#the previous post re: dream about a singer

[boop-le-snoot]

in my cradle of filth era

[carebearbro]

So I completely missed this new Unlock the Music video.  It was posted on the Care Bears youtube account, but I didn’t get the notifications like I usually do.  I feel like I’m not the only one because eve after two weeks, this one only has about 300 views. However, this one centers around I Care Bear, one of the two recent new Care Bears.  I Care Bear centers around helping the Earth (kind of like the 80s environmental Bears), so I’m wondering if they were trying to save this one for Earth Day and accidentally posted it early. Regardless, I really like this one!   The song sounds good to me and I like the lyrics.  I also like hearing the combination of the rapping guy and the chorus singer, since it doesn’t seem like we often get them together in songs. I also like how the lyrics have “I’m an I Care Bear” in them...I always like it when these have the words Care Bear in the song.  I also really like how I Care Bear is male and the singers are saying they’re Care Bears...I’ve always liked the male Bears being more cuddly. We don’t get too many new animations in this one, but I do like how they mix in all of the environmental scenes with previous animations.  I also really like some of I Care Bear’s dancing poses, as well as his hair tuft. So all in all a great one! The only thing is...this is the third one of these in a row that deal with new Bears ( we had the Care A Lot Bear one to finish off season 2, then the Dream Bright Bear re-done dreaming video, and now this one).   So I’m starting to think there won’t be a season 3 of Unlock the Music and instead they may just come up with new videos when they seen an opportunity (like when a new Bear comes out).   But, I could be wrong.  Maybe these are a preview for a season 3. And even if there is no season 3, at least it shows that they’re still willing to come up with new songs and videos, which still makes me happy!

[suibiansky]

BJYX Challenge DAY 1: First Bias

Okay...its still pretty damn hot, but my head isn’t fuzzy so I’m going to take advantage and write this out.

So..let’s get to it before I start melting again. Sidenote: I apologize for the lack of pretty videos. I’m so wary of incorrectly crediting the wrong owner or re-posting something I shouldn’t so I’m playing it safe. 

First Bias - Xiao Zhan

That smile. Kills me every time.

Similar to those who’ve had no prior interaction with c-drama and c-entertainment, I discovered XZ and WYB via CQL. I am a huge fan of Wei Ying as a character prior to watching the drama, and dare I say he’s in my top favorite fictional characters in media, so I had high expectations for XZ off the bat. And he delivered. Also doesn’t help that his smile literally makes me smile back. Like, did he invent the phrase ‘Smile and the world smiles with you?’ wtf. His smile can end wars as far as I’m concerned. ANYWAYS, that got me looking him up. When I realized he and DD sang Wu Ji my respect went up a notch (love me some multi-talented kings). Then I realized just how good of a singer he is: clean, smooth, almost angelic (I’m barfing at myself rn but I don’t know how else to describe his voice sorry). I remember having similar reactions to when I first heard Josh Groban sing. Like, ‘is this for real? There’s no way those vocals are coming out of his mouth.’ 

Pretty superficial start for me I admit. As I dug myself deeper into the CQL pit, I started reading about how XZ became a celebrity. In a cutthroat industry that grooms people from a young age to be celebrities to the masses, GG leaving his job and pursuing his dreams of singing is pretty badass to me. His love for the world around him and focus on the present is also admirable to me. He always has a look of nearly childlike wonder in whatever he’s experiencing in his vlogs. His ‘motivational quotes’ aren’t something to scoff at either. I usually take any celebrities’ pep talk with a grain of salt, but I find myself believing it when GG says it because of how grounded it is. He doesn’t straight up say, ‘just follow your dreams and it will all work out in the end ✨.’ I think my fellow plebians know that there’s a lot of circumstances outside one’s control that can stop you from doing what you want to achieve.  A portion of one of his quotes: “...Yes, working hard won’t guarantee success, but not working hard will guarantee that you don’t succeed.” I get the sense that despite his ‘soft’ appearance, he’s unshakeable in his determination and what he sets his mind to do. ‘Okay, I’ve decided to drop this pretty steady graphic designer job and go on this show to sing and dance and become an idol/performer. Let’s do this.’ You’ve got to have a solid foundation of self to go on that path.

But don’t be fooled over his oversized sweaters and smile! He has a mischievous, gremlin side too. Which makes him even more awesome in my book! His interactions with DD are obvious examples, but his answers in some solo interviews show that he can be snarky, playful and downright flirty. Examples:

his 6 year experience wasn’t ‘wasted’ + lip bite 😏 (I believe this was from a Sina interview, but ugh but can’t find it)

throwing dd under the bus by admitting he received recommended DD memes for his use (and handsome ones too. not like that’s hard)

‘Which ‘Ji’  in ‘Ji Qing’ do you mean? In the Hello Celebrity interview, the question is if he would rather play someone with ‘passionate scenes’ or a playboy/bad boy. Since Ji Qing can mean either passion or BL, he was asking for clarification. Not sure if this counts as a playful answer since he did look like he honest to god wanted to know which Chinese character is being used for Ji in the question, but the fact that the editing team threw down reaction images of little chicks after he asked implies he did an ‘oh snap’ moment. Reference: @/BuZhiDaoSubs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcY1BgQqQB0&t=200s

As you can see, I had a pretty strong bias 😅.  Next post: current bias aka but what about DD?? Other references: Short list of GG quotes Previous days:

Day 0

[putschki1969]

Keiko’s article in Fujin Kōron ~ English Translation

An interview with KEIKO was published in the latest issue of the Japanese bi-weekly women's magazine Fujin Kōron (婦人公論) [Issue 2020/07/28]. Purchase on CD JAPAN!

Note: Another lovely and very insightful interview. Everyone be sure to check it out! I love how honest Keiko is here. CREDIT ME and LINK to THIS post if you use/share this translation or parts of it.

♪ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ♪

KEIKO (singer)

Regarding loneliness as something positive and continuing to sing

Debuting once again I want to enjoy my new self

In 2008, she made her CD debut with the ending themes of the theater version of "Kara no Kyōkai". After that, the three-person vocal unit "Kalafina" continued to sing many popular anime songs and theme songs for NHK’s "Rekishi Hiwa Historia". In 2019 the group regrettably disbanded. Now Keiko, one of the three members, is making her solo debut as KEIKO. She shared her feelings with us regarding a re-start in her mid-30s.

During my 2-year-hiatus I searched for my own music

When Kalafina officially disbanded in March 2019, I didn't think I would ever debut as solo artist. Quite the contrary actually, I felt like I shouldn't sing anymore. For me personally Kalafina represents the first time I ever pursued something in earnest, the first time I was able to create something substantial. For 10 years straight I kept pushing ahead and running, putting all my heart and soul into this project, trying to fulfill everyone’s expectations. That is why after the disbandment I considered retiring since I didn’t think I could ever resume singing, it would have felt like a half­hearted attempt.

Besides, at that point my physical condition was quite poor so first and foremost I felt like I very much needed to take a rest. Without doing anything really I just spent my days at home and talking with my family. Gathered around the dining table we would just spend time together and slowly my mind and body were healed. Soon after, I got inspired by my grandmother and decided to go to kimono school. While relaxing and taking care of my body and soul, I slowly got back into the world of music by talking to many people who had supported me in the past. I don’t think I would have been able to come back so quickly if it hadn’t been for all these people around me providing support. My two-year hiatus was a great opportunity for me to think about my future relationship with music and whether or not I really needed music in my life. After I came to the conclusion that yes, "I DO want to make music", I thought about what I could add to all the experiences I had accumulated so far in order to find my own music. I consulted with a lot of people and listened to their opinions. Eventually I took the first step towards my solo activities. My solo debut was decided and for my very first song 「命の花 / Inochi no Hana」 I took on a completely new challenge by writing the lyrics myself.  After a lot of trial and error I was eventually able to come up with words that carefully emitted a fitting “reverberation”. 「命の花 / Inochi no Hana」 has a very sad melody so I saw it as my task to wrap up this sadness with the warmth of my vocal expression. That was also quite a big challenge.

I want to try my luck as the real me

Back in the day when I gradually embraced my dream of becoming a singer, I began to challenge my own voice but often I was feeling very insecure due to my low range. During that time I listened to all the popular artists such as Morning Musume, Namie Amuro, SPEED, and even Western singers such as Britney Spears and Beyonce. In my third year of junior high school, I happened to hear one of Yutaka Ozaki's songs, "5 Nights". I was utterly fascinated by his voice and it opened my eyes to the fact that I wanted to become a singer myself. So after graduating from high school I took voice training lessons and started to pursue a professional career. Then I had my great encounter with Yuki Kajiura, a music producer and composer. Kajiura-san listened to my voice, got inspired and wanted to make songs in lower ranges for me.I was deeply moved by the fact that she managed to turn all my insecurities into a powerful weapon for her music. Thanks to her it felt rewarding to be a singer. My current goal is to discover new vocal expressions. I would be happy if Kajiura-san and all the fans who have supported us in the past could enjoy this endeavour together with me, I would like all of you to wonder, "can KEIKO really create that kind of voice?" "Can she use that sort of singing style?" During the Kalafina era, we were mainly singing anime theme songs, so there were many times when I was worried about how much of myself I should put into my vocal expression as to not jeopardise the world view of the work. Somehow I feel like my humanity was erased along the way... I think it’s due to my extreme personality *laughs*. That is something I became aware of during my hiatus. It’s hilarious and made me laugh. It’s like I was watching a comedy show of my own life and all I could do was burst into laughter. I wonder if I was able to become a more real and natural me by taking a rest *laughs*

It felt very reassuring when the three of us were singing together. However, instead of feeling lonely in my solo activities I want to think positively and try to enjoy being by myself. Some people in my age-group have commended me for my courage to jump into this new world in my mid-30s but really, it’s the complete opposite. Going on this new adventure actually gives me courage. After all, I think it's important to deal flexibly with age...My motto is to always face myself as a woman appropriate for my age but being a singer is ageless. No matter how you live, health is the first priority, so I always study nutrition and try various health methods. I love sweets and I am constantly worrying about eating too much. However, I have learned that it is very effective to try and resist sugary stuff in the morning because this way your body won’t be craving it so much in the latter half of the day. Also, my body feels much more at ease these days. I was able to overcome my insomnia which had been troubling me for a long time. I did that by getting up at the exact same time every morning for two months no matter how much sleep I had gotten the previous night. I am also very much into beauty. I'm convinced that the secret to beautiful skin is to avoid touching it as much as possible. I use a foaming face wash and massage my face gently, making sure not to rub. This makes the pores less noticeable so I don’t require any foundation. This routine has improved my complexion and made my face much clearer than it ever was in my 20s. I think the real me will be prominently shown in my songs, so I try to keep my mind and body healthy and lively. After all, I want to continue singing for a very long time.

♪ ┈┈┈┈┈┈┈ ♪

Keiko (けいこ): Born in Tokyo Prefecture (1985). In 2005, she first participated as FictionJunction KEIKO in music producer Yuki Kajiura's solo project "Fiction Junction". After that, she joined vocal-unit "Kalafina", the group made their major debut in 2008, and reached their peak when they performed one-man-live at Nippon Budokan in 2015. After the disbandment in 2019, she resumed her activities as freelancer and returned to the stage as KEIKO for the live tour "Yuki Kajiura LIVE". In May 2020 her single “Inochi no Hana/Be Yourself“ was released digitally. This autumn an album with her new songs is set to be released

Composition 〇 Akane Maruyama Photography 〇 Photography Department

[bananaofswifts]

Never be so polite you forget your power,” sings Taylor Swift at one point on evermore, her second surprise album release in less than six months. Shortly afterward, she follows that statement up with “Never wield such power you forget to be polite.” It’s a line Swift has been trying to walk in recent years, both professionally and creatively, and it’s not a bad summary of the glorious new album, which offers bold and striking new sounds while still coming across as a generous pandemic offering to her ride-or-die fans at a time when they may need her more than ever.

Swift also leans even harder into the new kind of storytelling that she explored on folklore, which was released just as suddenly in July to thunderous acclaim, became the biggest-selling album of the year, and is currently in the running for Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards. Reaching back to her country roots in strategy if not in execution, she’s spinning narratives that, for the first time, reach outside of her own experience, sometimes examined from multiple perspectives. As evermore tackles big city disappointments and small-town dreams, crime, and (as always) heartbreak, we witness her songwriting becoming mature, even literary.

Quick tip: Do not play poker with Taylor Swift. She had plenty of chances to tease this new project in recent weeks—from the headfake she delivered when she accepted the American Music Award for Artist of the Year and noted that she was taping her acceptance speech in the studio where she’s currently re-recording her old albums (seeking vengeance for the second sale of those albums’ master recordings) to the lengthy Q&A in Entertainment Weekly that came out earlier this week but made no mention of new music. Yet first thing Thursday morning, she revealed in a post that her ninth studio album would come out less than 18 hours later, two days before her 31st birthday (“Ever since I was 13, I’ve been excited about turning 31 because it’s my lucky number backwards,” she wrote).

Swift indicated that evermore is intended as a “sister record” to folklore, but while this album is clearly an extension of the shimmery indie-rock/singer-songwriter direction unveiled on the previous record, it’s definitely not just leftovers from those sessions; it stands on its own as yet another triumph in a remarkable career. If it’s less consistent than folklore, it’s also looser, experimental, both softer and louder, chilly and warm—ever more.

The intimate, classic-yet-modern sound of folklore (recorded in secret and untroubled by the necessities of touring and promotion and avoiding Swift’s usual glossy and bright production) drew much of the attention, but there were clear precedents to that approach in songs of hers like “Clean,” “New Year’s Day,” and “The Archer.” More radical was her shift away from using her songs as diary entries to writing stories and sketches in the voice of characters, both fictional and real.

Swift mostly left it to listeners to connect the dots in the love triangle that ran through multiple songs on folklore. This time, though, she spelled out her intentions explicitly in a flurry of social media activity (even taking fan questions in the chat window during the YouTube premiere of the video for the opening track, “Willow”). She noted how the evermore songs “mirrored or intersect[ed] with one another,” pointing out the “two young con artists who fall in love,” “the girl who left her small town to chase down Hollywood dreams—and what happens when she comes back,” and “the ‘unhappily ever after’ anthology of marriages gone bad that includes infidelity, ambivalent toleration, and even murder.”

The strongest of these songs stand with her best work. “Tolerate It” is a devastating depiction of a love gone—not exactly cold, but harrowingly lukewarm. “’Tis the Damn Season” is the aforementioned tale of the celebrity returning home for the holidays, and you can’t help wonder if this one is a situation that hits close to her own heart. The twangy “No Body, No Crime” not only features her friends (and former opening act) Haim, it names the central character Este (how meta!) as it recalls the gleeful revenge of the Chicks’ “Goodbye Earl” and the swagger of Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats.”

Aaron Dessner of The National was the primary producer of folklore, but Swift’s longtime collaborator Jack Antonoff handled six of that album’s songs; here, it’s truly Dessner at the helm, credited with all but one of the fifteen songs on the standard edition of the album. Moving away from Antonoff’s pop chops (he picked up the remaining track, the pulsing “Gold Rush”) makes the pleasures come more from sonic details and nuances rather than big hooks.

