#also why is this movie coloured SO ugly like it's so yellow but so blue and for what?? i don't know how to fix it i'm sorry

[meidui]

[invisible-pink-toast]

i remember seeing a post about that weird trope in media where there’s a ✨makeover reveal✨ but the makeover is such a downgrade from the original and it inspired me to go back to some of my least favourite  “makeovers” and see what i would do differently 

aka me rambling on about costumes hair character and symbolism for something that i spent way too long on but annoyed me too much to stop

a classic is giselle in enchanted 

after a whole makeover montage the reveal is... this? and at a medieval ball? obviously they’re trying to be symbolic, especially with her love interest robert wearing a prince outfit when he’s normally in a suit - but while his outfit looks great, hers looks really ugly jdfl;sadkhf;sadkhf

there are modern dress styles that are much nicer, more flattering, and fits giselle’s character better. no other disney princesses have purple as their fancy dress colour, but a more vibrant shade of either darker purple or lilac is prettier than that faded purple-red colour that really doesn’t go with amy adam’s hair. 

given that enchanted is full of references to classic disney movies and fairytale tropes, other options they could have gone with are a blue or yellow modern dress, this would pay homage to cinderella or belle even if the style was different. would also work symbolically, as it shows giselle in a modern dress style but the colours show her fairytale roots. 

no other princess has orange as their main colour either, so they could have done an orange dress instead of purple, as long as they checked the colour fit with amy’s hair (she’s worn orange dresses in the past and looked lovely). 

one trend in these downgrade makeovers is that they almost always straighten a character’s curly hair. fuck that. 

there are plenty of modern styles giselle could have gone with that kept her curly hair. also if they wanted another contrast to how she usually looks, they could have put her hair in an updo. also her jewellery is really ugly and doesn’t seem to have any symbolism. giselle loves flowers and nature so her jewellery could have represented that.  

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one of my least favourite makovers is marisa in maid in manhattan. 

after another makeover scene, in the moment where she puts herself out there to have the cinderella night of her dreams, she looks like this. it’s both very unflattering and doesn’t fit her character. 

jennifer lopez is beautiful, but that colour and warm tone isn’t doing anything for her. if they wanted a blush pink colour, there’s options up there that would have looked so much better. also the actual dress is horrible. looks like a sheet and that it’s about to fall off. there are similar dress styles that look sexy and classy. 

personally i don’t like the dress colouring/style for her character here. for context, marisa is a maid who was mistaken to be a hotel guest, and was invited by a political candidate (senator? governor?) to be his date to a fancy dinner. when she walks in she has the attention of everyone in the room. j-lo could do that, but this dress couldn’t. it’s bland and forgettable. 

why not go for something unusual and striking? it’s not a ball, it’s a dinner, so a unique modern dress would be fitting and would catch everyone’s eye. in this moment marisa isn’t “herself” she’s “caroline” (or cinderella). how about a cape, or sparkles, how about a red dress - the colour of passion as she risks her career to go after love? 

as a maid, marisa wears her hair in a bun for most of the movie. so why on earth do they put her hair in another bun!? this is literally the night where she is finally able to let her hair down - so why isn’t she? her hair is straight for the whole movie - why not let j-lo show off her curls? 

even if they desperately wanted an updo for some reason, the one they picked is too severe and the bun is really odd. letting some hair down for a softer look would have looked way better 

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ah. the makeover that gave me insecurities as a child. how fun. 

the fact that mia is 15 in this movie, and they decided to change basically everything about her appearance to make her more ‘attractive’ and ‘acceptable’ is very troubling. that her curly hair and glasses are seen as ugly is something i hate so much and i know that many other girls who also looked like og mia hate it too. 

ok so she’s a princess now. they want her to look presentable. ugh. instead of destroying straightening her hair, why not just style it? curly hair is beautiful. also it’s 2001. where are the butterfly clips and coloured clip ons? 

glasses are not ugly. if they wanted a “makeover” change why not just give her a different set of glasses. there’s even ones that come with little jewels in them to fit with the ideas of pretentious rich royalty. 

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emma swan’s change from tough saviour to fragile princess is one of the most disappointing character arcs i’ve ever witnessed. in the 6th season after emma’s character development was thrown out - when she marries killian her dress is grace kelly’s wedding dress. 

not even “inspired by” or “based on” it’s literally just grace kelly’s wedding dress. (that they stole! they don’t even credit the og designer helen rose). it’s from the 50s, when grace kelly married prince rainer of monaco, and that was a controlling and isolating marriage where kelly was depressed (so idk why?? they would want to emulate that as a modern fairytale???)

the dress is incredibly feminine, conservative and old fashioned. it doesn’t fit emma’s character. the design of the dress doesn’t even work in the dance scene. it also makes no sense in universe - why is emma’s dress an exact copy of grace kelly’s? she’s a princess from the 21st century getting married in a medieval fantasy land, why is her dress from the 50s? does emma like grace kelly? it’s never mentioned. it also doesn’t fit with any of her other wardrobe choices?

her actress jennifer morrison was a main force behind this dress, wanting to pull from a “real life fairytale” (her words). it’s less pulling and more stealing but okay. she then went on to say it’s: "a dress that represents the elegance and simplicity of classic timeless strength mixed with the delicacy of femininity and vulnerability. it is the ultimate balance that emma has been fighting for throughout the 6 seasons. a wholeness. a balance. not all one thing or another - but rather, a moment that is genuinely, truly, authentically her without barriers and walls.”

ok. doesn’t make sense for the character and i hate everything about it and everything about her quote. anyway. 

if they wanted to “pull” from grace kelly’s wedding dress (like a lot of other famous and modern wedding dresses have) there are a lot of ways they could go about it. lace sleeves, ballgown skirt, a lace collar. these are beautiful features that can be done in a modern way, as seen with the top three dresses. 

of course, instead of pulling from a classic dress, why not make a wedding dress as unique as the princess/saviour wearing it? the most obvious option being a SWAN inspired wedding dress. emma is a bold character, she can be tough, sexy, stubborn - she’s a modern, forward thinker. her dress can be feminine, but a real “balance” for her character is a mix of classic and modern, feminine and sexy, bold and sweet. 

emma almost always wears her hair down. the only time her hair is pulled back in a bun is when she is dark!emma when she’s like possessed with evil or some shit i stopped watching the show a while back. 

her hairstyle is also exactly like grace kelly’s (except blonde), and once again makes no sense. it’s also boring. honestly any other style would work, given that she often has her hair out, having some sort of updo would have been nice (a braid, a half-up-half-down, etc.). she’s got lovely hair, it should be a feature of the look. 

the veil is also wrong for her character, and the headpiece is so outdated and overpowering, if they wanted a veil it should be more subtle, and her headpiece should have been a CROWN. OR TIARA. SHE’S A PRINCESS. 

there were so so so many cool things they could have done to make an incredibly beautiful and unique dress. why not a swan feature? why not a cape? why not incorporate her signature red colour somewhere? 

OR HER LEATHER JACKET! emma’s classic look is a leather jacket, wouldn’t it have been cool to have her wear one with the dress at some point, or have a custom white leather jacket for the dress! a fancy dress and a white leather jacket - that really does sound like a balance for her character. 

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tiana! so this one if less of a makeover but i’m still counting it. in so much of tiana’s concept art she has such wonderful hair, ranging from 3b to 4b in many different styles

for the concept art of tiana’s final version, at least two of the designers are lorelay bove (who is spanish) and bill schwab (who is a white american). tiana’s character design was done by tom ellery, eric goldberg, kevin gollaher, rick maki & bill schwab. you wanna know what all these people have in common? they are all white men. jean gillmore was on the list as well, but uncredited, she is a white woman. tiana’s main animators were tim allen, rachel bibb - both white. art direction was done by ian gooding - white. 

they really couldn’t get any black women? or even black people? you’re designing and creating the first black princess - but of course these white men should be at the forefront of designing her and her hair. ugh. 

tiana’s outfits in the movie are gorgeous and numerous, but she only has a couple of hairstyles when she’s not a frog and they are very similar 

as you can see here in just a few of tiana’s concepts, she has many different beautiful black hairstyles. unfortunately i can’t find who these original concept artists were (the information is probably in ‘Art of the Princess and the Frog’ but i don’t have the money for that, it’s over $300 cmon). 

any of these hairstyles would have been beautiful, and she could have had different styles throughout the movie (especially considering that the end montage takes place over months!)

black women should have designed tiana, or at the very least have been involved. there needs to be more black women behind the scenes - this reminds me of candice patton’s hair on the flash being the same for years whereas the women in black lightning have different styles every episode 

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the latest cinderella movie was disappointing in pretty much every way (except for idina menzel’s vocals) but the big dress transformation moment was something i thought might actually be good. it wasn’t. 

a forgettable, bland look, with no real colour, that’s really weirdly designed and is honestly ugly as all hell. the skirt is ridiculous, the unattached sleeves are unnecessary, and the corset isn’t fit right and actually looks like it is falling off. 

in the context of the movie, cinderella wants to be a designer and this dress is her design, but one that she admits she would not be able to create. her fabulous godmother uses magic to create it for her to show off her design at the ball. it really needs to be a better design then...

in all of the advertising material for the movie the dress is purple. i’m not sure why they did this, maybe they hated the dress too, but in that frame of thought a purple dress would be beautiful! no version of cinderella has had a purple dress, it would look stunning and catch the attention of the room. it would also work in the context of the movie - as purple is a very expensive colour that cinderella would not be able to afford, but her godmother could create with magic. 

similarly, no version of cinderella (or even any princess or ball/dance scene) has a mint green dress (fiona has a dark green dress). it’s a beautiful, soft but striking colour and would make a unique and memorable dress for yet another cinderella adaptation. 

i think the beige colour they went for is supposed to be a reference to the golden colour that’s in earlier versions of the fairytale (gold slippers, sometimes also a gold dress). but if that was the case, they should have gone for an actual gold colour instead of beige with sparkles. a dress can also be ornamental without looking stupid. 

they could have also gone for a silver or blue in reference to disney’s cinderella, but in quite a different style, or a light purple dress (also a little used colour). anything except this one really. 

her hairstyle is also weird. the low bun looks like it’s falling out, and she spends the whole movie with her hair back anyway. 

what do movie hairstylists have against curls? i know it’s racism like with maid in manhattan, this is cinderella’s night to let her hair down! so show off camila’s beautiful hair and curls! if they wanted an updo, there are plenty of styles that are more flattering. it’s supposed to be done by magic! 

also camila’s looked more like cinderella on the red carpet than in this movie ajsdfl;ashdfl;h

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an adaptation from animation to live action. a classic, golden dress to a banana failure. 

making a copy of belle’s dress for the live action movie would have been wonderful to see such a stunning gown in reality - like with maleficent. making a very different dress that was clearly still inspired by the original and makes sense for the character would have also been wonderful - like with cinderella. 

instead we end up with whatever this is. not the original, not unique, no corset or structure, bizarre colour, forgettable except in how terrible it is. i love emma watson, but her input on this dress was not good. she is an actor and activist, not a designer. 

what was so disappointing about the live action dress is that COSPLAYERS have been making completely gorgeous versions of belle’s gown for years! Here we have Everything Disney, Annarichdesigns & Fiore-de-luna. Each dress is a different colour, from soft yellow to gold, with different embellishments - and each is completely incredible. They were crafted carefully with a clear respect for the original design, and each is a faithful adaptation. 

so if cosplayers can create such amazing gowns, or face actors can have wonderful gowns as they walk around at theme parks - why can’t a multi-million dollar film with a whole design team manage it??

if they wanted to go in a different direction, a great option would be going for a more historically inspired dress. which would make sense because the other gowns in the movie are clearly rococo inspired. so belle’s dress would have made sense within the aesthetic of the film. Mimi Reaves cosplay of belle went in this direction and is so beautiful and unique. 

also if they wanted a dress that was inspired by belle’s, but also clearly different, why would you emphasise the yellow instead of the gold? and especially that shade of yellow?? i still don’t understand

most of the hairstyles in the movie are lovely, including belle’s. so this one was very underwhelming. they could have gone with this kind of style but done it up more. or gone with a style that was a reference to the original belle’s - either in the ballroom scene or her classic ponytail. 

a more done up hairstyle would also make more sense in the context of the film. belle leaves the castle in this outfit, and as the movie goes on she gets more dishevelled as she tries to get back to the prince. a fancier hairdo would be able to come undone and work with her abandoning the dress

the accessories here are also very odd choices. at least their gold colour is well chosen. but her necklace is a tree? why not, oh i don’t know - a rose!? the main symbol of the beauty and the beast franchise?? either in gold to match or in red. her only hair accessory is leaf inspired?? what does belle’s character have to do with leaves? instead what about birds! symbols of freedom, or of being locked in a cage. 

or what about something to do with books. you can see here little rose (!!!) pins made out of book pages. what about instead of a pointless scene of a book transporting belle and the beast to paris, we have a scene where they are cleaning out the old library. they find some damaged books, and belle is upset to throw them away (as she has had such little access to books through her life). the beast gives the books a new life and painstakingly creates these accessories as a thoughtful gift to belle. it would show his caring side, how he listens and appreciates her, and then her wearing them would be very romantic. 

belle originally has gloves too. full length golden gloves are quite a statement piece, but yellow or gold lace gloves are beautiful and could have been a nice nod to the original outfit (and could be another aspect of the outfit to be discarded later). 

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overall this is a very long list! but everything that ends up on screen has been painstakingly chosen, so for an important makeover the look should:

fit the character 

hopefully have some kind of symbolic meaning

work within the context of the story 

actually look nice

it should also not perpetuate horrible tropes - that curly hair is ugly, or that a woman is only valuable when feminine. there should be more women (especially poc and lgbtq+ women) behind the scenes. 

some “makeovers” did not make this list because there was no reason for a makeover in the first place and what happened couldn’t be salvaged in any way: allison in the breakfast club, tai in clueless or sandy in grease for example. 

some wonderful makeovers include: julie in julie and the phantoms, anne in anne with an e, andie in how to lose a guy in 10 days, elena in one day at a time, anya in anastasia, valkyrie in thor ragnarok, cinderella in cinderella (2015), okoye in black panther, catra in she ra and the princesses of power, jane in jane the virgin, sal-lee in barbie: star light adventures & nia in supergirl

[imwall-e]

Pairing : Bucky x Reader

Summary : Spending Christmas Eve with your favourite super soldier!

Warning : none

It was your first Christmas with Bucky since you moved together. So, this year you wanted to spend it only together. No reunion with the Avengers. Just the two of you.

You loved Christmas, and you love some cliché. That’s why you bought two ugly Christmas sweaters : one for you, the other for your super soldier. On each of them was a T-Rex playing in the snow, wearing a Christmas hat and holding some presents. Or of course there were many colours such as red, green or yellow.

“As much as I love you doll, there is no way I’m wearing that”, Bucky said as you gave him his sweat.

“Come on James! It’s just for tonight!”

“No. And why is there a dinosaur? There is no link with Christmas.”

“Excuse-me, Sergeant Barnes, but dinosaurs are awesome.”

“...”

“Please James,'' you said with a sweet voice while putting your arms around him for a hug.

“You know I can’t resist when you do that, right? Okay then, but just tonight and no pictures.”

“Yes Sergeant!”

You couldn’t stop smiling. He’d do anything to see you smile like that all the time. He took his sweater and was about to put it on when you warned him that you were going to cook for tonight, and that you didn’t want him to dirty it before the movie night.

The program was that you will prepare dinner during the afternoon but also bake cookies and other biscuits for desserts. But first, you had to leave to get your boyfriend’s present. You couldn’t wait to give it to him. 

It was only 10 am, but you received a message saying that the gift was ready. You kissed Bucky and left saying “you’re gonna love it”.

Bucky and you lived in a small apartment in a quiet village. You loved New-York, it was a beautiful city, but there was too much noise for you. Sometimes, it was scary and it reminded you of things you’d rather forget. 

This village was really beautiful, and this, every season. But winter was your favourite. The snow covered everything. People were building snowmen, everything was decorated. 

You decided that you’d walk instead of taking transport. Your destination was not that far. Plus, it allowed you to enjoy the beauty of the town at Christmas. There was a line at the bakery. People were buying their desserts for the night to come.

You really couldn’t wait for tonight. Hell, you couldn’t even wait to see the look on his face in less than an hour when he’ll receive his gift.

Finally, you arrived at your destination : SPCA. Bucky really loved cats. You loved them too, but you were more of a dog person. In any case, you were sure that this little cat was going to make you both happy.

You explain the reason for your presence to the woman at the reception and she led you to the naw member of the family. The cat was a female, her fur was all white and her eyes were blue. She was named Alpine and she was two years old. A person found her a few months ago on a roadside.

You fell in love with little Alpine the moment you saw her on the SPCA’s website. You came to the shelter two weeks before to meet her, and today as you approached her it was like she recognized you : jumping in your arms and purring.

As your returned to the reception to sign all the papers, you saw a very familiar figure:

“Bucky?!”

What was he doing here? He turned his face to you, looking as shocked as you were. You both stayed silent, staring at each other. Then you noticed : he had a leash in his hand and a beautiful husky attached to it. On his side, he noticed the cat in your arm.

