#2013. god. it has quite literally been ten years and i thought this was over

[trans-cuchulainn]

also what is wrong with me that when people try and be gentle-sympathetic when i'm in grumpy pain overwhelm shutdown mode i just want to hit something

"are you okay? ❤" no i'm filled with murderous rage, stop being soft-nice to me before i break something

[wishingicouldfly]

I've been actively blogging for more than six months, even though I've had a tumblr account for ten years. I started reading One Direction (specifically Larry) fanfiction about the same time.

Originally, I read exclusively canon compliant fiction--I was hungry for industry insider, what-could-have-happened narratives. But I've slowly branched out into other genres. I find fanfic--good fanfic--super calming. When I've had too much stunting, too much noise, I grab a fanfic and immerse myself. So I thought it was time to do a post about my favorites. Keep in mind, I'm terrible at cataloging, and I have over 150 bookmarks on my A03 Account, so this is by no means an exhaustive list.

I'm not including the classics like Tired, Tired Sea and Escapade. While I do love both of those (so well written), because a lot of people know about those already.

My all time favorites are by @helloamhere

1. The Multipicity of Powers - https://archiveofourown.org/works/28580229

Maybe in another universe he isn’t different. Maybe he hadn’t been given an impossible choice. Maybe he wouldn’t have lost everything and broken everything and then fallen impossibly, irrevocably in love with the first next thing that was kind. Maybe in that universe he doesn’t feel like he’s never breathing, always pretending, teaching the kids even though they all have to learn alone, trying hard not to read the headlines, and so afraid, every day, that he won’t be a good enough teammate to the superhero he can’t live without. He knows that love isn’t supposed to feel this way, slid secret under your skin like a surgical razor, an invisible war held close over the tender vein that keeps you alive. On the other hand, Louis wonders, had he ever known how to do it any other way?

Maybe there’s a universe where he doesn’t have to keep all his secrets on the inside.

But this isn’t that universe.

//an X-Men AU.

Me: I never thought I'd love a super hero 1D cross over, but this is so well done. The backstory, the pacing, the characterization, the friendship. Read it.

2. Saving Symphony Hall and it's prequel Night Out - https://archiveofourown.org/works/12633921

“I think I have an idea,” Louis said. Slowly, and reluctantly, but with a growing sense of the inevitable. “God damnit, I think I have a really good idea.”

“Oh christ, that's the problem-solving face,” Babs said. “Last time we saw that face, he sold a company.”

“Wait, what?” Zayn asked.

“Right place, right time,” Louis said. “Also, fuck my life,”

“What?” Zayn repeated. Niall patted his hand.

“I usually just roll with whatever Louis is about to do,” he said. “It’s better for us all.”

“That’s the attitude,” said Louis, “I’ll tell you tomorrow. Tonight, I need to do some research. Zayn, give me your number. I’m gonna save our symphony.”

Me: The best sex scene I've ever read is in the prequel Night Out. Sexy, but tender. I love the characterizations in this duo--ABO but not traditional. Doesn't feel out of character.

3. Just Let Me -https://archiveofourown.org/works/11695350

The party was going well. So well, Niall had already sworn undying love to one multi-tiered chocolate cake, two friendly corgi-poodle mixes, Zayn’s hair, and the entire population of Los Angeles. So well, Zayn had only laughed and ruffled Niall’s hair and not even twitched towards a cigarette. So well, nearly everyone had spilled far past the boundaries of the night’s original plans, extracting bottles of vodka from the cabinets and losing a lot of clothes. Harry had proclaimed that he was finally going to throw a small and very grownup dinner party and of course here they were three hours later, fifty people half-naked in the pool. Soon to be full-naked, if Louis had to guess. Everybody in LA loved a heated pool. Everybody loved Harry.

Me: I love love love this. Harry is so gentle, and Louis is so stubborn and needy. It's ABO but subtle. I'll read this one again and again. It's comforting.

@HelloAmHere is one of the best writers I know--amazing stuff. I also love their werewolf story, but it's not finished, so I won't link it here.

Other favorites:

1. Seven Up by cherrystreet - https://archiveofourown.org/works/5828539

Very loosely based on the British TV show "The Up Series" and somewhat inspired by the song “Something I Need” by Onerepublic, we follow the lives of Harry Styles and Louis Tomlinson in an interview setting every seven years. They fall apart and come together, their lives and emotions recorded. Harry calls it a time capsule. Louis calls it a pain in the arse.

Me: Trigger Warning, major character death. I literally SOBBED through the end of this. It was lovely and devastating. So good. But be warned.

2. Light, Spark and Fire series by @greenfeelings

Life’s pretty ordinary for Harry. He lives with his best friend, got into university just like he’s planned, and manages to support himself just fine for an unbonded omega. If he sustains that lifestyle by getting paid to help alphas through their rut every now and then, that’s nothing to be hung up on. Until he’s hired by an alpha that turns everything upside down.

Or, Louis and Zayn run a music label, Liam is Britain’s up-and-coming pop star, Harry’s working on taking Louis’ walls down until he builds his own up, and Niall holds them all together without realising he does.

Me: A nice healthy three-parter. Characters you just want to live with for a while.

3. Relief Next to Me by dolce_piccante - https://archiveofourown.org/works/1117942

AU. What happens when a baker and a graphic designer meet via a very specific Craigslist post? Fate, friendship, food, and maybe more.

Me: This one is super long, so be prepared when you dive in. It's got a lot of lovely bits, and some great smut.

4. 2012 'Verse by ashavahishta - https://archiveofourown.org/series/27601

Me: This is a five-parter and satisfies my love of canon compliant stories. It spans most of 2012 and into 2013, and illustrates the difficulties of Harry and Louis' relationship amid the band success and management disapproval.

5. Love After the End of the World by mercurial-madhouse (writing_practice) - https://archiveofourown.org/works/31251434/chapters/77248901

Society shattered when all electricity suddenly cut off across the globe, plunging the world into darkness. Now, Prometheus Industries is the sole remaining supply of power, a saving grace to those who survived Lights Out. As fugitives in no-man’s land struggling to break into Prometheus HQ, death lurks around every corner for Louis and Zayn. Things get complicated when a routine recon falls apart and Louis collides with Harry and his mates Niall and Liam, survivors with their own agenda.

When staying alive is already a constant battle, the deadliest weakness is to be in love. For Harry and Louis, finding each other sits on top of the endless list of What Else Could Go Wrong.

Me: Really unusual (as far as I can tell) end of the world story. I loved the characterizations of soul mates here at the end of the world.

6. Flightless Bird by audreyhheart - https://archiveofourown.org/works/6401653/chapters/14656807

AU where Louis Tomlinson is a principal dancer with The Royal Ballet. When his rival from ballet school, moody dance prodigy Harry Styles joins the company, old wounds are reopened and old passions reignited. During the company's production of Swan Lake the secret that doomed their love is finally revealed, but will it be too late?

Me: Trigger Warning, sexual assault (by an original character to a major character). This was a little brutal because I hated to see a broken Harry, but it was well written and has a happy ending.

7. Wear It Like A Crown by zarah5 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/1816771/chapters/3900322

AU. As part of a team of fixers hired to handle a gay scandal in Buckingham Palace, Louis expects Prince Harry to be a lot of things—most notably a royally spoilt brat. Never mind that the very same Prince Harry used to star in quite a number of Louis' teenage fantasies.

Me: I loved Louis in this one--actually they are both pretty great. Scratch that, they are ALL pretty great.

8. Shake Me Down by AGreatPerhaps12 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/3331958/chapters/7285322

Harry's new to college, fresh out of Catholic school and conversion therapy camp, and Louis runs the campus LGBTQIA organization.

Me: I don't like the self-hate here, but it was necessary for the story and H comes around. Found family vibe.

9. Gods & Monsters by Velvetoscar - https://archiveofourown.org/works/2090982/chapters/4550871

The instructions were simple: seduce and destroy Harry Styles. Not once did they discuss the option of Louis actually falling in love. So, naturally, that's exactly what he did.

Me: I loved Harry in this one. Louis gets there. I don't like Liam, but I don't think you're supposed to. Zayn is great.

10. Own the Scars by crinkle-eyed-boo (KimmieRocks) - https://archiveofourown.org/series/1010796

Louis has never felt like he was good enough: for his stepdad, for his life-long best friend, for the life he's supposed to want. After an accident that nearly costs him his life, Louis' parents send him to rehab where he’s forced to face his demons. On the long and difficult road to recovery, Louis must confront the truths he’s been avoiding about his future, his relationships, and his sense of self-worth. Because before he can love anyone else, he’s got to learn how to love himself first.

Me: Harry is lovely in this one. Trigger warning, substance abuse and near death.

11. Wild Love by purpledaisy - https://archiveofourown.org/series/1030904

AU: Two best friends try to date each other for forty days. It's supposed to be fun until emotions make it complicated.

Me: I loved this way more than I thought I would. It's lovely and messy and I love it.

12. Victorian Boy by audreyhheart - https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosann1986/readings?page=6

Victorian AU. Harry the virgin Duke of Somerset knows little of love, while Louis the sly Duke of Warwick knows too much. When the two dukes come together for the Bilsdale fox hunt in York, Harry finds himself drawn into Louis' bed. But when secrets from Louis' dark past come to light, Harry fears that the fox isn't the only one being hunted.

Me: Historical fiction I didn't intend to love. I LOVE Harry in this one. LOTS of smut, so be warned.

13. Keep Me Closer by zanni_scaramouche - https://archiveofourown.org/works/30752633

Louis expects Harry to react poorly, maybe even file a formal complaint and that’s gonna suck ass but Louis won’t say shit cause he knows he deserves it, so he prepares an apology before Harry’s even turned around.

What he doesn’t expect is Harry to fucking drop.

Me: lovely, protective Louis just trying to do the right thing.

14. Turning Page by purpledaisy for SockstheDog

https://archiveofourown.org/works/11826345

AU: Harry Styles tries to get lost in a place he’s never been.  Louis Tomlinson has been perfecting the art of being lost for years. What they don’t expect to find is each other.

Me: sweet love story. Niall owns a bar, and is pretty great.

15. Freedom Always Comes With a Price by Cyantific - https://archiveofourown.org/works/30278514/chapters/74624262

A shared dream brings them together onto the X-factor stage, but one decision changes Harry and Louis’ lives overnight. Thrust into a world of instant stardom, they're forced to live a lie to sustain their dreams, but years of living in the shadows and under strict management takes its toll.

With the bands impending hiatus, there’s no better time for change, so they think.

Desperate for a solution, they turn to an unlikely source with a radical plan. An unfortunate accident sets everything in motion, but not how they intended, leaving Louis’ memories altered, Harry broken-hearted and full of regret.

Can Harry figure out a way to fix everything? Will he even want to once he sees how Louis moved on after the hiatus? Will Louis ever find out the truth of their past and can he forgive Harry after all this time?

In the end, two friends find out that memories are elusive, trust is everything and love is the only antidote.

Me: Heartbreaking when they lose each other, but really good in the end.

16. Little Technicolor Things by scary_crow - https://archiveofourown.org/works/6025519/chapters/13821628

Louis is a poor writer and recent university graduate, depressed, anxious, and living in London when he meets Harry, an artist with a secret who likes to paint sunrises and pretty boys from California.

17. Hold You Now by solvetheminourdreams - https://archiveofourown.org/works/30253536/chapters/74556744

Three years ago, Harry Styles said goodbye to communications consultancy firm McQuiston Worldwide, leaving a life of travel and agency PR behind. When he accompanies his best friend to a family wedding across the Atlantic, he'll be forced to reopen old wounds and face his past—one that no one wants to hash out, but may just have to.

Me: Niall is great. They almost miss each other in this one, and you just want to bash them over the head. But they figure it out.

18. At Risk, I Fold by clare328 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/26542480

2015 is a stream of hotel rooms and whisky on the rocks, tired glances and touching hands under tables. It’s the bears and the bees under a rainbow sky, and Harry and Louis have to figure out how to grow up together, instead of apart.

Me: A canon compliant fic that feels like it could have really happened. Set in 2015. Lovely first chapter and scene where Harry writes If I Could Fly--i could read that chapter over and over.

19. Into The Blue by zarah5 - https://archiveofourown.org/works/1035822/chapters/2065499

AU. In which Louis is Harry's scuba instructor and quite happy to provide the requested special treatment, pun fully intended. It can't be all that difficult to convince Harry that they're on the same page, right? Also, Niall and Liam may or may not be dating, and Zayn is surrounded by emotionally stunted idiots. He bears it with dignity.

Me: AKA the Scuba fic.

20. Tie Your Heart by ArcadianMaggie - https://archiveofourown.org/works/546688/chapters/973236

Harry grows wings.

Me: How can you not love a fic where Harry grows wings? Trigger warning: injury of a major character.

21. I think I'll end this here. My last and probably first favorite (read it more than once) is...

my heart is breathing for this moment in time by usedtothebeach - https://archiveofourown.org/works/934996/chapters/1820282

When Louis first saw Harry at the 2010 X Factor Auditions, he thought he was watching a peculiarly special stranger. But Harry has known Louis ever since he was five years old.

Because Louis has a rare genetic disorder that causes him to Time Travel to important moments in his past and in his future - and to Harry, always to Harry. When they're put into a band together, it seems like everything Harry has been waiting and wishing for has finally come true. Except for the small fact that Louis doesn't know that Harry is in love with him- that Harry's always been in love with him. Fate, it would seem, is just getting started.

A story about growing up and growing together, and the impossible love that makes it all worthwhile.

Me: I LOVED the Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger, and I'm a huge fan of time travel, so this is right up my alley. It's really well done, weaving canon into fantasy and then going years forward in tme. I love everything about it. Great character development. Really good smut. Trigger warning, there's a little underage sex, so be aware. Anyway, LOVE this one so much.

I'll add to this but it's already longer than I meant it to be.

[infinitestarsintheskye]

One last game of Tag? Agents of Shield #PartingShot

I was tagged by amazing @besidemethewholedamntime, thank sooooo much lovely!

With this tag game, I want to know the answers to these five (5) questions and then tag 5 or more mutuals. Wasn’t tagged but want to join? Join in ! Everyone is an essential part of this fandom! Name from @ agent.of.shield_ on Instagram ( @agents-of-fangirling ) who had a great idea to post a picture of yourself with a drink (or just a drink) and tag it #partingshot as a finale goodbye to the show (which I also am going to post tomorrow on IG).

Where were you in life when you first started to watching AoS?

Thanks to some screenshots that have SOMEHOW survived through my icloud through my ipod touch and god knows how many other phones, I can give you the answer to the MINUTE which is actually really quite creepy. I started watching AoS at 8:05pm on the 27th of September 2013 about five minutes into the UK premiere of the pilot. That’s right boys I’ve been here since the VERY BEGINNING. I have my own personal love letter going up on Thursday where I go into it all a bit more, but I was 15 years old when I watched that and I don’t think it’s being overdramatic to say that it has changed my life. I was just about to sit my first round of high school exams (Nat 5′s if you’re nasty) and I just fell head over heels for these characters, completely and utterly. 7 years later and I still feel the same way about them. I was excitable and naive about life at 15 and I literally grew up with this show. 

Where are you now?

Now I am 22 years old, I just finished my degree (!!!!!) in English Literature this past May/June, and am in the process of applying for my masters. AoS is honestly a comfort blanket for me now, I know these characters so well, they’ve been with me through the most awful times, through experiences that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemies, through my absolute rollercoaster of my mental health.

What character development arc (or storyline in general) did you love the most?

Fitz. From the second that boy opened his mouth and I heard the Scottish accent come out he was planted firmly and securely in my heart. His entire arc over this show is insane and incredible and truly a testament to IDC and his acting chops. If you look at Fitz now from where he started the change in him is incredible, but also the core, the goodness of him, is still there. I could go on for hours about how much I love him, honestly. Watching him die was honestly one of the worst things I have ever watched. I still cannot watch it, it hurts too much. I have been rooting for FitzSimmons practically since day one, and just I cannot even put into words how much I love them and how much I HOPE THEY FINALLY GET SOME BLOODY PEACE!!!! They are both so deserving of it. I’m so excited for their future and I’m sure I’ll edit this after the finale and put some edits in about the information gleamed from certain leaked promo photos, but all I’ll say is, those scenes will fully and utterly be the end of me. 

What will you miss the most?

Everything. I will miss every tiny aspect of this show. It has been a constant in my life for 7 years and I’m going to find it very hard to not have that constant presence, the constant cycle of new seasons and comic con and theories and spec fics and all that wonderful stuff around me anymore. I have loved participating more than I really ever have this last season and it makes me sad that I didn’t do it for all 7 (life happened). I will miss the sleepless nights before I can watch an ep, I will miss watching new eps, I will miss coming onto tumblr and just screaming into the abyss right as all of you lovely US viewers are either in your beds or are about to go to bed. I will miss being fuming EVERY SINGLE YEAR that I’m not at ComicCon, and just scrambling around for the absolute deluge of press that happens then. Just all of it. Everything that comes with witnessing the live release of this show. It’s honestly all a part of me now, of who I am as a person. 

Favourite quote?

Oh I’m gonna cheat and put two because I cannot chose. Simmons’s law of thermodynamics speech hit me RIGHT IN THE FEELIES, it still does. 

I like to think about the first law of thermodynamics, that no energy in the universe is created and... none is destroyed. That means that every bit of energy inside us, every particle will go on to be a part of something else. Maybe live as a dragonfish, a microbe, maybe burn in a supernova ten billion years from now. And every part of us now was once a part of some other thing - a moon, a storm cloud, a mammoth. A monkey. Thousands and thousands of other beautiful things that were just as terrified to die as we are. We gave them new life. Good one, I hope.

As someone who is scared of death (we’re getting real this evening) this speech is the MOST WONDERFUL BALM. It is just so unspeakably beautiful and comforting and oh my god what a wonderful thought to have right when you think you’re about to go. I will forever hold it very dear in my heart. Also,Fitz’s little addition of ‘a monkey’ makes me smile and cry in equal measures.

Secondly, it’s another Simmons quote:

The steps you take don’t need to be big, they just need to take you in the right direction.

So, this quote came into my life right when I needed to hear it most. My mental health was not what I would call great, and it just helped. I sobbed when I heard it for the first time. Fully sobbed. How wonderful is that sentiment? It quickly became something I would just tell myself and it was my phone background for like 3 years. The comfort and solitude that quote has brought me is truly immeasurable.

Thank you so much for tagging me Rebecca, even though I am now an emotional wreck, but I kind of expected that haha.

I’m going to tag a couple of lovelies @rathxritter @valentinaonthemoon and @daisylincs

[perlukafarinn]

Movies (I saw) of the 2010s, ranked

Because I had lots of better things to do but no inclination to do them.

As I went through all the new releases I watched this decade, a few things came to mind: 

I missed so much! Most recently, I still haven’t seen Parasite, The Lighthouse or The Irishman. I’ve also seen only one of Disney��s live action remakes, two out of four Star Wars films of the decade, and I’ve missed quite a few of Marvel and DC’s outings. My tendency to mostly watch older films came to bite me in the ass here. But c’est la vie, there’s only so many hours in the day! 

A huge part of my viewing history took place during film festivals, so festival movies are way over-represented here. I’m not mad about it.

There’s not too many outright bad movies on my list, because I tend to avoid movies that look bad or like I might not like them (shocker, I know). Even the ones in my bottom ten aren’t as dreadful as I was expecting. 

There’s no way I can rank all these films numerically! What about movies that I can tell are good but just aren’t for me? What about movies that are bad but enjoyable? How can you compare tired Oscar-bait with soulless blockbusters? It’s impossible!

Hence these categories. I’m doing a top 10 worst and best, and the categories go roughly from worse to better movies, but otherwise this isn’t based on quality so much as what clever category names I could come up with (or couldn’t, as the case may be). I’m also listing the movies within each category alphabetically because that’s even less ranking I need to do.

Buckle up, this is over 6000 words...

Oh, and if you don’t feel like reading the whole thing I still encourage you to reply with your own favorite movies of the decade! 

The Worst Exactly what it says on the tin. These movies aren’t just unenjoyable or disposable, they are actively unpleasant to watch. 

American Hustle (2013) Wait, this got how many Oscar nominations again??

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) This movie is so bloated and yet they couldn’t find any time to actually develop most of the main characters? I had such a bad time watching this one, I ended up skipping out on the last part of the trilogy. 

