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ponysongbracket · 1 year

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MLP Song Tournament: Results of Round 1

Warning: Very long post. So many stats

Of the three biggest landslides, two of them were This Day Aria, with the reprise winning with 93.04% and the original winning with 95.85%.

The reprise's sweep is extra impressive considering that it went up against an actual song rather than a joke songlet.

The number one sweep, The Smile Song, won with a whopping 98.15%!!!

For context, this is a bigger sweep than Discord (Remix) [which eventually won] vs Discord's Puppet. This is bigger than Chris Pine vs Chris Pratt. This is bigger than the assassination of Julius Caesar. This is even bigger than Oscar Wilde vs Oscar de la Renta, the previous record holder for sweeps in my tournaments (and because that matchup and the Smile Song ended at around the same time, that record stood for about 10 minutes)

Now, going from the biggest sweep to the biggest opposite of a sweep: we had another tie! We Got This Together vs So Many Wonders.

This one got more votes than this blog's previous tie (Earnest vs On Wings of Moonlight)*

*If you remove my vote, the win margin for We Got This Together becomes 50.21%, which is still more than Rainbow Factory got against Anthropology and The Moon Rises.

The two next closest matches were Friendship Bound vs The Goof-Off (51.41%) and Pinkie's Singing Telegram Song vs Off to See the World (53.125%)

Speaking of the Singing Telegram, that was the only song that was originally put in the "Okay" Tier (fifth tier from the top, or second from the bottom), thus making it's defeat of Off to See the World (which was second tier from the top on a Movie song tier list) the biggest upset of the round. There were 9 upsets in total this round*

*technically Glass of Water beating Friends Are Always There For You was an upset too, but I am not counting it, as they were both in the tier "Wonderful Songs" (third from top) and it was entirely random that FaATfY was one seed above GoW. Since they really had the same ranking, I don't count it as an upset

One matchup wasn't a massive sweep, nor was it close, but it is interesting for a third reason. That being, the third option. B.B.B.F.F. vs The Heart Carol was the matchup that got the most Show results votes.

This was because it was reblogged by @todayontumblr, and as such was shown to a lot of people who don't care about MLP but do like pressing buttons.

Below is how many songs from each season entered the tournament, how many remain, and the percentage that moved on.

*Other refers to songs from Best Gift Ever, Rainbow Roadtrip, the Theme Song, and the song A Pony Kind of Christmas

Of the 131 songs, 67 moved on, or just over half. Seasons 2-5 all performed better than this, while season 1, the later seasons and most other media performed worse. I would guess this is due to Season 1 being full of songlets, and the later seasons and other media being less familiar. The exception to this is the Movie, which impressively won all but one match-up (and even then it was the third closest match)

Here is the above, but with specific episodes with a lot of songs

Aside from Rainbow Roadtrip and The Crystal Empire, musical episodes all performed better than half

Now here is the above, but with the character singing the song

Pinkie Pie actually held on better than I expected, considering how many of her songlets got swept. As there are a lot of Pinkie Pie songs, and multiple people provide her singing voice, here is a breakdown of just her Voice Actors

Shannon Chan-Kent: 15 | 9 (60%) Andrea Libman : 10 | 1 (10%) EileMonty : 1 | 0 (0%)

As you can see, Andrea Libman as Pinkie Pie mostly did the songlets that got swept, with the only song she sang remaining being The Fresh Princess of Friendship (though she also sang The Goof-Off, which came close to winning)

As for how my taste conforms to Tumblr's, I have 36 MLP songs saved to my Music folder, and of these, 29 made it to Round 2*

*2 of these songs, At the Gala and True True Friend, were given byes, and so could not have been eliminated. Also, in 2 matchups, I had saved both songs, so the possible range was 4-34

But how about how my 11-year-old self's taste conformed? They had 5 songs saved to their IC Recorder, and of those, 3 made it to Round 2*

*This is kind of cheating, because the fact that I had saved At the Gala and Babs Seed when I was 11 is literally part of the reason they were given byes. So the possible range was 2-5.

Round 2 Starts Today!

#my little pony #mlp #my little pony friendship is magic #mlp fim #mlp g4 #mlp songs #MLP Song Tournament #MLP Song Tournament announcements

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thedarkestgreys · 11 months

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tagged by both @stannisfactions and @theangrypomeranian 🖤🖤 thank you friends!

How many works do you have on AO3?

67 but something new is popping up for halloween

2. What's your total AO3 word count?

so it says 976,114 but 266,429 of those words are from @baratheonbrotherspresent group written co-op fics

3. What fandoms do you write for?

primarily Fexi/Euphoria right now. but i've also written fics for ASOIAF/GoT, Eternals, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, and Teen Wolf over the last near decade.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

your violent overnight rush (fexi) stages (jonsa) and i'll do anything you say (if you say it with your hands) (drukkari) slow hands (drukkari) and then a fic that i currently have hidden 😅

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

always! even if it's a quick TYSM FOR READING. i always appreciate when readers take the time to leave a comment, and i want to show my love back.

6. What's the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

i don't think i've written anything with an angsty ending tbh. yes, lots of angst in various fics, but i'm a happy ending girlie through and through.

7. What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

as stated above, im a happy ending girlie. but maybe my heart's gone double time if i had to choose.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

i haven't in a long time, but in the past yeah. like drove me away from a ship and shut down my interest in writing for like a solid year. it wasn't even about the writing, it was about the plot (a Sweet Home Alabama AU) and the comments were unnecessary (go read the wiki on the movie yall its not hard) and it just sucked lol. that was a hot minute ago though. we're good now.

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

hahahaha do i write smut???? i have an internal checklist of all the smutty things i haven't written yet that i want to give a go, so you could say that. (note: daddy kink is off the list and never to be seen from me again)

10. Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?

i do not! but i like to write a lot of AU's of different media.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

as far as i know of, no i haven't.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

i've had some offers in the past to have things translated back in the GoT days but i never gave the okay on it simply because it was a fic i never completed (ya girl used to get in over her head)

13. Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

technically the BBP fics are cowritten but we all did our own chapters following a basic outline of plot/storylines and worked around what other authors were posting. it was chaos and hilarious and the most fun i've ever had

14. What's your all-time favourite ship?

to write for? i'd have to say it's fexi, they unlocked a new level in my brain as an author. shout out to my favorite non-canon little crackship that could podrya though - i'll love you forever. to read? this is like asking someone to pick their favorite child. i've read so many incredible fics across a ton of different fandoms. but god i guess the ones i still seek out frequently is dasey and dramione. wouldn't say i have a favorite though?

15. What's a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

i really want to finish but the wolves came and went and i think i'm sitting on at least two chapters completed for it right now lol someday i'll sit down and finish writing the whole thing and get it posted.

16. What are your writing strengths?

plotting. world building. exposition. keeping characters in character. i've been told i'm good at writing big emotions too?

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

i've improved greatly but i still struggle with dialogue. 🙃

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

okay so. when i was writing slow hands as i got further into the story i really started describing the actual sign language being used by makkari and druig. hours of watching asl videos to pick out different words or phrases to translate. it was fun and it was hard work and i ended up with a whole new appreciation for asl. but it also felt important to really dig into describing the asl and i'm glad i did it.

19. First fandom you wrote for? ... and i'm still bitter about the cancelled reboot.

20. Favourite fic you've ever written?

taking yvor out of the equation: my fexi warm bodies zombie au sharing different heartbeats mostly i go back and read it and go "wait i wrote this?" because i don't do zombies at all lol. i'm just very proud of it.

tagging: @sarahcakes613 @muserepeats @calculated2stagger @iwantthemtostay and @idontneedtobeforgiven

#fanfic writer dash tag games

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becauseimanicequeen · 3 months

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My First Year of QLs (Roundup + Top Lists)

This post is, most likely, only interesting to me. But...

