#i really honestly love and cherish the 2016 one it means so much to me

[oreolesbian]

me in 2016: i really hope ghostbusters (2016) gets a sequel!

*3 years later*

me now: that’s literally not what i meant at all

[eis4ngel]

Chapter 2: Meeting a blue haired fanboy.

This chapter has a lot of “comedy” you could say :)

Maybe listen to this song while you’re at it

You knew it was probably him. Your favourite author from 2016.

You actually couldn’t believe what you were doing for a literal human, “it’s just some guy who knows his way around words” you told yourself but isn’t that any good author with an imagination?

So literally running into the line and managing to finally secure 68th place. Damn not even one spot below?? Very well, you realised your running ability has certainly gotten worse since high school P.E.

Around 10:14 am you’re finally second in line. Like any fangirl you’re absolutely dying just to see his face, you’ve prepared everything you wanna say and eventually you get to him and the first thing you say is.. “Book me I y/n love” damnit! You were in disbelief but nervousness does that to ya. “I mean.. book- you- I’m y/n i love your book”

He chuckles gently holding his head high, “nervous to see some guy writing all day in his bedroom?” He says softly

“Oh don’t give me that I know you have a huge beautiful office!” You pouted saying it with so freedom, unlike your nervousness from like 3 seconds ago. “Anyway look you’re my favourite author to ever exist your books make me feel so much emotion and just, so happy so you better be glad I’m a super fan I have all your books from head to toe I’ve loved them since 2017, you’re the best.” You literally blurted out everything you wanted to say in that conversation in one line, Mr Kamisato, was in shock and was abundant in joy.

Before you knew it you had to leave, plus your phone was buzzing it’s ass off

Venti’s the only famous person you know who still likes Facebook, yikes.

Yeah you probably had to go fast since venti was still in line waiting for you to hurry up while you were fangirling so hard over a blue

boy. You ran to the line where you saw a group of people surrounding your friends and of course, you finally saw Ei! You see that your friends were all just joking around and talking and really thought of how you wanna cherish this moment forever. Just nine months ago you would have never expected them to be as close as they are today.

“Honestly I didn’t expect Ei to show cuz of her busyyyy busy schedule yano” Beidou said with a smile while holding her hand over her waist.

“Why, of course I would fill you with my presence today as I would not miss it for the world, to see you all smile”

“and as Ei spoke lovingly it was our, well my turn in line. “

At the bookathon you took your 8 book bags out, that yes with your priceless books were in and yes you did make your friends hold a few. Guess what, since you had this planned for a month you knew you had the best books. It was a competition on which person had the best books, the limit minimum and maximum you had to show were 30. Out of the 30, you were kinda not loving some books as you saw the people behind you had limited edition kinda from places such as Yae publishing house’s “Yellow House” which was so limited that there were only 2000 copies sold. Yet you did know you had a lot more books that were way cooler.

You finished showing the judges and the results were gonna be in at around 1:30 pm, so now you and your friends decide to finally go eat some breakfast.

While you were there, around 20 minutes in your eye just decided to spot him again. “Shshjsvsushshsh” you splutter out random words and everyone just stares at you in confusion and laughs out of love. Ayato catches this since you were very loud, and smiles. He decides to tell his guards to wait and approaches your table, you wonder why while being really nervous.

You have your socials open as he comes by and he spots this with the corner of his eye

He just came by to say hello to Venti and fanboyed so hard over venti it was kind of surprising. He was freaking out with his hands over his face and everything, his voice went like 10 decibels higher I’m sure of it.

He then looked at you and softly said something you didn’t expect to hear..

-

-

Art : Ayato / Pitchi on Twitter

Art : Venti / @/3Miily3 on Twitter

[scripttorture]

Hi! A minor antagonist of mine survived the genocide/torture of his species (sci-fi setting) as a child. He's now a young adult and suffers from nightmares, memory problems, anxiety, etc. My worry comes from him being an antagonist who is in a position of power now and who ignores/implicitly encourages the extensive abuse/torture of someone beneath him because their people are the ones that perpetrated the genocide. Is this skirting too close to the 'torture survivors are evil' trope?

Honestly I think the best answer to this one is: how many survivor characters do you have in the story?

 Purely from a writing perspective I think that you need multiple survivors in any story focused on genocide. Because if you only have one survivor then you’ll struggle to really communicate the scale of what happened.

 I had an ask a while back about competing communities (I can’t seem to find it-) where I talked at length about how torture and genocide imply communities of abusers and communities of survivors. Because we’re talking about a scale of tens or hundreds of thousands of victims.

 So if the genocide is a big part of the background to this story then it should effect more then two characters. Because we’re not just talking about a single ‘abuser’ and a single victim here.

 Think about where you can have other effected characters and how those characters were effected.

 Are there people who got away just in time, missing the worst of it? Do they have survivors guilt? How many members of their extended families did they lose?

 Are there people with tales similar to this antagonist? How did they survive? Did they do things they regret? Conversely do they feel justified in doing what they had to in order to survive? Perhaps they don’t feel like they took any active role in their own survival. Did their families make it? Their friends? How big are the gaps in their lives?

 Were there ex-patriot or diaspora communities away from the areas the genocide took place? How has the genocide effected their politics? How many friends and relatives did they lose? Has it made their community feel stronger, more involved in each other’s growth and safety? Has it led them to open their doors to refugees and survivors of their own species? Has it led them to do the same for other vulnerable groups?

 I was reading the work of a Holocaust survivor a few weeks ago and I was struck by her observation that for survivors this was not something that ended. Yes she was freed from the death camps, yes she lived and yes she emigrated to the USA. But the experience moved with her and (from what I can remember of her words) ‘continued on the streets of Boston.’

 She spoke about how she was the last person left in her father’s line. That entire side of the family had been murdered.

 And that, that is what genocide is for survivors: the holes in their lives where other people used to be. People they loved and cherished. People they passed on the street. Strangers that they connected to however briefly.

 Holes.

 You communicate that to your readers by showing the people who are left and having them show what they lost in simple every day terms.

 When I was a child there was a section of the souk which was full of jewellers. Most of them were Yemeni. And I liked shiny things as much as the next mammal but I never paid the Yemenis much mind. They tended to sell a lot of big, gold pieces, well out of a child’s price range and I didn’t find the style particularly pretty.

 So I’d say my salaams and walk on past to the stalls that sold antiques or Afghani pieces to look at semi-precious stones I could afford.

 They were young men, the Yemenis. They were probably only a decade older then me, if that. They were probably married. They may have had young children. A lot of immigrants in Saudi come over when young and have families (whether those families are with them or ‘back home’), this holds true of my family as well.

 One day the government decided it didn’t want them any more, they changed the visa laws. It did not quite happen overnight but the Yemenis left.

 There’s been a famine in Yemen since 2016. And I wonder how many of those men who smiled and said salaam as I passed are still alive. I wonder how many of them got typhoid when the infrastructure collapsed completely. I wonder how many of their children died and how many of them will be crippled for the rest of their lived because of hunger.

 I could tell you about their neat clothes and carefully slicked back hair. I could tell you how much effort they put into their winning smiles and how they’d try to persuade my mother to stop and look even though she wore horribly unfashionable abayas. (The rich white women all wore terrible abayas as far as I can remember.)

 And that’s genocide. Seen from a remove.

 Survivors are not saints. The urge to put survivors of global atrocities up on a pedestal as if everything they do and say contains exceptional moral insight is… flawed. Surviving something awful doesn’t make people morally worse and it also doesn’t make people morally better. Acting ethically is something everyone chooses to do or not.

 I don’t think there’s anything necessarily ‘wrong’ with having a survivor be one of the bad guys in your story. They’re people and they can make bad decisions like anyone else. As long as they’re not the only survivor in the story. Because you only get that implication when you’ve got one point of representation.

 So include the community. Think about where you can work in other survivors. Think about the diversity of experience there. Think about how to communicate the scale you need to justify the term ‘genocide’.

 There are a lot of books and survivor accounts of the genocides that have occurred since the 1900s. They’re difficult reading but I think picking up a few could really help you understand the kind of scale and diversity of experience you’re aiming for.

 Mao’s Great Famine is a good one for scale but it doesn’t really focus on survivor accounts. I found that made it slightly easier reading. I still haven’t read all of We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families but it does contain interviews with people who were directly effected and people in the diaspora community. That may be helpful.

 I think Amnesty International would also be a good source here. There are currently ongoing genocides in China and Burma which you should be able to find a decent amount of information on. The effected groups are the Uighurs and the Rohingya. There are diaspora communities for both groups and interviews with multiple survivors available online.

 There are other genocides happening at the moment, but I think you’ll find the most free, English information and interviews looking at these two.

 Overall, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this scenario so long as you take steps to make sure this villain isn’t the only survivor we see. The message that abused people go on to abuse others only comes across if you have a single survivor. And I really think that your story will be deeper and richer in a lot of ways by including others.

 Survivors are people. Most of the time I say that to encourage people to remember their positive capacities: their passions and relationships. But it goes both ways.

 Survivors are people; which means we shouldn’t paint them all as saints and we shouldn’t paint them all as devils.

 I hope that helps :)

Edit: Typos, whoops. Thank you for catching that.

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[fromtheplanethexagon]

the robot problem: a critical look at tobecky, 5 years late

hello wordgirl fandom i am back :) and i have a lot of thoughts that i never got around to expressing before i moved on from the show. so be aware that everything i'm saying is based on my experiences during the 2012-2016 era of the fandom & state of tumblr in general, and i am not familiar with more recent fan content.

it's been over five years since the show ended, and @ifbrd​ reminded me (along with some great analysis) that while tobecky was super popular since before the show technically started (thanks to the play date shorts), it's pretty unhealthy in a lot of ways that tend to be excused or flat out ignored in fanworks. i'd like to reflect on that a bit (a lot); specifically, how both the show and the fandom approached this enemies-to-lovers ship, and how easily this ship can slip into uncomfortable territory if we're careless about how we interpret the ship and create fan content of it.

i will admit, i'm mostly writing this as a response to past me and my old creations - though i moved on from the show as a whole years ago, i do like taking the time to reflect on old interests once in a while, and reevaluating my thoughts on them. and this ship is probably the biggest one that still lurks in the corners of my mind once in a while, so let's go.

cherish is the word: a short positive note before a much longer negative one

i wanted to start this essay off with some positivity, because i am going to be very negative after this. tobecky was, in some ways, cute. it's obvious from the very beginning that these two characters are on pretty equal ground, even if one of them isn't aware of it. and that's part of the fun - the irony of how unaware tobey is that his nemesis/crush/person that pretty much always wins against him is someone that he completely dismisses as incompetent. i want to point this out because honestly, in general i don't like enemies-to-lovers because a lot of them use a power imbalance within the dynamic, and i hate power imbalances, especially when it comes to actual life-or-death scenarios (at least, as much as cartoons can do that). in most episodes, becky is never actually forced to go along with his wishes. she's not held in a 'date' against her will, nor is she ever really outwitted by him. i bring this up because there is one huge, uncomfortable exception, which i will get to later.

another big plus to the ship is the fact that they just... get along? even when fighting? of course we get brief moments where they just hang out and talk about paintings or whatever, but i'm talking about how much they get each other, even if they don't realize it. like the word banter, for example. been there since day one. becky loves words, and while most other people in her life don't really care (ranging from 'eh, that's cool i guess' to her brother calling it annoying), tobey gives her a chance to show off and thus treats her as a worthy adversary as herself, not because of her more generic superpowers - something that we've seen in canon that she feels self-conscious about (see: her motivation in patch game). one of the less noticed examples, to me, is "it's your party and i'll cry if I want to", because it's just - okay. they both are excluded from a social event, and while it's obvious that tobey deals with it by destroying the city, it's also pretty obvious that becky also deals with her frustration by fighting in that battle. like, yes, realistically it's just objectively bad that he's destroying buildings. but they're also providing each other with a way to work through their frustrations, first by fighting and then by talking things out, and finally by hanging out together instead of dwelling on being excluded from the party.

so it makes a lot of sense to me that many tobecky fans gravitated towards writing far-in-the-future fic, usually by implying that some growth had taken place before starting to write the ship. (there are, as far as i'm aware, 2... maybe 3 exceptions, that take the time to attempt a real redemption for him, at least when i left the fandom.) because if you take away his worst moments, either by reasoning out that he was 10 years old and a mess, or that he was a cartoon character in a cartoon world where everyone's actions are over-the-top, or by just flat-out pretending that certain episodes never happened, there's some pretty solid ground to start a ship on.

go gadget go: we all do not see it, we simply close our eyes (review of canon)

when the show began, i was the same age as the characters. a lot of other people were, too - at least in my cohort of the fandom. i think it's pretty safe to say that many of us have fond memories of the show's earlier seasons, and held on to that interest as we got older, for whatever reasons. so like, not to be all 'as an OG fan...', but i remember seeing the shorts air for the first time in 2006. i have a diary entry in july of 2009 about how i, a 12yo with no concept of the idea of 'shipping', was disappointed in the new tobey episode because i wanted more tobecky interactions. (that was robo-camping, btw, lol.) and so i remember how exciting their rivalry felt, watching them as someone literally their exact same age, and then watching that again as a nostalgic 17yo, and then uh... growing up, to put it frankly, and realizing just how unhealthy most of their interactions were.

okay what i meant to say was, this section is an overview of the relationship's canon portrayal throughout the years.

