you back with a smile, you cannot stop your heart from wanting to jump out of your ribcage, and always almost slip into confessing.

So for today, you decided to get everything over with. You’ve checked the contents of the letter for the 100th time and made sure they were correct. As you entered your classroom, you see a note under your table. You pick it up and open it.

“I have something I want to say to you, so can we meet up? University café at 6 pm. black cap, denim pants and green sling bag”  and you write an ‘okay’ before mentally preparing yourself again about your confession. .

After class, you immediately proceed in finding Minhyun around the department, but you cannot find him. You see his friends and even built the courage to ask them but they turn to one another and tell you that he might be covering some other shifts in the other buildings.

So you run around the university asking and finding him, and it was nearing 6 p.m. and you were about to give up until you see Kim Jaewhan cleaning the windows.

“Uhm Jaewhan-ssi?” you greet him as he whistled some tune. He turns around and looks at you, recognition marked in his eyes. “Do you know where Minhyun-ssi might be?”

“Oh! Oh. Of course. Of course,” he answers excitedly. “I think he was about to go to the café to eat. Why not check him out there?” and you nod with understanding before saying your thanks and heading to the cafeteria which was the other side of the university.

Upon arriving to the café, you immediately searched for Minhyun and found him in the corner table looking out on the glass pane. “Minhyun-ssi!” you shouted, probably because of the nerves that now kicked in. He turns and looks at you before smiling and waving.

And shit.

He’s wearing a black cap and green sling bag.

Your eyes widen, and you realize with the ease of his steps and the smile on his face that he was expecting you.

And he read your letter.

Which was supposed to be the most unlikely scenario.

You wanted to run away and change your name and go live in another country.

But your feet remained glued on the floor until he arrived, and you let him drag you to the table still processing everything that is happening.

“No way,” you whispered and Minhyun hears it. “You read my letter?!” you whispered with reddened cheeks and panic on your face. Minhyun nods shyly before mumbling an apology.

“That’s not fair!” you complain, and Minhyun didn’t understand why. “That letter sucked big time and oh my god you read that? I want to go away now,” you squished your face to release the embarrassment that kept plaguing your body.

Minhyun holds your hand probably from sheer nervousness and desperation, “Please don’t go,” and you shut up .. Minhyun didn’t know that his charms were super effective. “I wanted to say something to you,”

You mentally prepared yourself for the incoming rejection because it was so obvious. Why did you even write his name there? But you still wanted to have a chance of confessing your feelings, and handing out the revised copy of your letter to redeem your image, but everything was turning into a mess inside your head, so you forgot to tell Minhyun that you wanted to speak first, so both of you spoke at the same time.

“Please accept my love letter!” you bowed your head lowly hitting the coffee table making a loud thud. “I like you.” Minhyun confesses but his calmness is immediately replaced with shock and worry upon seeing your head against the table.

You lifted your head, clearly hearing Minhyun’s words. Both your eyes were wide with shock, and you immediately forget the pain on your forehead.

“Wait, you mean that letter was for me? And I’m sorry but are you okay?” Minhyun asks finally connecting everything. “It has a Hwang on it for God’s sake!”  you replied with a shriek while rubbing your reddened forehead.

“But I mean, there are many Hwangs in this university!” Minhyun argues back before he leans into his chair with relief and you breaking into a laughter from the happiness and embarrassment. “Seriously?” he asks again, leaning forward and resting his face on his hand.

“Seriously…” You replied with confidence, giddy from the happiness.

“So…. face as smooth as pancake huh?” he smirks.

“Hwang Minhyun!”

Fin.

note: Thank you for reading ‘odds and chances’  (づ￣ ³￣)づ I hope it made you happy (≧▽≦)/. This is different from my usual writing. One, I really really tried my best to shorten it to fit it into a single post.Two, this is the first time in my life that I wrote using ‘you’ , and I really need to adjust myself while writing. 

hope you continue supporting me ❤ (ɔˆз(ˆ⌣ˆc) Feel free to leave your feedback or message me (yes let’s all be friends  (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) ) 

masterlist for other fanfics

[breathebangtan]

To Safety: Pt 1

Genre: Soulmate!au

Members: Jungkook

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Synopsis: On the morning his 18th birthday he sees a name written along the upper side of his torso along with a paint brush full of color. But after just finding his soulmate, Jungkook is faced with having to fight against all odds to save himself and his soulmate as others try to break their link to each other.

