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hypnoneghoul · 2 months

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when you listen to the rhrn album can you please give your thoughts about like the mixing? Live albums typically don’t always have the greatest mixing but this one like confuses me

alright anon, I'm using your ask to make my official HYP TALKS RHRN SOUNDTRACK post

tag list: @devilsandstarlight @jazz-bazz @skele-bunny @azureseacloud @lilhoechlinsbae @delusionalbitchinthehouse @fallen-iii-ghost

A disclaimer, any negative-leaning take is not hate or "I would've done a better job" (because I would not), it's only my opinion that I was asked for multiple times due to what I do here on tumblr

Okay so I can divide the tracks in two categories when it comes to mixing and all that stuff:

1. Awesome mixing – more depth, better instrumental and vocal balance – Spillways – Cirice – Call Me Little Sunshine – Twenties – Marry On A Cross – Kiss The Go-Goat – Dance Macabre – Square Hammer

2. Less fortunate mixing – some flatness and chunkiness, less balance – Kaisarion – Rats – Faith – Absolution – Watcher In The Sky – Rats – Miasma – Respite On The Spitalfields

I’m not putting If You Have Ghosts into any of these categories because it’s a different world entirely. It’s actually just brilliant, but it’s not as hard to find balance with so few and such instruments as with the other songs on the album. I think Copia is a little too sharp for this vibe and I'm pretty sure they tried to help with reverb. It was a nice touch, but I think it could’ve been more smoothed out. But also I kinda hear Terzo in the second half of it, not Copia, SORRY. The vocal ghoulette could’ve been put either fully on the middle or all stretched all around to surround Copia and the instrumental and fill the space, if that makes sense

In general the mixing is strange in some places, even in the better made songs, it’s just like they lose the plot sometimes. It's possible (and very likely) that it was prepared with vinyls or CDs in mind, not headphones, but that doesn't explain why sometimes it's better and sometimes worse. Some general stuff about mixing I picked out:

1. Dew isn't really on the right, he's more to the middle than Aeon who's totally to the left. Dew could be louder actually in some places, Aeon could be stretched more to the middle 2. Bass has a great definition, we can finally hear how nice some fillers are and how good Rain actually is 3. The girls got some very much deserved highlights, but they did Swiss dirty. I’m outraged for my bbg, but not only because I love him. It would be a genuinely better technical decision if he was louder and/or placed somewhere else. The entire thing is very off balance. It's lead guitar and strong female vocals on the right, and rhythm and basically nothing (Swiss) on the left. It just doesn't make any sense!!!

Now some stuff about specific songs:

1. Rats – So dirty, the mixing failed a little here, the audience just sounds like noise instead of actual good background – DEW DID A PINCH HARMONIC (I manifested it) – Cirrus!!! It’s hard to hear her most of the time and she rocks here – Aeon and Dew had a very good harmony, they work so good together wtf (sorry Aether but they win here)

2. Faith – Aurora and Cumulus completely slay – I adore Dewdrop’s little addition to the 1st solo – But he missed a note in the 2nd solo heh

3. Spillways – FINALLY Swiss in Spillways – It’s the best mixed song in general and I’m not only saying that because of Swiss (who I love), all the instruments and voices are balanced so much better and so much more fluid – There’s less tone definition on bass though

4. Cirice – Dew does some fancy lil harmonic tricks in Cirice, I LIKE – It’s also very well balanced when it comes to instrument, SWISS IS AUDIBLE – Something went WRONG with Cirrus’ synth here, like omfg they did my girl dirty

5. Absolution – I talked about Absolution extensively here

6. Watcher In The Sky – Love the synth on it, why not do that setup for Cirice pls – But also Swiss is always the loudest at the beginning, why not here!? – It’s on the worse list, but it’s not horrible, the backing synths fill it nicely so it’s not as chunky as Rats for example – I think someone forgor Dew is lead, not Aeon, but at least we can appreciate the bug’s skill some more like that – Mounty slamming those bitches at the end, go baby!

7. Twenties – Very glad they highlighted the drums and the bass so much in this one, it’s what Twenties is FOR – Both Dew and Aeon’s palm muting game is so yummy here – Oh, Swiss how I love you – But what are they doing with the solo mixing, why is the bitch moving at the beginning? It’s like someone was late to press some buttons (It might have been on purpose but trying to do some fancy effects doesn’t always work)

8. Miasma – Miasma lands somewhere between the worse and better mixing category but that might be the lack of vocals which takes away some of the needed balance, but it is rather chunky – I don’t like the synths shoved totally into my left ear but that’s just me, not an actual flaw – But then what are they doing at c. 3 minutes??? Again, more fancy doesn’t always mean better and Miasma is fancy and full enough as it is – I think the mixing in Miasma changes from worse to better along the way because the ending is so much better and smoother, around when the sax comes in so they might’ve adjusted some things just to fit it – OMG RAINY GO FANCY AT THE END (the tiniest solo ever <3)

9. Mary On A Cross – Cumulus oh my fuckckk – The vocals before the chorus is such a good touch, nice ascend into the change in melody, love it – Same with Aurora’s solo part the next time, it’s so good that they put her on the middle for that, it’s perfect – The girls do slay the end but Swiss could balance it nicely if only he were just a tiny bit loudeeeeer – And again what are wed doing with these weirdly sustained layered synths??? That’s just slightly unnecessary

10. Respite On The Spitalfields – Swiss should be louder here, too – Respite is in the slightly worse category because this one sounds very flat to me for most part, it’s like only the drums and bass give any depth (or rather force some depth into it) – Once again Aeon’s palm muting is top tier – Girls slaying as usual – I’m not sure why the strings are just forcefully shoved behind Dew but okay… – The mixing here is a crime!!! It’s so flat and this is a song that deserves to be all around and fully immerse you. I’m actually sad about that one – And where are the solo vocal parts???

11. Kiss The Go-Goat – Now why is KTGG deeper and more melodic than Respite??? We’ll never know ig, but yeah, it’s on the better category – Did Nihil fucking mix this album or what??? – Cirrus’ solo in KTGG should be as loud as Dew’s, period

12. Dance Macabre – Dance Macabre is on the better category too, you can even hear Swiss – Glorious bass here

13. Square Hammer – Now Squammer, very good mixing for the finish but I still think that the girls should be more to the middle and wider, especially in backing vocal heavy tracks like this one – YES Dew bestie go ham on it at the end, slay, make your tech angry – OHHHH AEON’S THING UGHGFHNGHGHHG (he was probably wobbling his pickup switch with one of them turned off so it was basically sound on–off–on–off)

Also not really from the technical side but they cut out some strong tracks and it's honestly a big shame :(

Some gear stuff nobody will hear but me (/hj): 1. Rain definitely still has steel strings ‘cause COME ON, the TONE!!! 2. Aeon’s palm muting skills rock 3. The difference between Aeon’s ceramic humbuckers on the Fantomen and Dewdrop’s Hot Rail single coils is on the Strat so prominent AHHH 4. Aeon missed on the CMLS solo a little but Dew covered him up hjfgsdh 5. Slightly funny addition, but I love that Aurora’s voice and Dewdrop’s guitar can be mistaken for one another sometimes because of the tone and pitch lmfao

And that's it heh I'll gladly elaborate on some aspects or answer any questions that might come up so you know, my askbox and dms are open :3

#hypnone's asks #the band ghost #nameless ghouls #hypnone gear talks #rhrn #ghost rhrn

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musicreveiwsbyezti · 6 months

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What's up babygirls (literally no one reads my blog) here's my March topster

This month was mostly shit I thought it would be interesting to listen... so lot of metal again. Also for the sake of my sanity I have 2 records that I genuinely don't know what the fuck I should do with.

Unrated: Current 93-I have a special plan for this world (Dark Ambient/Poetry): Arguably the best scary stuff I have ever listened but I never want to hear this again as once was perfectly enough. It gives a really disturbing atmosphere and the poetry part itself was interesting too. I highly recommend checking it out at least once. Slipknot-Iowa(Nu metal): I don't get it. The instrumentation is good but the lyrics are so god damned corny that it hurts. It doesn't help that it sounds like death metal for people who don't want to listen to actual death metal. I probably give it another chance later... not now tho I still can't take The Heretic Anthem seriously.

Alright now the actual tierlist begins:

14th: Combat Wounded Veteran-Electric Youth Crew(Powerviolence): I had a small journey and sat down to listen through the entire CWV discography (it's not that long definitely recommend it to get into powerviolence) and this is arguably the "weakest" of their releases. It doesn't really stand out and can be forgotten easily.

13th: CWV-This Is Not an Erect, All-Red Neon Body (Powerviolence/Grindcore): Idk it just doesn't click as well as IKAGWDCSP.

12th: Death-The Sound of Perseverance(Death/Prog Metal):Jesus Christ this album was a major disappointment for me. As a last Death album I expected it to be a last brutal yet technically extreme blast...but they just had to listen to 30 hour acid freeform jazz or some shit to get inspiration. This album has genuine fire songs, but they just had to fuck up the in the middle with a boring ass bass "solo" or someshit... Also the Painkiller cover is the worst song I heard this year so far, how the fuck can you ruin a perfect song when you are already a talented vocalist is beyond me.

11th: CWV-Duck Down for the Torso(Powerviolence/Grindcore): A short and sweet end for CWV's discography. Having it end on a Folded Space song was a great choice which gives an interesting feeling for the end.

10th: Stabbing-Extirpated Mortal Process(Brutal Death/Slam metal): Now this is a good slam metal album.

9th: Sematary-Bloody Angel(Horrorcore/Chicago drill): After Sems last EP I thought it was over... BUT IT ISN'T! It gives vibes of RB2 with RB3 mixing with some HAW mixed in. He can cook just let him do his thing :pray:

8th: Spycada-Hiking Lung(Psychedelic rock): It's good, great vibe, good tones, overall enjoyable. Looking forward to their next stuff.

7th: Magrudergrind-Self title(Grindcore/Powerviolence): THE grindcore album. Absolutely slaps, the sample use is interesting.

6th: Igorrr-Spirituality and Distortion(Avant Guard Metal/Breakcore) This... is Schrödinger's kitchen. I don't know if the kitchen is burned down or has served a 5 star menu, until I care to write an actual criticism of it. (Also the mixing of metal, break core and classical music is insane and the sheer heaviness this album gives is phenomenal, though it falls of gradually on the second half)

5th:Sweet Trip-Velocity : Design : Comfort(IDM/Glitch Pop) At least 200 people already circle jerk around this album, yes it is good, no I don't explain why I love it because I ain't talking about why breathing air is good.

4th:Have a nice life-Deathconsciousness(Post Punk/Shoegaze): Same as last time, people already told you enough why it's good, just fucking listen through it already. (side note some of the songs on this albums mixed weirdly quite for some reason, and it's kinda wack how the drone parts are the best, but still really good)

3th: Dead in the Dirt-The Blind Hole(Grindcore/Powerviolence) Jesus I listen to a lot of powerviolence this month... Anyways this is probably my favourite pw record yet. Probably the more understandable vocals help to lift it just a little bit above the rest for me.

2th:Mastodon-Leviathan(Sludge metal/Prog metal) Fun fact in the 2000's 2 whale concept prog metal albums came out, both of which are peak. I don't know how they got The Moby Dick nailed so well in metal form but they sure did with heavy riffs and amazing vocal performances.

1th: Electric Wizard-Witchcult Today(Stoner/Doom metal): I was afraid to check out the rest of EW discography after Dopethrone cuz it is too peak... However this album is probably as good as Dopethrone. Something about this album gives more OG metal vibes with less insanity.

#metal #rym #rateyourmusic #topster #topsters

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starf · 4 years

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StarF’s Top Ten Albums of 2020

Another year, another list. Let’s not even bother with the preamble this time around, you get what it is.

10. I DON'T KNOW HOW BUT THEY FOUND ME - RAZZMATAZZ

Let me tell you right now, I struggled with this tenth spot. There were about four albums that were pretty much tied once I narrowed it down this far because it was a jam-packed year. Ultimately though I had to give it to iDKHOW for their smooth brand of piano rock-pop. This is their debut album and it brought the heat. While it didn't dazzle me immediately, with every subsequent listen I feel a little more of that promised razzmatazz from the title. I also absolutely love the ballad "Nobody Likes The Opening Band," which will certainly be a fun song to hear them perform some day whether they're the opener or not.

9. The Front Bottoms - In Sickness & In Flames

The last offering from The Front Bottoms, Going Gray, left me feeling a little lukewarm. In Sickness & In Flames, however, is a much stronger return to form for the band in my opinion. Some people say all of The Front Bottoms' albums sound the same, and maybe that's a little bit true. But maybe 2020 is the year that we needed to hear some new Front Bottoms material. It was a strange time for all of us, and in these times this kind of album just hits different. From the optimistic opening of "everyone blooms" to the infectious singalong moments of "Fairbanks, Alaska," this album is a good time all around.

8. The Used - Heartwork

Did you know The Used is still around? Not only still around, but apaprently they never went away! When I saw that they had released a new album early in the year I assumed it was a comeback, but I was wrong! For me there was a 12 year gap since I had personally listened to a new Used album, and this one blew me away in a big way. They're still going big, going hard, and rocking their signature sound - but updated for the modern age. This is a band that has managed to hold on to their roots while successfully adapting and progressing into the future.

7. Oliver Tree - Ugly Is Beautiful

Where do you even start with an artist like Oliver Tree? An absolute master of internet marketing, the release of this album was a tortured and dragged out experience, like a person chasing a 20 dollar bill on a string and having it constantly pulled away over and over again. By the time it came out it was a little disheartening that an entire half of the album had already been released via single, but overall it is undeniably a powerhouse of a pop album and a strong showing from Oliver Tree. A strange character, but an impossibly catchy album with earworm after earworm.

6. The World/Inferno Friendship Society - All Borders Are Porous To Cats

I pretty much always enjoy any offering from this band, but to varying degrees. Their last few albums have certainly been good to my ears, but for whatever reason just didn't resonate enough with me to earn a spot in my top ten. This album is clearly different though, and keeps me enthralled the entire way. With their unique brand of punk-jazz-cabaret, All Borders Are Porous To Cats tells the story of one Mr. Cat In The Hat, and it's a wild ride that you're going to want to hear.

5. Run The Jewels - RTJ4

One of the most biting and necessary releases of the year, RTJ4 dropped right when we needed to hear it most, and for free no less. It's my personal opinion that Run The Jewels continue to get better with every release they put out, and their fourth showing is easily my favorite so far. El-P and Killer Mike come through with some of their sharpest bars and heaviest beats yet. It's just a shame that for how much history repeats we as society still haven't learned some of the lessons that an album like this continues to attempt to teach us.

4. Aesop Rock - Spirit World Field Guide

Spirit World Field Guide is not a typical Aesop Rock album, but then again what is? Back in 2016 I fell in love with the album The Impossible Kid, an accessible (by Aes standards) album that hooked me in immediately. Spirit World is a different beast that took me off guard the first time I heard it, and left me a little bit lost - but that almost seems to be the intent. An absolute monster of an album coming in at 21 tracks and over an hour, this thing wasn't necessarily meant to be ingested all at once, or even in the order presented. The more I revisit it the more I put the pieces together and enjoy it more and more.

3. Poppy - I Disagree

Let's take a journey all the way back to January before the world entirely fell apart. I discovered Poppy for the first time through this album and was quickly intrigued. Going back through her older music, and then her YouTube, and slowly unraveling the mystery that is Poppy was perhaps some of the most fun I've had experiencing an artist's work in years - all topped off with seeing her perform live that month, the last large live music show I've been to. I Disagree is an eclectic blend of pop, metal, and strange curiosity. It starts off right away with the oddball banger Concrete and promises to weed out those who aren't prepared to take the mental trip through this album right away. It's not for everyone, but it's definitely for me.

2. Jeff Rosenstock - N O D R E A M

Well here we are! The number one spot! You guessed it, it's Jeff Rose- what? This isn't number one? Well that can't be right, hold on. Nope, I guess that's correct. The new Jeff Rosenstock album, N O D R E A M comes in at number two this year, a fact that will probably shock and confuse anyone who knows me. This is the proof that Jeff doesn't automatically get my number one spot if he releases an album, but with all of that out of the way, let's talk about the album.

