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ppnightshade · 5 years ago

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My Top 5 favorite shows of the decade (2010-2020)

Since I was a child, I had seen a lot of shows, some of them a bit boring for me, and others really memorial

To start a freshly new year, and some big changes in my Tumblr, I decided to start making this top 5 as a special post (even though I should have done it days before, but I was lazy xD). Of course (and to clarify), it will be my personal opinion and perspective; and in addition, it will be for the shows I’ve been attracted the most It will be short, and not that deep as a real review, but you know, I’m doing this for fun (yay)

So Let’s Start!

5.- Aggretsuko (2018)

To start this top, I decided to put this anime. Some friends recommended this to me just after season 2 aired. At first, I thought it would have been a boring office show and by seeing how cute were the characters (because Sanrio), I was like: “is that an adult show?”

Boy, I was wrong

Even if the seasons were so short, these have really well made episodes. In contrast to the shorts, it actually had a really interesting plot and a more enjoyable time (11 min episodes instead of the normal 1 min shorts)

The anime shows how Retsuko’s life relates on every adult’s life. Starting as a worker that see things so optimistic, but learn in the hard way that life is tough. Especially when working by just a bunch of money. But when night fells, things are a bit different...

If there is one thing that made Retsuko so special, it’s her way to release her anger. The way she rages it’s so special. It’s not the typical guy who destroys things. She releases her anger by doing what she like: singing in a karaoke

It has good comedy, has some adorable characters that finally got some personality (if we take in mind that the shorts just show them as randoms with no background history) and lovely songs. Also, the love topics it’s something that it’s well handled. The story of Retsuko with Haida and Tadano, both different, but really enjoyable and cute to see Still waiting to see what season 3 will bring to us, but sure enough, it will bring some more raging of our favorite red panda...

4.- Slugterra (2012)

Ok, this show may be a bit old, but believe me. This was my childhood. Basically, it was a show where a gang leaded by Eli Shane, have to defend the 99 caverns from Dr.Black and his evil men, with the help of Slugs, small creatures that are the main ammunition for everyone (it’s a short summarize I know)

As you guess, it’s the typical battle between the good and the evil

Well, this cartoon was a masterpiece for me. An attractive story that can catch you in just 3-4 episodes, an animation that it’s so vibrant and some incredible backgrounds to watch. Every cavern has it’s own look. Including the slugs

Talking about them, there are different kinds of slugs, each of them with an unique ability. I think that I can agree with everyone that Burpy is the main slug. The most representative of all the slugs in Slugterra. But aside from him, every slug has it’s own personality (even their own names). They are like pets for Eli, and it shows the connection he had with them. Catching them it’s like catching pokemons.

The characters are also a good point of this show. Eli, the young leader, an adventurer and a guy who follows always the good steps of his father; Trixie, the extrovert girl that it’s always there with her camera; Kord, the troll mechanic, but that deep inside, he is a cutiepie; and Pronto, that guy who always keeps exagerating his stories, but it’s always there to keep the team united. All of them are really memorable, and enjoyable to watch

All 5 seasons and their movies managed to filled all the plot holes the show had. The reasons of why Black became a villain, the legacy and mistery of the Shadow Clan, and more. In addition, it even had a game in the app store. Isn’t that amazing?

This was the show of my childhood, and deserved to be in this top

3.- OK:KO Let’s be heroes (2017)

A really underrated show, OK:KO Let’s be Heroes is a show that got a lot of hate for no reason. But for me, this show was one of the best things CN had after a long time of bad reboots and shows

This cartoon is developed in a video game world, in the year 201X. Here we got the story of a small kid, KO, whose biggest dream is to become one of the greatest heroes of the plaza, just like the another guys out there. While having his adventures, he is always with the company of this two colleagues, Rad, a young alien, and Enid, a ninja witch

What to say about it? For me, it’s a show that got good over time. For example, you can compare the animation from the pilot and season 3 episodes, and you’ll see how much it improved from that point. In addition, it’s a really stylish animation that matches with the fights that the show have (and believe me, there is a lot) and some good soundtracks to enjoy the enviroment. And believe me, these are so good that you want to listen them again and again (Happened to me with Ernesto’s Jam)

It sure not have one of the best comedies, but it sure have some positive messages and plot lines. The path that KO follows to become a greater hero, shows a big example of resiliance and effort. And talking about plot lines, we got the stories of POINT and Professor Venemous. They started as simple characters and organizations that didn’t look like much, but as the story continued, it shows a big relation with KO’s past and some other heroes backstories

It’s sad that CN ended up killing this show, not promotioning it, and even not giving it so much time to air (you only found the show in a horrible time, like 1am in my country). Even if this cartoon managed to tied up some loose ends, it didn’t tie them all. It had the potential for more, but CN lost a great opportunity

But in the end, KO will live in our hearts, as our little hero...

2.- The Amazing World of Gumball (2011)

Oh man, this cartoon. The once called a “kids show” but ended up being something more.

A cartoon that shows the crazy and incredible adventures of Gumball in the city of Elmore. A unique world, where everyone have a special design, or different animation. Examples are Alan, Clayton or Ocho

Here we have Gumball’s family, his brother Darwin, his sister Anais, and his parents, Nicole and Richard Watterson. A special family, that always get involved in crazy things, but in the end, there is good chemestry in all the members.

What to say about it? Over it’s 6 seasons, it managed to gave us some good laughs. Most of the jokes are so clever (there are even hints of black humor) and in addition, there are episodes that made satire of some special topics (”The Copycats” and “The Shippening”). Also, it does not only gives us laughs, but also talk about real life; for example, the SJWs, the censorship of videogames, depression and even the reality of politics. This is the funny reason why we are always asking ourselves: “Is this a kids show?”

Also, remarking this one more time, the special thing about TAWOG is that it does not have one single animation. It includes, 2D, 3D, 8-bit, Stop Motion; in short, a variety of them to enjoy. A compilation of characters with a unique animation and personality, made all Elmore people so interesting and memorable.

While it’s sad that TAWOG ended up in a cliffhanger, most of the fans are still waiting for a movie. Let’s be honest, this show deserved an opportunity to close the loose ends it had left. And what a better way to do it than a movie? (Not to mention that even Ben himself had made a Tweet about this)

We’ll see if time is our friend now...

1.- Penn Zero: Part Time Hero (2014)

And to end this personal top, this special show. Also known as the “AU show” for some fans; this was, in my opinion, the best show I’ve ever seen in the whole decade

First of all, a brief explanation of this masterpiece. It's basically a show where our protagonist, Penn Zero, works as a Part Time Hero, and everyday he goes to different dimesions with the objective of stopping the plans of the Part Time Villains, Rippen and Larry; with the help of his friends Sashi, the Part Time Sidekick and Boone, the Part Time Wiseman

What does Penn Zero got that attracked me the most? First of all, the worlds. There is always a special detail that made each world unique. Like, a world with dinosaurs and cowboys, or a prehistoric world where the heroes work as agents. Also, each world have a nice background, that really fits with the theme of the missions. For example, we got the cereal world, where the cliffs have the figure of milk boxes

Then, the dynamic each team follows. As you can guest, this is a good vs evil show, but with something unique. They are not exactly heroes and villains, it’s just a part-time job they take. And of course, they get payed (I think? xD). Well, the thing is, even though they love to destroy each other in their missions, in real life, they are just chill and normal people... well, kinda. We can see how Rippen always loves to give Penn bad scores as revenge for defeating him everyday.

Even though the show only had 2 seasons, it managed to explain well all the plot planified. Showing the backstory of Rippen and his ambitions of becoming a full-time villain, and the story of Penn in an attempt to recover his parents from “The Most Dangerous World Imaginable” (his main objective)

The animation is a really fluent, and even though it doesn’t have a lot of songs like the other shows I mentioned before, you can enjoy the few it had. Well developed characters, great humor; and best of all, you can imagine any AU you want, and it will fits with all the 5 main characters

It’s kinda sad that Penn Zero only got 2 seasons, this last one, aired in just 18 days (just imagine that the fandom waited 2 years for new episodes, and in few days, the show just dissapeared). Disney wasted a lot of potential on this, but believe me, this show was one truly underrated, but amazing in every aspect

And that’s it. I hope you enjoy this small top 5 I made. I’ll probably make another one, but, we’ll see. Thank you for reading until this part if you manage to get here c:

#penn zero #pzpth #penn zero part time hero #tawog #the amazing world of gumball #gumball #ok ko #ok ko let's be heroes #slugterra #aggretsuko #sanrio #cartoon network #disney xd #aggretsuko retsuko

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sugainmycoffee · 7 years ago

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Yoonmin Fandom Metrics

Last month a survey was conducted to analyze the metrics of the Yoonmin fandom. Here are some of the responses:

Of these 903 responses, 826 of them (92%) of the respondents had selected that yoonmin are their only ship, their main ship or one of their main ships. This group is the one that will be focused on for the rest of this analysis. (Also was that one person lost? Did you get home okay?)

Of this focus group who mainly ship yoonmin, the bias distribution was:

Unsurprisingly, Min Yoongi and Park Jimin, the two individuals responsible for the YOON and the MIN in yoonmin, came out as the top two biases’.

However, Min Yoongi, with a staggering count of 453 votes (55%) heavily outweighed all the other members, hereby proving that he was in fact not fucking around when he claimed “Sorry mom, your son’s too popular,” in his Mic Drop verse.

As a follow up to these results, respondents provided their second bias (if any) to help the other members stand a chance against Rap God Min Yoongi.

(He still took a whopping 23% of the votes).

The most interesting part about these graphs is that it alludes to the fact that most yoonmin stans bias Yoongi (not Jimin, although he is obviously second in rank). This is probably due to the fact that of the “popular” bangtan ships, Jimin’s name comes up multiple times. Thus Jimin stans are more evenly split in who they ship Jimin with, but there are not that many “popular” Yoongi ships.

A little more detail on the focus group and how they came to stan bts and ship yoonmin is summarized in the following graphs.

BTS’ popularity has grown exponentially, with the greatest increase seen from 2014-2015 due to the release of their HYYH series. A parallel trend was observed in this analysis with the growth of the Yoonmin Fandom.

The next part of the survey focused on “Secondary Fan Creations” as Mr. Bang likes to call them. This includes but is not limited to: fan art, fan fiction, photo edits, video edits, blog posts, memes and so forth.

The results show that 99% of us are on Tumblr for the right reasons.

In terms of creating fan content, 31% of the respondents bless us on the daily with their contributions to the fandom. (Amen.) The rest of the majority enjoys and wishes to contribute to doing the lord’s work. 2% of the respondents who consider yoonmin their main or only ship do not create or want to create fan content because they think it is wrong (and that’s okay - to each their own).

The next question was the most revealing and one of the most important to this analysis. Of the 861 responses, 640 voted that the reason they ship yoonmin is due to their relationship / interactions themselves. Only 2-4% of the respondents said they shipped yoonmin because of how they look together/aesthetics, fan content, external influences, or the availability of yoonmin materials in the fandom itself. This outright disproves the common (and tired) anti-yoonmin stan (and “rare pair” stan) claims that yoonmin is usually shipped for these reasons.

Of the 30 respondents that chose “other” their reasons often eluded to specifics moments / interactions by yoonmin. Some of the more notable mentions are:

“They look like they understand each other’s struggles.“

“Their real and supportive friendship, they know each other's limits and share their vulnerabilities, so soft for each other, involve each other in the most intimate parts of their life.”

“Everything?? Idk they just vibe with me best, they're lovely and sift but also savage and have a really fun dynamic that i enjoy best.. they calm me when I’m upset as well which is like surprising bc I don’t calm down easily. +their soft moments like the earlier answer.”

“Because Yoongi is so whipped for Jimin and they look at each other like they have galaxies in their eyes“

“They look like they are real / they act like they are married / they honestly seem like they’re in love.”

“the way they are with each other in general. platonic or not, they love each other, care for each other a lot and it's nice to see. “

“From what I saw, it felt very real. Like yeah, I could get that super unbreakable bond with all of the BTS ships but for some reason, Yoonmin just stuck out for me and it felt really genuine and not just for fanservice.“

“Just...everything” (Many of you said this or voted for multiple categories from the above so everything x 10)

“You Know” (thank you Anonymous, I do know :’).

There were so many other great ones yoonmin is such a soft ship with even softER STANS istg but I won’t post them all here but you can see them in this supporting post.

It is commonly believed that ALL yoonmin stans only ship them because of the “typical” subby bottom jimin/ dom top yoongi stereotype. The data below proves this is untrue - as 34% of respondents don’t care at all or like all dynamics equally, and 18% prefer a more balanced switch relationship dynamic. Combined, the votes for these categories make up over 50% of the responses, signifying that, no, not all yoonmin stans, in fact not even the majority of yoonmin stans, ship them for this reason.

It should be noted though that, of the 48% of fans who expressed a preference for a specific relationship dynamic, 5% preferred top jimin and 43% preferred top yoongi (so yeah, top yoongi is more popular, but only to the minority group of the stans who actually have a specific dynamic preference).

Similar results were observed for which dynamics yoonmin stans feel are most realistic.

FANDOM FAVOURITES

Special thanks to my partner in research @syubd ♡ who organized and compiled the below lists of fandom faves.

Note, I have removed the “N/A” and “All” from the rank to more accurately reflect individual favourites. Furthermore, I have removed myself from the rank to eliminate an obvious bias as it is my survey most of the people who took it would be my followers (but thank you to all the people who chose me as their fave!)

TOP 10 FAVOURITE YOONMIN BLOGS

N/A - 260 votes

All YM Blogs - 107 votes

@yoonminist - 182 votes

@yoonmin - 97 votes

@foolsyoongi - 64 votes

@yoonminficrec - 48 votes

@parkjizzmin - 41 votes

@softeyoongi - 37 votes

@jimiyoong - 27 votes

@yoonminedit / @yoonminfiction - 25 votes (tied)

@mintysugasweet - 22 votes

@yoonminnet - 19 votes

Other - 217 votes - LIST OF OTHER MENTIONS

Comments: Congrats to all of the above! The real winner is “N/A” and “All YM Blogs” so tbh if you run a ym blog, don’t be discouraged, you all out here being amazing and we appreciate it!