Warnings: none

Pt.2

“More and more teenagers have been found on the streets. It is finally revealed what it is that’s going on. As some investigators have figured out that the reason behind why they look so depressed and dead like is because the link between their soulmates has been broken. As to how or why that is, is still unclear. The authorities have yet to have an idea of who is doing this, but they assure that they are doing there best to stop whoever is behind this.” I sighed listening to the news and decided to just turn it off. I picked up My plate and left it in the sink before walking into the bathroom to shower for school. As I removed my shirt I noticed something on my side and looked at the mirror. “What? Y/n? That’s pretty, she must be a painter or at least really into art.” I thought to myself and smiled as I was looking at the little paint brush next to my soulmates name. The paint brush was slanted and the bristles were filled with paint and it seemed as though a couple drops were falling from them. The colors were very bright and vibrant. I walked into the shower after looking at it for a bit longer and continued with my routine.

Finally I finished getting ready for school and walked back out from my room to the living room. “I’m leaving now!” I called out as I walked to the door. But suddenly I could hear my parents voices singing. “Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear Jungkook, happy birthday to you!” They sang very cheerfully and I couldn’t help but smile. “You didn’t have too.” I said to them but really I was glad they did, I made a wish before blowing out the candles. The two of them smile brightly at me before mom asks the big question. “Have you seen it? The mark?” My father nodded as he smiled brightly waiting for my response. “I mean, yeah I saw it earlier when I went in for a shower.” I try to say casually, as my parents looked at each other wondering what it could be. “Well, could you show us?” They asked a little too eagerly. “It’s kind of in a private area.” I try explain to them. I didn’t feel too comfortable showing them that, maybe if it was on my arm. “How private? Is it in your danger zone?” Mom asks, making me cringe. “No, oh gosh no! It’s not that private,” I quickly shake my head while making an x with my fingers. “It’s here.” I motions to the general area of where my mark is. “Oh come on honey, show us. We’re you’re parents. That’s not such a bad place.” She insist, but instead I bolt to the door before they can force me to show them. “I’ll be late for school! Bye!” I quickly leave and run off to the bus stop to wait.

Your POV:

“Hey what’s that?” Your friend Ava asks you, pointing to your forearm. You look down at it, and surely enough there was two X’s connected to each other in a gold color. You pull up your sleeve a bit higher to reveal the name of your soulmate. “Jungkook? What does that symbol mean?” You whisper to yourself but Ava pulls your arm to inspect your mark. “Hey, isn’t that the Greek symbol that means ‘where there is a will, there is a way’? I’ve seen it before!” She explains to you as she keeps looking at it. “That Jungkook guy must be one of those try hard types. You know? The type that never gives up, always tries to improve and is really good at what they do. But wasn’t your 18th birthday two years ago?” She asks out of curiosity and you nod your head. She was right, it was two years ago. You had panicked when the day of your 18th birthday had passed and the mark hadn’t appeared. Thankfully your mother cleared up the misunderstanding, telling you that that was normal. That the mark only appears as as a hint to help you find your soulmate if you still haven’t by 18. The reason yours hadn’t appeared was because although you were 18, your soulmate wasn’t. “His birthday must be today, that’s why it’s appearing now.” You explained to Ava, as she cooed at you. “Awe, he’s younger than you, he’s a baby!” She laughed as she said it and you pushed her playfully. “Yah, don’t say that, it makes it weird.” You laughed as your professor walked into class and everyone greeted him. You did as well taking out some materials and following along with what he said for a couple seconds. After those few seconds, you instead opened your sketch book and started to doodle again, a drawing of what you that he would look like. “Happy birthday Jungkook.” You whispered with one of the biggest smiles you had ever had. Ava giving glancing at you with smile, but you didn’t care.

