#the music that defined me

[wheresurboytonighthelookslikeenj]

its always funny when i remember hamilton was a big deal because i know about it rationally like i was into it as well. but so many people in the doctor who tag knowing jonathan groff primarily as king george still amuses me because he is in so many other things

[kindred-spirit-93]

the peoples princess!

@notsolonedesert ur lovely ctimene has graced my lecture notes <3!! no references we die like my final braincells lol

her sarcasm knows no bounds and odysseus' famous wits have ocassionally paled in comparison to his sisters many a time ;)

sassy lil sister ctimene please and thank you. also stubborn af. idk i need more of them being siblings and and how they grew alongside one another and now tease eachother over meals and reminisce during cold winter evenings childhood shenanigans and laugh boisterously together (they have the same laugh. and a dad sneeze TM) and how they reacted to each others firstborns and and and

[zytes]

7.15.23

[snixx]

nina salazar-roberts is such a beautiful case study in comphet and I genuinely think her arc deserves so more appreciation

[wdywpaul]

my day be so fine then boom i get the lyrics of bare a pop opera stuck in my head

[dadbastiandisaster]

What is it about Black Butler that sticks with you so much? Like, I read all of death note about the same time as I watched Black Butler for the first time, and much as I have boundless love for the series it just didn’t alter my brain chemistry on the same level as Black Butler did. I have a another friend who has broadly moved on from a lot of her old fandoms but is still in the kuro fandom. What is it about kuro?

[fullmoonfireball]

so funny that C-R-O-W-N-E-D is considered Magolor's theme way more than Welcome Your New Overlord is, bc in terms of the story that could not be further from the truth <3

[outeremissary]

🎸🚨🌹🍷for balthazar perhaps?

Sorry this is coming so late!!! My brain stopped working for a little while. Thank you for the ask and for your patience. :') Under a cut for length...

[prompt list]

🎸 (electric guitar) - What’s your character’s music taste like? Do they have one or two artists they play on repeat or do they have a varied and eclectic collection of music? Do they like mainstream artists or prefer underground musicians? What genres do they enjoy?

I'm going to be completely honest, I almost never feel confident what a modern AU version of one of my fantasy characters would be into and I somehow lost track of the only thing that ever made me think "yeah Balthazar would fuck with this." I will spend the next five months attempting to answer this question if I don't cut myself off at a point so. 😭 Sorry to say that I just don't know where his tastes would fall- I've had ideas really and truly all over the map over the years, from mostly into older industrial and kind of an asshole about it to someone who listens mostly to contemporary club dancepop. There must be some truth between these that's eluding me. Maybe the trouble is that to me it feels like he must be in some way or other a Music Guy but yours truly isn't a Music Guy, more just a guy who listens to music...

Idk. I'm sure he's heard Charli XCX. Whatever that means. Maybe I just think it would be kinda funny if he listened to what's on his own playlist. Don't sleep don't eat, just do it on repeat. Or whatever.

(Right before posting I DID remember I recently answered a similar question for Golarion- compensation?)

🚨 (siren) - What’s your character’s relationship with the law? Have they ever been arrested? What for? What are their opinions on law enforcement?

Balthazar's relationship with the law has been changed by becoming the law, but not as much as you might expect. Laws have always been more like "suggestions for other people to follow" to him- laws keep people in check, and taking advantage of people following them is what anyone smart would do. Besides, he understands only too well the ways that keeping people in check keeps the lowly down, and he desperately wants to keep himself from ending up at the bottom. As a ruler he's happy to make laws he doesn't intend to follow meant to shape the behavior of others and make it easier to impose his will on them with the pretext of enforcement- though to some degree he's also ambivalent about a lot of mundane rulemaking and content to allow advisors with more expertise figure out the policy for him to approve. And if it eventually inconveniences him, he'll find a way to go around it, causing more principled advisors and companions no end of despair (when and if they learn). It's a philosophy he shares with Jaethal, who he trusts to help him thread the needle to keep it all from appearing as the flagrant violation it is. His selfish caprice is also one of the places he does see eye to eye with Lander- perhaps disrespect for one's own established rules is the only solid foundation of their advisor relationship.

Balthazar has never been arrested himself, but he's had a lot of close encounters both while traveling and in his home city of Absalom. He grew up poor and spent a lot of time out in the city without his father, frequently occupied by work, around. Being a scruffy, unattended kid gets you a lot of questions from the corner guards when you linger a little too long in certain places or look too hard at something you're not able to buy. He was always good enough at playing meek and innocent to dodge real trouble- even when he had been a bit light fingered. Being an aasimar helped. Being an aasimar always helps at least a little. And that kind of sets the tone for his whole relationship with law enforcement up until the barony: he doesn't trust law enforcement, he doesn't expect it to be on his side, and he's always ready to wriggle out by finding a way to be a bystander or victim when unwelcome attention is on him. He's also happy to let others take the fall for him.

Of course, when it's his laws being enforced to his ends it's just another tool in his kit. He's a class traitor like that- although also acutely aware that it looks bad to be overzealous using it.

🌹 (rose) - What does your oc find attractive in other people? Are these traits found in their friends and/or romantic partners? Are they found in themselves?

(Disclaimer: I am asexual and attraction, especially to physical traits, is sometimes a challenge to imagine)

Physically, Balthazar enjoys toned, strong physiques on any gender. Someone who's well dressed and well spoken also stands out to him, although brazen confidence isn't necessarily compelling- he prefers a partner who's easily flustered and can be pushed around a bit. That's a lot of fun to do. Being pushed back on or talked over is generally a lot less enjoyable, although he's certainly put up with a lot of it in his life. He also does have something of thing for inexperienced partners. Something about the idea of innocence is catnip to him, and he loves playing the part of the worldly lover.

