#it's somewhat bittersweet too imo

[athousandbyeol]

phi, do you know? actually, i don't want to go. if i'm asking for help, will phi help me?

[dsaf-confessions]

I have two of them

1: Steven x Peter isn't that bad honestly. Imo at least. It doesn't deserve the amount of hating it gets. 'But Steven ruined Peter's life by sending him to become a phone guy' the games go out of their way to show and even directly tell you that phone guys are slaved people who are brought back from the dead and forced to do as their programming says. Steven isn't an expert or anything he's just as slaved as the others were. And while he does say 'I hope u can forgive me for this' which kinda means that he knew it was bad? But honestly I still don't blame it on him fully. From my understanding phone guys are only capable of going 'against' (for lack of better word) their programming only if they have some humanity or memories when they were alive, which I dont think Steven does, in both dsaf1 & 3 hes fully convinced that he's Scott Cawthon and only remembers that he isnt after literally being forced to. 'they hate eachother' I've replayed all the dsaf games and I can't find anything confirming that. Steven obviously regrets what he did and wants to make it right to not just Peter, but everyone else as well. Peter and Steven don't interact much, but Peter hasn't said anything mean about Steven once. The only thing that implies this is Peter's line of Jack saving even those who don't deserve it. But honestly he never said it was about Steven. For all we know he could had been referring to Dave or hell even himself. 'Its boss x employee which would be toxic by realistic standards' ok I see your point but why compere realistic standards to fucking dsaf? You know what else would be incredible toxic by realistic standards too? Davesport. But the fandoms not ready for that talk.

Speaking of davesport

2: Davesport is hellaaaaaaa overrated. I get why people ship it. It has much potential. But honestly it's the only thing the fandom talks about and Im getting tired of it. Where's my Steven contact? Where's my Peter or Dee contact? Where's the phone guys, Henry, Jacktrap or hell even Davetrap contact? Where's the angst connect on the Kennedy siblings? The only endings this fandom talks about are like the Gnarly Endings even tho I think the good ending and pure evil endings in dsaf2 are much better better than the gnarly end. Contact of the legacy routes are almost non existent ESPECIALLY on the legacy route of 2 and when there's is. It's davesport angst. How about we make angst about how Jack literally kills his motherfucking sister that he literally died for in an even more curler dsaf3 legacy route. I also hate how much the fandom mischaracterizes it. No they aren't uwu gay boys, no they don't have a perfect relationship. Their relationship is fucking unhealthy, flawed and bittersweet. (No Im not saying davesport is a pr*ship don't accuse me of that, although it's an unhealthy relationship it's not an ab**ive one). Dave literally stalks Jack, he has cameras on his house for the real Fredbear's sake. Yes I know they're treated like jokes, yes I know that Jack doesn't seem to mind, yes I know that Dave & Jack ARE capable of being in a somewhat normal relationship, with Flipside Dave at least. But still that's not healthy. They are literally willing to kill eachother if they're opposite! Those are two dead courses that have been stripped almost completely out of all their humanity thanks to that pink fuck Henry. Obviously they won't be sweet and caring to eachother or anyone really. If you like Davesport at the very least actually protey it correctly.

This is coming from someone who doesn't even ship Steveter (that's what I'll call the ship) and loves Davesport btw

.

[midnightrings]

i think many people mistakenly see hawk as a villain, when he's neither the villain within the story or written and acted that way, if you get what i mean, like extra/intradiegetic. and while ft is unquestionably 100% a love story, even though i see people argue whether hawk loves tim back (which is mind boggling to me), I would say it's not the kind of love story where love would immediately change hawk and his attitude to the world and his life, like in a typical romance novel for example, he's not going to be like, omg i love tim and promptly change his entire personality. like, i don't think it's his ambitions and career that he's putting first before tim, it's more self preservation and survival. and as he says himself in the letter he's dictating to tim which serves to covertly address his own feelings, he doesn't see a future for them. I don't want to baby him lmao, he's not a helpless man with no choice or agency, but imo it's clear his decisions are affected by his father's behavior towards him, the war, homophobia of the time period, internalized homophobia etc.

Yes, exactly!

Hawk is a flawed character, but that doesn’t make him the villain of this story. Due to his past and the time period he lives in, he struggles to form any deep connection and believes it is better to not show any vulnerability or to get too attached to other people or causes. Not caring about anyone or anything is his strategy to survive. Fear probably plays a huge role here – the fear of being outed, the fear of hurting/losing people her cares about, and the fear of hurting himself in the process. Which doesn’t mean that he’s innocent or merely a victim. He’s very much flawed, and often times an awful person. But his main mistake is that he’s running away from his issues, rather than facing them. Tim could help him become a better person (and I think he does to some extent) but Tim also represents everything that Hawk is afraid of.

And even though I feel sorry for Tim, and definitely think that he’s the victim of Hawk’s behavior most times, painting Hawk as the villain and Tim as the victim also erases Tim’s agency. He’s the one who left Hawk several times, just to return to him again later. At this point, he’s clearly aware of what type of person Hawk is, and he chooses to love him nonetheless. Sadly, Hawk can’t return that love – not because he doesn’t love him (he 100% does) but because he believes that he cannot allow himself to love Tim.

It’s definitely not a romance, but it is a love story – a tragic love story. Hawk is intended to be a complex character that his hard to judge – both, by the characters within the story and the audience. People questioning whether Hawk loves Tim is not surprising, but if you actually pay attention to his character and the writing, it is clear that he does love him – the story wouldn’t even make sense otherwise.

But yeah, I also don’t think his character will change completely at any point, not even after Tim’s death, at least judging by the writing so far. Maybe he will accept how he’s let Tim down and somewhat grow from it, maybe he’ll have a complete breakdown, or maybe he will just continue to live like he’s always done. This definitely won’t have a happy ending. Though I do still hope that Hawk and Tim can maybe make some amends, just so that Tim can rest in peace (and I kinda hope that he tells Tim at some point that he loves/loved him, just to maybe give it a somewhat bittersweet ending)

[nebulanewts]

So I’m uh…very late to the party with these bc I was really trying to sit out whatever bug is going on for me but I saw this the day it came out and was like WHAT????

I did NOT expect the previews to be released so early,but tbh I’m not complaining I was wondering when they were coming out :0c anyways,these were my initial impressions hearing the one in this video and the SIF 2 previews ⬇️⬇️

Ayumu - “Walking Dream” : Not gonna lie,this is not the song I expected to hear from this detective outfit but it’s really good - I like the bells and light waltz-y feel of the instrumentals,it’s not my FAVORITE Ayumu solo but it’s still nice plus it’s just the preview so idk I might change my mind when the full comes out

Kasumi - “Senobi Shittate” : You know what? This is a totally different sound for Kasumin,but I like it quite a bit - Not really my style personally,but the instrumental is really pretty and it shows a more mature Kasumi which is nice (and yes,I’m semi counting this as her black swan era too because of the instrumentals alone)

Shizuku - “Koakuma LOVE ♡” : My immediate thoughts are…HUH???? Like,I had a feeling that her solo may be cutesier due to her outfit choices but like…not like this and I love it so much,it may be one of my favorites so far :0c (but then again,imo Shizuku’s solos are always at least decent so it’s not that big of a surprise ig dndjdj - also everyone saying she swapped song styles with Kasumi is RIGHT omg)

Karin - “My Shadow” : If you look up “Karin Asaka” and put “having a bad song” next to it,you will find NOTHING because FINALLY!!!! KARIN GOT HER JAZZ SOLO!!!!! …ok it’s not exactly jazz more like electro swing but you know what? I will take it,this song is SO good - this one might be up there when it comes to my favorites too bc wow,I hope they keep doing this sort of song in LL

Ai - “Request for U” : Ok,so I was right about Ai getting a more mellow song than usual and honestly?? It works really well for her,it’s still somewhat upbeat and very Ai-y but like Kasumi’s,it shows a different side to her that I like a lot :] it’s rlly cute

Kanata - “Cooking with Love” : WOWOWOW my mind is blown with this one…this might be my favorite out of the album so far and my favorite Kanata solo like it sounds like a magical girl anime ending and I am so about it,we knew with that jirai kei outfit that she was gonna cook and cook she DID,this girl made a whole sweets buffet and I will eat every bite

Setsuna - “Cherry Bomb” : So the words on her merch WERE the title of her song,and boy is this song good too like…these songs were worth the wait - Hayamaru’s voice is fantastic,it’s distinctly different but still very Setsuna sounding,I love the sort of harder rock sound in this song :0c I’m one of the few that’s very 50/50 on Setsuna’s solos but this one is really good,they really cranked up the shounen anime opening vibes for her and I like it a lot

Emma - “Koisuru Sunflower” : This album continues to be full of surprises,I was expecting a slower song due to the outfit but am pleasantly surprised with this mid-tempo calypso-y song - Emma’s songs always have this sort of warm comfy sound,I feel like I’m relaxing on the beach with a fun drink listening to it idk what it is

Rina - “Watashi wa Magnet” : …huh this song is a lot slower than I expected it to be with the outfit,but I think it’s funny that Rina has gotten two love songs consistently although this one is more upbeat and bubbly compared to the more bittersweet somber sound of First Love Again,but it’s not really my style like it’s not terrible it’s just not a song I think I’ll listen to often ykwim

Shioriko - “Koufukuron” : Ok…this is absolutely not how I expected this to sound,like her outfit names were things like “Undead Celebrity” and “Royal Skeleton” - I fully expected this song to be kind of spooky sounding but no…ily Shio but this preview does NOT do the song justice,it just seems so flat in comparison to her other songs I’m kinda disappointed :/

Mia - “Lemonade” : The song is very cute,it gives me very 2009 Hannah Montana but like a good b-side - There’s other Mia solos I like more,but this one is alright and also some of the lyrics are a little…silly but it’s easier to brush past this time (looking at you Toy Doll)

Lanzhu - “5201314 / I Love You for A Lifetime” : And the most unique song title in Love Live goes to…Zhong Lanzhu! But seriously,Lanzhu really does not miss,this song is so good :0c I like that she speaks a little more Mandarin in this song,and even the general vibe of the song reflects that too. It still has her sound,but has elements to it that are new - She truly never makes a bad song

[purpleheartskies]

What’s your favorite Robby moment?