He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck with his vibranium arm :

“Well, it was supposed to be a surprise for when you came back, but I guess we had the same idea. Merry Christmas doll.”

He gave you the leash, and as you took it, the dog slowly came to you. Like Alpine, he was white but with some shades of grey. His eyes were green and he had a scar on his muzzle and on his right front leg.

“His name is Hermes. He is a bit scared but he’s nice. Also, he is deaf due to what happened to him, but I know we’re going to take good care of him.”

Bucky and you sat next to Hermes who had his eyes fixed on Alpine. The cat put her muzzle next to his.

“They seem to get along really well”, you said to Bucky.

“You’re right, but you still didn’t present this little kitten”, he joked.

“Excuse me Sergeant, you laughed, so this is Alpine. Merry Christmas James.”

You both kissed, but were interrupted because you still had to sign papers. Then, you all headed to the car that Bucky took to come. You stopped by some stores to buy food, toys and a lot of new things for your animals.

Bucky and you joked a lot about the fact that you had the same idea, and that you were at the same place at the same time. 

You came home around 1 p.m, and you installed everything for Hermes and Alpine which took you about an hour. After that, Bucky and you were really hungry so you both ate before starting baking some biscuits.

“James, can you give me the flour please?”

You weren’t looking and he took this opportunity to throw some flour at your face.

“Sir, you’re really gonna regret that!”

That’s how you both started a flour battle while Hermes and Alpine were watching you from the couch. When you finally stopped, there was more flour on the both of you than in the bowls for the preparation of the biscuits.

At the end of the day, the kitchen was clean just like Bucky and you. You were wearing your ugly Christmas sweaters while watching Gremlins, drinking hot chocolate and eating your biscuits, Hermes and Alpine next to you.

“You know, Bucky started, I think the apartment is too small for the four of us.”

“Are you suggesting buying a house?”

“Maybe”

“I really like that idea Mr Barnes”, you said kissing him.

“Merry Christmas Y/N.”

“Merry Christmas my Bucky Bear.”

***

A few days later

Bucky and you had started to search for a bigger place, so you've decided to start sorting through your stuff.

As you entered the room you shared, you saw something that made you laugh: Bucky was wearing his T-Rex Christmas sweater.

“I thought you didn’t like it and that it was only for our Christmas night?”

“Please doll, don’t tell Steve and Sam!”

[swimmingleo]

good day to u leo this is an opportunity to expand on the dark side of the rainbow theory, if you want to— what parts of it really get you, why, what you think it All Means, any colour you like <3

omgggg heehee meggg here we go again <3 I already ranted about it here so i'm gonna try not to repeat myself too much rdfkjf but I think what I really LOVE about this theory is how the entire thing makes absolute total sense with what Pink Floyd consistently was about, whether it be the themes or on the technical side.

Ok first it all starts with this panel:

Time ?? Heart ?? ~Clock ticking~Heartbeats~ Tell me this bit of text doesn't scream PF dramatics, it actually sounds Watersian bro

also making me emotional, because DSOTM is dedicated to the lunatics, and later The Wall would be dedicated to paranoids and bleeding hearts, and they're both over 40yo, and they're the two PF albums that are still mainstream to this day and so their philosophy didn't went out of fashion, ueueue

On The Run:

The scene of Dorothy singing Over the Rainbow is dubbed with On The Run, consisting of planes exploding. PF uses again the image of a child dreaming about the sky only to meet violence in The Wall:

Look mummy, there's an aeroplane up in the sky [...]

Did you ever wonder why we had to run for shelter when the

Promise of a brave new world unfurled beneath a clear blue sky?, Goodbye Blue Sky

Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true, Over The Rainbow

While Dorothy is convinced dreams really do come true, Pink realizes they don't because he still has to hide from danger even long after the war ended and peace was promised to everyone. As an adult, Pink references Over The Rainbow again, maybe trying to find shelter in childhood memories as he's violently judging himself for being "crazy". Over The Rainbow is just so ridiculously emOTIONAL and it sounds so fragile, the same way PF sounds whenever they mention a dream that is "gone" or "crazy"

Money

Dorothy opening the door to technicolor world makes the noise of a cash register opening. As she walks around the place, she really thinks she is over the rainbow and that she will find happiness there. In reality, she spends her time here running from danger and longs for home. The exact same morale concludes Pink Floyd's Animals: in their quest to satisfy their "need" (for money, fame or power), the dogs lie, betray and live in constant fear, forcing their way into a system that initially rejects them. Eventually, just like Dorothy, the dog realizes all they really need is the comfort and safety of home. animals my beloved my sexy depressing hopeful wife <3

Us and Them

MEG a lot of that is you and your magic notes and your thoughts>

That's where DSOTM playing through Dorothy's moral compass is sooo cool. At that point in the movie, she's praised for having killed a wicked witch and is told how to determine bad from good (Glinda says ugly witches = bad ones, but define ugly bro). The scene also exposes all the players: good witches, bad witches, munchkins, and lil clueless Dorothy. It really illustrates so well the humanistic values PF always is about: be compassionate, open and willing to experience before deciding who is good and who isn't. PF can sound misanthropic but their albums are really about ~luv in a. peculiar way. PF's philosophy is, humans aren't inherently bad, they're taught and led to fight each other by a handful of bad guys in command, who make their bread out of the fighting, and the cycle reenforces abusive systems. Money is what the fighting's all about, the greed of a few is what deepens the gaps between people under all prisms (it's really about intersectionality). I just LOVE that bit where Dorothy is happily skipping on the yellow brick road on the line "Out of the way, it's a busy day". She's just SO blissfully unaware of what that cute lil trip has in store for her <3

Any Colour You Like

The song starts PRECISELY when Dorothy is confronted to a crosspath. She is confused, as she was only told to follow the yellow brick road: problem is both paths are the yellow brick road.

Any Colour You Like is another cute sarcasm. While the title lets you think it's about being in power of your life's decisions, it actually refers to the illusion of choice: being presented with various options that are the same colour. All yellow for Dorothy, "all blue" according to Roger Waters' original metaphor.

IM JOKING but also living for inverted colors' transcending power

Brain Damage:

Following Any Colour You Like, Brain Damage overlaps with the Scarecrow's song If I Only Had A Brain. It's already a BIG coincidonk on its own but thing is it has history:

If there is ONE song in DSOTM officially explicitly written after and for Syd, it's Brain Damage. And Syd happens to have written a song for their first album clearly inspired by the Scarecrow. It's titled um. Scarecrow lol

The black and green scarecrow as everyone knows

In Syd's song, the Scarecrow does no thinking and is opposed to the speaker who does have a brain. Because the Scarecrow goes with the flow and doesn't make any choice for himself, life isn't unkind to him. However, In Brain Damage, the speaker's brain is judged insane, because they go against the rule and stray from life's designated path. So Life, "you", is trying to restrain or actually damage the lunatic's brain: attempting to turn the lunatic who knows who they are into the brainless Scarecrow again.

Meanwhile, the Scarecrow in Oz is obsessed with the idea of having a physical brain because he thinks he needs it somehow to fit in society, and do what people with a brain do. But he proves all along their journey that he's just as clever and functional without <3

Fun bonus, some fans saw in the cover of the live album Pulse (1995) the silhouette of a kid dressed in blue and wearing red slippers:

ANYWAY BASICALLY I don't know if the entire album was written after The Wizard Of Oz, like, with the aim of synchronizing them both together from the start, or if both concepts met at some point. Demos of DSOTM were played and experimented on tours (The Great Gig in the Sky started off as just ominous music and creepy readings of the Bible lol), and some early version of songs like Us and Them were originally written for other projects. It doesn't change the fact that the final selection was mixed and edited together to cOiNcidEntAlLy perfectly fit the 40 first minutes of The Wizard of Oz, but it's hard to tell how much writing was done with the movie in mind.

That being said I think they would totally have done it as a challenge first: it was at a time where they started to reaaally have fun with the possibilities technologies offered, and PF was always about experimenting and exploiting visuals as much as playing music. Given all the movies' soundtracks they did prior to DSOTM and how this album would be their first following a certain narration, it's really adequate in context and a great technical achievement for the time.

Overall, The Wizard of Oz is just THAT perfect medium to work with. Tale-like narration, grand visuals. It has been associated with populism, political and economic allegories as well as being a cultural monument of childhood and nostalgia. Mix it all up and you get Pink Floyd lmao

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats #17 | The Erotic Reveries of Rinse Dream

Cafe Flesh opens with a title card orienting us to its post-apocalyptic setting. After a calamitous apocalyptic event known as the "Nuclear Kiss", the world is made up of 99% "Sex Negatives", and 1% "Sex Positives". The Sex Negatives can't have sex and can only watch. The Sex Positives escaped such a fate, but are instead forced to perform for an audience of Positives for their vicarious enjoyment. There are many such venues but the one we spend the movie in is the Cafe Flesh of the title, a nightclub where the decor and patronage evoke a cross between punk rock and retro-futurist aesthetics and a hint of Rat Pack era cool. A smarmy comedian in a white tuxedo introduces the sex acts, which are elaborately staged performances that play almost as genre parody with their tongue-in-cheek choreography (plenty of costumed grinding, as with a performer in a rat costume early on, and mimed thrusting, as with another performer in a pencil costume in a later scene) until the turn into the real thing with the requisite close-ups. Futuristic jazz reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti's music plays over the proceedings.

This serves as the background to a story about a woman who may or may not secretly be a Positive (played by scream queen Michelle Bauer and, in certain scenes, a body double) and the impending arrival of a legendary Positive performer known for his virility (a towering, square-jawed Kevin James, introduced in black sunglasses and an oversized blue suit). We also get a sense of the tensions in this nightclub ecosystem, particularly between the heroine and her boyfriend, a new performer, the comedian, the owner (who puts the comedian in his place in one scene by having him cruelly recite "the rhyme"). (The comedian is played by Andy Nichols and the owner by Tantala Ray, both of whom played interview subjects in Gregory Dark's Devil in Miss Jones two-parter, which leads me to believe the latter was influenced by this movie, as Nichols in particular doesn't have many screen credits.)

This movie apparently was a bit of a success in the midnight movie circuit, and it's not hard to see why, based on the strength of the mise en scene and the performances. The cool, smoky backgrounds of the reaction shots provide a nice counterpoint to the avant garde looking performances and give the highly stylized setting a nice evocative quality. There's also a level of genre commentary here, as the story ultimately is about the heroine's agency over her pleasure and the roles sex performers are forced into by greater society, ultimately imprisoned by their own abilities. Truth be told I found the performances got a little less enjoyable when they got down to business with the penetration and whatnot (it gets harder to pull off inspired choreography when one of your appendages is stuck in another person, or vice versa), but I also think it's necessary for those themes to resonate.

Cafe Flesh was directed by Stephen Sayadian, credited as Rinse Dream, and he'd previously used that pseudonym on Nightdreams, for which he co-wrote the screenplay. (The director was Francis Delia, who went on to a career of directing mostly music videos and television, while the other writer was Jerry Stahl, known for his memoir Permanent Midnight, as well as writing for shows such as ALF and movies such as Bad Boys II.) This movie similarly concerns agency over female pleasure and is about two doctors (Andy Nichols and Jennifer West) conducting experiments on a mentally ill young woman by inducing erotic dreams and monitoring her brainwaves. There's a dream involving a giant, monstrous jack-in-the-box. There's one with a pair of cowgirls and something other than a gun stored in a holster, with the cowgirls spouting stilted dialogues in robotic monotones, a Sayadian trademark of sorts. Wall of Voodoo's cover of "Ring of Fire" plays over the action (I'm not sure if they paid for the rights, but Delia and Sayadian did direct videos for the band). There's one with a group of bedouins sharing a hookah and then her. There's a giallo-esque scene involving a masked assailant, but this happens after an aborted nightmare about a shrieking man with a hollow chest from his pants emerges a shrivelled up, monstrous baby. Did David Lynch jack off to this? I wouldn't rule it out, folks.

There's a scene where she blows an anthropomorphic box of Cream of Wheat, while a jaunty cover of "Old Man River" plays on the soundtrack and a man dressed as giant piece of toast dances and plays saxopohone. An IMDb user review cites this scene for its cutting racial commentary, but I found this tonally jarring with the rest of the movie. After this, there's a trip to hell where a demon and his minions subject her to such horrific tortures as prodding her with a giant claw and then an even more fearsome double-pronged contraption. The scientists argue over fears that they gave her too much stimulation. ("This woman's on the brink of an orgasm. Let her enjoy it. She doesn't need interruption from a man." "You call it orgasm. I call it breakdown.") The movie then makes way to its final set piece, involving fog, a background of blue sky and pillars and soft piano music. The cinematography in this scene is in stark contrast to the mostly shadowy, intimate imagery of the previous scenes, with the camera pulled up to admire both their bodies and the scene continuing for some time after the climax. It almost brings to mind a certain scene in Jerry Lewis' The Ladies Man that I found disarming in its stylistic and tonal break from the rest of the movie. Without revealing too much, the film's coda sets the record straight.

It probably doesn't say anything flattering about me that I found most of this pretty hot. The movie has a tinge of horror running through it, giving many of the sex scenes (especially the one in hell) a real tension, while the scientific framing device gives it a cold, calculating quality reminiscent of David Cronenberg. (Alas, this doesn't predate some of his most influential films, but for all we know, David Cronenberg jacked off to it as well.) A few of the character names (Mrs. Van Houten, Mrs. Chalmers) make me suspect that Matt Groening might have seen (and jacked off to) it as well. This is pure speculation on my part, but as far as I'm aware, none of them have denied it either. The movie's distinct tone is grounded in an impressive lead performance by Dorothy LeMay. I wasn't all too impressed with her work in Taboo II, but here I think she skillfully evokes the heroine's derangement and "erotic trauma", in the words of the scientists.

Sayadian and Stahl collaborated again for Dr. Caligari, a relatively mainstream effort that also found some success as a midnight movie. I say "relatively" because it's still pretty fucking weird. The movie positions itself as a loose sequel to Robert Wiene's classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, this time about the granddaughter of the original Caligari conducting illegal experiments in an insane asylum. From the earlier film it pulls a German expressionist influence, but combines it with a campy, MTV-inflected style to present the asylum as a warped funhouse. The dimensions of the architecture are distorted and full of odd angles, decorated in a mixture of pitch black and gaudy day-glo colours (lots of yellow and pink costumes). This is not a pornographic movie, yet it's hardly less obsessed with sex, as the villain's plan concerns the weaponization of female pleasure. There's also the occasional grotesque sexually-charged image to spice things up, like the sight of a woman with giant, phallic-shaped breasts. Some of the imagery also gives it potency as horror, like an oozing sore or a cake full of intestines. There's a lot of strange, stilted dialogue, as in this exchange:

"Describe your life in three words or less."

"Un-ending torment."

"Elaborate, please."

"Blankety blank blank."

"Thank you for being specific."

This is matched by the angular body language of the villain, played by Madeline Reynal in a deadpan yet very physical performance. This movie also brings into focus a voyeuristic theme, which was present in those earlier movies but didn't seem quite as confrontational in its presentation. A character utters, basically to the audience: "I know you're watching me. I feel your eyes like wet fingers touching me in special places." (This is a line of dialogue that appeared in the next few films I'll talk about.) Truth be told, I was a little exhausted by the sensory overload of Sayadian's style here, and in retrospect appreciate the way the sex scenes act as a counterpoint to his more aggressive tendencies in his more explicit films. But at the same time, this is full of memorable imagery and has a weirdly compelling lead performance. I don't know if there's much else quite like it (or at least operating at this force), so it gets a recommendation.

Sayadian followed up Nightdreams with a few shot-on-video sequels. I skipped Nightdreams 2 as I could only find it in a heavily degraded transfer, but I did make time for Nightdreams 3, which has a self contained story that's essentially a more explicit if relaxed version of Dr. Caligari, once again concerning a doctor conducting sinister experiments at an insane asylum. (This time her experiments mostly involve just fucking her patients and other staff.) There's more of the stilted dialogue, even closer to non sequiturs than they were in the earlier film, with the music by Double Vision providing an off-kilter soundscape to match the weirdness of the dialogue. (Highlights include "My pussy's like an erotic assassin" and "I happen to know she has a thing for longshoremen. Just mention On the Waterfront and she gets randy pants.") The video imagery quite frankly is pretty ugly, with the green carpet and purple drapes that decorate the set looking especially ungainly, yet Sayadian seems aware of this, as when he uses video's flattening effect to create a crude facsimile of a split diopter shot. The video collage style he adopts meshes uneasily with the plot, as if to call out its meaninglessness, giving the whole thing a slight MST3K vibe, especially as characters speak directly to the camera.

