#(Well goes in that category)

[francy-sketches]

Joffrey fucked up by not being nicer to his siblings he could have had two cute little henchmen to do crimes with ❤️

[doctorwhoisadhd]

hmm thinking about the idea of love songs. i think the idea of what a love song is that we have in our culture is inherently a little bit flawed because we have the idea that any song written about romantic feelings is a love song and im thinking thats not exactly true because there is a difference between "romance" and "love". what i'm saying is not that love is a broader category and applies to things that are not romantic in nature. this is in fact true, but it's not what makes the important distinction here. the true distinction between "romance" and "love" is that romance is a societally defined type of interest in another person, whereas love is, essentially, a promise that you make when you build a relationship.

as such, what i call "love" here might be better defined as "care", as that implies more time and effort, but that's a different suitcase to unpack and largely unimportant to my point here, which is more about the societal conventions of what we call love songs. the point is, relationships can be built with other people, yes, but also animals, places, organizations, ideas, so on and so on, whereas romance requires another person, hence the difference between the ideas of "romance" and "love".

with that in mind, there are two types of songs we in western, english speaking, society call "love songs":

1) songs that are about a person's romantic interest in someone that is either definitively known to be unrequited (existing monogamous relationship, sexuality that doesn't align, etc) or simply not requited (aka romantic interest being unknown); and

2) songs about an existing relationship (keeping in mind my points about relationships not just being with people, but also places, things, etcetera) as is.

(some examples of the latter category: mountaintop by relient k, which defines the relationship in question as non-romantic; or i miss my mum by cavetown, which is - as the title implies - a song about the singer missing their mother.)

now, the thing that makes distinguishing these two difficult is the fact that songs about an existing relationship CAN be about wanting certain aspects of that relationship to change. in these cases, determining that a song is one or the other will hinge either on a) authorial intent or b) whether the song is more about what the singer wants (thereby implying #1) or the lack thereof in that relationship (which would imply #2).

to get back to the subject at hand: the term "love song", as we think of it, is an umbrella term that include both of these two categories, and i think that perhaps it is reductive to do so. with that in mind, i think perhaps it would be more appropriate for "love song" to mean only the latter, whereas the former is a category of its own. WHICH is not to say that the two can't overlap — just that if a song is about a person with whom the singer has no relationship, it cannot be considered a love song due to the fact that it is a song about infatuation, not love.

(another interesting wrinkle this provides is the fact that a song might start out in the first category and, as the writer develops a relationship with a person, might move into the second category as they write more.)

[metamatar]

a lot of people come at so much politics in the realm of pure idealism, like they will conclude reasonable things like say nation states or gender are constructed and the construction of them excludes and oppresses and are perhaps worth 'abolishing'. except then they will take this to absolutely dumbshit ends.

this looks like a critique of anti colonial nationalism or trans liberation thats ends at saying that these movements (which are critiques of hegemonic notions of nation states and gender) are stupid bc they're still contaminated with bad ideas. we need to zap ideas with complex impacts on material reality out of existence somehow. when this position ends of upholding the status quo these people act really surprised.

[rust-in-polar1s]

do you guys ever just spend hours writing down pages of autism symptoms (+stims n other shit) you have and then proceed to doubt that your autistic

[sskk-manifesto]

Atsushi's back in the game!!! ۶( ˆ o ˆ )

[spearxwind]

speaking of httyd the more that time goes on the more I appreciate the first movie painted the night fury being weird as hell and as such the first plushies of toothless/the nightfury were fucking weird as hell too, I used to not super enjoy it but now i see the huge thick mega-cute NFs and think man. we have to go back to when they looked like this. they will never be more charming than this

(And yes, I do have one. Pictures really dont capture how charming it actually is irl tbh. I love this lil guy so much)

Also something this lil dude has is that the fabric is iridescent blue. It’s not straight black, which I think is great. Sure its missing a couple scales I guess but its supposed to be a little invisible shadow bastard. Idk I like him

[jellicle-chants]

@ride-a-dromedary Since you asked, here's my beef with Hugh Jackman Meredith Willson's The Music Man Sutton Foster. (No really, that's what the soundtrack album cover looks like.) Basically, I think the revival did a terrible job of capturing the soul and energy of the original show. If you want to read my protracted rant about it, then by all means, continue below.

(Note: I'm mostly going off of the movie adaptation to count for the "original" since it's the version I'm used to, but I also listened to the OBC recording occasionally to see what was shortened for the movie.)

