#we have the same mediocre fashion sense

[mayorofcattown]

oh huh I have a bag almost exactly like that. same hat

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: Last Place

37. ISRAEL Eden Golan - "Hurricane" 5th place

Decade Ranking: 150/153 [Above Noa Kirel, below Roxen]

Where do we start?

Let's begin, perhaps by stating the obvious. Israel's participation in this year ruined the contest. You encounter an entrant or two that completely warp the meta around them at every contest, but never to an extent this cataclysmic. Every sour note of this contest, and there were plenty, sprouted from the decision to allow Israel into the year. That was the tipping point. I believe that makes "Hurricane" the worst entry of all times in terms of the sheer negative impact its presence had on the edition it parttook in.

The ESC discourse -on asocial media- completely revolved around the conflict in Palestine either to denounce the war crimes perpetrated by the Israeli goverment and the subsequent silencing of critical voices calling it out, or to make a stand against the Poor Young Girl who was unfairly maligned by radicalized leftists for a conflict she had no hand in.

So was it any surprise that Israel won every Western televote? Be honest. I know that the Twitter manchildren claim Israel cheated, but they are in denial. The televote was genuine. The scalpel slices both ways, sadly. For every heckler booing Eden or protesting for Palestine or announcing a Eurovision boycot or lecturing the general public to not vote for Israel, a sympathy vote for her arises because "Aw She Doesn't Deserve So Much Negativity, Poor Thing". That she willingly chose to rep israel at THIS time with THAT song is blissfully ignored. Eden Golan is not a child. She's fully accountable for the effects that her participation caused, and is perfectly a-OK with it.

So, wake the fuck up. The sympathizing nutcases were OPENLY mobilizing to vote for Israel without even watching a second of the contest, to prove a point against you know, "insane leftist wokery" or whatever they call it. "You can't make me think what you want or do what you want, TAKE THAT". It's the same principle that led to Brexit and Trump beating Clinton. Similarly, they attempted to hijack the results like a particularly nasty species of asian hornet because their 'Freedom of Speech' is more important to them than fair results in an entertainment show, or a potential genocide. Or maybe they were just indoctrinated. A smaller sample size due to boycots + 20 votes per crazed zionist, it's honestly a miracle Croatia STILL beat them in the TV overall.

In other words, pretty much every opinion about Eden revolved around the politics that accompanied the flag she flew under.

And I'm sorry, but Eurovision is not supposed to be about Israel. Why should THAT country get more attention, or even preferential treatment in this otherwise excellent line-up? That's not what it should be about.

It is THEM who it should be about:

None of these artists asked to be a part of this shambolic display. So in that sense, let's do something many have FAILED. Let's do what we're supposed to dp: Discuss the SONG, outside of context.

Frankly, there's remarkably little to say. Even without the context, "Hurricane" would have been bottom of the barrel for me regardless? It's a mediocre sappy ballad aimed to Make People Cry. We see such ballads pop up all the time in NFs (most recently Krick in Luxembourg and Noble in Portugal), where -more often than not- their sucktitude catches up with them and manifests a loss.

I've seen people be outraged that Norway's jury gave it points but I mean, look at any recent scandi NF and tell me a Hurricane wouldn't fit within its ranks. It's Undo, What if, A Monster Like Me, all the tacky soulless ballads with poor narratives preying on the soft-hearted and the guillible with cheap emotional manip. "Hurricane"was cut from the same dementor-esque, sympathy-craving cloth. Call me old fashioned, but I was taught that sympathy requires a modicum of respect, which needs to be earned, not begged for like a dog's dinner. (I hope the Europapa fans are reading this because this also applies to him, and that ghastly outro). If your song was written with the idea in mind of pinkwashing the deaths of a few thousand children, then perhaps you may have not fully earned the benefit of the doubt, jussaying.~

In terms of performance, Eden was vocally good, at least. It's her voice that carries it although i don't find her particularly likeable as a lead. Then again, she is a Russian nepo brat whose family emigrated to Israel after the Ukrainian war so that her daddy to secure his financial assets and the Golans could continue their lavish, privileged lifestyle in a safer country. It was always a challenge, so to say, to consider Eden Golan a likeable individual.

Also what is UP with the choreography? Why do the dancers look like they are loading air rifles? A Choice, to say the least.

So all in all, a pretty weak entry that always would have been in my bottom 3 for any country, but that probably had a ceiling of lower top 10 in a normal, generic year of ESC.

However, this was NOT a generic ESC. There's NO imagining "Hurricane" without its context which makes it so, SO much worse. It was specifically written in support of the Israeli victims in the war (why go through that trouble and not simply withdraw and spend the participation fee on providing for the families of the hostages? Isn't that more effective charity? But hey, what do I know.) There is no "depoliticizing", no matter how often you retcon the lyrics into gibberish. Hurricane's intentions are present in its rhythm, its instrumentation, the keys in which it is sung. The notion that you can separate it from its context is absurd.

And yet, that is precisely what the EBU were hoping for when they allowed it in, and it exploded into their face like a firework. I can't say they didn't deserve it. Ultimately, the full blame for all of this rests with them. If a certain entity threatens the integrity of your being, you get rid of the threat. You don't passively sit back crossing your fingers they leave at their own volition. The Israeli's would understand the reasons for exclusion, surely, as they've been applying the exact same principles to the Gaza Strip since mid October.

The EBU allowed them in, officially to prove Eurovision wasn't political and United By Music (in reality because they're cowards and didn't want to be the first organization to ban Israel from an international event, and be branded antisemites as a result). The result was the most politically charged and divisive contest of all time, rife with incidents that were as avoidable as they were outrageous. It couldn't have been further away from "apolitical unity" if it tried.

Hurricane was NEVER worth the price of admission. All the controversy, the security risks, the boycots, the antisemitism and xenophobia, the censorship, the harrassment of other delegations (which the Israeli delegation EAGERLY participated in) and of course the Israeli embassies in participating countries OPENLY advocating to vote for Israel as "a signal". Even the tensions that led to Joost's dubious DQ which I doubt would have happened at any other contest. This could all have been foreseen and avoided by excluding the country that clearly would have brought the contest into disrepute. Eurovision is now on life support. Congratulations EBU. You KILLED your own contest.

It briefly looked like Israel could win (leave to RAI to be woefully incompetent and blasé), which would have been the final nail in Eurovision's coffin but then they magically lost the televote (thank you SO much Eastern Europe, you are SO real for this) and stranded themselves in 5th place. Instead of being the Worst Winner of All Time, Israel are merely a mediocre also-ran, which I can live with. It makes "Hurricane"' marginally less appalling than "Unicorn" and "I.M" for me. Let their fifth place serve as a grim reminder for future editions that Hatred Breeds Hatred, and also, thankfully, that Love Can indeed Prevail.

THE RANKING

[apollosgiftofprophecy]

From Dusk to Dawn, Light at the End of the Tunnel, Apollo and Aphrodite bonding, and (I can't remember if this was already answered) A Titan's Demise 👀

From Dusk to Dawn

This particular fic takes place during The Titan's Curse!!! Basically, Apollo sneaking around and helping the questers save Artemis behind Zeus's back.

Apollo shenanigans galore lmao

There's Always Light At the End of the Tunnel

okay, I can't/won't say mcuh about this because 👀 i have plans but...i will say it's Apollo dropping by the Hunt post-ToA

....you know what i think i'll also do something with him dropping by the Hunt pre-PJO for poetry's sake :)

Apollo n Aphrodite bond over "not changing much" in the Greek-Roman thing

okay okay, here's the thing.

Aphrodite herself says that she didn't really change all that much when Rome surprise adopted Greece. She casually flicks between Aphrodite and Venus without much trouble because "love is universal" (like chocolate).

And in this fandom, we all will go down with the "Apollo isn't affected by the schism" theory so...bonding! :D

howmever. there is that Reyna business between Venus and Apollo. I don't know what the common consensus is on how Venus basically humiliated Apollo in front of the entire council is, but here's my two cents: She shouldn't have done that. No matter what it was about Reyna's love life that made her sad (probably that she wouldn't find romantic love but who needs that when u have platonic love eh?), she had no right to tear into Apollo like that. Especially in front of the entire Council. Who proceeded to laugh at him.

😳

Apollo may have a reputation with his relationships, but he didn't even say - or think - he was interested in Reyna. He just asked who she was and remarked she was pretty. It was in the same fashion as Hazel describing Percy as a god - sure, in Tyrant's Tomb Apollo clearly offers to be Reyna's boyfriend if she was interested but took it rather well when she laughed it off.

So yeah. whew. there's my two cents on that. don't shoot if i said something controversial. constructive criticism only please.

Anyway, going back to Aphrodite V Venus. I think the one major difference between them is that Venus may be a little more hardcore - remember, the Greek gods were taken and made more "disciplined" and "warlike". So I think Venus, while she isn't all that different from her Greek counterpart, has that little extra spice to her, a little more vindictiveness (which also adds into the topic above)

their relationship is fascinating to me and i wanna put them under a microscope. I imagine they were good friends because people often stereotype them as "dumb" and "mediocre" (probably because of the whole hot person=stupid person stereotype. and the domains they have [i.e. love, beauty, music, poetry, ooo so scary said some very dumb people who likely met their end either by a tiger they somehow found attractive or a deadly, plague-infested arrow]) and that's something they would vent about to each other. Also, shopping trips. Because I say so. Aphrodite says Apollo's the only other Olympian with any sense of style (Dionysus, she also says, also has style, but that leopard print...it's just too much sometimes. RIP)

oh yeah. and this fic immediately proceeds one other fic - but I'm not telling <3

let's just say that Venus ma~y have had an impact on the next person Apollo dated 👀

A Titan's Demise

i am caps, you are italics.

