#pre jury flop

[claire-is-6ft]

waaaaay too many people on the bird app feeling bad for Jared……. a few tears and we forget that he:

has been cheating on his girlfriend of 7 years for two months on national television while she watches his dog (Jared Jr)

admitted to calling America the r-word just because her veto chip was pulled at random

has shit on America all season because she’s pretty and doesn’t have a crush on him

nearly ruined his mom’s game

admitted that he didn’t start seeing women as people up until recently and that men are allowed to sleep around but women are expected to have a low body count

told Bowie her broad shoulders make her look like a man (to hurt her)

lied about something and then tried to cover it up by blaming the deaf person for misunderstanding

ran around the whole house bashing Cory because his brother was first boot on a survivor season while his whole survivor legend mom is in the house

The list goes on. I can’t wait for his ass to be handed to him in the exit interviews today. I really don’t care how much he loves his mom, he can rot

[padawanduck]

Cameron is such a dumbass. if you want to kill a snake you cut off it’s head

“you don’t start with the president”

yeah and bc you left her off the block your target is staying this week

[versacethotty]

justice was served 😁

from ear to ear too adfhjkl

[wlwocprincess]

Since discourse seems to be unavoidable I do want to say I don’t entirely agree with the idea that production isn’t trying to protect the Fields and keep them as a duo as long in the house as possible purely because Jared was not removed for calling America the R word when he should have been because Red did reveal that was on the list of words they weren’t allowed to say. This timing of this twist is suspicious and an argument can be made for Cameron as well BUT I don’t think Cirie herself is being protected, I don’t think it’s necessarily about her and more about them not wanting their twist to flop by one of them being evicted pre jury.

[because-its-eurovision]

Smash Into Pieces have been pne of my fave bands ever for the past maybe 5 years. I wanted them to win so badly. If Sweden wanted Loreen to rep then again they should have just selected her instead of doing Melofest where it was obvious she would win from the get go.

I'm so sorry, anon💔 Smash Into Pieces was my favorite as well and had they won Melfest they would have been my number one of the year and my fave Swedish entry ever. Melfest has had so many great rock entries over the years but they seem to have become allergic to picking those since The Ark's flop. I as well hate how predictable Melfest is with the same artists and songwriters returning year after year (despite thousands of hopefuls applying), putting pre-favourites on the best places in the running order and carefully picking the juries from countries that won't mess the wanted result. The worst thing is that since they are going to get a great result once again, there is no need to change any of that :/

[survivor-trinidad-and-tobago]

Finale, Awards, & Draft Winner

Final Tribal Council

The jury was largely split going into Final Tribal Council, and they served some TOUGH questions to our finalists. Jack and Michael defended their games admirably, but by the end of tribal council, we had a clear winner: Alex is this season's sole Survivor!

Alex played a great under the radar game, making early alliances with eman, Kaleigh, and Steven. After the first tribe swap, he was able to cement his bond with Kaleigh and Steven and continued working with them until Steven's untimely demise. Alex's social and strategic game especially were instrumental in making sure that the loss of a core ally wasn't responsible for ending his game. He was able to connect with Colin and Michael while keeping his threat level relatively low, and his allies stayed loyal to him to the end. He also won two individual immunity wins and a fire-making challenge. Not bad for an org newbie! Congratulations, Alex!

Awards

All right, we loved this cast SO MUCH so here's a whole bunch of awards.

Best Confessionals: Jack wins this title! Although he often was "delulu" (to use his own word), his confessionals ALWAYS had us laughing and kept us entertained.

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Best Host Chat: The player with the best host chat is Colin. Watching Colin be completely unhinged in their host chat only to be the world's best and most supportive tribemate in the tribe chat was hilarious. Colin always kept us abreast of what was happening in the game and their reactions to everything were hilarious.

--

Best Duo: Champ and Zee were the best duo in the game. They were chaotic in the best way, and their antics leading up to the "funeral" tribal council where Tony ended up going home had us dying. They hustled like hell and even though it was pretty transparent what they were doing, they never gave up on each other or their alliance with Jack.

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Best Alliance: Trin's Favorites (Michael, Kaleigh, and Alex) wins Best Alliance. These three were in lock-step the entire post-merge game, and the vibes in that chat were IMMACULATE. Even when they were on the bottom and things seemed hopeless, they never gave up hope and had amazing attitudes. Their teamwork was unmatched, and their loyalty a testament to their bond. It was devastating to see them have to split up when Jack won the final immunity challenge, but even then, they split up on their own terms.

