#pretentious whinging

[nomikkh]

If I don't put foundation on, I'm fairly pale but my skin has a reddish tint like "oh yeah, there's blood under there"... But if the foundation goes on it's fully "omg that person will combust if exposed to sunlight".

Also... Let me rant for a bit about lazy large vehicle drivers. This is a tangent post. I drive a Big Car, and as such I feel I have a duty to others. To be aware, to drive with precision, and to stay as undistracted as possible. All large car drivers have this duty in my opinion.

Do I make mistakes, yes. Do I occasionally forget my turn signal, yes. Have I been at fault in a fender bender, also yes. But I do my best to minimize mistakes and by gods my phone stays clipped in its holder at all times.

The number of times I've seen a Large Boat Car lazily drift into another lane with no turn signal, or straddle two lanes on a curve causing folks to abruptly slow down to avoid them enrages me to no end. This is why so many people hate trucks and SUVs. Most of us can't drive for shit. It's all "ME BEEG TRUCK MAKE ROOM FOR MY FAT BUTT".

I may drive like a bat out of hell and use on ramps like the beginning of a race track but I like to think I'm a precise bat. Most of the time, there isn't a vehicle around me I'm not aware of.

Oh, and turn signals. Turn signals are not not NOT for asking permission, they are for declaring action. Be aware of your vehicle's physical dimensions, find a spot you'll fit into, get to said spot, pop the turn signal and get on in there. At most the turn signal needs to be on for 15 seconds.

I said tangent post. I've been holding in these petty grievances in for too long.

[shit-talk-turner]

genuinely what is the fascination with this woman? I just don’t understand it. Her whole not like other girls schtick comes across as obnoxious and pretentious, she’s pretty but not really anything to write home about, everyone whinges about Louise basing her entire personality on famous French women in the sixties, but why when Alexa has been doing the exact same thing for decades is it iconic and mOtHeR iS mOtHeRiNg? (For the record, it’s cringe from both of them. Get your own personality/aesthetic!)

Here we go again, Louise's worshippers trying to put Louise and Alexa in the same bracket. You guys are ridiculous. It's like comparing a plastic flower with a real one. Get real, there are so many women in the world who are into a French vibe, fashion or aesthetic. The difference between Louise and Alexa is that Alexa has been doing it in her own distinctive way and style, never changing her personality for more than 20 years I've known her, and Louise is just a knock off who can't decide who and what she wants to present herself as: a private misterious artist/musician, an excentric fashion icon, a quirky rockstar girlfriend, a nice quiet "angel on Earth", a loud extroverted wag roaming streets and fountains of Paris, an innocent victim of crazy teenager fans, a regular luxurious destination vacationer, a book loving sun bather..... Louise is a copycat. Not a good one. There is nothing original about her. That's why she is so boring.

^

[xxchromies]

re: ur rapists rehabilitating. i was on a reddit (i know) post about how the first chapter in the body keeps score basically empathises with a solider who after seeing his mate die raped a woman as a result of it (rape is coping mechanism btw guys!) anyways so many men in the comments talking about rehabilitation and how rapists shouldn’t be alienated from society as if these motherfuckers didn’t choose to do that themselves when choosing to rape. this one loser wrote a fucking pretentious rape apologist novel about rehabilitation and how if you don’t rehabilitate them then they keep being a rapist as if rehabilitating them undos the rape they’ve already committed (????) anyway lmao i replied (bait i know) and he just told me to shut up and some other nonsense like loool we’ve dropped the misogynist 1940s psychiatrist act have we. i’ve been through some wild shit and not once have i even been violent against someone - let alone rape - as a way to “cope” and if i didn’t want to be alienated from society then i wouldn’t behave in abhorrent ways and then whinge about it lol???

Jesus fucking Christ Reddit is really something. I once got into an extremely long redundant argument with a dude about male loneliness on there.

It pisses me off when people try to point out how rapists are mentally ill. Like, yeah, no fucking shit! Who gives a fuck!

[frankiefellinlove]

STRUMMER on SPRINGSTEEN:

“Bruce Springsteen is great. If you don't agree with that, you’re a pretentious Martian from Venus.

"Bruce looks great. Like he’s about to crawl underneath the chords with a spanner and sock the starter motor one time so that an engine starts up – humming and ready to take us on a golden ride way out somewhere in the yonder.

"Bruce is great…because he’ll never lay down and be conquered by his problems. He’s allways ready to bust out the shack and hit the track. His music is great on a dark and rainy morning in England. Just when you need some spirit and some proof that the big wide world exists, the D.J. puts on 'Racing in The Streets' and life seems worth living again, life seems to be in cinemascope again.

"Bruce is not on an ego trip. Bruce is actually into the music. We need people like this. A lot of records today are made by people just to feed their fame. Bruce is great. There aint no whinging, whining or complaining. There’s only great music, lyrics and an ocean of talent.

"Me? I love Springsteen!!!”