Hurricane Bianca (2016) This looked like it might be enjoyably bad but it wasn’t. I still love Bianca Del Rio, don’t get me wrong, but her humor is not the kind you build a whole movie around, yet alone two. And yet…

Hurricane Bianca: From Russia With Hate (2018) Yeah, I watched them both. I’m a simple woman: I see Katya in a trailer, I watch. I really shouldn’t have bothered, this one is even worse.

Iron Man 2 (2010) Superhero fatigue got me bad in the past few years but even before then I hated this movie. Literally nothing enjoyable here, I was aggressively bored while watching. The Lack (2014) This is a movie about women, written and directed by a man, called “The Lack”. You might think I’m being uncharitable to say this movie is entirely about penis envy but the writer/director himself confirmed this at the Q&A I was at. This is why Q&As are always a bad idea, people!

Left Behind (2014) This one tips into “enjoyably bad” at times but in the end, it’s still two hours of your life wasted on a movie meant to make its Evangelical viewers feel vindicated in their horrible beliefs. Morgenrøde (2014) I have a fairly high tolerance for slow movies but this movie is sloooowwww and literally nothing happens in it. This is the movie that taught me not to trust it when festival brochures use the word “contemplative”.

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (2010) Just dreadful. This is the worst kind of film in my books: the kind made to follow a trend, not to tell a story. 

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011) It’s been eight years since the fourth PotC movie came out?? God, it’s been a long decade.

The Utterly Disposable I didn’t exactly have a bad time watching these but they left no impression on me. 

Alex Strangelove (2018)  Netflix has released so many unremarkable-looking teen movies this decade. This is one of the few I bothered to watch and it’s cute enough, I guess. 

Fyrir framan annað fólk (2016)  I am Icelandic but I don’t watch a whole lot of Icelandic movies and I feel kind of guilty about that. Not guilty enough to give a boring movie a pass, though.

Ghostbusters (2016)  This super did not need to exist and not even my love for Kate McKinnon makes it any less disposable. 

The Great Gatsby (2013)  At least it’s pretty.

Hot Tub Time Machine (2010) I remember this getting a few laughs out of me but that’s about it.

The Imitation Game (2014) I think I just… don’t like Beneditch Cumberbatch? Sorry. This movie is the perfect expression of the bland, middle-of-the-road biopic, with the added mishandling of the subject’s sexuality.

Isn’t It Romantic (2019)  I love a good satire but this ain’t it, chief. This movie isn’t doing anything that Crazy Ex-Girlfriend hasn’t done 100x better.

John Carter (2012)  If you’re gonna throw this much money into something, you could at least hire a charismatic lead actor. Then again, it seemed to work for Avatar. Magic Mike (2012)  I did like that this sexy stripper movie kept showing how unhappy the main character is doing what he does as if that wouldn’t totally ruin the fantasy.

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (2016)  Watched this on an airplane, which is fitting. This feels like a quintessential airplane movie; it’s mildly entertaining but ultimately disposable enough that it has completely slipped your mind by the time you reach baggage claim.

Paul (2011)  Occasionally funny, I think? Barely remember it tbh.

Planetary (2015)     There’s some interesting points buried in here but the movie’s too busy trying to look important to actually get them across effectively. Also feels surprisingly padded for just 80 minutes. Valentine’s Day (2010) Taylor Swift was actually kind of funny in this, which was a pleasant surprise. Zero impact otherwise. 

“I Have No Memory of This Place” Movies I literally could not remember watching until I had read the entire synopsis, but for one reason or another was not comfortable calling “disposable”. 

Bobby Sands: 66 Days (2015), The Departure (2017),  Hell Is Empty: All the Devils Are Here (2016), Innsæi (2016), Last of the Elephant Men (2015), Late Summer (2016), Speed Sisters (2015), Una (2016), The War Show (2016) Lumping all of these together because they’re all festival movies I have hardly any memory of and that I may have in fact fallen asleep over.

Incendies (2010)  Chalk this up to me seeing it almost a decade ago. When I finally remembered it, I could vaguely recall finding it affective. Probably due for a rewatch.

Prisoners (2013), Rush (2013), Warrior (2011) Around 2012-2014 I was working my way through IMdB’s top 250 list and I saw so many forgettable movies about men committing various violent acts. Literally can’t remember a single thing about these movies.

I’m So Sick of Superheroes Dear God Make It Stop I’d probably like some of these more if not for superhero fatigue but that is the trade-off for total global dominance. A couple of superhero movies did escape this category and you’ll see them later on my list.

Thor (2011), Iron Man Three (2013), Thor: The Dark World (2013), Captain America: Winter Soldier (2014), Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Ant-Man (2015), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) Lumping all of Marvel’s movies in this category together because I don’t really have a lot to say about Marvel anymore. Special mention to Winter Soldier for being the movie that soured on me the most and to Age of Ultron for in hindsight being the beginning of my superhero fatigue. 

The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Boy, this trilogy ended on a sour note.  Man of Steel (2013)  Confused story structure aside, this movie is utterly grey and joyless. It’s also army propaganda! 

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) The only reason I watched this was because it was on IMdB’s top 250 list. Peter Dinklage was good in it, if I recall correctly.

Don’t Like This Nope.

12 Years a Slave (2013)  Very uncomfortable to sit through, which I get was the point, but I’m not sure it was the right choice. It honestly feels like misery porn.

Black Swan (2010) I’ve long made peace with the fact that Darren Aronofsky will just never click with me.

The Broken Circle Breakdown (2012) This movie is exhausting to watch because of the near constant country music playing. Loudly. 

Kate Plays Christine (2016)  This is a movie about a really interesting topic but instead of the real tragedy that actually happened it chooses to focus on an actress’s fictional struggle to connect with her role. I think the movie wanted us to think the struggle was real (heh) but for that they would’ve needed a better actress.  La La Land (2016)  I love classic musicals and I really wanted to like this movie but in the end I just couldn’t. As a movie it’s okay but it’s not a good musical and the whole white savior of jazz thing was……….. an odd choice.

Last Days in the Desert (2015)  I’m a sucker for good, thoughtful religious films. The idea of Jesus and the devil being played by the same actor was intriguing to me and I liked that the devil wasn’t evil so much as just tired. But ultimately, this movie felt a little too cold for me.

Magic Mike: XXL (2015)  I have no idea why every critic on the planet seems to love this movie. Strippers aggressively thrusting their crotch in your face is not sexy, it’s uncomfortable!

A Silent Voice (2016)  Melodramatic and not in the fun, over-the-top way.

Vonarstræti (2014) It’s good but it’s just not for me.

Wir Monster (2015) I saw this at a Q&A screening and decided I didn’t wanna stick around after the credits rolled. On my way out, I tripped and almost fell onto the actors as they were walking past me. That experience had a way bigger impact on me than the movie itself. Make of that what you will.

Guilty Pleasures/So Bad They’re Good An enjoyably bad movie is a better watch than a middlingly competent one.

#REALITYHIGH (2017)  Incredibly clichéd and tries way too hard to be “hip” or “lit” or whatever it is the kids were saying back in 2017. Don’t care, I’ve seen it four times. 

Bridget Jones’s Baby (2016) The first Bridget Jones is a highlight of the genre. The second one is just bad but the third tips over into enjoyably bad. I also loved having Renée Zellweger back on my screen!

A Cinderella Story: Christmas Wish (2019) Recently watched this with my sister while baking and wrapping Christmas presents. It’s a terrible movie but we had fun (mostly by making fun of it).

Descendants (2015), Descendants 2 (2017), Descendants 3 (2019) I’m not apologizing for this even though I feel like I kind of should. 

The Kissing Booth (2018) This movie is like a 13-year-old’s first fanfic come to life so of course I’m gonna love it. Even if the love interest is incredibly unappealing.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 (2011), The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 (2012) Who would’ve thought at the start of the decade that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson would turn into indie darlings starring in one critically acclaimed film after the next? I love that for them.

Oscar Bait but I’m Not Biting Not sure the Oscars weren’t a mistake tbh.

The Artist (2011) I kind of enjoyed this but ultimately it’s watered-down Hollywood history made appealing to modern audiences and its aim is far higher than its reach.

Birdman (2014) It was a fun watch but it left no impression.

Darkest Hour (2017) Technically a good movie but such obvious Oscar bait I just couldn’t fully enjoy it.

The Help (2011) Let’s leave the white savior narrative behind in the 2010s, shall we?

The King’s Speech (2010) I love Colin Firth. I barely remember this movie.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)  Don’t love that the racist cop is the most fully fleshed-out character in this movie while the black characters are all unnamed extras.   

Whiplash (2014) It’s just drumming, J.K. Simmons, it’s not that serious. 

I Feel Like I Should Like This More This category is mostly three camps, as you’ll see. 

120 battements par minute (2017), 69 Minutes of 86 Days (2017),  Fire at Sea (2016),  I, Daniel Blake (2016) All important movies with a worthy message that I just couldn’t connect with on a personal level.

Adieu au langage (2014), Before We Vanish (2017), Bridesmaids (2011), Jagten (2012),  A Separation (2011), Timbuktu (2014), Transit (2018), Winter’s Bone (2010) Critically acclaimed, maybe it’s just me?

Her (2013) The rest is all movies I expected to like more than I did. I’m not sure what didn’t click with this one. It’s been a while since I saw it.

Get Out (2017) I wasn’t gonna watch it because I don’t really watch horror so when I finally caved, I knew pretty much everything about it. Watching a movie the first time  knowing everything that happens in it and after seeing it dissected for months on end by every critic on the planet does take a lot of the enjoyment away, as it turns out.

Gone Girl (2014) Really thought I’d love it. It’s good just didn’t click with me.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014)  It’s pretty. Liam Neeson is always fun. 

Pacific Rim (2013)  Mako is great and I enjoy the chemistry between her and Raleigh but ultimately this one just kind of slipped out of my mind as soon as I’d seen it. 

Toni Erdmann (2016)  It’s too damn long!

The Tree of Life (2011)  I just watched this the other day so it’s very possible my opinion will change. I was expecting to love it but I… didn’t. It felt like this movie was trying too hard to be profound and important, at the cost of actually saying something, well, profound and important.

No Strong Feelings One Way or the Other I actually have nothing to say about any of these movies and most of them are good but they had to go somewhere.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), Boyhood (2014), Brave (2012), Creed (2015), Django Unchained (2012), Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010), Flavours of Youth (2018), Frozen (2013), The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012), Interstellar (2014), Intouchable (2011), The Jungle Book (2016), Monsters University (2013), Rogue One (2016), Schaste moe (2010), Shutter Island (2010), Three Identical Strangers (2018), To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018), Undir trénu (2017), Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

Middling Festival Fare I have nothing to say about these either but I couldn’t lump them in with the others. I mostly liked them more than the movies in the previous category and they took bigger risks. Some of them might even be great, just very much not my cup of tea.

3 Tage in Quiberon (2018), Acid Forest (2018), Amateurs in Space (2016), Barakah Meets Barakah (2015), Der Andständige (2014), Disappearance (2017), Dreams by the Sea (2017), En fremmed flytter ind (2017), Føniks (2018), The Girl Down Loch Aenzi (2016), God Exists, Her Name is Petrunija (2019), Gods of Molenbeek (2019), Jag är Ingrid (2015), Já, Olga Hepnarová (2016), Looking for Oum Kulthum (2017), Mister Universo (2016), Neruda (2016), The Raven and the Seagull (2018), Rester vertical (2016), Slow West (2015), Sugar Coated (2015), Summer Survivors (2018), Tickled (2016), Worldly Girl (2016)

Maybe Not the Best But a Lot of Fun Better than those guilty pleasures but generally pretty flawed. Austenland (2013) A very cute little romcom. Extra points for Jennifer Coolidge, the most underrated character actress of this century.

Baby Driver (2017) I feel like revisiting this one might not be as enjoyable for reasons that have nothing to do with the film’s quality but I had fun watching it in the theater. 

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010) I was a fan of this franchise from the start so even though this movie is kind of dour and dark, it was still a blast to watch. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 (2011) Do I love every choice this movie made? No. But I saw this at a midnight screening, in full cosplay with my friends, in a theater packed with fans. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

I, Tonya (2017)  For a movie that contains so much abuse and such a bummer ending, it’s surprisingly entertaining!

The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)    Lego Batman is my favorite Batman.

Nothing Like a Dame (2018)  I just really love Maggie Smith.

On - drakon (2015) This movie feels like it was pitched as “Twilight but with dragons!”. It’s fun, though, and it’s got an interesting aesthetic and a proactive heroine who gets herself out of trouble with ingenuity and bravery.

Sing Street (2016) I love the soundtrack to this movie and the characters are incredibly endearing. The story is very simple in not a great way but it doesn’t need to be deep to be enjoyable.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) I like that they skip the origin story for once and keep the scope of it fairly limited. A very nice little slice-of-life teen movie combined with a superhero flick. Tom Holland is a good Spider-Man. Would’ve been better without Iron Man tbh. Star Trek Beyond (2016)  I feel like they got the characters right here, which was a problem for the first Star Trek of the rebooted trilogy. It’s a fairly inconsequential movie but it’s a blast.

Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015) I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan so I don’t have a lot of opinions here. It’s fun! Not a lot more I want from Star Wars. Ultimately didn’t intrigue me enough to wanna see the rest of the trilogy.

Ten no Chasuke (2015) This movie is a little weird, a little goofy and a lot of fun. I like the guy who just constantly lives through different movie plots because the angel writing his life can’t think of anything original, that tickled me.

Good Movies I Don’t Have a Clever Title Here They’re good movies, Brent. 

Barbara Rubin and the Exploding NY Underground (2018)  An enjoyable, well-made documentary but considering its subject matter disappointingly conventional.

Black Panther (2018) This movie could have been much better had it not been under the constraints of the MCU. Still one of the best offerings of the genre this decade.

Boy Meets Girl (2014) We need more movies like this. Not just for representation (although that is important) but also because cinema needs a greater variety of stories than are currently being told. 

Brooklyn (2015) The scope of this movie is very small but the characterization is nuanced and every aspect of the film goes towards furthering that. 

Bugs (2016) The focus of this movie is split between its very interesting subject matter (the use of bugs as food around the world) and the chefs we’re following around who kind of seem like dicks and honestly drag the movie down a lot.

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)  Steve Rogers is one of my favorite MCU characters, purely on the strength of this movie. In a world where no one seems to know how to adapt Superman to film, it’s nice they got this one right.

Cloud Atlas (2012) This movie has such lofty ambitions and I admire it for that, even if the execution is off at times. But the use of yellowface is..... bad. It’s very bad and the directors should have known better. 

Cold War (2018) I love the music in this, which is good because it is near constant.

Damsel (2018) I love a deconstructed western and I love Robert Pattinson. It’s a shame that the female character at the center of the story wasn’t better developed, considering how much screen time she got.

Damsels in Distress (2011) This movie is quirky and cutesie, which isn’t everyone’s cup of tea (and usually isn’t mine) but I love it. Some solid acting goes a long way.

Der kommer en dag (2016) This movie is two hours of children suffering yet it comes across as so optimistic? I think it’s the space race stuff. Who doesn’t love the space race?

Frantz (2016) I am always down for stories that reckon with the effects of WWI. 

Future Baby (2016) There’s a scene in this movie where a surrogate mother gives birth and it is both very graphic and heart-wrenching. If the rest of the movie were more like that one scene, it’d be on my shortlist for the best of the decade.

Fyre (2019)  How was Fyre Festival a real thing that happened?

Girls Don’t Fly (2016) Girls don’t fly because the man training them to be pilots is a dick and treats them horribly. It’s a bummer but important to uncover. 

Hidden Figures (2016) Kevin Costner’s character needed to be written out - black stories that don’t involve “good” white people are both possible and necessary. But I adore all three main actresses and they do some amazing work.

Hjartasteinn (2016) The subject matter is cliché but it’s handled beautifully. 

The Lego Movie (2014) Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you’re part of a team!

Journey to the Shore (2015) I honestly wasn’t sure how to feel for most of the run time of this movie but by the end it got me.

On Body and Soul (2017) This movie feels like a dream and I mean that in a good way.

The Salvation (2014) Have I mentioned that I love deconstructed westerns? Mads Mikkelsen is always on point, even with garbage material, but he’s got some good stuff to work with here.

Searching for Ingmar Bergman (2018) This movie made me more interested in its director, Margarethe von Trotta, than Bergman himself. Everyone should check out The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum!

The Shape of Water (2017) This movie is very much like a fairy-tale, which means it’s not particularly nuanced or complicated, but it is beautiful.

Still the Water (2014)  This movie starts with a cow being graphically slaughtered and yet the only word I can think of to describe it is “gentle”. But maybe skip the first five minutes if you’re sensitive to blood or animal death.

Studio 54 (2018) How were the 70s even real?

Sumarbörn (2017)    It’s a rare feat to get such good acting out of child actors.

Thor: Ragnarök (2017)    The best MCU movie. It’s a lot of fun without once losing its heart, which is a rare thing for Marvel (just google the words “bathos” and “mcu”, other people have covered this already). 

Warm Bodies (2013) The cutest rom-com of the decade features a zombie as its main lead. I’m not mad about it.

Wild Tales (2014) The dissonance between the realist shooting style and the cartoonish violence often results in some excellent dark humor. The rest of the time, it just feels kind of off. 

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) Jordan Belfast is both a lot of fun and utterly despicable and the movie is not afraid to go as balls to the walls as it needs to.

The Young Karl Marx (2017) So like... Marx and Engel were into each other? At least a little, right?

Great Movies Also No Clever Title

Andið eðlilega (2018) Okay so I don’t watch a lot of Icelandic cinema but from what I have seen, I am incredibly encouraged by the direction it is heading. Call this exhibit A.

Ága (2018)  This movie is very slow and not a lot happens but that’s kind of why it works so well. It hooked me in and had me genuinely interested in every uneventful scene.

Brecht’s Threepenny Film (2018)  I walked away feeling like I’d understood maybe one third of this film but it left me with a feeling of exhilaration that’s hard to define and that few films manage.

Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010)  Adèle Blanc-Sec is like Tintin and Indiana Jones combined except way better. In a just world, she would be a much more popular character and the reported film trilogy would have actually happened.

En duva satt på en gren och funderade på tillvaron (2014)  This movie is delightfully weird and messed up. Nothing more to say here.

The Favourite (2018)  I was honestly expecting to be let down by this movie after all the overwhelming praise but as it turns out, it deserved all of the accolades and possibly more.

Gravity (2013)  This movie was kind of marketed as “realistic sci-fi” and while I can’t say it felt particularly real, the emotional arc sure as hell did.

Inception (2010) The complexity of this film was vastly over-hyped but it’s still the best work I’ve seen by Nolan (though to be fair, I still haven’t seen Dunkirk).  Kreuzweg (2014) The film is composed of just fourteen still shots, representing the Stations of the Cross. That could have come across as really gimmicky but it works because the shots are well staged and the material is just that good. Loveless (2017) This is the bleakest, most depressing movie I think I’ve ever seen.  The Martian (2015)  The best thing about this movie is the way it shows the world coming together just to save this one guy. International cooperation is the future!

Paradies: Liebe (2012)  This is a movie about sex tourism and it is as unpleasant to watch as that sounds. But it’s also incredible. 

Paradies: Hoffnung (2013)  The third in Seidl’s paradise trilogy (I missed the middle part, don’t remember why). Just as messed up as Liebe but mildly more palatable.

Une nouvelle amie (2014)  I saw this movie with my dad, which was kind of awkward, but that doesn’t take away from its beauty. We really do need more stories like this.

Tale of Tales (2015)  I am always here for a fairytale adaptation, particularly ones that stick close to the dark, gruesome, humorous tone of most traditional fairytales. 

Welcome to Norway (2016)  This movie is just really, really funny.

White God (2014) If you’re sensitive to animal abuse then this is not the film for you. The dogs in this movie actually won the Palm Dog Award and it was well deserved. They’re very good dogs! Tom of Finland (2017) How refreshing to see a movie about a historical gay person that isn’t all death and tragedy! It does have some of that, unavoidably, but it’s also a lot of fun and ultimately is a celebration of a very important sub-cultural figure.

Vinterbrødre (2017) I wasn’t expecting a movie set in a mining community to look this beautiful. 

Wonder Woman (2017) The best superhero movie of the decade, despite the slightly messy third act. It’s such an earnest, hopeful movie and unlike most films of the genre, it’s not afraid to take itself seriously or to come across as cheesy. Superheroes are cheesy! That’s one of the best things about them!

