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rickie-the-storyteller · 11 months

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Get to Know My OC!

Remember when I did that interview for Elise, and I mentioned that I would do it for other characters as well? And then I did that poll for you guys to choose who should get an interview next?

It may not look like I remembered that, since it's been ages... but I do. And I'm going to finally be making good on that promise.

Well, the bonus option got the most votes, so today I'll be sharing an OC interview for a brand new character that I've never really mentioned before.

Meet Mackenna Sahara, the main character for my "Five Seconds Flat" series! I think I have at least mentioned this series before... it's the one inspired by the Lizzy McAlpine album.

She's a lot of fun. To give you a basic idea of what I'm trying to go for with her, she's like a mix of Stephanie and Elise from Steph's Crew. A smart and stellar student, but also very confident and feisty. But she's her own character as well - she has plenty of things that make her unique.

The door creaks open, and in walks 19-year-old Mackenna Sahara. She's an intriguing character with a poised posture, and an air of confidence mixed with a touch of mystique. She swiftly saunters into the room, her eyes shifting around the room (and not quite looking at me) as she slowly takes in her surroundings with a slightly raised eyebrow. She hasn't seemed to notice my presence yet...

Her striking appearance matches her personality - long, shiny, sleek jet-black hair cascading down her back, piercing dark eyes that seem to analyse everything, and a small, mischievous smile that hints at her quick wit. She stands at about 5'8", which only adds to her commanding presence.

She doesn't acknowledge me at all until I greet her, and when she does, she extends a hand. As we shake hands, I notice that her grip is rather firm, almost challenging.

1) Are you named after anyone?

Mack: Oh, darling... I'm far too unique to be named after someone else. Can you imagine me being named after anyone else? Preposterous! (laughs) I'm just playing with you! I have no clue where my name comes from. That being said, I like it quite a lot. I think it's cool, you know? It certainly sounds unique. I like to think that my name was carefully selected by my parents to match the brilliance and that enigmatic vibe that I inherently give off.

2) When was the last time you cried?

Mack: Cried? Me? (laughs) I like, never cry. Ever. Unless you count crying tears of boredom. That's me during every assembly I have at school, pretty much. (laughs again) Hmm. But if we're talking about legitimate crying, well, let me think. Oh, yes, it was last week! When I saw the price of a mega hot designer handbag. (sighs) I had my eye on it for months. My wallet cried for mercy and I had to join in.

Me: What?

Mack: What? Crying's contagious!

3) Do you have kids?

Mack: Oh, dear God, no! I'll leave the parenting to those brave enough to handle it. Leave me out of that narrative, please and thank you!

4) Do you use sarcasm?

Mack: (rolls her eyes) Dude, sarcasm is like a second language to me. I sprinkle it into conversations like confetti. It probably isn't necessary all the time, but I like it... it keeps things interesting. Like, if I didn't do it, every conversation I have would be as dull as a monotonous PowerPoint presentation. Or a school assembly.

5) What's the first thing you notice about people?

Mack: Oh, where do I begin? I notice quite a lot about people I meet in a short span of time. Ok, so I suppose the first thing I notice is their fashion sense. If they can't put together a decent outfit, it's like a red flag of incompetence. I don't mean to come off as overly superficial...

Me: Oh, no. You don't sound it at all...

Mack: But I personally believe that the way that you dress and the way you present yourself and carry yourself says a LOT about you as a person! I hate to say it, but I DO judge people based on their appearance. In fact, I believe that pretty much everybody does, whether they acknowledge it or not. But I think that's kind of what I notice first, in a nutshell. The way a person carries themselves. I mean, from outfits, I then move on to their posture, their body language, and the way they talk. I can tell a lot about a person from their demeanor. And, of course, their ability to keep up with my wit. If they can't match my level of banter, well, it's quite disappointing. And when I'm disappointed, I don't bother with that person any longer. They're dead to me. Which... now that I'm saying it aloud, could probably explain why I've been single for so damn long! (laughs) My standards are way too high.

6) What's your eye color?

Mack: Brown. Really dark brown... so dark that they almost look black. But I'm not going to say black, because I don't know whether that's even possible. I really like my eyes! The shape, the colour... everything. Plus, people often say that they're pretty.

7) Any special talents?

Mack: Special talents? Oh, I don't know... I'm kind of funny sometimes? People sometimes tell me that my repertoire of snarky comebacks could put any stand-up comedian to shame, so... Stand-up looks hard, though. Other than that, I can paint! And draw. I'm a pretty solid artist.

8) Scary movies or happy endings?

Mack: Happy ending, I guess. I mean, both options sound stupid - I like being surprised by an ending. But I don't do scary movies. I have no desire to subject myself to unnecessary terror and jump scares. I much prefer a delightful romantic comedy with a predictable yet satisfying happy ending. Life is already filled with enough drama; I don't need to add ghosts and monsters into the mix.

9) Where were you born?

Mack: I was born on planet Krypton. (pauses) Joking. I was born in Wales, but I moved to London when I was two.

10) What are your hobbies?

Mack: You mean, aside from gracing the world with my presence? (laughs) Kidding, don't worry. Um... I already mentioned art, didn't I? Well, speaking of art, I also tend to dabble in the art of people-watching. There's nothing quite like observing the little absurdities and idiosyncrasies of everyday human behaviour. And, of course, reading. Fuels my insatiable thirst for knowledge and provides me with a vast arsenal of interesting crap to say in a conversation. Oh, and I also enjoy the occasional game of chess. Not that I'm any good, but still.

11) Do you have any pets?

Mack: Not at the moment, no. But perhaps one day, I'll stumble upon a feline or canine companion that I can stroke and snuggle and play around with.

12) What sports do you play/have played?

Mack: Sports? (laughs) Oh, dear, that's amusing. The closest I've come to playing a sport is watching Wimbledon on television while sipping an iced tea. I don't do sports!

13) How tall are you?

Mack: I stand tall and mighty at 5'8". It's that perfect height for intimidating those who dare challenge me.

Me: People challenge you?

Mack: Well, no. But I think I'm just one of those people that just takes up space, both physically and metaphorically. May as well embrace it.

14) Favorite subject in school?

Mack: Oh, school! I'm good at pretty much everything, but if I had to choose a favourite subject, it would be English Literature. The opportunity to dissect and criticize the works of renowned authors is just pure bliss for my judgmental soul.

15) Dream job?

Mack: My dream job, you ask? I'm not sure. I have a lot of dreams. I dream of being an actress. I dream of being an artist. I dream of being a businesswoman, or an entrepreneur of some kind... I even dream of being a teacher.

Me: Really? How interesting!

Mack: Yeah... I don't know, though. I lean more towards businesswoman most of the time, but it changes all the time.

Me: Well, I'm sure you'll figure yourself out eventually.

Mack: Me too. And no matter what I'll choose, I know I'm going to be good at it.

Me: I'm sure you will... anyway, we should wrap up now. This has been a delightfully entertaining interview. Thank you very much, Mack!

Mack: The pleasure was all yours, I'm sure. (laugh) I'm only joking! But seriously, thank you for having me. Later!

END OF INTERVIEW.

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Let's make this a tag game!

Gently tagging these people to do this for a character of their own:

@mysticstarlightduck, @clairelsonao3, @silverslipstream, @winterandwords, @exquisitecrow, @gummybugg, @jay-avian

#rickie-the-storyteller #writerblr #writing #original characters #get to know my oc #oc interview

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1ddiscourseoftheday · 5 years

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23 Oct 19

WALLLLLS!!!! Louis' album is available for preorder! Genuinely actually ON SALE NOW! (It comes out Jan 31.) What a day lads. Album announcement with cover art and a track list, it's without titles but we can see that it's 12 tracks, merch- signed albums, CD vinyl and cassette plus picture disc vinyl (Donny Rovers #28 shirt graphic!) and caps as in hats as in clothing merch finalllly! The album cover was released in bits, one part of the picture here one there scattered across the web- obviously fans were quick to gather but also, some just made an end run around the whole thing and found the pre-order link without bothering to wait. Fun fact, when found the site said Oct 24 for the release date. Also a twitter account announcing the name of the album dating to way back before even the leak made itself known.

Also! What appears to be part one of a Louis interview documentary?? "Chapter 1: Reflection" was posted to YouTube, it's a 6+ minute video of Louis being interviewed by Gordon Smart (formerly of The Sun) about music and his work finding his place in the industry and it's absolutely lovely. And! Louis updated his Spotify playlist, it's back to being the 28 songs list and full of exciting new stuff. So hurry up and let all that sink in cause tomorrow we have the new song and the video plus one million signs point to tour dates dropping tomorrow: we got Live Nation and Ticketmaster and little sites getting his picture up and teasing and tweeting about him then deleting, we got the capacity built in to his site ready to go, UAs dropping shady hints.... it's happening.

That's a lot of Louis but let's just have a little SBB Roundup Corner before we totally call it quits.... Okay yes, we see the 420 behind you on the WMI cover, lol, and how about that outfit in the promo pic posted to Ticketmaster huh?? Yeah that's right blue and green track pants with a shirt that says ORGANIC and defines the word on it, wow A LOOK indeed. A new playlist means loads of lyrics to analyse, I'll leave that to you to enjoy but I would be remiss not to mention the song Laurel Wreaths being on there damn! Then the metro published some charming articles saying We Made It is about Louis visiting Eleanor at Uni and one saying that Louis was surprised to hear that Harry did shrooms since he (Louis) was the stoner in the band (if you were with them in any way up to this point this is the moment where it goes from a mild eyeroll to utterly ludicrous) and Harry had told him off for it (lolllllll) and a cut and paste typical article about Freddie, one on Zayn, etc etc. I do believe the part where he says he likes NTMY and LU and laughs at Niall for saying he's vanilla though. Moments after the articles were posted Louis hopped on Twitter to acknowledge a good interview- "Proper good to see you mate. Thanks again for doing it!" he said... with a link to the Gordon Smart video. BUUURRN!

Anyway if all that Louis news isn't enough Christmas in October for you, Liam has a song out Friday: a CHRISTMAS SONG! All I Want (For Christmas) is out in two days what the fffffff you guys!! Like apparently this is the normal time for a Christmas song drop it just feels so sudden, help. Liam recorded his Jonathan Ross show (airs Sat) today and a fan who was present tells us he spilled some serious tea which made people very anxious because Liam stuff is a little stressful lately but don't worry, they say: "it was beautiful I'm telling you I'm beaming at him." They say we'll see a clip of the Ant Middleton show. The Esquire interview is out: Liam said he hasn't seen Harry in three years prompting much sadness (and some scepticism.) "We are the only band in history that has managed to get all its members to enter as soloists in the top 10 of the Billboard. If you think about it, it’s a phenomenon," he also says and it would be though it's not exactly accurate, but the reality is phenomenal enough, and he talks about how hard he works to make his body be what he feels it should be.

We got a picture of Harry from last night! He's wearing a cute jumper that looks a lot like his tour graphics (tho I'm told those are licorices not puzzles), but the real news is he's wearing his RAINBOW FLAG PRIDE PIN bless. Beautiful. The pic was posted by the person who reported from the Jools Holland show recording last night; that show has been announced now, Harry will be on with Noel Gallagher of all people (these guys are really everywhere you turn!), Brittany Howard, an exciting queer artist who he just followed yesterday, and others. New DYKWYA posters were spotted in LA.

And seriously only a day like this could push this to the end, how the hell, Niall is confirmed for Live Lounge! Nov 7!!!! He has more content out with the Genius Official lyrics video, so if you wanna see him talk about sex and deny he has a type (mhmm) check it out. As evidence, he says the girl NTMY was about had pink in her hair and tattoos. He's excited about getting onstage at the Jingle Balls and threatens not to talk to us if we don't get tickets but we're definitely safe so far, he's out there chattering up a storm on twitter.

