#unnecessary rant

[killsaki]

i hate how uncool social media has become in the way that everyone is trying to be cool. why do people need to “boycott” perfectly good products that could be donated to people in need—by mass buying them and destroying them on video, or why do we film strangers in public, harassing them and then getting angry and painting them to be a horrible person online for millions of people to see when they just wanted to be left alone. in public. but this also includes the platforms themselves. kinda wish that they would just shut up and make their apps function. make them easier to use, add more settings for how we want to navigate our time on the apps. why does twitter come out with a new “feature” every week? why does instagram and facebook to copy every single other app in existence? why do these people think that fucking pinterest and tiktok are so popular? because they keep the same format, they keep their apps usable, and they don’t add unnecessary shit every 5 seconds.

[queer-for-science]

Ok, if I'm gonna take a cold shower to not overheat, I gotta have at least like 2mins of hot water in the middle. It soothes the soul. It calms the beast within. That's my emotional support hot water and you can pry it from my sweaty dead hands.

[funkylittlebats]

this sucks group presentations suck why is half of my group not here this suuuuuuuucks. i hope everyone else takes up the full hour but that's remarkably unlikely.

[gentledommes]

I live in an area where there's an ordinance against fireworks. Hearing them all night are one of the few times I encounter someone breaking the law and I'm like "fuck you, dude"

[lilyhargrave]

Did that language quiz, and:

Hm. Okay, I'm a little proud.

But also:

WTF?! A "shovel" is NOT a synonym for "spade"! These are two different tools!

A spade is for: digging! Sharp edge to get into the ground, you see? That straight-down angle on the blade to the handle? Those turned over edges to put your foot on?

A shovel is for: shovelling! Duh! Moving loose stuff around. That bend between blade and handle that means you can move it paralell to the ground? That slightly cupped shape to hold stuff inside?

You'll make your life unnecessarily hard if you use one for the purpose of the other!

Quiz! Your grasp of English is not top!

[3ndun0btained]

I hate that i can never seem to convey what i like about the art i reblog. Id say my english is fairly good, but for some reason i have trouble with finding discriptors other than very simple ones like 'cute' and 'cool'. Idk my mind just blanks?? Even though i want to write whole essays abt how much feelings that silly little artwork gave me :(

Just know when i reblog ur art amd tag it 'oooo cool', youve actually touched my heart with ur art.

[ganondoodle]

Saw your tags about the Barbarian armor and realized I have a piece of the set in TOTK, so I went to double check and it says they lived in Faron, yeah. If you like, I can double-check in BOTW for the flavor text to see how it changed.

oh neat for you to actually check it! (especially since i cant since ... i dont own totk anymore, lmao)

whenever people talk about the sonau (zonai) and what we knew about them from botw they always mention they lived in the phirone (faron) region but when i checked the botw description yesterday in german they make no mention of it- which i wondered if that was always the case or only added in english (as it likes to do, no offense)

BUT THEN i checked the wiki just now and there it certainly DOES say they lived in phirone!!! did they change the text in botw at some point?? or did the wiki take the totk text for it for some reason? (which would be weird bc lots of descriptions are slightly different in totk so you cant really take one info for both ... like phantom ganon set now being eeeeviiiil armro or soemthing lol) or did its botw text never mention that all this time and im just missremembering?? if so why then add it to totk (and then .. where did the belief the sonau lived there come from in the fandom, jsut bc of the amount of ruins?)

i havent played botw since at least shortly before totk came out im pretty sure and there was no update i remember either so im ... very confused

(it just says 'it belonged to an old warriortribe' now in botw..)

if they did change it retroactively its such a weird thing to do :U

(actually just wanted to look up the english botw description and bc im not clicking on fandom wiki links i looked at an IGN article from 2017 and ... it certainly does have the phirone bit ......... so .... they did change botws text? ......... why?? and when??)

(it doesnt change any of the lore inconsistency, thats for sure, lol)

(edit: it would be so funny if they meant to change the text in totk to seperate the botw sonau from the totk sonau and updated the wrong one lol- either way, thats sus to me)

(editing again to add the correction in case people dont see my reblog of it: the text changes when you upgrade it to make room for the fairy part- all my files either didnt have it or where already upgraded and it only occured to me a little bit after posting this, i too can be stupid xD)

[blueskingdom]

the parallel between the “driving into the sunset” racer getting the worst of luck and the “driving into the storm” racer getting the best opportunities

[murdrdocs]

a period is so humbling

[schmweed]

[sparklykiwiturtle]

Y'ALL NEED TO STOP DRAWING FRANCIS' NOSE WRONG!!!

In all honesty, I find it quite irritating when people don't draw his nose right. Like, y'all don't need to twinkify his nose to "make him look better". HE HAS A HOOKED NOSE! What is honestly so hard in giving him the hooked nose??