Today marks the 1-year anniversary of my falling into the Asian QL series rabbit hole. So I thought I would write down some statistics from my Notion database and plague myself to do some kind of roundup of my favorites. So, here goes.

(I'm not very well-versed in the genre conventions of QLs, so I want to point out that I have included some shows that others (who are more knowledgeable about this topic) don't necessarily see as conventional QLs, like Not Me, Manner of Death, DFF, etc. I've also included queer/gay films I've watched in the past year.)

Some Numbers

This first year, I've watched 322 QLs:

51 shorts (less than 1h)

59 films/special episodes (1h+)

212 series

(Even if some series are short enough to pass as films, I've included them in the series category if they were released/I watched them as a series.)

I watched most of them last year because I went through a period of much-needed escapism the whole second half of 2023 (I've "only" watched 89 QLs so far this year). But that also means that my fucked up memory can't remember a lot of them (which is why I'm glad I at least added them to my Notion database).

Also, the statistics above don't include the 75 rewatches I've done, where 8 were rewatches of films/special episodes and 67 were rewatches of series.

Some Firsts

The first Asian QL I watched was Roommates of Poongduck 304 (Korea). This was the series that started my journey down this rabbit hole. Then I just continued to explore.

Since I've mostly watched QLs from Thailand (135), Korea (70), Taiwan (38), and Japan (38), these are the first QLs I watched from those countries:

Thailand: Cutie Pie

Korea: Roommates of Poongduck 304

Taiwan: Stay by My Side

Japan: Candy Color Paradox

My Top Lists

Now, let's see if I can do a roundup of my favorites (because I like to torture myself, lol).

I thought about doing my top 3 QLs from each of the countries I've watched most from (the ones I noted above), but then I remembered my taste is bad (and by bad, I mean trashy). So, I'm making two lists. One that's my top 3 of the trashy QLs from each country and then my top 3 of the non-trashy QLs.

(Btw, trashy doesn't necessarily mean unwatchable in my way of using it. These shows might use problematic themes, sometimes not in a good way, they might not be the best written and/or edited shows, or just be pure crap but they were still very enjoyable for me to watch.)

Let's start with the trashy top list and then move on to the ones that are great because they're great (in my humble opinion).

My Trashy Top Lists

These are not recommendations, btw. Proceed at your own risk, lol.

Thailand

In no particular order:

KinnPorsche

Only Friends

Playboyy

Well, I lied that I would only do a top 3 list (I've watched too many from Thailand to only stick with 3), so here are a few more:

Big Dragon

Pit Babe

Dead Friend Forever

Check Out

Taiwan

I can only remember two that I liked that were trashy:

HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count (I'm probably the only one who liked this even though the ending was shit)

HIStory 4: Close to You

Korea

I honestly can't remember any, which is weird because I'm sure there are some trashy Korean QLs I've watched as well...

Japan

In no particular order:

The Novelist (all of them including Mood Indigo)

The End of the World With You

Dangerous Drugs of Sex (film)

My (non-trashy) Top List

As I mentioned above... I have watched a lot of QLs from Thailand, so I'm extending the list to include more than 3. Also, I often vibe with Korean media for some reason, so I've added a few extra to that list as well.

Thailand

In no particular order:

La Pluie

Lovely Writer

Wedding Plan

Not Me

Manner of Death

I Told Sunset About You (+ I Promised You the Moon)

I Feel You Linger in the Air

Taiwan

In no particular order:

We Best Love (1 and 2)

About Youth

Unknown

Korea

In no particular order:

Semantic Error

Once Again (this is such a cry-fest and I get obsessed with the stuff that makes me cry)

The Eighth Sense

Love Class (season 2)

Our Dating Sim (the second BL I watched after Roommates of Poongduck 304)

To My Star (season 2)

Light on Me

Japan

In no particular order:

At 25:00, in Akasaka

My Beautiful Man (1, 2, and 3 Eternal) (some would call this trashy, I don't always agree, either way, it's always on my top lists)

His (film)

Current Favorites

Lastly, I want to add three shows I'm currently watching but haven't finished yet (so they're not included in the numbers in this post). These are shows I'm sure (and very much hoping, if they don't fuck up the ending) would make it onto my top list if I'd be able to finish them already. And those are:

My Stand-In (Thailand, 1 ep. left)

Knock Knock, Boys! (Thailand, 4 eps. left)

The Rebound (Thailand, 6 eps. left)

My Stand-In has made me cry. For an ice queen like me, that's a hard feat. And, if a show can make me cry, I get obsessed with it. It also has a darker vibe that I'm usually drawn to in shows. Also, it has Up Poompat and Poom Phuripan being fire on screen and hilarious behind the scenes. I loved them separately before. I love them together now. And I will keep loving them (both separately and together) until the end of my days.

Even though I love My Stand-In with every fiber of my being, Knock Knock, Boys! is everything to me at the moment. I love the four main boys so much, and Jane and Lukpeach as well. I especially love Latte. I need a Latte in my life (and I'm not talking about the coffee because I drink enough almond lattes already, lol). Latte is my everything.

So far, The Rebound is everything I want in a sports QL. It's the best series I've seen from Meen and Ping as a pair so far, and it has Frank (which is a plus for me). It's still too early to tell how this will end, but I'm relentlessly hopeful that it will end as well as it began. (Pretty please!)

That's it from my first year of exploring old and new QLs. Now, onwards into my second year!

#ql roundup #ql top lists #how the hell did I have the time to watch all this?!#but I needed the escapism last year so it's understandable

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lumine-no-hikari · 3 months

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Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #197

Tomorrow is my first day doing the grocery store job for real. I'm kind of excited; it's a new situation with new people and I'll end up learning new skills as a result. But at the same time, I'm kinda scared; what if I do a bad job, or what if everyone hates me because I'm too weird?

Being autistic in a mostly neurotypical world is hard because I don't operate the way everyone else does. I tend to be straightforward and sincere, and you'd be shocked at how many people think that traits like these belong to naive losers, or else to rude people. The result is that normally, people like me for a while, and then... they don't. It's baffling, but I do the best I can to get by.

…Given that I've got 34 years of living under my belt, one would think that I'd be a little better at "getting by" by now, but it is what it is, I suppose…

I worked some more on the letter I intend to hand-deliver to some very important people, if I'm allowed an opportunity to do so. I also made a list of some of my most wholesome letters to you. I made sure to include all the ones about mental health, and some of the ones about additional story worlds that are relevant to you. I included some of the ones with my best recipes. I tried to include so many things.

Here's part of the list of what I think are some of my most relevant letters:

1, 3, 6, 7, 11, 17, 19, 21, 24, 27, 29, 32, 33, 35, 39, 42, 47, 50, 53, 54, 55, 57, 59, 62, 65, 67, 69, 76, 78, 80, 82, 85, 88, 91, 102, 122, 126, 128, 130, 136, 137, 138, 139, 147, 149, 150, 164, 169, 186.

…And here are the letters with tasty noms in them, because tasty noms are good for the soul:

4, 5, 13, 14, 17, 18, 36, 45/46, 51, 52, 54, 64, 66, 87, 104, 105, 121, 123, 132, 147, 152, 183

...Maybe you or someone else will have some other letter to suggest adding to either of these lists. I'm always open to suggestions.

…I hope they'll be able to see that a world in which you get to be safe is possible. I hope they'll be able to see that there are more options for people like us than "merciless punishment and/or destruction". The conventional narrative in my world already is that lives like ours aren't worth living, and… ya know… the conventional narrative is getting really fucking old and tired. If we take a good look around, it should be easy to see that the conventional narrative isn't helping matters at all. My world is full of scared, frightened, hurting people who have made mistakes and then don't work on themselves because they've been convinced that they're irredeemable and undeserving because of the mistakes they've made. The result of that is that the cycle of pain continues ad nauseam. It's gotta stop.

