#this was written listening to the original teen titans theme song

[aurora-daily]

Music recommended and/or mentioned by AURORA!

ABBA - Thank You For The Music

Advanced Language

Agnes Obel - Falling, Catching / Riverside / Dorian / The Curse (Robert Hampson Remix)

Air - Sexy Boy

Alice Phoebe Lou and Olmo - Devil's Sweetheart

Alt J - Fitzpleasure / Hunger of The Pine / Pulsher

Amanda Delara (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)

Amanda Tenfjord (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)

And Still I Rise - Wrecking Ball

Ane Brun - A Temporary Dive / All We Want is Love / Do You Remember

Anna of the North - Lovers

Annie Lennox - No More "I Love You's"

Antônio Carlos Jobim - Samba De Uma Nota Só

A Perfect Circle - The Outsiders / Weak And Powerless / Passive / Thirteen Steps (album)

Asbjørn - The Love You Have in You / Asbjørn

Askjell - The First Goodbye / L O S T M Y C O O L / Sofia

The Beatles - Tomorrow Never Knows / Revolver (album)

Beck - Blue Moon

Beethoven - Moonlight Sonata (Glenn Morrison’s version)

Bee Gees - How Deep Is Your Love

Beverly Glenn-Copeland - Sunset Village

Bjork -  Army of Me / Homogenic (album) / Human Behaviour / Hyperballad / Joga / Unravel / Violently Happy / All Is Full Of Love (Howie's Version)

The Black Keys - Lonely Boy 

Blondie - Heart Of Glass

Bob Dylan -  Emotionally Yours / Political World / Mr. Tambourine Man (live version) (mentioned as the first song she dug)

Cameron James Laing - The Way

Cats of Transistria - Good Night

Céline Dion - My Heart Will Go On (Titanic)

The Chemical Brothers -  Another World / Galvanize / Escape 700 / Hanna's Theme

Cher - Believe

Childish Gambino - This Is America

Claude Debussy, Alexis Weissenberg - Claire de Lune (mentioned as a song that impacted her as a child)

Cocteau Twins - Heaven Or Las Vegas

Coldplay - Fix You

College/Electric Youth - A Real Hero (mentioned as the song that got her through her teen angst)

The Cranberries - Dreams  

Crystal Castles - Air War / Celestica / Sad Eyes / Untrust Us

Daft Punk - Digital Love

Damien Rice - Cannonball /  Delicate / Volcano

Daughter - Youth

David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust / Blackstar (album) / Life On Mars? / Let’s Dance

dePresno - Forever

Dido - Here with Me 

Dina Ögon - Tombola 94

DNKL - Hunt

Dolores O'Riordan - When We Were Young

Ed Sheeran- No Diggity vs. Thrift Shop (& Passenger, Kygo Remix) / I See Fire (Kygo Remix)

Edith Piaf - La Vie en Rose (mentioned as a song which makes her cry)

Edvard Grieg - Morning Mood (Morgenstemning) / Solveig’s Song

Enya - Amarantine / May It Be / Storms In Africa / Ebudae / Boadicea / Watermark / The Memory of Trees (album) 

Eric Whitacre - Lux Aurumque

EvighetenYoung (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)

Fever Ray - When I Grow Up

Fka Twigs - Water Me

Fleetwood Mac - Big Love / Landslide

Florence + The Machine - No Light, No Light / Rabbit Heart (Raise it Up)

Frankie Valli - Can’t Take My Eyes Off You

Gabrielle - 5 fine frøkner

Gaahls WYRD (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)

Gojira -  Explosia / Mouth of Kala (mentioned as a song she loves that might surprise people)

Goldmund -  Image-Autumn-Womb

Great News - Now And Them (album)

Grimes - Flesh Without Blood

HALIE (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)

Hans Zimmer - Cornfield Chase

Henry Mancini & His Orchestra And Chorus - Moon River

Howard Shore - The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring: Main Theme (mentioned as a song that she wishes she had written)