Amazing Animation I don’t like animation being singled out from live action as if it’s somehow less, but I wanted to highlight how many excellent animated films were made this decade. 

The Breadwinner (2017) I’ve seen this film’s production company, Cartoon Saloon, been called the Irish version of Disney but Disney has never made anything half this daring. Coco (2017)  The ending made me sob like a little kid. This movie doesn’t get enough credit for being one of only two Pixar films this decade to live up to their early work.

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) The flight scenes in this movie gave me actual vertigo and I loved it.

How to Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)  The rare sequel that’s actually better than the original! For all the franchises that exist out there just to continue milking that cash cow, it’s nice to see something get continued because the filmmakers had more stories to tell.

Loving Vincent (2017)  This movie has been criticized for a weak plot, to which I say: it’s an animated movie made up of oil paintings! Do you really care about the plot? Sometimes the spectacle is all you need, especially when it’s something that touches you as deeply as Vincent van Gogh’s art does.

Moana (2016)  Moana’s scenes with her grandmother and Te Fiti are up there with some of the most emotionally evocative stuff to come out of Disney studios. It’s a pity the rest of the movie couldn’t quite live up to that.

Rise of the Guardians (2012)  Mostly, this movie just looks incredible. I am also an eternal sucker for Chris Pine, even if his voice sounds weird coming out of a teenager’s mouth.  

Song of the Sea (2014)  This is the most beautiful animated film I’ve ever seen outside of Studio Ghibli’s best, both the look and the feel of it. 

Tangled (2010) I know I sound like an old fogy but this movie would’ve been much better if it had been traditionally animated. Still pretty good!

Toy Story 3 (2010) It’s been nine years since the third Toy Story came out?? Christ, this decade.

Your Name (2016) I really should be watching more anime.

Zootopia (2016) Disney’s best work since Treasure Planet, which is an underrated masterpiece. It’s almost worth the resurgence in furries (jk furries, you’re okay).

This Is Why You Guys Should Be Watching Documentaries Because documentaries are a seriously underrated art form.

Ama-San (2016) This is the kind of cinema vérité filmmaking I live for.

Behind the Curve (2018) The existence of flat earthers remains baffling (well, maybe not that baffling when you look at the rest of our society) but this documentary is excellent.

Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016)  This is a documentary about a cache of lost silent films that were found in the 70s and most of the movie is silent, with information being conveyed through text and images. It’s these kinds of choices that elevate a good documentary beyond just educational programming.

Exodus: Where I Come From Is Disappearing (2016)  Absolutely heart-wrenching. It’s difficult to watch but the issues it discusses shouldn’t be looked away from. 

Foodies (2014) There’s a foodie in this movie who rates his food on looks before he even tastes it and a chef whose signature dish is a dessert called “sex on the beach” which includes a very realistic-looking used condom. I wanted those two to meet but they never did and that is my one criticism of this film.

Free Solo (2018)  I developed a fear of heights after watching this movie.

The Great Green Wall (2019)  I had never heard of the great green wall before seeing this movie. It’s so surreal to get a window into a society where no one is arguing about climate change because they are already undeniably feeling the effects of it. And by strange, I mean incredibly sad and upsetting.

How to Let Go of the World: and Love All the Things Climate Can’t Change (2016)  Speaking of climate change. This movie takes on climate grief and shows why you can’t stop at that, why you need to push past it and keep fighting. I’d argue The Great Green Wall actually does that same thing and better but it’s still a very necessary message.

Into the Inferno (2016)  Werner Herzog is just. The best. Especially his documentaries.

Kismet (2014) This movie examines how art affects people by way of one of the least respected art forms out there (soap operas). I just really love that premise and the execution is even better.

Merchants of Doubt (2014) Honestly fuck every single person making money by hastening our descent towards climate catastrophe. Good movie, though.

My Scientology Movie (2015)  This was the first Louis Theroux movie I saw and it’s a great one to start with. For all they’ve been treated like a joke, Scientologists are actually pretty scary.

The Other Side of Everything (2017)  The personal is the political in this film. What an incredible look at the ways our past shapes our present and future. 

Pervert Park (2014) This movie fucked me up.

The Prison in Twelve Landscapes (2016) The conceit of this film is looking at the US prison system indirectly by keeping the camera outside the actual prisons and off actual prisoners. It works incredibly well, just astounding documentary film making. 

Push (2019)  Just when you thought you couldn’t hate the rental market any more!

Safari (2016) Fuck trophy hunters.

The Silence of Others (2018)  I didn’t even know about the Spanish 1977 Amnesty Law until I saw this movie. Maybe that’s just my own ignorance but I feel it shows how necessary documentaries like these are. 

Tower (2016) I cried like a baby watching this movie. Using rotoscope animation to tell the story of the 1966 shootings a the University of Texas was I think an excellent choice and made for a unique documentary.

Visages villages (2017) Agnès Varda is possibly my favorite director and it hurts to leave this one off the “best” list (call it an unofficial #11). Still not sure I shouldn’t have swapped out one of the actual top ten for it. 

Welcome to Sodom (2018) The world is so fucked up. 

It Stayed With Me Movies that left me reeling and that I couldn’t get out of my head for days after watching (call all of them an unofficial joint #12).

The Act of Killing (2012) Speaking of fucked up! It is absolutely surreal seeing these mass murderers try to justify their actions to the interviewers. “I was just doing my job” is no excuse and trying to use it as one is actually reprehensible. 

Arrival (2016) I didn’t actually see it until this year and I felt it couldn’t possibly live up to the hype but it did! It’s reminiscent of Interstellar in that in this ‘hard’ science fiction story the ultimate solution is based on an emotional revelation but Arrival pulled it off much better. The Congress (2013)  This is basically two movies in one; one is fairly grounded sci-fi and the other is just a straight up acid trip in film form. In any case, Robin Wright is absolutely flawless.

Carol (2015) Cate Blanchett please date me. Grüße aus Fukushima (2016)  I’m always gonna be a sucker for a movie about women connecting and helping each other through trauma. 

High Life (2018) I saw this one knowing nothing about it and ngl it shocked me a bit. The way it incrementally got more and more fucked up made me feel a bit like a frog being slowly boiled alive.  November (2017) The atmosphere this movie creates is unreal. Maybe not the strongest characterization but it balances a feeling of magic and wonder with just utter bleakness and it left me reeling. Paterson (2016) I can’t even fully explain why I loved this movie so much or why it stuck me. Mostly, it’s just so damn cozy.  The Square (2017) I mean, that scene with the ape man was fucked up right?  Tangerine (2015) I don’t think filming on your iPhone is the future of cinema or anything but it does show how accessible filmmaking is slowly becoming. Also, that scene of Alexandra performing Toyland is one of the best musical moments in cinema this decade and that is not up for debate. Team Hurricane (2017) I’ve never seen a movie with an aesthetic like this before (it’s very vaporwave) but this film is about and was mostly shot by a group of actual teenage girls. It’s a little melodramatic in places but at the same time that feels very sincere and the girls all clearly have a lot of talent and a lot to say.  Varda par Agnes (2019) This movie probably wouldn’t have stuck with me so much if Agnès Varda hadn’t died earlier this year. She is a truly unparalleled figure in film history.

The Best According to me, anyway. But I’m right.

Cameraperson (2016) This is a different kind of documentary filmmaking. What it most reminds me of is Beaches of Agnès (no, I’m never done talking about Agnès Varda) but even that is not a perfect comparison. It’s deeply personal while also covering an insane variety of topics.  Embrace of the Serpent (2015) This movie feels like a dream and I mean that in the best way possible. At turns beautiful, brutal, and absolutely baffling. The Florida Project (2017) I’ve seen this movie criticized for glorifying poverty and I can’t discount that opinion. For my part, I thought this movie did an incredible job balancing the world as seen through the eyes of a carefree child enjoying her summer and the dangerous, precarious reality of living in poverty.  Inside Out (2015) When Pixar gets it right, they get it really right. The Love Witch (2016) I just really, really love witches. The best looking live action movie of the decade. The fact that writer/director/editor/producer Anna Biller hasn’t made another film since is an actual crime.  Melancholia (2011) No movie has ever hit me this hard in such a visceral way; I was miserable for days after seeing it. Lars von Trier is an asshole but he knows how to film depression.  Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) Believe the hype, it is actually perfect. And I don’t even like action movies! Moonlight (2016) It’s rare to see a movie this deeply, devastatingly human. The final two shots of the film, paired together, are literally the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in a theater. Kona fer í stríð (2018) The best Icelandic movie that’s been made yet. Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir is a national treasure.  Shoplifters (2018) I mean, who’s expecting a movie called ‘Shoplifters’ to be so devastating? It’s such a painful film but it is also heartwarming and intimate.  Un couteau dans le coeur (2018) This movie is strange and funny and violent and gorgeous. I’ve never had such a good experience at a film festival as I did the two times I went to see this movie.

[behindthespotlightfic]

unfinished songs - a josh x zara one-shot

This time, I’m taking a break from my own story, to bring you all a really special thing I wrote. Today, March 25th 2017, is @bemygetawayjz‘s birthday, and I tried to pay a tribute, a homage, to her characters, her writing, her story and to her in general. It was a wonderful coincidence to stumble upon her, to get to know her, and to have her now as a small but meaningful part of my life.

So I borrowed her characters for a day, and wrote a piece from Josh’s point of view. If you haven’t read all the chapters of her fanfiction, you may encounter spoilers along the way, so be warned! Otherwise, I really hope you, @bemygetawayjz, enjoy it. I’m so thankful for knowing you. I hope you have had a really great day! May happiness walk with you each and every day <3

“I’d have followed her anywhere she asked of me. I’d have thrown myself to the wild for her.”

(Dove Hands, by Elizabeth Hewer)

---

I really, really didn’t think I was gonna get interested in Zara.

Now don’t misinterpret me, as that sounded quite pretentious. I didn’t think I was gonna get interested in her, but that’s because I didn’t think I was ever gonna get interested in anyone. I was twenty-eight back then, and I had had some hookups, but none gave me enough motivation to actually pursue love. I guess I had other things running around my mind, mostly music.

That’s the reason why I was kind of shocked when I surprised myself sitting at her table the day after I had literally bumped into her. If this were a cheap romantic paperback novel, the author would have made me say that “I had seen something in her that made my heart race”. But it’s not a cheap romantic paperback. So I’ll be honest: it was purely the fact that the two of us were in the background in that tour. Obviously, at least I got to be onstage each night, but people wouldn’t ever come to the venues because of me. Neither would they come because of Zara. So even if John and I were really close friends, we were on different levels. And some times, even if I usually like being alone, I felt lonely.

“Damn, Klinghoffer”, I heard myself thinking, while dangerously approaching her table, “now she’ll think you’re stalking her.”

The real Klinghoffer, though, didn’t listen and said something quite different.

“Hey! How you doing?”

Did that sound faked? I can’t remember. Anyway, she eventually felt a bit more at ease having lunch with this dork here, also known as me, and she ended up inviting me to come with her to the Guggenheim Museum the day after… so I guess that was a good start.

I won’t lie: with Zara, there were lots of awkward moments… especially in the beginning. Everything was awkward in the beginning. But we somehow overcame it all, and what seemed would be just a shallow acquaintance ended up being a close friendship. And yeah, then a full-on relationship. Much later, she told me she had been overthinking it all as much as I had been. Both of us wondered if the other was in a relationship, if the other felt the same, if we had misinterpreted it all and thought it was something more than friendship… we had been thinking about the same things, a few hotel floors apart in a different city each night. It would take the record store in Chorzów, Poland, for us to finally share it all.

I had been trying to send her some signals, just in case, just so she could know I wasn’t thinking of her as just a friend, but obviously, I wasn’t very good at it (I’m not very good now either, I believe). So I took over the situation and made the first move. Who would have known? I’m sure it would have been her if she had been a bit more sure of my feelings, but I didn’t know how to flirt in an elegant way so I had been quiet since I started liking her, which was shortly after I met her, shortly after that first lunch with her. Maybe it was at the Guggenheim when she took my picture? No one will ever know.

Well then. That first kiss in Poland, oh my god. Bonding over a Fleetwood Mac record, that first kiss was something I couldn’t have ever expected. That first kiss with Zara McAleese was like walking a new path for the first time, like the rush of adrenaline one gets when improvising a fast solo on the guitar. I’m not really one for metaphors, so just think about something new, intense, addicting and fascinating. When our lips touched, it was like meeting Zara once again, like starting all over. It was something I felt proud of afterwards, and have been ever since. And from then on, it all went uphill.

We slowly discovered each other, and so we also discovered we had more things in common than what we initially had thought. Our relationship allowed me to know that Zara used to play the guitar and sing a bit, that her hair wasn’t that blond when it wasn’t summer… Zara loved leather jackets but was a bit ashamed of the whole “killing-animals-to-make-leather” thing, Zara would unconsciously choose songs made at least ten years before the moment she listened to them, Zara had had a really emo band called “Grand Theft Autumn” when she was younger. Zara loved watching the New York Yankees play baseball, Zara was about to start an internship. Zara didn’t really care about sexy lingerie. Zara liked stealing my beanies, Zara slept on the left side of the bed. Zara liked neck kisses, jaw kisses, intimate kisses. Zara… Zara was an aspect of my life I had to pinch myself often about, as it was something so new and so wonderful, I might had been dreaming all that time.

So yes, it went uphill like a rollercoaster. And, just like a rollercoaster, it went downhill too.

I had been too careless about all of it. I thought that just because I had been dating PJ Harvey for a few months (and we were apart from each other) I would know how to make it work. But I didn’t. And as the tour came to an end, she felt she needed more than an abstract promise. I was offering her a runaround, I was unconsciously putting it off.

So one day, she realized she had had enough. And I told her it would work out, but not how it would work out. What was wrong with me, I don’t know. Maybe the thought that I could lose my best friend at any moment, maybe the fact that John didn’t want to be with the band anymore. Whatever it was, I just couldn’t bring myself to fight for her. And I should have, I should have tried to reassure her, but it all backfired on me and I ended up getting angry with her, asking her to leave… adding up to the sadness and the fight and the frustration and the feeling of failure each one of us felt, apart again just like we were in the beginning of things. I was still in love with her. More than ever. And she was in love with me too. But we didn’t know how to handle it.

And each and every night, I went to sleep thinking of her, cursing myself for not having been strong enough. She usually haunted my dreams, and when I woke up I didn’t really know if I was ecstatic or devastated for having seen her again. My birthday without her was a highlight of those gloomy days: I could do nothing but spend the day listening to music: Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours and each and every song we had shared. The Smiths, Blur and Oasis, Eric Clapton’s Layla… My sister visited me to have dinner together, and when she found me in such a situation, she went and hid my vinyl player somewhere, to try and snap me out of it. She ended up spending three days at my house, and that was kind of a relief, but I couldn’t get Zara out of my head.

Of course, being the jerk I think I was, I couldn’t help it and I wrote to her, several times. And afterwards I sunk, thinking I was a complete asshole (“You are so stupid, thinking she will give you another chance… she won’t want to hear of you by any means”), but feeling the need to do it again. To show her I still cared. To show her the only thing I wanted to do, more than putting together my own band, much more than playing with the Chilis, was to travel wherever she might be and hold her in my arms again.

Years went by, and my first record with the Red Hot Chili Peppers came out, but I barely knew about her. And that love, that passion, that infatuation was still stabbing me, but I learnt to conceal and ignore it, and so things didn’t hurt as much as they once did. I never lost my love, but I definitely lost hope. We talked once or twice, but as friends, and it was always kind of cold, like a distance had gotten between us (both a literal and metaphorical distance, actually). I thought I would take my devotion to the grave.

But following the logical sequence of events, after the new album there was a new tour, and I hadn’t forgotten for a second what I had promised to Zara: I would get her tickets for my first solo show with the Chilis in London. The I’m With You World Tour was in its beginning, and I was doubtful about it all: Would she remember? Would she think I was trying too hard? Still, I sent her the tickets. And she attended the show… with a guy.

“Of course, you dumb one, of course she has someone else now.” I was with someone too, but because it wasn’t really serious, I assumed she had stayed the same way. Later on, I got to know he was just a friend, they didn’t have anything going on… yet. I felt she would end up with that guy, but I didn’t say a word about it when I met her the following day for coffee. And that was it.

Or so I thought, because, ironically, just when I had made up my mind to not pursue her anymore, she shows up at one of the Dot Hacker shows in 2013, and she gives me a vinyl, Elton John’s Blue Moves. My favorite album. And it all comes back. The breakfast in Bilbao, the Polish record store, the Fleetwood Mac record… and the kiss. All of this, mixed with the alcohol we drank after the show, couldn’t be any good, and made me dizzy in some weird kind of way. But, surprisingly, I got to hide it all away. Seems I got better at pretending I’m fine.

I thought I could say the same about Zara: she told me about Daniel, his boyfriend, and she seemed to be keeping her composure perfectly fine… until she blurted out an unexpected “I missed you”. Apparently there was more going on under her skin than what she showed.

And that was the last straw. A torrent of emotions flooded me back, something really familiar I knew I had kept captive all these years, and, helped by the alcohol, I told her I was not over her yet. There was an obvious tension, and I tried to take it all back, to apologize, but somehow, when I left her at her hotel, something made it really hard to break apart again. I guess it was the fact that I knew I had her near me, the fact that I had a tangible proof of my weakness embodied in her body, that glorious, splendid weakness that made me want to be a better person when I thought of her. And that time, I felt she hadn’t got the courage to walk away either.

So in a violent flood, everything started glowing around me, my vision blurred, my heart started racing, and I found myself with her, within her, her hair caressing me, his lips drawing me to her in a black hole of passion and longing that I knew would hardly ever happen again. That night, I felt like nothing that happened afterwards could ever compare to it, like every moment after being with her would make me sad because nothing ever would be as intense as what we shared that night. It was impossible to describe, at least not accurately.

I can’t remember much of those moments, nor the trip back to San Francisco I insisted on doing, returning her home, except for the way it ended. She cried. I tried to get away from there. I didn’t want to be with her in that exact moment if it wasn’t to stay with her forever. I knew I couldn’t help crying too if I stayed longer. She told me it was impossible, I had hopes and she crushed them again. And she was right, she was probably wiser than me back then, but I still thought something could change after our impromptu meeting. And still, she ended it all telling me she loved me. What a wicked way of doing things. What a brilliant, wonderful, perfectly wicked woman she was in that specific instant. But I went away. And she went away too. And we were crushed again.

That time was definitely the last. Things had gotten to a point where neither of us could imagine facing the other again, or at least I was feeling that way. I was so ashamed of the way I let her go the first time and the subsequent times I saw her along the years, that some part of me felt safer without seeing her. The other part of me, of course, still longed for her touch, for her words… for Zara. What can I say, I must be an old Romantic guy from the 18th century… the thing is, years passed again, and by the time the eleventh Chili Peppers album, The Getaway, was done, I wasn’t done with her at all. That was barely a few months ago, but we started the tour and I guess I could distract myself enough not to think of her. Plus, I started dating a hot chick from a reality show, and I didn’t even like it that much, but she was a good distraction.

But last night… last night she showed up at the Belfast concert. And I swore to myself I wouldn’t let her play with me again. (Like she ever played with you, Josh. It was both of you who made it impossible.). I swore to myself I would give her one last chance. One last chance to talk about all of this, about us and our time together and our feelings. And after that one chance, everything would settle, whether it was for good or not. If we ended up getting away from each other again, then alright, good for us. If we didn’t get away, though… I didn’t want to think about that option. I wanted to get ready to be shattered again, so it wouldn’t hurt that much if it really happened.

“Can we talk?” I asked yesterday, backstage before the show, when she came to greet us, dragged behind her cousin and Justin, Chad’s son. She wasn’t really sure about it, but I got her to agree on meeting after the show.

And so we met. And I apologized. I faced my fears about talking to her, and I tried to act as humble as I could. I also brought up some writings she had let me read back then, some things she had written while in university. It was my personal shield to avoid being irrational and open myself once again. It turned out to be a weak shield, as something inside me cracked when I saw she was getting married. I remembered a song from I’m With You, a song named Police Station, and I repeated the lyrics to myself, like a silent mantra, while we talked about her future, and my current love life.

