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dantays-inferno · 4 years

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Taylor Swift: Art Historian

All my art historian acquaintances might hate me for this title because their job is *incredibly* serious, but I don’t like most of them anyways.

Anyways, it is my belief that Taylor has incorporated many references to art and literature within reputation and Lover, particularly in the music videos for each album cycle. To the extent that I wonder if all this time she has secretly been getting her B.A. in English Lit...or she is making her way through all the Great Courses.

That is all to say...the music video Easter eggs aren’t merely cats and 13′s. Sometimes they are, I don’t know...diptychs of the Apocalypse.

Here is perhaps the most iconic (and brilliant, imo) image of the “Look What You Made Me Do” music video. Sear it into your memory before we proceed (if Taylor and Joseph Kahn haven’t already done it for you by producing a work of art so brilliant that you can’t stop watching on repeat.)

Okay, when I first saw the video, I thought, “That’s a play on some painting I can’t remember.” I tried to look for it when beginning my research for this blog, but I couldn’t find it for the life of me. Was I making it up? No, my co-author swore it was inspired by a painting. My mom did too. Finally we came up with this, Jan van Eyck’s The Last Judgment, painted in 1441 and 1442. It hangs at...the Metropolitan Museum of Art. AND it was profiled in the New York Times on Feb. 2, 2016, when the painting was part of a special exhibition at the Met. Of course, Taylor was gearing up to help host the Met Gala in the spring too.

The painting is a diptych, meaning it has two panels, so focus on the right panel.

I’ll zoom in for ya on a relevant section

Feel a bit familiar? Here’s a later painting inspired by this one that has even more of the same feel as the music video:

(This is Peter Paul Rubens’ The Last Judgment.)

Anyways, there are a couple other paintings I found by Rubens on the same topic with similar compositions...writhing bodies attempting to climb upwards but falling down instead.

(Also, I’m sorry you had to see those fairly disturbing images up close.)

At the top of the painting sits Christ overseeing the aforementioned judgment.

Here we see the cross that shows up in LWYMMD, plus the image of someone standing above mountain, almost blissfully unaware of the drama and turmoil going on beneath.

What gets more interesting is this figure in the middle of the painting, below Christ but above the hellscape.

So it’s an angel cutting down anyone who has been condemned to hell, preventing them from reaching the light of day and the love of Christ.

I freaked out when I noticed this angel because...

Exhibit #1: End Game music video

Exhibit #2: reputation magazine

The colors in this look the most similar to the angel in the painting, and the hair is even done the same. I have a theory that the different photos in the reputation magazine are different characters or people discussed in the song corresponding to that page in the other edition of the magazine.

She also is in the same pose as the figure on the top of Taylor Mountain.

Exhibit #3: Karlie Kloss walking in Alexander McQueen Spring/Summer 2008 show

Kloss named this as one of her favorite runway shows in an interview with British Vogue in 2019. She also shared that she lit her robe on fire by accident backstage, and put this particular dress on the wrong way round and had to switch it last minute. Feels like the kind of story you would tell at every party you went to.

So basically we have a rainbow angel who ruins people’s lives.

Alrighty. Let’s delve into why I think Taylor used this imagery. As a disclaimer, this is just my analysis, and you can take it or leave it. I’ve put hours of thought and research into this because I’m unemployed and in quarantine, so I’m not just pulling this out of my ass, but I’m also not Taylor, so nothing I say is gospel truth.

Analysis

My theory is that the figure at the top of Taylor Mountain is standing in for the roles that Christ and the archangel are playing in the painting. The figure--we’ll call her Rep--is essentially condemning all the Old Taylors to no longer see the light of day (or come to the phone.) The archangel in the van Eyck painting prevents people from ascending out of hell while Christ is presumably the one who condemned the people to hell and now stands above all, nonplussed.

But in an interesting twist, Rep stretches her arms out to crucify herself as she shouts, “bad dreams!” At this, the Old Taylors begin falling off the mountain, and we get the iconic “the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now” line. Not coincidentally, the other panel of the van Eyck painting depicts Jesus’ crucifixion.

Why is the crucifixion part significant beyond just being a perfect transition in the music video? First off, it obviously points to the younger Taylor being sacrificed unjustly. A theme of reputation and Lover seems to be remorse for losing Taylor’s sense of self and a desire to shift her focus from the trappings of fame to the people who truly care about her. Many people interpreted this song as Taylor announcing that she was a new “bad girl” Taylor, shunning sparkle guitars, unrequited love, and general girl-next-door vibes (which would be a shame because these are some of the best things in life.) But I think this video and album are more retrospective than active. That is to say that Taylor is realizing that she lost her old self in the years prior to reputation, and now she regrets that they can’t come to the phone.

Beyond that, I think the crucifixion moment in the video points to the idea of being a martyr--and not in a good way. This ties into my theory that all of the characters in the video that aren’t a specific Old Taylor (from Taylor’s music videos, tours) are actually meant to be Karlie Kloss. I have one other post about this on my blog now, and I intend to write more.

So let’s say it’s Karlie standing on the top of Taylor Mountain (and saying the old Taylor can’t come to the phone.) She essentially crucifies herself, making herself a martyr--someone who was killed unjustly. In my ongoing analysis of the album, I think this ties in to the song “So it Goes...” in which Taylor sings, “Come here dressed in black now / Scratches down your back now.” While this is generally interpreted to be a sexual scene, I think it depicts Karlie coming back to Taylor after the two have had a falling out, and acting like she is the victim in the relationship (black being a color of mourning) and that Taylor inflicted pain on her (scratches down her back.)

What’s more is that scratches down her back ties in with the crucifixion/martyrdom idea...Jesus was whipped/flogged before being crucified, which obviously leaves notable scars that would not look dissimilar to scratches. So basically Karlie is acting like a martyr and a victim in the relationship, when, according to Taylor in the LWYMMD video’s narrative, Karlie was the one who helped “kill” Taylor’s true self.

Plus, the video also implies that Karlie exploited her relationship with Taylor for fame and financial gain and became controlling and even tried to sabotage Taylor’s relationship with Tom by calling the paps on them. Sounds like a pretty toxic relationship, and people who are emotionally abusive often use the tactic of flipping the script on the person confronting them.

I know these are harsh accusations, but they’re in the video just beneath the surface concept of “look at all these controversies.” The more I delve into the album, the more I see that Taylor is trying to process her toxic relationship with Karlie even more than her breakup with Tom. (Sorry, no Joe.) I’ll be writing more posts to explain all this, but keep an open mind. I think Taylor hid a lot in reputation and Lover that we haven’t necessarily unearthed yet.

#taylor swift #reputation #look what you made me do #jan van eyck #peter paul rubens #swifties #taylor and karlie #kaylor

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20gramsofngmeikor · 4 years

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Weathering with You, Tenki no Ko.

"This girl is my sunshine, my only sunshine. I meant that literally.”

The first modern anime I’ve ever consumed was Makoto Shinkai’s previous work, Your Name. On my first viewing, it was already capable of showcasing what the medium has to offer. It was a happy marriage between audio and video, where they died together at peace at the age of 160 or something. In other words, holy fuck my eyes and ears were bleeding rainbows. The story was at the time one of my favourite romantic story as well.

It was natural for me to have the same expectations for Weathering with You, Shinkai’s next movie. The hype was real in my circle of friends, so much so that I’ve actually booked to watch 2 different screenings with 2 different group of friends on 2 days back to back. So I’ve actually watched the movie twice.

I hated it.

More specifically, I hated the story.

“I will trade the world for you, seriously.”

Let’s get the obvious out of the way. Visually? Smashing. My eyes continue to bleed rainbows as expected. The soundtrack was still amazing. Sound design? Impeccable. I’m just trying to dry out my vocabulary for positive adjectives here.

Now how about the characters? I like writing like how I eat my meals, the main part of the dish last. So let’s start with the side characters.

Old man Keisuke is the bro character for this film, fills in his role quite alright, nothing too mold breaking. All that I can say about him is that he wasn’t exactly memorable.

Natsumi was slightly more memorable, not exactly all for good reasons. If she didn’t exist in the film, what really changes? Not much, aside from the last motorcycle ride, she didn’t contribute much to the film apart from being a character to make suggestive jokes about. There are some attempts to breathe more life into the character, like her flashbacks about failed job interviews. That lasted for about.......5 seconds before that entire plot was tossed out of the window, never to be talked about again. If they didn’t add that scene in, would her actions make more sense? Not to me, her actions throughout the film would still not feel out of place without that flashback scene to add context.

Nagi, the little brother of Hina was quite a decent comic relief character. Especially liked the few “the fuck is this” feelings he gave with his underaged womanizing scenes. I meant that in a positive way.

Now that I ate the beans, it’s time for the steak.

Hina Amano has a pretty interesting background. Nearly forced in to prostitution at a young age, later revealed to be 15, child services not picking up on a double orphan situation, blessed with the power to stop the rain and- you know what anything more is just describing the whole movie.

But it kinda just stopped there. I’m not too sure why, but despite all that Hina felt like a standard dream girl character. An infinite pool of kindness that just so happens to unconditionally follow our prosecuted main character to shield him from this cruel world that JUST DOESN’T GET HIM!

Speaking of Hodaka, it’s nice to have a bit of character that doesn’t always do the right thing, but fuck me if it wasn’t hard to root for him. I don’t have to expand much on this, I know precisely why I despise the bastard:

“I want you more than I want the blue sky”

- sorta Hodaka

My dude, the blue sky over Tokyo is vital to let’s see......9.2 million lives. The city being flooded over a teenager’s insistence that this girl is the one means that a global financial centre is going to end up being terrible for everyday life, and business in general. The economy will be utterly devastated and at least those millions in Tokyo will suffer. More realistically speaking, Japan losing Tokyo as a normal functioning city will probably actually destroy Japanese lives in general and bring poverty to the entire nation. Fuckin hell.

The rest shouldn’t need to explained. He spends the rest of the film being a spoiled bitch and dragging people down to his troubles. I’ll leave it at that.

And now, the story in general. I’d say it fulfilled the most basic thing a new movie should do: a new premise. The premise itself when stripped to the bare bones isn’t too bad, it’s quite unique even. But the meat around the bones? Not so much.

In similar fashion to how the movie didn’t really make use of the character’s backstories much, the story itself didn’t really build on the things they put in as well. There was this scene where 2 students stumble upon a vacuum of water in the middle of the rain, before it absolutely splashed on them. So what did they do with that? I can’t recall anything that they did with it afterwards, so it just felt like an excuse to flex Shinkai’s signature QUALITY ANIMATION. That was just one example of many other scenes like that in the film.

And truthfully, I just want to see Shinkai write a film that’s not about 2 people reaching but not quite touching each other, until the end, or they don’t touch at all. You get what I mean?

Anyway am running out of steam. Time to wrap this up concisely.

a prayer for the next film where my Shinkai successor gets more depth, hopefully

tl;dr: Weathering with You is another spectacle that succeeded in pleasing all my senses but the brain. With a very diluted story and characters that were undeveloped, the movie could’ve used more runtime to give our characters more depth.

also the English title makes 0 sense.

6/10

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madsrocketship · 5 years

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Whelp, none of you bitches wanted it but I DID it so here it is. I know most of you probably don’t give a shit about my thoughts on the new Taylor Swift album so my thoughts are below the cut.

1. I Forgot That You Existed-So kind of weird to write a song about how much you don’t care about someone you broke up with 3 years ago but hey, it’s what she do. Production is memorable which is more than I can say for the rest of the album but she does the sing speak/Tay Tay rap she’s done on her last 3 albums added with the sarcastic/eye roll while I do it delivery so you can imagine the level of obnoxious.

2. Cruel Summer-If you’re going to try to claim this song title from Bananaramma you best bring your A-game and not this mess. Seriously, trying to reclaim one of the most perfect pop songs of all time?!?! The song would MAYBE work if she focused in on the references to her being white girl wasted in the back of a car. If the drunkenness related more to the all over the placeness of the song but it doesn’t. Not sure why her fans think this would make the perfect single. Is this about summer ‘16 or ‘17?

3. Lover-The title track and the just released third single. It’s whatever. Nothing good nor bad about it really and only lyrically interesting if you’re invested in the Taylor trying to find her true love narrative. I will say her deliver of “lover” makes me laugh because all I can think of is Jackie on That 70′s Show calling Kelso it all the time which is EXACTLY the person I’ve always imagined Taylor to be like so I guess it works? Oh and also:

And as someone of almost the same age as Taylor she should know BOTH these cultural touchstones of the first half of the aughts.

4. The Man-Look, in theory I’m not inherently against Taylor tackling the double standards she faces as a woman. But....the song is both too specific and too generic. She wants it to be relatable for all women so there are platitudes she can’t pull off but then there are comparisons to her own reputation with Leonardo Di’Caprio which yeah the rest of us plebs don’t have to think about. But thanks for reminding me I think Leo has been overrated for years and sad at this point.

5. The Archer-I should really love this song. It should have been the Getaway Car of this album where despite my loathing of Taylor I admit I can’t help my affection for the song. Jack Antonoff who I have a very love/hate relationship with (I’m a Bleachers fan and of course Melodrama is a masterpiece) admitted they did this song in like a day and it shows. They really should have worked this song through a bit more and it could have been something. The production starts off great but then repeats instead of pushing forward and climaxing at the emotional crux of the song. The lyrics are also solid individually but don’t come together as organically as they should. Wasted opportunity.