TOP 10 FAVOURITE YOONMIN ARTISTS

N/A - 474 votes

All YM Artists - 107 votes

@knart95 - 144 votes

@artofennun - 52 votes

@yuniizu - 42 votes

@kkumri - 30 votes

@finny-red - 22 votes

@NanoNoonie - 19 votes

@askjeon / @min_x_minmin - 14 votes

@kharys - 10 votes

@colorcalamity - 8 votes

@thaidesu - 7 votes

Other - 109 votes - LIST OF OTHER MENTIONS

Comments: Congrats to all of the above! Special shout out to literally all fan artists that share their talent with us on the daily. You make this fandom what it is!!

TOP 10 FAVOURITE YOONMIN AUTHORS

N/A - 342 votes

All YM Authors - 122 votes

@MissterMaia - 161 votes

@Sharleena - 71 votes

@sugamins/BabyLove - 70 votes

@mintsoda - 43 votes

@PrettyBoyKiller - 35 votes

@springrain21 - 29 votes

@momora - 28 votes

@staticscreen- 22 votes

@jflawless - 19 votes

@Elemir - 16 votes

Other - 475 votes - LIST OF OTHER MENTIONS

Comments: Congrats to all of the above! LOOK AT THE DAMN OTHERS LIST. SO MANY GOOD AUTHORS TO CHECK OUT!

TOP 10 FAVOURITE BTS SONGS

N/A - 9 votes

All - 23 votes

Spring Day - 41 votes

Intro: Serendipity - 24 votes

Tomorrow / Blood Sweat & Tears - 20 votes

Autumn Leaves / Save Me / Mic Drop 16 votes

Young Forever - 13 votes

Rain / I Need U - 11 votes

Pied Piper - 10 votes

Let Me Know / Baepsae - 9 votes

Lie / Sea - 8 votes

Love Is Not Over / House Of Cards / BTS Cypher 4 - 7 votes

Others - 140 votes

Comments: This category was added to the survery much later and therefore did not have as many responses as the others above. Nonetheless, there’s seems to a correlation between who you ship (yoonmin) and fave BTS song. Many of the songs on this list have “yoonmin parts in the MV/Choreo” like Spring Day and BST, or are song’s where the two have particularly shined and / or produced. (They might also just be on this list because they’re lit songs in which case truuuu I agree).

DEMOGRAPHICS

YM SURVEY DEMOGRAPHICS: GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION

Overall, there were ym stans from 74 countries and/or regions that participated in this survey. The below countries were home to 10 or more respondents:

USA - 292 respondents

Germany - 44 respondents

Canada - 33 respondents

UK - 29 respondents

Brazil - 26 respondents

Australia - 24 respondents

Philippines - 24 respondents

England - 20 respondents

Indonesia - 20 respondents

Mexico - 20 respondents

France - 18 respondents

Portugal - 18 respondents

Italy - 14 respondents

Singapore -12 respondents

Sweden - 12 respondents

Turkey - 10 respondents

In addition 15 respondents declared “N/A” to opt out from providing their location information.

Other - 195 respondents (Click To See Complete List of Respondent Countries)

Argentina - 5 Armenia - 1 Austria - 7 Bahrain - 1 Belarus - 1 Belgium - 2 Chile - 9 China - 2 Colombia - 5 Costa Rica - 3 Croatia - 5 Czech Republic - 5 Denmark - 5 Ecuador - 1 Estonia - 6 Finland - 9 Great Britain - 1 Greece - 6 Guatemala - 4 Hong Kong - 2 Hungary - 5 India - 8 Ireland - 7 Israel - 1 Jamaica - 1 Japan - 1 Kuwait - 1 Lithuania - 1 Macedonia - 1 Malaysia - 9 Maldives - 1 Malta - 1 Morocco - 2 Nepal - 2 Netherlands - 4 New Zealand - 5 Northern Ireland - 1 Norway - 3 Pakistan - 2 Palestine - 4 Peru - 1 Poland - 8 Romania - 6 Russia - 1 Saudi Arabia - 2 Scotland - 2 Serbia - 2 Slovakia - 5 Slovenia - 1 South Africa - 3 South Korea - 1 Southeast Asia - 1 Spain - 9 Switzerland - 4 Thailand - 3 Trinidad and Tobago - 2 Ukraine - 2 Vietnam - 2

THANK YOU ALL FOR PARTICIPATING IN THIS SURVEY!

#yoonmin #sugmain #yoonmin fandom metrics #ym survey #yoongi #suga #jimin #afkdsjlafjlskdjfkla #ill post more istg #theres just alot to sort

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cinemasnob412 · 6 years ago

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The Definitive Surviving Girls Of FRIDAY THE 13TH

Inspired by an article featured on VHSRevival.com I’ve decided to compile what I consider to be the definitive ranking of the FRIDAY THE 13TH series’s “final girls”. If you’re not well versed into what makes a slasher film “final girl” so special let’s break it down in simple terms: she’s gotta be the smart one, the “pure�� one and in a perfect world would go head to head with the big baddie during the film’s finale, ultimately coming out on top, but not successful enough to make it through a sequel. With the ground rules set, here’s a look at the FRIDAY THE 13TH films’ worst to best “final girls”. Warning, there may be spoilers to follow.

12 - Amanda Righetti - Whitney - FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009)

I’ve never kept it a secret just how much I dislike any FRIDAY THE 13TH film post-Paramount. 2009′s reboot has a few good things going for it: Julianna Guill and a pretty aggressive Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears). In all reality they’re about the only two positives I can come up with off the top of my head. What it’s lacking though is what really made the original set of FRIDAY THE 13TH films so enjoyable. Marcus Nispel’s film leans more into TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE territory than it does FRIDAY THE 13TH. It’s also short on a likable and true to form “final girl”. Righetti’s Whitney character, while by all accounts is the smart and “pure” one, is too reliant on her co-star Jared Padalecki’s Clay character to be considered Jason’s nemesis this go-round.

11 - Lexa Doig - Rowan LaFontaine - JASON X (2002)

New Line Cinema’s entries into the FRIDAY THE 13TH cannon are my least favorite of the bunch. Along with JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY, 2002′s JASON X feels almost nothing like a Jason Voorhees vehicle. Too bad for Lexa Doig, whose Rowan LaFontaine character exhibits all the “final girl” traits, but does so in a pretty terrible film.

10 - Monica Keena - Lori Campbell - FREDDY VS. JASON (2003)

Monica Keena’s Lori Campbell character is really unnecessary in a film like FREDDY VS. JASON. If Jason was going to have an adversary to challenge him throughout the film’s final reel it needs only be Freddy Krueger (Robert England) right? Final girl fail!

9 - Kari Keegan - Jessica Kimble - JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY (1993)

Adam Marcus’s JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY is not even a true FRIDAY THE 13TH film in name. It sure as hell isn’t a true FRIDAY THE 13TH film in content either. With body-swapping, newly revealed Voorhees bloodline ties and not a teenager in sight, JASON GOES TO HELL: THE FINAL FRIDAY is just a complete mess. Kari Keegan’s Jessica Kimble character, like the film she appears in, is a “final girl” by default only (she’s the last girl standing, so I guess that makes her pretty “final”). Her contributions to the “final girl” club are minimal. I guess she does get to stab Jason in the chest with a medieval dagger, that’s pretty cool, right? No!

8 - Jensen Daggett - Rennie Wickham - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN (1989)

Ah! Finally, the Paramount Pictures contributions to the Voorhees legacy. 1989′s FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VIII: JASON TAKES MANHATTAN is easily the weakest of the first eight films, as is the “final girl” character of Rennie Wickham (Jensen Daggett). She dresses like a forty year old mom who’s given up on life, is more of a fragile character than usually required to be an imposing, and victorious “final girl”. It’s not all Daggett’s fault. In reality she's ultimately a victim of lousy writing and poor creative choices by the film’s director, Rob Hedden.

7 - Adrienne King - Alice Hardy - FRIDAY THE 13TH (1980)

FRIDAY THE 13TH purists may cry foul with this one. Hear me out. As a die hard fan I love Adrienne King’s Alice Hardy. She’s the perfect “final girl”. The only real drawback to her character is that she never gets to actually go toe to toe with Jason Voorhees. In fact, the one and only time (not counting the first film’s dream sequence finale) she comes face to face with Mr. Voorhees (in 1981′s FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2) she takes an ice pick to the temple! Her “final girl” days were over at that point.

6 - Lar Park Lincoln - Tina Shepard - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD (1988)

In 1987 when Paramount Pictures and New Line Cinema couldn’t come to an amicable agreement on potentially featuring both of their marquee horror icons in one film, Paramount forged on with another “versus” idea. Jason versus “the new blood” (I guess that’s what they meant by that title) Tina Shephard (Lar Park Lincoln). Tina fits the mold of the “final girl” perfectly. Add to that fact that she also comes equipped with almost supernatural, telekinetic powers, and old Jason was in for one heck of a showdown in his sixth outing, and the seventh overall FRIDAY THE 13TH film.

5 - Kimberly Beck - Trish Jarvis - FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER (1984)

Ask me now, ask me in one hundred years, what is the best FRIDAY THE 13TH film? Hands down, 1984′s FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER. Joe Zito’s film has everything the series has come to be known and loved for. In the fourth entry, Kimberly Beck’s Trish Jarvis, along with her younger brother Tommy (Corey Feldman) put a (temporary) end to the hockey masked killer. Trish is fierce and just as brutal with old Jason as he is with her. She protects her brother, faces her fears head on and ultimately holds her own quite well against Crystal Lake’s most famous resident.

4 - Dana Kimmell - Chris Higgins - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 3 - 3D (1982)

By 1982, the slasher genre’s “final girl” had become well defined. The third FRIDAY THE 13TH entry runs with that established characterization with no hesitation. Dana Kimmell’s Chris Higgins not only finds herself alone, one on one with the seemingly unstoppable force that is Jason Voorhees, but the film, halfway through clues us in that she’s sort of been through this before, having had an encounter with Jason in her younger days that she can’t quite completely recall. Maybe it was her earlier experience with Jason that prepped her for her Higgins’ Haven redux. She hangs the big fella, whacks him in the back of the noggin with a log and a shovel, stabs him in the leg and even tattoos him in the dome with a full on swing of an ax. She thinks and works quickly, constantly keeping herself one step ahead of Jason throughout the entire final reel of the film. Kimmell’s “final girl” would definitely top the list if it were not for our final three candidates.

3 - Jennifer Cooke - Megan Garris - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VI: JASON LIVES (1986)

Jennifer Cooke’s Megan Garris character is not so much a “final girl” as much as she’s the partner in crime with the sixth film’s “final guy” Tommy Jarvis (Thom Mathews). Why so high on the list then? For starters she’s hot. That counts for something, right? Seriously though, she’s one tough cookie. Not content with just going along for the ride, Megan helps Tommy along the way, compiling all the necessities to return Jason to his watery grave once and for all (?). She even steps in to save the day when Jason gets the best of Tommy during the film’s finale, on the water Crystal Lake fight scene. Just as Dana Kimmell’s Chris Higgins character did in the third film, Megan leaves a permanent mark on Jason’s infamous hockey mask (thanks to her quick thinking and a readily available boat propeller), something that would visually define Jason’s trademark mask throughout the seventh film.

2 - Melanie Kinnaman - Pam Roberts - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART V: A NEW BEGINNING (1985)

I know what you’re thinking. “But Pam never fought Jason, she fought the impostor, Roy”. Well, factually speaking you’d be right. And if you took what I said about Adrienne King early and applied it here, then theoretically Melanie Kinnaman’s Pam Roberts should also be lower on the list. I say you’re wrong though. Kinnaman’s final showdown with Roy (Jason impostor or not) is the stuff of FRIDAY THE 13TH legend. She’s tough, protective of her younger costar (similar to Kimberly Beck in FRIDAY THE 13TH - THE FINAL CHAPTER) Reggie (Shavar Ross) and aggressive when it comes to taking on the masked murderer intent on putting an end to her. She wields a chainsaw for Pete’s sake! Plus, let’s not forget she looks pretty darn good doing all of this!

1 - Amy Steel - Ginny Field - FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981)

Amy Steel’s Ginny Field is one bad ass chick! Her showdown with Jason is pretty standard fare when you stack it up against the others in the series. What sets her apart though is her quick thinking and use of psychology to take on Jason when the chips are down. Tricking Jason into thinking she’s his beloved mother by donning her rotten sweater in an effort to strike the death blow on the confused Voorhees may have worked had it not been for one false move. No biggie though, she still lays the smack down on him by way of a machete in the shoulder blade that not only saves herself, but her boyfriend Paul Holt as well, who is in a life or death struggle with the maniac until she lands the fateful whack. Like the character of Tommy Jarvis in the later films, it would have been great to see the Ginny Field character return to do battle with Jason again. Amy Steel has talked about her willingness to return to the series, so maybe, fingers crossed, us fans will one day see the return of the greatest “final girl” in FRIDAY THE 13TH history. A boy can hope!

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mega-camp-blog · 7 years ago

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What Should I Bring?

Greetings, intrepid camper! You may be wondering “how did I get myself into this mess?” or “what even does one bring camping??” Well fear not, brave soul, we have compiled a handy dandy guide just for you first, second, or hundredth-timers. Because we love you.

This guide is divided into convenient sections for your perusal. Should our grouping stay within 35 people then everyone will have a cabin in which to stay, which will negate the last part of the guide.

This is My First Camping Trip, Please Help Me.

Yourself (glad to have you on board, it wouldn’t be a party without you!).

Your photo ID or passport. This should stay with you at almost all times.

Clean clothes for 4 days and 3 nights stay.