Some of these tendencies are honed to a more pleasing form in the two-part Party Doll A Go-Go!, where we spend time with a number of attractive, shapely women in bright coloured lingerie as they spout '60s-inspired dialogue at the viewer in between scenes of copulation. (Not all the dialogue is '60s-tinged, however: "They're overcome with retro wordplay...Us modern girls prefer synthetic future".) Like many pornographic films, this is a collection of loosely related sex scenes, but Sayadian's construction turns those genre requirements into parody, having his characters offer colour commentary (albeit channeled through his campy prose) on their own scenes and even getting interrupted by the stars of subsequent and preceding scenes. The number of quotable lines is even greater than those earlier films, and I admit I was scrambling to write down the choicest ones as there were so many. The best lines go to Jeanna Fine, who also has the huskiest voice and the most penetrating stare, so she was easily my favourite. I certainly was not unmoved when she insisted that she's "never run around buck naked and bubbling for man-winky" or "never wrapped[her] lips around a throbbing johnny". (She does not, however, deny having ever interacted with beef bologna.) Or when she asked the audience "Was I a bad girl?" (said three times in rapid succession) or if we've "ever seen a double orgasm on videotape?" (She adds "Watch, pornhound" and "Calling all porndogs, watch me work, uh-huh.") And I definitely wasn't unmoved when she demonstrated her talents on a dildo dangled in front of her (which she refers to as an "artificial man-thing", a "chubby rubber fella" and a "flying princeton"). No, definitely not unmoved.

There isn't much of plot here, except in the latter half when one of the girls can't stop "the wiggle" and needs to be rescued with an emergency injection of "boy jerky". Sayadian, once again bringing voyeuristic concerns into focus (the characters all talk to the camera), seems to be satirizing the very idea of porn having premises and certain their lazy execution. Even the production design is transparent in its chintz (the movie is shot entirely on the same set, with the bare minimum in alterations to the set dressing to make it look even slightly different), while the video images, which feature lots of Dutch angles, zooms and whip pans, match the campiness of the whole affair. This is probably a little long at a combined 2+ hours, but at the same time, it settles into a nice groove and is full of really attractive and reasonably charismatic actresses delivering amusing dialogue and indulging in "girl homo" (sometimes "big time girl homo") or getting "boy jerky". I don't have much interest in delving into '90s pornography and shot-on-video productions strain the dignity one can feel while trying to watch pornographic films as actual movies, but I'm not gonna pretend I didn't have a good time with this.

[mahou-furbies]

I actually really liked those insight posts about Precure brooches, items, and fairies. I was wondering if you could do one about their weapons?

The Precure rankings take quite a lot of time to write so it’s nice that someone reads them!

But yes, the weapons. I haven’t made it a secret that I dislike the toy ad-like weapon designs so I don’t really care for many of these (common complaints: looks ugly and cheap, too much pink even for non-pink characters, rainbow buttons where they don’t belong, buttons or lights that don’t seem to serve any purpose, too much detail), but reading about me complaining about that for dozens of paragraphs probably wouldn’t be very fun. So I won’t put that everywhere and this will be more about judging the items in relation to each other than how they’d fare against all fantasy item designs I know.

Especially with the season I haven’t seen it was a bit bothersome to see if an item was weapon or not, so I just made some quick judgements. I’ll do the other items that aren’t in this or the other precure item posts later.

Futari wa Precure

Not a huge fan of these kind of items where the design philosophy seems to have been “it doesn’t have to resemble a weapon in any way, a pink plastic thing with buttons will do”. I’m not against all weapons looking incredibly impractical (like I love Mew Ichigo’s Strawberry Bell) but here these just look incredibly bland and cynical to me (I mean cynical in a different way than me). 

I was going to be more generous with this since I thought it was a bow and bows are always elegant weapons and I’m always happy to have those regardless of how dumb the design looks, but reading the wiki I guess this is a baton instead. Boo! Still I like how it can be both a heart and also be bent open. The design makes me think of a baby toy though with all the round corners.

Futari wa Precure Splash Star

I like how the girls wear their items differently and the way the heart is framed is nice. But apart from that I don’t find these particularly aesthetically appealing, and they also look a bit too busy compared to the rest of the costume. Busy item designs are less of a problem if its a handheld item that’s clearly not a part of the base design, but when the characters are supposed to wear the item it often looks very out of place, as if it was just tacked on because the marketing team demanded it. Okay I’ll stop with this now

Not pictured: the versions with a star instead of heart, but they look otherwise the same and I like the heart better.

Yes! Precure 5

We now reach weapons I actually like! They’re pleasantly simple without unnecessary buttons everywhere, but with the tulip-like design with the cute little swirl there’s actually some point to it and it’s not just haphazardly placed buttons and lights and jewels. And as a fan of customisation I really like how everyone has their own take on the item. The pink girl apparently doesn’t feel the need to fit the theme though and hers is a lot less interesting to me, but at least it can sort of look like a flower (more like a butterfly though) so it’s not completely out of place.

Laser swors? That is a good idea. The flower is pretty too but I’d prefer it if it was a bit smaller, now it looks a bit unbalanced, and also why does everyone have to have a pink one again? Meanwhile the powerup version looks a lot more cheap, busy and gaudy.

Not a fan of this one, it feels like a portable lottery wheel, which would be a fun idea if Milky Rose had to work around with an item that gives her random powers, but I’m guessing that’s not the case. Another option would be that she’d use this to cut pizza. The blue roses and purple handle would make for a pleasant colour scheme, but then there’s the rainbow mini roses which break that, I think this would look more appealing if the roses were detachable and she’d attach the one she wants to use, but I guess the spinning wheel is supposed to be the Thing here.

Fresh Precure!

Pretty standard magical girl wands, white with obligatory pink for everyone and rainbow lights. At least everyone gets a crystal thingy at the tip in their own colour and card suit and it’s nice that they use their items differently (though Berry this is not a sword no matter how you try to slice it) but otherwise I’m not really interested.

Nice colours and the wing is cute, and I actually like the bizarre idea here. Like you could add power to the harp with the heart while playing it, or attach different attacks or whatever. But this exemplifies my main issue with the Precure items: okay, you can’t sell an actual harp with actual strings to kids so you sell this instead, ok. But why does the item in the show have to be a 1:1 replica? Disney can sell Elsa’s castle legos or inaccurate cheap-looking dolls but the counterparts in the movies look perfectly serviceable, so why can’t Passion have actual strings in her harp instead of these huge led lights?

Heartcatch Precure!

I like the metallic or glassy sheen at least in this shot and the shape of the handle. What I don’t like is the middle heavy design, I’d rather have the rainbow thing in the middle (which I’d prefer not be rainbow) either be smaller and moved to the tip, or the end part being longer so it’d look a bit like a sword.

This one is rather basic, like it’s just a circle with hearts around it. But at least it doesn’t do anything stupid and the colour palette checks out.

Suite Precure

I like the idea of being able to split the item in two but especially Rhythm’s looks a bit silly when it’s not in two parts, like now it’s not a baton or staff or really anything I could describe. But somehow I still like Melody and Rhythm’s items, at least they have consistent colour schemes and despite initially looking very different actually use the same base so that’s nice customisation. But how come the pink girl didn’t get the more ornate one? The guitar looks more on the cheap side, this is a toy guitar, not a magic guitar. And are those multicoloured buttons I spy again? But thanks to the more calm colour palette it’s not the worst toy guitar ever at least.

Smile Precure!

My first impression on this was “wow this is so dumb”, but the horse’s sleeping eye with the glamorous eyelashes makes it loop back to awesome. This is girly fairy tale magical girl design cranked up to eleven and I can only marvel the boldness. However like with the Heartcatch wand this one feels a bit unbalanced, the bottom and middle are pretty big so I’d prefer if the “blade” part was a bit longer and again the rainbow hears feel unnecessary.

Based on design alone this is a contender for my least favourite battle item, but I’ll have to hold my full judgement until I see it in action. But this has it all, there’s obligatory pink and rainbow, overdesigned, looks very cheap and gaudy. 

Doki Doki! Precure

This is some seriously extreme lipstick. I guess this is a serviceable design if you want to make a lipstick based weapon, it’d probably not look very impressive if it was regular size. I like the twist-able red jewel, and the fact  that while she can use different lipstick colours, the item sticks to just red and yellow.

Here we have the collapsible bow I was hoping we’d get with Shiny Luminous. Apart from the obligatory pink palette for everyone I really like these, again bow makes for a great weapon, and I also like its collapsed form, that thing just invites you to press a button and have it open up. Though holding the bow looks kind of awkward. And is this the largest Precure weapon we have? Where are the huge staffs?

For starters, I find there’s something absolutely hilarious about the name “Magical Lovely Pad”. Story-wise it has the baggage of belonging to an attack where the other characters send their power to Mana (of course) so she can take all the spotlight, but as far as the design goes I guess it’s alright for a magical tablet. And I thought this was one of the items where it just floats in the air awkwardly but apparently the Cures do hold it in their hands, so points for that.

The harp is kind of silly looking but i have to commend it for at least having the strings not be thick as a straw.

Happiness Charge Precure!

A pretty straightforward item, nice colour palette and the heart ribbon things at the ends are the same as the bracelet and resemble the brooch too so it’s consistent with the reset of the items in the season. I also like how it can be split into maracas too.

I think the idea of a star-shaped tambourine is perfectly serviceable, but this one just looks kind of cheap, like we’re in the baby chew toy category again. But I feel this could be salvaged if you gave it a more harmonious colour palette, made the heart look more like a crystal and the jingles metal (i.e. not so plastic-y).

This one always felt hilarious in that you have a grown man character showing interest in this thing. But as a weapon it’s one of my least favourites. The makeup pens that come with this are fine I guess (though the makeup the girls put on themselves looks like the “this character doesn’t know how to use makeup” kind) but the main item is very unappealing to me. I guess it boils down to the fact that this kind of items feel more like that the Cures just push a button and then the item does its magic light blast of goodness and love on its own, while with the wands and musical instruments and such the Cures feel more like they’re actively using the weapon.

Go! Princess Precure!

An alright wand, even if the tip feels a bit too heavy. The mostly white-and-goldd design is a lot more preferable to the usual pink, the dress up keys get to take a part, and the tip looks a bit like a crown.

This is in the same category as Passion’s harp, nice colour palette and a musical instruments make for a great magical girl weapon in theory, but here the result is just too cheap and toylike. No way I can imagine a violin sound coming out of this, the only thing I hear is two pieces of plastic rubbing together.

This is it, the worst item. Magical girl weapons don’t all need to resemble actual weapons, but there are some limits to how far you should go. Out of all the Precure items this feels the most like the toy department just said “we want to sell a toy castle, so have the main characters play with one in every episode after its introduction”. Can’t they use a less awkward item to conjure this castle around them and sell a miniature version of that as a dollhouse or something?

As a toy this is fine, like I had a similar little castle (it was semi-transparent blue and you could turn on a pink light in it) and sure I could imagine placing some Pikachu toys on it and have them dance, but as a weapon in a story I hate it. 

Mahou Tsukai Precure!

These look pretty nondescript and forgettable. At least they don’t have multicoloured beads running down the staff, but there’s not much to talk about.

This one is cute but kind of basic too; the gold butterfly feels a bit unnecessary but if you remove it the whole thing would be pretty bland. Still, there’s nothing overly stupid and I like that the flower bud doesn’t miss the obvious that it should open in an attack.

Kira Kira Precure A La Mode

This one is a bit too bulky, but at least it makes it stand out a bit more. It also helps the item not look so unbalanced with the huge glass (?) ball in the middle. And it’s nice how you can see the Kira Kiraru in it; it makes the item feel more real when you get to see the resource it uses. The cream like decorations are cute and appropriate and the walking cane shape reminds me of the candy filled plastic canes I used to get from the summer market as a kid.

I got nothing on this, it’s another magical girl wand that doesn’t particularly stand out in any way. At least the rainbow buttons fit the theme this time?

Google tells me it’s an actual product, but to me ‘creamer’ still sounds like a Wrong kind of name to use in a kids’ show. That aside the idea of piping cream on the enemy is fun, but I don’t think they do that in the attack... But for the potential I like the design; unsurprisingly I’d remove the multicoloured decorations on the handle but otherwise it’s alright.

Hugtto! Precure

This one feels really generic, white staff with pink accents and rainbow jewel thingies. Not interested, next!

These look a bit too bulky for my taste, I think they’d look better if the neck was longer. The colours are also a bit too gaudy for my taste (and the guitar totally disappears in Macherie’s dress), though in their defense in better pictures you can see they have more white so the result isn’t quite so stuffy. But still magical guitars make for a good weapon for idol themed characters.

This feels really generic, like it’s just a bunch of hearts glued together. Next!

Star Twinkle Precure

The wand is pretty basic, but there’s something in its simpleness that I like. If you removed the pink and purple crown thingy it would be better, like only neutral white and gold, and everyone’s theme colours equally in the shooting star (or I guess the star is also yellow for Soleil but it still feels more neutral than the usual pink). With its many colours and short tail the shooting star feels like something from a baby nursery but I guess if the tail was longer it’d start feeling more like a sickle.

As for the prefume bottle, I don’t find the design particularly attractive, and it also feels like yet another case where pink has been shoehorned in. And the little ribbon feels very unnecessary.

Healin’ Good Precure

My criticism on Passion’s harp also applies here, and this time I also find the overall design less appealing with several of the details feeling a bit tacked on.

(the wands have already been bitched at in the henshin item post)

[chappedandfadedvds]

Dec 25th, Friday 15:32

„Okay, like, I love the idea of everyone just gifting random shit. But who the hell gave me a wrapped pack of butter?“

Jens sat on the floor, just to the right of the christmas tree, holding the butter in his hands with an accusatory look around the room. Whoever had done it, must probably be easily detactable in his presumed glee. However he only found half of his friends laughing madly at him, while at least two other presented the group with their gifted butter, only amplifying the other’s to complete loose it.

It had been like this right off from the start, there were so many small presents and all of them really weird. Sander got a single yellow sock, that definitely was too small for anyone to fit. Jana recieved an old iPhone charger, that was comletely useless. But it also was of no use to Jens, that’s why he had packed it in the first place. They didn’t all gifted bad stuff. There was some lipstick, that Senne got, but Yasmina exchanged for a bottle of vodka. Someone got a whole box of chocolates and Lucas grabbed the tiniest present of them all to get a little note, that apparently was something very good or nice, but the boy couldn’’t tell or show to anyone. 

They didn’t even do a secret santa. It was more or less just a bunch of good and awful wrapped christmas presents under the tree and everyone got to choose one on their turn, as they went around counterclockwise. The laughter, wheezing and giggles had picked up volume and intensitiy which each new package opened.

They had planned to do the unwrapping this morning, but the sun had come out for the first time in days, witha bright blue sky and the snow glistened mesmerizingly radiant. The whole scenery looked like a fairytail scene of a movie or a painting. They practically gulped down their breakfast in a fifteen minute hurry, only to run out and enjoy the weather while it lasted.

Senne and Milan, on top of it all, presented the group with two sledges, some skis and snowboards that were stored in some dark corner of the basement. So therefore they hiked up the mountain for an hour to a little slope they knew of from their first walk together. They boys were on each other in an instance, fighting for snowboard time privileges, as all of them were eager to get their chance to try them out. 

It was a lot of fun, and Jens only regreted that one uncontrolled turn that made him crush into Robbe. And his stupid pointy elbow he dug into Jens’s thigh as they fell, leaving an actual ugly dark bruise on his skin, as they later found out when they got back and changed into more cozy attire. Apart from that, they made it without injury and enough energy spend to now gladly sit lazily around the christmas tree and unpack presents, while the air hold a strong scent of the hot chocolate they all drank and enjoyed.

„Be happy about the butter, you can at least use it. Other than this thing.“ Aaron chimed in, after he raised his open palm to reveal some sort of stone. Maybe it had it’s function, but Jens couldn’t see one, so he nodded in compassionate agreement, until he remembered that Aaron also got a first edition pokemon game for the Gameboy Colour. Jens would actually have been super stocked about that present, as he was sure Lies had left her Gameboy somewhere at home. So his sympathy died rather quick.

He was about to aks Aaron if maybe he could take the game off of him or at least borrow it, when Lucas shifted closer to peck a kiss on the bare skin above his collarbone, before he wnet to peck two more up his neck.

„Eh, there are people here.“ Jens laughed, not moving or even attempting to stop his boyfriend, who himself chuckled into the older boy’s skin, making him shiver under the breath.

„Stop.“

Much to his dissapointment Lucas actually did. But perhaps it was the sensible thing to do, he guessed, as he watched his boyfriend look at him in thought. Had Jens forgotten something? Or was there something odd about him right now?

„I like this.“

„What?“ Jens replied, his face drawn into amused confusion at the other boy’s whispered declaration. The others around them still busy unpacking random gifts, paying them no attention.

„You in your christmas sweater. It lookes good on you.“ Lucas happily replied with his lips curled up into a big smile. The younger boy was also wearing a christmas sweater. In fact they all did. It had been something Milan had wanted to do. It also meant that Lucas and Jens had spent at least three hours online trying to find some that weren’t too cheesy, nor to ugly and definitely not with some weird pictures or sentences on them. Seriously how tasteless and bad can a sweater be designed to have two drunk rudolph reindeers on a sweater, the red noses at the exat places where breasts would be. Though he did briefly had wondered if the ‘merry kissmas’ print wouldn’t be at least kinda funny.

