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anemoiawithatouchofobsession · 19 days ago

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Something different from my usual content! But hey, I listen to new music too. Which means, I listen to rap. What a shocker! Lmao. Anyways, I've been interested in Megan Thee Stallion for a long time ever since Th0t shit and Body came out, and I was one of the people bumping "HISS" until it hit #1. Even after that too... but yeah. Anyways. To the point- Megan dropped a new album! Megan act 2. And i thought... I want to listen to it in full and just give my thoughts. I liked around half of the album last time - my favourites were Mamushi, Otaku Hot Girl, B.A.S., Moody Girl and Accent - but this time I'm hoping for more bops from Meg!

Track one starting off strong as heck! Not only is the beat nostalgic, but Meg just SLIDES. Like, it's the same flows and cadences that we know from Megan, but that's what fits on the song and I really love the beat. I also love how she shows her Houston roots and her people! This could have been a banger in the summer - eventhough Mamushi did that already - but I would have lived to bump this alongside Not Like Us. It's breezy, braggadocious, very very quotable, and super enjoyable. 8.5/10

OH BANKROLL ON THE BEAT This is the HISS of this album. Hiss episode 2! She is going to have Nicki in another spiral this time even with the direct imitation of her voice. I live how Megan disses tbh. I HAVE to look the lyrics up just to bask in the lyrics. Like, I JUST KNOW Megan put so much of her old Tina snow persona in it - 9/10

Another strong beat and this time it's for all the trash boys in her Megan's life! Yep. GIRLS DONT CHASE BOYS! Oh the last two songs were pure anger and energy, this is a bit more "fun" but still serious. In the Act 1 album she branched into more other chill genres and went into her comfort zone, but she brought in so so much energy in her beats this time. It's crazy. - 8/10

OHOOOO Goodies by Ciara! It was the number one song in the US when I was born... that's funny! I haven't looked into her because I am yet to familiarize myself with her songs... but on this song, she does sound really good and really grooved on the beat. Until now, we've been on a streak of really strong and loud beats with very energetic lyrics, let's see how the rest goes! - 7/10

I don't recognize the sample if there is one, but the singing voice caught me really off guard. Is it Megan's? Like... the autotune is really throwing me off, she could have easily gotten a vocal feature but somehow the vocal parts aren't really doing it for me - 4/10

Ooooh this brings me back to the 2018 trap era! The piano beats and all that. Megan has a more slower flow that I really like. The beat is super hot. Like... idk it makes me feel *things*. Yep girl. You're making gangsters and girls blush for sure! Aaaallll i would have needed is another verse - 7.5/10

This is the fabled TWICE remix of Mamushi - and I'm not FULLY on board. Mamushi grew on me after some time, and I'm sure this will too. I like the second part of Megan's new verse and the first part of TWICE's verse with Jihyo and Nayeon. Jeongyeon and Dahyun's verses fell pretty flat in delivery - I needed more energy to support the brag! Chaeyoung's part should have been moved directly after Nayeon and shoudl have been delivered with a bit more energy! Like... girls! Where's the "TWICE" shout? Tzuyu was almost not even there, but she held up. And, obviously Mina, Sana and Momo on the chorus did their best. Overall, I felt that Jihyo and Nayeon really shone. - 7/10

Okay WHATTT??? This is a wild af beat. Like... GODDAMNN MEGAN IS ANGRYYYY and the rock/metal beat with the guitars is... damn. Loud. I can only imagine how much the rock girlies will love this. This is a really damn good crossover and this MUST go hard in the concert. I don't know who Spiritbox is but seems like they're a rock artist? But this is a newer style for Megan too and I'm definitely intrigued. - 7.5/10

Ooh this is giving 2020 Megan! Like... her lyrics and the flows! This also falls pretty short tbh I would have loved more of the beat. But she is mad throughout the entire album and I love the vibes it gives the album! - 7/10

HEY HEY ITS THE 808s! Old school boom bap beat and some fun lyrics about a baddie falling in love. But I'm the grand look of the album, this is kinda fun and breezy but not really memorable. 6/10

#megan thee stallion #meg thee stallion #rap #New album #New rap #Female rap #Meg vs Nicki #Hotties #Rap album review #Flo Milli #New release #Spotify

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clarajohnson · 10 months ago

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the magicians s2e7

STOP IGNORING ME STOP IGNORING ME YOU PUSSY !!!!!!

you will know exactly what i'm going to say i'm going to say it until she goes away. i love you niffin alice.

one of these dummies is gonna call the brain police and you've got priors!

Evil Things Inside of Me That Used to Be Alice

SOOO fucking interesting, their conversation on "boxing her up" because alice is right! he IS trapping her! the first time i watched this show i was truly TRULY so angry at him for this. when he says "or you could be quiet and you could let me try and solve this" like my god the man never lets anything go! it's so unhealthy and like NOW i don't blame him because he's my best friend but the first time around i could only think of it as selfish and sinister and controlling.

the world's foremost expert on all things me... an all timer quote. god what a quotable scene!

i'm not bloodthirsty i just wanna be free :-( sorry but she's so hot if she was bloodthirsty i'd still do what she wanted

julia's hair is so nice in this scene

i love you korean knife magicians i really love you so much sometimes this show really just charms me

BANK HEIST !!!!!!!!! one of my favorite moments in this show

GOOD BECAUSE I DON'T margo marry me

sometimes i think about how many plots are running in any given scene/episode/season of this show and i swear i could pass out like who remembered ember shitting in the wellspring except tick pickwick did !!!!!

also love the magic-seeing lenses in this show that's always been charming to me. same with the mann reveal but i like the little lenses more.

when they kill off the haxenpaxen it feels to me like they were like okay we can't keep track of all this. which must have been a difficult decision for the magicians showrunners.

that poor girl is ~fucked!~

yeah to circle back to the one million concurrent plots i like that q's plot for the time being is "liberate the being of pure chaotic energy that looks like my girlfriend which is trapped in the tattoo on my back" in the grand scheme of things here it's kind of a minor issue lol

raise your hand if she's the reason that you fucking exploded in this life!

my best friend in the world does crazy shit and doesn't listen to me and like he probably means jules but unfortunately it's true of literally every character on this show

q is a remarkably good friend very attentive very concerned

help us rob a bank oh my god yes

love the anthropomorphic books also. fun throughline.

kady and penny have crazy fucking chemistry CRAZY chemistry

THERE'S OUR LITTLE KING. oh my god ohhhhh my god

margo's hair is sooo so so good.

aw i love that eliot didn't know margo had robbed a bank. it's so obviously a device so she can walk them through the security procedures because he would absolutely know that within like a month of them knowing each other but it's so cute.

ohhhh margo's little two-piece outfit. i'm not gonna look it up but i'm pretty sure this was from 2016 and i know this simply because i wore a two-piece dress to my high school winter formal. it was a dark fucking time.

yeah pass i like air >:-(

kady could've had her own show there's so much going on with her. and you know what? i'm not ashamed to say it. underutilized in fic.

alice had the bedroom of a precocious seven-year-old daughter of a single mother in a 2009 dramedy. where the wild things are ass bedroom.

return of the best bitches !!!!!!

brakebills must have some CRAZY fucking wards you ever think about it?

"oh nut up it's just a finger"

penny and kady grow up as though q did not get that finger in an orifice he was perfectly fine with

margo is so excited to coordinate a bank heist she is the number one girl in the world

remarkably extraordinarily fake bees i have to admire it

q and his FUCKING inability to take a sweater off

penny not touching the floor stresses me out SO badly. toe on the floor. (penny voice) god damn it.

love the security guards in love

the wrecking ball is a weapon of peace :'-)

(cuntiest voice in the world) oh well, rest in peace penny

i understand his reasoning for not telling anyone about niffin alice in his head but if i was q i would've been immediately telling everyone like that's not the shit you keep inside

"i've always been good at math" i would never believe that

q's saddest little "oh no :-o" this heist has everything !!!!

once again i feel like horomancy only becomes a big tricky thing later in the series because jules invents a time machine within like an afternoon. maybe two days.

ohhhh the fucking dokkaebi stress me out

first of all el taking a fatal injury for q :-( second of all KADY FUCKING DECKING THE BATTLE MAGICIAN !!!!! third of all q struggling to leave even the golem oh this gentle little guy who is in love with eliot waugh

somebody find out how they did julia's lashes i'm jealous

#GREAT ep glad to be back #the magicians #unauthorized magicians rewatch #text

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boreal-sea · 2 years ago

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A radfem argument that I would like to spend some time discussing is the idea that trans people "reinforce gender roles/stereotypes", or that we "reinforce gender" itself, and therefore we are reinforcing the patriarchy.o it to "prove" she was a "real woman".