WHO WANT'S MORE APOLLO & HELIOS? ME!

WHO WANT'S ANCIENT ROME? ME!

WHO WANTS ANGST? ME-wait.

hahaha...this is all about how Apollo & Helios's relationship went sour during the Roman Empire, Helios just...disappearing one day, and Apollo inherited the domain and powers of the Sun.

Enjoy their fluff while you can.

Because I plan to go pain pain pain with this one :)

[reflections-in-a-critical-eye]

What do you think of the new generation of Hollywood starts?

You already talked about Timmy who by the way is a miscast Wonka for sure

What do you think about:

-Tom Holland (he surprised me in The Crowded room, he has more range than I thought)

-Zendaya(I have yet to be proved wrong about her being loved only for her beauty, fashion sense and unproblematic image)

-Saoirse Ronan (to me she is like Timmy, but femal version)

-Florence Pugh (I think she is good,probably the best of the bunch)

Ooh, I like this 😊

Tom Holland - Doesn't say much to me, he was the Spiderman guy, absolutely nothing impressive. But I did watch an episode of The Crowded Room and he was fine. He's not some incredible talent or a charismatic guy. He's another English bloke that can act without making a total fool of himself.

Zendaya - I know she is all the rave and she was praised a lot for her role in Euphoria, but I don't have any interest in her. Plenty of actresses stand out for their beauty and fashion style (curated by amazing stylists). And I guess being "unproblematic" brings a lot of points. I don't know, I'm not really into Disney stars turned into serious actors. I don't have anything against them, I just find them boring. Except Ryan Gosling, lol.

Saoirse Ronan - Now we're talking. I was amazed by her acting in Atonement. I saw it when it was released and I couldn't believe we were the same age. I also like her career choices and I hope she sticks to interesting projects. I'm so done with good actors signing contracts for movies based on comics or some damn franchize only for money. I think Saoirse made some good choices career-wise. Good films with a bit of a mass appeal, but not too much.

Florence Pugh - Oh, Florence is good. Really good. I've seen her films since she made her debut, before becoming a star. She has a distinct quality and the ability to work with a mediocre script and still deliver a good performance. Case in point, Don't Worry, Darling. Her acting skills stood out even more in the scenes she had with Harry Styles who was absolutely awful (stick to singing or whatever).

[georgierre]

drop the review babes

how would george russell fare on drag race? - a review by ame ruszhou

firstly this is a joke. george, by virtue of being a, presumably, cishet white f1 driver, is 100% going to be horrible on drag race. although if he knew how to paint (put makeup on) his face would be perfect for drag race. have you SEEN those eyelashes?

secondly, drag race is composed of many aspects outside of runways and lipsyncs. for those who don't watch drag race, drag race has a maxi challenge (main challenge), sometimes a mini challenge (it does not add to your final judgment that episode), and a runway. in the american drag race, they tend to focus on how you did in the maxi challenge, with runways as a padded bonus. if you did bad on the runway but good in the challenge, they tend to just Forget the fact your runway was bad. in some instances though, the runway helped people get out of the bottom positions, or, unfortunately, has barred people from winning an episode.

(the rest under the cut!)

lipsyncs, on the other hand, mostly happen when you are on the bottom two. other instances, although saved for special episodes and finales, are for lipsyncing for a win/the crown. as much as this comprises drag race's popularity, MANY drag race winners have never lipsynced for their lives (ie. both sashas, bianca, violet, aquaria & willow), or have only done it one or twice (bar the special episodes, of course). so, just because you're a good lipsyncer doesn't mean you're the best in drag race. arguably, many "lipsync assassins" lost drag race, because that means they've been on the bottom multiple times.

so, how do you know if you're good in drag race?

it kind of fizzles down to two things: 1.) track record, meaning how much you win or you've been on a high placement, and 2.) storyline and likeability. the second point seems redundant, but many drag race winners, despite having the worst track record of the season, has won due to this criterion.

before we get into the nitty gritty of the challenges, a funny criteria rupaul also likes to judge the contestants by is by CUNT— charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent. it's not actually serious, but we can judge george by this, just because we can.

charisma - 7/10

i feel like george can be charismatic when he wants to be. if the competition asks for it, he can do anything. at the least, george wouldn't be a contestant who fades into the background. many people on drag race who don't have much of a presence usually gets eliminated early on unless something begins to change (lady camden comes to mind). i think george wouldn't have that fate, at least, by his extraversion alone.

uniqueness - 3/10

maybe even lower. quite frankly, george is. the whitest man i've ever seen. his fashion sense, music interests, etc. are very basic, and while it's okay to be basic, drag race always pushes queens to have more variety. show the same look thrice and michelle (a judge) would call you out for it. moreover, videos from the f1 channel or williams has shown george has pretty mediocre design choices in artistic challenges so, there's that.

nerve - 9/10

despite being good at pr, george is also the same person, at 12, who threatened another driver he'd drive into them in the next lap, so yeah! i think george is very honest with what he feels, to mercedes and as a gpda director, so i don't think he'd be coming to this shy. he has terrified checo perez enough to not have that "nerve" aspect. in this case, george could be very good at untucked— the additional show to drag race showing the cast behind the scenes before the lipsync. if i could compare him to other queens, i'd imagine someone like tatianna on s2, alaska on as2, awhora on uks2, or jasmine on s14.

talent - ???/10

in a drag race sense, i don't know what george is good at tbh? obviously this comes from the fact that he is. an f1 driver. but who knows. drag race tends to push a lot out of their contestants and i won't be surprised if george comes out as a dancer or a designer. i don't even know what he'd do on the talent show besides, i don't know, race? play football?

okay, now that's out of the way, we can get to the challenges. to me, i feel like george has the personality and competitive drive needed for drag race, and if you challenge him to do something, he'd do it Well. so while he may not have any experience in sewing or dancing or whatever, if he was casted on drag race for some odd reason, he'd 100% prepare before he gets there.

anyway, challenge time! there are multiple challenges on drag race outside of lipsycning and runways. if i don't put all of them then that's not my fault. there is a lot of challenges LOL.

talent show - 2/10

in the recent seasons, these are usually the first challenges to introduce the contestants properly. i'll be frank, again, i do not know what george is gonna show. i am inclined to believe he gets eliminated in this episode. ALTHOUGH, talent shows doesn't always mean you gotta do something extravagant— contestants like willow, jimbo, and tatianna have shown that, sometimes you just gotta do something entertaining. by principle of george's competitiveness, he could possibly find a way, but i have low hopes.

design challenge - 4/10

these are challenges where you're asked to create outfits out of fabrics or unconventional materials, usually the latter. i'm less worried about the production since hot glue does its magic, but again, george has. poor artistic inclinations.

another kind of design challenge, usually called the makeover challenge, is when you are tasked with making someone over. i genuinely want some f1 drivers to be on the show one day as those being made over, but if we're talking about george making someone over? i can… see it. somewhat. same sentiments as the previous paragraph, but if george knew how to put on makeup, he'd KILL. he genuinely has the perfect sculpted face for drag. i have had this picture since last year and i feel like you should look at this:

YOU SEE MY VISION RIGHT. YOU SEE IT.

acting challenges - 3/10

have you. have you seen him act for skits and commercials. even for comedic ones he cannot act normal. again, george's competitiveness blah blah blah, but i genuinely fear for his life in acting challenges. although, if the acting challenge were improv, then i think george has a better chance of winning? i think george is generally very humorous, and if he was asked to improv rather than act, it would be much butter— although, not perfect, of course.

snatch game - 4/10

i don't even think he'd do well in snatch game either. if you don't know snatch game, it's a parody of match game, and the contestants have to pretend to be celebrities and provide answers to questions rupaul gives. the challenge is less of perfect impersonation, and more of a comedy challenge. i feel like george has no frame of reference of what he can possibly do, but i feel like, again, he'd be better with improv. moreover, snatch game is something you expect and prepare for per season, so i think george can pull something together if asked.

musical challenge - 6/10

it depends which type. if he is asked to sing it, we are doomed. if it's just a lipsync, i can see it work! he gives me marcia energy from s15, maybe a bit of jan from s12 or courtney from s6. i think george would be more expressive when it comes to lipsyncs because there's more preparation, and he doesn't have to speak.

roasts - 10/10

GEORGE WOULD KILL. GEORGE WOULD KILLLLLL. if you don't know what roasts are, like the name suggests, roasts ask you to just. insult someone comedically. have you SEEN his comments towards the fia? because yeah, he would kill. he would 100% win this challenge. hell, he'd tour on the hater's roast after drag race.

girl group challenge - 5/10

i have. no clue how this would go. on one hand he is not creative, on the other hand, if he can roast well, i feel like he can make a detox-like verse. put him on read u wrote u. i will lean more towards, he probably can. i know george isn't a dancer and is literally a white man, but i feel like, if he genuinely tried, he could? maybe it's the athleticism of it. he reminds me of someone like brooke from s11 or lemon from cans1.

lipsync/choreo challenge - 6/10

again, athleticism— by virtue of athleticism, i can see george be able to pull out some stunts. i'm telling you, george's stubbornness will get him places. i feel like he'd also emote better when lipsyncing, because he doesn't have to focus on making his voice sound believable.

okay that's it. tldr; george will do bad in most challenges bar roasts, but by virtue of george's stubbornness and competitiveness, if he were actually cast on drag race, he'd do REALLY well. don't underestimate what competitiveness does to a person, especially since george is very determined/goal-oriented.

edit: i forgot storyline! besides the challenges, storyline helps audiences enjoy contestants despite not being good at drag race. if george comes in drag race cocky and overprepared, i can see him as someone like ginger from s7 or loosey from s15 where, while somewhat good at drag race, got audiences hating them for being Too Good. these people tend to lose drag race aince they're just Untouchable and Unrelatable, but a way i can see george be well-liked is when he has an arc like trinity from s9, where she starts of pageant-like, then realizes she likes acting dumb and being more relaxed. personalities like george's, though, usually end up being the "safe girl", cursed to be eliminated before the finale with barely or nary a win. and if they get to the finale, they're usually not the favorite. but, he could be someone like jaida from s12 who's pageant-like and silly, while also win!