6. I Think He Knows-I actually like the first verse of this song and then that sing speak/Tay Tay rap chorus kicks in, cranks the pitch up so only dogs can hear, and drops a “no one understands” that belonged on Swift’s first two albums and no further.

7. Miss Americana and the Heartbreak Prince-What the fuck is this song even doing on the album? You’re almost 30 Taylor! I don’t want to hear about homecoming queens and shit with cheers in the background.

8. Paper Rings-I genuinely like the lyrics on this one. Just makes it a bummer because the production during the verses is fun but the production on the chorus is too reminiscent of I’m Walking on Sunshine. But OK overall. And then...oh and then...she REPEATEDLY calls this man her baby boy. Please....I may throw up.

9. Cornelia Street-Another song that you’ll only care about if you’re invested in the personal life of Taylor Swift. Also sounds like the reheated leftover production from So It Goes on her last album.

10. Death by a Thousand Cuts-Another weird break up song on an album about love. Shrug but it’s actually good. I enjoy the piano on this one and if one song should be a single, it’s this one. The ”united we stand” lyric is weird though.

11. London Boy-IDRIS WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!?!?! Another song where I liked the first verse and then wanted to shoot myself. This song definitely feels like it is for the teeny boppers because the way she describes loving an English man is every fucking cliche in the book and is just Taylor’s excuse to use British slang. Good for the 12 twee fantasies.

12. Soon You’ll Get Better-The only great song on the album. It’s old school Swift in every sense: it’s country, warm and unpolished (something she’s lacked since RED), and actually feels like something she wrote from emotion instead of the narrative she’s created or what she thinks will play well. It’s said to be about her mother’s cancer so I’m not going to dig in further but it’s her best writing in years. Shame she wasted the Dixie Chicks as simply background vocalists though.

13. False God-Taylor should never use a saxophone in her songs because all it does is remind me she has no soul in her music or herself in the slightest. Another reheated decision from Reputation, this time those embarrassing breathy vocals from Dress to cover up her vocal shortcomings.

14. You Need To Calm Down-Lyrics ain’t shit, she doesn’t know what shade means, and I liked the production at first but now that repetitive drop feels like Chinese water torture.

15. Afterglow-Yet another song only important if you care about the personal journey of the artist in question. I guess it’s the first time we’ve ever really heard her take responsibility for her actions and not blaming the guy (excluding Back to December). That’s something I guess if you don’t pay attention to all the other times she hasn’t taken responsibility.

16. ME!-We all know how we all feel about this rainbow turd. I just want to say I never thought I would feel the emotional equivalent of this

from one of Taylor’s lyrics ever again after hearing “This.Sick.Beat” on repeat in 2014. But “Hey Kids! Spelling is fun!” certainly did just that.

17. It’s Nice to Have a Friend-I don’t know what this is or why it’s on this album. Is it like Everything Has Changed’s sequel? Just cut it from this already bloated album.

18. Daylight-Congrats Taylor, I noticed you used the line from your Reputation poem in a song. Do I win a prize? Who cares at least this is all over now. Only possible reference to Tom when she says she’s been cruel to her nice exes and trusted the wicked ones. I Did Something Bad and Getaway Car could put Tom in either camp.

Overall, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’d rather listen to Reputation. I tend to be of the mind that bad flavor is better than no flavor (why I’d rather watch the Star Wars prequels than The Force Awakens) and this is what we have in front of us. A car crash where she tried SOMETHING versus this album which is diet 1989. I think she’s run out of ideas trying to stay on top of pop trends that will keep her front and center. She hit the brick wall with her last album, there was nowhere else for her to go further into pop. The songs on this album could have been released at any point on her last three albums, there’s no forward progression but instead a backslide into the generic or retreads of old work. But this album/tour will make so much money so it’s not like she cares.

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lilyjcollins-news · 5 years

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Lily Collins :“I want to dig deep, tell the truth and be more brave” by Jane Mulkerrins.

(click here to see the photoshoot and here to go to the website.)

The day before we meet, Lily Collins had what felt like a breakthrough encounter. At the end of a short, on-camera interview, the journalist had asked where she lived. Los Angeles, she told him, where her mother was born and raised, and where she has lived since the age of five, when her parents divorced. He then asked where her father lived. England, and partly in the US now, too, she answered. And what did her father do for a living? After some stifled giggling from the crew, Collins, who has just turned 30, gently explained her parentage. “And the guy just looked at me with the biggest eyes,” she laughs. “He’s like, ‘I’m sorry, what did you just say? Oh God, now I feel silly.’”

She insists that she was very grateful for his ignorance. “I’m so proud of my family, but I have also worked really hard to carve my own path and to not have that define me.’”

The daughter of superstar musician Phil Collins and his second wife, Jill Tavelman, she admits that her famous surname has inevitably opened doors, but insists that nobody has ever “made a phone call” for her. “I did get told that I could have other ways in,” she shrugs, when we meet on a rainy New York afternoon. “but I never wanted to give anyone the opportunity to say: ‘Well, she only got X or Y because of that.’ I knew it would take longer to do it on my own, but it would be so much more worth it.”

Collins’s insistence on carving her own path is now paying off, with two high-profile films – Tolkien, and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, and the US launch of the BBC miniseries Les Miserables, for which her performance as the tragic Fantine is already creating some early awards buzz.

Tolkien, a biopic of the author’s early life, stars Nicholas Hoult as JRR Tolkien, the philologist and author of The Hobbit and the Lord of the Ringsseries, while Collins plays Edith Bratt, his childhood sweetheart and, later, his wife, who was the inspiration for Lúthien Tinúviel, the elvish princess in Tolkien’s Middle-earth. “I had auditioned to play an elven character in one of Peter Jackson’s movies, and I didn’t get it… but I’ve ended up playing the woman who inspired the elven princess,” grins Collins. It is her most mainstream, highly anticipated film to date, and a world away from the romcom roles she was getting five years ago. While there’s a heavy focus on Tolkien’s male friendships – the inspirations for his “fellowship” in his books, Bratt is fully fleshed-out and three-dimensional, too, not some flimsy, token love interest. “She was very creative and very passionate and driven, and he was intellectually stimulated by her,” says Collins. Bratt and Tolkien were both orphans. “At that time women of her status and in her position weren’t really afforded the opportunity to seek higher,” says Collins. “But she encouraged him to continue on his path. It’s very selfless, and, at times, heartbreaking.”

She sees a similar selflessness in Fantine, her once-vivacious character in Les Miserables, who becomes a prostitute and sells her hair and teeth in order to feed her child. “I died on day two of filming,” says Collins, with a laugh. She sent a picture of herself in character to her mother, who replied, “No one should have to see their daughter like this.”

“My choices have tended to go quite dark,” admits Collins of her recent roles. Just three days ago, she finished filming Inheritance, a forthcoming thriller in which she stars alongside Simon Pegg. “That’s incredibly dark, too. I really enjoy playing these characters that, under the surface, have so much more going on than they are saying, or who seem like they are barely keeping it together.

“I’ve always believed that asking for help is not a weakness, it’s a strength,” she continues. “I have a tattoo that says: ‘True delicacy is not a fragile thing.’ You can look delicate, but it doesn’t mean that you’re fragile.” I surmise, from her having it made permanent in ink, that people have, perhaps, underestimated her in the past.

Undoubtedly the darkest of her recent projects is Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, about the serial killer Ted Bundy, who murdered more than 30 girls and women in seven US states in the 1970s. The title comes from the judge’s summation of Bundy’s acts when sentencing him to death. Collins plays Elizabeth Kloepfer, the killer’s long-term girlfriend who is convinced of his innocence, with Zac Efron playing a charismatic and persuasive Bundy.

While preparing for the role, over the Christmas holidays, Collins recounts how she would wake every night at 3.05am. “I would go downstairs and have a cup of tea, trying to figure out why I had woken up again.” Then, she says, “I started being woken up by flashes of images, like the aftermath of a struggle.” She went to the internet to investigate. “I discovered that 3am is the time when the veil between the realms is the thinnest and one can be visited.” She began to believe women who were murdered by Bundy were, perhaps, trying to contact her. “I didn’t feel scared – I felt supported. I felt like people were saying: “We’re here listening. We’re here to support. Thank you for telling the story.”

Collins tells me all of this in a completely matter-of-fact manner, as if receiving messages from long-dead murder victims were a perfectly normal part of preparing for a film. It’s pretty much the only moment in our time together when she seems more Californian than British. Even her looks – porcelain skin, dark hair and dramatic eyebrows – are eminently more London than LA. And, while in person her accent is pure California, on screen in Tolkien, her clipped, turn-of-the-century English consonants and vowels are flawless, as are her more working-class ones for Fantine. She looks deeply relieved when I tell her so. “I did worry that people were going to be like, ‘Well, she is actually British, her accent should really be better,’” she laughs. “There’s an extra level of pressure. I worked with a dialect coach as I needed it to be absolutely spot-on.”

Collins was born in Guildford, Surrey, at the height of her father’s success – six months later he would release Another Day in Paradise. Is it true, I ask, that Elton John used to babysit her? “I’ve really got to sit my parents down and ask them questions about that. I’ve been hearing it for so long, but I really have no idea,” she says.

After relocating with her mother to LA at the age of five, following her parents’ divorce, she attended the prestigious Harvard-Westlake school, where former pupils include Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal, and began auditioning for film and TV roles. “I was getting told ‘no’ all the time,” she says, which she puts down simply to a lack of experience. “I’d done musicals and plays at school, but I hadn’t studied acting or anything, and auditioning for film and TV is very different.”

At the same time, journalism held an appeal, too. “I wanted to be the youngest-ever talk show host,” she says. After pitching ideas to magazine editors, she began writing for Teen Vogue and Elle Girl, and scored a job as a reporter for the children’s channel Nickelodeon, covering the 2008 presidential election and Obama’s inauguration. “I was 18 and I could just vote, so I was like, ‘Oh great, I get to ask all the questions that I don’t know the answers to.’” What she liked less, however, were the questions she had to ask as a roving reporter on the red carpet. “I would think, oh, that’s not what I really want to ask this person, I would hate to be asked that,” she recalls. On the other side of the microphone now, there are questions she simply doesn’t answer, about her personal life, or about politics, on which she refuses to be drawn.

She studied broadcast journalism at the University of Southern California, but dropped out in her second year when, in 2009, after several years of auditioning, she won her first film role, as Sandra Bullock’s daughter in The Blind Side. Soon after, she was perfectly cast as Snow White in Mirror Mirror, followed by Rosie Dunne in Love, Rosie, the adaptation of Cecelia Ahern’s novel Where Rainbows End.

Though acting has clearly won out over journalism and talk show ambitions are on hold for now, Collins is still a keen writer. In 2017, she published Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me, a collection of personal essays in which she opened up about her struggles and self-doubts, her relationship with her father, with partners, and with her own body, writing about the eating disorders she battled for some years. “A lot of young women write to me on social media [she has more than 14m followers on Instagram], saying, ‘I just wanted to let you know that this is my situation and my insecurity, not that you would ever be able to relate to it…’ and I’ll always be like, ‘No, I really can relate,’” she insists.

Collins describes in Unfiltered how, as a child, she had only positive associations with food, but that changed when she turned 16. Her father was separating from her stepmother, his third wife, while Lily was juggling school, a budding modelling career, a social life and trying to break into acting, too. “My life felt out of control,” she writes. “I couldn’t handle the pain and confusion surrounding my dad’s divorce, and I was having a hard time balancing being a teenager with pursuing two different grown-up careers – both of which I’d chosen myself, but which also focused heavily on how I looked.” She began starving herself, exercising obsessively and became addicted to diet pills and laxatives, habits which continued well into her early 20s.

She pitched the book proposal during a dry spell in acting. “I hadn’t booked anything film-wise for a while, and I was itching to do something. The idea for the book had been at the back of my mind for a while, and I thought, well, maybe now’s the time.” Soon after, she was also sent the script for To The Bone, a film about a young woman with chronic anorexia. “It was too big a message to ignore,” recalls Collins. She attended group therapy sessions with recovering anorexics. “I didn’t want them thinking that I was just coming in to be nosy. I wanted them to know that I actually could relate. It encouraged me to really dig deep and tell the truth, to be more brave. And it was freeing,” she says. Collins sent a copy of the book to Michelle Obama “on a whim. I wanted to reach out to certain people and just thank them for being an inspirational woman, someone who I look up to,” she says. “I certainly never expected to receive a letter back thanking me and saying the same thing. I need to get that letter framed.”

This summer, she’s heading to France to film Emily in Paris, the new comedy-drama from Sex and the City creator Darren Star. “I knew I had so much baggage that I needed to get rid of in order to take on the baggage of all my characters,” she says. “And the second I did that, my career and my personal life opened up in a whole new way.” Collins, it seems, having been drawn to the darkness, professionally and personally, is now heading towards the light.

vía The Observer Magazine.

#lily collins #interview #magazine #the observer #to the bone #Extremely Wicked Shockingly Evil and Vile #tolkien #unfiltered

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imagine-loki · 6 years

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Loki and the Witchling

TITLE: Loki and the Witchling

CHAPTER NO./ONE SHOT: 36/?