--

Best Under the Radar Player: This goes to Kolby! Kolby was seen as a non-threat for much of the pre-merge game, and it seemed like every day he was being placed in a new alliance. Kolby was able to hide behind his allies, using them as shields while making subtle moves behind the scenes.

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Biggest Surprise Player: This just has to go to Michael. I don't think anyone expected Michael to be in the Final 3 based on his pre-merge game. He was very quiet, only talking to a handful of people (most of whom got voted out immediately). He was nearly a merge boot, but we're so glad he stuck around and got to come out of his shell. He had one hell of a strategic resume and had everyone nervous to vote him in fear that he would pull out another advantage.

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Biggest Move: Michael flipping on the seven alliance at the perfect moment (while simultaneously flushing Zee's idol by stealing her vote). This changed the course of the game completely and was amazing to watch as hosts.

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Biggest Flop: Zee using not just one, but two idols incorrectly. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice...

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Biggest Blindside: This almost went to Michael flipping on the seven, but really, y'all should have seen that coming. Instead, we're giving this to Zee and Champ sending Tony home using a Banked Vote. Zee and Champ played up their desperation perfectly leading up to tribal, including coordinating funeral outfits, and the other side felt confident enough to split the vote. Ultimately it didn't save Champ and Zee, but it did allow Jack to make it to the end!

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Best Tribal: Two words: CHAOS! IDOL! This was one of the most fun tribals to host because it gave the underdogs some semblance of control.

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Villain of the Season: This was a controversial choice, and we ultimately disagreed.

Trinica: My villain of the season is Eman. Eman played a masterful strategic game but was able to hide it behind an even more powerful social game. Everyone trusted Eman, and even after having the number of alliances they were in exposed at tribal council, their allies stayed loyal to them. What really cemented them as the villain of the season in my eyes is the way they ruled with an iron fist, running the votes in their alliances. To borrow their words: "If you take a swing at the queen, you better not miss." And if you did miss, Eman was COMING FOR YOU. A villain hiding behind a hero's game, Eman was incredible to watch from the host chat.

AJ: My villain of the season is Colin. Colin played a very strategic game, and wasn't afraid to hide it in the end. He was in the minority alliance, and openly stated that he would poison a jury if it came down to it at one point. But besides that he had many cunning moves and insights into the game, and was by far the ultimate challenge threat on Purgatory. The opposing alliance was constantly worried about what his potential return might bring, but within his own alliance he was widely trusted. Paired with his overall strategy, gameplay, and the snippets we got from his host chat, makes him the season villain in my eyes.

--

Hero of the Season:

The hero of the season is Kaleigh. Kaleigh was a loyal player through and through and was willing to fall on the sword for her alliance time and time again. She agreed to go to fire at the end of the game, even though she was seen as a strong contender for winner if she made it to FTC. She only received two real votes this game, nearly won the Popularity Contest, and was widely beloved by everyone on the tribe. She played from the bottom for the majority of the game and did it with grace. And when it came time for her to join the jury, she never stopped going to bat for her allies, making sure that the jury knew just how strong their games were.

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Fan Favorite: This was no contest. Kaleigh was voted the fan favorite, receiving nearly half of all the votes. She was funny, whip-smart (even if she plays a bimbo on TV), and won hearts with her deadpan tribal council answers and big personality. You couldn't help but root for her!

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Player of the Season:

This is decided by the hosts as we got to watch the game unfold and see how people played. This was a really difficult decision as y'all played hard and were such a delight to host.

Second runner-up goes to Zee, who played her lil heart out. She was chaos incarnate, had a knack for finding advantages (even if that didn't always translate to playing them correctly), and was unafraid to speak her mind. Much like AJ, she's an intense player and was immediately clocked as a big target, but the votes never quite seemed to stick to her (until they very much did). Whether she was falsifying messages or getting caught in lies and trying to lie her way out of them, we always looked forward to Zee's antics. She slayed.

First runner-up goes to Michael. Again, Michael was a huge surprise to us. But when he got voted the person who didn't deserve to be here, he made sure that everyone knew he was here to play. He flipped with beautiful precision and completely annihilated the majority alliance, turning them into a minority alliance with the help of the allies he had been cultivating since the first swap. And when they were despairing that their game was over, he pulled out a chaos idol out of nowhere and changed the game again. Michael's strategic chops were amazing to watch.