“I saw you in the church and there was no time to exchange… you were getting married and it felt so very strange. I guess I didn't see it coming, and now I guess it's me who's bumming. Dreaming of the golden years, you and I were mixing tears; not today, not for me but someone… I never could get used to, so now I will refuse to.”

Anthony must had been a clairvoyant or something: it’s like he wrote this song for me, about me. I broke down again. I couldn’t be as strong as I promised myself. I told her all again. I apologized for not fighting enough. And she left, once again.

Then why am I here with her, three days after, sitting in a London bench? It’s all because of her. I wouldn’t have made a move. Never again. Not after what happened. Not after all we’ve gone through. I couldn’t have stood it.

Some times, a melody gets in my head and I can’t forget it. But words don’t come out easily. As a musician, it’s harder for me to write lyrics than to write chords and notes. And so there have been songs I have had lingering around for more than ten years, unfinished, missing something. Now, after all I’ve said, it’s hard to find more words. It’s hard to finish this song I’ve crafted with so much thoroughness and care, it’s hard to string together this last melody of events.

John Frusciante, a good friend of mine, once wrote a song called Regret, in which he said to himself again and again that he “regretted his past”, that he should “stay alone”. I tried telling myself the same all this years, and failed. I’ll never regret my past. I’ll never regret stumbling into Zara, fearing I would have broken her iPod. I’ll never regret meeting her, I’ll never regret kissing her in Poland, I’ll never regret any of the things we did together. I won’t even regret being an asshole and running away from her, because maybe we needed that pain. Maybe we needed to endure the distance, maybe we needed to learn from our experiences, maybe we needed time and age to know what we wanted.

I’ll never regret anything about Zara. I’ll never regret the chances I gave her, even if she didn’t return the affection, and it’s useless lying about it: I would give her another chance, another and another, endless chances. I’ll be forever thankful for whatever it was that brought us together. I’ll be forever grateful for her way of talking to me, for her way of looking at me, for making me a better man, for freeing me of constraints and letting me be myself and whoever I wanted to be when I was with her.

But still, I can’t let myself slip this time. I’m just protecting my own heart. One thing is to be willing to cross oceans for her, another is to be suicidal. I couldn’t stand it if this last time I got out of here destroyed, so I’m trying to minimize the impact. This is another shield I’m building, a shield made of stoicism and sunglasses, just to hide away my eyes, my too-sincere eyes.

“I am sorry I broke your heart. Not a day goes by when I don’t regret it.”

Somehow, this time is different. She’s talking in such a different way. You would be surprised if I told you how have my days gone by, regretting everything too, ever since we messed this up, girl. But I say nothing. I look away.

“Josh, I let myself be consumed by fear, I was immature and scared. I could not fathom that you had those feelings for me. I broke your heart and I broke my own. I am mortified by the thought that you may never, ever forgive me. I’m sorry I walked away because I didn’t want to lose you to someone else. But in some strange way, right now, more than ever, I feel I’m losing you for good.”

You’re scared you’re losing me? I thought it was me who was scared of losing you. You’re so far from the truth, Zara.

She’s having trouble speaking, although words keep coming out of her mouth like a river running wild. Is she crying? Is that why she wore sunglasses as well? Oh well, what a shame we think so alike.

“And I know, J, I know I have no right whatsoever to say that. I know we both moved on. I know you’re in a relationship…”

What? Does she really think I’m taking this seriously? Maybe she’s more innocent than I thought, or maybe she’s really, really respectful of whatever I may decide to do in life. I can’t help but chuckle, a half-sceptical, half-sad laugh. I’m also surprised she knows, but much to my annoyance, everything’s on the internet, as she points out. Especially given the addiction the girl I’m with has to social media. I should have known…

She’s afraid I’m turning into someone I’m not. She thinks she’s losing me.

She’s not losing me. She won’t ever lose me. But it’s surprising, what a coward heart is capable of doing. She may not know what a beaten-up, tired and desperate heart like mine is capable of doing.

Now it’s me who finds it hard to go on, who finds it hard to breathe. After a few sentences, a silence sets between us. She’s the one who breaks it, taking off her glasses and revealing her face, shining because of the tears running down her cheeks.

“The reason I needed to talk to you today is… Josh, I am in love with you. I will always be.”

I can’t buy it. I can’t believe this is happening. I get angry with myself for believing, for a single second, she might be serious about it. Did you forget that Daniel guy, Josh? I feel like I want to slap myself in the face.

But she said it.

“Zara…” I begin. I’m still avoiding her eyes. I can’t stand the thought of believing everything can be okay again and then losing her. “You’re getting married.”

“I… I am willing to leave everything behind, this life and those plans that will not make me entirely happy. I am willing to start all over with you. The true love of my life. No fear, no buts, no excuses, no conditions. Not anymore.”

I raise my gaze. She’s on the verge of tears, and she looks more beautiful than ever. Maybe all this is truly happening. Maybe. But I can’t bring myself to say anything. I’m still afraid it might be a dream.

“If you don’t want to, I will completely understand. There’s no reason whatsoever why you’d take me now, after what I did to you in the past.”

I would take you. Now, tomorrow, after a million years. I could never reject you, not anymore. “But if you do take me…” She smiles a delicate smile, and I feel my heart breaking. No shields, no armor, nothing could save me from her. “I will dedicate my entire life, every minute, every second, to loving you and adoring you… as I have done since we met, as I do now, and as I always will, no matter what.”

Zara pauses, and gets closer. She doesn’t try to decipher my eyes, she’s only giving herself to me, body and soul. “This is my heart, right here, in front of you.”

She’s not expecting anything. Anything. She only waits for an answer. She’s ready to smash herself to the ground if I decide I don’t want her. Just like I am ready to smash myself to the ground if this ends up being a dream.

“Are you finished?” I ask, a last check because I’m too scared.

She gasps. This is not a dream.

I’m not turning around this time, I’m not looking back.

I take her by the chin and I join our lips. And then, I drown in her blue sea.

---

There are always unfinished songs. There are always things I won’t ever bring to a close. But I swear, this won’t be one. Zara won’t be an unfinished song. Zara is here, I’m here, and we’re together. And as much as I won’t ever regret my past, I won’t linger on either. I won’t stay in the past. We’re here, and this is our future. Here she is, here’s my future.

And these are the lyrics of our completed song.

[realrhythmskrp]

DISPATCH, 03/30/17: Mirage Media has officially released information about leader and main rapper, Yong Seongkyeo, also known as Kyeo, on G-ZER0’s official website! Kyeo is a ‘93 liner and has been beloved by fans since his debut in 2013. Find out more about Kyeo below!

I, YONG SEONGKYEO, have read and understand the terms and conditions as my position of LEADER AND LEAD RAPPER of G-ZER0 and agree to honor the standards that are to be expected of me as an employee of MIRAGE.

OOC INFORMATION

Preferred name: Ossy Pronouns: they/them Timezone: EST Other muses: —

IC INFORMATION

Faceclaim: Park Jiwoo aka Jinjin of ASTRO

Name: Yong Seongkyeo Stage name (if applicable): Kyeo

Idol concept: He is regarded as having some of the best raps in the industry, even having earned a few nicknames from fans due to this. There are rumors that he was offered/is currently being offered a solo rap career under Prime. He was a temporary host for television host 2.

…and it is quite true, because Kyeo has been known to have written raps for many other groups as well as himself and his own group. His fans adore this about him and support him every step of the way. Kyeo does enjoy it, though, because it makes him feel better about himself as a songwriter/rapper. He is always desperate to please not only his fans but other groups and his own. He tries to look prideful but Kyeo does not have a big ego. So while he looks like he can do anything to his fans, he actually does struggle a lot on the inside and with himself when it comes to all the work he has to do. His public image is so much more pure than his private life, as he prefers not to worry his fans and even his groupmates. There is nothing worse than having the attention all shifted onto him. This is why Kyeo always works hard for everyone.

Birth date and age: Oct. 26th, 1993; age 23 Company name: Mirage Group Name (if applicable): G-ZER0 Group Position (if applicable): Leader/Lead rapper

Strengths: Kyeo’s strengths include his rapping and songwriting skills. He is also very good at putting forth a lot of energy to keep his group running and overall is a strong support as the leader of his group. Weaknesses: While he does sing and dance, he is not as great as his groupmates, especially when it comes to dancing. He is always one of the last ones to learn all the moves and has to work harder because of this. It is also very easy for Kyeo to become disorganized and overworked.

Positive traits: ambitious, sympathetic, attentive Negative traits: introverted, vulgar, quiet

PERSONAL HISTORY: tw: homophobia

When your family is broke as hell, all you ever want is for them to get by, right? That’s what Kyeo really wanted, but somehow it never really seemed to be enough. With a booming economy and mother out of work, there wasn’t much that him and his older brother could do until they got into high school.

Kyeo was born into a family of three; a mom, dad, and older brother by 3 years. From his birth to when he was about ten years old, things were just great between the family. His mom and dad worked 9 to 5 jobs that had them up in the morning for breakfast and home at night for dinner as well as his brother helping Kyeo with his homework almost every night he had some. They were like a blissful, fairy tail family–

And then his mom lost her job. He was eleven and it seemed that it was the only thing she really cared about. It was also when his father was promoted, but the promotion was anything but good for the family. Kyeo found his father working long hours, spending all his time at home in bed either drinking, watching television, or sleeping away so that he could get up and do the same routine all over again the next day. It was painful to see, that and the fact this his mom did what seemed like a complete 360 degree twist of her life. She was more harsh, more rude, and definitely a lot more strict on her boys.

Upon entering high school at the age of fifteen, Kyeo had a factory job in the city to which he reported to almost every day after school. They were nice to him and they barely let him work past sunset every day in order to send him home to have dinner and do his homework. But it just caused more drama between him and his mom– and not to mention his brother, who was out of high school by then, slaved his way through a job he hated too. It hurt him so much, honestly, seeing his whole family fall apart and he was only fifteen.

But it all changed when he found out he was gay. Being gay is something you don’t like to talk about with your family that often and Kyeo never did, at least, until he brought a boy home from school that he had recently started dating. He was head over heels for the boy; he found peace and heaven in him and the two of them clicked so well despite all the people at school who bullied them to no end. Somehow he felt he could have the shittiest day and wake up remembering he had someone like that in his life and everything would be okay– but that was just a mistake.

The mistake he made was bringing him home. His mom went absolutely nuts. In front of the other fifteen year old’s eyes, his mother beat Kyeo, not with her fists, but with anything she could find - spoons, pans, baking sheets… anything, and it scared the absolute shit out of both of the little kids, so much that Kyeo found himself losing the one boy he felt he could trust and lean on in any situation. He blamed his mom; no, he blamed his whole fucking family for turning into this shitty example of how poverty forces a wedge between the once beautiful relationships they had.

His mom hated his sexuality. His mom hated him and everytime he would make a snide remark about not being interested in a girl that someone showed him, Kyeo found himself being battered, so battered that he became spooked by the littlest brief noises that sounded like the beating of a boy who only wanted his mom to love him. He still gets twitchy hearing things like that, even after he had escaped that life when he was seventeen. He was sick and tired of his mom shitting on his interest in men and and then literally beating him up for it, until he practically bled sometimes. Kyeo had enough.

It was no secret that the boy had a passion for music, and he had used this as an outlet to try and cope with the way his family treated him. With his misfit poems and his desire to do something more, he moved out, and he found himself interning at what was then a small company within his city, RHYTHMS, and as their popularity grew, so did Kyeo’s career in songwriting. He soon grew tired of watching everyone take credit for his work and decided on auditioning himself. It was only to make himself proud and more known to the public. And, to his surprise, he made it into RHYTHMS upcoming group, G-ZER0 at the age of 17.

As a trainee, he pushed himself to every limit every day. He tried to avoid all of his groupmates in G-ZER0 for the simple fact that he didn’t want them to know who he really was, but that was before he found out he was going to be the leader of them all. (Kyeo would never tell anyone how much he cried that night after figuring it out because he was so happy and proud of himself, yet so distraught and unaware of what to make of it all.) From that point on, he lightened up, showing that he could take that responsibility and prove to people he was worth it. There was just one problem– they still didn’t know he was broke and gay.

…and hopefully they would never know. He debuted with the group at the age of 20, shining as their songwriter, leader, and lead rapper. God, he’s so proud of himself but all he can think about sometimes is if his mother knows he’s out here living a dream he never thought he had. He’s so blessed and so thankful that it feels so sinful to think it’s not worth it if his mom doesn’t notice…

So he tries not to, but damn, it still hurts.

Nowadays he finds himself doing all he can to support his group. He is 23 and too old for being the emotional child he was when the group had debuted. Many fans believe he has grown as a person with the position at stake, and Kyeo truly believes it too. He finds himself thankful for his career and the way it has shaped him, because he has opened up a bit more, become more responsible, and also found that he can appreciate life without constantly looking over his shoulder for the face that he used to think judge him. He cherishes not only his fans but his group mates, as they are his closest and the most important people in his life. He has achieved not only being the leader one of the most popular boy groups of all time, but also being a soloist on the side, having released a mixtape and some singles. Kyeo is still working towards his goals, too, even though he has already achieved them, because he always believes that the sky’s the limit.

[puro-reviewz]

Top Ten NJPW wrestlers who need a new finisher (and my personal replacements)

In NJPW there are a lot of great, impactful finishers, for example: Kazuchika Okada’s Rainmaker, Tetsuya Naito’s Destino, or Kota Ibushi’s Kamigoye.

However, there are some wrestlers who -in my opinion at least- don’t have the most ideal finishing touch to their matches, so without further ado, and in no particular order, here are the top ten New Japan Pro Wrestling wrestlers, who need a new finisher.

10: Tomohiro Ishii (Vertical Brainbuster)

Ishii has an amazing moveset, including some of the most lethal lariats in the business, but for such a violent and dynamic moveset for such a violent and dynamic wrestler, he has quite an underwhelming finisher. the vertical brainbuster when done well, looks absolutely devastating, just watch a Shinya Hashimoto match, but Ishii’s version isn’t the best, the way ishii does his, it looks more like a vertical suplex.

My idea for a replacement: Suplex Piledriver. This was the move he used as a finisher in 2013, with it he beat Hiroshi Tanahashi, and the move itself looks deadly.

9: EVIL (Everything Is Evil STO)

EVIL is arguably the most underrated and underused wrestler in NJPW if not the business as a whole, not only does he deserve a bigger spot in NJPW, i think he should win the heavyweight title or at the very least the G1 trophy, and to compliment such a brilliant wrestler he has a brilliant moveset, featuring a brilliant lariat, a brutal senton, and a lovely thrust kick. however, his finisher, despite being a great move in and of itself ,I’ve always thought it work better as a signiture, since another move in his set that outshines it, and speaking of...

My idea for a replacement: The Darkness Falls, in my opinion one of the coolest moves in wrestling today and every time i see him hit it, I think to myself “that really should’ve ended it, but i don’t really need to tell you this, just look it up on youtube and see for yourself.

8: El Phantasmo (CR II)

The 2019 super J cup winner, former RPW cruiserweight champion, and former IWGP Jr heavyweight Tag Team Champion alongside Taiji Ishimori, The Headbanger, El Phantasmo....... has a fairly underwhelming set of signature moves, with the cherry on top of the meh cake being the CR II, which is essentially Matt Riddle’s Broderek but with even less impact, it’s just.... dull.

My idea for a replacement: The middle rope swinging neckbreaker, it used to just be a standard swinging neckbreaker, which again, boring, but, in the super J cup, he beat dragon lee with a variant where he first did a metalik-esque rope walk before dropping lee to the mat.

7: Dragon Lee (Desnucadora)

One of the best Luchadors going today, dragon lee is arguably the most exciting wrestler to watch in all of new japan, his high flying and hard striking hybrid style is amazing to watch, so for me at least, the desnucadora, a vertical suplex sitout powerbomb thing, really doesn’t compliment his style all that well.

My idea for a replacement: The Rodilla Dragon

This is a bicycle knee, that lee removes his knee pad for, and executes viciously, it perfectly compliments the Lucha Libre/Strong Style hybrid that dragon lee is.

6: Tama Tonga (Gun Stun)

A true Bullet Club OG, Tama has been in the stable since its inception, and himself has a surprisingly varied moveset, and the Gun Stun, cutter, diamond cutter, ace crusher, RKO whatever you wanna call it is one of the best finishers in the business, but since another bullet club founder who has almost always used the gun stun, Karl Anderson will be returning to njpw sooner rather than later, it’s time for Tama to start once again using his patented.....

My idea for a replacement: the jumping DDT

His old finisher back when Anderson was still around and just after he left, this is the move that had him beat Hiroshi god damn Tanahashi in the G1 26, so it’s fairly protected as well.

5: David Finlay (Prima Nocta)

The son of one of the best brawlers around, fit Finlay, David obviously had some big shoes to fill, and so far, unfortunately he hasn’t been able to, partially due to a very weak moveset and a frankly boring style, worst of all his finisher the prima nocta, which is just a stunner, not really befitting of such a legacy in my opinion.

My idea for a replacement: the lumbar check

What can I say everyone loves a lumbar check, and the move fits the finisher mould much better, now Finlay just has to create a gimmick.

4: Chase Owens (package piledriver)

The “crown jewel” of bullet club and potentially the worst non young lion wrestler in Njpw, it still baffles me that he still has any kind of spotlight on him despite his minimal improvement over the years, in my opinion he does not need, nor deserve the package piledriver as his finisher, especially when there is a much more talented wrestler using a very similar finisher, in SHO, I don’t hate Chase but in my opinion he either should have A. Become a young lion, or B. Stayed in NWA for a bit longer.

My idea for a replacement: the last shot

Perhaps one of the only moves Chase can do very very well is this running inside knee, so I believe he should be going for this as a finish.

3: Mikey Nicholls (Mikey Bomb)

The Newest member of CHAOS, and a former half of TMDK/61 with Shane Thorne, Mikey has a fairly good moveset with a good finisher, but he has one other move in his set that is better in my opinion.

My idea for a replacement: the shooting star press

Because if you can do a shooting star press, you should.

2: Toa Henare

The perpetually underused Henare, the Kiwi native has an amazing look, a great personality, and a hard hitting moveset that makes him a shoe in for NEVER openweight champ, but gets continually snubbed from not only NEVER title matches, but also G1 climaxes, and some of that may be due to his 2 weak finishers, a superman punch and a side slam, neither of those scream “Finisher” to me.

My idea for a replacement: the spinning spinebuster

Perhaps the best move in his set, Henare can deliver this spinebuster with a sickening amount of strength and precision that reminds you of Arn Anderson’s legendary finish, it’s clearly his best move, and hopefully we get to see it help him win the NEVER belt.

1: Tomoaki Honma (Kokeshi Headbutt)

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HONMA STOP TRYING TO MURDER YOURSELF WITH A MOVE THAT THE CREATOR REGRETS CREATING, the diving headbutt has caused serious medical issues for everyone who has ever used it, Harley Race, the creator, is dead, Dynamite kid is now in a wheelchair, Chris Benoit is Chris Benoit, Daniel bryan needed neck surgery after using it, honma himself broke his own neck doing it a few years back, just, please stop using it, please.