I'm thinking "You're asking me to choose one? Just one?" lol There are just so many moments that make up who Robby is, so I'm picking a few moments that come to mind.

One is when Robby comes home with his mom's favorite pizza. He gets a sweet smile on his face when his mom walks into the room and he asks her to hang out. Robby really is a sweet kid at heart, and he obviously deals with a lot. Robby had defended Shannon to Johnny, but Robby's relationship with Shannon isn't easy by any means. Regardless, he's loyal and loving to her because she chooses to be there (as much as she does).

Robby's a sweetheart

A second one is at the end of the car scene with Johnny. Robby thanks Johnny for driving him to school. It's another sweet Robby moment. Even in this convo, Johnny was being somewhat meh. He bought Robby school supplies, which was nice, but when Robby started talking about the LaRussos, Johnny got kinda upset. Sadly, Robby even says "I know you don't want to hear it, but Mr. LaRusso was good to me." Johnny's so selfish that he didn't care that someone had been good to Robby and had given him a home when his parents, including Johnny, had left him with no food or money. Despite this, Robby still thanked Johnny for driving him to school. Sadly, this is actually a bittersweet moment in hindsight because that thank you was the last thing Robby said to Johnny before the school fight. After that Johnny didn't show his face to Robby until over one month later...

"Thanks for driving me, dad"

A third is Robby's approach to striking first in juvie. He wasn't manipulated by Kreese. Robby just considered what Kreese had said. Robby only decided to strike first because Shawn gave him no choice. Robby's instincts were Miyagi-Do instincts here. Robby's a true Miyagi-Do at heart. And, Robby's approach was brilliant imo. Robby walked into that room with a plan: find Shawn when he's with the fewest friends, fake him out so he lets his guard down, strike first at him, take out his friends, focus on him.

Defense takes on many forms

A fourth is with Tory at the drive in. Robby notices Tory's mood is off and asks if she doesn't like the movie. Tory says that she had a shitty day, so he says, "I'd ask but it's none of my business" like she'd told to him earlier that day. Shows that he pays attention to all the little things about her. She appreciated that too.

"I'd ask but it's none of my business"

A fifth one is skate park Robby. Sam had no apology for cheating on him or empathy for what she was asking him to do for her. She's never even acknowledged that he had been attacked that day in school while he was trying to protect her. That princess needed to be put in her place.

"You're not getting what you want"

[flodaya]

Hi!! I was just wondering is episode 6 your favourite because it was the episode with the most kieutou content or because of something else?

i mean yes and also not entirely? I feel like out of all the episodes it had the best overall arc and the best execution, it set up all its themes and it came to a conclusion by the end of the episode, and i was on the edge of my seat the entire week

i thought the writing and directing was wonderful, one of druck’s current *weakest point* imo is not letting a scene play out organically but rather have a set plan for each clip and it’s like working off a checklist but episode 6 felt like the opposite imo, it had a lot of these calmer moments, the entire date clip was basically just us getting to know these characters and how they work as a pair while also having some heavy foreshadowing, so it was neither pointless nor did it feel too expositional

the thursday clip is one of the most nerve-wracking experience i’ve ever had, i was literally so anxious about what was going to happen (made even worse by the fact that i was working all day so i knew something had happened but i didn’t know what). and it ended up being wonderfully in character, a heart-wrenchingly sad clip and i love every minute of it, from fatou silently humming and succeeding in her plan to simply memorize the equation, to the pressuring video game music while she was trying to solve the math problem, to the end when she was crying and finally for the first time letting out her frustration about feeling stupid and not enough for kieu my. the clip was so cathartic. seeing how everyone re-lived and shared their own experience afterwards made me so emotional because that is what skam is supposed to do, we are supposed to finally be able to talk about these topics that society is making us feel ashamed of, in this case how we aren’t failing the school system but how the school system is failing us 

and of course the last clip, what a loving pay off for a bittersweet week, it felt so wonderful to see a show not drag this drama out, any other show would have waited at least a few days for kieu my to climb up that roof, but druck just said “nope, it would be so weird for her not to go immediately and confess her feelings” so they just gave us a happy ending to the episode and made fatou not suffer in her self-pity alone for long 

it’s also the tiny things, like the way kieu my opened up about her internalized biphobia which was a wonderful monologue, the moment when kieu my and fatou bonded over them both being somewhat bilingual and being second/third generation immigrants, the birthmark call-back, the way these two girls were allowed to be really physically into each other in a way wlw couples rarely get to be on tv, it was the completely unexpected late night clip of kieu my being a wonderful supportive (almost) girlfriend, and one of the most romantic things ever said on tv “du gehst mir einfach nicht aus dem kopf / you’re just always on my mind” 

tl;dr i just loved it, not just the happy fluffy kieutou parts, but all around the experience of watching it live, and even rewatching it as a whole is a rollercoaster of emotions but in the best possible way

[bourbon-ontherocks]

while we're talking music, dw De tes rêves is on the rota💯 I'm all ears on your feelings for Lemay songs👀 (Les Maudits Français &La Marmaille are 2 others good ones imo) unfortunately I'm pretty unfamiliar w Michel Berger besides his hits &Starmania, so I can't say; any recs/insights on that front? oh, and: what about Oublie-moi by Cœur de pirate? (while I'm at it, know that I've had 6.5 blogs across 3 accounts so far so Good Fucking Luck on your fannish dumpster dive when the time comes😂)

(Julia's adventures with the HPI anon)

Oh gosh, Lynda’s songs... Well La Centenaire is literally one my top five favourite songs of all times and all languages I think, standing side by side with with giants such a The Show Must Go On or Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) in my personal wall of fame. It’s just so beautifully written (C’est que je suis avide/Mais qu’y a plus rien à mordre/C’est qu’mon passé déborde/Et qu’mon avenir est vide 😭😭), and addressing such an universal topic: what’s the point of living old if that’s in a world that is no longer yours, where everyone you’ve known is already gone? I can’t help thinking about my grandmother who’s turned 92 this year and whose mindset is definitely getting closer to this song every year.

And the song in itself is absolutely beautiful, the piano theme, the little violin arpeggi, Lynda’s voice at its finest bringing so much intensity to it, especially for an acoustic song... To me it’s just a masterpiece with a rare degree of perfection and I cry every time I listen to it because it’s beauty in pure form 😭❤️

And ugh, Les Deux hommes is basically La Centenaire’s little sister, a beautiful, beautiful acoustic melody and pure poetry, heartbreaking lyrics about same-sex parents facing homophobia... It makes me cry a lot too (btw thank you no thank you for this ask, anon, I listened to them both in a row to write that reply, and now I need a minute. Or two. Heck, make it an hour, okay?)

All right, all right, La Marmaille is nice, but how about I counterattack on the motherhood field with Si Je Ne Te Fais Pas d’Enfant, then ? 💔 (L’amour peut bien durer longtemps mais un enfant ça dure toujours, gah, she has her ways with words, huh?)

And oh, I didn’t know Les Maudits Français, this one belongs to the Funny!Lynda side, kinda reminds me of Les Souliers Verts which is the first song I’ve heard from her (pretty sure that was her first hit in France?) and which made me laugh so much back then 😂 (not for the story itself which is rather sad, but the lyrics are just sooooo funny and inventive)

Well, I’d say that if you know Starmania, c’est l’essentiel!!! 😍😍 I don’t necessarily find Berger’s music particularly fitting of an HPI mood, I guess that Message personnel kinda fits any bittersweet-angsty shippy situation? And of course, if you really want to dive into the drama, SOS d’un terrien en détresse for breakdown!Morgane, maybe?

Look, anon, you’re really expanding my Coeur de Pirate opinions today! Oublie-moi definitely carries this perfect mix of catchy music + somewhat angsty lyrics which is the exact brand of HPI: a colourful, irredeemable optimism tainted with delicate hearbreaks ❤️❤️ Adding it to the playlist RIGHT NOW

Oh and since we're at it, two songs suggestions for after you've watched the finale on Thursday

Boom boom by John Lee Hooker

I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor (I said heartbreaks, okay? 😈)

Ajsjdfjefjdjfsjjf, THREE different accounts?? Wow, you played no games, anon 😂 What does 0.5 blog mean tho?