In a Post-Post- world we see Jeff returning to a more traditional take on putting together an album, rather than simply rushing through it to get the feelings out of his head (both perfectly valid approaches). N O D R E A M continues to explore themes of being lost and confused in such a soul-crushing and increasingly overwhelming world - all while attempting to find the silver linings and be optimistic about where we're headed. Whether it's the world at large or a personal journey, this album is an anthem to a year that saw most people holding their head in their hands and saying "please, just, let's all get through this, okay?"

1. Will Wood - The Normal Album

Wow. Just wow. Okay, where to begin? I was listening to a random Spotify radio when it started playing a song by Will Wood & The Tapeworms called "Hand Me My Shovel, I'm Going In!" Intrigued by the style of the song, as well as the title, I clicked through and listened to their most recent album which was 2016's "Self-Ish." I thought it was really good! I enjoyed it a lot and continued to listen to it for about a week. At that point when I started digging further into the band I learned that there was actually an even newer album entitled The Normal Album, categorized on Spotify under just Will Wood, which is why I hadn't previously found it.

I enjoyed Self-Ish, but hearing The Normal Album took it to an entirely new album and blew me away in a way that I haven't experienced in years. This wasn't just a great album, this was one of those musical discoveries where you think "oh wow, this is something I can't live without going forward." Will Wood is exactly what I needed in the back half of 2020 to keep my sanity, and even now I still listen to this album usually at least once a day. It's perfectly crafted in every sense of the world. Not a single second is wasted or out of place. The technical skill is in full display without muddling the pure enjoyment of the melodies or taking away from the overall vibe of the songs. The writing is some of the sharpest and dense I've ever seen, without being undecipherable or inaccessible. This is an album that truly does it all.

The feeling I have when I listen to this album and attempt to get people to listen to it is identical to how I felt about Jeff Rosenstock in the late 2000's, back before he had sort of blown up. Will Wood certainly has a following, but his music is definitely niche at the moment and somewhat obscure. Much in the same way that eventually people listened to me about Jeff, I hope they will find out about Will. Everyone should hear this album. It's breath-takingly perfect.

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goose-books · 4 years

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whoa, it sure is about time around here for a post, huh!

today i offer you 1.7k words about cressida and rory simply being soft. that’s all. this is the happiest thing i’ve ever written in the darkling canon and making this moodboard reminded me that it’s because these two are the only kind and friendly people in the entire book.

more details about cressida and rory’s home WIP, darkling, can be found here! (short version: it’s a speculative fiction king lear; there’s magic but it’s weird about being magic; half the characters are gay trans and neurodivergent because i said so.) this takes place about a year before the story starts; the two of them have just turned sixteen and seventeen, respectively!

also, i wrote all of this while listening to “kentucky” by hippo campus on repeat. the lyrics aren’t quite as relevant as the vibe. if you catch me yearning on main mind your own business /j

Lorelai Rory Flowers is afraid of thunder.

This is a bit of an embarrassing thing to admit, as they’re seventeen (“at least seventeen,” they like to tell people, “maybe two hundred, who’s to say?”) and generally wise beyond their years, or whatever it is that adults say about kids with too much psychological baggage. Being afraid of thunder is not a very wise-beyond-one’s-years trait. And yet the state of affairs remains: loud noises make Rory want to melt into the earth. Back when they still went to school, even the fire alarm sent them scuttling under their desk to hide.

Right now, in the elevator, all they can do is shrink into their sweater.

They haven’t let go of Cressida’s hand yet.

Beside them, Cressida is soaked, long golden hair and long white dress dripping. Rory rocks up onto their toes and back down, anxiety worming along the back of their neck like an itchy coat. This was not the plan. The plan was not “get caught in the rain and run through a storm for two blocks.” The plan was for the two of them to go walk by the river and - who knows, talk about Joan of Arc or the Kennedy assassination or something. Swap special interests. Maybe swap spit. Probably not, though. It’s not a date. It’s not not a date - but, like, Rory still does work for Cressida’s dad, so who knows how awkward things could get. Plus Cressida’s hard to read. She doesn’t really make facial expressions, and that’s usually fine, because Rory can’t really read facial expressions so it’s about the same to them, but in this particular situation -

“I trust you,” Cressida says, squeezing their hand, “but where are we going?”

The rain’s left Rory’s glasses fogged up enough to render them effectively blind. They take their glasses off and squint at the elevator buttons. They are still effectively blind.

“Is that a five or a six?” they say, pointing.

Cressida peers over their shoulder. “Which one do you want?”

“Five.”

Cressida presses the five button with her free hand. The elevator, which is about the size of a broom closet, jerks into unsteady, fitful motion.

The thing is that the apartment building is kind of - well, not a dump. It’s not horrible. There aren’t cockroaches. But Cressida lives in a manor, literally. Stayer Manor. Capital S, capital M. And there was never any sort of plan for today, even in the wildest of circumstances, that involved Rory bringing the city’s golden girl to a building the size of a shoebox. But then it was raining, and Cressida kept saying she didn’t mind the rain despite clearly minding because if she ruins her dress her dad will go rabid-dog on her, and Rory’s cognitive wheels were spinning like they were powered by a well-greased hamster, and none of the restaurants close enough to duck into were appropriate places for them to safely freak out about the thunder, and their apartment was only two blocks away.

So.

Here they are.

“Sorry,” Cressida says. “Where are we going?”

Rory attempts to dry their glasses on their soaked-through sweater, to little avail. “We are going,” they announce, “to a world of pure imagination.”

Outside, thunder cracks the sky. They know Cressida sees them flinch, because she squeezes their hand again.

The apartment is 505. Cressida waits as Rory digs around in their jacket pocket, shuffling past loose coins and two pairs of headphones and four melted Starbursts and way too many scraps of paper until they finally unearth their key. Their lock sticks - their lock always sticks - so once they’ve turned it, they have to drop Cressida’s hand and plant one wet Doc Marten on the wall and yank. The door swings open.

“Voila,” Rory says, performing jazz hands. “Willy Wonka wants what I have.”

Their apartment is purple. Not startlingly purple. Gently purple. Purple like it creeps up on you. Purple like you don’t realize exactly how purple it is until you realize everything - walls, gauzy flower-patterned curtains, plushy armchair, compass-rose-shaped clock, old-fashioned record player on the table - is the same shade of soft lavender.

There is at least one nail sticking up out of the hard-wood floor. Rory snags a sock on it every time they dance around with their headphones in.

Two people have been inside since Rory started renting the place a year ago. And that’s them and the landlord. This is their place, their safe haven, their nook, and it’s the size of Cressida’s bathroom, and rich pretty Cressida Stayer is standing, dripping, in the threshold.

“Don’t touch anything,” Rory says. Cressida draws her hands in like the walls might electrocute her. “That was a joke. You can touch things.”

“This is your apartment,” Cressida says.

“Indeed.”

“You live here.”

“That succeeds the first!” They give her an encouraging smile. “Subsequent statements! How cogently lucid of you!”

Cressida looks down. The hem of her dress is dripping onto the floor. “I don’t suppose you have a vent I could sit on…?”

“In fact I do!” Rory directs her, aircraft-marshall-style, to the heating vent on the floor. They’re jittering. They’re using way too much arm movement. They can’t get their heart to stop skidding around, because normally! They do not! Let people in here!

They stand and drip. Cressida sits and drips. She gazes around, and Rory gazes with her, trying to see it through her eyes.

“Where’s your bed?” she says.

Rory skips over to the closet and pulls the door open, with the grand gestures of a magician presenting a trick. The inside of the tiny closet is lined with a thick downy comforter; there are sheets and pillows scattered around atop it, and there are glow-in-the-dark stars stuck up all over the walls and ceiling.

Cressida gazes at it. “On purpose, right? Not because -”

“On purpose. Yes. I could have bought a bed. I just think it’s cozy.” Oh, Rory is going to lose it right here. Their foot is tapping the floor at about a million miles an hour. Granted, being in their apartment helps the overstimulation a little - just being where it’s safe and everything’s always the same and they control their space. That always helps. But it’s not like they can just curl up in their closet with their headphones in and the door shut, because Cressida is here -

Cressida, for her part, looks a little impressed.

“It’s nice,” she says, wrapping her arms around her knees. “You just live here? By yourself?”

Rory shrugs. “I’m emancipated,” they say, which isn’t strictly true, but they work for the most powerful man in the city, who has their back if anyone actually looks into their files, so it’s as true as it really needs to be - and then thunder roars outside again and Rory skitters sideways and falls over their armchair.

“Oh! Oh my God -” Cressida jumps to her feet.

Rory scrambles up from where they’ve tumbled to the floor. “Sorry sorry sorry!” they say, except really they yell it because they have their shaking hands over their ears. “Sorrysorrysorry, I - I really don’t like loud - I d-don’t -”

“Can I -” All of a sudden Cressida’s in front of them. Rory doesn’t move away, just stands there, chest heaving, and Cressida slides her still-damp hands very gently up both of their arms, and she very gently pulls their hands off their ears.

The thunder, again. Like a cannon blast. This time Rory yelps a little. Cressida pulls them in close to her and sits both of them down on the vent, which, at the very least, is warm and also on the floor, so Rory can’t really trip over anything when they flinch.

“You don’t like loud,” Cressida repeats. She’s a good deal taller than they are - Rory’s exactly five-foot in their Docs - and so it makes logical sense for her to settle down with her chin on their head, probably.

“I don’t. I don’t. I really don’t.” They’ve started fluttering their hands a little; their voice is getting that shaky tilt it gets when they’re in sensory overload. “Fun story, back in high school we went on a field trip to this play where they used gunfire blanks for sound effects and I had a full-on crying-and-screaming public meltdown. I like to tell fun stories from high school like it wasn’t actual purgatory, because I cope through humor!”

“I know,” Cressida says simply, and she wraps her arms around them so they can lean back into her chest. The next thunder crash comes, and she tightens her grip. “Is this helping?”

“Yeah. Uh-huh. A lot. Like a weighted blanket.” Rory tilts their head back to give her a shaky upside-down grin.

They don’t like making eye contact, so they don’t, but they are aware that Cressida’s gaze is resting pretty solidly on their face, which is - fine, and normal behavior for friends, and the fact that they’re cuddling on a vent and they can feel her heart beating against their spine is, like, normal also, probably -

“Rory,” Cressida says tentatively, “can I…”

Rory tilts their head. “Can you what?”

Cressida hesitates; then she leans in. It is a very very gentle kiss, almost hesitant; she pulls away after a second or so, to find Rory staring at her dumbfounded.

“Whoa,” they say, face assembling itself into what they’re fully aware is a stupid doofy grin. “Whoa. Hi. Hey. I - yeah! You can do that!”

They both cling to each other’s hands for a second; they both let out a breath that is, Rory thinks, equal parts relief and euphoria.

Then Rory leans in and kisses Cressida again, and this time neither of them pull away, and when the thunder crashes overhead Rory thinks they’ve never felt safer than they do right now.

#max.txt #darkling tag #lorelai flowers #cressida stayer #fun fact about this: i wrote it for my school creative writing class and we had to do peer feedback circles #and of the three people who gave me feedback only ONE of them got rory's pronouns right #while the other two played choose your own adventure i suppose?#(i'm not; like; pissed off i just think it's funny.... cis people let me study you /j)#max actually writes

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cbspams · 3 years

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iKON - Love Scenario + Killing Me

I'll specifically be referring to each member by the name they're using in Kingdom subtitles, so like Jinhwan instead of Jay, Donghyuk instead of DK etc.

Damn these are long lol, thank god for read more cuts

Sarangeul haetdaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa 🎶🎶🎶

I'm honestly so happy they did Love Scenario. I mean it's one of their most famous songs for sure but like, I would've been really sad if it wasn't performed at least once on Kingdom I think, just because I was so curious how they would spin it.

I will say that I would not consider this performance as a "mash up". Now in Round 2 the only groups who do mashups are iKON and SKZ as far as I'm aware, so I'm also taking some of the mash ups used in RTK (Pentagon - Shine/Spring Snow, ONF - We Must Love/Moscow Moscow, It's Raining) as reference to why I would personally call this a "set" rather than a "mash up".

So Love Scenario is a pretty classic mellow song, one which is beloved for obvious reasons of being fun and cheerful but in a quieter, soft vibes way. I loved that they took the melody and made it even more cheerful, adding in those trumpet/saxophone tones and bumping it up to a musical tone song. I especially appreciate that they made it so bright because the other performances are so dark (ATEEZ included, though theirs was more forceful and powerful than dark). It's just really refreshing to hear.

Going back to mash ups though, I'm not sure if I could consider this a mash up in my mind? Here's the thing, I don't actually consider Shine/Spring Snow (Pentagon) or We Must Love/Moscow Moscow (ONF) as mash ups wither. To me, those are more like "sets", in which the songs have similar vibes or transition really well into each other. Shine/Spring Snow being a special stage to send of Jinho, the transition wasn't just a musical flow through but a small "cut". I can't really judge this one as a mash up because it's not a performance for the stage but for the heart but if you watch it, you can clearly see where Shine ends and where Spring Snow begins right? Even if the songs bled into each other though, the way they arranged Shine and Spring Snow, I think it would've been a flawless transition in.

Separately, consider ONF's spliced set in which they do nearly all of We Must Love and then tag Moscow Moscow in towards the end lyrically. Because both songs carry different vibes originally, the arrangement became really important in order to splice the songs together and make the transition seamless. And that arrangement did a wonderful job! If I didn't watch those songs beforehand, I wouldn't even have been able to tell that there were two songs in the performance.

So then what's a mash up? A mash up in my mind is more similar to SKZ's Jasin or ONF's It's Raining. It's where the songs and melodies are arranged together, splicing together lyrics and melodies to become one song completely. There's no telling where one song ends and another begins because they're integrated together. ONF's It's Raining is actually a really cool example of this, where they mashed up It's Raining (Rain) with their own song Complete. They keep all the lyrics of It's Raining but add in their own jaunty vibe with the fun saxophone, changing the song entirely. Similarly, SKZ's Jasin (which I will also analyze later), has God's Menu and Side Effects spliced together to become a new song. Obviously SKZ's is different from ONF as SKZ produce and arrange their own songs already, but the end result is the same: a completely new song despite carrying lyrics and melodies from the components.

In this way, I would define iKON's performance as a "set" over a "mash up". The songs align together to tell a story and have a relatively seamless transition, but they do not incorporate each other to become a new song. I think that as far as arrangements go, this is decent and like in Shine/Spring Snow or We Must Love/Moscow Moscow, it's not a bad idea but it feels "weaker" because it's more like just lining the songs up together instead of actually "mashing" the songs together.

Wow that's a lot of talk on something that's not even actually the performance kdjfhk

BACK TO IT.

Because their theme is a breakup and dealing with what comes after, I think their intro is incredibly strong. Like the others said in the episode itself, Bobby's opening shot captures attention immediately. I love that they used a sort of, older black and white movie set with and actual The End card. I think the kind of jazzy vibes go right with that opening shot, the set designer and costumer definitely knew what kind of image they were going for. The movie end card as well as the girl disappearing clearly defines the performance as a breakup illustration, and the mellow vibes perfectly fit the kind of nostalgia that Love Scenario talks about. For anyone who doesn't know, Love Scenario is actually a post-breakup song that reminisces on the good times they had in the relationship. Bobby's verse in particular mentions that it's good they cut it off when they did, even though it hurts.

I also want to mention that I love how individual Bobby is. It's clear in every performance that he's a quirky one and I'm really impressed how he carries it in each performance, because this performance requires more cohesion as a story and yet he still adds little flairs of his own to make the performance more engaging and also more representative of iKON's hip hop style.

Donghyuk's acting and dance sequence flows so well! It's smooth, tells a small story of how they were close but drifting apart and I think his flair with the trench coat works wonderfully as far as visual effects go. There's just something so satisfying about watching the coat go whoosh hehe

THE CHORUS!!! Yo this totally reminds me of like, old broadway in the 1920's. The gold lights, jazzy tone, even the trench coats which I believe are iconic of old movie detectives and gentlemen-esque figures. Kinda reminds me of like black and white detective movies? The thing is, even if you don't know exactly what the outfits and such remind you of, the fact that they invoke that memory is awesome. I love costume design specifically because you don't always have to be detail for detail. It's enough if you can invoke a specific image in the mind of the audience. Junhoe really rocks the look in particular.

The choreography is also very reminiscent of musical theater! Obviously all of kpop is coordinated to be group based and there's always been formations that are similar to what iKON did, however the slide and arms out movement is very much so a musical theater thing. The flashing hands thing is as well! They really nailed down the idea of musical theater, and I love that so much! It's a sort of genre bend you might not expect from kpop but iKON's out here showing you that it is possible.