This is how his nose supposed to look like!

(Art by @lazycatartist6. Just wanted to use their art to show exactly how his nose is supposed to look like.)

I've heard from different people who drew him with the twinkified nose of just simps for him expresses their distaste for his unique nose. Like, what's the point in liking a character if you are/want to erase what makes them unique?

Same thing with Izaack Gauss too but he's for another post bc I wanna rant for his one too. Me simping for him was a bit short lived but I can't stand here and watch y'all vandalize him like that.

[stupidrant]

im seeing the pattern of being an atreus/angrboda fan (or u just like them) and having to go through this weird initiation process of: liking them in the game (wether its themselves, their relationship or both), then trying to find content of them only to be shocked to see a bunch of haters (on both sides but angrboda gets it the worst and thrud is often times oddly used against her), only to then get severely disappointed and realize u probably have to do a bit of contribution yourself which isnt bad but it sucks when its characters that are ridiculously hated 😭😭😭

[angel-archivist]

It's so interesting and so exceedingly frustrating how agab is being utilized now within the queer community as a way to isolate and sort nonbinary and genderqueer folks into binary boxes that determine their moral purity levels, and their authority to do and write and exist.

The way nonbinary writers are being put under accusation of fetishizing gay men while their AGAB is continually brought up in a way that feels like queer-space-approved misgendering.

The way feminist circles that are supposedly trans-inclusive will use the word AFAB in a way that implicitly but intentionally isolates nonbinary people who aren't AFAB from joining. It's for women*.

The way the language is already flawed and leaves out intersex folks from the conversations while focusing on a binary of sex that isn't truthful.

The constant obsessing over whether someone is AFAB or AMAB and whether or not that gives them the privilege to join, do, write, or be present in certain spaces really really concerns me. How are we supposed to dismantle a binary system of gender if we can't even move past forcibly assigning and focusing on people's genders assigned at birth?

[loganswdc]

i dunno who fucking said it, if it was david c. or will buxton but they tried my baby (logan), comparing franco to logan talking about how franco was better and saying logan crashed more and shit, but they both can eat my shit and leave my baby ALONE .

- 🏎

REAL REAL REAL REAL REAL literally i don't understand how anyone thinks they can fairly compare logan and franco when logan never got to drive the car with upgrades (and when he got upgrades they took them away !) while franco is driving a fully upgraded car like come on 😭 and in general it's insane to me how vehemently people have been comparing franco , not just to logan but to other drivers , too !! like it not only makes me upset for logan and the other drivers being compared to him because ?? wtf ?? but it also makes me sad for franco because he didn't sign up for this kind of treatment .

i truly will never understand how people can think they can fairly compare franco with others , especially with logan , and the insane hate that people have towards logan . i cannot comprehend it and i don't think i ever will . i overall do not understand the hate that a lot of drivers get . perhaps it's because i have a lot of empathy for people and can understand different sides of things ,, but i just don't understand how hateful the f1 community has been recently . and that especially goes to how people have treated logan .

and the commentators making such comments and coming after logan even though its been a whole month since he got dropped is also insane to me . it's as though they have nothing else to talk about and their commentary will fall flat if they don't take a jab at logan . like , please , just move on . let him rest . let him go on to different motorsports series and show how good of a driver he is . they need to stop constantly bringing him up in such a negative way . he was their scapegoat then and he still is now , and it's pathetic and sad and disgusting .

and it's crazy to me how it's their job to know what's going on (who has upgrades , who doesn't , who is driving what car , etc.) and yet they never have any clue what the fuck is going on and make stupid comments . like y'all fucking SUCK at ur jobs if all you can comment on is negative things about logan . literally they need to do some damn research and open their eyes like us fans have been doing for so long 😭

also !! on a happier note -- oh my gosh hi race car anon !! this is my first ever emoji anon message i've ever gotten so this is genuinely so exciting to me 😭💞

[theheirofthesharingan]

What other people think about Itachi is not his fault.

Sasuke thinks he's perfect. Yeah, but Itachi himself contradicts it. Even tells him why he's not perfect.

Hiruzen telling Sasuke that Itachi thought like a Hokage is not a gospel truth everyone must believe without questioning his whys. He's a man ridden with guilt, justifying himself in front of the kid his inadequacy as a leader failed.

Hashirama telling Sasuke Itachi is a better Shinobi than him is not reflective of Itachi's feelings towards himself. And neither is Hashirama calling Itachi a hero. The man, at the same time, also is audacious enough to tell Sasuke "Madara loved his brother more than your brother loved you." Okay, it's a sentiment wildly agreed upon in a large part of the fandom, which is disgustingly funny, because Hashirama's failure as a leader, his shortsightedness, and both Tobirama and Madara behaving like man-children played a massive role in messing up Itachi's life and future. But Shinobi world influenced their decisions. Itachi, though? Oh, he should have known better. Middle-aged men will be infantilised and babified, but a character who didn't even get to live long enough to cross the age that was close to the working experience of the other three must bear all the hate and responsibilities.