[funkymbtifiction]

Genuine question too, what character on screen do you relate to most? It doesn’t have to be mbti-related, but yeah?

My entire life revolves around my love for writing, to the point where I structure my social calendar around writing novels, so I relate heavily to Jo March in Little Women -- she cares way more about writing than anything else in her life, which is me. Both of us want to write EXCITING things and get annoyed when other people try to talk us into writing “nice” things. Who wants to write NICE things when you can write about vampires, evil plots, diabolical schemes, etc. :P I also relate somewhat to Chloe Sullivan (another writer) and Claire from Elizabethtown in that we’re both good-natured “substitute people.”

Also, what are the tritypes of Wandavision? And what were your thoughts on the show? Personally, it’s such a masterpiece and all the references were beautiful.

I liked it a lot. Best thing I’ve seen in months and IMO it leaves The Mandalorian in the dust. I’m hard to please and it takes a lot to entertain me, but I kept tuning in every week eager to see what would happen next and spent a lot of time in-between speculating about plot twists, etc. I thought the ending was bittersweet -- I figured what happened would happen, but it was still kind of sad. A very intuitive show, full of intuitive concepts and ideas, and that appealed to me a lot.

I didn’t think a lot about tritypes while watching, but --

Wanda - 945, Vision - 952, Agnes - 837, Monica - 613, Darcy - 793

[jennyboom21]

I miss emps in particular today because you know she’d be all about cracking the code on the famous women Bebe Rexha has apparently been with

Gosh, she’s so missed!!! 🥺🥺🥺😫😫😫😭😭😭!!! Miss you, Dr. Emps!

Congrats to Bebe!!! I do wonder who the girl(s) is(are), but one of my Hard Truths (a subset of Pro Tips) when it comes to Not Straight celebs that the ones who soft out themselves as some type of gay have already had a same sex relationship, OR... are in one (or after a civil break up), imo 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍🌈

“I’m not going to try to be that perfect pop girl,” Bebe Rexha says with a shrug, “because I just can’t live my life like that.” It’s early morning in LA and the 31-year-old has barely had a chance to start her breakfast, but she’s already telling it like it is. “Growing up, I would look up to all these glossy, beautiful pop stars and I thought that was the way to do it, but it’s not what works for me,” she says. Rexha has realised in the seven years since she dropped her stomping debut solo single I Can’t Stop Drinking About You that her fans prefer it when she’s “honest” and gloss-free.

This honesty runs through her brilliant new album, Better Mistakes, like a stick of rock. On the catchy opening track Break My Heart Myself, Rexha drops a matter-of-fact reference to Klonopin, a prescription drug used to treat anxiety and panic attacks. “My doctor upped my dosage / My mom felt bad, so she sent me roses / Without it, I feel really hopeless,” she sings unselfconsciously. If anything, the guitar-driven ballad Empty, which appears towards the end of the album, is even rawer. “I break down with my daily routine, a fake smile is my accessory,” Rexha sings softly. “I’m tired of feeling low, and I’m too tired to hurt.” It’s affecting stuff.

Rexha is also an open book in person: so much so that even our transatlantic Zoom interview feels pretty intimate. “My fans like it when I talk about my mental health and my weight and not being what the ‘perfect’ pop star looks like,” she continues. “You know, I’m not a [US] size four, I’m an eight-to-ten. Some people are so good at the perfect pop girl thing: they work out every day and eat the perfect things and say the perfect things in interviews.” Rexha says this will never be her. “Like, I will wake up sometimes and have a really shitty day, and when that happens, I’m just gonna be me,” she adds. When several designers declined to dress her for the 2019 Grammy Awards because in their eyes she was “too big”, Rexha publically called them out. “That’s crazy. You’re saying that all the women size 8 and up are not beautiful and can’t wear your dresses?” she tweeted.

As well as being honest to a fault, the album is catchy as hell: another Bebe Rexha signature. Before she launched her solo career in 2014, the Brooklyn-born artist had already made a splash as a songwriter who can turn edgy subject matter into pop gold. A year earlier, Eminem and Rihanna recorded The Monster, a song Rexha wrote while in “a dark head space”, and turned it into a number one hit. Rexha has said this “opened doors” for her but it sounds as though the whole experience was somewhat bittersweet. “At that time I had no choice but to give that song away,” she revealed in a 2017 Facebook Live. “I had no money and no record deal.”

Thankfully, Rexha has since racked up hits of her own, mainly as an in-demand collaborator. Among her steady stream of gold and platinum singles are the electro thumper In the Name of Love with Dutch DJ Martin Garrix, hip-hop bop Me Myself & I with rapper G-Eazy, and club banger Hey Mama with David Guetta, Nicki Minaj and Afrojack. Because she’s worked with so many different artists, hopping from genre to genre along the way, Rexha has often felt like a tricky artist to pin down. At times, her career arc has looked a little random: in 2017, she scored her biggest hit to date when she took an unexpected excursion into country-pop with Nashville duo Florida Georgia Line. Their ingratiating, laid-back love song Meant to Be has now amassed more than a billion Spotify streams.

Today, Rexha says Meant to Be’s enormous success caught everyone off guard. “I didn’t ask for that, I swear to God!” she hoots. “I wrote the song with the [Florida Georgia Line] guys for their album, but they didn’t wanna put it on their album because they didn’t believe in it.” So, recognising that the song had potential, Rexha decided to include it on her latest EP instead. “And then it fucking blows up!” she says with a laugh. “What am I gonna do, not put out a song that sounds like a hit? Do you know how many [potential] hit songs I probably have sitting on my computer because somebody didn’t believe in it?” Rexha says that before she recorded Me, Myself & I as a hip-hop track with G-Eazy, she had already made a “dancehall version” that she thought would blow up in the UK. However, at the time no one else seemed quite so excited about it. “So I had no choice,” she continues. “Well, not ‘no choice’, but I played it to G-Eazy without that [dancehall] beat because it would’ve thrown him off.” She says this kind of thing happens a lot. “It’s not always that people don’t believe in a song,” she says, “it’s that they’re not moving on it.”

No one could accuse Rexha of failing to move on her own career. Raised in Brooklyn and then Staten Island by her Albanian parents – her father emigrated to New York when he was 21; her mother was born in the US to an Albanian family – she displayed talent and pluck from a young age. As a kid, she taught herself to play the trumpet, guitar and piano, sang in school musicals and the choir, and began composing her own material. By the age of 15, she had been discovered by a talent scout and found herself in songwriting sessions with men three times her age. “They would kind of laugh at me,” Rexha recalled a few years ago. “I sucked at the time, but I was really driven.” This steeliness has stood her in good stead ever since. Initially she wasn’t credited as a featured artist on Hey Mama despite singing its chorus because the song already had two other featured artists on it: Nicki Minaj and Afrojack. After it blew up in 2015, Rexha kept fighting her corner and got her name added, too.

Released in 2018 after a trio of EPs, Rexha’s debut album Expectations did well, spawning the infectious take-me-as-I-am bop I’m a Mess. But Better Mistakes definitely feels like a step up: it’s more cohesive and better captures her tough, spunky personality. This shines through even on lighter moments like the hard-slapping single Sacrifice, which Rexha announced in February by tweeting: “I’m gonna give the gays everything they want on this one song.” Today, she says Sacrifice was partly inspired by her best friend, stylist Wilford Lenov, who is gay. “He’s like, ‘You always do dance songs with other people – they’re always collaborations. I need you to give me that gay anthem that I want and I need,'” she recalls. “So when I recorded Sacrifice, I was like, ‘I’m obsessed’, but I played it to Wilford first to get the OK. And he loved it.” After the song dropped, her LGBTQ fans were just as obsessed. “I got a lot of good vibes,” Rexha says. “Basically people were like, ‘Okay. You were not lying when you said that!'”

It’s hardly surprising that Rexha understood the assignment when she decided to “give the gays everything they want”; after all, she’s a member of the LGBTQ community herself. When she was asked in an interview last year why she hadn’t “defined” her sexuality, she replied: “I try to keep one thing personal to me. But I consider myself fluid. Until I find ‘the one,’ I can’t just say what I am. I just want to find someone I love and who loves me – and I don’t care if that’s a boy or a girl.”

What I believe about sexuality is this: it's a scale. Have I gone out with girls before? Yes. Have I dated girls? Yes, I have. And famous ones, but I'm not naming them. Even though people would be living for it – no!

Today, she is more than happy to expand on her fluidity – in fact, she answers questions that I don’t even ask. “What I believe about sexuality is this: it’s a scale,” she says. “Have I gone out with girls before? Yes. Have I dated girls? Yes, I have. And famous ones, but I’m not naming them. Even though people would be living for it – no!” We both laugh. “Have I fallen in love with a girl before? Yes,” she continues. “But right now, I’m in a relationship with a guy.”

