siyzuii · 2 months ago
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⨳   ʾ apps/sites 4 shifting   .   ♡
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hi! this will be long but i made a list of apps/sites that might be helpful for your shifting journey. reminder that you don't need these to shift but they can be helpful with manifesting, keeping track of stuff, etc.
enjoy! divider cr
NOT SPONSORED BTW LMAO
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﹒   ⊹   🝮   OO1: NOTION   ✩
description:
basically notion is an app for documents and stuff. i have to say this one's relatively known and it's such a huge life saver and i know that probably everyone knows about it already (as they should) but i'm gonna recommend it once again.
useful for:
scripting
dashboards you can add life goals & stuff here you can look up some templates/ideas and see what i mean LOL
cons:
i personally can not think of any major ones because this app is just that good
you do have to make new accounts for the text ai generating feature but i don't know if anyone would use that
additional notes:
i personally love how customizable it is! like you can make each page have a custom icon & header, add widgets, images, and so much more. it is so so so insanely helpful for scripting i'm telling you. or you can just be basic, that works too. there's also a bunch of script templates online including specific ones (like a better cr, fame dr, fantasy dr, fandom-specific drs, bla bla bla) and it's literally the only thing shifttok is good for imo. i'm a big fan of shifterium's templates but there's other people who make them as well and i'm sure you can find some recommendations!
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★   ₊   ➲  OO2: CANVA
description:
a website + app where you can design stuff from headers down to presentations, posters, covers, etc..
useful for:
album covers for singer/idol drs
book covers for writer drs or something
fake social media posts but there's better apps out there and i'll list them here as well
and much more!
cons:
a lot of things (most of which i think are the good stuff) are paid but you can find similar replicas if you scroll long enough i guess..?? and there's a free trial but i don't know if that helps
additional notes:
definitely my favorite place to go when i need to design something tbh. there's a bunch of templates you can use and the layout is very easy to navigate through! and it's pretty easy to find free alternatives for the paid stuff you do have in there
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₍ⁿ⑅..ⁿ₎   ˇ   ⩩   OO3: PARROT   ❀  
description:
parrot is an app where you can record yourself saying literally anything and play it on a continuous loop
useful for:
affirmations (manifesting??)
cons:
i'm pretty sure it's iOS only
additional notes:
personally i haven't used this app (i don't like my voice so i will not be recording myself saying affirmations thank yew) so i can't give it a rating but from the looks of it and based off of recommendations i've seen it's pretty useful. should be a white icon with a pink circle that has a white parrot in it!
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≥≤   ﹕   ⤷   OO4: BEHINDTHENAME   ◍
description:
a site where you can generate names & even life stories if you choose it (including height, weight, blood type, birthday, nationality and more i think?? at least it gives those for me). you can choose from different cultures and stuff like fantasy & mythology.
useful for:
finding a name & info for your dr self (which is literally you by the way don't forget that!) and potentially other people you'd like to script in
cons:
it really just helps to make a basic profile of a person so the things you can do with it can be a little limited
additional notes:
i prefer using this site for ocs instead but i think it can definitely help with shifting! oddly enough it also shows like a lifespan & cause of death so.. cool i guess!!!!
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✦   ﹕   OO5: SOCIAL MAKER/dummy
description:
social maker & social dummy are both apps where you can replicate almost basically anything from the internet from twitter posts to facebook posts, youtube posts, and more!
useful for:
social media stuff especially useful for fame drs, streamer drs, idol/singer drs and so much more
cons:
both apps were deleted so you have to have had installed them before if you want to get them back
social maker is ios only i think?
additional notes:
yeah both apps are deleted but there's alternatives out there like twinote (for twitter) photonote (for instagram) canva (has fake social media templates as i said lol) and others that you can look for (because i personally only use twinote)
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⋆   ᶻᶻ     OO6: HELLOFACE   ﹒   ★
description:
basically an app for ai face swapping
useful for:
seeing what your face claim (if you have one) would look like on for example dances, fancams, interviews definitely useful for idol/singer/maybe fame drs
cons:
uses ai (i'm personally not a big fan of ai)
pretty underground so the chances that you might not like it are not low
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✭     ❒︎   OO7: ROOM PLANNER   .   ♡
description:
basically what the name says. it's a 3d home designer
useful for:
making your dr room/house
visualizing your dr room/house
cons:
has paid stuff
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┊   ‧  ⬭   OO8: COMBYNE
description:
an app where you can combine items you like from a wide selection of stuff to make outfits!
useful for:
making outfits for your dr
visualizing said outfits
additional notes:
there's other things you can do on the app like challenges where you can compete to make the best outfit i think?? looks pretty fun i might try it HAHAHA
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yuh so i got a little lazy here at the end & i know this is prolly not very helpful because most of these apps/sites are pretty well known but maybe just maybe.. i helped someone out...
HAPPY SHIFTING!!!!!
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girlfriendsofthegalaxy · 4 months ago
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tuesday again 7/2/2024
as of friday i have lived in texas for a full year. that's the most neutrally diplomatic thing i can say about my time in this state so far
listening
i did a lot of driving last week and had the first album from genshin impact's legally-not-France nation on loop bc it's a lot of vivaldi inspired stuff and i find that soothing. however! one of my favorite pieces of music from this nation is this battle track. i don't have any music words but i do like the.. pipe organ emphasis? on the little flourish at 0:28. catholic brain go brrrr
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reading
thank you mackintosh.
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i liked gotham city: year one! many many many callbacks but framed in a way "and this is the start of the blueprint for how everything would go" which made me less annoyed than callbacks for their own sake. a very chandler-esque take on noir, by which i mean a fundamentally good (but tired) man gets beaten to shit and survives a doublecross as he unravels a fucked up little family dynamic for the pure nosy sake of unraveling it.
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watching
The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024, dir. Ritchie). a spy/action/comedy thing about Operation Postmaster, a wwii special operation off the west coast of Africa to disrupt nazi u-boat supplies.
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i did not like this at all.
i generally like a guy ritchie film-- the holmes duolgy are movies i would happily rewatch at any time, but this one is very flat. there's very little banter and remarkably little dialogue-- long stretches of this film are of people getting from place to place in perfect silence. even the soundtrack is remarkably toned down. most of it sounds like ai-generatred morricone (very few of the musical passages like. resolve in any sensible manner. there is no theming and no noticeable leitmotif. one of the worst covers of mack the knife ive ever heard is at the climax of the fuckin film. what if someone ominously tapped a hihat to create tension for literally half the movie with NO other accompaniment). when it doesn't sound ai-generated and kind of off (morricone's cowboy western work is not what i expect for a largely seafaring wwii movie) it sounds like they rented a jazz five-piece for a weekend. one of the worst soundtracks i've ever heard. it was extremely distracting.
this is a heist movie that never really figured out how to effectively intercut actions its team is independently taking. there are also a lot of places where the cuts are very strange, especially in the final harbor scene flicking back and forth from the land crew to the boat crew. just felt very underbaked as a movie. i was frequently bored. not an effective comedy, action, or spy movie. just barely a coherent war movie, though not a very enjoyable one.
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playing
the breath of the wild to genshin ripoff pipeline is pretty clear, esp in the legally-not-India nation with lots of legally-not-koroks. u get a bunch of chests and achievements if u find all 76, i finally sat down on friday with an hour-long walkthough video and found them all. every single four-leaf clover sigil is where one of these fuckers was. and to get to this point, i had to do a whole DIFFERENT quest chain with different collectibles to unlock some of the legally-not-koroks and also make room on my map to free up 76 markers. very annoying process. i fucking hate collectibles for the sake of collectibles and padding out gameplay. i could not imagine doing this if i were employed
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making
cross stitch update.
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i got this belt for the ren faire when my sister came down, finally got around to pulling it out of the freezer and cleaning it the other day, and it was what i can only call yucky-disgusting. an inordinate amount of scunge for a belt with very few signs of wear. it's impossible to photograph bc it's quite late and i did not think to take a before shot, but it straight up changed color. it is much lighter now
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meeda · 1 year ago
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creepy tinkerbell - a spotify mystery
A few weeks ago I stumbled across a weird Spotify mystery. I was listening to music and decided to let the algorithm take over, which means I let the app find me similar music to the one I searched up, in this case it was the song Hollow by Björk.
I listened to a couple songs, which were nice. Then the third song played. It was titled Creepy Tinkerbell by Marigold Sweat. Unusual names, but then again I was looking for unusual music. It was an uplifting, energetic, but jarring tune. But there was nothing about it that really stood out to me and I forgot it as soon as it ended.
A few other songs played, which were more or less kinda weird. Then a familiar sound came up. It was Creepy Tinkerbell again, but repackaged as a different song by a different artist. This time it was called Momkukr by Xecritirians. It was literally the same song, with a slight variation. I was confused, but I skipped it.
A few songs later and I hear Creepy Tinkerbell once again. But this time it was called Pharaoh by Halsey Sutherland.
Now I was getting curious. So I looked at the artists profiles and found some interesting things.
Each artist has only three songs on their profile and this one is always one of them.
The other songs are less jarring than Creepy Tinkerbell but all sound very generic.
Their album covers, profile pictures, and headers are always these weird, stock image type photos.
All their songs were uploaded December 2022, have thousands of listens, and the artists have 50-250 monthly listeners.
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And now I have a ton of questions. Is this a glitch or is it all intentional? Who the hell is behind this? Are they bot accounts? What even is this song and why does it sound like that? Who wrote it? And why does this song come up three times under different artists when I searched up Björk?
I tried doing some research on this strange occurrence. I found some people on Reddit talking about similar experiences, but none mentioned this particular song. Some possible explanations I came across ranged from ai generated music to crime gangs using the app for money laundering. Regardless of the reason it’s shitty that Spotify has so many of these fake songs/accounts on their platform, and it’s wild how easy it was for me to stumble across them.
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genderqueer-karma · 4 months ago
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Hello, hope you're having a good night! What songs would you recommend for someone that wants to get into Malice Mizer? I've known about them for years but never got around to listening to them. Album recs also work! Thanks in advance^^
okay honestly i’m really excited to answer this because i rarely get to give people recs!! so, i’m gonna do this by organizing based on my personal perception of the genre of each era. hopefully you enjoy what you hear/see!! (<- vibrating because they get to discuss their strongest hyperfixation of the past 2 years)
(under the cut)
if you tend to like goth/darkwave/posipunk/similar or related genres, or just generally more rock-focused music:
tetsu era is the way to go! their first album memoire/memoire dx has songs i’d argue fit very well into these genres! for more specific recs:
SADNESS~ I know the reason for her sadness~ - the most emblematic of the goth genre! (not technically from memoire, but the compilation it’s most commonly associated with, brain trash, was technically a multi-band project iirc)
miwaku no rouma - less “goth” and honestly a bit more “dance-y” but still a song i love and will love forever
kioku to sora - an incredible song that i love very deeply. also has a version with the band's third vocalist, klaha!
baroque - honestly, just iconic! baroque is THEE song of tetsu’s era as vocalist. the twin guitar version of für elise in the bridge?? magnificent 🤌
(i’d also look for the other, less known songs of the era, like 16 no solitude, portugal, and lafflesia!)
if you tend to like songs with a classical music influence but with more of a pop sound:
gackt era is 1000% the way to go! their second album (and gackt's first with them) voyage ~sans retour~ has many tracks of this variety:
madrigal - actually my favorite mm song, period. the bittersweet tone of the violin throughout makes me sick to my stomach its so good. i play viola and its the song by them i most want to learn to play!
premier amour - another lovely track from voyage that i actually used to have as my blog title! very poppy (in my opinion) but the classical influence is evident. like madrigal, it's quite violin heavy. as the title also suggests, it's quite romantic ^-^
uruwashiki kamen no shotaijou - i can't make a malice mizer rec list without mentioning this song. it's quite iconic and for good reason! this was the single that really gave them their first big commercial success, as far as i know. (also in the bg of a famous interview clip)
ma cherie - another song that i can't not talk about when discussing malice mizer. literally their most famous song, the one that their fan club was named for. if you ever look up clips of this song live, you'll mostly see the band having the most fun onstage. honestly just a very sweet song. this song is also the only one that's been performed by all three vocalists! (tetsu & klaha)
for songs that lean very heavily into a cathedral/classical sound:
the album bara no seidou, their last one and the only one with klaha as vocalist, has you covered!!
mayonaka ni kawashita yakusoku - first time i heard this song i nearly lost my mind. no exaggeration. the composition is genuinely beautiful, possibly even bordering on angelic. all my homies love mayonaka.
bara ni idorareta akui to higeki no makuake/seinaru toki eien no inori - goddamn what a long title, but fitting for a long song! as the opener for bara no seidou, it is a whopping 9 minutes long, but it had me hooked for all 9 minutes. (technically, bara ni... and seinaru are two separate tracks, but bara acts as an introduction for seinaru)
shiroi hada ni kuruu ai to kanashimi no rondo - to be towards the end of the album, it's quite the piece; and i don't use "piece" lightly. i have many feelings regarding shiroi, but to put it simply, you need to experience this song at least once.
tbh this list is getting long as fuck so i'm gonna do a rapid fire round of songs i like/ones i think are iconic:
tsuioku no kakera, au revoir (and the bossa version), apres midi (and the english version that i honestly can't place genre-wise), brise, gardenia, garnet, le ciel, gensou rakuen, aegen, gekka no yasoukyoku (deserves a long explanation as the song that got me into malice but i'm actually running out of space), the whole merveilles album*, really. (*half of those aren't even merveilles... oops)
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thelensofyashunews · 8 months ago
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EARTHGANG SHARES NEW EP ROBOPHOBIA
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The GRAMMY-nominated Atlanta-based duo, EARTHGANG have just shared their new genre-bending EP Robophobia which includes features from Snoop Dogg, Spillage Village, and Tommy Newport as well as a new video for their lead single "Blacklight" (feat. Spillage Village). Since signing to J. Cole's Dreamville Records in 2017, EARTHGANG have emerged as the contemporary torchbearers of Afrofuturism, continuing to redefine what’s possible in Hip-Hop by blending sounds that challenge the status quo. After debuting on the Billboard charts with their 2019 album Mirrorland (#22 on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums Chart), the duo has gone on to receive GRAMMY nominations for two of their songs – Best Rap Performance for "Down Bad" featuring J. Cole, JID, Bas & Young Nudy (395M+ Streams) and Best R&B Song for "Collide" with Tiana Major9 (100M+ Streams) off the Queen & Slim Soundtrack. Winning the BET Award for Best Duo Or Group in 2022, EARTHGANG have maintained their momentum with impactful cultural moments like creating their single "Swing" featuring Benji (24M+ Streams) for Marvel's Spider Man 2 and their partnership with Nike for their ESSENTIALS campaign. Returning with the spiritual successor to 2023's RIP Human Art EP, EARTHGANG have just released their new 5-track EP Robophobia – out now via UnitedMasters.