The songs are less linear structurally and texturally, and the credits are littered with instruments like glockenspiel, modular synth, pocket piano, and chord stick. A glitchy rhythm track powers “Long Story Short,” while the clangy “Closure” is damn near industrial. Dessner’s band is officially credited on one song, but its members appear throughout evermore; Bon Iver returns after folklore’s aching duet “Exile,” this time playing and singing on multiple songs, and Marcus Mumford turns up on the finely-etched grifter’s tale “Cowboy Like Me.” (William Bowery, who Swift outed as her boyfriend, Joe Alwyn, on the Disney+ special Folklore: The Long Pond Studio Sessions, gets three co-writing credits here, and even contributes the piano part on the closing title track.)

Not all of the stretches work: “Coney Island,” the duet with the National’s Matt Berninger, strains for “poetic” imagery, with the awkward refrain “Sorry for not making you my centerfold,” while the pairing with Bon Iver on “Evermore” doesn’t recapture the chemistry they found the last time. But damn, the girl can still write a punch line. “I come back harder than a ‘90s trend,” she sings on “Willow,” while on “Closure,” she drops a perfect post-breakup snapshot— “Don’t treat me like some situation that needs to be handled/I’m fine with my spite, and my tears and my beers and my candles.” Swift even seems to nod to the debacle of the Cats movie in the title track, acknowledging that “motion capture put me in a bad light.”

“I have no idea what will come next,” wrote Swift in one of her posts during the brief countdown to the release of evermore. “I have no idea about a lot of things these days.” But there’s little uncertainly in this confident, daring record—a surprising yet natural next step in Swift’s evolution—which feels like it will continue to reveal itself over repeated listens. In the chilling “Happiness,” she sings, “I haven’t met the new me yet,” meaning both her own replacement in a broken relationship and the person who will rise from those ashes. I can’t guess which Taylor Swift we will get next, but I can’t wait to meet her.

[weekendwarriorblog]

ED’s Top 10 (or so) Albums of 2020

I would like to dedicate this year’s Top 10 list to Tim Burgess and his amazing #TimsTwitterListening Parties (aka TTLP), which had me eagerly listening to new music and classic favorites on almost a daily basis throughout the pandemic. Those sessions surely have led to a few odder choices and surprises on my list than previous years. In fact, I don’t think a single artist on this list has ever made it into my Top 10 list in previous years, although to be honest, in the past, this list has only been an addition to my Top 25 movie list, and not something I’ve put nearly as much time or focus into.

Anyway, let’s get to the list.

10. Paul McCartney  - McCartney III 

Having been released just before Christmas, you can’t have a much more late entry than the latest solo record from Mr. Paul McCartney, the third record in which he played all the instruments himself. It’s another great example of how artists/musicians/songwriters were able to use the pandemic creatively and constructively. There are some great songs on here, including some highly experimental tunes, but appearing on #TimsTwitterListeningParty sent me down the deep well of his amazing previous work, which I remember absolutely adoring from when I was a young lad in the ‘70s.

Standout Track(s): “Deep Deep Feeling” “Seize the Day”

https://open.spotify.com/album/1P7h3400RJA3YZm8Va2884?si=bOeYLZe6TzCQfYSQDPr2Vw

TTLP Replay: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_590.html

Everyone beyond this point should be proud that their records ranked higher than this rock music legend...

9. Slow Readers Club - 91 Days in Isolation/The Joy of the Return

If there’s one band that clearly defined my 2020, it’s this post-punk-ish band from Manchester that just really blew me away not just by the fact they made three great albums before the two released in 2020, but even more shockingly, that they have never played a gig in the United States or in New York City! Definitely have to change that as soon as possible! Fortunately, I was able to catch a number of their livestreams this year, some recorded from previous years, and a couple done live as a band that has to be considered not only of the hardest working bands but also one of the most attuned to their fanbase.

Standout Track(s): “The Wait” “Last Summer”

https://open.spotify.com/album/5mGjQoTtQY16FCSleB3fpU

TTLP Replay: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_30.html

https://open.spotify.com/album/3AghJLF4yVqdau5NpQYQYg?si=rlclqEucR9mgm-ghr_IC7g

TTLP Replay: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_503.html

And now... for a string of women to counterbalance the lads...

8. Throwing Muses - Sun Racket

It’s been a long time since I’ve listened to Ms. Kristin Hersh and her band, although I did see them a few times in the ‘80s/90s.  Thanks to the TTLP, I was able to relisten to one of the band’s earlier records which reignited my passion, and as luck would have it, Throwing Muses released a new record this year, one that’s much darker and heavier. I also learned that Hersh had created a similarly heavy almost metal side-project called 50FootWave, which is equally awesome. Definitely gonna be on the lookout to see them again down the road.

Standout Track(s): “Dark Blue”

https://open.spotify.com/album/6CAe3KknCE98ny4ufsACKT?si=gyWevKobSWC3jeoQm4ywlg

TTLP Replay: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_417.html

7. Kylie Minogue - Disco

Hopefully, this will be the biggest shocker in this list, because it’s certainly my biggest surprise. If you had told ‘90s ED that a record by Kylie Minogue landed higher than one by Throwing Muses, he would have through you were absolutely nuts. I’m not sure I would even have listened to it if Ms. Minogue hadn’t made a guest appearance on TTLP, but I soon learned why Ms. Minogue’s work is so infectious, and honestly, in 2020, even if I didn’t actually get up and dance to the record— you’re welcome, downstairs neighbors— I was always dancing inside… and that’s something we all truly needed this year.

Standout Track(s): “Last Chance” “Where Does the DJ Go?”

https://open.spotify.com/album/7EBIA9cqbuqkyWfp3UCitD?si=bIzG51FRR8W6OK2SC6oy6g

TTLP Replay: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_525.html

6. Emmy the Great - April/月音

I was only really aware of Emmy the Great from her work with Tim Wheeler, lead of my favorite band Ash, but I hadn’t really kept track of her career or checked out her solo records.  If Disco is the record that makes me happy with its joyous danceability, then Emmy the Great’s Autumn is one that does similarly with its mellow tunefulness that I found so relaxing and comforting. Plus her lyrics are pretty amazing.

Standout Track(s): “Writer” “Dandelions/Liminal” “A Window/O’Keefe”

https://open.spotify.com/album/4UKkCTAvqBAWVBnakgxmo2?si=nRvbuOqhRiGRM7nQtrQf8A

TTLP Replay: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_536.html

5. Nadine Shah - Kitchen Sink

Yet another terrific UK artist that I discovered through #TimsTwitterListeningParty, first with one of her earlier records and then through her latest— noticing as trend here? Dark and mysterious with a mix of genres and arrangements and instrumentation that puts her in league with an artist like PJ Harvey, Ms. Shaw is an artist who has already found huge acclaim in the UK and I’m sure the rest of the world will soon follow.

Standout Track(s): “Ladies for Babies (Goats for Love)” “Trad”

https://open.spotify.com/album/0Your9tq4Z8voUjLG9pubz?si=z2-Ff0k0SXeAymHLzdPm5g

TTLP Replay: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_279.html

4. Sofie - Cult Survivor

And then we have this record, the debut by a singer/musician that should not be confused with that OTHER “Sophie.” This record is almost as enigmatic as the artist herself, but it runs the gamut from David Lynch’s classic work with Julee Cruise and the ephemeral Cocteau Twins to low-fi dance music with a melancholy countered by beautiful tunefulness and true passion.

Standout Track(s): “Hollywood Walk of Fame” “Happen 2 B There”

https://open.spotify.com/album/50B74mMTKzwo8jaKLOR9Su?si=NRZW-96qRdmEKBo-eAIXug

TTLP Replay: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_285.html

3. The Lottery Winners - The Lottery Winners

Another Manchester band that I only discovered since fans of the Slow Readers Club share a love for this far poppier British export, also from Manchester. This was another record that I could throw on any time during the pandemic and it really gave me joy and got me motivated. Yes, it’s unapologetically the kind of pop/rock the UK was delivering on a weekly basis, but every song is almost perfect pop with amazing production. I’m sure they’re gonna be huge in the U.S. as soon as they come over here… hopefully bringing the Slow Readers Club with them!

Standout Track(s): “The Meaning of Life” “Little Things” “I Know” “21” “I Don’t Love You” 

https://open.spotify.com/album/1VPGAdyPZWykKN5hnEoV8T?si=sNvJ6uRpQAeldFtatH_oAQ

TTLP Replay: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_517.html

2. Badly Drawn Boy - Banana Skin Shoes

It’s been 20 years since Badly Drawn Boy’s brilliant debut ”The Hour of Bewilderbeast,” and while I’ve mostly kept track of Mr. Gough through his soundtrack contributions, I was blown away by his 2020 offering, which was such a nice bookend to his beloved first record with a number of truly great songs. (Sadly, this record still hasn’t gotten a #TimsTwitterListeningParty, but considering who else made this list, you should trust me that this record is indeed one of his best!)

Standout Track(s): “I Need to Someone to Trust”“Is This a Dream?” ”I Just Want to Wish You Happiness”

https://open.spotify.com/album/1cAXo6rl91xweqLM9M54KP?si=WITCPmbEQaqFWtCnL4pypA

TTLP Replay: NONE!!! A TRAVESTY!!!

1. Rufus Wainwright - Unfollow the Rules

Of course, I’ve known about singer/songwriter Rufus Wainwright for decades. I probably even had more than a few friends who were true fans, although none of them ever told me, “Hey, Ed, you should listen to this guy”…so I didn’t. Like most of the others on this list, Mr. Wainwright did a Tim’s Twitter Listening Party for one of his earlier records that immediately sold me, so when his latest came out in August, I was ready to give  it a try. It became a record that probably became the most symbolic for my pandemic, as I would return to it again and again to discover all its treasures.

Standout Track(s): “Angels and Devils””Damsel in Distress” “Peaceful Afternoon”

https://open.spotify.com/album/07XUVGf2M6rXVsbdNqogTk?si=DCRc3nhAQTq8yv9EKIf9tg

TTLP Replay: https://timstwitterlisteningparty.com/pages/replay/feed_314.html

Honorable Mentions:

Holy Fuck - Deleter Everything Everything - Re-Animator  Thurston Moore - By the Fire Nada Surf - Never Not Together Sparks - A Steady Drip, Drip, Drip Working Men’s Club - Working Men’s Club Guided by Voices - All Three 2020 Albums! 

[redglassesgirl-maruma]

Live reaction/post to the new Drama CD

 I decided to listen to it and live-write in a post with whatever I’m thinking XD 

For the ones who want the general summary of this new CD, here’s marumafan post. You can get a good idea of everything that happens in it from the summary alone and skip this post if you’re not interested, there’s nothing new and I don’t have the japanese level to explain anything, I’m just doing this for entertainment purposes ^^

Aw, I missed the voice actors, they’re great as always <3 I understand like 20% or less of what I hear but it doesn’t matter haha.

That first reference they do is killing me, I strongly believe the “hot limit/revolution” thing Yuuri says about Wolfram’s costume is related to TM Revolution’s song Hot Limit, a video that was very sexy for his time and the costume the singer is wearing resembles the designs for this Halloween CD. Video here in youtube, I feel so old watching it again xD The dictionary Wolf’s using is making things worse but I love it, I hope they keep it as a running gag.

Anissina’s costume is super sexy, and now I see her voice in the CD is pretty sexy too. The whip and all, dominatrix style like Cherie. And I’m dying with Wolf crying and talking about Günter’s fate hahaha, so dramatic. He rolls back pretty quickly to “Sorry Günter, I’ll save myself” haha, same as previous CDs where he wouldn’t even sacrifice for Gwen. Hahaha they drop the CD name so casually, like “ah, here I have to say the title...” xD I love these funny details when they break the wall.

Oh man I couldn’t recognize Conrart’s voice at first, until he calls Gwen aniue I was wondering who was this. I had to go back here and listen to their scene again. Aw so cute when Conrart says daisukidayo to him, loved that. Specially because I always remember from the special The Maidmer Princess and I and the way Conrart thinks about Gwen there, so cold and distant, like they’re not even friends. I would like it so much if they maintain this development where they’re all close.

Ahhh, my Jozak xD I love to hear his voice, and he’s arriving with Mura. The “gaooo” Mura does is so cute, Gwen I feel you hahaha. The changes in Jozak voice are always amazing, the voice actor is so versatile, but Anissina in the first part also impressed me with her voice acting. Mura always breaking the 4th wall, that’s his thing . I’m sad I don’t understand some parts I was interested in detail from the summary haha, my second OTP being Jozak and Mura wants me to understand more moreeee.

Poor Gwen being whipped, but he seems to be enjoying it? XD so M, your Excellency. Jozak calling her Anissina-chan, he’s the only one that dares, hearing him is great.

Hahahhaa, the censored word Anissina is saying makes everyone loose their mind. And she keeps repeating and repeating, this part is hilarious. Excuse me, what did you say girl? XD

So, in this part in the summary she’s basically saying “pussy juice” and I just can’t when Yuuri ends up drinking the morning dew (aka the juice) and faints. Boy so gay he can’t stand anything related XDDDDDDD And he’ll end dreaming sad things, but also being married to a guy with an adopted daughter and enjoying his happy gay family hahaha. There’s so much to analyze about Yuuri here but it’s also very self explanatory.

Anissina goes from sexy queen to a lolicon voice in a split of a second, calling Yuuri-kun and all in a childish singing voice. Hhahaha, when Yuuri drinks the juice, Wolf screams “Yuuuuuuri” (Nooo, don’t go to the dark side of heterosexuality! xDDDDD Can’t help it).

So, now Anissina is just a chibi or something, her voice is 1000% loli. I applaud this woman with that range of voices and that control. We have the best seiyuus and I’m so glad. Everyone has been amazing so far, not just her, but I’m just impressed hearing Ani for so long this time.

Now the dream is happening. Gwen really sounds calm and happy, I’m so glad. I can’t say much about this part because I don’t understand much of what they’re saying, now Jozak is at his bar and all. Same as Apollo but hearing it makes me feel way less depressed than the written version. The Apollo ending made me so sad, so I don’t re-read it as other specials and parts of the novels. I think now Jozak is complaining no one comes to visit him and yeah, that’s sad. Yuuri is not having a good time, every time he steps in and out of some sort of room while seeing these dreams he’s like living a nightmare. Chibi Anissina is there to guide him trough the changes.

It’s Conrart part now. Well, it starts cheerful, then romantic and then they end things very badly. A roller coaster that I’m not a fan of, specially because I don’t like this ending for Conrart, I think he deserves better than “repenting” alone and nothing else. Like, let the man be happy for once. Yuuri’s even punching his clothes or something, and Conrart drops a sayonara there, so cold man so cold.

Now is Wolf time! Yuuri summarizes everyone’s situation to Wolf very quickly and they sound super casual with a romantic jazz music as OST xDDD Then the music turns serious and kind of epic when they speak about Conrart and also Shin Makoku, the decision to come to Earth, it’s quite nice. Wolfram’s always wonderful when he’s prince like. The wife/husband discussion again hahhaa, but so SO casual~ then they just talk about Greta with more slow music. So the topic about hey we’re newlyweds is very cute and super mega casual with no tsundere attitude at all.