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egdocument · 5 years

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About the EvaGeeks wiki and why you shouldn't trust it, concerning mainly one user.

On the subject of EvaGeeks: Let’s talk about the manipulation of information on the wiki, and perpetuated “nastiness” on the forums that has persisted for several years now. THIS IS A MIRROR OF THIS GOOGLE DOCS FILE. (My twitter post.) You can share this post or the original document freely, use parts of it, etc. I want this document to simply serve as a warning to new Eva fans and those less familiar with EvaGeeks and their history - as well as an update for people who haven’t seen the current state of it.

NOTE: If you can’t read any of these images, these are Imgur albums containing all of the notable ones: https://imgur.com/a/z2mGvvX https://imgur.com/a/oAgufc3

The intent of this document is not to “take down” the wiki or forum, obviously. The intent is simply to inform people of the dangers of trusting this site with their Eva info. It might be the best we have but that doesn’t mean we can’t improve it. I would actually love to see a more community cultivated version of the site with less biased information, but I fear that will never happen. The anxieties of any one (or many) individual(s), which have prevented consistent change until now are well justified, and it is not within reason to blame the outsiders for never bothering to correct the myriad of issues with the wiki. Please extend kindness to other Eva fans and approach sites like EvaGeeks with the appropriate scrutiny, if you aren’t already. We’re divided enough as it is.

Before I begin, I must state: All of the information presented is publicly available, either through main pages, chat logs or history. And yes, the link to join the Discord server and verify the information given in this is publicly available too. I will not link it myself, as I want to avoid any possible harassment of the users I speak about here. Harassment is NEVER the answer in any kind of conflict. This behaviour I don’t believe can go unchecked, but that doesn’t mean the consequences of it should be any kind of conflict towards any user. I will be naming them here so you are aware, but I really do have to advise you, as a reminder, DO NOT HARASS OR ENGAGE WITH THEM. The rule of thumb is that these issues are more systematic than you might think, and blaming or taking it out on a singular person or even a whole group is never justified. Targeted harassment, even with reason, especially never helps to remedy an issue, because it forces the person to double down on their behaviour and beliefs. Causing unnecessary pain to a person is never okay, and the ‘offences’ committed here aren’t deserving of it in the first place. Please also consider the feelings of the people who use the server and EvaGeeks site; not everyone is your "enemy" or your "target" (and frankly, no-one should be) and despite the feelings echoed in this document, EG is not a monolith of a singular opinion or belief.

The purpose of this document is to inform people of the ways EvaGeeks fails objectivity and has existed to push narratives and exclude outsiders for far too long. With new people coming into the Eva fandom (and there of course being others who have been around for quite a while but just aren't aware) I feel like now is the best time I could write this.

As for what prompted this, an anonymous member of the Discord server contacted me regarding the behaviour of one particular user they were concerned about. Said user had expressed considerable bias in the past and was admitting to making large edits to pages on the wiki very recently, and the person who contacted me felt unequipped to bring the issue to light themselves.

A decent amount of this document will be dedicated to presenting said user's contributions - while I feel someone always had to address the EvaGeeks Problem at large, it doesn't help that this user has essentially incriminated himself here to expose the problem in its entirety.

There is quite a bit of pretense I must discuss before I get into the subject of the wiki pages themselves. I suggest you read all of it; the start of the wiki section will be in heading text if you’d like to skip to it. I’m sure information on the biased editing of wiki pages is privy to anyone who has used the server or the site itself, but at the server’s current status of 60 entire members, I know not everyone has, or is aware of what the problem actually is. Please note that the person who contacted me has requested anonymity and I will be complying. I will not include screenshots of their conversation with me, and anything I quote from them will be paraphrased so nobody can go full Sherlock and analyse their typing patterns. It sounds silly and it’s probably just paranoia, but they shared my concern here. Any conflict we can prevent is for the best. EvaGeeks, of course, has a culture very much promoting the idea that it’s the “number 1 source for all things Eva”, and for English speaking fans it definitely is - you’d be surprised the amount of people who still, after all these years, think this site is consistently reputable. For the sake of context, I’m going to assume that you are not all that familiar with the site’s history or nature, so I’m going to provide a little bit of information about it for those without any first-hand experience. The forums in particular cultivate a very join-us-or-get-out type community, where those who dare to go against the grain get incentivised to leave the site; they’ll claim this isn’t the case if asked and obviously the site is NOT a hivemind but that doesn’t mean it’s not insular. I can vouch for myself and many others who refuse to go in more than a few threads for fear of discussion turning particularly nasty. Even the server member who came to me about this has stated they feel it “might not be a hivemind but it sure feels that way.” Silencing dissent, even when officially-backed, is part of their culture. You don’t have to personally harass everyone who has an opposing thought to you for it to not feel acceptable, you just need to have a history of mocking those who do. If you want some previous, notable cases of “discussion turning nasty”, here’s some off the top of my head: 1. The AWL Incident - In which ADV VA of Rei and director of EoE dub, Amanda Winn-Lee, joined the forums for discussion and was promptly harassed by a user. Most of these messages have been deleted but you can view what remains of her post history here. 2. Recently brought to my attention: upon beginning translation of the Episode 24 drafts, EG forum user LiLi was subjected to incentive to leave, mostly in the form of homophobic disgust in replies to her thread or others they were mentioned in. Any information that goes against the cultivated narrative, even when it is literally officially licensed content, is only ever considered with a degree of reluctance. The fact these drafts co-exist with other pages concerned with this episode is almost a miracle. You can find plenty of repeat instances of the above if you want to (more to do with homophobia and misogyny than outward hostility, but honestly it’s the same thing.) A look at basically any EvaGeeks thread concerning pairings or the female characters will unearth a variety of awful comments from many other users, not that that would be surprising to anyone who has spent more than two minutes in the fandom. Now, of course, that’s very relevant to the topic at hand even if it doesn’t seem to be. The EG wiki and forum have quite a bit of overlap and circular influence on each other as you’ll see later if you aren’t already aware of it. For a short summary before we jump into things and analyse our subject of the day, this essentially means that anyone with an opinion or information the majority doesn’t like will never get in a position good enough to edit the wiki and keep the edits there. This has resulted in many articles filled with conjecture and fan speculation that serve to shut down other viewpoints, whether it’s intentional or not.

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ON THE TOPIC OF THE EVAGEEKS WIKI

The issue surrounding homophobia and downplaying of references to LGB content in Eva, through proxy of fan-dictated content control and translation is not a new one by any stretch of the imagination. I'm sure you're all very well aware. It’s far from the only issue present in the fandom but it will be our subject of conversation today. Any ‘one instance’ of this persistent behaviour from Eva fans is never going to be enough to summarise how insurmountable it really is, though, so today I instead draw your attention to one user of the wiki who goes by the name of FelipeFritschF and his recent, frequent updates to pages concerning Nagisa Kaworu.

[TOPIC: FELIPEFRITSCHF]

I must reiterate here: although this document is mostly concerned with this user and will contain a number of receipts from various places, it is NOT supposed to function as a hit piece or inspire any kind of mob. Leave this guy the hell alone, just be aware that he’s the one making most of these changes and isn’t a particularly impartial party, to put things lightly.

Now, before we really get into things, it should be stated that the EvaGeeks wiki requires approval to get your edits there, as stated at the bottom of the homepage, here:

This means that anyone making consistent edits to the wiki has in fact been approved, and this isn’t the result of lack of maintenance.

What you’ll find is that it is consistently Felipe making edits to the pages in question. Kaworu’s bio page, for example, is almost entirely edited by Felipe, which we can see from the “History” tab of the article.

This is barely half of his edits made in the last few days. Take a scroll through it yourself if you’re so inclined. This hilarious bit of waffle was added by Felipe a few days ago and since revised since by him, as shown here.

(As an added bit of comedy, the man who decided to add in the Japanese in the first place apparently didn’t know the difference between 好意 (kindness, what Kaworu actually says) and 行為 (action). It’s been fixed since but I still think it’s quite funny.) Now, as anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese knows, 好き is not actually a very ambiguous word at all. I think it goes without saying, though, and I’m not here to have an argument about translations with you all (for the record, Kanemitsu’s now scarily infamous translation of this scene is perfectly fine with me in a vacuum, it’s just literally everything else surrounding it that’s the problem. Also, regretfully, I will have to speak about this nonsense later when it becomes relevant.) I’m using this as an example instead, to show how utterly ridiculous this guy’s additions to these pages are. He’s not even making a point here. It keeps going past this excerpt, and I suggest you read the whole thing (Kaworu’s page is linked above.) The point of bringing this up - and when I eventually discuss the Netflix translation when it’s necessary - is not to complain about semantics, although I’d argue that’s what’s happening in these articles, honestly. It’s just helpful when proving the actual point of the editor being incredibly unreliable and biased in how he phrases and omits things.

On the page dedicated solely to Shinji and Kaworu’s relationship (which is basically identical to their section on Kaworu’s page as far as I can tell), we can see that Felipe has also edited this several times, and even credits himself with expanding the version on the Evangelion Fandom Wiki now copy and pasted back to EvaGeeks.

The kind of “discussion” (very much not discussion when added to a wiki page supposedly presented as factual information, is it, frankly?) would be fine if it was happening in the EvaGeeks forum itself (and happen does it ever, but that doesn’t change the inappropriateness of this particular behaviour.) What I find disturbing is that in the past few days, this user has gone out of his way to make some already worrying articles even worse, presumably in an attempt to silence discourse, or add more fuel to the flames, surrounding the new Netflix translation. He has a whole page on that one, too, one which is very up-to-date in some regards and not at all in others, despite only being added a few days before me compiling this information. Frankly, going through this whole page on its own is a huge waste of my time considering how BLATANT it is in its biases, but I’ll do it anyway. It IS only a Theory and Analysis page (which is essentially an EvaGeeks free-for-all), but I think it’s quite bothering that the site even allows Theory and Analysis pages that consider only one viewpoint and are written by one person. The forum, presumably, is connected to the site for a reason.

I’m just going to link it here, for the sake of brevity. https://wiki.evageeks.org/Theory_and_Analysis:Kaworu%27s_lines_in_Episode_24 I suggest you read this before continuing. For a slight departure, the original theatrical Funimation dub of 3.0 is partially available for viewing online, although the audio is in cam quality so you may want headphones if you have plans to watch what’s there. The home media dub’s major changes are to issues with lore and localisation of jargon. While not directly mentioned in this article, it is implied from the subject that this is what it’s about; it’s been speculated that the very literal translation of Episode 24 in particular has come about due to Khara’s embarrassment with how Funimation’s theatrical dub of 3.0 handled Kaworu and Shinji’s relationship rather loosely. Despite these claims, every instance of the two sharing (honestly pretty awkward and unnecessary) flirtatious back-and-forths are still present in the home media version, barring an instance in the stargazing scene where Kaworu’s dialogue was translated even worse than it is in the final dub. If you don’t believe me, do the comparisons yourself. It may not be conclusive, but I think it puts mostly to death the rumour that “a Khara employee was there and saw how people laughed at the Kaworu and Shinji scenes and demanded it needed to be changed for the final release and now that’s being reflected on the new translation”, which is what it tends to boil down to.