Jungkook POV:

After awhile the bus had finally arrived at school and I was walking to class when Taehyung came running towards me. “Hey! Did you get your mark yet? The other boys want to know as well.” He said excitedly as he showed me his phone screen to our group chat, where they clearly all were asking excited for my answer. I laugh as I quickly glance through the messages. “Yeah, is it someone you know? We’re all so curious, come on, tell us!” Jimin chimes in besides Taehyung. I shake my head before answering. “No, I definitely don’t know her, and I’m pretty sure no one here has her name. It’s Y/n.” I explain to them, which I’m completely sure of. They both look at each other with questioning eyes but I completely disregard it and continue explaining. “I think she might be a painter, or at least really love art, because the mark is a paint brush.” I told them and looked down slightly as I felt my cheeks get warm thinking about her. “Awe, look at you blushing!” Taehyung said as they both playfully punched both my arms. “Ah, hyung!” I yelled at them, pushing them out the way and running towards my class. “Hey, don’t forget to meet us at the gate, we’re taking you out later!” Jimin yelled after me and I turned around nodding at them as I waved good bye and left for class. The bell ringing just in time as I sat down in my seat, taking my materials out.

Y/N POV:

The professor finally put down his marker and stepped to his desk gathering his things. “That’s all for today class, have a great day and I’ll see you Monday.” He waved good bye to us as we also said good bye to him. I stood up gathering my things as well. “I was wondering if you wanted to come with me to this really great place everyone has been talking about. It’s not to far from here and I’m dying to try it.” Ava asked you as she slung her back pack on. You followed her out the class. “Sounds good, I’m actually starving, I skipped lunch to study in the library and I regret it.” You explained to her as you held your belly. “Tell me about it, I’ve done that before and boy do i regret it.” She agreed with you as you both buckled your seat belt and she drove off to the restaurant. You were honestly very excited for it, of course because you were hungry, but excited nonetheless.

“Oh hey, I’ve actually walked by here before and got curious to go in just never have. I’m much more excited now!” You said happily as your mouth watered. After she had finally parked the car, the both of you walked inside of the place. It was very pretty. Each table had a little pot of flowers on the edge and the lights that hung from the ceiling had very intricate designs on them and the lighting made it feel cozy, the whole aesthetic of it was very pretty. “Why don’t you go find us a place and I’ll go order for us, some friends mentioned a couple things that are good so i figured I’d order.” Ava suggested and you nodded your head. “Okay, sounds good.” You said smiling and then going to find an empty table. Which you quickly found one near the main area, deciding on the sole fact that the flowers on that table were the prettiest. You couldn’t resist taking a quick picture to draw later. After, you left your phone on the side of table and waited for your friend.

Jungkook’s POV:

After school had ended I meet the hyungs outside the gate like we’d agreed. From there we walked to the restaurant Jin had suggested to us. “I heard It’s really popular and it’s new.” He told us and we all agreed we should go there. The walk there actually wasn’t that long as it was near my school. “Wow, this place looks really cool.” Hoseok and Taehyung said as they looked around. It seemed to have two floors and the stairs were these cool wooden spinning stairs that went up in a hole in the roof which of course led to the second floor. The lights hanging from the ceiling had really cool intricate designing and every table had little pots of flowers. We walked together to a table looking around. But my heart suddenly started beating really fast, more than normal or anything I’d felt before. I looked to my side as we walked past a table with two girls sitting down. The girl facing me turned to around and looked at me, and just as she did i could feel this odd tugging. Almost as if there was a magnet near her, pulling me in. I kept walking with my hyungs and sat down at a table not to far from them. where I sat, I had a perfect view of her. She looked gorgeous, she had medium length hair and bangs, her hair was black with under tones of purple. Her big golden eyes had left me speechless even now that I was sitting down. “Hey, you okay kid? I saw you staring at that girl earlier. Taehyung had to pull you along so you wouldn’t stay behind.” Yoongi asked me, and I quickly nodded. “Yeah I’m good, It’s just I felt this odd sensation when we walked passed that table, as if I was being pulled to her.” I explained to them as I took a glance at the girl again, she was laughing with her friend, talking casually. “Stupid! That’s her!” Hoseok said while smacking the back of my head. “What was that for hyung?” I asked him holding the back of my head. “That’s your soulmate, that’s her!” He said. “Yeah, didn’t your parents explain to you? That’s how you feel when your first meet them.” Namjoon asked and I shook my head. “They haven’t yet. I’m sure they would have if I didn’t run off this morning before they could.” I told them and I noticed Taehyung and Jimin looking at each other with the same odd look from earlier but before I could ask what it was about Jimin asked me something. “Hey, by any chance is the girl we’re talking about the girl with bangs and dark black hair?” He asked and I nodded at him and he quickly slipped Taehyung some money and I quickly looked at them confused. “What? What was that?” I asked quickly and Taehyung explained. “You said earlier her name is Y/n, we have a class with her. I bet with Jimin that it was probably her by the name, he didn’t think it was her though.” My jaw dropped, but I quickly laughed not believing what he said. “No way, you got to school with her?” I asked them but it came out more like a whisper. “Wow. you two bet on who his soulmate would be?” Jin asked them and they nodded and the rest of us laughed at this. “Well, what are you waiting for kid? Go introduce yourself.” Yoongi said and all the boys started getting rowdy as they pushed me out to go Introduce myself.