„You are ridiculous.“ Jens smirked at the comliment, deciding to have to buy more sweaters once they’d be back. He usually preferred hoodies, but it couldn’t hurt to have some more variety. „But also extremly adorable. Stop looking like this.“

„Would you wear that for me later. Just the sweater though.“ Lucas asked, way too amused to actually mean it, but it certainly made Jens laugh, while seriously considering it, just to see Lucas’s face.

„Only if I get to see it on you afterwards.“ Jens winked just as cheery in it’s suggestion.

„Jens, what the hell?“ Lucas yelled back at him, his cheeks were definitely blushing, even if it could stem from them having laughed already for the hour they all spend next to the christmas tree. It definitely got the attention of the group, who were turning towards them with interest. Despite their efforts to get them explain, that only waved them off. 

It appeared though that Sander must have listened in on them for a bit, as he grinned proudly, wiggling his brows in mischief as he loudly proclaimed:

„Sweater weather.“

This fucking idiot.

__ __ __ tagged: @odi-et-amo85, @tayspots

[princesscatherinemiddleton]

Top 15 (and a half) best gowns worn by the Duchess of Cambrige

This is the big one, all you cool cats and kittens! Sit back and enjoy @claireofluxembourg @lizisbackbackagain @anna8910 @queensonjas​

15. Pale Blue Chiffon Jenny Packham Gown (2017) / Ice Blue Beaded Jenny Packham Gown (2017)

These are actually the same dress. Jk, they are clearly, like, 12% different. But they end up sharing a spot because my opinions towards them are the same. For the Spectre gown, I adore the back. I love it and it’s different for Kate. I love the jewelled belt and Kate should always wear chiffon skirts. Also, her hair choice is phenomenal. The bodice, however, is ugly af. As for the Paris dress, ths is what an Elsa moment should be, Kate, not that monstrosity you wore to the Royal Variety Performance. The more I look at it, the more it looks like an alien but I can accept that and so must you.

14. Black Velvet Alexander McQueen Dress (2019)

I do remember saying I hate velvet. It was a defining factor in many of my worst dressed looks. HOWEVER, this one... isn’t as bad. The black goes so well with the sash and the order (and makes such a good change from the white and off-white dresses the Queen and Camilla wear to fancy events). The neckline is unusual for Kate and help show off that necklace. The dress is interesting on it’s own and simple enough to let the jewels and orders shine through.

13. Patterned Alexander McQueen Gown (2017/2019)

I really love this dress. I know everyone hates it but I think it’s super cute and it suits Kate. It’s off the shoulder, which she doesn’t normally go for, and the tiered skirt is something only Kate could pull off. I definitely prefer it here to the adjusted version she wore to the 2019 Portrait Gala, where the sleeves lost some of the dress’s sparkle for me. With the big hair and big earrings, this is a winning look.

12. Beulah London Sarai Gown in Red (2011)

Kate has almost this exact gown and it’s on my worst dress list. Wild. This one is just better. Firetruck red is Kate’s colour and this was such a good look. The fact the dress is one block colour allows for the silhouette of the dress - which was lost on the version she wore in Bhutan - to shine through. Also, she doesn’t wear her hair down with gowns anywhere near enough any more.

11.  Barbara Casasola Tribal Dress (2016/2019)

You know I said she doesn’t wear off the shoulder gowns? I take it back. This is a wild card choice for Kate but it’s a good one. It’s fancy enough to wear to a gala event and also simple enough for a more low key engagement. I love the fact it’s a knit dress - the design wouldn’t work if it was a thinner fabric - and fluted silhouette in the skirt. (I also preferred the shoes she wore in 2016 to these but this is best gowns, not best shoes).

10. Marchesa Blush Pink Gown (2017)

One day, we’ll see this dress and HD and I’ll decide I hate it. Until then, it makes my top 10. It has the plungiest neckline Catherine Elizabeth is ever likely to wear. It looks like a bridal gown but in pink. The sleeves are weird but also old timey regal so I like them. I love the low back. It’s such a princess dress. This is a princess’s renaissance dress. If this was a movie, she’d ride away from palace raiders on a horse in this dress. Alas, it’s not.

9. Red Jenny Packham Sequinned Gown (2015/2016)

Sometimes I remember the fact we have good photos of Kate in this dress with the Lotus Flower tiara and I want to die of happiness. It’s such a simple dress but perfect for those occasions when she actually has to look like a princess. It’s got a chiffon skirt, a belted waistline, those super cute mini-sleeves... what’s not to love? Again, Kate should wear bright red more often.

8. Lilac Jenny Packham Gown (2011)

IT’S SO LOW. I was obsessed with this dress for years. When I imagined myself going to the BAFTAs, it was in this dress (or this dress but in yellow?). After her wedding, she wore so many ugly outfits and then turned up in LA, surrounded by the A List of A Listers, in this. It’s pastel, it’s chiffon, it’s perfect. I also think it would look better without the slightly dodgy tan Kate picked up.

7. Erdem Floral Gown (2015)

I LOVE THIS DRESS SO MUCH WHY DOES EVERYONE HATE IT? It has everything that Erdem normally does wrong. Print, ruffles, a tiered skirt. It’s big, it’s colourful. And yet, for once, it works. The colours complement each other and the tiered skirt starts at a reasonable place on the leg. The bottom ruffle isn’t too big or too small, and the whole effect gives the dress such a nice shape. Please wear this again.

6. Jenny Packham Cinderella Dress (2018)

Kate is at her best in pure princess style and this is a pure princess dress. It’s simple, it’s icy pale, there are sequins. The translucent netting sleeves are a lovely touch and elevate this dress from good to great. The overlay stands out from the fabric, despite being a similar shade. Her order looks good on it and the silhouette of the dress makes her look 8 feet tall.

5. Self-Portrait Crochet Gown (2017)

This was my favourite dress for a long time. I adore it. I love the crochet-style bodice. It makes a nice change from lace but it still in the same area. The skirt is flowing (my favourite type) and that leg slit actually killed me. Catherine Elizabeth has legs that go on for days and she needs to show them off more. Also, fight me, but I love the deep red accessories. They go well with the pure whiteness of the dress. If I ever get invited to a semi-formal event, watch me wear this dress.

4. Alexander McQueen Caped Gown (2018)

The fact this is only number 4 breaks my heart a bit. This dress is faultless. The sheer cape, the chiffon skirt, the embellishments around the neck... flawless. The arm candy that is King Harald V... cannot be improved. The fact she’s getting on for 7 months pregnant here... iconic. This was the look a goddess would wear when she came down from the heavens to survey the brutality of man. She straight up floated throughout Oslo wearing this dress. I will forever be bitter she’s not wearing a tiara.

3. Alexander McQueen Off-the-shoulder Gown (2017)

Does this even count as a gown? I don’t know and I don’t care because it’s possibly the best thing Kate’s ever worn. It’s off-the-shoulder (I guess she does wear off-the-shoulder gowns occasionally), there are ruffles (which, apparently, I do like), it’s red. Kate’s hair looks phenomenal here. I love that the dress cinches in at the waist. I love that the fabric looks so soft. I love that it’s ankle length and showing off those cute af shoes. The fact she wore this dress to Carole’s 60th means she loves it too and that makes me happy. I dream of this dress.

2. Jenny Packham Sequinned Blush Gown (2011/2016)

This dress is a sparkly masterpiece. It’s so delicate, it looks like it might break at the simplest touch. It makes Kate look like some kind of woodland elf. I loved in 2011 but I adored it in 2016. Her hair is a work of art and against the greenery of the grounds, she looks like an angel sent from heaven. I love the waist and how it gives the dress (which is essentially straight) a gentle, architectural silhouette. This is a Disney princess dress.

1. Alexander McQueen One-Shoulder Gown (2019)

I still can’t believe a genuine Grecian goddess turned up at the BAFTAs in 2019. Kate was an absolute vision. The one-shoulder thing is not normally a Kate style but maybe it should be? The flowers are big and dramatic compared to the simplicity of the gown, but also simple and delicate in the grand scheme of things. This kdress moved so well when Kate walked. I love the shape of the dress, I love the flow of the skirt, I love the way it billows out behind her. The lack of necklace allows the strength of the shoulder to shine. It’s simple. It’s pure. It’s perfection.

[madamewriterofwrongs]

so i’m watching house hunters renovations and losing my mind over this couple covering up a BEAUTIFUL original floor to ceiling brick fireplace with some ugly ass artificial stone so tell me: if you were designing a dream house what would be the vibes? 👀

Alright one: why would you EVER cover up a brick fireplace like that? Bitches are crazy.

Two: I have so many thoughts about a house I will never own.

I crave hardwood floors. I want wood for days! Walk in through the front door and there's a little place to hang everything up and sit down on a bench before you even enter the house. I see dark blues and whites here.

The living room has a couch along the wall (not sure the material but not leather, I want to be able to keep my skin) and a gorgeous, wide window with thick curtains so there's actual darkness when I want privacy. This is open, inviting, the entertainment happens here. Whether that's cocktails on the coffee table, or hooking up a movie or game to the tv along the other wall.

Most of the house is in pastels and a few rooms have rich dark colours. Living room is definitely a pastel sea green.

Kitchen is yellow, small window is always open, island is full of utensils, glass fridge is full of colours. It's got all the modern accessories but the colours and textures feel like you're at grandma's house. Dishwasher is a must.

The dinner room is separated by a half wall, in a similar sea green colour and a simple wood oval table with a few leaflets so company never has to sit apart.

Downstairs, there's a guest suit which is kept quite empty for whoever stays over (just for the night, or for a little while, if you need it). This room is a gorgeous dark blue that makes the light queen bed and side table stand out. There's also a bathroom and sitting area with darker couches and chairs for those times you just want to sit upside down and get drunk with your friends.

The other side of the basement is a dance studio with marley floors, a moveable bar, one row of mirrors and a sound system. Because, obviously.

On the main floor, near the back of the house is a small closed door area in a maroon red colour with two recliners and a pile of cushions. It's next two the back window which has simple lace curtains, and a wall to wall black bookshelf. There's a wooden desk beside it with enough room for a laptop and a notebook.

Up the stairs in the center of the house (picture the living room, dining room, kitchen, second bathroom, and reading room, surrounding a set of open stairs with sturdy metal railings on either side) is the master bedroom and bathroom.

The bedroom is a lilac purple with a bay window and a window seat. The connecting master bath has a clawfoot tub in one corner with a shower attachment. Everything is bright and soothing and functional.

That's a big thing for me: everything in the house serves a purpose. Nothing is for show.

Lots of bright colours, the ability to have privacy and company. Functionality with a warm touch.

Something like that.

[conceptisms]

Finally the teaser for the Lion King came out. I was waiting for it because I wanted to see what route they intend to take. Would the animals be realistic with creepy humanoid facial expressions, or would they be completely realistic and look like all those talking dogs in crappy kids’ movies? Either choice is pretty damn bad, much like this whole movie. Oh and they put in these trailer sounds as if we’re going to watch a thriller. It’d be funny if it weren’t so sad.

The shot at 0:48 when Rafiki rips apart a root stands out to me as devoid of any kind of strength and resistance. The technology simply isn’t there to do hyper-realistic characters. The fur looks awful. The animal extras are pretty well done, but sheesh, when Simba turns around with that bad cgi fur on him, he looks like a plushy. And Rafiki looks like he’s done in stop motion.

Oh, and the shots:

Original: Huge imposing sun centred in the middle of the screen to strongly emphasise the beginning of dawn.

Remake: Small sun off-center and way in the distance, made tinier by the big trees in the foreground. Looks like your average random shot in a documentary. Having a big sun rising in the middle of the screen would make a strong impression on the audience.

Original: Morning fog at the bottom and half of Kilimanjaro being in the shadow because it’s dawn. The fog also provides some blue colour for variety.

Remake: Look, it’s cgi elephants! Wow, they look so real! Are you impressed? I guess they couldn’t have put fog there, then people couldn’t see how realistic those cgi elephants are.

Original: Clouds with sun rays breaking through them, a third of the image is the ground to show the presence of the animals.

Remake: Lower the horizon so it doesn’t emphasize all the animals gathered down there. Add some big hills in the background so it feels more cramped. Push the whole Pride Rock more towards the middle of the screen because the sky is so boring now. Just have everything happen in the bottom third of the screen because...it was really important to show the whole Pride Rock in this shot? Even though it looks worse now. I don’t get why they changed the shape like that.

The original makes sure to differentiate the colour palette in every shot. It starts with the strong orange as the sun comes up and progresses through various colours as it gets to the final epic shot. The new one is just yellow-brown (cough cough). It doesn’t have a colour palette because that wouldn’t be realistic and we wouldn’t want to be unrealistic in our movie about talking animals and lion monarchies. The part when Rafiki is showing off Simba looks especially bad, it’s like someone used too much dodge tool in Photoshop on the background. It’s so ugly. And the animals bowing. They’re very well done from a cgi point of view which I guess makes it worse because it’s like someone threw food on the ground and then filmed them, trying to pass that off as bowing. Again, like those bad kids’ movies with talking animals where you see the animals have no clue what’s going on. But I guess that’s what’s realistic. I’ll remind myself of that when these animals break into song. Unless all the singing was cut too. That’d also be realistic.

People are mocking this teaser for being a shot-by-shot remake of the original, yeah, okay. Would it be better if they forced in changes just so they’d be different? Like in Beauty and the Beast? This whole trend of rebooting great movies is stupid as a concept, you can’t make these movies work. You’re not going to make them better and they don’t need your bad lifeless cgi to make the audiences like them. You’re just going to make them more boring and self-aware because our audience is supposedly so cynical now. The only reason why they’re going to see your new movie in the first place is because they love the original, not because the new movie has any worth by itself. These filmmakers are just leeching off of the success of the originals and people are eating it all up because they love the originals. At least the sequels weren’t pretending to be the original movies.

[fightevilandthengetblownup]

FIC: In The Afterglow

Everything that could go wrong this weekend, was going wrong it seemed.

---

When she had told him that she was expecting to be home researching rather than out hunting over the Valentine’s weekend that year, Jo saw the slight shift of his posture and biting of his lip that she took to mean he might plan something for once. Usually she was either away, or about to leave or having just gotten home and wanting to sleep the day away, so typically they’d spend the day apart or crashed out on the couch. She’d often suggest they wait a day or two and then go buy all the chocolate they could carry for half price, before gorging themselves over the next two weeks.

---

When Shada had begun popping over more frequently and finally convinced Jo between hunts to go out shopping with her, she started to suspect there was an ulterior motive from the number of short, tight, skimpy black dresses and practically non-existant bikinis the other woman tried to get her to try or buy. Thankfully the shadow seemed appeased when eventually she’d bought something, though the underbreath comments about ‘who even likes yellow anyways’ and ‘ugly ass one-pieces’ made her think perhaps she should have grabbed one of the other suggestions instead. Too little too late now.

---

When the weekend before she got a call from Bobby to organise “when did you two want me to dogsit Nana for” she absolutely knew something was going on. Laughing down the phone, Jo had handed it straight over to the other who went as red as she had ever seen him before he hurried out of the room, phone held to his ear and voice quiet. She hadn’t mentioned the call when he returned, simply flicking over to a rerun of Bridezillas as the Deadliest Catch went to commercial break. If he seemed tense when she’d curled into the nook of his arm, Jo didn’t mention it.

---

On the Thursday afternoon, Bobby showed up while Jo was in her study, Nana curled at her feet, working over a particularly hard bit of Hindu lore for a hunt - something to do with empty demon vessels appearing at an alarming rate in New Orleans, among dead humans as well. At the older hunter’s appearance, Jo dragged the four books she was using to translate between to beg for his help while Grey seemed to vanish into the kitchen while she waited for Bobby to read through what she’d done so far. What was supposed to be a quick pick up turned into three hours, where Grey sat next to her, arm tensely hovered as if to go around her shoulders as it usually would be refraining as he watched the three hunters talk over coffee, cake and the ancient texts. Jo had asked if they wanted to stay for dinner, but a quick shake of the head from Grey before the older hunter could agree let her know Bobby planned to make himself scarce before whatever surprise was due to be sprung.

It was as they sat down to watch a movie (his pick that night - Fury Road - which she found suspiciously her type enough) that Jo thought his attempts at subterfuge had been going on long enough.

“So, hun, where are we going?”

“Wha- why would you think we’re going anywhere?” Grey scratched at the back of his neck before resettling his arm around her as Jo cuddled into his lap. “Is there any reason we would be going anywhere?”

Jo laughed a little, tucking her feet against his legs and pinning him with a look. “Well, Bobby just took our baby away for the weekend, your sister has been asking me about outfits more than usual, you’ve been looking at me skittishly for the last three weeks, do I need to go on?”

Grey sighed at her grin, rubbing a hand over his face for a moment. “Can you go on?”

“Actually no, that’s all I’ve got.” Jo laughs again, reaching out for his hand. “So, where are we going?”