It also goes without saying that NO ONE PERSON is “the most qualified” (holy shit, is this entry not even bothering to hide how biased it is) to translate an entire TV show, let alone something like Evangelion. Let us not forget that Kanemitsu’s claims that he respects “ambiguity” are not even true to begin with. EvaGeeks itself is a shining example of Eva fans, of which Kanemitsu is one and this is even discussed in the article, not being impartial enough to be tasked with discussing Evangelion! (There is obviously issue with citing the ADV translation as a source of all truth; if you read further into the thread on my tweet [the kitchen scene in EoE], I provide extra context for those interested, which I am aware has been spread around Discord and other places without that context included. Of course, I’m not an unbiased source either as you can probably tell from my tweets nor am I claiming to be, so please feel free to discuss these things in other places if you want. I’ve just got the tweets I have on hand here. Sorry about that.) Next, the repeat claim that this is “Khara’s licensed translation and thus the most accurate version” is pretty obviously nonsense; I’m sure I don’t need to point out to the audience that Japanese companies meddling in localisation has ended poorly in the past, or that Khara uses questionable translations from the dubs of the Rebuild films on licensed merch from time-to-time, or that the translation was fairly obviously not overseen or even QA’d by anyone following Kanemitsu’s translation work judging from the myriad of grammatical errors, missing subtitles and overly literal, poor sounding phrasing present in the final work. (Do I need to source this? Just watch the damn thing.) It’s not even like the ways it was translated have been consistent through different versions on Netflix; some were translated from Kanemitsu’s English to other languages judging from the obvious mistakes being present in multiple tracks, and some were barely even translated at all - the Italian version, the dub of which is mysteriously now missing, was so bad people were commenting that it sounded like Shakespeare or that it was translated word for word from Japanese. I dunno about you, the reader, but something about “Khara only bothered to check very rigorously the English version for their specific requests with the translation” doesn’t sound like what really happened to me. It’s more like they’ve just sent a translator they have worked with before to work on a project of theirs. Apologies for engaging in speculation, but that’s all this whole article is anyway. It’s just something I noticed from skimming through the page, but I find it quite interesting that Felipe makes a blanket statement about the excerpts from Schizo and Prano “being wrongly attributed to Anno” and then the source he provides for that is just someone on the EvaGeeks forums saying the same thing with little proper sourcing, when that was never really the intent of their post anyway. An interview summary exists where Anno has stated he wrote both books himself, and if you haven’t seen it, here it is. It’s obviously flimsy at best, but Tokyo Otaku Mode is an officially licensed Evangelion distributor. If Felipe is going to parade around his love for the Very Official Khara Subtitles Of NGE he can at least extend the same gratitude to other forms of official information; I mean, frankly, this article is about as reputable as anything in the Netflix subtitles are. Lastly, another thing I found quite interesting is his strange love for the ADV VHS subtitles. I really, really think this is obvious, but subtitles changed in later versions of the ADV release were changed because they were deemed incorrect. I don’t have sources for this so take it with an absolute grain of salt but I believe there’s even a commentary track on the Platinum release where the translator talks in depth about why she translated episode 24 as she did. It’s not exactly a better word than Kanemitsu’s, but if we’re considering translator’s word as law for whatever reason like Felipe is here, we might as well consider hers, too, right? Oh, and actually, have a look at the sources used on that article. Most of the sweeping statements he makes have absolutely no backing beyond what he’s piecing together from old and irrelevant interviews (when discussing the Netflix translation) as well as...linking Kanemitsu’s job history...I mean, sure, the guy is qualified, but do I really need to go over this again?

INTERMISSION: Speaking of sources, you might have noticed from perusing these articles yourself that EvaGeeks has a very low standard for sourcing to begin with, which is likely partially to blame for how things like these articles can even exist in their current forms in the first place. A site that doesn’t have such a lenient policy on sourcing, though, is Wikipedia. Felipe, of course, cannot stay within the confines of the fandom and has decided to have a go at providing some information to Kaworu’s actual Wikipedia page as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Kaworu_Nagisa&action=history Felipe is far less to blame for the state of Kaworu’s Wikipedia article, which is honestly pretty bad to begin with. There have been plenty of other people editing this one and the rather homophobic “Relationship with Shinji” part of the article has been present for a while before he started editing it. (The fact this article literally uses someone being explicitly homophobic as a source is not surprising for Eva fandom, but holy shit, am I disgusted every time I reopen this page. I'm not even going to bother figuring out who added that one.) I do wonder if his reasons for not desecrating this page the same way he has on EvaGeeks is because he knows it wouldn’t stay up for particularly long. Reminder that he is also the main editor of the same pages on the Evangelion Fandom Wiki, which is essentially a copy and paste of EvaGeeks. Of note is this little tidbit I found:

This is what Felipe then deleted, as this is apparently not relevant, despite literally being about Kaworu’s relationship with Shinji. I mean, I’m sure this could have been put in somewhere else and perhaps phrased a bit better, but why the hell would you outright delete that kind of information? It’s supposed to be a wiki, not your own personal opinion chamber. BTW, this is the thread post he links as a rebuttal to that person adding it, and it’s probably for the best it’s presented here with context: https://forum.evageeks.org/post/886380/NGE-Ep24-Script-First-and-Second-Drafts/#886380

He clearly thinks he has a point here, but I’m not sure what exactly he’s going for. Basically everything he’s saying is conjecture, and while I can kinda see where he’s coming from it sure does completely fail to address the intent as explained in this interview. “Read the whole interview” is very dismissive, especially when the interview in full doesn’t exactly contradict the initial point. It does say quite a bit, how he will disregard official information when his wiki articles themselves are full of nothing but rambling.

Here’s another relevant and quite funny Discord screenshot:

Felipe is making a pretty hypocritical statement here. I’m sure he does have a point - there’s probably been quite a bit of vandalism happening to these pages which isn’t exactly surprising (again, Eva fans are not often rational people, please be honest with ourselves). That being said, I think there’s a particular irony to the man who has written many very, very long paragraphs on the wiki pages he has control over trying to stop people from thinking there might be anything but “ambiguity” between a pair he doesn’t like.

In the case anyone reading has forgotten: the purpose of a wiki should be to provide unbiased information on the material it discusses. Obviously the repeating of “innocuous” statements about how “ambiguous” it all is, in the vain of EG’s now made fun of ‘we don’t know what he really meant by that’ and ‘why Kaworu is so intent for Shinji alone to have happiness remains a mystery’ are pretty obviously intended to downplay the very, very obvious “subtext” and leagues of official information provided.

It kinda goes without saying that WE CAN INFER THESE THINGS FROM THE ACTUAL INFORMATION ON THE WIKI, you don’t need to add a disclaimer to everything going “well we just don’t know what it means!” (even in instances when we do know what it means, but that’s almost besides the point). You don’t need to add in these statements, unless you’re trying to sway people into ignoring what's presented by the show. If you want people to draw their own conclusions, you are in fact capable of presenting information without commentary - in fact, that's kind of the whole point of a wiki. Yes, Eva is ambiguous at times, but talking down to people like they need this reminded to them constantly is an absolute waste of time and energy. It’s almost as if the editor has been trying to cultivate a narrative and has been getting away with it because you can’t really prove these statements are biased unless you do the research. (I mean, you can from context, but it certainly hasn’t done much to get them removed, has it?)

You can view the editing history of any given EvaGeeks article on their own pages if you want to see just how many times these things have been added in by Felipe. And obviously, no, it isn’t just his fault - there are other users, several, in fact, credited with the editing of these pages, many of the edits serving the same point as Felipe’s paragraphs on “ambiguity”. He’s just the most concrete example of a biased editor. Also, yes, I do recognise this has all happened within the few days post the release of Eva on Netflix and that it was likely prompted by that. But we know at least one of the mods is aware of it given how Felipe talks about it in the EvaGeeks Discord server. It’s also quite funny I’ve seen people linking these pages like they're some kind of "gotcha" in response to tweets discussing the new translation, as if they haven’t been invented out of thin air in the past few days.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now, frankly I’m sick of staring at EvaGeeks, and if you want any more information on these articles and others with instances of the same thing happening, you can have a look at it yourself.

Originally, this document contained far more screenshots from Felipe. My desire for this to not turn into a hit piece has lead me to remove a great deal of these messages. I do suggest, if you want to, you join the server and make your own conclusions. Even beyond what the member told me about I found myself agreeing with him fairly frequently when he was being reasonable - this doesn't change my concerns regarding the presentation of information on the wiki, though. The anonymous member was mostly concerned about this user having basically all the control over Kaworu's wiki articles, seeing as he has far too high of a stake in everything. Not all of these messages are inflammatory or even necessarily bad or wrong, but I find that to anyone privy to the “revelations” about the EvaGeeks Wiki here, they paint an interesting story, to say the least.

It’s starting to sound like he perhaps has just had some bad experiences. The following few messages are part of the same conversation.

I find it interesting how he flipflops from not understanding anything about the whole Eva Parallelism Theory Thing to suddenly being all for it when it concerns things not about the gay stuff.

Comments on how ‘manipulative’ Kaworu is

Because Kaworu is very pro instrumentality, and this definitely isn’t just a theory, I mean, it’s even talked about on the wiki, guys! (And I’m not even touching on the yes-men in this server.) Oh.

Oh no.

For the record, this page is clearly still under construction, and to point out any one thing about how bad it is would be essentially just poking a stick at a beehive. At least this one is so absolutely poorly phrased it’s doubtful anyone could mistake it for any kind of proper information. I also find it incredibly funny whenever pages on the wiki use the forum as a source. Relevant: Qmisato’s post on his defending of Shinji sexually assaulting Asuka: https://qmisato.tumblr.com/post/183082754484/yesterday-i-was-invited-to-evageeks-official

In response much later. I really can’t see it as being framed as “fun teenage romance”, also why is the word romance suddenly being used to talk about Asuka and Shinji after the whole debacle with Kaworu? He’s said before he doesn’t see Asuka and Shinji’s relationship as romantic, either (and GOOD! It’s not!)

(Also - it’s not sexual assault when Shinji tries to kiss Asuka in her sleep, but it IS when Kaworu does the exact same thing to Shinji? Make up your mind, dude.) Turning this sort of thing into Shipping Discourse is frankly not the right way to go about it, but it is perhaps notable that despite what Felipe says, he is in fact an Asushin shipper. (I don’t feel the need to post all these images in the document as its cluttered enough as it is.) At this point it’s rather adhom and I feel irrelevant but I do think it’s relevant that through all of Eva fandom, those who have the most issue “understanding” (more like accepting, I suppose) LGB subtext, are those who also are really attached to a fairly morally grey het pairing themselves. Again, seriously, there’s nothing inherently wrong with any of this and assuming the worst of someone because of the pairings they like isn’t my intent here, it’s more that I find this pattern has always been prevalent and it’s bothering me I’m seeing it STILL in 2019. ESPECIALLY from a wiki editor who inserts so much of that into his work on the site.

You’re probably sick of reading all of this (and I’m getting sick of writing it), so I’ll wrap up the part on Felipe quickly: Yes, I just dedicated several pages to screenshots of mostly innocuous (when considered out of context) stuff one guy had to say. I feel more obsessive than I’d like to admit, and frankly I have no business with this person. We’ve spoken twice on EvaGeeks threads if you can even call it speaking. This task was given to me by a member of the community who was concerned about his behaviour but didn’t want to publicise it themself and I feel a little out of my depth here. I at least hope we can come to the conclusion I wanted to here, that I fear may have been lost in this whole great mess of language - no one person should have THIS much sway over the state of a wiki that’s supposed to be impartial, especially when they have not been quiet with their biases in the first place, and it is the failure of everyone involved in the maintaining of the wiki itself that this sort of behaviour has been allowed in the first place.

The guy can have whatever opinions and theories he wants, obviously. I don't give a shit; he's not even that bad compared to the grand majority of Eva fans to begin with. Don't think this document exists to "cancel" him or thoughtpolice, I truly, genuinely, do not care what is said inside this server anymore. It doesn't concern me. I mean, it's a fucking cartoon, for god's sake. This only becomes an issue when opinions are expressed on a wiki, for reasons I have reiterated many times now. EvaGeeks lacks the objectivity required to function as a wiki and I'm trying to make that clear.