To act like trans people, who come in a huge variety of presentations, genders, and sexes, are "reinforcing the gender binary / gender stereotypes / the patriarchy" shows a complete lack of understanding of who trans people are and what being trans is. It simplifies the trans experience to something binary and conforming, when many trans people exist outside the gender binary entirely and do not conform to any gender expectations whatsoever. From the trans side of things, it seems crazy anyone would ever accuse us of these things. We see every day how we are breaking out of the gender binary and defying gendered stereotypes.

But through the discussions I’ve had on here, I can see where some people get this idea from. For example, trans people often talk about the experiences we had that opened our eyes to the fact that we were trans. If one simplifies the trans experience down to moments like this with no further context, it can look like we are reinforcing the gender binary.

"I first thought I might’ve been trans when I tried on men's clothes for the first time and felt euphoria".

From a narrow point of view, this looks like the trans man is saying "wearing men's clothes makes you a man, and women cannot like wearing men's clothes". That is obviously not what trans people are saying. Trans folks are saying, "this incident was part of what made me aware I was transgender, but it is not the whole picture, and my gender is far more complex than my clothing preference”.

Being trans is not just about clothing or aesthetics, just how being butch is not just about clothing. Being butch means so much more to me than just my clothes, and that goes for all butches. I have seen butches describe butchness as a sort of gender identity all on its own. Some feel it is woman-adjacent; some butches are fully cis; some are butch and trans. It's a blurry label, and that's part of why I love it. Some butches go on T, too – and I’m one of them.

Another claim I'll see is folks trying to say that "trans people only transition because they think they can't do XYZ as a man/woman, so they must switch their gender to participate".

This is absolute nonsense, and if you talked to a trans person for longer than two seconds you'd realize this. Like in my case, I did my most macho thing (joining the Navy) while I was still a woman. I'm not on T because I want to do masculine things; I did them already! Me taking T after getting out of the Navy sort of throws that whole argument out the window.

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I know binary trans people who completely pass and conform to gendered stereotypes are highly visible in media. And if that's your only exposure to trans people, then I get why you might think trans people as a whole "uphold gender stereotypes". But that is a tiny minority of who we are.

And furthermore, there's the fact that some of those trans people were forced to conform to gender roles to be classified as trans to access the care they needed. Many trans elders talk about how, if they’d had the language we have today, and the choices we have today, they would not have gone for a binary transition. So, to use these folks against the trans community is incredibly harmful.

Gender non-conformance and transness go hand-in-hand. Many of us are GNC. You need to listen to us, beyond the quips and the short quotable sentences that you can twist to make us look like we’re upholding gender roles, because when you actually listen and see who we are and what we do, you’ll realize we are actively breaking down gender roles every single day. We are active participants in feminism's fight against gender stereotypes!

We are gender liberators.

#trans #transgender #transgender 101 #anti radfem #anti terf #intersectional feminism #gender liberation

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pb-dot · 1 year ago

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Shag & Scoob

Every once in a while I will delude myself into thinking the internet can't surprise me anymore. It's not that it's a less wild and wacky place than it was in my youth, although the frontier days are certainly over, I've just seen more things now. I was wrapped in such a blanket of hubris when I came across the webcomic titled Shag & Scoob and Friends, let me tell you I was once again wrong. The internet has out-stranged my wildest dreams yet again.

The most fascinating thing about Shag & Scoob is undoubtedly how the series has rapidly evolved. It starts as this purposefully shitty gag-a-day format featuring Shaggy and Scooby from Scooby doo that isn't quite Sweet Bro & Hella Jeff-level, but certainly can see that exercise in metatextual foreshadowing and oddly quotable dialog pretty clearly from its level. A storyline eventually coalesces as our two go on a rambling amble with a clearly stoned Kermit The Frog that takes them to a seemingly abandoned underground laboratory where the party gets split up by plot-convenient Horrors.

This is where the story goes what is medically known as "off the fucking chain." Our heroes encounter a menagerie of cartoon characters, most of which seem to know the pair already, and a menacingly grody Mickey Mouse who definitely is up to something.

What follows is a series of escalating reveals. The cartoon characters are aliens who broadcast the cartoons they're based on (well, that are based on them in this setting I suppose) as an olive branch to earth, being watched and known by humans gave the toons specific themed superpowers somewhere between a Jojo stand and a HeroAca quirk, Scoob used to be an alien general before he lost his memory, Scoob is frenemies with Bugs Bunny who is seriously badass, the cartoons are at war with the martians who use an evil edgy version of their superpowers, oh yes there are martians I forgot to mention, and it just keeps going. Trust me when I say I have not even begun to mention all the intensely anime shit that happens in this story.

I will admit I initially kept with this thing mostly to see when the show ran out of crazy but cool fight anime tropes to have our goofy-looking protagonists experience first hand, but now I'm kind of into it? The characters arcs are following your typical anime formulas, but implemented with dexterity that has you going "about fucking TIME" rather than the bored, sarcastic "wow, how unexpected."

It also helps that there's a strong horror bent to the proceedings. I never thought, for example, Miss Bellum from Power Puff Girls could be quite as terrifying as she appears in this series, but by jove she a fresh new nightmare. It also makes for an interesting way of pacing the anime fight shenanigans as new foes are either disturbing abominations who are terrifyingly strong, or Just Dudes, which we all know to be the scariest thing in a battle anime.

I should also mention the series seem to be on some sort of hiatus as the last upload was in December 2022. I hope it returns one day, but for now, enjoy the gloriously genuine battle anime madness.

#shag and scoob #webcomic #things I read that I swear is real and not something I made up #good stuff

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tilbageidanmark · 2 months ago

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MOVIES I WATCHED THIS WEEK (#194):

4 MORE CZECHOSLOVAK NEW WAVE CLASSICS:

🍿 I never heard of Juraj Herz THE CREMATOR (1969) before, and now it had became my favorite New Wave dark-dark comedy from there. What a moody, creepy and unique take of the rise of fascism. It reminded me of DM Thomas 'The white hotel', Bertolucci's 'The Conformist', and other upsetting takes on the 1930's. The parable of manager of a Prague Crematorium as he descends into madness, is philosophical, macabre, and horrifying. Highly recommended! 9/10.

🍿 THE JUNK SHOP (1965) was that Juraj Herz's first film, another bizarre potpourri of odd characters and unsettling story. Surrealistically absurd.

🍿 JOSEPH KILIAN (1963) is a mildly-surreal, mildly-Kafkaesque allegory about an unnamed man who's looking for the elusive party comrade Kilian, "Joseph K", supposedly to tell him that somebody important had died. Wandering in Kafka's own city of Prague, he impulsively rents a lethargic cat, but when he comes back the next day to return it, the shop is no longer there, and nobody remembers it ever was. He goes from one bureaucratic office to another looking for his 'Godot' as well as a solution to what is happening, but neither he nor us finds an explanation.

🍿 "Excuse me, but we are not here for hats..."

I KILLED EINSTEIN, GENTLEMEN (1970), my 3rd slapstick comedy by Oldřich Lipský (after the highly innovative 'Happy End' and 'Lemonade Joe'!). With a dadaist and creative futuristic premise (In 1999, women become infertile and start growing beards, so they send a crazy professor in a time machine to 1911, to kill young Albert Einstein, so that he won't develop what later becomes the G-Bomb (?!), but it could be so much better. More 'Barbarella' than '2001'. Just like the other influential Czechoslovakian saga 'Ikarie XB 1' (Or 'Voyage to the End of the Universe’ as it was called in American), the science-fiction was stupid, and it didn't work for me. 2/10.

Watch it for the scene at 9:30, where the time travelers use a literal "Selfie Stick", to snap a photo of themselves, before they embark on their trip!

(I was going to add the 2018 Indian documentary 'CzechMate: In Search of Jiří Menzel' to the list, but at 7.5 hours it will have to wait for another week!)

🍿

First watch: RED BEARD, Kurosawa's 1965 masterpiece. A 3-hour long classic epic about dignity and kindness among the down-trodden. Beautifully shot with classic Dostoevsky depth. This was the 16th and last collaboration with Toshiro Mifune, who got pissed that the production took two years to finish. All the women here were very beautiful. (Screenshot Above).