I love the lighting sequence. The blue and purple are so good, and once again it just invokes that older musical theater style because even as there's color, there's also a lot of clear white/yellow light. Choosing just two colors can be really impactful as the fewer colors there are, the more concentrated the stage looks. Consider for example, Pentagon's Follow stage in RTK. Choosing to only go with gold light and then using other lights as accents really enhanced the theme as well as made the stage easier to follow. Humans are designed to track movement and flashing, so having fewer things to distract us means we focus more on iKON's performance and less on the entire set.

I'll skip to the transition here just because the rest of the muscial theater sequence is very similar to what I've already said.

The transition is a bit jarring if I'm being honest. I think the fact that everyone else reacted like ?! as well means that the transition isn't as smooth as it could have been, especially considering the next song is Killing me. I mean it's pretty straight forward story wise: you fall in love, you undergo the break up and you're hurt but you're happy that you loved. But then still you feel regret and pain because you broke up. I think what would've made this smoother was if DK had one more dance sequence with the female dancer from the beginning. If she walks away from him and then he falls to the floor and has that heartbeat moment, I think that would've helped ease into the next song much easier.

The fact that they end on the line You’re too precious to just leave in the past though is a good transition point. It then bleeds into how in Killing Me, the lingering memories stick deeply. So lyrically it makes a lot of sense. I just don't like how the arrangement just switches off so suddenly, from cheerful jazz to then a rain fall heart beat thing. There's just something missing in between, visually or auditorily.

Something I've noticed about iKON is that they really like using their arms. In Rhythm Ta (intro stage), this stage and later in Inception (Round 2), iKON always has a dance sequence that involves moving arms, kind of like snakes? But as trees? Tree branches as snakes? Yeah. But I literally adore this kind of consistency. It's really cool to watch especially because as the rounds go on, they do it with more people so like obv the 100 sec intro was just the members of iKON but then round 1 had more and then round 2 was literally so many people!! It creates such a cool visual effect! For this performance, I do wish the lighting wasn't as dark as it was. I think some flashing black light would've made this awesome but it's still cool as it is.

PLEASE THE DANCE BREAK IS SO CLEAN. The move where Yunhyeong moves his arms in a circle and the members mirror that (screen left goes from low to high while screen right goes from high to low) is really pleasing to see. I could already tell from the 100 sec intro performance but iKON is has really good bounce to their movement. They pull off the isolation and popping that everyone else does but they do it so smoothly.

I think part of what gives iKON their bounce and flow is that when they stop for a second, it's very clean. There's no extra wobbling that happens with others. And again I really do think their dedicating to using their arms in wide gestures helps contribute to that contrast, because when you go wide movement to stop to wide movement again, your eyes get tricked into thinking the stop is a lot smoother than it could actually be.

I already could tell from before but Donghyuk and Jinhwan really are amazing dancers. Donghyuk is a master of more technical aspects but Jinhwan is really elegant in his moves? That little body roll he does just before Chanwoo's part is so good.

Chanwoo's acting!! Specifically his lines go "Why did I meet her? / Why did I choose this break up?" And then the next part that they all sing in is "I loved her to death / The extinguished fire is burning up again" which makes the fire lighting up so much more obvious. I also think that the fire stand area kind of looks like a coffin so lighting it on fire is a way of mourning the relationship? It visually looks awesome and connects really well to the story line itself, especially since it's a very intense moment to a soft drop in the song. Contrast creates focus!!

And then we have the literally name brand stuff iKON is made out of: bouncing hip hop. It fits them so well, it really does!

Gosh okay I know iKON hasn't been ranking very high and on initial impact, they honestly rank about mid to low for me as well but the more I watch their performances, the more I recognize bits and pieces of artistry they put into their performances. I really start to think like, no wonder they have so many award winning songs. I'm not really sure if they're suited to the way that this competition show works? Because I think first impressions are everything, and although obviously the kingdom judges will understand the lyricism and view the set designs and such more clearly, iKON's performances are still better suited to being watched repeatedly. Their first impression is always good but curiously not enough as far as initial impact goes. It's kind of like it just sticks to you so you want to see it over and over again. Which is really not great for competition shows like this where first impression and impact are everything, which I get but also it lowkey sucks because you miss a lot of details and it sort of forces everyone into the highly impactful performances rather than nuanced ones.

I've mentioned this before but because Kingdom has so much more for set design, costumes, lighting, it can be really distracting from the groups themselves. I think iKON actually does really well with having "still" sets, in which they're the focus, but I feel like that leads to more people picking out their flaws? I dunno, I really like iKON's performances so much and yet I can't find it in my heart to rank them higher than 3rd at any given point. I do just think it's the style of competition.

STILL, it means so much that they stick to their own identity rather than conform to Kingdom's standards. And clearly as they rise through the ranks, more people are recognizing that. So iKON! Fighting!!

#admin talk #kingdom commentary #kingdom performance comments

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polar-stars · 5 years

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(Lea’s) Shokugeki Next Gen - Masterpost Version 2

I’m bored and achieved nothing today, I need to do at least one productive thing

A quick run-down of my Next Gen kids, because why not? If anyone asks me about them I can point to it ;w; It won’t be the most informative post ever but it’s really just a simple introduction. In case it sparks your interest, feel free to inquire about these kids.

I also have a tag on my blog that’s dedicated to them -> https://polar-stars.tumblr.com/tagged/Shokugeki-no-Kimiko-Stuffz

As well as an entire fanfic, which is still in the starters (It will be long. Be very afraid honestly, because I, for the most part, have no idea what I am doing) -> https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11912834/1/Shokugeki-no-Kimiko

Also: There might be some unusual ships in here. I’m sorry if your fave ship doesn’t happen to be included. It really comes down to personal preference ovo;; But please be respecting! I am as well.

Anyways, let’s get into this:

115th Generation (the Prime-Focus)

Kimiko Yukihira

DoB: 27th of June I Daughter of Soma Yukihira and Erina Nakiri | Loves Playing Cards & Grocery Shopping | Dislikes Materialism & Being Called “Kimiko-Sama”

An friendly and optimistic young aspiring chef entering Totsuki as a transfer student in her first year of highschool. Was taught the so-called Yukihira-Style and is therefore known for her creativity. Greatest aim is to create a dish in which her mom can find no fault in.

Hiroshi Aldini-Tadokoro

DoB: 25th of May I Son of Isami Aldini and Megumi Tadokoro | Loves Plushies & Fishing | Dislikes Cigarette Smoke & Dark Humor

A shy but practically angelic guy from Tohoku. Looks out for others a lot, which also shows in his cooking. Very well-versed in both Japanese cooking as well as Italian cooking. Often falls into the shadow of his much bolder cousin, but doesn’t make any attempts to get out of said shadow.

Kaori Hayama

DoB: 17th of February I Daughter of Akira Hayama and Hisako Arato | Loves Gardening & Pastel Colors | Dislikes Mess & Snails

The current valedictorian of the 115th Generation, who more than often gets a sort of nobility attributed to her by the rest of the students. Known as the “Gatekeeper to the Fountain of Eternal Youth” or “Youth Preserver” for short, as her medicinal cooking is famous for energizing it’s customers. Has her goal firmly set on the top of Totsuki and has no interest in socializing whatsoever.

Mika Aldini

DoB: 9th of August I Daughter of Takumi Aldini and Ikumi Mito | Loves Dancing & Romance Movies | Dislikes Rain & Gardening

A fiery, bold girl from Tuscany, who appeared in Totsuki as a transfer student in her second year of middle school. Specialised in Italian Food as well as the usage of Meat. Up to any kind off challenge thrown her way.

Lola Nakiri

DoB: 17th of November I Daughter of Ryo Kurokiba and Alice Nakiri | Loves Limousines & Heavy Metal | Dislikes The Color Pink & Being Bored

The daughter of the headmistress who’s certain she can do whatever she wants. Well-versed in the usage of Seafood and utilization of Molecular Gastronomy, but known for putting more focus on the Seafood-aspect of her dishes. Teases everyone and anyone with no mercy.

Mona Nakiri

DoB: 17th of November I Daughter of Ryo Kurokiba and Alice Nakiri | Loves Techno Music & RomComs | Dislikes Hot Weather & Rap/HipHop

The other daughter of the headmistress who’s much more quieter and reserved than her twin-sister. Known for making use of seafood fairly well, but her true passion lies in Molecular Gastronomy. Just wants friends but is actually very socially awkward.

Takayuki Hojo

DoB: 6th of September I Son of Terunori Kuga and Miyoko Hojo | Loves Fireworks & Pudding | Dislikes Operas & Complete Silence

The grouchy, easy-to-trigger little brother of the president of the Chinese RS. Being part of the RS himself, Takayuki also specializes in Chinese cuisine mainly having his focus on Sichuan Food. Absolutely hates commentary on his shortness.

Kazuo Mimasaka

DoB: 9th of March I Son of Subaru Mimasaka and Nao Sadatsuka | Loves Every Romance Cliche Out There & His Camera | Dislikes Mika’s Fanclub & Aggressive Dogs Barking

A very eccentric member of the 115th Generation who easily scares people with his mere presence. Truth be told, he’s completely harmless. Traces other people’s work but adds his personal spin on it by working in foul-smelling ingredients. Has a massive crush on Mika Aldini and is a hopeless romantic.

Yasu Ibusaki

DoB: 2nd of March I Son of Shun Ibusaki and Ryoko Sakaki | Loves Forest Walks & Adzuki Bean Paste | Dislikes Gossiping & Tight Clothes

A peaceful and friendly young man, whose gentleness often gives off a big-brother-vibe to many. Knows a lot about Fermenting and produces his own Sake, I mean Rice Juice. His true passion is in the art of smoking however. Much more competitive than he lets on.

Chieko Marui

DoB: 5th of December I Daughter of Zenji Marui and Yuki Yoshino | Loves Chess & Matcha | Dislikes Metal Music & Irresponsibility

A highly intelligent girl and the ace of the Enomoto-Seminar that focuses on literacy-research about cooking. Incorporates said research excellently into her dishes while additionally having a talent for Wild Game, even taking interest in breeding. Known fairly well for loud complains and long rants, usually referring to her dormmates.

Hideyoshi Kawashima

DoB: 19th of August I Son of Shoji Sato and Urara Kawashima | Loves Himself & Parties (in Chieko’s room) | Dislikes Broken Mirrors & Studying

The overly arrogant emcee who’s known to host a bunch of events on Totsuki. Through and through an attention-whore who does has a fair share of admires though, being honest. Spends all of this time where he is not loudly praising himself with bickering either with Daisuke or Chieko.

Daisuke Aoki

DoB: 26th of October I Son of Daigo Aoki and Yua Sasaki | Loves Retro Stuff (mostly 70s and 80s) & His Guitar | Dislikes Horror Movies & Dangerous Animals

A soft-spoken and shy emcee who hosts Shokugekis and other sort off events on Totsuki. Much more friendly than his childhood-friend Hideyoshi, but overlooked regardless most of the time. Bickers a ton with Hideyoshi.

Emi Kusunoki

DoB: 25th of July I Daughter of Rentaro Kusunoki & Mea Yanai | Loves Saunas & The Smell of Gasoline | Dislikes Still Being Without a Boyfriend & Libraries

An often brash young girl who’s also known as the major Gossip Girl on Totsuki, that loves to hear and share all kinds of rumors around. Specializes in Heating. Wishes for a boyfriend with a motorcycle.

Itsuki Kumai

DoB: 10th of March I Son of Shigemichi Kumai and Rui Kofuru | Loves Self-Deprecative Humor & Edgy Rock Bands | Dislikes Colorful Clothes & Phone Ringing

Very silent but also awfully pessimistic. Itsuki has a large talents with vegetables and herbs, as he tries to cook as vegetarian as Totsuki’s tasks allow him to. Additionally he has large knowledge around the cuisine of North-Africa. Forgot how to smile long ago.

114th Generation (The 2nd Years who constantly argue for the most part)

Hiraku Yukihira

DoB: 13th of April I Son of Soma Yukihira and Erina Nakiri | Loves All Thing Decadent & Squid | Dislikes Laundry & Elite 10 Paperwork

Ever since entering Totsuki as a transfer student a year ago, Hiraku quickly worked himself upwards as one of the most, if not the most, admired chef of the school. His sensitive sense of taste, the so-called “Tongue Blessed by Angels” or “Holy Tongue” for short gives him a great advantage at cooking. He’s awfully unorganized however and much of a dense airhead.

Akio Hayama

DoB: 26th of February I Son of Akira Hayama and Hisako Arato | Loves Clipboards & Traveling to the Middle East | Dislikes Stains & Organizing Hiraku’s Fanmail

Hiraku’s loyal and diligent secretary, who does not seem to mind just how chaotic Hiraku can be sometimes. Inherited his father’s sense of smell and is therefore outstandingly talented in the usage of spices and creating fragrant dishes. Very friendly but also easily nervous.

Suzume Hojo

DoB: 11th of April I Daughter of Terunori Kuga and Miyoko Hojo | Loves Memes & Fans | Dislikes Sitting Still & Sexism

The bouncy, energetic president of the Chinese RS. Therefore of course specializes in Chinese Cuisine. Much of a laid-back jokester but does look out for the younger students and takes certain matters fairly serious. Shouldn’t be underestimated.

Shigeo Eizan

DoB: 29th of November I Son of Etsuya Eizan and Nene Kinokuni | Loves His Smartphone & Jazz Music | Dislikes Slow or No Internet & Suzume’s Jokes

A materialistic, cold-hearted young man who’s already involved in consulting-work despite the young age. His cooking relies on his intensive knowledge on the chemical components in his ingredients and how to utilize them. Is incredibly intelligent and fairly good at tricking people into trusting him.

Ai Kabutoyama

DoB: 25th of January | Daughter of Tetsuji Kabutoyama | Loves Violin Music & Butterflies | Dislikes Loud Noises & Movies Without A Happy Ending

A very silent and distant young girl, who barely ever talks to anyone but wears an almost constant miserable expression. Specialized in utilizing Skewers. Friendly but insanely Short-Cut whenever she does speak.

Beatrice Shiratsu

DoB: 9th of July I Daughter of Julio Shiratsu | Loves Posing & Making Lists | Dislikes Video Games & Bad DJs

A girl that can often be rather extravagant but all-things-considered she’s very open and rather sweet. Specializes in Italian Cuisine. Loves partying and is very occupied with savoring the life of a teenager as long as she can.

113th Generation (The Third Years, where most of the classmates have been removed already)

Noboru Shinomiya

DoB: 29th of April I Son of Kojiro Shinomiya and Hinako Inui | Loves Painting Landscapes & Autumn | Dislikes Unreliableness & Getting Bothered on his Day-Offs

Noboru is a serious young man who values organization, structure and a good environment. Gets easily annoyed when such things are not provided. Shows great talent in both Japanese cuisine and French cuisine and feels greatly torn between the two. Wants relaxation.

Kiyoko Saito

DoB: 21st of February I Daughter of Somei Saito and Momo Akanegakubo | Loves Shopping & Kimonos | Dislikes Untidiness & Disrespect from younger Students

Kiyoko is a proper but spoiled young lady who’s friendly as long as she receives the respect she thinks she deserves. She’s specialized in Japanese Sweets, but does know how to make Western desserts as well plus Sushi of course. Very fashionable and has a booming Instagram.

Masashi Eizan

DoB: 13th of May I Son of Etsuya Eizan and Nene Kinokuni | Loves Classical Japanese Music & Kiyoko’s Daifuku | Dislikes Everything He Considers Indecent & Being told to rely too much on his Father and his little Brother Shigeo

Masashi is overly serious and strongly values rules and customs. Considers himself superior than practically everyone on Totsuki, save for Noboru and Kiyoko. Specializes in Traditional Japanese Cuisine and is known for an extraordinary talent with Soba. Has a very short temper.

Ran Mimasaka

DoB: 1st of June I Daughter of Subaru Mimasaka | Loves Her Motorcycle & Her Laptop | Dislikes Bullying & Not Being Active For Too Long

Ran is a calm, friendly girl but also slightly witty young woman. She utilizes foul-smelling ingredients for her dishes. Ran is also often perceived to be the “most normal” one of the Mimasaka-sibling. In actuality, she’s excellent at fishing and gaining information and is incredibly informed about basically every person walking Totsuki.