[ON THE TOPIC OF THE EVAGEEKS WIKI AND COMMUNITY IN GENERAL] As for who can edit the wiki and what they’re allowed to say: As you can see from the nature of people’s posts in this thread, you’re given access to do very specific things, and although I haven’t bothered going through the process myself (as I find it would be quite redundant, trying to fix such an inherently broken system), I’m guessing it’s very easy to get your edits reversed if you post anything they don’t like. Take that as conjecture of my own.

I have it in decent faith that the approval process involves whoever of the mod team is there at the time coming to an agreement based on people’s applications. Obviously this is a decent idea for a system, and I’m sure there are legitimate reasons as to why EG has to be locked down as much as it is; judging from the state of other fanon wikis I’ve seen there’s likely to be a decent amount of vandalism, especially in a fandom as passionate as Eva’s is. However, I think it’s fair to say that the complete restriction of updating these pages to those approved by a mod team who, while I’m sure are very reasonable people overall, certain individuals of which have displayed concerning behaviour and biases of their own in the server during my brief look around. I won’t be naming anyone in particular from the mod team as I don’t feel like I need to add any more targets of shame to this already horrifically negative document, but I have gotten the general impression (in case it needed confirmation, following the remaining of these specific changes on the wiki) that some mods, not all, aren’t the most nonpartisan individuals themselves. I do happen to be decent acquaintances with at least one of them so, again, please don’t consider this a personal attack.

My concern here plainly is that I don’t think a group of mods who have routinely failed to prevent events like the ones mentioned earlier, nor seem to have much of an issue with the myriad of examples of people being openly homophobic and misogynistic on their own forum are really in the position to be choosing who of the Privelleged Few get to control the Eva meta-narrative here. As I was writing this, I was alerted to the state of the primary Japanese Evangelion wiki as a source of cross referencing for what these things can look like if done right. If you take a moment to browse it, even if you don’t speak any Japanese and have to use an automatic translator it should be very obvious how something like this differs greatly from EvaGeeks. Kaworu’s page, for a relevant example, doesn’t have present any of the nonsense statements about ambiguity or overwritten descriptions of everything. The wiki respects the reader’s intelligence enough to know that it is, in fact, a wiki, and thus tries its best to be factual. His page is fairly decent in size and states things we know are fact rather than theory. There’s no attempt made to influence or confuse.

Oh, and just in case you think the mods aren’t actually active or present enough to know what Felipe is doing, his particularly awful page on Kaworu in episode 24 got a shoutout from the official Twitter account two days ago.

If you are going to join the Discord server to verify things yourself* or do further digging, again, please be cautious of other users inside and do your best not to start anything. I am an occasional contributor to the forums and I’d prefer not to get my account flagged or to experience harassment myself, if any EvaGeeks members are still reading this document and disagree with my conclusions. I may not have posted much since I joined earlier this year, but despite everything I find the forums to be valuable for connecting with other fans and have enjoyed the positive feedback to my SIRP translation! Those who have spoken to me there have been very kind (including Felipe himself), and I must reiterate that this is not targeted at the whole site, or even at just Felipe. I simply believe there is more than enough evidence to suggest there have been consistent, systematic failures to recognise and correct the utter lack of objectivity present. I seriously don’t have any personal issues or beef with this guy, either. I wouldn’t have done this if it wasn’t someone else who came to me about it.

*It should be noted that the person who spoke to me has pointed out certain members have been concerned about outsiders joining and screenshotting the chat. They may remove the public link to join if this document were to cause a huge issue. I will leave the server following the publication of this document and I have no plans to join again. I can’t speak for those who may join of their own accord but I do hope people have heeded the disclaimer I made initially.

Thankyou to all the people who have extended their own kindness and support during the creation of this document, to the anonymous person who tipped me off and the lovely Eva analysts I know for offering their own experiences with EvaGeeks and further supplementary information. If this whole document reads like the product of a bad mental health day, I guess it is. Also yes I know how hilarious it is that I’ve spent all this time creating what essentially amounts to an EVAGEEKS CALLOUT POST but I mean. Someone had to say it. Why not make an utter buffoon of myself in the process?

#Mirroring this for the sake of people concerned with their privacy when accessing google docs #reading this back theres a lot of bad wording but whatever. itll do

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dracula-in-purple-story · 5 years

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Pride Month 2/3 [BONUS]

Pride Race is here!

Author’s Note : All of this is ENTIRELY NON-CANON. I’m still working on my writing skills. Thank You and Enjoy, hopefully.

It’s the second week of Pride Month, and the first day of Pride Race! People of all species are mixing their crowd to group up before twelve o’clock strike. Some are changing their colours constantly, some are stretching their bodies out, some are puzzling with excitement, some are waxing their spikes or tentacles and much more species are doing warm up or just talked around to ease their own tension.

The Pride Race are something to be excited as it is the only tournament that can be set and create by winners of the last Pride Race. It’s even more exciting since this is the first Pride Race that the underground citizens get to join. The stands and Audience Area is overfilled with both residents and visitors but they really didn’t mind as the games is starting.

Team CephaHook have the biggest noise around them as they consisted of two mega pop stars and half of the members in the strongest League Team. Hachi is too immersed into clips of some previous Pride Race, Huit is doing work outs with Tres while Off the Hook are just waiting for the race to began. “It’s great to have you guys in the team! Me and Pearlie can’t find other friends to substitute for Sashimori. They have to take care of Paul while cheering on the stands there.”

Huit grinned at Marina after Tres pulled her up, “Don’t worry, Marina. We are going to try our best!” Pearl snorted as she looked up the girl in the eye. “Try? Pfft, we are going to win! If we win, we get to choose some event for those try-hards!”

“But, we are going to have fun, right?”

“Yeah, but our main priority is to win, yo! It’s like the most challenging League that is custom made!”

“I agree with Pearl, sister.” Hachi looked up from his OctoPhone, “Those clips Fior downloaded for me are totally nuts! Not as crazy as the test but it’s crazy enough to know they are a one-time thing!”

“One... time?” Huit jaw-dropped as she tried to see if her brother is lying. “You mean, we only get to play those fancy games... once?”

He nodded. And the clock strikes to twelve.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Welcome to this year’s Pride Race! We were the winners from the previous Pride Race, the Squid Agents!” Callie shouted, “I see a lot of familiar faces that is ready to face their challenges again! But would they win this time? Because this year, we got a lot of visiting players from the underground!”

“It would make our games much more interesting, Cal.” Marie smirked, “In the meantime, we would state the usual good old rules for the newbies. One, respect your opponent. Two, don’t physically or mentally hurt people. Three, don’t glorify your sexuality or gender.”

“We also add a specific rule for people with spiky hair.” Sei added, “Especially Team Roadies, please don’t use your spike on chairs-related games, sincerely from the participants of the Musical Chairs from the previous Pride Race.” a group of Aromantic Urchins laugh uncontrollably as they high five at each other.

“Before we start the games, let us explain how the Race work. I would like some silence please, so the people without the speakers around could hear me.” Erek started as soon as the crowd quieten, “For the first day of the Race, we would have some elimination round to determine the sixteen groups that are going to be in the next round. As the days goes on, the system would tally the results for us to announce at the final day. The team with the most points wins and would be able to decide the games for the next Pride Race!”

Excitement cheers and roars are everywhere. Some people are doing their own battlecries, some are inkstagramming or doing live in their phones and some are being annoyed about the noises and wished it could start already.

~~~~~~~~~~

The first game is Egg Hunt. People who found a coloured egg would proceed to the next game. At first, finding them is easy enough but-

“Sorry, Team Fruit Jam. Not the egg we wanted. DISQUALIFIED!”

Many groups were disqualified one after another. Some group who are lucky enough got into the next round. This game took quite long as the sun began to set.

“I knew this is too easy to proceed...” Marina pouted as she heard the announcement that another team are disqualified. Pearl and Tres grunted while the octoling twins are still analysing between the five eggs they have collected. They need to be quick because Fior just announced the fifteen group had just qualified, making the remaining teams to scatter around like crazy. Hachi thought for a while, “Tres?”

“Yes, Hachi?”

“Can you check those eggs that the qualified teams brought up to stage?”

Tres shrugged before running to the stage. She returned with a photo and she pass it to Hachi. He looked between the pictures and the five eggs they got. “PfftHAHAHAHAHAHA!” Hachi suddenly got up, “Why we didn’t think of that?” It’s just right in front of us!” He exclaimed as he quickly picked up the egg from the far right and before anyone could react, he ran to the stage and present to them.

“Wait, yo, Hachi!” Pearl shouted, “We don’t want to get disqualified. This is not what we are here f-”

“WE HAVE OUR LAST LUCKY TEAM WHO WILL ENTER THE NEXT ROUND! CONGRATULATION, TEAM CEPHAHOOK!” Fior shouted as she shook Hachi’s hand enthusiastically. All the remaining teams, including Hachi’s, were shocked. And scream and shout emerged quickly.

“What?! How?!”

“This is outrageous! What is this?!”

“I. Demand. Explanation.”

“Ryan, we talk about this. Don’t threaten with a chair.”

“YES! HACHI, OUR ONLY BOY! WE QUALIFIED! TAKE THAT, SUCKERS!”

“We can play more games now?”

“Yes, Huit dear. Let’s go to the stage to take our qualification letter, shall we?” Marina said gently as she hold Huit’s hand while carrying Pearl like a sack, who doesn’t mind. Tres followed behind with the remaining four eggs with intentions to give it to her younger siblings.

~~~~~~~~~~

New day, new game! All teams are gathered at the bottom of Mount Nantai with flying cameras all around. A big television was positioned at the side of the starting line.

“Okay, brother. You have to tell me about this! How do you found out that that’s our egg we have been searching?” Huit questioned him as she starting to do some stretches with Tres, who stopped to listen. Marina also stopped what she is doing while Pearl is busy making verse for their upcoming album.

“It’s actually supposed to be easy but our girlfriend confused us.” Hachi smirked a little bit, “She said coloured eggs. Not any colour but specifically, Pride Colours.”

“Pride Colours?” Tres continued her stretching, “She never said to anything about it, didn’t she?” Hachi nodded before took out the SquidPhone his girlfriend used. He pointed at the very picture that portrayed all fifteen eggs, but with something that Hachi said, the three noticed something.

“Why, it is Pride Colours! Why didn’t we thought of that?”

“Knowing that sneaky dwarf, Marina, it’s to make everything much more confusing and time-consuming.” the bitter inkling grumbled as the television is switched on, a clip showing Erek.

“Welcome to Mount Nantai! Today, we are going to have Obstacle Relay Race. This game required 3 team players only. The rest could stay right in front of this television to view their teammates.” Erek grinned widely, “Before we start to teleported your place to the spawn point located at the checkpoints, few warnings would be told. Don’t use any shortcuts even if you venture this place well. Rely on your instinct as you dodged obstacles. Don’t trigger the traps. The fastest one to end up in the finish line would be awarded the most points!”