I think the first big thing I should mention is that Hugh Jackman is simply a terrible choice to play Harold Hill. No offense to him, but in my eyes he's always been better at playing a character who seems very charismatic but is actually a bumbling fool (i.e. PT Barnum). Harold Hill might be a conman, but his whole livelihood revolves around getting people to believe that he means what he says and then believe that, too. You need an actor with an incredible amount of charisma and presence to be able to pull that off, and IMO, Jackman is not that actor.

He's also (again IMO) really just snoozing his way through this recording, especially on 76 Trombones! He's dropping R's left and right (to the point where it almost sounds like he's making the effort to sound Southern) and they had to add in a trombone sound behind his mimicking one because it sounds SO dull. Then he mispronounces "Creatore" somehow?? I know that's the littlest thing to get upset over but it also just shows how little this show's creatives know or care about what this musical is all about (more on that later).

And then: they do the MMM thing from Cats 2019. AKA, where they drop out all of the orchestra and sing the biggest song, probably the song that the most people in the audience will know, in a really annoying, slow build-up that entirely kills the flow of the piece. Speaking of killing the mood, the dance break in the middle of the song really does that as well. "76 Trombones" is about the farthest you can get from broke, so I have no clue why they tried to "fix" it in this way.

My least favorite Hugh Jackman song from this soundtrack, however, is not 76 Trombones, but Marian the Librarian. Just from the off, this is one of my favorite musical theatre vamps ever and they absolutely ruined it by playing it at like twice the normal speed. It also starts in the wrong key and then keys up again (???) before he starts singing, and from there it only gets worse. He basically gets every single vowel he possibly could wrong (my favorite being the classic Brit-as-American "Watt can I do") and just trips and falls through the entire song extremely uncharismatically. He says "li-berry" at one point, for goodness' sake! Please, if you haven't listened to the original Robert Preston version of this song (either from the movie or the show), go do it now and then listen to the mockery Hugh Jackman makes of it. It's so obvious that Preston has such a better command over his voice and sound that it makes Jackman sound like he has no clue what he's doing.

Sutton Foster is not nearly as bad as her co-star, although I think she's also miscast. Obviously a Shirley Jones-style voice is really hard to recreate these days, but she's just got such a bright singing and speaking voice that if you had told me in 2021 that she was going to be playing Marian I would've thought you were bad at fancasting. I think she still does a fine job with the poor directing choices she was given — a true professional.

OK, some quick things before I get to the most infuriating part of this revival.

It was also very bold of the creatives to not only keep My White Knight, which is one of my always-skips of the original, but to also add another one in in "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean".

Why the hell is Pick-A-Little so slow??? It's a patter song, folks, it's supposed to be peppy.

I guess they directed the poor kid playing Winthrop to exaggerate the lisp as much as possible (could they have considered maybe just hiring an actor with a lisp instead?) because it straight up sounds like he's putting it on as a joke most of the time. 😬

I think the new lyrics to "Shipoopi" are cringe. Is it that hard to suspend your disbelief that people in 1912 had antiquated views on relationships? Is "hussy" really even that bad of an insult anymore? This song also gets the slowed down + long-ass dance break treatment, God save me.

So, if you're familiar with The Music Man, you might have noticed that I haven't yet mentioned a few key songs/moments. This is genuinely the part of the story of this revival that makes my blood boil. If you're unaware, 4 side characters in The Music Man make up a barbershop quartet, played in the original Broadway production and movie by the Buffalo Bills, a pre-existing quartet who Willson had become friends with even before writing the show. The Bills get multiple songs in the show, all sung in the barbershop style, and they all show off the iconic barbershop effect known as ringing chords, created from the quartet's just tuning. (I don't know enough about music theory to get into the weeds about this, but suffice it to say that barbershop singing and musical theatre singing are not interchangeable).

Apparently, when the revival was first being produced before the pandemic, a barbershop quartet called Category 4 was approached to play the quartet members. Great! Then, allegedly, post-pandemic, it was, to quote a spokesperson for the revival, "in the best interest of the show" for them to suddenly cut ties with Category 4, which would have broken contracts Category 4 said they signed. Less great. Instead, the 4 men credited as playing the quartet are Phillip Boykin, Eddie Korbich, Daniel Torres, and Nicholas Ward. I say "credited," but keep in mind that the OFFICIAL cast recording on Spotify does not credit Nicholas for "Sincere" AND "Lida Rose" (where Phillip's name is also misspelled), and on the two songs he is credited for, Spotify seems to have him confused with a violinist/conductor of the same name.