Finally, the winner of Player of the Season goes to Kaleigh. Kaleigh played this game with her entire heart. Her enthusiasm for the challenges, humor, the apparent ease with which she built social connections, the aptitude for strategy that she hid behind her casual exterior, and her unwavering loyalty to her allies made her amazing to watch and an honor to host.

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We can now reveal that the winner of the draft was D'WEEENEEERS (Esteban) with 315 points. Here's how the rest of you did (or see it here).

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Finally, here's a link to the host chart, which includes the edgic and winner picks as well as some season stats.

[byneddiedingo]

Norah Baring, uncredited actress, and Herbert Marshall in Murder! (Alfred Hitchcock, 1930) Cast: Herbert Marshall, Norah Baring, Phyllis Konstam, Edward Chapman, Miles Mander, Esme Percy, Donald Calthrop, Esme V. Chaplin, Amy Brandon Thomas, Joynson Powell, S.J. Warmington, Marie Wright, Hannah Jones, Una O'Connor, R.E. Jeffrey. Screenplay: Alfred Hitchcock, Walter C. Mycroft, Alma Reville, based on a novel and play by Clemence Dane and Helen Simpson. Cinematography: Jack E. Cox. Art direction: John Mead. Hitchcock's third talkie, after the commercial success Blackmail (1929) and the comparative flop Juno and the Paycock (1930), is a solid start toward establishing his reputation as a master of the thriller, or in this case the murder-mystery subgenre. Hitchcock's direction of it is full of innovative touches: an opening sequence in which a scream is heard and the camera pans across a series of windows from which curious heads emerge; a neatly staged scene in which the investigation of the murder takes place in the wings of a theater, where people being interrogated sometimes interrupt their testimony to make their entrances; a scene that takes place in the jury room and lingers there as we overhear the sentence being delivered, with only a janitor tidying up in the actual frame; a voiceover by Herbert Marshall as we see his reflection in a mirror -- accomplished in those pre-dubbing days by playing a recording of Marshall speaking his lines. But frankly, Murder! is a bit of a mess, filled with improbable twists. For example, Marshall's character, Sir John Menier, an eminent actor-producer, winds up on the jury even though he has a prior acquaintance with the defendant, Diana Baring (Norah Baring). And somehow, even though he believes her to be innocent, he is bullied by the other jurors into voting guilty. He then turns detective to try to overturn the verdict. The motive for the murder is equally muddled: something to do with the fact that the murderer, who turns out to be a circus trapeze artist who performs in drag, is "half-caste" -- a secret that he is willing to kill in order to protect. But this muddle has its moments, such as the one in which the dignified Sir John spends the night in a house near the murder scene, to be awakened by the landlady (the always valuable Una O'Connor) and her gaggle of noisy kids. Better, tighter scripts were to come, but Hitchcock gives this one better than it deserves.

[blxckchrysler]

let’s talk about how the bootleg rousseau sister tried to come bayleigh for saying she didn’t wanna stay with all of the crazy white people

[taylors-karma]

Post-Split House Ranking: Racism Edition

Some fun little rankings for our fun little houseguests ahahahahahahahaha light me on fire this shit SUCKS 

1. Taylor (Prev 1)- Poor girl :(

2. Monte (Prev 3)- Mostly up here because Joseph is now gone, but he’s the best of the worst at this point. He keeps flip flopping on whether or not he sucks but he’s said some good things this week and I have faith that he is voting on the right side tomorrow.

3. Michael (Prev 5)- Michael moves back up mostly because Brittany is flopping again and it’s stressing me out and askhalsihdasd at least Michael admits he sucks and doesn’t really care about others like okay go off ig (he is still being performative though to the houseguests ugh)

4. Brittany (Prev 4)- Technically she’s moving down and this is only because she fucking cried about being exposed for withholding information and apologized to Kyle for calling him out like? Just say you are a people pleaser and don’t actually care about injustice woman......please.

5. Terrance (Prev 8)- He moves up because others suck more, but his whole sympathy bs for Kyle is pissing me off. The only good thing he’s done is call out Brittany and Michael, but idk how they’re worse than Kyle who fucking started this shit???????? Homebody doesn’t need “time” to change he needs to go home and never come back. 

6. Turner (Prev 6)- Turner stays because he’s still wishy washy and confusing and he’s showing some awful colors that I do not like at all. Targeting Taylor even though you know Kyle is ethically a horrible person? This is beyond game at this point, I’m so tired of this shit. 

7. Alyssa (Prev 9)- Only moved up because the numbers went down. She still sucks because she is choosing to stay with Kyle after hearing all this shit. She’s an enabler. 