They’re so married~ I can die happy now, this is enough for me specially because the dream is a about the actual future Yuuri shouldn’t have seen. It’s something that is actually true, and that’s sad because some characters endings could be better, but at the same time I’m so glad they’re fucking married, finally xDDDDD

And this ending just happens in two years, we can calculate thanks to Greta’s age, and I think Yuuri just said it to Anissina, that she’s 10 now and she was 12 in the dream/future. Now Mura calls by phone to wake him up, and Yuuri is sad about everything except Wolf and Greta. Now Yuuri must forget the spoilers xD Mura special powers/knowledge no one understand but are very convenient.

Yuuri wakes up, Murata says the prohibited word and the biiiip keeps being a great gag for me, with a 5 years old sense of humor. Jozak making Wolf calm down is great, let’s be zeeeeen. I think I understood Jozak said he likes Anissina because x and x reason. And now we go to another pairing, with Yuuri trying to remember the good part of the dream, but Wolf’s too excited and mad for his back and forth, some sort of hilarious discussion and misunderstanding I’m not getting XD

Something about Yuuri and Greta haha, and Wolf saying he’s not forgiving him. Nooo, the OST is the marriage song. Wolf’s voice when Yuuri actually explain they’re both dad and daddy, awn. The dictionary again haha, Wolfram keeps using it and making everything worse. Marriage fanfare again hah, but I don’t understand what’s happening here, there’s Jozak and Conrart commenting too. Then, something about Anissina torturing Gwen a lot aaaand... the end.

The rest of the CD is the freetalk with the seiyuus, and this is a challenge because even if I listened to it fully, I don’t get what they’re talking about. I’ll just leave this at a one time listening and go back to my favorite parts to listen again and again and practice my hearing skills xD

 So, I really enjoyed this CD. My way of listening to it has been messy, a little bit here and there over an enteire week when I had the time and wasn’t dead tired. Slowly trying to understand but replaying and going back and forth. I have to listen to it again just in one go without stops, but I’ll not do the live writing again, it’s just pointless, once is more than enough!

[johannesviii]

Top 10 Personal Favorite Hit Songs from 2017

Not a very good year for hit songs. Still better than the next one, though.

And a very satisfying #1 that launched an entire infodump about a specific band. I’m not even sorry.

Disclaimers:

Keep in mind I’m using both the year-end top 100 lists from the US and from France while making these top 10 things. There’s songs in English that charted in my country way higher than they did in their home countries, or even earlier or later, so that might get surprising at times.

Of course there will be stuff in French. We suck. I know. It’s my list. Deal with it.

My musical tastes have always been terrible and I’m not a critic, just a listener and an idiot.

I have sound to color synesthesia which justifies nothing but might explain why I have trouble describing some songs in other terms than visual ones.

2017 might not sound super distant, but it’s already distant enough to analyse what started to happen to me that year with some clarity. This is when I started to lose some of my energy and motivation. A lot, in fact. Everything suddenly felt exhausting and this whole “what’s even the point of anything” mentality started to fall on my shoulders. And you know what, at first, while making these recaps, I had no idea what started it all. Was it that super rare infection I caught in early 2018 and almost made me lose a part of a finger? Was it both my grandfathers dying in mid 2018? Was it the general state of the world? But no, I did some digging and noticed this general exhaustion actually started right during summer 2017 and I was like what the f█ck happened in summer 2017? That summer was fine?

And then it clicked. I know exactly what kickstarted my spiral into about 18 months of depression, and it’s got nothing to do with health or family. It’s something that shouldn’t have affected my life in any way, and that I kinda tried to ignore at the time, and some of you might even find me overdramatic or cringy for letting it affect my life. But yeah, as I’ve realised while making these lists, Linkin Park was actually a super important part of my life, so it makes perfect sense: what started it all was Chester Bennington killing himself. Clearly, someone who had contributed so much to convince me that life was worth living and who suddenly decided it wasn’t worth it, that had a huge impact on me, whether I wanted it or not.

Aaaand now I’m crying again. Great.

Anyway. Uh. Important albums that year! Yeah so uh. Depeche Mode made Spirit and it wasn’t good, and so I kinda lost faith they would ever make a great album again, but I did realise one of my teenage dreams and saw them in concert in the Stade de France in July 2017 (it was huge. Going home after that felt like waking up from some sort of hypnotic trance. They even played Walking In My Shoes, one of my absolute favorite songs from them, along with a video featuring a trans person going to work and I started to bawl my eyes out in the middle of the f█cking crowd). Nine Inch Nails also made Add Violence and continued to be super good, and Indochine made 13, and while it wasn’t nearly as good as Black City Parade, it was also better than La République des Météors, so I was pretty happy about that. EDIT: Forgot about Under Your Spell by The Birthday Massacre, which blew my goddamn mind, but still not as much as the next album I'm gonna talk about.

But the defining album of the year, to me, was Mike Oldfield making a sequel to my favorite album from him, with Return to Ommadawn. Of course it’s not as good as Ommadawn. But still. If Ommadawn felt like discovering a new strange country full of weird folklore and forests and mysterious buildings, Return to Ommadawn feels like going back there half a century later and seeing things in ruins and wounded people, but still trying to seek beauty and joy in a partly destroyed landscape. It makes perfect sense considering the circumstances that surround the making of this thing, and it was the only way to make a good sequel to such a legendary album.

Unelligible songs that piss me off... uh, actually there’s only Cut to the Feeling by Carly Rae Jepsen. Why wasn’t it a huge hit. Come to think of it, why hasn’t any Carly Rae song been a huge hit since Good Times. This feels unfair.

Time for some honorable mentions, then.

Feels and also Slide (Calvin Harris and a lot of other people) - Got nothing to say about either of these songs, but they’re both pretty good.

Katchi (Ofenbach) - Nice little earworm.

No Roots (Alice Merton) - Super surprised this was a hit. Good.

OK (Robin Schulz ft James Blunt) - That’s a James Blunt song in the year of our lord 2017 and it sounds actually good??

What About Us (Pink) - Really caught my attention and made me wonder if I should listen to Pink again after a long streak of mediocre Pink songs.

Congratulations (Post Malone) - I find the song mostly boring but the guest verse ending with “uh, Malone... I gotta play on my phone...” is the stuff of legends and that got a chuckle out of me every time I heard it.

Glorious (Macklemore) - I’m glad this was a hit here but at the same time it’s not my favorite song from him. The music video is adorable, though.

Fly (Odyssey) - Nothing to say about that one.

XO Tour Life (Lil Uzi Vert) - The fact that I was regularly humming this is either a sign of quality or yet another sign I was depressed as shit.

Devil in Me (Purple Disco Machine) - What a great artist name.

Symphony (Clean Bandit) - Nothing to say here either, just good sound all around.

Attention (Charlie Puth) - 2017: The Year Charlie Puth Made A Great Song.

All Stars (Martin Solveig & Alma) - The last cut. It was on the list at some point. I really like it a lot, though.

And now, the list. The stuff I genuinely love starts at #6 and things that are still on my mp3 player to this day start at #4.

10 - Chained to the Rhythm (Katy Perry)

US: #73 / FR: #10

I just love the concept of a Katy Perry song about how Katy Perry songs are happy nonsense distracting you from actual issues. What can I say, I’m a sucker for meta stuff.

9 - Water Under The Bridge (Adele)

US: #88 / FR: Not on the list

An Adele song projecting actual positive energy!? That automatically goes on the list.

8 - Praying (Kesha)

US: #67 / FR: Not on the list

You know I mostly dislike slow emotional songs regardless of how good they actually are. I will, however, make an exception for this one even though I very rarely listen to it considering how emotionally taxing it is. That’s definitely a fantastic song, though.

7 - Viens On S’aime (Slimane)

US: Not on the list / FR: #53

“Listen, we love each other, f█ck it, f█ck their words and their decorum, listen, we love each other, f█ck it, f█ck their ideas and what they’re saying”. Well said, dude, well said.

6 - There’s Nothing Holding Me Back (Shawn Mendes)

US: #23 / FR: #91

That’s a very good song for running and that is becoming increasingly rarer, so I’ll take what I can get.

5 - Paris (The Chainsmokers)

US: #42 / FR: Not on the list (that’s irony for you)

Unlike Closer this is an unrelatable song about rich young people that can afford to live in Paris just “to get away from [their] parents” but honestly that’s the only negative thing I have to say against it. It sounds fantastic.

4 - Castle On The Hill (Ed Sheeran)

US: #40 / FR: #50

We’ve now entered the realm of songs that are still on my mp3 player to this day. This is the only Ed Sheeran song I’ve ever liked, and I love it. It sounds like a lost U2 song. Maybe from a strange dimension where U2 became more fragile and emotional instead of more pretentious.

I have no idea why this guy keeps making such boring stuff when he’s got that kind of song in him. I have no clue.

3 - Something Just Like This (Coldplay & The Chainsmokers)

US: #5 / FR: #19

Hey so Coldplay is still on my lists, apparently. It’s a bit too slow, some lyrics about superheros don’t make much sense, and the drop isn’t super good, but my god, that guitar near the end makes everything worth it. Just amazing colors and textures all around.

It’s not even my favorite song on that EP! I think Miracles (Someone Special) is even better, but eh, this one is a close second.

2 - 24k Magic (Bruno Mars)

US: #16 / FR: Not on the list (#13 in 2016 but I put it on the 2017 list instead)

Am I the only one to like this more than Uptown Funk? It’s so much fun to sing along to it. And unlike Uptown Funk, it’s making me feel nostalgic for an era I actually (vaguely) knew, the super colorful and ridiculous early 90s. My s.o loves it too and when it comes up on the radio or on our playlists you can bet we’re both going PUT YOUR. PINKY. RINGS UP. TO THE. MOOOOOOOON like two idiots.

This is the song I could have put on the previous list but elected to put on this list instead since it was elligible for both years, by the way! Since 2017 was less good than 2016, I thought it would be more interesting to save such a great song for later.

It would have topped the list too, if it wasn’t for something I didn’t expect to be elligible before reading the French year-end list.

Strap yourselves in, because I had no real opportunity to talk about this band at length in the posts made for the years when it was the most relevant in my life, so this is going to be quite long.

1 - La Vie Est Belle (Indochine)

US: Not on the list / FR: #44

As you already know if you remember some of my previous lists, Indochine is a band I started to love right in the middle of the absolute worst years of my life. These guys had been around since the 80s as a super successful new wave band, then became very unpopular and went underground for about twelve years in the entire 90s, then one of them died, then every member except the singer basically rotated, and then they suddenly re-emerged in 2002-2003 with Paradize, a monster of an album, full of energy, sinister themes and weird provocative songs, and an entire generation of angsty teenagers (me included as you can guess) embraced it wholeheartedly.

And all of a sudden Indochine was the favorite French mainstream band of local young punk/goths! So many kids with the Indochine logo in highschool. Nowadays the band is mocked and well-loved in equal doses by just about everyone, but I suspect it’s just because we’ve all grown up.

Placebo, Linkin Park and Indochine were the bands that ruled my entire world in 2003/2004. My mother hated all three of them, because of course she did, but especially Indochine, because according to her it was partly their fault if I was gender non-conforming. See, she used to say, they had put all kinds of bad ideas in my head and now I was all messed up.

...Holy shit, that’s a lot of blame to put on a ridiculous new wave band who’s first hit song from 1983 is just a long nonsensical list of shitty old Bob Morane pulp novels.

But here’s the problem. Even if Indochine kept having hit song after hit song, those were never the best songs on their albums. Here I am, 31, making these top ten lists since last December, and becoming more and more frustrated to see none of my favorite modern Indochine songs are elligible. My favorite Paradize singles were Mao Boy, Popstitute and especially Marilyn (god, this song rocked my entire year alongside Placebo’s The Bitter End. 2003 was such a fantastic year for dark energetic hit songs)? Too bad, the biggest hits were J’ai demandé à la lune and Le Grand Secret. Alice & June had four fantastic singles? Too bad, none of them is elligible! Same thing for the entirety of Black City Parade. Oh, but that song I hate from La Republique des Météors is elligible, I guess!

So we’re in summer 2017, and my life is completely different now, and Indochine releases La Vie Est Belle (I’m linking the album version and not the music video because it has some violent themes in it). I’m in my car doing some errands and the local radio goes “hey new song from Indochine” and I’m like “oh shit, gotta hear this” and then two minutes later “oh wow, that is super good. Won’t be a hit though”.

And yet, it was a hit! It became huge, even! And at that point I was already loving that song even though I thought it was just a super good but tragic love song about a significant other dying too young.

And then, about a month later, the wordplay of the first line finally hit me with the force of a semitruck. It’s not a love song. It’s a song about the singer’s dead twin. Who died in 1999.

It’s such a devastating, beautiful song, and yet it’s full of energy. I. adore. it. It’s exactly the kind of song you need to continue to fight and to live and to help other people in this day and age. “Life is beautiful and cruel, it looks like us sometimes” indeed. And it’s one of the best on the album, too!

So yes, 15 years after I first fell in love with this band and after they helped me during super dark times, finally, I can put one of their songs at the top of one of these lists, hands down, no debate whatsoever.

That probably sounds ridiculous but it’s genuinely making me feel extremely emotional.

Next up: I thought music sucked that year because I was depressed but I relistened to it and no it wasn’t just me

[omgellendean]

I'm dying to know which of your suspicions became stronger re: ASOIAF reading GRRM's other stories, if you wanna talk about that!

Sorry for the delay, couldn’t formulate my thoughts in English this week xd This turned out really long, with thoughts all over the place, so read at your own risk!

1. So my main outtake from these earlier works was that ASoIaF ending is going to be really frustrating and maybe even more upsetting than GoT finale. I was rambling about it before, and I’m pretty sure there are many better-written posts on this matter. But the point is, almost all Martin’s works have “bitter-sweet” (ugh, this word is so overused) endings with the emphasis on bitter and even the characters who get the sweet part end up damaged. Even the show ending has shades of this — or would have with better writing.

At the same time, I hope that Martin’s version will be easier to stomach because 1, writing will be better, and 2, he won’t be afraid to go full-on tragic when needed. Because IMO, the main problem of GoT finale (aside from it rushing through the bullet points like an express) were writers trying to present the state Westeros has been left in as a 100% happy, satisfactory ending when it obviously wasn’t, and this dissonance made everyone hate the show even more. So yeah, we’ll see how it turns out.

2. The most upsetting conclusion: in the books, there’s a really big chance that Bran will never leave his cave. Martin has several stories featuring some kind of hive-mind telepathically connecting and absorbing people’s souls, and the whole concept of greenseeing seems to fit in this motif perfectly. Even some descriptions match. Considering that we know all previous greenseers never left the cave and have literally become a part of the tree system, this whole thing gives me serious A Song for Lya vibes, and I’m worried. 

3. He even uses the term “green dreams” in another story concerning hive-mind (which calls themselves the Singers, like Children of the forest in ASoIaf). Interestingly, in this story, the Singers create horrible monsters to protect themselves from human invasion, and only the strong telepath’s intervention ends the war. IMO, that seems pretty close to the show version of the Others’ origins. Maybe something similar awaits us in the books too. Not the Night’s King part because he is Coldhands, but the Others being the Children’s protectors, at least initially.

4. And maybe the show version of the Long Night is also closer to the books than it seems. I mean, I hope it won’t literally last one night (though Martin has a story where it happens, lol). But the concept of the heroes giving one desperate battle and failing, while someone takes a shortcut and saves the day seems to be a very Martin’s thing. Though I wonder if this someone is going to be Bran, not Arya.