[authorautumnbanks]

A Thousand Days With You (5)

Series Master List

The restaurant is slightly upscale, like mid-range salary men upscale. The lights are harsh, the ambiance is off, and the menu is mediocre at best. This place is clearly for those that want to feel like they belong, but are still too poor to afford the five-star restaurant down the block.

And this is where Kagome's date brought her to? That curve hugging baby blue dress is being wasted on some non-factor, powerless, can't tell a joke for shit, boy.

He refuses to believe that this…guy is a man. A snail would have been a better alternative.

"You realize this classifies you as a stalker, right?" Megumi states, poking at his food with his chopsticks. Tsumiki frowns, shakes her head, and resumes eating. Her pink knitted top contrasts with Megumi's oversized black top.

"Gojo-san isn't a stalker," Tsumiki admonishes, lightly slapping Megumi's arm. She sets her chopsticks down and brushes her brown hair back, tucking it behind her ears. "It's just a coincidence that Higurashi-sensei is here."

"There's nothing coincidental about this." Megumi takes a bite of his food and grimaces.

Yeah, as much as Megumi likes to pretend otherwise, his food pallet has increased thanks to him. Megumi should show him some more gratitude.

"Ya know Gumi-chan, you're being a real grump tonight." Satoru clucks his tongue as he lifts his glass, pretending to take a sip. Instead, he glowers at the couple sitting two tables down.

Who the hell is that guy? He's plain. Has no fashion sense, even Ijichi dresses better. His brown hair may as well be the same color as shit. And his laugh is like the sound of a curse being exorcised.

Kagome turned him down to go out with this guy? She must be a sadist. Edging him in public, turning him down, and now flaunting this…this thing in front of him.

"It's creepy, is what it is. Walking Higurashi-sensei home and now crashing her date."

"Keep it up and you can pay for your own dinner."

"Okay? It's not like I don't have it." Megumi rolls his eyes and huffs.

"Do you like Higurashi-sensei?" Tsumiki asks. She doesn't blink. Just stares at him with a placating smile on her face as though he will jump out of his skin.

"No," he says with a small laugh, but the laugh is forced. Nearly gets stuck in his throat. "No. I don't like Kagome like that." He sets his glass down and leans forward. "She's going to be teaching with me at Jujutsu High, but you gotta keep it under wraps. I don't think she's told the school yet."

"Ooh," Tsumiki exclaims. "Well, that will be fun. So, you'll have Higurashi-sensei as your teacher next year too," she says to Megumi, who squeezes his eyes shut and mutters under his breath.

He should have just brought Tsumiki out to eat because Megumi has been the opposite of helpful. And after all that he has some for Megumi, this is how he repays his kindness?

The audacity.

"Just because she's going to be a teacher there doesn't mean you should stalk her here."

"Stalk is such a strong word." Satoru leans back in his chair and pushes his plate to the side. Yeah, there is no way he is finishing his meal. It's far too bland. "I asked if you two wanted to go out and get dinner tonight, you said yes —"

"I said no."

"You said yes," Satoru continues, "so I suggested a new spot to try out. How was I to know the food sucks?"

"I said no," Megumi repeats. "Tsumiki said yes, and you decided that we just had to go to this restaurant that Higurashi-sensei just so happens to be at." Megumi leans forward, his voice low, "I bet you tracked her energy."

Satoru pushes his shades up and crosses his arms. "So, you do pay attention. Tell me, how I could have tracked Kagome's energy from across town?"

"This is pretty far from the apartment," Tsumiki agrees. "It really is just a coincidence, Megumi." Tsumiki looks behind her. "Higurashi-sensei looks like she's having a great time."

"Her smile is fake," Satoru points out. "She keeps looking at her watch."

"…oh?" Tsumiki glances at Megumi, who throws his hands up.

"And her body language is off. Look at how her feet a pointed to the door. She wants someone to rescue her."

"That is not what that means." Megumi lies his head on the table and closes his eyes. Tsumiki pokes him.

Satoru snaps his fingers in front of Megumi's face. "Pay attention. You need this in the field. You might come across someone that needs your help, but they may not have the words to vocalize it." He points at Kagome, who still won't look back at him. "Look at how she shrinks away from him like he washed his hair in manure."

"I don't think…" Tsumiki trails off. "She does keep looking at her watch. She might need to get home soon since it's a school night."

"Right and when someone is giving off cues that they need help, we should always step in." Satoru waves the waiter down and hands her some yen for the bill.

"Thought I was paying for myself," Megumi deadpans.

"Alright, we need to do formation A."

"The hell is formation A?" Megumi sighs and lifts his head from the table.

"Language," Tsumiki warns. "Formation A is we walk by, but trip and knock the drinks over. Are we knocking the drinks on Higurashi-sensei?"

"WHAT?" Megumi drags his hands down his face. "That is the dumbest—"

"Nah, we gotta knock it on the date. Give him a reason to cut the date short and go home. We don't want Kagome to walk out in a wet dress."

For obvious reasons.

"I can't do it," Satoru continues, "no one would believe it. Megumi?"

"No."

"Megumi," Tsumiki says with a sigh, "didn't you hear what Gojo-san said? You're always going on about saving people, but you don't want to help Higurashi-sensei? Look at her! She's about to bolt out of that seat. We have to help her. What if he's some creep?"

Satoru bites the inside of his cheeks. At least someone has his back.

"The only creep here is him." Megumi points a finger at Satoru.

They stare at one another for a beat. Megumi groans and stands right as the waiter returns with Satoru's change. "For the record, I still think this is stupid."

Tsumiki gives him a thumbs up and sucks in a breath as she waits for her cue. Formation A is a go.

Satoru unbuttons the top button of his white shirt and grabs his jacket. There's a crash as Megumi trips and knocks the drinks over. The man yelps.

Fucking yelps. Satoru rolls his eyes. His first assessment was correct. That is no man, but a boy pretending to be worthy of Kagome.

"Oh! Megumi!" Tsumiki wails, "Are you okay?" Tsumiki rushes to Megumi's side and helps him up.

"My suit is ruined!"

"It's just a little water," Kagome says.

"You need to pay for this!"

And that's his cue. Satoru saunters over and places a hand on the back of Kagome's chair. He sniffs. What is that vanilla and cinnamon? She smells good enough to eat. "I hope there's no problem over here." He grins, showing off his teeth. "Megumi-kun is a bit of klutz, but he didn't mean to ruin your suit. Right Megumi?"

Megumi sucks in a breath. "No, it was truly an accident. I'm sorry Higurashi-sensei for ruining your night."

Kagome tilts her head to the side, baring her neck to him. Satoru blinks. Since when is he a neck guy?

"It's really not that big of a deal. It is just a glass of water, after all. Right, Mori-san?"

"Of course not. It's fine." The man smiles, but it's tight. Forced. And Satoru wonders how far until the man breaks.

"That's wonderful, but to make it up to ya. Here, you can take your suit to the dry cleaners. I recommend the one two blocks over, by the—"

"I know which one you are referring to." The man waves the yen away and stands. "I think it's time we get out of here, Higurashi-san. Lest there be any other accidents."

"Oh? Okay." Kagome reaches for her purse and tries to scoot back, but Satoru keeps a firm hand on her chair. Why is this guy still trying to leave with Kagome? Can't he take a hint? "Satoru, I'm trying to get out of my seat."

"Satoru?"

His smile widens. "Of course, Kagome-chan. Here, let me pull your seat out for you." He makes a big show out of helping her out of her seat. Megumi rolls his eyes while Tsumiki continues to fawn over Megumi as though he truly is a klutz. When this is all over, he should give Tsumiki some extra money. Maybe she and some of her friends would like a trip out of the country.

Megumi, on the other hand… he should make him run two hundred laps around the school.

"Wait, Higurashi-san, you know these people? This man?" The guy wets his lips. His brows furrow together.

Satoru takes his jacket and drapes it over Kagome's shoulder. It's getting cold out and it doesn't look like she thought to bring something warm to wear. Is she allergic to pants? Maybe he should have her uniform outfitted to be the baggiest pants imaginable.