The clip was closed off. Team Cephahook sent out Tres, Huit and Marina as representatives. As the second and third representatives were teleported off to their checkpoints, the clip was opened again. Erek look apologetic, “Hehe... I forgot to tell you. Avoid getting splatted as you would be respawned to where you started. Good luck!”

~~~~~~~~~~

Screams of team players are displayed on the Audience Area as they got splatted on each direction, causing them to respawned from where they started. Only Tres and Ikkan are still alive and kept on dodging the obstacles.

“Are you sure they are going to be okay?” Erek peek through from his hands that he cover on his eyes. Fior and Marie are eating popcorns while Sei and Callie are so worried they sweat buckets.

“Oh, pwease!” Fior mumbled through her full mouth, “They arr goiee to be fwine!”

“I hope so. Besides, Rekki add in some harmless stuff, right?” Sei gulped nervously as Tres doing backflips over and over. He know that Tres’ imaginary middle name is Acrobatics Danger but he can’t help feeling nauseous as she keep flipping back and forth.

Erek gasped, “Actually... there is one thing I added in because of my Grandmama’s suggestion...”

“What is it?” Callie fidgeted as Tres and Ikkan passed the baton, “What did you add in?”

“Well...”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Oh god, Holy Mackerel! Why are these guys spitting bullets at us?!” Warabi shouted as they got pulled behind the tree by Marina. The OctoCommanders stopped as they couldn’t see them. They squinted around before going back into their position as they saw other players are coming. Splatting one after another, sending them back to their Checkpoint Spawn Point.

“Since you are not from the underground, I should tell you to start run quickly because those guys are fast at splatting their foes.” Marina explained as she analysed the situation before them. Three OctoCommanders, aligned in a row with large space between each of them. She looked around to see other Octoling and Octarian players shielded themselves and protecting their clueless friends after they got splatted once. “Luckily, the only sharp sense they have is sight. We need a decoy.”

“A decoy? Better not be me because I ain’t got those military lessons you had, Marina.”

“I know,” Marina smiled dangerously, “that’s why we have to make a fake decoy for them to focus on.”

“Yeah, right. Let’s make a decoy out of dried grass and throw some stones in it.” they exclaimed sarcastically, “As if they are going to work.”

Warabi looked around and saw those Octolings and Octarians are tying some dried grass together and throw rocks in it. They looked in disbelief, “Are you guys freaking serious?”

~~~~~~~~~~

The teams are on the edge of their seats.

“Well, well! Looks like they decided to cooperate together in order to get past the mighty OctoCommanders! And the Octarians are leading them with some sort of decoy!” Erek’s sound came through the speaker. Teams are either fidgeting around or praying nervously. Only Pearl is looking confident, after all, that’s her girlfriend who leads this operation. Nothing to worry about.

The participating players seems to scoot around trees to trees or bushes to bushes. Three of them got too close for comfort. Before the non-participant even came to their senses-

“Fire in the hole!” the closing three Octoling players suddenly emerged out from their bushes to throw some large packages highly on top of each of the OctoCommanders. After that, two of the Twintacle Octotroopers and Marina came out with their handmade slingshots. “Ready...” Marina commanded as the three of them put a sharp rocks in the slingshot, “Aim... Shoot!”

On the screen, the packages is on fire. It lands on top of each OctoCommanders perfectly on fire. They dropped their splatling gun as they took off their berets, patting aggressively on where the fire lands.

“I don’t want to believe this plan actually work... I refuse to believe it...” Warabi mumbled as they ran through the spaces with the rest. The OctoCommanders saw them as they finally get rid of the fire but before they got their guns ready, all of them had ran far away.

The members scooted closer to the television as they squirmed around. “Count on Mommy Marina to do such dangerous stunts like this...” Hachi grasped both his hands tightly that it looks like it hurt.

Pearl smirked. “Ha! That’s not even come close to what she had been inventing in her room!” she retorted, “You should really see that she turned her room to a mad scientist lab, literally.”

“Is that why she’s been sleeping with you?”

“We are lovers, Chi. Besides, she’s still cute with her pouts and dusts on her face.”

“Whatever you said, Mama.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Please tell me that’s Lady Octivia’s idea, Erek...”

“Actually, that’s Kevin’s one.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“I told you already, you literal seaweed! All of us got teleported to the end of the cliff! What do you want me to do?”

The brawny Transgender Angel fish raised his voice as his teammate kept on telling him to go. He’s right though, there’s no more path for them to run forward. The sun is starting to set and they are starting to get very anxious but excited that they have such difficult challenge.

Huit, on the other hand, seems to know something. After what happened to Marina and Tres, from what she heard, they got encountered a lot of traps. Somehow, she realized something. “Marina? Tres got lots of traps with ink, right? Are they Octarian technology?”

“Now you said it, they really look familiar. Like those traps for invasion...”

Huit quickly grabbed a handful of dirts and threw it towards the cliff. Most of the dirts fell out like normal but-

“Are those dirts... floating?!” a Skoliosexual Crab yelled in shock. All of them turned to where she pointed and immediately got freak out, except for the underground citizens.

“Oh, invisible paths and walls... how I absolutely love them!”

“Remember how we always bumped into them? Screw this tech.”

“Good thing I took the second baton, am I right, Rockenberg?”

“Shut it, Etce.”

“Why did our ancestors invent this again?”

“Hello, invisible techs my old nemesis.”

As they get busied themselves into the conversation, Huit had gathered a bag of dirts. She throw it and make a conveniently visible path as she goes on, being very careful on not slipping down. As she get closer to the finish line, where Team Squid Agents are with a few flying camera drones, she heard rustling and shouting behind.

“Get out of the way, sea donkeys! Make way!”

“Don’t push, you seacow!”

“Let me get that guy! He pushed me and I need to avenge for myself!”

Crowds of the third baton players are squeezing themselves in and out. Some even fall and ended up getting splatted. Huit got frightened and hurried her process. She almost reached to the end and realised, she was out of dirt. As the crowd getting closer or a few of them filled one after another, she kneel down and use her baton to locate. She crawled and crawled, with a few missteps, until she finally reached the finish line.

“Are you alright, sweetheart? You look pale.” Sei comforted as he caress her face. She broke their intimate contact before snuggled right into his embrace. “I could tell you this is going to be fun, Sei.”

#Splatoon #My OCs #My Splatoon Story #draculainpurple #Agent 96 #Agent 3 #Agent 4 #Agent 8

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deadcactuswalking · 4 years

Text

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 07/11/2020 (Ariana Grande, Bring Me the Horizon)

You know, it’s odd how that despite two pretty massive albums dropping, both having an impact on the chart, we actually have less debuts than the scattered mess of singles from last week, thanks to silly UK Singles Chart rules. Regardless, this week’s #1 is still “positions” by Ariana Grande and welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

The biggest drop off the chart this week is undoubtedly the #1 hit “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi, exiting the UK Top 75 after a run lasting 50 weeks. Nothing really compares to the weight of that drop-out but I guess we do have “GREECE” by DJ Khaled featuring Drake, “Heather” by Conan Grey. “Bando Diaries” by Dutchavelli, “Heart of Glass” by Miley Cyrus, “forget me too” by Machine Gun Kelly featuring Halsey and “Hold” by Chunkz and Young Filly, only lasting a measly two weeks but still peaking high. There is actually a theme to our returning entries as all of these are spooky scary Halloween-themed tracks. The classic “Thriller” by the ever-controversial King of Pop Michael Jackson is back at #57, “Ghostbusters” by Ray Parker, Jr. Is back at #54 – this is my personal favourite of the bunch, mostly thanks to Neil Cicierega – and even “Monster Mash” by Bobby Boris Pickett is back at #50. Oh, and “5AM” by M Huncho and Nafe Smallz is back at #66 but that’s just scarily bad. The biggest fall this week was for “Cool with Me” by Dutchavelli and M1llionz down to #64 whilst the biggest gain was unfortunately for “Whoopty” by CJ at #48. Honestly, what’s the appeal here? Sigh, at least we have some really interesting hijinks this week, pretty fitting for a week that saw the messiest US election in history, and I won’t write this in order so you won’t see what I’m leading up to until a while after you read this part but there is some incredible stuff here. You know what’s not incredible?

NEW ARRIVALS

#74 – “Too Many Nights” – 220 KID and JC Stewart

Produced by 220 KID, Joe Janiak and Mark Ralph

I started off this episode by writing about the Bring Me the Horizon songs first. Not only is the album good and I had recently listened to it, but I had a lot more to say about the tracks, obviously since it’s not something you see on the charts every day and there’s a lot more to discuss in these tracks. Hence, after writing nearly 2,000 words on the metalcore boys alone, I have a question: do I really need to cover this emotionless tropical house-pop crap manufactured by labels and DJs who rarely find any interesting instrumentation, songwriting ideas or even samples to cover up their complete lack of innovation and at times even talent, for a quick buck and stupid amounts of unwarranted chart success? I don’t want to say I’m angry and I don’t want to seem pretentious but music is art. Art is, as a result of the society that produces it, a product, but even #1 hits and major-label records are still pieces of art. They can be analysed, appreciated and listened to with a lot of thought and detail. I cannot see that in “Too Many Nights” by 220 KID and JC Stewart. To me, this is purely a product. I’m taking this way too seriously but this really exemplifies what people hate about pop music in three minutes and eight seconds of cheap plastic dance music. Next.

#67 – “Ginger” – Wizkid featuring Burna Boy

Produced by P2J

Wizkid and Burna Boy are both highly acclaimed Nigerian singers and given everything that’s happening here recently, it’s no surprise Wizkid released an album that I would think touches on these issues, Made in Lagos, which is a name I can infer means he will explore Nigerian identity and what it means to be from Lagos and make it big in music. Wizkid is one of the big stars and pioneers of modern African pop music and whilst I should be interested in the album, I haven’t had the time to give it a spin yet so I’ll take this first impression from the track with Burna Boy. This is a pretty sweet tropical tune with an infectious hook referencing the traditional West African dish of jollof rice, and whilst the language barrier does prevent me from fully understanding the song, I can gather that this is a mix of a hook-up jam and typical rap stuff, with him flexing how he lives nice and if people want smoke, he’s got smoke, and a lot about this woman gyrating on him. Seriously, that’s the whole first verse, which only arrives after a really awkward pause. The second verse is kind of awkward here and Wizkid’s voice and flow have never done much for me, especially here where both he and Burna Boy sound checked-out. Burna Boy’s contributions are pretty much relegated to half of the chorus and an outro that quickly fades away and soon enough, this really slow, kind of uninteresting song has already finished. I’m not personally a fan of this but I am still interested in that album – I like the song with Skepta even if it does sound very much like “Ginger”, just with a stronger guest. Now onto the big story, or at least my big story, on the chart.

#55 – “1x1” – Bring Me the Horizon featuring Nova Twins

Produced by Jordan Smith and Oliver Sykes

I never read Kerrang! magazine, mostly because I’m not a loser [citation needed]. I understand that they originated in the 1980s as a metal-focused magazine but I wasn’t there for that. I was there for the Kerrang! TV era of pop-punk whining, scene-core screaming, nu-metal grunting, emo crooning and the Bloodhound Gang for some reason. Listening to this new Bring Me the Horizon album, titled Post Human: Survival Horror, took me back to that place. That feeling of classic Metallica followed by less classic Foo Fighters followed by the absolutely not classic Medina Lake (some of their stuff still slaps, however derivative) – oh, yeah, and like 10 minutes of adverts after six minutes of music. That feeling of All Time Low and You Me at Six playing back to back and being completely incapable of telling the difference between the two. “If we ain’t got that then we ain’t got much and we ain’t got nothing.” They were simpler times. I may be mashing up eras here but it still stands. Hell, the BABYMETAL tracks even took me back to the “Flashing Lights” disclaimers of all things. Rest in peace to Scuzz by the way, and, yes, I said BABYMETAL, we’ll get to that in a bit. So, yeah, I really liked that throwback to turn-of-the-millennium mallcore, but it does keep itself fresh and interesting enough throughout, especially with Sykes’ unique delivery and topical albeit ham-fisted edgy lyrics. You can say a lot about Bring Me the Horizon but at this point at least they definitely have pretty defining characteristics and a lot of likeability even if they do like to stick to a formula at times that makes it pretty obvious where their influences lie. That said, I do think the album becomes a slog by track seven, and it’s a lot duller than it probably should be for the final stretch. Unfortunately, this is track seven. I’m not familiar with the Nova Twins but they’re a punk-rap duo from London and honestly I am interested in checking out that debut album but I’m not really impressed by them or the metalcore boys – which is somehow a better band name than “Bring Me the Horizon” – on this track. Again, there is a formula to the metalcore boys’ banger tracks, and here it feels particularly stale and awkward, thanks to the loudness war that’s present in the album as a whole (Linkin Park’s influence shows up everywhere, even in the production) and the awkward trap elements shoved into the percussion of the first and second verses. I think Amy Love of Nova Twins obviously flows better on it than Oli Sykes who should have handed everything that’s not the chorus – one of the most cookie-cutter on the record – to the Twins, because he sounds pretty off here. There’s a lot less “epic edgy” lyrical content (I’m not sure if that’s a compliment) but that leads to kind of vague and disjointed ideas that don’t all line up to the core theme of the song, which is human guilt for the sins of man or some crap like that. Boys, when you interpolate four of your own songs AND Linkin Park, you’ve got to realise you’re re-treading some ground here. Not even the typical Bring Me the Horizon drop into the metal breakdown from an electronic bridge really feels like it’s worth it or climactic here, which is a shame but who needs the Nova Twins when the metalcore boys have a collaboration with another unique all-female rock duo...?