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The second project in the duo’s EARTHGANG vs the Algorithm series, Robophobia picks up right where RIP Human Art left off, literally falling from the top of the building depicted on the cover of their previous EP – taking listeners on a wild ride through a dystopian future, examining the effects of contemporary technologies like AI on humanity. Serving as a bleak warning as to what the future could hold at the hands of AI, EARTHGANG’s highly-conceptual new EP has been teased using clever adverts and a toll-free number leading into its release—offering a lighthearted and satirical take on the otherwise daunting subject matter. With production influenced by elements of Funk, Rock and Hip-Hop, Robophobia creates a rhythmic soundscape that offers a contrast to the darker Sci-Fi themes inherent in the lyrics, lending a familiarity to the EP which will resonate with longstanding EARTHGANG fans while also welcoming new fans with their cinematic world-building.
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papirouge · 1 year ago
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akari takeuchi is so beautiful, like she has this round face and sometimes has the appearance of being a lil chubby yet she's really popular among her groupmates. I love how she looks with very short hair too.
japanese people in general seem to be pretty fixated on thinness. in remember when morning mmusume got popular and people talked about kago ai and tsuji nozomi and they refered to tsuji as "the chubby one", even though she was only slightly bigger than kago.
i dont know if you ever keep up with momusu or if you ever cared about it, but once they had this member who was actually overweight (susuki kanon), and she was constantly mocked by fans, the public, and apparently teased by management and team members. obviously she did not pass the audition when she was overweight; she mentioned later that she went through an extreme diet to appear skinny at the audtions, but that she'd been chubby all her life.
but i think koreans are even more extreme with their beauty standards. like, you can see korean idols tend to be skinnier than jpop ones, i think the girls even lose their periods or have very irregular ones. i remember when kpop started gettinf global recognition, sometimes kpoppers would post on certain j-artists youtube videos just to compare them to korean ones, and I remember checking the comments in this perfume video and kpoppers were literally saying they had fat legs. like the girls from perfume (and not, it was not when achan was a lil chubby in their early years)
Anon I do "care" about those things bc I've been a jpop head for a longer time that I will ever admit 😭
Akari has always been a favorite of my mine 🩵 And yeah her face is sooo cute!! She definitely stood out because she was chubbier but imo that's a good thing bc idol are sooo interchangeable. Unless your very pretty or very talented (dance, singing) being a bit different can be an asset if well played.
Imo I think thame difference with Kanon is that Akari seemed confident and it gave her the charisma and appeal that fan like. Kanon was maybe too young and insecure and fans caught it and it made them uninterested and disrespectful for her performance...
And yeah, Japan is obsessed with skinniness, water is wet lol
I've always be intrigued by the fetishistic way of considering beauty. For example they will hyperfixate on features that a supposed "attractive" such as a small face, high nose brige, big eyes, etc and literally dismiss every thing else to the point it's getting ridiculous at times. Someone would be pretty but because they have a very small face they'll be elevated as an absolute staple of beauty.
I lurk a lot on girlchannel and every 2-3 days there are threads dedicated to rave on beautiful people... I remember one thread dedicated to rave on Erika Toda arms skinniness when she played Misa Amane in the Death Note movie 😭
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This fetishization of beauty that's also why they will get plastic surgery to get features they consider objectively pretty without considering the harmony with the rest of the face, such as a high nose brige but since the rest of their face will remain unchanged the balance of their full face is so weird. East Asian tend to have a large face so I think them ps'ing their nose to be as small as possible makes them look so weird and uncanny 🥴
Kpoppers are mentally ill so I'm not surprised they don't have any idea what a normal human being looks like.
Perfume gals have perfect legs - they literally made the whole 'VOICE' single cover out of it 💀
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It's not really that Achan is "chubby" it's that she has wide hips which is considered unattractive in Japan. That's why in their outfits coding, she's the one to wear clothing who are ample/lose in that area, while Nocchi is the 'boyish' one (short hair + pants/shorts) and Kashiyuka is the one wearing the shorter & more skimpy outfit version. Here's another example for their JPN album visuals
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Arguing that these women would be in any way fat is insane. That's how I know kpop fans have brainrot.
Whenever I stumble on kpop MV gif my eyes itch at the amount of filters used... Kpop idols are routinely abused and mistreated but these idiots will keep stanning. I've always found ironic how people have no problem acknowledging that what we consume has political consequences and won't shut up about H&M and Shein mistreatment of their employees + their business model damaging effects on their environment but will keep lining the pockets of Kpop artists agencies doing the same 💀
Both Japan and Korean are fucked up with their Beauty standards but Japan still has the kawaii card that allows someone to still be considered appealing despite not being conventionally attractive. I think Ai Kago and Tsuji Nozomi totally belong in that category. That being said, kawaiiness can also be artificial considering that Nozomi did plastic surgery on her eyes to make them look twice bigger + obsessive use of light color lenses (look at the pics of her marriage before she got the procedure💀). Kyary is also infamous for revamping her face (namidabukuro + eyelid lift)
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And let's no forget Tsubasa Masuwaka who's jumped on the kawaii bandwagon after the end of the heisei/gyaru era and has been doctoring like mad her pics ever since...
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penname-artist · 2 years ago
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Some Ideas: Rey & his Music Albums
Pre-note: these were generated by an ai (I honestly forget which sites, because I scrolled through a few of those free ones)
Also, this is for an OC and they're not really albums, as badly as I wish they were (I mean unless someone can make music really well lol)
I wanted to create a few "aesthetics" and random ideas to use as album covers for Reyzor C's music. I'm planning to probably either recreate these images as my own art (and I do mean literally, from-the-ground-up on FireAlpaca recreate) or splice them together with other things and do some heavy-ass personal tweaking to make it into. Well. What I want it to be.
I've actually gone so far in giving Rey's musical career life as to create three full lists of song titles for all of his albums, so all of these images are connected - either to the albums themselves or to the titles (and don't ask why some of them are what they are, man, just, lemme drown in my aesthetic juice okay?)
For his first album, "Artificial", I had a few cover ideas, but this one feels like the most fitting:
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and this is the song list within that first album:
1. Artificial
2. Xoxo
3. Hollow Hearted
4. Wasn't Gonna Say
5. Crisis Line
6. Give Me a Week
7. Getaway Car
8. Isn't That What Lovers Do
9. Keysmash
10. Breather
11. Visions
12. Waiting List
Though I didn't generate images for any of these songs in the first listing, I definitely have plenty of ideas for lots of them. I think Keysmash in particular would be a gritty picture of a keyboard someone threw into the dirt, maybe with flowers idk (flowers are a slightly recurring theme you'll soon notice)
I do have a pic I could fit in with Breather though since it feels somewhat in line with it. Please ignore that this bird is missing half a leg. Or don't, maybe it's meant to.
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Next is the album cover idea behind his second one, "Pedestal", which I won't lie to you I debated as being the cover for Artificial, but I like them this way just a teeny bit more. This image has a nice lighting and retro vibe to it. Like an 80's roller skating rink floor.
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And here's the list of songs for Pedestal;
1. Pedestal
2. Mixed Signals
3. Tunnel
4. Highway Blues
5. Vending Machine
6. Just Like Last Time
7. Is This Love
8. Fake a Smile
9. Trainwreck
10. Escapism
11. Don't Kiss Me Goodbye
12. Trial
13. Empty Skies
14. Supernova
I actually tried to get some decent ai photos for Vending Machine, but unfortunately they never felt quite right - usually the ai put it in the middle of a walkway and it was just kinda awkward so, eh. This was the best I was able to do with it:
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I thought that this one was really neat, and kinda trippy. It looks like it belong in a Melanie Martinez song (which like, not complaining here, but yknow). It'd probably fit best with Escapism.
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I think Don't Kiss Me Goodbye, whether Rey wanted it to be or not, would be his swan song, that thing he's best known for. And this may not be the cleanest fit (actually it's one of the weakest) for an art cover with that song, but I think that catches the fact that this was an afterthought song Rey didn't think was gonna blow up.
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Honestly not sure where this one would fit best, as it's more of an idea for the cover of Artificial that I just wanted to keep because I like the theme and the vibe it emits. Might go well with Trial, it feels kind of dangerous-y and on the edge.
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Next up is the third and most recently constructed album titles, and that is "Gravesinger" - does it feel like Rey's songs have a line of evolution yet? Cuz I was going for that.
Corpse
2. Six down
3. Fall
4. Might be
5. Hell’s happy hour
6. Existential Cryptid
7. Pie
8. X-rey
9. Body count
10. Born (and born and born)
11. Memory lane
12. Aries
13. The Fortune Teller
14. Infinity Wheel
15. Seafoam
Corpse is probably one of those songs that's way lighter and more whimsical than the title lets on, so I want to pair it with this image of a knight and flowers to give that vibe of something quietly rotting away.
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Now. Pie was one of those names I just...I just wanted it, okay? For personal silly reasons I wanted it. And I did make a matching personal silly prompt:
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Actually, I made two!
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I think I like the second one better but the first one is still very fun.
Then there's Memory Lane, which I wanted to put this cool ocean wave picture on, since it feels similar to that retro vibe from the previous two albums (I think I used the same bot base "style" iirc)
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Being the last song in his last (presumable) album, Seafoam is likely a song of Rey's response to the resounding success that was Don't Kiss Me Goodbye and his own mixed emotions surrounding it. As such, their covers are similar.
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Aaaaand that's all I managed to get in, but I might go back and make more of these to slap on the song titles. Hell, maybe I'll even make the lyrics for them one day. Or figure out how to make music on the computer, idk. That's probably kind of a stretch given I know jack shit of music. Oh well.
Anyways enjoy the aesthetics!
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greensparty · 7 months ago
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Movie Reviews: The Greatest Hits / Civil War
This week I got to review two very different films:
The Greatest Hits
This week sees the Hulu release of the recent SXSW hit The Greatest Hits, a romantic drama fantasy. What got my attention was star Lucy Boynton, who has very quietly become a standout in multiple films notably the dream girl in Sing Street, which I named my #1 Movie of 2016. She is widely known for playing Freddie Mercury's fiance in Bohemian Rhapsody, an uneven music biopic, but no denying the lead performances. Here, she is the lead carrying the movie. No second billing 'cause she's a star now!
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movie poster
Boynton plays Harriet, a woman who is still mourning the passing of her boyfriend Max. She is finding that certain songs can transport her back to a particular place and time - literally. Upon hearing a song on the radio or in a coffee shop, she goes back to a point and time in the relationship. This causes her to go through her entire record collection and note which albums do and don't have that effect. Then while at her support group, she meets David, who is dealing with loss of his own. They hit it off, but she's having trouble letting go of the past and pondering if she should change the past too.
Music geekdom in pop culture is usually male-driven, which is why the TV version of High Fidelity, where Zoe Kravitz took over the John Cusack role in the film, was so exciting. The idea of a female-driven music geek movie about a protagonist who browses record stores and organizes her record collection is something pop culture should catch up with. Why does it have to be male-driven movies about music geeks? I say this as a male music geek who frequents record stores and organizes my music collection! But in terms of this movie, I think I liked the idea of it better than the actuality. The movie itself had an interesting concept about the way that a song can take you back to another place and time, but then it just fell into romantic tear-jerker tropes. But the thing is I really wanted to like this, especially since Boynton deserves a star-vehicle of her own.
For info on The Greatest Hits
2.5 out of 5 stars
Civil War
British author / writer / director Alex Garland has had a mixed bag as a writer/director. His 1996 book The Beach was adapted by Danny Boyle in 2000, which had its moments but more or less became a star vehicle for Leonardo DiCaprio. That lead to Garland's screenwriting with Boyle directing 28 Days Later and Sunshine. For the former, I dug the first two-thirds and then it fell apart in the last third. However I will say that there's an alternate ending on the DVD that they didn't film, but show the storyboards with voiceover and that would've been a much stronger ending and movie as a whole. The later I don't remember too well, but remember liking it when I saw it. Over the last decade, Garland has brought his dystopian bleak view of the world to the director's seat with mixed results. His best work IMHO was 2014's Ex Machina, which came out just as Siri and Alexa were becoming commonplace and had something to say about AI. If Stanley Kubrick was alive in the 2010s, that's exactly the kind of movie he would've made (NOTE: I said "kind of" not "exactly like"). Now Garland's back with another bleak future, this one about the Divided States of America in Civil War, which opens this week from A24.