Imogen Heap -  Headlock / Hide And Seek

Iris -  Romance is Dead / lavender and heaven (mentioned as the song she wants played at her wedding)

Japanese Breakfast - Paprika

Jenny Hval - Golden Locks / Mephisto in the Water

John Williams - Hedwig's Theme (mentioned as a song she wishes that she had made)

John Wizards - Tet Lek Schrempf

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Arrival (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) / Kangaru

Johnny Cash (mentioned as the artist she likes)

Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now

Kate Bush - Cloudbusting / Babooshka

Khold - Myr

Kimbra - Top of the World

Kishi Bashi - I Am the Antichrist to You

Kvelertak (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)

Lana Del Rey - Young and Beautiful

Leif Vollebekk - Elegy

Leonard Cohen - Famous Blue Raincoat (Live) /  Suzanne (Live) /  The Partisan (mentioned as an important song which her parents listened to) /  You Want It Darker (album) / It Seemed the Better Way / Greatest Hits (album) / Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye 

Lorde (mentioned as the artist she would like to collaborate with) 

Lou Bega -  Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of...)

Madonna - Frozen / Drowned world/Substitute for Love

Madrugada - Majesty

Marilyn Manson - Tainted Love

Massive Attack - Daydreaming /  Teardrop

Mastodon - The Hunter / High Road

Masterdon (mentioned as the artist she likes)

Matt Maltese - As the World Caves In

Max Richter - On the Nature of Daylight

Metteson - Under Your Shirt

Miki Matsubara - 真夜中のドア/ Stay With Me

Moby - Porcelain / A Seated Night

Moyka - Colder

Naaz (mentioned as the artist she likes)

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds ft. Kylie Minogue - Where The Wild Roses Grow

Nick Drake - Pink Moon

Nicholas Hooper - When Ginny Kissed Harry

O. Martin - Nowhere Is Home

Paolo Nutini - Everywhere

Phoebe Bridgers - Smoke Signals

Poliça - Happy Be Fine

Prince - Sexuality

Put Your Hands Up for Neo-Tokyo - Get By

Queen - Under Pressure

Radiohead - No Surprises

RED MOON (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)

RHODES - Turning Back Around

Rockettothesky - Grizzly Man (mentioned as the first song discovered on her own)

Röyksopp & Robyn - Monument 

Robot Koch - Nitesky (feat John LaMonica)

Rudimental - Waiting All Night ft. Ella Eyre

Rusted Root - Send Me on My Way

RY X - Berlin

Sarah Brightman - Eden

SEA CHANGE - Above

Secret Garden - Windancer / Windancer

Seigmen - Monument

Sei Selina - Only When You’re Asleep

Sigur Ros - Svefn-g-englar 

Silja Dyngeland / Silja Sol - Stemning (DC#27) / Løgneren / Skrubbsår

Silvana Estrada - Lo Sagrado (album)

Sinéad O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2U

Slayer (mentioned as an artist she likes)

Solå (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)Sondre Lerche - Why Would I Let You Go / Wrecking Ball (cover) / Palindromes / Sentimentalist / Lucifer / Bad Law / Patience/ I Love You Because It's True

Strange Hellos (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)

Stromae - L’enfer

Sufjan Stevens (mentioned as an artist she was excited to see at Panorama NYC festival 2016)

Susanne Sundfør - Silencer / White Foxes

Sushi x Kobe (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)

System of a Down -  Violent Pornography

Tame Impala - Let It Happen

The Prodigy -  Voodoo People / Smack My Bitch Up

The Secret Sisters - Tomorrow Will Be Kinder

Thomas Newman - American Beauty: Original Motion Picture Score

Tigran Hamasyan + Arve Henriksen + Eivind Aarset + Jan Bang - Hoy, Nazan / Holy

Tool - Aenema

Underworld (mentioned as an artist she’d collaborate with) - Born Slippy / Rez / To Heal / 1992-2012 (album she would put it at a rave party as a DJ) / Born Slippy (mentioned as the song that she listened to the most when she first started driving)

Vilde Tuv - Cellevevet / Det blåser ingen vinder inni huset

Wardruna - Yggdrasil (album) / Runaljod - Ragnarok (album) / Fehu / Algir-Tognatale

WDSTCK - Flowers

Wim Mertens - Iris

Wintergatan - Sommarfågel

Woodkid - Iron

Wolf Alice - How Can I Make It Ok?