#51 – “Kingslayer” – Bring Me the Horizon featuring BABYMETAL

Produced by Jordan Fish and Oliver Sykes

When I saw BABYMETAL on this tracklist, I was amused and kind of laughed it off. These guys do have some pretty bizarre collaborations – they have songs with Halsey and Grimes – but BABYMETAL? I remember them when they were half-awesome Japanese pop-metal band and half-complete and utter meme in the early 2010s, and I knew that they had continued being so, mostly because the last time I heard from them they were playable in Super Mario Maker. Seriously, look it up. Now when I saw BABYMETAL on the charts, nearing the top 50 no less, I was ecstatic and honestly shocked. Needless to say this is their first appearance on the chart and whilst metal bands in the 2000s like Slipknot and System of a Down had genuine hits, outside of, fittingly, Bring Me the Horizon, it’s unheard of, especially for a Japanese girl group who happen to have freaking shredders playing on stage behind them. I haven’t listened to a BABYMETAL album but I feel like I don’t need to because of how much they’ve made an impression through singles, videos and live performances. Judas Priest’s Rob Halford called BABYMETAL “the future of metal” and whilst I’m not into the metal scene, I’m half-inclined to both agree and add Bring Me the Horizon to that conversation. I’m just amazed there is a cyber-kawaii metal song on the charts. I’m honestly astonished. Oh, and it helps that the song is incredible. On the album there’s a short interlude that functions as an introduction but honestly the short, aggressive synth riff followed by an immediate crash into the metal groove and Sykes yelling his lungs out works better on its own to just shove you face-first into some insane music. I love how that opening yell is chopped up and digitally re-arranged in the background of the chaotic instrumentation. The cutesy and bleep-bloopy synths that are not new to Bring Me the Horizon’s repertoire are used to their full potential here and yes, it is complete sensory overload, but it’s also kawaii-cyber metal. I mean, what did you expect? It also thematically makes sense. The song is about Call of Duty but it’s also an ode to the people willing to stand up for what they believe in even if it’s illegal and even if it doesn’t abide by rules and regulations. The album is full of these songs that fully support a revolutionary attitude and a clear frustration with keeping up with the old guard for all these years. You can hear how fed up and sick and tired of the political hellscape Sykes is in his shifts between pitch-shifted whining not dissimilar to Blink-182 and gravelly yelling straight out of extreme metal, except unlike most extreme metal I’ve heard, this is actually mixed properly. This track and especially the opener, “Dear Diary”, have so much anarchic energy and that is what I love about the hardcore punk edge to a lot of the album, not necessarily as much sonically as that in content and lyrical themes, where Sykes presents his inner mental struggles and contextualises them on the world stage, making an album that tackles the pandemic, racism and corruption vaguely and with poetic wit without being shallow or impersonal. Most songs that relate to the social distancing will not use the depressive emotional bloodletting of “Teardrops”, the subtly ominous yet still anthemic choruses about lockdown in “Obey” (seriously, these guys can make even YUNGBLUD sound listenable) and even the slow, sour conflict with both Mother Nature and general isolation on the closing ballad that has a name way too long for me to recite, as much as I enjoy upping the word count on every episode. Sykes’ verse in “Kingslayer” discusses opposing points of political opposition and protest, on one hand wanting to express how sick people are of going through the capitalist machine only to be spat back out again but also asking him the condescending question of if he really wants to poke the governmental bear. On the pre-chorus, he voices those frustrations in profanity-laden motivation that is asking not just himself but the general public to wake up, not that they’re unaware of how unfair the system is but instead acting as a call to action. Su-Metal of BABYMETAL takes this ode in a different angle, seeing revolutionaries as idolised figures, so much so that the chorus works as a confession of love or just awe in how the “kingslayer” is destroying castles in the sky and will save “us” from the darkness and from the struggles that the corrupt elite forces onto the populace. In the verse Su-Metal juxtaposes the imagery in the hook of some kind of medieval warrior (“angel of the blade”) with the near-incomprehensible verse, which is half-sung in Japanese with a cry for help responded to in commanding English, which I see as a reaction from the authority that undermines these problems. They call the revolutionary “artificial” and “modified” in a condescending, mocking tone, as well as using so much digital jargon that the verse becomes practically meaningless, especially backed by the heavy, loud music that drowns some of the messaging about and very much intentionally. It also seems pretty intentional that this song sounds like a take on an anime opening, as all of this cyber-punk imagery and anti-authority lyrical content feels a lot sharper when coated in references and criticism of mass-media. Oh, and it also helps that the song rocks, Su-Metal’s melodies are beautifully placed against a frenetic, monotone bass note in her verse, and that final chorus is absolutely perfect. That rapid-fire addition to the chorus took me by surprise on first listen and just completes the song for me. The song ends with one last wake-up call from Sykes about the rabbit hole before his yell is manipulated, screwed and played with by the production, rendering his scream inhuman... and followed by the playful, childlike inflections of BABYMETAL. If we don’t at least try to change in this time, the generations after us will suffer from our mistakes and missed opportunities. Man, this song is a rollercoaster that starts with drum and bass rhythms and ends with Oli Sykes growling gratuitous profanities that get close to feeling like he’s insulting the listener – it’s really brutal – and I’m here for it all the way. There have been songs on REVIEWING THE CHARTS that I like and that I love and whilst I know this won’t stick around (it is still cyber-kawaii metal), this is undoubtedly the best song I think I’ve ever covered on this show and might as well just be one of the best songs I’ve heard this year and maybe ever. I adore this track, please, PLEASE check it out.

#46 – “Flooded” – M Huncho and Nafe Smallz

Produced by Sean Murdz

Okay, seriously for a second: who cares? There’s nothing interesting here. A synth-based soundscape with some cheap flute loops drowned out by trap percussion that doesn’t even drop in, it just awkwardly fades in – yes, even the 808s – and Auto-Tuned mumbling from a nasal-voiced child with an unbearable falsetto. What is the appeal? None of them sound interested, there are no bars of any interest or even a funny line, not even unintentionally. D-Block Europe make me laugh but this tragically awful duo make me bored to death. M Huncho has a cool mask he wears and I wish his gimmick was more than just that and you know, actually translated to the music, but he doesn’t sound intimidating or like a villain. He just sounds like some dude who decided to rap barely on the beat of badly-mixed type beat with bass mastering that should be pitied. He did have a fluke song that kind of slapped called “Pee Pee”, which just comes to show that the more ridiculous and stupid he gets, the more vaguely entertaining he is. So why is he this dull and lame?! The flow is either talking over a beat that refuses to stay still but never truly reaches any kind of climax or even build-up, or just trap-rap word association. “I flooded the chain, it’s like a lake, we runnin’ the game, you pressin’ the brakes.” There’s nothing here, absolutely nothing, and these two hacks cannot sell it. I’m just looking for some effort and even if something is effortless, at least have the charisma to make it sound like you give a damn because this is pretty inexcusable.

#35 – “Paradise” – MEDUZA and Dermot Kennedy

Produced by MEDUZA

I’m tired and I feel like I’m almost at breaking point with these songs. What would usually be generic and uninteresting is sounding offensively bad to me right now and I’m not sure why. That doesn’t really matter all too much to me though as this show has never been an in-depth critical assessment... okay, well sometimes it becomes as such but these are usually just my first impressions of tracks that happen to debut that week on the UK Singles Chart and this can range from volatile frustration to immediate adoration to not giving a rat’s ass about a single one of the songs that debut, depending on how I feel that day. That said, this song is fine. I actually really like Kennedy’s delivery, even if his rougher edges are smoothened and cleaned up by the vocal production here, which is pretty reverb-drenched but does allow for Kennedy to actually release rather than editing the vocals to sound really tight and closed-in... except for that really weak, pathetic drop but I do like the lyrical content, fittingly about distanced relationships as England enters a second lockdown. There’s little to say here but it’s worth a listen.

#32 – “Four Notes – Paul’s Tune” – Paul Harvey, Daniel Whibley and BBC Philharmonic

Produced by ???

No production credits for this one for whatever reason. Anyway, I am tired to the point of just complete speechless confusion at why this charted, and especially so high, rather than having any intrigue in why, but I looked it up anyway. Paul Harvey is a man from Sussex with dementia who is able to improvise beautiful piano melodies with only four notes as a reference point, hence the name. This was recorded by his son Nick and posted onto Twitter, where it soon became viral. This composition was then arranged by Daniel Whibley and recorded by the BBC’s Philharmonic Orchestra to be released as a charity single with proceeds being split between the Alzheimer’s Society and Music for Dementia. This isn’t a song I can critique. The arrangement is really pretty and it was in the original video, with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra only serving to make it sound grander and fitting for a single release. Dementia, Alzheimer’s and any kind of brain disorder are all really tragic and really depressing things to happen to anybody, especially to the people it tends to affect: the elderly. It’s sweet that this is a single and I like that it charted high so those organisations that can assist science in treating these disorders and give help to those with family members diagnosed with and suffering from brain disorders have more funding. The song sounds good, it’s mixed well and honestly it’s pretty gorgeous at times, and if this helps people, then it’s done its job, and I commend Harvey and his son, Daniel Whibley and the BBC for letting this happen. Now for something completely different.

#26 – “Deluded” – Tion Wayne featuring MIST

Produced by Steel Banglez and Chris Rich Beats

Steel Banglez, Tion Wayne and MIST? God, maybe we are returning to the new normal; this is a 2019 line-up. Tion Wayne is a character and a presence on the track always and MIST is quite the opposite, but that “So High” song with Fredo was pretty cool, I suppose. Tion Wayne has always been more of an entertaining presence than half this crop of drill rappers, even if his flow and bars suffer from it, but he’s always a lot more fun and he does have a couple punchlines that hit. This particular song uses that “mm-mm” flow that originated on his track “Keisha & Becky”, and both him and MIST sound really interested and enthused here, as they trade bars in the verses and support each other with ad-libs throughout. The two seem to actually have some chemistry and it’s not an unnatural collaboration. Even in Tion Wayne’s solo chorus, MIST is shouting behind him, and it overall makes the song really aggressive and punchy, even if some of the lyrics are just kind of uninteresting or even confusing, like the oddly-specific jab at an unnamed crack abuser, always referred to as “you” in the song. Is the listener a crack addict? Should I be scared? I’m not entirely sure, but this kind of slaps, especially the keys and vocal sample in the outro. It kind of reminds me of a harsher version of the #1 hit back from 2018, “Funky Friday” by Dave and Fredo, except these guys are legitimately menacing in the song and the bass-heavy drill beat never subtracts from that, not to say that “Funky Friday” is a bad song (far from it). It’s not about being able to convince me with lyrics, it’s about being able to sell what you say effectively and interestingly – not even uniquely, but just in a way that’s presentable and leads to genuinely good music. M Huncho and Nafe Smallz could take a couple hints from these guys.