“I.. I thought you might want to get away for the weekend. Just us. Maybe some, uh, dinner somewhere nice.” Grey was staring purposefully at the TV screen, she could tell from the way his jaw muscle clenched and released and how his eyes occasionally started to drift towards her face, waiting for her reaction she was sure, before focussing right back on the screen. Max was holding Furiousa at gun point for, like, the third time. “Maybe catch some, uh, sun on the beach? Bit of shopping? Just...us time?”

“And where are you takin’ me for our us time?” Jo smirked a little, raising a brow at him before Grey finally looked over at her squeeze of his hand.

That seemed to be the right reaction if his responding smile, so uncertain but also bleeding happiness let her know this was going to be a fun weekend.

“It’s going to be a surprise. I have, um, already packed your bags.” There was a pause before he rushed to add, free hand tucking her hair behind her ear. “I mean, you can check them and add or take what you want out but-”

“I trust you, hun. And I’m sure your sister was involved in some way...”

“Yeah, uh, she may have had a bit of an influence.”

Jo nodded her head, leaning into his shoulder and stuffing a few of the chocolate buttons they were sharing into her mouth now that had been settled. “S’long as my yellow dress made the cut, I’ll be happy.” That got a huff of a laugh from the other as they relaxed back and settled in for the rest of the movie and the night.

---

“Okay, ready to go?” Jo almost bounced on her heels in excitement as they finalised the last few bits and bobs - phones and chargers, and European transformers(!!), tooth brushes and Jo’s favourite (only) perfume, as well as an old Polaroid camera and Grey’s current small sketchbook - were shoved into her purse while Grey got together their bags. She had woken up anxious and concerned, that had been wiped away with the warm good morning wake up she had gotten, but was now almost bursting with excitement from the moment she’d realised that whatever the other had planned was not in the United States. “Are we ready? Where are we going? When’s the plane leave? Do you even have a passport? How did you get on-”

Grey cut off her questions with a press of his lips, before pulling back and smiling at her as he grabbed a hold of the top of the somewhat large suitcase and wrapped an arm around her waist. Jo tilted her head as him as she threw the strap of her purse over her shoulder, and let out a sigh.

“So how-” Her words disappeared at the same time as them, her eyes blinking as the slightly dark but homely entry of their home disappeared and suddenly she was stood in the warm sunshine with nothing but bright, bright blue sea in front of her. Somewhere very far from the still slightly grey and cold weather at home, the recommendation to dress for warmer weather making much more sense now as the cool sea breeze tugged at her hair and shirt. “-are we getting anywhere...”

“Sorry, Jo, didn’t mean to surprise you.” The look on his face, somewhat smug and very very bemused, made her think that was a bold faced lie as Jo let out a laugh.

It was so gosh darn blue. It was her second favourite blue thing she decided in that moment, turning her face towards the warm sunlight and blinking at just how beautiful it was. God knows where they were though, and Jo found she didn’t really care, it was just for a few days she could be somewhere unknown.

“Wow..” She knew she sounded breathless, but god damn she was at home one second and the next in the most amazingly beautiful place she’d ever seen. “Just...wow.”

“Oh if you like this, I think you’ll like where we’re staying even more.” Grey practically purred the words in her ear as his arm tightened around her waist as they looked out again at the view across the old cobblestone wall from the cliffside they were on. He span her about after a long moment, hand sliding from her waist and into her hand as Jo continued to look about in amazement.

There was some open air market or something behind them, and the streets were so old. The houses were old too, and the various bright cheerful colours either faded from age or bright and bold from being recently replaced. And the sky was so, so blue and clear, with only the odd fluffy white cloud about the placce. It was perfect.

---

Supposedly the plan was for a romantic walk up to the villa. That had been what he’d said.

After the first five minutes trekking up a 45-degree slope on uneven cobblestones, that romance had died with her snarling out curses as she barely avoided rolling her ankle for the third time. He wasn’t in any better shape about it, sweating under the hot sun as much as Jo was and lugging the suitcase as well.

Even though they’d stopped and he’d decided to transport them to the white front door of the villa instead, it didn’t help that their hair was sticking to their necks, the starting tingle of a sunburn was kissing at her cheeks, and her feet were aching from adjusting to the need to walk differently on the paths here. Grey was muttering under his breath equally frustrated as he knocked again on the door, hands clenching and unclenching beside him while Jo leant on the suitcase for support.

“Where the fuck are these people...”

“Hun, I’m sure they’ll answer in a second.”

“They better, or I’m just smoking in.”

Jo rolled her eyes at that. It seemed this was the first of his ideas and that it hadn’t gotten off to the best start seemed to be getting to him.

Just as he raised his hand a fourth time to knock, the door opened to an equally frazzled looking woman blinking at them. “Oh no, sei già qui! Parli italiano?” The older woman looked between the two of them uncertainly, brushing at what looked like a lot of dust on her hair.

“Uh, non solo inglese?” Grey fumbled over the words, tugging at his t-shirt collar awkwardly as he sent Jo a look. “Um, we’re... we’ve booked the villa for the weekend? Si..amo... qui?”

“Yes, yes, weekend stay. Couple under Grigio, si?”

“Yes, Grey. Is.. are we early?”

The woman shook her head several times, more white dust falling from her dark wiry hair, and Jo couldn’t help but cringe realising that maybe something else other than a stupid choice about trying to walk up a freaking mountain was about to happen.

“Non non, all time correct. Simply problema with the house. Grande problema.” The older woman appeared to be distraught, rubbing her hands together and holding them out apologetically at the other, tears almost starting in her eyes. “Problema di tubi allagati - the pipes, there is a problem of water everywhere. All over floor, all through roof, fallen ceiling in master room. Not good, not good at all!”

“What?” Grey practically yelped the word out, staring at the woman in abject horror before he sent a concerned look over his shoulder at Jo. “When...when did this happen?”

“Proprio adesso - as we speak. Much flooding all through honeymoon suite-”

“Honeymoon suite?” Jo piped up from her seat atop the suitcase, raising a brow as the bright red colour appeared all over the other’s cheeks and down the back of his neck from what she could see. He shot her a look which made her want to laugh as the older woman began nodding again like a mad woman.

“Si, si si, suite is ruined. Quindi molto molto dispiaciuto, molto molto sorry!” She appeared to brush her hands finally clear of what Jo was starting to suspect was plaster dust as Grey ran a hand over his hair anxiously.

“Do you... have another room?” Jo took over after a long pause between the other two at the woman’s apologies, shifting off of the suitcase and raising an eyebrow at the woman.

Her look appeared to clear, clapping her hands together and a bright smile formd on her face. “Si, si si, another room! We place you elsewhere. Molto molto sorry, but we have another, si.”

“Let’s just go with that then.” Jo smiled kindly at the woman, sliding her hand into Grey’s free one as he appeared to still be struggling handling the news that something had gone dreadfully wrong with his planned choice. Hopefully it wouldn’t be a precursor to the rest of the weekend.

---

“At least we still have access to the pool?”

Grey practically growled for a moment before he cut it off, turning to look at her as Jo sat, one leg crossed over the other, at the end of the small double bed. The quilts felt nice and good quality under her hands, but the bed was distinctly smaller than even the one in the guest bedroom back at home.

Regardless, the view out the window was amazing, and Jo was right about the pool. She had seen it as they’d been shown through the gardens and out to the private pool house studio. Grey had grumbled as they entered that it was not what he had planned, but Jo had merely shook her head and run to the window overlooking the ocean without a care to the size of the space, the bed or anything but looking out at the vista again. She was only here for three days, and she was going to stare at that scene until her eyes bled if she had her way.

“Yeah, but we were supposed to be up on the third floor. We were supposed to have a California king, we were supposed to have the biggest bath you’ve ever seen!”

“Well no wonder the whole place flooded.” She replied offhandedly, eyes still fixed out the window as Grey bustled frustratedly around the room. She felt the dip as the suitcase was thrown a little hastily onto the bed behind her. “And honestly, we aren’t goin’ to be spendin’ much time in our room are we?”

“It was big enough to share Jo.” Grey paused where he was undoing the zipper of the suitcase, giving her a look that made her suddenly wish that room was available still just to see all that he had planned for the weekend. But still, they had that view.

Shifting around Jo reached into the open suitcase once he’d flipped the lid open, fishing out the swimmear she had bought at Shada’s encouragement to get something ‘beachy’ while Grey started moving their toiletries into the much smaller than his planning bathroom. Shrugging her shirt and shimmying out of her skirt, Jo quickly changed into the blue and white stripped top and red bottomed retro-styled one piece without a care at all as to what Grey was up to. He was in a funk about some room, when they still had access to that beautiful pool, and they were still in the most beautiful place she had ever been. Jo wasn’t going to waste either of those.

“Hunny, I’m goin’ to run out to the pool for a second okay?” Jo called out, pulling her hair up into a bun and grabbing her sunglasses out of her handbag. “Or did you want me to help unpack first?”

“Go on, Jo. You go enjoy yourself, I’ll... I’ll be out in a bit.” His voice sounded slightly rough and a little too soft from behind the closed door, but Jo didn’t want to push it if he was feeling some sort of way. This was going to be a good weekend, and she was going to enjoy herself.

---

It was a full half an hour before he appeared outside to the private infinity pool.

Jo had already swam a few laps, her hair wet and matted in the bun atop her head, and was now floating lazily on her back in the water, legs dangling and sunglasses covering her eyes as she let the sun and the slight breeze lull her into an almost waking sleep.

It was to hands on her waist that Jo realised she’d finally been joined by the other, dropping her feet to just graze the bottom of the pool with her toes even though they were in the shallowest part of the pool. Lifting the glasses from her eyes onto the top of her head, she smiled widely at the slightly tense quirk of his lips in response.

“Took ya long enough.” She teased, shifting around and then pushing off the bottom of the pool with one foot to wrap both legs around his hips as Grey wrapped her up in his own arms. “Done sulkin’ and ready to have an amazing weekend away?”

“Yes, I’m done sulking, pretty one.” He replied, hands moving to hold her up under her thighs and a self-depricating smile on his lips as they floated in the cool blue water. “Just had to get the case unpacked, and everything put away-”

“And stop sulking about things not always going to plan.”

“That too.” Grey laughed, finally smiling back and brilliantly as when they’d first arrived in the small Italian city. Jo had worked out they were in Italy from the language the villa owner used, but other than that, she was still at a loss but happy to keep floating across the water towards the edge of the infinity pool overlooking that view.

“So, now we’re here.. What else are we goin’ to be doin’?” Jo asked, nuzzling in at his neck as she wrapped her arms around his own and smiling back at him. , His own smile flickered slightly, the dark edge she was used to seeing when he was playing and teasing her coming in before Jo answered her on question in unison with him.

“It’s a surprise.”

---

That night they went to a small restaurant down near the pier on recommendation by the villa owner of a Napoli ‘pesce favoloso’ restaurant. It was so quaint, and clearly a place frequented by locals more than tourists from the lack of English and the crowds of happy, loud Italians calling about the place between customer and workers alike.

The atmosphere was amazing, and Jo almost squealled seeing the old Chianti bottles with the red wax candles melting all down the side and the worn wooden tables. There were no spaces for two people only, but that just added to the ambience as they were sat in the middle of a long bench table between a group of older men playing hands of cards around their share plates of octopus, squid and different white fish dishes, and what was clearly a multi-generational family enjoying a Friday night dinner together with fried arancini piled high between the seafood dishes.

The nice older man next to Jo noticed their plight as both Jo and Grey pulled out their phones to begin translating the menu, and within twenty minutes a bottle of white wine and an entire meals worth of food had been ordered on their behalf without input by the group of men, who began serving the pair of them from their own share dishes as well while they waited for their meal. It was one of the most honest, genuine and special moments Jo had ever experienced, and she’d had to blink her eyes rapidly when she caught the look that Grey had sent her over the table as the man next to her poured her a glass of their drink with a lot of jovial Italian and hand movements that she couldn’t follow at all.

That had been a perfect moment for the weekend, and one she knew the second it was happening that she’d store away to be remembered forever.

---

The Saturday morning started early as the sun streamed in through the flowing white curtains. Jo had thought those were just a feature of movies or those fancy Instagram photos from models and superstars, but as she stretched in the tight fitting bed to blink at the bright white of the morning, she let out a laugh. Grey was tucked against her back, face forced between her shoulder blades and one leg hanging off the edge of the smaller than normal bed for them, and Jo let out a quiet breath as she shifted gently to get up out of the bed.

She got changed into her swimsuit again, dry after hanging up in the bathroom overnight, and found herself swimming laps of the cold pool as the sun came up over the horizon. Leaning on the edge overlooking the beach and ocean beyong it, Jo grinned like an idiot as the orange bled into blue and the whole town sounded like it was beginning to wake up. A few more laps, and she finally snuck back into the pool house as the other rolled over off his back to wake up as well.

It was another hour before they’d finished the morning routine they were slipping into - kissing, sharing a shower and making jokes as they dressed for the day - and heard the sound of a sharp knock on the pool house door.

“Si, buongiorno signore e signora Grigio, break of fast is ready on il balcone. Please please follow.” The older woman smiled so brightly for such an early hour, but Jo was already in the best mood she thought she’d ever been in for eight in the morning and couldn’t wipe the corresponding smile off of her own face. Grey’s hand slipped into hers as they walked along behind the other woman, her keeping up a rattling one sided conversation in the not-all-English way she seemed to do.

The breakfast spread was not what Jo or Grey were used to, but Jo almost cried as she sat down next to the other at the sight on the table. Doughnuts, so many doughnuts, were piled high upon a platter plate, with fresh fruit sliced and arrayed around it. As they sat, the woman reappeared with two steaming mugs of espresso with dollops of milk froth in the centre of them, placing one in front of each of them before bustling away to where she had come from.

“Hun... Can we move to Italy?” Jo stared at the platter of swirled zeppoles and the round doughnut balls infront of her like she’d stared at him not even an hour ago, licking her lips and trying not to salivate as she started to pile a few onto the small plate in front of her.

Grey laughed, plucking up a slice of rockmelon for himself, watching her as she started on the first doughnut ball. “Jo, you can have doughnuts for breakfast at home.” He paused for a moment as she bit into the Nutella filled ball with a moan of pleasure like earlier that morning, before adding quickly, “But not all the time. You shouldn’t have doughnuts all the time for breakfast. Only on special occasions.”

“Oh you mean like today?” Jo waggled an eyebrow at him, quickly polishing off the first dough ball with a happy sound before reaching over for a strawberry that had been tucked in amongst the pastries. “Happy Valentine’s by the way, hunny. That, uh, was a very good start to the day this mornin’, just so you know.”

“Happy Valentine’s, Jo,” he mumbled back, and Jo had to bite down the grin at the flush on his cheeks and neck as Grey picked up a zeppole for his next choice and tore a piece of the pastry apart and dipped it into his coffee like he was a local to the place. Jo smiled at the way his eyes matched the skys when he looked back across at her. “Well, we’ll just have to continue the day on the right path, huh?”

“Speakin’ of, what did you have planned for today?” Jo smiled back, sipping her own coffee before adding quickly as he tried to quickly swallow his food to answer. “Lemme guess, it’s a surprise?”

He tapped his nose with one sugar coated finger, and Jo leaned over to wipe it off with a laugh as they continued tucking into the small feats - Nutella and jam and custard filled doughnuts as well as the ricotta zeppoles and fruit disappearing as they finished another two espressos each and watched the town coming to life below them from their perch on the balcony.

---

“We’re so sorry but Pompeii is closed to tourists today.” The guard stood before the access point had his arms crossed and seemed tired of repeating the same words over and over, and it was only ten in the morning. “We are sorry for any inconvenience caused.”

Grey practically snarled at the man as he repeated the exact same words for the fifth time, not even bothering to look at the pair of them any more as he rattled off the same message over and over. Jo felt his grip tighten a little harder than usual around her hand before he growled out in a quiet Whisper, “Why is it closed?”

So far that was the one thing the guard had not specified, and Jo felt her brow rise up hearing the method being used by the other but thought better than to chastise him in the middle of yet another thing going wrong on this weekend.

Getting to the site had been a nightmare as it was. Grey had wanted to ensure they fit in as much as possible with the tourist set, and they’d found themselves squished onto a tony bus with far too many fellow tourists with screaming annoying children and the stench of backpackers. Jo had half wished he’d changed his mind at that point and disappeared them both away to the end location as it was.

“The walls collapsed again. So tourists are being limited.” The guard spoke quickly, not even seeming to realise what had happened before he repeated off the speil about inconvenience caused as another person approached him.

Jo tugged on Grey’s hand, pulling him away from the rest of the crowd and wrapped her arms around his neck as he seemed to still be glaring hatefully towards the crowd of irrate tourists and the unwavering guard. Stroking a hand down his cheek, she pushed herself up to catch his lips with hers before retracting back when he finally responded.

“Hun, it’s not a big deal-”

“It so is! This is a huge place, and I know you wanted to see it after than documentary you talked about last year-”

“Yes, but it’s not-”

“And today is supposed to be perfect-”

“It already has been-”

“But the room is wrong, and the bus was dreadful and now we can’t even go see Pompeii!”