"Oh, well Megumi-kun and Tsumiki-chan both attend the school I work at. Satoru, here, is their guardian." Kagome shrugs off his jacket and hands it back to him. She ushers for them to leave the restaurant. The guy keeps glancing back over his shoulder as if he expects for Satoru to take off with Kagome.

He considered it.

"Well, it was good meeting you all," the guy says with the fakest smile on his face. "Higurashi-san, are you ready? I can take the train with you and then catch the next one to my place."

"Train? In those heels?" Satoru scoffs. "Kagome, I don't have a problem driving you back to your spot. The kiddos and I decided it was better to drive with how far out this is." He drapes the jacket over her shoulders once more and inwardly preens when she grips it tighter to her body.

Good, now she will smell like him.

Shit-hair glares at him and then snatches the jacket off Kagome, and tosses it back at Satoru. "We do not need your help. Higurashi-san and I are on a date. As fun as this meeting has been, I think you have overstayed your welcome."

Satoru catches his jacket before it hits infinity and looks up at the sky. Harming a civilian would be heavily frowned upon.

"What he just did was rude," Tsumiki says behind him. Megumi grunts in response.

"Okay," Kagome interjects, holding her hands out. "Mori-san, it's been fun. But I am going to end our date here. Looks like tensions are a bit high right now and everyone needs to calm down."

"I'm calm."

"Satoru, you are not calm." Kagome rubs her forehead. Her tits look fucking amazing. How could she waste a dress like that on a man who looks like he's been inbred? "At any rate, I will be taking off. Mori-san, there is no need for you to ride the train to my apartment and then catch another one. Satoru, I am not riding with you. Megumi-kun and Tsumiki-chan, I will see you tomorrow morning." Kagome smiles at whatever his name is and doesn't even give Satoru a hug goodbye. Instead, she squeezes his arm and gives him a bit of a shock.

He shivers.

"No hug?" he sticks his bottom lip out, turns his back to… that guy and holds out his arms.

"...We don't hug?" Her tongue darts out, wetting her full lips, and he can't get the image of her wrapping those lips around her chopsticks out of his head.

"You're disgusting."

He ignores Megumi and lets out a long sigh, as though his feelings are so hurt. Kagome shakes her head and walks away. Her laughter floats past him.

Wait.

Where is she going?

"Higurashi-san!" The man tries to brush past Satoru but falls right on his ass. He rubs his nose, dusts his wet pants, and tries again, only to fall back down. Kagome continues to walk until Satoru can't make out the sway of her ass in the crowd.

A damn shame. He would have taken her somewhere better. Maybe somewhere with a beach so she could wear a bikini.

"What the hell is going on?" the guy mutters, standing once more, only to fall back down.

"Jeez, Megumi-kun, did ya spill some of your clumsiness on him when you spilled the water?" Satoru tsks. "C'mon on you two, it is a school night, after all." He puts his arms around their shoulders and leads them towards the car. If he had known Kagome was going to turn him down, he would have just taken the train.

"I can't believe how he kept falling down," Tsumiki remarks. "You were right, Gojo-san. That man was not the right guy for Kagome. He was so rude and then he was tripping over himself as if he had too much to drink."

"That was Gojo's doing."

"Megumi, you shouldn't tell lies. It's not right. I raised you better than that." Satoru unlocks the car and gets the door for Tsumiki.

"You literally expanded your infinity so he couldn't go after Higurashi-sensei, who was his date, by the way, not yours."

"Megumi, do you like flying?"

"What?"

"Flying? It's such a fun experience. Do you want to fly?"

"I like flying," Tsumiki chirps.

"Oh, I'll get you plane tickets. Megumi gets to fly without an airplane. More durable and all."

"… Are you threatening me?" Megumi glowers from the backseat.

"Depends. Are you going to nitpick every interaction I have with my future co-worker?" He taps his fingers on the wheel.

"At least do it at sunrise, so I can get a better view of the sky."

Satoru's mouth drops open. So that's how it is. No loyalty. He's definitely sending Megumi on a first-class ride to the clouds.

Cheeky brat.

[daisyachain]

When consuming works in translation or even cross-cultural works in the same language, your standard midwestern white US reader (and more broadly your standard anglophone) is going to bring their own cultural structures and impose them externally on the work no matter what. This is the weeb blog so we all know what I’m talking about.

One specific example of this is the way that white/anglophone/US cultural consumers treat male ‘femininity’. In US culture, it’s a truth universally known (by girls) that girls like a girly guy or at least that the male figure most attractive to female consumers (who make up the majority of the audience for fiction in the US whether or not they’re considered as such by marketing teams) is a figure that they can relate to. The floppy boy band member, the middle aged man with cooking skills, whatever. US/Anglo standards of masculinity are also bizarrely tilted towards performance. SoCal-type standard US culture is as misogynist as any other culture (ie it’s misogynist), it’s just that this misogyny has its own flavour of expressing itself. Everywhere does.

In the broad anglo milieu, any hint of personal grooming, self-awareness, shyness, emotivity, or non-ripped physique is interpreted as feminine. The skinny boy band member, the jeans-wearing metrosexual, the vegetarian, the fat kid who hangs out with the girls in gym class because that’s the path that is least likely to end in physical assault. These are all sissies. The merest lack of sufficient beer-n-bacon posturing is taken for wearing a pride flag. By US standards, a non-muscled man who wears even slightly fashionable clothes is [twelve year old boy voice] gayyyyyy. The standard homophobic gay stereotype is a finger-fluttering peacock who can’t stand to chip a nail.

Go over to eg Japanese culture (most commonly consumed works in translation in the US), the stereotype is completely different. The archetypical male heterosexual romantic lead isn’t a sleeve-busting hunk, it’s a skinny, floppy, long-haired guy with delicate fingers and sparkling eyes. The homophobic stereotype is a muscle-bound thick-jawed mascara-wearer. This doesn’t mean that the bishounen/ikemen archetype is necessarily considered feminine. On the contrary, it’s another masculine ideal. No one in the US could possibly (in the public imagination) aspire to be a patterned-tie fashionista unless he’s gay or foreign. But, overseas, the reserved and cutting-edge fashion-conscious man is revered as an object of female desire.

Well it’s not quite as clean cut as all that but you get what I’m saying. You can see it in the translation of ‘ikemen’ to ‘pretty boy’. The original just means ‘a hot guy’ the other is a homophobic insult 90% of the time, but English really doesn’t have an equivalent term. Also why 00s weebs just referred to ‘bishies’, it’s because there’s no English term for it that isn’t in some way homophobic. I’ve seen ‘hottie’ used as a translation as well, but that’s got its own baggage as it’s exclusively a term associated with women’s speech, so it doesn’t make sense to have male characters refer to it without coming off as overtly gay.

So that brings us to: it’s a common misinterpretation for the bishounen/ikemen characters or presentations to be read as ‘gay’ by a US audience. Viz. BTS fandom and haters, shippers, etc. This is because there’s no real equivalent to this concept in the US without homophobic overtones. The closest you might possibly get is ‘boy band member’, but that also has oodles of homophobia as all of us who were there for the Bieber era remember. Rather than ice-cold idols of female worship, the US interpretation of a bishounen is of a girly guy.

Except, we’ve gotten to the point where US consumption and regurgitation of foreign cultural tropes has is on its third or fourth cycle. People are now instantly imitating their favourite art as it comes out with the help of the internet. LoTR shows up in JJK. RWBY gets a mediocre 2D anime. And League, famous for being the midpoint of US cultural context and East Asian cultural influence, puts up promotional material for the character Hwei. Who seems to be made to fit into the line of bishounen characters that have been coming out of the League design factory (Aphelios, Viego, Sett, some Ezreal skins) but who doesn’t belong there at all and instead comes out as a startlingly straightforward (hah) design for a femme gay character

[lilywrites9]

Top 5 Out of the Box Sonam Kapoor Movies

Sonam kapoor Indian actress Ahuja performs in Hindi-language movies. She has received a National Film Award and a Filmfare Award, and from 2012 to 2016, she was listed among Forbes India's Celebrity 100 based on her popularity and earnings.

Fashion and Sonam Kapoor go hand in hand. And enjoyment too. It's no secret that we enjoy Sonam Kapoor's choice of entertaining films to act in. Her films frequently have a carefree, sunny, perfect day feel. Popcorn movies at their very best.

Aisha

Rajshree Ojha is the director of the 2010 Hindi-language romantic comedy-drama Aisha. Sonam Kapoor, Abhay Deol, Ira Dubey, Cyrus Sahukar, Amrita Puri, Anand Tiwari, Arunoday Singh, and Lisa Haydon are all part of the ensemble cast in this comedy of manners. It is a version of Jane Austen's 1815 novel Emma and is set in the upper-class society of Delhi, India. It has the same tone as the cult Hollywood movie Clueless (1995), which is also an adaptation of Austen's book. Aisha, which debuted on August 6, 2010, had a mediocre box office performance. Critics gave it mixed to favourable reviews. She characterised her persona as an intrusive diva with a penchant for playing Cupid and matchmaking.