116th (The 3rd Years of Middle School)

Moe Saito

DoB: 20th of December I Daughter of Somei Saito and Momo Akanegakubo | Loves Balletts & Bears (primarily Pandas) | Dislikes People She Doesn't Know Touching Her Ribbon & Ripped Jeans

Moe is very stoic and barely ever truly emotes. Should she ever actually smile, its a sign of her being beyond happy. She’s a Sushi-Chef whose main gimmick it is to make the Sushi as cute as possible. Also has a great talent for Bentos and while it’s not her main focus, she does know how to make desserts. Speaks dryly but also very bluntly.

118th (The 1st Years of Middle School)

Kei Eizan

DoB: 5th of July I Son of Etsuya Eizan & Nene Kinokuni | Loves Video Games & Tigers | Dislikes Ties & The Scent of Coffee

Kei often has troubles with making a good first impressions as he’s rather grouchy or even aggressive at points and also makes usage of a very foul language. Not to mention the reputation attached to his surname. He does have a good heart however and an actual sense for justice, which shows in his friendship with the frequently bullied Ayano Mimasaka who he befriends and would protect at all costs.

Ayano Mimasaka

DoB: 30th of October I Daughter of Subaru Mimasaka & Nao Sadatsuka | Loves Lewis Carroll’s “Alice In Wonderland” & Sewing | Dislikes People Pulling her Braids & Physics Class

Ayano is a fairly eccentric but innocent, little girl who just happens to have a number of a bit more outlandish interests as well as a creepy laugh and the tendency to pop out of nowhere. She got heavily bullied in her life already just because many consider her weird and scary.

Not on Totsuki (because they’re too young yet)

Nino and Maja Aldini-Tadokoro (Twin-children of Isami and Megumi, little siblings of Hiroshi, Future part of the 119th Generation)

Takahiro Marui (Son of Zenji and Yuki, little brother of Chieko, Future part of the 119th Generation)

Kasumi Ibusaki (Daughter of Shun and Ryoko, little sister of Yasu, Future part of the 120th Generation)

Yoshiko Saito (Daughter of Somei and Momo, little sister of Kiyoko and Moe, Future part of the 120th Generation)

Not on Totsuki (for reasons I can’t get into now because it would be Spoilers for the Fanfic)

Yuu Tsukasa (left), Shouhei Tsukasa (right) and Tsubame Tsukasa (middle) - Children of Eishi Tsukasa and Rindou Kobayashi

Thank you for listening ;w; !

It’s still not complete...haha but we’re getting somewhere

#Shokugeki no Soma #Shokugeki no Kimiko Stuffz #Shokugeki no Souma

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girlonastring · 5 years

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16, 32, 42, 51 :)

Hello there, dear! ^^ Thank you for this

16. Are their any popular ships in your fandom which you dislike?

Boooy howdy, so this was in the current fandom section. For H50, I guuuess it would be…I want to say Steve/Catherine, but honestly I dislike Danny/Rachel entirely it just makes me so mad.

32. Do you listen to music when you write or does music inspire you? If so, which band or genre of music does it for you?

Almost always! Its either music or the TV just on as background noise. For me, band or genre really just depends on my mood or story. I’ve written one listening to a jazz playlist on Spotify, another with Big Time by Big Time Rush /on repeat/ until I finished it, but others it’s just whatever shuffle play has for me! Music definitely does inspire me, though; as you’ve seen lately with Mcdanno, I could be at work or driving home just casually listening to a song when I’m struck by inspiration or a vibe. That’s just how I go, I guess lol

42. List and link to 5 fanfiction authors who are amazing:

oh my frak this list could go on FOR FOREVER AHHHH okay okay let’s try and choose just five, that is going to be d i f f i c u l t

1) distractedKat I cannot even begin to describe the amazing that is this author, if you’re interested at all in Spirk, of the ST: 09 variety, P L E A S E check out their fics Atlas and West of the Moon, I’ve read those both soo many times and I love them more and more each go through here is her tumblr as well!

2) Halevetica This author, okay, I have followed her through Teen Wolf, Supernatural, to Hawaii Five-0, and AS SOON as I let myself fall into Good Omens, you can bet your butt I will be diving into her works there as well! I tagged her A03, but here is her tumblr as well!

3) SquaresAreNotCircles This is a new author for me, and thank you to Hawaii Five-0 for that! I, literally, spent a day just reading every story I could get my hand on of hers and loved every single one of them! Because I fail I of course forgot to comment but YOU BET YOUR BUTT I WILL GO BACK AND DO SO! Also, they just so happen to be @five-wow who is SUCH a dear so that rocks.

4) Bucket_Of_Stars The Irondad and Spiderson content she graces us with is truly amazing and I’m so happy she loves it and shares her stories and I am always so excited to see her pop up on my dash with new stories! She is sweet, too

5) foolishwritingsstupidideas Okay so this is a bit of a cheat? He writes his own characters and some fanfiction as well but I’ve only read them in a google doc BUT I LOVE them! There’s more of his stuff I need to read, and I so will, but what I have so far is yeees.

51. Rant or Gush about one thing you love or hate in the world of fanfiction! Go!

My brain has pulled a total blank on me, oh man. Um. Right now, I’m loving how you can make new friends from fandom, fellow writers or readers, artists, just enthusiasts, y’know? I’ve been talking with more people from fandoms this year alone than I have since I first posted a story and I’m loving it, it’s so nice to find people who enjoy what you do and talk about it with you with the same level of enthusiasm. I’m just loving it.

#alohasunshines #repliesss #fandom asks #love this #thank you for asking!#^^

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inquisitorhotpants · 7 years

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So, TLJ

I was going to wait until I saw it again, but ... ehhh let’s get this done. God this post is gonna be long. I’m gonna miss stuff.

I have 6 main gripes with this movie and I want to get those out of the way first.

That should have been Anakin, not that shitty-ass space frog. Fuck Yoda.

The codebreaker Maz sent them for should have been Lando, and “we didn’t have time for Lando” is still nonsense.

Rian, that is a bladderbuster of a movie, we did not need the milking scene, pal.

Also Joss Whedon gets tiresome, let’s dial back the jokes per second yeah? SW is tonally different from Avengers, let’s not make them all samey same.

Why was there no mourning for Han that was visible instead of only learned through “The Art of TLJ” (Leia’s hairstyle was Alderaanian mourning braids.)

... MOAR PHASMA, are you for real with this 0.3 seconds nonsense.

Now, I was so incredibly underwhelmed by TFA (I have literally never watched it since I saw it in theaters one time per my obligation as a Star Wars fan, I felt like JJ Abrams didn’t even care enough to make an original movie) that I wasn’t jazzed about TLJ.

I was very, very, very wrong in that. Holy fuckballs was I ever fucking wrong.

Luke

The flashback trio, holy SHIT. The sanitized, Obi-Wan’d version. Kylo’s “Bilbo seeing the ring” scary-ass wrong version. And finally, Luke’s “I fucked up so so much” version. Luke has always struggled with the Dark Side, with his anger. You see it at the end of RotJ where he’s just hammering on Vader, until he goes a step too far and goes “oh my god what am I doing.” And then you find out that he bought his own hype, and the Order’s own hype, and drifted close to the Dark Side again, thanks to past trauma from dealing with Vader and his own established tendency to come close to the dark.

But he regrets it so so much. Mark’s monologue talking about that, where you can hear the pain and regret and guilt in his voice, it’s some of his best acting. Luke, driven by shame over what he almost did, driven by survivor guilt, ends up in a very dark place. Shame and guilt are real fucking beasties, and feeling that you failed your students, your nephew, your best friend, your sister, and the galaxy? Jesus. It makes my heart hurt just thinking about it.

And then finally, someone with the same kind of optimism he used to have shows up, a real genuine Rey of Sunshine as it were. And she does exactly what he did with Vader. She tries, even though she has less of a dog in this fight than he does, and it’s just .... i love it, guys.

That force projection. GodDAMN. Even Threepio can see him! HOLY SHIT.

The mirroring of his sacrifice, buying our heroes time, of Obi-Wan’s, was so poignant.

I cried like a baby all through the scene with him and Carrie. It was so good.

And then his scene with Kylo, with this man who’s just devoured by anger and feelings of inadequacy and this desperate need to prove himself to a shitty-ass authority figure (Snoke). It was excellent.

Basically A+ all around, gave Luke nuance and a real depth of character that I wasn’t expecting but I loved after I’d really sat and ruminated on it. He’s always been so positive, and things worked out for him (mostly), and this failure (and there’s the theme of the movie, how you handle failure) just walloped him upside the head and it felt so very, very real to me. <3

I also cried when his robes blew off that rock on Ahch-To. (I cried a lot in this movie lmao)

“Where’s Han?” (me: “fuck me i’m crying a lot.”)

Leia

SPACE MOM OMG <3

Look even if i’d hated the rest of this movie, I was going for Space Mom.

She’s so tired of fighting. She’s so tired of losing that which she loves most. She’s so ready to just sit down and rest. But she won’t, because Leia is the most resilient, and so stubborn and determined and fierce and amazing. Even getting shot into goddamn space isn’t going to stop her.

LEIA USING THE FORCE AND BY GOD SHE HAS SO MUCH STRENGTH IN IT because she’s so very much also Anakin’s kid. <3

Leia being so done with Poe’s nonsense. She’s not going to keep seeing these wholesale sacrifices. Winning doesn’t matter if you don’t have anyone left. The Resistance is not cannon fodder. They are not the First Order, and their people matter.

Every single scene with Leia I loved. All of them.

The hurt, and the pain, and the resignation in her voice when she says her son is gone, it broke my heart guys. You can tell she isn’t happy about it. You can tell she didn’t arrive at this decision lightly. Letting go of a family member who’s determined to pursue something destructive is hard as fuck. I’ve seen it happen in my own family. Leia has lost so, so much. Her planet, her parents, her adoptive parents, her husband, her son, and now she knows she’s losing Luke too? I just ... my heart.

Leia and Rey at the end! <3 Loved it.

the goddamn tribute before the credits, yep cried there too.

Rey

God I love Rey.

Zero time for Kyle Ron’s nonsense.

GET REKD NERD /vrooms off in the Falcon

Her strength of character, her mirroring of Luke’s attempt at redemption, her positioning as light to dark, her “fine fuck you I’m leaving” when redemption is rejected, I love everything about Rey.

THE REUNION WITH FINN <3

The introduction to Poe

Did I mention I love Rey? I love Rey. Rey is so driven and determined and amazing. <3 She has no time for an old-ass man’s nonsense. She has no time for a gold bathrobe wearing man’s nonsense. She has no time for Kyle Ron’s nonsense. “Look I have shit to get done so lead, follow, or get the fuck out of my way.” When Luke wouldn’t stand up (because he’s still fighting his own personal demons), she goes “fine, I’ll do it myself.” When Kyle Ron wouldn’t actually burn down the past, she goes, “fine, I have things to do.”

Rey is the Actual Best.

Rey uses her anger! Holy shit I love that.

Kylo Ren

Look I have to give massive props to Adam Driver. The way he plays someone who’s been emotionally abused, fuck, that shit was giving me flashbacks to my own life. (snoke reminds me of my mom lmao my childhood was great.)

Unlike TFA, I actually found him compelling as a character this time.

That scene in the elevator actually sort of hurt my heart a little. “Okay, FINE. You don’t think I’m anything? You think I don’t deserve this? THEN I’LL FUCKING SHOW YOU, I’LL DO IT WITHOUT IT, I’LL BE BETTER THAN YOU EVER EXPECTED” and the unspoken “and then you’ll finally accept me”. I got a little choked up, thanks past trauma.

God I remember trying for decades to get my mom to love me, to say something nice that she meant, to just pretend she liked me. You agree with horrible shit, you feel beat down all the time, all trying to make this truly awful person think you’re somebody.

So I understand part of Kylo Ren’s drive, tbh.

But he still chose the Space Nazis TWICE. And threw off the love of his family and his uncle. So fuck that jackass.

Look, my mom left literal scars on my face, and i didn’t burn down my school, murder the students, and go join the Hitler Youth.

He’s the embodiment of “prior trauma does not excuse current actions”

A+ to Adam Driver for playing a character I can go “oh man that sucks, but I would still space your ass in half a second you shitty-ass human being.”

Finn

I love Finn so so so much and I could watch a whole movie just about Finn and Rose and Rey and Poe just ... generally wrecking rich people’s shit around the galaxy ngl.

I wish the fight with Phasma was longer. That was a bit of a letdown.

But Finn is just perfect. I love him.

Can we talk about how he looked like an Actual Disney Prince running over to make sure Rose was okay? Because he did and I loved it.

Also how he was totally prepared to give his life to save the Resistance because he has something to fight for, and I wasn’t SUPER sure he was going to be stopped and my heart was in my throat that whole time because Finn you fucking precious human being you. <3

THE REUNION oh my god 12 seconds of sublime perfection. THEY WERE SO HAPPY. (i cried. but i bet you knew that already lmao)

Rose

Cute, takes no shit, period. Love her. Awkward and adorable and just fantastic.

She felt very reminiscent of Cassian with her “I’ve been fighting this my whole life” stance, and I loved it.

Little acts of kindness can have huge rippling effects on the universe. <3

I can’t wait to see more of her.

Watching her and Finn totally fucking up rich people’s days, goddamn that was satisfying as fuck.

I liked the kiss. It was pretty clear she was crushing on Finn the whole time (well maybe not to Finn lmao), it wasn’t drawn out. It didn’t make anything canon, and while I may be all about Finnrey and get more of a brotp vibe from Finnrose, I certainly wouldn’t be mad if it ends up going that way. I thought it was cute. “Fuck it, i’m gonna do it before i pass out.”

Poe

Poe getting schooled by two older, more experienced women, A+.

Poe reminded me of Saw Guerrera, actually, speaking of Rogue One parallels. He wants to win, no matter the cost. Let’s remember that Saw ended up leaving the main body of the Rebellion over this.

I thought Poe’s arc was great, tbh. He learned that you have to be able to ADAPT.

I’m still personally “eh” on not disclosing anything, but at the same time, even if Holdo had told him at least a general idea of what was going on, I think he still would have sent Rose and Finn, he still would have staged the mutiny. His entire thing is “i know better” when he doesn’t, and he learns that he certainly does not always know better. There was a LOT of character growth there, and I loved it. So much of this movie adds depth to characters. <3

That intro to Rey! I loved it so much.

POE AND BB8, enough said, god they were cute. THEY HAD A FOREHEAD TOUCH. <3

General things I really liked

that scene where Holdo jumps into the ship. utter silence, light spilling forth from a source of darkness, GODDAMN that shit gave me chills. Amazing.

The aesthetics, as always. Star Wars movies are just beautiful.

Porgs! Jesus they were cute.

“Jakku pretty much is nowhere.” lmao fucking sassy-ass skywalker men

Literally everything with Chewie.

THE SOUNDTRACK.

Snoke Bond Villain-ing it up and promptly dying lmao. “Let me reveal everything about my plan including the fact that I faked this Force bond thing” /pulls a Darth Maul

THAT LIGHTSABER FIGHT GODDAMN. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” basically.

Luke flicking invisible dust off his shoulder.

there’s a lot more but uh yeah i liked this a lot. I’m going to go see it at least one more time.

#tlj spoilers #i've never had such an entire 180 on opinion from before seeing to after seeing

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penguinsnoot · 6 years

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Self-Care Tips from Someone Who Sucks at Self-Care (Part 2)

Part 1

In my last post, I listed some basic self-care tips and then proceeded to talk about them way too much. Guess what? I’m about to do that again. The difference between this post and the previous one is that the first one focused more on stuff that would mostly impact and improve physical health and this post is going to focus more on things to help you relax when you’re feeling anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, etc. (but still have positive physical outcomes). Of course, these things may not work for everyone since everyone is different, but the main point of this is to at least give you ideas that can lead to you being more relaxed. Without further ado, here’s Self-Care Tips Part 2: Relaxing Edition.

Read | If you’re looking for a way do escape reality and avoid the problems of our messed up world for a while, read a good book! Or two, or three, or four. . .or more. . . Reading stimulates your brain, reduces stress, improves memory, provides entertainment, and can even lower your heart rate and muscle tension (help you relax). This may not be a cure-for-all solution, but reading truly is good for your brain and emotional state, so if you ever feel wound up and like everything is going wrong, stop, take a deep breath, and sit down on a comfortable chair and read. Getting away from the world for a while is sometimes better than facing your problems head-on immediately. You will still have to deal with them eventually, but you’re not likely to get anything done properly when you’re too stressed to function. Read a good book and let your worries melt away, at least temporarily.