At least 4 pairs underwear/bras and socks, we recommend at least 1 extra of each just in case.

Shorts/pants/skirts for 4 days. At least 1 pair should be long pants.

Shirts/tank tops for 4 days.

Pajamas for 3 nights.

Pair of good walking shoes or hiking boots.

A hoodie (for us cold blooded lizard folk to wear at night to disguise our scaled faces with).

Optional: Swimming suit.

Optional: Sandals/swimming shoes.

Optional: Hat to keep the sun off your head.

Optional: Sunglasses or clip ons.

Optional: A hooded rain jacket (so you don’t melt if it rains).

Optional: If you are attending Bristol Renaissance Faire you may wish to bring your own costume. Costumes of any kind are welcome, so long as you don’t have any exposed steel or walk around in just pasties.

Optional: If you are attending the wine tasting at the vineyards you might opt for something super fancy to make you feel classy.

Toiletries

Your prescription medications.

Toothbrush.

Toothpaste.

Shampoo and conditioner.

Body soap.

Deodorant.

Sunscreen.

Bug repellent.

Sandals to shower in (no, really, get a pair of cheap flipflops to shower in).

Hair brush and/or comb.

Optional: Pads or tampons if shark week strikes.

Optional: Hair ties if you are of the long haired persuasion.

Optional: Glasses or contact cleaning solutions if you are a cyborg.

Optional: Shaving razor.

Optional: Skin lotion.

Optional: Hair dryer.

Optional: Makeup and hair styling products.

Phone and charger.

Flashlight and spare batteries.

Folding camp chair (if you are not flying in).

Optional: Binoculars.

Optional: Field guides.

Optional: Reusable water bottle with belt clip for hiking.

Optional: A book to read, useful if you have to wait for a pickup.

Optional: Laptop/tablet and charger. There is wifi, but it isn’t the greatest.

Optional: Camera, film, and extra batteries or charger.

A special note to our international visitors: Don’t worry about packing shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, soap, skin lotion, sunscreen, or bug repellent. If you do not have a special requirement and are not staying in the States before or after camp. Roki will happily provide those things for you. Just let us know in advance so she can be made aware to bring extra. This is to help with getting past TSA because their liquid requirements can be pretty screwy. If you are staying in the States before or after it will be easier on you to purchase those items once here. It saves you in airline baggage weight coming into the States and you cannot bring them with you as a carry on to help with that.

If you want to know more about that, check out this post: Travelling to the States from Canada. Bear in mind that it will differ from country to country and between airlines even, but it’s a good starting point.

I am Staying in a Cabin

The cabins provide mattresses, so air mattresses are not required.

A pillow.

An extra blanket if you think you will need it.

Your own set of sheets (twin or full).

I am Staying in a Tent or Sleeping on an Air Mattress

Your tent (or negotiate with someone to have them provide you one).

Rain fly for tent.

Stakes.

Tarp to put under tent.

Rubber mallet for stakes.

Optional: Small mat/bag to put shoes on inside tent. Prevents bugs getting in them, but also tracking mud inside.

Pro-tip: If you can, zip your tent so that the zippers are at the top of the door. This prevents curious critters from grabbing them at night.

A blow up mattress or sleeping mat.

Pump for blow up mattress.

Batteries for the pump if needed.

Bedding.

A sleeping bag to put over the mattress (put this down before the sheets to prevent loss of body heat through the night).

Sheets.

Pillow.

Spare blanket (if needed).

A tent lantern and extra batteries for it.

Optional: Clip on tent fan and batteries for it.

- Roki Seasonal Naturalist

#what to bring #long post #megamind #mega camp #mega camp 2018

31 notes · View notes

pastel-catboy · 4 years ago

Photo

Uranium One: The Greatest Story (Almost) Never Told

Uranium One – The Real Story Of Corruption Huge news out there that has deeply implicated both the former president Obama along with then secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Now here’s a Russian connection. Well, here you go: Uranium one. In 2010, a deal of epic proportions was forged; twenty percent of United States uranium would be sold to Russia. That’s not even it though; this has the potential to be the largest real world example criminal conspiracy ever. Turns out there were bribes, Hillary Clinton and the shell “foundations” she and Bill had created. The FBI was actively investigating this deal, but was silenced and the deal was allowed to go ahead with the approval from Obama. Have you ever thought to yourself like wow, I’m obviously guilty of something, so I’m immediately going to blame my opposition for that very same thing? Me either. But this appears to be commonplace in the picture that mainstream media has been favorably colluding with the “democrats” to push this outlandish story of Trump collusion with the Russians, without presenting any evidence. Then there’s the “Russian Dossier” which is just about sacred in its origins and its legitimacy cannot be verified because Robert Steele the agent responsible for the creation of this document, has since passed away.

So there’s this literal shitstorm of implications of the former president Obama and Hillary Clinton, Obama working to keep the corruption that was actively being investigated by the FBI, hidden from the view of the Americans,

The Sources Sources

Christopher Steele is an ex-kgb field agent who came up with the “Steele Dossier”. Mysteriously enough, during the time of the 2016 election, Fusion GPS, which was the company being paid to compile the research into the dossier, would not reveal who was paying for this. Now it has surfaced that the Hillary For America Campaign paid for this document, along with the FBI.

Fusion GPS Trump Dossier Turns out that a company Fusion GPS that had paid in part for the dossier has been tied to the DNC. This is huge because it politicizes the origin of this document and also casts doubts on the legitimacy of the document. There is also some speculation that the Obama administration’s FBI had paid in part for this document as well. Something like 13 million dollars in total. Many experts in the intelligence community have used phrases describing the “intelligence” gathered from Steele as “unverified” and “salacious”, it looks like Steele’s Russian sources effectively played

Looking back, you can see the panic in the Obama administration, shilling hard for Hillary, I think now that the panic was justified because they feared that with Trump, they could no longer hide all this corruption, quite possibly the largest scandal, ever. They would no longer be able to hide this without a Hillary presidency. I mean this whole thing just stinks. Obama’s DOJ Loretta Lynch meeting with Bill Clinton, while there was an ongoing investigation, looks like they were all colluding to tear the fabric of democracy and attempting to subvert the very nature of what America stands for.

Every second that these people are not served indictments, or charges not laid, sets a bad example for a country that was founded on the principles of law. Morality seems lost, and this bias from the justice department, playing favorites, is making this less of a democracy and more like an oligarchy.

Meanwhile Muller is mulling about with a “Russian Collusion” investigation that in my opinion is nothing more than a politicized witch hunt. When is talking to people in another country called “collusion” and not diplomacy? What a joke this all is. Meanwhile, if they want a Russian connection to America they should look to those to which there is actually evidence and plenty of it. Uranium one.

This double standard is not supposed to exist, no man is to be above the law, time for this to unravel.

Some sources to check out

Muller Possibly Implicated In Uranium Deal

Uranium One – Timeline Of Uranium One Scandal

Sessions Should Form A Special Investigation Into Uranium One

Uranium One Chart Has Social Media In A Frenzy

Lindesey Graham – Should investigate Uranium One and who paid for “Russian Dossier”

The post Uranium One: The Greatest Story (Almost) Never Told appeared first on The Green Living Solution .

https://thegreenlivingsolution.com/uranium-one-greatest-story-almost-never-told/

0 notes

healthierlife4u · 4 years ago

Photo

Uranium One: The Greatest Story (Almost) Never Told

The Sources Sources

This double standard is not supposed to exist, no man is to be above the law, time for this to unravel.

Some sources to check out

Muller Possibly Implicated In Uranium Deal

Uranium One – Timeline Of Uranium One Scandal

Sessions Should Form A Special Investigation Into Uranium One

Uranium One Chart Has Social Media In A Frenzy

Lindesey Graham – Should investigate Uranium One and who paid for “Russian Dossier”

The post Uranium One: The Greatest Story (Almost) Never Told appeared first on The Green Living Solution .

https://thegreenlivingsolution.com/uranium-one-greatest-story-almost-never-told/

0 notes

striving-toward-170 · 4 years ago

Photo

Uranium One: The Greatest Story (Almost) Never Told

The Sources Sources

This double standard is not supposed to exist, no man is to be above the law, time for this to unravel.

Some sources to check out

Muller Possibly Implicated In Uranium Deal

Uranium One – Timeline Of Uranium One Scandal

Sessions Should Form A Special Investigation Into Uranium One

Uranium One Chart Has Social Media In A Frenzy

Lindesey Graham – Should investigate Uranium One and who paid for “Russian Dossier”

The post Uranium One: The Greatest Story (Almost) Never Told appeared first on The Green Living Solution .

https://bit.ly/38hFBj1

0 notes

khalilhumam · 4 years ago

Text

Federal breakdowns are accelerating

New Post has been published on http://khalilhumam.com/federal-breakdowns-are-accelerating/

Federal breakdowns are accelerating

By Paul C. Light The Trump administration has made little effort to honor the president’s promises to make government work. Employee morale is down, public distrust is up, and the swamp has never been so vibrant. Americans know trust in the federal government has declined, believe it is affecting government’s ability to act, blame government performance for a substantial share of the decline, and even say it should be repaired. At the same time, Americans say the federal government gets the respect it deserves.[1] The failure to address the need for government reform feeds the cycle of disappointment that threatens the nation. As my colleagues, Will Howell and Terry Moe argue in Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy, Trump’s rise to power is more a symptom than a cause of the current populist crisis. New policies for economic and social renewal would help stem the threat, but such renewal would only succeed with a return to the faithful execution of the laws. Hence, Howell and Moe’s call to reform includes a long list of standard bureaucratic reforms such as reducing the number of political appointees and strengthening the civil service.[2] Trust in government is also related to demographic, economic, and social change, but appears to be highly responsive to government breakdowns. Even if an occasional breakdown can be justified as the price of ambition, the recent acceleration creates a sense that the federal government cannot be trusted to meet minimal expectations for reliability and care. The sluggish response to COVID-19 will long be remembered as one of the federal government’s greatest breakdowns, but it also triggered a cascade of smaller breakdowns as beleaguered agencies struggled to perform seemingly simple tasks such as printing and mailing stimulus checks to people. Moreover, breakdowns often return to the front page when blue-ribbon investigations, court cases, histories, and even books about the government’s greatest failures reach the news again. Past breakdowns and the failures to fix the underlying problems are also relitigated when new breakdowns are triggered by the same or similar causes. (Read through the 70 post-2001 breakdowns here and the COVID-19 crisis becomes a failure foretold by previous failures.[3]) These include the failure of imagination that led to the 9/11 attacks, the depleted supply-chain that undermined the response to Hurricanes Katrina and Maria, the “pervasive permissiveness” toward risky financial industry behaviors that sparked the Great Recession, the denial that preceded the Challenger and Columbia tragedies, and the overpromising that turned what should have been the agile launch of the Obamacare website into a nightmare of frozen screens. The total number of highly-visible breakdowns may seem small, but it accelerated as the federal bureaucracy strained to do more with less, with aging government systems and political turmoil. The pre-2001 administrations averaged just 1.4 breakdowns per year from 1986-2000, while the post-2001 administrations have averaged 3.5 to date. Compared administration-to-administration, the Trump administration has more than tripled the number of breakdowns in George H.W. Bush’s first and only term, while the three post-2001 presidents have more than doubled their predecessors. Figure 1 shows the number of breakdowns by presidential administration. The rising number of highly-visible breakdowns is almost certainly tied to media polarization. Government breakdowns under Democratic control may have produced higher ratings at Fox, just as breakdowns under Republican control may have been a boon for MSNBC and CNN, both of which could be fueling greater public interest in stories about failure. Notwithstanding the partisan incentives that might underpin the pursuit of visibility at CNN, Fox, or MSNBC, there is good reason to blame decades of neglect for the increase, be it in the failure to upgrade government management systems, the desperate need for civil service reform, the death of government reorganization as a tool for increasing efficiency, the budgetary cliff-diving that led to shutdowns and annual uncertainty, and the bureaucratic layers discussed in the fourth piece of this series. As Figure 1 shows, the same data tell a different story when they are divided into breakdowns per year. Suddenly, what looks like a peak during the Obama administration turns into an steady rise from 1.6 breakdowns per year during Reagan’s second term to 4.3 breakdowns per year under Trump. Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his team would be well advised to note the recent acceleration in the number of breakdowns per year—and be reminded of those that occurred during his tenure as vice president. The acceleration makes the Trump administration more vulnerable to criticism, but also should raise warnings about overpromising in the absence of a government reform agenda—something Mr. Trump did during the 2016 campaign and as president and Mr. Biden is doing in the 2020 campaign. President Trump has himself to blame for any backlash against his long list of first-term government breakdowns. Having reassured his party in 2016 that he “alone could fix it,” Trump showed little interest in doing so. Administrative experts may disagree on how Trump set a record in first-term breakdowns, but he alone must claim it. Absent action to repair the underlying causes of failure that each president inherits, the blame goes to the incumbent.

