gwydpolls

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Books with the Best Titles

Prelims*

*You can still submit books, but not from the authors already in the prelims, please. To submit stuff, please check out my pinned post

My bad, I forgot the original German titles

So :

The Color of Revenge / Die Farbe der Rache

Inkdeath / Tintentod

The Thief Lord / Herr der Diebe

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Best Book Recommended to You

Round 1

Propaganda for October Daye :

"some of the absolute best urban fantasy out there! watch as Toby makes terrible life decisions and slowly amasses a wonderful group of friends and family around her, unwillingly on her part at first <3 plus an amazingly intricate and long-running plot!"

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Jolene Filk/Cover Battle

Dolly Parton - Jolene 1988

I'm picking a later live version with the introductory patter, because we've likely all heard the original recording.

Now for the filk/covers/alternative takes based on reader suggestions:

Hey There Jolene - "Jolene" to the Tune of "Hey There Delilah"

Dolly Parton - Jolene at 33RPMs

Miley Cyrus - The Backyard Sessions - "Jolene"

Jolene The BossHoss feat The Common Linnets

Jolene (Beyoncé) | Gay Men's Chorus of Los Angeles | March 2025

DOLLY PARTON - JOLENE || METAL COVER Dave The Metal Jester ft Angie

These were suggested by readers.

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my spouse and i disagree

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okay now I'm curious and I dunno if this is really such an archaic foreign thing to young people today or if I'm just out of touch

Please reblog, I'd love to see a lot of responses!

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Who Sang it Better?

GLORIA JONES- "TAINTED LOVE" (1964)

Soft Cell - Tainted Love

Broken Peach - Tainted Love

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The Next Tournament

Since we're coming up on the finals for the Hot Shots Album Cover Tourney, it's time to think about what BHT is going to do next! I have a couple of ideas, but this blog is about the voters, so I'd like to hear from you:

*This tournament would be gender-neutral, like hotvintagepoll's Scrungliest Guy Tournament. "Cunty" or "fierce" can be subjective, but basically think about who would win a season of RuPaul's Drag Race.

**This one would be a mini-tourney, and it would also not be about hotness, but about music and/or personality of the artists. The band wouldn't have to be all siblings either, just any musical act that consists of siblings.

***Just like the very first tournament we did here at BHT! See who would succeed Prince as the Billboard Vintage Hottie.

****Pick an artist and every week the voters will pick their least favorite until the entire discography is ranked!

Obviously, if you have other suggestions for tournaments or mini-tourneys, I would love to hear them in the tags and replies!

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Mythology Olympics tournament round 1

Propaganda!

Eurydice (Ancient Greek: Εὐρυδίκη 'wide justice',) was a character in Greek mythology and the wife of musician Orpheus, who loved her dearly; on their wedding day, he played joyful songs as his bride danced through the meadow. One day, Aristaeus saw and pursued Eurydice, who stepped on a viper, was bitten, and died thereafter. Distraught, Orpheus played and sang so mournfully that all the nymphs and deities wept and told him to travel to the Underworld to retrieve her, which he gladly did. After his music softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone, his singing so sweet that even the Erinyes wept, he was allowed to take her back to the world of the living. In another version, Orpheus played his lyre to put Cerberus, the guardian of Hades, to sleep, after which Eurydice was allowed to return with Orpheus to the world of the living. Either way, the condition was attached that he must walk in front of her and not look back until both had reached the upper world. Soon, he began to doubt that she was there, suspecting that Hades had deceived him. Just as he reached the portals of Hades and daylight, he turned around to gaze on her face, and because Eurydice had not yet crossed the threshold, she vanished back into the Underworld.

In the Late Post-Classic Maya mythology of the Popol Vuh, Camazotz are the bat-like spirits encountered by the Maya Hero Twins Hunahpu and Xbalanque during their trials in the underworld of Xibalba. The twins had to spend the night in the House of Bats, where they squeezed themselves into their own blowguns in order to defend themselves from the circling bats. Hunahpu stuck his head out of his blowgun to see if the sun had risen and Camazotz immediately snatched off his head and carried it to the ballcourt to be hung up as the ball to be used by the gods in their next ballgame.

Propaganda supplied by the submitter:

Name means "Death Bat". Very gothy. Serves the lords of Xibalba (Underworld). Associated with night, death, and sacrifice.

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Mythology Olympics tournament round 1

Propaganda!

Lugh or Lug (Old Irish: [l͈uɣ]; modern Irish: Lú [l̪ˠuː]) is a figure in Irish mythology. A member of the Tuatha Dé Danann, a group of supernatural beings, Lugh is portrayed as a warrior, a king, a master craftsman and a saviour. He is associated with skill and mastery in multiple disciplines, including the arts. Lugh also has associations with oaths, truth, and the law, and therefore with rightful kingship. Lugh is linked with the harvest festival of Lughnasadh, which bears his name. Lugh is typically described as a youthful warrior. In the brief narrative Baile in Scáil, Lugh is described as being very large and very beautiful and a spear-wielding horseman. Elsewhere Lugh is described as a tall young man with bright red cheeks, white sides, a bronze-coloured face and blood-coloured hair.

In C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy, Malacandra, known on Earth as Mars, Mavors, and Tyr, was the fourth planet of the Field of Arbol and located between Thulcandra and Glundandra (Jupiter), just before the Asteroids. The surface of Malacandra was once all inhabitable, but then The Bent One destroyed its outer layer, and the inhabitants of Malacandra where forced to live in handramits, large deep cracks or canyons in the ground. Only Sorns can live above the handramits. Malacandra is an old world, and is predicted to be one of the first worlds that will be removed from the Field of Arbol. Malacandra is "the world that never fell" and remains a perfect, Edenic society. Technically, Malacandra was damaged in the Fall, but not in the moral sense. Oyarsa states that everyone used to live on the surface, but The Bent One damaged the planet, forcing him to dig out canyons or Handramits for most people to live in. Morally, however, all of Malacandra's inhabitants are upright. The real Edenic world however, is Perelandra, as some individuals on Malacandra are "bent".