#16 – “motive” – Ariana Grande and Doja Cat

Produced by TBHits, Joseph L’Etranger, Mr. Franks and Murda Beatz

Murda Beatz, huh? Well, I haven’t listened to Positions yet, mostly because I’ve been bumping Goddamn Bring Me the Horizon for the past week, but also because 14 tracks of the same song doesn’t necessarily interest me. For the sake of the show I probably should check the album out – it’s not that long – but don’t expect me to have that a positive opinion on it. I said my peace on Grande last week and given the singles I seriously doubt this album will erase my continuous issues with her projects. I’ve always felt that despite her unbelievable talent, she is also unbelievably disinterested and detached from her own music to the point where whatever artistic contributions and creativity she and her team had is completely washed out by the questionable production, weak-sauce trap beats and misguided song ideas (I still roll my eyes on “7 rings” and “sweetener”). From what I’ve heard from this new album, it has a lot more classic R&B keys and strings undercut by trap skitters and modern vocal production, and this is pretty clear in “motive”, a funky house-inspired dance-pop tune that feels miles less robotic and factory-made than most house on the charts, instead going for an organic fast-paced groove and mildly annoying vocal samples. The trap breakdown in the pre-chorus is what gives Murda Beatz the right to put his producer tag at the start of the song, which is honestly just funny. I do like the verses but the chorus doesn’t hit in quite the same way it should, possibly that pre-chorus is just garbage and it doesn’t build to an effective crescendo for the chorus to build up on off of whispery murmuring. Oh, and Doja Cat is here, which took me by surprise when she started lazily rapping since Ari actually sounded like her in the second verse. In fact, this is a Doja Cat song in all but lead artist credit and honestly, the song kind of suffers because of it. This is decent, I suppose, but a collaboration that doesn’t favour either artist.

#9 – “34+35” – Ariana Grande

Produced by ProdByXavi, Mr. Franks, Peter Lee Johnson and TBHits

Ariana Grande’s albums have disproportionate producer credit to producer effort ratio. At least there’s not a M-M-M-Murda on this one. The song title is stupid but this was pushed to radio so I guess it has to be family-friendly PG clean to some degree. It is interesting how it goes for the absurdity of being dirty over Disney-like orchestral blossoms and pretty nice-sounding strings, but it doesn’t go far enough other than the chorus. It’s missing a good, effective, funny opening line, and I feel that the verses are pretty lacking. The pre-chorus is almost cringeworthy and just going into bizarre levels of horny on main but that is very much the point of the whole thing. “You know I keep it squeaky”? I find it almost difficult to take this song as anything more than a joke, but she does have some pretty commanding tones when she asks him to “just give me them babies” and the snarky laugh in the intro combined with pretty slick albeit absolutely stupid punchlines that go from so bad it’s good territory to just unabashedly ridiculous and embracing itself as such. I love the falsetto in the chorus even if it is just building up to that stupid title that is nowhere near as clever as Ari thinks it is. By the way, she completely delivers here and it’s a pretty damn great performance from her, one of her most enthusiastic on record, even with her now typical “yuh”s spread throughout. Hell, the rap verse actually works this time mostly because her charisma actually comes through and the trap skitter has some energy this time, unlike “7 rings”. I don’t get the end where she says she was never good at maths, though, because “34 + 35 = 69” is a pretty solid and correct albeit obviously simple calculation. You got the answer, give it a tick in a different colour pen.

Got the neighbours yellin’, “Earthquake!” / 4.5 when I make the bed shake

There’s a song in the top 10 that uses the moment magnitude scale as a sex metaphor. 2020, everyone.

Conclusion

Let’s cut to the chase: Best of the Week goes to Bring Me the Horizon and BABYMETAL for “Kingslayer”, which should have been obvious. I’m so glad I expanded beyond the top 40 on this show. It means I can talk about songs like that in depth. Honourable Mention might actually go to Ariana Grande’s “34+35” on plain fun alone, although the similarly numeric “1x1” did get close. The Worst of the Week is really a toss-up because there was a lot of disposable filler between the good and interesting stuff this week had to offer. I’ll probably go with “Flooded” by M Huncho and Nafe Smallz, with a Dishonourable Mention to “Too Many Nights” by 220 KID and JC Stewart. Both are just impressively lacking in effort or any appeal I can search for, but knowing my luck, they’ll both be “Old Town Road”-level big. Here’s our top 10:

Thanks for reading this! You can follow me @cactusinthebank on Twitter and I need some sleep. See you next week!

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All strings attached - Chapter 3: The meeting.

I had spent the rest of the day with Lauren walking around New York and going unnoticed by everybody as ‘Camila Cabello the girl who left Fifth Harmony’ instead it was just us. Lauren and Camila from Miami. Or Jourdan and Penny, depending on how you want to look at it.

But good things are over fast and within the next couple of days we were being flown out to LA for a meeting with Epic, Maverick and SyCo. At trust me when I say that these meetings never ended well. We’d always try and voice our concerns or new ideas we had for our tour or albums we wanted to write, but they got inevitably shut down and ignored because we were “a product and products don’t have opinions” as would our entertainment manager Larry Rudolph always say to us.

Today was game time and we had one job, to find their narrative and poke holes into it. The label had to push an angle to sell to the media and I already had a feeling they would be making me their scape goat, like they hadn’t already.

We had all travelled separately and we told to come to the headquarters unnoticeably, so Lauren and I had to catch different flights. She had caught the one earlier, whilst I stayed and tied up a few lose ends with out 'team’ who were responsible for every leak and source of truth out there. At the moment they were currently leaking all of the unreleased songs form our previous albums and I had to say I was pissing myself with laughter trying to watch our management take them down, but as fast as they were removing them the faster they were being leaked and downloaded by out real fans. Most of this was just to serve as a distraction to all of our real planning to take down Epic. That was the main objective. If we took down Epic, we took down Maverick and Syco would soon go tumbling after seeing as they were districted differently.

I made my way up the flight of stairs to the board rooms were they held meetings and was met with a bunch of middle aged men in suits. “Ahh, Camila finally.” He said placing his massive paw for a hand on my shoulder and steering me into the board room into the empty chair three spaces down from Lauren and directly across from Normani, whilst Ally and Dinah were also sprawled apart across the long table. I noticed they did this as a form of intimidation, we were harder to break down when we were untied, so they separated us across the table and dotted business men between us so when they turned their attention to us individually we felt singled out and to be honest it was a genius method of their part because it worked, they had away with words that made you feel so small and dumb.

“Right, let’s get this show on the road ladies.” Rudolph spoke from his position at the end of the table and gestured to L.A Reid.

“Before each of you, you will see a contract. Ladies,” he gestured to Dinah, Ally, Lauren and Normani, “Yours are the same as your previous ones with some additional documents that need looking over.” He said, but their was a subliminal message to his words, I could feel it and I didn’t like it very much.

The girls all picked at the small stack of papers, glancing over the long winded jargon, but not having a chance to read over them yet and trust me when I said it took a while. There was so much in our contracts that I still didn’t understand until they pulled moves, like kicking me out of Fifth Harmony, making it very obvious that their were sub-clauses.

“Camila you have a new contract to sign.” He spoke swiftly moving onto the next topic as I freaked out.

“But I don’t have my lawyer with me?!” I splurged out, whilst the girls shared fearful horrified looks with me. By this point we had all grown to hate contracts.

“That’s okay, we have supplied you with one.” He lifted a hand signalling for a guy - in yet another suit! Seriously Do these guys think they’re being original or what? - to come over. The poor guy looked really young and completely out of his depth and therefore I completely did not want him analysing my contract.

“No way!” I laughed bitterly. “I’ll be calling my lawyer, actually she should be here in a bit.” I sprung the news of our new lawyer on him.

“And who is you lawyer, miss Cabello?” He asked, sounding slightly irate.

“Dina Lapoult.” I announced sharing a brief smirk with Lauren who was looking over at me devilishly.

“You have the same Lawyer as Fifth Harmony.” He stated more than asked.

“Well last time I checked I was Fifth Harmony!” I couldn’t help myself and bite back. “Besides we share the same entertainment lawyer so why not share the same lawyer?” I asked calming down.

“Fine. Give her contract to read Miss Cabello and we will go over some other details now.” He spoke sifting through some new documents.

“Right well I guess we’ll start with you Miss Jauregui.” At soon as her name left his mouth I looked over to check on her, because no matter how many fronts she put up, she was the most vulnerable one out of all of us. I guess she was more “exploitable” than the rest of us. She had that look about her that you couldn’t help but become fascinated by the green eyed girl. And I hated it for one of two reasons; One: They were treating her inhumanly, like she wasn’t a person with feelings and life outside of Fifth Harmony and Two: She was MY fucking girl and I didn’t appreciate people ogling her and treating her like a piece of meat.

I could tell just from glancing at her that she felt panicked, because her breathing had hitched ever so subtly and eyes kept darting from looking at the table to looking at him as she tried to remain unbothered.

“As you’ll see in the documents presented before you we have full right to disclose any given information we see fit. You however Do not!” He practically growled at Lauren and from the moment we al knew what this was about, though I can’t say we were surprised, we knew the risk we were taking when we decided to leak that audio.

“Sir-” Lauren started, but was interrupted, but i appreciated her attempt at trying to remain civil, because I sure as hell couldn’t do that.

“No, Miss Jauregui. I think your vocalness has done enough damage, don’t you think?” He patronised and Lauren nodded her head quietly in shame, but I knew she wasn’t really and I tried to suppress my smile at the stellar performance Lauren was putting on and how wound up L.A was getting. “As I was saying, we have full right to disclose any information within you life in order to sell you.”

God that made me angry! “Sell” her?! Like she was some damn prized cattle! I seethed sitting further into my chair, trying to remain calm. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an overly aggressive angry person…at all, but when someone messes with Lauren things are different and I can’t seem to control my need to protect her fiercely.

“Which is where I come in.” Larry Rudolph chorused in from the other side of the large oval shaped table.

“Yes.” L.A nodded approvingly, sharing a genuinely happy smile with the other man. “Since you so desperately wanted to come out of that ridiculous 'closet’ of yours.” He mocked and I was two seconds away from blowing my lid, because we ALL knew how much Lauren had struggled with that and he was here mocking it. But before I could say anything Normani chimed in.

“Um- excuse you, but you don’t talk to my friend like that, not if you don’t want to be know as the biggest homophobe going.” Normani said politely, but there was a warning tone to her voice.

L.A didn’t offend mess with Normani (and if I’m being honest with you, I think he’s a bit scared of her. ) but that doesn’t mean Normani didn’t get her fair share of abuse thrown her way, because she did and I was partly to blame for it. During the on going feud between the 'Camilizers’ and 'OT4 shippers’ started by our management team as a way of generating speculation of tension within the group Normani had received a large amount of hate that changed the way she looked at herself a lot, and I would always be to blame for that no matter how much she told me I wasn’t because at the end of the day I was. They were my so-called fans who attacked her.

“I was not being homophobic I was just simply stating a fact.” L.A said in typical straight white male fashion and I had to resist the urge to scoff at the top of my lungs because we all knew that wasn’t true. L.A Reid was an extremely homophobic man, who did not respect the LGBT struggles and only saw it as a ploy to generate more money. In fact it was probably why him and Rudolph got along so well. Rudolph was know for exploiting his LGBT celebs, though I don’t think he meant any harm by it. In fact I think he believed he was helping by allowing them to at least be partly honest, which is why Lauren struck the deal with them.