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In a war-torn U.S., there's a civil war raging with some states resisting the current president (a wasted Nick Offerman, who is barely in it). In NYC, veteran war photographer Lee (Kirsten Dunst) is covering a protest and saves Jesse (Cailee Spaeny), a young photographer just starting out who is actually a fan of Lee's. The next day Lee and her journalist partner Joel (Wagner Moura) are getting ready to drive from NYC to D.C. in the midst of this chaos in hopes of scoring an interview with the president before the rebels get to the White House first. Along for the ride is Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson), an older New York Times reporter, and to Lee's dismay, Jesse. Along the way, they see a lot in this dystopian horror-show. Lee and her team get up close for their coverage. As Lee says in the movie (not a spoiler) their job is not to ask questions, just to photograph and let others ask questions.
I had a lot of issues with this movie. First of all, it only scratched the surface. This movie brings up some hot button issues and it's being released in an election year and yet it doesn't really dive too deep only scratches the surface. The film gives no context as to how any of this happened. I don't need everything answered for me in a movie and I'm all for ambiguity when it works, but this just seemed like a missed opportunity. There could've been something to say about the left and the right and where that leaves the middle ground or something to say about Trump waging war on the press, but instead it said, well, not too much. Kirsten Dunst, who is always reliable, was easily the highlight of the film. She is among the greatest child actors who continued to deliver great performances as an adult. Between all of her collaborations with Sofia Coppola (The Virgin Suicides, Marie Antoinette, and The Beguiled), the excellent Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Melancholia (an uneven movie but truly elevated by Dunst), TV's Fargo, and her Oscar-nominated performance in The Power of the Dog, she has quite an impressive filmography. And did I mention she was excellent as MJ in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy! Here, she pulls off an internalized role of a hardened veteran. It's all in her eyes with this performance. But the biggest issue I have with Civil War is that is trying to be deep, profound and meaningful...and by the end it felt like - that's it?!?! Axl Rose singing "what's so civil about war anyways?" was more deep than this!
For info on Civil War
2 out of 5 stars
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flightfoot · 3 years ago
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So how does only Marinette call Lila on her lies? Like all her lies are so outlandish and obvious that when people just believe her they look like idiots. Half the stuff she says can be corrected with a Google search.
...ARE they actually that outlandish though? You gotta compare it to the stuff that actually happens to the Miracuclass.
Like, looking at most of Lila's lies, the ones that are mostly bragging:
Volpina:
Lila knows Prince Ali and flew on his private jet with him.
Jagged Stone wrote a song about Lila.
She knows several Hollywood directors personally.
She's friends with Ladybug.
She's the descendant of a vixen superheroine.
Heroes Day:
Prince Ali invited Lila to stay with him at his palace.
She, along with her diplomat parents, helped convince several world leaders to reduce world pollution, and she's hoping Prince Ali will jump on board as well. (Note: considering that Lila's mom talks about needing to go to an embassy meeting, the "diplomat parents" bit is probably true).
Chameleon:
She has tinnitus due to being too close to a jet engine when rescuing Jagged Stone's kitten.
She saw someone in India get their eye gouged out by the edge of a napkin.
Her uncle's the great pianist Chuch Boroughchuck, but he had to stop teaching her because of her arthritis.
Onichan:
Her mom wanted her to come to a fancy embassy function, but she had to turn her down due to having too much homework.
Lila lived in Japan for a few weeks.
Ladybug:
Lila's friends with the best manga publisher in Japan.
Most of these really aren't that crazy? Especially when considering that her mom at least probably IS a diplomat, from what little we see of her in Catalyst. That alone makes all the "she's traveled around a lot and has run into a lot of famous people" stuff pretty plausible.
Plus, compare it to some of the stuff the Miracuclass has gotten up to:
Chloe:
Is the daughter of Paris's mayor and an internationally renowned fashion icon.
A lot of celebrities stay at her father's hotel, including Prince Ali and Jagged Stone, giving her ready access to them. To the point that she was able to get Jagged Stone to give out autographs as part of her election campaign for Class Representative.
Alya:
Is Ladybug's best friend.
Runs a famous and highly respected superhero blog, obtaining the very first interview with Ladybug.
Was the first person Ladybug ever saved.
Knows who Ladybug is.
Has met and interviewed several American superheroes.
Max:
Built a sentient AI in his spare time.
Juleka:
Is Jagged Stone's secret daughter, who he's kept away from for all these years because he didn't feel like he was mature enough to be the parent she and her brother deserved.
Is a member of the acclaimed band Kitty Section, which has had its so record deal signed, and was in fact SO good that an already established musician, XY, tried to rip them off.
Nathaniel:
Is co-creator of a comic book about the French Superheroes. Dunno how wide the readership is though.
Rose:
Helped with a charity event for the children's hospital with Prince Ali.
Adrien:
His dad's an insanely rich fashion designer who has his fingers in a lot of various projects.
He's a famous model and voice actor.
His mom was an actress, albeit a small-time one.
Marinette:
Is the Guardian of the Miraculous.
Had her clothing recognized and modeled in a major fashion show.
Her design talents were SO recognized there, that the "international queen of fashion", as Nadja calls her, offered to take her to New York with her as her protege. Marinette had to turn her down.
Her Great-Uncle's a world-famous chef, who names his prize soup after her.
Jagged Stone dedicated a song to her (as Ladybug). He also regularly commissions her for album covers and such, and loves talking her up whenever he's given the opportunity. He'll even consult her about who he should get as his back-up guitarist.
Also literally ALL of them are superheroes.
So yeah. In the real world Lila's lies may be outlandish for your average person, but by Miracuclass standards? They're pretty average, and most of them make sense together. I'd say that Juleka, Chloe, Adrien, and Marinette's lives are actually crazier than the stuff Lila makes up.
It IS true that a lot of stuff Lila claims could be corrected via Google search, but Marinette actually tried that in Heroes Day. Lila just adapted her story slightly to make it still be plausible, even with what Marinette looked up.
Plus there's just not much reason for the Miracuclass to care whether this stuff is true or not. It's like some of the crazy shit you see on tumblr: if you're not advocating to take any action based on it and it's just for entertainment purposes, it really doesn't matter a ton whether or not its true. And while there was some speculation that Lila would use her bragging lies in a way that would be detrimental to others, so far she really hasn't? The bragging lies have been irritating to Marinette, but believing them hasn't led to any concrete harm for anyone. All the ones that HAVE led to harm have been lies about other people, like when she was targeting Marinette in "Ladybug", with the exception of finangling a way to get a seat rearrangement for a few hours that ended up hurting Marinette's feelings as a side effect. (seriously though, not the end of the world there).
Anyway, the Miracuclass isn't super big on calling out "obvious lies" unless they dislike the person or think it's potentially harmful. If simply telling blatant lies and excuses was justification enough to be treated badly, then Marinette would be the class pariah.
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girls-scenarios · 4 years ago
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Girl Groups That Debuted in 2020
Well, we’ve finally reached the end of this crazy year. Instead of focusing on all of the negative things that happened this year, though, I’d like to take a look back on the amazing groups that debuted this year! These girl groups are all incredible and talented, and if you haven’t checked them out yet, you certainly should now! - Admin Kiwi
Cignature
Cignature is a seven member girl group under J9 Entertainment that debuted on February 3rd with their single Nun Nu Nan Na. From left to right the members are Chaesol, Seline, Jeewon, Sunn, Belle, Ye Ah, and Semi, many members who were former members of the girl group Good Day. Since their debut they’ve had two comebacks with ASSA and Arisong. Their music is fun, bright, and loud, and all of them are extremely talented. They’re probably my favorite girl group to debut in a while and I just want everyone to love them as much as I do!
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Secret Number
Secret Number is a five member girl group under VINE Entertainment that debuted on May 15th with their song Who Dis? The group consists of members Denise, Dita, Soodam, Jinny, and Léa. They recently had a comeback with the song Got That Boom. I’d recommend checking out their Privacy and Holiday performance videos to see more of their music. I think most of you probably know about Secret Number, especially since their girl crush debut was such a success, but they’re definitely a group to keep an eye on going into 2021.
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Weeekly
Weeekly is a seven member girl group under Play M Entertainment that debuted on June 30th with the title song Tag Me (@Me) on their debut album We Are. The group consists of members Jiyoon, Zoa, Soojin, Soeun, Jaehee, Monday, and Jihan. They’re Apink’s little sister group and member Jiyoon has already produced multiple songs for the group, including the song My Earth, about climate change and saving the earth. They have an upbeat and fresh sound that they once again showed with their most recent comeback Zig Zag!
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Aespa
I’m sure you all have already heard about aespa, but they’re a four member girl group that just debuted on November 17th under SM Entertainment with the song Black Mamba. The group consists of members Giselle, Winter, Karina, and NingNing, and they created quite a stir with their concept of not only having secret members (perhaps trainees to be added later?) but also having other AI/avatar selves from an alternate universe. They’re already killing it and I can’t wait to see what the next year has in store for them!
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STAYC
STAYC is a six member girl group under High Up Entertainment who just made their debut on November 12th with their single album Star To A Young Culture and the song So Bad. The group consists of members Yoon, Sieun, J, Seeun, Sumin, and Isa. This is another group you might have already seen around as they became popular quite literally overnight. You might also recognize Sieun from her acting career, as she’s acted in shows like “Mystic Pop-Up Bar” and “Still 17.″ If you want to hear a little bit more of their sound, I’d recommend watching the performance video for their song Like This.
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LUNARSOLAR
LUNARSOLAR is a four member girl group under JPlanet Entertainment that debuted on September 2nd with their song Oh Ya Ya Ya. This group has previously been known as Rookie Planet and First Love. The group consists of members Yuuri, Eseo, Jian, and Taeryeong. Taeryeong (Lim Jungmin) was on both Produce 101 and Mixnine, so she might seem familiar to some of you. Their debut song was refreshing and upbeat and I hope to see more of them next year!
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Bling Bling
Bling Bling (or BlingBling, it seems to be stylized both ways) is a six member girl group under MAJOR9 Entertainment that debuted on November 17th with their single album G.G.B. The group consists of members Narin, Juhyun, Yubin, Marin, Jieun, and Ayamy. They debuted with a girl crush concept but with a latin spin on their music that seems to have made them pretty popular in South America, especially in Brazil if their comments are anything to go off of. I was actually very pleasantly surprised and I found myself playing both G.G.B and their b-side La La La over and over after they debuted. Their sound is definitely something that I haven’t seen explored in Kpop before and I’m excited to see how they grow in 2021!
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Woo!Ah!
Woo!Ah! is a five member girl group under NV Entertainment that debuted on May 13th with their single album Exclamation and the title song Woo!Ah! as six members. Unfortunately member Songyee left the group due to personal issues, but the group now consists of members Lucy, Sora, Nana, Minseo, and Wooyeon. They also have a very fun sound and you might have seen Woo!Ah! going a bit viral on Kpop tiktok recently. Their most recent comeback was with Bad Girl, a song that has once again gone a bit viral on tiktok for the unique, especially in Indonesia. I would also recommend checking out their song Payday, my personal favorite by them so far!
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CRAXY
CRAXY is a five member girl group under S.A INTAINMENT that debuted on March 3rd with their full-length album My Universe and the title track Aria. The group consists of members Wooah, Karin, Swan, Hyejin, and ChaeY. The song Aria received attention after it’s release for being... interesting and unique, to say the least. I’ll admit, on the first listen I didn’t like the song, but it definitely grew on me and I enjoy watching them perform it. Unfortunately they haven’t released any comeback since but they have been active doing covers on their YouTube channel so you could definitely check them out there!
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REDSQUARE
REDSQUARE is a five member girl group under About Entertainment that debuted on May 19th with their song Colorfull. The group consists of members Lina, Ari, Green, ChaeA, and Bomin, and all of the members other than Lina were also former members of the girl group Good Day with members of Cignature. Since the group is under a smaller entertainment company, their debut unfortunately didn’t get the attention it deserved. However, Colorfull is not only an amazing song, but the music video is incredibly artistic and aesthetic. I’d really recommend you check these girls out and I hope they have a comeback soon.
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BLACKSWAN
BLACKSWAN is a four member girl group under DR Music that debuted on November 10th as five members with Tonight. Unfortunately the group was already hit with controversy (much like Rania, the group BLACKSWAN “replaced” and some of the members were a part of) and member Hyeme left the group. The remaining members are Youngheun, Leia, Fatou, and Judy. While the future of this group seems to be up in the air, I would totally recommend listening to Tonight, because it’s an absolute bop, just like all the Rania songs come before.
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KEEMBO
Last but not least, KEEMBO is a duo under Ara-Line that debuted on April 10th with their song Thank You, Anyway. The duo consists of Boa and Bohyung, both former members of the girl group SPICA and absolute vocal powerhouses! I was so excited to see them give music another chance because their voices are absolutely amazing. Since their debut, they’ve released a handful of songs, including Scandalous, 99 (Gu Gu), and most recently Scene. There isn’t a single bad song and I would encourage you all to check them out. Scandalous and 99(Gu Gu) are upbeat and bright summer songs while Thank You, Anyway is a ballad and Scene is a bit darker and more sultry in tone. If you’re looking for good vocals and good music, KEEMBO is where to find them.