8. Kyle (Prev 10)- Same thing as Alyssa. This man is racist, stupid, bad at sex, unemployed???? Pick a struggle. Fuck you. 

I have decided not to put jury or pre-jury in this post because nothing has changed so far and we haven’t seen a jury segment yet. I’ll make a jury ranking once we get one :). 

[escmemesandstuff]

Eurovision 2022: pre-contest polls vs. actual results

After over... what, two weeks? I finally got to make the post I promised. So for those who aren’t yet tired with analysis and over-explanations of the results, here’s my continuation of the comparison post between three pre-polls, this time with the actual final results.

Before we get to the table itself, a couple of things:

- In the comparison post, I forgot that this year’s final only had 25 countries. Thus I’ve left out the last row.

- The colours mean the following:

Green: placing in poll the same as in the final

Blue: placing in poll 1-3 places higher or lower than in the final

Red: country didn’t get to the final.

So, what can we see?

When it comes to the “green” placings (the poll result being the same as the real one), OGAE got the most of them; not that any poll “guessed” correctly many exact results. Two polls had Estonia in 13rd place and Germany 25th aka last. Not the first time that the latter country suffers from a poor result in both polls and the real contest...

However, keeping in mind that only the jury vote was counted in Eurojury, they got close to the actual jury vote. Both had UK as their winner, Ukraine as the fourth place, Germany last, and Australia, Belgium, and Switzerland significantly higher than in the audience score. Remember what I said about juries loving male ballads?

All three polls had countries that ended up not qualifying as their “finalists”. The biggest flopper was definitely Albania who didn’t make it despite a top ten placing in two polls. Seeing that Albania was a qualifier for the televote but not the jury, it makes sense that its Eurojury score was lower. However, the curse of flopping pop girlies doesn’t end there; Cyprus and Austria also fared worse than expected.

While not outright flops, the results of Italy and Netherlands might have been disappointing to those who got into the hype based on poll results. Interestingly enough Eurojury got the most accurate result for Netherlands, despite the song faring better in the actual jury than in the televote! (As for Italy, they seem to be constantly overrated beforehand... except for the year when they actually won.)

Enough about flops - what about the dark horses of the year? None of the three polls could have expected the televote success of Serbia and Moldova, that got both countries in the top ten. Shows that many times these kinds of quirky and humorous entries are paid dust by both the general fandom and the juries (and that’s one reason why I wouldn’t want the eurofandom to decide the results/participants... we love to complain about ballads, but imagine a contest full of mainstream pop and girlie bangers).

Iceland was also a dark horse to a lesser extent. Sure they didn’t get a great placing, but for a song that wasn’t expected to qualify in any of the polls, getting into the final was a succeed in itself. As someone who loved Systur from the start, this makes me happy!

Last but not least, could Ukraine’s massive televote win be predicted by the polls alone? Definitely not, however the victory was far from surprising. This year was expectational in how clearly the results reflected current world events; with 28 countries giving their 12 televote points to Ukraine, no one could have missed this sing of solidarity. That being said, Stefania was a good song and would definitely have gotten a top ten result no matter the situation. Whether or not it would have won the whole thing in a “normal” year, that’s a question we’ll never know the answer to, and ultimately doesn’t matter in the larger scale.

[mitchellmoffit]

sam smith is a pre jury flop who provided nothing useful nor entertaining to the game of big brother yet is sitting there in his greasy shirt running his mouth about hannah. you're pushing 40 but are mocking a 21 year old girl on her gameplay and feelings, make that make sense.

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Croatia brings no men in a hamster wheel to Rotterdam 2021

Now could this be the teddy bear uprising invasion Muse has warned us about 12 years ago?

And LITERALLY, these review series make me feel like Croatia is openly taunting me - I watch the days go, I’m losing track of time, and when another day comes, I’m screaming “oh no I forgot to publish a review sooner than wanted!!”. Guess I’m for one glad there’s a time related song this year, hum?

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

Repping the Adriatic coast nation that got all the sea instead of Bosnia & Herzegovina is some 22 year old Albina Grčić, who first popped up on X Factor Adria back when that was a thing, and got lumped into a girlgroup in later stages, but to that she said “hvala ne” and moved on with her life, getting eliminated just like that. Queen <3 She did get her second chance to compete as a soloist and make a more prominent mark on her career when she ended up on The Voice in Croatia. She did well, placing third overall in the season, but somehow, during the duel stage, her coach initially favoured her fellow Dora 2021 contestant Filip Rudan:

Her Voice success landed her a record deal with the Croatian division of Universal Music, she released a debut single, sometime later ended up on Dora, and here she is now, on Eurovision.