“Aright, I’m going okay!” I said, fixing my school uniform before walking over to their table, and as I did I could see the other girl signal to me, letting Y/n know I was approaching them. I smile at them waving and reach my hand out for her to shake. “Hello, I just wanted to introduce myself.” I say a little nervous and she takes my hand shaking it, her touch feels electric at first but soon it settles down into a feeling of flowing energy. “Oh, hello. I’m Y/n.” She smiles the most beautiful smile I've ever seen and her name only confirms what I already knew. “I’m Jungkook, nice to meet you.” I say a little too fast out of nervousness, smiling brightly. Her smile grows and her friend mouths my name as if she recognized it. “So we finally meet.” Y/n says. Happiness over flowing inside me.

[aahsoka]

ok i saw a video titled ‘I hate abstract art’ or something to that effect. The subtitles showed me that their opening lines were something like ‘I hate abstract art. I hate modern art. I know, unpopular opinion’ which, no, many lay people do not like or understand abstract/modern art thats a very widespread opinion.

Also blatant disregard for the genre can be a fascist red flag so I’m thinking, is youtube doing that thing where they recommend extremist content. So its not a video I’m inclined to watch just in case clicking it means youtube is going to recommend jordan peterson or some shit to me because of it.

I do click on it to pause and read the comments to see what its about and one comment goes ‘it seems you dont hate the art just the art market’ which is fair. the modern art market is very exclusive and exclusionary. but it feels from this comment that the video’s thesis was not very clear from the get go. So I dont watch it.

And this is all to say if you posted a video that just straight up said ‘the modern art market sucks: here’s why’ I would be likely to watch the whole thing. Or even like ‘A critique on [art piece] or [artist]’. Which youtube likes when people watch your whole video. Idk it just might be better to stick with ……. a straightforward title sometimes. Clickbait works with videos when there’s a kind of reveal sometimes but in this case it really fails. If your title is inflammatory I tend to avoid it because I cant tell what its really about and I don’t want my youtube recommendations filled with weird stuff 🤷🏼‍♀️ though I’m not sure how far clicks go to show your video to others or if views are more important.

having thoughts about how clickbaity titles arent as effective for youtube videos as other things because having people watch a decent amount of ur video is important for metrics there .

[lillotte17]

Some questions: what's Aili's fave movie genre? Does she like/read romance novels or nah? If she could pick any superpower what would it be and why? Big soft sweaters, yes or no? What's something Uthvir does that makes her feel stupidly fond of them? Who would Aili be drift compatible with? Is Aili a good patient when she's sick? What's her fave way of expressing non sexual intimacy? How do you suppose she'd get along with Zevran? Merrill? Sten?

Oh wow, I guess I went to bed too early last night! X3 These were still great to wake up to in the morning, though!

~

Fave Movie Genre: Aili loves cheesy action films! Poorly dubbed martial arts movies, and old monster flicks where you can tell it is just some guy in a rubber suit. XD She also likes musicals, when she’s feeling a bit more romantic, and whatever the Thedas equivalent of Disney films are. But the action and adventure films are her favorites.

Does she like/read romance novels: Aili wouldn’t actively go looking for a romance novel, but she’ll read just about anything passed into her hands, and I imagine once Cassandra got her started on a series… Well. She’d HAVE to finish it. She’s got to know how everything turns out!

If she could pick any superpower what would it be and why?: lol She’s a mage, so she’s sort of got superpowers already, but my bet would be on super strength. Teeny 5ft. noodle capable of hefting an entire carraige over her head, horses and all! XD

Big soft sweaters, yes or no?: Soft sweaters are 100% yes! Especially if she’s stolen them from someone else, and then she gets to snuggle up in somthing soft that smells like them.