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putschki1969 · 4 years ago
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Wakana Covers ~ Anime Classics ~ Release
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It’s officially the 9th of December in Japan which means it’s the release day of 『Wakana Covers ~Anime Classics~』! BANZAI! The album is now available for purchase in digital format in Japanese stores. 
❗Please SUPPORT Wakana and BUY her album❗ ❗BUY a PHYSICAL COPY on CDJapan❗ ❗BUY it digitally on MORA JAPAN ~ TUTORIAL (no OTOTOY this time)❗ ❗Check your local iTunes store and Spotify after midnight❗
Here’s a quick REVIEW
THIS IS A GREAT ALBUM. I LOVE IT!! The tracklist is not what I would have hoped for but then again, I only know a handful of old anime songs so it’s really no surprise that none of them made it onto the album. I wasn’t really familiar with any of Wakana’s chosen songs but to her credit, she made me fall in love with almost all of them. The only tracks I do not like are “Yatsura No Ashioto No Ballade” and “Rain” but that’s not Wakana’s fault, it’s just that I do not care for those types of songs. Wakana’s vocals are really solid throughout the album, her voice was made for classical arrangements like this and I am forever grateful we are getting a full album and a concert on top of that. There are just a few sections here and there where I am not too happy with her choice of singing style but it doesn’t take away from my enjoyment. Question: Is it just me or are the instruments (strings in particular) overly loud sometimes? Occasionally they seem to almost drown out Wakana.
Detailed review below the cut〈(•ˇ‿ˇ•)-→
1. 時には昔の話を (Toki ni wa Mukashi no Hanashi wo) Arranger: Sin; I understand why they chose this as the leading track to promote the album. Everything about it is absolutely beautiful, Wakana’s vocals, the arrangement, the lyrics, the PV (from what we have seen so far). I have mentioned it before but her “hashitta” in the second chorus(?) kills me every time. And the way the strings build up in the first and last chorus. Ahhh, be still my heart I cannot take it. Btw, I am still not sure if you consider those two last lines in each of the three verses a proper chorus or if the song just consists of three elaborate verses..? But for the sake of this review, I will call them choruses XD 2. やさしさに包まれたなら (Yasashisa ni Tsutsumareta Nara) Arranger: Miki Sakurai; Gorgeous arrangement (especially with the added tin whistle). Kinda reminds me of the Concerning Hobbits theme from LotR. I am a big fan of Celtic and folk-ish elements. Miki Sakurai apparently is a big fan too. After all, her “Yakusoku no Yoake” which she wrote for Wakana’s first album also had strong Celtic vibes. My favourite part of the song is when Wakana sings that final “meseeji” in the last chorus, the arrangement here is beautiful. Still think Wakana’s vocals are a bit too cutesy but hell, it’s a cute song so I guess it seems fitting.  3. Rain Arranger: Shu Kanematsu; Wakana sounds great but the song doesn’t do anything for me. T_T 4. いのちの名前 (Inochi no Namae) Arranger: Shu Kanematsu; OMG, this brought tears to my eyes. SO SO BEAUTIFUL. The way her voice just blends with the strings. Her vocals are a tad quiet though compared to the instruments. Or is it just me?  5. やつらの足音のバラード (Yatsura No Ashioto No Ballade) Arranger: Sin; I can’t put my finger on what exactly I don’t like about this but I can’t seem to get into it. I guess it sounds a little too jazz-y for me...or is it blues? Either way, not my cup of tea but I can see why Wakana would like it this way. And hey, she does pull it off perfectly so who am I to complain? On a side note, those lyrics are just so perfect for Wakana, she doesn’t often get the chance to sing about dinosaurs :P EDIT: Future!Sarah is coming back to revise her opinion. After listening to the album on repeat for hours on end, I now LOVE this song. It’s charming. 6. Get Wild Arranger: Sin; One of the coolest arrangements on this album!! The strings are just PERFECTION. And Wakana SLAYS!! Who would have thought she can pull off a song like that. I mean, we already knew from gettign that teaser video but this is on a whole other level. Too much awesomeness.  7. 風のとおり道 (Kaze no Toorimichi) Arranger: Miki Sakurai; Ahhhhh, so precious and mystical, such a gorgeous arrangement!! I love how we start with just Wakana’s vocals. And then Miki Sakurai adds her magical touch again by inserting all those Celtic elements. The tin whistle fits perfectly. A couple of Wakana’s high notes no longer sound good to my ears here but overall I enjoy her singing. 8. 君をのせて (Kimi wo Nosete) Arranger: Sin; The arrangement is utterly charming, both the piano as well as the strings are perfect here, Wakana’s vocals in the verses are literally flawless. I kinda find myself wishing she had sung the chorus with a different voice though. Mind you, I don’t hate the one she is using here but it’s bordering on being a teeny-tiny bit too shrill and thin for my taste. It’s still solid (and nothing at all like her strained “ring your bell” voice let’s say) but it’s not what I personally enjoy most from her. Either way, I think she is hitting her notes just fine (as far as I can tell at least) and the style fits the overall sound of the song. Pus, they made up for the slightly thin vocals by adding a little harmony layer which I appreciate.  9. 愛にできることはまだあるかい (Ai ni dekiru koto wa mada aru kai) Arranger: Sin; Most of you may know this already but I am a HUGE fan of the cello so I am happy we have such a strong cello presence here. Those cello parts are so cool. Anyways, this turned out to be one of my favourite tracks even though I didn’t think I would ever like this song based on the YouTube teaser we got a while back. There is just so much raw emotion and fierceness in Wakana’s voice, towards the end she is hitting me right in the feels. I just can’t help but be drawn to the song. I am surprised by how well she handles songs that are originally sung by males. Her covers of this and “Get Wild” are just exceptional imo. They bring out a new side of Wakana which I really love. 10. 夢のゆくえ (Yume no Yukue) Arranger: Shu Kanematsu; While I didn’t know this song before listening to Wakana’s cover version, the melody reminded me a LOT of the old anime songs I used to like back in the day. The feeling of nostalgia is super strong in this one so naturally I enjoy it quite a bit. It’s not an outstandingly beautiful song or anything but the arrangement is lovely and Wakana’s vocals are on point. 
»»—— CLICK ME 🎁 CLICK ME ——«« 
FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, if you have the means, support Wakana in any way you can. Order a physical copy of her album, purchase it in digital format. Stream it legally on various streaming services. au
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talkfastromance4 · 4 years ago
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adore you--harry styles
a/n: erm yeah, so this is something I wrote literally a year ago. It’s an open ended ending (I have no idea where I wanted to go with it but assuming by the title...) anywho. First time posting Harry as standalone, I’ve used him as an outside antagonist in other pieces but yeah. Let me know what you think!?
word count: just shy of 2.8k
warnings: slight jealousy? it is an OC but no definitive characteristics are described
**I used my taglist from 5sos but if you don’t want to be tagged for future (maybe?) harry writings, please let me know!
•••
Harry and Selah were writing buddies. He’d found her poetry on Instagram and had been hooked by her words ever since. He’d messaged her asking if she’d like to collaborate sometime and after a day of screeching about the direct message from none other than Harry Styles himself, she responded.
 I’d love to! But I don’t live anywhere near London or LA
 Not a problem. I’ll fly you out. H
 You aren’t serious
 I am 🙂 what do you say?
 And then she was on a plane out to LA to write a song or two with Harry Styles. She was a big ball of chaotic and anxious energy. She was excited but nervous and didn’t know what in the world to expect. She’d been a fan of One Direction when they started.
She’d even seen them perform live and it was so surreal she couldn’t believe she saw them in person. And now she’s actually going to meet 1/5 of one of her favorite boybands. If she’s dreaming she didn’t want to wake up.
Once her bags were claimed she noticed a tall woman with a blond bob and a tailored suit, she was holding up a small sign that read ‘Selah Grace Clark’ with the acronym of ‘TPWK’ underneath. This must be her ride.
“Um, I’m Selah Clark,” she says shyly approaching the woman.
“Oh! Hello! I’m Maeve, Harry’s driver but now yours while you’re here,” Maeve smiles extending her hand.
“Nice to meet you, Maeve,” Selah smiles shaking her hand.
“Is this all your luggage?” Maeve indicates to the three large suitcases next to Selah.
“Yeah . . . is it too much? I’ve never been to LA and I don’t know how long I’m staying for—“
“It’s absolutely fine! Don’t worry! Let’s just get a cart so you don’t have to lug it around to the car.”
 Selah was taken to a hotel and into the nicest room she’s ever been in.
“Harry wanted you to feel comfortable in your own suite, room service accessible and I’ll be back in a few hours to pick you up and meet him.”
“Where will I be meeting him?” Selah tries to keep her voice at a normal pitch.
“At his house. He’s doing some meetings today but insisted on having you for dinner. I’ll be round by six o’clock Miss Clark.”
“Please, call me Selah or Sel, not Miss Clark,” Selah winces at the formality.
“Absolutely Selah. I’ll see you around,” Maeve winks then exits the suite.
Selah takes a look around then squeals running to the bedroom and flops onto the bed. Is this real life?
+++++
 Selah opted for a casual outfit for meeting Harry and her nerves were a terrible bundle the closer she got to his house. What if she’s a blubbering, stuttering mess and he regrets bringing her out here? She’s never met anyone famous before and now she’s meeting (and going to be writing with) one of the most famous singers in the country.
“Here we are,” Maeve announces pulling through the iron gates and into the circle around driveway.
There’s a fountain in the middle of it and unlike her prediction, his house looked very homey and inviting.
“I know you’re nervous, Selah but really, Harry’s just like a regular guy,” Maeve tries to comfort her.
++++++
Selah peruses the photographs adorned on his walls while she waits for him. They’re snapshots of his whole career, faces she recognizes of celebrities and faces she doesn’t. In each one Harry is the enigma, his charisma exudes through the photographs.
“Sorry for keeping you,” a droll voice thick as honey says from behind her.
Selah whips around and her breath is stuck in her throat. Harry Styles is walking towards her wearing tan trousers and a band tee, his hair is styled in the perfect mess. His green eyes are excited and paired with a smile she’s only familiar with in pictures.
“Hello, I’m Harry,” he holds out his ring covered hand. “And you’re Selah Grace Clark.”
“H-hi,” Selah chokes out taking his hand in hers. It’s warm and soft and strong and she can’t breathe. “And just . . . just Selah.”
“Well, ‘just Selah,’” he mocks giving her hand one final shake before releasing. “Would you like to help me with dinner? I hope you like pasta.”
“I . . .” Selah takes a deep breath and exhales her nervousness. “I love pasta.”
++++
One year later, Selah and Harry have become closer than close and she’s become one of his confidante’s and most valued co-writer. She’s been through the thick of things with him and the first time he tried recreational drugs. Her heart still flutters when she remembers what he said to her while he was high.
They were at Mitch’s place working on a song Harry had no name for and only a quarter of the lyrics, when he came and sat down heavily next to her on the couch. His green eyes were dazed but not confused as he focused on her, his long arm falling onto her shoulders.
“Y’know somethin’?” he drags out.
“What?” she humors him with a laugh.
“Your eyes right now are like the ocean with stars in them,” he lifts his left hand to her face. His fingers ghost over her eyelashes then pokes her nose gently. His own brows furrow as he concentrates on her eyes.
She’s stood from the sidelines watching him fall into his despair after what Camille did to him. It made her own heart break but she knew he had to come to terms with it on his own, she knew he could do it and he did.
Little did Harry know that her friendship ran a little deeper, had a little more love in it then she intended it to. How was she supposed to know she’d fall for him?
And now, it’s the day after Christmas and she’s pulling up to his place. He decided to have a little get together for everyone that helped with the album. She opted for a red dress, fish net tights and heeled boots.
When she opened the door his house was already filled with laughter and cheer, Christmas music playing throughout.
“There she is! And looking hotter than ever, damn girl!” Mitch exclaims coming from the kitchen with a small crystal glass that looks like it’s filled with eggnog.
“Oh stop it,” Selah blushes setting her keys on the main table where everybody else’s were.
“C’mere, you,” he grins some more pulling her in for a hug. “C’mon, everyone’s in the living room.”
He keeps his arm around her shoulders leading her into the living room where Harry’s large tree was decorated and standing perfectly in the corner. Everyone you knew were sat around on couches and chairs, even Gemma was kneeling on the floor next to Michal who was sitting on the couch.
“Look who’s arrived!” Mitch shouts.
“Mitch!” she hisses feeling embarrassed as everyone turns their heads in unison to look at her.
“Selah!”
“Sel!”
Gemma is the first to run up and hug you, touching your hair delicately praising how much she likes it.
“Want a drink?” Mitch asks.
“Please. You know what I like?”
“’Course I do,” he shrugs kissing her temple then retreats back into the kitchen.
“You look amazing!” Gemma gushes eying up her dress.
“Thank you, I love your dress,” Selah responds with a smile. She spots Harry behind her, he’s wearing a deep green jumper with faded jeans, his stubble visible even from this distance. He sends a wink her way before continuing his conversation.
Selah tries to ignore the fact he didn’t come say hi but he was talking with someone else and Harry was anything but rude. Selah let Gemma grab her hand leading her to where Michal was. Mitch joined back quickly with her drink and wouldn’t keep his hands off her.
He’s usually pretty lovey dovey with everyone once he’s gotten a little bit to drink but this was a bit more outlandish for him. Selah played along with it and she thought she saw Harry give them a look but someone walked in front of him and he wasn’t looking at her anymore.
Selah is at the food table making a plate of cheese and crackers with some fruit and mini meatballs when she smells an all too familiar cologne and an all too familiar touch on her back.