The XX - Intro

Young Dreams (suggested as an artist she recommends listening)

And overall music without words like soundtracks, movie pieces or classical music

Sources (in no particular order and some might be missing as I’ve been working on that since February 2021):

“Aurora feirer Grieg” on NRK 2018, i-D interview “city guide: bergen with aurora”, INDIE mag interview “BLESSING OUR EARS WITH AURORA’S DEBUT ALBUM” 2016, Records In My Life (interview 2016), 2014 interview for GAFFA, Auto-Tune Interview for DIFFUS 2019, Aurora guest programs Rage 2019, NRK radio show “AURORA Up Close” 2017, “Like A Bird In The Night: Clash Meets Aurora” 2019 interview, Spotify Greenroom Wrapped 2021 With AURORA and Sub Urban, Mixtape with the songs for Kzradio, #TBT Mixtape for Billboard, 2016 Artist Survey: AURORA for Under the Radar, Records In My Life (2019 Interview), Nordic Playlist #83, Nine Songs: AURORA for The Line of Best Fit 2019, NPR’s Guest DJ: AURORA On Her Love Of Heavy Metal And Leonard Cohen 2016, IG story from March 2020, IG story from September 2021, Interview - Panorama NYC 2016, Tweet from 2016, Spotify's music & talk show 10 Songs That Made Me 2021, Playlist for Weibo 2022, Interview for NRK 2014, Interview with Jamie Taylor 2016, Playful Playlist for i-D 2022, Midnight Mixtape for Deezer 2021, Daydreaming playlist for HIGHJINKX 2021, ChillDaBeats #038 2021, AURORA’s official SoundCloud channel, NRK P3 - Plateprat (record talk) 2017

Special thanks to Amroth for the support and additional resources provided! 🖤

[o-kaythislooksbad]

today, i went with my little brother to watch teen titans go! to the movies and honestly it was one of the best couple hours of my summer. initially, when my brother first introduced the show to me, i’ll admit i thought it was... strange. i remembered some of the teen titans episodes but not much about who they were, and the brightly colored, fourth-wall breaking, butt-joke telling squad of questionable heroes didn’t appeal to me. what drew me into the show was the way my brother reacted to it - my brother, the emotionally distant guy whose intellect is on constant display and whose emotions are shoved deep down - my brother literally laughs out loud when this show is on. i remember coming downstairs one afternoon to hear the sound of pure joy and being shocked to see that my brother was the one behind it. his eyes lit up, his smile reached across his cheeks, and the person who i hadn’t seen with anything more than a slight smirk in months was genuinely happy for a solid twenty minutes. i made an effort after that to watch all the episodes that i could so i’d be able to have common ground with him and hopefully find something that we could talk about.  five years since then, a full-length feature was announced and i knew that it would be something that we’d go to in the theater, despite being someone who usually watches movies online. i decided that anything that could make my brother happy, even if it was for a few moments, would be worth going to. this morning, we laughed at bumblebee getting rick-rolled in his new trailer, commented on jack black being a warlock, enjoyed the dc supergirls short, and settled in for the main event. the movie opened in the typical teen titans go! fashion, with more mishaps than crime busting, and right off the bat set the tone for the whole thing. there’s references to other dc characters (i loved the ror shack inn), deadpool jokes, stan lee cameo, a-ha’s take on me, a friggin’ circle of life lion king parody, dope music (including the original theme song amped up), batman and gordon giggling, ‘what’s your mother’s name’ jokes and just a lot of shits and giggles. all that aside, what made this movie so enjoyable for me was the audience reactions - hearing the kids and their parents laugh and comment (and yes, i know people have issues with others talking during a movie; there were a few families and aside from us, all were little kids and their parents) and i think that really showed me how something that’s so seemingly small can be really relatable.   but most importantly, what made this experience memorable and fun was having the opportunity to sit next to my little brother, seeing him smile throughout the whole thing and literally laughing out loud for nearly 90 minutes. (also i may or may not have written this while listening to the soundtrack and thinking about how nic cage’s son is named kal-el and voices young bruce wayne so i tried to be real but eh)