Obito calling Itachi a pacifist again is not something Itachi agrees with. He hated conflict, yes, but he never describes himself with any of the positive words others do. The others have a selfish purpose (other than Sasuke). Itachi doesn't agree with any of them.

He should not be blamed for what others think about him.

[holyprincenerd]

A Few Thoughts Regarding Why the ESC Jury is SO Dysfunctional

I’m going to cut right to the chase: The judgement criteria for the jury make literally no sense once you stop and think about them. They quite literally cause trolley problem after trolley problem. As a reminder, these are the criteria the jury was supposed to use to judge the performances this year:

composition and originality of the song,

quality of the performance on stage,

vocal capacity of the performer(s),

overall impression of the act.

Let’s start simple - vocal capacity of the performer(s):

As everyone’s aware, this year, we had many talented vocalists participating in the competition: A few examples are Sweden, Norway, France, Cyprus, Spain, Estonia, Albania and Portugal. They all came swinging with their vocalists. Notice something funny about this list of countries?

It’s based entirely upon the assumption that the ability to belt or the usage of one’s head voice is what defines someone’s vocal capacity. Here’s why this is a problem: Assuming that belting as an example is the peak performance of singing means to ignore other, arguably harder and more demanding techniques that are more unconventional sounding to the mainstream ear. A hilariously good example of this would be growling. It require a lot, and I mean a lot of technical prowess and control over your voice, and is thus arguably harder than say belting, as an example. Seriously. Try to growl. Right now. I bet most of you have noticed that you literally can’t growl without sounding hilariously pathetic. If you did manage to let out a decent growl, now try to sing while growling. Pick any song you like, and go for it. Pretty hard, right? And guess what! We had someone doing that this year, and being phenomenal at it.

Too bad they came last in the competition.

That’s right, if we’re going to start judging vocal abilities here, arguably the most vocally capable singer was Chris Harms. There are multiple parts in Blood and Glitter where he uses the growling technique. Not only that, but du-du-dum! He also belts during the song, and does so wonderfully. So, based on this, clearly, he was the most vocally talented artist out of the bunch, right? (Obviously, I am 100% simplifying things here, but bear with me for a bit.) He does everything that the previously mentioned group did, and more. Arguably we could also say that alongside him Alessandra is carrying the torch of the most vocally capable performer, as she does have that one whistle tone in her song (if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, don’t worry, we’ll get to that later).

However, this gets even more complicated than singing techniques, how hard they are to master, and how many of them you use in your song.

You see, we can’t really judge someone’s vocal capacity and compare them with the other contestants, when many of these artists were performing songs in different genres. Here are some of the genres represented during the Eurovision finale of 2023:

Metal

Industrial metal

Progressive metal

Rock

Alternative rock

Progressive rock

Pop rock

Pop

Dance-pop

House-pop

Latin-pop

Hyperpop

Chanson

Flamenco

Disco-house

Electronic

R&B

Rap

Schlager

Tractor (lol)

With this many genres, different singing techniques are more appropriate for some songs than others. So this is no longer even a question about comparing each contestant’s vocal abilities with one another (which is a problem, since you know, this is a competition), but rather who performs well within their own genre. Suddenly, we can add almost every contestant to the list of competent vocal performances. For those of you who are wondering, yes, even Käärijä came through with his vocal performance, especially in the first half of the song.

While we’re on the topic of Käärijä (and we won’t leave him for a bit), how are the juries supposed to judge the vocals of rap performances that are more heavily reliant on the enunciation of words than the vocals themselves, if the song’s not in English? Part of the reason Cha Cha Cha works so well is because of the way Käärijä raps certain lines or even words. How is any other jury, except the Finnish one, (who’re not allowed to vote for him,) supposed to catch something like how good the ”Ja mä jatkan kunnes en enää pysy tuolissa niinku” part sounds to a Finnish ear? Specifically the words kunnes, en and enää, are doing a lot of heavy lifting in that one singular line due to the rhythm and enunciation. Can a jury member who doesn’t understand Finnish catch onto the way he allows the first two words to almost melt into each other while pronouncing the last word ridiculously fast to create a very specific rhythm? I’m sure some jury members would notice that, but it’s just as likely to go completely unnoticed unless you’re familiar with the language.