🍿

2 MID-CAREER DE NERO RE-WATCHES:

🍿 “Why are you unpopular with the Chicago Police Department?"

No matter how many dozens of times or how often I've seen peak "Buddy comedy" MIDNIGHT RUN, I never tire of it. It's the perfect genre film for me, with 100% quotable dialogue, the amazing 'Alonzo Mosely, FBI', Danny Elfman's iconic score, the powerful emotional core of lost family right in the middle of all the fun, and the impeccable script, which apparently went though a lot of improvisation to create this immaculate movie. ♻️. 10/10 again.

"See you in the next life."

🍿 Extra: HOT DOGS FOR GAUGUIN (1972) was director Martin Brest's very first film. Starving young photographer Danny DeVito plans on blowing up The Statue of Liberty, so that he can become rich and famous by capturing it on film. Brest made it as a student film at NYU, and that's exactly how good it is. Surprisingly, it was later selected for preservation by the National Film Registry! 2/10.

🍿 KING OF COMEDY, a cringey parody of celebrity stalking, obsessive fan culture and network television. Psychopaths Rupert Pupkin and Sandra Bernhard, who both fail to distinguish between reality and fantasy, are so awkward and embarrassing that following their delusional story is creepy & unpleasant. ♻️.

🍿

2 DOCUMENTARIES ABOUT 2 DIFFERENT FILMMAKERS:

🍿 I probably only seen one movie [Andrei Konchalovsky's 'Runaway Train'], among the hundreds made by Israeli producer-director Menahem Golan. His crude, low-brow action B-movies from the 70's and 80's were not my cup of tea.

The light biography GOLAN: A FAREWELL TO MR. CINEMA was made by a British admirer, and is more of a trip down memory lane, depicting the 83-year-old ex-mogul, semi-retired in Jaffa, talking about his past glories, and still trying to sign Al Pacino via fax to another Canon Films-style action movie.

🍿 There's probably no Venn diagram for cinephiles that includes both Golan and Robert Bresson. AU HASARD BRESSON (1967) was a German documentary about the making of his heartbreaking film 'Mouchette'. It's been 3 years - I should watch it again.

🍿

2 TECHNICAL LECTURES (ON SUBJECTS I KNOW LITTLE ABOUT):

🍿 “Never never never take the first No”.

FUTURE POSSIBILITIES: DATA, HARDWARE, SOFTWARE AND PEOPLE (And Part two) was a famous lecture given to a group of NSA data scientists in 1982. The lecturer was renown mathematician and rear admiral Grace ("Grandma COBOL") Hopper, and the lecture was unavailable until recently. It's as inspiring and entertaining as any current TED Talk.

🍿 FUTURE IS SCARY is a recent (secret) talk that ex-Google Eric Schmidt gave at Stanford about the future of Artificial Intelligence.

🍿

2 WORLD WAR 2 PROPAGANDA FILMS:

🍿 THE BATTLE OF SAN PIETRO (1945) was a war documentary made by John Huston, about a fierce battle on the Italian front, which resulted in 1,200 allied casualties. Hemingway-wannabe Huston claimed that it was shot at close range as the actual fighting went on all around them.

🍿 EDUCATION FOR DEATH (1943) was a Disney anti-Nazi animation, one of 32 propaganda shorts it made for the "Office of War Information" during the war. It's like Peter Pan, but with Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels.

🍿

2 ANIMATIONS BY CANADIAN SAND ARTIST CAROLINE LEAF:

🍿 THE STREET (1976), based on a story by Mordecai Richler, is a wonderful memoir of a Jewish boy from Montreal about the time his whole family was waiting for the sickly matriarch to die. 8/10.

🍿 Another literary adaptation, Kafka's THE METAMORPHOSIS OF MR. SAMSA is also painted on glass. Kafkaesque, claustrophobic, nightmarish. [*Female Director*]

🍿

4 SHORTS:

🍿 Francis Ford Coppola posted on his Letterboxd account a list of the 15 films that inspired 'Megalopolis'. The earliest one was the first screen adaptation of epic BEN HUR from 1907. OK....

🍿 Only a fragment remained of VÄRMLÄNDINGARNA (1910). It was directed by Ebba Lindkvist, the first female Swedish film director, and one of the earliest woman directors in the world. [*Female Director*]

🍿 OMNIBUS (1992), an award-winning French film, about a commuter who boarded the express train by mistake, and must get off between stations. (From a good list of all the Oscar winning Short films).

🍿 THE TURK SHOP (2017), an uncomfortable incident at a modern Swedish office, where a new employee uses the wrong phrase, to everybody's minor embarrassment. [*Female Director*]

🍿

LEAP YEAR (2010), a cloyingly annoying rom-com with (cute but annoying) redhead Amy Adams in Ireland. A skin-deep Hallmark exercise full of 100% romantic cliches and repeated tropes. The scene of their first kiss was lovely though. 1/10.

🍿

(ALL MY FILM REVIEWS - HERE).

#movies #red beard #akira kurosawa #japanese cinema

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getmemymicroscope · 10 months ago

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In the span of 24 hours, I've started - and given up on - Indian Police Force, season 3 of Arrow, Killer Soup, and A Christmas Carol Goes Wrong. What this means for me, I have no idea - I gave up on the first 3 shows first, which I chalked up to both "maybe I need a movie instead of a TV show" and "not enough comedy," but then Christmas Carol Goes Wrong (a 1-hour long comedy movie or show, depending where you look apparently) just annoyed me more than it made me laugh too. Stuck, I guess.

For some reason, after all that, I decided to turn on this movie - knowing full well that my mind seems to just not be into things right now (maybe it is jetlag, or maybe it is just me?). And, as expected - it's graphic, and crude, and way out there, psychologically speaking.

Of course, at this point, most people know about "the first rule of fight club..." and the twist that is coming regarding Tyler Durden.

But really, what stands out is just how ... weird ... this movie is. I mean, David Fincher doesn't exactly make straight-forward movies, anyways, but this one really gets odd. And when you know the twist that is coming, allowing you to watch the whole movie in a completely different light than if you didn't know, it becomes even more odd.

Like sure, maybe he's actually beating himself up and talking to himself and imagining himself watching speeches that he's actually giving. But, like, and especially in that final fight, when we see the security camera footage as well - how the hell is Durden pulling him by the collar? Like, he cannot be doing that to himself.

I'm just not sure how this would work as a "hallucinations" sort of psychological thing - split personalities, maybe more so; though, if we're being honest, it almost feels like a mix of the two, given that he's clearly seeing Durden all the time, but also given that he travels as Durden without realizing it. Also, whichever one it is - for that part of him to suddenly have that much power over so many people is crazy. And how does nobody ever point out that he's talking to himself, or something along those lines?

There is a lot to this movie - quotables, the philosophy that Pitt's character has and spouts at various points throughout, the absolute absurdity of all of our characters - that I'm just too tired to even really think about right now (jetlag?). There's no denying this is an interesting story that is well acted (also - Edward Norton just takes weird, weird roles all the time, it seems).

#GMMM does movies #movieblr #movies

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crimsun-n-clover · 1 year ago

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went to see barbie today with maggie, daisy, alex, and ruth.

maggie and i cried dude it was AMAZING

a lot of it was maggie either pointing at me or alex for the characters doing something stupid that even SLIGHTLY related to us

alex was almost late which had the other three losing their goddamn MINDS. pacing and saying his name trying to summon him n shit. maggie said “he’s probably pulled over with a double cheeseburger smoking a cigarette and listening to van halen” mag i know you don’t know i smoke but that sounds like the best day of my life. instead of shuttling you three around i could’ve been splitting a pack of camels at burger king with the guy i’m tied for as biggest van halen fan? yes please.

anyways it was such a good movie. very funny, amazing comedic timing, very relevant, whimsical, earnest, charming, all that. it feels like an old cult classic you find out about when you’re in middle school that changes your life. it’s like rocky horror but socially acceptable. represents an oppressed community as the majority of the characters and anyone who isn’t included in that group is treated as the outsiders for once, is so warm and silly and there’s things you can still laugh at every time you watch, and a little bit at the end that you didn’t expect to make you cry so hard.

it’s very quotable and so sweet and genuine. all the doll characters really do seem like they’re being controlled by idealistic children.

i just know that maggie and i are gonna refer to my trailer as stevie’s mojo dojo casa house.