2.Neerja

The 2016 Indian biographical thriller film Neerja, which was written by Saiwyn Quadras and Sanyuktha Chawla Shaikh, was directed by Ram Madhvani. The narrative is based on a true incident: the attempted hijacking of Pan Am Flight 73 by the Abu Nidal Organization, which was supported by Libya, on September 5, 1986 in Karachi, Pakistan. The head purser of the flight, Neerja Bhanot, who stopped the hijack attempt by warning the pilots and forcing them to ground the aircraft, is portrayed in the movie. Bhanot lost his life while attempting to save the 359 survivors among the 379 passengers and crew. She played the role of the air hostess Neerja Bhanot, who perished in 1986 while attempting to save the passengers of Pan Am Flight 73, which had been hijacked.

Since the project is based on actual events, Kapoor felt a sense of responsibility towards it. As part of her role preparation, she met the Bhanot family. The movie received a lot of positive reviews, and many critics thought that Kapoor gave her best performance to date. According to Raja Sen, her performance was a career-defining moment, and Rohit Vats of the Hindustan Times observed that "she carries entirely on her shoulder." She conveys a mixture of sincere, fear, goodwill, and boldness. Rajeev Masand invited Kapoor to his yearly best actresses roundtable, and Sen named Kapoor the best actress in Hindi film of 2016. In addition to numerous other honours, Kapoor received a Special Mention for a National Film Award and a Filmfare Award for Best Actress (Critics).

3. Raanjhanaa

Beloved One, also known as Raanjhanaa, is a 2013 Indian Hindi-language romantic drama film that was written and directed by Aanand L. Rai. Kapoor played the part of Varanasi-based Muslim student Zoya Haider, who becomes involved in politics as a result of the murder of her Sikh lover. Kapoor met with students, went to workshops, and practised with theatre groups affiliated with Jawaharlal Nehru University in order to get ready for her role. Additionally, she looked at Jaya Bachchan's performance in Guddi (1971), which she thought was "ideal" for the part. In response to a question about her role in the movie, Kapoor gave the following explanation of her acting style: "I have always tried to do diverse films and… I strive to be different for every character. The film was superhit at box office.

4. Delhi 6

Rakesh Omprakash Mehra is the director of the 2009 drama film Delhi-6, which was made in Hindi. Abhishek Bachchan plays an NRI in the movie who travels to India with his elderly grandmother (Waheeda Rehman) and starts learning about his ancestry before becoming involved in a religious issue involving an unknown attacker who resembles a monkey. After receiving its world debuts at the Museum of Modern Art and the Dubai International Film Festival, Delhi-6 was finally released on February 20, 2009, to critical and box office acclaim. Although it did poorly financially, it earned mixed reviews from critics, who praised the soundtrack and the cast's performances while criticising the plot, writing, and pacing. Best Production Design went to Delhi-6 at the 57th National Film Awards (Samir Chanda).

5. Veere Di Wedding

Female buddy comedy Veere Di Wedding is a 2018 Hindi-language movie that was produced by Rhea Kapoor, Ekta Kapoor, and Nikhil Dwivedi and directed by Shashanka Ghosh. Starring Kareena Kapoor Khan, Sonam K. Ahuja, Swara Bhaskar, and Shikha Talsania as four friends attending a wedding, the movie is loosely based on the 2015 movie The Wedding Ringer. On June 1, 2018, Veere Di Wedding was released in theatres to mixed reviews. The movie, which had a budget of $28,000,000, ended up earning over 139,000,000 globally, making it the highest-grossing Hindi film of the year and the biggest for a movie with female leads. At the 64th Filmfare Awards, it garnered three nominations, including Best Supporting Actress for Talsania and Bhaskar.

[bugjizmsquawk]

This is a growing playlist and mostly an attempt to get back into the habit of writing regularly. I don't know if I will find an audience but it would thrill me to stumble into a community of feverish writers who happen to be into the darker realms of music/art/fashion.

I accept that compared to most everyone here I am ancient and might be susceptible to being labeled "out of touch". Certainly youth Culture confuses and baffles me but only in the sense that I perceive it as a challenge albeit a highly distracted one. There are certain things that I will never bother trying to understand because the generational divide is just too vast. Now, Generation X were born roughly from 1965 to 1980 which means they were too young to be trad Goths or Punks but might have caught the death throes of Punk if they were precocious and unruly. They existed for certain in various contingents across the globe with their precious Ari Up sticker collections and Barking Metaphor 7 " pile. The difference between them and most of you was that their music consumption was mostly deliberate. The key songs were purchased or exchanged or perhaps heard in clubs or on very specific radio programs.

St. Nicholas lounging (poetically) in his lair.

Survival is not guaranteed let alone any type of recognition for your talent or your pain or your ideas. Most people are not recognized for anything they have done, said, thought, or preserved. We are not useful in this way and our lives remain a series of meaningless gestures that do not impact the structured lives of the general taint who are busy suffering anonymously for no cause and no care. Of course, in our minds we are all blisteringly important and exciting and vital which means we are terribly delusional and histrionic to a fault.

That one friend who introduced you to all the music as she gazes outward at something only she can see.

The key is to reach the destitute, the desperate, the scarred and scared in such a way that they feel obligated to fuel our fancies with their hard won dinero. Get them to pay us for something they did not even know they needed until it was too late to back down. Yet we fail because we haven't talent enough to rise above the mediocre and risible which means we do not actualize our aspirations. Subsequently, we have nothing to sell them and cannot even reflect their fragmented desires back at them.

Fortune smiles upon the very few who demonstrate a viable service that others are mesmerized by and this service provides a Satanic demon-stration that becomes impossible to ignore or withstand. Fast music, fast food, fast fashion all whipped up to feed the relentless, churning appetite of the perpetually bored and restless.

Do not listen to those who insist that you can do anything you set your mind to because this is one of the most pernicious lies and should not be heeded. You simply cannot be a popstar or a professional athlete or a nuclear physicist just because you really want to. Only incredibly special individuals are able to do the type of things the rest of us can merely gawk at. Or, perhaps it is different today where Fame does not carry the same meaning it did in previous eras. Music does seem extremely easy to make these days but that just might be because everyone has access to technology that requires very little musicality to operate.

The Piano may be decrepit but its Music still Haunts Me.

Nobody has to spend years becoming proficient on an instrument or even forgo a serious study by simply jumping up on a stage caterwauling, making a tremendous racket. That was thing in 1976, natch. But the refuse of those times are relegated to the dustbins of history but that does not mean they were not important at the time. I was not there but there was everywhere for a while--people just didn't know it because they couldn't see it. Still, each lousy town had its share of Teenaged jerks whose ideologies and hair and fashion gave the regulars stuff frights. Certain places produced more of these creatures and some of these began to express the venom musically. Anger, violence, smashing every pretty thing for the sheer thrill of it until some others, inspired by the Victorian age and 19th century poets and bondage and lace and the Church started drinking absinthe and masquerading about in clubs and bedrooms so that an entire way of existing developed into a military existence. Gothic interludes became an expression of severity and tyranny which ultimately led to massive hairspray bills and a seeming dearth of good humour. Why smile? Laughing is for imbeciles?

Broken Nostalgia for the Innocence of Hard Drug consumption via Stiv

The 1980s are so distant from you. I was your age in 1987 which is as far removed from you as 1950 was from me back then. Of course technology has accelerated everything so a fair comparison is categorically impossible. Still, I don't expect any child of this age to fully comprehend a Time so distant from them in every conceivable way. It is always a miracle when I read a playlist or something similar from a younger sort of person that seems to reflect a keen awareness of post-punk, new wave, goth, etc. They are the rarest ones who I cherish even though they remain mostly spectres tormenting my imagination. Admittedly they are always difficult to fully apprehend and impossible to decipher. Mystery is their preferred state and they aren't in my town presently so I go on begging.

The perennial, elusive Scott W.

It is true that we despise you for your youth because your lives are a perpetual circus of furious jumping. Certainly, some of you are anguished routinely and this should never be because the Young should not be burdened by a world that their elders have nearly ruined but that's the way it is. Joy is wasted on the young who are provided with the genuine treasure of experiencing phenomena for the first time. If they lack the capacity for wonderment everything they encounter will simply fail to elicit any type of response out of them. Most people are precisely this way in that they constantly look yet never see. You get old. It sneaks up on you and time moves faster as you age. I am 53. It seems like yesterday I was 17 and first getting into Skinny Puppy and My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult. It still freaks me to think I am old enough to be the grandfather of most of you. What a paralyzing and preposterous proposition.