Joe Strummer

[bennettmarko]

For me, it is a cause of some upset that more Anglophones don’t enjoy language. Music is enjoyable it seems, so are dance and other, athletic forms of movement. People seem to be able to find sensual and sensuous pleasure in almost anything but words these days. Words, it seems belong to other people, anyone who expresses themselves with originality, delight and verbal freshness is more likely to be mocked, distrusted or disliked than welcomed. The free and happy use of words appears to be considered elitist or pretentious. Sadly, desperately sadly, the only people who seem to bother with language in public today bother with it in quite the wrong way. They write letters to broadcasters and newspapers in which they are rude and haughty about other people’s usage and in which they show off their own superior ‘knowledge’ of how language should be. I hate that, and I particularly hate the fact that so many of these pedants assume that I’m on their side. When asked to join in a “let’s persuade this supermarket chain to get rid of their ‘five items or less’ sign” I never join in. Yes, I am aware of the technical distinction between ‘less’ and ‘fewer’, and between ‘uninterested’ and ‘disinterested’ and ‘infer’ and ‘imply’, but none of these are of importance to me. ‘None of these are of importance,’ I wrote there, you’ll notice – the old pedantic me would have insisted on “none of them is of importance”. Well I’m glad to say I’ve outgrown that silly approach to language. Oscar Wilde, and there have been few greater and more complete lords of language in the past thousand years, once included with a manuscript he was delivering to his publishers a compliment slip in which he had scribbled the injunction: “I’ll leave you to tidy up the woulds and shoulds, wills and shalls, thats and whiches.” Which gives us all encouragement to feel less guilty, don’t you think?

There are all kinds of pedants around with more time to read and imitate Lynne Truss and John Humphrys than to write poems, love-letters, novels and stories it seems. They whip out their Sharpies and take away and add apostrophes from public signs, shake their heads at prepositions which end sentences and mutter at split infinitives and misspellings, but do they bubble and froth and slobber and cream with joy at language? Do they ever let the tripping of the tips of their tongues against the tops of their teeth transport them to giddy euphoric bliss? Do they ever yoke impossible words together for the sound-sex of it? Do they use language to seduce, charm, excite, please, affirm and tickle those they talk to? Do they? I doubt it. They’re too farting busy sneering at a greengrocer’s less than perfect use of the apostrophe. Well sod them to Hades. They think they’re guardians of language. They’re no more guardians of language than the Kennel Club is the guardian of dogkind.

The worst of this sorry bunch of semi-educated losers are those who seem to glory in being irritated by nouns becoming verbs. How dense and deaf to language development do you have to be? If you don’t like nouns becoming verbs, then for heaven’s sake avoid Shakespeare who made a doing-word out of a thing-word every chance he got. He TABLED the motion and CHAIRED the meeting in which nouns were made verbs. New examples from our time might take some getting used to: ‘He actioned it that day’ for instance might strike some as a verbing too far, but we have been sanctioning, envisioning, propositioning and stationing for a long time, so why not ‘action’? ‘Because it’s ugly,’ whinge the pedants. It’s only ugly because it’s new and you don’t like it. Ugly in the way Picasso, Stravinsky and Eliot were once thought ugly and before them Monet, Mahler and Baudelaire. Pedants will also claim, with what I am sure is eye-popping insincerity and shameless disingenuousness, that their fight is only for ‘clarity’. This is all very well, but there is no doubt what ‘Five items or less’ means, just as only a dolt can’t tell from the context and from the age and education of the speaker, whether ‘disinterested’ is used in the ‘proper’ sense of non-partisan, or in the ‘improper’ sense of uninterested. No, the claim to be defending language for the sake of clarity almost never, ever holds water. Nor does the idea that following grammatical rules in language demonstrates clarity of thought and intelligence of mind. Having said this, I admit that if you want to communicate well for the sake of passing an exam or job interview, then it is obvious that wildly original and excessively heterodox language could land you in the soup. I think what offends examiners and employers when confronted with extremely informal, unpunctuated and haywire language is the implication of not caring that underlies it. You slip into a suit for an interview and you dress your language up too. You can wear what you like linguistically or sartorially when you’re at home or with friends, but most people accept the need to smarten up under some circumstances – it’s only considerate. But that is an issue of fitness, of suitability, it has nothing to do with correctness. There no right language or wrong language any more than are right or wrong clothes. Context, convention and circumstance are all.

-- Stephen Fry, On Language

[lukysoul]

The way you've posted isn't very nice, you should consider being kinder and not picking fights on the internet

oh no! i argued with strangers on the internet! whatever will i do!?

unironically i don't think i was very rude at all and i already had a post on my page/blog(?) that was just a more put-together thing about me whinging about what i don't like about modern art, and i talked to someone in the replies(?) about it and that ended in me deleting the post

at this point i still don't really like most modern art, but i stopped shitting on it so openly cause of how that person in the replies talked about why they liked it and how the wording in my post was kinda shit

although i stand by this meme being pretentious and annoying

[sirsharp-a]

Apologies, it’s been a very turbulent night for me.  I’m feeling pretty fucking bad right now, to the point where, even though I know I should eat and have food in front of me, my stomach is upset.  I’ll probably just...  lurk, for the rest of the night, while working on the epilogue  ( yes, the next chapter is the last of this arc )  of the thing I’ve been writing.  I hope to compile it all into a mini masterlist and have it there on my blog as an easy-to-access link so yeah.

[weaver-z]

What's the reasoning for the criticism of YA readers? I'm genuinely really curious

Frankly, I only really care about it when YA readers get really prissy about wanting to be considered "just as good as other readers." Every time you go into a circle of readers online (i.e. forums, subreddits), you'll see half a dozen posts about how It's Okay to Read YA and Nothing Else, as though anyone is actually materially stopping these fully-grown adults from reading these books. No one is, but these readers hate that they are--rightfully, in my pretentious opinion--not considered to be as dedicated to the written word as those who read more challenging literature.

If you only read for fun and escapism, fine by me; just don't whinge about not being taken seriously by people who want to read books with more substance. If you want to be considered knowledgeable about literature, read books that aren't just genre fiction.