My idea for a replacement: LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE

Alright thanks for reading you lot now get lost

[shortqueershakespeare]

Aw man :( What's up? Also do all the 5 times tables for all the questions posts! Alternatively (or additionally, up to you) do all the even numbers!

i love my anons so much you guys make me feel loved

i just saw some posts from my exes and it was a shock because I didn’t realise I was following them

imma do both these suggestions so here we go its gonna be a long one

2. How old are you? - 21 4.What’s your star sign? - Pisces 5. What is your favorite color? - Blue 6. What’s your lucky number? - 14 8. Where are you from? - The UK 10. What shoe size are you? - UK 3/4 12. What was your last dream about? - My ex apologising (idk why since he wasn’t really in the wrong but we were friends again in the dream so i woke up sad) 14. Are you psychic in any way? - don’t think so 15. Favorite song? - rn either wonderland by Taylor Swift or Midnight Love by girl in red 16. Favorite movie? - Legally blonde immediately comes to mind 18. Do you want children? - Yes 20. Are you religious? - nope 22. Have you ever got in trouble with the law? - nope 24. Baths or showers? - showers as regular, baths as a treat 25. What color socks are you wearing? - no shit I’m wearing rainbow socks why am I always so on brand 26. Have you ever been famous? - nope, nor do i want to be 28. What type of music do you like? - pop, indie pop, indie, alternative, folk, rock 30. How many pillows do you sleep with? - depends on thickness, one or two  32. How big is your house? - 4 bedrooms, a kitchen, living room, a bathroom, a shower room, a toilet, a pantry and another room 34. Have you ever fired a gun? - no 35. Have you ever tried archery? - yes! 36. Favorite clean word? - squiggly 38. What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep? - i think i ended up hitting 52 hours in second year it was terrible 40. Have you ever had a secret admirer? - i don’t think so?? 42. Are you a good judge of character? - HA! when it comes to judging if people are good for one another, yes, for me, no 44. Do you have a strong accent? - i don’t think so, i guess its quite southern 45. What is your favorite accent? - irish 46. What is your personality type? i think i’m an enneagram 2 do with that what u will 48. Can you curl your tongue? - yes! 50. Left or right handed? - right 52. Favorite food? - avocado 54. Are you a clean or messy person? - messy 55. Most used phrased? -  that’s so on brand 56. Most used word? - gay 58. Do you have much of an ego? - don’t think so 60. Do you talk to yourself? - yes its the main way i practise languages 62. Are you a good singer? - i’m decent but am not used to my voice drop 64. Are you a gossip? - yeah 65. Best dramatic movie you’ve seen? - call me by your name is that dramatic?? pride?? idk 66. Do you like long or short hair? - god i’m never having long hair again 68. Favorite school subject? - drama n languages 70. Have you ever been scuba diving? - no but i’d love to! 72. Are you scared of the dark? - no, i actually love the dark, i find it really calming 74. Are you ticklish? - yes 75. Have you ever started a rumor? - don’t think so 76. Have you ever been in a position of authority? - yes, i’ve been director of a play when i was 18 78. Have you ever taken drugs? - no 80. How many piercings do you have? - zero 82. How fast can you type? - NOT VERY 84. What color is your hair? - i don’t think anyone ever expects my answer, but rainbow lol 85. What color are your eyes? - blue 86. What are you allergic to? - as far as we know, nothing 88. What do your parents do? - mum is a teaching assistant, dad used to be pilot, his current job is too complicated for me to understand lolll 90. What makes you angry? - being taken advantage of, my friends being treated unfairly. 92. Have you already thought of children’s names, and if so what are they? - i love the name archana and scottie for girls, i like archie, ash or Dan for boys 94. What are you strengths? - I’m empathetic, generous and caring. 95. What are your weaknesses? - i’m stubborn, self-sacrificing and ruthless. 96. How did you get your name? - I picked it myself! i had a shortlist of ten, got mum to veto some, tried them all out with my two middle name options and narrowed it down from there 98. Do you have any scars? - most notably one from a fishhook, and then lots of pet/chicken wire/falling over scars 100. Color of your room?    - white 2: Tiny house plants or huge house plants?

- Tiny 4: Do you prefer painting or drawing? - drawing

What's your favorite type of sweets/candy? - flying saucers (i’m losing the will to format and honestly i’m impressed if u get this far this is mostly just therapy at this point)

Do you fold laundry or hang it up a closet?

- fold

When's the last time you saw a duck?

- two days ago

What's your go to comfort movie?

- moana

How old were you when you stopped sleepign with stuffed animals?

- bold of you to assume i stopped

Would you rather have Ice cream or a popsicle?

- ice cream

Dogs or cats?

- dogs purely because i have a puppy and i could never betray her

Do you have any tattoos/peircings?

- no

Would you rather live in a library where you can read all the books or a theater where you can watch every movie that shows?

- library

Do you consider yourself artistic?

- creative, yes, artistic, no

Do you have any siblings?

- 3

How long have you been on tumblr?

- since 2013 i think

If you had to live in the same world as movie or show what world would it be?

hogwarts

Vine or tik tok?

- vine

Do you sleep in matching pjs or just random clothes?

- random tshirt

Who's your favorite fictional character currently?

- draco malfoy or merlin

What was your first fandom?

- merlin

What place do you want to visit the most?

- spain or south america i think

If you could change one thing in history with no negative consequences, what would you change?

- eradicate genocide??

What was the first ship you obsessed over?

- MERTHUR

What's an appropriate guilty pleasure of yours?

- fucking vanderpump rules

Do you have any collections?

- washi tape

Do you have any specific kind of style?

- gay

Are there any conspiracies you believe in?

- no

How many blogs do you follow?

- 896

If you had to describe your tumblr with only 5 words what would they be?

- gay, pets, chaotic, writing, art

What hemisphere do you live in?

- northern

What's something from you loved your childhood that you still proudly like now?

- harry potter or football or spiderman

02:Ever been in love?

- yes

04:How tall are you?

- 5 something

05:How much do you weigh?

- no idea

06:Any tattoos do you want?

- yeah, some transition ones, some lyrics, some watercolour, some langauges

08:OTP?

- merthur

10:Favorite bands?

- stornoway, panic! at the disco, fall out boy

12:Favorite song?

- take care of yourself by maisie peters

14:Zodiac sign?

- pisces

15:Hair Color?

rainbow

16:Favorite Quote?

- “the world is seeming really huge right now. i need something to hold on to”

18:Favorite color?

- blue

20:Where do you go when you’re sad?

- my bed or outside

22:How long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

- 20 minutes

24:Turn on?

- lip biting

25:Turn off?

- being too passive i guess? i’m a big sub

26:The reason I joined Tumblr?

- harry potter fandom i think

28:Last thing that made you cry?

- unexpectedly seeing photos of my exes

30:Meaning behind your url

- i’m a slytherin and a friend called me the shakespeare of insults

32:Last song you listened to?

- the good side, troye sivan

34:Last person you talked to?

- school friend

35:The relationship between you and the person you last texted?

- friends 

36:Favorite food?

- i swear i’m gonna change my answer every time, pancakes

38:Last place you were?

- WE’RE IN QUARANTINE

40:Last time you kissed someone?

- september i think

42:What color underwear are you wearing?

- blue w/ bananas

44:What color bottoms are you wearing?

- black and white

45:Wearing any bracelets?

- 4 rainbow, 2 trans

46:Last sport you played?

- tennis

48:Last prank call you made, doing?

- n/a

50:Favorite movie?

- moana 2. cloudy skies or clear blue

4. coffee pot or tea pot

5. matching or mismatched dinnerware

6. lambs or calves

8. wheat fields or cattails

10. picking apples or strawberries

12. comfy sweaters or flowing sleeves

14. trimmed hedges or overgrowth

15. piglets or foals

16. daffodils or tulips

18. yellow or green hues

20. crows or owls

22. hanging baskets or pots

24. pancakes or scones

25. birch trees or oak trees

26. toadstools or chanterelles

28. straw hats or dungarees

30. crackling fire or babbling stream

🎨 do you have any hobbies you regret quitting? would you consider starting them again?

- lots of sports, yeah

🎟 what are some artists/bands whose music brings back childhood memories for you?

- kelly clarkson, show of hands, basshunter, avril lavigne

🎻 if you began learning a new instrument today, which one would you pick?

- guitar

🔭 what’s your go-to topic to learn about when you’re bored?

- lgbt history, languages

🎞 what movie(s)/TV show(s) do you find comforting to watch?

- parks and rec, b99, the good place, cxg, chuck, one day at a time

🕯 do you have any self care activities you do routinely?

- writing

☕️ what’s your favourite hot drink?

- chai latte

💌 what’s something you love about the last friend/family member you texted?

- i could literally text her being like “i have not done anything ever” and she’d be like “i’m so proud of u tell me everything”

📆 what are you looking forward to in the next year?

- going to viennaaaa

2. Are you outgoing or shy?

- outgoing

4. Are you easy to get along with?

- yes

5. If you were drunk would the person you like take care of you?

- yes

6. What kind of people are you attracted to?

- either people who need fixing (disastrous) or people who care as much as i do (excellent)

8. Who from the opposite gender is on your mind?

- my best friend

10. Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with?

- everyone i drunk texted tonight

12. What are your 5 favorite songs right now?

- clean (taylor swift), wonderland (taylor swift), midnight love (girl in red), place we were made (maisie peters), she (dodie)

14. Do you believe in luck and miracles?

- yes and no

15. What good thing happened this summer?

- i fucking committed to putting myself first

16. Would you kiss the last person you kissed again?

- fuck no i respect myself

18. Do you still talk to your first crush?

- no

20. Do you like your neighbors?

- i don’t know them well but yes

22. Where would you like to travel?

- baby we’re in quarantine i would settle for going back hom or visiting a friend

24. Favorite part of your daily routine?

- my late nights with the puppy

25. What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with?

- wow, my chest

26. What do you do when you wake up?

- grumble that i have to be up, play animal crossing til i properly wake up

28. Who are you most comfortable around?

- oscar, jules, umme, katherine, char

30. Do you ever want to get married?

- yes

32. Which celebrities would you have a threesome with?

- okay well ben platt immediately appeared in my mind but i think there would have to be someone dominant to balance it out so maybe ryan reynolds?

34. Do you play sports? What sports?

- okay so currently nothing really, but tennis and i used to play rounders, football, netball, gymnastics, judo, swimming, sailing

35. Would you rather live without TV or music?

- without tv, youtube exists

36. Have you ever liked someone and never told them?

- welcome to my life right now

38. Describe your dream girl/guy?

- compassionate, caring, independent but likes to spend time together, plans fun dates

40. What do you want to do after high school?

- go to uni so well done me

42. If you’re being extremely quiet what does it mean?

- usually i’m sad or concentrating real hard (or reading a fic)

44. Trip to outer space or bottom of the ocean?

- ooh, ocean because definitely life??

45. What makes you get out of bed in the morning?

- puppy

46. What are you paranoid about?

- being unloveable

48. Have you ever been drunk?

- yes

50. What was the colour of the last hoodie you wore?

- white and navy

52. One thing you wish you could change about yourself?

- my body?? or my self confidence

54. Favourite store?

- tiger or lush

55. Favourite blog?

- ballym

56. Favourite colour?

- blue

58. Last thing you ate?

- oreo chocolate

60. Ever won a competition? For what?

- i think for writing when i was younger

62. Been arrested? For what?

- no

64. Tell us the story of your first kiss?

- okay so context, my ex was about a foot taller than me so when i went for a kiss i totally missed and hit his chin and it was very sweet and utterly hilarious

65. Are you hungry right now?

- nah

66. Do you like your tumblr friends more than your real friends?

- equal

68. Twitter or Tumblr?

- tumblr

70. Names of your best friends?

- okay i’m just gonna go with who i drunk texted tonight so, oscar, umme, char, katherine, jules

72. What colour are your towels?

- blue, purple, grey

72. How many pillows do you sleep with?

- one or two

74. How many stuffed animals do you think you have?

- in this house, at least 10, at my childhood house over 100

75. Favourite animal?

- tiger

76. What colour is your underwear?

- blue w bananas

78. Favourite ice cream flavour?

- clotted cream vanilla

80. What colour pants?

- black and white

82. Favourite movie?

- moana

84. Mean Girls or 21 Jump Street?

85. Favourite character from Mean Girls?

- gretchen

86. Favourite character from Finding Nemo?

- crush

88. Last person you talked to today?

- kat

90. Name a person you love?

- hannah

92. In a fight with someone?

- no

94. How many sweaters/hoodies do you have?

- at least 10 in my room rn

95. Last movie you watched?

- johnny english reborn

96. Favourite actress?

- rachel bloom

98. Do you tan a lot?

- a bit

100. How are you feeling?

- a lot better than i was when i started this tbh

102. Do you regret anything from your past?

- yes but lets not rn

103. Can you spell well?

yes

104. Do you miss anyone from your past?

- yes

105. Ever been to a bonfire party?

- yes

106. Ever broken someone’s heart?

- yes

108. What should you be doing?

- taking the dog out and sleeping

110. Have you ever loved someone so much it hurt?

- welcome to my life

112. Who was the last person you cried in front of?

- my sister i think

114. Have you ever been out of your province/state?

- yes

115. Do you play the Wii?

- no

116. Are you listening to music right now?

- yes

118. Do you like Chinese food?

- yes

120. Are you afraid of the dark?

- no

122. Is cheating ever okay?

- i would say no, but i don’t think things are black and white

124. Do you believe in love at first sight?

- eh not really

125. Do you believe in true love?

- i believe in many true loves

126. Are you currently bored?

- nope

128. Would you change your name?

- already did

130. Do you like subway?

- yes

132. Who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

- oscar

134. Can you count to one million?

- i could but i have the attention span of a goldfish

135. Dumbest lie you ever told?

- oh who knows

136. Do you sleep with your doors open or closed?

- closed

138. Curly or Straight hair?

- curly

140. Summer or Winter?

- winter

142. Favourite month?

- september

144. Dark, milk or white chocolate?

- dark

145. Tea or Coffee?

- both

146. Was today a good day?

- yeah i think it was, i just got overwhelmed

148. What’s your favourite quote?

“the universe is seeming really huge right now. I need something to hold on to”

150. Get the closest book next to you, open it to page 42, what’s the first line on that page?

okay its a russian grammar book we don’t need that energy at ten past 1 in the morning

[texastheband]

TEXAS: THE CONVERSATION

Interview by Princess Julia, Photography by Jeff Hahn, Styling by Ian Luka Taken from Ponystep Magazine - May 20, 2013

Sharleen Spiteri and her band, Texas, have had an enduring career. Twenty five years in and Texas are back with a new album. Its not a secret that Spiteri is no wallflower - in truth, that's kind of why we love her. Speaking to Ponystep, Sharleen spills the beans on the new album, Juergen Teller and that infamous spat with Paris Hilton.

After a few quiet years in the pop wilderness, Texas (and their feisty front woman – the fervently outspoken Sharleen Spiteri) are back on the scene with a new single and album; both conveniently titled ‘The Conversation’. For those that remember, Texas shot straight into the Top Ten back in 1989 with their debut single, ‘I Don’t Want a Lover’ – with Spiteri famously quitting her job as a hairdresser to appear on ‘Top Of The Pops’. ‘Southside’, the album from which the track was lifted, achieved strong critical acclaim, mirrored by impressive chart success. Follow up singles, though again critically praised,  failed to match the commercial strength of the debut and the band gradually slipped out of the public consciousness. The years that followed saw the Scottish outfit tour Europe (where the fanbase remained strong) and adapt to a life on the road. Throughout this period Texas continued to record, eventually rediscovering winning form with the #1, six-times platinum 1997 outing, ‘White on Blonde’ – which spawned five UK Top Ten singles. Their music – a blend of country, rock and soul, fused together with polished pop production, divided the critics. Regardless, Texas went on to sell over 20 million records and establish themselves as one of Scotland’s biggest ever musical exports.

The past decade has certainly been eventful, if not that productive. 2002 saw Spiteri give birth to a daughter, Misty Kyd, followed soon after by a split with her long-term partner, Ashley Heath (former The Face editor, now at the helm of Arena Homme +). 2008 was marked out for a solo career, with an album of 60′s inspired songs launching to favourable reviews. Then in 2009, Ally McErlaine – Spiteri’s musical sparing partner and Texas anchor, suffered a major brain aneurysm. Thankfully Ally lived to tell the tale, and just a few years later, Texas find themselves back on the road and back on form. Princess Julia caught up with the enigmatic Miss Spiteri earlier this month…

Princess Julia: What we’d like to know about is your role as a female front woman. In the 90′s, you were the alternative pin up. How do you see your role today?

Sharleen Spiteri: God… I think my pin up days are gone to be honest. I don’t know, people put these tags on you and you know, it’s not really for me because I’m only myself… I think you’d have to say something on that not me! (Laughs)

PJ : I hate putting tags on people as well!

SS: It’s awful!

PJ: Your look in the 90′s – let’s start with one of the peaks of your career – was unique and defining. How do you think your looks changed over the years?

SS: I still kind of play with that androgynous look just because it came from something within me. People that I look to tend to dress in clean, strong lines. I like women that like to play with menswear, that sort of people. Patti Smith, inevitably. I love that, that kind of feel. To be honest, I haven’t really changed that much all those years. Obviously, your body changes and you have to wear things that are a bit different because of that. I guess it’s probably a bit more tailored than it was before, I think my look has definitely got more tailored.

PJ: You’re a role model to many women, but who are your role models, apart from Patti? Patti’s everyone’s role model, isn’t she?

SS: I kind of see Steve McQueen as the person I always look up, I like how he went in between different looks, like wearing a U.S Navy jacket or a pair of worn jeans and a sweatshirt.

PJ: Steve Mcqueen. A male?

SS: I do a bit of Diane Keaton as well, I like that kind of chic, when I have a waistcoat, a shirt and a jacket on, I kind of do that as well.

PJ: Let’s talk about your new studio album, and your single, ‘The Conversation’. What made you want to record again?

SS: I think probably just the need to, it’s been ages and it felt it was the right time we did something. We went and had some dates in 2011 and we also played in 2012 and it felt really on. In 2011 when we started to do the gigs, people kept going ‘when’s your new Texas record, when are you going to be Texas again?’ And it felt that people genuinely wanted to hear another Texas record, so we thought ‘alright, we better pull our heads out of our arses and do some work’, and we started writing. So that’s how it got to this point.

THE SLEEVE FOR ‘WHITE ON BLONDE’, THERE WAS NO DOUBT THAT IT WAS REALLY SEXY. WHETHER YOU’RE A MAN OR A WOMAN IT DOESN’T MATTER. PEOPLE UNDERSTAND IT

PJ: I’ve got to confess I haven’t heard your new album yet.

SS: That’s quite alright!

PJ: So what’s your main thing, have you kept  to the Texas sound or have you changed in any sort of way?

SS: It’s funny, because you don’t think that you’ve got a sound and then suddenly you make a record, and this one is going back to the beginning of Texas, it’s like it’s gone full circle. In terms of songwriting and lyrics there’s definitely elements of country, elements of soul and r&b in it, it’s all still there. So yeah I think all the bits are definitely in this record.

PJ: What was the highlight making the album?

SS: Just the absolutely relaxed atmosphere. There was no label involved when we were making the record so there was never anybody on the phone giving us deadlines, asking ‘When will you finish it? When can we hear it?’ and then having opinions on it. It was great, we were just making the record because we wanted to make a record.

PJ: How do you feel as a performer, when you get on stage and start performing, do you feel like its that sort of sense of coming home?

SS: I feel like it’s what I’m used to. I just feel so comfortable, so happy when I’m on stage singing and performing. I just love it. It’s the thing that completely fulfils me.

PJ: Do you see yourself as always having that urge to perform, many years down the line?

SS: I don’t know, I think the need may give in and go ‘nah, I’m not doing this anymore’. That’s the thing that will stop me. I think there is a point where I can afford to go ‘do you know what, knock it on the head’. But there’s still a bit of music left in there though.

PJ: I don’t think you’ll ever do that actually.

SS: Really?

PJ: I think you’re one of those girls that…You can see when you’re performing how much you enjoy singing and performing, reaching out.

SS: You know I look at Chrissie Hynde, and I just think, Chrissie is playing better than ever, she’s just amazing. To me, she doesn’t get older. She holds it together really well, sounding really classy, and if I can do it like that then maybe I will still do it.

PJ: And how do you juggle your professional career as a singer-songwriter, and being a mother?

SS: Being a songwriter I think makes it easier because you can write at home, so I work the hours that I want to work and don’t work when I don’t want to work. It’s easy when I’ve got to do things like picking her up, weekends and all. But she’s at school most of the day so she’s being generous! So when before I would normally write at night time, John [McElhone, band member and co-writer of Texas songs] and I, we started changing to the days now. I’m lucky enough that I’ve got my niece who helps me out with my daughter when I’m away, doing gigs and stuff like that. My boyfriend is here, and also her dad is around the corner so its easy.

PJ: That’s good. Right, back on to your image in a sense. You’ve worked with lots of different photographers and people over the years, but we wanted to ask you what it was like working with Juergen Teller?