we got a lot of photos of us in our feminine doll outfits and we looked really cool. i was basically in a relaxed version of my homecoming look. black v neck dress, bigass eyeliner, beehive hair and nicely done bangs.

we went to waffle house after but alex had to go home right after the movie. i’m not as close to ruth as maggie is so it was a little weird but i still get along with her just fine. again, i knew everyone on the shift and my friends thought it was crazy.

after waffle house i took daisy home and the rest of us went to fuck around in walmart. i got the last two metallica cds i was missing and tried not to cry. there’s a photo of me in the mini arcade at the front of the store holding them while on the tiny kids merry go round waiting for ruth to finish something.

mag had a breakdown when she got home over not being able to fully be herself around daisy and ruth, which i completely understand. she’s the designated funny friend who no one bothers to check in on or take seriously. she kept saying “well maybe i’m just wrong because ruth just goes to therapy and writes it in her journal she doesn’t hold grudges or make enemies like we do stevie” and that’s when i told her that she’s a main character of my diary blog so hey. me fuckin too. ruth is just a lame christian who doesn’t get fucked over as much as we do.

today was a good day. but still, i had to do so much to avoid my parents. wake up at a certain time, leave when i hear dad turn on the shower, and not come home until they went out to dinner. this is my fucking house man.

i think i had other things to say but my brain is FRIED right now. too much hairspray and eggos or something i guess.

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supercooladieu · 3 years ago

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Pilot

Eek! The first episode. Full disclosure- the first season is my absolute favorite and always will be. I just love it. It always takes me back. The opening song “There She Goes” transports me to the earliest naught and makes me incredibly nostalgic for my childhood. Ugggggghhhhhh I love it.

The way Luke looks at Lorelai... 🥰💗💕 He’s feigning annoyance but you know he’s harboring this longtime, intense crush. 🔥🔥🔥 Whew! How he can be so smitten with her while she wears that hat is confounding but nonetheless... I wish a man would look at me like that.

Luke’s baseball cap has an American flag on it which is weird.

The Independence Inn! I love the Independence Inn so much more than the Dragonfly. Sorry, not sorry. Drella was such a waste of a character. I love Alex Borstein but I am so glad that Melissa McCarthy got the role of Sookie and I honestly think Drella was completely unnecessary.

I really love the way Michel and Lorelai play off one another in this scene. Their chemistry is so good, I wish they would have kept writing Michel’s character this way instead of the direction they ultimately went in. They really did the snooty, obnoxious Frenchman thing to death but he could have been so much more.

This might be an unpopular opinion but I actually like Rory’s oversized sweater look (or as Lorelai put it, her muumuu).

LOL I cannot picture Lane listening to Eminem. Crazy Carrie is the Stars Hollow High English teacher.

I know this has been said by many people before but it’s ridiculous that Sookie is supposed to be this amazing, experienced chef but she is such a disaster in the kitchen. The way she chops those peppers? Where are her knife skills?? She has the audacity to correct her bilingual staff on their English grammar but has absolutely no idea how to safely operate a kitchen when she is supposedly this incredible cook? What a joke. She starts a fire on the range and the other chef just puts a lid over it but doesn’t turn off the burner? I know, I know. It’s supposed to be humorous, but still...

One of Michel’s best, most relatable and most quotable scenes. “People are particularly stupid today. I can’t talk to any more of them.” I literally feel this in my soul every day at work.

There are so many plants in Lorelai’s house! She doesn’t seem like the type that can keep houseplants alive. How are Lorelai and Sookie so put together and responsible? They’re both single women in their early thirties and they both own their own homes. How is that possible? Was it just because this was pre-2008 housing crisis? I am so jealous of Lorelai’s house.

Emily looks 10 years older in the pilot than she does in every subsequent episode. How did she age in reverse? Oh, Richard 💔 He’s kind of a garbage person throughout much of the series but he has those few redeeming moments which somehow more than make up for all the shitty things he does. I can't help but love him. And miss him. I know I’m getting old AF because I just caught myself thinking that he looks handsome in this episode 😱 He’s just so tall and masculine. His cheeky, smug grin when he says, “So, you need money.” 😍 Okay, I’m officially creeping myself out.

I love first season Rory + Dean. They’re so cute. Teenagers do not talk to each other like that but it’s completely endearing even if it’s not 100% believable. Dean is so open and vulnerable with Rory right off the bat. No 16-year-old boy talks like that to the girl he has a crush on. Not any of the ones I’ve ever encountered, anyway.

Lorelai and Rory are both eating salads at Luke’s. Weird! Oh, okay Luke brought them burgers. That’s more like it. But I feel like they definitely would’ve forgone the salads altogether in later episodes. The money Lorelai puts on the table to pay for the food falls on the floor and neither of them bother to pick it up. I always find it weird that Rory/Lorelai and Lane don’t acknowledge each other when they pass one another on the street. Not a nod, not a wave, not a half-smirk, nothing.

So when Lorelai realizes that Rory doesn’t want to go to Chilton because of a boy, Lorelai is understandably emotional. However, she literally says, “You are me,” and then proceeds to try and control Rory- doing exactly what Emily would have done in that situation. She doesn’t try and understand things from Rory’s perspective outside of how the situation could go badly. I honestly would have probably acted the same way, but Lorelai prides herself on being this “cool mom” who does things differently from her own controlling, suffocating mother. However, when she’s faced with Rory having a difference of opinion and acting like a moody teenager for once in her life, Lorelai’s first reaction is to “play the mom card” and fault Rory for falling for a boy. She basically tells Rory that she has no say in the matter and will be going to Chilton regardless of how she feels rather than talking things through. Again, I know she is just reacting to a situation in which she feels like the rug was pulled out from under her, but it’s funny to me that she reacts in the same way I would expect Emily to. And even though she acknowledges how similar she and Rory are, Lorelai reacts in a way that she would have totally resented if she were in Rory’s place.

I always thought it was weirdly out of character for Richard to fall asleep at the dinner table. He wasn’t that old- he would’ve only been 57 at that point.

Emily and Lorelai’s fight is so frustrating because I can understand where both were coming from. The two of them would have really benefitted from therapy. If Tony Soprano was doing it, why couldn’t the Gilmores?

I think Luke looks less attractive when he’s clean shaven and dressed up. It’s too jarring. He’s one of the very few men that look better to me with a baseball cap on.

Oh, the song they play at the end of the episode while it zooms out on Lorelai and Rory in Luke’s window from outside! Absolute perfection! Perfect opening song, perfect closing song. Great music choices all around in this episode.

Such a good pilot! I really, truly love it. I’ve watched it a million times and I could watch it a million more. 10/10.

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5ivebyfive · 2 years ago

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OKAY. EXPLANATION ON THE RICKI LAKE/BRENDAN FRAISER TWEET:

Mrs. Wintorbourbe starring them and Shirley McClaine, amazing 90s movie, underrated!!

Connie is an 18 year old girl (unbelievably played by Ricki Lake, but who cares, it so great) who gets pregnant and thrown out by the baby daddy. She ends up on a train and meets this guy, Hugh (Brendan Fraiser) and his new, pregnant wife. Train accident. Mix up. Hugh and his wife die and Connie is mistaken for the wife and taken in by the guy’s rich family (Shirley McClaine as his mother, Brendan Fraiser as his twin brother, and the AMAZING Paco as their..butler? Driver? All of the above? He’s just amaaaazing). But she just goes with it cause she needs a place to stay, and much craziness ensues.

That’s all of the plot I will tell. The above all happens in about 10 minutes so I’m not really spoiling anything. But it’s one of those movies that’s so quotable and fun. Plus Brendan Fraiserx2.

It’s just such a fun, funny movie. I suggest EVERYONE watches it. HBOmax or wherever.

BUT her tweeting that about him is priceless and sweet and I retweeted her and she liked my tweet!

If you’ve seen it, or you watch it, come yell about it in my asks. I promise, you’ll enjoy the ride.

#mrs. winterbourne tag #rose recs #rose recs movies #watching it now!!#unless I pass out from hunger bc I’m too out of it to make food

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adamwatchesmovies · 3 years ago

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Miami Connection (1987)

Miami Connection contains everything you want in a cult film; an action movie so awesome and yet so poorly put together it becomes one of the most entertaining experiences you will ever have. It only gets better with each viewing.