On the bright side, unexpectedly, someone posted up my petition for your safety. I don't know if the petition will ever actually be seen by the relevant people or do anything. But all the same, there are some 90 names on it now, which might not seem like a whole lot, but… still, 90 is more than 0. You have at least 90 people in your corner. And you probably have more than that; I'm sure a number of folks want to put their names on it, but are scared to for a number of reasons. In my experience, people in my world who have empathy for you tend to get mocked by others, so perhaps a number of them are simply trying to avoid the vitriol.

But you saved my life. And I am a stronger, wiser, kinder person now because I held on long enough to turn myself around. YOU made it possible for me to hold on long enough to turn myself around. I can't afford to be daunted by the vitriol now that I have sufficient courage, boundary skills, and self-worth to withstand it; I have a debt to you that must be repaid, and I will do whatever it takes to see it done. If I deserve to live, if I deserve to have this peaceful, wonderful (if not perfect or 100% ordinary) life, then so do you. If I deserve to enjoy my beautiful version of normalcy and peace (even if it doesn't look like the ideal version of these things to someone else), then so do you.

…And so does everyone deserve healing and peace. So does everyone. And not a lot of people like that idea (not even I enjoy this idea 100% of the time; I'm only human, so sometimes I get angry destructively, but I'm working on it…), but the truth doesn't stop being the truth just because folks don't like it.

I made some super fancy QR codes, too, linking to some of the nicer things I've made for you. Check 'em out:

...Aren't they pretty? It's gonna be a physical copy of a letter, so if you wanna have links, you gotta have a QR code so your phone can look at it and follow the link. Because uh. You can't click a regular text link on a piece of paper. That's not how it works, hahaha! And it's a pain in the ass to make someone type it all out. So QR codes are the way to go.

I also tried both of the different kinds of vanilla-and-rose tea, for science, to see which one is superior. I made sure the amount of tea, water, honey, and milk was identical for each cup. They are different teas, but the difference between them is so subtle as to be almost unnoticeable. In the end, I decided that the kind that comes in the tin is superior; it's just a touch more floral than the original one I am used to, even if the overall flavor is maybe slightly weaker. So that is the one I will give to you, if I'm allowed an opportunity to do so.

I'm scared for what the future holds. I'm scared for what might happen if I fail at various things. But I gotta keep pushing forward and trust my ability to handle whatever emerges on the distant horizon. Whatever happens, I know that I won't have to handle it alone. I have the hands and voices of so many kind and virtuous others to steady me if I stumble and fall down, even if sometimes my mean ol' brain tries to convince me that I don't. Fortunately, my chosen family makes it a point to remind me that I'm not alone, especially when my brain tries to convince me that I am.

Ultimately, my brain is mean because it's misguidedly trying to protect me from abandonment and disappointment. I have a long history of this. It hasn't yet caught on to the fact that I never have to return to the old world again. But it will, in time, the more I practice new ways of thinking, and the more I remind myself that the people who surround me now are very much unlike the people who surrounded me in the past.

I am going to stop writing for now; I have to get ready for bed. I want to be well-slept for my first real day on the job tomorrow.

I love you. And please stay safe out there; I'm gonna write to you all about how tomorrow goes at my soonest opportunity. You wouldn't wanna get yourself killed and end up missing it, right?

Your friend, Lumine

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mickimomo · 1 year

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Attoye-Week Snippets (Part 3)

Okay, so here's a snippet from Chapter 1 one of my Attoye-Week Spider-Verse AU fic. @attoye-week

edit: I accidentally copied and pasted my notes into this post lol. Funny part is, I haven't followed it. But I think I'll tweak it and make it my summary on AO3.

Seek & Destroy (Canon Divergence Prompt)

Chapter 1

Okoye clicked her tongue as she walked down a long corridor.

Another day had brought forth another anomaly that required her out on the field, getting her hands dirty and body battered.

Fortunately, most of the Spider Society was sleeping or back in their home-verse, instead of crowding the halls.

Her exhaustion would increase tenfold if she had to fake a smile, carry on unwanted conversations, and pretend she wasn’t limping or trying to heal a broken rib cage.

She had a debrief meeting in an hour with Miguel and all she wanted was to be alone and to go to sleep.

She was beyond exhausted from all the missions she had been getting sent on back-to-back.

“That’s what happens when you show someone how trustworthy and dependable you are.”

Peter B. Parker’s words haunted her.

It was good to be dependable and trustworthy, but it also meant that you were the first one called when shit hit the fan.

Which meant you never got any breaks.

You never got time to rest or depend on anyone else to pick up the slack.

You always had to be strong and ready for any and everything when you were called in for a mission.

Who wouldn’t want to be called by Miguel so frequently?

To be a part of Miguel’s top picks.

She hadn’t been around as long as Peter B. or Jess, and yet, she had worked her ass off to climb the ranks and stand with them.

She was honored that Miguel thought so highly of her but was also terrified to fuck up.

No one wanted to be on Miguel’s bad side.

She took a deep breath and retreated to the cafeteria in hopes of reviving herself with some coffee.

She just needed enough to stay awake for another four to five hours.

She slouched against the coffee bar to inspect today’s remaining options before rubbing her eyes through her mask to hopefully clear up her drowsy vision.

She looked at her options again.

Decaf.

No.

Blonde Roast.

No.

Dark Roast.

Meh.

Colombian.

Maybe.

Cuban.

Maaayybeee.

Her eyes scanned over a variety of different country brews before settling on a disgusting coffee pot that looked like it was boiling oil and squid ink.

That’s what the guys called “Jet Fuel”.

The kind of putrid semi-liquid gunk that could make even the sand man sandless.

“Jet Fuel it is.” She smiled before letting out a yawn. “Ugh.” She groaned as her fingers began to spread over her masked face.

“Struggling to pick out a type of coffee?”

“AH!”

The masked man blocked his masked face as she shot a web at him. “You must be really tired if you didn’t realize I was standing next to you.” He chuckled. “Which means none of these drinks are going to keep you up.”

She took a deep breath and sighed as she started pouring the ‘Jet Fuel’ coffee, an assortment of flavorings, and sweeteners in a paper cup. “I do not have time for you right now, Attuma.”

“Really? Jet Fuel? You must be taping your eyes open to stay awake.”

“You have no idea.”

“What happened out there?”

“Three against one.” She groaned. “Half of the Sinister Six from different universes had somehow slipped into another world.”

“Oh? Let me guess.” He held up an index finger. “Doctor Oc.” He held up another. “Electro.” He held up a third. “Andddd Sandman.”

“Not Sandman. Vulture.”

“I was close. Two out of three is what…?”

“67% is not passing, Attuma.”

“Well if you round it to 70% I would.”

“That’s still a C.”

“Fine. Fine. Better luck next time.” He grinned behind his mask. “Either way, it sounds like you had a lot of cardio going on.”

“And aerobics.” She snorted.

“Did you win?” He hummed.

“I’d like to think so.”

“Any casualties?”

“None.”

“What was the damage like?”

“Nothing serious. I managed to take the fight to an abandoned garage. It put me at a huge disadvantage but kept the residents of that universe safe.”

“Mm. Clever.” He looked her over. “Any injuries?”

“Always.”

“Broken ribs?”

“Yep.”

“Anything else?”

“I don’t care to know because I don’t want my body to register it.”

He chuckled. “You need to take better care of yourself.”

“I’m alive. That should be enough.” She examined the cup of diluted sludge skeptically.

He plucked the cup from her gloved fingers. “Instead of drowning your exhaustion with energy gunk, why don’t you take a quick nap?”

She snatched the cup back. “If I close my eyes, they’re staying closed until I’ve caught up on the sleep I’ve lost.”

He took the cup back. “I’ll wake you up.”