AUTHOR: nekoamamori

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine you’re a healer working with the Avengers when Loki comes to join the team

RATING: T (so far)

NOTES/WARNINGS: Also on AO3 click here

You were ecstatic the day your cast came off. It happened to coincide with the day Fury let Loki off the hook on his house arrest. The second your cast was off you ignored the doctor’s warning to take it easy and went to glomp Loki, running the fingers of your right hand through his hair. He laughed and swung you around. “I’m trying to tell you to take it easy on that arm,” the doctor grumbled. You and Loki both put on polite expressions to listen to her, but she sighed and gave up when she realized that neither of you were actually listening and insisted she’d tell Bruce what you were supposed to do instead.

Thor grabbed you both by the back of your shirts to stop you from escaping the tower to find an adventure the second you could. “Don’t forget we have to return to Asgard tomorrow,” he told you both when you stopped to look at him and see what he wanted.

“Thor, I’ve been studying for the trip for two months straight,” you whined. “I just got my cast off and Loki’s finally off house arrest. We’re going out tonight,” you informed him. You had even changed into a dress for the occasion. Thor just sighed and mumbled something unflattering, calling you children again. “If we were being children, we’d go to dinner and movie in our costumes,” you reminded him with a glint of mischief in your eyes.

“That does sound like fun, witchling,” Loki added innocently. Thor sighed.

“Don’t you dare. You know we are supposed to keep a low profile,”

“Fine,” you pouted. Thor gave you a look, like he didn’t believe you. You grinned and stood up on your toes to kiss his cheek. “See you later,” you promised. You took Loki’s hand again and left with him before anyone else could stop you.

The next morning after breakfast, you used magic to change into the lovely blue Asgardian dress and the darker blue cloak that went over it. “Why can’t I go in my armor?” you whined at Loki again as he and Thor used their respective powers to change into their Asgardian clothes too. The floor-length dress you wore was not designed for combat.

Loki rolled his eyes at you over dramatically and answered overly patiently. “Darling, we’ve been over this. You’re presenting as a sorceress, not a warrior. You’re a healer and the people will expect to see you as such,”

“And healers do not dress like Lady Sif,�� you grumbled the rest of the argument, but didn’t argue with the logic. He was right. You knew he was right. It was his culture after all. Besides, you could summon your armor at will if you really needed it. You were still going to miss pants…

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Loki asked you again.

“We don’t have much of a choice. Besides, this is just a ceremony to acknowledge the betrothal and announce the official start of the year and a day of courtship before the official wedding,” you recited. You’d been over this quite a few times already. “We can go through the ceremony, continue to live our lives. The year and a day is intended to make sure the match will work. As for after that…” you shrugged. “We’ll jump off that bridge when we get to it.” You still weren’t sure you were ok with finding out that not only were you Asgardian, but also betrothed to the prince of Asgard. It was a lot of news very quickly. You had decided to just take things as they came, one day of love and joy with Loki at a time.

“We will jump off that bridge?” Loki asked, unfamiliar with the expression. You laughed.

“It’s a bad Earth idiom. Please don’t learn English from me,” you continued laughing.

“Thank you for going through this,” Loki whispered against your hair when the laughter died.

“Anything for you,” you replied and kissed him lightly.

“Come along, children. Heimdall is waiting for us,” Thor grumbled.

You, Loki, and Thor said your goodbyes to the others, promised to be safe, and return soon, and finally made your way downstairs to where the Bifrost could safely be opened. Loki wrapped an arm firmly around you. “Travel by Bifrost is an experience,” he explained. You didn’t think it was dangerous, but Loki held you tightly against his side anyway. “And you are not used to travelling this way yet, witchling,” he added. You’d only been on the Bifrost twice.

Thor raised his hammer and called to Heimdall. The Bifrost appeared around you and you clutched onto Loki, forgetting for a moment just how disconcerting it was to fly along the rainbow bridge. It only lasted for a moment before you stepped into the room with Heimdall and his giant sword.

“Welcome back to Asgard,” he greeted you all. Thor and Loki both inclined their heads politely and you offered him a small curtsy, the exact depth due to his station. Loki had been drilling you on curtsies for weeks. That was the bonus of a boyfriend who spent time as a girl and had all of his life. He knew perfectly well how to function as a female at court.

“Thank you, Heimdall,” you all answered him. He looked impressed that you had used Asgardian instead of English. You gave him a grin in reply. Loki offered you his arm in escort and you placed your hand on his arm so the three of you could leave the Bifrost chamber to head to the palace. There were two horses waiting for you.

“Why can’t we teleport?” you whined at Loki.

“Because the people need to see their princes return,” Thor replied overly patiently this time. “We will have to teach you to ride soon,” he commented when he caught your expression at the giant hoofed creatures.

“Not a common activity in the middle of the city,” you grumbled, but didn’t pause on the way to the horses. Loki swung up into the saddle of his horse gracefully, the movement obviously well practiced. You stuck your tongue out at him. “Showoff,”

He reached down a hand to you. You clasped it automatically. “No, this is showing off,” he commented with his Cheshire cat grin and hauled you up in front of him effortlessly. You shrieked and giggled at his antics as he wrapped his arms firmly around you, holding you safely across his lap.

“That is showing off,” you agreed. He kissed the top of your head in reply. “Aren’t I supposed to ride behind you?” you asked. That’s how you’d expected this would work.

“Were you used to riding, especially side saddle, which is what you would need to do while wearing a full-length dress, yes you would ride behind me, however, this is safer,” he replied. “Plus, I enjoy you in my lap,” he whispered in your ear, making you blush.

The trip to the palace was much calmer than the headlong gallop you’d taken last time while you were hiding your presence. Thor and Loki strolled the horses, waving and nodding to the people, letting them see their princes had returned. You were uncomfortable with the attention and tried to convince yourself it was just for Thor and Loki, but you heard the whispers of ‘Sigyn’ through the crowds too and saw how the people reacted when Loki did little things like kiss your hair or settle his arm more firmly around you. They noticed the little things and the change in the usually sullen quiet prince.

Servants met you at the palace gates to take the horses. Thor dismounted first and reached up to hand you down from the saddle. He lifted you effortlessly down to your feet. “Thanks, Thor,” you replied as you straightened out your skirts. Loki swung down as gracefully as he’d swung into the saddle. Your hand was on his arm as you walked into the palace and through the familiar halls of Thor’s and Loki’s childhood.

The first thing you did was present yourself to Odin and Frigga and announce your return. The boys bowed and you dipped into the proper curtsy. Thor as the eldest made the official announcement to Odin that you all had returned for a visit and Odin welcomed you all. Frigga stepped down from her place to hug her sons. You stepped back a pace to let them have their moment. You saw Loki’s happiness at the hug from his mother, for all that he was adopted. He may hate Odin for the things he had done in the past, but he would always love Frigga and saw her as his real mother, no matter what he said.

“Welcome back to Asgard, Sigyn,” Frigga greeted you with a polite formal nod once she had hugged both of her sons.

You dipped yet another curtsy. “Thank you, your majesty,” you replied in proper formal Asgardian. You had been practicing.

She and her sons spoke for awhile, catching up on things they’d all missed. Finally, she added. “Loki, Sigyn has been given the suite across the hall from yours, if you would like to show her the way. I’m sure you would all like to freshen up from your travels.” You all knew a dismissal when you heard one. The boys both kissed Frigga’s hand before they left.

“Lady Sigyn,” Loki said to you with a smile, offering you his hand. You placed your hand in his and he lifted it to his lips to place a soft kiss on your knuckles. He smiled softly and placed your hand on his arm so he could escort you through the halls of the palace.

“He loves her truly,” you heard Frigga comment softly enough that all three of you could pretend you hadn’t.

#Loki #Lover #Imagine #Submitted fic #submission #loki and the witchling #chapter 36 #nekoamamori

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thevalkirias · 7 years

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Why Pride and Prejudice is the best love story of all time and the deconstruction of love at first sight

Perhaps everybody has heard, read or watched a story about love at first sight. It’s a cliché that always works in movies. The quirky girl, in a hurry to get to a meeting, stumbles on a grumpy man in the middle of the street and he lets all his stuff fall down. Both bend over to gather his things that are on the street and, for a second, only a second, the girl is not in a hurry anymore and the man’s soul is light as a summer day. That’s it, the passion is born. It’s simple, easy, and works almost every time.

Despite its efficiency in fiction, it’s always rather weird to apply this concept in real life -- to believe someone can fall in love without even knowing the other person. I, personally, can’t imagine falling for someone that supports Trump, or that hates Harry Potter. And you can’t identify these things just by looking at someone.

So why do we so easily believe in the concept that love can overcome anything? That’s another weird-ass concept; should love truly overcoming every single obstacle? If I ever fall in love with a misogynist serial killer, please, rescue me from that trap!! There will never be enough attraction to overcome so many differences. And so we go back to love at first sight: even if I fell in love with someone just by looking at them, I think it’s unlikely I’d still be in love after actually getting to know them.

My favorite love stories are the ones in which none of the central characters is interested in one another when they first meet. The “love at first sight” trope (or: a cliché or allegory used in fiction in order to develop characters or plots) is still recurrent in literature, but many books have been trying to subvert this cliché; such as Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell, or The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater. Both are pretty recent examples – Fangirl was released in 2014 and The Raven Cycle started in 2012. Maybe the subversion of love at first sight is a recent phenomenon, but long before any of these books were published, long before these authors were even born, we already had a good example of a love story in which love itself is a construction that takes a lot of time, and its title is Pride and Prejudice, written by Jane Austen.

2017 marked the 200th anniversary of the author’s death and the 204 years that passed since the first publication of the novel which is perhaps the most iconic Jane Austen wrote. Despite being two hundred years old, Pride and Prejudice is one of those timeless stories. It’s a classic.

In Why read the classics Italo Calvino explains that a classic is a book you always re-read; because if it’s a classic everyone already knows the plot, so even if it’s the reader’s first time with that specific book, she’s revisiting it nonetheless. We can say Pride and Prejudice is a classic because it’s a story that everyone knows: girl meets boy, girl hates boy, time goes by and the guy shows himself worthy of the girl’s affection and both declare they love for each other. Happy ending. It’s not by chance that Jane Austen’s story has inspired many modern adaptations, such as the Bridget Jones’ Diary series, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, or even the amazing web series The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. Pride and Prejudice remains relevant nowadays.

Even though I agree with Italo Calvino, I want to add here another factor that makes Pride and Prejudice a classic: identification. If the characters of the novel were not well developed, so complex that they seem real, a great portion of the strength of the book would not exist. Even more so because in real life people can change their minds, they can turn out wrong and have strong opinions that sometimes lead to mistakes or misjudgments. Being wrong is not necessarily equivalent to being a bad person; actually, those are pretty different things. We are all wrong at some point in our lives – or in many of them. And that’s fine, because we can all realize the mistake, apologize and become better. People can always – and should always – become better, listen to others, empathize and stay away from prejudices. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy, the heroes of the story, make mistakes, misjudge each other and others, are prideful and prejudiced, but also regret their mistakes, apologize and become better.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife. It’s with this sentence that Jane Austen begins her original novel, a quote that has become quite famous in the literary world and is recognized as one of the most memorable first sentences that exist. Reading it here like this, it must sound silly; what if the single wealthy man does not want to get married? Or what if he was gay and is in want of a husband? Nowadays this sentence makes even less sense than it did back then, but this is not what makes it so important: it’s what comes after it.

For those who have read the book or seen the movie, it’s known that the single wealthy man can be either Mr. Darcy or Mr. Bingley. These two are the main male characters that will get married throughout the story. But if we only take Mr. Darcy into account, the truth universally acknowledged does not apply. Maybe the truth is not so truthful, after all. Mr. Darcy is indeed single and has a nice fortune, but we don’t know if he is actually in want of a wife. The sentence “universal truth” is neither “universal” nor “true” because, even though it fits the expectations of the English society at the beginning of the 19th century, Jane Austen knew very well that that’s not the way love stories work. Elizabeth Bennet is not in want of a single wealthy man to marry, and neither is Mr. Darcy looking for such a wife.

Returning to love at first sight: if love depended solely on our first impressions of others, love affairs would be in severe decadency, and if this rule applied to Pride and Prejudice, none of the characters would be married by the end of the story (maybe Jane and Bingley). Elizabeth would remain prideful and Darcy prejudiced, but thankfully second chances exist!

Love at first sight usually comes with the idealization of the loved one. Even though it’s easy to imagine how the other person must be and nurture feelings for this idea, it’s also dangerous. Women’s representation in fiction, even more so in love stories, often comes with the idealization of a perfect woman, a male dream that becomes true. This gives rise to another very common trope: the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, that quirky and beautiful-without-even-trying girl whose only purpose is to help in the development of other characters (usually her significant other). Despite the many studies surrounding this theme, along with the calling out of these flaws, women’s representation in fiction is still in bad shape. Of course, we have to this date many well-developed characters, but there’s still a long way to go. However, two centuries ago, Jane Austen created complex characters, with wants of their own and a critical view of the world.

Elizabeth did not like Darcy when they first met -- or the second time they met, or the third. In fact, she only starts to think positively of him when they really get to know each other – when they talk, apologize for their mistakes and open themselves to each other’s point of view. Elizabeth does not exist solely to make Darcy a better man, nor is the opposite true. Both are equally well-developed and tridimensional characters. It’s almost impossible to read Pride and Prejudice without empathizing or identifying with them.

I think empathy is the main word when it comes to Pride and Prejudice, because it’s only when Darcy and Elizabeth put themselves in each other’s shoes that they are able to get out of their own personal worlds filled with pride and prejudice and start seeing the other with new eyes. And this is also true for Elizabeth and her sister Jane, or her friend Charlotte and her mother; it’s also true for Darcy and the Bennet family, and Darcy and his friend Bingley.