Rexha says that for her, attraction is simply based on “whoever inspires me” at a particular time. “The only thing I will say,” she adds, “is that when I’m in a relationship with a girl, it’s just too emotional. The power… I personally cannot deal with that.” She says she fully understands why some people prefer to label themselves “gay”, “bi” or “straight”; but for her, understanding who she is drawn to romantically has been more of a journey. “It’s just so hard because everybody wants to put people in boxes and I don’t like boxes, as you can tell with my music,” she says. “Like, I don’t like boxes whatsoever.”

Rexha says she saw her music being embraced by LGBTQ fans even before she launched her solo career: the “emo gays” got her from the start. Before she signed her solo deal in 2013, Rexha spent two years as a member of Black Cards, Pete Wentz’s post-Fall Out Boy project, and cut her teeth on the punky Warped Tour. “I would sometimes spend three hours after the show at the merch table – even if people didn’t buy anything, I’d be talking to them and hugging them,” she recalls. “This was a long time before Covid, of course! But I can’t tell you how many people told me that they came out to their parents and got kicked out and saved up all their money to come to that tour.”

These coming out stories clearly had a lasting effect on Rexha. “I’ve had friends who had a relatively easy coming out – my best friend, he doesn’t give a fuck, everybody knew from the top [that he was gay] and didn’t even ask him,” she says. “But I’ve also had friends who tried to tell their parents and they didn’t really get it, and I can’t imagine what that is like.” She says her music’s ability to comfort queer fans came as a surprise. “Like, I didn’t realise my music could do that, that it actually could give people strength,” she says.

Rexha has given other fans strength by being open about her mental health journey. In April 2019, she revealed on Twitter that she has bipolar disorder. Today, she says it took “a minute” to figure out how to manage her condition, but believes she’s in a good place now. “I don’t wanna get into [specific] pills because I feel like that’s too personal,” she says. “But finally, I was able to get on some meds that really help me.” When I ask whether it felt good to go public about it in 2019, she resists giving a bland, pat answer. “Um… kind of,” Rexha says after a pause. “Because I feel like there’s still a lot of stigma behind it. I didn’t know if people were still gonna want to be my friend.” She says that in the past, she had a friend with a mental health condition and wasn’t as supportive as she could have been. “I kind of judged him a little bit, and I feel guilty about that now,” she admits. “It’s funny how the world works. But because of that, I was scared that people might judge me for it.”

She says she ultimately decided to share her diagnosis partly because it was freeing, and partly because she had drawn strength from learning that fellow singers Demi Lovato and Mariah Carey also have bipolar disorder. “Mariah is a fucking beast – she has written all of her own songs,” she says. “To be able to do that, and be so successful even though you have your issues or whatever, that is so inspiring.”

After spending some time with Rexha, it’s hard not to reach the conclusion that her candour, work ethic and commitment to being authentically herself is also pretty inspiring. Fittingly enough, when I ask what she wants people to think when they hear her name, she gives a one-word answer: “Unapologetic.”

Bebe Rexha’s new album Better Mistakes is available to stream and download from 7 May.

[gffa]

I was talking with @himboskywalker​ about Tolkien and fandom and fic, because I’m always curious where people’s “area” of the wider Legendarium are at, whether they’re a fan of the Dwarves or the Humans or the Elves or the Valar or what!  (As a surprise to absolutely no one, the Elves are where my heart is at, where I very much love the Noldor, but if you give me a choice I’m going to run over to that Sindar-centric fic every time.) Which got us onto the topic of fic recs, where, yes, I’ve done a LOT of Tolkien fic recs but I tend to read something of a wide variety and this is a list specifically aimed at those who are familiar with the wider Tolkien world, but haven’t really read much fic and want to know where to start! Other Recs First: - If you haven’t gotten further into Tolkien’s work (like say beyond the movies), I’ve done something of a primer here, which includes fic recs and brief explanations and links to videos that help explain some things.  It’s not as hard as it seems to get involved, honest! - Some other fic recs here, as an addition to the above. - My Tolkien blog (which I haven’t been on in awhile, though, I haven’t let it go in my heart yet) has, I’m not kidding, A LOT of fic recs, I did recs regularly for about three years, so it’s almost as massive as my collection of SW recs. If I Could Only Pick Three To Start You With: ✦ And What Happened After by thearrogantemu - This is the fic that took me from enjoying the Silm characters to diving face-first into really loving them, because it wove such an engaging story about the characters sailing to Aman at the end of LOTR, where various characters you wouldn’t think interacting would be as meaningful as they are, but the fic absolutely sells them on it.  Frodo and Feanor having a conversation about language?  Sam and Maglor sharing a boat to the West?  These things are amazing, as this is a fic about healing and what it means to sail into the Undying Lands.  Also, it has a Feanor and Fingolfin reunion that literally put tears in my eyes. ✦ Interrupted Journeys by ellisk - I’m generally not someone who does a lot of rereading of fic just because I have so many new ones to get to, but I’ve read my favorites in this series (parts 3 to 5 are my sweet spot especially) probably four times through now because “Elfling Legolas growing up in Greenwod with a whole cast of characters around him, as the Shadow so very, very slowly creeps towards them” may sound somewhat simple, but the worldbuilding here is off the scale.  The weaving in of how much the First Age and various Elven politics influenced Thranduil’s ruling of a Silvan people is a major theme, but it’s also good parents raising that precious Elfling right and he and his cousins+friends getting into all sorts of mischief, so it’s balanced between humor and drama in the exact amounts I want.  You can skip the first two fics and jump into the third if you like, which is when Legolas is introduced, but I enjoy the whole thing. ✦ Return to Aman OR Quenta Narquelion by bunn - I can’t pick between these two, they’re both incredible.  Return to Aman is basically “Elrond grabs Maglor and drags him to Aman with them” and it breaths such incredible lift into all the characters of Aman, it doesn’t negate the terrible things the Feanorians did, but neither does it negate Elrond’s love for them and his biological family, too.  It’s another fic that’s about healing and forgiveness and it made me glow to read it.  Quenta Narquelion is basically “Feanor refused the call of Mandos after he died and everything started to snowball from there” and it’s an absolutely heartbreaking look at all our Problematic Fave Feanorians and how they were once good people trying to do the best they could, but bit by bit they slipped into the dark.  It’s especially amazing for capturing the complexities of Feanor, as he hovers over his children as a spirit and it really brought me around on his character. The Silmarillion and other First Age Batshit Faves: ✦ The Starlit Sky by Cirth is the fic that really made me get the potential of reading about Maedhros and Maglor raising Elrond and Elros, where it does such a fantastic job of showing that there was genuine affection there, even the midst of all the angst and trauma and pain.  You really get why Elrond could never give up on them, after reading this fic. ✦ In Courts of Living Stone by ncfan - “What if Maeglin never left Nan Elmoth and instead, several decades later, found himself on an errand to Menegroth and developed a relationship with Finduilas instead?” isn’t a fic I expected to capture my heart, but boy did it ever.  Beautiful characterization and beautiful writing, it really captured my imagination, but also gave me ALLLLLL the Maeglin feelings, as well as made me pine that this Finduilas couldn’t have been more common in fandom. ✦ naught but the shores and the sea by ncfan is more of Elrond and Maglor, where it’s an AU that has Elrond finding Maglor after the disastrous attempt to recover the Silmarils and I loved it a lot. ✦ The Crane Wife by Trebia is one that takes an underused character from Tolkien (Lalwen, in this case) and breathes this incredible life into her, gives her personality and joy and sorrow and meaning and, look, any fic that can convince me that Thranduil would marry a Noldo and utterly believe it, you know it’s well-written! The Second Age Is Kind of Quiet in Fandom But I Love It Regardless: ✦ The Art of Long-Distance Grandparenting by Kazaera is a lovely and bittersweet (but mostly lighter in tone) fic about the separation of the Sea between family members and does a wonderful job with Idril’s character, as she tries to stay connected to her grandchildren while being so distant from them and unable to see them, unless they choose to come to Aman.  There’s joy to be found here and it’s a lovely read. ✦ Relativity by French Pony is a lovely look at the final meeting between Elrond and Elros and strikes the right amount of bittersweetness, where it’s awkward and difficult and heartbreaking, but also feels natural and like this was how it was meant to be.  I had many, many Elven Twin feelings during the whole thing.  (I like all their fic, they’re worth checking out their other stuff for, too!) ✦ A Thing or Two About Elrond by Crookneck is a series of fics about Elrond and the various relationships he has--with Celebrian, with his children, with Gil-Galad, etc.--and I remember being really charmed by all of them and how much shit Elrond has seen over the course of his life. The Third Age, Lord of the Rings Version: ✦ Boromir's Return by Osheen Nevoy - This one is sort hard to summarize, but it’s basically “Boromir lives, makes a friend, and slowly changes everything about the LOTR plot”, but it’s so much more than that, where the worldbuilding is phenomenal, the pacing is incredible, it made me fall in love with Boromir as a character all over again, it contains probably the best portrayal of Denethor I’ve ever read in fandom, and I really loved the OC and so on.  It’s utterly engrossing and honestly I cannot recommend it highly enough, even if you’re not usually into this sort of thing. ✦ The River by Indigo Bunting is a fic where Legolas and Sam get separated from the others for a brief time and I love fics that take two characters who don’t interact much, throw them into an intense situation, and sees what happens.  It’s not precisely a light-hearted fic, it’s very intense, but it’ll make you fall in love with the sheer good in both characters and the friendship they develop.  It’s brilliantly written and I cannot recommend it enough. ✦ A Bit of Rope by Aiwendiel is a fic where Gandalf doesn’t fall at Moria and it changes everything--not necessarily for the better.  The slow, creeping sense of things changing, things going just a little bit worse here and there, until you realize how much darker the Fellowship’s journey could have been, was brilliantly done, and one I thought did justice to the idea, it’s not grimdark, there’s still light and hope here, but it makes you feel like, oh, maybe things happened as they did for a reason, even as hard as that seemed sometimes.  Gorgeously plotted and utterly engrossing. The Third Age, Mirkwood Version: ✦ daw the minstrel has an entire series of fics about Legolas growing up in Mirkwood and there’s absolutely a reason why she was one of the most well-known authors in that corner of fandom.  Her ability to create new characters (including two brothers for Legolas) was incredible, I cared so much about the family dynamics and got swept up in the drama (which was in a very loving family, but Legolas was definitely a mischief-seeker) and they’re fantastic.  If you find yourself in something of a stretch with too many OCs and your attention wavers, you can always skip around, they don’t have to be read in order and a lot of the non-canon characters can be skimmed over, imo. ✦ In a Field of Blood and Stone by ScribeofArda is so much better than what The Hobbit movies gave us of the Battle of Five Armies, it does such beautiful justice to the complicated character of Thranduil and Legolas, not sacrificing the warmth there for how difficult these times are and the war they find themselves in the middle of.  This Bard is also really engaging and fun to read--I read pretty much the entire novel’s worth in, like, a day or two because I could not put this one down. ✦ Swordplay and Swimming by cliodna_bright has an incredible meeting where Thranduil comes to visit Rivendell, runs into Elladan and Elrohir, who are young enough that they speak without thinking, and it’s not precisely a humor fic, but I was screaming the entire time because it’s so sharply written and so absolutely delightful, I LOVE IT. ✦ Deep and Crisp and Even by rivlee made me fall in love with how Elves and humans may look very similar, but there’s this sense of otherworldliness to the Elves, as shown through Bard’s eyes when he has a meeting with Thranduil.  Beautifully written and just the right amount of atmospheric. The Fourth Age Where Everything Actually Does Mostly Work Out: ✦ Far Horizons by Bodkin is the Fourth Age fic of my heart, where the various Elves that we came to know in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are all in Aman and decide to build their own realm there.  Which is difficult because Elven Politics even just amongst themselves, much less clashing with all the established politics of the other Elven realms in Aman!  But it’s a light-hearted fic (for the most part) that’s about healing and moving forward, balancing their ties to their history versus that Middle-Earth changed them, and I love it for soothing my soul.  (Thranduil sailed, you can’t tell me otherwise!!!)(Bonus moments of Glorfindel being pretty hilarious.)  I like all of bodkin’s work, but this one has a special place with me. ✦ Age of Healing by trollmela is one where Maedhros and Legolas have a conversation in Aman and it’s about the bittersweetness of healing and how difficult it is, taking two characters who would never have met in canon and weaving something entirely engaging and poignant out of it. Collections That Span The Ages: ✦ This Taste of Shadow by Mira_Jade - This is a collection of dozens of various shorter stories (or sometimes 10k “ficlets”) that you can largely skip around in if you have specific characters you like or you can just start at the beginning and read through.  It contains looks at pretty much everyone, from Maedhros to Galadriel to Thranduil to Elrond to Caranthir to Glorfindel to the Valar, etc.  I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything I’ve read in this collection! ✦ Fiondil's Tapestry and Tales from Vairë's Loom by Fiondil are in the same vein and I have really enjoyed everything I’ve read from both of them!  I especially remember that there was one chapter that had a scene between Thranduil and Cirdan and thinking, ahhhh, why has no one ever written that before!? as an example of the neat things it does.  But also lots about Elrond and Glorfindel and the Valar and so on! This probably doesn’t feel like a super extensive list, but those collection series will give you an excellent spanning of Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Hobbits, etc., not just the same central characters, but giving time to a lot of lesser focused ones as well.  Like, I feel I’ve read a fair chunk of Elwing fic, but I couldn’t point you to a specific one in my list of recs, which means I’m pretty sure it was in the collections ones or else she got some good scenes in one of the Aman-based fics, so I swear the above is at least a solid place to start for dipping one’s toe into Tolkien fic. AS ALWAYS, OTHER PEOPLE’S RECS ARE WELCOME, god knows I haven’t read anything in the last two years (and will have missed a lot even before that) and so I always need more recs, too!