[shit-talk-turner]

sorry we will never move on from alexa // genuinely what is the fascination with this woman? I just don’t understand it. Her whole not like other girls schtick comes across as obnoxious and pretentious, she’s pretty but not really anything to write home about, everyone whinges about Louise basing her entire personality on famous French women in the sixties, but why when Alexa has been doing the exact same thing for decades is it iconic and mOtHeR iS mOtHeRiNg? (For the record, it’s cringe from both of them. Get your own personality/aesthetic!) I could see why she was popular during the whole indie sleaze era but now it’s just a bit tired imo, it’s like she’s never grown out of that phase so many of us go through in our teens/early twenties of being oh so quirky and different and not like everyone else because you’re so superior and edgy - except most of us grew out of that by adulthood. She’s still immature.

it seems like you don’t really follow her now because that’s not really her entire personality anymore. I genuinely think she’s hilarious, I love her sense of style, could listen to her have a conversation with a potted plant she’s so entertaining, and find her refreshing

[bimarymacdonald]

least favorite remus characterization is "he's the boring marauder who is friends with the rest for some reason and all he does is eat chocolate and whinge at the others for playing pranks" like ok absolutely fucking not he is a pretentious, dryly sarcastic little motherfucker who smokes weed for his chronic pain and comes up with some of the marauders Best and craziest pranks like he is their friend for a Goddamn Reason

like the person you're talking about is the person the teachers know and say "oh, what a sweet boy. Pity about his condition" about behind his back (except mcgonagall bc mcgonagall doesnt Fucking suck)

[ashlynniis-bracketeers]

Quickly saying this: Having a chuckle about "Ask me (or my characters) all the things. Remind me to send stupid questions sometimes. Anyways, assumptions based on your fanfiction is hard for me, as I can just walk and be like "YO, WAZZUP, WHY'S THIS LIKE THIS." n shit. Here's a shot tho: You enjoy a ton of horror movies, if a vast majority of your writing is to go off of. Or maybe you're off doing horrible things in your basement. Who knows!

sdjkawlduasdk. Honestly have never been much of a movie person. Horror movies are either pointless jump-scare simulators or pretentious "psychological" whinging lmao.

And I don't even have a basement... I think. >8}

I just like my TF being a bit more body-horror-ey lmao.

[tenroseforeverandever]

Double Blind

Characters: Rose Tyler; Tenth Doctor; Reinette; Adam Mitchell

Tags: AU - human; blind date; fluff; romance; humour

Summary: Rose Tyler has been set up on a blind date with a bloke she’s having a lot of misgivings about, but when he arrives, she finds he isn’t anything like she expected him to be.

Notes: This was written as part of a Classic Trope challenge on the Doctor x Rose Discord group. I got “Blind Date”. The story was actually inspired by one of the cute little stories on my French course on DuoLingo! To my brilliant beta team, @rose--nebula and mrsbertucci, my undying gratitude, as always. You got me on the right track more than a few times, and with the amazing @aintfraidanoghosts, you helped me plan out the rough patches. My love to you all! 

Read also at: AO3; FF.net; TSP

Double Blind

Rose Tyler shifted in her seat and straightened the pale blue rose on the white table linens for the umpteenth time. She glanced covertly at the other tables around her: men and women dressed in nice suits and fine fabrics, eating meticulously presented food from china plates. Rose wriggled again, brushing invisible motes of lint from the cuffs of her white blouse, hoping she looked presentable. She told herself she couldn’t look too terribly out of place; the maître ’d hadn’t blinked an eye. 

She had never set foot inside a restaurant this upscale before. They didn’t have posh spots like this near the Powell Estate. But the French restaurant, Révélations, was where her date had insisted they meet. He’d texted her instructions to place a blue rose on the table in front of her so he could identify her when he arrived. The idea of the rose was obvious (her name) and the blue was, according to him, for hope that their date would be “just the first of many”. He hadn’t liked the idea of exchanging photos, which would have made identifying each other simple. He’d informed her that “a blind date is a blind date” and he wanted “to meet without any preconceived notions” or some rubbish like that. But Rose already had preconceived the notion that this bloke was a bit too sure of himself. It was just a bloody first date, after all, blind or not. He sounded like he was already practically planning their wedding.

She sighed, not for the first time over the last few days. Her friend, Shareen… actually Shareen’s new boyfriend whom Rose had never even met… had arranged this date: a bloke, named Adam Mitchell, whom he knew from the research labs at the Uni. The bloke had allegedly returned from college in the United States to do Post-Doctoral research on some hopelessly science-y subject Rose could barely even pronounce the name of. Why Shareen (or, more to the point, Shareen’s mysterious boyfriend…) had ever thought he would be a good match for her, Rose didn’t understand. She didn’t even have any A-levels to her name, and she worked in a shop, for God’s sake.

On top of that, if she was being honest, Adam had rubbed her a bit the wrong way with the dictatorial tone of his texts to her. It wasn’t an auspicious beginning.

“The last thing I need in my life right now,” she’d told Shareen in no uncertain terms, “is another condescending, controlling… shite boyfriend. Besides, I only just got rid of Jimmy. I really don’t think I’m ready for any sort of boyfriend.”

Shareen had scoffed. “But this isn’t Jimmy. This one actually has a real, functioning brain, and he has a proper career lined up. He has money, babe; he can look after you.”

“What? I’m supposed to be some kept woman? You sound like my flippin’ mum.”

It had taken some convincing, but eventually, Rose had tired of Shareen’s whinging, and capitulated, agreeing to go on this bloody date, despite her misgivings.

And here she sat, waiting for Adam to arrive, incessantly rearranging her stupid blue rose and terrified to order anything more than a glass of still water lest it bankrupt her. She felt like she’d been waiting forever but when she glanced at the time on her mobile, wondering if she’d been stood up, it turned out he wasn’t late… yet. Rose couldn’t decide if she should be relieved or disappointed.