Pride and Prejudice is perhaps the best love story ever because it is about characters that are compatible with the real world, because it believes in second chances, because it depends on empathy, because it shows that it’s possible to make mistakes, regret them and become better and because it shows us that no one is perfect, not even love.

About the author

JÚLIA MEDINA

Júlia studies letters and has studied Russian in college. She has spent way too much time feeling conflicted about being more pop or more cult before she realized that what's truly cool is having fun. Aspiring critic and meme maker, she is just another millenial trying to get over Sirius Black dying. She was born on the same day as Junior from Sandy & Junior and in the same year as Harry Styles (1994) and she considers this to be a victory.

This piece was originally published in Portuguese on March 14th, 2017 as "Por que Orgulho e Preconceito é a melhor história de amor de todos os tempos e a desconstrução do amor à primeira vista". Translated by Anna Viduani.

#pride and prejudice #jane austen #love at first sight #feminism #author:júlia medina #translator:anna viduani #category:literature

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jihoons-black-hair · 7 years

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11 Questions Tag

Was tagged by @sebongie-loves but hun you forgot to write down your questions :( and @milkteafairy-hyeri who literally tagged me in 3 parts of this and I’m too lazy to do 3 so Imma do one

Tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3am

This happened a long time ago when I was drinking by myself on the terrace of my house and idk if it was just my hallucination or not, I saw someone standing across the street and we locked eyes for a moment. The neighborhood was empty and it was around 3.30 or so, I was kinda panicked because what if that person was a robber or A SERIAL KILLER IDK MAN. But then he disappeared while I was opening another can, I continued drinking for a while and went to sleep. BUT THEN HE APPEARED IN MY DREAM and saying something like “So you saw me.” WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK but then I never saw him again which is a relief.

Moral of the story: Don’t drink by yourself on your terrace at 3 a.m. kids. It’s shady as fuck.

Ok, ok. Who do you ship me with? (I wasn’t supposed to ask this but…)

As much as I love my man… I ship you with Jihoon! You told me you and Jihoon have the same personalities so you two might be a perfect match lol. But if it didn’t work I still ship you with the guy from college that you told me about. Tee-hee.

Are you taller or shorter than your bias?

Definitely shorter by a few centimeters.

What are things you would do just to meet your bias?

Literally everything. I’d save up all the allowance I got, skip meals at school, work on the weekend to get some extra money. And I’m currently doing it all so I’ll get enough money to see Seventeen this year. Ya girl gotta work hard to see seventeen.

How do you handle anger?

I’m an ill-tempered person. I get cranky a lot. and I get angry a lot. I’ll pull out a few strings of curse words and watch a lot of cute youtube videos to calm myself down. If it still didn’t work, I’d leave the house for a while and come back later with a cool head.

Something you hated as a child but like right now?

CHILI. SPICY FOOD. I hated them but now i can’t live without them. I used to hate sambal which is smashed chilies sauce with onions and other seasonings. It was so spicy and my old self hated it. I just ate empal (Indonesian fried beef) with a lot of sambal AND MAN IT WAS SO DAMN GOOD. Fyi, my interest in spicy food and worst eating schedule got me a stomach ulcers and I got my appendix removed last year because bitch I ate too much chilies and it was worth it.

If you could choose your last words, what would they be?

“Hahahaha… good bye, motherfuckers. Enjoy living on this damned planet.”

Five most influential books over your lifetime?

1. A book about a bear family which title I can’t remember. It was my first english book I’ve ever had and got my mom to read it for me.

2. Dilan 1990, Dilan 1991 and Milea. Three Indonesian books that quite popular these days. I like it so much I wrote a 20-pages paper about Dilan 1990 (the first book) and got my ex who lives near the author to signed my book personally.

3. The Buru Quartet by Pramoedya Ananta Toer. Another Indonesian books that changed my life. It’s about a life of a Javanese royal, Minke who went to a prestigious school where only the descendants of the European colonizers can attend the school and finally fell for Annelies, a beautiful rich daughter of a Dutchman. It’s an outstanding story of colonial intrigue, coming of age, love story, sexism, racism, class structure in Java, Indonesia at beginning of the 19th Century. All four of the books are great, and have been translated over 20 languages. Pramoedya is Indonesian’s Mark Twain. I suggest you to read them all.

4. The Dancer by Ahmad Tohari. By this point you may realize that I read a lot of Indonesian books lol. It’s a story of a traditional Javanese dancer in the early 1940 who went through a lot of events that lead her to a decision of preserving her culture (dancing and by dancing, a lot of sexual things happened. Basically being a dancer at that time means you’re also a prostitute) or resigning from being a dancer but nobody actually wanted to marry her because she was a prostitute. It’s a beautiful story of politics issues, Javanese culture, sexism and woman power with a spark of romance to accompany. It’s on amazon if you want to buy it.

5. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. Yay! an english book. This book taught me that a protagonist doesn’t have to be perfect to have a beautiful love story. Basically a love story that brought bullying, body shape issues and domestic abuse together and she mixed them up into this outstanding novel.

Dog person or cat person?

DOG DOG DOG DOG DOG

Which member of your bias group would you like to go to school with? have as your brother? have as your best friend?

I’d like to go to school with Chan. Just because. He seems nice. And maybe Mingyu as my brother. He’d take care of me for sure lmao. And Seokmin as my best friend!! As much as I hate too much extrovertness… having a bright Seokmin around wouldn’t hurt and he would cheer me up!

Here are your questions!

The best food you’ve ever eaten in your life?

If you were given three wishes, what would you wish for?

Tell me your perfect first date

Do you have any pets?

What is your favorite season? and your favorite thing about it?

What is your favorite song of all time?

What is something that you’ve never done but would like to try?

Tell me only one reason why you love your bias

What is your favorite book, and why?

What qualities do you value most in a friend?

And I’m tagging you! @17cafe @hoebihoeshi @joy-bangtan @choco-seventeen @pasteluji and you too if you want to do this again lmao @milkteafairy-hyeri

I’m sure some of you did this already but the questions are different and it wouldn’t hurt to do another one!

#personal #game #tagging game

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theproofinthisong · 5 years

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fine line review

oh my goooood i just finished listening to the album and i NEED to express my thoughts:

golden: didn’t know what to expect with this one but it’s?? so beautiful?? harry was so right saying it was a driving song it makes you want to go to california and watch the sunset from the car?? also the sun theme is so poetic and beautiful the way he uses it to talk about louis, his beloved?? the melody is quite simple but it’s so effective and these little da da da sounds the choir make in the background...heavenly. this part reminds me of another song but i can’t remember which one. what i love about this one is that it’s first time i’ve listened the lyrics seemed a quite sad (but riddled with hope still) and now the second time the meaning changed totally?? like it’s witchcraft how much the meaning can change once you look at the lyrics closely?? i know harry was talking about adore you when speaking about that feeling of bliss when you first meet the love of your life and fall completely but this is also what golden is about?? like being afraid but diving deep into it knowing this is right. i’m emo. in terms of vocals, it isn’t as BOOM as in other songs (in the sense that he’s not belting, using falsetto or a very low intonation that differs from his usual tone) but i love it!!! it’s very calm and peaceful and dreamy.

watermelon sugar: miss watermelon sugar is still as iconic as the first day she came out. it’s such a wonderful tune. my impressions on this song will never change and i will listen to it for another 30 times round without even hesitating. it just feels very summery and sensual and sexy without being too explicit (even though there is nothing wrong with being super explicit...see medicine). the chorus is just super catchy. the lyrics are so nice and i love the melody. very old pop and i’m a slut for this genre. also i know this has been HUGELY talked about before but i need to say it again. the way he’s saying belly!! the softness of the breathe me in/breathe me out parts!! the last watermelon sugar i don’t know why i’m obsessed it JUST SLAPS

adore you: oh darling. a treasure. 8 days ago, first time i’ve heard it, it took me by surprise because i wasn’t expecting that sound...but six seconds in and i was SOLD and already cherishing her with all of my heart. this song is JUST PERFECT. it’s probably the song that is the closest to 1D mixed with HS1 in terms of sound, like it’s super modern but at the same time has these very old school vibes i’m in LOVE WITH?? this is such a sweet joyful sappy song about his soulmate and i :’) also the rainbow paradise line i haven’t recovered from bitches. i will never. this is such a certain and blatant declaration of love i wanna die!! i feel acknowledged as a romantic bitch who lives for this kind of grand gestures. thanks harry. also during some parts he sounds like old harry (i mean harry from 1d days) and then 2019 harry takes over and it makes me CRY

lights up: the first single and song from the era will always a soft soft in my heart. i listened to the track so many fucking times the words are tattooed onto my brain. this song was just so needed and so important. it’s so deep and means everything to me really. all of us wanted a song from him about identity and self discovery and lights up was the gift he gave us. never in my life i would have have dreamed of this song and it happened for real. i’m just so grateful. his voice in this is just so soft and delicate and so fitting for the song like it DEMANDS that tenderness and sweetness. also the choir gives me chills, like when they scream SHINE i just feel overwhelmed it’s!!! fuck!! i could write an essay about lights up because this song is just it. it makes you feel seen and understood and i just feel so lucky harry was able to share something as intimate as this.

cherry: lmaoooo. this one will be a skipper sorry. it’s far from being a bad piece because harry’s voice is always amazing but i can’t get over the voicemail. when the news came out i was just so appealed and angry but know i’m just cackling?? i’m french and what is this slander?? THE COUCOU AT THE BEGINNING IS RIDICULOUS!! and the ending sounds so rehearsed there is literally nothing naturel about it. thank god we hear harry’s laugh in it. I JUST KNOW it was added because there is no way he would have laughed irl at one of her jokes lol. lyrically you can see some parts were put there to make an allusion to the stunt (the accent & friends part, the gallery...) but others are just about louis?? like him being jealous of course it’s about the hubby. his voice is still beautiful but the melody doesn’t speak to me (and i would have telled you if it was the case) being objective, it’s the weakest one out of the album.

falling: OH MY FUCKING GOOOOD. i wanna say it’s my favorite song but i feel like it would diminish the love i have for the others but god...this song is breathtaking and out of this world. in terms of lyrics it’s the best HANDS DOWN. like period. fuck this song just BROKE ME. all that ache and heartbreak you get what he’s talking about when he said to zane lowe he hit rock bottom then. fucking hell. it just hurts knowing he hated himself that much like i can’t even fathom it. and his voice bloody hell?? i never heard him sing like that!!! it’s just so desperate and full of hurt and the high notes? please annihilate me. when i heard it i would at first sight i would be my favorite out of fine line. it was just so obvious. that kind of magic doesn’t happen a lot...like. i can’t pinpoint what part hurts me the most because the whole song is TORTURTING ME. when we’ll hear live i will be bawling for the rest of my life. i’m already am. my god it’s just so raw and honest no other artist can make me feel like that. you are experiencing the hurt with him it’s??? i have no words. and please this song makes no fucking sense if you don’t link to his relationship to louis like?? the i’m well aware i write too many songs about you?? hello??? i’m glad he doesn’t feel like that anymore because it hurts. it’s crazy how this song can pull you back to ancient memories and you just forget about the world. oh my god.

to be so lonely: i almost fell out of my chair (or bed, rather) because this song did not fit at all what i was expecting but it’s?? gold??? i was so sure it was going to be a full angsty ballad but it’s so catchy and it has those beatles vibe? like PLEASE. king of defying expectations. it’s so english. and it’s so smart because when the melody and rythm makes you think it’s gonna be corny (in the best sense of the word) but it’s kinda passive agressive? AND ALSO THE SWEARING. DON’T, STYLES. UR MY SON. i’m kidding. him hearing him say arrogant son of a bitch is THE PINNACLE of my life. also am i the only one that feels like if you change the beat a little and accelerate it on don’t call me baby ever again it would sound a bit like never enough? loved the throwback nonetheless. it isn’t a favorite yet but it’s already growing on me.

she: bloody fucking hell. first this song is timeless. it feels like it came straight (gay!!!) from the seventies. i had eagles vibes first listen but some said pink floyd and it’s SO TRUE. there are tons of rock influences in it but it’s so harry and manages to still be super unique?? just incredible. the writing of the song is the smartest out of HS2. it reminds me of woman (not in the way i was expecting...i had one supposition it was going to be about being envious of a woman while dumb people are tricked by the title) so much not in melody or lyrics at all but in the sense that it has a double (triple...and more) meanings. once again stupid hets think it’s about singing about the ideal girl when really it’s...on another plane of existence. like jesus. bitch i was right!!! it’s either a song on gender identity (harry singing about his feminine side that he was ashamed of for so long and tried to hide) or the closet and my god, the whole thing is just so clever. A MASTERMIND. and the switch from the third person to the third KEATS you’ve been beaten. what a writer. it has thousands of interpretations this is just a trip. holy shit. the whole song carries so much guilt and repression and wishing be free of those feelings it’s?? i’m speechless. it’s so complex and intense. and fuck the guitar solo outro IS HISTORIC. in decades it will be praised as a masterpiece by all. i just know it. mitch you’re a genius. it gives just so much resonance and impact to the piece and it already had everything... i’m in heaven. or in hell. don’t know.