[suometar]

Hi, weird anon here again :) Thank you so much for the kind words, you're really lovely :) And obviously I have more questions ;)

I think I get the sexual attraction now, thank you, although I have to say it still seems kinda fake ;P

In a way I can relate to the mental vs physical attraction, although neither makes me want to do anything sexual. There are some people I just find gorgeous and I like to look at them and that's it, and there are some that I'm interested in for some other reason and once I know them better I may also find them attractive. Like for example Tom - I'd seen him (and Loki) around on my dash many times and never looked twice at him until I watched the Avengers and Loki turned out to be so fascinating. And that's actually how 99% of my celebrity crushes happened lol, I fell for the characters first, actors second.

So, would you say that this mental thing could be like romantic attraction? The kind that makes you want to know the person better but not jump into bed with them right away? I can imagine how it works regarding a specific person, I've read enough fanfiction for that, but how the heck do I determine which gender in general am I romantically attracted to? I can find both men and women beautiful but that alone is not attraction, right? Do other people even differentiate the two or do the sexual and romantic attraction go neatly together?

Hi!

Worry not, you're not weird at all here in my blog! I'm anything but normal myself 😄 Besides, normal is way overrated imo!

And thank you 🙂 I'm always kind to everyone who's being nice at me - what goes around comes around.

Haha, you just have to trust me on that sexual attraction is a very real thing 😂

Same goes for me too with celeb crushes, it's always the role/music/work first, then the person behind it. Well, that's probably kinda obvious, we wouldn't know them otherwise at all.

I think romantic attraction is a good term for the mental attraction I mentioned. Yes, it is exactly like that, wanting to get to know the person better first before getting into more intimate interactions. But it doesn't always evolve into sexual attraction either. You just might find the person interesting on mental level and rather have a friendship with them than anything else. Sometimes it's unfortunately the only option you have too - and sometimes it's a mutual decision even though you both are sexually attracted to each other. I have a bittersweet experience on the later.

No, just finding someone beautiful isn't actual attraction in my opinion. I can for example clearly see that Chris Evans is gorgeous but that's it. He doesn't ring any of my bells. At all. Or basically any female celebs either. Nothing happens when I see them even though I see many of them as being beautiful.

I think most people do differentiate the two, or at least they should know the difference. It's then again another thing if they can tell the difference or if they have the self-awareness to recognise which one they're feeling. Because those two can be tricky to tell apart if you lack that. Especially bc we're usually wired on the sexual way first and it overrides the mental attraction at least in the beginning.

Feeling sexual attraction does make it easier to figure out what gender you prefer.

Then again as I'm bisexual and have always been I honestly don't know how that really works with people who have a preference on gender. While I can differentiate the ways I'm attracted to men and women very distinctively, in real life, with real flesh and blood people, gender doesn't really play a significant role to me when it comes to attraction. It's one thing to get attracted to a bypasser but when I'm serious about any relationship I always get to know the person first and then if I get attracted to them, it's because who they are, what they think, what they value and so on. I'm always drawn in by the brain, so I'm clearly a sapiosexual as well :D Gender is only a part of the equation to me and not a very important one at that.

What I then project online is exactly bc of the sexual attraction I have towards men, so I might appear not bi. But as usual, what you see online about someone isn't everything.

I could imagine that if you had a preference you'd find an idea of having sexual relations with the other gender(s) somewhat uncomfortable maybe? Like for example to a hetero man even the idea of having a sexual relationship with another man wouldn't definitely feel good at all, it would be repulsive in fact, and that then clearly underlines what their preference is.

That said, I get it that if you're indeed asexual there's not even that to help you.

Maybe you have already thought of these but to me two questions come to mind that might help at least to some extent:

Do you find it uncomfortable thought if you didn't have a specific preference on the gender of the person you're attracted to? And is gender or the looks in fact at all a reason for you being attracted to someone? That it might be totally something else instead, like who that person is as a human being?

I don't think that sexual attraction is at all required at first, as I experience it that way irl. That maybe it's just that you don't feel attraction by looks at all and you too get attracted by the mental side. Which could explain that you see and recognise beautiful people but don't get attracted to them.

Obviously, these are just my views based on what you've told me, so don't take it as the ultimate truth 🙂

Like I said, to me it has always been clear what my orientation is and I'm not familiar with really figuring out this particular thing. But I'm always in for helping others figure it out the best I can! I have gone through extensive self-exploration but that has been to work through childhood trauma and grow away from that which is probably a bit different - but I do know what it's like figuring out stuff for sure.