SS: There is this thing when you know somebody and you love their work and trust them – you’re not thinking he’s gonna be trying to make a name for himself, and do something… He understands what you’re about , and I think it’s all honesty – he only works on things that he wants to. So when you’ve got that combination, the people who want the same thing, they match your sensibility, then it’s on, hundred percent. And I remember when we were working together he asked me ‘go and scrub your face as hard as you can’. You know, if anybody else had asked me that I would’ve been like, fuck off! But I did it. That conversation happened when we were shooting the ‘White on Blonde’ album sleeve, and it’s amazing because the water was so cold, you know that morning look when you’re splashed with cold water? You just get that clean, raw look that was very much the image of what we were trying to do at that time.That’s why we asked Juergen to do it because that’s his work, it’s raw, you’re not trying to hide anything. It’s like ‘Ok, here’s the person, here’s the photograph, piss off’. The sleeve for ‘White on Blonde’, there was no doubt that it was really sexy. Whether you’re a man or a woman it doesn’t matter. People understand it. And to me, doing that photograph where my jumper is up covering half of my face and you see my eyes, I thought it had a mystery about it and I think Juergen really captured that moment, it’s not a straight up photograph. It’s very much a captured moment.

PJ: There’s a sort of spontaneity to his work, I think.

SS: I mean his work is literally about life, he captures that moment. It’s about capturing what happens in life, and he wants it.

IT FELT THAT PEOPLE GENUINELY WANTED TO HEAR ANOTHER TEXAS RECORD, SO WE THOUGHT ‘ALRIGHT, WE BETTER PULL OUR HEADS OUT OF OUR ARSES AND DO SOME WORK’, AND WE STARTED WRITING

PJ: Your accent is very special I have to say, it’s quite wonderful, do you think you’ll always have that accent? Do  you think it will ever diminish in any way? Or do you think your accent is very integral to who you are?

SS: I think it’s a big part of who I am, that’s just the way I am and was brought up.

PJ: I mean I’m the same, ’cause I’ve got an equally strong accent.

SS: You sound lovely, you sound like you’ve got an opinion.

PJ: I love it! It’s very feisty!

SS: It is! I think my accent has softened slightly but I’ve been in London for 19 years. I’ve still got a really strong accent, but I think it’s slowed right down from living in London. I know you probably seen me and Pam [Hogg] speaking and then suddenly we would speak so fast, and you probably were thinking, what the fuck are they saying? But that happens when you talk amongst yourselves because you draw more towards the slang. But personally I just see it as a small town thing more than anything else.

PJ: Have you got any special dates coming up for this album?

SS: We’ve done a showcase in London. We’ve done Glasgow on the 11th of May, and then London on 13th. And then we’ve got Paris, on the 27th.

PJ: Do you get to choose your venues?

SS: Yeah, we chose the venues. In London we played the 100 Club, and Paris we’re playing the New Morning club which is the first gig we played outside the UK in 1989.

PJ: Blimey! That’s exciting!

SS: We’re really anal about where we are playing, we’re like ‘not the right area’.

PJ: Do you ever get nervous before you perform?

SS: I’m more excited, I would say, than nervous. I don’t really get nervous. But excited, yeah definitely.

PJ: Especially performing somewhere that you haven’t performed since 1989, that could be quite daunting.

SS: I think it’s good when you’re revisiting somewhere where you’ve started. I love that challenge, I love that excitement. It’s always really exciting when you do that.

PJ: One more thing that I’d like to ask you – it’s to do with your feisty attitude. We heard the time honoured story of when you threw a drink over Paris Hilton…

SS: Oh god..(laughs). It was a bit of a moment… I was sitting down and she was standing on my mate’s jacket because she thought she was important enough to stand on a chair, and everybody should be alright with that, so I just filled my straw with a bit of a drink and blew at her which kinda pissed her off, you know? That’s never really bothered me, but I guess you can act pissed off if you have two giant bodyguards on each side. So she got in my face and went ‘Who are you?’ and I was like ‘Who cares? Fuck off or I’ll kick the shit out of you’. At which point I said to one of the people at Vanity Fair ‘If you don’t take her away from our fucking table I will start a riot’, so they removed her. And little did I know that someone very sneakily took a photograph on their phone which came out in a paper a couple of days later, so that’s how it got published.

PJ: You’ve got to be careful nowadays, everyone’s..

SS: Everyone’s a paparazzi!

PJ: So are we going to see a new, well-behaved Sharleen Spiteri?

SS: No, I want to grow old grumpily. That’s basically it.

PJ: And disgracefully?

SS: I’m happy to get worse and more of a pain in the neck!

Hair Oskar Pera Make up Ginni Bogado using Dior Les Nudes Nails Grace Humphries using L'Oreal Paris Color Riches Fashion assistance Ashley Clarke

[lauraramargosian]

The REAL truth about Kim Kardashian and her behavior!

The REAL truth about Kim Kardashian and her behavior!

Ultralight Beams pigment shimmers & glosses launching tomorrow 12pm PST on kkwbeauty.com

The Kardashians, they are a family that people love to hate but there are many fans that follow the successful Armenian family on their reality television series “Keeping Up With The Kardashians.”

Ahem.

“The Kardashians.”

Sadly, the moment I even mention the show to one of my friends they cringe. And I have no idea why people are so negative toward the Kardashian family. Truthfully, most of it is pre-judgement. My mom mentioned how “amazing,” and “relatable,” the show was to one of my siblings and he had nothing positive say, for someone who believes and supports God that’s very sad and they’re not the only one with this opinion.

First off, who are you to judge? You cannot judge anything or anyone until you look in the mirror.

Do you think you’re perfect? Do you do service work? Do you own a company? Did you pursue your dreams even after the main stream media tried to tear you down? Or better yet, your “friends,” who never believed in you?

Truth is you shouldn’t care that someone released a “video,” that shows romantic interaction. You should be more empathetic because it could happen to any of us now with “the cloud,” and how horrible security is becoming online and offline. Technology always improves, that gives the means for hackers and other internet predators a hand in perfecting their crimes.

What a person does in the bedroom should stay in the bedroom but there are people who like to do (what I consider) kinky shit. Should we start talking about 50 Shades of Grey? That film is well done porn. It’s watched in a movie theater and my two cents says there’s a lot of dirty shit going on during the movie, or “kinky shit.”

50 Shades of Grey in my honest opinion was a high budget film.

Kim Kardashian’s leaked tape was capturing an “in the moment,” time and unfortunately, things went down the wrong way with the tape. But it’s okay to go watch 50 Shades and not criticise the actors for what they do on-screen for money?

[ Kanye West gives Kim Kardashian beautiful flowers for anniversary! ]

Random fact, it’s been speculated that Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson are expected to negotiate seven-figure pay rises for the two Fifty Shades of Grey sequels. And the co-stars were reportedly paid around $250,000 each (£170,000) and that doesn’t include bonuses.

The film became the highest grossing 18-rated film in UK box office history after just ten days of releasing to movie theaters.

Even after Kim Kardashian had her tape leaked, she pushed her ass to continue following her dreams. Taking action in your life can be difficult when things don’t go the way you would have hoped but I have never once seen Mrs. Kardashian West give up on anything in her life. This woman is phenomenal.

She’s a fantastic mother and wife. And she’s always staying committed to life and everything that comes along with life.

Maybe she did get a little attention for the tape. But it’s because she’s beautiful. And she is “a celebrity,” to this very day it’s due to that fact that she successfully worked hard with her family to create a strong foundation for the stores they own ( NAME STORES HERE ), right? Let’s be real, we rarely hear about the tape now a days unless someone wants to say, “she’s only famous because her sex tape.”

Seriously, get over yourself, 90% of today’s generation have more sext time on their phones than you could possibly imagine. And during the time that tape was leaked, social media wasn’t what it is today and neither were phones. Porn certainly was always around and those that have seen the tape should be ashamed. You complain about the tape, yet you have likely fapped off to the tape and that makes you a hypocrite.

[ Kim Kardashian was robbed while in Paris & we’re sending love. ]

Recently (2017) Kim Kardashian West hired a lawyer to help the girl who was sex trafficked and now has to ‘spend life in jail,’ because of our broken system. Tell me, please how is Kim Kardashian a rude person? Did she go and “brag about it for fame?”

No.

It baffles me how disgustingly rude people can be toward people they don’t even know in REAL life. After Kim’s horrifying robbery people thought it was so funny to release a stupid Halloween costume of the poor woman being gagged in Paris.

What an absolute joke, what kind of human being do you have to be to write such a horrible article for a few crappy clicks (literally pennies).

[ Kanye West dancing to Justin Bieber ]

Kim Kardashian may not be your cup of tea but until you actually know a person, if you can’t say something nice, just hush because the truth is, just as much as you don’t care about the Kardashian family, people don’t care about gossiping, judgmental assholes. Let’s be real, people who have that type of mentality are only expressing what they don’t like about themselves onto other people (not rich, doesn’t have their dream job, doesn’t try, lazy) and that trend continues unless they choose to make a change.

So, for any talent out there reading this (Kim) truth is screw the haters. Being Armenian and Romanian might make me feel as though I relate to the Kardashians (just a little) is fun. And I’m glad I was able to write my personal thoughts about the Kim Kardashian.

And (for those of you who say ‘what’s your source of such a positive article)?, because yes, there are in fact people who think “positive celebrity gossip and news,” is not worth the time as they prefer scandal.

My source?

[ Kim Kardashian and Kanye West’s Wedding Song! ]

It’s being who i am a good person who cares about other people as well as watching KUWTK. You don’t need to watch a television show’s plot to learn about someone’s personality. If you know anything about film, life and people, there’s also body language.

Kim Kardashian West (and her family) are all sweet. And they have only brought positive to the world.

Let’s not forget to mention all the other charity work that Kim Kardashian (and her family) has taken part of and completely enjoyed including her history of donating her earnings to very powerful causes like the Haiyan relief in the Philippines. She tends to donate about 10 percent of her total earnings to charity every single year.

And let’s not forget the time they went and bought turkeys and fed the homeless.

After North’s Birth in 2013 Kim Kardashian didn’t want gifts. She asked everyone who wanted to give her a gift to donate to the Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago. And it’s been said that all that money went into treating babies who were ill and not in great health.

Being Armenian this is very important to me but she also brought awareness to the “Armenian Genocide.” When it had been exactly 100 years since million of Armenians were tragically murdered by Ottoman Empire.

The Kardashians took a trip to Armenia. The reason this is important is because history has shown that Turkey denies that it ever took place. Using her platform she raised awareness to the situation and it was quite an educational experience for those who were interested in learning.

There are so many positive things going on with the Kardashian family but the world tends to focus on scandal and that’s what we are here for, to help the world remember that good still exists.

Another random fact about Khloe Kardashian is her GOOD AMERICAN line.

Did you know that Khloe and her business partner just launched “GOOD AMERICAN.” It’s awesome for girls like myself that need a pair of jeans that are more “fitting,” for my curves. You can check out GOOD AMERICAN exclusively online at [ HERE ] but there are also select stores like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and Sefridges & Co locations also carry some of the GOOD AMERICAN style.

If you enjoyed this article stay tuned because we are going to talk about the whole Kardashian family and you’ll see what shiny amazing people they truly are and how they make the world a better place.

Blessed be.

    The post The REAL truth about Kim Kardashian and her behavior! appeared first on Celebrity News | Positive Celebrity Gossip | Laurara Monique.

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[twentysomethinginorlando]

Mickey's Dapper Birthday

New Post has been published on https://twentysomethinginorlando.com/mickeys-dapper-birthday/

Mickey's Dapper Birthday

I became a Cast Member in 2013, but I don’t remember anything about Dapper Day before the spring of 2014. That’s okay, I also didn’t know what Disneybounding was until right before I moved. Don’t worry, I’m going to explain Disneybounding later in this article if you don’t know what it is. My first experience with Dapper Day involved a fourteen-hour shift at the World Famous Jungle Cruise, and one of my favorite memories as a Cast Member. (That is a story I’m saving for the newsletter early next year, so subscribe now if you haven’t already!)  

Dapper Day is a semi-annual event held at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, and once a year at Disneyland Paris. The event began in 2011 in California and rapidly grew in popularity. The idea is that you come to the parks in your “Sunday Best”, essentially how it was originally envisioned the guests would dress coming to Disneyland in the 1950s and 1960s. Your dress doesn’t necessarily need to be vintage, just stylish. The events are not actually put on by Disney themselves, though they have gotten more involved as the event has grown. In Spring 2016, the last Dapper Day I attended, Disney didn’t officially have anything special for event. Spring 2017, they had special cupcakes, corsages and all sorts of things. Fall 2017 was a little different, as something else was overshadowing Dapper Day. 

Last year, they started making Walt Disney World’s Dapper Day a two-day event, but I only planned on doing the Magic Kingdom day. 

Somewhere along the line as I was planning out my year, I realized Day One of this year’s Dapper Day would fall on Mickey Mouse’s birthday. I immediately knew I wanted to theme my Dapper Day outfit around my favorite incarnation of the Mouse, the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. 

Enter Disneybounding. Disneybounding is the idea of theming your outfit around a certain character. Created by Leslie Kay, Disneybounding has quite the following on Tumblr. Since anyone over the age of twelve isn’t allowed to wear a costume to the Disney Parks, this is how many people find ways to still be their favorite character. I wish I Disneybounded more often, but it typically calls for a lot of solid colors and most my clothes already have Disney characters printed on them. However, for Dapper Day this year, I knew I would be Disneybounding Sorcerer Mickey. 

I hunted around online for a 1950s style red dress that I liked, not fully sure how I was going to make this work until I stumbled across one particular design. I literally recolored it in Paint since the computer I was on at the time didn’t have Photoshop and sent it to my friend Polly. She’s an awesome costumer and has been helping me with projects (and occasionally keeping me sane) since 2010. You can check out her blog, $20 Lolita, where she talks about making Budget, Offbrand and DIY Lolita clothing. I know we talked about her putting the dress on it at some point, but as of publishing I haven’t seen it on there yet. 

My outfit was settled, Duffy would wear his sailor outfit, and now it was time to figure out Jay’s. I originally wanted him to go as Steamboat Willie, but he thought it would be a little boring, but also look strikingly like his Gangster outfit from Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party. I agreed on at least the second point, and we spent the day before the event hunting for an outfit for him. At JC Penny inspiration struck, and Jay would soon be the Yensid to my apprentice. 

The morning of Dapper Day, my alarm went off at 3:50 a.m. If you’ve ever paid attention to my photos, you might have noticed I have all of three hair styles, and on the rare occasion I wear make-up, it always looks the same. Our friend Victoria was kind enough to agree to do my hair and make-up for Dapper Day, but she had to work at 7:30 a.m. This meant I had to be at her house at 5 a.m. Well, I overshot by half an hour and she did an amazing job anyway. 

The Disney Parks Blog had been advertising a special moment in the Welcome Show for Mickey’s Birthday, and we made it just in time. However, I should have known not to get my hopes up. The “special moment” was literally the Squire saying, “Happy Birthday, Mickey!” 

Now that the park was officially open, we popped over to ride the Haunted Mansion. Then it was time to hit as many characters as possible: Alice, Merida, Ariel, and Snow White all before 10 a.m. I carried my heels between characters and switched into a flimsy pair of flats that folded up to fit in my bag. 

We tried to go to Storybook Circus, but apparently, they don’t open until 10 a.m. these days. After Snow White, we waited in the twenty-minute-or-s0 line for Starbucks because we were both badly in need of caffeine, and more importantly, I had a gift card. I saw the special Steamboat Willie Cheesecake on display, but decided that much sugar so early in the morning would likely spell disaster and we grabbed pretzels at the Hub instead. While we were in line for the pretzels, a girl who was not Dapper, but covered in Duffy from head to foot caught my eye and I probably stared longer than was polite. 

At the entrance to Liberty Square there are benches on either side. We grabbed one and sat down to eat our pretzels. We wound up sitting there people watching for about half an hour, checking out all the Dapper Day outfits as they went by. Other dressed up guests would smile and nod or wave, and some even called, “Happy Dapper Day!” Shortly after we sat down, “Mickey’s Friendship Faire” started and we could see about half the stage. I’ve seen the show countless times, but I love the music so we stayed until the end. 

We went to see the pop-up shop at Box Office Gifts for the official Dapper Day merchandise. The creator of Dapper Day was there, Justin Jorgensen, and I wanted to get a picture with him but it was busy and hectic, and I wound up deciding not to bother him. It was really cool to see the clothing in person, even if it was out of my price range. 

Nine times out of ten, if I’m walking up or down Main Street, I cut through the Emporium. It’s air-conditioned, there’s no sun, and you never know what you might find. In this case, someone found me. The girl with the Duffy stuff spotted me again, and came up to introduce herself. Turns out she’s a blogger too! We traded business cards and she gave me a little folded up piece of paper of Duffy! As small and simple as it was, it was probably my favorite part of the day. 

One of the many great photo spots we found.

When I originally planned our Fastpasses thirty days in advance it never occurred to me we would be there for park open, so none of our Fastpasses were until the afternoon. At least this left us with a nice, slow morning to take our time doing what we wanted. We wandered around the park a bit looking for fun photo spots, and had to abort one location just as we arrived because Joey Quintin had posted where he was doing his first button giveaway on Instagram, and I didn’t know how quickly he’d run out. Joey is an amazing artist I encountered at MegaCon, and he was doing button giveaways for Dapper Day. The line was super long when we got there, and I didn’t expect to have so much pressure as I picked our buttons. I froze, and later thought of four other designs I would have rather picked. Oh well. They’re still wonderful! 

We went back to Storybook Circus to find Minnie and Daisy’s line at forty minutes and Donald and Goofy’s at twenty-five. We picked the boys since meeting Daisy is always awkward for me anyway. (She took Duffy’s spot at Epcot, I’m still bitter.) 

After the Circus, we went to ride the Carousel. Well, I rode the Prince Charming Regal Carousel. Jay stood on the outside and took pictures. Riding sidesaddle is strange, and I’m a little surprised the Cast Members allowed it. 

Finally, it was time for our first Fastpass and we made the extremely short, about twelve foot, trip to Princess Fairy Tale Hall. We jumped in the line for Rapnuzel and Tiana, and everything was going great until we were done. I went to switch back out of my heels to the flats when I felt something come undone in the dress. 

The zipper had gotten stuck that morning, and we’d used a couple of safety pins to close it under the belt. Jay went to check, and sure enough the safety pins were now all bent and useless. 

“I don’t know how to fix this,” Jay said. 

“I think I do.” 

I headed over to Bippity Boppity Boutique. Who better to fix a wardrobe malfunction than a Fairy God-Mother in Training? I explained the situation to Corley and she immediately went running off. She came back with a handful of safety pins and a few rubber bands. Jay and I popped over into a gift shop so he could repin the dress, and everything was good as new in no time!  

We headed over to get in line for Winnie the Pooh, and there was no one there. He’d be back in half an hour, so we sat down on the wall to wait.  

I don’t think I’ve ever had a Photopass Photographer take so many photos. There were twenty-four of them when we were done! Pooh took Duffy from me, and wanted to keep him, but I said no. Then Tigger was mad he wasn’t getting any attention and pulled me to dance while Jay and Pooh conspired to hide my Duffy Bear. Needless to say, I got him back before we left and some amazing photos. 

It was finally time for our Mickey Mouse Fastpass, and we were both exhausted. Jay was breaking in a new pair of shoes, and my flats were so thin I might as well have been barefoot. We decided to skip our last Fastpass after 5 p.m. for Cinderella and Elena, and make seeing the Birthday Boy our last stop. We swung over to Pecos Bill to get the Steamboat Willie Cheesecake with my annual pass discount, only to find them sold out. I got them to check the other venues in the park offering it, everywhere was sold out. I was more disappointed than I probably should have been. I love both cookies and cream, and cheesecake! Jay was right, we should have just gotten it at Starbucks that morning. 

When we got into the room to see Mickey, he wasn’t there yet and the character attendant got everyone to sing him “Happy Birthday” as he came in. It was adorable! The line was moving super quick and it was our turn in no time. There will never be a day I’m not excited to see Mickey Mouse, and I’m so glad I got to tell him “Happy Birthday!” in person.  

We headed for the monorail and made our way out of the Ticket and Transportation Center, eager to get home and dump the photos from my camera. 

Dapper Day is an awesome time, and one of the few special events at Walt Disney World that doesn’t require a separate admission ticket. This was the second year I’ve gotten to do it, and I hope to be doing it again in the future. Sadly, both the Spring and Fall events fall in the same month as RunDisney races, and there’s only so many weekends I can take off at a time. I think I like the Spring event better just because the Christmas music was majorly throwing me off and the decorations on Main Street made photos a little more challenging. 

I do already have plans for another outing with my dress, but it will be sometime next year at the earliest. 

Cost: Park admission. 

Value: I have a harder time scoring the value on this one because it’s not something you pay for, but I definitely think it’s something every Disney fan should do at least once! 