Listen to Soothing Music | If reading isn’t your thing (don’t knock it ‘til you try it), maybe music is. Listening to music, especially soothing music such as jazz, classical, acoustic, etc., can improve your mood, help you sleep better, and lower stress levels. There’s really nothing better than laying in bed with natural light coming in through the window and reading a good book with soft piano music playing in the background. Sometimes tuning out the world with earbuds in is more beneficial than parents encouraging us to go and hang out with other people realize (though being social is important, but more on that in another post).

Nap | I talked about sleep in my last post and I’m going to do it again, because it’s important. If you find that you have trouble sleeping at night or you’re losing energy quickly because life is just really damn draining sometimes, silence the notifications on your phone, turn off the TV and lights, and take a nap. Experts have found that napping helps reduce stress (are you seeing a pattern in the things I’m suggesting yet?), improve mood, perception, creativity, and memory, and boost alertness. When we’re tired, our bodies don’t function as well as they should, so if you can find the time, definitely lay down and catch up on some Zs. You’ll be amazed at how easily adding almost daily naps to your routine will improve your physical and mental/emotional health.

Write | When I say write, I don’t mean break out the textbooks and peer reviewed articles to write a six-paged essay for your Psychology class. No, no, no. . . I mean write for pleasure. Whether you write a poem, short story, journal entry, or an entire novel, your creative juices will be flowing and your vocabulary skills will strengthen greatly. Writing can be a fantastic outlet for letting out all your frustrations and worries in life. If you write even just a little every day, you will continuously be working on an essential skill used in school and most (if not all) places of work, so not only will you be doing something that can increase happiness levels and reduce stress levels but you’ll also be upgrading your value in the workplace. How’s that for throwing stones at a bird? That’s how that expression goes, right? Hmm. . .

Watch Cute Animal Videos | This will heal literally any problem you have (not really). What better way to spend an evening after a stressful day of school/work/family interaction/running errands than to wrap up in a warm, fuzzy blanket and watch cute bunnies hop around and eat leafy greens? Obviously this is something that’s more of a personal appeal suggestion than something everyone would enjoy, but if you’re sad or angry or just done with the world, why not give it a shot? Sometimes all we need in life to feel whole again is to watch cute videos of puppies and kittens cuddling. Honestly, what could be better?

Soak in a Hot Bath | Hot water relaxes the body and helps you fall asleep faster, relieves muscle tension and sinus problems, lowers anxiety, and more. Taking a hot bath right before bed will make curling up under the covers feel like absolute heaven, especially if you sleep naked (which has its own health benefits). After a straining and draining day, running a hot bath can be the perfect remedy. Fill up your tub, throw in a bath bomb or some bath salts, turn on some smooth jazz, and soak in the water for a little while. Just make sure to clean your tub first.

Masturbate | Maybe don’t do this if there are other people in the house and you don’t have a lock on your door, because there’s a good chance of you getting caught (I’ve had a few close calls in the past), but if you can find somewhere private and appropriate (please don’t do this in a public space) to rub one off, do it. Masturbating reduces sexual tension and stress, helps you sleep, and relieves cramps and headaches. Not everyone may be comfortable doing this, but I’m going to tell you right now that there is no better way to build confidence in yourself than to explore your own body and figure out what brings you pleasure. Waiting around for someone else to do it for you can lead to some lackluster sex in the future (according to my mom; I have no personal experience with sex, but masturbation is great, I highly recommend it).

Cry | Watching bunny videos and listening to Kenny G won’t always be what you need. Sometimes the best way to relax is to cry all your frustration, sadness and stress out. Crying releases toxins and reduces emotional stress by getting rid of stress hormones and other chemicals that negatively affect the body. Crying every day, for no apparent reason, however, can be a sign of severe distress, depression, or some other mental illness that should be treated. It’s okay to cry when you feel overwhelmed or like your emotions are clogging up, so don’t be afraid to curl up on your side and sob like your life is ending. You may end up feeling better than ever once you’re done, because not only will you have let everything out, but you’ll also be able to think more clearly once all of those negative emotions have been flushed out of you.

Play with Makeup | This one probably seems silly, but I mean it: play with makeup. Whether that means swatching all your eye shadows and highlighters for the 10th time or doing a full face with products you don’t usually use, messing around with makeup can give you some time to enjoy yourself and not worry about the things in life that feel significant but are in fact trivial. Not everyone uses makeup, and I understand that, so obviously this wouldn’t apply to you, but it could. Go out to your local Walmart or Walgreens and get some cheap drugstore makeup to play around with (unless you have sensitive skin, then you probably shouldn’t do that). You don’t have to get or do anything extravagant; sometimes it’s fun simply to put on a sparkly lip gloss and clumpy mascara and walk around your house in your pajamas acting like a supermodel going down the runway.

Go for a Walk | Staying indoors all day every day can give your mind a chance to think up negative thoughts and let them fester, especially when you’re sitting in one place doing nothing for hours. Getting out of the house and doing something as simple as going for a walk can switch your mind over to a more positive space, or at least reduce the amount of bad vibes in the air. Walking regularly also reduces risk of heart attack and stroke, builds stronger bones and balance, lowers blood sugar, boosts energy and mood, and decreases stress levels by releasing endorphins (happy hormones). Even if all you do is go on a leisurely walk for 20 minutes every other day, that’s still better than nothing, and both your mind and body will thank you for taking the time to care for yourself.

Watch Something Heartwarming | What this means for you is totally up to your interpretation. You can watch YouTube videos, TV shows, music videos, movies, documentaries, birds, and so on. When you want to relax and get away from stress but are feeling especially lazy, watching something that makes you happy can be just as good as exercising or going out with friends (not that you shouldn’t do these things; try not to be a complete potato [like me]). Personally, I like to watch My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic when I finish classes and homework for the day because the lighthearted, friendship-focused aspect of the show makes me feel happy and helps me free myself from the mess of stress and anxiety I constantly find myself tangled up in. Don’t spend hours binge watching something, because then you get so caught up in a story that you don’t make time for anything else, but you could try to watch an episode or two of something a day if it makes you feel good. I highly suggest checking out My Little Pony and Phineas and Ferb. They may be for younger audiences, but that doesn’t mean they’re not awesome.

Color | Or finger paint, or sketch, or do photography- whatever rocks your roll (is that one right?). You don’t have to be inherently artistic to do art. Creating art reduces stress and anxiety, and increases creativity and positive emotions. Coloring while piano music plays in the background (gotta love that Yiruma) is so incredibly relaxing that I wish I took the time to do it more. The brain has been found to enter a sort of meditative state while coloring, which can help to lower stress and anxiety levels. Give coloring a try and see if it helps you relax, and don’t get upset if you go outside the lines- it’s completely fine.

Sit Outside | Run your hands over the grass, listen to birds sing and squirrels scurry up and down trees, watch the clouds/stars, and breathe in the fresh air (unless you live next to a paper mill or gas station or something, then don’t do that). Going outside is said to help with seasonal depression and improve mental health. If you sit outside during the day, you’ll also soak up some vitamin D, which helps with calcium and phosphorus regulation (maintain healthy bones). If you do decide to go outside during the day, make sure to wear sunscreen regardless of weather conditions (UV rays can still cut through clouds, my dudes).

Now get out of bed and go outside. It’s vitamin D time.

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dterrero · 5 years

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Portraits of the Artists

(from March 2016)

The great Romantic-era poet John Keats described the human being’s ability to transcend his or her circumstances and change revise their context in they were in. He called it “negative capability”. Though its validity is widely disputed, history has given numerous examples of people who have exhibited this sort of power. That’s been the major overarching theme with the southwest Florida spoken-word artist Taylor Davis and his recent projects, including his upcoming work, Portraits of the Others.

Though he is a salesman by trade, Davis started rapping at age 16, mainly remixing popular hip-hop songs on his laptop. Tepid responses prompted him to be more ambitious and nuanced in his craft. Last October, Davis put out his concept album Greetings from the West Egg, which takes inspiration from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Accented by sounds clips from mobster movies and moody jazz grooves, Greetings paints a cinematic snapshot of what living in and around the West Egg would be like.

COLOR PALATE

Portraits follows in the familiar themes of struggling to succeed fairly in an unjust society. However, his goals for Portraits are clearly different than for Greetings. The first is to distance himself from the immediate influence of the New York and Fitzgerald; the second is to engage in more narratives not only concerning dysfunction in society but also dysfunction in personal relationships.

“I wanted to personalize the album a lot more than the last one and go away from the NYC theme,” Davis says. “Less wide-open cinematic concepts and more personal stories and narrative pieces.”

The third major goal is to change the mood and tone. While Greetings is tense, moody and nihilistic, Davis says that Portraits is looking up to be more optimistic than its predecessor. In the first promotional track from the album, “House on the Hill”, you can hear Davis sounding more relaxed than his previous work, but not complacent. It’s strident, but not cocky; aloof, but inviting and engaged with the listener.

Though his work is undeniably indebted to the New York flavors of A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, and the Guru, his lyrics showcase more influences from folk and heartland rock. Nearly all the songs on Greetings are littered with nods to his first true musical inspiration and influence, Bruce Springsteen.

“The music of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band has inspired me to pick up my guitars more and more and hone in on my records,” Davis says.

“The use of live instrumentation on the records and makes them more ‘now’ sounding.”

In terms of storytelling and lyricism, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, and Woody Guthrie have made an immediate and long-lasting impression on Davis.

“Attempting to tell those type of stories on the music we make is something we don't see done,” Davis says, “and that’s where we find our niche lyrically.”

BRUSH STROKES

Plagued with setbacks due to various personal issues, Greetings took over two years to make. By contrast, Portraits is already in the post-production with a set release date for April 17, to coincide with Davis’ 23rd birthday. Portraits has proven to be a relaxed and relatively brisk process, only taking up a fraction of the time spent on Greetings. On production, Davis recruited longtime collaborators Steve Flowers and Evan Chase.

Flowers says that both he and Davis were “more settled and started talking up this album and instantly knew that we were both going to be on board for the entire album only a short time after we started laying down the demo tracks.”

Chase and Davis knew each other from JV basketball, but it was only after high school that the two teamed up to make music. An affinity for video game soundtracks led Chase to attend Full Sail University, where he is majoring in audio production. The skills he’s learned there helped translate into the goal of making the most articulate sound possible.

“Our workflow is always really well and we walk away with a lot done in a short amount of time,” Chase says. “More so than anything else I’ve worked before is the fact we stick with our decisions and move on. No turning back to revise or think over again.”

Davis’ vision to move away from the New York style is reflected in his curation of musicians. Flowers, who is also a multi-instrumentalist on the album, says his musical palette ranges from hip-hop to grindcore to candy pop. Flowers used this process as an opportunity to grow as a musician and a producer.

“As a musician/artist on this album, I feel some of the root sounds that really started my interest in music are being sprinkled into some of these tracks,” Flowers says. “It’s a fusion of what we love in true hip-hop and rock and roll. This album will be different. The songwriting process is always different.”

On guitar is Davis’ cousin Trevor Davis. Currently fronting the Washington, D.C. indie group Lost Keys, this well-seasoned musician says that this is his first foray into hip-hop.

“As a purist, I play my acoustic guitar on the record to accompany the rhythm and play a little melody on the intro and outro on the track ‘Long Way From Home’,” Trevor says. “Taylor kind of gave me [the] free range to do whatever I wanted with whichever track I felt fit. As soon as I heard ‘Long Way Home’ I knew I wanted to work on it. I felt the jazz chords, along with Taylor’s gritty, yet mellifluous style was well suited for me.”

Other featured instrumentalists include guitarist Paul Huffer, Flowers’ comrade from the Bonita Springs punk scene, and 18-year-old guitarist Austin Heisler, who is also from Bonita Springs. Chase holds that the most satisfying part of the process comes from deep roots in personal friendship. Maybe that’s why the process has been quick.

“Just knowing that at the end of the day, we’re really just friends. That’s what it all started as,” Chase says. “If you take away all this music, we’d still have a friendship. It’s not like most times between engineers and artists where it’s strictly about business.”

IMAGES

if the concepts weren’t lofty enough, Davis also plans to release a photo book to accompany Portraits. The idea came up when he and his girlfriend Katy DeMarco were just toying around with a camera and the scenery of downtown Tampa.

“We saw these photos starting to add up and I thought it would be a great idea to document the whole process of the album and let the listeners see what goes into creating a product from just an idea,“ Davis says.

DeMarco serves as a part of Davis’ support system, to whom Davis relies on for judgment. According to DeMarco, the city’s unique character and artistic culture vibe played an important influence and inspiration.

“Tampa was a huge step in Taylor’s way of thinking for this project. Besides the scenery, just being in a big city was inspirational for both of us,” DeMarco says. “Walking through the city and browsing through bookstores, just kind of has a certain feeling to it.”

Davis says the photos are meant to help tell the stories to the listener by putting faces to the characters.

“It's also something we wanted to be visually appealing so people could go through the book while listening to the record and get a good feel for the characters in the stories, through myself and the people in my own story.”

The game plan for compiling the photos Davis and DeMarco is to take as many as they can and sort through the best 60 photos in their collection. On taking and selecting photos, DeMarco added, “sometimes the moments you don’t think would work for a picture are usually the ones that end up the best.”

The photos will feature several of Davis’ friends and random people with Miami, Tampa, Atlanta, and several cities in between the three as the backdrop.

“The biggest thing for us was to let people see that we are living the artist’s life and we are in this thing for the long haul,” Davis says. “One day we want to be able to look back at this book and this album and know where we were in our lives, not only musically, but as humans. This photo book is supposed to do that.”

You can find Taylor Davis on:

BandCamp: http://greetingsfromwestegg.bandcamp.com/releases

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/greetingsfromwestegg

Twitter: https://twitter.com/GatsbyMDP

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iceamericanoventi · 6 years

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Love Will Find a Way, Well, Eventually : 1. Eventide

A complicated yet very simple slice of life of five different men, and the entire world rotating around them, and all the coincidence colliding among them, and all the shenanigans entailed.

One is a sneakers designer, one is a jazz cafe owner, one is a pediatrician, one is a photographer, one is a writer - and five are free souls finding what we called love.

In the world where Tinder exists, some chose to go vintage. Who said these days meeting people conventionally is out of date? What they thought a simple dinner, turned out to be the first encounter of more nights later.

Coincidence? Universe don’t think so.

cross-posted on my AFF

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“What?”

“You’re not deaf, don’t pretend to be one.”

“I’m not deaf. I just confirming, whether it’s true or not that my friend gone mad already after spending almost two weeks in Spain.”

“Mad? Try kind.”

Jinki only rolled his eyes and back to his scale and continued to weigh some coffee beans that just arrived to the store. It’s 8 A.M in the morning, the only thing he wanted to picture in his mind is how many new customer today he could gain. Business is not doing well lately, since lots of cute café appeared in the neighborhood, after some rich people found out it’s a very promising area.

It’s not like his café is less great, it’s just young people nowadays prefer to go to some instagramable places. And the rustic Scandinavian style he offered since four years ago is a bit out dated. Of course he got some regular, those people who stick to his coffee choices and live music performance, he just feels the needs to keep up with the market demand.

That’s why, Minho stupid dinner night invitation is not preferable at the moment. Dinner is always good, actually – it is a belief he walked by since he knew how to chew solid meals –, but his friend’s agenda entailed is too tacky for 35 years old Jinki.

“Come on, Jinki. You just need to be present.”

“For what?”

“Moral support?”

“Moral support doesn’t involve selling your friend soul to get what you need.”

“For God’s sake, stop using the term selling. I’m not a pimp!”

“Yet,” he moved to check the espresso machine and snapped his finger to call one of his employees. A young man walked closer, and when he pointed to the machine, he just nodded and started inspecting the machine, “You’re actually worse than my Aunt. She gave up finding a perfect spouse for me a while ago. And here you are trying to drag me to one of your wild hunting season because the other end wouldn’t show up with the prey if you didn’t bring me as the offer.”

“You made it sounds like thousand times worse.”

“It does!”

Minho massages his temples once again, clearly forgot that his friend is too hard-headed sometimes, “I just asked you to go for a dinner with me and my friend who happened to tell me he would bring his friend as well.”