[tvdversefanfiction]

The Originals 30 Day Challenge, Done in 1 day.

I love all of these 30 day challenge pics/posts/quests but I never have the patience to do it over 30 whole days, so instead I do them in one sitting, one go. 

MY TVD 30 DAY CHALLENGE HERE

Feel free to comment your own opinions about The Vampire Diaries spin-off The Originals, whether it’s your favorite show within the TVDverse like myself or whether you just love it as much as I also love the other two shows TVD and Legacies, Legacies will have its own 30 day challenge soon enough too...

Feel free to answer these too, copy, paste it, like I have and do it for yourself...

1 - If you follow this post, or read any of my TO fanfiction it will come as no surprise to anyone that I’m in love with and very obssesed with Klaus Mikaelson, he will always be my king.

2 - Rebekah Mikaelson, she’s so badass yet has this softness that makes her so compelling at the same time, I worship this queen and often wonder what this show would have looked like if she remained a main star for all of its five season run.

3 - Making me choose between the love of my life Klaus, and the icon that is Rebekah is hard...so hard but I have to go with Rebekah on the grounds that when he hurts Rebekah in any way I’m always mad like no, not my Rebekah, whereas when its the other way around I’m normally like yeah he deserved that from her...Rebekah is the fictional bestfriend of my life and Klaus is the husband, and friends always come before men - side not this very answer will later be used on record when I find myself in an asylum one day lol

4 - I’d have to go with either Marcellus or Inadu, although Marcel is beyond irritating to me throughout most of his run I can’t argue his reasons for being annoying are somewhat justifiable especially after Davina’s death in season 3 :( so I’d say I hated Inadu the most, purely because the character in itself was so wasted, so stale, and a dud to be honest...I was hoping for more with the hollow arc but I’ll get to that later on no doubt.

5 - Season 1 Episode 16, Farewell to Storyville, Season 1 in general was one of the strongest debut seasons for any shows I’ve ever watched, if not the strongest! I loved Rebekah and Klaus’ bond most out of the siblings and although Klaus spends most of the episode trying to kill her and it involves Rebekah leaving as a main character...this has got to be the juiciest exploration of their relationship - also side note young Elijah should have left young Rebekah kill Mikael, just saying...

6 - I could put the entirety of Season 5 in here, minus all the epicness of all the Klaroline scenes and Hayley’s badass death...but to pick one episode out it would have to be the finale “When the saints go marching in” because it just felt like they had spent that season killing off characters who were least likely to appear in Legacies (which pissed me off), also I wanted Klaroline to be endgame and Julie Plec’s response to not doing that because of Steroline, a ship that always felt like Caroline was second place and that queen should be always be 1st. 

I did not like that Klaus and Elijah died, which reminded me visually of that Avengers scene, which made no sense as we have seen originals die before and not once did it go down like that!

And even if I could forgive them for that I was rather pissed we saw no after life, even a Elijah and Hayley dance in the afterlife would have been appreciated...

I’m also always a little bittersweet when folk from the pilot don’t show up in the last episode, would have loved to seen more of Davina in general over seasons 4 and 5.  (Rant over)

7 - Try not to pick a Klaroline scene...never mind, when Caroline first appears, pinning Klaus up against the wall and saying something along the lines of try picking on someone your own size, or the swoony moment in Mystic Falls where she tells him he was never the villain in his story, or again the swoony moment when their road tripping and trying to find Hope... but non Klaroline scenes which were epic, Davina going up against Klaus with the harvest power inside of her, Lucien going upgraded original and taking them all on, Dahlia’s entire arc, the finales of 1,2, 3, and 4 and last but definitely not least kid Hope’s entire arc, what a magnificent actress Summer Fontana is, a star in the making *

8 - “ We are the strongest creatures in the world, and yet we're damaged beyond repair. We lived without hope, but we will never die. We are the definition of cursed, always and forever.” said by Rebekah Mikaelson, all of the Mikaelson’s had epic quotes, this show, and it’s predecessor TVD have so many amazing quotes <3

9 - Klaus handing baby Hope over to Rebekah, trusting her above all others, and any scenes where Klaus, Hayley, Rebekah, Elijah and Kol have with baby Hope as well as kid hope - broody moments lol

10 - Josh’s death, I had feared his death every goddamn season especially knowing Julie Plec wanted him killed in the very first season :( however after being made a regular in the finale season I had hopes for him making it out alive and perhaps showing up in Legacies in a more prominent role as a teacher for the vamp kids or something...but no that woman just had to finish off her hit...nothing breaks me more than his death! Although, reuniting with Aiden in the afterlife gives me small comfort, Aiden’s was another’s death that was so sad!

11 - Kid Hope putting people in their place like Marcel, and even Davina (who I worship), I just loved this little badass kid going about like a little queen from the get go...Danielle Rose Russell had and still has very big shoes to fill IMO

12 - Freya and Elijah condemning Davina to the ancestors, or Elijah who was supposed to love Marcel like a son ripping out Marcel’s heart. A lot of season 4 Elijah annoyed me tbh, 50% of Hayley scenes ticked me off too and Marcel was a solid 90% throughout the entire run.

13 - Hmmm....Klaus meeting his real father then killing him in order to protect Hope as he just could not risk trusting his father :( that broke me, other shocking moments when Gia died, Hayley’s first and second death...

14 - Friendship as in friends but not family? friendship within family would be Rebekah and Klaus always, friendship outside of family bonds I would definitely say either Davina and Josh or Rebekah and Hayley.

15 - Klaroline, although I put myself out here considering they only kissed once in this show...I never shipped Haylijah but never hated it, I despised Camille and the Klamille ship and always will, I enjoyed Elijah and Gia but doubt it run its course well I think, I always thought Rebekah deserved more than Marcel and still do...so I’m going with Kolvina, even though Kol killed Davina, thanks to those damn ancestors, their romance was super sweet, I loved how Kol loved her and their marriage, though briefly seen, was everything! We should have got a flashback of their wedding god damn it! But I’ll settle for them being two of the few who got happy endings...and could appear in Legacies ;) fingers crossed!

16 - I loved Marcel singing How You Like Me Now, I wish Charles Michael Davis had a few more musical numbers within this show, he’s a really talented actor, singer, director...

17 - Joseph Morgan hands down, loved him from his first scene in TVD and loved his other work in Hex and Brave New World, to name a few...

18 - Claire Holt, she’s just wonderful as Rebekah and the actress herself, she seems like such a genuine sweetheart in real life and you can really see her love for the character of Rebekah too, I also liked her other work in A Violent Separation, 47 Meters Down and no I’ve never seen H20...yet

19 - The Originals hands down, although so far TVD is in second place, with Legacies in third place but with Legacies still going I have high hopes for that climbing...all are fabulous shows in their own rights <3

20 - Okay I wouldn’t be me if I did not answer this future episode question without a link to a fanfic season 6 of mines... Origins of Magic and my alternative season 5 Bad Blood

21 - Off the top of my head? Davina and Kol teaching at Salvatore Boarding School, giving Hope some family connections that she severely lacks in Legacies and how awesome would they be as teachers? I’d also like to see a cousin whether it be Freya and Keelin’s son Nik or Rebekah and Marcel adopt a child (creature) that also ends up in Legacies. Side note - may put this in my possible fanfic ideas board...

22 - I don’t think I could claim to be most like any one individual, I’d say I was definitely a little dorky like Josh but nowhere near as adorable, I have a lot of hurt inside of me like Davina and protect my friends as much as I can, I’ve definitely got a bit of paranoia like Klaus from being screwed over many times like him and also like them it was mostly by family members, I’m definitely as curious and of a quiz like nature as Camille, love a little too easy like Rebekah and get my hear broken too often like her too, can be a little bit twistedly playful like Kol although I’ve not killed half as many people ; I’d love to one day be as elegant as Elijah, or as brave as Hayley and who would not want to be a Tribrid like Hope?

23 - How is this any different to 4? Although I’ll just answer Inadu purely because of the waste of potential and how not one single time did I give a damn about her, although I despised that vampire bitch who killed Hayley!!!

24 - I definitely relate to Klaus, Rebekah, Josh and Davina the most which is why they are my favorites no doubt.

25 - Klaus Mikaelson, any day, any time, anywhere, unless of course him and Caroline make it work I love their love more than I love my love for Klaus so I’d be happy just watching them being happy as a stalker lurking in the bushes within the back garden of their marital home - side not another statement that could be put on record for my eventful visit to the asylum..

26 - The family bonds, I love how it’s not all about romances like it is in TVD and so far Legacies, but still has romances at the same time. I love the complicated bonds between Klaus and his siblings Rebekah, Elijah, and Kol (in that order) and I love the little homemade family of Marcel with Davina and Josh (also in that order) and Marcel’s complicated father/son relationship with Klaus.