first, we have early tobecky: this includes the shorts and the first few seasons. this is their classic relationship: he likes her and takes robots on rampages to get her attention, she majorly disapproves and has fun taking him down. we've all seen the show, you know what i'm talking about. his backhanded ways of trying to find out her identity often feature prominently in the episodes, which - sigh, i've mentioned this whole issue before, but it's kind of a grey area in the whole uncomfortable-factor thing, because while trying to find out her identity is VERY invasive, it's something that like... everyone in the show tries to do, even her canon crush (scoops). on the one hand, it's really not a great look, but on the other hand, this is a cartoon meant to parody a genre in which this trope is extremely common. so i just wanna say that i have Issues and Thoughts on this aspect of their relationship, but there are other things i find more important to discuss here.

second, we have late tobecky: this is seasons 7-8. this is... a very strange and huge shift from the previous dynamic, though it's not necessarily obvious. what i mean by that is that for some reason, the show writers made it so that half of tobey’s rampages have nothing to do with his crush on wordgirl, even though that used to be the sole reason for his villainy. seriously. we have the birthday episode, where he's upset because he feels left out; wg vs tobey vs the dentist, where he's mad that he has a cavity; and trustworthy tobey, where his robot goes on a rampage... after becky accidentally makes it malfunction. the two outliers are ‘guess who’s coming to thanksgiving dinner’ and ‘patch game’, but they still differ from previous seasons because 1) his destruction is isolated to a forest far away from the city, and 2) his motive is still to impress wordgirl, but his methods are relatively tame. also he completely gives up on the secret identity thing??? i may have missed some things but i think he straight up tells her 'yeah there's no way you're wordgirl, lol' and the subject is just dropped for the rest of the show.

i also want to include 'the robot problem' here, because it's one of two season 6 tobey episodes, and follows the 'doesn't destroy buildings to get her attention' pattern: in fact, he teams up with her to try and stop someone else from going on a rampage (even if his reasons are selfish, lol).

and finally. the other season 6 episode. we have go gadget go, the bane of my time spent in the fandom. because GGG is the single episode where tobey truly manages to take away her autonomy, and proceeds to abuse that power for an extended period of time, for his own amusement. it's bad. it's Very Bad. put in the context that it's a white boy doing this to an (ambiguously) brown girl, it's REALLY REALLY BAD. and the more i look back on it, tbh, the more weirded out i am that the show not only made it seem like she wasn't affected at all within the episode, it just... forgot about it (which is not unusual for shows and especially children’s shows, but WG does make some efforts to either retain continuity or create canon reasons for why things are forgotten about). it's the kind of thing that you can't excuse and honestly you can't redeem (like at this point, you gotta ask yourself why you're spending so much effort trying to redeem this guy when becky has several other possible ships that are nowhere near this unhealthy - violet, scoops, honestly even victoria if you want another hero/villain ship, my absolute fave rarepair rose, etc).

so if you want to still ship it you have to just pretend that it never happened. (i remember trying for weeks to write something exploring the aftermath of this episode, to try and make myself feel better about it, but the more i wrote the more i realized just how traumatic this event should've been, so i eventually just dropped it.) and i brought up my own timeline of experiences earlier to point out that this episode aired eight whole years after the show started. which means that when i saw it, even though i was a huge stickler for canon at the time, i'd built up my own idea of the show and characters strongly enough to go 'yeah, no, this episode sucks and i am going to pretend that it doesn't exist'. and i think a lot of other people did too, because i really saw like... no one mention it, ever, except for some rogue fanfics over on ff dot net that already liked dynamics like that.

because here's the thing, and i don't know if people nowadays are aware of it? but i'm 80% sure (cannot find a source, so the other 20% is that it was just a rumor) that the show was originally supposed to end after season 6. and even if it's a rumor, it makes a ton of sense, because we get 1) an 'ending' to tobecky, which is a bad one, 2) a permanent wordgirl identity reveal that significantly changes one of the major dynamics in the show, 3) an episode where TJ gets to work with wordgirl and get a nice potential ending for their sibling dynamic, 4) an episode where we see Two-Brains explore life without his henchmen... the list goes on, and idk how many of these are just major stretches. but the point is. if the show had ended there, that would've been a pretty solid ending for many things, including their relationship: aka, it would prove that it was only ever heading somewhere bad, and when tobey finally has his moment of triumph, he is truly evil about it. and this provides us fans who HATE go gadget go with an easy reason to dismiss it - we can say that it was an attempt to conclude things in a way that wouldn't have happened if the writers had known they'd get more time. but despite that... it is still a canon episode.

it is odd to me how dramatically the dynamic shifts after that, though, because we seriously go from 'worst case ever, tobecky is toxic, your ship is dead' to 'no actually they get along and hang out and get ice cream together and tobey isn't even pressuring her into it, she's happy to go along with it :)' like, immediately. i never knew much about the show writers, so i don't know if the writers changed in between these seasons, but i would absolutely not be surprised if they did.

the earlier episodes are definitely problematic as well (though they pale in comparison to GGG) but i think everyone who ships it is aware considering that tobey is, yknow, a villain. from memory, he destroys buildings to get her attention, lies to her about the level of danger that people are in to trick her into spending more time with him, blackmails her into reading his poetry, and he creates a robot based on her that’s supposed to be devoted to him (but of course, all of these things backfire). not great stuff of course, but like... he’s a villain, that’s the point of his character. and considering that he’s a child these are things that can be redeemed, if done thoughtfully.

anyway, to sum up this section, the show starts off with a pretty standard 'enemies with an unrequited crush' setup, takes a really dark turn for a single episode, and then for the rest of the show takes their dynamic in a direction that makes it much, much easier to ship. as long as you ignore a lot of previous content.

wordbot: where's becky's autonomy in all of this? (misogyny)

we've finally gotten to the fandom. i recognize that a lot of this is going to come across as hypocritical considering how active i used to be re: this ship, but like... i'm a very different person now. anyway. disclaimer i guess - i don't write this to accuse all tobecky shippers of being like this - i know a lot of us aren't/weren't! but boy do i have things to point out, so without further ado:

it is very hard to ship this without allowing some bit of misogyny to slip into it. very, very hard. the entire premise of the ship involves a girl falling in love with a boy that repeatedly pressures her to date him via threats to the safety of herself and people she cares about, which... it's 2020, i shouldn't have to explain why that's terrible & a terrible example to set for children (which is why i am glad they never made it canon, tbh). best-case fan content has tobey stop pressuring her and start working to redeem himself out of an actual change of heart, which leads to becky seeing him in a new light. worst-case fan content treats his incessant pressuring and sometimes outright threats as something romantic - and even worse, romantic to the point where he deserves her attention and love as a reward for not giving up or whatever. i did see this pretty frequently for a while, especially in the earlier 2010s (didn't read much, Not My Thing At All), but i don't feel like going into detail here because of how obviously problematic it is. one medium (but still bad) case is where the fan content makes him start his redemption, but treats her liking him back as a reward for not knocking buildings over anymore. another not great case is where she tries to fix him with her love, which is a very common and very dangerous romantic trope. both are just... so incredibly unfair to her.

in content where she tries to 'fix him'... yeah i feel like it's really obvious how misogynistic that is. girls and women should not feel responsible for the evil actions of men, plain and simple. idk what else to say here i just really hate that trope and hated it back then and it just sucks! so can we not do that anymore, thanks.

in content that treats her like a reward for good behavior, there really isn't much of an explanation for what she sees in him. if she just goes 'oh wow, you're good now, i am going to fall in love with you for it' the whole thing falls flat because it makes NO sense whatsoever. we get to hear so much about tobey and his feelings and why he likes her and how he feels about it, but where is that energy for becky? why does she choose to trust him, to spend time around him, what does she enjoy about his presence? where is her getting over scoops in the process of falling for tobey? where is her telling her friends about this, confiding in them, asking them for advice? where is her choice in the matter?

win a day with wordgirl: do you guys even like becky or do you just like the idea of her (misogyny... 2!)

it was pretty standard for all fandoms the early-mid 2010s, but that's still not a good excuse for why so many tobecky fanfictions centered specifically around tobey's feelings while refusing to give becky the same level of empathy and nuance. it is true that to ship them comfortably you have to redeem him to some degree, which means spending time figuring him out and trying to find ways to pull him to the light without feeling super OOC. but ships take two people??? and there was so much potential for fanfics to explore becky's complex feelings on the matter - because she is! complex! she's heroic and kind but she's petty and has a competitive streak, she easily befriends villains but also doesn't trust them and doesn't believe they can ever really change, she's the savior of an entire planet but has feelings of inadequacy as her civilian identity and struggles with feeling like she can be successful without superpowers, she's great at the straightforward meanings and uses of words and loves reading but struggles to write passages that aren't dry as hell, it can be easily headcannoned that she's neurodivergent (special interests, issues with fitting in with her peers, taking things very literally, etc)... seriously there is SO MUCH to explore about her character, and a lot of it comes into play when you add tobey into the mix (literally ALL of the things i mentioned are explored at some point using tobey as a parallel or foil), but i rarely saw fanfiction that explored her thoughts on things further than 'he's evil but... maybe good?' or 'he's evil but... i kind of like him anyway?'.

if you want her to fall for him while being a villain, explore it!! why does she go against her morals? does she lie to herself about it to feel better? does she feel like she has to 'fix him' as part of her superhero duties to the city, and if so, how does that affect her as she tries and fails to help him? does she fall for him when she believes that he's turning good, only to feel betrayed when he starts acting worse because he feels like he can get away with it? it's such a shame that fanworks spend so little time even considering these questions, and it is absolutely a product of how deeply misogyny is/was baked into how we approach media (especially back then).

tobey goes good: but wait, i thought this show was progressive (a conclusion, i guess)

ifbrd wrote a great meta recently about how the show is a bit misogynist, despite being progressive in several ways. honestly i don't have much to add, but i'd really recommend reading through this; it makes a lot of great observations about the ways that male and female characters are presented differently through the show

i have little to add, so i'd just like to conclude with a reflection on the ship from my current viewpoint. i do think part of the reason so many of us latched onto the ship, despite how obviously problematic it was, is that the show treats a lot of things that would be serious in real life as normal or even comedic - which is fine lol, i'm not going to pretend that it's not a show for little kids, so they have to keep the tone light.

but if we, as teens/adults, decide to engage with this content in a more realistic manner, we have to be prepared to confront how messed up so many of the things going on really are. and if you still want to ship it, there's nothing inherently wrong with that! there's a lot of interesting things to explore in this ship, no matter what stage of enemies-to-friends-to-lovers you write them at, and it can be really helpful to have a space where you can explore a dynamic such as this in fiction. (speaking from experience here tbh, writing some fic for them helped me deal with complicated feelings about some ex-longtime friends.)

so to write this ship at all means that there are canon issues that you need to deal with if you want to have them end up in a healthy relationship in any manner that makes sense (unless you create an AU where none of that is applicable, which, power to you then). and i’m not saying ‘write them with a healthy endgame or you’re Bad’, not at all lol. but at least please, please take a step back once in a while to examine the dynamic that you’re writing, and please be careful about whether you mean to be romanticizing whatever behaviors you end up portraying as good.

[cry-stars]

Fic Questionnaire

Tagged by @dazais-guardian-angel! Thank you so much, Dana! This is ridiculously long, so I’m putting it under a read-more, but first, I’m tagging @shocotate, @gemstoneslesbian, @theo-sev, @101flavoursofweird, @asa-liz, @teaofdestiny, and @ms-enmystic if any of you would like to do this as well! If anyone else would like to, please feel free, I mean it! I only tagged people that I know have an Ao3/write fics, but if you would like to, please go for it.

How many works do you have on AO3? 41

What's your total AO3 word count? 152999

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? 

Professor Layton, Fullmetal Alchemist, and Lord of the Rings are the ones I’ve written the most for. I’ve also written a few stories for Rune Factory, Ace Attorney, Astro Boy, Ouran High School Host Club, Marvel, and Sonic the Hedgehog.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? 

The Open Jar, Golden Child, Ambivalence, The Duality of Homunculi, and Responsibilities. They’re all FMA stories; I’m kind of sad that none of the PL stories are on top, since I think I improved a lot since writing the FMA ones, but it all comes down to fandom size, I think.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not? 

These days, I always do, even if it’s just a short “Thanks so much for reading, I’m so glad you liked it!” I’m just really grateful that somebody would take the time to read the story and bother to say something. It takes a lot of energy to leave a comment sometimes, even a short one, and saying thank you for that is the least that I can do. I had pretty bad depression about two and a half years ago and took a big social media break for about six months; I didn’t respond to any comments during that time. I feel pretty bad about it now, and sometimes I think about responding, but it was so long ago that I feel awkward replying now.

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending? 

Maybe that OHSHC fic “Funeral” I wrote years ago where Tamaki gets… shot and dies??? Why did I write that…??? I intended to write a follow-up where he didn’t actually die and recovers, but I never did, so the fic seems to end with him dying. That’s one of the cringe fics that I kind of want to delete now :’) Second-closest (and one that I actually like/don’t find too cringey) is my recent Clora fic “Almost Lost,” which ends with a lot of crying, but it isn’t a tragedy and their crisis is averted.

Have you ever received hate on a fic? 

Not exactly. I did get a couple of comments with criticisms on FF.net years ago, but nothing horrible. Sometimes people vaguepost about how Clora is Bad after I post something, haha, but that’s pretty much the extent of it thankfully... I’d probably cry if I actually got a hate comment adsjhkdsaf... :’) 

Do you write smut? If so what kind? 

Asdfhjkadfasdlfaf no. I get so embarrassed even writing about kissing. I’d someday like to write something that actually deserves the T rating that I give to a lot of my ship fics, but I don’t think that I could write anything higher-rated than that, and it’ll probably take me a long time to work up to that.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? 

I don’t think so!

Have you ever had a fic translated? 

No, not to my knowledge. If someone wanted to, though, that would be neat!

Have you ever co-written a fic before? 