“Who happened to be potentially the new man Choi Minho would take back home at night.”

“Only if everything went well of course!”

“And by well you mean I got matched with your friend then said friend would let you take his friend, am I right?”

“I always thought you’re the smarter one between both of us.”

***

It all started two weeks behind, at one night before Minho took the flight for a shoot in Spain. The editor in chief personally appointed him as the main photographer for the autumn spread for the magazine. He lived in Spain for almost six months for his ‘Iberian Rendezvous’ photobook released on January. Everyone fell in love immediately with the book. Not only because he did very good job on the story line of the book, but also because at some point he used the tripod and captured himself at the roof top of La Muralla Roja, giving all the summer vibe with the pinkish wall, vast ocean, and of course his all tanned sun-kissed skin. That one photo itself got the book on the bestseller shelf for six weeks nonstop.

After the last briefing before the team took off, he went to his favorite bar where he met Taemin, a partner he worked with on one project about street style.

“Spain?”

“Yeah, Barcelona supposed to be the main. But I’m still not sure about that decision.”

“Dude, but you’re flying tomorrow.”

“That’s what brought me here. I couldn’t shake that off of my mind, you know. I mean, they hired me because I’m more familiar with Spain. But then they came up with Barcelona, which couldn’t be more mainstream. If they wanted to do Barcelona shoot since the very beginning, any photographer will do! There’s no need to contact my agent and book me.”

“I would kill to go to Barcelona again.”

“Too crowded, too noisy, too many tourist. Just like you and your friend.”

“Leave me and my friend alone, you tall giant!”

Minho almost fell off his chair laughing his ass hard, “You’re really cute when you’re mad, you know that?”

“And you’re too ugly and nasty when you’re drunk. That’s it,” he took the glass from Minho’s grip which earned him some adult baby whining, “You got yourself a flight tomorrow, young man.”

“The flight is by midnight. And I’m not the one who flies the plane.”

“If you started the flight with headache, you’re going to have headache the whole trip.”

“Where and when did you learn all this stuff?”

“My friend who you’re always mocking is actually much better adult. And you should thank him he made me into quite decent human being.”

“Should I pay my respect, bow to him, or offer my heart to this noble man?”

Minho might still under influence of those bitter aperol, but in Taemin’s ears, his words sound like a perfect jingle of new world advertisement, lured him off just enough.

“You know what? I have an idea.”

“Sure you have an idea, if not, how can you survive in this hella competitive world? Your creativity so far saved your ass from starvation.”

“No, no, listen. My friend is nice and you’re not so bad,” Minho annoyed ‘hey’ halts him for a second, “Why don’t I introduce both of you to each other? I don’t see any harm on it.”

“Surely you never had seen me in bed, Honey.”

“You wish,” Taemin gulped down his rum cola down and asked the bartender to give him any other stuff, apparently, rum is not for him.

“So what are you saying? You’ll introduce me to your dear friend?”

An apparent smirk appeared on Taemin’s face under the dim of light, “Baby, there’s nothing in this cruel world that is free.”

“When people said you are cunning, I didn’t believe it. Your innocent eyes are pretty convincing.”

“I learned from the best.”

“And I am very glad I could teach you whatever I got, truly a diligent apprentice.”

An apparent eyes-rolling scene landed on Taemin’s face, “Let’s say.. We can try this restaurant that I always passed every single time I went to my office.”

“Too fancy. I hate restaurant.”

“You should learn to like it, the man you’re about to meet very fond of night out involving tasty supper.”

“He can get tasty supper back home.”

“You and your squalid mind, intrigue me and disgust me at the same time.”

“My charm indeed, my darling,” Minho’s giggling too much he almost fell the tall bar stool Taemin needs to use his fast reflect to catch him by the shoulders.

“Anyway, I’ll let you touch his pristine skin if you brought some dishes to table as well.”

“You know I don’t coo—oh.”

“Get it?”

“You’re an evil, yet the most brilliant man I’ve ever met.”

“That’s why I don’t date you, Baby.”

“Fair enough.”

“So are we deal?”

“Sold. I’ll return from Spain by the end of the month. Text me whenever you’re available.”

“No, Minho. Text me whenever you’re available.”

So here he is, two days after landed and 24 hours jet lag, begging Jinki to be his sort of plus one. Not the ordinary plus one, because Minho’s coming for hunting. Taemin already at the top of his wits, told him not bother to come if he’s walking to the restaurant by himself.

But Jinki settled his mind only to the matters which gave him benefit. At this moment, taking care of his jazz café before the rustic theme eating up its own existence. Dating is not something he pursued these day, nor live action of Tinder.

“One last time, Jinki. One last time. If this one doesn’t work, I’d stop dragging you with me.”

“You said these at least four times already, Choi. You think I just befriended you yesterday? You don’t need me anyway. I’d be lump of rock there sitting restlessly and by the end of the night, would just embarrassed myself by spilling someone’s food onto their perfect dress shirt.”

“So your answer is no?”

“You heard that already twenty minutes ago.”

“I’m never been this desperate before.”

He is indeed, that’s what crossed Jinki’s mind when he saw the destitute looks on Minho’s face. His best guess, Minho is actually having issues on something else. The way he tried to get out from there though, is to vent everything up on completely different matters to divert his mind.

“True. And I barely know you at this very second. Why are you so distracted? Where is this composure you always talk me into it?”

“I don’t know, I really don’t know. This is the first time I feel helpless. And the idea of someone choosing the perfect option to me is too tempting. As if at the end everything isn’t ended as I expected, I could just blame someone else. Because it wasn’t me who picked them at the first place.”

Jinki hang the apron he had on the side of the tall credenza. He moved to the old piano by the corner and started to clean it, as gently as possible. He doesn’t want to ruin the only love evidence left from his grandfather.

“It’s always easier to blame someone else. But we won’t go anywhere near that way.”

“Too early for some lecture,” Minho parched to Jinki’s side, “If you help me this time, I’ll shoot your café and put it in my blog. How’s that?”

Any deal regarding his café always irked Jinki’s head. He knew what his friend’s talking about, that very blog, at least got 2000 hits every single day. And it’s probably the only way out from the slump catching his business at the rear end. But he’s also a man of his word.

“Don’t tell me we’re negotiating, because I’m not.”

“Your voice says different thing.”

“It’s just because I’m upset you’re ruining what supposed to be a new day for me to keep my business running. With the amount of fame you have, you’d have no idea how some people are struggling to meet every day’s end.”

“That’s why I made you this proposal. It’s a win-win solution. You came to the dinner, it’s on me, no worries, you only need to put some nice and clean pants, you probably meet some handsome faces, and I’ll take care of your marketing.”

“No wonder you have long list of people kissing your feet.”

“Is this a yes?”

“I’m only available on Thursday. No rescheduling because I got some employees to feed.”

“You are the actual best.”

Jinki starts to play some tunes from Tchaikovsky, “Tell me something I don’t know.”

***

“A date? You literally got me a date?”

“What’s with the tone of surprise?”

Kibum removed his notebook from his laps, almost flying he marched to the side of Taemin’s desk, a perfect disbelief expression washed all over his face.

“Tell me this is because you left the part of me being an odd certified day-dreamer who has his head at least ten hours per day on the clouds when you described me to this said person.”

Looking at his friend of seven years Taemin could only serve his trademark flat unimpressed forced smile to Kibum before returned to his Wacom and started to fill his sketches with some colors.

“Judge by your tone, I can tell already that you’re excited.”

“Try terrified,” Kibum scoffed.

“It’s not like your first date after you got rescued from some weird cult bunker.”

“Don’t play Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt on me.”

“You sounded you came out of it, though.”

Kibum doesn’t date. He does have several episodes of one night stands but in his life manual, none of those is considered a date. And imagining the scenario where he’s sitting in front of another person sober and without stuffing his own face on the other’s gave him goosebumps. How unreal. He sucks on dating, not because he’s an asshole. He just happened to get bored very easily. And if the company couldn’t excite him with the flow of conversation, there would be only two choices left, call it off or bring it home.

“You know I don’t date.”

“Hmm, you might as well start to. He’s a friend of mine.”

“Doesn’t guarantee he would make a very nice date.”

Taemin lazily looked up to meet Kibum’s gaze.

“What do you need? Face? Checked. Build? Checked. Wallet? Checked. Ass? Double checked, assessed thoroughly, approved and great quality certified.”

Sometimes Kibum wonders what’s inside Taemin’s head besides shoes and men, “Does he know already what I do for a living?”

Kibum is actually very particular with people he would deal with, he’s very proud of what’s he doing even though people sometimes look down on it.

“Besides being my pimp, no, he doesn’t.”

The man before him tossed one of the dinosaur figurines lined up on the desk.

“Ouch! What the heck?!” he stopped his activity and rearranged the dinosaurs back – no one should ever mess with his toy collection –, “Next Thursday, dinner is on the gentleman.”

“Oooh,” Kibum coos, “Fancy.”

He then detached himself from the chair and collected his MacBook Air from the couch where he left it since he arrived.

“He’s just being himself.”

“We’ll see. Gotta check my schedule first.”

“I’ve called your assistant. You have no event on that day.”

“You are a snake.”

“Proud Slytherin over here.”

“Whatever. Smooch you later!”

He walked towards the glass door of Taemin’s workspace, train of thoughts filled his mind for such out of nowhere date night.

“Bum.”

“Yeah?” his hand lingering by the handle of the door, ready to push it, but he cocked his neck in the direction of Taemin.

“I forgot to mention, it’s a double date night.”

“I should have known better that you’re a man with agenda.”

***

Jinki pushed the door of the restaurant after two times rechecking his phone, because, hell, the restaurant is too fancy for his preference. It’s not about what he can or cannot afford, but fancy restaurant tends to be overprice for something he knew he could get it in so much better offer. Plus, he needs to dress up on certain level. Again, it’s not about what he can or he cannot make a fashion statement, but overthinking about his outfit just not something he would use his time up for.

“Table for how many?”

“I have reservation.”

“Oh, which name if I may?”

“Choi Minho.”

“Ah, the gentleman arrived twenty minutes ago, Sir. Very draped, for sure. This way.”

Judging by the look of the usher, he already thought Jinki was Minho’s date. Unnecessary smug and scanning from head to toe over him, told everything. He doesn’t mind at all, he doesn’t care actually. All he needs to know is that friend of him going to pay all of the expense tonight and keep his promise to promote his cafe or he would cut the friendship right away.

“Five minutes ago I wasn’t sure you’re appeared before me. But look at you, killer turtle neck and even put your watch on.”

Minho smirked right away when Jinki dragged the chair in front of him. He gave his coat to the usher who took it diligently and wait for him to leave before flopped his ass down.

“Well, look at you. The symbol of tardiness itself already standby before the show time. I don’t know should I applaud on it or cry over your display of desperation.”

“Would it hurt you if just for once not to be sarcastic?”

“I’m just being honest. Courtesy talk tired me.”

“And being mean turned you on.”

“I’ll take that as compliment.”

“Compliment my ass.”

“Cannot see it unless you’re standing, but I’m pretty sure you prepared your best for whatever your friend will introduce you to.”

“So are you, I guess. Purposely wearing something that drawing some good lines of your pecks. You’re quite desperate as well.”

“Only because I need to save my business. That’s all,” a waiter come to serve him the wine Minho chose a while ago, “And this. If someone buys me drinks or dinner, I should be grateful. That’s how my grandfather told me.”

“Have no idea you gramp should be proud or throw a pity on you.”

“Neither, he would probably just read quietly by the corner of his room and ignored the whole universe happening around him.”

Minho failed to notice some resentment over his buddy’s tone, and Jinki couldn’t be more relieved. Silently he picked up the menu and studied it while Minho’s busy typing something by his phone.

Choi Kermit : where the heck are you?

Choi Kermit : I won’t hesitate to kill if you bailed out

The Taem : chillax dude

The Taem : coming over in ten minutes, fucken traffic

The Taem : you have the goods on your arm?

Choi Kermit : you have the goods on your arm?

The Taem : well played, Choi

Choi Kermit : stop blabbering and get your ass over here

“Can you speed it up?”

“Excuse me?” Kibum dramatically cocked his head to his left, almost losing himself trying to kill Taemin by pushing him far to the window, “You’re the one who still had a meeting until six!”

“In my defense, I had no idea that the artist already agreed to the design proposal and wanted to proceed right away talking about production and operational!”

The restaurant is only two blocks away, and Kibum taps the wheel rapidly, slightly more frantic than before. No, no, not because the traffic is getting worse, it’s because he’s going to meet someone who high potentially hurting him somewhere near the future. Mind the sappiness and angsty vibe, Kim Kibum is a writer after all. He got his bills covered by succumbing into his sadness and made words over it.

“Bum.”

“Yeah?”

“Relax. You’ll be okay.”

“What do you mean? I am completely okay. Just the traffic plus rain plus rush hour, why shitty hell like this had their gut ruining my mood? It starts to get on my nerves.”

“Dude, you’re just meeting my friend. He’s not some investor whatsoever who gonna judge your book poorly before betting his money to make a movie of it.”

“Heck it’s better if he’s an investor.”

“Point is, you have no need to impress some people. I know you did this to me, but if your date tonight makes you uncomfortable, then leave it. Have your meal and bye, no pressure, really.”

“Are you being serious?” Kibum scoffed and wheeled his car to the left, “I can see the front door of the restaurant already from here and you being oh-so-wise lecturing me about how I should behave tonight? Unbelievable.”

Taemin cracks while Kibum makes sure he parked properly. He didn’t say anything after turned off the engine and collecting his bag from the back seat. Those bow lips still perfectly zipped even when he checked himself on the rear mirror.

“Oh, so you give me silent treatment now?!”

“Zip it, Lee Taemin. I’m preparing my show. Who knows I’m going home with both?”

He winked, leaving his black Mini Cooper and loudly laughing Taemin inside.

***

When the usher pointing his hand to the table across the room where two men are casually talking to each other while sipping their wine. What makes him let out silent gasp is the fact that neither of them he could put on his shame-on-you box, an imaginary box he created himself back when he’s still 18 years old to put some people who by the face already looks like mean person. Both are equally gorgeous and seem friendly. He started to swallow all the curse he saved for Taemin.

“Which one you said you’re going to introduce to me, again?”

Taemin smirks, knowing that his friend is not mad anymore, “The one with the turtle neck.”

“You blind? Or stupid? Both of them wearing turtle neck.”

He closed the gap and whispered, “Torturing you gave me more pleasure, Kim Kibum.”

“Masochist.”

“That’s what I like, Baby.”

“You’re disgusting. Stop it before I lose my appetite.”

Both men by the table haven’t caught two people walking their direction yet. They’re still arguing the chance of Minho would deliberately forget their deal. Jinki bet his money on Minho bailed out because the man introduced to him is a moron. Minho on the other hand, still believed, Jinki would fall in love faster to the other man way faster than Minho would be able to land a kiss to the date.

“Am I interrupting?”

Taemin nonchalantly approaching Minho’s right’s side, making the later cocking his head in surprise. Jinki managed to keep his composure and stayed in one of his series of poker face.

“Stop your nonsense and come here.”

Minho wrapped Taemin in casual hug, leaving Kibum standing awkwardly between a warm affection happening on one side and cold dagger stare shooting from the other one.

“Sorry, we’re late. I had unexpected meeting and the traffic was no joke.”

“No worries,” Minho smiles slightly wider when he face Kibum, leaving the later flustered, and ducked his head quickly while taking the chair next to Jinki, who seems still out of place and keep it quite all the time, “This is my friend Jinki.”

The said man only smile, nodding his head a bit, he wanted to ask Kibum if he needs any help with his stuffs but refrain himself to say so for the fear interfering someone’s comfort zone.

“Hi, Jinki. I’m Lee Taemin, and this is Kim Kibum over here.”

“Hi, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too.”

For Jinki, the whole matchmaking shenanigan is a complete bullshit, still. But the smile just greets him, proves him that even if it’s way after the velvety dusk, sometimes you can still catch glimpse of rainbow after the rain.