sunflower vol 6; cutest and weirdest song on earth and it’s A FAVE. it’s so colorful and nothing like he ever did before i’m living for it. it’s SAPPY AS FUCK and we stan sunflower in this house. also the part where he’s singing about wanting to kiss his lover kinda sounds like a lullaby and an alphabet song mixed together it’s ADORABLE!!! it’s such a being young and in love track i’m giggling!! it’s so precious!!! very poppy and gives you joy for days!! also super summery!! i wanna dance and twirl to it!! AND THE ENDING IS SO FUCKING LEGENDARY. BIG HIGH ON CRACK ENERGY. BITCH. it’s so uncanny like is he imitating a bird? calling someone?? trying to sound 5? i don’t know but it’s endearing. just so lovely.

canyon moon: another one i was expecting to be slow and it wasn’t. very country. thanks kacey for the input!! also him putting “jenny” in that sound is he trying to be adopted by dixie chicks and dolly parton? I LOVE that he’s trying new things with this track like country is such a hard genre to tackle and he nailed it. AND OH MY GOD THE LYRICS. it makes so emotional he’s literally creating a safe place for him and his darling?? could you be more in love?? this song belongs to the gays. san junipero without the angsty feelings. we deserved that. also he really mentioned the two weeks rule i’m weak. THIS IS INFURIATING.

treat people with kindness: the group part just sounds like a sitcom from the 80s. i’m dying. he really did that. and he named it like that :’) ALSO A GAY ANTHEM I CAN’T WAIT TO SCREAM THOSE LYRICS. big end of the days vibe. it’s just so healing and reassuring. it’s so empowering and i love the contrast between the very catchy happy bits (the high notes and the part where he kinda talks at the end reminded so much of mika which is a huge compliment as far as i’m concerned!!!) and that part where he’s singing very slow and soft you can see it’s very personal with him gaining confidence thanks to us during hslot <3 i’m dying this is such an exceptional gesture to like dedicate this to your fans? it’s so universal while being about his own journey (just like home..i’m sobbing) and that is like the mark of great music. also the instrumental is godsent.

fine line: i can see why it’s his favorite and why it is ending the album and giving it its name. i said falling was my fave but honestly fine line might be it too? the only difference is that i didn’t fall in love instantly, it takes time to escalate (it’s very similar to sott in that sense) beginning softly and almost whispered (also the high tone?? i almost didn’t recognized harry but at the same time it’s just 100% percent him but HE NEVER SANG in THAT TONE i’m!!! my jaw is dropping all the way to mars) like you can see it BUILDING to something superior and never made before... it’s a moment, it’s an experience, it just suspends time. like when music can do that for you...it’s infinite stuck in a few minutes. the two last minutes are purely angelic and the most beautiful thing i’ve ever heard. it has very few lines and words but the one there are so meaningful. when the song ended i just stayed a bit in silence without moving i could not believed what i just witnessed. and the album ending with we’ll be alright...it’s so fucking special. and that word doesn’t even give it justice.

fucK. this album is just...i’m trying to find words but how can you. when you make an album as ambitious and as outstanding as HS1 it’s hard to go back to the studio and find a way to equate it (i’m not saying top it because both can’t even be compared...) but he somehow did it?? i had no doubt but holy shit it’s unreal. it’s crazy because fine line is so different from the first one while being as rock and pop but there is a level of maturity and vulnerability that feels just so? different?? i can’t seem to find the right expression but i’m am purely in awe. i dk how harry finds a way to exceed my expectations every time like... it’s?? i’m sorry i’m just so moved and... it just means everything.

two years and a half after and the feeling is the same. an album changing me and my life at first listen and 48 minutes that felt like a lifetime and a second at the same time.

#fine line #my posts

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decideroffate · 7 years

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Several Fates issues being touched upon in CitS

I just like hearing myself talk.

And maybe hoping to get a discussion going. I don’t think this is going too far into spoiler territory, because I’m not really going into detail of how I’m handling this. It’s essentially an elaborate list and my thoughts of how it’s handled in canon.

General

I actually don’t mind Garon’s canon characterization given every other Fire Emblem I’ve played was never subtle with their Bad Guys™ to begin with. I won’t say Garon’s changed, but I am going to say he’s got a fresh coat of paint.

Addendum; I also want to explore Garon’s past relationship with Azura.

I could go blue in the face explaining why the stupidest moment in the game was Corrin’s memories. MAGIC was the only reasonable explanation for Corrin’s lack of memory of Hoshido. Not the fact that they were a child when they were taken, not the fact that they witnessed and went through something traumatizing for a child, not the fact that it’s really not that hard to influence children, not the fact that memories fade. No ~MAAAAAAAAGIIIIIIIC~ was OBVIOSULY the best way to go! Stars above! Just because amnesia works for some player characters doesn’t mean it works for all! Robin is still a mystery despite knowing their father is Validar! Corrin has a fucking history! AAAAH! Oh, and all it really amounts to is the one plotline almost universally hated in Fates, so there’s that too.

Vaiana is not going to just take Takumi’s insults.

One of the biggest reasons I’m writing CitS is to grey up Hoshido. My concern is coming off as playing favorites since I really don’t need to grey up Nohr more than it already is. This also includes Azura’s time in Hoshido not being as hunky-dory as she’d have you believe.

Mikoto will not be Saint Stuffed in the Fridge. I will say that between the sisters, Arete is the better queen. Mikoto dos not make things better, she makes things worse. She is the Mila of Fates.

Likewise Mikoto’s barrier has repercussions.

Takumi and Sakura are Mikoto’s children, Vaiana’s younger siblings. I’ve never been secretive about this. This choice has nothing to do with the complaints about the Birthright subtitle, rather than what I can do with it.

Jakob reigns some of his Japanese personality. Not fully, but he’s a bit ruder than his English counterpart.

I cannot for the life of me bring myself to care that the royal sisters aren’t given sacred weapons. Especially since their characters support it. Camilla always abdicates her royal title, and refuses the throne. Is it really that out there to believe she wouldn’t take a sacred weapon if offered? Likewise, Hinoka flat-out says she figured Takumi would inherit if anything happened to Ryoma, implying she never actually talked to Takumi about it as opposed to Camilla who did. So I wouldn’t be surprised if it rejected her if she tried And I’m prettying damn certain giving a couple of girls who have never seen battle powerful weapons or staff from the get-go is not a great idea in practice. I’m not above giving them personal weapons, but I could care less about the boys having sacred weapons. The story makes it clear they earned them and weren’t given them for the sake of giving them.

Worldbuilding. Yeah.

Birthright

Hoshido should have been the harder choice on a personal level. Corrin’s entering a family and culture they know little about, leaving everything they’ve ever known to destroy it. And on a moral level… Corrin only cares about a death when it’s someone they know. They lamented the Kitsune’s death more than the Wolfskin, though the Kitsune were out to kill them from the beginning. And when innocents die in Conquest, it’s supposed to be a slap in the face, while Birthright hardly bats an eye. Unless it's someone Corrin knows that is.

The game as a whole (and certain fans) treats Nohr as being in the wrong for invading Hoshido in Conquest… never mind that Hoshido does the same thing in Birthright. This will be brought up.

Deaths of people in the army (besides Kaze) are going to be a thing.

The route is basically a Traumatic Conga Line for Vaiana.

Huge deconstruction of Scarlet and Cheve. I hate the Cheve chapters. How the fuck are they being ‘oppressed?!’ At least the Ice Tribe gives us an example with Felicia and Flora. I’m not just going to take their word for it.

Conquest

Vaiana takes on the identity of ‘the villain of the piece’ far sooner for several reasons.

Ryoma is given crap for using Elise to get to Vaiana. (Look me in the eye and tell me the game would sweep it under the rug if Xander pulled a similar stunt)

Still deconstructing Scarlet and Cheve. Still hate it.

Explain why Rinkah just disappears after the Rainbow Sage chapter. (Anyone else notice that?)

I’m not going to say Chapter 15 will be better, but different enough.

It will be clear that Vaiana does not regret choosing Nohr. And she won’t be bullied into regretting her choice.

I’ve been noticing a trend that Iago is working for Anankos and killed the real Garon. I’m not doing that. That’s giving the genius who announced his intention to kill Corrin in front of the royals, and confessed his hand in Lilith’s death WAAAAAAY too much credit. So, yeah, not happening.

The Selena, Odin, and Laslow are the same Severa, Owain, and Inigo in Embers. However, Inigo is the only one of the three who inherits his father(Lon’qu)’s hair color.

Revelation

Scarlet is cut. Her ‘ship tease’ with Ryoma is gone. I can think of two characters who could play her part better without making their death so painfully obvious and beyond manipulative.

That’s really all I got for Revelation right now since I really want to have the group explore more of Valla.

#shut up sammie #seriously shut up #cits

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sambart93 · 7 years

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2017.05.06 Aramaki Yoshishiko LMN Event - Round Two

So I thankfully and luckily hit for MakiChan’s photobook event but only for the second one. It was a while ago so I’ll try and member what happened... I was about number 130- or 160-something which sucked because we were going in number order so obviously those that had number 1 got the first seat on the front row but it wasn’t too bad I ended up about 3rd or 4th row from the back and some people even ended up standing the entire time. The venue place is actually tiny! I was surprised we got so many people to fit in.

MakiChan ended up wearing one of his outfits (the white one) from his photobook with a cute tan/beige top underneath so it wasn’t see-through xD while we were going inside and waiting for the event to begin they played the making DVD on the two TV screens they had up. I’m pretty sure the MC was a staff member of Pony Canyon because I didn’t recognise him.

Some notes and comments and things he said from the event, definitely not in order xD :

☆He fell from his bed earlier this week which had never happened to him before.

☆ He had Budweiser Light for the first time in Guam during the shoot for this and it was the first time he thought a beer was ‘umai / tasted good’.

☆ They took the photos in real time. They were there two days and they literally constantly took photos of him so it’s all very real e.g. him eating, in the super market etc.

☆ He likes to wake up 2 hours before he has to work as he likes to take his time before work.

☆ He wears PJs to bed unlike most guys who wear nothing.

☆ He was looking at the pictures in the photobook and said “there’s lot of embarrassing pictures in here. While I was doing the CD recording (the animate tokuten) you can just hear me like ‘oh this is embarrassing...so is this’ “ xD so I look forward to hearing that!

☆ He talked about how he likes sunsets and took pictures/photos of the sunset in Guam and the MC asked where’s the best spots to see the sunset in Japan/Tokyo and MakiChan said he loves bridges, so going to rainbow bridge in Yokohama or Odaiba bridge and the one near Shimbashi and seeing the sunset is best. “I often go” (I think the one near Shimbashi). He means these places:

☆ He said he had horrible stomach pain after finishing HakuMyu (so May 1st-ish) so it made us a little worried that perhaps he’s over doing it work wise.

☆ LMN stands for Light Mackey Night (I hate the way he spells Maki in England but oh well...) but he also mentioned that during live streams before the release of the photobook, fans guessed what LMN stood for and eventually everyone was convinced that LEMON was what it stood for. At first he was annoyed that the fans just started using that name but at this event he said ‘ファンが付けた名「LEMON」も気に入って来た / They called it Lemon and I quite like that name now too so we can use both’ xD

☆ He also didn’t want the name to be all about him. He had looked at others photobooks like Masshi (Wada Masanari) and UeChan (Ueda Keisuke) and, for example with Ueda Keisuke’s title was 「全部、俺」/ ‘All Me’, and decided he didn’t want the title to be just him. Just “半分俺 / half of him” would be good enough. He said they could’ve easily just left it as “Aramaki Yoshihiko First Photobook’ but he wanted something else. So he honestly went through the alphabet ‘ABCD...EFG...’ and when he got to LMN he was like ‘Oh! That’s good! The M is Maki, me! Now lets figure out the other two letters’ so the title is on 1/3 him xD He’s such a strange boy haha He said deciding the name was really difficult and they really only had three options in the end so Light Mackey Night was easily chosen.

☆ Even the morning shots are really him. ‘My face in the morning when I wake up was properly shot (for this photobook). *shows morning shot* This really is my wake up face!’ and I have to say DAMN his morning face is naturally beautiful! My face is puffy as fuck in a morning, especially my eyes... the bag under my eyes slowly lift as I wake up but it takes a good 30 minutes at least xD he just wakes up looking like that?! Lucky bugger...

☆ He doesn’t really eat at night (me too!) because work finishes late. And if he does cook it’s usually in the morning because he doesn’t have time at night. This leads into the (what I think is the) amazing Nabe story!

☆ He loves Nabe (Japanese hotpot) in the morning for breakfast and everyone thought this was super weird except me and one other girl! I was totally nodding away and being like ‘yeah I get it! Me too’ but the EVERYONE was like ‘eeeeeh?!? what?!’ and MakiChan and I were like ‘EEEEEH?! this isn’t normal?!’. Turns out the reason why people don’t do it in the morning is because it takes too much time to cut all the stuff up and put it in the pot. BUT MakiChan (and me) said ‘just cut everything up in the morning or before I go to bed. I can laze in bed while it’s cooking’ I was 10000% in agreement with him! Because of everyone’s disbelief, MakiChan asked ‘who here loves Nabe in the morning?’ and only me and one other girl (I didn’t look behind me) put our hands up! I was so shocked!

☆ And MakiChan’s favourite is kimchi nabe and I was like ‘ME TOO!’ (but internally) so I was super happy and super shocked at how similar mine and MakiChan’s favourite foods are ^_^

☆ He said he eats nabe like one a week and I’m like 3 times a week

---

Cheki Time!

So this time we couldn’t choose what poses we wanted to do; with it being a Pony Canyon event and not his own TokiEnta event then obviously the cheki rules are different.