[head-and-heart]

“Tell Me Something Good”

OKAY OKAY OKAY. So I just rewatched 4x03 and I totally forgot that Clarke went up to Bellamy after talking to Luna and said these words to him. ANYWAY, I know this isn’t really an inherently romantic line at all, or anything, but there’s more to it.

I Iiterally just watched the movie “Me Before You” last night (I know it’s super problematic so I watched it illegally because I didn’t want to support the movie, but everyone I know kept bothering me about watching it and I have a huge crush on Emilia Clarke sooooooooo) and one of the recurring parts of the movie is the focus on these words: “tell me something good”. 

And get this? His nickname for her is fucking Clark.

Here, you can watch these clips.

The reason these words are important are because it symbolizes a shift in their relationship. The first time, it happened during one of the first scene’s where Will really opened up to Lou (or “Clark”). This sort of acted as the beginning of their relationship, when they first started falling in love.

The second scene, as a dark contrast to the first one, is the end of their relationship, as Will has made the choice to end his life despite all of Lou’s efforts to convince him not to. What’s SO striking to me about this particular line, though, is that the words “I love you” are never explicitly stated in the movie “Me Before You”. However, the words “tell me something good” ARE, and those words are especially focused on because it comes up not once, but twice. It’s almost as if those words are meant to stand in as an “I love you” because actually saying the words is too painful for the characters.

You know what it reminds me of? The Princess Bride, where Westley tells Buttercup, “as you wish” every time she asks him for something. “As you wish”, over and over again. And in that time he never tells her that he loves her, but it means the same thing. This is kind of the same idea with “tell me something good”. 

So in “Me Before You”, “tell me something good” means “I love you”, right?

So what does that have to do with Bellarke? 

Well, the thing is, I remember when I first heard Clarke say those words, they really struck me but I couldn’t really figure out why. But then I realized that this whole “tell me something good” business, is actually a romance trope where one person in a couple says it to their significant other when they are seeking comfort. And it all links back to this song - ”Tell Me Something Good” by Rufus & Chaka Khan - and these are the lyrics:

Tell me something good Tell me that you love me

Do you get where I’m going with this? It is not a coincidence that this famous song that has been covered by a million people, this “tell me something good” trope, and then these Me Before You parallels all exist. These specific words being  used as a symbolic stand-in for the words “I love you” is a Thing™.

For the actual context of the scene, these words don’t hold the same weight as in “Me Before You” - it’s more casual - but that’s not the point. The point is that when you hear them, you think twice, you wonder: now where do I know that from?

And it fits with the rest of the episode. 

I mean, let’s think about this for a moment. In “Me Before You”, the whole plot is surrounding Will Trainor, a quadriplegic man who feels that his life has no more worth and he wants to end it. Louisa Clark comes along as his caretaker and takes it upon herself to try and change his mind.

Obviously, neither Clarke nor Bellamy are quadriplegic. It’s not modern day, it isn’t the same situation.

BUT. 

What scene took place early in 4x03? Bellamy clearly stating to Raven and Clarke that he fully intends to sacrifice his spot on the Ark, essentially committing suicide. (”I won’t be starving, because I won’t be inside.”)

And what does Clarke say? “Yes, you will.”

She refuses to let him sacrifice himself, even going so far as to write his name down on the list in order to ensure that he won’t. Sort of like Louisa doing everything in her power to stop what Will intends to do.

What I’m getting at is not that Bellamy and Clarke’s love story (and it IS a love story) is the same as Will and Lou’s. Not in the slightest. But for this specific episode, which largely focuses on Bellamy’s sacrificial tendencies and Clarke’s refusal to go on while he does not, it tells a similar story to the basic plot of “Me Before You”. 