I bring this up to say that I don't blame these men for the situation Category 4 was put in — it seems the producers or someone else behind this production is extremely sloppy and willing to cut corners, including casting four musical theatre singers as a barbershop quartet. Because of this mindset, the songs are distinctly missing those ringing tones that are present in the Bills' versions, replaced with what I can only describe as "tricks" to make it seem like the harmonies are ringing, like a heavy overuse of dynamic changes, especially sforzandos. There's also at least one moment where one member (I think it's the tenor?) straight up sings the wrong note and completely changes the chord. Obviously I don't blame him for not being good at a singing style he literally isn't a professional at, but if there were at least one person in the booth familiar with barbershop or the original song, it hopefully would've been re-recorded.

And that's what hurts me the most — Meredith Willson was a huge fan of barbershop music and the Buffalo Bills especially, and now the music he wrote for them is being butchered by people 60 years later who want to make a quick buck. This revival has "cash-in" written all over it, from stunt casting the leads regardless of how well they fit the roles to not bothering to get actual professional barbershop singers to play a barbershop quartet. It's a soulless attempt to resurrect a great musical that didn't need to and shouldn't have happened.

[batsarebetterthanpeople]

idc that jack was mean to stede, jack clearly had his reasons for what he was doing, the onus here is on ed 100% for not sticking up for stede. if someone is insulting your friend in front of you, that’s on you for not saying shit about it, especially if the insults are related to body image. if stede had let someone insult ed’s body in front of him you would lose your shit so maybe chill with the double standard

I'm gonna say some things that sound kind of mean, but I want you to either a) read the whole thing; or b) let this be the last anon you send. Don't come at me about the first paragraph in my inbox if you don't read the rest of it. Deal? K good.

I genuinely wouldn't lose my shit because it's not that big of a deal. Ed's a big boy he can stick up for himself. I don't actually take the insulting of body image that seriously because I'm not insecure about how I look. I get that I might feel differently if I was but I'm not so to me body image insults are like any other insults. Of course I back my friends if someone else insults them, but that's not what's going on in Ed's mind. In Ed's mind Jack has a crass sense of humor and uses not-so-gentle ribbing to relate to other people, which is perfectly acceptable for pirates, and that's what he's doing to Stede. He doesn't think that Jack is using fighting words here. Under those circumstances I would pull the friend aside and say "Hey babe his sense of humor is a bit crass he doesn't mean anything by it he's just trying to joke around with you." So basically you're kind of assuming a lot about me, about the situation, and how mad I would be if a similar thing happened to Ed and your assumptions about me have all been wrong so far. I don't have a double standard. You're just assuming that I have the same standards that you do. I don't. I think your standards make you sound like kind of an uptight person actually.

Additionally, Ed literally doesn't know he has body image issues, Stede never opened up about the bullying he experienced, so Ed can't know that it's actually serious for Stede. That being said, I think his response is actually pretty appropriate when correcting for that.

Pictured here: Ed telling Jack to stop. Ed telling Stede that this is just Jack's humor. Ed reassuring Stede that he disagrees with the insult. These are the captions that HBO max put up, I'm not just making shit up. Ed doesn't want to be a buzz kill but he doesn't want Stede to feel bad and he wants his favorite boys to get along. I think he walks the line rather appropriately given the information that he's working with. If he'd made a big stink about it it would have embarrassed Stede and killed the vibe that he and Jack had going. What you're expecting from him is the exact wrong move IMO.

So you know. He told Jack to stop, what more do you want from him?

Also Stede is 48 fuckin years old. If he's that upset he's grown he can say something. He doesn't because he's Stede, but that means he's made it his own business and nobody else's. Ed's not a fucking mind reader.

[thegreatyin]

a collection of other nominee categories that i think are about to be a bloodbath this year

and, of course

the real battle of the fates

[bugeyedfreaks]

what are your thoughts on those annoying as shit teen ppg pfps often used by horrible people

I have known some not so horrible people who have used profile pics like this, but it’s a general aesthetic that I don’t really care for myself, and one that I feel goes against the whole entire principle of what the Powerpuff Girls is. I mean, the base of these designs was used to mock the idea of the girls being vapid teenagers, so seeing it being used unironically is… well, it’s not great.