So MakiChan said ‘I’ll decide the pose so just listen to me and don’t be shocked whatever pose I give you’ to which we were like ‘what poses is he gunna get us to do?!’ but he played it safe and just did either PEACE or LOVE HEARTS with everyone ^_^

he did peace with me and so naturally put his arm around me ^_^ Also we got a short, short time to talk to him and I was very selfish and said ‘It was my birthday on Monday!’ and he said ‘Happy Birthday!’ in English and I literally all I could muster while shaking his hand was ‘Ooo great pronunciation!’ *bangs head* I’m a selfish dick... don’t worry I apologised to him in the two future letters I sent to him xD and the next time I properly saw him he was all smiley with me so he forgives me selfish request... I really should’ve just been like ‘I LOVE ASA NABE (morning hotpot) TOO!’ xD I really should’ve... kinda regret I didn’t BUT!!! I did get a Happy Birthday from him sooo <3

CHEKI:

The cheki is so good but PLEASE ignore my idiot arm in the center... it does not exist... it looks so stupid *sigh*

---

I was going to upload me looking at the photobook for the first time on here but A. the video is too long and B. the video is too big and C. I cannot be bothered splitting it up and posting it in parts again, SO if you wanna watch my reactions and see the photobook in full then here’s the twitter links instead:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, Final

Okay! 7 more reviews to go!! xD

#aramaki yoshihiko #yoshihiko aramaki #荒牧慶彦 #review #report

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kingexplosionfucker · 4 years

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Stressed and Confused

Yay! These ones have fun titles now because I used to actually title my journal entries. This one is really important. I go back and think about it a lot.

Tuesday, November 14, 2017

3:25 am

Stressed and Confused

So, I haven’t kept one of these things in a while. I guess I’ll just dive right in. As you can probably tell by the time stamp, I can’t sleep. I woke up at midnight to get a glass of water, and then I got distracted by fanfiction. I tried to go back to sleep. I really did. It just didn’t turn out all that well, apparently. I found this old thing at the bottom of my closet and I decided to start up a journal again so I can remember my old high school memories and stuff. Because only I get inspired to write a journal at 3 in the fucking morning.

Well, at least the first entry will be relatively interesting, considering one of my best friends, MM just came out to us as bi today. (I guess it’s yesterday now.) Anyway, she told me in, like, September so it wasn’t a surprise to me or anything. It was cool to see how positive everyone was about it. I mean, MP did make a joke about “tasting the rainbow”, but it was kinda hilarious. It was pretty funny, honestly. MM sent a text to the Sassy Six group chat Sunday night (which I didn’t see until Monday morning considering I was grounded all of last weekend because I didn’t log into the fucking Family Wizard app.) Anyway, basically the text said that she had something she had to tell us for a while now, but she kept on losing her nerve. I knew immediately what she was going to tell us, considering I already knew. (O already knew, too, considering we were all in GSA together. O’s pan, by the way. I just learned that yesterday, actually. I mean, I knew she wasn’t straight, but I didn’t know if she was gay or bi or anything.)

Damn, I need to work on going off on these tangents. Anyway, MM said she wanted to tell us during Timber Time so that we’d all be there, Well, she had to tell E after everyone else because E was kinda late to Timber Time because she had to finish up typing a paper for English that she procrastinated on. Like I said before, everyone had a super good reaction and everything. (Super good? Seriously?) Which is good for me when I eventually come out. Which will be a while, considering I’m still confused as hell about my feelings. I mean, I know everyone will accept me and everything. That’s not what I’m worried about.

I just…I don’t know. I guess I just don’t want to say anything until I know for certain who I am. Is that bad? I mean, MM came out to me while she was still sorta figuring herself out, so I guess I could talk to her about it. I mean, she DID wait to tell the whole group until after she figured out she was bi, so I guess I could do that. But I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to tell her I’ve been struggling with my sexual orientation so soon after she came out, you know? I mean, I don’t know if it would be rude or not. Would it? I mean, I guess not. I mean, it sounds kinda dumb now that I put it on paper. I mean, I guess I should give her time to, like, I don’t know, adjust and stuff before I spring my confusion onto her. Yeah. It feels so much better to write this stuff down and get it out of my head. I mean, there’s only one person I can actually talk to about this stuff, and that’s H. She’s gay and she goes to my church. I go to her for advice on this sorta thing, although I haven’t talked to her recently. I should probably talk to her.

On a completely unrelated note, I highly regret procrastinating on all my yearbook interviews because all pages FINALIZED are due tomorrow! Seriously, you have no fucking idea how fucking stressed I am about it. I haven’t even finished my interviews for the page, let alone the STORY! I just can’t handle all this stress, you know?

Not to mention my grades. Oh boy, don’t even get me started on those. I have a D in Geometry. Honors fucking Geometry. I got a D on two math tests in a row, not to mention flunking the majority of my quizzes. I got a B on my first test, which is honestly probably the only thing keeping my grade from plummeting to an F. I retook my second math test, though, which I feel I did pretty well on, so hopefully that’ll raise my grade. Fingers crossed. My parents are looking into getting me a math tutor. Normally, I’d be mad at them, but I probably need it. MZ has been helping me a ton, but I probably need more help than she can give me.

AP Euro is my second lowest grade at an 84. AP Euro is so fucking hard. All the tests I’ve been getting C’s on. My friends, too. And Anatomy and Spanish are both around the 87-88 range. Spanish, it’s because I’m not getting enough speaking points anymore, which I really need to work on. In Anatomy, it’s because I missed one assignment when I went on my yearbook trip to Topeka, and it dropped my grade 3% and I can’t seem to get it back up. That’s the main reason my dad wouldn’t let me go on the yearbook trip to Dallas on Wednesday. I was super fucking pissed at first, but I understand now.

By the way, finals are coming up!!! The whole weight of it hasn’t fully sunken in yet, but when it does, I’m going to freak the fuck out. I mean, I don’t even know if the final could bring my grade up to an A, and if it could, I’d have to get a perfect fucking score and we all know that is actually impossible. Math is just a lost cause at this point. I’d be pretty damn lucky if I could get a B. I’m starting to get pretty tired, so I guess I’m done for tonight. It’s 4:15 am, so I can get about an hour of sleep in before I have to wake up for school, so wish my tired ass luck for school today! I’m going to need it, believe me. That and a shit ton of coffee. Anyway, I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.

1:36 pm

Mean

Why am I so mean? I act so selfish, like I don’t care about anyone but myself. But I do care. I care so fucking much. I just can’t express it for some reason. I’m surprise my friends don’t all hate me for being so goddamn miserable, selfish, arrogant and mean all the fucking time. I think they’re starting to get annoyed with me at least. I. Need. To. Stop. How can I be nicer to the people I love? All I do is complain to them. I’m never positive at all. I tell them I hate them and to fight me all the time. I’m really fucking rude to them. I don’t want to be. Please help. Also, I’m home from school because my fucking period cramps suck ass. Yeah, I went home during 5th hour.

2020 Edit: Wow, okay. Past me is lying to herself again. I knew full good and well that I was bi as hell back then. Again, knew I liked girls since I was 16. I didn’t really call myself bi until I was in 8th grade (or maybe 9th grade? Honestly I don't really remember). The real reason I didn't want to come out then is because I had a crush on one of my friends and I didn’t want them to think I had a crush on her. (No, not MM. That’s later.)

#old journal #journal entry #biseuxal #bi crisis

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limejuicer1862 · 5 years

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F WORD WARNING

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews

I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me. I gave the writers two options: an emailed list of questions or a more fluid interview via messenger.

The usual ground is covered about motivation, daily routines and work ethic, but some surprises too. Some of these poets you may know, others may be new to you. I hope you enjoy the experience as much as I do.

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Thursday Simpson

lives between Peoria, Illinois and Iowa City, Iowa. She is a writer, musician and cook. Her work has recently been anthologized in Nasty! Volume 2, Hexing the Patriarchy and Satan Speaks!. She believes in garlic, onions and Feline Satan. Her twitter is @JeanBava and her full publication history can be found at www.thursdaysimpson.com

The Interview

1. When and why did you start writing poetry?

When I was a kid and throughout highschool I always wanted to write. Mostly back then I would listen to Opeth’s album Damnation or Tiamat’s album Prey and try to come up with my own poetry but it never really happened. But eventually in 2008 I was enrolled in community college and playing in about 10 different bands. I wasn’t really happy playing music so I started thinking about writing again. One of the nice things about writing as opposed to film making or playing music is that there is no recording or filming process. It’s like pure expression, no strings, no tuning, no effects or cables. Sure, you need a laptop and there is always so much revision and study involved. And writing is such a more long term thing than music. A manuscript might take more than five years to go from draft number one to publication as opposed to an album getting written, recorded, mixed and released in a year or two. It’s not that one medium involves more or less work, they’re just different. And the process involved with writing really kind of seemed attractive to me back then. I could sit and read and then write on my computer and email my work to publications instead of constantly practicing and trying to get my riffs recorded on good audio and find a label’s mailing address and trying to get their attention and going on the road and all of that.

2. Who introduced you to poetry?

There are several things that do come to mind, though. Growing up in Galesburg, Illinois one hears a lot about Carl Sandburg. He was born here and a lot of things are named after him. I actually won a poetry contest in the 7th grade put on by his estate and his daughter gave me the prize at a ceremony held at his birthplace.

I think also in the 7th grade our class did a poetry unit where we read poets like Nikki Giovanni and Langston Hughes and Lewis Carroll and Edgar Allan Poe. Looking back on that now, it’s so weird. It was a Catholic school, so we were getting all of this militant right wing anti abortion politics, books like Harry Potter were banned.But we also read poets like Nikki Giovanni and learned about Oscar Romero.

Then once I was in public highschool, I think I started to hear people talk about poetry as something one did to express themselves. Or as a valid art form unto itself. Some people from my highschool used to get together both in person and online and workshop eachother’s poetry. They were who told me about Sylvia Plath and poets like that.

But it was really more professors at my community college that made it start to click for me. One guy was an eldergoth from the 80’s and also used to play music before he became a writer. He really helped me take poetry as something I wanted to do and turn it into something that I did. He taught, “America,” by Allen Ginsberg in class one day and I went out and got a copy of Howl. The title poem, Howl, really fucking blew me away. I think that’s the poem that really made me fall in love with poetry.

3. How aware are and were you of the dominating presence of older poets traditional and contemporary?

At first, very much so. That’s all we were taught in community college. The only non intro lit course was a two part Fall-Spring British Lit survey. I really didn’t like Beowulf or Canterbury Tales or the The Faerie Queene. I loved Shakespeare but didn’t really like Donne and Marvel and etc etc.

And after a month or two of the Enlightenment guys, I really fell for Wordsworth and Coleridge and Byron and the Shelley’s. I read their stuff for the better part of Spring 2010. Then a friend of mine that recently graduated from Western Illinois University asked me to help her run a local writing workshop. And while we were hanging out and planning it she showed me all of the texts they worked on at Western and let me borrow Richard Siken’s book, Crush. And after reading him I fell in love with poetry all over again.

Then once I transferred to the University of Iowa to finish my BA I chose a poetry writing course based on the instructor teaching Siken and Frank O’Hara. The Writers Workshop offers a series of creative writing courses for undergrads that anyone can take. And the instructors are all graduate students currently enrolled in the Workshop. We also studied Jeffrey McDaniel and the Dickman Twins and people like that. She also directed me to poets like Sharon Olds, James Wright, Franz Wright.

In other classes in the English literature department we read people like James Baldwin and Marilynne Robinson and Mary Swander and Raymond Carver and Jane Smiley.

During my last Semester there, Spring 2013, I started reading Maggie Nelson. She was around Iowa City for a bit in 2010 or 2011, guest lecturing and things like that, while she was publishing her book, Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions, through University of Iowa Press. So by 2013 everyone in Iowa City was reading Bluets. That book really changed my life. I read everything else Maggie Nelson wrote and then read every author she cited in her work, Simone Weil, Eileen Myles, Cookie Mueller.

Then after reading authors like Dodie Bellamy and Kathy Acker and Chris Kraus I started making friends that shared a love for similar writers. And then I more or less started getting plugged into communities of actual contemporary writers my own age doing the coolest fucking shit.

4. What is your daily writing routine?

It varies! I hate doing the same thing every day. But, I do prefer to write in the morning, first thing. I always hydrate first thing every morning. I’m obsessed with drinking water. Then I either make breakfast and a pot of tea or coffee or just start in on whatever project I’m working on. The longer each day goes on the more shit comes up. And I really need to focus when I write. So I like to get it out of the way first thing. Then it always isn’t in the back of my mind as I do everything else during the day.

In general I try to pattern my work ethic after my favorite athletes. Interviews with Kevin Durant or DeMarcus Cousins or Nyla Rose have taught me so much about what it takes and what it looks like to pursue greatness.

5. What motivates you to write?

I think it’s almost always been work that I admire. Sometimes it’s an interpersonal thing, a breakup or a great hookup or whatever. But almost always it’s because I’ve seen a great film or read a great book or watched a great professional wrestling match or athletic contest.

I really like raw, physically immediate work that takes real risks. That’s why I love pro wrestling so much. It’s such a physical, emotional form of storytelling. A great match from Mitsuharu Misawa in a lot of ways reminds me of a novel like The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich or Like Being Killed by Ellen Miller. Or more recently, Tessa Blanchard’s match with Sami Callihan. Tessa really connects with the audience with her tears and really honest cries of pain throughout that contest. That same feeling and emotion is present in Colt Cabana’s recent title defense against James Storm or in just about anything that Pentagón Jr. and his brother, Fénix do in the ring.