The point isn’t that the “tell me something good” line is all that important in the context of The 100; the point is that it calls to mind another love story that - for the purpose of “The Four Horsemen” - has some similar love-based themes to tackle.

So after I came to that realization, I thought to myself, if Bellarke’s “I love you” isn’t the actual words “tell me something good”, then what recurring lines am I looking for here to symbolize those things?

Well, this is something that Bellamy and Clarke actually do a lot, repeat lines back to each other. “It’s not easy being in charge”, for example, or “together”, or “if you need forgiveness I’ll give that to you”. “May we meet again” is a more broad term on the show to signify “I love you”. But none of those are really specific to Bellarke in this episode, or even in Season 4.

So then I thought harder, and I realized: the original scene in “Me Before You” that I featured above happens when Will is looking for comfort, so he asks her to tell him something good.

We get a similar scene, but Clarke’s words are different. Instead, she says, “you still have hope?”

She is asking for comfort in the same way that Will did, and that’s what Bellamy gives her. This line serves the exact same purpose as “tell me something good” did in “Me Before You”. She’s essentially asking for the same thing. 

But when does it come up again, you ask?

In 4x13, after the time jump, when Clarke calls Bellamy again, she says these words to him: “I still have hope”.

It is absolutely a callback to Bellamy’s words that he said to her in 4x03, an acknowledgement of everything he did for her, everything he meant to her (and still does). 

What I also find interesting about the list scene, is that there is vulnerability present in it in a way that is different from Bellarke’s previous scenes. We haven’t seen them quite so intimate in that way, with the scene opening up with Bellamy sleeping on the couch, and then the shoulder touch that Clarke just leans into, resting her head on his hand without needing to say anything. It’s soft and emotional and vulnerable - it almost feels like there’s a shift in the relationship, something different between them where they’re so close to recognizing that what they feel for each other isn’t exactly platonic. And that’s the same thing that happened in first “tell me something good” scene in “Me Before You”. It’s the beginning of their tragic love story arc in Season 4.

And for the second scene? Well, I mentioned that it was their way of saying “I love you”. And, in many ways, I think “I still have hope” was Clarke’s way of saying that too - of expressing the words she never got to tell Bellamy to his face - by making it clear that she remembers that night where she broke down in front of him and he helped her. She’s held onto the memories of what they were to each other all these years, never letting herself forget him or her feelings for him.

Listen, you can say that I’m reaching - maybe I am just being extra. But it wouldn’t shock me in the slightest if Heidi Cole McAdams took inspiration from “Me Before You” and threw that line in there as a sort of easter egg, not expecting people to read too much into it. Sounds like something I would do if I was a writer on this show. 

We all love to talk about the writers taking inspiration from famous love stories, like The Notebook, Titanic, Pride and Prejudice, Han and Leia in Star Wars ... Bonnie and Clyde with Memori, or Romeo and Juliet with Linctavia, etc. And we know for a fact that Jason and the other writers on the team DO allude to stories like these, and take beats from them (they’ve even admitted so much, like Jason saying Bellamy and Clarke were inspired by Han Solo and Princess Leia). It’s not so hard to believe that Heidi would make another allusion to another love story in order to set the theme of Bellarke’s relationship in her episode (love, loss, sacrifice, hopelessness, etc). 

(ESPECIALLY when you consider that “Me Before You” came out in theatres on June 3 of 2016, around the same time Heidi would have written 4x03 - also, The CW generally has a younger audience than many other networks, so it would makes sense that they would allude to a modern love story teens would be familiar with.)

Plus, HER NICKNAME IS CLARK FOR FUCK’S SAKE. I MEAN, WHAT BETTER EASTER EGG COULD YOU POSSIBLY DROP FOR A ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIP INVOLVING A CHARACTER NAMED “CLARKE”????

Anyway ... I’ve made my point I wanted to make and it’s super late and I’m getting a little loopy now so I’m throwing this into the queue for tomorrow before I start getting carried away with more wild theories.

but i mean c’mon i’m totally right about this guys