[1] Seventy-five percent of the Americans interviewed by the Pew Research Center in December, 2018, 64% said low trust in the federal government made it harder to solve problems, 36% volunteered in written open-ended answers that the federal government’s performance, or the lack thereof was to blame for the decline, and 68% said it was very important to repair the decline. See Lee Rainie and Andrew Perrin, “Key findings about Americans declining trust in government and each other,” Pew Research Center, July 22, 2019. [2] William G. Howell, and Terry M. Moe, Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020; see also the 2019 Knight Commission on Trust, Media and Democracy for a review of the data and effects, [3] In my list of highly visible government breakdowns, I build on the defunct Pew Research Center News Interest Index. Launched in 1986, the original index was designed to track public attention to “stories in the news” over time. Respondents were read a list of stories covered by news organizations in a specific period and asked whether they followed each of the stories on the list very closely, fairly closely, not closely, or not at all closely. The question was first used by the Times Mirror Center for the People & the Press in July 1986 and remained in the queue when the Times Mirror Center became the Pew Research Center in 1996 and remained in the inventory until a three-year hiatus began in late summer 2015. The current question asks respondents “How much, if anything, have you heard or read about each of the following stories that have been in the news recently?” I used the 1986-2015 data in my 2015 Volcker Alliance report, Vision + Execution = Faithful Execution. I reconstructed the Pew survey question to the extent I could by compiling lists of major news stories such as the AP’s annual survey of U.S. editors and news directors. I then searched for polling data on each story and selected the most visible stories for further review. The Volkswagen emissions-testing scandal was the first news story that showed up on my list after the Pew Research Center suspended the news interest question. I began adding to the index on my own in 2010 by following high-visibility new stories that involved a federal government breakdown that was being followed very or fairly closely by at least 30 percent of respondents. I made the judgment about whether a given story revealed a significant federal government failure based on news stories, congressional investigations, and other available information about the federal role in the event. Readers should note that the recent list of breakdowns is solely based on my judgment about what constitutes a breakdown. I define a breakdown as a time-specific event that reveals an administrative failure in how the federal government executed a law. I readily accepted poorly crafted policy as a cause of such failures, but focused on execution as I read stories in the news. For example, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not cause the Boeing 737 Max accidents—the design flaws, cost-cutting, and regulatory evasion belongs to Boeing. However, as the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee recently reported, the two crashes that killed 346 people reflected a “horrific combination” of failure that included the FAA’s weak oversight and improper regulatory delegation. See Niraj Chokshi, “House Report Condemns Boeing and F.A.A. in 737 Max Disasters,” New York Times, September 16, 2020.

0 notes

bigyack-com · 5 years ago

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From Delhi Crime to Watchmen, here are the top 10 TV shows of 2019 - tv

Looking back on this year through the prism of television, perhaps the greatest capsule of an era’s mood, certain facts become impossible to ignore. These aren’t superficial observations about the growing dominance of streaming, or the collapse of binge culture, but more worrying, and ultimately, more empowering. Gender, with all its fascinating complications, was the key theme of some of the best shows of the year. I look at the list I’ve compiled, of television shows that connected with me over the last 12 months, and I can’t help but notice the one prevalent idea, among several, that ties them all together. Everything from Unbelievable to Delhi Crime -- two shows that directly addressed the outcry over the #MeToo movement -- to Sex Education and Euphoria, are in some way grappling with this idea. It’s no surprise that Merriam Webster’s word of the year is ‘they’ -- a pronoun that captures the length and breadth of the human experience, but also highlights the distance between us, a distance that TV attempts to bridge. For this list, I’ve restricted eligibility to shows that premiered this year, which disqualifies the second seasons of Fleabag, Sacred Games, Succession and Mindhunter. It also removes the final seasons of Veep, Silicon Valley, and Game of Thrones from contention, although only two of them really stood a chance. One exception has, however, been made in the case of The OA, a tremendous show whose second season was connected to its first in only the most abstract manner. 2019 was also vital for Indian streaming, an industry that has seemingly self-destructed, thanks to trash such as Bard of Blood, Drive and other such misguided productions, barely a year after its inauguration. There were, however, a couple of outliers in the form of Amazon’s Made in Heaven and The Family Man. With that out of the way, here are the top 10 TV shows of 2019, from number 10 to number one: Too Old to Die Young

Too Old To Die Young is especially nihilistic, even by creator Nicolas Winding Refn’s insane standards. It’s exhausting and excruciating in equal measure, but it is also an endlessly fascinating addition to a great filmmaker’s singular body of work. It’s not television, the director said at Cannes; neither is it a very long movie. “It’s streaming.” Sex Education

It should also be noted, and appreciated, that Sex Education is largely put together by a female team - it has been created and predominantly written by women, and half of its eight episodes have been directed by a female filmmaker. Despite its distracting title, Sex Education is really a coming-of-age story, and what sets it apart from sleazier teen comedies is its delicate balance of outward American brazenness and very dry, very British humour. When They See Us

When They See Us reaffirmed my faith that despite the endless stream of content that Netflix pushes out every week, and despite its plans of world domination, it’s also, occasionally, doing the Lord’s work. The series finale, at an hour and 28 minutes long, it’s not so much an episode of TV, but a film; one that can be enjoyed independently. It is perhaps director Ava DuVernay’s greatest artistic achievement. Delhi Crime

Delhi Crime is gut-wrenching, stylishly directed, passionately performed, and most important, not at all exploitative. But those looking for an insight into the systemic problems of the Delhi Police are likely to be disappointed by the show’s unabashed defensiveness in its portrayal of the force. This is unfortunate, because it takes away from what is easily one of the best Indian shows Netflix has produced, and perhaps the most stunning true-crime drama of the year. Euphoria

Everyone, Euphoria says emphatically, regardless of the mistakes they’ve made or the hearts they’ve broken or the backs they’ve stabbed, deserves a shot at love. Another generation, like every generation, has been wronged. By honouring one, Euphoria honours them all. Unbelievable

Delicately directed, empathetically performed, and moving with passion instead of rage, Unbelievable is perhaps the best television show of the post-MeToo era. The three central performances at its centre, by Toni Collette, Merritt Wever and Kaitlyn Dever, make it an uncomfortable, but ultimately necessary experience. Chernobyl

Chernobyl is a stunning achievement, thrilling and horrifying in equal measure, created and written by Craig Mazin of all people. He has to his credit two (of the worst) Hangover movies, the forgotten sequel to Snow White and the Huntsman, and perhaps Priyanka Chopra’s upcoming Cowboy Ninja Viking. For him to have written one of the best television shows of 2019, and certainly, one of the best of the last five years, is yet another example of how, given the opportunity and the freedom, nothing can beat a storyteller’s passion. The OA - Part II

The OA is consistently challenging, refreshingly ambitious, and a bittersweet reminder of the Golden Age of Netflix. It is one of the biggest tragedies of the year that the show, one of the most staggeringly ambitious television achievements of all time, was cancelled after delivering the same number of seasons as Selection Day. Watchmen

Watchmen reaffirms Damon Lindelof’s stature as one of the greatest creators to have ever worked in the medium of television — not streaming, mind you. The show, like The Leftovers and his breakout series, Lost, is appointment TV at its finest. Writers can spend their entire careers creating something that isn’t half as special as even one of these programmes; Lindelof has made three. My Brilliant Friend

The best show of the year is perhaps the only one that isn’t on your radar, at least if you aren’t fans of Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, about the lives of two girls, from childhood to adulthood and old age. Season one has the sweeping majesty of something like The Godfather, and the bildungsroman quality of Richard Linklater’s Boyhood. It is a tale about friendship, loss, jealously and betrayal -- themes as old as time itself -- and in a year dominated by genre storytelling and streaming, it’s a reminder of what the landscape used to be like a decade ago, during the Golden Age of Television. Follow @htshowbiz for more The author tweets @RohanNaahar. Read the full article

0 notes

workingtolovemyself · 4 years ago

Photo

Uranium One: The Greatest Story (Almost) Never Told

The Sources Sources

This double standard is not supposed to exist, no man is to be above the law, time for this to unravel.

Some sources to check out

Muller Possibly Implicated In Uranium Deal

Uranium One – Timeline Of Uranium One Scandal

Sessions Should Form A Special Investigation Into Uranium One

Uranium One Chart Has Social Media In A Frenzy

Lindesey Graham – Should investigate Uranium One and who paid for “Russian Dossier”

The post Uranium One: The Greatest Story (Almost) Never Told appeared first on The Green Living Solution .

https://bit.ly/38hFBj1

0 notes

jonathanbogart · 8 years ago

Photo

Yugotones: Balkan Communist Pop and New Wave

Part six of seven (probably). Parts one through five can be found by clicking the tag “my mixology career” at the bottom of this post; probably wait until you’ve clicked through to the full post before you do that, though. (Yes, I am explaining Tumblr to people who are not on Tumblr.)

The YouTube playlist for this mix is here. The tracklist is below; my notes on the mix, the background, and the songs are below that.

Bebi Dol, “Rudi”

Xenia, “Troje”

Zabranjeno Pušenje “Zenica blues”

Data, “Neka ti se dese prave stvari”

Dorian Gray, “Za tvoje oči”

Borghesia, “On”

Idoli, “Bambina”

Film, “Boje su u nama”

Bastion, “Hollywood”

Slađana Milošević, “Ja sam neka čudna vrsta”

Bliski Susret, “Kao nekad”

Plavi Orkestar, “Suada”

D’Boys, “Mi smo D’Boys”

Denis i Denis, “Program tvog kompjutera”

Gjurmët, “Të shtrirë mbi kanape”

Zana Nimani, “Što ne znam gde si sad”

Paraf, “Fini dečko”

Crvena Jabuka, “Nek’ te on ljubi”

U Škripcu, “Siđi do reke”

Videosex, “Moja Mama”

Josipa Lisac, “Ja bolujem”

Yugotones: balkan communist pop and new wave

For a long time when I was planning these mixes, I was going to lump all of Eastern Europe together into one Behind The Iron Curtain mix. But the more I listened and read and understood, the less snugly that seemed to fit the facts. Not just because Yugoslavia had broken away from the Soviet-aligned Eastern Bloc in the 1960s, siding with Maoist China in the Sino-Soviet split, but because Yugoslavian media — print, radio, and television — did not wholly abjure the decadent West. State-owned record labels issued foreign and local beat groups in the 60s and prog and hard rock groups in the 70s, with the result that the Balkan punk wave hit roughly contemporaneously with the French, Spanish, Italian, etc. waves. (Meanwhile, in the Soviet sphere, Fifties and Sixties rock signifiers were only just starting to gain official approval, as we will see.)

There was, and is, far more complexity to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as it existed between 1945 and 1992 than I can hope to convey here, even if I fully grasped it all, which I don’t remotely. But put simply: ethnic tensions, especially between the richer, more populous, and administratively overrepresented Serbs and minority populations like Croats and Bosnians, were always high. The 1980 death of President-for-Life Josip Broz Tito, who came to power fighting Fascists in the 1940s, accelerated those tensions, and ghouls like Slobodan Milošević would take advantage of the power vacuum to stoke the flames of ethnic resentment: the horrific post-breakup wars of the 1990s, which are all most of us know about the Balkans, were far more the product of sustained propaganda campaigns than of any regional propensity for violence — indeed, propensities for violence are inculcated by means of sustained propaganda. (Which is how toxic masculinity, to choose an example not at all at random, operates.)

But very little of that grimness, tension, or rage is present within this music, which like much of the rest of European pop in the early 80s is both excited and wary about new technology, eagerly devouring the new and rummaging through the old to see what can be relevantly cannibalized, and giddy with its own creative strength. Although Eastern European and Balkan rock has since the 80s gained a certain reputation for seriousness, not to say dourness, that’s only partly true here — mostly, granted, because my own predilections privilege the froth and giddiness of pop rather than the grim chug of rock, but also because Yugoslav society (to the extent it was a unified society) was much freer and more open in the 80s than it had been for decades. The death of Tito functioned much like the death of Franco had in Spain: the old truths (and especially the old censorships) no longer held, and all kinds of material rose to fill a marketplace which had weathered thirty years of the Cold War better than any other in Eastern Europe.

In fact, you have to go to MTV in the Us or Top of the Pops in the UK to find as much solid pop-video work as there is in this mix: most of the biggest songs had several different videos, because there were a lot of competing pop shows on Yugoslav television and sometimes they each commissioned their own video.

There is still plenty of Communism represented in the mix, though: notably the predominance of the state record label, Jugoton, as the issuer of most of the music below. Variants mostly reflect the city of origin, to which point: Yugoslavia was a federation of six socialist republics: Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Montenegro, as well as two autonomous communities within Serbia, Kosovo and Vojvodina. Linguistically diverse (Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin are all to some degree mutually intelligible, but Slovene, Macedonian, and Kosovar Albanian are not), ethnically and religiously heterogeneous, and with a long history of nominal administrative unity but distinct local practices, Yugoslavia represents the point in these mixes where my slender grasp on the languages in question fails entirely.

There are seven Serbian, seven Croatian, three Bosnian, two Slovene, one Macedonian and one Kosovar songs, not that I could distinguish any of them except diacritically. Albania, the Balkan socialist republic bounded by Yugoslavia and the Mediterranean, is not represented at all except linguistically (Kosovo is largely ethnic Albanian); state repression of non-folk popular music was enforced in Tirana until the 1990s.

I think that’s all the hedging I wanted to do. Although this project has been called a “deep dive,” I think of it much more as a surface skim. Anyone with the patience to click around on YouTube, fact-check against Discogs, and use Chrome’s translation tools could do the same. You can too. If you like anything you hear, you should.

1. Bebi Dol Rudi PGP RTB | Belgrade, 1983

We open with perhaps the most perfect pop song produced in Eastern Europe all decade: a valentine to Rudolph Valentino, sung by Serbian pop starlet Dragana Šarić. Her stage name is such deliberately infantilizing phonetic English that the breadth of her music, far from being lolita-esque dance-pop, can take the unwary by surprise. Her work was influenced by jazz, Arabic pop, and traditional Slavic folk as well as international pop: and despite its puppy-love lyrics, “Rudi” is structurally surprising, as she takes a basic pop song and unfolds unexpected harmonic filigree in post-chorus vocal flights. The voluptuous sweep of the melody fits in well with the plush erotic fantasies enacted on screen by Valentino: one video clip has Šarić intercut with scenes The Sheik, which helps elucidate the colonialist trappings of Western commodified (heterosexual) desire.

2. Xenia Troje Jugoton | Zagreb, 1984

What I always think of as the Blondie model of pop — a sharp pop-rock band fronted by a cool, attractive woman — was extremely popular in the early 1980s, and in Yugoslavia every major ethnicity had their own. Xenia was the Croatian version: singer Vesna Vrandečić was the singer, although on this single (“Three”) she cedes the chorus to the band’s guitarist and songwriter Robert Funčić’s laid-back almost-rap. Since it’s a song about the drama of men fighting over a woman, and the chorus is first-person from one of the men, it makes a kind of sense: but overshadowing both singers is the tense, blustery edge of the music, all paranoia and bluster, replicating the physical sensation of being in the room for such a fight.