A long time ago, my friend and I wrote a very silly LOTR fic where we would alternate writing chapters, with no planning whatsoever. Unfortunately, I haven’t heard from her in years; I wish we could have finished the fic, even if it was garbage adskjhdsf… I miss her. More recently, my friend and I have been co-writing (or at least brainstorming) a Clora story (costarring a cherished OC) set twenty years after UF. Even if the fic takes forever to actually come together, we’ve come up with so many great ideas and it’s been loads of fun.

What's your all time favorite ship? 

Clora’s definitely my all-time favourite. There have been a few others that are really special to me, but honestly, Clora has everything I want in a ship. They have so much potential for fluff and angst, and they can get SO much character development together. (and I really relate to/adore both characters sdjkhsadf…) The ship does get hate and that does discourage me at times, but they feel really rewarding to write about; I feel like I’m solving a puzzle whenever I get one step closer to having them get a happy ending together. Nobody had written about them since like… 2016 until I started last year, so I’m really glad that a few other people who also liked the ship have something to read again now.

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will? 

Some of my old FMA WIPs… I’m not really into FMA or the characters/ship I used to write for anymore, and I kind of feel like I won’t ever get that kind of passion for the series again, although I still have some good memories of it. Every so often, though, I get a really nice comment on one of them and wish that I could finish them for those peoples’ sake. 

What are your writing strengths? 

Once I’ve found what emotion I’m going for, I think that I’m fairly good at keeping it consistent throughout a whole fic. I think that I’m also okay at being sympathetic to most characters, even ones that I don’t really like; it feels awful when somebody spitefully writes about my favourite characters, and I don’t want anyone to feel that way when reading my stuff. I think that I’m good at writing about… longing or yearning too, haha… not so good at writing established relationship stuff adshjksfd but I’m getting better.

What are your writing weaknesses? 

So much… The biggest thing is getting myself to write at all. I just get so easily overwhelmed, distracted, or discouraged and give up. It takes me forever to write just a oneshot, let alone multichapter stories. I’m also quite bad at planning ahead… I plan major moments in a story, but often, the in-between bits are surprises to me. I do enjoy how my characters kind of take me on a ride and surprise me, but sometimes I find myself written into a corner. I also overexplain. So many of my chapters wind up so long because I feel like I have to explain every little detail. 

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic? 

I’ve never done much of that when writing about real-life languages, but I used to throw in the random Sindarin word in my LotR fics, such as calling someone’s father “Ada,” since that was common in LotR fics back then. If I was to do it now, though, I’d probably only include dialogue in another language if it was immediately translated to English afterwards, like someone explaining what a sentence meant, but I wouldn’t throw in random words unless it was a character’s normal habit to mix languages.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for? 

The Lorax, but it was super cringe, and I deleted the fic… Funnily enough, it wasn’t even about the onceler, it was about my OC dad for him.

My official first fandom in my mind is Lord of the Rings/Tolkien in general. I was a very awkward and excitable teenager, new to the internet, and met a lot of kids on FF.net who were as awkward as me by commenting on their very silly fics/writing very silly fics similar to theirs to try to impress them. I had so much fun and made a lot of friends that way, although I’ve lost touch with almost all of them, sadly… I really miss them. The fics are all on my FF.net profile still, but I don’t recommend most of them aJSDKsdf… Those were the days before I was an angst addict and everything I wrote was ridiculous. Most things I wrote before 2019 aren’t very good to me... 

What's your favorite fic you've ever written? 

Right now, probably Bright Saffron Dreams… I put so much love and energy into that one, and it has so many tropes that I like in it. If I’d been brave enough to make it slightly more overtly romantic, it would have been exactly what I wanted in a Clora fic, haha...

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #412

“there’s nothing i could ever write to help you understand this life  /  there’s so much beauty when your eyes lay lost in all the city lights”

Did you make any money today? Nope. What was the highest place you've ever jumped from? Idk. Have you ever gone swimming in a river? Yes, but it wasn't in a fast-flowing area of it. Is there something you really want to buy at the moment? I mention Venus' terrarium enough, so besides that, I'd really like to buy a plane ticket to see Sara, as well as new glasses. Would you ever consider culinary school? No. What was the last souvenir someone got you? uhhhhhhhh Do you have a favorite remix of a song? BOI I couldn't begin. Has the power gone out recently? No. Do you like driving at night? NOOOOOOO. What do you think is the most saddest sounding instrument? Either a violin or piano. Do you really pay attention to the ratings on movies? Nope. Have you ever snuck in to a theater/dance/bar etc? No. If given the chance, would you go to Ireland? Yeah! I'd love to go on a photography journey there. Are you afraid of standing on the edge of hills/skyscrapers/cliffs etc? Yeah, heights scare me and I have a serious case of "what if I jumped off?". I'm not suicidal or anything, but there's an actual term for that urge that is somewhat normal. I just can't remember what it is. Do you have a favorite species of wild cat (tiger/lion/cougar etc)? Probably the clouded leopard. But I LOVE wild cats. I think lions are the most interesting. Do you have an absolute favorite name (boy or girl)? Alessandra, 120%. It is so beautiful-sounding, plus I love that you can use "Alessa" as a nickname. My Silent Hill obsession is quite thrilled by that, ha ha. Are you good at pronouncing foreign words? I'm decent with German. When listening to music, do you usually tap your foot etc to the beat? It's weird, I actually have a habit of swaying my leg back and forth. Not even to the beat, I just do it. Have you ever literally cried on a friend's shoulder? Yes. Would you ever consider being a DJ at a party if you were paid? No. Do strapless bras work for you? Look man my boobs are too big for those lmao. Has anyone told you that they wanted to marry you/were planning on it/etc? Many times. Guess who's not around anymore. Do you feel comfortable enough to wear short shorts? HELL no. Have a favorite actor/actress from Old Hollywood? (Marilyn Munroe, etc) Not really. What's your opinion on people who stretch their ears? You do you, boo. Do you think tattoos are expressive art or unattractive? A R T ! ! ! What is your school mascot? I'm not in school. Have you ever seen a bear in the wild? No. What's the book you're currently reading? Wings of Fire: Moon Rising. Can you recall the most disturbing movie you've ever seen? Paranormal Entity. Has anyone you know gotten mono? My older sister did when she was I think in high school. Have you ever picked an apple off the tree and eaten it? Yes, actually! It was one of the best apples I'd ever tasted. Can you say yes/no in different languages? In German, ja. (See what I did there lololol I'm clever.) Out of the traditional superheroes, which one is your favorite? Spider-Man. Ever peed in your pants after the age of 10? Maybe TMI, but a few years ago, I had a very strange episode of premature incontinence. It stopped, but it was very weird and embarrassing. Had any surgeries? What kind? I had tubes put in my ears as a two-year-old, and I wanna say at the end of 2016 is when I had my cyst removal surgery. Ever told your parents you hated them? My dad, yes. Very vehemently. I will always regret the letter I sent him. Do you let your pets on your furniture? Of course. This is their house, too. How do you feel about kettle cooked chips? Ew. How strong do you like your coffee? I don't like coffee, period. Would you rather see someone of the opposite sex naked or nicely dressed? Uhhhh I dunno. I guess it depends on the mood. Would you ever consider visiting Texas? I have friends there I'd love to meet, but I don't think so. Too hot. If you could make a movie, what would it be about? Some of the less-upsetting/disturbing RP stories I've taken part in writing. If you were kicked out of your current residence whom would you call? My dad. Do you want a boyfriend or girlfriend? I mean I do, but I don't think now is the time. I need to set shit straight about myself first. Do you prefer broccoli or asparagus? Broccoli. Asparagus is repulsive. Was the last person you kissed attractive? She's gorgeous. Are you racist at all? Not at all. Do you read creepypasta? If not, you should. Nah. Have you ever vandalized? Nope. Would you ever scuba dive in shark-infested waters if you had the chance? Most likely not. And by the way, they do not "infest" waters. That's their home. I hate that phrase so much. Have you ever been drunk at work? No. Have you ever hit a parked car with your car? No. Have you ever slept on the floor with someone you like? Yes. I remember Jason and I made a palette on the living room floor at least one night. It was SO uncomfortable. I don't even remember why we did it. Which do you prefer: french toast, bagels, or cereal? French toast. *_* Do you prefer light or dark haired? I prefer colorful hair. Have you ever read any of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books? No. I remember we had at least one, though. Would you be prepared to do a job that you didn’t like, if it paid well? No. That would affect my depression so badly. Do you think age is needed for maturity? Absolutely not. Do you believe the future is predetermined? No. What the hell would even be the point if it was? Like you'd have no free will; you'd just be a character in a story a higher power wrote. What words are most comforting to you? "I love you," "I'm here for you," "you're strong enough to get through this," stuff like that. How important is money to you? I have a stressful relationship with money. I've never in my life had a stable income because the three jobs I've had were so incredibly short-lived, so the money I DO get, I cherish the shit outta it.. I make sure I REALLY want something, and I mean it modestly, but I'm also honestly pretty selfless with money, too. I'm very willing to leave considerable tips, I don't mind buying pricey gifts for people if I think they would really, really like it, stuff like that. Going my whole life being poor, I just understand the situation so well and want to help people where I can. Is there anything you want to last forever? Love. By that I mean I hope even beyond death, the relationships we built in life stretch into what afterlife there may be. List three of your passions: Animals and their conservation, LGBTQ+ rights, and the pro-choice movement. How old do you want to live to? As old as I can before the point of being totally dependent on others to do things like clean me and stuff. I do NOT want to be get to the point of essentially being a rotting corpse. What kind of love do you value the most? Romantic, honestly. There's just something so special about it. If you could control one element, what would it be? Water I suppose, because it would be the most helpful. Do you prefer foxes or wolves? Man, that's hard, but I guess foxes. Could you ever deliver a baby? I don't think I could. I handle stomach pain VERY poorly, and I know I would screech loud enough to crack the damn sky before it would be time to perform the epidural. Do you think suits are sexy? Yeah. Ever been called babe? Yeah. How old is your youngest sibling? She's 23. Who in your phone has a heart after their name? Sara. Favorite boy’s name? Probably Severin. Are your parents together, separated, divorced, never married, what? Divorced. Do you go online every day? Yep. What is the best quality in the last guy you kissed? The last guy I kissed, maybe his loyalty. He has ALWAYS been there for me. He's also funny as hell. What do you usually do during a kiss? Depends on how passionate it is? Do you have an older brother? I do. You’re offered free tickets to a Justin Bieber concert. What do you do? Sell those bad boys. What’s the genre of the current song you’re listening to? Pop. Can you believe it?? Would you ever keep your favorite animal as a pet? ABSOLUTELY not. I could write an actual essay on why meerkats should NOT be kept as pets. Would you ever sell your soul? Noooo thanks.

[thesunnyshow]

Name: Kim Age: 26 (27 in September) Writing Blog URL(s): @jinterlude​   

Nationality: Filipino-American Languages: English  Star Sign: Virgo MBTI: ISFJ-T Favorite color: Any shade of blue  Favorite food: Ah, I have so many, but I really do love ramen & this Filipino noodle dish my grandma makes. Favorite movie: West Side Story. A close second is Pride & Prejudice (2005) Favorite ice cream flavor: Rocky Road  Favorite animal: Pandas Go-to karaoke song: Upside Down by A*Teens (I think I just dated myself) 

What fandom(s) do you write for? Mainly BTS, but I have written for SVT, EXO, GOT7, Monsta X, B.A.P, & NCT

When did you post your first piece? Oh dang, when? Hmm… I want to say Oct. 2016 (?) on my first blog (I had deleted and came back to Tumblr).

Do you write fluff/angst/crack/general/smut, combo, etc? Why? I mostly write a combo because it just happens that way! My main genres are: fluff, romance, & humor/crack. 

Do you write OCs, X Readers, Ships...etc? I mainly write OCs stories because that’s what makes me the happiest when it comes to writing, but I still write x reader fics for drabbles and oneshots. 

Why did you decide to write for Tumblr? Funny story. The reason why I started writing for Tumblr is because an old group of friends said that I should write a funny story based on a college class of mine, so I did and here we are. 

What inspires you to write? Usually, it’s my imagination, but other times it’s either the song I’m listening to or even the show I’m currently watching. Right now, my inspiration draws from anime. 

What genres/AUs do you enjoy writing the most? Genre wise, I love writing fluff & romance. AUs wise, I’m a sucker for Royal/Royalty. Mafia/Gang & Soulmate AUs would be a close second. 

What do you hope your readers take away from your work? Oh, wow. I honestly never thought about that before. I think for me, the one thing I hope my readers get from my stories is at the end of the day, please do something that will make you happy. Your own happiness should always be a top priority for you. 

What do you do when you hit a rough spot creatively? I take a break! Instead of forcing myself out of the creativity slump, I just take a break and let my mind recharge. Then, I go back to my outline and look over while listening to music that I know will spark some creativity juices. 

What is your favorite work and why? Your most successful? My favorite works (yes, I couldn’t pick just one) are my Royal!AU Seokjin series (Fight for Me & Our Second Chance). I love the amount of time and effort I put into those two stories, and I’m simply in awe at the world and characters I created. My second favorite is my latest Seokjin oneshot, Protecting Each Other. It’s my first story that exceeded 10,000 words, and I’m just proud of how that turned out. Successful wise, I would say it’s, This Little String. It’s a Soulmate!Taehyung oneshot based around the red-string of fate, and every other month, I see someone like and/or reblog it, so I say that’s pretty successful!

Who is your favorite person to write about? Seokjin hands down. I mean, not only is he one of my ultimate biases, but for some reason my creative banks dishes out ideas and inspiration for him like it’s nothing. 