“Before you dig in, I have something to give you,” Harry says lowly in her ear.
Selah turns her head sharply then gasps when she sees how close Harry’s face is to hers. She gulps then nods. Keeping his eyes strained on her, with one hand he puts her plate down and with the other takes her hand.
He leads her through the kitchen out into the small garden joined to his house. It’s decorated with fairy lights and it smells of fresh pine, which is odd because that doesn’t grow in LA.
“It’s out here?” she scrunches her nose.
“It’s quieter, don’t you think?” he grins back at her then stops her right in the middle of the small area.
“I guess,” she sighs. “I didn’t get you anything, Harry, I’ve been so busy flying home and getting presents for everyone else I just—“
“You don’t have to get me anything, love,” he shakes his head then picks up a pretty flat wrapped gift from a bench. He places it in her hands delicately. “Merry Christmas, Sel.”
“Merry Christmas, Harry,” she smiles then rips into the gift. She gasps, her eyes darting up to Harry when she sees what the thin box consists of. It’s the newest Macbook. “Harry this is—“
“It’s not too much, it’s just enough. You deserve a good writing tool, especially with your book coming along,” his green eyes twinkle.
“I’ll pay you back, I promise!”
“You don’t payback for a gift,” he chortles. “It’s yours. Merry Christmas.”
Selah sets the gift gently down on the bench behind her then throws her arms around Harry’s neck. Her toes rise off the ground as he hugs her back, his arms tight around her waist.
“I love it, thank you so much,” she says into the collar of his sweater.
“You’re welcome.”
They release their hold slowly, his eyes flicker down while hers flicker up. The air between them fills with static, something electric hangs in the air.
“Mistletoe,” he grunts tightening his hands on her waist.
“I don’t—wait what?” she asks puzzled.
“We’re under mistletoe, love,” he hums.
“Oh?” she squeaks. “Who put that there?”
Harry smiles at her petulance reaching his hand up to cup her chin with his thumb, he rubs her chin gently stroking up her cheek.
“I think the man of the house had an agenda.”
“That’s the narcissist in him,” she hums as he leans in closer, a chuckle escaping his lips.
She closes her eyes smelling the cinnamon and eggnog on his breath. Her heart is pounding loudly in her ears as she becomes hyperaware to everything he does. His nose bumps hers then his lips are soon to follow.
There’s a small pause as he waits for her to pull away but Selah is frozen. So Harry continues connecting their lips in the softest kiss she’s ever experienced, his lips mold hers into what he wants and she’s pliant under him. Where he leads she’ll surely follow.
At the touch of his tongue slipping over hers she lets out a quiet moan and kisses him deeper. Her fingers curl into his soft brown locks like many times before when he’d be lying on her lap complaining about a migraine. This is so much better.
Harry gets more excited as the kiss continues, he parts his mouth open welcoming her soft tongue and pushes her against the edge of the doorway to the gazebo garden. Selah grunts at the impact and he mumbles out a ‘sorry’ connecting their lips again. His hands travel lower on her waist until he feels the hem of her dress and the fishnet tights.
He squeezes her thighs hoisting her in the air and her legs wrap around his waist so she doesn’t fall on her butt. A surprised squeak at the sudden movement escapes her lips and Harry smiles at her cuteness.
“I’ve got you, love,” he grins and gives her thighs a squeeze for good measure. Her legs clench around him and Harry desperately wants to take her upstairs to his bedroom and have his way with her until New Year’s Day.
“We’re not under the mistletoe anymore,” she sighs stroking his stubbled cheek and the birthmark.
“You want me to stop kissing you?” he huffs cocking his head to the side. His green eyes seem dark in the lowlight but she knows him well enough that he’s anything but dark.
“No,” she murmurs through a smile.
“All right then,” his eyes dance mirthlessly as he presses his lips to hers again.
Selah’s heart is soaring, her fingers are tingling and her lips are zinging from kissing Harry like this. It’s everything she’s wanted and more. She never wants to stop.
Until they do when there’s a loud pop of champagne from the kitchen and they break apart in shock. Selah knocks her head on the windowpane and squeezes around Harry who grunts at the impact.
“Ow,” she whispers.
“Are you okay?” he asks setting her back on her feet carefully. He cradles her head delicately, the cool of his rings feel nice on her temples as he inspects her.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she nods then giggles at him.
“What’sso funny?” he smirks.
She continues to snicker and rubs at the top of his lip. “My lipstick is all over you, H.”
He rolls his eyes. “Not my color, eh?”
“Not like this,” she snickers trying to rub it off. “You’ll have to use soap.”
“Where’d Harry and Sel run off to?” Mitch shouts.
“Your boyfriend’s gonna be mad if he finds us,” Harry grumbles tucking her hair behind her ears.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“He’s been over you all night, hasn’t he?” his dark brows furrow into an angry line.
“It’s nothing, Harry,” Selah rolls her eyes. “You know how he gets when he’s drunk.”
“He wasn’t drunk when you got here,” he shakes his head.
“O . . . kay? What are you saying? You brought me out here to kiss me and stake your claim because some other guy was showing me attention?” Selah pushes him away from her angrily.
“N-no! That’s not what I—“ he closes his eyes and exhales deeply through his nose. It’s his calming mechanism.
“That’s low, Harry, even for you,” she scoffs and tries to sidle past him to leave.
“Selah Grace, listen to me,” he uses her full name grabbing hold of her wrist spinning her around. She smacks into him and tries to push away from him with her small hand on her chest.
“Let me go!”
He grabs her other wrist pinning her fighting arms against her body. He ducks his head so his eyes are level with hers.
“That was a dumb thing of me to say,” he confesses. “You aren’t something to ‘stake a claim’ on, Selah. I just . . .” he closes his eyes then opens them again with a big breath, “I did have this planned. The gift, the mistletoe, it was all a plan to try and kiss you if you’d let me. Hearing him just made me think of how he has been all over you.”
She’s fuming silently, her lips in a scowl and her eyes hard. If he didn’t know she was mad at him he’d tell her she’s adorable as fuck when she’s mad but he’ll tell her that some other time.
“And that bothered you?” she asks quietly.
He licks his lips and nods. He slowly releases her wrists bringing them up to his mouth, he kisses the soft skin inside each wrist. His green eyes pleading her forgiveness.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbles on her skin.
“You’re lucky you look like a dork with that lipstick on or I wouldn’t forgive you,” she says icily. He continues to kiss up her wrist and into her palm, his eyes on her.
“And because you fancy me,” he smirks now kissing her fingertips lightly.
“Shut up,” she scoffs rolling her eyes. “Go wash your mouth, Styles.”
“Can you help me?” he grins mischievously.
She leans up kissing him quickly, his lips chase hers as she answers with a simple, ‘nope.’ With a grin she skips behind him and picks up her laptop holding it to her chest.
“Better hurry before my boyfriend sees,” she smirks then leaves him standing there in disbelief.
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14 notes · View notes
mcheang · 5 years ago
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Hey :) could you maybe write either a Max salt fic or smart Max fic, the scene when Lila convinces the class Marinette could have made Max blind annoys me as Max was apparently smart enough to make a AI but not see through that lie. :)
Class criticism
Marinette laughed. “See that! It’s obvious she doesn’t have a sprained wrist!”
Everyone around Lila gasped. The liar looked up at everyone’s surprised faces and quickly dropped the napkin. “Ow,” she gasped.
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As everyone gasped again, this time in concern for her (ugh, idiots), Lila concocted a new lie. “Once when I was in India, i witnessed someone getting their eye gouged out by a corner of a napkin. If I hadn’t caught it, this napkin could have injured Max. I didn’t have a choice. Ow!” Lila clutched her wrist in feigned agony.
Max pushed up his glasses, frowning. “Lila, you do realize that it is statistically impossible for a pliable napkin to be strong enough to physically remove an eyeball, especially given the natural defenses of the body? Also, I wear glasses. And the napkin wasn’t even aimed at me remotely.” He was wondering whether the girl suffered from delusions.
Lila stammered. ugh why can’t he be as gullible as the rest. “Well I-”
Marinette wasn’t going to let Lila attempt another lie. “Kim, you’ve sprained your wrists before. Tell us, if you had caught the napkin, would your wrist have a delayed pain response?”
Kim frowned at Lila. “No. And actually, Lila, if my wrist was bothering me so much as Lila said hers was, I would have had it bandaged. I don’t know why Lila wouldn’t.”
Lila was visibly panicking. “I didn’t want to make anyone else worry.”
“Then why mention it at all?” Max sounded confused.
Mylene was looking thoughtful. “And no offense Lila, but I know what sounds fake and what doesn’t. Your ‘ow’s need some work.” (Surprisingly, Mylene’s tone wasn’t accusatory, rather it was more critical.)
Sabrina absorbed what was happening, the implications. Finally she turned to Marinette. “Marinette, you have Jagged’s phone number right?” She heard Jagged raving about Marinette when she was at the hotel.
Marinette nodded and had to refrain from smiling too wide. “His agent Penny’s, actually. I saved her number after he called me to design his album cover. Shall I see if Jagged is available to talk right now, about how injured Lila really was when she saved his kitten?”
Lila glared daggers at the class president (honestly what did she expect would happen when she exiled Marinette to the back? That she would just take that lying down? Ha!) she hoped Jagged was busy recording or whatever it is rock stars do.
Marinette called the number and put it on loudspeaker. Jagged may be busy, for all Marinette knows, but Penny was an efficient multitasker. She could hold multiple calls at once.
“Bonjour Marinette, how are you?”
Marinette knew how Penny was very busy and didn’t waste her words. “Hey Penny, I’m at school having lunch, and I just heard a curious bit of news I think you and Jagged might be very interested in.”
“Oh, what is it?”
“A girl named Lila Rossi claims to have saved Jagged Stone’s pet kitten before he had his allergies confirmed. She got a sprained wrist for her trouble but Jagged apparently wrote a song for her.”
“What?!!!” A new voice could be heard. A very recognisable, accented voice. “I’ve never owned a kitten! And why would I write a song about a minor?!”
Marinette grinned triumphantly at Lila’s pale face. The rest of the students had backed away from the liar.
“Thank you for informing me about this rumor Marinette. I’ll see to it that this Lila Rossi is corrected.” And by that, Penny implies a lawsuit is headed for the Rossi household.
“I’m happy to help, salut you two.”
“Bye Marinette. Have a pleasant day. Oh hang on, Jagged’s asking if you can design a new poster for his next tour.”
Marinette blinked, pleasantly surprised. “Are you sure? That’s awesome!”
“Great, you can visit us after school to discuss the details. Salut, Marinette.”
“And we’ll be eating lobsters, so have a light lunch” Jagged’s voice was cut off as Penny ended the call.
Everyone followed Marinette’s gaze to Lila.
Alix put her hands on her hips. “So you don’t have a sprained wrist after all. Do you even have tinnitus?”
Lila’s brain was working fast. What should she do? Admit she was lying to make friends. Nope. Marinette would just point out that she made her classmates buy and serve her lunch.
Alya finally stood up to Marinette. “I think as class president and deputy, we have a right to escort Lila to the nurse’s office to check for any physical disabilities.”
Lila looked like she wanted to run away but she was literally surrounded. Maybe she could still fool the nurse? “Of course.”
Marinette spoke up, “Actually Alya, I think you should call Mrs Rossi to clarify what exactly are Lila’s ailments, just in case Lila has some memory loss. Ivan can come along in your place, just in case Lila feels weak or jetlagged from her recent travels.”
And so Lila can’t escape the giant drummer.
Lila looked around desperately, but no one was willing to back her up.
Ivan then tugged on her arm to get her moving. Lila tugged it back so she could at least walk with dignity (as much as she could)
So while Lila feigned hearing loss to the nurse, Alya called Mrs Rossi and the pair learned some very interesting news regarding the Achu trip.
As the nurse examined Lila, she questioned why Lila never got hearing aids or at least cleared the wax out of her ears!
The lingering akuma was attracted by her humiliation and seething rage. Thankfully Marinette saw it and used a Petri dish and paper to capture it. She secured the paper around the Petri dish.
Alya arrives and informs them that Mrs Rossi confirms that Lila is physically healthy, that she has never been to Achu, and that she is arriving right now to talk to the principal and Lila’s Teachers.
The nurse sends them to the principal’s office. But Marinette insists she needs to deliver the akuma to the proper authorities. Alya offers to post it on her blog to alert the heroes. Marinette agreed.
Adrien is alerted to the akuma post and transforms to meet the girls at the principal’s office. He destroys the butterfly within the Petri dish. He asks what is going on, Marinette informs him that Lila Rossi has been faking disabilities and has committed truancy.
“Oh.”
While Alya begs for the chance to interview Chat, Ivan and Marinette continue to escort Lila.
Principal Damocles is informed, calls in Ms Bustier and asks if Mrs Rossi had confirmed her daughter’s ailments. Ms Bustier admits she relied on the signature on doctor notes and her email replies.
Principal Damocles suspect Mrs Rossi’s email address was really Lila’s.
Mrs Rossi arrives. Now they can really get down to business.
As lunch ends, Caline informs the class that Lila had been suspended and will be serving detention after school. (So she still has to go to school, just when nobody else but Teachers are around)
Adrien is informed of what happened. He admits he knew Lila was lying after Ladybug confronted her but he thought she was just trying to make friends. However, even he didn’t think she would take advantage of her class’ kindness and make them buy her food, or commit truancy.