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Mythology Olympics tournament round 1

Propaganda!

In Greek antiquity, Hermione (Ancient Greek: Ἑρμιόνη) was the daughter of Menelaus, king of Sparta, and his wife, Helen of Troy. Prior to the Trojan War, Hermione had been betrothed by Tyndareus, her grandfather, to her cousin Orestes, son of her uncle, Agamemnon. She was just nine years old when Paris, son of the Trojan king Priam, arrived to abduct her mother, Helen. During the war, Menelaus promised her to Achilles' son, Neoptolemus. After the war ended, he sent Hermione away to the city of Phthia (the home of Peleus and Achilles), where Neoptolemus was staying. The two were married, yet, soon afterwards, Neoptolemus traveled to Delphi in order to exact vengeance against Apollo for having caused his father's death, only to be killed there. With Neoptolemus dead, Hermione was free to marry Orestes, with whom she had a son, Tisamenus.

Samsin Halmeoni (Korean: 삼신 할머니; Hanja: 삼神 할머니), also called Grandmother Samsin, is the goddess of childbirth and fate in Korean mythology. Sam means "pregnancy" in Korean, sin or shin means god(dess), halmeoni means grandmother, a title for a venerated ancestor goddess, embodied as a wise crone goddess. When addressed with the honorary title Samsin halmeoni or just Samsin, the pregnancy goddessess are also thought of as goddess of childbirth in Korean shamanism. Since the phonetic notation of Sam is 三(means three), it has also been interpreted in relation to the number 3. Samsin halmeoni would protect every child from birth until the seventh year of age, where the child would then be protected by the deity of Seven Stars, the Ursa Major bear. Every village and every house would have its own Samsin of childbirth.

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Human Cell Tournament Round 2

Propaganda!

Adipocytes, also known as lipocytes and fat cells, are the cells that primarily compose adipose tissue, specialized in storing energy as fat. Adipocytes are derived from mesenchymal stem cells which give rise to adipocytes through adipogenesis. In cell culture, adipocyte progenitors can also form osteoblasts, myocytes and other cell types. There are two types of adipose tissue, white adipose tissue (WAT) and brown adipose tissue (BAT), which are also known as white and brown fat, respectively, and comprise two types of fat cells.

The cytoskeleton is a complex, dynamic network of interlinking protein filaments present in the cytoplasm of all cells, including those of bacteria and archaea. In eukaryotes, it extends from the cell nucleus to the cell membrane and is composed of similar proteins in the various organisms. It is composed of three main components: microfilaments, intermediate filaments, and microtubules, and these are all capable of rapid growth or disassembly depending on the cell's requirements.

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Human Cell Tournament Round 2

Propaganda!

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of all known organisms and many viruses. DNA and ribonucleic acid (RNA) are nucleic acids. Alongside proteins, lipids and complex carbohydrates (polysaccharides), nucleic acids are one of the four major types of macromolecules that are essential for all known forms of life.

The complement system, also known as complement cascade, is a part of the humoral, innate immune system and enhances (complements) the ability of antibodies and phagocytic cells to clear microbes and damaged cells from an organism, promote inflammation, and attack the pathogen's cell membrane.[1] Despite being part of the innate immune system, the complement system can be recruited and brought into action by antibodies generated by the adaptive immune system.

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Feeling Emotions Song Tournament Round 2

Sometimes a song just hits you right in the heart and might even find you falling to the floor in tears. Or the joy it brings you is so palpable you can't help but dance. Submitters were asked to include propaganda to make their case for why their choice was the most emotional song and now you get to vote!

You Want It Darker propaganda by anon:

A million candles burning for the help that never came You want it darker Hineni, hineni I'm ready, my Lord

Many may know Leonard Cohen for his song “Hallelujah,” which which was later covered by John Cale and featured in Shrek. You Want It Darker is the title song from Cohen’s final album (excluding the one released posthumously), which was released just 17 days before his death. At the time the song was written, Cohen had been battling terminal cancer. The song deals with themes of faith and mortality. It reads like a conversation with God, expressing a readiness for the narrator’s impending death. The song is profound, haunting, and dignified, evoking not a dramatic and devastating grief at the anticipation of death but a quiet, solemn acceptance of mortality.

Talking to my Angel propaganda by @defeatthedarkness:

I sold my soul for freedom, it's lonely but it's sweet

Melissa Etheridge is, to borrow a phrase from the kids, PEAK YURI. Her 1993 album, "Yes I Am," is her official coming out: "Yes I am, in fact, gay." Unlike the soft and gentle implications of 1989's "Brave and Crazy" and 1995's confident and insanely horny "Your Little Secret," this album is Etheridge in between those states, a tortured woman, grappling with her religious upbringing, her childhood trauma, her queerness, the bits of love she's found along the way, etc., while leaving absolutely no stone unturned. After a rambunctious ride through her personal struggles over 9 songs, the final track, "Talking to my Angel," establishes that she's made peace with her past and is ready to embrace who she truly is and take that bravely into an unknown future. The track ends with a 2-minute instrumental for the listener to complicate their own life journey before (in those days) the CD would loop back to the beginning. Listening to it heals me. If she handled all of that, pressed it onto a CD, and found a happy existence 30 years ago, shit, I can do anything.

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William Lyon from Enola Holmes 2

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Now begins the third round of the best song from Les Mis!

First up: Valjean's Soliloquy/What Have I Done? Vs. I Dreamed a Dream!

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