Do you think there’s a difference between writing fanfiction vs. completely original prose? I personally don’t think so. You are still writing original content that derails from the source material (or adds to it), all you have to do is just replace your idols’ name with an original character name, and there you go. What do you think makes a good story? For me, I’d say that if you’re honestly proud of the end product, then that story is good, and your readers will see that. What is your writing process like? First I get an idea, or I like to call it, “it appeared to me in a vision,” then I outline it (if the idea lingers in my brain), and then I start writing and editing. Sometimes I’d sprint with my fellow writers on a server I’m in, and other times, I’d put on music and just let my brain go wild. Most of the time, I’m sprinting with friends. 

Would you ever repurpose a fic into a completely original story? If I had the time, probably. I can see my Royal!AU series becoming an original story with different characters and an expanded plotline. What tropes do you love, and what tropes can’t you stand? I am a sucker for F2L I (friends to lovers)! I just love the idea of dating someone who’s your best friend, so why not date your best friend, if the feelings are mutual of course! As for tropes, I dislike, I can’t say that I have any. I think it’s because (and I feel so bad for this), I don’t really read much stories other than what my mutual friends have written. 

How much would you say audience feedback/engagement means to you? It means the world to me because I do like knowing if I’m doing something right or if I need to go back and edit something for clarity. Mainly, I get likes and reblogs (with no feedback), and while it’s still nice of someone for taking the time to like and reblog something, I would like some feedback, please. I’m still grateful no matter what, though!

What has been one of the biggest factors of your success (of any size)? I think it’s the support of my amazing group of friends/mutuals! It’s thanks to their support that my work is reaching a wider audience, and it just means the world to me that they read my blood, sweat, and tears. I love them so much, especially my close friend, Jey (softjeon on Tumblr)!

Coffee or tea? What are you ordering? For coffee, my go-to is a Caramel Macchiato with Soy Milk (from Starbucks), but lately I’ve been using my Keurig, so I just Peppermint Mocha and 3 tsps of Sugar (I can’t stand bitter coffee lol). For tea, I really like Mango green tea from Gongcha (another boba place chain). 

Dream job (whether you have a job or not)? My dream job is to be an elementary school teacher, however, I am currently working on becoming a social worker where my population will still focus on children/students. So, it’s a good compromise!

If you could have one superpower, what would you choose?  If I could have one superpower, it would be cryokinesis aka ice manipulation!  

If you could visit a historical era, which would you choose? Oh, that’s a tough one, but if I had to choose one, I would go for the 1960s so I can see the Beatles live!

If you could restart your life, knowing what you do now, would you? No, because it’s thanks to those life lessons that I grow up to be who I currently am. Sometimes you have to go through those harsh experiences to be a better version of yourself!

Would you rather fight 100 chicken-sized horses or one horse-sized chicken? One horse-sized chicken, then I can feed my family for months. 

If you were a trope in a teen high school movie, what would you have been? Oh, hands down, I would be the stereotypical geek/nerd. Though, I was called a “preppy” in 9th grade, so that was a first. 

Do you believe in aliens/supernatural creatures? Yup, especially ghosts! 

Fun fact about yourself that not everyone would know? I can say the alphabet backwards! 

Do you think fanfic writers get unfairly judged? Oh, hands down, especially when it comes to writing smut. I’ve seen other blogs condemn writers who write smut about real people, but my thing is that these idols are merely face claims for a character that the author is writing about. 

Do you think art can be a medium for change? I think so! Every artist has a voice, especially with what’s going on recently, we need to be able to use our voices to spread light on certain issues. 

Do you ever feel there are times when you’re writing for others, rather than yourself? I used to think that way, especially when it came to writing x reader inserts since I know that’s what “sells” to the Tumblr audience. Now, I’m perfectly happy with writing x OC stories, and I’m content with my stories getting at least 5 notes. If it breaks 10 notes, then that’s a success!

Do you ever feel like people have misunderstood you or your writing at times? If they did, then I wouldn’t know. Most of the time, I think my writing is okay with people. 

Do your offline friends/loved ones know you write for Tumblr? Yes, my soul friend managed my old blog once upon a time and actually read one of my smuts. I was so embarrassed! But at least he said it was tastefully written, so that’s a bonus? 

What is one thing you wish you could tell your followers? Always remember that it is okay to take breaks/go on hiatus! 

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers who might be too scared to put themselves out there? My advice to those who want to start writing but are too afraid put themselves out there is to simply go for it. I was that person who was afraid to put their writing out there for the world to see, especially with some already established BTS writers on Tumblr, but I went for it. At first, it might be discouraging but know that your mutuals/friends will always be your number one supporter! Use their support as a motivator to keep writing and finding your groove! Then, eventually, all of your readers will start trickling in and showering you with the love and support you deserve!

Are there any times when you regret joining Tumblr? I wouldn’t say regret joining but more like allowing my life to be revolved around it. At one point in my life, it felt like a second job/chore for me, and Tumblr should never be that type of site! 

Do you have any mutuals who have been particularly formative/supportive in your Tumblr journey? Oh, I have so many! The ones that come to mind are definitely Jey (softjeon), Beanie (jinned), Nina (j-sope), Kenz (parksfilter), Renae (mygsii), Atlas (astraljoon), & Niah (randomkoalablog) to name a few! I love these amazing people so much and cherish their friendship to the moon and back!

Pick a quote to end your interview with: "Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we're curious … and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." - Walt Disney

[lokemikaze]

Zuka Rant: Part 2 (2016 Yuki - Don Juan)

okay so. for some reason, the gang in the zuka server decided they wanted to torture me, and introduced me to the 2016 yukigumi don juan. i thought i was prepared, but uhhh apparently not - i didn’t expect this amount of pAIN D: i’m legit gonna spend the next week crying about this

if you don’t already know, don juan is a “womanizer” trash man who brings shame upon his family and doesn’t appreciate the people who love him - until he meets maria, who he for some reason falls head over heels for and ends up dying for. that is not the main focus of this essay, though; my wish is to expand upon my thoughts about don juan’s relation to mental illness. please note that this will touch upon heavy themes, including Bad Coping Mechanisms. i’ll say it again:

TRIGGER WARNING FOR DARK THEMES LIKE alcoholism and self-harm

so. where to start. perhaps i should first make a disclaimer and say that while i am quite Experienced with mental illness, i am by no means an expert, and everything i write here will be my own personal opinions and over-analysis. i also know nothing about the history of this musical etc., i went into this blindly and got punched by the pain

when we first meet juan (played by the amazing daimon, who does such a good job), he is at a bar, surrounded by women. he smiles his gorgeous little smile, and dear gods we’re all taken by this utter trash man. he pushes the ones who love him away in favour of having yet another fling as he empties another bottle. does this seem healthy? nah fam, this is a textbook example of actual self-harm - he may not even realise it himself, but the way he is dealing with his inner struggles is to drown it in alcohol and s*x. it is harmful to both body and mind, yet he uses it to push away the harsh reality and ignore his own emotions

there’s a very touching scene where we get to see young don juan with his mother as she dies. i think this is perhaps where some of his struggles started - he seemed to be struggling slightly even before this, but this is of course a moment that deeply affects him. he throws away his cross necklace, cursing god, and from then we can only imagine the path he took to get to the present. there is a very big chance he hasn’t actually dealt with the grief and trauma from seeing his mother die, and has instead repressed it. for years. and you know what we say about repressing emotions? uhh yeah it’s not good

so as i see it, the juan we meet at the beginning of this musical is a broken man who does not want to acknowledge that he is broken. he shows obvious signs of depression (i.e. pushing people away, losing interest in i.e. the women he desire), and he spends his days (unconsciously?) self-harming. he hides behind a smiling mask, when in reality he is filled with so much anger and grief, and probably - judging by his reactions later - is really out of touch with his emotions, unable to grasp any of them. it is, in fact, Sad Boie Hours

then, the ghost appears. or is it a ghost? i see this as a figment of juan’s mind - perhaps a hallucination? he clearly believes what he’s seeing is real, but nobody else can see what he sees. he is distressed by this (obviously), and reacts violently bc that’s the only way he knows to act. we can see him slowly losing his grip on reality, unable to make out the difference. as someone who has at several points in my life had hallucinations, i can confirm that the way he is acting is indeed very realistic for someone in that situation. not to mention that he’s haunted by guilt and trauma and all those emotions he has pushed down for so long. he loses some of the control he has over himself due to the extreme mental anguish he is going through.

then, he meets maria. it is love at first sight. he sees her, and talks to her, and cannot grasp - what is this feeling? why does it hurt, why does it feel like everything is changing? he finally has something that feels light in his life, something that ‘sparks joy’. maria gives him what no one else have been able to - a positive feeling that shines through the darkness of his struggles. he swears to change for her, to abandon his old ways and start a new and better life, and this is where i need to rant a bit about the costumes

as i said in my previous essay, i am a Costume Nerd, and i was a lot more pleased with the costumes of this production than in 2009 zukabeth (still salty). there aren’t many costume changes, but there doesn’t need to be. juan’s first outfit is such a Vibe, and i absolutely love it - and it’s completely full-on black. only black. however, after he meets maria and pledges to change, his costume also changes. he now has not only really pretty sparkle, but *white*. his all-black has adapted to include touches of white. there are of course multiple meanings that could be read into this, but what does it mean judging from the mental health viewpoint? well, black is often associated with depression and dark thoughts (hence the name *dark* thoughts), while white is associated with purity, joy and hope. my theory is that juan’s previously hopeless existence now has hope, something he wants to live for, someone he loves and cherishes and who keeps him going. there is light at the end of the dark tunnel, so to say.

then, maria’s fiance comes back from war and confronts juan. they agree upon a duel, and juan has what seems to be a panic attack. all of a sudden, the fragile happiness he created with maria is broken, and everything comes flooding back - including his hallucination ghost. in a following scene, he is seen with his (absolutely gay) friend, who tries to convince him to Not Do This. the ghost follows, and we see that juan is once again losing his grip on reality, lashing out and refusing to listen to reason. when the duel scene arrives, juan’s costume is back to the full black. his hope is gone, and he has reverted back into the anguished man he was.

in the beginning of the duel, juan fights mercilessly, wounding his enemy several times, each time getting more and more out of control. he sees this man as the obstacle between himself and the hope he tried to cling on to, and now that he has had a taste of happiness, he wants it back. he aims to kill, and gets angry when his target won’t. stop. getting. up!! this is when the good old hallucination ghost once again appears, telling him that he is only procrastinating the inevitable, that if he wins, he will lose anyway due to the sin of killing another man. you can *see* the moment when juan’s last grip on reality shatters, and from then on out there’s no hope of it ending well. he has given up hope, he has given in to the darkness, he has accepted as a fact that there is no good outcome for him. if he lives on, he will be plagued by his own struggles, unable to find a way out of the deep dark hole his mind has plunged him into. and so, he does the only thing that seems logical, and basically throws himself at his enemy’s blade. he states that this way, maybe he can live on in the love between himself and maria. my belief is that it was a simple way to commit s*icide that didn’t involve him having to actually do it himself. it makes it seem ‘accidental’, and lays the blame on someone else. 

and so, don juan dies. a painful, harsh death that absolutely punched my heart and wrenched the sobs from my throat (thanks for enabling my hyper empathy, daimon, well done). he dies with little else than the vague hope that maybe, he can die with love, and that something good will come from it all. a man who got too little time, made too many bad decisions, and had too many issues that he should’ve gotten help with ages ago goddammit. it is questionable if he was fully aware of his decision, being fully lost to his own mind by then, but what is unquestionable is that he suffered a lot. his entire life was filled with suffering, hidden behind a cocky smile. 

if you’ve read all the way here, thank you for considering what i had to say. i hope i remembered everything i wanted to say. i have no way to conclude this, other than to say “thanks, i hate this” to the sadists who threw me into this. it is a heartwrenching story that i honestly can relate to a little too much to (no, i am not a murderer nor a womanizer), and i felt don juan’s pain on a deep level. have i read way too much into it all? probably. then again, that’s the beauty of fiction - we all have our own experiences which affect the impression it leaves us with. and to me, takarazuka’s don juan isn’t about a cocky bastard who got too full of himself - it’s about a young man so filled with pain that it led to his demise.

[vithyahairandmakeup]

My Decade

My 2010 started with me finishing my one year diploma at London College of Fashion. I was so excited to start my new career with this prestigious qualification at one of the World’s top fashion institutions, but the makeup artist I used to look up to so much then, told me that I would not last long in this field. She broke my heart. And not because I thought I was doomed, but because of how discouraging and mean she was. 

Up until that moment I thought I had to prove something to my family, but then quickly realised that I am leaving one pack of wolves - my family of course - to walk into another - this industry!I swore to myself then, that I would encourage and support any other makeup artist along my journey and not be like her. I would like to believe that I stayed true to that to some extent. Whatever she had told me did place some doubt in my heart. Just as a precaution I thought I better apply somewhere and work part time at least. So I applied at MAC cosmetics, who had actually rejected me. They then gave me a call a few months later and asked if I could cover during their busy christmas period. Once I started at MAC, they kept me on and I worked for them for another 3 years. They even offered me the managerial position, the irony.

During the three years at MAC, I was so unsure and so confused in what direction I wanted to go in. It was a part time position, so it didn’t pay well, and I was desperately trying to freelance on the weekends. I would get a client once every few months, who wouldn’t pay me much. Without a car, without a proper makeup trolley, it was agony carrying my suitcase up and down underground staircases and holding onto it with my dear life during packed train journeys. I can assure you, it was not a pleasant experience at all.I tried being part of short movies, worked with the National Portrait Gallery, the Arcadia group (who own Topshop, Dorothy Perkins etc.), fashion shows for Nintendo, and even a shoot for British Airways. But all were unpaid and definitely got me nowhere except for a few phone pictures to add to my Facebook Page.