The class forgives him. Though Alya had to be calmed down by Marinette because couldn’t Adrien have bothered to save her blog’s reputation? But Alya owes Marinette so she instead focuses on deleting the interview and writing an apology instead. Adrien looks at Marinette gratefully.
Marinette is seated next to Adrien at the front row (where Ms Bustier can snap her out of her daydreams). It was Alya’s suggestion, to make it up to Marinette to seat her next to her crush rather than return to the old seating.
When Mrs Rossi receives the lawsuit, Lila’s allowance is revoked until her debt is paid. Lila has to get a part time job to earn her own allowance and hurry repay that debt, because now her own Mother is threatening to cut her out of her will.
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shanethvarosa · 4 years ago
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Music Review: 2020
My blog has been a lot of things over the years, but it did originate as something I used to publicly review music; especially in the Visual Kei scene. Since I began the blog so many years ago, I had actually been hired to review Visual Kei and J-Rock music for an actual website: VKH-Press.com, work I am very, very proud of to this day. However, with not much news to comment on or work to critique, I haven’t been as active. Plus, personal issues always seem to stand in my way. However, I always take the time to discuss my passions at the end of the year. There were so many incredible releases, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, and so I wanted to take the time time to discuss my favorite releases and, maybe, the not-so-favorites as well. Quick shout out to Bastille’s Goosebumps EP and Megan Thee Stallion’s Good News LP as I did not get to listen to them before I wrote up my lists, but were still excellent releases. See my thoughts below! 
Overall, there were about 75 albums or groupings of albums I listened to this year and split them between various tiers. Starting with the bad tier, there were actually only ten albums listed here and mostly just because they were seemingly unnecessary collection albums. For example, another Satsuki collection? Rides in ReVellion releasing two greatest hits LPs after only five years of work? Beyonce releasing The Lion King: The Gift again? None of those felt like necessary releases. There weren’t many albums that really screamed bad to me this year, but I really could not stand Vanessa Carlton’s “Love is an Art” or Justin Bieber’s “Changes.” The only other albums on this tier were just underwhelming compared to what I know the artist is capable of, but the “best bad tier album,” in my view, was The 1975′s “Notes on a Conditional Form.” 
The mid-tier albums had all sorts of reasons for being only mid-tier. They weren’t quite bad or outright unnecessary, but are mostly by artists who put out work that was nowhere near the caliber of their usual work or were re-releases or other collection albums. For example, Tove Lo’s “Sunshine Kitty: Pawprint Edition” or Man With A Mission’s remixes/b-sides/covers albums. Nice to have with good quality music, but I wish we’d just have had brand new EPs or LPs. 
The good-tier albums were all really excellent releases, but didn’t hit home the way anything on the “God-Tier” list did. Here, I’d like to share a quick top ten: 
10. Taeyeon’s “Purpose: Repackage” & Japanese EP, “#GirlsSpkOut” 9. Charli XCX’s “How I’m Feeling Now” 8. Miyavi’s “Holy Nights” & “Holy Nights: 2020 Lockdown” 7. TK’s “Sainou” 6. PVRIS’s “Use Me” 5. Buck-Tick’s “Abracadabra” 4. Katy Perry’s “Smile” 3. Alicia Keys’ “Alicia” 2. Dua Lipa’s “Future Nostalgia” & “Club Future Nostalgia” 1. Ava Max’s “Heaven & Hell
Without furhter ado, though, the God Tier Top 25: 
25. Acme’s We Are Visual Kei: Essentially a collection album of several songs that were b-sides that never made a full-blown album. This LP was loaded with some of Acme’s best work and shows that they are going to be here for a long time, despite Div not quite working out. Recommended tracks: Mononoke Requiem, Gekiyama Celluloid, Houkago no Shiiku 
24. Alanis Morisette’s Such Pretty Forks in the Road: Admittedly, a huge fan in the 90′s and loved her cover of Seal’s Crazy. However, before this album I didn’t really listen to much of her body of work and I can see why today’s youth might not listen to this album. It is very “adult” insofar as it deals with her struggles in marriage, parenting, religion, etc. Her vocal performance is exceptional and her song writing remains some of the best in the business. Recommended tracks: Smiling, Nemesis, Reasons I Drink. 
23. Niall Horan’s Heartbreak Weather: Not my usual cup of tea, but for some reason Niall’s music makes me feel softer than normal. He’s very cute and charming and his words are always so romantic. It feels more genuine than the music made by other members of One Direction and kind-of reminds me of earlier Taylor Swift writing, but from a male perspective. Recommended Tracks: Put A Little Love On Me, Arms of a Stranger, Still. 
22. K/DA’s All Out: I don’t even really understand what this is, but I love it. There’s something to do with League of Legends? Cartoons? International pop stars? Whatever it is, I’m totally obsessed. These songs just completely slap. Recommended Tracks: The Baddest, More, Drum Go Dum. 
21. Darrell’s Brilliant Death: This might even “officially” be a single, but there’s enough content to market it as an album. Darrell is a band formed from the ashes of Deathgaze and Ai’s solo project. Who knows why Ai didn’t just continue after his solo album, Confusion, but he decided to go back to the band-format with confusingly-named Darrell. This album is then, incidentally, mostly Deathgaze covers. It brings the production into the new era and gives you a lot of nostalgic love for old hits. Recommended Tracks: Brilliant Death, Evoke the World, Abyss. 
20. Alice Nine’s Fuyajou Eden & Kuro to Wonderland: Neither album was particularly long, in fact these were glorified EPs that could’ve been merged to one two-sided LP, but in either case... Both albums had something really special to offer and felt like a true comeback after years of name changes and finally going back to their original, kanji-styled name. Recommended Tracks: Kakumei Kaika -Revolutionary Blooming-, Testament, Replica, Glow. 
19. Mucc’s Aku: This album felt very long in the making after a series of weird singles that didn’t feel like they were going anywhere. Ultimately, a lot of those singles did not make the album including my favorite one: Taboo. The resulting album, though, did feel very cohesive and thematic and even featured one of this year’s heavy hitters: Hazuki. Recommended Tracks: Aku -Justice-, Memai, Ameria. 
18. Miley Cyrus’s Plastic Hearts: This person is absolutely one of my favorite people in music. I’m pretty sure they have comeout as genderfluid/non-binary, so I want to stick with safe pronouns, just in case. However, they’ve always been a favorite and as they’ve come out as such a champion for the LGBT, I love them even more. The album though gave me a lot of hype for something very 80′s rock, but didn’t quite give me what I expected. All in all, the music was fantastic, just a little off-beat from expectations. Recommended Tracks: Gimme What I Want, Angels Like You, WTF Do I Know. 
17. Rina Sawayama’s Sawayama: I didn’t expect to fall in love with this girl the way I did. My boyfriend recommended “STFU” to me as kind of a joke because the song discusses a lot of Asian racism that I’m always criticizing people in my life for falling into, but then the song was so bad ass I checked out the album. There were so many different types of music on it and she really did a good job with all of them. Then, with the deluxe edition coming out and the hardcore club banger “Lucid” being involved... Just really brought it all home. Recommended Tracks: Tokyo Love Hotel, Lucid, Fuck This World. 
16. Amber Liu’s X: This was just an EP, but every song on it was great. Amber Liu was from f(x), a K-Pop Icon Group, but she always seemed like the odd one out. She was such a tomboy, so silly and funny all the time, and didn’t really behave like other Korean idols. I mean, really, she isn’t actually even Korean. I believe she’s Chinese American. In either case, the EP really noted some of her own personal strugles in the business and also remaining pretty fun at parts too. I saw her live in Philly before COVID-19 and she was truly excellent. Recommended Tracks: Numb, Stay Calm, Other People. 
15. Blackpink’s The Album: Not much of an album at only 8 tracks, but that’s K-Pop for you. I bet next year I’ll be putting “Blackpink’s The Album: Repackage” on my top 25 list. The quality of the music was pretty dope though, all things considered. It was a very solid debut effort with all of their previous songs being somewhere in the same lane as this one. I still kind of believe they are a reminder of what 2NE1 could have been, but they’re doing well enough on their own. Recommended Tracks: Ice Cream, Lovesick Girls, Pretty Savage. 
14. Hazuki’s Year Over All: Kind of a weird way to word it, but Hazuki basically released two albums this year in different formats. His work with his band, Lynch., was pretty magnificent. I’m not one to usually dwell on a Lynch. album. Their singles or featured tracks are what I usually get into, but the actual album (Ultima) really did a good job of showing how versatile Hazuki can be. His solo album, Souen -Funeral-, was an entirely stripped down, gothic orchestral album of Lynch. covers and other J-Hard Rock artists. Hearing it done like this was almost transcendental. Recommended Tracks: Xero, Idol, Ray, D.A.R.K. 
13. Sam Smith’s Love Goes: They had me scared that their album wasn’t coming this year once they pushed it back, back in May. Then again, at the time, an album called “To Die For” was probably super tone deaf. In any case, literally every single released for this album had me in love. So, when they all got included in the final version, I was thrilled. Sam gave us a bonus song after the album as well, but I can see why that one didn’t get on. In any case, this is a huge step up from “The Thrill of it All,” which I didn’t really care for. Recommended Tracks: Another One, Dance (’Til You Love Someone Else), Forgive Myself. 
12. Troye Sivan’s In A Dream: I love this kid. He’s so gay and so not shy about it and it really makes me smile. The EP comes after his last LP, Bloom, where the title track basically talks about bottoming for the first time and this new EP deals with a few other queer issues over weirdly produced beats that just... make sense. Recommended tracks: Stud, In A Dream, Easy. 
11. Matenrou Opera’s Chronos: Unfortunately, this band just lost their guitarist again. Their original, Anzi, was basically the most consummate guitarist in the visual kei scene that wasn’t Hizaki and he left them. Their sound wasn’t quite right since and they seemed to just get it back with Chronos when Jay left them. I guess we’ll see what they do next, but I think Chronos could be their last great release. Recommended Tracks: Chronos, Silence, Reminiscence. 
10. BoA’s Better: A very recent release that hasn’t had much time for me to digest. This is strange for me to put it so high on my list for that reason, but BoA is one of my all time favorites. She never disappoints me. This album was no different. It wasn’t exactly up to par with “Woman” or “Watashi Kono Mama de Ii no Kana,” but it definitely gave us some new and very iconic Queen BoA bangers. Recommended Tracks: Cut Me Off, Start Over, Temptations. 
9. Kesha’s High Road: A semi-step down from Rainbow, only because a lot of the same melodic elements and, sometimes, even beats were used on this album too. However, her vocal performance was outstanding and she even gave us a new dirty-pop song with some interesting indie-pop tracks to go with it. Plus, who doesn’t love a Big Freedia feature? Recommended Tracks: Resentment, Raising Hell, Tonight. 
8. Lady Gaga’s Chromatica: Anyone who knows me knows I don’t really love Gaga anymore. After all the drama with Madonna and her experimentation with “Joanne” I didn’t think I’d ever like her music again. However, she definitely won back big points for me on Chromatica. It was finally fun, weird, dancey, and then simultaneously emotional and I was really able to get back into it. She’s always had the voice, but on this one it also showed us that she still has what made us love her. Recommended Tracks: Rain On Me, Plastic Doll, Enigma. 
7. Koda Kumi’s My Name Is... Angel + Monster: She is, very likely, my Japanese Pop Queen. She always makes these absolutely outlandish bangers of dance tracks that have such a great attitude and beat and when she released re(CORD)... last year? 2018? Who can remember... I thought she could never outdo herself. Then she released “Lucky Star” and I was floored. I was a bit disappointed when they were only to promote a “My Name Is...” collection album, but then, to my surprise, a full set of new tracks came out just after that just blew me entirely away. Guess the last 6 albums must be pretty great, huh? Recommended tracks: Killer Monster, Work It!, Alarm. 
6. Grimes’ Miss Anthropocene: I’ve never been a big fan of Grimes, but when Violence came out I was really looking forward to whatever album this was going to end up promoting. The song is actual fire, but then the LP ended up being some kind of experimental Gothic Pop with Asian Pop influences I never expected. I doubt I’ll ever find something she does this good ever again, but it was really a musical light in the darkness of this year. Recommended tracks: Darkseid, Delete Forever, Violence. 
5. Kylie Minogue’s Disco: Admittedly, my draw to Kylie has always been that she is like some kind of Australian Madonna. Madonna being one of my all time favorite artists... In fact, number 2 for all women I listen to, Kylie has some big shoes to fill with her sometimes generic pop that she puts out. However, I haven’t really truly loved a Kylie song since “Get Outta My Way” and then this album comes out filled with tracks to love for the rest of time. Recommended Tracks: Miss A Thing, Till You Love Somebody, Magic. 
4. Chanmina’s Notebook/Angel: I don’t have really any way of knowing how popular Chanmina is in Japan or if she is as popular in the Japanese Queer Scene as she should be, but god damn does she know what she’s doing. Her music is raunchy, bitchy, and condescending at it’s highest and deeply personal at it’s most mellow. There is no “lowest.” “Notebook” was a two-sided album and “Angel” a strong follow up EP, but all the recommended tracks are from “Notebook.” If you have not listened to “Picky”.... go do it now, I’ll wait. Recommended tracks: Picky, Baby, Lucy. 
3. The Weeknd’s After Hours: Incidentally, I got into The Weeknd after someone said something shitty about him here on Tumblr! I took their likely-valid criticism and went to check him out for myself and I gotta say, I love his work. The beats are literally always on point and his voice is like silk. This album provided more than a few iconic songs and I always can’t wait to see what he does next. Recommended Tracks: Alone Again, Heartless, Blinding Lights. 