After another five minutes of jittering her leg under the table linens and trying desperately not to bite her nails, she decided to pack it in. She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t want… this. She gathered her handbag from the floor by her feet, and made to stand, but stopped half-way. From the lobby, with the maître d’ standing next to him, appeared a tall, slender man a few years older than her. She observed him carefully for signs that he might be Adam: he had brown hair and eyes (check) and was wearing a suit and a tie adorned with blue flowers (check, again.)

So far so good.

Although, she had to admit, the overall image wasn’t quite what she’d expected from Adam, based on the tone of his texts to her. Somehow, she’d been expecting the brown hair to be carefully combed into place, not a delicious, expertly tousled mop that practically invited her to run her fingers through it. And the suit was a bit more casual than the “business casual” she’d been anticipating: rumpled brown with pinstripes; tie carelessly loosened from the confines of his collar; and a pair of battered, cream-coloured Converse on his feet, in place of dress shoes. Based on his tone, she’d thought Adam would have been more… put-together and formal.

Her heart dropped. It couldn’t be him. Loads of people had brown hair and eyes, and the tie… easily a coincidence. Besides, while she’d been told Adam was good-looking, this bloke was positively fit!

She watched with bated breath as he glanced around the restaurant. Her heart did a little flip when his eyes settled on the rose in front of her. Then his gaze lifted to hers and his face erupted into a wide, toothy grin. Rose’s breath caught and she immediately plonked back down into her seat.

She amended her first assessment: he wasn’t just fit; he was drop-dead, bloody gorgeous.

The man waved off the maître d’, who remained hovering behind him, and stepped toward Rose’s table. “Hello.” He continued to beam stupidly at her.

She figured her expression was equally ridiculous as she grinned back in a dreamy haze. “Hello.”

“The blue flower…” He nodded toward the rose in a soft Estuary accent that made her feel all gooey inside.

“Yeah. And the, erm… the tie,” she managed.

“The tie? Oh… yes, it’s one of my favourites. Love the tie. Erm…” he gestured to the empty chair across from her, “…may I?”

“Oh, God, sorry! Of course.”

He sat down and put his elbows on the table and leaned toward her. “So…”

“So…” Rose giggled (blimey, she wasn’t normally the giggly sort…), then pulled herself together. “So, you’re doing post-doctoral work at the Uni, yeah? On what was it, again?”

“Quantum and Temporal Physics.”

Rose gulped, really wishing she’d never let Jimmy-bloody-Stone manipulate her into dropping out of high school. Not that A-level anything would help her much in this situation, but at least she might have stood a chance. “Yeah, I thought it was something like that…”

“Fascinating field, really. My research is based on the premise that space and time are fundamentally linked at quantum level and that if we can travel on any trajectory through one, we should also be able to travel on any trajectory through the other. It’s just a matter of applying…” he rattled on, gesticulating with his hands. (He had lovely, long fingers, Rose mused dreamily, quite happy to listen to the cadence of his voice and imagine all the things those fingers could do.) “…and realigning the quantum matrices. You see, people assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint…” He trailed off. “I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”

“Just a bit, yeah.” She chuckled but her cheeks burned. “My brain checked out somewhere back around when you said, ‘space and time’.”

He cast her an apologetic smile. “I’m so sorry. I do this all the time. Donna, that’s my cousin, she calls me a great, big outer space dunce. I keep forgetting that not everyone is a genius, like me.” He sniffed and straightened his tie.

Rose arched her eyebrow at him. Okay, now this was more the Adam Mitchell she’d been expecting: a bit of a pretentious git.

“Oh, no! Sorry, so sorry! I’ve mucked it up again. I just meant… weeell, I am very clever, but I don’t mean that I think I’m better than other people… I just know things, I suppose. And I get excited and like to talk about them because I want to share my knowledge… and as Donna pointed out, I’m also a dunce.”

Rose’s heart swelled with sudden affection. He wasn’t being pretentious after all; he was just being… forthright, sweet.

“And getting back to what I really meant to say, earlier,” he blurted, “all that gobbledygook about time… it’s really just a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey… stuff.” 

Rose laughed. “Now that’s some science I can get my head around!”

He beamed at her again, his relief evident. “So, what do you do?”

Rose’s cheeks heated again. “Oh, me?” She averted her eyes, dreading the disappointment she would surely see settle on his face, but she supposed it was better she was upfront about it. “I’m just working in a shop… Henrick’s.”

“Oooooh, posh.” He waggled his eyebrows, setting her off giggling again. “I commend you. Not just anyone can handle rude customers all day. I bet you get some doozies in there!”

Bemused, Rose could only nod in agreement.

“I’d end up shouting at them and get fired the same day.”

“I feel like that too, sometimes, but I’ve learned to handle it, I guess. I’m top sales, every month.”

“Oh, well done! Brilliant!” He seemed genuinely proud of her achievement. There was no sarcasm in his tone or delivery, just open enthusiasm.

“But I really want to go back and get my A-levels,” she insisted, feeling she had to defend herself. “I was good at English and French back in school… and Art! I used to love painting!”

“I reiterate: brilliant! You should do just that if it’s what you want. What sort of things–”

The waiter stepped up to their table at that moment to offer them menus and tell them about the specials of the day. Rose listened intently. The food all sounded very opulent, and was probably delicious, but she didn’t have a clue what half of it was. She did her best to keep up, nodding politely and making interested noises at appropriate points.

“May I offer you something to drink while you peruse the menu?” the waiter offered.

“Oh, erm…” Rose stammered. What she really wanted was to order a pint, but she didn’t think that would go over too well at Révélations. And she didn’t want to order anything too expensive…  “I’d love a glass of red wine.”

“We have a lovely selection of fine house wines for you to choose from.” The waiter opened the wine menu and pointed to the appropriate section.