Very little of his preferences reflect aspects of himself; he likes people who are physically unlike him who are far more willing to be dominated than he is. At the same time, I think that perhaps he has an appreciation for people who challenge him that he hasn't fully acknowledged himself, and a certain fondness for steadfast characters who are passionate about what they believe in. An extension of liking people unlike himself, maybe. The emotional extension he's not willing to see.

It's not hard to see how a lot of his preferences map onto recent lovers he's had. Regongar is his type in many ways, although they have incompatible personalities and Balthazar found him far too high maintenance despite being a good time in bed. Tristian is clearly compelling from some angles (naive, inexperienced, easy to tease), but from others might be more challenging- they do push back on Balthazar quite a bit, demand an emotional earnesty from him that he usually isn't comfortable giving a partner, he's not especially comfortable with certain kinds of religiosity, and for a long time they were at frequently at odds and didn't really get along. (And in terms of Vio AU, Vio is physically attractive but really doesn't take being pushed around lying down. Challenging the idea that Balthazar is put off by being challenged...)

🍷 (wine) - Does your oc drink? What kind of alcohol do they enjoy? What are their drinking habits? What kind of drunk are they?

Balthazar drinks! Not as often or as hard as when he was younger and still spending time with people he is firmly no longer in contact with (some of whom died. unrelated, probably.), but the social drinking habit never left him. He likes going out for drinks with friends and acquaintances, or just having a glass of something with dinner. The Stolen Lands are slowly shaping up to not be the worst place to be out in, at least, even if some part of him badly misses the bars and clubs of Absalom he was once up all night in. He tries to avoid being drunk, but the fact is that he's a lightweight and he easily spills into tipsiness if he's not on his guard.

He enjoys fruity things and mixed drinks with interesting flavor profiles, but gravitates towards hard liquor. Brandy is his preference and comes with a sense of class in his mind that he enjoys, but he has a lingering near-nostalgia for the kind of cheap half a step from rubbing alcohol shit he used to do shots of with the other broke apprentices in the neighborhood. Overall, he's not as picky drinking as you might expect and there's a lot he can get down (even if it might not always stay down). He's drunk the goblin liquor with the poison toad in it. It's not even the worst thing he's had. Unfortunately.

When drunk, Balthazar is loud, flirty, confident, and far more honest than he ordinarily is. The "hold my drink and watch this" kind of confident. He's not really proud of it, but a lot of people find drunk Balthazar a lot of fun.

[an-theduckin]

Remembering the time I referenced fucking Hamilton in school

[damnable-bell]

Just some disconnected, inchoate and probably defensive thoughts on "HARD," the reaction to "HARD," and where it fits within SHINee's discography (written in bullet-point format, since I'm supposed to be working):

I'm not here to discipline anyone into liking the song; it's perfectly legitimate to feel disappointed by an artist embracing a sound you don't personally enjoy.

Having said that, I also tend to roll my eyes at knee-jerk dismissals of "fourth gen" music. Pop music changes, or else it stagnates. If I'm weighing a piece of music as a critic, and not just as an individual with strongly held generic and aesthetic preferences (which, again, require no defense), I can't begin and end by totaling up the number of chanted choruses and anti-drops—I mean, I can, it would just make me a very conservative and not particularly illuminating critic.

Other than excellent production, what stands out to me about "HARD" in opposition to any number of more po-faced recent boy group releases (cf. Kayla Beardslee on how too many boy groups right now "are obsessed with coming off as really cool") is how much fun the members are having in playing around with goofy fourth gen motifs. There's nothing ironic or parodic about it—they are, as a friend said, sincerely committed to the bit, but also clearly relishing in the ridiculousness of it all. I mean, consider the dick jokes.

Is "HARD" a good song? I think so. Is it a good SHINee song?Putting aside the question of whether "HARD" feels sonically distinct from other recent boy group releases (or how much), the underlying playfulness of it feels distinctly SHINee. In that sense, it reminds me of "LUCIFER," which also embraced a more hard-edged sound/aesthetic already popular in K-Pop at the time, but which still feels/felt distinctly SHINee in its flamboyance (see Occupied Territories' brilliant write-up).

[crimeronan]

why am i being asked about liking taylor swift suddenly.... did i somehow accidentally rb something that has vriscourse taycourse dogwhistles in it. guys i listen to cringe metal music and everyone hates giving me the aux cord on road trips i promise there's nothing for you to chew on here. i have as little opinion on this woman as i do on vriska.

[idliketobeatree]

babe are you okay? it's just that you made a character playlist and you put The Front Bottoms on the first track

[itsbrucey]

Brucey is doing another thing. Somebody stop her

Closeson Playlist in the works. Unsure where...I want to lean with it. But I'm trying to stay within the Dad-Rock / Classic Rock / Grunge territory???? BUT I ALSO FAILED AND THERES SOME....WEIRD OUTLIERS IN THERE I MAY REMOVE. I DONT KNOW OK.

Drop suggestions/tell me if something sucks real bad and I should take it out. Thumbs up

[xothemedia]

Jhené Aiko | “Define Me”

“in honor of Chilombo’s 4th anniversary, let’s take a Trip back in time with these unreleased visuals ✨” - @jheneaiko

[lady3clipse]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MIKU!!

I'm a day late, but I didn't plan on this lining up with Miku's birthday like I was just drawing her and bam her birthday was a day ago. Second drawing was the scrapped version that feels more stylized, I like the more 80/90s anime style of the first ^w^

[possumteeths]

I like fall out boy and patd as much as anyone else but theres a ~vibe~ to ppl who are still like batshit insane abt these groups who go out of their way to be like “im a cool adult i used to be emo” that i cant put my finger on