2. Halsey’s Manic: The singles and features she did between Hopeless Fountain Kingdom and Manic gave me such insanely high hopes and I was not disappointed. HFK was a strong album of course, but this was near perfection for me. I think the production of this alt-pop album was the star of the show because it wasn’t all one way, there were heavy-bass songs, interesting piano riffs, striaght up punk rock, all of it. She really made an album quite like it’s namesake. Recommended Tracks: Ashley, Killing Boys, Still Learning. 
1. Dexcore’s Metempsychosis: A newcomer to the visual kei and death metal scene, they’ve been putting out single after single for years in preparation for their extemeley long and multidaceted debut album. With a total of about 33 songs, the entire second disc was rerecorded singles from their early days and some even got new lyrical treatment. The main series of songs were, of course, also totally flooring and all of the recommended tracks are the new ones. If you haven’t checked them out by now, you have to! Recommended tracks: Cibus, Scribble, Period.
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doomedandstoned · 4 years ago
Text
Meeting Bomg, Doom-Drone Legends from Ukraine
~Interview by Billy Goate~
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Doomed & Stoned continues our week of epic interviews with a long overdue conversation with the great Ukraine doom-drone band BOMG, who have been desamating stages and blowing out amps since 2010. During that time, Nikolay Temchenko (guitar), Yuriy Temchenko (bass), and Anton Khomenko (drums) have put out two mammoth LPs, an EP, and a split.
I first got turned on to BOMG's sound with the record 'Polynseed' (2013), which released the year that Doomed & Stoned was founded. I recommend starting there if this is your first exposure to the mighty trio from Kyiv.
Bomg have been gradually drifting in the direction of full-on drone metal, executed in their own authentic and compelling way, as we're about to discover as we drill into 'Peregrination' (2020) -- which we reviewed last year and Robustfellow has recently reissued.
Give ear...
You state that BOMG means “vagabond” on your Bandcamp page. Can you elaborate on how the name ties in with the band’s history and core identity?
It’s an abbreviation literally meaning “with no particular place of living”. Funny thing is that its’ meaning is degraded in common use (like “bum”), but when it was incepted (60s – 70s in USSR) those who were stigmatized by it were better off going elsewhere than being part of the regime, taking it as a positive. This became somewhat of a short-lived movement even. We think that despite being prone to misunderstanding in every way, it fits the overall vibe. Blessing and a curse. But frankly, the name is a secondary thing at best.
How would you describe your distinctive sound, to someone who has never encountered it before?
Basically, trying to elaborate and add to “Black Sabbath spaghettified” idea. We try to squeeze out any possible amount of low frequency, volume, distortion and effect saturation to the instruments, not necessarily designed for it. As of similarities and influences, it’s 60s-70s heavy psych, proto-metal and proto-punk, 80s - 90s continuation of it (doom metal, stoner/desert rock, sludge, drone doom), besides that – dub, ambient, prog rock, experimental music, field recordings and whatnot.
Peregrination by Bomg
Your new album 'Peregrination' is an explosive bombshell, massive in every respect. When was the concept for the album born?
The first track was almost ready in 2011, we played it at our first show. As of concept, it started to take shape somewhere in 2013-2014, most of the lyrics were written back then. Then it took years to “grow.” First, we tried to make it so each track would fit one side of LP, but it seemed kinda compressed and landed too quick. Then we decided not to confine it to any time limit but each track landed itself around 40 minutes, so we made sure it evens out like this in final recording.
Tell us about the recording process involved. We’re very curious about instruments, gear, amps, and the general studio environment in which it originated.
Each whole track was recorded live (took roughly four weeks for four tracks), then layered with two additional guitars. Synths, field recordings, vocals were added afterward.
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Gear: we used two Tank amps (Orange/Matamp clones) made from old soviet broadcast amplifiers and Tesla Disco 240 for guitar and bass (wish our Sunn concert bass was alive at that point, but it just burns transistors when turned on – we couldn’t find an exact schematic for it, even photos of the exact amp on the web, seems like it’s from some transition period).
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The drums are '70s Rogers 13”, 16” toms and 24” steel shell bass drum from '50s-'70s (mass-produced for political celebrations, weddings and funerals), coupled with Meinl hi-hats, Paiste Rude China and Zildjian Mega Bell.
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Guitars used were early '00s Gibson SG Standard, '72 Musima Eterna Deluxe and ’69 Musima Record; and ‘70 Cremona Violin bass.
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Pedals: Poltava fuzz-wah, Noname “flanger” that is actually phaser for bass; Tesla Vrable fuzz-wah (the seller told us that his uncle was under KGB investigation for just having it), Noname dist (most likely a ProCo Rat clone), Vox wah, Boss BF-2, Lel’ parametric EQ, Lel’ digital delay, Boss dynamic wah, Roland Space Echo for guitar.
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Recording equipment: Two '70s Oktava ML-19 for overheads, '50s-'60s Oktava ML15 and ML16 for room and various dynamic and condenser mics for everything else into Pro Tools, then later in mixing/mastering stage partly routed through mixer and cassette deck using beaten up cassette for analog saturation and vibrato.
Long story short, we tried to use most of the stuff we got in our studio, and at this point, it’s hard to remember every detail of the process. Referring to the environment, it is compiled of numerous weird gadgets which got to us throughout years, most of which were collecting dust somewhere for decades, and have a history (an entire topic by itself) we’re always asking for. And when used, they tell a story which then leaves a mark in recordings for sure. That was a hell of a fascinating process.
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I noticed you had lyrics for each song on 'Peregrination,' but the singing doesn't seem discernable. Are there indeed vocals and, if so, how can I hear them?
Yes, there are vocals. They appear on low volume as reverberated and somewhat oscillated notes, more like presence; on high volume, you can hear words with 1-5 kHz correctly dialed in (on most audio equipment these frequencies tend to be excited, so lowering EQ at this range brings clarity), it appears as a whisper in a loud, saturated mix. Also, we added subtitles on YouTube, so you can know for sure where to find vocals. The point was to make them recognizable only with intent.
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Talk about the album art. It seems there is hidden symbolism there, is that true?
It’s some sort of a window that leads to four areas, which are the visualized soundscapes to each track. There were no particular symbols, but the thing is that they fill in the picture as it is set - like a hallucination, which is often a well of meaning where symbols change and multiply interpretations, at the same time being just momentary blobs of form.
The process of making this album cover involved many iterations of drawing, running through GAN networks, editing the result to achieve the effect of a captured hallucination, close to the exact one. When hardwiring symbols directly into it, they would be eaten up by hallucinating AI. So by randomly forming a resemblance of shapes, things started popping out where they fit the most contextually - weird stuff. It’s a common thing in art to throw “open for interpretation” on everything, but this one might be.
What is the concept behind each "hobo" symbol and track on 'Peregrination'?
So, the first one means being quiet and alert, seeing what’s going on. The second one is a sign of a trolley – hopping from one soundscape to another, time travel. The third one – safe camp; it may be confusing when applied to the lyrics, but the position that is stated there facing the object is some sort of a “safe camp”, ground to stand on. The fourth one means “don’t give up”, even if applied in both meanings of this phrase to track. But the symbol references may lack context without diving into tracks.
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I'm sure our readers would be most happy if you were to illuminate the meaning of each of the songs on your new album.
Well, it’s like trying to create a soundtrack to some introductory ontological theories (pretty blank, sterile stuff), realizing their intensity. Here uneven-numbered tracks touch on mind ontology, even-numbered - on reality ontology. Not diving into details too much, let them hang there.
I. Electron
Peregrination by Bomg
it's no light of star it's a light of mind walking thru a dream electron shamanism
"Electron" is covering the theme of mythical perception akin to humans and the discovery that put a dent into these beliefs. Variation on a Tunguska story, mythos surrounding Tesla, how people mythologize all around.
II. Perpetuum
Peregrination by Bomg
Across desolations Caravans astray Sand covered roads Forget old ways
"Perpetuum" goes more into sci-fi territory: endless cycles of dead and born-again civilizations, the Great Filter caused by cosmic events or beings themselves, and how we just might unknowingly observe such things staring at the sky.
III. Paradigm
Peregrination by Bomg
Giant web built and set in lines It works when mind reflects Leaving us with all the fears Or letting them disappear
"Paradigm" is based around the tendency of the mind to confine itself into some set of ideas, building a higher fence while thinking it broadens the space. Thinking of one thing while it is the opposite, fear of the structure collapsing while an event like this would alleviate any sort of fear. But breaking a paradigm usually leads straight to the next one, to which the same attributes apply. And keeping this notion brings a safe distance to it.
IV. Emanation
Peregrination by Bomg
Now the opportunity is To see the universe spinning Emit structures boundless Round its' endless borders It's the very first the very last small moment In periods of endless time When the structure merge infinite To manifest as something
"Emanation" goes somewhat contrary to the second one - a reality that may be started at some point, complicates itself, and never is truly repetitive. Also thoughts on subjective existence and the point of it, maybe being an instrument of the Universe to explain it to itself. Speculation on whether or not consciousness flows from one state to another, as energy does, returning to its inception or scattering across until equilibrium, or even said results being the same thing. And the uncertainty of these things that are left to be answered while we as beings, it seems, are just left to fade away.
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forkanna · 4 years ago
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[AO3] [WATTPAD]
"Wooooow, this is a really nice place!"
"Hmph," Ebihara grunted as they stepped out of their shoes in the genkan of her fabulous home. "It's a goddamn McMansion. Really nothing special, trust me. But we sure did pay a lot for it…"
For good reason. Rise smiled vaguely as she glanced around at the grand foyer with the statue and water feature in opposite corners. She had seen many similarly opulent homes when cavorting with other contacts from the entertainment industry, of course, so she wasn't quite as blown away as most of their friends would have been. But it was still impressive.
"You don't like it?" she asked.
"I don't like being nouveau-riche. And this big house seemed really cool when we first got it, but now it's… oh, listen to my ungrateful ass complaining about being too rich. It's disgusting."
"Go ahead," she prompted her as they both padded into the sunken living room. "I've been through some of the same things, don't forget."
Ai didn't do as her friend asked until they were both flopped down on the couch, staring around at the pristine surroundings. "Well… it's always been too big. I feel lost. And now with mom gone, it's like a big tomb holding the decaying corpse of our family."
"Yeesh," Rise hissed. "Gross mental picture. But it definitely gets the message across. Have you talked to your dad about it?"
"Oh, I couldn't bother him with that nonsense," she said with a slight smile. "He's dealing with investment bankers and stock options all day. Doesn't have time for me to be anything besides his perfect little princess, so… that's what he gets. Every time."
Frowning hard, Rise turned a little more in her direction, folding her legs beneath her trim frame. "That doesn't sound right. Come on, he's your father. He's going to want to know if something is up with you."
"No," she said firmly. "I have put both of them through enough for one lifetime."
"Yeah, you kind of said something like that before, and it sounded like bullshit then, too. We all get to figure out who we are as we grew up. You don't have to be perfect immediately! So why would they hold it against you just because you were a little bit of a brat?"
Ai's resting bitch face took on a new quality. Pain. Her hand drifted up to play with the neckline of her pretty pink dress as she gazed at the glass coffee table in front of them. Rise couldn't know what she was thinking, but it looked like a lot was weighing on her mind regardless.
"Oh, who cares?" Ai finally burst out with a long sigh, stretching all her limbs out and hooking her arms over the back of the couch. "It's all so pointless. I threw myself into fashion and makeup and all those things, and I was so unhappy, and now here I am being ungrateful that I actually have someone to talk to for real instead of just 'peasants' at school to subjugate. What a moron I am."
Rise giggled a little, covering her mouth before she said, "You're not a moron. You just don't have it all figured out. Look at me, slumming it in Inaba instead of facing my career; I'd say that makes me even worse than you."
"What's so funny?" she demanded when her friend was still giggling.
"Oh, nothing. Just that you really look like Yosuke in that position. With the apathetic attitude and everythi- OH!"
So fast she almost wondered if she had imagined it, Ai was sitting up in a prim and proper position, legs together and fists resting on her knees. Her face also looked almost as if she were panicking… but why? Nothing had happened.
"Ebi-chan…?"
"Sorry. I'll do better." But when she glanced over and saw Rise was still looking confused, she cleared her throat and waved one hand back and forth in the air, as if wafting away an unpleasant aroma. "I-it's nothing, I promise."
The popstar dipped her head and whispered, "Hey, I know we've only been hanging out for like, hours instead of days, but you can talk to me. You know that, right?"
"Yeah. You're annoyingly persistent with that." But before Rise could protest, she poked her in the middle of the forehead with a slight smirk before pushing to stand from the couch. "This sucks. Unless you want to watch the big screen TV, we should get something from the kitchen and head up to my room."
"I guess. What do you have?"
They both wandered in there and nosed around. The kitchen was a gleaming bastion of modern efficiency, lots of chrome and marble, but the fridge didn't seem to have a whole lot inside: a few drinks and some takeout. So they grabbed beverages and a bag of shrimp chips from the cupboard, plus their bags of goodies from shopping, and headed upstairs, figuring it was better than nothing.
"Oh wooooow, this is so, so…"
"Yes," Ai sighed. "So pink."
Indeed it was. Literally everything that was capable of being pink in that bedroom had been given that treatment, from bed sheets to carpets to walls. At least most of it was a very pale shade, so it wasn't so lurid as to be painful on the eyes. Ai seemed to have a wardrobe in addition to an actual closet, and had her own entertainment system with a smaller TV and a couple of old game systems.