5. I’m 100% sure Jon will end up living as some kind of a hermit in the far north. Sad lonely dudes in towers in the middle of nowhere are a big thing in GRRM’s works, and I can see Jon going into some kind of self-exile after everything. He even has a tower already in his storyline, lol. Another big theme in Martin's stories are heroes outliving their most heroic moment, and it seems to me that's where Jon's story is going. Again, there are shades of it even in the show, but oh well.

6. Arya is going to travel around the world. Aside from the foreshadowings for it in the books (they were in the show, too), a chance to see the world is the prise GRRM always gives to his faves.

7. Oh, and King's Landing is totally going to burn. I actually think that's good because it's a shitty place anyway. Again, someone dramatically burning down the town out of anger and grief is a repeating motif in Martin's works, though usually, these towns are empty. Who knows, maybe King's Landing will be empty too, after all the battles coming for it? And I think Tyrion is going to be more involved in it since he has more reasons to hate this place than Dany would ever have.

8. I’m also more sure than ever that Tyrion is going to be alright. In fact, it seems that Martin aimed to show him slowly getting okay by the end of ADwD, though I’m not sure he quite succeed.

Gosh, I hope all this makes sense. Thanks for the ask!

[thestuckylibrary]

Group Ask 129

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Please send us an ask stating which group ask and which person you are replying to. Thank you so much in advance!

Anon 1 said:

Hello, I've lost a fic I was reading. In it Bucky is an alien, I think. He is a boxer/fighter, he fights against other alien/enhanced creatures (there's one that's some kind of giant lizard). Steve is still Cap, and he falls for Bucky, and starts going to the gym and becomes Bucky's training partner. What else? Nat or Fury tell Steve about Krees and Skrulls. Bucky lives in the gym, has his few belongings in metal boxes. Sorry, I can't be more specific. Thank you in advance.

samanthahirr, partyhardwoohoo and capiturecs sent in The Boy With The Thorn In His Side by BetteNoire (WeAreWolves) (complete | 21,980 | E) - AO3 restricked

Anon 2 said:

So I've been looking for a fic that I read probably close to a year ago. It was post TWS and they were living in the tower. During the war they had written letters to each other using their initials for names (Baby for B.B. Sugar for S.G.R) and Sam and Steve are really close so at some point Bucky ends up asking Steve if Sam calls him sugar too. Sorry that it's super vague

mythgrrl said:

i feel like ive sent you a billion asks over the years! good news is i found a fic i know i had sent in asks for a few times (sorry), bad news is i lost another fic. it was steve/buky pwp in wakanda after CACW. it was bottom!steve and they had no lube so they bucky used spit. although it was their first time in the 21st century it was established relationship. i swear the summary was smth like "steve & bucky have a free night in wakanda, they spend it how you think they might"c

disgruntledturtles said:

Hi there! Do you know the fic set in pre-war, where Steve and Bucky are out of money so steve makes a racy film and Bucky ends up seeing it?

slutforasoldier said:

Hey! Super sorry but I'm looking for this fic where Steve and Bucky have a disabled daughter with like metal legs? And they adopt an abused native American boy, I can't remember much else sorry x

dragonflybeach sent in Finding Nina by MPantrochilles (complete | 53,344 | T)

Anon 3 said:

 ive been looking for this fic where sam and steve are on the typical "searching for bucky" roadtrip and one night they're in this shitty motel and buck just comes in through the window. i know it's not much to go on, but ive been looking for this fic forever now. please and thank you. i wish you the best of luck.

dragonflybeach sent in If They Haven't Learned Your Name by silentwalrus (complete | 237,623 | M)

Anon 4 said: (abuse)

Hey! I’ve been looking for this fix I read a long time ago. Bucky was raising his niece by himself. Steve was dating Brock rumlow, and rumlow was super abusive. Bucky meets Steve and notices somethings wrong so he tries to help Steve get out of the relationship. There’s also a touch of clintasha

legion-of-queer said:

okay, so maybe you wonderful people can help. Im looking for a babysitter bucky fic. he baby sists steves kids (bucky is a teen) they get into a relationship and nat is buckys sister? ive been looking everywhere for it and just really want to read it again!

Anon 5 said:

alright it's day three in the search for this fic and I'm getting desperate lol. Do y'all know the one where Bucky is kinda mean and cold as a kid until he meets Steve, and they have to touch to be comfortable in their own skin? Steve's mom says it's because they have a special bond but Bucky's mom is like, nah, ur weird. Thanks!

Anon sent in how we are hungry by liketheroad (oneshot | 18,366 | M)

Anon 6 said:

Hello! First, I would like to thank you for all the hard work you do! I'm sorry to bother, but I've looked everywhere for this story, and had no luck finding it. I remember that Bucky forgot about Steve (temporarily), but Steve still kept an eye on him. Then Sam calls him one day to let him know Bucky is missing, only to find him in his apartment (obviously angry). I highly appreciate your help. Also if there is any other story like it. Idk why, but I live for angsty Steve watching over Bucky.

Anon 7 said:

Hi! I searched on your kid!fic rec but didn’t found it so in this fic Steve has a kid and he go to a nursery at the Avengers tower and Bucky take care of him. I just don’t remember if it’s a captain America/modern Bucky Barnes or not 🤷🏽‍♀️

kittenkakt and Anon sent in Love You More by Loeily, Squeaky (oneshot | 36,477 | T)

Anon 8 said:

hi! i lost a fic and need your help :( ive searched on a bunch of your tags and also on ao3. i remember the avengers thought steve was inocent and stuff like that and steve, bucky, natasha and sam (or clint im not sure) go to a mission and bucky and steve have sex and think that no one hears them but when they are on their way back home natasha or sam make a comment about what they heard. i know this is very vague, but the fic was short and i read it a long time ago. thank you so much <3

therandomravenclw and Anon sent in Watch Your Mouth by Enalena (oneshot | 5,311 | E)

indelicateink said:

You guys have opened my eyes to SO many wonderful stories I wouldn't have found otherwise--thank you. I'm hoping you can help me re-find one I loved? Searched the library tags, AO3, my bookmarks; starting to think I'm crazy. Hope this is an easy one: AU in which Bucky is the lead singer of a band (other avengers are bandmates); Steve is a former member of the band (bass guitarist?) who quit under acrimonious circumstances. The story focuses on him temporarily rejoining to help them out on tour?

Anon 9 said:

Hi, I’m looking for a post-WS fic where Bucky and Steve are in the Tower, and Bucky starts learning to cook and making all these amazing meals but he tells Steve they’re all takeout, and somehow the rest of the avengers gang ends up helping him hide his awesome new cooking skills from Steve. I checked the chef tags and can’t find it in there.

capiturecs sent in Dream of Caramel: or, A Recipe for Disaster by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth) (oneshot | 17,037 | T)

Anon 10 said:

i can’t seem to find this kidfic i read once. one scene i specifically remember stevebuckys child ate something they (i think he?) were allergic to. real hurtcomfort

[grigori77]

Summer 2019′s Movies - My Top Ten Favourite Films (Part 2)

The Top Ten:

IMPORTANT NOTE:  You WILL NOT find It Chapter 2 here, but that does not mean it isn’t awesome.  I saw it AFTER I had sompleted this but while it was still editing.,  Technically it’s part of the Autumn/Winter period anyway, opening as it did in September.  Undoubtedly look out for it at the end of the year when I post my Top 30 for the year.

10.  CAPTIVE STATE – WAY back in 2011, Rupert Wyatt followed up his impressive directorial debut The Escapist with an even more astounding show helming sci-fi franchise reboot Rise of the Planet of the Apes, and I knew here was a talent it was definitely gonna be worth my while to watch in future.  Then the years ticked by and he spectacularly failed to follow it up, and I began to think he might become one of those frustrating auteur talents that explode onto the scene, wow us with their wares and then just STOP, like Donnie Darko’s Ryan Kelly or Blade’s Stephen Norrington.  I was just about to give up hope when Wyatt returned with this dark and troubling skewed take on the alien invasion trope, but now, perversely, this film’s failing fortunes make me think his career might just take a swan dive after all, and as far as I’m concerned, on the evidence of the final film, that would be a crying shame.  Instead of telling the story of how the Earth falls to the conquering might of invading alien forces, Captive State concentrates on what happens after, focusing on a humanity stagnating under the thumb of an all-powerful occupying force, the collaborating police force that maintains discipline on the populace through tagging and intrusive surveillance, and the deep cover resistance movement that’s built up in the eight years since “The Legislators” took over.  The main narrative focus of the story is Gabriel Drummond (Moonlight’s Ashton Sanders), a downtrodden Chicago youth working a menial job but dreaming of getting out with his pregnant girlfriend, who discovers a tentative connection to the underground resistance when his brother Rafe (White Boy Rick’s Jonathan Majors), whom he previously thought was dead, re-enters his life with a desperate request.  Unfortunately Gabriel has also come to the attention of local cop Will Mulligan (John Goodman), who’s looking to use this connection to finally penetrate the “dangerous terrorist element” his office has been working for years to eradicate.  This is about as far from the classical invasion action territory of films like Independence Day, Skyline or even Signs as you can get, playing out much more like a World War 2 occupation thriller, and this is, in my opinion, one of its great strengths – there’s a palpable, knife-edged tension throughout, Wyatt cranking up the suspense as each new plot development ups the stakes for all involved, and when that tension does eventually break it does so in suitably explosive style, leading to some taut and harrowing set-pieces, while the director and his co-writer Erica Beeney pull off some impressive twists and skilful rug-pulls that consistently surprise.  Indeed, this is one of the most skilfully written pieces of science fiction I’ve come across for a good while, brimming with big ideas and asking some suitably challenging questions throughout, before finally paying off our patience with a suitably powerful climax.  It’s also extremely well-performed by a uniformly impressive ensemble cast – Goodman offers a performance of cool subtlety that proves the equal to much of his showier work on hits like 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Big Lebowski, while Sanders and Majors are both exceptional in what should have been major breakthrough roles that really built on their already impressive debuts, and there’s quality support from the likes of Machine Gun Kelly, Vera Farmiga, Alan Ruck, Kevin Dunn and Madeline Brewer.  This is DEFINITELY one of the most robust and challenging pieces of scif-fi cinema I’ve seen this decade, and it certainly does deserve a lot more attention and appreciation than it’s received – it essentially bombed on its long-delayed release and suffered from painfully mixed, sometimes quite negative reviews, and I genuinely don’t understand either.  This is an EXCELLENT film, and it’s a strong indicator of just what a great talent Rupert Wyatt is – I just have to hope this hasn’t ruined his chances for the future, because I couldn’t bear seeing him pull an undeserved vanishing act like so many others …

9.  GODZILLA: KING OF MONSTERS – back in 2014, rising star director Gareth Edwards (already one-to-watch thanks to the sleeper hit success of his debut Monsters) proved he wasn’t going to be a one-hit-wonder when he aced his first major studio gig, reinventing Japanese superstar property Godzilla for western audiences and EFFORTLESSLY wiping out the appalling stigma of Roland Emmerich’s underwhelming previous attempt (needless to say he was then a no-brainer to helm the first Star Wars spinoff movie, Rogue One, but that’s another, even more awesome story). Suffice to say, the Big G’s name was good in western cinema again, and Legendary Pictures swiftly put their planned Monsterverse franchise into action, building on this solid foundation with a similarly stylish “prequel” in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, with a showdown between the two screen icons intended further down the line.  The next major hurdle, however, was this super-important follow-up, intended to get all the gears turning – if THIS ONE flunked, the Monsterverse would take a massive nosedive.  Did it pull it off?  Not quite … turns out this one’s not looking likely to scrape even on its massive investment, never mind make a profit, but that sure ain’t for lack of trying. Sure, the plot’s a bit of a far-fetched muddle and, as with its predecessor, the human characters are drawn in broad strokes and somewhat lacking in real spark, but the spectacle’s still there in spades and besides, the REAL selling point of these movies has always been their more gigantic characters.  Godzilla’s just as much of a colossal badass as he was in the first film, still a skyscraper-high bruiser with a moody mean streak and some suitably apocalyptic bad breath, but ultimately just the kind of monumental reptile you want on your side in a cataclysmic scrap, and he’s sure got his work cut out for him with one serious collection of similarly massive monsters crawling out of the woodwork (or, in this case, compromised secure black sites controlled by covert Titan management organisation Monarch) – they’re a colourful bunch, from returning nasty Muto to newcomers Rodan and, particularly memorable, the beautiful but deadly Mothra, and most of them are heeding the call of the film’s TRUE scene stealer, triple-headed rival alpha Titan King Ghidorah, who is in every way a genuinely viable nemesis for the Big G himself.  Needless to say, the BIG stars are presented without compromise throughout, as gargantuan and terrifying as their reputations make them out to be, and whenever they’re on screen it just lights up, the visual effects budget working overtime and all the money’s up there on the screen, while the property damage quota shoots through the roof in suitably pulse-racing style … and yet again, the human story does kind of get buried in the fallout.  Not that they’re a completely unmemorable lot – it’s great to see Ken Watanabe return as elegantly noble Monarch honcho Dr Ishiro Serazawa, along with his assistant Dr Vivienne Graham (another winning turn from Sally Hawkins), and the rest of Monarch gets much stronger representation this time round as we’re introduced to a crew that includes Bradley Whitford, Ice Cube’s son O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Straight Outta Compton) and Aisha Hinds, while there’s a typically classy bad guy turn from Charles Dance as Alan Jonah, the amoral ex-soldier leading an eco-terrorist group who (for baffling reasons) want to awaken all the Titans at once so they can fight for supremacy.  The main narrative focus, however, is on the fractured family unit of former Monarch specialist Dr Mark Russell (Super 8’s Kyle Chandler) and his fellow scientist wife Emma and daughter Madison (Vera Farmiga and Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown), who have both been kidnapped by Jonah, a story that’s contrived and clumsily written, shot through with plot-holes when the twists aren’t painfully telegraphed ahead of time, and Brown barely gets ANYTHING to do other than be scared or stubborn, but they still give it their all and, since they’re all great actors, they largely win out against the writing.  This certainly isn’t the best movie released this year, definitely leaning more towards the guilty pleasure category, but there’s more than enough good here to outweigh the bad, so this is definitely one of those wonderful movies where you get PLENTY out of it if you just sit back and GO WITH IT.  It’s certainly got a strong director and co-writer in Michael Dougherty, who cut his teeth working for Bryan Singer on X2 and Superman Returns (which was similarly flawed, but still enjoyable in its own right) before making his big break behind the camera on Krampus, and for all its clunkiness it wins you over with its big-wow factor, can-do attitude and industrial-sized bucket-loads of heart and emotional heft, as well as a particularly cracking score from Bear McCreary, one of the most deservedly well respected composers working on both the big and small screens today, so in spite of the flaws this still deserves to be counted as a pretty rousing success.  Thankfully Godzilla Vs. King Kong is still greenlit and scheduled to arrive next spring, so there’s still life in the old lizards yet – long live the King indeed.