3. Zabranjeno Pušenje Zenica blues Jugoton | Sarajevo, 1984

Although one of the smaller and poorer republics in the Yugoslav federation, Bosnia was one of the few to engender an honest-to-goodness local cultural movement (as opposed to merely imitations of Western models) in the 1980s. The “Novi primitivizam” (New Primitivism) that swept Sarajevo between 1981 and 1987 was a jocular proletarian reaction to the self-serious New Romanticism of British import (and Croatian popularization, as we will see) and Slovenian Neue Slowenische Kunst (we’ll see a bit of that too). Zabranjeno Pušenje were perhaps the foremost Novi primitivizam band: a folk-punk outfit like the Fugs or the Mekons, their music was characterized by local slang (often borrowed Turkicisms), simple melodies, and rudimentary instrumentation. Their low-key anthem “Zenica blues” (sometimes “bluz”) is a Johnny Cash-like tale of petty criminality, prison sentences, and the gloomy garrison at Zenica.

4. Data Neka ti se dese prave stvari Jugoton | Belgrade, 1984

YouTube comments are full of how this is a copy of Depeche Mode’s “See You,” but a synthesizer doing the wedding-bells riff from the end of “Then He Kissed Me” isn’t exactly an original thought. Regardless, it’s a beautiful synthpop gem from associates of Serbian synth-funk collective the Master Scratch Band. The three members of Data, who also played behind the Scratch Band’s girl group Šizike, only produced a single 45 under that name, but have been endlessly compiled and reissued on the strength of it.

5. Dorian Gray Za tvoje oči Jugoton | Zagreb, 1985

The Croatian adoption of the British New Romantic ethos found its greatest exponents in a band named after an Oscar Wilde character, whose first single, “Sjaj u tami,” was a Scott Walker cover, and whose singer, Massimo Savić, ran the gamut of glam-rock masculinity from David Bowie fey to Bryan Ferry louche. “Za tvoje oči” (For Your Eyes) was the title song from their second LP, a crooning, brooding masterpiece but commercially disappointing; the following year, Savić went solo, and has become an elder statesman of glamorous, elegant Croatian pop.

6. Borghesia On FV Založba | Ljubljana, 1985

The most famous musical wing of the Neue Slowenische Kunst (New Slovenian Art; the German title is intentional) was the long-serving industrial band Laibach — since they primarily sing in English, they don’t appear here. But fellow-travelers Borghesia, also industrial, electronic, and dark, primarily sang in Slovene. “On” (He) is a full-on Electronic Body Music song, as developed by Belgian group Front 242: arpeggiators and screams soundtrack lyrics to a descent into fetishism which even in choppy Google Translate makes Venus in Furs read like Mother Goose. The video needs no translation: it’s not remotely safe for work.

7. Idoli Bambina Jugoton | Belgrade, 1983

More or less the founders and guiding spirit of the Serbian new wave, Idoli (Italian for idols) came to prominence in 1980 with songs like the post-punk “Retko te viđam sa devojkama” (I Rarely See You with Girls), about closeted homosexuality, and the Cossack-ska “Maljčiki” (Boys), mocking Soviet socialist-realist aesthetics. By 1983 they had produced several of the landmark albums of the era and had little left to prove; their final album Čokolada (Chocolate) was a huge-selling last hurrah, full of pop hooks and complicated sentiment. “Bambina” sounds like a love song, but the lyrics are actually full of suspicion and resentment.

8. Film Boje su u nama Jugoton | Zagreb, 1983

The Croatian standard-bearers of new wave — so much Idoli’s counterparts that they co-headlined a joint tour in 1981 — by 1983 Film were closer to the shiny guitar-pop of classic rock than to the twistier, more acerbic edge of new wave. Their 1983 album Sva čuda svijeta (All the Wonders of the World) leaned into the Hollywood signifiers suggested by their name: album opener “Boje su u nama” (We Are Made of Stars) includes Dirty Harry, Kubrick, and MGM references before the song even kicks in. When it does, it’s a blissed-out relative of “Start Me Up,” as hippy-glam as Marc Bolan at his best.

9. Bastion Hollywood PGP RTB | Skopje, 1984

The sole representative of Macedonia in this mix, Bastion was a four-person operation: one on synths, one on bass, one on vocals, and one on songwriting and visual art. The result of that skeletal operation was a surprisingly dubby approach to synthpop, as singer Ana Kostovska’s Lwin-y vocals wander around an endless funk-bass echo chamber punctuated by all kinds of sounds. The lyrics are the usual trenchant commentary on the dream factory that you would expect from the title, but the bass is the reason to listen.

10. Slađana Milošević Ja sam neka čudna vrsta Jugoton | Belgrade, 1983

My choice of this song to represent Slađana Milošević (her first name can also be written Sladjana) is perhaps eccentric, but it fit too well in the mix to not. Something between the Grace Jones and the Nina Hagen of Serbian new wave, she had weathered controversy in the late 70s for her Patti Smith-inspired rock, and was such an international pop star that her 1983 record Neutral Design was recorded in Munich with German musicians. It’s a hell of a record: every song made it onto Yugoslav television, often in multiple videos, and they’re all good. This, the closer (“I’m an Odd Sort”), is unexpectedly light and breezy: a witchy, jazzy calypso in which she mostly sticks to a high, soft register to sing about forbidden knowledge and how poor an adept the song’s “you” is.

11. Bliski Susret Kao nekad Jugoton | Zagreb, 1984

It wouldn’t be an entry in this mix series if I didn’t include at least one single that has never been reissued and is only available on YouTube. The Croatian act called Bliski Susret (Close Encounter) only issued a single song (the B-side is the same song in English), this beautiful slice of studio-based nostalgia, all production and sentiment. It was a one-man show: Željko Bošković, whose real career has been as a studio owner and producer in Zagreb, producing some of the best Croatian pop of the last thirty years. “Kao nekad” (Like Before), which sums up romantic pop from Spector to Gainsbourg, remains a swoon-worthy calling card.

12. Plavi Orkestar Suada Jugoton | Sarajevo, 1985

Bosnian pop in the 80s was not at all just the New Primitivism, although no doubt its emphasis on stripped-down structures and folkloric origins had some influence on Plavi Orkestar, who sound exactly like what a Western conception of “Balkan pop-punk” might be. Anatolian rock riffs, all-comrades-together shouted choruses, and lovelorn lyrics about a faithless woman — and in the middle eight, about forgetting the faithless woman by going out on the town with your boys — made “Suada” a huge hit, the first of Plavi Orkestar’s long and enviable career.

13. D’Boys Mi smo D’Boys Jugoton | Belgrade, 1983

There are more differences than similarities, but the act that kept coming to mind as I dug into the D’Boys discography was Wham! Like George and Andrew, they were dismissed as lightweight pop fluff compared to the Real Rockers surrounding them; like George, Peđa D'Boy (Predrag Jovanović) assimilated a host of influences and went largely unrecognized as an innovator who predicted much of the trashier end of the European 90s. Which doesn’t mean that the Laughing Gnome effect which opens this drum-machine-and-guitar-bash anthem isn’t a throwback; but it’s also a sound I’ve heard a lot more often in global pop in the 2010s. “Mi smo D’Boys” means “We Are D’Boys,” and Peđa’s party (in both senses) sloganeering over its dumb-brick simplicity makes me think of such ironists as Morrissey, Neil Tennant, and Jarvis Cocker — another D’Boys track, “Sexy Sexy,” sounds unaccountably like “Common People.”

14. Denis i Denis Program tvog kompjutera Jugoton | Rijeka, 1984

Comparing Croatian synthpop duo Denis i Denis to British acts like Eurythmics or Yazoo is probably less illuminating than otherwise; but the general set-up is equivalent. Davor Tolja was the synthesizer maven, Marina Perazić the voice and sex symbol: her gasps and strangled sobs during recording were as important to the band’s electronic-erotic aesthetic as her low, singing voice. This single (Your Computer Program) was their biggest hit, but they were so consistent between 1983 and 1988 that just about any record could have gone in.

15. Gjurmët Të shtrirë mbi kanape RTP | Pristina, 1985

The sole representative of Kosovo on this mix, Gjurmët were very nearly the first rock act to sing in Albanian ever, and probably the first recorded. Their only release during their years of activity in the 1980s was a cassette delayed by the censors for over a year due to perceived Albanian nationalism, but later reissues, as both Albanian and Kosovar culture has become more open, have kept their memory faintly alive. “Të shtrirë mbi kanape” (Sprawled on the Couch) is their best uptempo song, urgent and moody, with superb new-wave guitar heroics from Bekim Dyla.

16. Zana Nimani Što ne znam gde si sad Jugoton | Belgrade, 1986

If Xenia was the Croatian Blondie, the Serbian edition was Zana, with a series of sparkling power-pop hits over the early 80s. But when singer Zana Nimani, for whom the band was named, left in 1985, the band carried on with a succession of new singers and little diminution in popularity. Nimani’s only solo album, 1986’s Noćas pevam samo tebi (Tonight I Sing Only for You) was recorded in Sweden, and this minor hit (I Don’t Know Where You Are Now) sounds like it: shiny and heartfelt, only her melodramatic voice gives her away as Balkan.

17. Paraf Fini dečko ZKP RTVL | Zagreb, 1981

In these mixes I’ve had little patience for straight-up punk or its immediate descendents, but Paraf are unique and strong enough to be an exception. They began as a shouty punk band, and were important enough to make the 1979 compilation documenting Zagreb’s punk scene; but after their first album in 1980 singer Valter Kocijančić quit, and female singer Vim Cola (Pavica Mijatović), and keyboardist Raul Varlen joined. They moved towards anthemic post-punk, as documented by this first single in the new line-up. “Fini dečko” means “FIne Boyfriend,” and the lyrics document how weirded out Cola is by a good, clean, upright boy. They would go on to make some of the most politically righteous music of the Croatian new wave, but this single, with one foot still in punk, is their most fun.

18. Crvena Jabuka Nek’ te on ljubi Jugoton | Sarajevo, 1986

Don’t be fooled by the huge glossy opening chords: Crvena Jabuka (Red Apple) aren’t a Sarajevan Van Halen (not that that would be a bad thing). They’re closer to a Bosnian Enuff Z’Nuff: a shiny hard-rock body over a winsome 60s-pop chassis. Named after the Beatles label, their self-titled debut album in 1986 was an immediate hit: but several months later the lead singer and the bass player were killed in a car accident. The remaining members forged on, and achieved even greater success, becoming one of the key figures of late 80s and early 90s Yugoslav rock; they still record today. “Nek’ te on ljubi (Kad ne mogu ja)” (Let Him Love You [If I Cannot]) is a power-pop gem that had unexpected resonance after frontman Dražen Ričl was replaced, and surpassed, by keyboard player Dražen Žeri.

19. U Škripcu Siđi do reke Jugoton | Belgrade, 1983

This shouldn’t be your only exposure to Balkan pop: there’s so much I haven’t included, from synthpop pioneers Boa and cross-dressing glam-funk star Oliver Mandić to stuff I don’t even know about. But after hearing it, I had to include “Siđi do reke” (Come Down to the River) by post-punk band turned New Romantics U škripcu (In a Heartbeat) no matter who I bumped. A hovering, almost ambient piece, equal parts “In Every Dream Home a Heartache” and traditional Serbian folk song, it’s one of the magnificent centerpieces of 80s Yugoslav pop.

20. Videosex Moja Mama ZKP RTVL | Ljubljana, 1983

The Slovene equivalent to the Croatian Xenia and the Serbian Zana was Videosex, who were probably the best of them all: singer Anja Rupel had more personality and the band was more versatile, jumping from straight-up synthpop like “Moja Mama” (My Mama, a mocking pout about stepmothers) to the noirish “Detektivska priča” (Detective Story) and even reaching back to 1940s swing for “Tko je zgazio gospođu mjesec” (Who Was the Lady of the Month). Rupel would go on to sing with Laibach; but this early giddy work remains unspeakably delightful.

21. Josipa Lisac Ja bolujem Jugoton | Zagreb, 1987

Comparisons to Kate Bush would be arrant nonsense: Croatian singer Josipa Lisac had been a distinguished art-rock singer for a decade before “Wuthering Heights,” both with beat group Zlatni Akordi and on her own. But in the neon 80s her eccentric sense of style was given room to flourish, and she made a series of crucial recordings halfway between pop, electronic rock, and local art-song traditions. When she presented “Ja bolujem” (I’m Suffering) at the 1987 MESAM festival in a dress that moved on its own as dancers below it ran through an intricate choreography, it was a magnificent capstone on the first half of her career. She’s since gone on to a more sedate Céline-like goddesshood, but her voice is still one of the most powerful instruments in the Balkans.

Next: “Eastern Europe” is a vast territory to cover. Whatever I do, I will not do it justice. My only comfort is that I haven’t done justice to anywhere else either.

#my mixology career

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fannishcodex · 8 years ago

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SVtFoE Theory about Eclipsa/Monster Love...

So, I’m fond of the Toffee-is-Eclipsa’s-Half-Mewman-Half-Monster-Son theory. I always feel rather pleased whenever I see someone bring up that idea, wondering if it could be true (I feel like trying to compile a list of those instances someday before season 3 starts). I have a lot of thoughts about this theory! Want to share more of them. Gonna try to focus on something I have not seen anyone else bring up, and it just keeps calling my attention.

(I may be reading too much into what I’m going to really focus on, but I want to share my thoughts; also, I just find the idea interesting.)

One of the things that I see people bring up against this theory is the appearance of Eclipsa’s Monster Love. Though to first back up, here are my brief thoughts on Eclipsa’s appearance as it relates to Toffee.