Rose bit her lower lip, the words swimming before her eyes, and her heart somersaulting around her chest. “I… erm…” She glanced over to Adam, who was watching her with slightly narrowed eyes. She couldn’t help thinking he was sizing her up… and she was failing. Then his expression softened, and he offered her a compassionate smile.

“Oooh, a glass of red sounds good. How about we just order a bottle?”

Rose nodded fervently.

“What do you recommend?” he asked the waiter.

When the wine was selected and the waiter had finally left, Rose opened her menu and pretended to read over the selections. She glanced shyly up at Adam from beneath her fringe. He too, was engrossed in the menu. “Thanks,” she murmured. “I don’t know…”

“Don’t thank me yet.” His eyes met hers, sparkling with amusement. “We can only hope our waiter chose a nice wine for us. Aaand, speak of the devil…”

The waiter reappeared, opened the wine, and poured a little into each of their glasses to taste. Rose held the glass to her lips, hesitantly taking a small sip. She hummed her appreciation as the fruity flavour exploded over her tongue.

Adam was decidedly less reserved in his approach. With a flourish of his eyebrows at Rose and a quirk of a smile, he swirled the liquid around his glass, and sniffed it intently. (The show-off!) “Ahhh… that’s lovely. And do I detect… NO! It can’t be? Is that an overtone of... bananas?” He winked at Rose.

“Bananas, sir?” The waiter goggled at him. “I… erm… bananas?”

Rose clapped her hand over her mouth to hold back the bark of laughter building in her throat.

“Oh, I love bananas!” Adam cheered. “Always bring a banana to a party. And if you can’t do that, find a brilliant wine with overtones of bananas! This is lovely, don’t you think?” he addressed Rose.

“Lovely, yeah,” she agreed.

“Pour away, my good man!”

As the poor, perplexed waiter filled their glasses, he asked: “Have you had a chance to view the menu?”

Rose met Adam’s eyes and gave a little shake of her head. He turned to the waiter. “A few more minutes, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. I’ll come back in a little while.”

As soon as the waiter was out of earshot, Rose couldn’t contain herself any longer: “Oh my God! Bananas?!”

“Oh, I thought he needed to lighten up a bit. This place is all a bit hoity-toity, in my opinion.” His eyes suddenly widened. “I hope you don’t mind…”

“Are you kidding? That was the best thing I’ve heard all week. The look on his face!”

“I know!”

They did nothing but grin stupidly at each other over sips of their wine for a few minutes, breaking into hopeless giggles every so often.

Adam took a deep breath and a gulp of wine. “So,” he asked, returning the subject to their earlier conversation, “back to school, eh? Is that something you’d want to do?”

“I think so, yeah. I want to at least be able to say I got my A-levels. I let a boy convince me I didn’t need them, and it was the worst decision I’ve ever made. I feel like… I dunno, it would be like taking my life back.”

He offered her a warm smile. “Well, good for you! And then… uni?”

“Maybe… who knows? Would that matter?” She worried the corner of her lower lip between her teeth. Despite her hesitancy to come on this date, she was really liking this bloke. She could see herself spending more time with him… if he were amenable. ‘Course she wouldn’t let on to Shareen. Shareen would be insufferable.

“What? No! Of course not! Uni is not the be-all and end-all. There are so many other avenues to pursue if that’s what you want. It was right for me, obviously, but…weeell…” he tugged on his ear, “you certainly don’t need my approval.”

Rose offered him a grateful little smile and ducked her head. She sighed happily. “What I’d really love to do, first, is take a year or so and just travel. Explore the world.”

“Oh, I’d love to travel too! I’ve spent so long at school. I mean I’ve studied in the States, but I never really had much chance to look around, to explore. I love to explore!”

“Me too! I’ve never been anywhere ‘cept when me and mum used to cram into Cousin Mo’s old car and drive to a beach in Dorset for a few days on the summer hols. Mum must have gotten sick of my whinging. She finally left me behind when I was fourteen. Blimey, she and Mo must have had a grand ol’ time without me taggin’ along.”

They both laughed.

“Where would you go,” she asked, “if you could choose?”

“Oh, I rather like the idea of blindfolding myself and throwing a dart at a map of the world. Seeing where the wind takes me.”

“Oh, that sounds perfect! But, on your own?” Rose blurted out the words, not thinking through how they would sound. He would probably think she was inviting herself along on this imaginary trip they were planning. Bloody hell, she’d not known him for more than twenty minutes.

He shrugged, his cheerful expression crumbling a bit around the edges. “There is no one else… not really…” His fringe fell over his face as he pointedly turned his eyes to the menu.

There was history there, and Rose wanted to learn more, but in this moment she just wanted to be there for him. She found herself dismissing any worries about being too forward, and impulsively, she reached across the table and rested her hand over his, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “There’s me.” She licked her lips as his hand twitched under hers, sure he was going to pull it away.

Instead, he flipped his over so their palms were touching. A zing of something bloody brilliant coursed through her, and as their eyes met, she knew he felt it too, a shared energy. It felt so right. She swore she could feel the turn of the Earth, the ground under her feet spinning at a thousand miles an hour, like she was falling through space.

Stunned by the feelings exploding inside her, she opened her menu to divert her mind. Glancing up she saw Adam was doing the same.

A few minutes of awkward silence passed, their hands still touching; it seemed neither of them was willing to break the link between them. Finally, Adam spoke, gesturing to the menu, “So, what do you like, Reinette? It’s my first time here; I was hoping you could tell me what’s good.”

Rose let his words sink in. What was he on about? Hadn’t he selected this restaurant? Was this some sort of test? Frowning, she slid her hand from his. “It’s my first time here, too… Wait!” She pursed her lips as she processed his words. “Did you just call me… Reinette?”