Jo rolled her eyes as she let him rant this time, rather than cutting him off, before stroking his cheek again with a cheeky smile. “Ah, but you see, I had an amazing swim this mornin’, and then an amazin’ lay, and the doughnuts for breakfast. And now? Now we can go onto Herculanioum instead if you are up to takin’ us.” She continued to stroke his cheek as she spoke, tweaking his nose when his gaze started to drift back to the guard with a dark look to it. “And I’ve heard those ruins are far better. And then we can avoid that bus trip back, hmm?”

There was a long pause, as Grey seemed to glare across at the crowd as if trying to work out how much trouble they would be in for accessing the site regardless, before he finally let out a shaky breath and pushed his forehead against hers.

“Fine... We’ll got to Herculanioum instead, just for you, Jo.”

“And for you.”

---

By the time they got back to the villa, it was almost three in the afternoon, and Jo’s cheeks definitely were feeling the bite from the sun but she didn’t care. She could worry on Monday about the sunburn after she had soaked up as much as possible this weekend.

Changing back into the swimsuit and convincing Grey to come out and recline on one of the deck chairs with his sketchpad while she swam laps, or floated on her back, or sank to the bottom of the pool and sat to see how long she could stay down there, the rest of the afternoon passed with splashing and jokes and the beautiful fruit, cheese and cured meat platter brought out at one point by the villa owner alongside a bottle of red wine that Jo practically drank all of and flopped a little more languidly in the pool after that.

As the sun began to sink over the other side of it’s morning rise, Grey finally declared they had to get ready for dinner and fished her out of the pool himself when Jo jokingly refused to leave the water. She couldn’t help the smile on her face at all, it had been a permanent feature of the afternoon, and she found it softening as he wrapped her up in the fluffy beachtowel with a kiss to the forehead.

From there, she sequestered herself practically into the bathroom once he’d had his own shower. Usually she spent less than ten minutes bathing, doing her hair and make up back home. Even for hunts where she needed a more professional look, it barely took more than fifteen minutes to do everything. So it was exhausting in a sense but also gorgeously pampering in another for her to spend over half an hour rubbing different lotions all over her skin, and applying make up more carefully than she ever had, and blow drying her hair out into gentle waves before pulling it into a full but sleek pony tail complete with a bright gold fastener that Shada had talked her into. Sticking her head out the bathroom door, Jo hissed at the other to turn around and stare out the window until she was finished getting ready, smiling as he covered his eyes and moved away from the bed to give her a semblance of privacy to slip into the bright yellow, somewhat plain dress. At least it matched the weather here more than back home, and pulling on some matching yellow shoes, Jo bit back a smile at the woman looking back at her in the mirror. Even her bites disappeared with the bright colour and her necklace obscuring the rest.

She bounded across the room, skirts swishing around her legs making her feel even more feminine, to tap on Grey’s shoulder before smiling widely at the gape of his mouth when he turned back to her. Her own lips would have been gaping like a fish if she hadn’t already noticed how nicely the cut of the tigher-fit navy suit pants and slimline navy jacket had looked from behind while he’d had his back turned. Sliding her hands up over the matching tie, Jo ran her hands up and down it a few times before tugging it loose and sliding it from his neck as Grey watched her quietly. Undoing the top two buttons and leaning forward, Jo pressed her nose in against the open skin and sighed quietly for a moment, before stepping back.

“No tie?” Grey swallowed thickly as Jo retreated, his own hands skimming over her waist, pulled in tighter than usual by the bodice of the dress. His thumbs brushed just against the underside of her breasts before sliding around her back, a smile on his face in response to her own.

“No tie.”

---

Dinner had been going well, which she supposed just meant it had to go wrong very very shortly; and that came true soon enough. They had been sat on one of the tables set up near the windows overlooking the setting sun across the glimmering ocean. Her breath had caught and it had been another of those forever-memories, scorched into her mind as the waiter approached and Grey fumbled through ordering the drinks for the both of them in a mix of English, stunted Italian and gesturing and pointing at the wine list. Glancing out the corner of her eye, Jo felt herself blushing at the look she was getting across the candlelit table that made her think potentially the exact same forever-memory storage was occurring on the other side of the table. She tucked a stray piece of hair back behind her ear as she shifted and turned her attention back to Grey rather than out the window.

Conversation flowed easily, talking about the shocking, beautiful and poignant ruins they had walked around that morning. Jo had been stunned and even slightly shocked to see the ash covered bodies clustered together, while Grey had marvelled at the architecture that had survived the destruction and so many years. She had taken quite a few Polaroid snaps of the both of them, and thought it funny how Grey never quite made eye contact with the camera for one reason or another. The funniest had been when the stray dog had run past and almost hit a wall trying to dodge around him. Sipping the wine delivered as they talked, bread and butter arriving at one point, followed by oysters with some kind of tomato top that Jo had raised an eyebrow at the other about. It was going to be one of those nights but she had already Google’d the place under the table and realised just how much thought and how special this evening was intended to be by the other. A Michelin starred restaurant, and their number one recommendation for the most romantic restaurant for Valentines day, and Grey had managed it with less than a months notice. Her heart thudded a little louder in her chest when she’d thought on that.

It wasn’t until the third plate of nine had been brought that the wrong showed up.

Jo had the seat facing out towards the rest of the restaurant with the smallest portion behind her, so she could see the moment that the man entered the restaurant. The man it was absolutely, impossible to be here of all places that walked through the space, eyes darting about the place as if searching for something.

She wasn’t sure exactly when it was that her own man had noticed - be it from the weird attunement to the other, or Jo’s own reaction and distraction, she wasn’t sure - but it seemed to be almost the exact same moment that the new comer spotted her.

“Oh thank fuck.” The expression was loud in the somewhat quiet  and subdued restaurant, as Gray quickly stalked along the walking space between the rows of tables towards them. “There you are.”

“Hun, hun please...” Jo barely acknowledged the newcomer, reaching a hand across the table to grab Grey’s hand with hers quickly. “Please let me handle this.”

Grey’s jaw was clenched, the muscles twitching as he turned his hand under her own to squeeze hers back, lips pressed into a thin line as the other shadow finally reached them.

Gray grabbed a chair from the table nearest them, not even looking at the two women and man sitting at the table together, clearly from the glassware the chair was already in use by one of the women’s dates but he was just vacant at the moment. Spinning the chair about and sinking into it backwards, he didn’t even glance over at the other shadow as he focussed on Jo instead.

He let out a little bit of a whistle, the noise reverberating through the restaurant as Jo noticed abstractly people were starting to look around from their private dinner bubbles to watch him, biting back a snort of her own at the idea. “First and foremost, damn sweetie. Just damn.” Gray ran an eye a little too long and a little too appreciatively over what was visible of her in her dress from where she was sitting.

Jo could feel the hand in her’s tighten harshly for a second, before his thumb began rubbing carefully or caressingly on her knuckles in apology, as she felt the color rising in her cheeks at the comment. Shaking her head, Jo raised an eyebrow at Gray. “Secondly?”

“Yes! Secondly, sorry was just a bit distracted cause fuck sweetie, why do you never dress like this for me, you better appreciate what you’re getting Runt,” There was a tense moment as Gray finally turned an eye towards the other shadow with a smirk as he gestured towards her. Next moment he turned away and then back again towards his brother with a slight frown, before smirking even wider. “I’m going to scrap my original secondly, cause secondly, little brother, so good to see you finally acknowledging my superiority. Your fashion sense really required some work, so I’m glad to see you finally embracing what sweetie really likes on a guy.”

“Now listen here-”

“Grey...” Jo hissed the words out, tugging on his hand in the hope of distracting him from attempting to do...something. She thought perhaps stab the other in the neck from the way Grey’s eyes darted between his brother’s neck and the dangerous looking serated blade for the meat course later.

“I’m going to kill him eventually, Jo.” Grey replied, free hand twitching as if to reach for his knife before diverting to reach across the table ignoring the intruder to tuck her hair back behind her ear. Gritting his teeth, he looked out the corner of his eye at his brother before resting back in his chair, other hand still squeezing Jo’s hand lighter and then tighter on and off. “Eventually.”

“Thank you.” Jo smiled brighly across the table at him, index finger sneaking further up to touch his wrist under the shirt cuff before she turned back to the sneering shadow. “Now, back to you. What are you doin’ here of all places? And what do you need me for now?”

Gray let out a huff of a laugh before nodding his head towards his brother. “Both of them are due to the runt actually. I’m here cause he blabbed his big romantic gesture plans to our sister, so that’s how I knew where you were. And I’m here because now Shada is stalking me trying to pressure me into...something cause its,” He appeared to pause for a moment, a flash on his face as if tasting something foul before finishing his sentence. “fucking Valentine’s day.”

“Huh. Interesting.” Jo simply stated in response. tilting her head thoughtfully to the side. She saw over the other’s shoulders, while Grey was focussed on glaring daggers at his brother and Gray was busy trying to get the taste of the words out of his mouth by seemingly drinking her wine - that was going to need retribution soon enough - that the man from the other table had appeared to return and a cluster of staff members whispering and fluttering about trying to work out a dignified resolution rather than potentially upsetting two tables. Another waiter came out from behind the group with two plates aiming directly for their table.

As the waiter reached the table, Jo sent Grey a look, another tight squeeze and then pulled her hand back to her side of the table as the waiter sat the two plates down, with a confused glance at Gray as he looked in distaste at the arrival of the food. “Oh god, really runt, you’re going to eat that?”

“Some of us aren’t children like you, dickhead.” Grey snaled the words out, lifting his own wine glass to his lips before adding sharply, “Would have thought you’d have gotten used to eating way-back-when.”

“I’ll make you eat-”

“Gray!” This time she snapped at the intruding one of them, eyes focussed sharply on him with a scowl as she didn’t move to pick up her knife and fork just yet. Jo refused to let whatever delicious course it was going to be be ruined by the other’s arrival or commentary. When he finally turned his attention back to her, Jo raised a brow at him and made a ‘continue’ gesture with her hand. “You said somethin’ about Shada and Valentine’s day?”

“Fuck, yes, the crazy moron has it in her head we have to do something romantic together. Just because the runt’s just gone and done all of this for you.” Gray growled the words out, one fingers skimming around the lip of her wine glass as he looked at her with a scowl. “Even though clearly there is nothing going on between myself and her, especially not to this kind of insanity.”

“Please don’t call it insanity.”

“Fine, sweetie, not in this kind of way. Is that better?”

“Much.” Jo bit back a bit of a smile at his words and his exasperation with the female shadow. She had heard her whining for the last week on and off about not having any plans for ‘the most romantic day of the year’ before Jo had been whisked away, and she couldn’t help but feel bad for the girl. She deserved much more than obsessing over the dickish shadow next to her. Sighing, Jo ran her hand over the loose tendril to the side of her face as she thought over the easiest way to get Gray to leave without causing a bigger fight or problem. Chewing on her lip, she tugged her wine glass out from under his hand and took a sip before replacing it, shrugging at the sharp disapproving noise she heard from across the table. Some way to get rid of Gray and help with Shada without causing another problem, some way, some way.

“Oh!” Jo let out a gasp as her eyes widened, coming upon an idea. Both men’s eyes went directly to her rather than glaring at one another while she had been quiet. Clapping her hands, she grinned widely towards Gray with another nod. “Easy done. Tell her you want to take her to Australia right now. And then when you get there, just... hang out, go to the beach or something. And don’t forget to remind her their ahead of the US timezone wise so it’s not Valentine’s any more.”

There was a long, stretched out silence around the table for a moment, before Gray thumped the table top a little too harshly with a fist, grinning at her widely. “Mother, sweetie, you are a genius.” Jerking upright out of the borrowed chair and sliding it back behind him roughly, not caring at all about the room’s attention being back on him and them by extension from the loud scraping noise it had made, his face transformed into a wide smirk before leaning down, one hand grabbing her chin as he pressed a kiss to her cheek. “Thank you, sweetie, I’ll remember this for next time you annoy me, aye? Now, enjoy your dinner with lowrent me.”

Jo blinked repeatedly as she tried to reconcile what had just happened as Gray jauntily stalked back out of the restaurant, seemingly considerate enough of her being on a date not to just disappear from the middle of the space; but barely had a moment before the sound of another chair scraping scratched through the air as her man jerked upright out of his chair, intent on following the other out of the space. Lightening quick, she reached across the table, rising a little out of her chair to do so, and tugged on Grey’s hand.

It felt for a second like Grey was about to shake her grip off, and she half expected it after such a performance from the other. But as he surveyed the room, a lot of eyes focussed on him and her alike, he clenched and uncleched his fists a few times before he turned to look down at her blinking owlishly up at him. Letting out a ragged breath, Grey sank back down into his chair across from her with a growled comment that, “I’m going to fucking get him for that.”

Jo let out a tight laugh in response as she ran her hand down his wrist to hold his hand in the middle of the table for a moment as she picked up her fork to prod at the beautifully plated roasted beetroots and goast cheese course in front of her. Biting her lip, she laughed again a little at the grouchy look still on Grey’s face before saying quietly. “Hey, if we leave before midday tomorrow, he should be back and you could beat him up as my gift to you for Valentine’s?”

[noiseartists]

HOIRONG, talented post-indie noise bringers from India

Noise manipulators, from the Indian sub-continent, HOIRONG is a brainchild of frontman/guitarist - Kamal Singh. “The fat and ugly stepsister of pop music” is how they describe their music, and their latest album, Cow Gives Milk, is one of the best releases of 2019 from India that delivers an interesting mix of cleverly crafted Noise, Shoegaze, Punk and everything in between.

Basically you alternate between Madness and Pure Joy in beautifully crafted songs. Be ready to be entertained, enjoyed and surprised.

Here are a few example to listen to, illustrating the band’s variety of sounds and influences:

Note that they are part of Noise Artists Indian Shoegaze, Noise & Dream Pop volume 1 with other great bands We invite you in this piece to discover their music, who they are (interview, as whacky as their music can be), where to find their music and more information on the band.

THE BAND

The current line-up is:

Kamal

Akhil

Akshat

THE MUSICAL WORK

HOIRONG diverse musical work to date is as follows:

Cow Gives Milk (April 2019)

Mwah, LP, (May 2016)

The Old Newz, EP, (April 2015)

Dandaniya Apradh, LP, (August 2014)

Nursery Lies, LP, (2014)

A Hoirong Christmas (2013)

The Resurrection Of The Princess Of Woe And Her Vampire Hound Posse, LP, (March 2013)

Singles:

If I Slit Your Throat Would Your Blood Turn To Doves That Fly Out From Your Neck And Leave Me In Complete Awe, Nov 2014

23/24 (Dennis Rodman Tribute), Nov 2014

Under Section 87, 2014

Covers:

I Swear (All For One), March 2015

Lakhan (From The Movie - Ram Lakhan), July 2015

1979 (Smashing Pumpkins), June 2018

Titanium (David Guetta), 2013

Aaja Meri Gaadi Mein Betja (Baba Sehgal, Anu Malik), 2013

2 Become 1 (Spice Girls), 2014

Enter Sandman (Metallica), 2014

Smile (Unknown Artist), 2014

THE INTERVIEW

What is your music about?

Kamal: Living, Love, Laughter and Food

Akshat: Living, Love, Laughter, Food and Suicide

Tell us about the artists you have worked with.

Kamal: They are very good and it was a pleasure to work with each and every one of them.

We look forward to crossing paths once again in this lifetime.

Having said that, there are some people we have never worked with and never ever, ever…. like EVER want to work with them. We also have very bad things to say about them.

Akshat: Ryan Seacrest, Simon Cowell, that Masterchef guy, and many others. We like to work with Hoirong’s.

Where are you from? Where are you living now?

Kamal: India, We live in different cities…but we could say that we are based in Delhi/Bangalore

Akshat: What Kamal said, But additionally, seems like Akhil lives on twitter since we barely hear from him other than his tweets.

Akhil: We are a dysfunctional group where, half the time, we have no idea what the others are up to. But we get together (digitally) every few months when it’s time to work on music or release something.

What did you study?

Kamal: Quite a few things that I now realise I completely wasted my time on. That does not mean in any way that I had or have better things to do. Not at all. Not one millisecond of that thought even crosses my mind but maybe it did and I am in denial because I am mentioning it and in some way defending it. If it was not true why would I even be saying it.

Akshat: The art of following pursuits which will probably amount to nothing or very little at all

Akhil: Kamal is trying to say in a roundabout way that he studied music therapy. Akshat dropped out of engineering college I think. I studied English literature and journalism for some reason.

Kamal: No, I’m not. I was talking about school and the many things I tried to study and tormented myself.

What is your day job at present if any?

Kamal: Music Therapy

Akshat: New media Artist / FIlmmaker

Akhil: Writer/journalist.

Do you dream to live from your music or is it a passion you do not want to spend your full time on?

Kamal: This is definitely a trick question. My answer is … None of the above…. and …. Music is a dream and time is life. And to freely misquote Steve Vai “Passion is Warfare”

Akshat: No I don’t dream to live

Akhil: Never. Have you heard our music?

You have a great history. Could you tell us more on how the band came to be and its history really?