I would come home after a long day of standing and lugging my suitcase around, and my parents would look at me with judgemental eyes wondering why a science graduate who landed a very well paid job in a huge marketing company, would give it all up to do makeup on people for minimum wages and be treated like a servant?I honestly never ever regretted my decision. Yes it was tough not making money, and spending all my earnings on building a better makeup kit or on my travel, but it gave me life; it brought me happiness, it made me want to get out of bed, and it definitely distracted me from my anti depressants and suicidal thoughts. Being a makeup artist brought me back to life.

In 2013, I quit MAC and took the brave decision to go self employed. I registered my company officially. My freelance work had picked up, and I wanted to free my weekends from working in retail. I wanted to explore more and try out new things.I still remember I had hit 10K followers on Instagram after joining in 2012 and more and more people started to get to know me around the world. Instagram opened up a lot of doors for me.Having lived in Germany most of my childhood, my parents were ok with me travelling to Europe for bridal jobs because I was able to stay with family. I think I was the first Tamil makeup artist back then who travelled to neighbouring countries for work. That was probably one of the best decisions I had made. Travelling around Europe and doing makeup got me exposed a lot more and people who were not on social media knew of my existence. 

And as per usual I would still collaborate and work for free with anyone who contacted me. I wanted to get out there and try everything new. During exactly one of these collabs, I was asked to come early morning one day, to do makeup on a male model for a music video shoot. When I arrived that Monday morning I nearly fainted at the sight of Simbu, a very famous Tamil Actor. I was getting my station ready when the makeup artist who was hired for the entire movie did end up coming for this music video shoot. I was gutted. I thought I won’t get a chance to work with him and was prepared to pack up and leave. But the organiser was adamant that I stay and help out. I asked the makeup artist if I could do touch up makeup at least for a few scenes, and she kindly let me. The pictures I took of that moment went viral in South India, and that was the first time people in India started following my work on social media or even knew of my existence.It was also the first time a lot of makeup artists noticed me and can I just say they were not happy with this newbie getting to work with celebrities. 

It got worse in 2014 when I was asked to do makeup for another famous Actress, Sneha, for a Wedding Exhibition. To be honest I was very overwhelmed. I did not think I was cut out for the job and kept asking the organisers why not pick some of the more experienced makeup artists. I really was not ready for such a big job. I wasn’t confident.However, the organiser told me that out of all the profiles she had sent Sneha, Sneha herself picked me. That was all I needed. I spoke to Sneha on the phone a week before her arrival, and met her a few days before the show, to discuss the looks and make sure she was happy with everything.Working with her will forever be one of my most cherished moments in my career. She believed in me and trusted me. However a lot of people were absolutely angry at the thought of me doing makeup on someone as famous as her. They could not comprehend that someone as inexperienced, nor established as myself would bag in a job like this. I did understand their disappointment, but was sad that no one seemed to want to support me. 

Later that same year, I was asked if I was interested in being a production assistant for two songs from the movie Nanbenda; it was a Red Giant Production acting Udhayanidi and Nayanthara, line produced by Kavino from MYA Media. Of course I know nothing about production, but did not want to turn down this opportunity, so took 9 days off and decided to help out. The shoot took place all over Great Britain with a huge budget and an experience of a life time. I got to personally work with Nayanthara and saw what happened behind the scenes. I made great friends during that shoot, even had the responsibility of finding a castle and two horses for one scene, but went home having to deal with a divorce. Even though career-wise 2014 was a great year for me, but on a personal level I had to deal with a lot of heart ache. And no, it had nothing to do with my career, it was simply bad timing. 

The following few years just had me on a rollercoaster to be honest. I tried numerous new things; being a TV host, a judge for dance competitions and beauty peagants, modelling, acting in commercials which never made it on TV, makeup for adverts, short films, magazine shoots, editorials, none were paid of course, until I found a new love for teaching.

I started teaching one-to-one tutorials in 2014 and remember I couldn’t even get two students that December. The following year it grew to 10 students, and in 2016 I had back to back students who were willing to pay whatever I quoted. That I when I made the decision of doing a Masterclass after seeing Mario (Kim Kardashian’s Makeup Artist) do these around the US. I had no guidelines nor knew how to start. Masterclasses were unheard of in our community. I was the first.I hired a small gallery space, and rented 20 chairs. I had my cousins and friends help me set up and we bought a Kettle and paper cups to serve tea and coffee for everyone. I thought the day went so well, and absolutely enjoyed the teaching, to get a call at the end of that day from my mum crying down the phone telling me that our house got robbed. Well we quickly found out that nothing was actually stolen, but the house just go trashed. A lot of us that night stayed up thinking someone did not want me to do these classes. My high ended with such a low, and got worse when I woke up to a lot of emails from our students complaining about numerous things in regards to my Masterclass. Today, I have taught 16 classes all over the world now with as many as 80 students, and for renowned makeup brands such as Bobbi Brown and Nars Cosmetics. So don’t ever let anyone or anything stop you from what you love and what you are meant to do.

Anyway, the following years have definitely been the best; from campaign shoots for Pothys, being flown out around the world for Bridal jobs, being a panelist and being a Keynote speaker for American Express, working with South Indian Movie celebrities Amy Jackson, Bharathirajah, the beautiful Sneha again, and Meena, being in charge of Makeup for Anirudh’s Concert in London and Paris, interviewed on mental health and published in Huffington Post, and my YouTube journey with my Saree draping video amassing nearly 6 million views. I know this is not work related but me marrying the most amazing human being in New York almost 3 years ago definitely was a huge benefactor in my career too. Happiness does wonders, I tell you.

Either way, none of it came easy. Yes it was hard work, but no one ever publicly or openly talks about the politics and the drama that happen in the industry behind closed doors. How not only do you have to deal with your nerves when working on a big project but you probably have to pray all day that no one tries to sabotage this opportunity for you; that no one talks to the organiser and pays them off to drop you last minute (has happened to me countless times), and hope that no one talks behind your back and invents rumours about you. The best rumour was that my ex husband left me because I was having a relationship with Simbu apparently. When my Bride told me that, my answer was “I wish”. We had such a laugh that day.

My last 10 years taught me so much. I grew on a professional and personal level. I think maturity and experience has helped me deal with a lot of it, and face a lot of it.I have some amazing friends also who are in the same field as me, and I have never stopped encouraging, teaching, or inspiring others who are entering this industry. I want to be that someone I never had 10 years ago. Jealousy, competitiveness, and hate does nothing but destroy. It ruins, and it causes nothing but pain. Fame can be another culprit too. It’s great to want to grow on social media, but do not lose your morals, values, and principles along the way. Once you lose respect, it is very hard to earn it back.

How does one deal with all of this? I used to wonder why some people were so horrible, but then gave up trying to figure out what their reasons were. I still get hate or have situations were other makeup artists try and make it very difficult for me, but the first step was to block a lot of words and people on social media. Of course we want to be liked, and we want to be a good person and set a good example, but do we really need to prove something to someone who does not know you nor like you? No matter what line of business you are, there is going to be competition. There is going to be people around you who are going to watch you like a hawk and copy every single thing that you do. But let that be a positive thing. Let that challenge you to do better, and be better, and get outside of your comfort zone. Focus on your own path and cut out anything or anyone who stresses you out or causes negativity. It really is as simple as that.Comparing yourself to others is the worst thing you could do to yourself. Insecurities do not get you anywhere. Have the right people around you who feed your soul with positivity and happiness. And definitely stay away from those who like to gossip about others in the industry. Never healthy I tell you. Trust me, I have been there, done that.

My testimony is to help you see the non-glamorous side of my job, but also see how it has never been easy and still isn’t for any of us. In 2007 I tried to take my life. If anyone had told me then, that in 2020 I will be writing a blog about how to deal with negativity, I would have laughed in their face. But here I am today, doing what I love, loving life, and not being the slightest bit deterred by the few who will always try and bring you down. I have an amazing support system of family and friends, and there are hundreds of thousands of you who support me, so surely that has to count for something too. I am so ready to take on the next decade. Are you?

[lovemesomesurveys]

01. How would you describe your style of speech? Are you a fast/slow speaker? Do you stutter often? If I’m nervous, excited, or amped up about something I talk fast but also my depressed, brain fog brain makes my speech seem slower other times. I do stumble over my words and stutter sometimes. 02. When was the last time you’ve visited a family member’s house? What was the occasion? My aunt’s last year. We were picking her up cause she was coming to stay with us for a few days, but she was still packing and stuff so we went in and waited. 03. Have you ever tried to construct a language? How do you feel about fictional languages (such as Dothraki and Klingon)? Nah.

04. Were you born and raised into a certain religion? What was it and have you changed your religion? Not really. My parents weren’t religious, but both sets of grandparents were. The only thing was that my maternal grandparents were Jehovah’s Witnesses (I say were because they’ve both passed away) and my paternal grandparents are Christians. They both tried to push their religions on me, taking me to their church/kingdom hall. It got to a point where I was like, how do I know what to believe and whose is right? I then was like, you know what? I don’t believe in any of it. I was atheist and then agnostic for much of my life. That started to change around 2014. That’s when I first started showing interest and opening up to the idea, but it really came in 2016. I now believe in God and am a Christian.  05. How do you usually feel when one of your favourite television or book series end? Sad. Empty. It’s a weird feeling. I just have to like process it all. I’m left wanting more. 06. What do you like most about your town or neighbourhood? Nothing, honestly. We want to move and have wanted to for years, but we just haven’t been able to. Hopefully in the next couple years it’ll finally be a possibility. 07. In your opinion, what is an intellectual? Do you consider yourself an intellectual? Rational, logical, analytical. Deep thinkers. I think I’m logical, but I’m also very emotional. I let my emotions get the best of me and make decisions based on it. 08. How would you describe your fashion sense? Comfy casual. I wear leggings and oversized graphic tees. A lot of sweatshirts when it’s cold. I also love Adidas stuff. 09. Are you looking forward to any upcoming events? There isn’t anything coming up. 10. What were your first impressions on your current best or closest friend? My best friend is my mom, who I’ve known since the womb. I’m assuming my first impression was love and admiration. 11. What would you do if you knew a person that you were not fond of or even disliked, but they considered you as a friend? Would you confront them, avoid them, etc.? That would be awkward. If I didn’t like them, I’d be polite and civil when interacting with them, but I’d keep it short and I wouldn’t go out of my way to talk to them or anything. Like I wouldn’t make plans to hang out. 12. What are some things that you do to make you feel relaxed? ASMR helps at night. The only time I feel truly relaxed is when I’m at the beach. I get lost looking out at the ocean, watching and listening to the waves crash in and out. For that time, my mind actually quiets down for once and nothing else matters. I cherish the time I’m able to spend at the beach, which isn’t much. I wish I lived closer to one. My dream would be to have a beach home. I’d spend a lot of time doing that.   13. How often to do go to concerts? What was your favourite experience so far? I haven’t been to a concert since 2009. I’ve been to a few, though, and I enjoyed all of them. It’s hard to have a bad time at a concert. I’m the one who’s wailing out all the songs and waving my arms in the air haha. 14. What is your newest and/or current passion? I don’t really have any passions. :/ 15. What is your favourite smell and does this scent bring back any memories? I have a lot of favorite scents, but one that really takes me back to childhood is the smell of Play-Doh. 16. Do you still have a fear that you had held since childhood? If not, how did you overcome one or more of your childhood fears? Yeah, a few of them. For one, I’m still very afraid of all bugs and insects.  17. What is your favourite type of weather? Fall and winter weather. I love cold and rainy days. 18. Do you watch documentaries? If so, do you have a particular favourite? Yeah. I like different types, such as psychological, crime, history, ones about animals, ones about actors or musicians or other prominent people... various kinds. Whatever catches my interest. 19. What is the meaning behind your birth-name or a name that you have chosen for yourself? Do you think the meaning can relate to you or your personality in some way? My name means “to be crowned.” *shrug* 20. Is there a particular sentence or line from a book that carries a deep meaning to you? What is that sentence/line and why does it speak to you? The Bible is full of scriptures that carry deep meaning to me and offer comfort and encouragement. I’ve read a LOT of books throughout my life, so I’ve come across a LOT of #relatable quotes as well.

[takaraphoenix]

(This is a relatively long post, so here’s what it is: It’s a love letter to Haikyuu!!, the TL;DR is literally: I love Haikyuu!!)

I love this story a whole lot. I never expected to love it as much as I do now. It’s tied for my favorite all-time anime with my two other favorites (there is no picking the ultimate because these three stories and genres are too different to find a definite one that outdoes the other; all three fill certain needs I have in an anime).

But this one was... unexpected. You see, my other two favorite anime are One Piece and Sailor Moon, both anime that have been with me since the 90s, anime that I grew up with.

Haikyuu!! is different, because I got into it during season 1. Back in 2014. It’s... It’s a baby anime - in that it is still so young, compared to the other two. The same can be said about the genres; both magical girl and adventure/fantasy were basically the two types of anime I’ve been enjoying since the 90s.

2014 was the year I first got into the sports anime genre. In fact, Haikyuu!! was the second ever sports anime I watched (my first being Kuroko no Basuke). I never really took that genre seriously or cared to even check it out, because well... sports. Sports aren’t my thing, so what could possibly be the appeal of watching an anime about them...? But a friend of mine was very deep into KnB and after one convention where she cosplayed Kuroko, I figured I’d give it a shot and I really ended up loving it. And yes, I admit, the main thing that made me pick HQ!! next was Hinata’s hair; the bright orange really jumped out at me when helplessly browsing for a successor.

I watched the whole thing - well, there wasn’t much of it at the time, only the first season - and I literally immediately watched the whole thing again. I started my rewatch the same day that I finished my first watch. I’ve never done that before.