Release the Bats/The Birthday Party

Last Exit For the Lost/Fields of the Nephilim

Glass Houses/Skinny Puppy

My Heart is Empty/Nico

Siamese Twins/The Cure

Stone is Very, Very Cold/Spell

Terror Couple Kill Colonel/Bauhaus

Listen, Somewhat Awkward/David E. Williams

Lisa's Party/Legendary Pink Dots

Ignore the Machine/Alien Sex Fiend

Up Jumped the Devil/Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Avalanche/Leonard Cohen

Cut the Tree/The Wolfgang Press

Isolation/Joy Division

She Is Beyond Good and Evil/The Pop Group

Next/Scott Walker

Why'd ya do it?/Marianne Faithfull

Bird Song/Lene Lovich

You Don't Own Me/Klaus Nomi

Hungry, So Angry/Medium Medium

A Girl Doesn't Get Killed by a Make-Believe Lover Cuz It's Hot/My Life With the Thrill Kill Kult

Weathercade/The Creatures

Mr. Clarinet/The Birthday Party

Dusk of Hallows/Corpus Delicti

Celebrity Lifestyle/Swans

Teenage Whore/Hole

Rehab Doll/Green River

Death Valley '69/Sonic Youth (w/ Lydia Lunch

Greatest Gift/Scratch Acid

Human Cannonball/Butthole Surfers

Isle of Man-Version II/Ministry

Go to Hell/KMFDM

King of Negativity/Godhead

More Beautiful Than Barbie/The Jesus Lizard

Crow/The Southern Death Cult

Cannibal Queen/Sex Gang Children

Fields of Rape (Tibet Mix)/Death in June

Free Money/Patti Smith

It's Too Late/New York Dolls

Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell/The Stooges

Sister Ray/The Velvet Underground

Lucretia My Reflection/Sisters of Mercy

Helter Skelter/Siouxsie & the Banshees

Beauty of Poison 12 " Version/Specimen

Mirror People/Love and Rockets

Station to Station/David Bowie

Me and My Girl and the Cold Grey World/David E. Williams

A Forest Live France Jun '80/The Cure

Insecure Me (Extended Ver.)/Soft Cell

Not Any More/Dead Boys

Thieves Like Us 12 "/New Order

Who Makes the Nazis?/The Fall

Here Today/The Chameleons

The Spy in the Cab (Live)/Bauhaus

Voodoo Dolly/Siouxsie & the Banshees

Blood On the Wall/Skinny Puppy

Rituals of Love in the Passage of Genocide, Song of Rose/Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio

The Descent of Long Satan and Babylon/Current 93

Long Live Death/Sol Invictus

Love's Promise/Sieben

Eternal Soul/Blood Axis

White Knuckles/Scraping Foetus off the Wheel

Luxury/Fad Gadget

Womb/Einstürzende Neubauten

To Tirzah/Ordo Rosarius Equilibrio

Separated/Throbbing Gristle

Are You Out There?/Boyd Rice and Death in June

Beautiful Brownshirted Man/Rozz Williams

The Secret Germany/ROME

New Gold Dawn/Fields of the Nephilim

Skald au Satans Sol/Darkthrone

Déjà Vu/The Tear Garden

Zero Sex/Christian Death

Like a Prayer/Bigod 20

Decay/Sanctum

Bites and Bloody Kisses (Long Version)/Two Witches

Clown/Switchblade Symphony

Insane Asylum/Diamanda Galás

Some Kind of Stranger/Sisters of Mercy

Stagger Lee/Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds

Black Betty/Lead Belly

Rape Me/Nirvana

Deity/Ministry

[falsebooles123]

Confessions of a Recovering Genre-phobic: The Beginning

Hey Whores, So are you ready for one of my many Sexy New Years Resolutions

I don't understand what the youth are listening these days and overall I find myself listening to the same old music over and over again. Granted my definetion of listening to the same 5 songs over and over again tends to be a bit more varied. Spotify says I only listened to 1,635 unique songs this year so clearly I need to pop my pussy harder.

Ultimately what that means is that I'm gonna start listening to albums again. Its something that I started in aug 2019 and corencidentally I have a list of albums from that exact year that I wrote down in my first bullet journal. And by a few I do mean exactly 175. I had consumed a few albums that year and so over the last couple weeks instead of properlly finishing my 2024 bullet journal I have copyied over the list onto one of my designated 'collections' pages which is what the BulJor community, (if they were famalier with its founder Ryder Carroll original ideas), call personified spreads like habit trackers and similar.

The first 104 albums have been written down, (so that I can randomly generate a album to listen to) which leaves 35 spaces for recommendations. you probably wonder what happened to the 71 other albums well half of those I listened to in augest of 2019 and the other half I listened to this month. Yeah over three weeks in december. I was kinda sad and maybe I listened to 3 or 4 albums a day sometimes because I could. and I am insane. we already knew this.

I'm gonna list out the albums I listened to this month in a moment but suffice to say that most were pretty basic. Some standouts would of course be Biggie Smalls, Barnes BLVD, The Hoosiers, Cake, and Jack Comte but I was already pretty big fans of them to begin with so its not a surprise that I found there albums exceptional. Overall it was a snapshot of what type of music I was listening to and was also coincedental taken line by line from my liked songs playlist on spotify at the time.

List of Albums Listened to in December

Halloway | Tessa Violet 3/5

The MatchBreak (OMPS) | V.A 1/5

PDX Pop Now! 2014 Compelation | V.A 2/5

Bobs Burger Musical Album | V.A 3/5

Prism | Katy Perry 3/5

Kiss | Carly Rae Jepsen 3/5

Shorts Fired x Thirst Trap (LP) | Cakes de Killa 3/5

Waking Ups | OneRepublic 4/5

Be Not Nobody | Venessa Carlton 3/5

Trolls (OMPS) | V.A 3/5

Ready to Die: The Remaster | Notorious B.I.G 3.5/5

Last Summer | Barnes BLVD 5/5

Vaudeville Show | The Bad Things 3/5

Mail on Sunday | Flo Rida/T-Pain 3/5

Couleè-D | Shea Couleè 3.5/5

Metallic Butterfly | Princess Nokia 3/5

The Trick to Life | The Hoosiers 4/5

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend Season 1 Vol 1 | Rachel Bloom 3/5

Mighty Seed | That Way to the Egress 3/5

Bouquet | Caravan of Thieves 3/5

Net Split | MC Frontalot 2/5

Ancient World | Abney Park 3/5

Zero Day | MC Frontalot 3/5\

Fashion Nugget | CAKE 3/5

Beacon | Two Door Cinema Club 3/5

Coup De Grace | Miles Kane 3.5/5

Stars of CCTV | Hard-FI 3/5

VS4 | Jack Comte 5/5

The Moorings | Andrew Duhon 3/5

More Adventious | Rile Kiley 4/5

Looking over the list I have come to two conclusions. 1. I listened to a lot of twee ass music in 2019. Like I still Dark Cabernet and Amanda Palmer but like I had two MC Frontalot albums. I like a novelty song from time to time but theres a wide margin between the kind of silly folk stylings of the double-clicks and the deep ernestness of Nerd Rap. The energy and emphasis and making silly little jokes becomes tiring either that or I just am not a big Frontalot fan as I thought I was.

The Other is that my rating system sucks like why is so many of these albums rated 3/5 is every album I listen to that mid or do I just not have a strong sense of what makes a album exceptional or particular mediocre? Questions to be asked moving forward.

Anyway whores for now please enjoy my ramblings. sighing off.

[thetoxicgamer]

Rekkles Opens up on Fnatic’s ’Embarrassing’ LEC Winter Split, Constantly Losing Scrims, and More: ‘It Was Tough From the Beginning’

Fans of Fnatic are still in shock following the 2023 LEC Winter Split, when the company's League of Legends squad finished last in its illustrious history. The squad had a mediocre 2-7 record and ended ninth, missing the playoffs for the first time in team history. There were plenty of expectations on the roster’s shoulders, especially when the team brought back star AD carry Martin “Rekkles” Larsson for another run at an LEC title. But after such a disappointing split, the 26-year-old opened up to his fans during a live stream, where he broke down how the team fell so far in such a quick fashion. Rekkles said that the team started the year off in the wrong direction, having been one of the last teams to start playing together. Unlike some teams who started practicing in December, the roster only got a chance to play together in January, which only gave them a couple of weeks before the season began. Right from the beginning, the veteran marksman said that Fnatic was struggling heavily through their scrims, and were exhibiting a very low level of play. “It was tough, we were losing against everyone,” Rekkles said. “To be honest, there wasn’t any team that we were really beating, even in the games we would win, it would feel more like we were lucky to win.” He said that the combination between lack of time and the lack of improvement led to Fnatic falling flat in the first couple of weeks of the split, and eventually, the problems they were facing snowballed into bigger problems down the line, including a severe lack of confidence that led to uncharacteristic mistakes on the Summoner’s Rift. Photo by Michal Konkol via Riot GamesAs the season counted down, an overwhelming sense of anxiety started to affect the players as they fished for some kind of silver lining. Rekkles also pointed out that because every player wanted to impact Fnatic’s season, players started making plays that they normally wouldn’t, which led to even further failure. He brought up Razork as an example, saying that the 22-year-old began flipping more plays than he normally would on-stage due to their pressure. Related: Fnatic’s pre-Spring reset will reportedly see more players, head coach dropped in huge reshuffle “Our level of play was quite low individually, so we really needed our other parts to do well,” Rekkles said. “We needed to get better as a team, do things well on the map, and not be stuck in the same place for an entire split.” Fnatic might already be making some significant changes to their League squad, with reports stating that the organization is swapping out top laner Martin “Wunder” Hansen, support Rúben “Rhuckz” Barbosa, and head coach Gonçalo ��Crusher” Brandão. Read the full article

[happyhappyfantrolls]

dracoinfernous Ein smiled, looking over the list of places Crucis had found for them. Much as she did want to try visiting all the places, better to leave themselves stuff to do on their next trip. "Hmm... a music concert sounds awesome, never got to go to one. Same with an amusement park. What about you, Cru-Cru?" No sense for Ein to be the only one picking, this was a trip for both of them to enjoy after all.

"I was at the amusement parks before, thanks to my siblings." Crucis chuckled softly, remembering the old times. "It's pretty fun here, so we can visit this one. It's close."

She pointed at the name 'Happy Hearts' on the list. It was a pretty big amusement park known for having a lot of attractions, but mediocre food stalls.