8.  DARK PHOENIX – wow, this really has been a summer for mistreated sequels, hasn’t it? There’s a seriously stinky cloud of controversy surrounding what is now, in light of recent developments between Disney and Twentieth Century Fox, all but QUARANTEED to be the last true Singer-era X-Men movie, a film which saw two mooted release dates (first November 2018 then this February, before finally limping onto screens with very little fanfare in June, almost as if Fox wanted to bury it.  Certainly rumours of its compromise were rife, particularly regarding supposed rushed reshoots because of clashing similarities with Marvel’s major tent-pole release Captain Marvel (and given the all-conquering nature of the MCU there was no way they were having that, was there?), so like many I was expecting a clunky mess, maybe even a true stinker to rival X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  In truth, while it’s not perfect, the end result is nothing like the turd we all feared – the final film is, in fact, largely a success, worthy of favourable comparison with its stronger predecessors.  It certainly makes much needed amends for the disappointing mismanagement of the source comics’ legendary Dark Phoenix saga in 2006’s decidedly compromised original X-Men trilogy capper The Last Stand, treating the story with the due reverence and respect it deserves as well as serving as a suitably powerful send-off for more than one beloved key character.  Following the “rebooted” path of the post-Days of Future Past timeline, it’s now 1992, and after the world-changing events of Apocalypse the X-Men have now become a respected superhero team with legions of fans and their own personal line to the White House, while mutants at large have now mostly become accepted by the regular humans around them.  Then a hastily planned mission into space takes a turn for the worst and Jean Grey (Game of Thrones’ Sophie Turner) winds up absorbing an immensely powerful, thoroughly inexplicable cosmic force that makes her go powers haywire while also knocking loose repressed childhood traumas Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) would rather had stayed buried, sending her on a dangerous spiral out of control which leads to a destructive confrontation and the inadvertent death of a teammate. Needless to the situation soon becomes desperate as Jean goes on the run and the world starts to turn against them all once again … all in all, then, it’s business as usual for the cast and crew of one of Fox’s flagship franchises, and it SHOULD have gone off without a hitch. When Bryan Singer opted not to return this time around (instead setting his sights on Queen biopic Bohemian Rhapsody), key series writer Simon Kinberg stepped into the breach for his directorial debut, and it turns out he’s got a real talent for it, giving us just the kind of robust, pacy, thrilling action-packed epic his compatriot would have delivered, filled with the same thumping great set-pieces (the final act’s stirring, protracted train battle is the unequivocal highlight here), well-observed character beats and emotional resonance we’ve come to expect from the series as a whole (then again, he does know these movies back to frond having at least co-written his fair share). The cast, similarly, are all on top form – McAvoy and Michael Fassbender (as fan favourite Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto) know their roles so well now they can do this stuff in their sleep, but we still get to see them explore interesting new facets of their characters (particularly McAvoy, who gets to reveal an intriguing dark side to the Professor we’ve only ever seen hinted at before now), while Turner finally gets to really breathe in a role which felt a little stiff and underexplored in her series debut in Apocalypse (she EASILY forges the requisite connective tissue to Famke Janssen’s more mature and assured take in the earlier films); conversely Tye Sheridan (Cyclops), Alexandra Shipp (Storm), Kodi Smit-McPhee (Nightcrawler) and Evan Peters (Quicksilver) get somewhat short shrift but nonetheless do A LOT with what little they have, and at least Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult still get to do plenty of dramatic heavy lifting as the last of Xavier’s original class, Raven (Mystique) and Hank McCoy (Beast); the only real weak link in the cast is the villain, Vuk, a shape-shifting alien whose quest to seize the power Jean’s appropriated is murkily defined at best, but at least Jessica Chastain manages to invest her with enough icy menace to keep things from getting boring.  All in all, then, this is very much a case of business as usual, Kinberg and co keeping the action thundering along at a suitably cracking pace throughout (powered by a typically epic score from Hans Zimmer), and the film only really comes off the rails in its final moments, when that aforementioned train finally comes off its tracks and the reported reshoots must surely kick in – as a result this is, to me, most reminiscent of previous X-flick The Wolverine, which was a rousing success for the majority of its runtime, only coming apart in its finale thanks to that bloody ridiculous robot samurai. The climax is, therefore, a disappointment, too clunky and sudden and overly neat in its denouement (and we really could have done with a proper examination of the larger social impact of these events), but it’s little enough that it doesn’t spoil what came before … which just makes the film’s mismanagement and resulting failure, as well as its subsequent treatment from critics and fans alike, all the more frustrating. This film deserved much better, but ultimately looks set to be disowned and glossed over by most of the fanbase as the property as a whole goes through the inevitable overhaul now that Disney/Marvel owns Fox and plans to bring the X-Men and their fellow mutants into the MCU fold.  I feel genuinely sorry for the one remaining X-film, The New Mutants, which is surely destined for spectacular failure after its similarly shoddy round of reschedules finally comes to an end next summer …

7.  FAST COLOR – intriguingly, the most INTERESTING superhero movie I’ve encountered so far this year is NOT a major franchise property, or even a comic book adapted to the screen at all, but a wholly original indie which snuck in very much under the radar on its release but is surely destined for cult greatness in the future, not least due to some much-deserved critical acclaim.  Set in an unspecified future where it hasn’t rained for years, a homeless vagabond named Ruth (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is making her aimless way across a desolate American Midwest, tormented by violent seizures which cause strange localised earthquakes, and hunted by Bill (Argo’s Christopher Denham), a rogue scientist who wants to capture her so he can study her abilities.  Ultimately she’s left with no other recourse than to run home, sheltering with her mother Bo (Middle of Nowhere and Orange is the New Black’s Lorraine Toussaint), and her young daughter Lila (The Passage’s Saniyya Sidney), both of whom also have weird and wondrous powers of their own.  As the estranged family reconnect, Ruth finally learns to control her powers as she’s forced to confront her own troubled past, but as Bill closes in it looks like their idyll might be short-lived … this might only be the second feature of writer-director Julie Hart (who cut her teeth penning well-regarded indie western The Keeping Room before making her own debut helming South By Southwest Film Festival hit Miss Stevens), but it’s a blinding statement of intent for the future, a deceptively understated thing of beauty that eschews classic superhero cinema conventions of big spectacle and rousing action in favour of a quiet, introspective character-driven story where the unveiling and exploration of Ruth and her kin’s abilities are secondary to the examination of how their familial dynamics work (or often DON’T), while Hart and cinematographer Michael Fimognari (probably best known for his frequent work for Mike Flanagan, including forthcoming Stephen King horror Doctor Sleep) bring a ruined but bleakly beautiful future to life through inventively understated production design and sweeping, dramatic vistas largely devoid of visual effects.  Subtlety is the watchword, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t fireworks here, it’s just that they’re generally performance-based – awards-darling Mbatha-Raw (Belle) gives a raw, heartfelt performance, painting Rith in vivid shades of grey, while Toussaint is restrained but powerfully memorable and Sidney builds on her already memorable work to deliver what might be her best turn to date, and there are strong supporting turns from Denham (who makes his nominal villain surprisingly sympathetic) and Hollywood great David Strathairn as gentle small town sheriff Ellis.  Leisurely paced and understated it may be, but this is still an incendiary piece of work, sure to become a breakout sleeper hit for a filmmaking talent from whom I expect GREAT THINGS in the future, and since the story’s been picked up for expansion into a TV series with Hart at in charge that looks like a no-brainer.  And it most assuredly IS a bona fide superhero movie, despite appearances to the contrary …

6.  ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD – since his explosion onto the scene twenty-seven years ago with his runaway smash debut Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino has become one of the most important filmmakers of his generation, a true master of the cinematic art form who consistently delivers moving picture masterpieces that thrill, entertain, challenge and amuse audiences worldwide … at least those who can stomach his love of unswerving violence, naughty talk and morally bankrupt antiheroes and despicably brutal villains who are often little more than a shade different from one another.  Time has moved on, though, and while he’s undoubtedly been one of the biggest influences on the way cinema has changed over the past quarter century, there are times now that it’s starting to feel like the scene is moving on in favour of younger, fresher blood with their own ideas.   I think Tarantino can sense this himself, because he recently made a powerful statement – after he’s made his tenth film, he plans to retire.  Given that OUATIH is his NINTH film, that deadline is already looming, and we unashamed FANS of his films are understandably aghast over this turn of events.  Thankfully he remains as uncompromisingly awesome a writer-director as ever, delivering another gold standard five-star flick which is also most definitely his most PERSONAL work to date, quite simply down to the fact that it’s a film ABOUT film. Sure, it has a plot (of sorts, anyway), revolving around the slow decline of the career of former TV star Rick Dalton (Leonardo Dicaprio), who languishes in increasing anonymity in Hollywood circa 1969 as his former western hero image is being slowly eroded by an increasingly hacky workload guest-starring on various syndicated shows as a succession of punching-bag heavies for the hero to wale on, while his only real friend is his one-time stunt double, Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), a former WW2 hero with a decidedly tarnished reputation of his own; meanwhile new neighbours have moved in next door to further distract him – hot-as-shit young director Roman Polanski (Rafal Zawierucha), riding high on the success of Rosemary’s Baby, and his new wife Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie). Certainly this all drives the film, along with real-life events that involving one of the darkest crimes in modern American history, but a lot of the time the plot is largely coincidental – Quentin uses it as a springboard to wax lyrical about his very favourite subject and pay loving (if sometimes irreverently satirical) tribute to the very business he’s been indulging in with such great success since 1992.  Sure, it’s also about “Helter Skelter” and the long shadow cast by Charles Manson and his band of murderous misfits, but these are largely incidental, as we’re treated to long, entertaining interludes as we follow Rick on a shoot as the bad guy in the pilot for the Lancer TV series, visit the notorious Spahn Ranch with Cliff as he’s unwittingly drawn into the lion’s den of the deadly Manson Family, join Robbie’s Tate as she watches “herself” in The Wrecking Crew, and enjoy a brilliant montage in which we follow Rick’s adventures in Spaghetti westerns (and Eurospy cinema) after he’s offered a chance to change his flagging fortunes, before the film finally builds to a seemingly inevitable, fateful conclusion that Tarantino then, in sneakily OTT Inglourious Basterds style, mischievously turns on its head with a devilish game of “What If”.  The results are a thoroughly engrossing and endlessly entertaining romp through the seedier side of Hollywood and a brilliant warts-and-all examination of the craft’s inner workings that, interestingly, reveals as much about the Business today as it does about how it was way back into Golden Age the film portrays, all while delivering bucket-loads of QT’s trademark cool, swagger, idiosyncratic genius and to-die-for dialogue and character-work, and, of course, a typically exceptional all-star cast firing on all cylinders.  Dicaprio and Pitt are both spectacular (Brad is endearingly taciturn, playing it wonderfully close to the vest throughout, while Leo is simply ON FIRE, delivering a mercurial performance EASILY on a par with his work on Shutter Island and The Wolf of Wall Street – could this be good enough to snag him a second Oscar?), while Robbie consistently endears us to Tate as she EFFORTLESSLY brings the fallen star back to life, and there’s an incredible string of amazing supporting turns from established talent and up-and-comers alike, from Kurt Russell, Al Pacino and a very spiky Bruce Dern to Mike Moh (in a FLAWLESS take on Bruce Lee), Margaret Qualley, Austin Butler and in particular Julia Butters as precocious child star Trudi Fraser.  Packed with winning references, homages, pastiches and ingenious little in-jokes, handled with UTMOST respect for the true life subjects at all times and shot all the way through with his characteristic flair and quirky, deliciously dark sense of humour, this is cinema very much of the Old School, and EVERY INCH a Tarantino flick.  With only one more film to go the implied end of his career seems much too close, but if he delivers one more like this he’ll leave behind a legacy that ANY filmmaker would be proud of.

5.  CRAWL – summer 2019’s runner-up horror offering marks a rousing return to form for a genre talent who’s FINALLY delivered on the impressive promise of his early work – Alexandre Aja made a startling debut with Switchblade Romance, which led to his big break helming the cracking remake of slasher stalwart The Hills Have Eyes, but then he went SPECTACULARLY off the rails when he made the truly abysmal Piranha 3D, which I wholeheartedly regard as one of THE VERY WORST FILMS EVER MADE IN ALL OF HISTORY.  He took a big step back in the right direction with the admittedly flawed but ultimately enjoyable and evocative Horns (based on the novel by Stephen King’s son Joe Hill), but it’s with this stripped back, super-tight man-against-nature survival horror that the Aja of old has TRULY returned to us.  IN SPADES.  Seriously, I personally think this is his best film to date – there’s no fat on it at all, going from a simple set-up STRAIGHT into a precision-crafted exercise in sustained tension that relentlessly grips right up to the end credits. The film is largely just a two-hander – Maze Runner star Kaya Scodelario plays Haley Keller, a Florida college student and star swimmer who ventures into the heart of a Category 5 hurricane to make sure her estranged father, Dave (Saving Private Ryan’s Barry Pepper), is okay after he drops off the grid.  Finding their old family home in a state of disrepair and slowly flooding, she does a last minute check of the crawl-space underneath, only to discover her father badly wounded and a couple of hungry alligators stalking the dark, cramped, claustrophobic confines.  With the flood waters rising and communications cut off, Haley and Dave must use every reserve of strength, ingenuity and survival instinct to keep each other alive in the face of increasingly daunting odds … even with a premise this simple, there was plenty of potential for this to become an overblown, clunky mess in the wrong hands (a la Snakes On a Plane), so it’s a genuinely great thing that Aja really is back at the height of his powers, milking every fraught and suspenseful set-piece to its last drop of exquisite piano-wire tension and putting his actors through hell without a reprieve in sight.  Thankfully it’s not JUST about scares and atmosphere, though – there’s a genuinely strong family drama at the heart of the story that helps us invest in these two, Scodelario delivering a phenomenally complex performance as she peels back Haley’s layers, from stubborn pedant, through vulnerable child of divorce, to ironclad born survivor, while reconnecting with her emotionally raw, repentantly open father, played with genuine naked intensity in a career best turn from Pepper.  Their chemistry is INCREDIBLY strong, making every scene a joy even as it works your nerves and tugs on your heartstrings, and as a result you DESPERATELY want to see them make it out in one piece.  Not that Aja makes it easy for them – the gators are an impressively palpable threat, proper scary beasties even if they are largely (admittedly impressively executed) digital effects, while the storm is almost a third character in itself, becoming as much of an elemental nemesis as its scaly co-stars.  Blessedly brief (just 87 minutes!) and with every second wrung out for maximum impact, this is survival horror at its most brutally, simplistically effective, a deliciously vicious, primal chill-ride that thoroughly rewards from start to finish.  Welcome back, Mr Aja.  We’ve missed you.