“Tick-Tock” is the song, a standard upbeat pop song, and one of the ones that talks about a girl leaving a terrible relationship and being so well over it that she “found [her]self and [she’s] finally free”, and the “tick-tock” here is used to represent the time passing by, not the sound of her heart, unlike a fellow ESC entry of a similar title. The tune (or its lyrics only) is co-authored by some dude you might’ve heard of from France’s 2018 preselection Destination Eurovision, and that is Max Cinnamon - some half-English guy with a half English song about love (”Ailleurs”) that did moderately averagely in the final... I don’t even know if his influence shows, I just love how 2021 has sort of become revenge of the NF flops but they’re writing other entries instead (Suzi P, “Adrenalina”).

REVIEW

I often don’t really fully vibe with female bops in Eurovision as much as I want to, like, for the most part they’re overhyped, and I let the “yass queeeeen” audience gorge on the everything their favourite bops give them. But this year there are plenty of great ones to choose from, as I think that it’s safe to say that most, if not all, are tucked in somewhere inside my top 20, top 25 at the very minimum. Croatia managed to even do the impossible and land into my top 10.

Why?

Well, the answer is that the song is just so damn good.

I mean, what’s NOT to like about it? It’s a catchy and upbeat song that incorporates xylophones (or whatever is it that sounds like them), guitars and synths; has a good bassline in the chorus; and it’s just... a very good composition overall, like, all the instruments in it are just in their right place and uplift the song massively. I also like Albina’s performance on it, both live and studio, it clearly shows that she’s a very good singer (also shown on her cover of the scandalous Oscar award snubbery “Husavik”). Sounds like a song a common pop loving Eurofan could gear themselves towards. Besides, it also has possibly my favourite pre-chorus section of the 2021 year? Oh wait, there’s also Switzerland, scratch that. “Tick-Tock” has one of my favourite pre-chorus sections of 2021. It builds up so well instrumentally and the way Albina sings it is even better. I obviously like to believe Albina heard those voices from far away that helped her to escape, has found herself, and she’s finally free from her “partner’s” bad lovin’ and restraint. Yas queen go be free you didn’t deserve his tomfoolery anyway!  👏 (Also I admire a section that’s not quite the pre-chorus but is still before the 1st chorus, the one that goes “If you pull me down then I'll come around” - literally just a lot of the parts of the song are full of nice vocal performance and I don’t regret ranking this in my top 10 not a second.)

If it has any drawbacks, it’s just that it gets a tad too repetitive after the halfway mark... like, the pre-chorus before the second chorus is the one to be repeated once again, and no new verse, nothing - but it does launch itself into something extraordinary, and that is a chorus in Croatian, which I assume she would perform in Eurovision because there’s no Eurovision version on the song promo bundle, I suppose. Comparatively the Croatian chorus is not as complex in lyrics as the English language one, and flows slightly differently too. But the song still has a long chorus by the end, and song with too many choruses is never a good sign for those that look for a song that’s constructed well, but I guess it’s a good factor for those that value the song’s catchiness. I guess that’s what one of the two Eurovision 2005 hosts valued the most when writing the Ukrainian 2006 entry “Show Me Your Love”, which if you ask me, is straight up 75% chorus, lol.

So yeah my verdict is that almost everything about this song, I like. I’m just a little devastated that in a usually very easily gorged on category of female bops, this just tends to lag behind in love, like a fellow song I really like this year, Israel. Instead people tend to prioritize Cyprus (which I get because they’ve established themselves as a girlbanger nation since Fuego swept Eurovision) and... probably even Azerbaijan? (which I might also get because Eurovision rarely has this thing called an ethnobop anymore, and it has more ethno than “Cleopatra” did, but still unnecessarily underwhelming lol.) Well then, in a year of female bangers, I would just like Croatia to not be swept under the rug come semis I guess. Yeah “Tick-Tock” may not sound like it brings something totally never seen before in a Eurovision environment (foreign language lyrics, themes about a break up, hell even her dancers looked like they were wearing the same hats as Tamta’s dancers), but you got to have a lot in you to sell a worn out idea to the new heights, and Albina does exactly that in my eyes.