"We can go to the music concert next day." Crucis suggested and pointed at DJ Cupcake's music concert on the same list. "It's in different town, but we can reach it with our car."

She explained with a smile.

"Also it would be nice to check art exhibitions, especially fashion exhibitions. Nice vlog material, you know." Crucis chuckled once more.

Summer trip for us. (Closed rp)

( @dracoinfernous )

Crucis was waiting for it for so long, so long that she got a small calendar for herself to count days and weeks for a trip. It wasn't just a normal trip, tt was a summer trip for her and Eingal...

...just for two of them.

She never told anyone about it, but it was her long-awaited dream and it's finally happening. It took her a lot of time and research to make sure their trip will go smoothly, preparing everything they need during it.

[CG]: i'm here sharky <3

[CG]: im so excited (≧▽≦)

Crucis sent a few messages to her girlfriend with a wide smile on her face. She couldn't really contain her happiness, bobbing her head as she softly hums. Her eyes were glued to her phone, patiently waiting for Ein's reply while fixing her pink jacket. She hopes Eingal will like her trip outfit.

Nothing will ruin her mood today.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Hey Raven, do you think Kalim is stupid?

The short answer to this would be “no”, but because I like to overanalyze things, let me explain why. In this essay, I will--

I believe when people think of “stupidity”, they tend to think of it in a sense of general intelligence or book smarts, or they equate it to a number or a letter grade on a report card. In this case, one can easily point to Kalim’s poor academic performance and say, “he doesn’t do well in his classes, and he needs to study and try very hard, plus get help from Jamil, just to get a mediocre grade.” All of that is true. However, to call Kalim “stupid” just because he doesn’t perform well in a traditional classroom setting would be remiss.

The nature of schools hosting many students forces them to standardize lessons and teach them in the same way to large groups. The truth of the matter is, these same methods won’t work for every student. Some just work better one-on-one, and others need more specialized lessons for them to best learn. For example, some people are more visual learners, while others are more auditory, and some just prefer tactile or hands-on learning. Just because Kalim doesn’t fare well with traditional classroom lectures and studying/memorization doesn’t mean other methods wouldn’t work better for him. As was previously mentioned, he seems to do well when Jamil tutors him, so this may hint that Kalim may prefer to be taught in a more personalized setting. We see similar instances of Kalim performing well when instructed one-on-one in Master Chef and when Azul lends him his help in chapter 4. This doesn’t make Kalim “stupid”, it just means he has different preferences when it comes to being taught.

Remember that Kalim hails from a very affluent family. The Asims’ money and power have essentially shielded Kalim from most consequences and other unfortunate circumstances of life. Kalim won’t ever understand what it feels like to have financial struggles, or to go a day hungry. He’s so used to getting everything he wants, and that has made him not stupid, but naïve and ignorant of how the “real world” works. Ignorance is not the same as stupidity. (You can also say that Malleus is ignorant, since his country is very old-fashioned (to the point where he had never ridden a car until the Scalding Sands Fireworks event), but you wouldn’t call Malleus “stupid” for not knowing things that were beyond his circumstances.)

One last point I’d like to make is that while Kalim is not book smart, he is very emotionally intelligent, especially when it comes to dealing with others. For reference, emotional intelligence is defined as “the capacity to be aware of, control, and express one's emotions, and to handle interpersonal relationships judiciously and empathetically”.

Students in Scarabia love Kalim, and it’s for a good reason. He’s very good at understanding them and empathizing with them, even if he’s laid back as a leader. For example, Kalim was able to talk his dorm mates through bouts of homesickness, and he was always willing to support his dorm mates in their other times of need. Furthermore, it was Kalim who was able to placate his angry dorm mates when they were upset with Jamil post-Overblot. The students were willing to give Jamil a second chance, despite all of the terrible things he did, because Kalim convinced them. Who else would be capable of such a feat, if not him?

This carries over to chapter 5 as well. Kalim becomes aware of his own inadequacy (maybe even jealousy?) when Jamil is picked to be a lead performer for VDC instead of him, and Kalim pushes himself to work harder so he can catch up to Jamil. However, he never stops caring about other people. It’s Kalim and Rook that pep talked Deuce and helped him come to terms with his frustration regarding his lack of improvement. It is also Kalim who initially sensed that Vil was going to attempt something heinous to come out on top at VDC. He came running to the scene and knocked the poison out of Rook’s hand, because he knew that something was wrong just from observing Vil. 

We can see several instances of Kalim’s own kind of intelligence, emotional intelligence, especially as he engages with his peers. In conclusion, Kalim may not be the most crafty in a traditional sense, but he has his own insights to contribute, making him fit as the Dorm Leader of Scarabia--the dorm modeled after the deliberation of the Sorcerer of the Sands.

[runawaymun]

Not to sound like a boomer but I genuinely am starting to feel that Netflix is one of the worst things that happened to television.

It’s all the same now.

And I don’t mean like, genre diversity. I mean the art form. Like Netflix has really just cursed the world with television that now has an absolutely breakneck, relentless pace. So few shows are casually watchable anymore. It’s hard for me to find good new comfort shows. All of mine are older. Seasons used to have 15-30 episodes, sometimes more! They used to be episodic. So you could literally just drop in at any point in a season, nearly, without having to remember where you’re at or be sucked in by cliffhangers for twelve hours. You could just sit down with your favorite characters for one episode and be done.

And sure, people still marathoned favorites, but that wasn’t the norm. And the thing is, shows like Psych, Stargate SG-1, Babylon 5, Doctor Who etc? I remember distinct episodes. I can name them, and I’ll go back and rewatch them over and over again independently. With newer shows I just don’t. If you ask me to name an individual episode of Cobra Kai, I can’t. If I’m rewatching then I’m rewatching the whole damn show and I just don’t have that kind of time, usually, so then I just don’t rewatch and it’s onto the next series— which gets super exhausting. Sometimes I don’t want that commitment.

And you lose a lot of character depth in my opinion. The beauty of episodic longform shows is in the sheer room you have. Yes. Seasons had arcs, but usually the plots were contained to an episode and the season arc was purely character development. And you had room for dumb episodes where characters go to the beach, or a party, or just dick around and live their lives. The viewer had time to get attached— which is why so many older shows still have such strong, old, thriving fanbases who are immensely loyal to their show.

And also??? Shows didn’t used to be cancelled for a bad first episode or season. That’s not normal!!? Netflix and other provider’s habits of cancelling shows that “flop” in their first three episodes or first season isn’t normal. With older shows it was just sort of accepted: the pilot and first season are like the first ugly pancake. Give the show some time. And that time is worth it. That’s why shows could run episodically for 6, 7, 14, 20 seasons, because people just accepted that some seasons are better than others and that’s okay. Some episodes are better than others. Shows didn’t used to rely on cliffhangers to keep their audience. They relied on characters. That was what we were watching them for and why we kept coming back.

I just really am starting to hate how every single tv show is now essentially a really long movie tbh. Give me my episodic, campy, 30-episodes a season shows back. They really are worth it and I’m so sad that those seem to be actively squished by tv providers. It’s an art form in of itself.

It’s just a symptom of late stage capitalistic churning of things for mass, quick comsumption. Like the fast fashion of film. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of new favorite shows I genuinely enjoy like Schitt’s Creek, House of the Dragon, Cobra Kai, Gentleman Jack, etc, but I just wish I had more options in terms of length/number of episodes/and how episodic a show is. It feels like a damn shame that episodic shows are being pushed out in favor of quick, bingeable ones. It also feels like writers are no longer being given the time to really craft a good story. There’s so much pressure and time crunching from studios and drive to cram your story into less than twelve episodes and that’s why you get, rather than a mediocre season, absolutely genuinely ruined seasons like the last season of Game of Thrones and the most recent season of Stranger Things. Both literally needed more episodes to make their story make sense. (If we ignore the dumb bran ending.)

Anyway this is your latest “old man yells at cloud” by your friendly neighborhood old person. Thanks for coming to my tedtalk.

[onwriting-hrarby]

On writing advice

Countless blogs. Countless articles. Books by great authors, books by mediocre authors, books by bad authors. Physical courses and online courses and tweets and Tumblrs all dedicated to: make you write better.

As if writing was a sole thing, a sole notion, a commonplace and designation for everyone in the world, the same. As if writing was a natural thing where all humans converge—immovable, static.

How restricting—how incredibly boring.

Their advice

I've been seeing a lot of Tumblrs and blogs creating masterlists about "How to write a scene between a villain and a hero", "How to write a kiss", "How to write an angry character". All of their tips sound as if there was something so exact about writing. They make us believe there's a sole way to do this, and this is how you should do it (disclaimer: I do believe in the reader's criticism, and I acknowledge these tips might be helpful for a lot of people, so if they are for you, it's all good! But bear in me for a little longer).

But writing is not something universal—rather, the universality of writing stems from its specificity of it. Writing pours out of our own experience, vision and caleidoscope of ideology, experiences and semantics, and reducing everything to simple tips feels, at least, misleading.

First, we can differ in characters. Why? Because everyone has had their fair share of experiences with people. If I want to write a villain that is nuanced, I should be able to do that; but if someone wants to write a villain that is plain "villainous", it doesn't mean that they are not doing it correctly.

We feel the appeal of literature because it shapes our world—and it does because we're shaping literature in return, too.