4.  BRIGHTBURN – torpedoing Crawl right out of the water is this refreshing, revisionist superhero movie that takes one of the most classic mythologies in the genre and turns it on its head with TERRIFYING results. The basic premise is an absolute blinder – what if, when he crashed in small-town America as a baby, Superman had turned out to be a bad seed?  Unsurprising, then, that it came from James Gunn, who here produces a screenplay by his brother and cousin Brian and Mark (best known for penning the likes of Journey 2: the Mysterious Island, but nobody’s perfect) and the directorial big break of his old mate David Yarovesky (whose only previous feature is obscure sci-fi horror The Hive) – Gunn is, of course, an old pro at taking classic comic book tropes and creating something completely new with them, having previously done so with HUGE success on cult indie black comedy Super and, in particular, Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy movies, and his fingerprints are ALL OVER this one too.  The Hunger Games’ Elizabeth Banks (who starred in Gunn’s own directorial debut Slither) and David Denman (The Office) are Tori and Kyle Breyer, a farming couple living in Brightburn, Kansas, who are trying for a baby when a mysterious pod falls from the sky onto their land, containing an infant boy.  As you’d expect, they adopt him, determined to keep his origin a secret, and for the first twelve of his life all seems perfectly fine – Brandon’s growing up into an intelligent, artistic child who loves his family.  Then his powers manifest and he starts to change – not just physically (he’s impervious to harm, incredibly strong, has laser eyes and the ability to disrupt electronic devices … oh, and he can fly, too), but also in personality, as he becomes cold, distant, even cruel as he begins to demonstrate some seriously sociopathic tendencies.  As his parents begin to fear what he’s becoming, things begin to spiral out of control and people start to disappear or turn up brutally murdered, and it becomes clear that Brandon might actually be something out of a nightmare … needless to say this is superhero cinema as full-on horror, Brandon’s proclivities leading to some proper nasty moments once he really starts to cut loose, and there’s no mistaking this future super for one of the good guys – he pulverises bones, shatters faces and melts skulls with nary a twitch, just the tiniest hint of a smile.  It’s an astonishing performance from newcomer Jackson A. Dunn, who perfectly captures the nuanced subtleties as Brandon goes from happy child to lethal psychopath, clearly demonstrating that he’s gonna be an incredible talent in future; the two grown leads, meanwhile, are both excellent, Denman growing increasingly haunted and exasperated as he tries to prove his own son is a wrong ‘un, while Banks has rarely been better, perfectly embodying a mother desperately clinging to the idea that her son is innocent no matter how compelling the evidence becomes, and there’s quality support from Breaking Bad’s Matt Jones and Search Party’s Meredith Hagner as Brandon’s aunt and uncle, Noah and Meredith, and Becky Wahlstrom the mother of one of his school-friends, who seems to see him for what he is right from the start.  Dark, suspenseful and genuinely nasty, this is definitely not your typical superhero movie, often playing like Kick-Ass’ even more twisted cousin, and there are times when it displays some of the same edgy, black-hearted sense of humour, too.  In other words, it’s all very James Gunn.  It’s one sweet piece of work, everyone involved showing real skill and devotion, and Yarovesky in particular proves he’ll definitely be one-to-watch in the future.  There are already plans for a potential sequel, and given where this particular little superhero universe seems to be heading I think it could be something pretty special, so fair to say I can’t wait.

3.  FAST & FURIOUS PRESENTS HOBBS & SHAW – it’s official, this summer’s most OTT movie is THE MOST FUN I’ve had at the cinema so far this year, a genuinely batshit crazy, pure bonkers rollercoaster ride of a film I just couldn’t get enough of, truly the perfect sum of all its baffling parts.  The Fast & Furious franchise has always revelled in its extremes, as subtle as a brick and very much playing to the blockbuster, popcorn movie crowd right from the start, but it wasn’t until Fate of the Furious (yup, ridiculous title, says it all) that it really started to play to the inherent ridiculousness of its overall setup, paving the way for this first crack at a new spin-off series for the post Vin Diesel years.  Needless to say this one has fully embraced the sheer ludicrousness, and director David Leitch is the perfect choice to shepherd it into the future, having previously mastered OTT action through John Wick and Atomic Blonde before helming manic screwball comedy Deadpool 2, which certainly is the strongest comparison point here – Hobbs & Shaw is every bit as loud, violent, chaotic and thoroughly irreverent, definitely playing up the inherent comic potential at the core of the material as he cranks up the humour. Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham take centre stage now as, respectively, DSS agent Luke Hobbs and former SAS black operative Deckard Shaw, the ultimate action movie odd couple once again forced to work together to foil the bad guy and save the world from a potentially cataclysmic disaster.  Specifically Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), a self-proclaimed “black superman” enhanced with cybernetic implants and genetic manipulation to turn him into the ultimate warrior, who plans to use a lethal designer supervirus to eradicate half of humanity (as supervillains tend to do), but there’s one small flaw in his plan – the virus has been stolen by Hattie Shaw (Mission: Impossible – Fallout’s Vanessa Kirby), a rogue MI6 agent who also happens to be Deckard’s sister.  Got all that?  Yup, the movie really is as mad as it sounds, but that’s very much part of the charm – there’s an enormous amount of fun to be had in just giving in and going along with the madness of it all, as Hobbs and the two Shaws bounce from one over-the-top, ludicrously destructive set-piece to the next, kicking plenty of arse along the way when they’re not jumping out of tall buildings or driving fast cars at ludicrous speeds in heavy traffic, and when they’re not doing that they’re bickering with enthusiasm, each exchange crackling with exquisite hate-hate chemistry and liberally laced with hilarious dialogue delivered with gleeful, fervent venom (turns out there’s few things so enjoyable a watching Johnson and Statham verbally rip each other a new one), and the two action cinema heavyweights have never been better than they are here, each bringing the very best performances of their respective careers out of each other as they vacillate, while Kirby holds her own with consummate skill that goes to show she’s got a bright future of her own.  As for Idris Elba, the one-time potential future Bond deserves to be remembered as one of the all-time great screen villains ever, investing Brixton with the perfect combination of arrogant swagger and lethal menace to steal every scene he’s in while simultaneously proving he can be just as big a badass in the action stakes; Leitch also scatters a selection of familiar faces from his previous movies throughout a solid supporting cast which also includes the likes of Fear the Walking Dead’s Cliff Curtis, From Dusk Till Dawn’s Eiza Gonzalez and Helen Mirren (who returns as Deckard and Hattie’s mum Queenie Shaw), while there’s more than one genuinely brilliant surprise cameo to enjoy.  As we’ve come to expect, the action sequences are MASSIVE, powered by nitrous oxide and high octane as property is demolished and vehicles are driven with reckless abandon when our protagonists aren’t engaged bruising, bone-crunching fights choreographed with all the flawless skill you’d expect from a director who used to be a professional stuntman, but this time round the biggest fun comes from the downtime, as the aforementioned banter becomes king.  It’s an interesting makeover for the franchise, going from heavyweight action stalwart to comedy gold, and it’s direction I hope they’ll maintain for the inevitable follow-up – barring Fast Five, this is the best Fast & Furious to date, and a strong indicator of how it should go to keep conquering multiplexes in future.  Sign me up for more, please.

2.  SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME – this summer’s been something of a decompression period for fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with many of us recovering from the sheer emotional DEVASTATION of the grand finale of Phase 3, Avengers: Endgame, so the main Blockbuster Season’s entry really needed to be light and breezy, a blessed relief after all that angst and loss, much like Ant-Man & the Wasp was last year as it followed Infinity War.  And it is, by and large – this is as light-hearted and irreverent as its predecessor, following much the same goofy teen comedy template as Homecoming, but there’s no denying that there’s a definite emotional through-line from Endgame that looms large here, a sense of loss the film fearlessly addresses right from the start, sometimes with a bittersweet sense of humour, sometimes straight.  But whichever path the narrative chooses, the film stays true to this underlying truth – there have been great and painful changes in this world, and we can’t go back to how it was before, no matter how hard we try, but then perhaps we shouldn’t.  This is certainly central to our young hero’s central arc – Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is in mourning, and not even the prospect of a trip around Europe with his newly returned classmates, together with the chance to finally get close to M.J. (Zendaya), maybe even start a relationship, can entirely distract him from the gaping hole in his life.  Still, he’s gonna give it his best shot, but it looks like fate has other plans for our erstwhile Spider-Man as superspy extraordinaire Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) comes calling, basically hijacking his vacation with an Avengers-level threat to deal with, aided by enigmatic inter-dimensional superhero Quentin Beck, aka Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), who has a personal stake in the mission, but as he’s drawn deeper into the fray Peter discovers that things may not be quite as they seem.  Of course, giving anything more away would of course dumps HEINOUS spoilers on the precious few who haven’t yet seen the film – suffice to say that the narrative drops a MAJOR sea-change twist at the midpoint that’s EVERY BIT as fiendish as the one Shane Black gave us in Iron Man 3 (although the more knowledgeable fans of the comics will likely see it coming), and also provides Peter with JUST the push he needs to get his priorities straight and just GET OVER IT once and for all.  Tom Holland again proves his character is the most endearing teenage geek in cinematic history, his spectacular super-powered abilities and winning underdog perseverance in the face of impossible odds still paradoxically tempered by the fact he’s as loveably hopeless as ever outside his suit; Mysterio himself, meanwhile, frequently steals the film out from under him, the strong bromance they develop certainly mirroring what Peter had with Tony Stark, and it’s a major credit to Gyllenhaal that he so perfectly captures the essential dualities of the character, investing Beck with a roguish but subtly self-deprecating charm that makes him EXTREMELY easy to like, but ultimately belying something much more complex hidden beneath it; it’s also nice to see so many beloved familiar faces returning, particularly the fantastically snarky and self-assured Zendaya, Jacob Batalon (once again pure comic gold as Peter’s adorably nerdy best friend Ned), Tony Revolori (as his self-important class rival Flash Thompson) and, of course, Marisa Tomei as beloved Aunt May, as well as Jackson and Cobie Smoulders as dynamite SHIELD duo Fury and his faithful lieutenant Maria Hill, and best of all Jon Favreau gets a MUCH bigger role this time round as Happy Hogan.  Altogether this is very much business as usual for the MCU, the well-oiled machine unsurprisingly turning out another near-perfect gem of a superhero flick that ticks all the required boxes, but a big part of the film’s success should be attributed to returning director Jon Watts, effectively building on the granite-strong foundations of Homecoming with the help of fellow alumni Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers on screenplay duty, for a picture that feels both comfortingly familiar and rewardingly fresh, delivering on all the required counts with thrilling action and eye candy spectacle, endearingly quirky character-based charm and a typically winning sense of humour, and plenty of understandably powerful emotional heft.  And, like always, there are plenty of fan-pleasing winks and nods and revelations, and the pre-requisite mid- and post-credit teasers too, both proving to be some proper game-changing corkers.  The future of the property may be in doubt, but this is still another winner from the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but then was there really ever any doubt?

1.  JOHN WICK CHAPTER 3 – needless to say, those who know me should be in no doubt why THIS is at the top of my list for summer 2019 – this has EVERYTHING I love in movies and more. Keanu Reeves is back in the very best role he’s ever played, unstoppable, unbeatable, un-killable hitman John Wick, who, when we rejoin him mere moments after the end of 2017’s phenomenal Chapter 2, is in some SERIOUSLY deep shit, having been declared Incommunicado by the High Table (the all-powerful ruling elite who run this dark and deadly shadowy underworld) after circumstances forced him to gun down an enemy on the grounds of the New York Continental Hotel (the inviolable sanctuary safe-house for all denizens of the underworld), as his last remaining moments of peace tick away and he desperately tries to find somewhere safe to weather the initial storm.  Needless to say the opening act of the film is ONE LONG ACTION SEQUENCE as John careers through the rain-slick backstreets of New York, fighting off attackers left and right with his signature brutal efficiency and unerring skill, perfectly setting up what’s to come – namely a head-spinning, exhausting parade of spectacular set pieces that each put EVERY OTHER offering in any other film this year to shame.  Returning director Chad Stahelski again proves that he’s one of the very best helmsmen around for this kind of stuff, delivering FAR beyond the call on every count as he creates a third entry to a series that continues to go from strength to strength, while Keanu once again demonstrates what a phenomenal screen action GOD he is, gliding through each scenario with poise, precision and just the right balance of brooding charm and so-very-done-with-this-shit intensity and a thoroughly enviable athletic physicality that really does put him on the same genre footing as Tom Cruise.  As with the first two chapters, what plot there is is largely an afterthought, a facility to fuel the endless wave of stylish, wince-inducing, thoroughly exhilarating violent bloodshed, as John cuts another bloody swathe through the underworld searching for a way to remove the lethal bounty from his head while an Adjudicator from the High Table (Orange Is the New Black’s Asia Kate Dillon) arrives in New York to settle affairs with Winston (Ian McShane), the manager of the New York Continental, and the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) for helping John create this mess in the first place.  McShane and Fishburne are both HUGE entertainment in their fantastically nuanced large-than-life roles, effortlessly stealing each of their scenes, while the ever-brilliant Lance Reddick also makes a welcome return as Winston’s faithful right-hand Charon, the concierge of the Continental, who finally gets to show off his own hardcore action chops when trouble arrives at their doorstep, and there are plenty of franchise newcomers who make strong impressions here – Dillon is the epitome of icy imperiousness, perfectly capturing the haughty superiority you’d expect from a direct representative of the High Table, Halle Berry gets a frustratingly rare opportunity to show just how seriously badass she can be as former assassin Sofia, the manager of the Casablanca branch of the Continental and one of John’s only remaining allies, Game of Thrones’ Jerome Flynn is smarmy and entitled as her boss Berrada, and Anjelica Houston is typically classy as the Director, the ruthless head of New York’s Ruska Roma (John’s former “alma mater”, basically). The one that REALLY sticks in the memory, though, is Mark Dacascos, finally returning to the big time after frustrating years languishing in lurid straight-to-video action dreck and lowbrow TV hosting duties thanks to a BLISTERING turn as Zero, a truly brilliant semi-comic creation who routinely runs away with the film – he’s the Japanese master ninja the Adjudicator tasks with dispensing her will, a thoroughly lethal killer who may well be as skilled as our hero, but his deadliness is amusingly tempered by the fact that he’s also a total nerd who HERO WORSHIPS John Wick, adorably geeking out whenever their paths cross.  Their long-gestating showdown provides a suitably magnificent climax to the action, but there’s plenty to enjoy in the meantime, as former stuntman Stahelski and co keep things interestingly fluid as they constantly change up the dynamics and add new elements, from John using kicking horses in a stable and knives torn out of display cases in a weaponry museum to dispatch foes on the fly, through Sofia’s use of attack dogs to make the Moroccan portion particularly nasty and a SPECTACULAR high octane sequence in which John fights katana-wielding assailants on speeding motorcycles, to the film’s UNDISPUTABLE highlight, an astounding fight in which John takes on Zero’s disciples (including two of the most impressive guys from The Raid movies, Cecep Arif Rahman and Yayan Ruhian) in (and through) an expansive chamber made up entirely of glass walls and floors.  Altogether then, this is business as usual for a franchise that’s consistently set the bar for the genre as a whole, an intensely bruising, blissfully blood-drenched epic that cranks its action up to eleven, shot with delicious neon-drenched flair and glossy graphic novel visual excess, a consistently inspired exercise in fascinating world-building that genuinely makes you want to live among its deadly denizens (even though you probably wouldn’t live very long).  The denouement sets things up for an inevitable sequel, and I’m not at all surprised – right from the first film I knew the concept had some serious legs, and it’s just too good to quit yet. Which is just how I like it …

[buckykingofmemes]

Slay Bells Ring!

As in previous years, I’m pleased to invite all of you to join me in making the silliest holiday music possible! I’ve written Bucky-versions of several well-known seasonal songs, and it’s up to you guys to perform them! Master-level skill is not at all required--we’re just having fun, so no excuses about not being “that good a singer” because you all sound lovely. 