His eyes bulged, his eyebrows disappearing under his fringe. “Oh, blimey! You aren’t…?” He ran a desperate hand through his hair. “I take it you’re not Reinette, then?”

Rose chuckled, shaking her head. “Never heard of her. And I’ll wager your name’s not Adam?”

“Adam?” He frantically ruffled his hair again. “Blimey! No, I go by Jonathan Noble.”

“Nice to meet ya, Jonathan Noble. Rose Tyler.”

“Rose Tyler, eh? Roooose Tyler. I have to admit, I like the sound of that. It suits you much better than Reinette. Aaaand, it goes a long way to explaining why you weren’t quite what I was expecting… Turns out, I wasn’t expecting you at all. I was expecting… well, Reinette, who I have to admit,” his voice dropped to a confidential whisper as he leaned across the table toward Rose, “seemed a little full of herself… a bit la-di-da, if you know what I mean?”

“Don’t I just,” she whispered back. “I got the same vibes from Adam. And then you… you seemed so…” she chewed on the corner of her finger, “…so… I dunno. We just seemed to click, yeah?”

He beamed. “Oh, yes! You know, looking back, now… I was a little surprised when you didn’t know what wine to order. I assumed Reinette was the sort that would be able to rattle on about fine wines until she was blue in the face.”

“I know! I kinda had the same experience with you… just the way you were dressed, yeah. I was expecting something a little more… proper, I guess.” His smile faltered and she felt a little rush of panic. “Oh, God! No, no! I didn’t mean…  I love this, what you’re wearing. It’s comfortable and, erm… approachable. It really suits you.”

“You think?” He flushed and tugged on his ear, his eyes filling with hope.

“Oh, yeah! And the Chucks… inspired!”

Rose glanced up past Jonathan’s shoulder, distracted by a woman who had just arrived and was putting up a bit of a fuss to the maître d’. “Erm, Jonathan…” she asked, trying to come off as casual, “…what made you think I was this Reinette-person?”

“Well, I was told to look for a beautiful blonde. And she told me she would have a blue flower… a lily! She’s originally from France. A blue lily! Oh…” He glanced down at Rose’s flower, lying beside her napkin, his mouth dropping open.  “Erm… you have a… a rose. Some genius I am, eh?”

She waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, easy mistake to make. I mean, what are the odds: specifically a blue flower? But...” she grimaced, nodding toward the reception area, “I’m afraid the real Reinette might have just arrived.”

Jonathan spun around in his chair and Rose followed the path of his eyes. The woman sniping at the maître d’ was a striking blonde, dressed in a chic, expensive-looking pantsuit. She was holding a blue lily and peering around the dining room.

Rose’s heart plummeted. She would never be able to compete with such a beautiful, sophisticated woman. What would a genius like Jonathan Noble ever want with a chav from an estate in Peckham, when he could have the likes of Reinette? She picked up her handbag and swept her blue rose into it. “Thanks for being so nice, Jonathan, but it seems your date has arrived.” She offered him a tight smile as she stood to leave.

“What? What? No, no, no! Please stay… Rose Tyler.” Her name rolled deliciously off his tongue again and he begged her with big, sad, puppy-dog eyes. And then there was his delectable, pouting lower lip… oh, wouldn’t she just love to kiss that lip?

“I… I can’t. It’s not right. I mean she’s so… you know… and I’m not...”

“Please? Rose? I was enjoying talking to you; really, properly enjoying it!”

“Yeah?”

“Yup,” he assured her with a little impatient nod. “Sit, please.”

Rose hesitated.

“Please.”

“Oh, all right!” If this lovely man wanted to finish this date with her, who was she to argue. They really had been getting along very well, after all. That energy between them when they’d held hands… she’d felt a connection with him like nothing she’d never experienced  before. A delightful shiver ran down her spine at the memory.

“By the way,” Jonathan asked as she settled herself again, “what made you think I was Adam? Was it the tie?”

“Yeah…”

“It’s just you mentioned it when I first arrived.”

“Oh, right,” Rose laughed. “Well, you obviously were looking for the flower too… but you – I mean he – told me he’d be wearing a tie with blue flowers on it. And there you were: tie with blue flowers. The two clues together…”

“Pure coincidence.” He winked. “I’d even venture to call it serendipitous, and I don’t generally believe in luck.”

“Oh, you don’t even know me yet.” Rose flashed him a toothy grin. “I could bring you nothing but misfortune, you never know.”

He dragged his gaze up from where the tip of her tongue teased him from the corner of her smile to meet her eyes. “Oh no, Rose Tyler, you have already saved me from a fate worse than death.” He nodded to Reinette who was currently flouncing through the restaurant, probably looking for him.

Rose bit her lip, stifling yet another giggle. “I haven’t saved you yet. Look out! She’s headed this way.”

“Oh, if I believe in one thing, I believe in you.” He reached over the table to squeeze her hand. “You’ll save me. You are my lucky pants.”

“Your what?” Unable to contain herself any longer, she burst into a full belly-laugh, but she gulped it back quickly as Reinette swept up to their table.

“Excuse me?” Reinette spoke with a light but haughty French accent and gave Rose a critical once-over before turning her attention to Jonathan. “Are you Jonathan Noble?”

Jonathan offered the woman a perplexed frown. “You must be mistaken. My name is… erm…” he scrubbed at the back of his neck, “…Adam.”

Reinette pursed her lips, arching a perfectly shaped eyebrow at him. “So, this means nothing to you, then?” With a flourish she showed him the lily.

“Oh, weeell, it’s a lovely flower… but, no…”

Reinette’s narrowed gaze flicked between the two of them, and Rose offered her a polite smile. With a harrumph, she moved away from their table to continue her search.