I also love how we watch Hope from being in Hayley’s womb, to a baby, toddler, child and then teenager and the powers she shows even from as young as being a baby and stopping the car she was in with Cami (even if that did save Cami’s life for a little longer) sorry not sorry we all got to hate on somebody and I did compliment her in 22 sort of lol

27 - The fact that its finale season served more like a prequel to Legacies than a fitting ending to a show I had been invested in since before it even began airing, as most fans were, we have loved these characters since their inception in TVD and it did kind of feel like Julie kind of started the finale season with a hit list in mind killing off anyone she’d think would not cameo in Legacies at some stage which I guess is why there is so much ill will from TO fans for Legacies, which I did feel for a while.

I mean I still blame Hope for Klaus and Hayley’s deaths, also Elijah for Hayley’s death and Marcel for Josh’s but I do not blame the characters have as much as I blame Plec.

28 - Season 5 lol, Season 4 although at the time I did not want it to be its end, would have served as a better ending for TO and they could have still made Legacies work without any ill will of making TO’s finale season pitch Legacies.

29 - The Hollow turning out to be Henrik, or the original witch, or anything other than what is was, also the werewolf origins should’ve have been a bit more epic like the vampires origins were.

30 - I do love Joseph Morgan and Daniel Gillies in interviews, Daniel Gillies is one of the funniest actors behind the scenes and has great bromances with Joseph, Paul Wesley and many others within the TVD verse. I also love Claire Holt’s and Phoebe Tonkin’s friendship and how that’s been a thing since they starred in H20 together (which I want to watch purely because of those two)

[icegoddessrukia]

💒 + Ursa/Ozai

Ohh this one is tough, I will totally ignore the comics to answer this because imo they made Ozai way too cartoonishly evil. 

Although I don’t like him because well, he’s Ozai, imo it would have been more interesting from a writing perspective and realistic if they depicted Ursa and Ozai differently to show the transition between what they started off as and what they became. These are some general marriage headcanons 

So here goes:

Ursa and Ozai knew each other since childhood, kind of like how Azula was friends with Mai and Ty Lee. Ursa knew Ozai when he was still somewhat normal and she saw him as a powerful, charming, and good-looking man, so she wasn’t forced into marrying him, she actually wanted to at first of her own free will. Ursa was somewhat naive and Ozai was like a more extreme version of Azula in his young days. 

Ozai had many other flings with noblewomen and servants in his twenties but eventually Azulon put his foot down and told Ozai that he should marry Ursa after seeing them together because it was the “proper” thing to do and society expected Ozai to settle down. 

Their wedding is bittersweet edging towards bitter. It’s incredibly extravagant and all of Ursa’s family/friends are so proud of her but she has mixed feelings about Ozai because has become more withdrawn from her and she feels like she doesn’t know him as well in recent years. She tries to be optimistic. 

They’re in love at first and the first vacation to Ember Island with the children is the happiest time in their marriage. 

Ozai becomes increasingly cruel, controlling and distant, to the point of being verbally abusive to her and her son when Zuko is around five. The couple begins to have little to do with each other especially after Ursa argues with him when she notices his harsh treatment of the children. 

[kinetic-elaboration]

December 10: Endings

The posts that have been going around about all these bad, nonsensical, random tv endings we’ve been seeing recently (GOT, T100, SPN), have made me think about what makes a good television ending in my opinion.

I admit that concluding a series is probably quite tricky because most shows, if they’re not miniseries, are conceived without a known end point in mind. A show runner can build an idea around a 5-season arc, but he might not actually get 5 seasons. He might only get 1. Or he might get 10, if the show is popular. So unlike a movie or a novel, the first episodes need to set up a general premise, a universe, a theme, but not necessarily a specific plot with X number of specific plot points leading to a pre-ordained conclusion. There has to be a flexibility to the narrative. But when the whole thing is completed, it should feel, ideally, as if it WAS pre-ordained, as if the show was always meant to have as many seasons as it got and was working toward its conclusion the whole time.

So, roughly, I think shows that stick the landing do so because the showrunner knows what the show is, at its core, about, and crafts a finale that relates to the central theme(s) and brings the main narrative to a logical and emotionally resonant conclusion. 

This is very rough and very general, and it’s a formula that applies more to some shows than others. TV is incredibly varied after all. I mean, first off, not all shows know their last season is their last season going in. You can’t judge the final episodes of, to use two examples of shows I liked that were unceremoniously axed recently, The Society or Altered Carbon as “finale episodes” because they were never meant to be finales. Then you have a show like My So-Called Life, which does have a Classic ending, despite ending all too soon--mostly because every episode of that show was classic, and it only had one season, so its season finale being a fitting ending to the season automatically means its series finale was a fitting ending to the series.

(It’s such an outlier that I can’t really compare it to anything but honestly--this is how to do an open-ended cliffhanger and still make it feel like a conclusion. But that’s a whole different post.)

My formula above also doesn’t apply well to sitcoms, because they aren’t really about anything, in terms of plot. Like the name says, they set up situations: a group of people who are family, co-workers, friends, and then lets those situations play out in a funny manner for as long as there are jokes to tell. Sitcoms to me end well if they don’t overstay their welcome, if they remain true to the characters (because it’s the characters, not the minimal narrative, that defines the show), and if they hit an appropriate ‘ending’ tone. But the biggest thing for me is if the sitcom went on for too many seasons. Even if the final episode isn’t the greatest, it’s fine. But if the last 2-4 seasons were lackluster, it tarnishes the whole legacy.

‘Procedural’ type shows are yet another category, and I’m not entirely sure how to characterize those, or what makes a strong ending for that sub-genre. I’m using ‘procedural’ broadly to include, like, Bad Guy of the Week type shows--for example, Charmed, which I thought should have ended after S7. Again, I think it’s about not letting the whole thing go on too long, and then staying true to characters and tone in the finale itself.

So looking just at dramas that have a season’s warning before their finale--which, really, are the type of shows that are most likely to make people ANGRY with shitty endings, because they lure the viewer in with the idea that a singular, coherent story is being told. Maybe it’s convoluted. Maybe it’s winding. Maybe it’s hard to tell where they’re going with this. But if it all comes together in the end, none of that matters--and if it doesn’t come together, what was the point of all the seasons that came before? It becomes, retroactively, a betrayal.

The more plot-driven the show (if it has a mystery, a conspiracy theory, a quest), the greater the betrayal if all fizzles out. But I think the same feeling can arise from shoddy conclusions in dramas more generally. The L Word is one of my comfort shows but that last season is a MESS all the way down, the finale especially. There definitely wasn’t a point to anything, and it wasn’t even entertaining as, like, a dramatic soap.

But then I think about shows whose endings I really liked. For example, Six Feet Under had a great final season and one of the best finale episodes/ending sequences ever. The show up to that point had been about death, and that theme had always been centered most particularly on Nate: his fears of the family business, his previous brushes with death because of his AVM, etc. So of course the show had to end by killing one of its mains, coming full circle with the pilot, showing real grief hitting home--and of course Nate’s personal journey as the main character had to end with his death. Everything about the conclusion was fitting, not even counting the final montage.

I also really liked the conclusion of Big Love, for similar reasons: it was thoughtful, and it successfully teased out the main strands, both of plot and theme, that had run through the show up to that point. The most important thing had always been depicting this family, their problems but also their strength and their love for each other--so, as the showrunners said, it had to conclude by showing you that the family survives. They are strong, and their bonds endure. But the ending was, and had to be, bittersweet too, because anything less would seem to sweep under the rug the real tragedies of the last seasons. Not everyone gets happy endings. And the unhappy endings relate specifically to the toxic patriarchy that’s haunted all of the characters from the pilot. Alby has a chance to turn away from his father and the compound life--but the forces arrayed against him were too strong, so there was no deus ex machina for him, and he ultimately just became fully the evil villain. And Bill is taken out not by the state or by the compound but by an aggrieved man who feels he’s been emasculated, forgotten, who is raging against being so Unseen. What a way to make clear what the common denominator in all of the threats of the past 5 seasons has been.

I also give major points to shows whose finales feel like they’re trying, even if they’re imperfect, especially if the imperfections are because of factors outside the showrunner’s control. For example, I saw someone list Dollhouse as one of their ‘worst endings’ but I have to disagree. I like the ending of Dollhouse. It wasn’t supposed to be 2 seasons. That’s well known. But that’s how many seasons it got, and I think honestly they turned that into a plus rather than a minus. Dollhouse was its best when it was rushing to a conclusion, when it was fast-paced and exciting. Did it always make complete sense? No. Were there some pretty big holes in the plot? Yeah--S2′s Big Bad was absolutely and transparently a retcon instituted between S1 and S2 and I get that, and I forgive the show for that. I thought bifurcating the epilogue as two extra episodes after each of the two seasons was genius, and I liked that it allowed the show to have its cake and eat it too: a happy ending, with the main, immediate, singular Big Bad eliminated, at the end of S2, and a more bittersweet, more complicated, post-apoc ending in the bonus episode. Yeah, I can see the seams; I know there were a lot of constructed work arounds in there because the show was intended to be longer. I think the ending was presented in good faith.