Duration: All day. 

Add Ons: You could do both days, or they had an event at Paddlefish on Friday this time at Disney Springs. According to the Dapper Day website, they have more expansions planned for Walt Disney World! 

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[wayneooverton]

All the mean, nasty and godawful hateful things people say to me online

Guys, why do people troll on the internet? Why are blogger hate comments a thing? Let this be the philosophical question of the day. Please, god, why? WHY? WHY?

And of all the people, why me? I’m a perfectly innocent little travel blogger over here, just minding my own business. The purpose of this blog is to inspire people to travel, what is so confronting about that? Move along. Why can people be so mean to me online? I don’t get it. I’m lovely, alright?

Just kidding. Sometimes I’m a shit stirrer. I stir the pot on purpose. If I see something I think is wrong, I say it. Also, god did not see fit to gift me with grace or tact. I am really good at regularly putting my foot in my mouth, often publicly. I also don’t know when to back away. And I’m cynical. Is this a recipe for a well-loved image? I’m not quite sure.

At least I’m real, right? Of all my flaws at least I like to think I’m authentic, the only truly honest blogger in a sea of vapid, shallow fools.

Stop talking, Liz. Like right now.

Anyways, it’s no secret, I get mean comments on the regular, so regular in fact that I have been doing annual round ups of the best mean comments I get every single year since 2012. I know I’m shamefully overdue on this post. I completely missed 2016.

2016 was an intense year for me, and when it came down to digging through comments looking for the horrible ones, I just couldn’t bring myself to go down that particular roller coaster. It was also the first year I started to get death threats. I just wasn’t in the mood. Can you forgive me?

Hate comments aren’t a novelty to me anymore, and they haven’t been for a long time. I’ve gotten tens of thousands of comments over the years, with a small percentage of them being ugly, and I’ve learned to just let them slide by in a giant wave of pity – I truly for sorry for anyone that takes the time to hate me so much online. Also, I’m probably laughing at you.

The best hate I got in 2015

The best hate I got in 2014

The best hate I got in 2013

The best hate I got in 2012

Also, I’ve really just stopped paying attention when people troll me; five years of regular trolls has given me armor. I went from being a delicate rose who bruised easily to a goddamn rhino. Go on, try and say something to mean to me. It can hardly be any worse that what I’ve gotten before.

And to be honest, it’s the same shit day in and day out. You’re privileged (yeah I know), you’re entitled (no I am not, thank you), you travel off your daddy’s money (HA, if you only knew…), you’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re stupid, you swear too much, you’re a know it all, you do this why don’t you do that, blah blah blah it never fucking ends.

Honestly, I yearn for the creative insults. I think my trolls have gotten lazy. Where’s the witty banter? The colorful backhanded comments? The passive aggressive DMs? They’ve disappeared into regular grammatically ugly “what a c*nt” and “how is this blog even popular” lazy comments. I mean for fuck’s sakes guys, if you’re gonna come for me, try a little.

But I digress. Back by popular demand, I’ve taken the time to dig through my work and find the best of the best blogger hate comments, the most entertaining, the ugliest, the cruelest, the worst hate comments I get just for you. Because at the end of the day, the only way we can deal with this BS is just to laugh. You’re welcome. Enjoy.

1. The most popular Facebook comment in response to an article about how I built my career in blogging

And if she wasn’t a young blond with a penchant for putting out to old men she’d be working at Officeworks for $15/hr

I want to start an argument about feminism here but just can’t be fucked.

2. And the second most liked comment on the same article 

The only thing worse than a human that resembles a vacuous opportunistic sponge is the plethora of parasites that aspire to be just that.

Just so we’re clear, I’m the sponge and you’re the parasite in this allegory.

3. Writing about how Jane Goodall inspires me to be better with conservation

You are not an “activist for saving the planet.” The number of flights you take each year creates more carbon emissions that most of us create in our LIVES. If you actually cared about the environment you would travel solely by bike and public transport with an occasional flight, not dozens of international flights a year. Get a grip.

I mean, fair point. I’d love some tips about biking overseas from the island of New Zealand where I live.

4. I really hate it when people don’t get sarcasm online on my how to cheat on Instagram

Teaching young people that life depends on Instagram. Thats great and people were wondering what was happening to our decaying society. Telling them that their popularity will increase if they sell their sexuality too. Wow what a true feminist you are. Pathetic. The whole millennial generation is going to be morally bankrupt.

I just facepalmed so hard.

5. Speaking of Instagram…

Not to be rude, just honest, but I noticed your photos have extremely low engagement for “168K” followers. I wonder if the companies who pay you notice this.

Guys, I’m literally one of the ONLY people who doesn’t cheat on Instagram! That’s why my engagement isn’t out of this world. But thanks for pointing that out.

6. That one time I wrote that Central Otago is one of the only regions in New Zealand that has four distinct seasons (which is true)

Seriously? The only region in New Zealand that experiences four distinct seasons? You need to travel more and drink less Pinot. I’m not even sure how I got your spam mail, but I live here, not just a FIFO tourist. If you want to trade travel stories, I’m sure you’ll lose.

You can’t make me drink less Pinot!!!! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME!

7. When I wrote a million years ago about things that I hate that people do on airplanes

Sounds like a person who wrote the original article needs more than Ambien. probably could use some Xanax and some Prozac also. when you travel on a plane you know there is also something called other human beings. Get a grip. judging by your photo, You’re not that cute or anything special…..

Hope you find the help you need.

Kisses!

You know, funny story. One time in Bangkok I went to a pharmacy to get some sleeping pills for upcoming long haul flights – sometimes in Southeast Asia I can get strong sleeping pills over the counter. They gave me Xanax, no questions asked. Best flight ever. In fact, imagine if Xanax was provided on all long-haul flights. Who do I need to speak to about this?

8. Any time I provoke the vegans, one of my favorite pastimes 

Me: writes thousands of words about wildlife, travel, sustainable tourism practices or about anything really

All of the vegans: You should consider going vegan

Me: but, bacon? So tasty.

All of the vegans: PITCHFORKS AT ATTENTION!

As a close friend used to say, do not negotiate with terrorists, Liz.

9. When I wrote a blog post about how to move to New Zealand as American (if you need some entertaining, go read through the comments) which is a minefield!

It is not your home. even if you wish it was it’s not, it is new zealands home. fuck off to your own home. leave mine alone… just fuck off back to usa and leave nz to be nz. stop telling people how to get here, we don’t want you. most nzers hate americans, you are boring n have no sense of humour, just fuck off bck to usa and leave nzers to our own country, plus u don’t get my point cos u dumb american.if u don’t want to be thought of a american sterotype don’t act like dunb american cunt….you are such a dunb cunt. this is why we hate you.

I can’t look beyond the grammatical and spelling errors in this, honestly I tried, but I can’t.

Yes go ahead pls MOVE out from US we don’t need weak, pathetic, ignorant ppl here who need “safe-spaces” You have been brain washed by fake media like cnn, fox, abc etc for too long

I just can’t.

Congratulations on proving again that liberal thought is shallow and feelings-based. Too much reading making your head hurt?

I’m literally the biggest reader you’ve ever met. Don’t even.

I read the first couple of paragraphs and had to stop. As a Trump supporter, I am offended by your words and will now stop following you. It’s really too bad that you offend some of your followers, here I thought I was following a travel blog. Please do move to NZ, because America will be better off without you!!

It’s ok, I’m ashamed to have had you as a reader.

That response obviously shows why 20 something women shouldn’t even have the right to vote.

*Begins to pull hair out of own head*

Im just trying to save you from having to take depression medication for the rest of your life thats all. What are you on now Zoloft or Prozac?

Neither, unfortunately. I sure could use one after reading this.

10. I appeared in a big NBC Dateline special about American’s moving to New Zealand and man, that opened the floodgates of crazy

Stay out of America you traitor bitch.

This was the first of many comments calling me a traitor.

STAY OUT OF AMERICA YOU BITCH. HOPE A HOBBIT KILLS YOUR SORRY ASS CUNT.

LOL!!!

STAY OUT OF AMERICA YOU BITCH. I hope a sheep kills you and your family you faggot, the USA is the best country ever.

Me: I feel so sorry for you

I feel worse for you, you no good commie bastard. Stay out of my country and fuck off cunt. Fuck you you no life blogger get a real job.

Me: You feel better now?

Yes, I’m living in the US of A #MAGA fuck. Cuck.

Me: Well I feel better living in a place with people nicer than you. And I have healthcare. And I can spell.

BOOM! How’d they do? What’s the worst thing anyone has said to you online? Do you get trolled? How do you cope? Spill!

The post All the mean, nasty and godawful hateful things people say to me online appeared first on Young Adventuress.

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Moira Weigel Talks Love and The Invention of Dating

If you’ve ever wondered about the origins of dating, Moira Weigel’s book Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating is for you. She goes into the history (hint: dating hasn’t been around that long) and shares insights along the way (for example: people have always been skeptical about the ways men and women meet and pair up).

Today, Weigel’s book releases in paperback and to celebrate, I caught up with her to talk a little about how the history of dating can inform the way we think about relationships today.

What got you interested in dating as a field of study?

I was in graduate school at Yale and what I was studying had nothing to do with dating, but of course as a single woman in my twenties, quite a lot of what I spent my time talking about with friends had to do with relationships and how we felt about our experiences. When I was around 25 or 26 I had this moment where I thought—why isn’t this a thing that we take seriously? I was like ‘We’re all developing these huge intellectual tool kits, why aren’t we using them on the stuff that we really care about and talk about all the time?’

I also noticed, this would have been around 2012, 2013, I felt like all of the sudden in the media there were a lot of conversations—and I hadn’t done my research yet so I didn’t know that this wasn’t new—but there seemed to be a lot of conversations that were either about dating culture panic and how the rise of mobile phone apps was changing dating culture and/or about this idea that Hanna Rosin, from the Atlantic, famously called The End Of Men, the idea that there weren’t any eligible men, or people weren’t dating right.

I think in 6 months, The End Of Men was a book that came out, there was a book called The End Of Sex, and there was a New York Times article called “The End Of Courtship,”and both as someone being trained in historical research and as someone who hoped to have sex with men, and courtship, I hoped it was not the end of men, sex, and courtship. Those seemed like very big claims.

I got curious though about why. That can’t possibly be true. Do we really think that the human race is going to end because of Tinder? I was like: ‘why is that such a compelling story, that’s literally leading the headlines?’ What it sounds like is that human courtship was the same for all of history, you know cavemen and cave women were this way and then all of a sudden the iPhone 6 came and now it’s over. I was like ‘Well, that doesn’t seem like that can be right, I want to investigate what’s actually going on and why there’s so much anxiety about gender roles and relations and courtship, and then also like why is this such a compelling story to people, why is it such a popular form of click-bait?’

So I was doing some research and poking around and made this discovery — which is that this whole idea of dating which we take for granted now and think of as pretty natural — is a relatively new invention. It only really becomes a thing that people do—this idea that you go out into public and find your own mate and that it’s not someone your family chooses or your Rabbi or your priest chooses, but it’s someone that you choose—that that only really gets started when women enter the workforce. So, as a feminist, that was super interesting to me, that was the origins of my interest.

How has studying the history of dating informed your perceptions about modern dating?

I don’t know if this is encouraging or super depressing, but the biggest takeaway is just: it’s always been hard. What’s really fascinating, and I get into this at the beginning of my book, you go back the word—‘dating’ starts to be used in the 1890s—dating in that period is looked at with extreme suspicion and is indeed thought to be a kind of prostitution. People are arrested for going on dates, and really ever since they were arresting women for going on dates there has never been an era either when parents and older people are like ‘Oh it’s great what the kids are doing, they are doing it just right’ or when people were like, ‘Dating is awesome, I’m killing it.’ Every single historical era you see, on the one hand, adults and older authority figures fretting that young people are not meeting and getting to know one another in the right way and also people who are engaged in dating saying like, ‘Oh God I’m not doing it right, I’m anxious’ ‘Does he like me? ‘Does she like me? ‘Should I not have bought that lemonade for her?’ or whatever. So anxiety  — both big, cultural anxiety and personal anxiety is a constant feature of dating ever since it was invented.

In terms of the kinds of advice I would give friends or how I would apply this kind of historical research to personal life, I think one thing that’s really striking in the contemporary advice industry is how much advice is basically about telling people to suppress their feelings. I think of The Rules franchise as sort of the prototype, the most dramatic or famous example of this. It’s literally like, ‘Oh do you like a guy? Don’t tell him.’ ‘You feel like calling him? Don’t.’ ‘Would you like to have sex? Don’t do that.’

It’s so often about telling people not to express their feelings and I think that that it’s certainly not a good idea to express all of one’s feelings all of the time, but I think that there’s really a very detrimental aspect to this—first of all it makes people quite neurotic. It also makes people so focused on strategy and tactics that it becomes very hard to express what you want, and I think you might even lose track of what you actually want. It’s easy to become so wrapped up in that advice that it’s hard to even know if you actually like someone or just like being liked. So I think that it was very interesting for me to see, in my view, how this pattern of telling people, and particularly straight women, not to express their feelings, it was interesting to see how that was tied up to a history of trying to control female behavior. Because I think that basically—this is very straightforward advice, but I think it’s usually better to express your feelings, and to communicate much more openly than most of the advice suggests.

My hope for the book is that having this historical context sort of puts this emphasis on the tricks and the rules and the games into some perspective, and lets people see the ways in which those tricks and tactics aren’t necessarily so much about making you individually happy as perpetuating certain ideas about how a man should act and how a woman should act.

Another thing that was so striking in my research—I think that we have all of these ideas in the culture that men are this way, and women are this way, and basically, it’s like men have no feelings and never want feelings they’re just trying to get sex, and it’s like women don’t like sex and they only want feelings and they trade sex for affection, or something. I really don’t think that’s true. My unscientific-sounding conclusion is that I think that actually most humans want mostly the same thing, which is a combination of respect and intimacy and communication. I think that many men and women have different communicative styles or attachment styles, but it is just absolutely not true that most men don’t feel anything around sexual or physical intimacy or don’t desire relationships and intimacy, and I think that that myth that they aren’t supposed to makes very men unhappy. I think in the culture we often talk about how certain expectations about gender roles are bad for women, but I think they are also quite bad for men.

What surprised you the most about the history of dating?

I think that the fact that for the first ten or twenty years of the history of dating, making a date was something you could get arrested for, that it was totally seen as the same thing as prostitution, really surprised me at first. When I did a little bit more research, it makes total sense because there just wasn’t any context where a man and woman would spend time together and something would be bought or sold. When you think about the Jane Austen scenario or the church dance that people in the country would have done in the late 1800s, you would meet someone, you would court someone, but there was never a situation where someone would buy or sell something. Reading about all of these women who got arrested for going out to what we now consider the most traditional date—like going out to dinner and a movie with someone—that was a big surprise to me.

There’s also a section of the book about the history of this idea of the biological clock and anxiety about women reproducing. I was very surprised to learn how recent the term biological clock, and this idea that women kind of have to race time to find a partner and settle down and get married is. That term was coined in March of 1978—much more recent than I had thought.

There’s a lot of negativity in the media about the present and future of dating and romantic love. How would you encourage people who are looking for love in the trenches based on your research and experience?

I think that the most encouraging thing that I can say is maybe also the depressing thing which is: it has always been this way. I think that it’s helpful to step back and be like, ‘why is this such an evergreen story?’ Well, it offers something to everyone. It’s sort of titillating because it’s about sex, it prods people who are single to panic. It’s like when my mom used to send me these articles before I met my husband that were like, “Why Millennial Women Will Be Alone Forever.” Click. So I feel like they are such constant media stories because they are click bait. I don’t think that it reflects real reasons to be deeply pessimistic about love.

It is true that the role of marriage in our culture is changing and that gender roles have changed dramatically over the past hundred years and the expectations, the ages people get married at, the class profile of marriage, or whether people get married at all—those things have all changed. But I think that to people who feel stressed out by those articles, as I certainly did, I think that I would just remind people that this is a way of selling things, whether it’s advice books—because if the advice were like, ‘Hey communicate openly about your feelings and expectations and try to stay in touch with yourself about what you want’—that’s not the basis of a billion-dollar self-help industry.

It is true that the role of  marriage in our society has changed, and people’s expectations have changed, but it is not true that love is dead, and there’s absolutely no empirical basis for that kind of claim. So I think that that would be my encouragement: it’s always been hard, love has never been easy, there’s no historical period where everyone is saying ‘Oh, this is a snap.’ People ask me if it’s a self-help book, and I think it’s not, but my hope is that by giving people some perspective on those questions it will help relieve some of that anxiety about feeling like we’re doing it wrong or that we are really in trouble because things have changed so dramatically that it’s hopeless.

There are a lot of things that are way better than they were in the past, too, and the internet has made it easier than ever. I mean the internet fuels anxiety on the one hand, but the internet has also made it way easier to find a lot of people who might be into what you’re into. I think that there’s a lot of reasons to feel positive about those possibilities, as well as anxious. I would argue that the boundary between on and off line life is increasingly nonexistent. I joke that all dating is online, because whether or not you met on a website, you always probably looked each other up on Facebook or Google. so I think that the boundaries between those two ways of meeting are increasingly insignificant.

  Cara Strickland writes about food and drink, mental health, faith and being single from her home in the Pacific Northwest. She enjoys hot tea, good wine, and deep conversations. She will always want to play with your dog. Connect with her on Twitter @anxiouscook.

  The post Moira Weigel Talks Love and The Invention of Dating appeared first on eHarmony Blog.

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[fayecallasdatingblog]

Moira Weigel Talks Love and The Invention of Dating

If you’ve ever wondered about the origins of dating, Moira Weigel’s book Labor of Love: The Invention of Dating is for you. She goes into the history (hint: dating hasn’t been around that long) and shares insights along the way (for example: people have always been skeptical about the ways men and women meet and pair up).

Today, Weigel’s book releases in paperback and to celebrate, I caught up with her to talk a little about how the history of dating can inform the way we think about relationships today.

What got you interested in dating as a field of study?

I was in graduate school at Yale and what I was studying had nothing to do with dating, but of course as a single woman in my twenties, quite a lot of what I spent my time talking about with friends had to do with relationships and how we felt about our experiences. When I was around 25 or 26 I had this moment where I thought—why isn’t this a thing that we take seriously? I was like ‘We’re all developing these huge intellectual tool kits, why aren’t we using them on the stuff that we really care about and talk about all the time?’

I also noticed, this would have been around 2012, 2013, I felt like all of the sudden in the media there were a lot of conversations—and I hadn’t done my research yet so I didn’t know that this wasn’t new—but there seemed to be a lot of conversations that were either about dating culture panic and how the rise of mobile phone apps was changing dating culture and/or about this idea that Hanna Rosin, from the Atlantic, famously called The End Of Men, the idea that there weren’t any eligible men, or people weren’t dating right.

I think in 6 months, The End Of Men was a book that came out, there was a book called The End Of Sex, and there was a New York Times article called “The End Of Courtship,”and both as someone being trained in historical research and as someone who hoped to have sex with men, and courtship, I hoped it was not the end of men, sex, and courtship. Those seemed like very big claims.

I got curious though about why. That can’t possibly be true. Do we really think that the human race is going to end because of Tinder? I was like: ‘why is that such a compelling story, that’s literally leading the headlines?’ What it sounds like is that human courtship was the same for all of history, you know cavemen and cave women were this way and then all of a sudden the iPhone 6 came and now it’s over. I was like ‘Well, that doesn’t seem like that can be right, I want to investigate what’s actually going on and why there’s so much anxiety about gender roles and relations and courtship, and then also like why is this such a compelling story to people, why is it such a popular form of click-bait?’

So I was doing some research and poking around and made this discovery — which is that this whole idea of dating which we take for granted now and think of as pretty natural — is a relatively new invention. It only really becomes a thing that people do—this idea that you go out into public and find your own mate and that it’s not someone your family chooses or your Rabbi or your priest chooses, but it’s someone that you choose—that that only really gets started when women enter the workforce. So, as a feminist, that was super interesting to me, that was the origins of my interest.

How has studying the history of dating informed your perceptions about modern dating?