What’s something Uthvir does that makes her feel stupidly fond of them?: Uthvir does a lot of things that makes her stupidly fond of them, tbh. X3 She’s a sucker for any time they let their gaurd down enough to do something cute though. Watching just about any of their interations with Mealla will trigger that response. She is a big fan of Nanae playing dress up and getting their hair done by a toddler. She likes noticing the ways they are kind to other people, even if they are trying to pretend otherwise. And little affectionate things that she knows they had to sort of build up towards. Casual hand holding, and ‘don’t be sad’ hugs, and that sort of thing.

Who would Aili be drift compatible with? lol I have no idea what makes a person drift compatible, since I never saw that movie. ^_^;

Is Aili a good patient when she’s sick? Aili is THE WORST patient when she’s sick. She hates being cooped up and told to rest when she has other stuff to do. She’s constantly making a break for it and giving the people looking after her heart attacks. She’d try to fight a dragon while puking in her socks if anyone would let her.

What’s her fave way of expressing non sexual intimacy? Her favorite non-sexual intimacy is a bit hard to pin down, since she is so generally snuggly. She just likes casual affectionate touching as a whole. She likes holding hands. Stroking hair. Just sort of flopping together on a couch to read or watch movies. Soaking together in the tub. Sleep cuddling. Forehead kisses. Someone leaning over to tuck a stray bit of hair behind her ear. Reunion kisses. Long thorough bearhugs.

How do you suppose she’d get along with Zevran? Merrill? Sten?

I think Zevran would find her adorable, actually. And she would really like him, too, even though 90% of his humor is going to sail riiiight over her head. XD

She’d get along with Merrill for the most part, but I think that Aili would be a bit upset that she threw away her relationship with her clan just to try and save a single artifact of their people. Their history is very important, but it shouldn’t come before the wellfare and needs of people who were relying on her. She was their First, and they needed her. And she’d be sort of disappointed with the way she sort of disregards the City Elves too. But if she met her after everything had already gone down in Kirkwall, they’d probably get along just fine. It’d be a relief just to have someone else who was Dalish to hang out with.  

I feel like she and Sten would have a very strange relationship. There would likely be a lot of intellectual debate about mages and women fighting a such, and Aili would probably think that he hated her. And he would likely think she was sort of ridiculous, but still sporting some weird sort of valor, even though she is Tiny and Wrong. So maybe sort of…frenemies??? Allies who don’t agree but still respect each other? They could hang out and eat cookies and sweets, though. X3

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 3, Number 9

Big Thief

Another scattering of Dust falls, covering everything from Chicago improv jazz to bespectacled indie pop to imaginary movie soundtracks to pedal altered shoegaze to wild and woolly archival sets from the late Arthur Doyle.  This edition’s contributors include Bill Meyer, Joseph Burnett and Jennifer Kelly.

Big Thief—Capacity (Saddle Creek)

The follow-up to last year’s Masterpiece is odder and more intently personal than Big Thief’s debut, with knotty, eccentrically worded songs that are predominantly about sex. (See “Pretty Things”’s assertion that, “There is a meeting in my thighs where in thunder and lightning men are baptized,” which is not even the most explicit line in the song.)  The title track has some of the epic country clangor of last year’s “Masterpiece,” the large scale twang and glory that caught my attention in the beginning. Yet most of these cuts are pencil drawn, sharp and nerve-y but acoustically arranged around Adrienne Lenker’s idiosyncratic voice.  Even “Shark Smile,” a single and one of the noisier cuts, settles in tight concentration around Lenker. As she sings “She said, ooh, baby, take me,” the little yodeling yelp embedded in “ooh” distills her weird but intriguing conflation of wide-eyed innocence and sexuality. Lenker’s odd backstory has begun to emerge lately, a childhood spent first in a religious cult, then living out of a car, then moving repeatedly, multiple times a year, with her family, before settling in Minneapolis and then attending Berklee on scholarship. You can’t help but read that into the music, which has the kind of honesty that might derive from growing up without much privacy or stability. She is quiet here, but fiercely herself, as comfortable if you like what she’s doing as if you don’t.