Approval factor: Yeah! There is a lot of it in here for me. Follow-up factor: A great follow-up, not so great in regards to panini but musically it’s just going up and up from what we had in the past few years. I’ve actually not minded “The Dream” for the most part but I knew it was a chanceless plodding ballad and Roko harboured heaps of wasted potential working with Jacques Houdek and having wings as part of his performance, uff. *_* And then there’s “Divlji vjetre” which I also like a lot - a much better male ballad winner choice! If the Dora re-up winners keep being decent imo just like this, I have a feeling I will follow it a lot more often than I did just this one time this year. I am just saying that panini-wise, it was a sucky move from HRT for not allowing their last year’s winner promote his new song with Tijana (from Serbia 2017) on the Dora night, so we sadly only heard a pre-recorded opening version of “Divlji vjetre” to start off with :( Otherwise I think it’s not Dora’s fault in itself that Damir himself chose not to even submit an entry this year because he hadn’t found a good one - much like with Diodato for Sanremo (he was NOT rejected, if you think he still was, shush). But aside that, musically, it just keeps going up for me. Well done Croatia, for you’ve used to be a Eurovision country I don’t necessarily care about, that you brought two pretty damn good entries in a row. Qualification factor: I can absolutely trust in Albina bringing in a little bit of her charisma and well-likedness, and on top of that, a great vocal performance, in Rotterdam. Don’t ask me why, I just do. She doesn’t really perform her song live on pre-parties as much as I’d like to hope she would, but you heard girlie on the national selection, she didn’t win for nothing. Yeah yeah there might as well be female uptempo songs hungrier for the last spot, but I’d like to think Albina is one of the ones ready to devour than to be devoured. Go girl! Take us all dancing!

NF CORNER

To be honest with you, “Tick-Tock” winning Dora caught me by surprise. Ever since its re-up, the last two editions were kind of won by male ballads, and maaaaybe the dancey females were doing moderately well enough for themselves, but not overall? But look, juries were very keen on Albina, probably because she can SANG and she creates one hell of a fancy presence on her performance. And somehow she ended up snatching a win out of the hands of 5G conspiracy theorist 2016 representative Nina Kraljić, who was at first too drunk to care, but too unexpectedly sober to yell all over the soc. media how she was robbed and how the contest was rigged against her with her being on first and all that. Which is a shame that she is one of THOSE people, because her NF entry “Rijeka” is kinda nice? We did have the Balkan-esque ballads coming from Croatia in recent memory, but we haven’t had a truly proudly folksy one at that from Croatia for a long while, if not ever. Nina could’ve very well brought that to Rotterdam (and another mismatched wardrobe choice oops). But instead she was the one screaming “oh no, oh no, oh no”.

Actually I regarded Nina as one of my faves pre-show, and Albina was on her way, though she didn’t really cement the personal fav status until after all performances, thus making Nina and Albina switch spots for me. But truly, the one song that was my top favourite, iiiiiiiiiiis

GIMME AN OCEAN! OF LOVE!

2021 made me realize that damn, maybe anything that’s funky is my favourite music genre afterall. Up until then I vibed with entries like “Tonight Again” and “What’s the Pressure?” that had this sort of energetic flair and very rhythmic kinda sound to it, but 2021 just simply cemented it to me that my music world has probably been about nice and smooth and funky all along. I owe so much gratitude to ToMa first and foremost along the lines of more to have come in this year’s lineups - I just can’t not want to dance to “Ocean of Love”, and ToMa is quite alright at selling it live as well. There are small gripes with some instrument usages but that doesn’t detract from the fact that I love love LOVE funky guitar tunes.

Aside from that, I can give shout outs to Beta Sudar, whose song not only was underrated, but also had an underrated meme format throughout its performance:

My other props go to Bernarda, who not only competed in a national selection singing a song about seeing “Colors” while blind (and ironically there was a song called “Blind” in that same NF sung by a well-seeing guy!!), but also for finally putting this every country’s reject to rest. Seriously. That particular song was passed on to everyone in need of a competitive Eurovision bop, from Poli Genova to Helena Paparizou as of recently. Oh well, at least the song died a honourable death - well performed slice of good typical Eurovision pop (maybe even overperformed a little towards the end), that got a good rank with the regional juries, but somewhat murdered in televote, fellow Boris Milanov composition “Chameleon” style.