Please post your renditions (as video or audio posts) to the blue hellsite, tag it with #Deck the Halls (and Villains) and #buckykingofmemes. The #Deck is my catchall holiday tag, so if you’re not feeling the spirit of the season, you’re welcome to block it. You may also want to send me an ask letting me know that you’ve posted, since tunglr is a little unreliable when it comes to searching tags. 

On Christmas Eve, I’ll put together a post with a list of links to everyone’s beautiful songs, so we can all enjoy some lovely holiday tunes. 

The full lyrics are under the readmore below, and also in Chapter 39: Slay Bells Ring! of Uphill Both Ways on Ao3. 

The songs are:

Winter Soldier’s Gunnin’ You Down (To the tune of Santa Claus is Coming to Town)

I Just Want To Buy Plums (To the tune of Jingle Bells)

Old Stevie (To the tune of White Christmas)

Buchanan Barnes (To the tune of O Tannenbaum)

Bucky the Asset (To the tune of Frosty the Snowman)

Roger, Captain Rogers! (To the tune of the Dreidel Song)

Winter Soldier’s Gunnin’ You Down

(To the tune of Santa Claus is Coming to Town)

You better watch out, you better not cry

You’ll probably bleed out, I’m tellin’ you why

Winter Soldier’s gunnin’ you down

He’s got a hit list, he’s starting a fight

He’s clenching his fist, it’s shiny and bright

Winter Soldier’s gunnin’ you down!

He sees you when you’re sleeping

He knows when you’re awake

His aim is really fucking good and he’s gonna assassinate

You better watch out, you better not cry

You’ll probably bleed out, I’m tellin’ you why

Winter Soldier’s gunnin’ you down

He’s yanking out wheels and firing guns

If you were smart you’d probably run

Winter Soldier’s gunning you down!

Winter Soldier’s gunning you down!

I Just Want To Buy Plums

(To the tune of Jingle Bells)

Dashing through the streets

On a stolen motorbike

Jumping over cars

Fleeing for my life!

War Machine’s up high

There’s some angry cat guy

I’m adding to my list of crimes by

Running traffic lights!

Oh! A-P-B out on me! Please leave me alone!

Superheroes after me but i want to go home!

Oh! A-P-B out on me! Please leave me alone!

Please call Steve, he’ll vouch for me

I just wanted some plums!

Old Stevie

(To the tune of White Christmas)

I’m dreaming of the old Stevie

That little punk I used to know

He was much smaller–still a brawler

In Brooklyn oh so long ago.

I’m dreaming of the old Stevie

With every Nazi that I fight

Before we got frozen…before the explosions

The trenchfoot, marching and frostbite…

I’m dreaming of the old Stevie

I’m dreaming of the old Stevie

Who had less muscles but more brains

Sure, he’s less sickly and he heals quickly

But he keeps on jumping out of planes

Buchanan Barnes

(To the tune of O Tannenbaum)

Buchanan Barnes, Buchanan Barnes,

How metal are your phalanges!

Your fist so shiny and so bright

(Not great for sneaking in the night)

Buchanan Barnes, Buchanan Barnes,

How metal are your phalanges!

Bucky the Asset

(To the tune of Frosty the Snowman)

Bucky the Asset

Was a sad and tortured soul

With a big trench knife

And a heart that froze and

A homicidal goal

Bucky the Asset

Is a ghost story they say

He was lost in snow

But the nazis know

He can thaw and be re-froze

There must’ve been some science

To that evil brainwipe chair

For when they placed it on his head

He went all “vacant stare”

Bucky the Asset

Was as dead as dead could be

Except on days

When he went to slay

Certain wealthy families!

Bucky the Asset

Knew he’d shaped the century

So when Steve said “Run!”

He just shot his gun

And said “Bucky? That’s not me.“

Over the city

With a big gun in his hand

Strutting here and there

All around midair

Where they made a final stand

He fought with Steve who yelled out “Please–

You’re Bucky–please just stop!”

And he paused for a long moment when

Steve let his shield drop!

Bucky the Asset

Had to hurry and escape

But he waved goodbye saying,

“Don’t you die

I’ll be back again some day”

Punchity, Punch, Punch

Punchity, Punch, Punch

Look at Bucky go

Punchity, Punch, Punch

Punchity, Punch, Punch

Who’s Bucky–he don’t know!

Roger, Captain Rogers!

(To the tune of the Dreidel Song)

I have a little radio

For talking in the field

And when I use it badly

Cap says “Keep ‘em sealed!”

Roger, Captain Rogers!

No puns about the bomb

Roger, Captain Rogers!

No chatter on the comms.

I have a little walkie

For secret late-night ops

But if say a swear word,

Stevie says to stop

Language, Language, Language!

No swearing on the line!

Language, Language, Language!

I guess that’s fuckin fine!

I have a little earpiece

For undercover work

But Stevie overhears me

Call some assclown a “jerk”

Roger, Captain Rogers!**

No jokes about his mom

Roger, Captain Rogers!

No chatter on the comms.

I have a little wire

I wear under my shirt

But then when I get injured

Steve hears the things I blurt

Language, Language, Language!

No swearing on the line!

Language, Language, Language!

I guess that’s fuckin fine!

I have a special playlist

For flights in the Quinjet

Stevie says to mute it ,

But whoopsie, I forget!

Roger, Captain Rogers!

No awesome winter songs!

Roger, Captain Rogers!

No chatter on the comms.

[yvaquietdays]

Deciding to be happy.

Sometimes meditation doesn’t work.  Sometimes being mindful of your downfalls doesn’t work. Sometimes yoga doesn’t work. Sometimes writing doesn’t work. It’s a little hard for me to describe how I’ve been feeling the last month or so. Of course I’m going to try, that’s why I write a blog. *sly face* So I’ve talked about cycles before. Being aware of the small turnovers of life makes the every day manageable; being aware of how our emotions and vibrations fluctuate certainly makes everything seem a little less daunting.

I’ve been conscious that I’m entering a new cycle of my life. I’m not so far away from turning 28, an age I’m told is the beginning of the fourth cycle in life. And whether you buy into the hokey-pokey, it makes sense if you suspend your disbelief for a moment. Apparently you have the first 7 years, the years of your childhood and innocence, of unadulteratingly questioning and experiencing the world you live in. Then the second stage, taking you to 14, where you’re contemplating adulthood and experiencing massive physiological changes and all the outcomes of that. Then to 21, where all the shit hits the fan and explodes outwards all over you and the people in your life. I’ve been dealing with the proverbial shit of this third cycle for a while, experiencing existential fear and anxiety for the first time, sorting through the people in my life, assessing how I relate and love, seeing my familial relationships through new eyes, shaving off the bits of me I don’t like. Essentially, the un-conditioning of myself and becoming a new person. 

The last time my life seem to change, there were signals. Life threw me signs that I was about to turn things upside down for a bit. I emotionally and spiritually gave up on London and I lost two friends to the music industry; its hold over all of us to get as much out of our creative outputs as possible (i.e money). This is important enough to mention because it damaged me a lot. It affected my trust with people and I felt so betrayed and let down. I’ve made my peace with them and with the situation, but I’ve learned from it, because at the time, it was just another knife in the side, and I didn’t want it happening again. From that point though, I headed steadily downhill somewhere close to the bottom, where I was thinking of jacking it in altogether. I considered going into property with my savings and my Dad. I considered opening a home-brew shop with my partner, who really was my anchor when I was close to floating off unmoored. I didn’t though, because my other anchor was my own spirit, the relentless resilience I seem to have inherited, that I’m sure I don’t deserve; my music and my innate and absolute desire to howl at the moon. Nitin played a huge part in getting me through this phase. Had I not worked with him, I might have forgotten how important singing was to me. He was a kind of the lifeboat that kept me chugging along in the rougher waters for a while; I was desperately unhappy but those days of rehearsals, shows, and being involved in the dance piece were all life rings that I could swim to and gradually get closer to solid ground. At this point, I believe I was shedding off the things I didn’t need to prepare myself for this next stage.

And this time, I’ve also lost two friends. I’m not going into any great detail about this, only that I believe it was for the best and ultimately the whole experience told me a lot about the people in my life, who I am, and what I stand for. It had a lot to do with how I’ve allowed people to take advantage of me for too long. This ties into one of my previous blogposts about saying sorry and not wanting to rock the boat. I have been conditioned to be nice and I am actively changing this. I have Jameela Jamil to thank for opening my eyes and forcing me to see that it doesn’t make me difficult or manipulative to call out the truth and stand strongly within it. They ended up deleting me from their life because of it. But I hated the entire situation. It hurt. Needless to say it had a big affect on me. That combined with new opportunities taking a while to come to fruition seemed to trigger my anxiety and low mood for the first real time since I wasn’t well. It brought back a lot of bad feelings about inadequacy, self-doubt and the need for external validation that I’ve worked so bloody hard on eradicating. 

Validation is the key word here. I believe it is what most of us struggle with going into our adult lives. I’ve worked very hard to not rely on other people’s voices to bolster my own self-esteem. I’ve done my soul-work, I only listen to my own. I’ve learned to tell the ignorant slut (pls read past post re this: it’s what I call my anxiety) in my mind to shut up when she’s being unkind. But over the last few weeks and returning from LA, which now seems like a dream, the voice has elbowed its way in and I’ve allowed it to have an affect on me. I’m waiting; waiting like I did before, waiting for good feedback, waiting for someone else to come at me with the next opportunity. Stagnant. Waiting for the world, looking for someone to blame.

So what the fuck am I doing? I mean, really. I have been arranging my own sessions, writing my book and flirting with a second, being open and vulnerable about my talent and about my humanness. I’ve been rocking it.

But recently, the difference was that I was doing my yoga, not practising it. I was forcing myself to set an intention of success, orienting everything around my goals. I meditated just to check it off the list. But you can’t apply mindfulness with brute force, with a shotgun to the head and your arm twisted behind your back. What I was doing went hand in hand with the thought that, “If I don’t, I will fail.” Before I knew it, I was telling myself I wasn’t worth it. I’m not creative. I don’t have any ideas. I don’t have an emotional scale. I feel nothing about anything. Have a baby, do something else. You don’t belong in that world (LA). You don’t know who you are. You’re not passionate enough about your art. You’re not passionate about anything. Why is nobody getting back to you? You’re forgettable. It’s because you’re not assertive enough. They deleted you because you meant nothing to them. They didn’t apologise to you because they don’t value you.

The rabbit hole is deep and it is wide. Once you’re on that slope, it seems pre-destined that you’ll end up at the bottom before you even notice you slipped. But I noticed. I’ve my best mate and flatmate to thank for a conversation that made me realise what I was doing, ‘cos I was feeling pretty low there for a minute.  The truth is that it takes real mental effort and strain to drag yourself up the mud slide back to even ground. When I was feeling pretty bad, I used to dream about doing the same thing over, and over, and over again and never reaching a resolution. I dreamt that I was at the bottom of the muddy bank and I could not get to the top where the grass was still green. So doing yoga and meditating over and over to force wellness doesn’t work. Negativity does not beget negativity. You have to accept your feelings and do the work to counter-argue with yourself in a gentle and loving way. I am worth it. I am creative. I feel everything, that’s why it hurts. I know who I am, more than ever. I’d be a great mum, but if I have a baby now I’ll probably forget about it and leave it in the washing basket. I am passionate. I am open and patient, and I trust that things will work out. I am hardworking. And they deleted you because they didn’t value you. That says more about them than you, you stone cold, lovely, bad ass bitch. 

Bye felicia.

I am entering a new chapter of my life soon, and I feel my world shifting to allow for it. It isn’t waiting if I regain control and organise my life. Just because someone is giving you an opportunity doesn’t mean that the work is done. It means that you’re just getting started, and you have to work, now more than ever.

Last week I wrote a song on the guitar. This has not happened in a long time. I was consuming a lot of emotional TV (Queer Eye, k thnks), and I was inspired to assess my own mental health. I got complacent, and the doubt got in. It never really goes away, and just because I was feeling better there for a hot minute in LA, doesn’t mean that the work is done. It continues. Always. I don’t want to wake up one day and realise I’m missing something vital because I looked to others to tell me what I’m worth. Everyone else wants as much as possible for themselves. If that means cheapening you so that they’re worth more; that is what they will do. Know. Your. Own. Worth. ‘Cos even your friends will undervalue you.

Self doubt waits at the door, constantly. It wants to be let in, but you keep it at bay. You nod to it, but you don’t allow it across the threshold.

After I recorded the song idea into my phone, I sobbed. Hard. I cried my eyes out. And then I was done. I let the tears come out, unbidden, because I needed to feel it. I think I needed to remember the power of that musical release, why I do what I do. Sure, I’m not like other musicians or singers. Maybe I am depressing, but I’m communicating something that is honest and what we all go through. I am me. And that is enough. It doesn’t matter, all that other stuff. It doesn’t. What matters is how I feel about my music. 

I’m getting to my conclusion, I promise. I meditated earlier this week, and the lovely Andy Puddicomb at Headspace told me to see my mind as the sky. Behind all the clouds, there is always a blue horizon. Just like when you’re on a plane and you finally get above the candy cotton clouds, and in your head you do a little Peter Pan style bounce across them. There’s a soft kind of release I get when I see that. Peace and quiet. Space and breath. Everything else; feelings, thoughts, how we dress, what the world might think...they’re the clouds. When I feel low, my mind seems like an overcast horizon that will not break. An endless, grey, unfeeling cloud of bleak whatever. When I feel good, it’s a summers sky with fluffy white clouds rolling through; you know they won’t stay forever. Meditating is grounding, and reminding yourself with nothing more complicated than breathing that your default setting is a vast blue sky. Warm and peaceful. It might even feel like nothing, but that’s ok too. Everything else is temporary. Clouds are impermanent. The sky is always clear.

So this is my point. I set my intention that day to have a good day. 

Enjoy the little details, enjoy my trial shift at the cafe, enjoy the look on southerners faces when I have a bit of craic with them. Enjoy cooking, enjoy the process, enjoy the walk between here and there, the blossoms, the warmth of the sun on my face. Choose happiness. Choose the blue sky. Decide to be positive. It’s not always easy, and maybe it doesn’t always work. After all, life throws us curveballs and it hurts to get whacked in the face, but it’s a damn sight better than choosing to be an arsehole about it. Try it.

Decide to be happy. 

xxx

[desertislandcloud]

AN HOMAGE TO IMMIGRANTS - Venice trio The Great Escape showcase inspiring new music powered short film “Where Do We Go From Here"

"Where Do We Go From Here" is a hypnotic song about leaving the comfort zone, going new ways and being true to yourself and your dreams - even and especially in hard times. It’s a song about personal growth, believing in yourself and allowing you to fail.

Who could be more perfect to tell stories about this subject than people who left their homes, their countries, their friends and families for a better future. Portraying 30 immigrants from all over the world, TGE show the beautiful variety and mindset foreigners bring to this country and how much they enrich this society. 

Malte Hagemeister: "Leaving your home and your comfort zone takes heart and courage. These extraordinary people tell moving stories of change, growth, hard times, having a dream and trying to realize it."

Kristian Nord: “Growing up in post 2nd world war Germany we learned that it’s the most important thing to tell your opinion as loud as you can when you see basic decency being stomped on by leading politicians, and minorities and foreigners being denunciated. We wanted to show that the very large majority of immigrants coming into this country are amazing courageous people and not rapists or murderers as suggested by this administration.”