And after I finished the first rewatch, I started reading the manga. I don’t... do that. I do own two shelves filled with manga, so yes I read them, some of them are in fact corresponding to anime I enjoy, but usually when I watch an anime I don’t feel the need to also read the manga. (I don’t like reading much.)

In this case, I just needed to know. I needed to know how it continued, I needed more. The only anime that ever happened with is One Piece. And, much like with One Piece, I am horribly bad at actually keeping up. After a couple of weeks of being caught up and waiting for weekly releases, I drop the manga again so it can... gather more chapters for me to read. And usually I forget about picking it up again, tbh.

I rewatched the first season once more when the second season hit. And rewatched both seasons before the third, shortly after the second season had ended. And, after the third one ended, another obligatory rewatch of it all.

We’re in 2016 now, at which point I was pretty deep into sports anime and had started watching multiple ones with multiple sports and was so busy discovering new news that, admittedly, in the following years there was no rewatch. I was falling down rabbit hole after rabbit hole of new anime and the appeal of the shiny new beat out watching something for what would be the sixth time.

Only when 2020 hit with that fourth season did it happen again. At first, I only really wanted to watch that last episode of season 3, because well the release had hit me a bit out of left field and actually I’m kind of busy and there are so many things I’m already watching and supposed to do I can’t possibly watch 75 episodes of something I already know by heart. But mh, that final episode, how can I leave it at that? At the very least that final match, right? That third season. It’s only 10 episodes. I’ll just... skim through it, skip around it and watch the highlights - and oops, I forgot to skip anything. Well, now that only made me want more. I could maybe just--

Yeah, I watched the whole 75 episodes in a week. Which, admittedly doesn’t sound like much considering they’re only 20 minute episodes, I mean come on that’s ony 25 hours of TV. However it’s subtitles so it’s something that requires my whole entire attention and that’s not how I consume other media; I always write while watching TV. Anime is special, because no dubs for me. So it requires more time, in a way. And I usally only carve out time for maybe an episode or two a day when I watch an anime. With HQ!! it was that I accidentally kind of binged season 3 in a day like I didn’t mean to watch 10 episodes in a row but how do you stop? And it continued much the same (logically, if you look at 75 episodes over 7 days. That’s literally just math).

I had finished the rewatch and was left with the weekly wait and it is slowly killing me. My fingers are itching to just rewatch the whole thing again but I now have this girlfriend and like she’s super adorable and also loves anime and she made this whole list of recommendations so I’m kinda working through that and come on you can’t just watch one thing on a loop that’s ridiculous.

So I picked up the manga again, two weeks ago. I had left it off and bookmarked it on chapter 161. I’m currently on 311. That’s... 150 chapters in two weeks. That’s a lot for me.

That’s all a very long way of trying to express just how much I love Haikyuu!!, because I just... genuinely can’t stop? I’m so thoroughly enjoying this whole thing that I just wanna consume it again as soon as I’m done because it’s so good.

I love the character, I adore the characters. Hinata Shouyou is in my top five favorite male characters of all time. I love him so much. But not just him. Not even just his team, aka the main characters? This one just completely makes me love even the other teams - yes, naturally the main rivals the most because that is by design, but usually sports anime fall short on making me invest in anyone beyond the actual main team, it is very rare that the main rivals get some baseline investment from me. Usually I’m just in it for the main characters, why should I care about those... stepping stones? The teams they defeat on the way.

Haikyuu!! has me squeal and point stupidly when my big dumb owl shows his face (Bokuto ily). It has me excited for them all. Invested to a certain degree (naturally, I don’t want the other teams to win when fighting Karasuno, because duh).

I even love the female characters in it! I very rarely can even stand female anime characters because like... 90s American stereotype female characters be cringey but anime stereotype female characters are the bane of my existence. Here, I love them, I find them wholesome. They’re not being exploited like in certain other male-centric franchises where they need the biggest tits possible and the thinnest waists imaginable and only exist for the male gaze and for the male characters to be perverts about them.

Hinata isn’t some super gifted chosen one but he has to work hard, really hard. They all do. And they all get their growth and just the pure excitement whenever they do learn something new, whenever they do improve? Not to mention his character design, that short ball of sunshine and fluff. His hair kills me. Seriously, that orange fluffiness. He’s so smol but so energetic and so bright in that contageous anime protagonist way - meaning that he just makes everyone around him like him and cheer for him and smile with him (well, not everyone *side-eyes Tsukki*).

Tsukishima has such a great arch. He starts out as such a stereotypical bully who is just put into the way of the protagonist to create some tension, but then he actually gets fleshed out fully, gets his own arch and growth and I genuinely never expected to care about the damn bastard??

The humor in this one also kills me. So much dry-witted sarcasm and snark, so much of the humor lays in the facial expressions of the characters too! It’s a joy to watch and to read.

The pacing just works. There are some sports anime that rush too much through games and some that drag them out too long - but in boring ways. This anime turned one volleyball game into a 10 episode season and manages to convey so much tension and excitement that even after I had already seen it twice and absolutely knew the outcome, I still couldn’t even pause and had to watch the whole thing because I needed to see how it continues.

They manage to convey all this excitement and also the joy - the joy of the characters whenever a play works out - and the surprise when something new happens in ways that have me excited all over again, even when I really shouldn’t be because I already know exactly what happens.

And then there’s the animal theme. I love a good animal theme. The fact that basically all the teams have an animal associated with them. There are such great visuals given with the animal themes too.

Naturally, there is also always the component of shipping for me. Such great ships that I love so dearly and... honestly, nothing has ever made me ship an OT6 before because I’m over here, juggling all these overlapping ships and loving and cherishing them all.

I don’t know, on the greater scale of things and the vast, endless landscape of anime, this may just be one of many, but to me personally...? It is... It’s like this one was just perfectly tailored to me, specifically, in a manner I experience very rarely. TV shows are always about compromises. Sure, I like plotlines A and C and D but man do I hate B and yeah I love the main character but urgh X member of the main cast I just loathe and then there’s the unnecessarily forced canon romance that’s making me cringe - these kind of things.

With Haikyuu!! I just... enjoy everything. Every aspect of it. Every character of it. Every interaction between characters. The writing, the art-style, the animation, the pacing, the characters, the plotline, the execusion. I just love the whole damn thing.

[ashlinnjarnheim]

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FOR EVERY ‘@’ SENT I WILL MENTION AND POST SOME POSITIVITY ABOUT A FELLOW TUMBLR USER

@hopeplots → you can’t go around spreading positivity and not mention the very person you’re married to, can you? heh. cami was my first tumblr partner and the only reason i ever entered this 1x1 world, but that’s not why i think she’s great; i think she’s great because she’s beautiful, talented (her singing voice!!! her writing!! it’s amazing!! all of it!!!), funny, smart, and because she always makes me smile. (quite literally everything i’d want in a partner? please marry me irl. i love you) i’m so glad i still have her in my life after all this time. you’re quite literally an angel. 

@shierazade → i think lara might be one of the people with whom i talk the most (and, on that note, with whom i ship the most? we have so many plots together i’ve lost count by now) i love that we can spend days without talking and still go back to the same conversation as excited as ever, i love sharing insps with her, i love talking about serious stuff with her (i think she’s almost two years younger than me and she’s given me some precious advice oof) and i… just love her. that’s it. 

@bellawrits → there’s not a lot about bella i still haven’t said, but here’s the thing: i can’t imagine my life without her anymore. we’ve known each other long before either of us joined tumblr, and honestly, we started off on the wrong foot, but, seven years after that, i can say i’m glad we overcame it because this is one of the friendships i cherish the most. the day we’re going to meet is coming, i’m certain!!! 

@trackoftimc → FATE WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS, and thank god it does because i was really scared i’d never find her again. she just gives off the greatest vibes!! and she’s so nice!! and she’s given me one of my all time favorite ships, too (on that note, WHAT. A. WRITER. like truly. oof)!! and i’m so happy we’ve found each other (’: 

@nahshedidnot → also known as my beloved soulmate. suffices to say we bonded over chocolate and jily – how could a relationship like this go wrong? she’s so generous, always ready to help, and so good and so easy to love. and i do. i love her to the ends of the earth. that’s it i don’t even have words

@scumbag1x1 → i met gustavo back in 2016 and haven’t left him alone since! and, fine, sometimes he disappears for months and then suddenly comes back for three days, sends me a picture and vanishes again, but hey, those are three cherished days. and i do like the fact that no matter how much time has passed we’ll always go back to normal. and i specially like the fact that this is someone i can talk to about anything. and yeah i’m being cheesy asf and will never hear the end of it so i’ll just stop here lmaoooo

@monique1x1 → my second 1x1 partner ever!! our first ship still lives, as do other two and i live for them all, even though i reply 0.4 times a year (’: she’s funny, understanding, and i love sharing headcanons with her because we are two sinners in sheep’s clothing lmao she makes me feel like i can tell her anything and never be judged and honestly this is Important™. so yeah i love her

@undesirablenumberone​ → did you mean: my platonic tumblr crush? we don’t talk much, but i’ve been admiring hell from afar for like two years by now l m a o she’s just so intelligent, and a great editor, and as far as i’ve seen a great writer too, and it just shocks me that i’m mutuals with someone this Cool™. also her twitter is a whole mood but whoop

@etherwrites → also known as the person who’s put up with my extremely sparse replies?? she’s creative and an impressive writer and i’m really glad to have met her because i’m crazy for her and both our ships 

@uncrowned-goddess → talk about cherished mutuals!! we always spoke semi regularly and i really liked our interactions. also i follow her on instagram and bish does she look GOOD. and her tumblr content is always on point too so heh 11/10 

@snowplots → THE LOVE OF MY LIFE. THE CUTEST BEING. THE MOST ADORABLE. BIG UWU ENERGY. i’m running out of compliments to give but whenever i see dan on my dash, or speak to her, i get heart eyes. please let me hug you and never let go you’re too good for this world

@yas-suo → ah ha! tumblr partner #3! (it’s been a hell of a lot of time. jesus christ.)i used to say i don’t believe in good men, but here’s one!!! i’m still shocked asf, bitch. anyway, i could say a lot, but i wont, because this is long enough as it is lmao, but this is the person who gave me characters i could legit die for and a story to always remember and never let go. he’s creative, motivated, and also pretty much what got me through the hardest parts of last year, even if it was through fiction we’ve created together lmao thank you for putting up with all my shit for all this time (and by that i mean my obsession, my neverending drabbles and edits and playlists and occasional videos lmao, and all the rest, truly.) i shall never forget (’: 

[faakeid]

About k*i and j*en*ie news

Honestly, I didn’t expect to write something like this today. For real. It’s the first day of the year and I personally have other projects to concentrate. But here I am. And I know some people know this blog to exploring kd dynamics and when that mess happened in 2016, this otp especifically was mentioned a lot. But, at least for now, the impressions related with jgin and jnne won’t involve kd. Actually, it will be more a collection of thoughts about k*i persona and how his “romantic affairs” publicized can fit an agenda. Before starting, I just wanted to say that I’m surprised (positively) by the fact that people aren’t freaking out about it like happened with kxk. Back then it was a huge mess, but now even outsiders see it with some doubt. Somehow, people are opening their eyes and it’s really good, so congratulations!

Okay, so, talking about k*i persona. I think I mentioned this many times before, but k*i is and always was a character. Since the beginning S*M gave him this role of being the “sexy dancer”, seductive and womanizer. It’s obvious when you watch Wolf’s drama, for example and a live performance of them of the same song.

This intro has a huge meaning pointing towards what i’m talking about. The other members are close with the girl, but he’s the only one who can have some sort of approach with the girl.

Never forget Choco Bank, the webdrama that showed the most lover boy side of him

The problem is that the face behind k*i, jgin, never fit this description. In interviews, variety shows and other appearances, he never showed himself as the kind of guy the agency was pushing him to be. He was quiet, even shy, wasn’t comfortable with people he wasn’t close to and he expressed it really well (but he always showed how much he cherish someone he loves), talked about subjects like books, favorite movies, life philosophy, motivation... In other words, he had K*i’s face, but inside he expressed himself as jngin.

Things were normal until kxk news blow up back in April 2016. The chaos was made by then with the pictures, the photoshopped pics of them kissing, the date Dispatch chose to reveal the news (doing it on April’s Fool doesn’t help the news crediblity, I’m sorry), the fake receipt of a bought condom and so on. That and other factors were more than enough to bring him down. It was visible his distraught in many occasions and how it affected him (even in terms of projects). So, it’s obvious to conclude how that year was bad for him.

In 2017, things started to change for him. In june of that year the couple was reported to have broken up. Around the time, his media appearance got bigger and bigger. He had roles in dramas and covering The Big Issue magazine (which sold 80.000 copies, proving his popularity was getting stronger). 

In June 2018 he got strong on Instagram activities and had the opportunity of showing different sides of himself there (and a lot of other projects as being on another magazines, going to “Gucci Cruise 2019 Fashion Show” (and getting huge attention) and the list goes on.

Of course it’s good to see him getting the attention and recognition he deserves as an artist and dancer. But with all this activities, it’s easy to see that k*i’s persona blent better throught time. And with all this focus on his past “public relationship”, roles he gets, it’s easier to visualize him as the person he was projected to be from the start.

And now we go back to where we started: k*i and jnne dating scandal. 

This time, Dispatch didn’t commit the same mistakes she did with kxk. And at least ex0 doesnt have activites like they had right after the news blowed up (Lotte, jgin crying, never forget). SM waited a little longer to confirm (while YG was super wtf with all of it, as usual). Is there chances to see their rs as real? Only time will tell. But the point here is that SM always benefits from k*i “indiscretions” (if it wasn’t the case, they wouldn’t be willing to confirm everything). Dispatch too, considering that their goal is to spread news and make people interested in it. 