Jennifer Kelly 

Jefre Cantu-Ledesma — On the Echoing Green (Mexican Summer)��

On The Echoing Green by Jefre Cantu-Ledesma

Shoegaze was hardly a fashionable genre at its apex, getting its name after all from a sneering journalistic put-down. But Jefre Cantu-Ledesma continues to put out emotionally-resonant albums that combine shoegaze’s waves of sound with introverted, bedroom sensibilities. On the Echoing Green opens with a crumbling industrial-cum-hypnagogia heart murmur of a track (“In a Copse”) but gradually opens itself up like light permeating a dark and dusty room. “A Song of Summer” shimmers with romantic nostalgia, its title evoking early Durutti Column but sonically it will resonate most clearly with Souvlaki-era Slowdive fans as swooning guitar notes percolate over dense layers of synth and a dislocated female voice (Argentinian singer Sobrenadar) mumbles wistfully alongside his sweeping sonic vistas. The whole album rides the wave of this summery vibe, although to reduce Cantu-Ledesma work to shoegaze for the bedroom producer generation would be to do him a disservice. His talent for searing, bittersweet melody is so effective even the most cynical hearts will find the lush romanticism of On The Echoing Green hard to resist.

Joseph Burnett 

The Caretaker — Everywhere at the End of Time Stage 2 (History Always Favours the Winners) 

Everywhere at the end of time by The Caretaker

The Caretaker — aka Leyland James Kirby — has developed a familiar formula over the years, looping battered old vinyl records of music from the twenties and thirties and making the inherent crackle and hiss contained on the wax very much part of the listening experience. The intention is to provide an imaginary soundtrack to the mental degradation caused by dementia, and as woozy swing melodies or old ballads stumble awkwardly into focus behind these curtains of aged distortion, the effect is a disquieting one. For his final project under the Caretaker moniker, Kirby has embarked on a series of six albums that will track the process of succumbing to dementia stage by stage. The first iteration of Everywhere at the End of Time was probably the brightest and most straightforward Caretaker album ever, the tunes that form the basis of Kirby’s sonic manipulations almost audible in their entirety, the loops barely detectable. Already by this second stage, the crackle is more present, an ever-present reminder that we are listening to a degrading sound source. The tunes themselves are more mournful, often similar-sounding (bar the grim movie soundtrack-like “Glimpses of hope in trying times” that sounds anything but hopeful), with prominent violin, horns and piano. The more one listens, the more the glitches, the repetitions and the overall haze become apparent before slipping back out of focus. It’s a disorientating work, achingly sad and only promises to become more unsettling as the project evolves and Kirby folds his own memories of The Caretaker over themselves. This won’t be an easy journey into the silent ballroom, but I think it will be rewarding.

Joseph Burnett 

Chicago Edge Ensemble—Decaying Orbit (Dan Phillips Music) 

Chicago Edge Ensemble "Decaying Orbit" by Dan Phillips

You can take the guy out of Chicago, but you can’t take the yen for Chicago out of the guy. Guitarist Dan Phillips has been based in Thailand since 2001, which means he’s lived at least twice as long in the tropics as he lived near Lake Michigan. But he still comes back from time to time to play, and in 2016 he convened his personal dream team to record seven tunes. Trombonist Jeb Bishop, saxophonist Mars Williams and drummer Hamid Drake were all part of the late-1990s creative jazz scene that Phillips knew; bassist Krysztof Pabian is a Pole who moved to Chicago in 1993 and has performed often with orchestras and new music ensembles. They cohere nicely in support of Phillips’ tunes, which use bold melodies as anchors but leave plenty of place for free play. Bishop and Williams revive the partnership they had in the first edition of the Vandermark 5, and the album’s most exciting moments come when one or the other of them peels off a fiery solo or engages in some robust free-form interaction.

Bill Meyer 

Arthur Doyle and his New Quiet Screamers—First House (Amish Records)

There’s outside, and then there’s really, really out. The late Arthur Doyle epitomized the latter. His outside playing disregarded certain foundational rules of jazz. His tenor saxophone and flute playing didn’t so much develop as demand that you deal with their raw impact right now, this second, and his vocalizations utterly disregarded conventions of virtuosity and comprehensibility. In later years he often worked with improvising rock musicians, and so it is on this deluxe LP. It reproduces his final performance, which occurred at The Stone in New York on July 11, 2012 with a nine-piece backing ensemble that included members of Sunwatchers and NYMPH; buy the LP, and you’ll get a download of another complete set recorded at Issue Project Room the preceding year. Given the size of the ensemble and the waywardness of Doyle’s musical contributions, the Stone set holds together pretty well. The band supplied enough momentum to roll with Doyle’s coarse, impassioned tenor cries, and keeps things creditably spacy when Doyle starts lapses into formless babbling on “Stormy Weather.” But don’t rule his singing out altogether; the best part of the Issue Project Room set comes when Doyle’s chanted cadences turn a NY art-music room into a house of spirits.