This one Mia Negovetić chick was promising too! Her song was written by the Debs and you might be tired of them trying to continue infiltrating Eurovision at this point, but a lot of their Eurovision songs are usually something I enjoy, “She’s Like a Dream” is no exception. Nothing but 3 minutes of pastel-dressed Croatian Ariana Grande doing what she does best <3

Oh and also some dudes tried to play chess on stage too I guess. But their song is not worth looking into, because one of the acts on it is apparently also a conspiracist, and maybe because oft this their entry is aptly titled “Sing, for the freedom has arrived!” lol I wonder what exactly is the kind of freedom you’re thinking of my guy

Was this the “better mood game” Laura was warning everyone about? Beats me

NF CORNER (NON-COMPETITIVE)

• It’s still hilarious to me as to how one of the acts this year, Brigita Vuco, was planning to bring in backing dancers, only for them to show a fake COVID test or something and outright BARRED from coming with her on stage. <3 Whatever she intended to do with them dancers, I have absolutely no idea, but at least she committed to her song being about drunken nights visually by having all these blurry shots

• Nina Kraljić’s greenroom shenanigans, from the “1-2-3, 1-2-3, drink” to numb the sadness over some results (and the 8 she got from the region Rijeka for the song “Rijeka” lmao), to whatever she saw on the phone that made her smile or go neutral

• Greenroom reactions in general. I swear, this year had cameramen in every single corner everywhere just to make sure something covers up for a human audience instead of severals of Zoom screens permitted to act as an audience. Random people in greenrooms were doing some sort of emotions after random acts, and also randomly they ended up pointing a camera towards an act that lost, but the act didn’t treat losing as if it were such a big deal <3

• All the other memes the Croatian Twitter might’ve noticed me for:

seriously Bernarda was locked in a bluelight mathematical dice contraption. how fucking cool is that

ANY LAST WORDS?

I just fucking hope that Albina shatters any doubts that people have had about her song come rehearsals, and somehow Croatia AND Israel slip through, because never too many female bangers I appreciate in the final, if they all are the bangers I appreciate, lol.

[unibrowzz]

I’m going to go and make a bet that Switzerland and France are going to win some time in the 2020s. Maybe Iceland too. I want to say also Bulgaria, but they might keep coming close to but not quite there yet. The UK, Ireland, Montenegro, and Albania won’t win anytime soon 💀 Also for 2022 predictions, Albania sends the same fuckin thing like always and Russia will send something quirky

I say hold your horses there lad, you can never predict who's gonna dominate a decade these days 😂 Look at Sweden for example, started off the 2010s with an NQ and by 2019 they'd finished in the Top 5 on seven occasions, twice in first place. I know that was partially down to the reintroduction of the juries who like to seek out the most basic pop songs to throw votes at but still.

On the other hand, I will like to see all three of those countries winning, but I'm kinda scared 2020/21 was the only chance any of them would have gotten for a long time 😅 France this year struck me as the perfect balance of song, singer and staging; their main weakness to me always seems to be that they never know how to stage or film their act, so the performance is either lacklustre (like J'ai Cherchè) or messy and unfocussed (like Roi). Voila to me just... seems like a fluke. Granted I want to see them win, and preferably soon, I just don't think it'll be within the next 10 years unless they REALLY step up their staging game.

Switzerland has more of a chance, I feel like they're gonna keep at it much like the Netherlands did after 2014. But I'm pretty sure the same was said about Cyprus after 2018 and their results have only gotten worse since then 😂 I would love to see a Swiss victory soon, I'm just not sure whether it'll be soon.

And Iceland COULD possibly do it with the aid of a good hype train, but pre-hype can only get you so far, and we all know an early favourite can flop hard based on staging, vocal performance, running order etc. Again, would love to see a Reykjavik 202X, but I won't be holding out for it 😂😅

As for the rest...

Montenegro needs to actually return first before we can decide anything (though let's face it their track record is a bit dire), the UK needs to change its national attitude first before they even have a hope in Hell's chance of winning (which isn't happening any time soon 🤣), and Ireland just needs to modern up and stop sending stuff that was suitable 10+ years ago (because their staging is fine, their songs are just kinda crap)

As for Russia... last time they sent something quirky prior to 2020/1 was 2012 and they immediately followed that up with a gamut of boring peace songs until Lazarev in 2016. I am hoping for a more fun act from them though, I feel they really shine when they're being unique 👀

[maxdoesbb]

Big Brother Lin Week 5

 @analllice​ @captain--steve--rogers @charlchen-moonves​ @davonne-diaz-twine @djm2991 @dominiquecooper @flirtyspy @flopbb-22 @jackieibara @maxdoesbb @nomances @paras-atashnak @remember-caltoru @unproblematicwinston @vanessacries  @welcome-to-bb

The time has come for the week 5 HoH competition! Who will win and who will flop? Place your bets girls and gays!