While readin The Korea Herald’s article about the subject, they posted a fan comment that was amusing to me. In the comment the fan said:  “If the rumor is true, be happy with each other.”. But why say that if the company confirmed it? And in a comment made in Allkpop website, the person talked about the affair and said at the end “unless SM wants to distract y’all from something happening in EXO again, hence the dating ‘scandal’”. It’s not the first time this tatic was used.

So, like someone asked: why is always jgin the one who’s caught up on rs scandals? Because it fits his image. Every group has someone with a specific role: the funny one, the quiet one, the sexy and so on. K*i’s actions just matches the role that was given to him from the start (if it wasn’t the case it wouldn’t have anything talking kxk dating back in 2012). When someone does an action that goes distant from the image they want to show, it’s where the blacklash happens (Sun*min getting married, Hy*na rs and so on). For k*i, a guy like him, he just need to see him dating. So he appears more easily than other members that can be also dating.

I hope this text could explain my opinion and show my pov well. Like I said, I wouldn’t mention kd here because it’s not necessary, for now. Considering what happened in 2016, things can be a little awkward for jgin, but he will get better stronger than ever in a few months. And, again, if this couple is not a stunt, don’t worry. Time will tell.

[amitojo]

What inspired me to turn vegan

In July 2018, I made a choice to turn Vegan; and no, the food in “featured image” is not vegan, it was one of the first meals I had in Kenya — JusClarifyin

This choice was out of the blue. I couldn’t even imagine myself being a vegetarian, let alone vegan.

I did try to turn vegetarian once when I was in college (around 2011). I don’t recall the reason but I did decide on that. One day into my decision of being a vegetarian, I went to McDonald’s and had a McChicken 🤦‍♂️ without even remotely being present to the promise I made to myself just the other day. It only lasted for one day! 😂. After that meal, I gave up on the idea of turning a vegetarian. I mean, I couldn’t even remember it for one day! It just wasn’t that important to me I guess.

My eating habits resumed to its usual after that 1-day episode — having non-vegetarian at least once a day.

Fast forward to July 2018, I went for a family trip to Kenya and nothing was the same.

We traveled to Nairobi, Mombasa, and Nakruru. We visited Masai Mara National Reserve and Lake Nakruru National Park in Nairobi and Nakruru respectively, and in Mombasa, we enjoyed some peaceful time at the beach. It was just beautiful!

Attaching some pictures I took during the trip. Some of the best pictures I have ever clicked were from this trip but unfortunately, I lost those due to hard-drive failure 🤦‍♂️. Managed to recover only a few 😢 — Ensure you have your data backed up. Extremely important!

Anyway, we spent a total of 5-6 days going on safaris and witnessing the beauty and sheer vastness of nature, and various animals including the “Big Five” – Lion, Leopard, Rhino, Elephant and African Buffalo.

I remember just observing all the animals, some from afar, some from real close and I could see Hugo (my dog) in them. The way these animals were being/behaving by themselves and amongst each other, lying around, licking themselves, scratching, yawning, playing with each other; All of this reminded of Hugo. I just wanted to love them and pat them. I was even calling them Hugo! I had never noticed this similarity earlier in my life. We got Hugo in mid-2016 and I just never noticed, not to this effect, at least.

My eating habits during the trip were just as they’d been — preferring non-vegetarian food in all courses (tried some new meats) and occasionally a pint or two of their local beer – Tusker

Anyway, the trip ended and we came home having had an amazing time and lots of memories to cherish.

As we entered our home, we met Hugo and I’m sure you can imagine the reception! In my experience, I don’t think any human can match the way dogs welcome and greet their fellow humans.

Hugo slept in my room that night (he usually doesn’t sleep in my room) and I was just loving him, telling him I met his friends there and how much I missed him.

Later that night, I was just laying in bed and recollecting what all I’d experienced during the trip, going through memories, photos, etc. I could hear a buzzing noise around me and I noticed a mosquito. I was contemplating if I should kill it or not. Usually, I don’t like to kill insects. The very thought of it grosses me out. Yes, I have killed them 🤮 out of necessity but I try to not do it as much as possible. That’s when I started thinking about my eating habits. I was reminded of all the animals I saw and how I was in awe of them. How I was loving them as if they were Hugo. I got present to how we are all made up of the same energy, part of the same ecosystem, and I thought to myself, here I am grossed out at the thought of killing an insect and on the other hand I eat dead animals? That thought didn’t sit well in my mind. I saw myself as a hypocrite where on one hand I was being extremely thoughtful for one form of life and, on the other hand, I was not being thoughtful at all for the other form. All forms of life are life at the end of the day and ideally, I don’t want to take away someone else’s life. Who am I to decide which life is more valuable or who should continue to survive and who not. I guess It was easier for me to eat meat because I wasn’t the one doing all the killing? I knew I would never even think of eating Hugo or any other dog for that matter, so why do I eat other animals, I asked myself. All animals are the same. In that moment, something shifted inside me and I made an immediate choice to turn vegan.

I was up for the better part of the night that night researching about veganism, what is it to be vegan, what all I can eat, and so on.

That day/night, a whole new world opened up for me. The first thing I learnt was that veganism is not just a diet, it is a lifestyle. Diet is one part of it.

“Veganism is a way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.” https://www.vegansociety.com/go-vegan/definition-veganism

Its been almost 2 years now since I made that choice and I have to say, I feel great on so many levels. I still am in transition, it is a journey. However much I love this philosophy, I can’t turn my whole life around so soon.

I used to 80/20 rule to prioritize my habits. First I attacked my diet and I am on about 90% vegan diet now. Indian home food is pretty much vegan if we take out dairy and meat, and believe me, there are A LOT of options. When meat was my first preference, I didn’t realise there are SO many options in vegetarian food. It’s funny, how people think going vegan would reduce their choice of food (or at least I thought so) but honestly, I think I have more options now than I had when I was a non-vegetarian. Earlier, I used to eat chicken every day in some form or the other but chicken nonetheless. Now, I have so many distinct choices of food.

I still seldomly consume some butter, mayo or other dressings when I go out to eat but that is changing thanks to the growing awareness on the topic, there are various places that serve amazing vegan food options and that number is on the rise.

I have to admit, at first I did miss eating meat, at least at social gatherings/weddings where I could see and smell non-vegetarian food around me. My taste buds really craved for that but it was shortlived. At such times, I was reminded of why I made this choice and honestly, that “why” is too big for me to slip. [Bigger the why, easier the how!]

Being a vegan, like anything is a matter of habit. Initially one might have to be vigilant/conscious about their choices but once the habit is formed, it is a routine — it is on autopilot.

Each day I am being more conscious of my buying decisions, for example, I check the ingredients before I buy packaged food; I ask the waiter what all is in the dish that I plan to order, I read labels on clothing to see what they’re made of, etc.

Initially, a lot of my family members asked me — why no dairy? dairy is fine; or why vegan? vegetarian is fine, and so on — And for that, and for anyone who is inspired to take on a vegan lifestyle or is at least intrigued, I am listing down a bunch of links that helped me become aware of veganism, its benefits (360º), what all we can consume, and the condition of the dairy and meat industry. If you say you love animals, just like I do, you won’t like what you see/read about the meat and dairy industry.

Bigger picture — choosing not to consume animal products doesn’t only benefit those animals, it also helps reduce carbon footprint. You can read detailed benefits, from various perspectives, of being a vegan here: https://www.vegan.com/why/

A detailed list of vegan foods along with suggested substitutes: https://ordinaryvegan.net/vegangrocerylist/

Learn what all food/products are vegan: https://www.vegan.com/foods/

—

In my previous post, I mentioned how Hugo has impacted my life. This post also comes under that category. Hugo has made me and continues to inspire me to be a better person. I will be sharing another insight I learnt from him in the next post. Till then you can read the first post of this series here: A conversation with my dog that changed my life forever!

Lastly, thank you so much for reading till the end! I hope this added value 🙂

If you liked the pictures, you can follow my photography page “MentalPictures” here:https://instagram.com/pictures_mental

x

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2010s: 20 - 16

20. maNga - “We could be the same” Turkey 2010

You could see it in my eyes, it should come as no surprise that the highest rock entry on this ranking is OF COURSE the avant garde rock entry. 😍

It certainly isn’t a stretch to call “We could be the same” avant garde because it’s an experimental extravaganza if ever there was, a rag-rag fusion of indie rock, industrial, hiphop and folk. 😍 More importantly one that WORKS. It’s really hard to put all of these genres together and not disturb the flow between each segment, yet that is exactly what maNga do. Their song runs like an oiled machine, supported by an excellent score of orchestral rock (the fiddle is an especially nice touch.) The snappy libretto keeps the ensemble well together, creating an atmosphere of pure coolness. 

This brave and creative entry is further supported by an act that has a well-defined aesthetic and artistic vision. (another sign of good avant garde. Pay attention because we are going to boot a LOT of them near the top of this ranking). MaNga don’t need much in terms of staging (since their song is already excellent), so a clever combo of strobe light seizure + dramatic helmet removal (FEATURING ACTUALLY CUTTING METAL AWAY WITH A BUZZSAW) is all it needs. 

FOR JUST ONE NIGHT WE COULD BE THE SAME

NO MATTER WHAT THEY SAY. 

Eurovision is all about taking the hand that you’re dealt and running with it. maNga did exactly that. They weren’t vocally perfect but again, rock is a genre where it’s okay to sound unimpressive because the score will always out class you. They don’t have the best song, but again, it was something special, brave and inspired. Every small aspect of “We could be the same” comes together into a whole that is much bigger than the sum of its parts and for that, I shall always cherish them. 

________________________________________________________________

19. Joci Pápai - “Origo” Hungary 2017

[2017 review here]

I was worried that Joci’s NQ in the latest contest would tarnish his legacy, but if anything “Az én apám”’s failure at being entertaining only made me appreciate “Origo” even more.😍 Let us not beat around the bush. “Origo” is art. Like all art, it’s largely hit-or-miss. You either love this wonderful fusion of rap, self-references to Samuraihood and gypsy folk traditions, or you’re a unevolved troglodyte with subpar taste.😈 Lol I remember the music journalists and juries HATING “Origo” and... honestly, I get it. Yes. I can understand that deeply personal anectodes and proudly displaying your cultural heritage can fly over the heads of those narrow of mind. It’s fine. Not every song has complex meaning. You can vote for the “Replays” of this world at your heart’s content. ^__^

Music is at its core a form of expression, of conducting emotion with sound, of telling a story. We use words as a crutch for our empathy, but truly good music doesn’t need to rely lyrics in order to spread its message around. The true message always lies in the score. “Origo” shatters those language barriers by slowly,

 but steadily

unfolding a melancholic and touching narrative

that strikes everyone silent.

________________________________________________________________

18. Krista Siegfrids - “Marry me” Finland 2013

A WILD DINGDONG HAS APPEARED

Only logical we continue from artistic complexity to figurative cotton candy. 😍 but the same musical principles apply here as well, actually. “Marry me” has an upbeat tempo flanked by wedding bells that already carries its happy-go-lucky marriage vibe across even before the first words are spoken. 🤗 It is there to indulge and delight, which it does with all the zest and pluck you’d expect from Krista Siegfrids. 

Anyway, I’m sure this will shock you but I FLOOOOOOOOVE Krista Siegfrids soooooooo fucking muuuuuch as a human and I am NOT backing down on my fanboyism. She’s one of the few Eurovision Alumni that ALWAYS makes me happy whenever she appears, either as a force of HIGH FASHION/UMK hostess or as a resident melfest flop queen.😍  HON SNURRA MIN JORD!!!

DINGEDONG EVERY HOUR, WHEN YOU PICK A FLOWER~

As it happens, “Marry me” is the perfect canvas for her over-the-top, realhousewifesque personality. "Marry me” just delivers non-stop: it has a light-hearted, infectuously catchy beat, doubles down on lyrical and visual comedy, carries a happy vibed with a deliciously psychotic undercurrent, supplemented a superb act featuring a groom-into-bridesmaids twist and some hilariously opportunistic lgbtq pandering 😍 OH OH OH OH OH

DING DONG!!!1!1!1!11!1!!

ps: this being the entry that caused TRT to withdraw indefinitely because they can’t get on board with some hot girl-on-girl action. STAY PRESSED LOSERTWATS!!!

________________________________________________________________

17. Laura Tesoro - “What’s the pressure?” Belgium 2016

“YOU’VE GOT A STUPID SMILE 😄” -- Alexander Rybak, when praising Laura Tesoro during the NF. (😍)

Lol this is where my degrees of separation come in, because I’ve met several people that personally know Laura Tesoro and... with one exception they ALL fucking loathe her. 😍 (and aforementioned exception is her cousin 😍)  The general concencus re: Laura is that she’s an insufferable conceited bitch. Now, this could have easily ended up terrible if LauraLaura was That Unfounded Girl but... um,

can we say she has grounds to be a bit high on herself? She was fucking awesome in Stockholm. If anything Laura’s diva id helped “What’s the pressure”. First of all, there is the admirable confidence with which she takes the stage and completely NAILS every twist and turn with minimal effort. This is pure performance TALENT and if you can’t see that you’re Helen Keller. 