“As if I’d let you see me asleep.” She took it back again.

“Okoye, let me help you.” He sighed as he took it back.

“Attuma, stop-” She growled as he held the cup out of her reach.

He hissed as she shot a web and yanked it, spilling it all over him in the process. “You have a coffee problem.”

“I have a blue spider problem.” She smacked his chest with a handful of napkins before redirecting her focus to making another piping hot cup of sweet sludge.

Read the rest on AO3 here: this is the link

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namshyeee · 9 months

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Lynn Yamada Davis, a TikTok creator who entertained millions of people with her zany style and cooking tips on her account, Cooking With Lynja, died on Jan. 1 in Red Bank, N.J. She was 67.

The cause of death, in Riverview Medical Center, was esophageal cancer, her daughter Hannah Mariko Shofet said. Ms. Davis lived in Holmdel, N.J.

Ms. Davis began creating the wholesome Cooking With Lynja videos in 2020 with her youngest child, Tim Davis, to help keep up his cinematography skills during the pandemic lockdown.

Her social media accounts have remained active after her death, because she had asked him to post videos that had already been edited. One such video shows the two of them looking for truffles in Italy.

“My mom was like my partner in crime,” Mr. Davis, 27, who edited the TikTok account, said in a phone interview.

Something else she requested, Mr. Davis said, was that he post a few older videos that they had made together about a decade ago.

Those early versions of what would later become an international TikTok sensation known for their lightheartedness were a way for Mr. Davis to learn how to make the food his mother cooked “as well as have a time capsule,” he said.

After the last Cooking With Lynja videos are uploaded the account will stop posting, he said.

Cooking With Lynja began in 2020 and gained wide attention with a video in which the 5-foot-tall Ms. Davis makes a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich while showing off some quirky dance moves. Soon, about one million people were following her offbeat content. (Today, the account has more than 17 million followers.) Potential sponsors noted the videos’ success and started contacting her.

More than three years later, the Cooking With Lynja YouTube account has nearly 10 million subscribers, and Ms. Davis’s Instagram account has more than two million followers.

In 2022, Forbes included Ms. Davis on its annual “50 over 50” list, which pays tribute to successful women over 50 years old. And she won Streamy Awards, honoring online videos, in the editing and food categories. In 2023, she attended the Forbes Women’s Summit in Abu Dhabi, where she spoke on a panel.

Lynn Yamada Davis was born on July 31, 1956, in New York City and lived most of her early life in Fort Lee, N.J. Her father, Tadao Yamada, was a businessman, and her mother, Mabel Fujisake Yamada, ran the household.

She graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977 with a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering and earned a master’s degree in business administration as well as public health from the Columbia University Business School.

Ms. Davis worked for Bell Labs (now AT&T Labs) and had a long career in telecommunications before her unexpected TikTok fame, Ms. Shofet, her daughter, said.

“She had this whole chapter as a groundbreaking female engineer, and she was very proud of that,” she added.

As a TikTok star Ms. Davis would get recognized around the world, including in Japan and Italy, where she traveled with her youngest son, Tim. Sean Davis, her other son, is a professional soccer player who used to be a midfielder for the New York Red Bulls and now plays for the Nashville Soccer Club.

“She was my first coach,” he said. When she would visit him in Nashville, he said, she’d get recognized in the street, often by young people who use TikTok a lot.

“That’s how I realized how famous she was,” Sean Davis said. “People would ask for pictures, and I would take the picture.”

Most of all, Cooking With Lynja provided Ms. Davis with much fun, Tim Davis said. With special effects that have tiny versions of Ms. Davis flying across the screen and quotes like “Lynja’s got that dope!” her videos appealed to several generations of viewers. In her videos she is seen preparing all kinds of foods, heard sinking her teeth into crispy sandwiches or potatoes, and shown karate-chopping Ramen noodles and much more.

Ms. Davis was diagnosed with throat cancer in 2019, which affected her voice. Two years later she was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. In one video, Ms. Davis bakes cookies for the medical workers who treated her.

In addition to her daughter Hannah and her sons, Ms. Davis is survived by her second husband, Keith Davis; another daughter, Becky Steinberg; two siblings, Jay Yamada and Karen Dolce Yamada; and two grandchildren. Her first marriage, to Hank Steinberg, ended in divorce.

In her final years Ms. Davis got to travel around the world, meet people as well as cook and eat amazing food, Sean Davis said. He added, “I just think her final chapter was exactly how she would have wanted it to be written.”

A correction was made on Jan. 12, 2024: An earlier version of a picture caption with this article misstated the surname of Lynn Yamada Davis’s brother. He is Jay Yamada, not Jay Davis.

Article by: Claire Moses

Related link: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/11/dining/lynja-davis-cooking-tiktok-dead.html%23:~:text%3DLynn%2520Yamada%2520Davis%252C%2520a%2520TikTok,daughter%2520Hannah%2520Mariko%2520Shofet%2520said.&ved=2ahUKEwj54vHkmNmDAxUCwjgGHcmJD4IQFnoECBAQBQ&usg=AOvVaw3LVu4CRgXFfh9eWXrv6Yhy

Namo, Julius

Sarmiento, Jizel Chinnji

Salamanca, Amalia

#@lynja #@gracelourevilla

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Red Team Blues Chapter One, part three

With just days to the publication of my next novel, Red Team Blues, I’m taking the chance to serialize the first chapter of this anti-finance finance thriller, and introduce you to Marty Hench, a 67-year-old forensic accountant who specializes in Silicon Valley finance scams.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/19/whats-wrong-with-iowa/#henched

Marty is ready to retire, but there’s just one more job he has to do — recover a billion dollars’ worth of cryptographic keys that are claimed by money-launderers, narcos, and shady US three letter agencies.

Here’s the previous installments:

Part one:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/17/have-you-tried-not-spying/#unsalted-hash

Part two:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/18/cursed-are-the-sausagemakers/#henched

Here’s where US readers can pre-order the book:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

Here’s pre-orders for Canadians:

https://services.raincoast.com/scripts/b2b.wsc/featured?hh_isbn=9781250865847&ht_orig_from=raincoast

And for readers in the UK and the rest of the Commonwealth:

https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/red-team-blues-cory-doctorow/7225998?ean=9781804547755

And now, here’s today’s serial installment:

I grunted noncommittally. Danny had been around since crypto meant “cryptography,” and I hadn’t figured him to become one of these blockchain hustlers. They’re the kind of smart people who outsmart themselves, especially when it comes to shenanigans, forgetting that their public ledger is public and all their transactions are visible to the whole world forever. Forensic accounting never had a better friend than crypto, with its mix of public ledgers, deluded masters of the universe, and suckers pumping billions into the system. It was full employment for me and my competitors until cryptocurrency’s carbon footprint rendered the earth uninhabitable.

“There are certain technical differences between Trustless and other coins. Will you allow me to explain them to you? I promise it’s germane and I’m not trying to sell you anything.” “Aw, hell, Danny, you can tell me anything. I just get sick of being hustled.”

“Me, too, pal. Okay, if you mentioned distributed sudoku puzzles, you know something about proof of work: the way blockchain maintains the integrity of its ledger is by having everyone in the system repeatedly do compute work that reaffirms all the entries in the ledger. So long as the value of all the assets in the ledger is less than the electricity bill for taking over the majority of the compute work, they’re safe.”

“That means that the more valuable all this blockchain stuff becomes, the more coal they have to burn to keep it all from being stolen,” I said. It was something I’d almost said to the bros at dinner the night before, but I didn’t want an argument to distract from the otherwise lovely time I’d been having with my entirely lovely companion.

“That’s fair,” he said. “That’s what every greenie who hasn’t received a couple of mil in donations from surprised crypto-millionaires will tell you. But, Marty, that’s a problem with proof of work, not with distributed ledgers. If you could build a blockchain that had a negligible carbon budget, you could do a lot with it.”