Get ready to Soak Up the Sun it’s time for a Holiday! (stream holiday by little mix daslkjds anyway)

This is a great strategy guys, keep it up icons! @captain--steve--rogers @djm2991 @welcome-to-bb @unproblematicwinston

@nomances @paras-atashnak and @analllice ya’ll did great! @maxdoesbb do better and stop acting like furniture JHSJHKDAS

We are left with @charlchen-moonves @jackieibara and @remember-caltoru

The new HoH is...

@remember-caltoru!!!! congratulations!!!

It’s now time for @remember-caltoru to pick their nominees for the week

That leaves @maxdoesbb and @analllice the pre-veto nominees

Me @ Me: When you act like furniture you will go home...

Time to pick players for PoV

@remember-caltoru draws @unproblematicwinston

@maxdoesbb draws @flopbb-22

@analllice draws @nomances

I wanna say good luck to everyone!

It’s time for the PoV competition (Hope I can win dskjhsa)

It’s a shame @captain--steve--rogers isn’t here cause this comp is Janelle-O-Vision jdskjldaksj

@unproblematicwinston and @analllice ya’ll did good! @maxdoesbb do more instead of flopping dsjsadj

We are left with @flopbb-22​ @remember-caltoru​ and @nomances​

@flopbb-22 please win for our none existent Angela Tea Alliance!!! 

@remember-caltoru​ comes in with their FIRST comp win of the season!!!

Lets see what happens at the veto meeting

For the first time this season the veto isn’t used and @maxdoesbb​ and @analllice​ have a chance of being the last pre-jury member

IT’S LIVE SHOW TIME HOUSE GUESTS!

9 people voting means you need 5 votes to be evicted!

Let’s see how the votes fall!

While they are in an alliance @charlchen-moonves​ and @djm2991​ are acting like a little hive always voting against each other dsjksdakj

I thought we had an Angela Tea alliance ;-; (jk still love you icon!)

Alexa play “IDGAF” by Dua Lipa

And with that...

I, @maxdoesbb​, has been evicted from the big brother lin house, ya’ll fed up with my LMM shit posting, but i’m reunited with @stanningbb​ so jokes on ya’ll fdsdjjk

With my eviction 12 become 11 and that means the Jury house is open of business! Everyone evicted now will enter the jury house and vote for the winner!

I’m your host Julie Manuel Miranda (maxdoesbb) thanks for reading!

END OF WEEK 5

[because-its-eurovision]

another voting questionnn :’))

do u think there will be any 0 point televote scores this year in the final? the big 5 are a lot stronger this year so i feel like it could possibly be another country/ies like switzerland again if it makes it.. (like the song but when ur up against käärijä and loreen in a televote ?? uh ohhhh)

there might be multiple ??? but not as many as 4 or whatever it was in 2021…

It's possible, but I think it's very unlikely. Since this year semi qualifiers are based on televote only, it means that all countries that make it to the final have enough support to not get zero in the televoting. If Switzerland gets enough points in semi to qualify, they are not going to flop completely in the final.

Czechia 2016, Austria 2017 and Switzerland 2022 got zero televotes in the final, but they had only qualified thanks to juries so they didn't have enough audience support in the first place.

If we do get a shock televote zero this year, it's going to be one of the big 5 countries. My guess would be the United Kingdom because Mae hasn't sounded great in the pre-parties and traditionally BBC has struggled with staging :/ But as you said, big 5 are all stronger this year so I hope and believe we are not going to get any televote zeroes this year <3

[veryshagadelicbaby]

Old school fan rant time. Why does Cody hate Kaysar so much? I genuinely don't get it. Like sorry this dude is a fan fav despite being "Mr. Pre Jury" (I can't stand cody but that was funny), and you will always be known as Derrick's lap dog even though you made it to final 2.

The only reason Kaysar flopped his first 2 times is because James was a traitor...ok and because he tried to be the nice guy in the pressure cooker comp s6. But the dude came on the show in an era where hating middle eastern people was the norm in this garbage country. He became a such fan favorite despite the national racism that he was the evicted player America voted back into the damn game. Also, he was always the most real and intelligent person on his casts. Which is extra incredible since he came on the show when Big Brother was still real people. Cody came into this world when it became the over scripted, over produced, mess of a show it is now. Bullshit rigged comps and producers feeding info to their favs. Zach and Christina both complained about how production messed with the game that season.

Like I get why Rat hates Janelle. They have IRL beef and that naturally boiled over into the show. But cody is pathetic with his Kaysar hate.