And second there’s the message behind “What’s the pressure”, which is uplifting and cheerful in the hands of a normal person, but when brought by a narcissist like Laura becomes a hysterical exhibit of concern-trollery: “HEY PERSON SUFFERING FROM ANXIETY ~I~ *NEVER* SUFFER FROM ANXIETY. LET ME TELL YOU WHY YOU SUFFER FROM ANXIETY AND I DON’T” (god what an obnoxious human 😍 LOVE HER. 😍) 

All in all, I think Laura has the justification she needs to have an ego, something her aforementioned haters (begrudgingly) admitted after seeing her own the live twice.🤭  She is a living conduit of confidence juju, a performance wonder, a Diva trapped in the body of an antropomorphic labrador. Dynamite comes in small packages and Laura Tesoro is more lit than Chinese Newyear fireworks.  🎇________________________________________________________________

16. Hovi Star - “Made of stars” Israel 2016

I’ll be honest, Hovi Star is one of my favourite human beings to ever participate in Eurovision.🤗  He has proven himself an UNSTOPPABLE force of sass, delivering interview gold on a terrifyingly consistent basis. There are enough examples, but the ones I’m going with are his impeccable Ira Losco Snatch Game  and his hilariously petty, one-sided feud with Douwe Bob (Dutch reporter: “what do you think about Douwe.” Hovi: “Oh I don’t think about him.😊 At all.🙂  Ever. 🙃 *hairflip*” god what a King of stonecold putdowns 😍)

Having said that, even though I loved Hovi as a ~human~ going in, I was still caught off-guard by how much I loved “Made of stars”. See, you know what I think about stripped down power-ballads: I don’t think about them. At all. Ever. *hairflip*. 

However, this fucking song

pulls all of my heartstrings

with mesmerizing efficacity.

“Made of stars” showcases the best of Israel: they excel at classical drama: well-choreographed and sentimental, “Made of stars” is a genuinely touching ballad which Hovi magically imbibes with the spirit of Conchita. He whips up emotional tension so thick only his wit can penetrate it.

As an entry “Made of stars” is very emotionally intelligent and so, so brave. It has clearly defined yet subtle undertones of homosexuality that make me feel represented and loved. It is staged in good taste, elegant, introverted and clever, yet accessible, direct and poignant. The middle-eight’s crescendo-into-starfall creates a bone-chilling moment of beauty, of pride, of empowerment. 

For such a simple entry, it delivers a lot of great things, proving once more: it’s not what you perform, but how you perform it.

And this update spelled the end for Turkey, Hungary, Finland and Israel.

TURKEY

Not much to say, honestly. Turkey have three entries in this decade and two of them were good. They are a hit-or-miss nation for me overall, mostly because i LOVE them in the 80s and 90s and somewhat dislike them in the 00s. What mostly bothers me is TRT’s attitude towards the rainbow community AND their self-entitlement towards the jury vote/big five. Both are highly toxic and I’d rather they keep on sitting out until they’re willing to become a healthy part of the Eurovision community again. 

HUNGARY

Hungary are a good Eurovision country and their statistics reflect that. Boggie of COURSE ruined it by being the worst, but she’s an exception, not the rule. They are a really good country for indie gems and hopefully they’ll get their shit together. Could make a nice outsider winner pick in the upcoming decade, who knows?

FINLAND

Finland is such an underrated eurovision nation. I mean, look at that chart, and then ponder on the fact, with 7 good entries out of 10,  they NQ’d six times and that NONE of their four qualifiers reached the top 10. Finland are bullied beyond belief and it fucking needs to end. 

ISRAEL

This looks more underwhelming on paper than it is in reality. Israel’s probelm is never the song. Their songs are nearly always good. The problem is the live performance, where they get their accents wrong (ie: Mei dying from wideshotitis, Kobi being reduced to a sobstory, Dana being a giant penis joke, Harel fucking up vocally and Netta being reduced to a parody of herself). They just need to lighten up more, which they did post-Nadav resulting in a few great entries, and Toy. Overall, Israel are one of my favourite Eurovision countries, and for good reason: when they are good, they are fucking excellent. 

[unwarrantedopinions-blog1]

“NINE” by Blink-182

So for my first “official” blog post, I figured I’d write about something near and dear to my heart. My favorite band, Blink-182, released their new album “NINE” 09/20/2019. As soon as I heard it, it sparked some sort of energy and interest in me to blog a review. It started out as a journal, but with some encouragement and motivation from my friends, I was able to pen a full review and now, post it. So here it is, my complete review of the album “NINE” as I heard it for the first time, with additional information added with subsequent play throughs.

1. The First Time - 2:27

Upbeat, loud drums, distant yelling. Cherish your first times for any occasion. Memories about taking risks, taking chances. What are you going to remember when you’re old?: the memories you made taking risks or the times you played it safe? Take risks, try new things, experience life. Still wishing Tom DeLonge was back, but his replacement, Matt Skiba (also the frontman of rock band Alkaline Trio), is fitting in perfectly fine with Mark and Travis.

Final: 8/10.

2. Happy Days - 2:59

Sounds very reminiscent of “Stay Together For The Kids”. A song about being positive when you don’t know what positive even is, don’t know what’s going on, don’t know what your next step is. “I want to feel happy days”. Memories triggering sadness, not doing enough, feeling like you aren’t enough. Yet, at the same time, still being content in your life. Still pushing, still trying, still working to achieve your true happiness. It’s like you can acknowledge there is room for change, but you don’t know if you can yet. It’s a first step, though, and sometimes that’s all it takes for everything to fall into place.

Final: 9/10

3. Heaven - 3:17

First thought: existential crisis. Impulsive actions. Self destruction. From good to bad, not getting into Heaven based off of prior actions. Struggling to better, but falling short due to lack of effort. A feeling of being forgotten, left behind, not fitting in because of your choices. “We’re lost in our ways, nothing left to say” .. “we’re stuck in our ways, I’ve got so much to say”. Acknowledging the need to change, but not actually changing.

Final: 7/10

4. Darkside - 3:01

Observing a mysterious, unknown girl. I get an 80’s vibe from this song. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Following someone into the unknown for a new journey, to a new world, an unknown place. New experiences. Sounds kinda synthy at the bridge. The fading of the loud voices make it sound more like a yell.

Final: 7/10

5. Blame It On My Youth - 3:06

Airy sound, bass comes in, Mark’s angel voice. Growing up in the past vs growing up today. Apologizing for differences in their youth vs how they are in adulthood, but ultimately saying to blame it on how they were raised. We are in a completely different time now than what they were when they were growing up. “I don’t need an excuse”. What was socially accepted then ( ) vs now (maybe 2016 on), they are two completely different time frames and have two completely different socially acceptable norms.

Final: 7/10

6. Generational Divide - 0:49

Heavy drums. Work in progress adjusting to life before and life after? This is probably the most confusing bit in the whole album. The rating is more for sound than message since it was so short and I didn’t get much out of it.

Final: 8/10

7. Run Away - 2:28

Sounds very two albums ago. Childish rebellion, teen angst vibes. Possibly a song about blaming others for your actions but still getting left with the responsibility. Running away from your problems, but hoping someone holds you down to own up to them. Definite “Neighborhoods” vibes based off of the sound alone. Another great Blink album.

Final: 7/10

8. Black Rain - 2:46

Starts slow with Skiba vocals, then the pace picks up and it’s loud singing by Mark. Chorus comes back in and is slow, lighter than during Mark’s part. A song about struggling with loss. Mark’s voice seems far away when listening through a phone or TV speaker, different when you’re wearing headphones/earbuds/etc. “Tragedy erased my memory and now all I see is this black rain. Tragedy, you too my everything.” Sound is actually kinda shit in conjunction with their voices.

Final: 6/10

9. I Really Wish I Hated You - 3:11

This song hit hard, it’s very relatable. “Cuz I really don’t like myself without you, every song I sing is still about you. Save me from myself the way you used to, cuz I really don’t like myself without you. I really wish I hated you right now. Won’t you say something?” Being broken with someone you clearly love, not knowing what to do without them, unable to cope with them being gone. A longing for someone you wish you could have because you gave them your all, you tried your hardest, but love being too strong to stay. Stuck in the past, thinking, reminiscing. Hard to let go of someone you care about, even though you know they are better off without you. You start to feel like a burden and it doesn’t even get better. “I hate the way you’re better off” .. basically letting them go because you know it’s the less selfish thing to do if it means they’re happy. You can’t keep someone for your own benefit.

Final: 10/10

10. Pin the Grenade - 2:59

Another song about losing someone, life changing and going on without them. Not being able to let go, t hint to drag it out as long as possible. Not worth losing someone compared to being dead. “Just another night before I’m lost and all alone. If you’re gonna kill me, baby, please just do it slow” .. dragging out the torture of being killed to get more time with that person you love.

Final: 9/10

11. No Heart To Speak Of - 3:40

Remembering a life you had before, losing someone, being heartbroken over the memories you keep thinking about. There’s nothing left for you here. “Laying on the bedroom floor, hanging on the words you said before” .. “Dying on the bathroom floor, thinking of the life we had before”. When you’re so heartbroken, is it worth staying alive when you don’t have that person who made you whole? The sound overall is good, reminds me of “Ocean Avenue” by Yellowcard based off the sound alone. I love the range of Skiba’s voice, from soft and lull to loud and emotional, almost strained.

Final: 9.5/10

12. Ransom - 1:25

“Say the word and I’ll be there”. Sounds kinda trappy. Like SoundCloud trappy. Two opposites attracting, becoming one. A guy obsessed with a girl, uprooting his life to be with her across the country. Trapped. Ransom.

Final: 7/10

13. On Some Emo Sh** - 3:10

Missing someone so much that your current life is put on hold. You remember things so vividly that it interrupts your current life. Questioning why you exist without that person who made your existence seem painless, easy, worthwhile. Memories, flashbacks, stories, all about someone you still love. “These feelings pound in my chest, maybe I am better off dead.” Still leaving yourself 100% open for someone you love that takes advantage of your soft spot for them. Is it happiness you’re after? Or is it the fear of being alone? Is there a sliver of hope left that things will fall back together eventually or are you just torturing yourself holding onto that hope?

Final: 8/10

14. Hungover You - 2:59

Fuck this song, first of all. Second, I absolutely love it. Super relatable for someone, anyone, that has had their heart broken. Maybe even for people who have broken hearts. If you’ve broken a heart, does this open your eyes to the feelings you left your significant other with after you were gone? The overall sound, the breakdown on the chorus, and the way Hoppus and Skiba harmonize gives me chills. The only song that I found myself screaming along to while I was driving. Can’t get over someone, they disappeared from your life. “It was just one time, one time. Started turning into two times, a few times”. “It feels like last night, you come over. And now I wake up, and you’re nowhere.” Is this even real? Is this a drunk hallucination? How long has this person been gone that he can say he’s “still hungover you”? Shouts out to Travis Barker on the drums, this one is one of my favorites because of the work he puts in with the sound.

Final: 10/10

15. Remember to Forget Me - 3:30

Sounds like a song that represents giving someone your all, being broken into tiny pieces in the process, and then all those tiny pieces being scattered. Sounds like some soft dubs in the second verse. Not sure of how to exist on your own without your person. Lack of ability to be independent. Kind of sounds like you want someone to get rid of every thought, memory, trace of you when they forget you. Don’t even think about me in the future. Erase your memory.

Final: 8/10

FINAL THOUGHTS

Well, I obviously fucking love Blink-182. I was always a little skeptical about Matt Skiba taking over for Tom DeLonge, but at the same time, I was never a fan of Angels and Airwaves (Tom’s other project), so I feel like it could be a reasonable compromise. Personally, the lack of vibe balance throws me off a little. You start out super happy, upbeat, encouraging, and then the whole album takes a turn into missing someone, losing someone, feeling completely lost without someone. And honestly? I fucking felt that shit. You can only be so positive when you feel like you’d be better off dead. The last, like, 12 months of my life have been absolutely chaotic and I’ve lost so many people from friends, fuck buddies, boyfriends, family members, wherever it is, I’ve probably lost it. I’ve made a lot of big life changes and shit so this album actually kind of hit me hard. Only two 10/10 songs, but a lot of 9s to back it up. The two 10/10s (“I Really Wish I Hated You” and “Hungover You”) made my “Top Songs To Scream Along To” playlist for when I’m driving and feel hyper, bummed, emo, etc.

I’m not entirely sure what I expected from NINE, but I don’t think that I was necessarily disappointed either. I like the sounds, I like the progress, all the guys are doing great together. They just did a tour with Neck Deep and Lil Wayne, including a few shows guest starring my favorite band All Time Low out in Ohio. It was a really fun album to review. I’ve listened to it all the way through a handful of times, writing over them between two instances and the rest just trying to listen without pressuring myself to make something out of it, but instead just to vibe and understand.

The big difference with this album is that it’s so serious. This Blink album is honestly so mature, there’s no dick jokes or short interludes about fucking someone’s mom. It’s super foreign territory for Blink to delve into, but I respect the change and enjoyed the album just the same without the jokes and silly antics. Another thing with this album is that I heard a lot of throwback sounds and I actually fucked with it heavy. Hearing an old song’s tune in a different way actually made the album kind of nostalgic. The beginning of “The First Time” has big time “Feeling This” (Blink-182 self title, 2003) vibes. On top of that, “Hungover You”, (yes, I’m obsessing over every aspect of this song), has BIIIIG “Snake Charmer” (Neighborhoods, 2011) sounds with the maraca/salt sounds. Almost every song on this album, if not for sure every album, has throwback sounds in a different pitch, frequency, order, etc. and I’m actually really digging it. The synthy sound from “Ransom“ is a dead ringer for the beginning of “Love Is Dangerous” (Neighborhoods, 2011), which is the last album that featured founding member Tom DeLonge. The sound itself isn’t spot on, but the concept of the sound is what is familiar. I don’t know if this was intentional, but regardless, it’s an interesting take on the new sound playing off the old sound.

So, what did you think of the album? Did you hear any other similarities between albums or notice any big differences between old Blink and seemingly new Blink? Comment down below what you think and suggest some new albums that would be worth a review! There you have it, an opinion nobody wanted, but y’all are getting it anyway.