Mark (Y.K. Kim, the film's martial arts consultant, casting director, producer, and co-story writer), John (Vincent Hirsch), Tom (Angelo Jannoti), Jim (Maurice Smith), and Jack (Joseph Diamond) are orphaned black belt university students living in the same apartment. Together, they are Dragon Sound, “a new dimension in rock and roll”. They’re so awesome their success puts other bands out of business. This is where their troubles begin. When their disgruntled musical rivals team up with a gang of thugs led by Jeff (William Ergle) whose sister Jane (Kathy Collier) just started dating one of the band members, he brings in a group of motorcycle-riding ninjas to help take down Dragon Sound once and for all.

A masterpiece takes time, dedication, passion, effort, and a lot of talent. The people who made Miami Connection had all these qualities… except for the talent. The plot is ridiculous; merely an excuse to tie together action sequences, ninja battles, and Dragon Sound performances. The acting is wooden. The dialogue is laughable. The special effects are cheesy, the violence is gratuitous, and the choreography is lackluster. Many of the characters could have been cut out completely and it wouldn’t have changed a thing. All of them are paper-thin. The unbelievably good soundtrack and the escalation of absurdity make it a riot. The whole thing feels like an episode of Denver the Last Dinosaur or Jem and the Holograms if you took out the dinosaur and the holograms and replaced it with karate. Lots and lots of karate.

Just a few scenes in, you’ll be giddy with excitement. You can’t make a film this entertaining without pouring your heart and soul into it. That earnestness is palpable. This is a labor of love that didn’t turn out to be very good, but it’s got everything you want in a film that’s so terrible it’s entertaining. You’ll lose track of the multitude of deliciously quotable lines. When someone asks you what your favorite scene was, will you go with the argument between two managers that goes from 0 to 200 in less than six seconds? How about the maniacal ninja leader who seems a little bit too eager to shed blood? I’ve got to go with the musical numbers - half the musicians are just pretending to play between throwing karate kicks in the air.

The script is memorable (not to be confused with polished) and the way the actors deliver their lines matches. Inconsequential moments become gems of absolute hilarity. A scene of mail being opened is so amazing the good people at Drafthouse films put it on their poster. I can’t do it justice, you’ve just got to see it for yourself.

For the soundtrack alone, Miami Connection is worth seeing. If you don't "get" why people enjoy bad movies, you will after this one. This is a great party movie, a quotable comedy, a bonkers action film, a rock musical with crazy lyrics, and an experience you won’t soon forget. (On Blu-ray, July 2, 2016)

#MiamiConnection #Movies #films #MovieReviews #FilmReviews #actionMovies #ActionFilms #sobadit'sgood #RichardPark #Y.K.Kim #VincentHirsch #WilliamErgle #SiyungJo #KathieCollier #JosephDiamond #MauriceSmith #1987movies #1987films

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spectralarchers · 4 years ago

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I wanna know about the rant now 😅

Okay, so, since both you and @ohmystarsy messaged me about it, I’m gonna try and type it out again. It’s based on this post by @engulfes:

[Picture ID: A tumblr post by user @engulfes, quote: i’ve just been thinking about how english and americans online expect everyone to know their literature and poetry, their ~classics~ when literally every other country in the world also has an incredible and interesting literary history that is probably more relevant to it’s own citizens, like i’m not saying you shouldn’t branch out to intl lit because i think everyone should but that includes english first language speakers who have never picked up a translated book in their lives, unquote. The post has, at time of writing this, 13,669 notes. End Picture ID].

The rant I started writing was about how this is also about Modern Pop Culture and general American and/or English popular culture, and the sort of expectation that English-speaking online communities have that everyone will share their specific set of cultural standards.

I only saw The Princess Bride like... three years ago? When I was 25 years old? Mean Girls was a movie someone force fed me in 2017 because I told them I hadn’t seen it before. I still, to this day, being aged 27 years old, have not seen Home Alone, Die Hard, any of the Back to the Future movies, the old Ghostbusters movies (or I may have when I was a child, but I don’t remember ANYTHING about them), I haven’t seen Grease, I haven’t seen Saturday Night Fever, I haven’t even seen Top Gun or Dirty Dancing. I haven’t seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show nor The Labyrinth.

The whole sort of expectation that every single person online ever has seen these is very American (and to a certain extent, British)-centric, because it assumes that everyone, everywhere, had the same childhood and/or education growing up.

I was disappointed when I watched the Princess Bride because the memes and the general American-centric pop culture had made it out to be extremely quotable (and I mean, it is...) but... having grown up in a country that wasn’t English speaking just meant that all the quotables things I say in my day to day life aren’t from those movies specifically (and expecting everyone on the internet to understand the reference from Mean Girls and/or any of the aforementioned movies is English speaking-centric).

I grew up in France, which means that the movies I grew up with and revisit again, and again, and again are things like Rrrrrrr!, Astérix & Obélix: Mission Cléopatre, Brice de Nice, La Tour Montparnasse Infernale - and those are just the “newer” ones! Then there’s Le Dîner de Con, L’Aile ou la Cuisse, Les Bronzés, Les Bronzés Font du Ski, La Carioca, Les Visiteurs, etc. etc. AND THOSE ARE JUST THE COMEDIES! I feel utterly desperate when I’m in a movie theater in Denmark, filled with the urge to yell “Ca va être tout noir!” because I KNOW that if I do that in France, at least one person will respond with “Ta gueule!”. Same goes when someone happens to say “Bonne situation” because it triggers my will to quote the “Je ne pense pas qu’il y ait de bonne ou de mauvaise situation...”-monologue from Mission Cléopatre.

I still don’t get the whole Bob Ross thing, but that’s probably because I had Art Attack on screen instead. Television show wise, I didn’t watch Sesame Street and it took me a long time to figure out who the different characters were, but I did grow up with the Minikeums, and being a Danish citizen as well, with Kaj & Andrea, Anna & Lotte and a whole bunch of other puppets (Vip & Viktor still give me nightmares to this day).

Culturally, the things that make me who I am - and I am a third culture kid, so that makes it even more difficult - is all of the above mentioned things but also the Guignols, Le Plus Grand Cabaret du Monde, NRJ Music Awards, Johnny Hallyday (yes, him), and more still that I’m forgetting right now, that American and British people have absolutely zero idea about. This isn’t a critic or to point fingers, but assuming that all non-English speaking people need to know the exact same cultural references as you is harmful to you and to others, because it diminishes the culture of other countries and assumes that yours is better. (It probably isn’t).

I still feel behind on my own Danish culture because I didn’t grow up in Denmark (I still have issues differentiating the Skagen-painters, I still haven’t seen Matador, I still don’t think that Anders Mattesen is funny, I don’t get the Cirkus Revy culture, I still haven’t seen any Olsen Banden movies that I remember of, etc.), and it’s a full time job of having to learn the entire culture of a country you’re living in WHILE still entertaining and keeping up to date with the French culture (I read the French television program magazine Télé 7 Jours every single week so that I don’t get completely lost, and I try to watch Secrets d’Histoire when I can, and...), WHILE ALSO having to keep up with the whole English speaking craziness of the whole world and feeling like being one or two steps behind with getting up to date on everything because HOLY SHIT.

Assuming that everyone knows the US classics (I still haven’t read The Great Gatsby, and I have no intention of doing so) or the UK classics (Pride & Prejudice? Emma? Wuthering Heights?) means that you assume there are no other classics that have to be read. Same goes with some poetry - I’ll take Arthur Rimbaud’s poetry over Tennyson any day, but it doesn’t mean that Tennyson’s poetry was bad (it just isn’t “my” poetry, if that makes sense).

I adore Candide by Voltaire, and I had to analyze more Apollinaire poems that I liked in high school, and reading Germinal by Victor Hugo was a pain, but somehow, those are still things I consider “my” classics. My “French classes” in French school, which are the equivalent to English in English schools, offered analysis of the French cultural landscape reaching back centuries and going forward too.

Like I said, I’m a third culture kid and the only one person who will ever understand the potential myriad references I make across several languages is my sister, who grew up in the same environment as me (we often joke that if we were ever in a TV show to analyze our cultural language, they’d need at French, a Danish and an English-speaking analyst to understand what we’re referencing half of the time).

But, again, assuming or even more, EXPECTING that the US and UK English speaking cultural things that make up your culture are what should or can make up other people’s cultures is harmful and it erases the culture of the world, but also of minorities in your own countries (thinking specifically of Native American cultures, as well as more specific Irish and Scottish cultures for the British Isles), etc.