It doesn't make sense that everything should be written the same, because not everyone experiences the same, in the same parts of the world, with the same ideology. How I, the daughter of an ex-dictatorship country, might depict a dictator, might differ completely from the depiction of someone who hasn't lived in a dictatorship. Expecting everyone to write the same is not also reductive and unfreeing, but also completely privileged and biased.

Why writing advice is often privileged

I believe that those who write this advice come from the same place. And I do, myself, when I give advice on planning. We come from higher education, or access to literature, or even access to a computer. We come from places we can turn on our TV and watch series and learn about pacing, or watch some tropes, or feel some way or another about daily topics.

But literature is not only writing, and writing (as it often happens) is not always literature. To write literature, there must be something else (I'll refer to it as truth, and speak about it largely after). Sure, everyone can put down a thousand well-written words, making sense, even with metaphors, and dialogues. But is this really literature—if we regard literature as something that transcends the writing and shapes us?

Because, if we do regard writing as literature, what do we do about the people who have so much to tell, but not the privilege to tell their stories?

When we tell someone about "writing power dynamics", are we all understanding the same? What about a kid who has been raised in a household with power dynamics, but can't rebel, or society doesn't allow him to see that? What about people who, for example, are not taught that their story matters?

This is the problem of a single story, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains. And while I think we're progressing in this sense (more and more new, unheard voices in literature and the book publishing sector), I am still baffled by how we keep normalizing certain writing advice on how to write certain scenes, and certain tropes, as something you should regard in terms of writing. Because not all experience is the same, and therefore, the advice that some people claim as universal might differ.

Because everything is your own tradition

Everything is a fashion, and everything is tradition. My literary tradition might not be your tradition. When someone tells me that "stories can be told in a consecutive way, in media res or from the end", or any other advice on how to plot, this feels so simplistic to me. There is just not one way—there are hundreds of ways to begin a story and tell it.

You can begin my merging voices of the beginning, the in media res or the end of the story. You can put different adventures in the middle of the main plot—coming back to what happened, but not in a chronological way (the way The Odyssey does). You can begin in the middle of the action and never address what happened before (Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin; The Transformation by Franz Kafka)—so that the "story" that was "worth" being told is not the "story" that is actually being told.

Pacing: "be sure not to use a lot of commas. Use full stops when you want to speed things up", etc. How about you get the help of the music, as if writing was writing a partiture (the way Thomas Bernhard did)?

The three acts of writing: What about you do five, or four, or basically, concentrate your whole plot in just an event? You can focus your story in just a day (Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Ulysses by James Joyce)—not caring about the plot altogether.

You can write characters that are already "evolved" by the beginning of the story (Humbert Humbert in Lolita), that will never evolve (Werther in The pains and sorrows of young Werther). And so on.

This is the great joy—and obvious mess—about writing.

The infinite possibilities allow us to explain a story that is completely ours. Even if what we are telling is similar to another person's, the scope of the story might change completely depending on the words you pick, the way you use dialogue—every single little decision.

Cover the basics

Of course, it doesn't mean that you should not cover the basics. Orthography, grammar, syntaxis, vocabulary—this all comes in handy. It is handy, especially for non-English native writing in English (aka me) to have posts that signal you the use of "" for dialogues, and how punctuation goes.

But don't let the rules constrict you, it's all I'm saying. People that gives this kind of advice are well read, and have really studied this, and maybe have even gone to grad school for that—but what they normally fail to mention is that maybe rules are there to be learnt, then bended when we need.

You just need to be mindful of how you're writing.

Of course you should learn how to write in in media res, because if you don't, maybe you won't know when or if you're doing it and the plotting might be a whole mess. And you can't pretend to write a character evolving without having learnt that characters evolve.

Just like how we are taught verb inflection in a language, but then when we're fluid, we totally miss it and bend it to adequate it to the talk in the streets—writing is finding your best channel to portray what you want. Maybe the writing advice doesn't work. It doesn't mean that you're not doing it right.

But what writing advice fails to say

And this is the thing that angers me the most—maybe the reason why I've decided to write all of this—is that they never tell you to read.

It infuriates me: read all my writing advice, but forbid you to read a book. Maybe it's the kind of thing that's happening everywhere—we gobble easy content, and it's undoubtedly easier to read a short article on writing than reading a novel of 500 pages.

But it will never be the same.

Because what you can get from reading (or even better, a re-reading) is your own interpretation of the literature you've been given, and there's nothing more powerful to understand yourself—therefore, to understand your motives, your aspirations, your topics as a writer—than seeing how you, as a reader, react to structures, plot, dialogue, character ideology.

Use all the writing advice you want, but your writing will lack truth if you don't read.

Because few people have this spark—this truth about them that makes a reading special. And trust me: I read a lot of manuscripts, very good written, decent in plot. But this is not all. There is something, and I can't quite explain it—a soul, a spark, maybe. It is the moment when you read something and go: "Ah". It's like sighing of relief, having your heart clenched, being absorbed by something—plot, style, whatever. It's that word that the author has used that is so unique in that context, like you feel that no one has ever used that before.

Some people have the craft and the truth but, to me, they are extremely rare. And it's always much better to have the truth than the craft—the craft, you need to learn, and that's more or less easy (you'll find a ton of articles, haven't we said?). But the truth takes years, even a lifetime, because we are in constant development—after all, never forget that even if we apply the best advice to our writing, we're still human: inherently flawed.

[thetypedwriter]

We Were Liars Book Review

We Were Liars Book Review by E. Lockhart 

This book is so popular. 

Popularity like this is usually hit or miss for novels. 

Sometimes I read well-known or well-loved books and find them overhyped and mediocre. 

Other times, the infamy is hugely deserved and the accolades need to keep coming. 

Surprisingly, I found We Were Liars firmly in the second category. I say surprising because lately I’ve felt like I’ve been in a book slump. I pessimistically believed that We Were Liars (which I begrudgingly bought out of disinterest for anything else) would be just another summer throw-away that I wouldn’t think about again. 

Fortunately, that’s not the case. 

If you haven’t been under a rock like I have, you’ve probably already read We Were Liars. In case you’re under the rock with me, however, I’ll go into what makes this book so good. 

The story starts off vague and confusing. 

E. Lockhart throws a lot of family members at you all at once and I didn’t even know who the main character was until about two chapters in. Initially, I thought the chapters were switching POV’s, but I soon realized that this wasn’t the case and that the main protagonist was headlining every chapter. 

This main character is Cadence Sinclair Eastman and the book revolves around her familial relationships with the extended Sinclair family, but mainly the relationships with the other self-titled liars: Gat, Johnny, and Mirren. 

Every summer, the liars and other members of the privileged Sinclair family retreat to a private island off the coast of Massachusetts for a summer of swimming, reading, eating, playing tennis, and a slew of other activities that make them forget their lives back home. 

These summers are all consuming. 

It is clear right off the bat that Cadence is obsessed and possessive of the other liars. She wants their time, their energy, and their summers to be eternal. 

However, from chapter one, Cadence speaks of an accident and how things were never the same afterwards.

The whole book then devolves into a mystery plot where you’re trying to figure out Cadence’s summer fifteen, a summer where she can’t recall a single thing except for a few memories that collectively make no sense. 

As Cadence is trying to figure out her blank summer and what happened, the reader is right along with her. 

I want to say more about the plot, I want to scream about it from the mountaintops, but this book really is better off going in blank. E. Lockhart covers other themes like privilege, racism, family relationships, trauma, friendship, and romance, but the drive of this book is the mystery. 

Finding out what happened to Cadence during that summer, how the other liars are involved, what the other Sinclair family members have to do with it, and the long-lasting effects of those months on everyone will grab your attention and not let go until you turn the last page. 

I will say that this ending blew away my expectations. 

I cried. 

I didn’t see it coming and it hit me in a powerful blow. 

Everything about this book was geared towards the ending: the unraveling of the mystery, the breakdown of the characters, memories being exposed in non-chronological fashion. I loved every moment of it. 

Unusually, I would get more into the characters, but strangely I don’t think it’s as important in this book. Not to say that I think the characters are bad, not at all, but the intriguing plot and the writing style were much more significant than the characters to me. 

I liked them all. Cadence, Mirren, Gat, and Johnny especially were well developed and fleshed out, as they should be in a plot and character driven story like this. 

The other characters, like Grandad patriarch Sinclair, the aunties, and the little cousins, were less developed, but played their roles incredibly well for the purposes of the story. 

What really impressed me and played into the novel’s mystique well was E. Lockhart’s writing. I found it inspiring. 

Maybe it’s not for everyone, but I loved her play with words and figurative language. It was beautiful. She experimented with space, syntax, form, time, and memory. 

It was unique, interesting, engaging, and addicting. 

I loved this book. 

Maybe it’s not for everyone, especially the ending or the writing, but as I’ve been feeling stuck in the milieu of YA mediocrity, this book stood out in a variety of ways and came to me like a breath of fresh air. 

Recommendation: If you like a plot drenched in mystery, intrapersonal relationships, interesting characters, and writing that will take your breath away, then pick up We Were Liars. It won’t be like other summer books that you pick up: easily read and easily thrown away. 

Even though it is an easy read, this book with its hard-hitting finale will stick with you and stain your memories like you also belong to the serpentine Sinclair family. 

Score: 8/10