Bill Meyer 

Emperor X—Oversleepers International 

Oversleepers International by Emperor X

If you want a catalog of what’s wrong with the world right now, you could do worse than “30,000 Euros” the second track on this eighth full-length from Emperor X. The song skips from medical bankruptcy to lax gun laws to embattled Syria and its refugees in nervy glee, its yelp-sung verses punctuated with rambunctious drum fills and slamming guitar chords. It is, possibly, the most upbeat song ever about personal economic disaster, and the man behind it, Chad Matheny is punching up, full-strength, undeterred by futility, at an inhospitable world. It’s one of another bunch of ebullient, pithy, SAT-word studded songs, extended this time by electro flourishes (“Warmth Perimeter feat. Stephen Steinbrink”) and a really long field recording (“5-Hour Energy, Poland, 2017”). In 2011, I called Western Teleport “an intricate, but convoluted kind of pop,” and Oversleepers International is more of this gloriously over-thought ilk. “Schopenhauer in Berlin watched the metropolis collapse …it’s a sign of the time we’re in that we’re thinking along the same lines,” sings Matheny on the opening cut, the single, hitching his commercial success to the end of history and a German philosopher. And yet, it’s a catchy tune, and you’ll probably be humming it to yourself in a week or so.

Jennifer Kelly 

Monas—Freedom (Astral Spirits) 

Freedom by Monas

Lately, Kid Millions’ Man Forever project has been exploring a mixture of pop and contemporary classical composition. But the drummer has not forsaken free improvisation, and Astral Spirits seems to be his platform for untethered shred-fests. In 2015, he and Borbetomagus saxophonist Jim Sauter gave the label Bloom, a splendid beyond-borders blowout of monstrous proportions. Monas is a one-off collaboration between Millions, bassist Johnny DeBlase (of Many Arms with Nick Millevoi) and multi-instrumentalist Colin Fisher. The precedent for their brand of pedal-to-the-metal improvisation is Last Exit, but there are differences. DeBlase eschews Laswellian funk gestures in favor of bass explosions that balloon the music’s middle like a string of hand grenades being detonated in some unfortunate whale’s digestive tract. Millions likewise favors steeple chasing over timekeeping, which keeps the music more than brisk. Fisher has the unenviable task of being both Sonny Sharrock and Peter Brötzmann, and if one says he’s not quite up to that task, well, that’s just acknowledging that he is one man rather than two titans. He shreds on both saxophone and guitar, but his horn playing shows more dynamic range, which makes “Invisible Nature” the more involving listen. The build-up portions of “Visible Spirit” are pretty gripping, but when the guitar attains fast and ferocious mode it feels like there is nowhere to go. One hopes that this trio finds a way to keep going; music like this is best experienced in person, and the more time they spend together, the more chance they’ll have to explore.

Bill Meyer 

Anthony Pasquarosa — Abbandonato Da Dio Nazione (Vins Du Select Qualitite/Thin Wrist Recordings)

Anthony Pasquarosa is one restless guitar-slinger. Basho-steeped fantasias, new age meditations and a psychedelic tribute to Pharoah Sanders — that’s just the last three records. This one is a spaghetti western of the mind, replete with gunshot sound effects, a hesitant banjo interlude that predicts impending death and guitar leads that glint like a bad man’s gold teeth in the noonday sun. Pasquarosa checks off the obligatory tropes, but he sequences them so appositely and plays them with such feeling that they feel like the truth rather than a cliché, and what more could you ask of a piece of fiction? Since it’s sonic fiction, you could also ask for acoustic guitar figures that sound like they flew away from his 12 strings and up the walls of a canyon before they banked back and into your ears, and your request would be granted.