And yet, I’m still privileged myself because I *have* a shitton of culture to look into, that has been preserved and is available to me to look at, and a lot of French classics have been translated (The Phantom of the Opera AND Les Misérables are the first things that pop into my mind because holy shit) into English and are readily available, the same goes to poetry, etc. Same goes for a lot of Danish stuff as well. A lot of culture around the world and throughout history was actively killed and erased specifically as part of genocidal colonialism (and I am acutely aware that both France and Denmark are former colonialist empires and still bear that mark on their own cultures).

I think I’ve lost the point of the rant, but I just wanted to specific that the “classics” aspect of culture isn’t the only aspect that falls under the above text post. It’s all of the cultural landscape that does so.

PS: I have seen quite a lot of movies like Life of Brian and The Holy Grail by the Monty Pythons though, and I have seen Strange Brew with Bob & Doug McKenzie because *something something Canadian friends* but I doubt that those qualify for the specific line of thought presented above, lol.

#scienceoftheidiot #ohmystarsy #politics #thoughts #I honestly lost track of what my point was #but... *waves hand*#something

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vyylet · 4 years ago

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Personal Recommendations Logic - Under Pressure Review

Logic finally reaches his full potential on Under Pressure.

To me at least, Logic’s career has always been one of missed potential. Ever since Under Pressure and the Young Sinatra mixtapes, Logic has always demonstrated the pen game and instrumental pallet to make a great record. He also has some truly amazing songs that I find myself coming back to often, such as Growing Pains III, Dear God, Soul Food, Everybody, the list goes on. However, on every record Logic’s released up until this point, he always seems to be stuck in mediocrity that keeps him from releasing a great album. He had an especially bad 2019, coming off of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, easily the worst rap album of his entire career, and Supermarket, a record I haven’t listened to yet, solely because of the reviews of this album making it sound so terrible that I don’t want to stomach even a second of it. Coming into this record, I wasn’t really sure what to think. I’m always interested and hopeful for every subsequent Logic release, however at this point I’ve kind of come accustomed to be disappointed. However, the album’s title being a clear homage to his first album, as well as him bringing back legendary producer No I.D. into the fray seemed to signal that this album wouldn’t be like most of the other albums that Logic has released up until this point.

Thankfully, I can say that this album does not disappoint, and actually blew my expectations out of the water. While this certainly isn’t the most revolutionary hip hop album of all time, its tracklist is filled with great song after great song. The appeal of this album is shown perfectly on the first track, No Pressure Intro, with its crispy boom bap drums, jazzy chords, and a nice flow and energy that Logic brings to the table. Logic’s pen game has also taken a step up since his past few records, with some funny and memorable quotables like “Gangsters put that heat to your head like a hairdresser”, and “On my Rosa Parks, in the back writin' like B-Rabbit”.

All of these things combined make this track extremely enjoyable, and it continues onto the next track, Hit My Line. While I don’t think Logic’s melodic chorus on this track is all that stand-out, everything else about the track is great. The production is grand and gorgeous, with some heavy drums and warped piano samples, mixed with some grand synth bass hits at some points. The verses are also another part of the track that I love, with Logic rapping about just general injustices in the world, pleading to God to help solve and fix these issues. While this certainly isn’t the most revolutionary song topic, it’s made up for by some great lyricism, as well as Logic’s verse almost being a little anthemic with how passionate he sounds.

The track GP4 is one that I have sort of grown to love over time. The song is a clear homage to the track Elevators by OutKast, with many elements of the track such as instrumental and the hook clearly being heavily inspired by that song. While I don’t love the fact that this song is pretty much a rip off of the OutKast track, in a vacuum I can’t help but love the song. Logic displays a lot of personality and penmanship on this song, with some stand-out moments, like the pretty funny Erykah Badu impression, as well as that Biggie Kick In the Door line, which completely blew my mind when I finally found out what it meant.

Next on the album, the track Celebration is a fun banger, with Logic sounding confident as hell, and a beat that genuinely sounds like a Celebration. I also really love the track Open Mic//Aquarius III, with a nice beat and a performance that sounds kind of like a quick freestyle. One small part of the track that I really love is the way Logic’s voice is mixed, where Logic genuinely sounds like he’s performing at an open mic night.. After that part of the track, the Aquarius III part of the song starts, which is a fun, celebratory way to end the song, with some great production to boot.

The track Soul Food II is another highlight, taking the beat from the first soul food with some great bars from Logic, talking about how he’s changed as an artist and as a person after the release of the first Soul Food song. My favorite part of the track is probably the flip of the first line on the first Soul Food, where instead of saying “Goddamn, goddamn, conversations with legends, Crazy how one day your idols can turn into your brethren”, he says “Goddamn, goddamn, conversations with people, Crazy how one day, the legends forget that they equal”

The second half of the song is Logic talking about this whole overarching story that’s been going on across his albums. While it may be cool to someone who’s super invested in that part of Logic’s career to hear this, I never much cared for the whole story aspect of his albums, so I didn’t really get much out of it. Still, though, Logic has a great delivery and flow throughout that entire part, and the beat is nice enough to the point where I can still thoroughly enjoy it.

The track Perfect is a fun banger in the tracklist, with some trap-style hi hats, loud kicks, and 808 cowbell melodies. Logic sounds zany, funny, and confident on the track, and my only real complaint about the song is that it’s only 1:40.

After that track, we get two more lowkey cuts, man i is and DadBod. The track man i is is a track that I have mixed feelings about. While I do appreciate the instrumental on the song, the song feels a bit long-winded, with the horn sections taking up an extremely long amount of time. Additionally, I feel like Logic could’ve done a little bit better with the lyrics here. While I most certainly like them, it doesn’t really seem like Logic truly hits any super salient realization about who he is, and the track kind of devolves into rambling at a certain point. The track DadBod is a track that I like much more. The drums on this track are probably my favorite part of the instrumental, as I just find the way they hit and all sound to be extremely satisfying. While the track has a painfully simple chord progression in the sample, it’s more than made up for by the catchy chorus on the song, as well as the lyrics on this song. While some might find the song a bit annoying, it’s rare to see someone like Logic admit how truly boring some aspects of his life are now that he is a dad, rapping about cleaning baby shit and complaining about the bad hotel wifi when he’s touring, and I find seeing this part of the song to be really admirable.

After those two tracks, there’s a much-needed pickup with the track 5 Hooks. While I think the song’s decent, I feel like there isn’t really all that much to the track. There’s not many quotables that I can remember from it, and while the beat is fine, it’s certainly not one of the best on the project.

The track Dark Place is honestly one of my favorites on the album. While the instrumental is very stark, I think Logic lays down one of his best verses on this song, talking about his mental health and a lot of things that are honestly really sad to hear. I really love the message of the song, admitting that you are sad and realizing that it’s ok- everyone gets sad from time to time.

After that is probably the worst track on the album, A2Z, which is an ABC rap. It’s one of the only songs on the album with an instrumental I genuinely dislike, and the lyrics aren’t all that impressive either.

The song Heard Em Say is another highlight on the album, with one of my favorite instrumentals. There’s a huge Kanye influence that I hear on this song, whether that be the drum pattern of the instrumental, or a lot of the inflections that Logic uses during his verses.

Overall, I’m really happy with this album. Do I think it’s going to convince any Logic haters to appreciate his music? No. Do I think this is going to go down as one of the greatest hip hop albums of all time? No. However, this is still a very quality release from an artist that has always had the potential to release something this good. It’s nice to see Logic happy in retirement, and I love this record lots. I don’t think he could have released a better sendoff to his career than this.

8.7/10

Favorite Tracks: No Pressure Intro, Hit My Line, GP4, Celebration, Open Mic//Aquarius III, Soul Food II, Perfect, DadBod, Dark Place, Heard Em Say

Least Fav Track: A2Z

#music blog #music #logic #no pressure #music review

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thephantomporg84 · 5 years ago

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Why is making fun of Vergil so much fun? I think it’s because unlike Dante, he takes himself way too seriously and doesn’t even realize how ridiculous he looks lol

Exactly this, imo. Lmao.

He also exists in a universe that is absolutely fucking off-the-shits ridiculous, complete with chainsaw motorcycles and literal blood-powered hell structures and flying whales, among other things, yet he remains dead serious, like he is the only person not in on the joke. And really, it’s a quality setup for his character, because it only gets funnier as the series goes on. We (as the player) are in on this, Dante is, Nero is, literally everyone else is, but he is not. It’s the same reason why Jotaro is ironically so funny in JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure despite being a very serious/no smiles/grumpy character that doesn’t even pose often — it’s a ridiculous world and he is the least ridiculous person in it.