“Launder money. Badly.”

“That,” he said. “Lot of Chinese entrepreneurs and officials are anxious to beat currency controls. But it’s not just money, it’s anything you want to have universally available, unfalsifiable, and cryptographically secured.”

“Laundered money.”

He made a face. “Cynic. Not laundered money. Genocide-proof ID. Cryptographically secured, write-only manifests of a person’s identifiers, including nationality, vitals, and ethnic group, but each one has its own key, held by the Blue Helmets. You get to a border and you present your biometrics, and the UN tells the border guards your nationality but not your ethnicity.”

“Fanciful.”

“Cynic! Yeah, fine, no one’s doing it yet, but we could. All that blockchain for good shit that the hucksters talked up to make it sound like proof of work wasn’t a crime against humanity. Trust lesscoin lets you do them because it doesn’t need the sudoku.”

I dredged up memories of half-digested podcasts I’d listened to on the road. “Is it a proof-of-stake thing?”

He snorted. “Don’t try to sound smart, Marty, you’ll sprain something. No, it’s secure enclaves. That crypto-sub-processor in your iPhone that Apple uses to keep you from switching to another app store? It can run code. What’s more, it can sign the output. So we can send you a program and check to see whether it ran as intended, because we know that the owner of a phone can’t override the secure enclave. Far as Apple’s concerned, iPhone owners are the enemy, and their threat model treats the device owner as an adversary — as someone who might get apps someplace that doesn’t kick a fifteen to thirty percent vigorish up to Apple for every transaction, depriving its shareholders of their rake.

“Any device with a secure enclave or other trusted computing module is a device that treats its owner as the enemy. That’s a device we need, because when you’re in the Trustlesscoin network, that device will defend me from you, and you from me. I don’t have to trust you, I just have to trust that you can’t break into your own phone, which is to say that I have to trust that Apple’s engineers did their job correctly, and well, you know, they’ve got a pretty good track record, Marty.”

“Except?”

He finished his lemonade and scowled at the reusable straw.

“Yeah, except. Look, Trustlesscoin is on track to become the standard public ledger for the world. I know, I know, every founder talks that ‘make a dent in the universe’ crap, but I mean it. You want to know how serious I am about this? I took in outside capital.”

He let me sit with that a moment. Danny Lazer, the man who ate ramen in a twenty-year-old, bent-axle RV for decades with the love of his life so he’d never have to take a nickel from any of those bloodsuckers on Sand Hill Road, and he took in outside capital. Danny Lazer, a man who’d owned 75 percent of a unicorn, which is to say, seven-point-five-times-ten-to-the-eight U.S. American Greenback Simoleon Dollars, and he took in outside capital.

“Why? And also, what for?”

He laughed. “Watching you work out a problem is like watching a bulldog chew a wasp, brother. You’ve got a hell of a poker face, but when you start overclocking the old CPU, it just melts. I’ll tell you why and what for.

“First of all, I wanted to create something for Sethu. She’s never had the chance to live up to her potential. She’s smart, Marty, smart like Galit was, but she’s also technical, and managerial, and just born to run things. I’ve never met a better candidate for a CEO than she is. And I’m not young, you know that, and there’s going to be a long time after I’m dead when she’ll still be in her prime, and I wanted to make something she could grow into and grow around her.

“I’d been playing with the idea behind Trustless since the early 2000s, when Microsoft released its first Trusted Computing papers, all the way back in the Palladium days! So Sethu and I hung up a whiteboard in the guest room and started spending a couple of hours a day in there. I didn’t want to bring in anyone else at first, first because it seemed like a hobby and not a business, and hell, every cryptographer I know is working seventy-hour weeks as it is.

“Then I didn’t want to bring in anyone else because I got a sense of how big this damned thing is. I mean, there’s about two trillion in assets in the blockchain today, and that’s with all the stupid friction of proof-of-work. When we lift the shackles off of it, whoosh, we’re talking about a ledger that will encompass more assets than the total balance sheets of twenty or thirty of the smallest UN members . . . combined.

“You know me, Marty. I don’t believe in much, but when I do believe in something, I’m all in. All. In. And so I brought some people in.”

“What for, though? Danny, how much of your Keypairs jackpot did you manage to blow? How much money could you possibly need, and for what? Are you building your own chip foundry? Buying a country?”

“We actually thought of doing both of those things, you know, but decided we didn’t need the headaches. The Keypairs money’s only grown since I cashed out, thanks to the bull runs. I can’t spend it all, won’t be able to. It would sicken me to try, because I’d have to be so wasteful to even make a dent in it.

“The reason I went for outside capital wasn’t money, it was connections.”

I groaned. Every grifter in private equity and VC-land claimed that they had “connections” that represented value add for their portfolio companies. The social butterfly market was implausible on its face, and in practice, it was just a way of turning cocktail parties into a business expense. “Come on, Danny, you know people already.”

“Not these people.” And he did the thing. He looked from side to side, up and down. He turned off his phone and held his hand out for mine and carried them both to the little step next to the water feature and set them down on it so they’d be in the white-noise zone. He came back, looked around again. “I got signing keys for four of the most commonly deployed secure enclaves.” He looked around again.

“I think I know what that means, Danny, but maybe you could spell it out? I’m just a dumb old accountant, not a cryptographic legend like yourself. And for God’s sake, stop looking around. I’ll let you know if I see anyone sneaking up on us.”

“Sorry, sorry. Okay. The secure enclave gets a program, runs it, and signs the output. The secure enclave’s little toy operating system says that it does this reliably and without exception. You see a signature on a program’s output, you know the program produced it. That toy OS, it’s simple. Stupid. Brutal. Does about six things, very well, and nothing else. You can’t change that program. Secure enclaves are designed to be non-serviceable. Even taking them off the mainboard wrecks them. You get them into a lab and decap them and hit them with an electron-tunneling microscope, you still won’t be able to recover the signing keys or force a false sig.

“But if you have the signing keys? You can just simulate a secure enclave on any computer. Then you can run any operating system you want on it, including one that will forge signatures. You do that, and you can falsify the ledger. You can move unlimited sums from any part of the balance sheet to your part of the balance sheet. You can jackpot the whole fucking thing.”

I blew out air. “Well, that seems like a defect in the system, all right.”

“It can’t be helped. We call it Trustless, but there’s always some trust in a system like this. You’re not trusting the other users of the system or the company that made the software. You’re trusting that a couple of leading manufacturers of cryptographic coprocessors and sub-processors, companies with decades of experience, will maintain operational security and not lose control of the keys that their entire business — and the entire business of all their customers and their customers’ customers — are dependent upon. You’re not trusting the other users, but you’re trusting them.”

“And yet,” I said, looking over at Sethu, who was painting away and performing an excellent simulation of someone who wasn’t eavesdropping, “you found someone willing to sell you some of those keys.”

“Yes,” he said and gave me a calm, no-bullshit, eye-to-eye stare. “I did. It’s useful to have those, especially when you’re first kicking a new cryptocurrency around. You make a smart contract with a bad line of code in it, you create a bug bounty with an unlimited payout. So in the early days, when you’re figuring this stuff out, you do a little ledger rewriting.”

“You do rewriting on a read-only ledger that no one is ever supposed to rewrite.”

He rolled his eyes. “Ethereum did it early on, moved fifty mil in stolen payout from a bad smart contract out of the crook’s account and back into the mark’s account. No one made too much of a fuss. I mean, the immutable ledger sounds like a great idea until someone no stupider than you gets taken for fifty mil, and then rewriting the ledger is just sound fiscal policy in service to fundamental justice.”

“But Ethereum told everyone they were doing it. Sounds like you did it all on the down low?”

“We were early. No one was even paying attention. All we wanted was a ledger whose early entries weren’t an eternal monument to my stupid mistakes as I climbed the learning curve.”