Wait…
"Hey, whoa, you have video games?!"
"What? Oh, I- w-wait, nobody was supposed to see those!" Ai hissed, grimacing and taking a step forward as if she could suddenly hide the consoles from her guest. Not that that was possible, given she was already in the room and had seen them.
"I haven't played one of these since they put me in Karaoke Retribution. Wow, you have Famidrive, Super Famidrive, Joystation…" Rise started looking through the games, and her host fell silent. Eventually, she said, "You sure do have a lot of RPGs and sports titles. What's…?"
But when she looked over her shoulder, she saw Ai looked extremely uncomfortable and ashamed, staring down the carpet as her toes scrunched in its fibers. Why did she look so stressed? Eventually, she made her best guess and put the games back, turning from the floor to look up at her more properly.
"Sorry. That's… my bad, I shouldn't have just started pawing through your collection without even asking. Sorry." She even bowed a little.
"Oh… it, um, it's fine. And those are really old, I haven't even played all of them."
"We don't have to talk about that." Privately, Rise thought the collection looked meticulously cared for, and there wasn't a speck of dust on any of the consoles or the games. But she didn't want to push the matter because it really seemed like she had done something wrong by drawing so much attention to it.
"Good. They're old and stupid." She cleared her throat. "Do you… want to try on some of my clothes? Or… ugh, I sound like a complete idiot."
But Rise merely stood up and rested a hand on her shoulder. "You've never had anybody over here, right? Haven't made many friends since you moved. I get it, it's okay."
Very hesitantly, she squinted at her, swallowed hard, and whispered, "Really? You don't think I'm a lame freak for being nervous about it?"
"No. Now, do you have a CD player?"
"I usually just use my Joystation." Then she froze in place, as if she had caught herself saying something wrong.
"Cool! That works." Maybe if she just acted super casual about everything, it would set her new friend at ease. "Want to put in your CD? That old one."
"I thought you wanted to listen to yours while you were here…"
"Oh, we have time," she giggled with a little bounce, shaking Ai's arm. "Come on, let's set this party off!"
Talked into action, Ebihara rolled her eyes hard. "Well, if you're going to beg I guess I might as well give in." However, Rise could see her cheeks bunching with a smile once she had turned away, grabbing up one of her shopping bags and digging around for the album.
"Let me take a look in here," Rise called out as she skipped over to the wardrobe and threw it open. "Dresses, dresses… you really like dresses."
"All the skirts and capris and whatever are in the closet," she called over to her as she messed around with the console, trying to get music playing. "And most of my blouses. Oh — here we go."
As soon as it started, it was so upbeat and cheesy that Rise burst out in a fit of giggles. But she looked over to check if Ai was offended — she was — so she quickly followed up with, "It's cute! I just haven't listened to old-fashioned music like this in a while."
"Yeah, yeah, you hate it." Suddenly, a patent leather pump hit her in the head. "HEY! The hell are you doing, throwing my shoes? AT ME?!"
"Stop that!" Rise admonished her, already rearing back with the matching pump. "I didn't say you were a loser for listening to it, just that it's not usually my thing. But it's good!"
"I can turn it off, it's no big-" When she saw her taking aim with the other shoe, she raised both hands and set the controller down. "Okay, okay, you monster! We'll let it play."
"Good. Now come over here and play with your own personal Dress Up Rise doll. Do you have any idea how many fans would kill to be in your position?"
Shaking her head, she snorted as she stood up and walked over to join her. "Thought I made it crystal clear I am not a fan. But I guess…" A smile began to take over her features. "Can… I try yours on?"
"Huh? This stuff? I mean, it's nothing special… and you're taller, it could look weird. But you're also really trim and cute, so I guess it might work."
"Cool, thanks. And here — I think you could rock this pretty well." She snatched a red mini dress from the rack in the wardrobe and held it out to her. "I can turn around — or leave the room, if you want."
Rise was already giggling as she began to pull off her blouse. "Why? I'm not shy like that. I mean, only because I trust you not to take pictures; that would piss me off."
Unfortunately, the conversation was temporarily put on hold while Ai stared in wonder as she changed right in front of her. Rise really felt sorry for her; did she really never have any friends at all? It seemed so. Sure, Rise herself didn't take them for granted, either, since her own pool of friendships had been rather thin before she achieved national stardom. But Ai had no one at all. That was such a depressing existence…
"What's the matter?" she finally asked once she had stepped out of her white capris, leaving herself in her underwear and reaching for the dress.
"N-nothing, mind your own business." But the light blush in Ai's cheeks said that she wasn't nearly as comfortable with changing in front of anyone as she wished.
"Okay, sheesh." Then she handed over the capris as she started turning the dress to figure it out. She saw Ai struggling to pull them up beneath her dress and she laughed. "Do you think you're at the beach? You don't have to do that, either."
"What? Is this… is it weird?"
"Well… no, I guess it's not that bad. But you don't have to be so modest; it's not like you don't have anything I haven't seen before in the mirror." Rise laughed.
Ai did not. But it may just have been because she was focusing on not looking completely chagrined. Once she had the capris on, she finally did shuck the dress in one aggravated movement, as if trying to force herself to do it caused the motion to be faster.
"Hey, these are nice," Rise giggled as she poked one of her friend's boobs. The taller girl let out a blast of startled air, then slapped both forearms across her chest. "Aww, she's still shy! You're so cute, Ebi-chan!"
"St-stop harassing me, you pop star pervert!" This time, Rise's laughter was contagious, and they were both giggling as the song changed. This one was a floatier, more romantic number. "Oh…"
As she shimmied the red fabric all the way down her body, situating it in place, Rise asked, "What is it?"
"Nothing." At least this time, that pointed stare was enough to prompt her to try again. "It's… I didn't know… I've heard my mom listen to this. 'Purity'; I remember now."
"Oh. Well… we can change it, or�� we can enjoy it?" She paused to take up both of her friend's hands and squeeze them tightly. "Whatever you need."
"No…" A deep breath. "No, it's fine. This is good; it's basically all I have left of her, she never calls anymore." After a few blinks of surprise at herself, she cleared her throat and started to sway their arms back and forth.
"I get you. My parents… well, you probably read all about it. Old news."
"Tell me."
"Well… we broke all contact, too," Rise admitted as they began to turn in a slow circle. "They got really demanding about my career, and it felt like they didn't care about me as a daughter anymore. Just as a source of income and attention. I know I should probably try to make up with them sometime, we all just didn't understand each other very well. But it's… hard."
"I can't imagine. Being disappointed, definitely, but not that level of… I don't know, almost manipulation?"
"Yep. Manipulation is pretty dead on, as much as it sucks to say it."
"Yeah. I…" A couple of quiet seconds of swaying as Ai tried to find her words. At some point, Rise had reached up to rest her hand on her friend's shoulder, and a hand had moved to her own waist. "I think they made a mistake. You've been the most amazing friend I've ever had."
"Give it a few more days," she snickered. "And a few more friends. You only think I'm that great 'cause you haven't had any others lately."
"Like I need them! Tch. You're already best friend material, and I only accept the best. So there's no point in window-shopping around for cheap knockoffs."
Somehow… Ai had made that both sound like she was doing her a favor, and paying her the highest compliment imaginable. It was incredibly sweet in a bizarrely demanding way. Perfectly Ebihara.
Realizing that was what made her also realize they had been slow dancing for a couple of minutes now. Without her heeled sandals, she was even shorter than usual, which meant she had to gaze upward into her tall friend's face to see how she was doing. And when she saw she was staring back…
Ai actually looked content. For once in her life, she looked like she was at peace, just dancing to some old city pop slow jam in her bedroom. She wasn't trying to exploit Rise, wasn't as disinterested as she had once pretended. No, her entire focus was on her, and just because she liked her.
Almost like…
"Careful, cutie," she joked with a dimple-graced grin. "If I didn't know any better, I would say you're hitting on me."
"Hm?" Ai breathed distantly, clearly distracted by her own thoughts.
"It's okay, I'm just being dumb. You're fine, Ebi-chan." She leaned up and pressed a gentle kiss into Ai's cheek before pulling back to bite her bottom lip for a moment. Maybe she was just doing it to be kind… but she also suspected she was doing it because of the slow dance. A tender gesture like that just seemed to suit the song, the mood, the whole moment.
That single peck left her friend speechless again. Rise almost began to say something before she saw her moving, and she held her words for a moment. Wanting to let her hug her or whatever. This was going to be a great growing moment for Ai, and for their friendship. Maybe she would even learn to hug other people! Eventually.
Feeling lips press so delicately at the corner of her mouth threw all of those thoughts out the window. Really, that brief contact changed everything about that moment even more: the hokey old ballad suddenly sounded like pure magic, the club-ready minidress felt more like a ball gown. Rise had literally never felt like this in her entire life — up to and including when she had some of the country's most eligible boy bands and actors fawning over her in the past. Including the many unbelievable adventures she had been on with the Investigation Team.
She felt like she was with Narukami again. But instead of having her advances go unrequited, this was what it would be like if he looked at her the way she looked at him.
If only it wasn't Ai Ebihara standing in front of her, looking at her that way. Now she had a problem. How was she supposed to explain that her interest in her wasn't romantic? They were both girls! That kind of thing just wasn't done in Japan. Sure, she had heard it was more common overseas, and rumours within their own entertainment industry, but that wasn't the same as actually pursuing it for real. But then where were all these feelings coming from?
"Ai…"
The unfortunate coincidence was, her suddenly-very-close friend's name just happened to be pronounced the same way as "love". So whispering it the way she had, regardless of whether she meant to… it carried a certain connotation.
One that did not seem to be lost on Ai herself. Not if the next kiss was any indication. Brief as it was, just barely pressing into her lips before it was gone, it still was a first for both of them. First kiss - as whatever lay beyond the boundaries of friendship.
Temptation to just go for it welled up as Rise slid her hands up along Ai's stomach, perching on her shoulders in a vain attempt to find a grip somehow. To anchor herself within this whirlwind moment. She knew honest surprise was written across her face now; she may have been an actor, but this had caught her so unaware that she couldn't even begin to fabricate responses. Pure, unfiltered Rise.
And now the kiss was over… leaving two very confused teenage girls standing with their hands on each other's bodies, staring back at each other with bewilderment.
"I… wow, that…"
"Rise-ch… I… didn't- that w-wasn't-"
"No, no, I know." Damage control. She smiled, trying to put her friend at ease as she whispered, "Sometimes things happen, we didn't plan… I would never say you…"
Ai licked her lips, shivered. "I didn't. I'm so sorry, was… was that your first, too?"
"M-my first with… a girl… I, um, I did kiss a boy for a drama I was in. But that was just acting." Why was she telling her all this? Was this not acting?
Then what was it?
Suddenly, Ai took a step back, her hands still raised vaguely near her heaving chest as if she were going to pat herself down, or reach for Rise. Though she didn't. "Hey, you have to believe me, I didn't- this was not why I brought you back to my house. I'm not a pervert, I wasn't trying to…"
"Pervert? For a kiss?"
"No, I… for shit that comes after a kiss. In case you thought I was going to try anything funny."
"Oh." Her cheeks flooded with color as she finally realized what her friend was getting at, and she said in a slightly higher timbre of voice, "Whoa! That's- yeah, I definitely wasn't thinking about that! What would we do, anyway? You're so silly, Ebi-chan!"
"Right?! No way!" They both laughed nervously for a second or two, then suddenly cut off at the same time.
"Awkward," Rise muttered with another chuckle.
"You, uh, you can leave if you want to. Since it's awkward. Do whatever you want, I don't care."
Already trying to build up her defense mechanisms again. Rise couldn't stand that; she hated wasting time with important work only for it to be thrown out with the bathwater. So she threw her arms around her new friend in a tight hug, trying to ignore the little tingle in the pit of her stomach that told her this meant more than either of them thought it did.
"Stop."
"No."
"Rise… it's… you don't have to do this just to make me feel better. It's weird. I'm fucking everything up."
"You are not! It was only a kiss!"
"But how did it end up like this?" Something familiar about that… but Ai kept pushing ahead, "It has to have been me, because like you said, you've never kissed a girl before. And you do actually have female friends, unlike a bitch like me who doesn't have any at all. And I get one friend, one, and I immediately try to make out with her! Why am I such a fucking head case?!"
"Hey," Rise snapped, "it wasn't like that at all and we both know it. That was like, a wedding kiss, you know? Small and tender, but it didn't lead anywhere crazy. It was sweet."
"Really?" she asked urgently, finally meeting her eyes again. "You… you don't hate me for it?"
Laughing, Rise leaned up to pick her on the lips again. This time, she made sure the contact was so brief that it couldn't possibly develop into anything more — which was now something they had to be worried about, apparently.
"If I hated you, would I do it again?"
"Mhhh…" The other girl closed her eyes, trying to ignore a wave of some emotion that passed through her. Then, smiling, she whispered, "Thank you."
"Hey, you're welcome. Not everybody can say they got a kiss from Risette!" When she giggled, the smile on her friend's face got a little wider, even if her cheeks were still flushed.
The song changed to something a little more upbeat again. The spell was broken. They embraced warmly, then broke apart and started commenting on each other's clothing. Even if the mood didn't totally go back to normal, at least they no longer felt like they were in danger of destroying a friendship that had barely begun.
But the whole time, Rise found herself glancing back at the girl who — had she been that pretty before? — a lot more often than usual. What if they changed everything forever on accident? Maybe it would be okay regardless. She had to hold onto that hope.
         To Be Continued…
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