“Dodged that bullet!” Jonathan told Rose.

“Well, at least you didn’t get stood up.” Rose rolled her eyes, wondering what had happened to the real Adam.

“His loss. And my good fortune! See? You are my lucky pants.”

She shook her head. “You’re daft, you are! I guess we should take a look at these menus, yeah?”

He spent a few seconds flipping through the pages of the menu, then he sighed. “Actually… I know the wine is lovely – overtones of bananas and all – but since neither of us chose this restaurant, what do you say we pay for the wine and find somewhere else to eat. That is, if you want?”

Rose breathed a sigh of relief. “I know a really great pub not far from here that’s a little more my scene. They brew their own and they make the best fish and chips. I want chips.”

“Me too! Sounds brilliant. Shall we?”

Standing, she nodded fervently, and he threw some bills on the table to cover the cost of the wine, then offered her his elbow. She blushed, accepting his arm.

“Allons-y!” he chirped.

As they made their way to the maître d’ to offer their apologies, Reinette stormed up to them. “You lied to me! You are Jonathan Noble.” Her beautiful face was contorted in fury and she pointed adamantly at his shoes. “You told me you’d be wearing Converse with your… ahem…” she curled her lip, “...suit.”

“Weeell…” Jonathan’s shoulders tensed, and Rose could only hold her breath, waiting to see how he would respond. He flourished the arm that wasn’t linked with hers. “You got me! I admit. I lied. It seems there was a case of mistaken identity, two blind dates that got muddled up, and weeeell… Rose and I rather hit it off.” He was going for the honest approach, and Rose was quietly relieved.

Reinette, however, was livid! “Ridiculous!”

“I’m sorry,” Rose added, feeling the need to back Jonathan up. “He really did think I was you. We both had a blue flower, you see…”

Reinette snarled at Rose, then whipped around to face Jonathan. “I do not get… stood up! I insist you have dinner with me!”

Rose was distracted from Jonathan’s terse response by the insistent buzzing of her mobile with multiple incoming texts. She dropped his arm and scrambled in her handbag, finally finding the phone at the very bottom. The screen was lit up with no fewer than five notifications from Adam. It seemed he was running rather late, but told Rose, in no uncertain terms, that he expected her to wait for him.

“I’m worth the wait,” read his final text, followed by winky and aubergine emojis.

Rose rolled her eyes and fought her gag reflex. There was no bloody way she was going to wait for that tosser. And she was going to be having a few sharp words with Shareen about her (and her boyfriend’s) concept of what her ideal date looked like.

As it turned out, Rose thought as her eyes settled fondly on Jonathan, she had a pretty good picture of exactly what her ideal date looked like. And unfortunately, right now, he wasn’t faring well in his battle with Reinette. It was time for her to rescue him one more time.

“Tell ya what, Reinette,” she cut into the other woman’s rant, “a young man named Adam Mitchell is on his way here… right now. He’ll be wearing a tie with blue flowers and he’ll be expecting his date to have one of these...” She pulled the blue rose from her handbag and thrust it at the stunned Reinette. “Oh, and I don’t think he believes anyone could ever stand him up either, so you should get along famously.” 

With that, she slipped her hand into Jonathan’s, and as one, they turned toward the door and pushed it open. As they burst onto the pavement, they nearly knocked over a dark-haired young man, wearing a tie with gaudy blue flowers all over it.

“Oi!” he barked as they sputtered half-hearted apologies and hurried along the pavement.

“Was that…?” Jonathan started.

“Adam?” Rose finished for him. “Yeah, I think it must have been.” Their eyes met and they erupted into laughter and looked back over their shoulders to find Reinette and (presumably) Adam fuming in the doorway of the restaurant.

Gripping Jonathan’s hand tighter, Rose grinned up at him. “Run!” she shouted.

“Oh, yes!” he cheered as they took off at a sprint.

As she ran hand in hand with Jonathan, Rose felt as though she had something to look forward to for the first time in a long time. She had walked into Révélations dreading the evening ahead, but a simple mix-up had turned her blind date into a matter of pure blind luck. Now she was running toward a future full of promise and opportunity, a future she rather suspected Jonathan Noble would be a significant part of. 

She grinned. It was going to be fantastic.

[meowhawkk]

why do you complain about america?

1. bcuz i have many american friends who I care very much for and worry about due to the general tense and messy state of the US right now. it’s not as bad as people online generalise, it’s not the apocalypse, but in comparison to the UK and EU, such an international superpower could do so so much better for its people. i complain out of concern, and if i could change it I would, but a lotta people turn their nose up at me bcuz of that

2. a lot of social media, and media as a whole, is american-centric. I am far more educated on american politics than I am on UK/EU politics. I could not tell you a thing about UK poltics besides like.... brexit happening i guess??? there was outrage about a sausage roll in greggs a few years ago bcuz 90% of britain is old people who hate everything..........????? i just don’t follow it all that much and i’m not super invested in UK politics or politicians (or politics in general, if i’m bein real, I talk about it frequently yes but I wouldn’t say i’m political. i have opinions and like, whatever, thats it fhsjkdf)

3. i really do just enjoy complaining sometimes and if I see something that frustrates me I Must have a moan about it. that’s just Me. i’m sure this is relatable . but I’m not doing it to say i’m better or my countries better bcuz I’m not 5 years old on the playground sayin my dads stronger than yours yknow

tldr: i am not whinging about the US simply bcuz i want to rub it in the faces of those who have suffered at the hands of authority, that I have it so much better as someone from The Middle Class Across The Atlantic TM. i do this out of concern and when a lot of social media and media in general is american, it’s hard not to pick up on these things and critic what i think is right or wrong based on what I was brought up with. especially when things that would be insane anywhere else is held up as a good thing in american culture

i can see why it seems like I’m stepping out of line and I probably do come across as just another pretentious wanker who’s just whinging about the US bcuz I’m British And Much Better Than Those American Slobs (which is a joke, american’s aren’t). but my reasons are genuine and this question kinda struck me and made me think so here it is.