[catboyfurina]

One thing I've never seen ex"gifted kids" talk about (and maybe it's not that common ? Maybe it's just me???) Is that when you go from your little bubble of gifted kid classes (advanced math in my case cus I ditched the honors track for writing related stuff earlier on) into just being mixed in with Everybody (college) it's actually super jarring because you go from being Consistently the stupidest guy in the room into being goodish*??? At the classes comparatively. Like yeah people told me I was smart but it was basically only in the context of "so why are you so lazy >:(" and the Evidence (everyone else in the class understanding things faster and better and completing homework and projects in less time with more quality, getting things wrong and messing up All The Time, etc) said that wasn't actually for real true. And now I'm trying to explain multiplying both sides of the equation to a senior in their second to last semester and I'm like ??? So confused

[cerealmonster15]

bazinga awoo and what have you

https://artfight.net/~cerealmonster

[icewindandboringhorror]

I downloaded an app that I think is meant to be used for like, detailed food tracking or something, but I instead really just wanted something with this format (color coded calendar days) so I could put in one single simple entry a day to kind of rate my day overall (based on physical health symptoms).. which..... looking back over it for the new year since when I first started tracking.. 9 "good" days in about 9 months, so roughly one good day a month LOL...

[savedpeople]

@ambiences-stuff a week or so ago commented on this post, asking:

For the ask, curious; 🧂 Least favourite part of canon

And I'm very late to it but I'm finally able to sit down and answer!

So I'm going to stick to only Negan's part of canon, and also stick to TV canon without comparing it to the comics-- because off the top of my head I have no real complaints about his comic canon, and a LOT of my issues with TV canon involves changes made from the comics and we'd be here all day if I went into that lol, but it could be summed up with "they made loads of changes to Savior-era Negan that made him more unnecessarily evil."

So all of that aside, my overall least favorite parts of Negan's canon on the show are his random love interest/baby plot in season 11, and honestly most of the plot of Dead City.

I want Negan happy more than anything but, without writing a whole essay about it: him randomly showing up with a new wife and kid on the way was unrealistic, their entire relationship happening off-screen was insulting, we learn absolutely nothing about Annie or them as a couple leaving it all feeling one-dimensional (virtually everyone only refers to Annie as "Negan's pregnant wife," even Negan himself most times), and we never get to see them interact except to talk about the baby and staying safe. The relationship itself turned out to just be a plot device to further Negan's storyline with Maggie (this continues to be true in Dead City), and was not to mention a slap in the face to Lucille's memory and importance to Negan when almost "losing everything" (Annie and unborn baby) was what pushed him to relate to and apologize to Maggie, and not when he had actually lost his everything (Lucille.) Even JDM didn't like it.

As for Dead City, my biggest issue is that the entire plot hinged on the Croat knowing things he realistically couldn't know. It was literally "random character the audience has never met but was totally there during the story, tells other character we've never met everything they need to know for the plot to happen, even things they have no way of knowing." It's a HUGE pet peeve of mine when characters learn important information off-screen in ways that don't make sense. How could Jerome the random Savior know about Negan and Maggie working together in season 11 when that was years after the Sanctuary had fallen (which is why Jerome ended up in NY in the first place)? On top of that, how did the Croat have any idea what Maggie and Hershel looked like? How did he find out where they lived, when they were no longer at the original Hilltop location? I also hate that this leads to everything being Negan's fault one way or another.

[polly-amos]

It is legit wild to me how some of ya'll are basically like "I'm racist, but as a kink" it just blows my mind

[supercantaloupe]

YESSSS VIOLIN CONCERTO BRACKET START FISTFIGHTS !!! also more generally a concerto bracket would be so fun. rach piano 2 vs shostakovich cello 1. fight -lexi

the thing is if you tried to do a concerto bracket for all instruments the violins would sweep anyway no matter what LOL. so much of it is a numbers game in this case. like i remember the music festival i played one summer with a concerto competition with separate sections for "violins" "young violins" "lower strings" "literally everybody else"...maybe someone could run a bracket like that, do separate prelim brackets for violins, pianos, lower strings, and wind/brass, and then put the winners from those individual brackets together in a final? no matter what i think it would be Hilarious to see the violin players of tumblr ripping each other to shreds over like. brahms vs tchaikovsky or whatever