“Fine. Vain, but fine. Still, getting those keys meant a lot of power for a little reputation laundering.”

He sighed and looked away. “Yeah. The thing is, I’m not the only one who makes mistakes. We are aiming for trillions secured on our chain. Trillions, Marty. Ten to the twelve. It’s an unforgiving medium, and the stakes are high. The Ethereum lesson was clear: a couple of divide-by-zeros or fence post errors, a single badly typed variable or buffer overrun, and the whole thing could sink. I needed an eraser. Not on day zero but well before I attained liftoff.”

“Every hacker builds in a back door, huh?”

“Don’t call it that. Call it an Undo button.”

“Okay, then. An Undo button in a system whose cryptography is supposed to prevent undo at all costs. But not a back door.”

“You, my friend, are too smart. I miss the days when forensic accountancy and security engineering were distinct fields. ” “Me, too, pal. So what happened? Your keys took a walk?”

Tomorrow (Apr 21), I’m speaking in Chicago at the Stigler Center’s Antitrust and Competition Conference. This weekend (Apr 22/23), I’m at the LA Times Festival of Books.

#pluralistic #fiction #technothrillers #crypto means cryptography #crypto #cryptocurrency #books #serials #martin hench #`red team blues

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coraleethroughthelookingglass · 1 year

Note

Get to know your fic writer: 12, 16, 67 ♥️

Hi! Thanks for asking!!!

12. how does reviewing or not receiving feedback/support affect you?

I usually need a day or so after posting something before I start writing again no matter how something is received. I do think that if I didn’t get such a positive response to my first Haladriel fic, though, I wouldn’t still be writing for this fandom. Feedback really does help me from feeling like I’m not screaming into the void and that I’m not overstaying my welcome in any fandom that I try my hand at writing for. My biggest fear is always that I’ll end up disappointing people who have been so nice and kind.

16. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Share one of them?

Too many is the short answer! I’ve been bouncing around a few of my AUs that need finishing the last couple of days and I’ve got stuck on the WW2 era nurse/soldier. The last chapter there will have a decent time jump, an adopted Celebrian and ‘friends’ reuniting in 50’s New York :)

67. Do you prefer prompts and challenges, or completely independent ideas?

Both :) I’ve been involved in challenges before, which were a lot of fun to write, and I’ve done things for fandom weeks and prompts, too (my first modern Haladriel fic was for a prompt), as well as a lot of things that came out of the blue and wouldn’t leave me alone. I have been sent some prompt ideas recently (AUs for Robin Hood and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) which are excellent and I hopefully will get around to drafting them out at some point down the line. If I had all the time in the world, I would love to work more with prompts. I did mean to sign up for a fic exchange over the summer and then forgot!

thank you so much again for your ask!

#ask game #fic writer ask game #iamstartraveller776

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deadcactuswalking · 1 year

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 29/07/2023 (’Barbie’ Soundtrack, Stormzy/RAYE, Travis Scott/The Weeknd/Bad Bunny)

Content warning: mentions of death and violence

For an eighth week, Dave and Cench grab the #1 with “Sprinter” once again, but the rest of the chart… it’s not as stable. Welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

Okay, but did Oppenheimer chart seven songs this week? I don’t think so. The Barbie soundtrack is not the only story here, but it is the main one in a busier week than expected - and kind of a chaotic one - but as always, we start with our notable dropouts, songs exiting the UK Top 75 - which is what I’ve always covered - after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, we say farewell to a bunch of old songs like “Sweet Child o’ Mine” by Guns n’ Roses, “I’m Still Standing” by Elton John - “Cold Heart” (PNAU Remix) with Dua Lipa as well - then slightly newer songs like “Waffle House” by the Jonas Brothers, “Escapism.” by RAYE featuring 070 Shake, “messy in heaven” by venbee and goddard. and “Bad Habits” by Ed Sheeran, and then actually new songs, those being “Dance Around It” by Joel Corry and Caity Baser, “Say Yes to Heaven” by Lana Del Rey and “Masculine” by J Hus featuring Burna Boy, which was swapped out for another J Hus song this week.

Then we have our returns and notable gains… and well, there’s a lot going on here. Firstly in our returns, we see again the three-song rule swap out “Karma” by Taylor Swift for “Anti-Hero” at #41 and the return of “Dial Drunk” by Noah Kahan all the way up at #32 thanks to the pretty great remix with Post Malone. Additionally, due to her passing on Wednesday, we see “Nothing Compares to U” by Irish singer Shuhada’ Sadaqat, better known of course as Sinéad O’Connor, return to #45. She was brave and revolutionary in her criticism of the Catholic Church and constantly stood for what she believed in which, great music aside, is incredibly honourable, and it’s a damn shame she was never really able to find peace. “Nothing Compares 2 U” originally hit #1 for four weeks in 1990, and despite an array of charting songs in the UK from 1987 to 2007, she would never make the top 10 again aside from another #1 as part of Band Aid. On a lighter note, whilst I have yet to see the Barbie film, I have heard the soundtrack, which whilst nowhere to be seen on the albums chart, tops the compilations chart, with many a song from the film crossing over to the singles chart. The songs that are not new and not gaining into the top five are both returns: Charli XCX’s “Speed Drive” at #19 and a song technically not on the album, the original “Barbie Girl” by Aqua resurging to #40. It also hit #1 for four weeks, yet in this case in 1997.

As for our gains, there aren’t many but most are interesting - sure, there are rote, kind of inexplicable boosts for “Closer” by Bou featuring Slay at #27 - the best-selling USB stick release ever, seriously - and “Disconnect” by Becky Hill and Chase & Status at #17, but we also see NewJeans’ album release boosting “Super Shy” up to #52 and a remix with Burna Boy brings Byron Messia’s “Talibans” up to 12. The remix doesn’t exactly help the song be any less gross or more interesting.

This week’s top five on the UK Singles Chart has three songs from that Barbie soundtrack in it - the three-song rule was not applied to it - so we start with “Barbie World” by Nicki Minaj, Ice Spice and Aqua at #5, “Dance the Night” by Dua Lipa at #4, her 13th top 10 hit, and Billie Eilish at #3 with “What Was I Made For?”, a consecutive Barbie three-streak. The top two, of course, is all standard - “vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo and “Sprinter” at the very top. Now we have a… questionable stretch of new arrivals, so let’s get into them.

NEW ARRIVALS

#67 - “Highs & Lows” - Prinz featuring Gabriela Bee

Produced by ME13 Beats

So you might remember Prinz for contributing verses to “Beautiful Day (Thank You for Sunshine)”, a cute if saccharine Christian drill song that peaked at #63 earlier this year. He’s back for a follow-up single and he’s doing… this nonsense. Okay, so Gabriela Bee was a Canadian Vine star as a child who’s grown up into a singer-songwriter - naturally - gathering some viral cover videos across the way. Here she is reciting a 2019 non-mover by similarly Canadian indie pop group Walk off the Earth - Canada Day was at the start of this month, Prinz - titled “I’ll be There”. It only ever charted in Canada, and never particularly high, largely because it’s a sappy boring love song with about as much teeth as “Girls Like You” by Maroon 5 without its denchers. So naturally, sample drill, right? He even harmonises with the pitch-shifted chorus, before going into verses that are sing-songy when he wants to and needlessly staccato and aggressive when he wants to do that, with the rattling percussion and sliding 808s always present. This just sounds ridiculous. I didn’t know there was a market for wholesome Christian drill but this really just sounds like a cheap children’s version of the genre. I really ponder how we got this point.