[hungry-like-virginia-woolf]

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here.

[wolfcomicreviews]

on the one hand, there’s nothing more pretentious then whinging over amateur internet comics maybe 50 whole people have read before

but on the other hand, crit is helpful and it sparks interesting discussion among those amateur comicers

but does it all have to be about wolves? we’ll see

[torreygazette]

Music Review: The Highwomen

Few debut albums in recent memory have been received with such critical fanfare as the Highwomen’s self-titled effort, and for good reason. Brandi Carlile, Amanda Shires, Maren Morris, and Natalie Hemby each have considerable songwriting and performing talents, and together they create a number of terrific songs that have you realizing what a supergroup of Loretta, Dolly, Patsy, and Emmylou might have sounded like. And with Dave Cobb at the mixing board, whose recent production credits include Chris Stapleton’s Traveller, Jason Isbell’s Southeastern, and Prine’s The Tree of Forgiveness, The Highwomen manages to pay musical homage to outlaw country without being overcome by nostalgia. No small feat.

Morris leads the women in singing “Loose Change” as the singer stands up for her value to a lover who has long since taken her for granted; Morris’s blending of emotional vulnerability and resilience still has me surprised this isn’t a Dolly cover. And “Crowded Table,” with its images of hospitality and welcome, is wonderfully crafted by all four Highwoman singing around a crowded mic. Hemby’s “Don’t Call Me” is a classic country rocker and “Heaven Is a Honky Tonk” makes something written by Ray LaMontagne actually sound fun. 

But these are the true peaks of the album, and I find myself skipping the title track and “Redesigning Women” to get to them. That’s because the Highwomen have adopted a supergroup identity fundamentally derivative of the famous Highwaymen outfit of Cash, Willie, Kris, and Waylon. That move requires songwriting decisions to support it, and these tedious songs end up distracting from the very real talent on display elsewhere on the record. The album feels strained at times because the Highwomen are trying to simultaneously make a name for themselves while adopting a male group’s name and ethos. And the effort fails—perhaps not for the moment, but I doubt that this debut album will match the durability of the Cash/Nelson/Kristofferson/Jennings debut effort.

I realize this is something of a female Ghostbusters take and so I should explain myself. After all, I enjoyed the female Ghostbusters and thought it had some great moments.  Ghostbusters had the advantage of a tried-and-true concept, an obvious plot, and some terrific actresses delivering laughs via one-line zingers and rib-splitting slapstick scenes. In my view, a lot of the criticism was just whinging. So what makes this album any different? Unlike a prefabricated narrative, a record is like a blank canvas; it offers artists the ability to address anything. Given that wide range of possibilities, what do you write about? What do you sing about? For The Highwomen, the answer is often contemporary political or social commentary too often reliant on the acceptable preferences of the moment.

The album’s title track exchanges the Highwaymen’s highwayman, sailor, dam builder, and astronaut for a refugee, a Salem witch-healer, a Freedom Rider, and a preacher; and if the lyrics weren’t direct enough, a new fifth verse is there to provide the moral insights that you might have been too obtuse to infer. “Redesigning Women,” another critically popular track, provides an anthem for the late-capitalist female who successfully manages a professional career, full care of the household, and Joanna Gaines-level home renovations. “Redesigning” deploys these images, which impose real burdens on both homemakers and professional women, without any interesting engagement, and ends up reifying these expectations when challenging them would have been more interesting, lyrically and morally. These tracks, and others on the album, don’t strike me as particularly brave lyrical efforts. Instead, many of these purported outlaw songs are written for a critical and popular audience that is already guaranteed to approve of them.

The Highwomen didn’t invent this kind of overwrought, hyper-relevant lyricism, though. Rather, their album is affected by something I’ve heard on other recent country albums. Jason Isbell’s latest efforts, both individually and with the 400 Unit, have suffered from the same didactic approach to songwriting that I find perplexing for an artist who wrote “Outfit” and “Decoration Day” a few days after he got out of diapers. Country music has a rich history of anthems and stories, with heroes and villains, but the legendary albums that have come out of Tennessee have rarely been so on-the-nose with moral instruction, even when singers dusted off their hymnals to record a Gospel album. This didactic turn from some of country music’s new legends has me reaching for a paragraph about a new kind of honky-tonk version of Socialist Realism, but I’ll spare the reader for now. After all, we still have Prine.

I would expect we have more of these kinds of albums headed our way. The broadly shared cultural understandings (good or bad) that had allowed singers to focus on the key elements of county aesthetics—lyrical narratives or songs of loss joined by tasteful Telecaster arrangements—have disappeared. In their absence, artists seek to fill the gap by alloying old musical forms with instruction in the new morality, whether it’s the celebration of political causes du jour of “Highwomen” or the lesbian clap-back track “If She Ever Leaves Me.” This tedious combination of aesthetics, ethics, and indeed religion will often feel pretentious, disjointed, and worse—boring.

None of this means that the album is unlistenable or unenjoyable. Aside from a handful of tracks that have been lauded by professional critics, it’s a good album, and on the whole a great first effort. While I might not return to listen through this album completely, some songs will stick with me and I’m glad for that. But I imagine I’ll be satisfied with the songs and heroines the Highwomen themselves love; if the Highwomen release another record I’ll lift the needle off Don’t Come Home a Drinkin’ (With Lovin’ on Your Mind) and give it a listen.