Thinking about it in context: Nearly all of Vergil’s most quotable (and, surprise surprise, funniest) lines in DMC3 come before/after the first fight between him and Dante. And up until that point, Dante:

—has been stabbed multiple times, at once

—gotten incredibly upset over a pizza

—decides that the party was getting crazy (direct quote) and threw on his equivalent of a housecoat and slippers (untied boots, no shirt, jacket) to go beat his brother’s ass

—wacky wahoo’s his way all the way up the tower, trickstering and prop shredding and all but honking a fucking clown horn the whole time

—is shot point blank in the head during his ascension by an absolutely feral school girl who is still in uniform while storming the tower, and has procured a fucking bazooka from god-only-knows what kind of black market deal to presumably kill her father with, and basically chalks it up to: “eh, women, amiright? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯”

—gets his ass beat by the brother in question, who — and I cannot stress this enough — is wearing a cravat + sleeveless zip-up vest while simultaneously waxing philosophical and sounding like a dying kazoo.

—immediately runs back down the tower he just ascended and gets eaten by a flying goddamn whale, and we’re not even to the halfway mark yet.

—skip ahead some time later to DMC5, and the mood is literally Dante coming to terms with having to kill his absolute twat of a brother, for realsies this time, as he puts on his cowboy hat and revs his chainsaw motorcycle while letting out a wahoo or 90 for nostalgia’s sake.

So yeah. When you pull back and look at the series, it just makes Vergil’s entire personality that much funnier in the grand scheme of things. And I know I sound mean, I’m sure, but I genuinely do love it though. It’s some of the best unintentional comedy/meme-worthy content I’ve ever seen next to JoJo’s, and it’s completely my type of humor.

Also! Cropped/Awkward Vergil memes have been and will always be my kryptonite:

#in this house we bully vergil #because he needs it #devil may shitpost #anonymous #replies #dmc #devil may cry #dante #vergil #dmc dante #dmc vergil #dante sparda #vergil sparda #long post #humor

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chefjarredjarred · 4 years ago

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Anxiety. (excerpt)

People. “They're the worst,” Jerry once concurred with Elaine. And they are.

So I didn't really want a job as a verification specialist for a background check company, making a hundred phone calls a day to anywhere in the country, but there was a time when it was a job I needed; it was remote so I could do it from my living room, it supplemented my main income from cooking and barbacking, and I was allowed to adjust my own schedule around that other work and my Tuesday morning therapy sessions.

But Jesus Christ, the people: the combative, the confused, the cavalier, the crotchety; the mousy, the crazy, the stupid, the lazy; the disgruntled, the bitter, the hateful, the bossy; the scammers, the liars, the paranoid; the unintelligible, or, through no fault of their own, the foreign; the mouth breathers, the assholes; the fast food workers, who are always a grab bag. I got them all, every day. And just one nice old lady from Florida, Ms. Charlene.

I got the job in part by cherry-picking some of my old chef experience and molding it all up into a wad of passable bullshit in the interview. Not lies, you know, just bullshit. I sold the personal importance of always speaking concisely and effectively, and of remaining cool and courteous and logical even when being angrily berated by the most ignorant, disrespectful know-nothings. Okay, so that one tiny lie. I made no mention of smashing saucers, slinging sheet pans, or every chef's favorite, smiting servers. (But come on, FOH, y'all know when you're asking for it.) I gave no indication that my rage, anxiety, and feelings of undeserved victimhood and exhaustion were a nest of coiled snakes, something every person who has ever worked in a kitchen around me could sense. Do your job, leave the attitude outside the kitchen doors, and speak only of pith and pertinence during service. Don't fuck with me, don't get fanged.

A bartender I worked with for years once called me unapproachable. It was in the same breath that she called me a dick, proving that the robotic personality of feigned professionalism and phony positivity (every company has their Stepford Wives, don't they?) on which she prided herself—loathed by so many in the restaurant—could be cracked, and I loved that I had been the one to do it. But the part about being a dick wasn't a bold quotable. My being unapproachable became a favorite running joke for years, perverted and perpetuated by me. Y'all think I'm unapproachable? I am. Fuck off.

But that's truncated, for effect and time. Fuck off, I have a job to do, is the real, full statement, and a linchpin tenet of my style of cheffing. I don't need loud voices, loud noises, disrespect, emotional clouding, confusion, excuses, etc., or that irritable anxiety snake could be disturbed. “Just the facts, ma'am.” There's just no time for the extraneous.

Don't disrupt the flow of food.

That's the principle I emphasized in the interview, just folded into the bullshit wad that made it applicable to phoning idiotic, ornery strangers—and Ms. Charlene. Obviously, I had to omit the venom, violence, viciousness, the vitriol. There was already a tiny stumble in there when the interviewer asked if I would describe myself as an introvert, and I, being honest to a fault at the most inappropriate moments, confessed that I would.

“You do know what this job is, right?”

I actually didn't, right up until about two seconds before that question, but I recovered gracefully, explaining some crap about being able to turn on the smiles and pleasantries when I meant business, something like that.

Fake smiles. Ugh. God dammit. I actively campaign against them. A fake smile is the opposite of Fuck off, of the pith and pertinence, the order and efficiency I expected, of just the facts. It's a capitulation, a white flag.

You know what I absolutely hate more than people? The expectation that I'm obligated to give them a fake smile. It's a banner that says you're willing to accept the extraneous, the unexpected, that whatever they are about to say and the way they will say it has some compelling power over you, and that you have all the time in the world to stand there and graciously let it be unloaded onto you. That your anxiety is not there and not real.

That you are approachable.

Fake smiles are blood in the water. That's right, when it goes from snakes to sharks.

“What we always say here is 'Smile and dial!'”

It was a virtual interview, and he couldn't see or hear my feet double-kick-drumming the floor. But what he did hear and what I couldn't believe was the fake laugh I forced through my fake smile. Jesus, Jarred, you're escalating? Allowance is support. “Sure, sure,” I said, as if I were a lifelong brown-noser. You're a disgrace.

“If you can run a kitchen, I have no doubt that you can do this.”

I didn't either. That's misinformation, that anxiety is simply fear. I wasn't afraid I would fail (literally anyone, barring anxiety, can be a verification “specialist”). In fact, I was totally confident I could succeed...theoretically. He said it: If I could run a kitchen, I could do this. The things that worried me were the scheduling, sleeping, caffeinating, eating, speaking, putting on my fake personality with my fake smile, and juggling and maintaining it all every day without falter, without letting on that there was any internal difficulty. I worried not about my actual job performance, but how I might struggle to simultaneously perform and hide my character flaws, i.e. the stuff that I left hanging out in the open when I was a chef. Does that make any sense?

Anxiety, not fear.

So the job was simple, but not easy, and there was a lot to make an anxious person anxious: the people, of course; the never-ending flood of calls; the quick navigating of the system when someone backpedaled or said something inaccurate or swung their mood in an instant; the software glitches; the hold music. Every second of the workday, even your coffee-caused poop break, was timed and factored in to your production average. You were judged and graded by making a ton of calls and/or closing as many cases as you could, which sounds fine, but is actually decided by chance more than some mathematical guarantee. That angered me the most, watching my closes and “touches” tabulated throughout the day, working against each other, my percentage of success being stretched thinner and thinner as I piled up calls that became mere touches rather than closes. It was the opposite of what we really wanted, and the secret little opposite of what we were trained to believe. The pessimist in me knew that the given goals were just out of reach, of course, so we would unknowingly meet the real goals and feel worthless at the end of the day, like we hadn't done enough. The realist in me hated the pretending that we had any control over it. The fatalist in me knew that it didn't matter, but could not force the crippled, anxious existentialist in me to just shut the fuck up.

...Oh, there is no optimist in here, if you were waiting for it.

I knew the fatalist was right after a sweet, timid childcare worker put me on hold to find something useful for me, which would only be a different number or a different person or, if life were easy, the name of a recognized third party verification website. This was 10:40 in the morning, in my first hour of the workday that was already a little too unfruitful. I watched the timer tick away, and when she returned, she had found...an unrecognized third party verification website. That meant I had to type a message into our Teams chat to request a supervisor's review and approval to put the name of the website in the little box and move to the next call.