#61 - “Asking” - Sonny Fodera and MK featuring Clementine Douglas

Produced by MK and Sonny Fodera

Marc Kinchen is no stranger to the chart but here, he teams up with two fellow non-Canadians: Australian-born DJ Sonny Fodera, who makes his first entry since he last teamed up with MK on 2019’s “One Night”, which was a very minor hit the year after, and Clementine Douglas, the British singer providing raspy vocals on yet another 90s throwback house tune. It really just follows a standard house-pop progression with a particularly ugly staccato backing synth line, and decidedly not catchy vocals from Douglas, wherein the vocaloid drop is so ever-present, it ends up drowning whatever refrains or harmonies she can come up with… and then really bizarrely impactful drums come in that seem way too big for what this song actually is. When it plunges into the deep bass, it makes a lot more sense, but kind of has me wondering what this song was actually trying to do compositionally. I like the glitchier synths and orchestra hits in what I think is the chorus and drop, but they’re still over a very stiff production here that is monotonous as all Hell, its biggest talent being its stillness. So, yeah, not a fan at all, which is kind of a shame coming from MK.

#58 - “Man I Am” - Sam Smith

Produced by Mark Ronson and Ricky Reed

Whoever decided to give the non-Canadian Sam Smith a song about being a man knows what they’re doing and I don’t think it’s all that pleasant. To be fair to them, they definitely embraced the less-than-flattering title and subject matter, which is actually in the character of Ken, not that it’ll matter to certain people. This actually ended up being one of my favourites off of the soundtrack, with Smith’s gravelly delivery sandwiched in between a garish electroclash synth and the airier synths surrounding them, as they indulge in the hedonism fully, to the point that they almost reject Barbie altogether and hint at preferring the company of men. Homoerotic Ken is obnoxious, sure, but the wacky synthwork in the pre-chorus bursts into a back-of-the-mix bleep during that anthemic hook and whilst there’s not really much to it outside of being fun, I’d prefer that mode from Sam Smith than a ballad, and actually bordering on the transgressive is more fitting for the film from what I’ve heard than any of the cookie-cutter crap that’s also present. We’ll get to that after these violent messages.

#53 - “Massacre” - J Hus

Produced by Marco Bernardis and P2J

I fully expect songs to swap in and out from big albums thanks to silly chart rules, and non-Canadian rapper J Hus doing so with Beautiful and Brutal Yard - dropping from #1 to #4 on the albums chart right now thanks to Blur - was only slightly a surprise. The reason this song in particular raised enough traction was probably due to its A COLORS SHOW performance, but the original version has a lot of merit itself. This is probably the most gruff and menacing J Hus has ever sounded over these sprawling acoustic and typical Afroswing rhythms. Sure, some of the rhymes are forced and his flow is a lot less stable than usual on the verses, but there’s a decent amount of detail in both his past of gang violence and mental health issues that arose as a result of them and prevent him from moving on. It sadly doesn’t go too deep into that, because J Hus just can’t help himself but make the rote second verse about having sex with this woman and I really don’t know why he couldn’t have just written an on-topic verse here. It’s otherwise a great song, with the strings that send it off splitting the song’s tone somewhere between violent and reflective in a really open-to-interpretation way that ends up succeeding on both of its potential fronts thanks to a strong chorus and first verse, I just wish it kept up with its own theme throughout the entire track is all. The COLORS SHOW version also replaces some of the quiet, murderous cool for more manic energy and it probably depends on the day which version I prefer because otherwise there’s very little that stands out as all that different but overall, still a good song regardless of version.

#39 - “Pink” - Lizzo

Produced by Mark Ronson, Andrew Wyatt and Ricky Reed

I was initially kinder to this one when first listening to it, and sure, Lizzo - not Canadian - still has charisma and soul in her voice that not many of the other features on this project do, and in terms of being able to co-inhabit Ronson’s 80s synth-funk palette, you can’t really get better than Lizzo… so naturally, this is a children’s song. I’m sure it makes a lot more sense in the film but knowing that songs like “Barbie World”, “Man I Am” and “butterflies” are in this same film makes this particular track feel like it’s appealing to the broadest possible horizons whilst simultaneously not making any worthwhile arguments for its own existence. It’s barely even catchy, it wouldn’t make a good theme song because it’s not nearly as compact with its “ideas” despite only being less than two and a half minutes. So, realistically, we just have Lizzo spelling out words over 80s radio slodge. The sax sounds good, it always will, and I guess everything complements quite well, but that’s not exactly hard when you don’t take any risks. Complete snooze.

#36 - “Love Like This” - ZAYN

Produced by Jon Bellion and The Monsters & Strangerz

Welp, ZAYN’s back - and he’s not Canadian, nor ever has been. I feel like we do this song-and-dance with ZAYN album cycles a lot, and it’s of no surprise to me that the returns are decreasing. He releases a lead single that debuts high and is pretty accessible before a delayed and/or completely ignorable album cycle that comes and goes, with very little of the vague ambition ZAYN ever showed on his earlier solo work actually showing up, especially not on these lead singles. In this one, Jon Bellion continues on his weird 2-step streak, which is probably the only genre wherein Bellion doesn’t out-sing the actual singer through his signature writing… so why give it to ZAYN of all people? He drones on in the repetitive verses like he’s completely sedated over a kind of promisingly lo-fi garage beat, and then ends up somehow off-beat in the pre-chorus that lacks an actual coherent melody, before an anti-climactic, awkwardly-written chorus that makes unnecessary use of a piercing siren sound. This feels like a vehicle for Jon Bellion’s worst ideas rather than anything that can give ZAYN that last push he might need to actually impress me, but alas, if he’s not trying, then we don’t have to listen, and it’s becoming increasingly clear that the general public follows the same logic.

#25 - “I’m Just Ken” - Ryan Gosling

Produced by Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt

Now this is the viral show tune sung by the decidedly Canadian actor Ryan Gosling in character as Ken, and I feel like this one ESPECIALLY hinges on your viewing of the film because of how explicitly tied to the plot it is. The film’s use of Ken seems to comment on how Ken was made post-Barbie, purely to serve the initial doll, with director Greta Gerwig pointing this out. Therefore, we have this idea of a man functioning without true comprehension of its emotions and instead just as a worker with a fake tan and toned body. Naturally, Ronson spares us the subtleties, as the show tune ends up going full rock musical, with a muddy filtered synth and electric guitars crashing in after the first chorus and from when on, the song kind of goes off the rails. Gosling already sounds like an AOR vocalist, so the shift makes complete sense… but then it gets really propulsive and Gosling’s asking if I can feel his “Kenergy” and I mean, it is supposed to be a comedy, so I guess throwing away a chunk of this song to a flailing meme makes complete sense. The abrupt transition back into the actual song just accentuates how tacky everything about that second verse and bridge is; it really just isn’t necessary in an otherwise pretty impactful self-questioning. This has a lot of promise to it, but sadly, probably due to narrative reasons, squanders that midway through. Much of the soundtrack album felt like that too, good ideas squandered by not taking risks, with the bad, risky ideas ending up being the most fascinating and honestly the best songs. My favourites were the aforementioned “Man I Am” and “What Was I Made For?” as well as GAYLE’s Crazy Town flip “butterflies” and Khalid’s adorable “Silver Platter”. Now let’s get back to actual music.

#24 - “K-POP” - Travis Scott, Bad Bunny and The Weeknd

Produced by BNYX, Boi-1da, Illangelo, Jahaan Sweet and DVLP

Oh, hey, look at that. A Canadian. Odd running gag aside, this is the lead single to the long-anticipated UTOPIA and I’ll save my thoughts on the album for next week - they’re not pretty - but I do have to ponder. Travis Scott actively promoted himself to children through McDonald’s meals and Fortnite appearances, and gained some really young fans, including one Ezra Blount, whom his father said was stoked to see Travis at the Astroworld Festival. He was nine years old. After two years of pain from the victims’ friends and family, and a grand jury conveniently and incorrectly declining to indict him and the corporations involved of any wrongdoing just about when he’s going to release a record, we get our first work from Travis as a lead artist in years. When I hear this barely coherent and crappily-mixed attempt at dancehall from Yeat’s producer, seemingly void of any understanding of the genre mish-mash on display, wherein Bad Bunny is the only person here not on complete auto-pilot, The Weeknd embarrasses himself with career-low lyrics that not even Drake would let go past the reference track, and Travis Scott lazily whining in mumbling Auto-Tune some vague platitudes about a drug-fuelled nostalgia, it sticks in my mind: he was just nine years old. Rest well, little buddy, because your idols definitely couldn’t care less.