Same with the New Day, Kofi Kingston and Xavier Woods and Big E. I think they’re just about the most talented artists working in professional wrestling throughout this entire decade. There is so much artistic brilliance in their matches with the Uso’s or in Kofi Kingston’s main event work in 2019.

Besides wrestling, films like Night of the Living Dead by George Romero or Living Dead Girl by Jean Rollin really direct my artistic goals. Something raw, real, honest and immediate and emotionally and psychically potent. That’s what I’m always trying to chase and pursue in my own work.

6. How do the writers you read when you were young influence you today?

I think my passion for literature and video games and athletics and film have always been more or less intertwined. When I was about 5 or 6 I started watching the Universal Monster Collection on VHS and got obsessed with horror. I read all of the Goosebumps and Fear Street books from the Galesburg Public Library. I watched the Star Wars films on VHS and then read all of the Star Wars books at the public library. I watched Tales from the Cryptkeeper and Are You Afraid of the Dark and read all of the affiliated franchise novels that the library had.

I first became aware of professional wrestling after renting WWF Royal Rumble on the Sega Genesis. In 1993, 1994 and 1995 the only way to watch wrestling for me was from renting VHS tapes. So anytime I got any money I would rent as many wrestling tapes and horror films as I could afford and watch them over and over.

I didn’t have a computer or access to the Internet until 1999. So mostly every second of my free time was either spent at the library researching films and books or at rental stores reading the VHS boxes.

Crying is a really important spiritual activity for me. Victor Wooten defines crying as something we do when we aren’t able to express our emotions through language. I’ve always cried a lot, regardless of age. My favorite thing to do on my days off is to make a pot of coffee and listen to music or watch a film or listen to an audiobook and cry my fucking eyes out.

The video game Final Fantasy 7 really changed me. I played it fairly soon after it came out in 1997. I became so obsessed with the game. I cried when I played it and I cried thinking about it when I wasn’t playing it. The way it combines such lyrical music with so many incredible greens and blues in the color pallet just really connected with me. I read the strategy guide cover to cover so many times. Video game strategy guides were actually one of my favorite literary genres as a kid. I never owned too many games, but I could afford the strategy guides. So I just read them cover to cover, over and over.

So much of what I do now is born directly out of my obsessions from when I was a child. An interest in Universal Horror led to an interest in the 80’s slasher franchises, that fed into an interest in George Romero’s body of work and so on. Then once I was in college and started to learn about politics and theory and history, horror was such a perfect exploration ground. George Romero’s 1978 film Dawn of the Dead became a renewed obsession. I started thinking of 80’s slasher films as Reagan morality tales.

Coming out of the closet and living publicly as queer and trans for me was very much tied to learning about AIDS in the 1980’s. Reagan’s policies really effected my family in a lot of negative ways. Rick Perlstein wrote a really great two volume work that traces changes in right wing politics from Eisenhower through the 1976 Republican Convention. Those books were such great companions to The Letters of Mina Harker by Dodie Bellamy or I Love Dick by Chris Kraus and In One Person by John Irving. Artists like David Wojnarowicz tie so many things together. My mind has always worked in a language of synchronicity and probability and chance and myth. Things like Baseball statistics have always been incredibly meaningful to me. And the way David Wojnarowicz ties things like country music to masculine queerness really made me feel validated as a thinker for the first time in my life.

And during times when I really thought my writing was over and out, especially in late 2012 and late 2013, watching Are You Afraid of the Dark and some of John Carpenter’s films like They Live and Prince of Darkness really helped get my mind and heart together again. The same with 1931’s Frankenstein. I watched that film over and over as a child. But when I watched it during the fall of 2014 it was like seeing it for the first time. Boris Karloff’s performance is just something special. His unhinged screams during the fire at the end of the film really effected me in a profound way. You can watch that film alongside reading Chris Kraus’ novel, Summer of Hate, and learn a lot about violence in our society.

So yeah, the obsessions and concerns in my work now are very much reflected in my obsessions and concerns as a five year old.

8. Who of today’s writers do you admire the most and why?

There are so many! I think more than anyone, my favorite contemporary writers are Ariel Gore, Tiffany Scandal, Erika T. Wurth, Juliet Cook, Leza Cantoral, Christine M. Hopkins, Kristen J. Sollee, Joanna C. Valente, Nadia Gerassimenko, Juliet Escoria, Ingrid M. Calderon-Collins, Monqiue Quintana, I could go on forever.

Helen Oyeyemi is a genius. Sybil Lamb is a genius. Patrisse Khan-Cullors is a genius.

I also like Koji Suzuki’s novels. Edward Frenkel is another favorite. Karyn Crisis is writing and publishing a series on traditional Italian witchcraft that is excellent. And I do enjoy Haruki Murakami as well. Marisha Pessl is another favorite.

More than anything, I love how publishing is changing. Ebooks and audiobooks and the Internet are opening up so much to so many people. You no longer need to live in New York City or go to college to have access to a life in literature.

Technology is making literature accessible and possible for disabled persons as well. You don’t need a ton of shelving and space to store your books, you can read / listen while you cook or work or whatever. An average SD card can hold about 5 public libraries worth of books.

In general I just love where contemporary literature is right now and hopefully where it’s heading. Art seems more accessible than it’s ever been.

8.1. Why are they genius?

Helen Oyeyemi’s book, “White is For Witching”, is a novel that is as expertly written as it is affecting. I love books that aren’t fixed. Those Comp 101 tropes of, “Reliable narrator, unreliable narrator,” or, “Now class, to write well, we must first prepare an introductory paragraph with our thesis statement,”

Just turn me off.

I love it when an author jumps deep into the psychic mass of human bodies. The psychic and physical realities of humans don’t correspond at all to those 101 concepts.

And Oyeyemi’s, “White is For Witching,” to me is just about the perfect book. Everything in the narrative is always changing. Every sentence just feels so profound and impactful. It really challenges the reader to kind of move beyond the literal text and engage with the narrative more with one’s psychic senses or within one’s innermost being.

Sybil Lamb’s book, “I’ve Got a Timebomb”, is a novel that, to me, recalls Kathy Acker’s non-linear style. But Sybil’s novel specifically frames Acker’s queer, disjointed virtuosity within a transgender, W. Bush era framework.

As with Oyeyemi’s, “White is For Witching,” its rather difficult to get a sense of what’s happening, sentence to sentence. And that forces the reader to both rely on the depth of the language itself and also on their own psychic ability to sense what is happening. And as the novels continue, they each create such a powerful impact and resonance within the reader. Or at least they did with me. They changed my fucking life.

And Patrisse Khan-Cullors book, “When They Call You a Terrorist,” is one of the most profound works I’ve ever read. It’s in part memoir and part contemporary history. I think if someone was only going to read one book published in the 2010’s, “When They Call You a Terrorist,” is a book that person should choose.

I think for a lot of white people in the United States, we really ignore what’s going on around us. We don’t confront our white privilege. We don’t confront that our white privilege is sustained by institutional racism. We don’t confront that horrific violence is forced on people of color.

Throughout her book, Patrisse Khan-Cullors candidly talks about her life and the lives of those around her. And through her writing, she almost kind of gives the reader a choice. By describing the horror and violence of racism, the reader can either choose to be horrified and repent and commit to change or they can continue to block it out.

The narrative also is about the author’s journey as a queer person. She talks about the realities of being queer in highschool and being queer as an adult.

I think, “When They Call You a Terrorist,” is a book that has incredible power. If anyone doubts the ability of literature and narratives to change lives, “When They Call You a Terrorist,” can shake them from that complacency.

9. Why do you write, as opposed to doing anything else?

So, I think for me writing is the most accessible art form. You can do it alone, you don’t have to have a lot of friends or a lot of gear and money and things like that. You don’t have to go buy a guitar and learn how to tune it and replace your strings or learn about what a sine wave and a square wave are and etc etc.

You can go out and read books from your library or find ebooks and audiobooks online and dive in and start getting inspired. Also, libraries carry a ton of ebooks and audiobooks besides physical books. And if there’s something you want that they don’t have, they can almost certainly get it for you.

There’s no equivalent with guitars and drum machines and synthesizers. You kind of have to buy them or maybe at best rent them from a music store. And renting in that context costs money.

But libraries also have laptops you can rent for free and write on. You could base your entire writing career out of a public library if you couldn’t afford books, an internet connection or a computer.

You can just start reading and see what inspires you and go pursue it.

The Internet really helps one connect to other readers and writers and is such an excellent way to find and build communities.

Though, I don’t mean to act like writing is high up on the platonic list of ideal art forms. I live a fairly monastic life and I enjoy that way of living. Writing is a long term game. It takes months and more often than not years to write and draft and edit and revise and get rejected and get rejected and write and revise. It appeals to my temperaments.

And revising is as simple as reading and re-reading, deleting, re-framing, re-stating, seeking clarity and things like that. You don’t have to listen to abunch of audio on abunch of expensive equipment and twist and turn abunch of knobs and worry about re-recording a part or how something’s mixed or anything like that.

10. What would you say to someone who asked you “How do you become a writer?”

More than anything else, one becomes a writer by first reading and then writing and then going back and editing what one has written. The hardest parts about being a writer have more to do with time, money, stress management, real life shit.

When I was living in Iowa City, some of the best advice I got came from reading the memoirs of writers and artists that I admire. Especially Jeanette Winterson and David Lynch and Ann Patchett.

It’s easy to see ourselves as these nobodies and our heroes as deities. But just to share a small part of Jeanette’s story. After she was kicked out of her parents house for being gay, she used to go to the library every day and get books to read. Back then she thought it was required to read every text in alphabetical order, so she started with the first book in the A section and started working her way down the lines.

Eventually a librarian noticed her habits and told her that she can read any book she likes at anytime. That no one is required to only read books in alphabetical order.

I bring this story up because our crisis’ really hurt. When we lose a job, we feel like it’s the end of the world. When we go through a breakup we feel like it’s the end of the world.

And we feel like that because things really fucking hurt.

But one thing we don’t realize sometimes is that our heroes, the pillars of art, have gone through the same things we’ve gone through. David Lynch had to put Eraserhead on hold for more than five years because he was broke. He talks in his memoir, Catching the Big Fish, about going every day to the local Big Boy and drinking a milkshake while he thought about his ideas.

You have to imagine David Lynch not as the creator of Twin Peaks, but as a broke twenty something loser hanging out at the fast food restaurant every afternoon, starring off into space, dreaming about someday making movies.

Professional, capitalist culture teaches us that such dreams are shameful. We’re all taught to laugh and scoff or at best feel sorry for the girl heading out to LA to become an actress or the person living in their parents basement working on their first demo.

The hardest part about being a writer is learning to not give into all of that shame. A lot of people will talk a lot of shit about you. That will only ever increase in its intensity as you publish and do your thing.

Once, I sent a story to a publication and paid 3 dollars to have the editor give me personalized feedback. And this fucking guy sent me his feedback by gleefully ripping my work to shreds, sentence by sentence.

A couple of weeks later, that exact same piece helped me get accepted into a nationally recognized MFA Program with an offer including full funding.

I didn’t accept the offer because I hate college, but that’s a different story.

The point I’m trying to make is that you just have to never give up. Ever.

Read the books that interest you.

When you get an idea for a piece, write it.

And finish it.

No matter what, finish what you start. No matter how hard it is. You can always edit it later.

Then after you finish writing something, read some more books that interest you. Watch films that interest you. Pursue anything that interests you.

And read books that maybe don’t interest you. And read the books that interest the authors you really like. Read people’s bibliographies. Get the books referenced in their research and read them.

And everytime you get an idea, make a note about it. And when you have time, work on it and do the best job you can.

I think doing one’s best is great advice. Whenever you’re writing, just do the best you can. If you don’t have time to write, just make sure you write when you do have time.

Never give up and always do your best.

That’s where editing really comes in. There isn’t a writer that’s ever lived who doesn’t have to revise their work. In the moment, things seem so impossible. Our sentences always feel so bad.

But one thing you’ll notice, if you don’t give up, is that six months or so after you finish a draft, you’ll come back to it and see what you need to change.

And then six months or so after that, you’ll come back to your piece and see more things that you can improve.

Sometimes that six months only takes a few days or a few weeks. Sometimes it might take a few years. Writing can be a very mysterious process.

That’s why no matter what, you should always just do your best each time you’re sitting down to write. Do your best and let the gods sort out the rest.

If you want to go to college to study literature and writing, go for it. If you don’t want to do that, don’t.

If you like workshopping with other people, do it. If you don’t like it, your editors will let you know what you need to change and how to improve your work.

Some of my favorite writers are highschool dropouts and some of my favorite writers have multiple PhDs. The secret to writing is figuring out your own process and investing in it and devoting yourself to the work of reading and writing and editing and revising. And most importantly, the secret to writing is never giving up. Ever.

When people tell you that your work is shit, just move on. Never delete or destroy your own work. Just file it away and revise and edit it later on.

And I think it’s also important to be open to change. Both changes in your style and changes in your methods and changes in what interests and motivates you.

You might find that you start out writing poetry but want to write more fiction. Or you might start out wanting to write scathing, sexy queer non fiction but end up writing high fantasy novels.

Go with your gut.