Bill Meyer

TenHornedBeast -- Death Has No Companion (Cold Spring) 

A cold, dark path leads up towards an equally bleak future. The music of TenHornedBeast, aka Christopher Walton, has ever been dark and moody, but Death Has No Companion is unparalleled. The Dylan Thomas nod is surely deliberate, refracting the poet’s defiance in the wake of death into a sense of isolation and despair. Like a soundtrack to a Bela Tarr film, these three tracks are quiet, windswept and desolate, evoking imagery of vast, uncaring spaces and relentlessly unfriendly weather. Of course, this has long been the go-to aesthetic of Cold Spring, but none conjures up the sheer, quailing reality of being alone in an uncaring universe better than Walton, whose drifting guitar lines, dank piano chords and echoing drones form a beautifully sepulchral aural universe.

Joseph Burnett            

[ohthewhomanity]

Multiples of 6 for the ask thing? Disregard 144 though--there's no answer for that one ;)

At this point you’re definitely trying to help me procrastinate and I love you for it XD

6. What fictional place would you like to visit?

Once I’m in the TARDIS (which is a place in its own right) I want to go wherever River Song is and help her on some archaeological adventure there

12. What skill would you like to master?

Fluency in as many languages as I can. But let’s start with Spanish and Hebrew.

18. What game or movie universe would you like to live in?

The Rune Factory games! They’re full of magical creatures and everybody’s so happy and nice there.

24. What do you wish you knew more about?

Graphic design. I think that’s why I didn’t get those communications internships I’ve been applying for.

30. What TV channel doesn't exist but really should?

A channel all about Jewish people, with shows written and directed and performed by Jewish people, some of them are news and some are informational and some are fictional shows of all different genres. Then maybe we’d finally get some diversity and humanity in portrayals of us.

36. What is your claim to fame?

I’ve had some things published in journals. (None for pay yet, but someday!)

42. What subject interests you that not many people have heard of?

Foley artists! Those are the people who make sound effects in movies, since cameras are optimized to capture the actors’ voices over all else. They’re really creative and use all kinds of weird objects to get the right sound.

48. What could you give a 40-minute presentation on with no preparation?

The importance of diversity in media

54. What is something a ton of people are obsessed with, but you just don't get?

Things in which the punchline is someone being awful to someone else and it’s supposed to be funny

60. If all jobs had the same pay rate and hours, what job would you want to have?

Writing for TV shows

66. What is the most interesting piece of art you've seen?

I didn’t get to see it in person but in my Installations and Interactive Performance class we learned about a production of The Tempest that used big screens and projections for the whole scenery of the island and used motion capture technology to turn Ariel into a digital puppet for the whole show. I would love to use that in something someday.

72. What's the best way a person can spend their time?

Without hurting others.

78. What do you look forward to in the next 6 months?

So many things... Graduation, hanging out with friends, going back to Disney World, meeting new people, networking more, working and hanging out in the park...

84. What age do you want to live to?

Long enough that I can say I’ve spent the vast majority of my life having friends.

90. What question can you ask to find out the most about a person?

“How can I help you?”

96. What haven't you grown out of?

Love of happy endings.

102. What keeps you up at night?

My brain just doesn’t shut up - not necessarily about bad things, it just keeps going about whatever I was thinking about

108. What do you look down on people for?

Thoughtlessness

114. If you had a personal flag, what would be on it?

Dark blue background, gold pencil, trailing behind it wavy lines of silver writing

120. What one responsibility do you wish you didn't have?

Convincing employers that they want me. It would be so great to be discovered.

126. Have you ever saved someone's life?

I like to think so.

132. What were some of the biggest turning points in your life?

My Bat Mitzvah. Joining marching band in high school. Meeting @idriltasartir on that Europe trip. Going to Tekkoshocon and meeting @obsessions-and-dreams. Asking you to breakfast in that elevator in Stanley Hall. Having my first story published in Ink Lit Mag. Finding that video about the Disney College Program and realizing that my dreams were potentially achievable.

138. What are some of your morals?

Empathy and kindness are greater virtues than niceness. There is no shame in believing something that gives you hope and hurts no one. Happiness is not everything but it is a very good thing that can come from lots of small things. Everyone’s feelings are just as valid as yours, but the pain someone feels that you caused them is always more valid than the discomfort you feel when they call you out on it.

144. Why would you be annoying as a roommate?

You’re very sweet. But I can only assume that y’all find my badgering you about rinsing dishes off before you put them in the dishwasher occasionally annoying!

150. What is the most memorable gift you've received?

This is super sappy but every time I have received the gift of friendship is unforgettable.