Kamal: The band came as a surprise. Hoirong began out of the intention of never being a band. It’s just misery to be a band and totally unproductive and completely useless. Why would anyone want to be in a band??? Everything I’ve just said here is a lie. This is just total reverse psychology to myself and everyone who has stood with us through the thick and thin that life has offered us. I would like to apologise on behalf of the band for all our mistakes and for the utter irresponsibility we have carried ourselves with. We have disappointed you and therefore, we hang our heads in shame and self disgust.

Akshat: I was and am a fan of Kamal’s writing before joining the band. One day he asked me out for a date, and I was like “Really”, and he was like “Really” and I was like “Damn, this is a dream come true”, and he was like “Give me 3 Rohypnol” to the chemist. Things are a little blurry after that, but safe to say nothing was the same ever since.

Akhil: Short answer: Kamal started it off as a solo thing to put out his music and Akshat and I barged our way into it and insisted he play with us.

Could you tell me how the band meet and decided to do music together?

Kamal: Mostly we just text each other. Recently we started sending each other voice messages on whatsapp.

Akshat: We usually try not to communicate unless absolutely necessary.

Akhil: Same as above.

Can you tell me the inspiration behind your band? You can detect the influences of noise and punk rock. You took these influences to make your own music, your own sound, which is not easy. Could you tell more?

Kamal: Yes, this is true. We might have done this without realising. By the way, the Air Jordans on Snapdeal, I am told, are fake.

Akshat: The 80’s No-wave movement, the 90’s garage and alternative movements, and basically every sound made by people dressed as bums.

Akhil: All the pretentious art movements of the last many decades.

Kamal: Wow! That’s a lot of putting together. We might have outdone ourselves.

Can you tell us about some of your favourite bands, the music you listen now, some you may want to bring the attention from the reader to?

Kamal: I like the music of Space Behind the Yellow Room and my new favourite band is Lo! Peninsula. Yes, both the bands paid me to say that and yes, I am the promoter for both the bands and so I just take every chance I get to plug them? Yeah!! we plug them both as hard as we can. Plug it to ya! Its plugged in!!!

Having said that, both these band would sound terrible unplugged.

Akshat: Indian bands I love are Lifafa, The Superfuzz, and HOIRONG.

You should definitely listen to HOIRONG. They are better than the other two I mentioned.

Akhil: Hoirong and Carly Rae Jepsen.

Was there a vision of sorts or did you know what you wanted to do when you started up?

Kamal: Yes. It was very clear - don’t waste my time. I did not mean that you are wasting my time. I meant that I and we as some sort of band should not waste time. Please believe me.

Akshat: Yeah there was a vision. It was meant to be like the opening 20 minutes of ‘Almost Famous’, but ended up being more like the ending 10 minutes of ‘The Shining’

Akhil: Just playing music.

Do you have any other musical side projects apart from this band?

Kamal: Yes, we have a few.

Akhil: We’re all always doing something or the other musically. Most of it is shit.

Could you tell me more on the band composition? Do you have plans to add new members, or is there possible departure scheduled from existing band members?

Kamal: Yes, we plan to add band members because there has always been a possibility that Akhil actually finally leaves us and joins a very famous world music fusion band. Well!.... good for him and good for them.

Akshat: I really hope Akhil stops holding us back after this album and quits. Akhil i hope you are reading this.

Akhil: We might get rid of the drummer.

Can you tell us more how you came to have the band’s name?

Kamal: It suited us so well, we had no way to talk ourselves out of it.

Who writes the song and the music and how do you get to the final song? Is it a community process, do you have leaders in composing or arranging music?

I, Kamal, the control freak Dictator won’t let anyone do anything.

Akshat: Supreme Leader and Commander in grief, Kamalala writes the frame, and then together we create the painting which eventually makes people eyes and ears bleed.

Akhil: Kamal writes all the songs (because we let him) and then we work on them - sometimes together, usually individually.

Do you listen to the advice of your band mates? What would you do if they said a song was shit but you liked it?

Kamal: Best way to deal with these situations is not to answer phone calls, ignore text messages and never make the mistake of opening whatsapp messages, you know what I mean? because if you do then the blue double fake nike logos change colour and... that’s that then.

Akshat: Never. I am the best and know better than everyone else in this band. +1 to what Kamal said

Akhil: No.

Was it kind of intimidating going to record knowing people might not be engaging with the songs in terms of hooks and such and trying to deliver an engaging sound on record?

Kamal: Oh! No! not at all. We are very confident and self assured as individuals. We have very high self-worth and self-esteem.

Akshat: Every night while finishing my daily bottle of scotch, I think, nay hope, that people will get our music, but know that it is too ahead of its time, and that they will never, and then I cry myself to sleep. Every night.

Akhil: No, I think we’ve gotten past those insecurities for the most part.

Talking about the lyrics: who write them? Is there a common thread in them, a theme? Who chose the songs’ name?

Who else…. that Dictator control freak.

Do you labor over your lyrics? Is that something that comes easy?

Kamal: Not at all. I wouldn’t say it was easy…. I think it comes fairly easily. Like… not too bad types. Yeah, medium speed and medium pace.

Do you have a message that you want to get across in your music? If so, what are some of the messages you want to spread?

Kamal: Yes we do. Love, Beauty, Peace, Child Labour, E-waste and Save the Forest and also Save the Tiger.

Did your listening habits changed over the years and does it affect what you write?

Kamal: Yes, We have gotten more impatient and maybe that has made us very idiotic as people too. I don't think we'll make it very far if we don't do something about it soon.

Akshat: Yes listening habits have changed. Earlier there was lesser access, but more meaning. Now there’s infinite access, but far lesser meaning, there’s an overpopulation of content and that is diluting the value and timelessness of art. but that’s just me. It affects how one thinks, feels and of course writes music. I think there is more pressure now than ever to write meaningful music and not contribute to the pile of crap already out there.

Akhil: My listening habits change every few months but I think we all will continue to like punk and the dirty guitar rock that informs Hoirong often.

How is your recognition going worldwide? Is it growing? Are you happy with it?

Kamal: It’s terrible. No we are the opposite of Happy. We are turning into a bunch of jealous crocodiles.

Akshat: We are world famous in India

Is it easy to find producers and studios where you live for indie-rock?

Kamal: Yeah, but none of them want to work with us. We keep asking for discounts and tell them we will pay them when we become famous or from the gigs we play but we never do and now they know all this too well to make fools of themselves anymore. I totally get it. No offense meant and none taken.

Your recorded sound is very good, which is not easy. Did you engineer the sound yourself, or did you have a sound engineer with you? If yes could you tell us more about him/her?

Kamal: No one wants to work with us. Viraj Mohan took bait once along with Keshav Dhar but now they know all our tricks.

Akhil: Not that he needs any more flattery, but the new record - as with a lot of the old ones - has been produced by Kamal on his Acer desktop.

Was it a community work to try to have the best sounding music possible or mainly driven by the sound engineer or by the band?

Kamal: Ok. Now you’re just trying to rub it in no?

Can you tell us how the recording process was?

Kamal: Terrible. Boring and very very tiring.

Akhil: For me, it was just recording hundreds of guitar parts to the songs at home and waiting for the mixes to see what made it and how the songs changed shape.

Could you let us know some important technical tricks you learnt during the process that could help other musicians not as experienced?

Kamal: Making Akhil play his parts and not recording him.

Akhil: He’s talking shit.

How did the recording work differ over time?

Kamal: We started paying more attention to the complaints we were receiving. This decision has led to purchasing a new sound card and a couple of headphones along with a laptop charger.

Akshat: We are very democratic and heard the public and acted upon it. One of the main issues people had with our music was Akhil’s crap guitar playing. So now, in this new album, we have basically buried his parts waaaaaaayyyyy in the back of the mix so that they are there but not there.

Akhil: Why is the drummer answering music related questions? Learn to play a real instrument first.

Is the recording material yours when you are out of a studio or do you borrow/rent it?

Kamal: No, no. We own everything we have.

Akshat: We mostly just burn the evidence after. That’s why no two albums of ours sound the same.

Akhil: I bought a brand new soundcard just to record my parts for this album.

Any interesting anecdotes on some recording session you would like to share?

Kamal: No, not really.

Did getting the live experience across on record create any pressure for yourselves in the recording process?

Kamal; No, the other method is severely pressurising, demotivating and very very emotionally destructive.

Akhil: If anything, Hoirong’s live sound (if we ever play live) tends to be very different from how we are on record.

Instruments: Are you mainly a Fender band?

Kamal: We don’t own any fenders but having said that we have seen some of them here and there *ahem* *cough* *cough* *hint* *hint*

Akshat: Dude there is a drummer in this band as well, what the fuck? Couldn’t you have mentioned a drum brand just for courtesy? That’s it, my interview is over.

*throws rock star tantrum and stops answering questions*

Akhil: Fender sucks. I am a left-handed guitar player and I play a PureSalem. I originally wanted a Fender Jazzmaster. But while the righty version was some $700, the EXACT SAME GUITAR left-handed would have cost me $3500 as well as import duties and a waiting period through the custom shop.

Kamal: Ooooo so much to talk about suddenly. “PureSalem”

Do you have one favorite instrument or do you change often?

Kamal: I change often.

Tell us what you are looking when trying to achieve your sounds? Do you experiment a lot or have a clear idea of what you want?

Kamal: Both.

Who is the more knowledgeable with pedals? You use them a lot, to great effect.

Kamal: Akshat is the expert.

PS - I just realised that pedals could mean 5 different things.

He could be the expert in selling drugs.

He could be an expert bicycle guy.

He could be an expert in guitar effects.

He could be an expert in hi hat and kick drum pedals.

He could be an expert race car driver.

See...Now… we will never know the correct answer.

Akshat: Kamal knows me so well.

How many concerts a year would you do on average and what would be the size of the venue?

Kamal: Last year we did one concert. The size of the venue was good. The stage was small so one of us had to stand off stage. It was difficult to concentrate on the gig trying to make sure our bandmate was not feeling out of place.

Akhil: it wasn’t last year, it was 2016.

Kamal: Oh!

Would you mind sharing some good anecdotes from your concerts/touring?

Kamal: Not enough experience to share any anecdotes.

Akshat: Kamal lies. He has a knack of getting into fights with people, which Akshat tries to diffuse, and then he gets angry at Akshat and beats the shit out of him. This has happened at 2 different festivals with people of 2 different nationalities.

Kamal : Akshat????

What are some places around the world that you hope to take your band? Do you have any plans at present to tour in other countries?

Kamal: Yes, we hope to be able to play in at least one more country apart from India.

Is there any reason in particular that you want to go to these places? Is there something about the music scene in those places that makes you want to go there?

Kamal: No reason really.

THE SCENE

Is it easy for an Indian indie bands to be known internationally? Do you have any example?

Kamal: Maybe it is. We hope it is.

Akshat: Not really. No one really cares about Indian bands not singing in Hindi since its not exotic enough.

Has the scene changed since you began, and if so how?

Kamal: Yes, the cover bands have come back. Yay!

Akshat: Yes, when we started there was a live band scene in India, quite a nice one at that. Then the Dj’s and EDM took over and now we don’t have that many live bands and a scene as such. But such is life , and thats a trend everywhere. Not hating, just stating.

Akhil: Not hating just stating lol.

Could you tell us a bit more about your record label and your relationship with it?

Kamal: We have no relationship with any record label.

How did the funding worked for the LP? Did you invest a lot yourself? Was your label supportive in that respect?

Kamal: No, no one supported us. We have no funding and we don’t really invest in ourselves. We learned the hard way. The only reason we are still around is because we believe in ourselves and would not give up no matter what.

Akshat: lol, what funding?

Where does the majority of the money go when you’re paying your own way?

Kamal: The funny part is there actually is no money that comes or goes anywhere when you are paying your own way. The money is just over, finished!

Akshat: lol, what money?

Do you make a decent revenue from your music or is it still very much a hobby?

Kamal: Not at all, we make a killing.

Akshat: Lol, What revenue?

How do you sell your recordings (shops, online, …)?

Kamal: Please Akshat, please surprise me by saying. “Lol, what shops?, Lol, what online?”

Akshat: Shops selling physical music in this digital age? Lol, … (stops himself)

Kamal: Rolls eyes dramatically.

Akshat: Rolls eyes back with double drama.

Akhil: Bandcamp is great. Other than that, we’re now on all the major streaming services, so we expect to make around $0.00006 for every thousand plays.

When is the next album due?

Kamal: Very soon. Akshat: With Akhil, probably in 2 years. Without Akhil, Yesterday

Akhil: Once we figure out our drummer scene.

Any other project (ie movies soundtrack, …) or plans.

Kamal: Yes, A collaboration with traditional Manipuri folk music.

Akshat: I’ve been writing some music independently, and with another band called Mag Phos so more music there

Akhil Sood: I write aimless music at home under the name Free Drone. I recently got a Chinese four-string guitar called a xuian (sp?) so maybe something with that.

Do you plan to continue music for a long time or are you tired of it?

Kamal: Both, I am tired of it but I plan to continue making music for a long time.

Akshat: It’s like that first girlfriend you had, whom you truly fell in love with but are also horrible together. You know you are bad for each other, because it’s all so volatile, but that’s also what keeps bringing you back to it. But it’s also like you’ve both become middle aged now, and are kinda like friends with benefits. How long that is going to last, well we’ll find out.

Kamal: Middle aged?

Akshat: Yeah, middle aged.

Kamal: Ok.

Akhil: Same answer as Kamal.

Anything else you want the reader to know?

Kamal: This interview is very long. Don’t hesitate taking a piss break or having a snack in between, do some stretches, a couple of push ups, watch some tele and then come back.

A good music video to watch

Watch the video of Oppurtunity on youtube.

Where to find your work? Where can people buy you music

Ok Listen, Bandcamp, Spotify and Itunes.

Provide some bands from your country, that would be worthwhile listening.

Space Behind the Yellow Room, Lo! Peninsula, MC Kaur

Anyone you like to thank?

We want to thank ourselves for hanging in there.

Follow HOIRONG here:

Facebook

Twitter

Youtube

[maiji]

4) Favorite female character(s)?

Yu Yu Hakusho has a very strong female cast, and I love so many of them for so many different reasons. Even Togashi's most stereotypical ladies have nuances to them that make them that much more atypical, that much more multi-dimensional, that much more real, than a cookie cutter trope. In 30 days of yu yu I talked at length about Genkai. And I still agree with pretty much everything I wrote before. So I'm going to take this opportunity to talk about a really badass female character who is rarely discussed.

Yusuke’s human ancestor/Raizen's lover the kudakusushi is only really ever identified as "onna" (woman), and Raizen never reveals her name - if he ever even knew it, since he seemed so impressed and cowed by her. She only appears in one scene, a flashback, but what a presence and figure she cuts. And what an awesome (in the truest sense of the word) ripple effect her existence has made all the way through 700 years.

I really like both the idea of the character and also the execution of the character. In a number of ways she tips both the manic pixie dream girl and the Japanese yamato nadeshiko tropes on their heads. Raizen is carefree and high on doing whatever the hell he wants to do, which is basically just eating humans for fun and fighting and causing trouble, then he meets the woman of his dreams that he never could have imagined: a corpse-eating Buddhist shaman whose body is a complete wasteland of poison and disease so that she can make antidotes to save others. And she's like "Who the hell are you? You're garbage. You wanna eat me? Go ahead. You'll die and you'll still be garbage." and Raizen is like, "Whoa. Holy shit. You are totally right. I am complete garbage and a waste of existence." And is motivated into ascetic reform for the rest of his life to try to become worthy of her.

We know Raizen was completely in love. But there's little to no indication of how tied she was to him - her story completely separates from his after their one meeting, and there's a strong sense that her character is very much independent from him, which is something pretty amazingly hard to pull off considering she only appears in the narrative because of that single night he has with her. But it's made very clear that Raizen was the one who chases her, that he begs her for that one night, that they never speak of a future nor meet again. Raizen dreams of a reunion in reincarnation before he dies, but this never happens. There is absolutely no sign that on her side, she was nostalgic about him at all; the story hints at the opposite, in fact: that she may have fully severed attachments to the material world.

Also another thing that I found very compelling is that in the manga, in the Taiwanese edition in any case, Raizen describes her as (paraphrased): "A physically weak, pale, gaunt, ugly woman with the scent of a sorcerer, but I loved the look in her eyes. She was the first person to ever stare at me with such a glare of contempt." LMAO. (I don’t have the original Japanese to compare it to, but IIRC the official English manga translation is extremely watered down on Raizen’s description of her.) But that’s why the first time I ever saw her appear in the anime, where her design is a very conventional Japanese beauty, I was like, "...HUH??" (In the manga, she's not really drawn that ugly either, but it's harder to tell. Her face is usually partly obscured in shadow.) 

In summary, a very, very badass lady. I like her lots.

16) Favorite member of the Sensui 7?