I don’t know if this is encouraging or super depressing, but the biggest takeaway is just: it’s always been hard. What’s really fascinating, and I get into this at the beginning of my book, you go back the word—‘dating’ starts to be used in the 1890s—dating in that period is looked at with extreme suspicion and is indeed thought to be a kind of prostitution. People are arrested for going on dates, and really ever since they were arresting women for going on dates there has never been an era either when parents and older people are like ‘Oh it’s great what the kids are doing, they are doing it just right’ or when people were like, ‘Dating is awesome, I’m killing it.’ Every single historical era you see, on the one hand, adults and older authority figures fretting that young people are not meeting and getting to know one another in the right way and also people who are engaged in dating saying like, ‘Oh God I’m not doing it right, I’m anxious’ ‘Does he like me? ‘Does she like me? ‘Should I not have bought that lemonade for her?’ or whatever. So anxiety  — both big, cultural anxiety and personal anxiety is a constant feature of dating ever since it was invented.

In terms of the kinds of advice I would give friends or how I would apply this kind of historical research to personal life, I think one thing that’s really striking in the contemporary advice industry is how much advice is basically about telling people to suppress their feelings. I think of The Rules franchise as sort of the prototype, the most dramatic or famous example of this. It’s literally like, ‘Oh do you like a guy? Don’t tell him.’ ‘You feel like calling him? Don’t.’ ‘Would you like to have sex? Don’t do that.’

It’s so often about telling people not to express their feelings and I think that that it’s certainly not a good idea to express all of one’s feelings all of the time, but I think that there’s really a very detrimental aspect to this—first of all it makes people quite neurotic. It also makes people so focused on strategy and tactics that it becomes very hard to express what you want, and I think you might even lose track of what you actually want. It’s easy to become so wrapped up in that advice that it’s hard to even know if you actually like someone or just like being liked. So I think that it was very interesting for me to see, in my view, how this pattern of telling people, and particularly straight women, not to express their feelings, it was interesting to see how that was tied up to a history of trying to control female behavior. Because I think that basically—this is very straightforward advice, but I think it’s usually better to express your feelings, and to communicate much more openly than most of the advice suggests.

My hope for the book is that having this historical context sort of puts this emphasis on the tricks and the rules and the games into some perspective, and lets people see the ways in which those tricks and tactics aren’t necessarily so much about making you individually happy as perpetuating certain ideas about how a man should act and how a woman should act.

Another thing that was so striking in my research—I think that we have all of these ideas in the culture that men are this way, and women are this way, and basically, it’s like men have no feelings and never want feelings they’re just trying to get sex, and it’s like women don’t like sex and they only want feelings and they trade sex for affection, or something. I really don’t think that’s true. My unscientific-sounding conclusion is that I think that actually most humans want mostly the same thing, which is a combination of respect and intimacy and communication. I think that many men and women have different communicative styles or attachment styles, but it is just absolutely not true that most men don’t feel anything around sexual or physical intimacy or don’t desire relationships and intimacy, and I think that that myth that they aren’t supposed to makes very men unhappy. I think in the culture we often talk about how certain expectations about gender roles are bad for women, but I think they are also quite bad for men.

What surprised you the most about the history of dating?

I think that the fact that for the first ten or twenty years of the history of dating, making a date was something you could get arrested for, that it was totally seen as the same thing as prostitution, really surprised me at first. When I did a little bit more research, it makes total sense because there just wasn’t any context where a man and woman would spend time together and something would be bought or sold. When you think about the Jane Austen scenario or the church dance that people in the country would have done in the late 1800s, you would meet someone, you would court someone, but there was never a situation where someone would buy or sell something. Reading about all of these women who got arrested for going out to what we now consider the most traditional date—like going out to dinner and a movie with someone—that was a big surprise to me.

There’s also a section of the book about the history of this idea of the biological clock and anxiety about women reproducing. I was very surprised to learn how recent the term biological clock, and this idea that women kind of have to race time to find a partner and settle down and get married is. That term was coined in March of 1978—much more recent than I had thought.

There’s a lot of negativity in the media about the present and future of dating and romantic love. How would you encourage people who are looking for love in the trenches based on your research and experience?

I think that the most encouraging thing that I can say is maybe also the depressing thing which is: it has always been this way. I think that it’s helpful to step back and be like, ‘why is this such an evergreen story?’ Well, it offers something to everyone. It’s sort of titillating because it’s about sex, it prods people who are single to panic. It’s like when my mom used to send me these articles before I met my husband that were like, “Why Millennial Women Will Be Alone Forever.” Click. So I feel like they are such constant media stories because they are click bait. I don’t think that it reflects real reasons to be deeply pessimistic about love.

It is true that the role of marriage in our culture is changing and that gender roles have changed dramatically over the past hundred years and the expectations, the ages people get married at, the class profile of marriage, or whether people get married at all—those things have all changed. But I think that to people who feel stressed out by those articles, as I certainly did, I think that I would just remind people that this is a way of selling things, whether it’s advice books—because if the advice were like, ‘Hey communicate openly about your feelings and expectations and try to stay in touch with yourself about what you want’—that’s not the basis of a billion-dollar self-help industry.

It is true that the role of  marriage in our society has changed, and people’s expectations have changed, but it is not true that love is dead, and there’s absolutely no empirical basis for that kind of claim. So I think that that would be my encouragement: it’s always been hard, love has never been easy, there’s no historical period where everyone is saying ‘Oh, this is a snap.’ People ask me if it’s a self-help book, and I think it’s not, but my hope is that by giving people some perspective on those questions it will help relieve some of that anxiety about feeling like we’re doing it wrong or that we are really in trouble because things have changed so dramatically that it’s hopeless.

There are a lot of things that are way better than they were in the past, too, and the internet has made it easier than ever. I mean the internet fuels anxiety on the one hand, but the internet has also made it way easier to find a lot of people who might be into what you’re into. I think that there’s a lot of reasons to feel positive about those possibilities, as well as anxious. I would argue that the boundary between on and off line life is increasingly nonexistent. I joke that all dating is online, because whether or not you met on a website, you always probably looked each other up on Facebook or Google. so I think that the boundaries between those two ways of meeting are increasingly insignificant.

  Cara Strickland writes about food and drink, mental health, faith and being single from her home in the Pacific Northwest. She enjoys hot tea, good wine, and deep conversations. She will always want to play with your dog. Connect with her on Twitter @anxiouscook.

  The post Moira Weigel Talks Love and The Invention of Dating appeared first on eHarmony Blog.

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[rebeccahpedersen]

Happy Birthday TRB: Toronto Realty Blog Is 10-Years-Old!

TorontoRealtyBlog

I guess many of you can relate to the thought, “Oh My God, I can’t believe it’s been ten years,” when it comes to your kids who seem to “grow up so fast.”

Well, for the longest time, Toronto Realty Blog was my baby.

And for the life of me, I can’t believe the blog is officially ten years old.

It seems like a lifetime ago that I decided to shake up the real estate industry and start posting (gasp!) opinions on real estate, rather than following the army of robotic salespeople who refused to do anything different.  I was a rough go at first, but after ten years, I think we’re here to stay…

Go ahead and tell me if you’re one of the very few long-time-readers, who can remember reading TRB in 2007, 2008, or 2009.

My very first post was July 1st, 2007, although to be completely honest, I put up the blog on July 14th, and back-dated a bunch of posts to make the site seem like it had already been up a while.

It was somewhat pointless, since nobody was reading anyways.

My, times have changed.

In 2017, my average blog post is 1,927 words.

Back in 2007, I was told that blog posts “should” be about 200-400 words.

And when friends of mine read my first handful of blogs, I remember them saying, “It’s cool and all, but it’s just too damn long.”

I suppose I don’t take constructive criticism easily, since I decided to set out to make them longer, not shorter.

A young agent in my office told me, no word of a lie, that when she started at Bosley last year, she started reading my blog, from the beginning.

That’s well over 2,000 blog posts, and for the love of God, I don’t know where she found the time.

It took her six months, but she literally read every single post I have ever written.

She made four observations, having read an average of over 300 posts per month:

1) Your posts have become MUCH longer. 2) You are far more cynical today. 3) You go on a lot less rants now. 4) You have an insane use of ellipses…

#3 is a bit odd to me, since my entire life is a complete rant, but I digress…

So not having read anything that I wrote ten years ago, in quite some time, I decided to go back and read the very first blog post from July 1st, 2007, and I’ll share it with you guys now:

  Condo BUST?  I Don’t Think So! July 1st, 2007

If ever there were an indication that the condo market isn’t “about to implode” as many media sources and your roommate with absolutely no knowledge of real estate whatsoever, have speculated, it was last week with the launch of 83 Redpath.

The Benvenuto Group’s new 21-storey condominium project east of Yonge/Eglinton sold out in only two days, with about 200 units turning over. Buyers were literally lined up outside, and several buyers even slept over the night before, I kid you not. This is how badly some people wanted to live in 83 Redpath starting in 2010, or, how good an investment some buyers think this condominium project will be.

A few weeks ago, Menkes Developments launched The Four Seasons Private Residences in Yorkville which even at $600 per square foot sold over 70 units the first weekend. Even more impressive, is that over 10 of those units were purchased by Registered Real Estate Salespersons. When the people who know the most about the real estate industry are investing in its future, that is an excellent sign that the condo market is healthy.

People often ask me “don’t you think there are too many condos in Toronto?” The answer to that question is “yes and no.” There are too many crummy condos in Toronto, and not enough good ones.

For example, next time you drive along the Gardiner Expressway near Skydome, and you see all those horrible condos they’ve built—those are the crummy ones. The buildings are all 50-storey monsters with no character, oddly layed-out units, and the worst part is that the view is of….another condo! There is no surrounding infrastructure, unless you count Subway and the drycleaners…just in case you get meatball sub on your new suitcoat.

I just purchased a unit at 230 King Street in a modest 16-storey building. The unit contains a 450 square foot outdoor patio. There are only six of these units in my building. Likewise, I sold my brother and his fiancée a unit at 168 King with a 330 square foot patio. There are only four of those units in his building.

I think buying a generic, cookie-cutter unit on the 38th floor of 12 Yonge Street is a bad investment, and yes, I think there are too many of those condos and perhaps they won’t keep their value. But there aren’t nearly enough good condos in happening areas with character, functionality, and that certain extra quality like a sweet patio.

Take my optimism with a grain of salt perhaps, as I sell real estate for a living. But keep in mind that I have purchased two condos so far this year, and there are still six months left…

    I know what you’re thinking – that’s it?

How entirely unsatisfied would you be if your morning TRB read was only 449 words, like that piece of crap above.

But that’s how things were ten years ago!

And I’m reading this now laughing at the idea that $600/sqft was a lot for a condo at Four Seasons, since the average price per square foot is now around $1,500, give or take.

But a lot changes in ten years, as each of us can attest to, personally and professionally.

And the best part about that blog?  A “plant” comment from one of my friends, who helped me start the site:

I don’t know that it was meant to be serious, but knowing my friend’s sense of humour, I still laugh when reading it.

I posted a long history of TRB when I hit my 1500th blog post over two years ago, so if you’re interested in the blog’s humble beginnings, have a look at that link, and I’ll save the rest of you from reading the story a second time…

And yes, I suppose I do use a lot of ellipses.  But my writing style has always been conversational in nature, as I feel like I’m speaking to an audience.  And so often in life, we get bored of listening to each other, change topics, or don’t finish thoughts, which results in a natural trailing off…

In any event, (a phrase I’m told I also over-use), I figured I’d have some fun with the TRB 10th anniversary, so here’s what I’m proposing:

Starting this Monday, every weekday for ten straight days, I’ll post a question relating to the blog’s history on Facebook and Instagram.

The first person who can successfully answer the question gets a $100 Home Depot Gift Card.

Every weekday, for ten days, starting on Monday, July 17th.

I’ll post the #TRB10 trivia question between 12pm and 1pm when hopefully many of you are sipping Booster Juice’s on a picnic bench, and may the best man or woman win.

In the meantime, I welcome suggestions for new features as we move into Decade #2 here at TRB.

I’d love to revive my “What If The Whole World Worked The Same Way As The Toronto Real Estate Industry,” since that was about the most fun I’ve had in my 13 years in the business.  But oh, the time it takes!  And this 8-month-old child is already killing my golf game, just imagine trying to revive that series???

Some people have asked me to include more active listings on my blog, and while I do feature the house/condo/loft of the week, which are hand-picked from the rubble of what MLS has to offer, others have suggested I install a “widget” for the whole monty – all the listings out there.  But I wonder, isn’t that what MLS is for?  Or if that’s too slow for your liking, then Zolo, Zoocasa, or whatever other better mouse-traps have popped up?

And here I thought the attraction to TRB was my honest, overly-cynical, mildly-right-wing thoughts and opinions on real estate and just about anything else that pops into my insane mind…

Folks, I’m open to suggestion.

But I promise to continue bestowing upon you a 2,000 word essay Mon/Wed/Fri, and 25-minute video every Thursday, until the day I die and/or make it to the Senior PGA Tour.

And what I’d love more than anything, if you guys could please do me one favour, is for the regular readers to post below: what year did you start reading TRB?

I know most of the regular commenters will partake, but what about the rest of you?

Sidebar here for a moment – I ran into somebody at the gym last week who said, “You’re David, right?  I read your blog!”  I asked him what I ask everybody who tells me they read my blog: “Do you comment?”

His eyes widened with a slight tinker of fear and he waved both hands across his chest and said, “Oh no, no, no.  I can’t get into that mix.”

So to all you “regulars” on here – you scare the crap out of people.

But to the whole lot of you, thank you for your readership, comments and interractions with each-other, and continued support on TRB.

I’m looking forward to the #TRB10 trivia next week.

Have a fantastic weekend!

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DISPATCH, 06/24/17: Mirage Media has officially released information about leader and main rapper,Yong Seongkyeo, also known as Kyeo, on G-ZER0’s official website! Kyeo is a ‘93 liner and has been beloved by fans since his debut in 2013. Find out more about Kyeo below!

I, YONG SEONGKYEO, have read and understand the terms and conditions as my position of LEADER AND LEAD RAPPER of G-ZER0 and agree to honor the standards that are to be expected of me as an employee of MIRAGE.

OOC INFORMATION

Preferred name: Ossy Pronouns: they/them Timezone: EST Other muses: —

IC INFORMATION

Faceclaim: Park Jiwoo aka Jinjin of ASTRO

Name: Yong Seongkyeo Stage name (if applicable): Kyeo

Idol concept: He is regarded as having some of the best raps in the industry, even having earned a few nicknames from fans due to this. There are rumors that he was offered/is currently being offered a solo rap career under Prime. He was a temporary host for television host 2.

…and it is quite true, because Kyeo has been known to have written raps for many other groups as well as himself and his own group. His fans adore this about him and support him every step of the way. Kyeo does enjoy it, though, because it makes him feel better about himself as a songwriter/rapper. He is always desperate to please not only his fans but other groups and his own. He tries to look prideful but Kyeo does not have a big ego. So while he looks like he can do anything to his fans, he actually does struggle a lot on the inside and with himself when it comes to all the work he has to do. His public image is so much more pure than his private life, as he prefers not to worry his fans and even his groupmates. There is nothing worse than having the attention all shifted onto him. This is why Kyeo always works hard for everyone.

Birth date and age: Oct. 26th, 1993; age 23 Company name: Mirage Group Name (if applicable): G-ZER0 Group Position (if applicable): Leader/Lead rapper

Strengths: Kyeo’s strengths include his rapping and songwriting skills. He is also very good at putting forth a lot of energy to keep his group running and overall is a strong support as the leader of his group. Weaknesses: While he does sing and dance, he is not as great as his groupmates, especially when it comes to dancing. He is always one of the last ones to learn all the moves and has to work harder because of this. It is also very easy for Kyeo to become disorganized and overworked.

Positive traits: ambitious, sympathetic, attentive Negative traits: introverted, vulgar, quiet

PERSONAL HISTORY: tw: homophobia

When your family is broke as hell, all you ever want is for them to get by, right? That’s what Kyeo really wanted, but somehow it never really seemed to be enough. With a booming economy and mother out of work, there wasn’t much that him and his older brother could do until they got into high school.

Kyeo was born into a family of three; a mom, dad, and older brother by 3 years. From his birth to when he was about ten years old, things were just great between the family. His mom and dad worked 9 to 5 jobs that had them up in the morning for breakfast and home at night for dinner as well as his brother helping Kyeo with his homework almost every night he had some. They were like a blissful, fairy tail family–

And then his mom lost her job. He was eleven and it seemed that it was the only thing she really cared about. It was also when his father was promoted, but the promotion was anything but good for the family. Kyeo found his father working long hours, spending all his time at home in bed either drinking, watching television, or sleeping away so that he could get up and do the same routine all over again the next day. It was painful to see, that and the fact this his mom did what seemed like a complete 360 degree twist of her life. She was more harsh, more rude, and definitely a lot more strict on her boys.

Upon entering high school at the age of fifteen, Kyeo had a factory job in the city to which he reported to almost every day after school. They were nice to him and they barely let him work past sunset every day in order to send him home to have dinner and do his homework. But it just caused more drama between him and his mom– and not to mention his brother, who was out of high school by then, slaved his way through a job he hated too. It hurt him so much, honestly, seeing his whole family fall apart and he was only fifteen.

But it all changed when he found out he was gay. Being gay is something you don’t like to talk about with your family that often and Kyeo never did, at least, until he brought a boy home from school that he had recently started dating. He was head over heels for the boy; he found peace and heaven in him and the two of them clicked so well despite all the people at school who bullied them to no end. Somehow he felt he could have the shittiest day and wake up remembering he had someone like that in his life and everything would be okay– but that was just a mistake.

The mistake he made was bringing him home. His mom went absolutely nuts. In front of the other fifteen year old’s eyes, his mother beat Kyeo, not with her fists, but with anything she could find - spoons, pans, baking sheets… anything, and it scared the absolute shit out of both of the little kids, so much that Kyeo found himself losing the one boy he felt he could trust and lean on in any situation. He blamed his mom; no, he blamed his whole fucking family for turning into this shitty example of how poverty forces a wedge between the once beautiful relationships they had.

His mom hated his sexuality. His mom hated him and everytime he would make a snide remark about not being interested in a girl that someone showed him, Kyeo found himself being battered, so battered that he became spooked by the littlest brief noises that sounded like the beating of a boy who only wanted his mom to love him. He still gets twitchy hearing things like that, even after he had escaped that life when he was seventeen. He was sick and tired of his mom shitting on his interest in men and and then literally beating him up for it, until he practically bled sometimes. Kyeo had enough.

It was no secret that the boy had a passion for music, and he had used this as an outlet to try and cope with the way his family treated him. With his misfit poems and his desire to do something more, he moved out, and he found himself interning at what was then a small company within his city, RHYTHMS, and as their popularity grew, so did Kyeo’s career in songwriting. He soon grew tired of watching everyone take credit for his work and decided on auditioning himself. It was only to make himself proud and more known to the public. And, to his surprise, he made it into RHYTHMS upcoming group, G-ZER0 at the age of 17.

As a trainee, he pushed himself to every limit every day. He tried to avoid all of his groupmates in G-ZER0 for the simple fact that he didn’t want them to know who he really was, but that was before he found out he was going to be the leader of them all. (Kyeo would never tell anyone how much he cried that night after figuring it out because he was so happy and proud of himself, yet so distraught and unaware of what to make of it all.) From that point on, he lightened up, showing that he could take that responsibility and prove to people he was worth it. There was just one problem– they still didn’t know he was broke and gay.

…and hopefully they would never know. He debuted with the group at the age of 20, shining as their songwriter, leader, and lead rapper. God, he’s so proud of himself but all he can think about sometimes is if his mother knows he’s out here living a dream he never thought he had. He’s so blessed and so thankful that it feels so sinful to think it’s not worth it if his mom doesn’t notice…

So he tries not to, but damn, it still hurts.

Nowadays he finds himself doing all he can to support his group. He is 23 and too old for being the emotional child he was when the group had debuted. Many fans believe he has grown as a person with the position at stake, and Kyeo truly believes it too. He finds himself thankful for his career and the way it has shaped him, because he has opened up a bit more, become more responsible, and also found that he can appreciate life without constantly looking over his shoulder for the face that he used to think judge him. He cherishes not only his fans but his group mates, as they are his closest and the most important people in his life. He has achieved not only being the leader one of the most popular boy groups of all time, but also being a soloist on the side, having released a mixtape and some singles. Kyeo is still working towards his goals, too, even though he has already achieved them, because he always believes that the sky’s the limit.