Part of what does get me into this theory are what feel like these small, subtle details of visual similarity between Eclipsa and Toffee that I see and enjoy. Definitely small and subtle details: Eclipsa and Toffee’s dark hair seem similar; their manner of dress seems similar, in terms of colors and more formal styles; Eclipsa’s demeanor seems reminiscent of Toffee (like a knowing calm, etc.). Those details seem like something Toffee could have inherited from Eclipsa via blood inheritance and being raised by her (the hair, personality traits, clothing style, etc.).

On top of that is Toffee *clearly having spades (Eclipsa’s cheek mark) as one of the symbols on his outfit in Moon’s tapestry. Toffee may wear Eclipsa’s cheek as a form of inheritance from her. Maybe it’s a holdover from Eclipsa’s Mewman Butterfly culture; maybe any sons of the Mewman royal women symbolically inherit their mothers’ cheek marks, while daughters that are next in line to rule are always born with their own physical cheek marks (though the chance of cheek marks eventually repeating many generations down the line may not be impossible). And there is the scene of Star grabbing Toffee’s dismembered finger during “Into the Wand”, where the quick shot progression after that--possibly even in response to that--strongly indicates a connection between Toffee and Eclipsa (how their images are shown after each other).

So, those are essentially things I believe as signs of Toffee’s heritage from Eclipsa. I’ve seen some others touch on some or all of this too, and it seems more accepted as signs of Eclipsa possibly being Toffee’s mother.

Now, back to Eclipsa’s Monster Love, who would be Toffee’s father in this theory. Again, I often see the lack of resemblance between Monster Love and Toffee as signs of Toffee not being Eclipsa’s biological son, if he’s not Monster Love’s biological son.

**While people have pointed to some very small details that could be signs of similarity and heritage between Toffee and the tapestry’s depiction of Monster Love, in general, Monster Love is visually very different from Toffee. There’s little resemblance/physical similarity between the two. And while Eclipsa’s and Toffee’s similar details as possible signs of inheritance via nature and nurture have been discussed, Toffee still largely looks very different from Eclipsa. It’s reasonable to think Toffee would have to resemble the Monster father more, and Monster Love’s visual appearance in the tapestry doesn’t seem to fit that.

There are ways around this, i.e. adoption, suggesting a different type of family relation.

/But/ this is focusing on the idea that Toffee is Eclipsa’s biological half-Mewman, half-Monster son, and my thoughts on how it can work. Going more into this:

First of all, I question the accuracy of Eclipsa’s tapestry. (Tbh since I first watched the “Mewnipendance Day” episode and catching up on episodes before that [especially “Lobster Claws”--but that is touching on a whole other theory that needs a different post], I’ve been pretty suspicious of ruling Mewman society in general). Given the heavy implications of Mewman prejudice and what Eclipsa did, I keep thinking it’s possible that her tapestry may be propaganda, that it doesn’t reflect what actually happened/the truth.

Just in case, here’s a reminder of what propaganda is from the Merriam-Webster dictionary online (tbh also a reminder for myself):

propaganda: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person; ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause; also: a public action having such an effect

Eclipsa’s tapestry may be the most heavily altered, censored, the one made most inaccurate, the one that’s most propaganda-ish, because it was the greatest threat and offense to Mewman society/ruling power. Overall, SVtFoE’s story seems to be going into prejudice and racism and the negativity of a royal rulership, and it seems like propaganda is coming up as a symptom/method for those themes. Specifically these instances in the show make me consider this:

-Mewnipendance day picture book in the titular episode trying to glorify the Mewman invasion with pop-up imagery (a lot of smiling or benign-looking Mewmans out of armor, then making them look very impressive when in armor, the pretty and also smiling image of the queen) while still showing disturbing implications (the unarmed monsters scaled down to a smaller size, the unarmed monsters looking scared, and their burning forest) and a narration biased toward Mewmans.

-Song Day for princesses focused on promoting a specific image (perfect, positive, sanitized, etc.) of said princesses without a consideration for real honesty. Queen Moon essentially saying the Mewman people don’t want the truth, they want perfect princesses. Queen Moon essentially saying the truth can be dangerous, and implying secrecy is a valid course of action. Ruberiot’s lyrics representing Star trying to convey honesty; from “to keep the peace/we will play the game” to “Royal secret/from royal shame.” Something about that last line, its content—in combination with Moon’s reaction—makes me think there are more royal secrets kept to avoid royal shame. (Like possibly the Butterfly line “polluted” by Eclipsa having children with her Monster Love.)

These scenes suggest Mewmans’ willingness to manipulate things to convey specific messages at the expense of honesty—propaganda, essentially. It makes me think that Eclipsa’s tapestry being propaganda is not impossible, given that SVtFoE has actually dealt with this topic before (Mewnipendance Day picture book, Song Day). It even feels like there should be propaganda of that level, of even a really serious royal family cover-up. Eclipsa’s tapestry as propaganda could even be seen as thematic escalation of those prior instances—from the picture book bias to the Song Day tradition, to the possibility that the very tapestry of a queen has been tampered with, in service of promoting propaganda supporting Mewman power.

Tied in with the idea that Eclipsa’s tapestry could be propaganda, I can’t shake the feeling that part of it would be cover-up—specifically, cover-up of the possibility of any part-monster children resulting from Eclipsa and her Monster Love’s union. While the tapestry room’s format of ***rhyming summaries limits space, it still feels like a curious omission to never mention the possibility of Eclipsa and her Monster Love having children of their own. Like, just the absence of that mention seems to make it obvious. Or just, to know that Eclipsa fell in love with a monster, one almost immediately wonders if they ever had half-Mewman, half-Monster children; like their mixed race union alone implies the possible existence of mixed race children. It feels sorta curious to see nothing acknowledging that implication. But I also think that makes sense; I just feel like the Butterfly royal family/Mewman ruling power would really reject the idea of any half-monster/part-monster heirs, to the point that they would want to avoid even acknowledging the existence of any children of that nature, and doing anything to wipe the very idea out. So I could see them changing Monster Love’s appearance to cover up his real identity, and avoid resemblance to anyone, i.e. Toffee. (I could also see them change appearance to play more into Mewman prejudice.)

And in general, to me, something about Eclipsa’s tapestry feels...a little off, in appearance and summary rhyme. Granted, did not even know Eclipsa existed before the tapestry. But in some ways I think, the tapestry is made to feel more sinister (i.e. expressions on Eclipsa and Monster Love could be interpreted as such), and there’s the rhyme calling Eclipsa “Queen of Darkness,” which I think is meant to be negative; like, it could be seen as Eclipsa and Monster Love shown a little more ominously in the tapestry, rather than a couple in love. But that love had to have been a forbidden thing in the eyes of Mewman society, given the worldbuidling we’ve learned so far; and the rhyme is largely about Eclipsa’s love for a monster, that is definitely the focus, it’s the only thing she can be criticized for; it makes some sense that the tapestry would choose to ultimately portray it negatively in any way it could, either with creeping overwhelming subtlety or even something else. Just even that alone makes me distrust the tapestry’s accuracy; the sense that it could’ve made what was possibly just two people loving each other into something negative--even a little bit negative--makes me wonder if it’s misleading on any other things, or even outright lying.

Now, I think there /is/ a possibility of an alternative and concrete image of Eclipsa’s Monster Love that differs from the tapestry, that goes beyond mental reasoning; like, it has actually shown up.

This is the thing that really keeps getting my attention; that I’ve seen no one else bring up in a post:

The illustration that accompanies Eclipsa’s all seeing eye spell as shown in the episode “Bon Bon the Birthday Clown.” (Also, the spell itself.)

So, my main point, my main theory, what I’ve been leading up to:

I think this spell illustration is a more true and accurate depiction of Eclipsa’s Monster Love.

Now to explain why I think that:

First, there’s the full context of the scene that reveals the spell’s existence: Star wants to spy on Marco and Jackie’s date. As Star searches for Eclipsa’s spying spell to use for that purpose, Glossayrck says, “Spying leads to crying.” Star’s use of the spell does lead to Star being upset; and it can be argued that it ultimately does lead to her crying in the same episode, as using the spell arguably leads to Star losing Glossayrck (Star spying leads to fuel for her feelings in turmoil, which adversely affects her magic and ability to keep Glossayrck out of Ludo’s hands); and even later, in the season 2 finale, with Star in tears over many things, but also probably including lingering romantic angst over Marco.

So, Star first used the all seeing eye spell for romantic motives. What if Eclipsa created/used that spell for the exact same thing? What if Eclipsa also used it for love?

And given what we’ve learned about her, Monster Love was likely the object of her spying spell.

There are more things supporting this, such as the very wording of the all seeing eye spell:

I summon the All-Seeing Eye To tear a hole into the sky Reveal to me that which is hidden Unveil to me what is forbidden

The last line is bolded for emphasis. Again, given Mewman prejudice and the history of conflict between Mewmans and Monsters, Eclipsa’s Monster Love would be forbidden to her. Thus, the spying spell also seems like it would be needed even more by Eclipsa, as it’s very probable there would have been a time that it would’ve been very difficult for Eclipsa to see her Monster Love in person. Like the original point of the spying spell could have been for Eclipsa to see her Monster Love, when societal prejudice and conflict kept them separated.

What if Glossayrck’s warning, “spying leads to crying,” was spoken from personal experience? Like he saw similar happened with Eclipsa’s use of that spell. Again, given the forbidden nature of her Monster Love, which is the result of Mewman prejudice, and just Mewman prejudice in its entirety, the terrible history of conflict of Mewmans vs. Monsters, not to mention the likelihood of being forced into an arranged marriage for a suitable Mewman king, while knowing who she truly loved would be so reviled and rejected—well, all of that seems likely to cause Eclipsa emotional turmoil and drive her to tears, exacerbated by use of the spying spell.

Now, the image. Check out the viewing hole in the sky—inside is what looks a lot like a drawing of a heart.

The heart imagery combined with the viewing hole further adds to the idea that Eclipsa also used the spying spell for love, like Star did.

Now look at what the viewing hole in the sky (with a heart) is aimed toward:

It looks like it’s spying on what looks a lot like monsters in hooded robes. ****Reptilian monsters. What looks like a reptilian snout and tail (poking out from under the robe and making it stretch a bit to cover part of the tail’s shape) makes me think the cloaked monsters are reptilian in nature.

They do remind me of what I’ve seen as recurring reptilian imagery in the show:

And of course this guy:

So reptilian imagery within the show seems significant in terms of plot/worldbuilding/character, and thus that illustration accompanying the all seeing eye spell keeps getting my attention. Those monsters do seem reptilian to me, and given what seems to be the importance of reptilian imagery and character, I feel like that illustration could be significant, and not a random image for visual interest. (The fact that it accompanies a key spell also indicates that the image itself may have more importance.) In fact, the image is rather specific, and that may have been done for a reason; again, it has heart imagery indicating love, and it seems to heavily connect with the show’s pattern of reptilian imagery, which is likely important (it is at the very least expressed in the walking embodiment of major character Toffee).

What am I ultimately leading up to again? Like I said before: I believe that the illustration accompanying the all seeing eye spell in Eclipsa’s own chapter is actually a more accurate portrayal of Eclipsa’s Monster Love, than the royal tapestry. That one of these guys is actually Eclipsa’s Monster Love:

Another thing that makes me believe this: the fact that this illustration comes from Eclipsa’s chapter, and is likely made by her own hand; versus the royal tapestry not made by her, and that is only about her. It’s like the probability of her own word/own perspective vs. an outsider’s view.

Because of all that, I ultimately believe in this for the theory:

-Royal tapestry depiction of Eclipsa’s Monster Love: largely inaccurate

-All Seeing Eye spell illustration in Eclipsa’s chapter: more accurate depiction of Eclipsa’s Monster Love

And so, if this is true, if the all seeing eye spell illustration shows a more accurate portrayal of Eclipsa’s Monster Love, who seems reptilian--then Eclipsa’s Monster Love now looks a lot more like Toffee, and seems like he could share a blood heritage with him. So then Eclipsa and Monster Love both look more like they would visually make sense as Toffee’s biological parents.

Also, the reptilian monsters in the illustration seem to be wearing what looks a lot like robes. This visual does make me think of monks, religious/spiritual matters. And there /is/ an ancient Monster temple—that Toffee led Ludo to, that Toffee has apparently chosen as his base of operations for the moment, that Toffee seems to have a connection to. This can also tie into the idea that one of the hooded reptilian monsters in the spying spell illustration is Toffee’s father and Eclipsa’s Monster Love.

Now, there’s what seems like a third, less distinct/less defined/shadowy figure in the all seeing eye spell image. I’m focusing more on the two other figures because they are more distinct/defined and in the front, suggesting greater importance to me. But I have some thoughts on what seems to be a third figure.

Also, just observing these other small details about the spying spell illustration, that seem similar to the tapestry’s Monster Love depiction—and then getting to what looks like a third shadowy figure:

The robed reptilian monsters seem to have horns, like the Tapestry’s Monster Love. And behind them, there seems to be an even more vague, less distinct, shadowy image, with narrowed glaring eyes like the tapestry’s Monster Love and possibly something like horns. I’m still considering these details, but it may suggest the tapestry retained some elements of the spying illustration’s hooded reptilian monster (theorized as the true image of Eclipsa’s Monster Love), while largely discarding and/or twisting everything else. Now, that third shadowy figure—I have a few different vague ideas about that. Here’s one, probably the one most solid in my mind, and that I may believe the most; the block-like/squarish appearance of what seems to be horns makes me think it could be a carving in a wall, that this is a detail of a location, where the hooded monsters are (its shadowy, indistinct nature could be explained by it literally being a background setting detail); it could even suggest an ancient Monster temple setting, given that there are hooded monsters that could be connected to a temple, and given that we’ve seen an ancient Monster temple and have an idea of how it’s decorated, with all sorts of monster representational work.