11. Tell me about the writing projects you have on at the moment.

I’m in the process of finishing up a novel that’s tentatively called, “Like a Razor.” It’s mostly about a young, out of work mathematician dealing with the loss of his primary partner in a polyamorous relationship. There is also a lot of professional wrestling & Satanism related esoterica and mystery involved.

I’m also working on putting together a couple poetry collections. And hopefully also a non-fiction collection dedicated more to examining spirituality and strategies for activism.

And hopefully all of these works will have a soundtrack that I’ve composed and recorded myself.

Thank you so much for this opportunity! I very much appreciate it

Wombwell Rainbow Interviews: Thursday Simpson F WORD WARNING Wombwell Rainbow Interviews I am honoured and privileged that the following writers local, national and international have agreed to be interviewed by me.

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monicccalml-blog · 7 years

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Important note: I am not English or anything so sorry for any spelling/grammar mistakes

Kesha’s newest album came out on 11 Augustus 2017. Of course I know Kesha, she sang famous songs like: ‘Tic Tok’, ‘Die Young’ and ‘We R Who We R’ I also know that Kesha had a really hard time because of a man named Dr Luke, he is a horrible man and Kesha took him to court but all her charges were dismissed. Well, this is her comeback album: It has 14 tracks but first, let’s look at the cover art. The cover art gives me space vibes, she is literally in space and has a bunch of UFO’s on the ceiling. Kesha herself appears to be standing in water completely nude. There is also a line around her, could be the feeling of being trapped. But I have no clue what that eye is doing there on the right. Kesha seems to be looking at a bright light or she is moving towards it, the light could be meaning ‘freedom’. Also on the left the room she is in seems to be melting away. On to the tracks on the album! Track 1: Bastards. Starting the album off with a slow and meaningful song is something I did not expect but she did it with a good song. The guitar gives me old Kesha vibes because she is a country artist and knows how to play the guitar. The song Is really meaningful and I love how Kesha is being honest with us: ‘Don’t let the bastards bring you down, don’t let the assholes wear you out.’ She really is hitting the high notes at the right places, I notice that Kesha has been working on her vocals because I didn’t expect this from her at all and I’m loving it. She is shutting her haters down with this song! ‘I’ve been underestimated my whole life. I know people gonna talk shit (tututu dum).’ I love the tututu dum she adds in the end, she makes it seem like it isn’t a big deal and she is just... mentioning it. I am really loving the song and I feel like this song wouldn’t be the same if Kesha didn’t hit those high notes. Just when I was about to get bored with the strumming of the guitar Kesha adds a more instrumental and powerful outro letting the song keep its edge and the Childs play again with singing: ‘La la la la la la eh’ The song is telling us to not let haters get to us and Kesha is mentioning that she also gets hate from people and that she just doesn’t care anymore which I love. track 2: Let ‘Em Talk featuring The Eagles of Death Metal. Electric guitars in the beginning, I love the electric guitar so I’m here for it. Kesha is going full force in the song, again hitting high notes with some words like ‘baby’. The beginning was good but the chorus is really funky, telling us to just live our lives and let people just talk about it. This is old school Kesha and this song is a real bop. The way she says ‘Do’ after the chorus gives the song life, really, if she wouldn’t have said it like this it would have lost its touch. I love how with the influence of The Eagles of Death Metal the song has a rock side to it but still manages to contain its country side. The song is really catchy but to be honest I wouldn’t want to listen to this for more times than 5 times, it will lose its touch if you’ll put it on repeat. Track 3: Woman featuring The Dap-Kings Horns I know this is a single on the album and I like the beginning already, Kesha telling the man ‘okay shut up’. She again has a special way of saying a word, this time with ‘woman’. I also love the laughing vocals, It suites the song. I feel like this is the ‘Independent Woman’ of the 2010′s: ‘I buy my own things, I pay my own bills’ but this is edgier with the lyric ‘I’m a motherfucking woman baby that’s right, I don’t need a man to be holding me to tight.’ I also love it when she says ‘don’t touch my weave’, it makes the song more relatable to a lot of people and gives the song a funny side. Wow, the song also uses trumpets, It really in the background but that makes it even better. I really like this song, it gives everyone a feeling of empowerment and it’s an amazing song. What are those things at the end of the song? It feels like someone is laughing but it also sounds like a seagull... maybe a seagull that’s laughing? Yes probably. Track 4: Hymm Again a softer song, no guitars or trumpets this time. Kesha’s voice really suits this style to be honest. This chorus gives me life, it makes me close my eyes and enjoy this song. I really like the lyric on this album! ‘I know that I’m perfect, even though I’m fucked up.’ What is this song even about? A hymm for how we live? So basically this is just a song about living your life, I don’t care actually I really like the song. It’s so soft but Kesha’s voice really changes it, she is reaching for notes in the end and it’s great. This really is a different Kesha, I’m not used to hearing this. Why is there not a music video for this song? This is the first song that has vibes from the cover art.

Track 5: Praying Ah the lead single of the album, this is Kesha’s comeback song with strong vocals and a deep message. In the music video Kesha is playing the piano, I didn’t know she could play the piano, that’s amazing. This song is 100% about that asshole Dr Luke. So she is telling him that she is ‘thankful’ for him giving her fire and strength, she hopes he is changing his soul and being a better person and that he’ll find peace. Wow this is amazing and what a comeback song! it’s just her and piano and some violins in the background, it is a really beautiful song. The backing vocals give me a opera vibe but I may be reaching. I feel like she is going to hit mad notes because she is building up to something in the bridge, her voice becomes stronger and deeper and the piano chords are pressed in harder. Geez that high note! Kesha really did that, this high note will go down in history as one of the best high notes, damn can she also do this live? I hope so. After the high note everything drastically changed and now drums are added. The way she said Praying in the end is so soft and great. That is an amazing comeback song and I think no one expected this from the country girl. Track 6: Learn to Let Go The intro involves hard drums so I’m guessing this song will also be a bit edgy. The instruments are more pushed forward then Kesha’s vocals and I think they should have balanced it. But in the chorus it is actually suitable but I can’t even hear what she says before ‘demons inside me.’ This is another anthem for people, Kesha really became that girl. Kesha changes her vocals in the chorus but she changes it so it goes one in one with the song and also with the fact that she is also saying a lot in one sentence, girl when do you breath. In the bridge I just love the way she says ‘why’, also giving the some something extra. I love the build up to the last chorus, I feel like that last chorus is known for being epic and Kesha did a great job with that. The song is great on its own but I think it is not that good compared to the past songs on this album, but not every song can be flawless and everyone has a different taste. Kesha does a great job in keeping this album still fun to listen to, it’s a kind of album you put on and out of nowhere the album is finished without you noticing. Maybe I’m saying this to quickly because I am only at track 6. Track 7: Finding You

Guitars are back! So this is Kesha’s first love song... oh ‘and forget we’re dying.’ This is then a song about a relationship that is breaking apart. No it’s about love XD. This is a sweet song, she is saying that even after the life she will find her lover. I just love the way Kesha is expressing her feelings in the album ‘so when I say forever it’s the goddamn truth.‘ Kesha is really showing that you can make a bop with little use of instruments, the drums are following 1 pattern and in the chorus they change a bit, in the end the guitar disappears and some piano chords are used. I really wonder of this love song is Kesha’s real experience or just a song she wrote. This song is so sweet, deep and real, Kesha knows what she is doing.

Track 8: Rainbow Yes a slow song with the piano again. I had to pause the song a bit to catch my breath. The text is so deep and empowering, this is a song that will help you through hard times and the rainbow theme makes me think of Cyndi Lauper’s song True Colors. I feel like this song is more about the message behind and the instruments so Kesha’s vocals will just be ‘normal’. This song is not only about your demons but about saying that you are stronger then the demons and that you are a star. Great job with this song Kesha, during the interlude I started crying. Kesha had a hard time and she is telling that she is happier now and that we need to celebrate life with her. Track 9: Hunt You Down The title itself sounds funny, she is gonna hunt someone down. The Country is back and I’m liking that. This song is again about not wanting to be owned by someone, like woman. Omg she is yodelling, this is so random and amazing. Oh I understand, she doesn’t want to be called baby or those sugar names but she does want to be his favourite person, that is relatable I love it. Okay she is telling him she never killed someone, I love how I don’t even find it weird because of the country vibe. ‘If you’ll fuck around, I’m gonna hunt you down.’ That says enough. She is saying she sees everything he does... aka she hacked his Insta, facebook, twitter, whatsapp. This song is really swingy and then you start laughing because of the lyric. In the bridge Kesha really doesn’t finish her sentences and it is kinda annoying but I forgive her because this song is really funky. I KNEW she was gonna include a conversation in the song. Just imagine your lover coming to you and saying ‘I love you, don’t make me kill you.‘ In any other case then Kesha, run. Track 10: Boogie Feet featuring The Eagles of Death Metal You immediately hear the Eagles of Death Metal are in this because the electric guitars are back. Kesha is changing her voice again! ‘alright.’ I feel like Kesha had a lot of fun with this song. I also like the ‘talking vocals’, something different with a really different tone then in the beginning of the song. She is talking about Pepsi and you hear a can open, this song is really extra. Her vocals sound like she is singing that part while grabbing her nose and blocking the nostrils. They are really giving Kesha a lot of vocal effects. I really like the part ‘Dance with me, dance with me please.’ And then a man that repeats that sentence. The second part of the chorus is really good (After the first time she says ‘dance with me dance with me please.’) After ‘are you scared of these boogie feet’ the drums goes crazy and then it just stops. I don’t really like the way she is singing some parts here but the chorus is really catchy. I have a love/hate relationship with this song.

Track 11: Boots

I thought this song was gonna be country but it’s not. It’s mysterious and it really makes me want to hear the rest of the song. The drums again giving the song life! Okay she is saying she is becoming fucked up a lot and every time her boyfriend is next to her. This song is the first sexual song and I like that because now a lot of song is about sex, not that it’s bad but Kesha has different subjects for her song which I like. This song has something but I can’t figure out what yet, maybe the mysterious vibe and the way Kesha sounds. I like the part after she says Boots a lot. Kesha being cheesy calling herself a kitty because she has claws, lol. She just wants her guy to satisfy her I think. the beat of this song is so amazing and without this beat I would hate this song.

Track 12: Old Flames (Can’t Hold a Fire To You) featuring Dolly Parton No way Dolly Parton?! A country icon! I love this song already, I didn’t know Dolly Parton was still active, she is 71! You go girl. Anyway... The beginning has electric guitars and drums, I thought this was going to be a typical country song to be honest. Dolly Parton just screamed/moaned in the intro, this is going to be an edgy song. When Kesha started singing the instruments just stopped, interesting. I was like ‘what is happening in the background’ but it was just Dolly Parton singing in the background. There is a banjo-like instrument in the background and I find that a great addition to the song. What is the song about? I don’t even understand the title let alone the lyric at this moment. Kesha’s and Dolly’s voices sound amazing together, Kesha is singing in a low tone and Dolly in a high tone. The fun thing is that Kesha is starting to sing a sentence and after 1 word Dolly hops in and sings along, it sounds like she keeps forgetting she is suppose to sing. The song is really not edgy, electric guitars and drums are the main instruments but it is slow and soothing. Dolly Parton still has that beautiful voice at age 71. And now Kesha is in the background. I’m so loving this duet, it’s better than expected, I have no clue what the song is about but they are performing it so well. Bravo to the both of them! The ending is that ending you need to stand up and clap.

Track 13: Godzilla

A slow song again. Lol what is this song about: ‘What do you get if you take Godzilla to the mall.’ Oh this song is suppose to be sad and I feel bad for laughing. Kesha is again singing ’la di da di da di da’ like she is singing about the most normal subject ever. A slow song with again only guitars and piano but this is meaningful and funny at the same time because who sings about Godzilla. Kesha is friends with Godzilla and tries for Godzilla to meet her mother. Godzilla is only tame if he has pizza and videogames, so she caught bigfoot and tamed him with pizza and videogames, I’m here for these lyric. I don’t actually like the song but it I don’t hate it, it’s just a fun song. Damn the biggest plot twist from this album, she is in love with Godzilla.

Track 14: Spaceship

Because of that title I’m going to say that Kesha is in a spaceship in the cover art. Banjo’s are added and I’m interested in seeing what Kesha is going to do with those. She has the same vocal effect as in Boots and it’s not my favourite. I really want to listen to what she is saying but because of the way she is singing I can’t understand it. Drums are added, okay. She is waiting for her spaceship to arrive, wow I’m having a blackout is this literally or not because she is also saying that she doesn’t care if he don’t believe her. Okay I’m starting to get tired by this banjo, maybe it is just me but I don’t like that the banjo is the main instrument with the drums. But actually the song is not horrible but I don’t really like it because I get bored with it after 1 minute and the song is 5 minutes. Okay the last chorus starts and out of nowhere I like it. logic. I do like the fragment of Kesha talking with space references. ‘nothing is real, love is everything and I know nothing’ why did she add the love part in it is my question? I don’t care because it makes this fragment even more mysterious. I guess she got her spaceship because the song ends with the sound of a plane so I guess that’s the spaceship. The ending actually makes it more mysterious and it makes me want to repeat the song again, that is amazing I love how Kesha did that.

This was the album from Kesha! I think this is a great comeback album with different sides of Kesha as she sings about the fun in live, the haters in life, overcoming the hate in life, love and whatever spaceship was about. I will say again that I won’t get bored listening to this album and if I’ll listen to it again it will be over real quick because every song has something to it. If Kesha is to do a tour in Europe, I’ll go to her concert!

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