Mitarai Kiyoshi! Again, I still agree with pretty much everything I said in 30 days from a story perspective, so let’s talk about his character design lol. I really like his design! I personally find it so freaking hard to come up with interesting short hairstyles for male characters, and his is a really good one of a style that I have never really seen much anywhere else. I like the colour palette the anime gave him too, lots of yellows with a splash of blue. Also his seiyuu is MATSUMOTO RICAAAAAA

His territory power is pretty cool too, although it’s a good thing he’s not anemic. His first appearance, the rainy night battle with Kuwabara, is a really fantastic one. It’s one of those fights I don’t mention very often BUT I SHOULD because it’s SO WELL-DONE. It opens with this little sequence of Kuwabara and his friends walking in the rain after having their time of their life at a concert and talking about heading out for some karaoke - when Sawamura suddenly disappears. The setup reminds me of rainy night ghost stories, and has a great mood to it. The comic panels for the entire fight have this very memorable, overriding sense of a constant background of rain and night, like a deluge, and the water effects are all rendered so well. There’s a lot of great texture and layering going on too, and the bulk and sense of volume/density of water of Mitarai’s creatures really come through. Whoops, this turned into a comics drawing ramble. BUT YES, MITARAI! I LIKE HIM! lol

20) When was the first time you ever seen this series?

I touch on this a little in 30 days of yu yu - it would've been elementary school, around when the series first came out. We followed along overseas, and my dad would pick up stuff for my sister and me whenever he happened to be travelling around Asia. My sister read me the volumes, we'd get CDs and anime artbooks and things like that. Growing up, my impression of the series was the manga first and foremost, then the Japanese seiyuu because of the image songs and audio dramas. I knew the anime and the movies primarily through screencaps from magazines and the anime compilation books, and Eizou Hakusho on VHS.

It was only in late high school or university that we picked up a bootleg copy of the entire series and I watched it end to end in Japanese for the very first time. Well, almost end to end. We had to take breaks because it was too much. As mentioned in 30 days, the English subtitles were hilariously awful, and "Rei gun" was rendered as "Magic Ball". I was busting a gut and have no idea how my sister and I made it through an episode (or maybe even several) before we gave up and switched to Chinese subtitles. I was never so grateful in my life that Yusuke only has four shots available lmao

@cjjoughin​ Thank you so much for asking!! :D!

[childofsquidward]

Tag Game!

Rules: answer 21 questions and then tag 21 people (bold of you to assume I know more than two people on this hellsite) who you want to get to know better.

I was tagged by @temmie-loony who is awesome, like thank you, I don’t know why I feel so flattered right now, but I do

Nickname(s): Diyu (everyone on my mom’s side of the family maybe), Diyumuni (grandma, mom’s side), Diyappa (my mom’s youngest sister), Gubbu/Gubbi (my mom’s other younger sister; the two names are kind of interchangeable), Diyapochua (my mom’s younger brother), probably others thanks to my mom's side of the family who come up with 135% of my nicknames as mentioned above

Zodiac: Sagittarius!

Height: 5ft. - 5ft.2 (maybe 3? hopefully?)

Last movie I saw: Ready (I've watched it 500 times over, no joke, just check my Netflix account)

Last thing I googled: statistics a tool for social research 4th edition (if anyone wants to hit me up with a pdf, I will be forever grateful; I hate this class, it’s 8am, I’m there right now, I’m a language student what the fuck is this?!)

Favourite musician: ummmmmm idk it changes this is hard wtf

Okay, so right off the top of my head - Shawn Mendes (I love every single one of his songs, I didn’t think I would, but I did), P!nk (all-time fave), The Pretty Reckless (Taylor Momsen’s voice you guys!), Big Time Rush, Kurt Hugo Schneider (okay, technically he’s a cover artist, but this man is magical like he plays a ridiculous number of instruments, his production quality is so unique and wonderful and his VOICE - listen, he does not sing as often as he should, and he shouuuuuld), and just like any song that was composed by A. R. Rahman, written by Javed Akhtar and sung by either Arijit Singh, Atif Aslam and/or Shreya Ghoshal you really can’t go wrong with

Song stuck in my head: A constant is Oi Dur Paharer Dhare (I still haven't heard the original) but as of recent Naa Tum Jaano Naa Hum from a movie called Kaho Naa Pyaar Hai (which defined my entire childhood solely) because I didn't realize that it was on my phone and I've been using Spotify the entire time but now I'm obsessed and I can't stop and basically I'm my own worst enemy; also, sometimes L’oiseau et l’enfant by Marie Myriam makes an appearance and it tends to make me like 4000x more dramatic than I usually am, which is saying a lot and I Like Me Better by Lauv (the KillerVibe theme, fight me)

Other blogs: I wish I was fabulous enough to have more than one blog (maybe one day... *wistful sigh*)

Do I get asks: once in a blue moon, yes, but I love and cherish every single one of them

Following: I’m assuming you mean how many people I’m following and not how many followers I have, so 554, I’m following 554 people

Amount of sleep: it depends... in high school, it used to be that I just wouldn’t sleep during the months of January and June, but now in uni it’s changed to October-December and February-April; honestly, I could go to sleep at like 3AM, and still wake up at 7AM and be fine as long as I finish classes by like 6PM - I don’t need more than 3-4h of sleep  

Lucky number: 13, 7, 4

What I’m wearing: my favourite... what colour is this maroon? like a plum, reddish-purpley (burgundy? I don’t know colours) thing (matches my hair) sweater that says ‘hello’ the bottom in white, the one pair of jeans I wear even though I have like 10 others, and my gray snow boots which are pretty cute considering that snow boots are ugly as fuuuuck (and probably pizza socks... am I wearing socks today? I don’t think I remembered to put on socks, nvm)

Dream job: to work with the UN, that's what I'm striving towards anyway, and maybe get a book published (my main goal in life is to be a functioning adult, and honestly, the UN thing seems infinitely more realistic)

Dream trip: a road trip to I don’t know where yet, but it’s gonna be a road trip

Favorite food: does food in general count? the first thing that comes to mind is chotpoti (it’s basically the filling you have inside a pani puri, but better cuz phuchkas over pani puri every time - but it’s literally these tiny lentils, chickpeas if you wanna be lazy, cooked with potatoes and every spice known to the world and then you add the tamarind sauce which is so hard to make and that’s why there’s always a limited amount but every asshole that comes to our place on Eid literally drinks it like some animal but whatever you literally have to soak the dry tamarind in water and get all the gross stuff out while keeping the good stuff and figure out a good balance of chilli powder, salt and sugar and it’s never as good as when mom does it)

Idk why I just ranted like it’s my job, but I’m leaving it there. I also like thin-crust mushroom pizza (the brand is Ristorante and it is the best), my dad’s shrimp and potato curry (idk what else to call it, I don’t even eat it with rice, I turn that shit into a taco, I’m not even sorry), naan and bihari kebab w/ that really spicy green chutney/raita/whatever it is, piyaju and aloo chop (it’s fried and it’s so bad for you, and I hate onions but for some reason I don’t give a fuck when it comes to piyaju even though it’s just lentils and onions - it’s frieeeeeed), and apple pie (apple anything dessert tbh)

Play any instruments: I've played piano kinda on and off (I could probably follow a song), I learned flute in middle school but I never continued it and ooooooo I'm trying to teach myself guitar; I also sing

Languages: Bangla (I need to re-learn how to read and write though, which is so sad), Hindi, Urdu, English, French, I’m slowly becoming fluent in Spanish and I’m trying to teach myself Arabic (listen, I might not be the doctor cousin, but look grandma I can read the Quran - I know my strengths! also, Arabic is a really pretty language)

Favourite song(s): Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Queen), Cheer Up (A Great Big World), Can’t Help Falling In Love (Elvis Presley), Raabta from Agent Vinod (the Shreya Ghoshal version!!!), Tujhko Jo Paya from Crook and Jo Pyaar Ho Gaya from Ishaan

Random fact: I am deathly afraid of birds. I always thought that birds just kinda freaked me out, but then I ran into oncoming traffic because there was a pigeon nearby so there’s that.  

Describe yourself as aesthetic things: black with splashes of pink and yellow because I have no sense of anything, snow, plaid shirts, sweaters, leather jackets, boots, coffee, cute stationery, studying (y’all know what I’m talking about right? like those images on Pinterest of ‘messy’ notes and pens and crap, usually with glasses there), pizza socks, fuzzy animal socks that probably have the little 3D whatever ears and nose (do they use pom-poms for those? idk), any variation of the ‘world’s okayest sister’ quote, BOOKS, candles, white lilies (the only flower I acknowledge as a flower)

Tagging: @maniq1 @darwinquark @ciscoscaitlin @dibs4ever @winxy-writing @thatkillervibe @sunshineoptimismandangels @lightninginmyeyes @headoverhiddles @hope-dyne @nordarhk @kendrasaunders @jwmelmoth @daftydraw  @taakoshell  @lewispanda @jalonii @cheleonrage712 @deathly-smirk @purpleyin  @crelliefan4life

[elenatria]

Making a separate post (and trying not to hijack too much).

thesaltofcarthage

@elenatria omgs the yellow cape is TOTALLY an action figure accessory. (In fact, it came with the Loki action figure that I got. I ditched it. It’s ugly.) And I totally agree with you about the fun of the flashy comic book/’80s aesthetic. I actually don’t care for Sakaarian blue because it’s… muddy? there’s definitely yellow in it. It’s not a true, clear blue. Completely goes with the planet and the storyline; I just don’t care for the color.

I read Loki’s interactions with the Grandmaster (and also no disrespect to shippers) as Loki doing whatever he had to do to survive and claw his way out of the pits. The Grandmaster is bananas, and murderous, however much fun Jeff Goldbum was to watch, and whatever Loki did with him (sugar daddy, boy toy, flavor of the week, concubine, sex worker, etc.) was about Loki trying to find an advantage and, you know, not get murdered by gladiators or a melty stick, not about a consensual, equal relationship. But that’s my reading, and I don’t insist that anyone else read it that way. :)

I know which interview you mean, which is part of why I read it that way. It’s the Grandmaster decking out his newest sugar baby in his colors, marking Loki as his possession.

@thesaltofcarthage​ noooo you ditched the yellow cape noooooo ahhahahahaha NOOOO. XD *tiny yellow cape fetish*

Tbh I removed it as well as the helmet (and I’m keeping them separately) because I prefer him without his accessories. I like him plain, standing side by side with Thor right next to my salt and pepper set so I can gaze at them every time I wash the dishes lol. I would have gladly paid for at least one of their Hot Toys figures but then I thought $250 are not worth it if you can’t even undress them or give them sexy poses  lol.

(Humongous champagne glass alert).

Muddy, I see what you mean. Somehow I don’t mind its muddiness, I don’t know why. Maybe because it reminds me of the colours of a beetle...? But you’re right, it’s not a clear blue. And yes, it completely goes with the planet and the storyline. There’s a reason why Loki was dressed like that only in Sakaar.

Ha! You’re scratching an itch I’ve been trying to ignore for a year now, you know that?...

I don’t like to discuss this publicly, not only because my best Thorki friends happen to be Frostmaster shippers as well (and I love and respect them to bits) but also because the  last time I reblogged something saying why some of us won’t accept that relationship as 100% canon I got hijacked by “WHY THE HELL DON’T YOU LIKE/ACCEPT FROSTMASTER, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU, LOKI WAS HAVING FUN AND WHY NOT BLAH BLAH BLAH” and I was like.... stfu...? This is my blog...? You either respect my opinion without aggressively intruding  (which was in no way hijacking your posts) or you don’t...?

And normally I don’t discuss about things I don’t like, I blacklist them. Out of sight, out of mind.

But now that I found you let me stretch my legs and say that...

Indeed that’s how I see this relationship as well. Loki had to survive. I don’t know if he was thrown into a cell or in the arena like Thor was, probably not, he’s not the warrior type, and he didn’t qualify as “food” either because the minute the Grandmaster cast eyes on him he saw a different type of delicious “meal”. Loki knew that and  he took advantage. 

I have no doubt whatsoever that Loki too had an obedience disc planted on his neck (he’s a powerful Asgardian god after all) that he gradually convinced the Grandmaster to remove. We know how, he “gained his trust”, and the obedience disc is a nasty little thing even if the Grandmaster finds it “erotic” (because OF COURSE he would, it’s the equivalent of shackles and chains, right?). That whole scenario may be sexy to some (the tentacles too), but to me it’s icky. Don’t ask me why but I’d rather die in the arena like Thor was willing to do than “befriend” a lunatic and abusive tyrant like the Grandmaster. Maybe it’s the prude in me, or the “freedom or death” motto my country has brainwashed us with since childhood. With your shield or on it, that kind of stuff.

Jeff Goldblum is WACKY and GORGEOUS and FUNNY AS HELL and he represents everything that’s good about Ragnarok. But if you strip his character from all the funness, he’s abusive af, and he knew Loki would leave him the minute he got the chance (”Where do you think you’re going?”). And the Grandmaster, like any self-centered abusive tyrant, doesn’t like losing his toys. Because don’t tell me Loki was anything more than a glorified dildo to him. Some shippers like to think that Loki found his real family in Sakaar but real families don’t put obedience discs on people.

So it’s not exactly a relationship based on mutual respect and equality. It’s not a relationship based on free will and choice.  It’s not like Loki *wanted* to stay on Sakaar no matter what - he abandoned a very much alive Grandmaster to help Thor and save Asgard. It’s more like he had no choice and he thought, since he was a sex slave and all, he might as well enjoy his time there. And there’s nothing truly consensual about it, not when the Grandmaster stops him in his tracks and you can see Loki not reacting, holding back, fear in his eyes. I have no doubt whatsoever that he had the time of his life and loved being a sugar baby, being treated like a doll or a Pretty Woman or what have you. But that’s... concubine mentality, isn’t it? Slave mentality. I just don’t have the stomach for it.

Again, I have no intention whatsoever to kink-shame master/slave shippers, the film was out one year ago, who cares anymore. And let’s face it,  I’m  jealous on behalf of Thor, monogamy is my kink so to speak. But I mean you can even forget about the sexual subtext, forget about it - it’s still frustrating to see your own brother “having fun” and pretending he doesn’t know you when you’re tied up in a chair; and then learning that he got to be friends with that psycho. Which, of course, is totally in character for Loki, it’s what he would totally do (isn’t that what he kinda did with Thanos and the Black Order? Adopt, adapt and improve). OF COURSE Loki had no choice, Thor failed to see that in that cell only because Loki was being so nonchalant about it. I kinda see now why Taika haters were so pissed off. XD Taika’s Loki was too “light” and carefree for them.

“It’s the Grandmaster decking out his newest sugar baby in his colors, marking Loki as his possession” - *gags* X__X  Yeap. That’s their relationship in a nutshell. Because if the Grandmaster didn’t mark his territory, if he didn’t proclaim his ownership over Loki, who would?

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the one thing I can’t stand about Ragnarok, the one thing I will never accept. Because to me that whole relationship is so so dark and twisted and toxic. There, I said it.

Now I’ll stfu. Because it’s only a movie, and I can still ship Thorki with all my heart and soul. 

[wearethewitches]

Tag 9 people you want to get to know better

Tagged by @ifishouldvanish! thanks lovely, it was interesting to read your version of this post - and tagged by two people? ha, this tagging game must be making the rounds in your circle.

Lesgo~!

Relationship status: single!

Favorite colours: mmmmmm BLUE. I freaking love blue. TARDIS blue, sky blue, navy blue…I also like sunshine yellow and that orange which is kind of warm and sort of like pumpkins, but darker and you see it on Hufflepuff moodboards? Yeah, anyway. Blue, yellow and orange. Also, lavender. 

Top 3 ships: uh, UNFAIR but uhm, let’s see…SwanQueen, River Song x the Doctor (I mean, like, River x Twelve and River x Thirteen ((bc “How long is a night on Darillium?” “…twelve years” and space wives, seriously)), ooh and River x Eight bc sonictrowel writes them so beautifully. Their fic is like melancholy and love wrapped in a TARDIS blue ribbon) and…???? 

GIVE ME A MINUTE TO THINK, OH MY GOD WHY IS THIS SO HARD??

I figured something out. damn compulsory pairings.

I give you the PHB&J which is Pippa Pentangle, Hecate Hardbroom and Julie Hubble in an ot3.

Lipstick or chapstick: I don’t wear either, but I wear more lipstick than chapstick…

Last song: a cello cover of Dying in LA by Panic! At the Disco, by Gnus on YT, tho it’s Collar Full by Panic! At the Disco, now.

Last movie: OCEAN’S EIGHT and tbh I need to watch more Sandra Bullock stuff, she’s like my new Adult Lesbian Crush rather than my baby ‘do i love her actress or her character better’ thoughts.

Top 3 shows: right now? The Worst Witch 2017, The Expanse and…hmm, Ugly Delicious on Netflix. That first episode on pizza, oh my god, I’m jealous (I have no kitchen or fridge bc staff accommodation, yay and I’m a freaking chef here)

Top 3 bands/artists: Panic! At the Disco, David Bowie & Marina and the Diamonds, with a bonus fourth: Imagine Dragons.

I am currently reading: lots and lots and lots of fanfic – but right now, inbetween writing this? Tsume Yuki’s a thousand winks of sunshine.

Tagging: uuuuuuugh, imma only tag a few folk – I know some of ppl don’t either know or like being tagged in stuff. @agentmmayy @evilqueenofgallifrey @raywritesthings @sonickedtrowel @tsume-yuki

This was fun though, tbh! :)