Material from the recent tie-in book, “Star and Marco's Guide to Mastering Every Dimension,” also adds to this idea of the significance of the spying spell image in my mind:

There is a replica of the all seeing eye spell illustration in the book. But it’s crossed out. Likely crossed out because it’s supposed to be a forbidden spell, something from the darkest chapter, Eclipsa’s. But I also wonder if it’s crossed out for another reason, like less in-universe and more like creator hinting; as an implication of how significant it really is, that it’s telling even more than first perceived. Also, the fact that illustration is replicated in the book seems to lend it even more significance, and that significance may not just be because it’s the all seeing eye spell illustration, there may be more to its importance.

For now, that’s about all I have on the specific theory that the all seeing eye spell illustration represents a truer and more accurate image of Eclipsa’s Monster Love, and how that supports the idea that Toffee is the half-Mewman and half-Monster son of Eclipsa and Her Monster Love. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed, and at least found the theory interesting.

(I just love SVtFoE speculation.)

The asteriked notes in full:

*This image indicates spade marks on Toffee’s shoes in season 1 as seen here .

**I have seen it suggested that the grin and claw shape could be similarities between Toffee and the tapestry’s Monster Love - discussed here . I feel this fanart showcases well similarity in the grin, which can be seen here .

***The rhyming summary in the tapestry room could even be another subtle tool of propaganda: try to boil down and simplify the queens to a vague rhyme, without sharing the full story, while being as vague as possible.

****Or monsters of Septarsis according to the tie-in book.

(Thanks @lemonadesoda for support on this.)

#svtfoe #toffee #eclipsa queen of darkness #svtfoe toffee #toffee svtfoe #not a reblog

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bytheanchorarchived · 8 years ago

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headcanons compilation ↬ alexander lightwood

a compilation of my scattered/posted (so far) alec lightwood headcanons. i will be updating this as i post more.

i don’t think jace realizes how much of alec’s self worth was always knit so tight to him. how deep the pain of his unrequited feelings really run. how it actually feels when jace starts to reject him (from his pov).

vampire academy au

drabble: alec and telling magnus he doesn’t need permission to be in his space

alec’s fantasy is

alec: top intelligences

alec and not being as KIND or COMPASSIONATE as u might think

alec’s kink is to be loved by a cute boy.

i just really like the idea of clary and alec learning to be friends, care for each other, learn from each other, and learn to share jace and share in their love for him and eventually in their friendship.

do you ever cry about the fact that most probably almost all the runes on jace’s left side were put there by alec?

jace didn’t always have perfect control over his extra strength, specially since he was used to training only with valentine, who was an adult at the time, which evened the field. when he first started training with alec and izzy he sometimes went too hard on them. izzy complained but alec never did, and would if needed hide any markings left, because he didn’t want jace to feel bad about it, and because he wasn’t about to admit he couldn’t take it from a kid almost two years younger than himself.

things alec wants: magnus casually touching him.

not feeling like a good person is something that both alec and jace carry for different reasons, and in two people that are so moral and were raised in such a lawful and righteous environment, that is an awfully dark weight to carry.

one of alec’s greatest pleasures is being around magnus after they said their i love you’s, because he never experienced before the freedom of being with someone he loves while being open about it, and as a result, getting to experience the rush of knowing they’re aware of his feelings and still wanna be there. just touching magnus, or kissing him, or being around him, while aware of all of this, makes a ridiculously huge difference.

ok, listen. alec learned how to treat, talk, and deal with, help, someone after strong trauma, growing up with jace. growing up with jace, he learned that you don’t just touch someone that is going through an episode because of abuse/trauma or other strong case of overwhelming emotion. he learned that unwanted affection can be just as bad as violence, or indifference, and that the BEST thing he can possibly do is let the other person know he’s there, and let them tell him what they need. alec never goes straight to jace physically, when he’s upset, unless he initiates it, or jace gives him a clear indication of what he needs (indication that to parabatai that grew up together can be just a look of permission). he RESPECTS the fact that his need to help the people he loves, should not, is not, and will never be more important than what that person needs or wants. he respects the fact that he DOESN’T know what a person with trauma needs better than themselves, and he knows that even silent support, or just making sure the person is safe, can make a huge difference. he accepts and understands the fact that someone during or after a traumatic event, or traumatic memories of that event, might not WANT or be able to HANDLE affection at all, and he’s ready to give it only, and only if, the person indicates that’s what they need. this has been demonstrated in the way he took care of isabelle while she was detoxing. this has been shown again with magnus. this has been shown with jace again on the roof. his own sensibility allowed him to learn this, and it’s what makes jace trust him so much. jace TRUSTS alec to be there for him, because he KNOWS alec won’t push him, or overwhelm him, or even so much as touch him without permission. and sometimes, though not always, just to know that he can have this small power and agency over his own body and what happens to it, and who touches it, and how, can be enough to wind him down a notch.

lowkey both alec and jace are oddly attracted to magnus’ lack of belly button.

alec really likes magnus’ hands.#he likes kissing them#touching them#holding#having them on his face#on his body#i mean

listen, magnus hands are magical, powerful, and so, SO kind, gentle, and hard working, and alec feels gratefulness and profound admiration.

listen, alec comes home from magnus all glittery, with lipstick marks, bed hair, and hickeys. he nuzzles magnus and likes to be touched all over, and doesn’t even realize he’s getting himself all shiny until someone points it out to him and he’s ‘ wh-wh-WHAT’ blushing mess. that happens bc alec doesn’t have the habit of looking at himself in the mirror at all. p sure he just goes about his business with his head down and thinking about a million things and never even lifts it, much less pays attention. after all, the boy that doesn’t even brush his hair, wouldn’t notice any of those on himself.

alec lightwood is a family man, a father, big brother, son, parabatai and a husband, before anything else and that’s what makes him the happiest.

i feel like jace passes by the bane-lightwood residence once in a while just to clean, because if he didn’t, between alec and magnus they’d drown in the mess.

tbh i actually think the beverage alec would like the most is wine, i have this headcanon that the institute and idris have the european tradition of wine at the dinner table, and the kids would be allowed to have a small glass as they grew up. it’s the one he’s more used to, and he likes it some because it feels like family and reminds him of home even if it’s a memory blur of the institute and his few scattered memories of alicante. it’s the one he knows a little more about too.

alec spent so many years controlling himself that he doesn’t have a quick trigger at the start. he keeps holding his body down subconsciously and has to remind himself he can let go, it might not even happen the first time he’s more intimate with someone. he spent years hating every little natural reaction on his body, training himself against it, and it takes him a while longer than an usual boy his age to physically manifest his arousal, to allow himself to. it becomes more natural as he feels safe and more used to the relationship.

also, i think that’s what people find so funny in the book (and by people i mean other characters) when alec is like “clary is one of my best friends” ? because they’re like, you couldn’t care less about her five minutes ago. but that’s the THING about alec, once he takes you under his wing, he does and it’s finished. it doesn’t matter what he thought before because once you’re one of them, you’re one of them, to alec and he’ll keep you safe with his life.

another example of this is when clary hears alec comforting izzy after simon is turned into a rat, and she’s crying and like, HE COULD HAVE DIED, and alec is like, very patiently saying, so what if he had? and izzy is like I WOULD HAVE- and he’s like “you would have continued to do what you always did and lived your life as usual.” and clary says he sounds like he’s done this many times before and not once does she says he sounds worried for simon or the other boys or that isabelle seems to get a lot of people in trouble, because SHE is not in trouble. alec. lightwood. doesn’t. care. he’s super lovely to izzy but not once he worries about simon, at that point.and YET, later on, when simon has saved their lives and stuff in cog, he DOES worry about him, when the clave takes him. so you see what i’m saying here?

talking to nanda @magnusbanedfromperu and headcanon that once they’re older, starting with alec after he adopts max, maryse teaches all her three children to cook, so they can cook for her grandchildren.

the truth is, ale.c head of the instit,ute would never work. he was already forced to choose between his family and the clav.e and he’ll continue to be. you can’t be against the system, while also answering to the system and representing it. if he truly wants to educate shadowhunt.ers, he can’t be liable by the cl.ave for his every move. if he always has to compromise to keep his position, if that is more important — keeping the title — than working for change, then his hands will always be tied. at the end of the day he’ll live a hypocritical, limited, life.

when ale.c is like that but with kids he brings home and mag.nus is HOW DID WE GET ANOTHER CHILD. and al.ec just……………………………………. i saw them, they’re ours now.also, actually i was gonna say this before and thought it sounded mean but it’s just alec, alec is really like: they’re my child now, you don’t need to pitch in, but if you want to be their father with me i will love you even more for it. however, regardless of anything, they’re mine now and i will take care of them for the rest of my life.

do you ever think about isabelle and jace pranking alec and giggling in the corner?

alec.lightwood.doesn’t.see.people.as.their.sexuality.doesn’t.see.himself.as.his.sexuality.doesn’t.give.a.shit.what.your.sexuality.is.only.what.you.do.doesn’t.hate.people.because.of.their.sexuality.doesn’t.exist.for.that.

listen those blue jammies were alec’s once, bc maryse bought them to match his eyes, only alec didn’t like them so much because they were too bright, and so she gave them to jace, which is why neat-freak jace sleeps in clothes that have a hole in it. bc alec made it and they were alec’s jammies.

show headcanons

now all i can think about is that alec still had conflicted feelings after kissing magnus, and that when he snaps at him and says “after everything i did for you” that he’s actually screaming that at jace, like seeing jace on magnus, specially considering how tortured he is. as though, “after everything i did for you, you still left me, you left me and made me stay back and protect everyone when all i wanted was to go with you.” it’d also mesh well with what he says in his ‘apology’, about how not having jace around makes him confused and feeling as though he can’t stand on his own. that part of him is hurt that jace left, even if he rationally knows he did it for them, he’s still furious he went without putting up a fight, because he knew what that would cause to alec, how it’d kill him, but alec still had to be strong and protect everyone else, specially clary from going after them. when what he wanted was to run after jace, himself.

bc him saying that to magnus makes no sense we can even see that in magnus face he’s outraged like wtf u talking about alexander bc alec did do the wedding thing for himself and everything else magnus has done was to help him even if alec didn’t want him in the end he’d still want to help him, so alec’s outburst was confusing and makes no sense but if you look at it from this point of view of him being frustrated and nearly through a panic attack and feeling betrayed and like he can’t trust anyone and no one will LISTEN to how he FEELS and how BAD it is and his head just shifts into jace and all the crap they’ve been through in s01 and he snaps at the wrong person bc he feels like he’s going to burst from it all

alec / izzy and the demon possession / yin fen

“ I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE SEX IN MY BOYFRIEND’S APARTMENT YET. HOW HAVE YOU?!?!?!!?!”

alec did feel it when jace tried to kill himself during the trial. in fact, he felt jace’s anguish and despair, and he got hit by it hard, which is what ultimately made him vulnerable for the demon possession and attracted it to him, in the first place. jace’s anguish through the bond knocked alec’s guard down and got him possessed.

alec was serene and happy earlier when he talked to magnus. he was worried about jace, but he was so certain jace would be back in an instant that he wasn’t tortured by it. sure the demon possessions were scary and all, but alec isn’t a scared little child, and he knows better than to let his guard down. he wasn’t vulnerable, he was feeling grateful to be alive, to have jace back, to have magnus.so why and how would the demon get in him? the most logic explanation is that jace was in such terror and pain and anguish that it seeped through the bond, and hit alec. which then, for my alec, drove his possessed self to clary’s room looking for her, where he found jocelyn instead.

what i really take into consideration about alec’s despair for finding jace, beyond the parabatai bond, beyond loving him so deeply, was that (mine, at least) alec had grown up hearing jace’s stories about his father. he grew up holding jace at night when he had nightmares. listening to incredibly awful stories told in a nonchalant tone because jace never even knew how bad it was; because he never knew any differently; listening to a little boy talk about his father with a fierce loyalty and love, when alec only felt stomach sick at the way he was raised, treated and beaten. jace literally thinks how he remembers looking for beating scars on his body after his father died, because those were the closest connections he had to him. and alec KNOWS this. he knows all of it. he knows exactly how jace was abused, how he feels about it, how vulnerable he is to valentine, and i think that of everything THIS is what scares him the most.

i think that when he was a little kid, he promised himself that he would NEVER let someone hurt jace like that again. and i think it really translates in his complete despair at not being able to find him. he knows more than anyone, almost as much as jace, what valentine is capable of. he knows intimately of the mental and emotional effects that has had on someone whose soul he has inside him. he KNOWS how this is gonna wreck jace apart, and it HURTS, because he swore he’d never let valentine(or michael) get his hands on him again and then it happened.

i’m sure i’m the slowest person on earth but i think i just maybe realized their intention with alec+jocelyn (i mean besides another wedge between fraywood). that alec’s rage brought him to clary’s room, to kill her, and found jocelyn in it, instead.+ i mean, i thought about it because before that we get that scene between clary and her mom, and there’s this pretty pointless comment of her saying she was guarding clary’s room, to make sure it was clear. it’d make sense? if izzy came for alec, because she focused years of resentment on him, alec does focused a lot of his resentment with himself on clary since she showed up.

ok. but seriously. this makes so much sense to me, and it’s my headcanon now. and now i’ve made myself sad. we got almost the entire first half of the episode reminding us of how alec’s annoyed by clary, doesn’t like her etc. then there was jocelyn’s comment that she was guarding clary’s bedroom. and i’m pretty sure some part of alec still irrationally, deep down, blamed clary for jace being through all the suffering he can feel his parabatai going through. valentine wouldn’t order jocelyn dead, specially when he hadn’t even got to talk to her yet. and while alec did have reasons to hate her, i.e. for what she did to jace, and how she used him too, she wouldn’t be his priority target. so what does make sense to me, was that he was looking for the daughter and found jocelyn instead, and it was good enough for the demon, given the circumstances. clearly i’m not saying alec wants clary dead, ofc not, much less to be the one to kill her, but just that his emotions would much more likely guide the demon towards her than her mother.

memory demon : “the one person you love the most.” /love/ the most. and while you could argue it was a sibling type of love (which is bullshit), alec’s reaction to it makes it clear that was not what that was, and he knew it wasn’t, and therefore could not possibly IMAGINE that someone would think it was something else, and not what he hated himself so much for. just like izzy knew. magnus knew. and clary knew. and jace did too at that moment. i just don’t get how someone can think that isn’t important. is alec falling in love with magnus? ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELY, but that doesn’t invalidate feelings he’s had before. it takes a while to work those kind of things out. he’s learning to love jace in a platonic way. i don’t know about anyone else, but, to me, you just don’t forget your first love, and everyone you’ve loved in fact, stays with you in one way or another. everything was done rushed-ly (though we know that was not their fault in season 01) so yES. alec WAS in love with jace still. at least my alec would always have been.just like camille is fucking important, and not dispensable, neither is jace to alec. their heartbreaks and unrequited love, are part of what make them finding each other so important. discarding that just actually cheapens their love, in my opinion.

malec fighting : i want magnus to drop his gentleness for once, and be the powerful, centuries old warlock around alec. i want him to give alec a good shake (with words), so he realizes he can’t just shift back into treating magnus like “any other downworlder” that doesn’t belong in his business whenever he’s angry, scared, or upset. i loved that scene so much, but now i really wanted a confrontation that didn’t happen last time, when alec apologized instead, and magnus was sweet to him and that was great, but i wanted him to shake alec up a bit this time. like yes, he understands, but alec needs to understand too. that that was his family as much as it was alec’s. that alec can’t just be a shadowhunter, in business mode, that has no space for magnus whenever things get hard.