Eight minutes had now passed as I waited for an answer. I had let the worker, Taylor, hang up already so she could get her eyes back on what wild heathens she may have had under her watch. It was a personal rule of mine to never hold restaurant workers or childcare workers hostage on the phone, because their work was more important than mine. I thought about the time my mom came to pick me up from one of these daycare facilities, walking in at the same time as another little boy's father, together to catch the perfect and precise moment that I socked that boy right across his jaw with full force, superhero super-spinning into that punch in defiance of his superior strength and grip of my head as he had tried to slam my skull into a wooden shelf for a second time. We were bloody, snotty, and sweaty in the throes of killer instinct, but I still caught the looks of horror on our parents' faces. Why the fistfight happened, I don't remember, but how? Well, because someone who was supposed to be paying attention, wasn't. Kids will go feral and push the boulder on Piggy as soon as your back is turned. I let Taylor off the phone for that reason. I waited for a supervisor's response in the chat, watching the seconds count on and that first hour, and thus the rest of my day and any hope of average achievement, drift away from me. They told me the site was no good and I needed to call poor Taylor back and try again. I sighed, copied the number and clicked the button, explained to her what was happening, and with real politeness she placed me, again, on hold. She came back with a phone number but the same uncertainty.

But in the chat, a supervisor had offered another phone number, different from what I was now taking down on the call. I was urged to try that one instead, so I let Taylor go back to the children a final time, and made my third phone call of the case. An automated message finally pointed me to a recognized third party verification website, and gave the particular employer code needed to access it. The anxiety snake and the rage snake were waking and knotted. I clicked the Other Automated Method button...and the system skipped on to complete the case, without letting me input the website or the code. “No, hell no.” I backed up and tried again. Same result, the skip. I went back to the chat and explained, and typed “Can someone please help me before my head explodes” with no punctuation.

A supervisor called me, and I shared my screen with her. “Let's see what happ—Oh, the client put it on hold, so just exit. It doesn't matter.”

It doesn't matter.

11:01. One close, 13 touches. I was white hot.

The anxiety, the rage, the pessimism, realism, fatalism, the whole nest of snakes was awake and wiggling, tossing, tangling themselves up like a... Well, you know. Like a rubber-band ball. I violently ripped the headset off of me, pushing breath through my teeth like the snarling little Jarred who punched that stupid kid in the mouth in the daycare brawl. I thought about that famed image of the snake eating its tail, whatever it's called. I thought about quitting. I thought about how two days before, my therapist and I had tried to come up with a suitable and available grounding technique I could try to prevent this exact, inevitable moment, this kind of anxiety attack. I thought about telling her how I thought that I was failing at everything. You're a disappoi— Shut the fuck up, Jarred—

It doesn't matter? I thought about that, that every moment of the day was part of the calculation of my performance grade for something ultimately shrugged off. That I spent 20 fucking minutes wasting my fucking time to get something that doesn't fucking matter but earns for me a judgment as if it does fucking matter.

But I thought about how I needed that little bit of extra money, and the other reasons for seeking and taking the job. Breathe, Jarred.

And that was not an isolated incident. Every day I fought for the energy and will to tether myself with the headset, log in, and hear the first ring. It came immediately, every single morning. I'd close my eyes and siiiigh through that first ring, just before being snatched along and pummeled by the frenzy.

I tried earnestly the smile-and-dial one time. I felt like Nicolas Cage in one of those especially wacky scenes of Face/Off. A total psycho, unhinged.

The calls were recorded and scrutinized, for quality and legality, and a handful a month were sent back to me to review whatever I had done wrong, or what I could do better.

Ah, yes. So there was another itchy, irritating thread of anxiety even on the less violent days.

Do you ever hear your own recorded voice and you hate yourself and wish you had never been born? Yeah, me too. So I only ever listened to one call and that was enough of that. I didn't want to hear myself. That voice wasn't mine, it was some cartoon-like, nasally Billy Bob Thornton's voice, reverberating somewhere way up high in the sinuses.

A hundred calls a day is a lot of talking. I began obsessing over how I pronounce—among many other things—the number four. There were fours everywhere, embedded, like chocolate chips in cookie dough, throughout almost every case number, and in our callback number I had to recite on dozens of voicemails per day. I wondered if I could trust my own ears in hearing the way I would say it, or if in reality I sounded like I was four. Fohwuh. Every day I ran this mental gamut of self-critique and insult, concentrating insanely on the most minute and deliberate flicks and curls of my tongue and lips. Any word becomes weirdly unnatural when you pay such specific attention to it. But I put so much (too much) effort into working on a competent phone voice not only so I wouldn't sound like a jackass, but so I could be efficient in my work and thus keep up with the production quota. I needed 20 touches an hour, not 13, so I needed people to understand me so I could get in, get out, and get on the next call. My strategy was to try and emulate the radio voice of Christopher Kimball—polite, proper, pronounced, professional. In my dirty pajamas, sitting on a lumpy pillow on a hand-me-down office chair as it was clawed to pieces by my screaming cats, I wanted to sound like I was wearing a bow tie. Like I was in a real office without cats, with a real college degree framed proudly on the wall. Polished and prepared.

It's hard work, if you can imagine. I'm not a talker. I don't like strangers. They're unpredictable. Any unexpected wrench in the routine could prove how fragile the facade is, that I'm actually a wobbly stack of quivering, anxious gremlins pretending to be a presentable person in, I guess, an imaginary bow tie.

It's hard work, if you'll let me say that again. But I thought I was doing pretty well. I hadn't cussed anyone out and I hadn't hurled the computer through the window, at least.

Then one day I called an office in Shelby, North Carolina. A woman answered, lazily, and I stated my reason for calling. She just said, “Hold on,” dismissively, with no practiced professionalism whatsoever. There's a lot of that out there. A rare treat then it was when I spoke with anyone trying to exude the same level of maturity as I, during business hours. My Kimball voice was for your benefit, lady. You didn't care. I know this because instead of really putting me on hold, instead of pressing a button to leave me in that telephonic waiting area listening to one of those overused cheap songs, like the one with the incessant MIDI claps that makes my toes tense and my teeth clench and jarringly reminds me that the anxiety is always bang-bang-banging at the door of the closet I locked it in, instead of just conducting two seconds of mundane business like a normal goddamn person, this woman just set the phone down on her desk and, evidently sickened beyond composure, blurted to her coworker, “God, I hate when someone clears their throat while I'm on the phone with them.” I did?

There I was, exposed, a bunch of phlegmy gremlins, collapsing and scrambling. Instantly I remembered the time my dad and stepmom asked me if I was on some kind of drug, because I cleared my throat “a lot.” Yeah, I don't know what they were talking about either, but apparently this involuntary habit is remarkably frequent. And a hundred calls a day I was doing this. How many of these people find me disgusting, inhuman, or think I'm on drugs? How about people in everyday life? Do my friends mock me? Who taught you how to function, Jarred? My mind spiraled, the snakes squirmed and seethed.

The rest of the phone call was stiff and clumsy, tears welling like a porn star's while I silently packed down the coughs and chokes congesting behind whatever ball of bile bottlenecking at the back of my throat, because I should die right on the living room carpet, sacrificial and blue, lest I irk this absolute cuntbag's social sensitivities, gurgling grotesque and oozing disease.

But am I crazy or...ahem...is that just trivially fucking inoffensive? If I had frog squatted on my desk and—“Verify this, bitch!”—farted into a metal basin full of Cracker Barrel gravy, then sure, be mad. Slam the phone down. Say to the guy by the copier, “Why me?!” and vow to get me fired. But if a natural, nonchalant throat-clearing infuriates you enough to comment on it, you're honestly just an asshole. It's not a frog squat gravy fart, it's not a rude personal affront. It's somewhere way below open mouth chewing, there around unfortunate but necessary nose blowing. I'm gross, you're gross, we're all gross. Get over it, and then, Fuck off, I have a job to do.

I did briefly wonder if maybe she's an anxious person too, a gremlin, maybe her facade is as fragile as mine, but I don't think so, because her attitude when she answered my call had already indicated to me that she never dressed up in a fake bow tie. She thinks she's a normal person: reckless, careless, unprofessional. No phone tone, no Kimball timbre. And because of that, she gave me another thing to worry about, to nag at me, something uncontrollable that I'd be trying to temper, something unconsciously mechanical now made noticeable and manual and clumsy. Thanks.

I was just worried about my goofy voice.

If you're thinking that it's all just a little silly and ridiculously minuscule, then congratulations, you're one of those “normal” people, like Ms. Shelby North Carolina. You make our lives worse.

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