#23 - “The Weekend” - Stormzy and RAYE

Produced by London and RAYE

And from The Weeknd to “The Weekend”, yet we’re a lot further from Canada here. It is pretty cool that despite all of the American pop culture nonsense that was thrown at us this week, the highest debut is from two British artists, one of which is independent. The song’s pretty sweet too, with RAYE’s ghostly harmonies and melodrama sliding pretty acutely under the stiffer, effortless cool of Stormzy. I was actually surprised the two had this much chemistry and they work off of each other pretty effortlessly, even if the mix on this fudgy, bassy funk-pop isn’t all that clean. There’s not much of a focus on sex or Stormzy himself other than some silly references, with the song mostly just being an appreciation of his partner, played by RAYE, and his deadpan delivery works as almost portraying him as slightly awestruck by her. The little trade-off in the refrain where they try and figure out a good day to hang out is adorable, and the entire song, despite my issues with the production, is a pretty little jam I definitely wouldn’t mind sticking around.

Conclusion

Well, this sure was the week that was, and not particularly a stand out week quality wise, in fact, this one was kind of a struggle. Best of the Week goes to Sam Smith of all people for “Man I Am”, but the Honourable Mention is a tie, given that the other two good songs here are just expectedly solid songs from UK acts that both may end up growing on me, with “The Weekend” by Stormzy and RAYE and “Massacre” by J Hus being my other favourites this week. As for the worst, Travis Scott takes it handedly with “K-POP” featuring Bad Bunny and The Weeknd, but I don’t think ZAYN is all that far behind as he gets the Dishonourable Mention for “Love Like This”, though that very much could have gone to Lizzo and absolutely could have gone to whatever Prinz was doing. As for what’s on the horizon, we had a big release week with albums from Anne-Marie, Post Malone and Travis Scott, and Calvin Harris is raring for his big “Miracle” follow-up, so expect more craziness to come. Thank you for reading, rest in peace to Sinéád O’Connor and I will see you next week!

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Let's do this. From questions listing. txmblr co/ post/108795761380/ random-questions (had to alter the url to send) 1,6,9,11,13,14,19,22,24,34,39,44,45,46,47,48,67,71,74,75,76,84,91,99,102,104,105,106,108,109,123,132,133,134,138,145,148,149. Or all of them if you feel adventurous! 🧠🤭

Holy COW NONNIE, you're putting me to work here (my entire fault). Let's go!

1. Do you bite or lick ice cream? Wanna lick it, but I end up biting it. Everytime.

6. Describe a moment in which you did something unacceptable in a bad situation. I didn't want to be social during my grandfather's waking, so I dove in the book I was currently reading. It was Bram Stoker's Dracula.

9. How many all nighters have you pulled? I don't know. A lot. (and only one of them was partying, I am not a party person)

11. How many romantic "things" or "flings" have you had? Four. (I am not counting my current relationship, eleven years it's far too long to be considered a fling).

13. What is your favorite background noise? Music.

14. How many hearts do you think you have broken? Only one. I hope. I don't wanna hurt people.

19. Have you played any instruments before? Which instruments? I wish. Well, no, wait. Not professionally I have done my things with ukulele and kalimba. And a little bit of piano when I was a child.

22. What is the best advice someone has ever given you? Trust the process.

24. How do you cheer yourself up after a bad day? Music, singing my heart out and drawing. Simultaneously. Or a good cry (often simultaneously, too).

34. Which fantasy world would you like to visit the most? Either Kingdom Hearts or The Last Airbender's world. I would go to Hawkins to give Steve a high five, but I wouldn't stay (maybe I would try to bring him back to the future with me).

39. Name the last book you read. 'A court of thorns and roses'.

44. Do you like and appreciate your life? Yes, and every step I took to get here, even the mistakes.

45. Do you like and appreciate yourself? Not everytime, but I try to keep that positivity frequent.

46. When was the last time you cried? Last Tuesday night, when my dog got sick and I didn't know what to do to make him feel better. It broke my heart.

47. What are you scared of? Butteflies, depth of the sea (thalassofobia), and on a more trascendental side, I'm terrified of not being enough for the people I love.

48. What is the most embarrassing, cringe-worthy thing you have ever done? Oh holy shit. I kind of sang in my highschool graduation a very inappropriate song that was a hit back a the time. To the date, my fiancé just doesn't know which song it was. Top secret thing. God, the embarrassment.

67. Do you have a favorite Disney movie? Character? The Little Mermaid, and it would be Ariel.

71. What scares you most about the future? In a personal level, pregnancy and losing people.

74. What are some of your New Year's resolutions? Getting back to drawing (yay me!). (I'm already telling you that next year's is going to be making a living out of it.)

75. What is your life story in 6 words? So she decided to trust herself.

76. Describe yourself in one word. Summer.

84. List the 3 most important people in your life right now. My fiancé and my parents.

91. What is your worst memory or creepiest experience? My worst memory is from last year, when someone who I cared about deeply and thought they were a friend publicly humilliated me using every bit of knowledge they had about me against me, to break me in purpose. They succeeded.

99. What languages can you speak? Spanish and English.

102. What ended your last relationship? I wasn't enough.

104. What is the most terrifying dream you've ever had? I want to shout to warn someone and no one listens to me, because I can't speak, or I'm invisible. It's a recurrent nightmare but I haven't had those in a while.

105. When was the last time you got seriously angry? Last year, when I started to heal from what I explained in 91. I got furious when I understood that I didn't deserve that shit (because, oh, they made me believe for a second that I did.)

106. What was the last friendship you broke? See 91.

108. Who was the last person you gave a hug to? My fiancé, before he left for work.

109. When was the last time you got seriously stressed? I haven't been unstressed since 2020. But I guess the last time that it got really bad was last February when I had a panic attack at work in front of my boss (was embarrassing, really).

123. What is your morning routine? Breakfast with my dog (coffee, a toast with butter, a piece of fruit, and a carrot for him). Then brush my teeth, make up, off to work.

132. What is your opinion on "going with the flow? Go with the flow unless something inside you tells you to turn away or it feels dangerous. If going with the flow means leaving your comfort zone and you're not ready for it, then don't do it. But if it feels like it's time, or might be fun, give it a shot. (PLEASE READ THIS ALWAYS IN A SAFE ENVIRONMENT)

133. Do you enjoy talking or listening? I like listening more than talking (which might sound silly and dishonest since I'm talking A LOT in this post).

134. When is it time to end a friendship? When you can't trust that person anymore, or it is harming you to keep that friendship alive. Distancing is normal, people change, goes different ways. But keeping someone in your life when you know that they're bad for you is a mistake, in my experience, at least.

138. When was the last time you had a deep conversation with someone? Last Friday, with my mom.

145. What is your opinion on second chances? I believe in second chances, but in certain situations and environments. I believe in second chances when they've learned their lesson and changed, and worked for it. I don't believe in second chances when the differences between both parties are irredeemable. Second chances are asking for flexibility, and that should come both ways.

148. What advice would you give to yourself 5 years ago? Buy that tablet. Now.

149. How organized are you? I am a mess of a person (but I try not to).

-- If you want to play this little game, go ahead and send an ask!

#inklessletter #asks #ask game #that was A LOT OH MY GOD

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