#ok#i see where you're coming from and all#but let me tell you about the word 'friend'#that fucking word#hurts so much#so fucking much#idk if that's the case here with magnus#but i can say that even watching that scene made me flinch#there is a world of conotations#of sweeping under the rug#of diminishing#of shaming#of dismissing#and of humiliation in that word#specially when it's said in the exact tone he said it#it actually hurt me to see it#it's a brutal word when said just right X

there is a reason for why alec never sensed jace’s hook ups before, but jace felt it when alec and magnus first had something intimate with each other. the reason being that what jace felt and called happiness was actually a mix of intimacy, safety, yes, pleasure, but above all, love. since jace has never been in love before clary, and never had the chance to have something more with her, alec never felt the same from him. which is why it was a big surprise when he found out jace felt it, and it’s something he’s definitely to this day not entirely comfortable with. when clary and jace finally have their moment, alec will probably feel it too. it is certainly one of the reasons for his jealousy and pain in the first season, as he’s felt many things from 🇯🇦🇨🇪 towards girls before, but had never sensed him actually falling in love with someone else, until her.

people say alec is not affectionate enough but honestly to my alec those little touches are such an evolution??? just talking about my portrayal, personally, he was definitely more affectionate as a child, but ever since his gay thoughts™ started, he slowly stopped being freely affectionate to people. it started with jace, and then it extended to not initiating affection unless other people did for him. he’s JUST learning that it’s okay and he’s okay being who he is and he’s not gonna taint people just by touching them, or his close ones aren’t gonna find out he’s weird if they stand too close, or he’s not gonna give himself away if he lets himself be sensible and warm and let people in. that his love is not tainted. the fact that he’s initiating so many little gestures of affections is incredible to me. and i know the show doesn’t quite show how much of his struggle was due to homophobic society since that is so toned down in it, but his struggle was supreme, and to be this confident in himself, this comfortable, with greeting kisses and casual touching, that is amazing to me.

ok but look at his face. i know there’s this whole show thing where suddenly alec is the most confident person in the world, but that’s not how my interpretation will go. he’s not comfortable in this position, at all. he doesn’t even know if this is what he actually wants or just what his family imposed for him and he’s just used to it. he didn’t have the time to figure that out with jace having been head for less than 24 hours. at this point it feels like an obligation he can’t escape, and he feels wrong telling people what to do and being in this much exposition. he doesn’t like it. and he’s not even sure the job is for him.

jalec headcanon hour: jace is able to, through their parabatai bond, activate alec’s runes for him without a stele, and at a distance, just like he does with his own.

i firmly believe alec is overcompensating on confidence and decision-making for having not done so the episode magnus was trapped inside valentine. that’s why he’s so“FINE”, with all of this. he KNEW something was wrong the moment he touched magnus to get him off the floor after azazel’s attack. but he didn’t trust himself, and if he had, and had been more involved, instead of accepting the clave’s authority, things would had been different. now he’s desperate to fix this however he can, prove himself not only as a protector but as DIFFERENT from the institution that did what they did to magnus, the downworlders, and so many other prisoners, and trust his gut. and just really hoping it won’t explode all on his face. pretty sure an anxiety attack is on the way when things get too big to handle. he’s much too young for this big a responsibility over so many lives. he might look all grown up but if clary is eighteen, that means he’s twenty one at best. and i feel like it’s often forgotten.

ok, but, good part of why it took my alec a while to realize the whole switch thing is he’s still waiting for the other shoe to drop. aka people, including magnus, to reject him.

for weeks after alec dies for a second, jace has repeated nightmares of re-living that scene, only alec never comes back and jace in the dream thinks reality is the illusion. it messes him up for a while, where he needs to touch alec to know he’s real and there and alive, and jace wakes up gasping and while he’s dreaming he at times chants the ‘please don’t leave me, alec’ hoping this time he will get to live. some times in those dreams alec is killed by wolves, or by valentine’s hand because jace refuses to obey. some times he wakes up with his parabatai rune burning.

#trigger_#for everything alec has been through #long post_#compilation ↬ alec lightwood

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kadobeclothing · 5 years ago

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The Ultimate Guide to Social Media Analytics

There are over 3.8 billion social media users across the globe. As you can probably imagine, that’s a major reason why businesses want to be active on social, too. Businesses use social media to market, sell, and provide support to their target audience and customers as well as learn about and bond with them.

The key is to understand what types of posts on which platforms are most effective in resonating with these audience members and customers. This will allow your business to consistently produce engaging content that positively impacts your bottom line. How do you do this? Well, it requires social media analytics and reporting.

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Types of Social Media Analytics Reports To give you an idea of some of the different types of social media analytics reports available in commonly-used tools, let’s look at HubSpot’s social media analytics reporting options. 1. Audience Analytics Report

The Audience report displays your current number of followers for each of your social accounts compared to the number of followers you had in a previous time period. 2. Published Posts Analytics Report

The Published Posts report shows the number of social posts published across your social accounts during a specific time period. 3. Interactions Analytics Report

The Interactions report displays the number of likes, reactions, and comments on all of your posts across multiple platforms. 4. Clicks Analytics Report

The Clicks report displays how many clicks you get on your social posts published through HubSpot. 5. Shares Analytics Report

The Shares report displays the amount of your posts that were shared by your audience members. 6. Impressions Analytics Report

The Impressions report shows the number of views that posts on your LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram pages received. 7. Sessions Analytics Report

The Sessions report displays how many web sessions took place within a given time period on your site that were driven from social media. 8. New Contacts Analytics Report

The New Contacts report displays how many new contacts have been created in HubSpot as a result of web sessions driven from social media within the selected time period. Now you may be wondering what tools are available to help you pull these reports and data — next, we’ll cover some of your options.

Social Media Analytics Tools There are a plethora of social media analytics tools available today which is why identifying the right one for your business can seem like a daunting task. We’ve compiled the following list of seven of our favorites to help get you started. Download 10 free social media templates to help you manage and optimize your content to achieve the best results. 1. HubSpot Social Media Software HubSpot Social Media Software gives you insight into the customer journey through integrated analytics tools. These help you understand which of your marketing tactics are working best among your audience, determine how your marketing efforts are impacting your bottom line, and learn about your search engine optimization (SEO)-related ROI. Try HubSpot’s social media tools free for 30 days. In addition to this HubSpot’s Social Media Software, there are a number of resources including social media analytics report templates, free social media analytics tools, and social media courses available for you to implement in your strategy. Note: HubSpot also integrates with other analytics software, like Oktopost, as well as major social platforms and their respective analytics tools such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube (among many others, which you can learn about in the HubSpot integrations marketplace). 2. Tweet Deck Tweet Deck is an analytics tool used for Twitter. It works in real-time to help you view and analyze your Tweet engagement, organization, management, and tracking on the platform. 3. Tweet Reach Despite what you may think based on its name, Tweet Reach isn’t just used for Twitter. The analytics tool creates snapshot reports to help you efficiently monitor and pull key takeaways from your Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook profiles based on factors you identify as most important to your business. 4. Buffer Buffer provides an in-depth look at how you can strategize to grow your brand on social media. The software does this by measuring your performance on various social platforms, creating detailed reports about the data points that matter to you, and recommending ways to improve your reach, engagement, and more. 5. Hootsuite Hootsuite allows you to create customized social media reports using over 200 metrics over any of your social channels and campaigns. These reports are easily shareable with members of your team as well as your clients to keep everyone on the same page and prove ROI. 6. Sprout Social Sprout Social provides a look into the needs of your customers through the conversations your customers and followers are having on social. The software also measures your specific content and campaign work across various platforms and channels to determine what’s working best among audience members and what should be improved upon. (Note: Sprout Social is another social media software that integrates with HubSpot.) 7. Mention Mention is a tool that allows your company to monitor, listen, and analyze your posts as well as your interactions with and among audience members via different social channels and platforms. The software also makes it easy to create automated reports to share this data with fellow employees or clients. Next, let’s look at how to apply these tools and resources in your day-to-day work by reviewing the steps involved in tracking social media analytics (also known as your social media analytics strategy).

How to Track Social Media Analytics

Set SMART social media analytics goals. Determine which social media analytics tools you’ll use. Implement your social media analytics tools of choice. Measure the success of your social media analytics efforts. Make necessary social media analytics adjustments.

Work through the following steps to begin tracking your social media analytics and gaining a better understanding of which parts of your processes are working and which need to be modified. Again, you can think of this as your social media analytics strategy. 1. Set SMART social media analytics goals. Create and set SMART goals to help you achieve your social media analytics goals. By ensuring your goals are SMART, they’ll be Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound — meaning, you’ll be able to focus your strategy to reach or even exceed your expectations efficiently. To begin, ask yourself, “What do I want to learn from my social media analytics?” Then, dive into each part of the SMART goal. Here’s an example of a SMART goal related to your social media analytics strategy for reference. Use a free template to help you create SMART goals and achieve them. Specific: I want to use social media analytics to identify specific data points related to my marketing tactics to determine which posts and campaigns are working best in reaching and engaging our audience members. Measurable: I want to be able to identify some specific data points to accomplish this goal. Attainable: I will work to identify three specific data points to help accomplish this goal. Relevant: These data points will help my team and I measure our success in reaching and engaging our audience members across social media channels as well as identify any gaps or areas for improvement in our social media strategy. Time-bound: I want to identify these specific data points over the course of the next month — this way, in four week’s time, we can begin using them to measure our success in reaching and engaging audience members across social channels and identify gaps and areas for improvement in our social media strategy. 2. Decide which metrics you’ll and focus on and track. Now it’s time to decide which social media metrics you’re going to track. There are a number of commonly-tracked social media metrics for your consideration. Metrics may vary by social platform as well as which analytics tool you chose. But, here are some all-encompassing metrics applicable to virtually every social channel and analytics tool to get started. Reach is the total number of people who have seen your content. Engagements are all interactions including shares, likes, and comments. Impressions are the number of times or content is displayed on someone’s feed. Mentions are the times your business and brand are referenced on social media by audience members or other businesses. Social ROI provides insight into whether the investment you’ve put into your social media marketing is resulting in an increase or decrease in customers, sales, brand awareness, and customer loyalty. Social listening is when you monitor conversations about your business and brand on social to see what customers and audience members are saying about you. Likes are when an audience member taps (or double taps) on your social content to show they’re a fan of your post. Retweets/ shares/ reposts are when audience members post the content your business published on their profiles. 3. Determine which social media analytics tools you’ll use. Next, determine which social media analytics tools you’ll use — we covered some popular choices above but you can always review other options through a simple Google search. Before making a decision regarding which tool or tools you’ll use, think about the following questions: Do you want a tool or software to help you manage your social media analytics across multiple channels and platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) or just one (e.g. Twitter)? Which metrics did you decide you’re going to track (as we touched on in the above step)? What is your budget? Do you need a tool with flexible pricing options and features that you can add to or remove from over time? (To find this information, review the pricing pages like this page on Sprout Social’s website.) Which tools and software options are suited to help you achieve the SMART goals you set? (Check out feature pages for this type of information, like this page on Oktopost’s website.) Do you want your tool to integrate with the greater software your team uses to run your business (such as HubSpot’s CRM, for example)? 4. Measure the success of your social media analytics efforts. Once you implement your social media analytics software, you’ll be able to measure the success of your efforts. To do this, you may use the analytics tool you implemented — depending on your software, you might have the ability to create customized reports and dashboards or pull the specific details about data points you care most about. In addition to applying your tools to help measure your success, you may also consider your answers to the following questions: Did you achieve your SMART goals? Did the metrics you chose to focus on tell a story that’s helpful for your business? Did the software or tool you implemented support your business needs? 5. Make necessary social media analytics adjustments. Once you measure the success of your social media analytics efforts, you’ll be able to determine whether or not any part of your strategy needs to be changed or updated. Maybe you realize one of your data points isn’t providing the level of insight into your marketing efforts across social platforms, so you need to identify a new one to measure. Maybe your software doesn’t allow you to customize cross-channel reports the way you want to, so you need to implement a new tool. Or, if you’re happy with the way your social media analytics reporting and strategy is working, be sure to revisit your strategy in the future to ensure it continues meeting your expectations. Begin Tracking and Applying Social Media Analytics By tracking and applying the process of social media analytics to your strategy, you’ll be able to more effectively reach your audience. And when you do this, you’ll see improvements in factors that are directly tied to your ROI like engagement, conversions, loyalty, and more. Consider which tools and software are best for you and determine how you’ll track your social media analytics to create deeper relationships with your customers and followers.

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