TGE is a band of immigrants. Kristian and Malte came to California 15 and 10 years ago and Cambridge-born Hanna Leess moved to Berlin, Germany in 2015.WDWGFH is a strong reminder that the USA strive not despite but because of its cultural variety. It’s a clear statement against fear of the unknown and for communication with people of different roots, nationalities, colors or religions.

The new clip to the hypnotic “Where Do We Go From Here” is another documentary style music video by The Great Escape – whose video project “Good Day (In Venice Beach)” received a special award by the L.A. City Council for “capturing the culture and essence of the Venice community”.

The re-release of WDWGFH comes with an epic electronic remix of Robot Koch. Celebrated by the BBC, XLR8R and Dazed & Confused, Berlin-based Koch has long established himself as “one of Europe’s finest producers of the beat generation” (Low End Theory). His new remix of WDWGFH is the latest example of what the legendary John Peel once described as “pop music from the future.”

Born out of the eclectic Venice Beach community of artists and surfers The Great Escape comprises Kristian Nord (drums, bass, production), Malte Hagemeister (guitars, production), and singer Hanna Leess (vocals, keys). Whereas previous albums The Great Escape (2014) and Universe In Bloom (2017) saw them explore the more retro-loving, soulful regions of music history, essentially nodding to personal heroes such as Nina Simone, The Beatles, and Jimi Hendrix, the upcoming album Pulsing Synchronicity marks a giant step for the band, because its playful-yet-minimalist sound is 100% unique, 100% The Great Escape. LInks https://www.wearethegreatescape.com/ https://www.facebook.com/wearethegreatescape/ https://www.instagram.com/wearethegreatescape/ https://twitter.com/greatescapereal

[sistercelluloid]

Welcome to another edition of TINTYPE TUESDAY! This week, we’re off to see The Wizard of Oz again on the big screen, courtesy of TCM and Fathom Events. For tickets, just click here!

But before you head out, let’s take a peek at what was really going on behind the wizard’s curtain.

The tornado in Kansas was nothing compared to the blizzard of cast and crew changes—not to mention the many mishaps, including a couple of near-fatalities. Even Toto didn’t escape unscathed…

So hang on to your hamper—here we go!

Dorothy: Both MGM unit head Arthur Freed and music maven Roger Edens fought for Judy Garland, but Louis B. Mayer—who often derided the painfully insecure teenager as “my little hunchback”—pressured producer Mervyn LeRoy to do whatever it took to land Shirley Temple for the lead. Fortunately, all attempts to get 20th Century Fox to loan out the wildly popular moppet went nowhere. (However, the long-standing rumor that MGM offered to swap the services of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow for Temple is false; Harlow succumbed to renal failure in June 1937, before MGM even had the rights to the book.) Deanna Durbin, whom Mayer openly preferred to Garland, was also considered—but because the film initially had a sub-plot involving Betty Jaynes, another operatic singer, she was dropped from the running. So Mayer had to “settle” for Judy.  (Oh and her ruby slippers were originally silver, as they were in the book. But in the age of Technicolor, red won out.)

The Scarecrow: Buddy Ebsen was the first loose-limbed, lanky dancer to step into the role, which would have worked out much better for him, as we’ll soon see… but Ray Bolger ultimately carried the day (and the hay). He also carried lines on his face from the rubber prosthetics for more than a year after filming ended. For that kind of grief, you’d think they’d have left his original dance number—longer, trippier, and choreographed by none other than Busby Berkeley—in the film:

The Tin Man: Much to his disappointment, Bolger was first cast in this clunkier role. If he’d only had the heart… but he longed to be the Scarecrow, the part he’d seen his childhood hero, Fred Stone, play in the 1902 Broadway show—which is what inspired him to hit the boards in the first place. “I’m not a tin performer—I’m fluid!” he reportedly pleaded to LeRoy, who finally caved in, allowing Bolger and Ebsen to swap roles. Ebsen was an absolute peach about the whole thing, even teaching Bolger the “wobbly walk” he’d perfected in rehearsals. But no good deed goes unpunished, and this one almost killed him: after about a week of breathing in the toxic aluminum powder that covered his “tin” face, Ebsen was rushed to the hospital in critical condition. (At first, Mayer—who assumed other people’s morals were as low as his own—thought the actor was faking an illness as some sort of contract ploy. So he dispatched his minions to the hospital—where they found Ebsen strapped into an iron lung.)

When Jack Haley, on loan from Fox, arrived to replace him, the make-up artists were much more careful: they protected his face with a thick layer of white greasepaint and diluted the aluminum powder into a paste. (Oh, and they never told him why his predecessor left the film—on a stretcher.) Ebsen didn’t vanish entirely, though: his voice can still be heard in the group vocals, as there was no time to re-record them.

And given all the gruesome drama surrounding the Tin Man, perhaps it’s appropriate that they used chocolate syrup to produce his tears—a technique later used by Hitchcock for the blood circling the drain in Psycho.

The Cowardly Lion: Bert Lahr’s costume was made of actual lion pelts—and weighed almost 100 pounds. The valiant wardrobe team did their best to rinse the sweat out of the sopping-wet suit at the end of each day, but, in the words of one unlucky staffer, “it reeked.”

The Wicked Witch of the West: Initially, the witch was fashioned along the glamorous lines of the evil queen in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. When she morphed into something decidedly more hag-like—including green skin, a long, pointy nose and a wart or ten—Gale Sondergaard, MGM’s original choice, pointed her pumps toward the exit. Margaret Hamilton was cast just three days before shooting began. Told by her agent she was up for a part in the film, she asked which one. “The wicked witch—what else?” he helpfully replied. (That 10% they get? It ain’t for morale-boosting!)

She didn’t get much more respect after she signed on: her dressing room was a makeshift canvas tent, while Billie Burke had a hideaway that MGM dreams are made of. “She had a pink and blue dressing room, with pink and blue powder puffs and pink and blue bottles filled with powder and baby oil—and pink and blue peppermints,” Hamilton later recalled, admitting that she sometimes popped in for a nap on the glamorous Glinda’s days off.

And God knows she needed the rest, as she proved to be the second casualty on the set: In the scene where she seems to disappear in a cloud of fire and smoke, she very nearly did. At the last minute, a moving platform was supposed to lower her out of harm’s way, but her cape got snagged and she was trapped amid the flames—which fed on the greasepaint and copper makeup slathered on her face, arms and hands. Before she could be pulled free, the fire had seared into her skin, leaving her with second- and third-degree burns. Wise woman that she was, she later refused to do a post-production pick-up scene that involved a flaming broomstick. So they had to make do with maiming her stand-in: the smoke mechanism exploded, burning and permanently scarring Betty Danko’s legs.

The Wizard of Oz: After Ed Wynn refused the part because it wasn’t big enough, MGM turned to W.C. Fields, who thought the paycheck wasn’t big enough. During a few protracted rounds of haggling—they offered $75,000, he wanted $100,000—the producers burned while Fields fiddled. They finally gave and offered the role to Frank Morgan.

Oh and here’s a story you might have to close your eyes and click your heels together to believe, but some swear it’s true, and if it isn’t (which is probably the case), it should be: When wardrobe staffers went scavenging through second-hand stores to find the perfect tattered coat for Morgan, they returned with an armload of samples for Victor Fleming to choose from. He settled on one he thought conveyed just the right touch of “shabby gentility”—and, idly turning out the pockets, found a label with L. Frank Baum’s name on it. An MGM publicist reportedly contacted the tailor and Baum’s widow, who confirmed it was his (he did live in L.A. for a time), and the studio presented her with the coat at filming’s end.

Toto:  Shirley Temple may never have made it to Oz, but she did meet Toto five years before Garland did. Terry the terrier appeared in 16 films, including Temple’s Bright Eyes, as well as Fury, The Women and George Washington Slept Here. In Tortilla Flat, she re-teamed with Morgan and Fleming, and in Twin Beds, she reunited with Hamilton. Her $125 weekly salary for Oz was more than double than that of the Munchkins, who each earned $50 a week. And as it turned out, Terry should have gotten combat pay: one of the Wicked Witch’s heavy-heeled henchmen stepped on her tiny paw and broke it, sidelining her for several weeks. After filming, Garland, who’d fallen in love with the dog, wanted to adopt her, but the owner wouldn’t… surrender Terry.

All of which bring us to the director. Or directors. Richard Thorpe, whose previous work consisted mainly of quickie westerns, was first at the helm, but LeRoy felt he was shooting the film more like a low-budget oater than a lavish fantasy, rushing scenes along and not giving the production the care it deserved.

While he searched for a replacement, LeRoy left the project in the tender hands of George Cukor—who, in his brief stint as caretaker, made some critical changes. First, he ditched Garland’s blonde wig and heavy glamour-girl makeup, which made her look ridiculous and feel worse.

He also told Garland to relax and simply be herself—a lovely, vulnerable teenage girl—which was just what the part called for. Then he did something less crucial but pretty fabulous: he brought in Adrian to design the Wicked Witch’s costume. Which, if you peer beyond the black-on-black, is a real work of art, with its lace bodice, cut-out mutton sleeves, and pouch dangling fetchingly from the hip. To her pointy hat, Adrian added a long, silky-sheer scarf that floats menacingly behind her, like an ill wind.

Cukor was never meant to stay on when production began in earnest; he was due over at Gone with the Wind. Victor Fleming took the reins in October 1938, and oversaw everything but the sepia-tone scenes (including the Over the Rainbow number) that book-end Dorothy’s adventures in Oz. But the following February, he was called away suddenly… to direct  Gone with the Wind after Cukor was fired. Fleming’s close friend King Vidor came aboard to gently shepherd the crucial Kansas scenes through to completion, but never publicly acknowledged his involvement until after Fleming’s death in 1949.

And as if Fleming didn’t have enough on his mind during the shoot, he also had to protect Garland from her scenery-chewing companions on the Yellow Brick Road, seasoned old vaudeville pros who were none too excited about surrendering the spotlight to her (as she laughingly recalls in a clip from The Jack Paar Show, below). Ironically, her only close friend on the set was Hamilton, a former kindergarten teacher who gave her some much-needed mothering.

Whew! There’s enough material behind the scenes of The Wizard of Oz for a whole other movie… but in the meantime, enjoy seeing the original again on the big screen!

TINTYPE TUESDAY is a weekly feature on Sister Celluloid, with fabulous classic movie pix (and backstory!) to help you make it to Hump Day! For previous editions, just click here—and why not bookmark the page, to make sure you never miss a week?

TINTYPE TUESDAY: Head Off to See THE WIZARD OF OZ Again on the Big Screen! Welcome to another edition of TINTYPE TUESDAY! This week, we're off to see The Wizard of Oz…

[thecheerfulnecromancer]

I thought it'd be a good idea to make and properly tag a post compiling all my Ace Attorney OCs so far.

Everyone you're about to see belongs in an original five-part fanfiction series of mine known as "Old Sins", following Phoenix, Miles and their allies old and new as they dismantle the aftermath of the Dark Age of The Law- which goes deeper than they ever imagined. The first of the five fics is about two-thirds complete, and sufficient interest might convince me to begin publishing certain chapters in advance [shameless plug.]

TW : Below this point, references to Murder, Suicide, Child Abuse / Childhood Trauma.

Let's get onto the main event- the OCs!

1. Kester Lonorra

Kester is an energetic, peppy young prosecutor. He works for Dane Ostrander, but idealogical differences are beginning to put a strain on the relationship...

His parents are both dead, and he is convinced that there was foul play involved, obsessively researching and re-analysing the crime ever sincr it took place five years ago. He lives with his very elderly grandmother.

2. Marq Rosencrantz

Marq was born to an exceedingly wealthy Japanafornian family with French heritage.

Now, however, due to unfortunate circumstances mostly outside his control, he lives alone in a low-end apartment with his dog, Buffy. He is a law student, as well as juggling a part-time job. He is dating Kester and has been for several years.

In spite of his appearance, Marq is shy, timid, and just wants to be left alone.

3. Ransom Rowley

Ransom is the drummer for an alt-rock band, "The Cult of Jasper". She is spunky, snarky, and doesn't take any shit.

She's the daughter of Rupert Rowley, a famously brilliant defence attorney, and as such is paricipating in law classes, but her heart isn't in it. She's far more interested in music. She is also vaguely friends with her classmate, Marq.

4. Achilles Tackett

The burnt-out, anxiety-ridden latest recruit to the Wright Anything Agency, Achilles' previous employer, Rupert Rowley, fired him after he spectacularly lost three cases in a row. Now he's an insecure mess of a person working on his self-esteem issues.

He lives alone, if you don't count his five cats. (Their names are Thursday, Pip, Duke, Grim and Elizabeth).

5. Jasper Finch

The loud, out-and-proud nonbinary lead singer for their namesake band, "The Cult of Jasper". They're working hard to promote their music and make something of themselves and their dream to be an alt-rockstar.

Their family life is surprisingly good, and they (shockingly) have a good relationship with their father, although they were heartbroken at a young age by the death of their mother by suicide.

6. Celia Rosencrantz nee Kaulen

The CEO of a famous fashion company, Celia is a kindly, jovial woman with a soft spot for her rebellious son-in-law, Marq. She lives with her husband, Anton, and between their two successful businesses they are some of the wealthiest people in the city.

7. Merrit Fey

Merrit presents and identifies as male, although he is intersex, with both XX and XY chromosomes- for this reason, he found he was able to spirit channel. His father, who had some hang-ups about the idea, abandoned him with his estranged mother at the Kurain village as a young child.

Now, he lives with his lesbian aunts*, Maya and Franziska, and is the lead guitarist for "The Cult of Jasper". He's reluctant to develop his spirit channeling techniques as he fears being labelled as a girl, but he does sometimes talk to a nice red-haired girl called Dolly, who he's been able to talk to via mirrors since the age of seven.

*Maya isn't really his aunt, more of a third-cousin-twice-removed, but she's the only relative he'll currently tolerate and calling her 'aunt' saves confusion.

8. Osten Von Karma

Osten Von Karma, the grandson of the legendary (and infamous) Manfred Von Karma, is equally obsessed with perfection, having been coached by his mother from a young age to be a near-copy of his grandfather, who died when he was still quite little.

The stress of trying to be flawless is slowly wearing down his mental health, but outwardly he appears cold, calm, and calculating. He wears almost entirely white clothes.

He has a crush on Achilles, but his internalised homophobia has caused him to refuse to admit this even to himself.

9. Dane Ostrander

A legendary prosecutor with a nearly flawless record, Ostrander is a cold, sombre, utterly unemotional person. They are the current employer of both Kester and Osten. Their ruthless efficiency has seen them convict almost as many people as their former colleague and mentor, Manfred Von Karma.

Ostrander also owns a casino, and as a result is very wealthy indeed.

Oh, and did I mention they're a deranged multi-murderer and have driven several people to suicide over unpaid gambling debts? Because that's true.

10. Eady Wells

My own semi-self-insert, Eady is a cheerful young forensic scientist working for Ema Skye. He's very British, very sarcastic, and very good-natured.

Eady is a pansexual trans man. He has a pet parrot called Watson, who he sometimes carries around on his shoulder, though not during investigations since the risk of contamination doesn't bear thinking about.

It goes without saying that these OCs are my personal intellectual property, yada-yada, don't steal. :)