***

#since i'm able to access tumblr again #here you go #my current obsession #not gonna reveal the pairing yet #because maybe i'd make a twist in the future #but anyway #enjoy for now #let me know what do you think about it #and also #while you're on it #do you think should i make ao3 acc or no?#shinee fiction #aya is writing again people #and hopefully this time works #love will find a way well eventually #LWFAWWE

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rbeatz · 7 years

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Chance The Rapper Told Me All I Need Is Happy Thoughts And I’ve Been Flying Ever Since

Imagine wandering through a giant playground filled up with 200 friends and 45,000 other friendly people for 3-days set to the most incredible soundtrack possible, that’s what Lost Lake Festival in Phoenix, Arizona was like. Superfly Presents went all out with Lost Lake to ensure that even though it was the festival’s maiden voyage, it still provided all of those one-of-a-kind festival experiences that has turned the season formerly called summer into Festival Season. And I was live on rBeatzRadio all weekend long.

After living in Phoenix for nearly a decade I had some real reservations about Superfly Presents new festival in the desert, and I carried those reservations with me all the way from my home in New York City to my old desert hideaway that I’d left 2-years before. I was worried about water rations, tight security, overpriced festival food, and stuffy overpriced vendors that sold garbage.

What I found was a park full of the some of the absolute best parts of Phoenix I knew when I lived there. Whether it was my dear friend Joanna 23 doing henna in the vendor area (I invited her to my wedding for context), downtown muralist JB Snyder doing a mural on the hill, or local hero’s Playboy Manbaby playing a raucous 4 pm set on Friday afternoon, Lost Lake Festival really delivered on involving and featuring a lot of what makes Phoenix so special. While also delivering a world-class Festival experience.

All photos by Jeff Schaer-Moses Photography Mitchell Hillman music editor of Java Magazine.

As I was walking through the photo pit to get a good angle on the first act I heard someone yell from my left “you magnificent bastard” and I looked up and it was Mitchell Hillman, music editor of Java Magazine, a Phoenix-based culture magazine. We had worked together for the Phoenix New Times, we embraced and then caught the show. Encounters with Mitch would become a regular occurrence throughout the weekend.

http://ift.tt/2lnvWCj

Left to right David Cosme, Austin Rickert, and Robbie Pfeffer of Playboy Manbaby on the Piestewa Stage Friday afternoon.

Playboy Manbaby was the opening act of Lost Lake Festival for me. They were the band I had traveled so far to see and while they may prefer to play small rooms for crazy crowds, they still have all the chops necessary to bring their space-cadet thunder-jazz to even the biggest stages. On a balmy 92 degree day Robbie Pfeffer, Chad Dennis, Chris Hudson, David Cosme, Tj Friga, and Ricky Austin Lavender Heylee Dallas Smash aka The Baddest Man on the Planet turned Lost Lake into their former Tempe garage art space The Parliament.

The quick-witted Pfeffer introduced his merry band of miscreants as The Pixies and quickly jumped into their opening number. They are known as one of the best bands in Phoenix and they have garnered a larger than life reputation in the Brooklyn garage rock scene after bringing their spazz-funk power-punk traveling road show to the BK for CMJ festival in 2015 with brooklynites Stuyeyedeyed and Vamanos, as well as Scotland based Womps.

Pfeffer and I had joked the night before that the set would be empty but it really blossomed into a formidable crowd eating out of the palm of Pfeffer’s hand. He thanked Ludacris for putting the festival together as well as the secretive Illuminati leadership behind Bonnaroo, and the irreverent frontman made light of the 7-minute walk he took from his home to the gates of the Festival.

A fan-made Playboy Manbaby T-Shirt.

Playboy brought the thunder with their tunes Last One Standing which they recently dropped a video for , and You Can Be A Fascist Too which made it’s way to Village Voice Magazine. But the one that really got the crowd going was their closer Mermaid Pterodactyl because it wasn’t until the finale that Pfeffer finally got the crowd moshing which is a trademark of Playboy.

Following their set I made my way backstage to have chat with them, which you can listen to here:

http://ift.tt/2lnTbw8

Talking with Playboy ate up a lot of my time to catch NONAME at The Echo Stage, but I hustled over and caught the end of the smooth Chicagoans set. NONAME is a protege to the festival’s day-1 headliner, Chance The Rapper, and given some more seasoning, the 21-years young artist will be joining her mentor on the main-stage for the night time sets in no time.

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Noname bringing her groovy vibes to Lost Lake Festival

Posted by rBeatz on Friday, October 20, 2017

The Festival was laid out quite well and once I got my bearings inside of Steele Indian School Park it became easy to find everything and, though there were only 3-stages, there was still quite a bit to be found on the grounds of Lost Lake Festival. The level of production value the Walter Project brought to Lost Lake was second to none. Every tree had an LED light pointed at it, the Lake had fire shooting lily pads set to music, his famed art cars littered the grounds, and the BBQ pit had a giant spitfire going all weekend.

Broods live at Lost Lake Festival.

After NONAME I made my way over to Broods on The Camelback stage all the while encountering Phoenix-based musicians, writers, and photographers who I had been working with for years. I had been aware of the Kiwi sibling two-piece for quite some time. An old friend made me aware of them right before I moved away from Arizona, and that friend obviously knew me well because Broods are fantastic. Georgia and Caleb Nott along with their fabulous touring band put together a spectacular indie ppop/electronicaset, that also signaled a shift in the decibel level of the festival overall. Once Broods hit the stage everything got just a little bit louder.

@crystalcastles going off on a tangent at @lostlakefest on the Echo Stage #Lostlake #rbeatz #crystalcastles

A post shared by rBeatz Radio (@rbeatzradio) on Oct 20, 2017 at 6:57pm PDT

Next up was Crystal Castles on The Echo Stage and on a day that had been so far spectacular Crystal Castles was a noticeable dud. The band has been going downhill since Alice Glass’s departure, but amid her allegations against the band’s lead guitarist Ethan Kath revolving around sexual assault, which Kath fervently denies, the group really didn’t bring much with them to the stage at Lost Lake. They sounded and acted like they just hit play on their record while on stage, and frankly, the canned version may have been better.

Haim on The Camelback Stage.

Crystal Castles was so uninspired that I walked away early to catch Haim back on the main stage and they are very much not my style, but were still quite impressive especially when compared to the lackluster outing that Crystal Castles had. The familial three-piece make a lovely pop-rock sound and they made it for quite a few people considering they had to compete with the fact that half the fest was waiting for Ludacris to start and the other half were waiting patiently for The Pixies.

The Pixies and Ludacris playing at the same time on The Piestewa stage and The Echo Stage respectively made for one of the only two tough decisions I was forced to make all weekend, but the other one was a special sort of tough decision and we will come back to that. Having seen both The Pixies and Ludacris in the past, I felt confident in my decision to survey the Ludacris set. He brought a ton of energy to his 1 pm set at Firefly in 2016, so it stood to reason he would do even better with an 8:15 pm set.

Luda doing his thing on The Echo Stage.

The man with the midget hanging from his necklace played the hits and nothing but along with his regular road dogs Lil Fate and DJ Infamous Roll Out, What’s Your Fantasy, Number One Spot, Splash Waterfalls and all of the rest. Luda went through what seemed like his entire discography on Lost Lakes smallest stage, and the crowd responded. He may have cut the braids off, but the rapper turned actor still has everything else he brought with him to the stage during his early 2000’s heyday. That didn’t stop him from having every ass at lost lake shaking for the duration of his set.

As on point as Ludacris was; however, he really didn’t have anything on 24-year-old Chicago native Chance The Rapper. Ludacris is a legend in the game and arguably the greatest the south has ever produced. Chance is a transcendent musical entity that will be changing all the rules for hip-hop music in the coming years. Chance The Rapper and The Social Experiment put on far and away the greatest hip-hop show I have ever witnessed, and I’ve seen Jay Z, OutKast, Nas, Kendrick Lamar, Snoop and Dre, Eminem, and many more in my day. The level of production, the pageantry, his opulence; he’s looking like a young Kanye West right now and he’s performing with the same zeal that Yeezus is known for.

Mixtape, Blessings, Angles, Sunday Candy, All We Got, and No Problem all made the set list among many others. And that’s by ear on the first time I have ever heard any of those songs because until Oct. 20 I was not a Chance The Rapper fan at all. I knew him for his work with Kanye and with Action Bronson but had never taken the time to give him listen. That was a mistake. I was pretty taken with his mid-set medley of Kanye songs featuring Waves, Father Stretch Thy Hands, and Ultralight Beam. But when I heard Same Drugs for the first time I almost cried. That is such a gorgeous song that so beautifully applied to the situation I was living in, returning to the place where I got started as a music journalist in 2011. The Peter-Pan allegory seemed appropriate as did the other motifs within the lyrics.

Chance The Rapper is a hip-hop dynamo and he brought it hard to his kast festival of 2017. #lostlakefest

Posted by rBeatz on Friday, October 20, 2017

He closed the set with a shower of white confetti while singing to the crowd “Are you ready for your blessing’s?” I am not a religious man, but Chance The Rapper made me feel something. He has an innate charisma not common among humans and he shared so much of his inner light with the people of Lost Lake Festival day one, on the last show of his tour and his first show as a Grammy award-winning artist.

Day 2, started with an early trip to Strive Dreams Henna to visit Joanna 23, and that trip ended with me getting a fresh henna to sport the rest of the trip, one that I am still wearing as I write this a week later. I sat with a pumpkin spice cold brew provided by Gypsy Cup Coffee and chatted with my friend while she made her art on my hand and the sounds of Phoenix natives Bogan Via wafted over the hill at 1 o’clock in the afternoon. The mixture of the tunes I’ve known for years and company of my old-friend made the early afternoon a comforting experience, especially in the friendly confines the festival.

While drinking coffee with Joanna at Strive Dreams, we saw what we thought might be a wedding procession in all white with white flags walking across the grass. It turned out it was a roving troupe of face painters who were walking through the festival planting their flags in the ground and giving people a quick makeover, on the fest!

After letting my “ink” settle for a little while I headed over to the Piestewa stage to catch Carla Morrison shimmying and shaking all over the stage while her booming voice filled in the entire festival ground. She sang in both Spanish and English and her voice was equally spectacular in either language. She may not have been singing on the main-stage at 9 pm but she may have been the best all-around singer performing on the tremendous musical weekend.

I bumped into Joanna enjoying Carla’s set and she informed me that the artwork hanging from the sides of the stage had been produced by the Fortoul Brothers, two men who used to run a shop on Phoenix’s formed art-strip Roosevelt Row, which now only exists as a shadow of it’s former self with most of the art galleries replaced by condos.

Chance The Rapper’s older brother Taylor Bennet on The Echo Stage.

Next up was Frenship on the Camelback stage who underwhelmed, so I went to the Piestewa stage to take a look at The Ricky Fits and where I also got a hot tip from Arizona Republic Music Editor Ed Masley that Taylor Bennett over on The Echo Stage would be a good act to catch. I made it over for the beginning of his set and what I found was a talented lyricist putting a run-of-the-mill hip-hop show. Certainly more memorable than the two previous bands. I fluttered away before the end of the set and later found out that Taylor Bennett was Chance The Rapper’s brother. Honestly, I still would have fluttered away if I knew, but I would have been more excited about the beginning.

http://ift.tt/2lmOpPn

Ed Masley Music Editor of the Arizona Republic.

I stumbled upon Muna because the person who was putting me up was camped by the main-stage for the day, so in meeting up with him, I found a really neat pop band. I’d never heard of Muna before the festival, but I was very happy to spend the time I had before KONGOS chatting with friends and soaking in the catchy pop hooks of Muna.

Muna on The Camelback Stage.

On my way over to the Piestewa stage, I bumped into Phoenix New Times clubs editor Ben Leatherman who I convinced to jump into the pit and shoot KONGOS with me.

Jesse Kongos on The Piestewa Stage.

KONGOS are an institution in Phoenix having honed their skills at The Lost Leaf bar only a few miles from where the Festival was taking place. They made sure the crowd knew it when they name dropped the little bar on 5th Street and Roosevelt in downtown Phoenix during their set. The four- brothers have been playing music together their entire lives so they ought to sound pretty good and since all four of them split the lead singer duties, they stage set-up has all four of them standing upright at the front of the stage.

I have seen KONGOS play to 200 people at Tempe’s Sail Inn and I have seen KONGOS play to 10,000 people at Firefly Festival in Delaware with quite a few shows in between. There were two key differences in their set at Lost Lake from every other time I’ve seen them. One, they didn’t do their first single Only Joking, and two, they looked more well-rehearsed and relaxed on stage than ever before. They look like a profoundly confident band ready to drop another mega-hit on the world, like the one they closed with Come With Me Now.

Johnny Kongos.

While enjoying KONGOS from the shade line, I felt a tap on my shoulder and it was Phoenix-based journalist, Lauren Fach. She wasn’t covering the fest but she had gotten a ticket for the day and saw me in the crowd.

Huey Lewis on The Camelback Stage.

After KONGOS brought one of the moments of the festival that just about everyone was waiting for and that was Huey Lewis and the News. To they are a band with a little more pop-culture relevance than real musical relevance, but that didn’t stop them from having a fairly massive turnout at the The Camelback Stage at 5:30 pm. Huey opened with The Heart of Rock ‘N Roll and the blues and soul hits just kept on coming. But honestly, after about 20-minutes I realized I was seeing Huey Lewis and the News in 2017 so I dispersed to make my way to The Echo stage for Lil Boat.

I am 100 percent with all the bubblegum trap fans out there. If you don’t understand Lil Yachty, it’s because it’s not for you, so don’t worry about it. He is contemporary music’s answer to our parents telling us that the music we love has no substance. He’s a 21-year-old rapper with no flow who raps about cotton candy and pixar movies. If you want no substance we will show you no substance. But at the same time, he is an incredibly engaging and charismatic performer who really gets the crowd going. Plus his DJ has a setting on his mixer for 1 touch access to the “Lil Boat” button which really made my day.

Lil Boat on the Echo Stage.

After about 20-minutes of Lil Boat I’d had enough, so I moseyed over to The Dap-Kings Beatles themed super-jam and watched the New York-based collective allow Huey Lewis, Luna Aura, members of The Shelters, members of Young the Giant, and members of Ra Ra Riots step into the lofty shadow of Sharon Jones.

The super-jam wasn’t just a chance for a bunch of great artists to jam with The Dap-Kings, it was also a chance for the audience to participate as they sang along with every song that was played including Oh Darling, Here Comes the Sun, Twist and shout and some many more before the closed it out on Hey Jude. Superjam is a borrowed concept from America’s greatest festival Bonnaroo, but with Lost Lake it felt appropriate and made for one of the Festival’s signature moments.

The Dap-Kings Superjam

Toward the end of the Superjam, a tall broad-shouldered long-haired gentleman walked by me who I realized was KONGOS bass player, Dylan Kongos. I greeted him with a hug and he conveyed to me that he was elated that Phoenix had an event like Lost Lake and that he felt as though it was just what the city needed. I congratulated him on the enormity of his success and we enjoyed the jam together for a moment before he went on his way.

Following The Dap-Kings Super Jam came a whole different kind of jam, The Roots crew jam. Many \would say The Roots frontman Black Thought is the greatest M.C. of all time, and while I don’t know if I believe that, I feel confident in saying he is in the conversation. The Roots are a visceral musical assault on the senses, creating as much noise as a 10-car pileup. They have as much street cred with hip-hop crowds as they do with jam band crowds and with all of ?uestlove’s extracurricular activities with the band minus Thought, it’s easy to see how they became such massive crossover celebrities.

Black Thought of The Roots.

They laid waste to the main stage, rocking jam after jam and giving every member of the band a lengthy solo. They slayed with their eclectic mix of hip-hop, jazz, funk, soul, with just a flare of rock ‘n roll and ?uest showed another festival exactly why he is hip-hop’s Jerry Garcia. The set ended on a lengthy drum solo by the man with the famed Afro, and then came what may have just been the worst hour in festival history.

Dreamcar on the Piestewa Stage.

This is that “special” choice I was talking about earlier. The choice between a Lil Jon DJ Set or to see the lead singer of AFI live out his 80’s dreams with the former members of No Doubt. After about 10-minutes of each set I took myself over to the main-stage to prepare for The Killers.

I was sitting up against a tree about 5-minutes before The Killers went on when I realized I had made a grave mistake. As I was bemoaning the fact that I thought both acts playing weren’t very good, I had forgotten how far above and beyond Lost Lake Festival had gone to make sure there was always something to do. I could have been participating in any number of creative activities that the festival had organized, but I was busy being a party pooper.

It took me a little while to come around to The Killers live set, I even took a stroll away from the stage and caught the Lilly Pad fire show in the lake during the set.