Next, composition and originality of the song:

Again, we have a clear victor here: Cha Cha Cha is by far the most ”original” out of these songs (despite the Electric Cowboy plagiarism accusations, and it’s all thanks to the fact that the song does a genre based one-eighty by the end). I mean, hello? Blending industrial metal, rap, hyperpop and Finnish schlager? This is such a strange combination of genres, it becomes its own entity. And somehow it works. Personally, I’d say this is at least in part due to the melodic hook that repeats literally throughout the song. Those beeps and boops you hear after the first line of the song? They keep repeating themselves, in the chorus in the ”Cha, cha cha, cha cha cha cha” portion, and in the schlager part of the song, though there, the melody is cut in half and only the last three keys are present in the ”Niinku cha cha cha” parts and in the lines that end with an ”aa-aa-haa.” (So, ”Niinku cha cha cha, enkä pelkääkään tätä maailmaa-aa-haa” etc.) Obviously, we get to hear the melody in its entirety once again in the final cha chas. Brilliant! Douze point. Sometimes less is more, and I can’t believe I am saying that about fucking Cha Cha Cha but here we are. Simplicity is king.

Now, on the other hand, we could say that most of the pop entries are not original in the slightest. We could argue that there is literally nothing original about repeating the same pop formula and the same chord progressions which can be found in most pop songs. This is why Tattoo, Solo, Unicorn, I Wrote a Song, Break a Broken Heart, etc, are getting compared to other pop songs and accused of plagiarism: Pop music just is that generic in its building blocks. It’s also why we could argue that they’re not particularly noteworthy in their compositions.

And while we’re still on the topic of originality, songs that are tied to a specific genre are practically screwed. No one’s going to reinvent genres like cha-cha-chá, waltz or mambo here, unless they step away from what identifies these genres, the rhythm. If the rhythm isn’t there, it’s not a cha-cha-chá, waltz or mambo song. You wanna blend salsa and reggaeton? Too bad, salsaton is already a thing! Should everyone start doing what Käärijä and his team did, and mix a minimum of four genres with a somewhat unusual structure in order to be ”original”? What even is originality in the context of composition, really? There are only so many chords and chord progressions to use, there’s practically no way to actually be original, which is also why the topic of plagiarism is so fucking complicated when it comes to music in specific.

Anyway, let’s move on to the quality of the performance on stage:

To avoid making a lengthy repetition of the previous point, let’s keep this short: Depending on the genre of the song, a certain type of performance is going to be more appropriate than another. Imagine Alika having a performance like Let 3, or Teya and Salena performing like La Zarra. What’s that? It’s the taste of good ol’ thematic and tonal dissonance. Each song is elevated by a performance that matches that song in specific, and the artists can either perform well or fuck up. Again, this becomes a trolley problem, where the juries have to ask themselves: ”Do we value a performance like Joker Out’s above a performance like Luke Black’s?” When both perform well, it’s hard to compare them because they’re playing in two completely different ballparks.

Finally, the overall impression of the act:

Literally what the fuck does that even mean? This is actually just a preference question. Unless someone fucks up tremendously, everyone should be getting points for this. And that’s the core issue here. Because we’re dealing with such a large variety of different artists, different genres, different languages, it becomes impossible to judge them fairly against each other. Do we value belting above growling? Trolley problem. Do we value pop above metal or rock? Trolley problem. You get the point.

”Okay, but obviously the juries are basing their votes upon objectivity and looking at the whole package,” someone might say, and if they do, they’ve missed the point: There is no objectivity here, and because of that, there is no comparing whole packages either. Literally the only way to be objective about this is if everyone has an identical performance; same song, same staging, same camerawork, same choreography. And that’s not the point of the ESC. We’re supposed to be celebrating our individual cultures and our differences. Variety is quite literally required for this contest to work the way it’s intended to. At the end of the day, music is art, and art can be many things. You can’t argue that EAEA is more artistic than Mama ŚČ! (or vice versa) without opening a philosophical can of worms that is way too big for this silly competition. You can’t say Tattoo is objectively better than Cha Cha Cha (or vice versa), because, again, the songs shine in different criteria and are playing in two completely different ballparks. As a matter of fact, their ballparks exist on completely different planets. There are too many variables at play here for anyone to logically be able to be objective. And that’s when this becomes a question of voting based on opinion and personal taste (you know, if the concept of jury darlings hasn’t made this obvious enough). And personal taste is what the audience is supposed to base their votes upon.

Oh, and before I forget to touch upon that, Alessandra: According to some tabloids, her vocals were struggling during the jury show, and that’s why she in specific didn’t receive as many points from the jury as she probably should and could have otherwise. And that’s ridiculously unfair. Why should the jury and the audience base their judgements of an act on two completely different performances? As Käärijä has said in many interviews, each performance is unique and its own entity. Shit happens. Sometimes your vocals are struggling, other times a wire tries to murder you, etcetera. It’s actually bizarre that we don’t give our votes based on the same performance.

So yeah, shitty system, does not work, 0/10. Zéro point in French.