I also, perhaps controversially, liked the ending of Veronica Mars (the original 3-season show; I didn’t see the reboot). The way the season aired was weird and didn’t do it any favors: having a long break before the last couple of episodes, which existed outside of the two Big Case arcs of S3, makes those final stories feel tacked on and random. Basically impossible to have a strong finish with that kind of structure. But the very end of the last ep had the bitter, dark feel of a noir, which is what the show was, a mash up of a noir and a high school drama. I liked that they leaned on the noir rather than the high school aspect, because it was the more creative way to go imo. Also, I appreciated that S3, in general, learned from S2′s mistakes. Yes, the college years are always going to be lackluster compared to high school, in any series that starts with its characters in high school. But VM recognized that no overarching mystery was going to compare to the Lilly Kane murder, so it split the Big Mystery into two Medium Sized mysteries, and I thought that was smart. All of which makes me inclined to think fondly of the conclusion. As with Dollhouse, its weakest points seem to be compromises it had to make, not really its fault but just an inevitable imperfection of the form.

It’s pretty easy to list aspects of a bad ending: a sense that events are arbitrary, a disrespect of characters, a rushed construction, a jarring tone, and most importantly a disconnect between the finale and what came before. If the show appeared to be a narrative (as opposed to a situation), but it doesn’t feel like a complete and coherent whole at the end, then the conclusion was bad.

I didn’t watch GOT or SPN and I stopped watching T100 at the end of S4 (though I do feel confident from tumblr that the ending was Bad), so I have somewhat of a hard time thinking of shows that I thought had really bad endings. I can think of dissatisfying endings that came from shows being cancelled without warning. I can think of shows that lasted too long in general or otherwise had fallen from their greatest heights by the time they limped to a conclusion (unpopular opinion: Friends fits in this category--that show should have been 4 seasons, maybe 5 tops; Boy Meets World and Dawson’s Creek are comfort show favorites of mine but they both should have ended with high school, like, pretty objectively speaking; iZombie started a slow downturn after S2 and by the end of S4 was kinda unwatchable. I literally stopped halfway through the finale.). I can even think of shows that lost me by the end even though objectively they probably had good endings (for example, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend--I couldn’t get through S4 and the finale sounded... technically well-constructed but like it would have driven me nuts).

But then I guess most shows with shitty finales technically had shitty last seasons in general. Truly notorious crash-and-burns don’t come out of nowhere. I mean I’m sure there are counter-examples to this (what’s that one with the kid and the snow globe lol?) but unless you try for a weird last-minute twist, or unless you’ve got your audience hoping against hope that an impossibly twisty story is actually very smart instead of very ill-planned, it’s generally clear before the last episode if a narrative has lost its way. I don’t tend to watch a lot of ‘twisty-turny conspiracy’ shows, and when I do I am supremely skeptical all the way through, so it’s hard for me to think of examples I’ve personally watched of a last minute “what the fuck was that” conclusion.

[marypickfords]

what do you think about Robert Eggers' movies?

i’ve only seen the witch, i like it i find it well done and not at all boring. i enjoy the way the story is told, how claustrophobic it feels, the language, the research behind it, the pacing, the ending (somewhat bittersweet if you think of the consequences, but a genuinely cathartic one imo)… but after that he loses my interest lol not interested in the lighthouse at all and his next movie sounds pretty boring to me too. he knows how to pick talented people to work with so good for his fans ig!

[chattegeorgiana]

Gotta give it to you, watching/reading Boruto after the shit show Naruto was and analyzing the story... Holy shit, I'm still upset with how things went after many years of following and I'm unable to bring myself to read/watch the sequel or want to. I wonder how the shitty sequel makes you feel after everything that happened with the shitty original.

Welp, I must admit that being “freed” from Naruto and its canon, helped me a great deal in this matter. That’s why I am able to read Boruto with no problem.

I am no longer attached to it, therefore I can easily just get through the new phase. I was too attached like many others in the fandom to the old story. Maybe a little bit too much. Buuuuut that’s who I am, quite passionate when I am really taking a liking into something. And Naruto made it there. I don’t get attached to many things, I have about one story to each phase of my life. For example, for childhood Sailor Moon tops everything. 

Same with games. I am a gamer, but not that idk fanatic type. You can count the games I played on the fingers of your hand. It’s quite simple: all Need for Speed series up to Carbon (VIVA MOST WANTED!), Diablo 2 and 3, Starcraft Brood War and Starcraft 2, Sacrifice aaaaand I think that’s about it.

With Naruto I gave in because it seemed something else aaaaand due to its great symbolism. I have to admit I am a fool for love, ahem, symbolism. Even in school when we studied it, I was all over the subject. You wanna have my heart? Give me a story with mythology and symbolism and I’m all yours. That’s why I have great interest in astrology as well.

But anyway, getting back to the subject because I have derailed a bit once more (sorry for the bad habit!).

How does it make me feel? Curious. I have a curious mind and that curiosity of mine can be both a blessing and a curse, depends how someone wants to use it, haha. Guess it can be used for my own benefit or against it.

I’ve said in the past that I am done with Naruto - and I am, nevertheless. It’s not a story that I will recommend due to the illogical paths it took from a development pov and character development pov. After Pein arc it suuuuuuure went crazy. Imo, up to that point Naruto as a story was gold. From there on, the whole mess started if you ask me.But I still watched it and still gave it a chance because I thought Kishimoto would end it in a somewhat satisfying end for the story. Of course, he was never gonna satisfy everyone, that’s for sure. You can never do that because we’re 8 billion people on this goddamn earth and we each have our views and taste. However, I wished he would’ve stayed true to his intentions, to his authorial intent.

So what if Hinata grew popularity without doing nothing? Keep that damn Sakura development going on, damn it. Aside for everything else, this is something I will never be able to forgive Kishi for. Pairings aside, plot aside, everything else aside. I don’t care about them in the end, life moves on. But for this move, I’m like.. nah, bro. Ain’t doing it. This is the reason I’ll never ever ever support any  Kishimoto written story ever again, nor I will forgive him.

Of course, not that he needs my forgiveness anyway. I’m a mere human continents away, he’s a world renown writer who wrote his story. But that’s the thing here. Naruto was his story. He should’ve stayed true to it. Not change it at the last minute on the whims of a loud fanbase. It’s that resilience against external forces that makes you who you are, and the way you respond to it. Apparently, Kishimoto gave in.

And you know what’s funny about it, in the bittersweet sense, of course? And imma throw a little pairing shade here. People were quick to jump the bandwagon that “Naruto didn’t give up his love for Sakura”. But I am posing a question here… didn’t he really? I mean, think a bit logical here… if we’re to make an analogy, as we all know it Kishimoto always said that he identifies as Naruto. And in the interview with Kobayashi he said that no matter how much he tried to write about Sakura, he saw Hinata’s popularity grow inexplicably, so then, in the end he gave-up writing about Sakura.Therefore, in a parallel way (like he so much liked to build his story on), couldn’t one say that “Naruto gave up on Sakura”? 

Kishimoto always said how he’s fond of Sakura in her own way, because she was the normal one, she represented the human weakness.

But you know what the problem is? She was that mirror, Sakura was that mirror to our humanity, and thus to our weakness. In a world full of powerful ninja-gods, we didn’t like to see a human girl trying to attain her own worth through her own trials and errors, while showcasing human weakness at doing so. Why? Because she brought-us back to reality, out of our “genjutsu’d” way of living in that story. In that very story we all liked to live, where we had powerful Uchihas, Hyugas, Senjus and Uzumakis who were offered everything on a silver plate from birth, here came a girl who had nothing, no support, no special ability, nothing more but her brains.

And that girl was human, and humans are weak. And we are humans. And we don’t like that we’re weak. So of course, we had to take her out. By all and any means. And they did so. The loud fanbase whose name I won’t be naming right now did so.

And thus, Kishimoto, the Naruto of our story, saw himself forced into a corner to give up on his love for Sakura. Of his fondness of a character that was something else, than your usual god-like powered ninja. So in the end, yes… Naruto gave up on his love for Sakura. Take it shipping wise or authorial-character relationship-wise, however you wanna take it, but it’s the truth.

And that is my beef with Kishi. He could’ve made this open-ended, he could’ve made this like it is but with different development, a normal and in accordance with his story one. And I would’ve been just fine with it.

But he didn’t. He preferred to throw all that into nothing, throw Sakura away for the popularity of this wretched story. He took the short way out. And for someone who preached different in his story, boooy it so seems wrong.

However, I’ve made peace with it. I moved forward, accepted that this is the way he chose to deal with the situation. Now only my curiosity is peaked in seeing how will they deal forward with the story and how many retcons will they build over and over again in order to rewrite 15 years of development, for that “shock value” of the finale.

As someone who aspires to write her story one day, and who happens to work in marketing and thus knows the know-hows of how you advertise a product, for me at this point as I said, this story became a case-study from where I’ll be drawing my own conclusions on how to and how not to. Even if things didn’t fully went the way I predicted them (though funnily enough 80% did so and even do so in the current story with Boruto - which is odd - but alas), and one could argue that I am bitter because of the pairings and because I lost and whatnot, I am at peace. It was never about the pairings - though one could argue so because most of my writings were NaruSaku centered. It was about the characters themselves, the relationships and dynamics between them AND their development. A cornerstone in every well-built story. But alas…

In the end it’s as the old tale says: You win or you learn. You never lose.