Who knows what wonders are still left to behold at Lost Lake Festival #lostlakefest

Posted by rBeatz on Saturday, October 21, 2017

But when I got back to the stage after a taco, a chat with Leatherman, and catching the fire I was fully enthralled with the pop/rock icons. They packed all their biggest hits into the back of their set which made for an over-the-top finale complete with laser show, pyrotechnics, confetti, and intrigue. The set was dramatic and exciting and full of songs you couldn’t help but sing along too because you’ve heard them just so many damn times.

Gabo Fayuca during his afternoon set on the Main Stage.

The third day of Lost Lake once again began with a trip to Gypsy Cup for their pumpkin spice cold brew and then a trip to The Piestewa Stage for Phoenix legends Fayuca. They are a five-piece rock ‘n roll outfit that really brought the energy to an early set opening the fest on Sunday morning. They brought a big piece of what Phoenix music is all about with them because they are a big part of why Phoenix sounds the way it does, having been together and rocking for more than 10-years. They turned in a stellar main-stage set before hitting the festival for the day mere days before they hit the road for a 3-week west coast run.

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A Tribe Called Red were next up on The Camelback Stage, and their blend of EDM and legitimate first nation music is not only wildly appropriate for a venue like Steele Indian School Park, which is named such for the Indian School which still sits on it’s grounds as a symbol of America’s mistreatment of Indigenous cultures, but also because the show was being played on what some consider to be Occupied O’Odham land. They brought traditional dancers out with them and they had some of the best LED graphics of the fest at their backs. A Tribe Called Red really is a one of a kind act and worth catching when they’re in your town.

From there it was the long haul (quarter mile at most) to The Echo Stage for the wild and woolly Murs. With his beard down to his chest and his dread’s looking full the former Living Legend took the stage with a laptop, a snack tray, two Heineken, and a bottle of Jameson. I was sad to see his running buddy DJ Foundation wasn’t with him, but he put on a great show nonetheless. He kicked it off by greeting all his fans in the front rows with a handshake and sampling drinks of as many people as he could before chugging a beer and getting the show going.

For as drunk as he had to be he still managed to put on an entertaining set. As a member of Atmosphere’s label Rhymesayers, Murs has quite a following and with his ties to Tucson Arizona the Valley has always been a stronghold for his fans.

That was my only trip to The Echo Stage on Sunday. Next, it was back to The Camelback stage for one of the acts I had been looking forward to most leading up to the festival, Futuristic. Futuristic is another Phoenix-based artist and along with his bombastic DJ Kode Break has strong ties to my favorite band Small Leaks Sink Ships formerly of Tempe Arizona. Futuristic and Code Break encountered some technical difficulties mostly stemming from the mid-afternoon Phoenix heat, but they persevered and still made it one of the most hyped sets of the day.

It’s almost unfair for Futuristic and Kode Break to work together because they are two of the most magnetic performers I have ever seen, and together it is impossible to look away. They mix EDM and hip-hop in a quite pleasing way but the real secret to their success is their audience engagement. They’re crowd surfing, they’re bringing fans on stage to rap on the mic, they’re getting the crowd going in the all the right ways to make them a memorable act. Separated both Futuristic and Kode Break would easily be a great success, but together it’s immortality or bust for one of the most fun touring musical acts right now.

After exiting the photo pit, I made my way into the crowd to enjoy the show, and after gettting deep enough into the crowd, I looked to my right and was dancing next to Danny Torgersen who had rocked the trumpet for FAYUCA earlier in the day. We exchanged hugs and then enjoyed the show.

When the set ended, I made my way back stage to give Kody a hug and meet Zach, a rapper I have been writing about for years but until then had still remained elusive to me. We chatted about the success of Small Leaks for a moment on the backside of the massive main stage, and then finalized our interview plans before I snuck off for lunch.

I had heard a rumor that Tom’s BBQ, my favorite BBQ spot in Mesa Arizona (30 minute drive from the grounds) had a booth set up. I had only been back in AZ, once for 3-days since moving to New York City, and I certainly didn’t have time to visit a little BBQ shop in Mesa, so Lost Lake Festival brought it to me.

After a sandwich, I caught back up with Futuristic and Kode Break for an interview about their upcoming plans.

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I made it over to Piestewa Stage just long enough to see the massive scene that was English DJ Snakehips set for about 10-minutes. The Arizona sun was still high in the sky, but that didn’t stop thousands of people from packing the green in front of the Piestewa stage and letting the mixologist from across the pond take them to funky town.

If there is one thing, Danny Brown definitely is himself. He’s a big goofball up on stage. The crowd loved every second of it. He and Big Gigantic made for a great late afternoon 1-2 punch to lead into the festival’s headliners. Both Brown and Gigantic had their fans out in force, repping their merch. and singing along. Well, singing in Brown’s case anyway. Danny Brown and Big Gigantic both did their part to get the crowd primed up and into a frenzy for the evening’s headliners Run The Jewels, Major Lazer, and Odesza.

The final three acts of the Festival were each the only act playing in their time-slot, which went right along with one of Lost Lake Festival’s biggest strengths. The options were not overwhelming. The lineup was strong, eclectic, big, but without forcing a major decision between bands or a mad rush across the grounds to catch half of two sets. The 3-stage set up made it easy to catch just about everything you wanted to.

The first at taking the collective ear of Lost Lake was Run The Jewels, and having scene them before I know they’d kill. El-P and Killer Mike were made for each other. Not only are they coming with some of the hardest songs out in mainstream hip-hop, but they are also one of the most adorable couples I have ever seen in my life. El-P literally told Killer Mike to come hold him during the set. Watching what may go down as one of the greatest hip-hop duo’s in the history of the game perform is exciting. But knowing the two of them are best friends and enjoying what they are doing down to their bones makes it so much sweeter.

It was the last show of RTJ’s tour and they were on fire. It is crazy to think that two 40-year-old M.C.’s who were seemingly getting toward the end of their careers could become one of the biggest hip-hop acts in the world by joining forces. But that was the case with Run The Jewels. They played all the hits, they played around on stage like high schoolers, they engaged the crowd, they did everything right, and they brought a radical political message within their ridiculously well put together hip-hop tunes.

After shooting RTJ I made my way back into the crowd because there was no way I was going to miss a second of their set. I danced my way through the crowd looking for the right spot, and when I found it I looked to my right and saw none other than Danny Torgersen dancing next to me. Me, him, and his green haired lady friend spent the rest of the set dancing together to Close Your Eyes, Call Tictron, Blockbuster Night, and all the rest of their hits.

The three of us embraced, realizing it was probably the last time we would see each other at the fest, but it was time to roll on. I headed for the Major Lazer photo pit.

Diplo and Switch were already on and going when I got the pit, and they had all of Lost Lake Festival doing the dutty wine all over The Piestewa Stage. You hear stories about a guy like Diplo, about his personality and about him being a lazy performer. I can’t speak for anyone else’s Dipo experience, but he gave me everything I wanted from one of the world’s mega producers.

They had the biggest LED wall I have ever seen, backup dancers, and bass pounding hits. Phoenix doesn’t often get a crack at Major Laser so they made it count in the Copper State and the entire crowd danced as hard as they could. After shooting I found a cozy spot on stage left where Phoenix painter Matty B. was dancing it away with his vibe tribe buddies, before I moved closer and spent the rest of the set dancing next to a pixie cut blonde who I’m pretty sure I knew but couldn’t quite place.

Whether we knew each other or not was irrelevant, the fact that we kept each other dancing throughout the set is what matters. We never spoke, we hardly made eye contact, but we were there side by side for a while keeping each other’s energy up.

We parted ways before the set ended, and when it did I made my way to meet back up with Josh, my host for the trip. Odesza was another act I had not the time to research going into the festival, but I was properly blown away by their entire set. They provided a most epic end to one of the most incredible festival’s I have ever been too, and what I am sure is one of the best maiden voyages for a fest ever.

Odesza brought the whole crowd into a high and had them stuck there for the duration. Headliners headline and that’s exactly what Colorado’s Odesza did, they occupied the space above the rest of the day’s performers. As far as the musical flow Superfly had provided for the festival, I don’t think there is a single act on earth that could have acted as the festival’s climax better than Odesza.

ODESZA is really bringing Lost Lake Festival to an epic close. What a spectacular first year festival in the Valley of the Sun.

Posted by rBeatz on Sunday, October 22, 2017

During the middle of the set I literally bumped into someone because of my backpack. I looked at the person, and it was my former neighbor Ana from when I was in college at Arizona State University. We made a quick catch up before getting right back into the groove.

The set ended, and on the way out they set, the fire lilypads did their thing set to Purple Rain as the masses poured out of the festival grounds. I stood alone between the road and the agave maze, watching the fire shoot toward the sky like I had as a younger man at Saguaro Man. When the song finished I waited for my friends closer to the road when I caught a pair of eyes getting wider and wider attached to a handsome mexican face and I heard Cori Rios of The Hourglass Cats blurt out “what are you doing here?” He hugged me and lifted me off the ground, before we had a quick catch up and 30-second hug before we went our separate ways.

I got to neverland and Chance the Rapper told me all I need is happy thoughts, I’ve been flying ever since. Big Ups Lost Lake.

from rBeatz Radio http://ift.tt/2yaBPsM

#rBeatz Radio #Chance The Rapper Told Me All I Need Is Happy Thoughts And I’ve Been Flying Ever Since

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thepermanentrainpress · 7 years

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TRACK BY TRACK FEATURE: SAM TUDOR - “QUOTIDIAN DREAM”

Nearly three years following the release of his last record, Sam Tudor is back with Quotidian Dream.

Tudor was born and raised in Williams Lake, BC; his move to Vancouver in the latter teen years greatly influenced the sounds and synergy behind 2014′s The Modern New Year—contemporary campfire melodies with flickers of trumpet, banjo, and keys. On Quotidian Dream, Tudor struggles less with growing into a new city and more with the immediate space around him.

Experimental folk is layered with elements of new wave (“Quotidian Boy”) to jazz (“Chlorine”). Tudor’s vocals bring a soft-spoken intensity to “Truthful,” with the thumping backbeat and whirring of strings coming to a beautiful, unsettling head at its close. “Joseph in the Bathroom” is a remorseful take on his high school days, while “Holiday” presents a warm, folk rock hook. A little grit and power would carry the tune into Mumford & Sons’ Babel territory—but it is his tender nature and jaded lyricism (“Oh it’s the cost of a frozen place, paying for the colour when it’s all gone grey”) which make the closet anthem. Tudor often sings of disconnect with his surroundings—a vacancy marred by routine and expectation and TV screens. But his compositions reflect the opposite; a discerning self-awareness held by the notion that, even as the flames run out of him, he is able to find them again.

Tudor was kind enough to write us a track-by-track on the release, which you can delve into below.

Words below by Sam Tudor:

1. “New Apartment”

I’ve heard people talk about their apartments as safe sanctuaries and I’ve also heard people talk about them as lonely, even threatening spaces. In my experience, a Vancouver apartment can be both of those things simultaneously. When I first moved to Vancouver I would go home with a combination of urgency and anxiety. It’s a bit cliché, but in the last couple of years I’ve been noticing physical space a lot. Most of the photography and paintings that I like these days document empty spaces – human creations that seem alien. Anyway, that’s what I was thinking about for this song. I think when I wrote it I had a specific moment in my head, that moment when you first move in somewhere and you are alone, and you haven’t unpacked your things yet.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

2. “Quotidian Boy”

Writing and performing songs is cool, but it’s also a pretty weird thing. There’s a lot that I find funny about it. I used to write a lot of incredibly broad metaphors that could mean anything and I look back on that and find it funny. The construction of the ‘suffering artist’ image is pretty funny too and I am definitely guilty of it. My good friend Brodie told me that it’s important to always ‘balance the sacred and profane’ in your life. I’m trying to embrace that as much as I can these days, and I think this song says some things that are important to me while laughing at it all as well. The chorus “I’ve got unlimited strikes but I don’t want to play” sums up how I often feel – lots of opportunity, still feeling the urge to bail.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

3. “Truthful”

At some point in the last couple years I became very frustrated with myself. I was in university, and it seemed like I had become more articulate then ever, but wasn’t sure if I was actually saying or understanding anything important. You can congratulate yourself for being complicated and having lots of layers and nuance, but sometimes all that starts to feel like a weight you don’t need. I tend to overthink things a lot, and I often get stuck in these feedback loops. I got in a pretty bad one at that time, sort of like a ferris wheel you can’t get off. This song is a grasp towards something outside that loop. The chorus originally had much more words but I thought that would miss the point, so I just made it the simplest thing ever. I spend a lot of time on lyrics but this time the vibe was way more important than the words. I wanted to just cut through the bullshit and feel real and that was mostly it.

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4. “Brain Stealers”

I think this song is mostly just about feeling creatively empty. When I felt as though I couldn’t write any good songs, I wrote this song instead as a sort of ‘exasperated throwing up of the hands’ type thing. It’s funny that it ended up on the album. It features the return of my trusty organ auto-drum: an old, no-name brand organ with a beat setting that I’ve come to really love. It can’t keep tempo anymore and it currently sits in my childhood home at Gavin Lake Camp. My parents keep trying to throw it away, and every time I visit home I fear it will have disappeared forever. Hang in there, organ. A little longer.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

5. “Joseph In The Bathroom”

This song is the one that is most important to me. My hometown and my experience growing up there take up a significant amount of space in my mind. Strange as it is to admit, I was ‘popular’ in highschool in the sense that I had friends and managed to navigate all the high-school cliques (I think being friends with everyone can sometimes mean you are friends with no-one, but that’s a different write-up). I was a survivalist though; and I avoided those people I might otherwise have been friends with if they weren’t generally deemed unpopular. I regret that I acted that way and I regret that highschool channels people in ways like that. Weirdly, the older I get the more I remember and think about those kids in the corners – the ones who weren’t as lucky as me and weren’t able to navigate highschool in such a way. I still feel guilty and angry about it all today. I think the song is about more than just that, but in a sense it’s an apology song.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

6. “Blue Flower”

This is an unlucky song! This song is cursed! I know a girl who was listening to this song and when the line “as the camper van floats off the road” was sung she literally drove off the road and crashed her car! This is a true story! She’s fine, but I have since become very wary of this song. Drive safely, everyone.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

7. “Chlorine”

Do you know that feeling you get when you stay up really late on social media and your eyes start to feel weird and you are tired but also the computer screen has inhibited all your melatonin so you have insomnia and are also a bit stressed and it’s an uncomfortable dream-like state? For me, that’s part of what Quotidian Dream is. I kind of wanted the album to sound like what that felt like. I think this might be the song that taps into the feeling the best. A big part of this song’s tone is created by the use of the trusty fish guitar. Shaped like a fish, and not a very good guitar, but it has a unique, slightly out of tune tone that I love. So I played that a lot in this song, and we had saxophones and strings and recorded it late at night.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

8. “Clinical Names”

We made so many different versions of this song. I’m not really sure why this is the one that ended up on the record. It could genuinely have been an accident.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

9. “Holiday”

I like pop music and big anthemic choruses, but I also tend to write about sad things. So I always end up with weird songs like this one. My brother Harry played the drumbeat first and we wrote the song around it.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

10. “Silver Lining Skies”

I realize after listening to this record as one entity that a lot of it references being in my room, or being in a room, or being in a house, or something like that. This makes sense, considering how much time I do spend in my room. Most of the album was recorded entirely in my room. At the end of this particular song there is an audio file of me walking up the stairs and opening the door to my room. Or… am I exiting my room? Is this me going out in the world happily or retreating further into my own head? Who knows!? Wow, I am such an artist. I am so deep. Holy fuck. Ho-ly Smokes. In all seriousness, I just thought it was an important way to end the album considering how much I’ve been thinking about insides and outsides.

Quotidian Dream by Sam Tudor

If you’re still here, thanks for reading this! I hope you enjoy the album.

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Much thanks to Sam for giving us further insight into his new album! Quotidian Dream is available for purchase on Bandcamp. He will be playing a free set as part of the Vancouver Fringe Festival on Saturday, Sept. 16 at the Big Rock Brewery Fringe Bar (1531 Johnston St), alongside Rae Spoon. For more on Sam Tudor:

FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE

Posted by: Natalie Hoy

#Sam Tudor #Quotidian Dream #Quotidian Boy #music #track by track #Vancouver #Vancouver music #Track-By-Track #feature #experimental folk #Big Lake #Williams Lake #new music #samtudor #Silver Lining Skies #yvr #The Permanent Rain Press

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