It was why I struck the deal with them. But Lauren didn’t know…and we planned on keeping it that way.

I had sold my soul to the devil and there was no way of getting it back.

“Lauren,” Rudolph addressed her in a slightly nicer tone than L.A had. “What I need from you is more pictures of you and this-” he rummaged though his papers looking for a name - “Lucy vives. We are really going to want to push this angle if we want to make I believable-”

“It is believable. Lauren’s bisexual get over it.” I mumbled aggressively enough that everyone around the table heard me. Not that it was hard to hear because the room was so silent with the exception of whichever power hungry suit was talking.

“Calm down sweetie, he never said she wasn’t.” A lady sat between Ally and Normani spoke up and guess what? She was also wearing a goddamn suit!

“Thank you susie. I meant the relationship and well, yes partly her sexuality because people are trying to discredit it already.”

“But the hashtags?” Lauren questioned sounding upset and defeated and I wanted nothing more than to be able to hold her hand and tell her things were okay and that their opinions didn’t matter.

“Oh yes. They were very real. That wasn’t started on our part.” Another young looking man with silverish hair jumped in and Lauren nodded, but it was too late the doubt had been planted in her mind and it was going to take a lot on our part to shake it from her mind like the girls and I had done so many times as they made her release statement after statement denying her sexuality. Except this time I wouldn’t be around as much to tell her things we going to be okay.

“But those my dears are your fans. We’ve got them where we want them and they aren’t going anywhere. That much we know. It’s the general public we need to sell to now.” And I nodded because what he was saying did make sense, so I couldn’t object though I can’t see why anyone would object to someone else’s sexuality, but before I could voice my opinion Dinah did it for me.

“Why wouldn’t they believe it though?” She asked, disgust evident in her voice and there was a slight pause at the table before the same woman as earlier spoke up.

“Well, you know sweetie, I had a friend ask me the other day if bisexuality was a trend. So do you understand why we have to push this idea?”

Idea? What the fuck?! I honestly didn’t believe any of these people could distinguish fake from realty anymore. It was a wonder how they slept at night.

“I’m sorry, but who are you?!” I raged.

“I’m am advisor honey. My job is to stay clued in on what people are talking about, where they are putting their money and what they believe and…don’t believe.” She explained and I internally rolled my eyes at her sickly sweet tone.

“Miss Cabello. Could you please calm down? Or we’ll have to do this meeting without you.” L.A threatened and I decided to pipe down and let Lauren handle it, she was always better at controlling situations than me.

“So you just need pictures of me with Lucy?” Lauren asked.

“Yes, looking quite close though-”

“Not, like kissing or anything right? Because that was a one time deal and people still haven’t calmed down about it.” Lauren complained.

“We must strike while the iron’s hot.p, but no they don’t have to be anything intimate - just enough to keep people speculating.” Larry continued.

“But what if I don’t want people speculating? What if I want to be public about my actual relationship?” On that I quickly flicked my head to look at Lauren shocked. She had always wanted to keep us private for fear that the fans and media attention would destroy us.

“Hmm…well who is this person?” He asked flicking through the papers in front of him, looking for the answer that he wouldn’t find.

“A girl.” Lauren started but flicked her eyes to me, asking if it was okay to spill the tea and I wasn’t to sure but I nodded because I trusted Lauren and she wouldn’t do anything stupid.

“Right, well that helps us to push the point a bit more,” Lauren rolled her eyes, “But I am going to need a lot more information about this person before I can even consider it. Like are they in the industry? Do they have a good rep? Age?…and preferably a name?” Rudolph went on, not even looking up front he stack of paper in front of him.

“Oh no.” L.A cut in, shooting that horse in the face. “I know exactly where this is going Miss Jauregui and I’ve said no. I’ve been saying no for almost five years.”

“Yes well! The first time you said no because you thought it wouldn’t last, then we couldn’t because of dumb PR relationships that didn’t even work!” Lauren said, but her voice was getting angrier as she spoke, “And then you said know because you thought it was unprofessional of me to date someone in our group!” There was a collective gasp around the room, but Lauren had lost it now and there was no going back, so I let her rip lose as she stood up from her chair, making herself seen as well as heard. “Well you know what LA,?! I don’t care anymore! I’ve given away the best few years of my life to you, hiding and being ashamed and it nearly destroyed me. So I am begging you. Please, just let me have this one thing?” Lauren asked softening her tone exasperatedly, because I knew she was sick of fighting all the time.

“Lauren, it’s just too risky. I’m sorry.” L.A said, but this time I didn’t feel mad, because he genuinely sounded sorry for denying us…again.

“Fine.” Lauren whispered defeatedly, sitting back down in her chair with her head low.

“Why don’t we all take a break for five?” L.A offered, “And then we can regroup and discuss further plans.” He said stepping back into his business man shoes and I felt everyone stand up and shuffle out, whilst sending mysterious looks over to us, trying to figure out who Lauren was dating, but I’m sure most of them knew. All you had to do was time our name in any search engine and the proof would come.

We even tried leaking proof of it a few years ago with what we thought were very obvious pictures, but people ignored it or speculated but didn’t want to be the first to say for fear of backlash, because our Harmonizer, as lovely as they are, could be harsh to people they thought had wronged us.

“Lauren?” I called standing up and making my way over to her chair and standing behind it wrapping my arms around her neck from base she sat.

“I’m sorry, Camz. I tried." Lauren said dejectedly.

"Don’t let it get to you Laur, I’m still here and we don’t need their approval to be in a relationship.” I told her, rubbing her shoulders trying to alleviate her stress.

“Camila’s right Lauren. You don’t need other people’s knowledge of your relationship to make it any more real.” Ally tried.

“I know, but I’m sick of hiding. I feel like I’ve always been hiding a part of myself.” Lauren confessed into her hands and not looking at us.

“Trust me, I know how you feel. But you don’t have to hide anymore Lolo.” I told her softly. I had hoped making the deal would have made things easier on Lauren, but apparently not or maybe she just needed more time for things to settle down.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” Lauren said and sat up like the truth of the situation had just hit her. “I have no right to be complaining when your still-”

“Ssh.” I hushed gently stroking her hair. “You don’t have to worry about that. I’m not ashamed of myself and I’ll do it when the times right.�� I soothed her worries, even though I knew that it was a lie, because I wasn’t ever coming out, at least not under our current management, which was all the more reason we need to get out from underneath them.

“Dina’s here.” Dinah announced looking up from here phone, where had obviously just gotten the notification.

“Great.” I clapped my hands. “Let’s get this show on the road, ladies. And might I say Miss Jauregui that was a stellar performance earlier.” I put on a fake fancy voice, which made Lauren burst out in laughter. I felt better now that I had made her smile, that was the only thing I wanted in life- to stand by Lauren’s side and make sure that beautiful smile never left that beautiful face.

I made a move to walk back to my seat when Lauren grabbed my wrist and pulled me in for a kiss. It was short but sweet (just like Ally), but sometimes those were the best kinds. “Don’t let 'em break you.” Lauren said staring intensely into my eyes, before letting me go to sit back down in my seat as everyone piled back into the boardroom, but this time with Dina Lapoult hot on their heels.

“Okay,” L.A started clapping his hands together sitting down in his massive chair. “Seeing as we now have your lawyer present let’s get these contracts signed.” He said but the annoyance was clear in his voice.

“Actually Mr Reid.” Dina spoke up and I knew it was starting, “before we do anything I have a few documents for you to look over.” She said placing several forms in front of him. “They are all on the behalf of Fifth Harmony so don’t worry.” She said with underlying sarcasm.

“What is this? You’re claiming rights to Fifth Harmony’s name?” He asked baffled and I couldn’t help but smile as we had him shook. “Trevor get over here and read this.” L.A beckoned a middle aged man, who looked to be in his fifties, over to read the paper.

“It basically states here that Lauren Jauregui was sold the trademark of Fifth Harmony’s brand name along with several others such as; H4rmony and fourth Harmony.” I didn’t like that one much. “However the trademark is owned by Dinah Jane, Normani Kordei, Ally Brooke and Lauren Jauregui.” The man explained, his voice growing smaller and smaller as he continued on despite L.A’s pissed face.

“You mean to say you went behind my back and brought Fifth Harmony.”

“In all due respect L.A, we are Fifth Harmony.” Ally said calmly.

“And Simon sold it to us, so we didn’t go behind anyone’s back.” Normani joined in, countering L.A’s argument.

“Fine.” L.A said seething.

“Great,” Dinah clapped her hands, “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, Camila, let me see this contract.” Dina spoke, holding her hand out for my documents and began reading through them in a chair in the corner of the room and I watched her face for any bad signs. “No!” She stood up abruptly, shaking her head. “This won’t do. You’re claiming rights to all information regarding Miss Cabello’s private. Little did she know that was part of the deal I had struck to free Lauren so there was no getting out of that without making Lauren’s life a hell of a lot worse.

"For PR purposes.” Larry Rudolph defended.

“No. I will not let my client sign her life away.” Dina said sternly, smacking the files down.

“Look, if there’s no contract, there’s no album and we will drop Miss Cabello altogether.” L.A shrugged indifferently,

“Your bluffing.” Lauren shot up, fearful.

“Hardly, Miss Jauregui. Do you know how many other brown eyed brunettes there are just waiting for a record deal, like this?” He patronised and I could see Lauren’s body tense up as she was about to rip into him, so I quickly intervened.

“I’ll sign the contract. Just tell me the details and I’ll do it.” Lauren flicked her head to me sending me a warning glare as if to say 'Don’t do this’. “Pass me a pen.” I said, looking away from those familiar green eyes and down to the contract in front of me as several pens were thrown across the table in my direction. I took Dina’s gently from her had and gave her a small smile as if to say it was okay, which we all knew it wasn’t.

“You are basically signing to allow both the record company, management and anyone affiliated with those teams are allowed to use parts of your private life for publicity stunts, whether or not the truth is distorted-”

“So you’re basically going to make shit up!” Lauren fumed.

“Lo.” I warned, sharing a look with her to get her to sit down. Right now she looked like she wanted to kill everyone in this room, including me.

“You will also be agreeing to have statements and stories put out on your behalf; in magazines and tabloids for example.” Dinah continued on. “They will also have the right to obtained and withdraw any information regarding your private life and have complete control over your image creatively.”

Whoa…

My head was already spinning from that information and the prospect of losing full control of my life and everything- everyone in it.

But, I picked up the pen and signed. For Lauren.

A/N: I’m an awful proof reader, so sorry for any grammatical errors or incorrect spellings. I could read this shit a thousand times over and still not see it. 😁 ,

Feel free to suggest any future storylines you would like to see. I have a rough idea of where I’m going but the other input is always welcome. Enjoy. Comment, vote and all that malarkey!

Wattpad: Midnightcrossings

#UPDATE #series #non AU #camren #angst drama #action adventure #romance fluff #submission #All strings attached

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alivingfire · 7 years

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Can you make a fic rec where Harry is the one who fuck up? Please? I haven't read many fics (I joined the fandom in September) but the ones I did its mostly Louis doing something wrong, and that doesn't sit well with me, I feel like that's why I haven't read many fics here yet. Do you know some good ones? One fic I liked a lot was Into The Blue so something like that should be fine.

how about we try something else, is that okay? because it’s totally understandable to get tired of fics where louis fucks up, just like it’s totally understandable to get tired of fics where harry fucks up. some of my favorite fics are the ones where the drama isn’t in the relationship, it’s the situation or other characters or something where it can be harry and louis vs. the world, so i’ll give you some of those and we’ll see if you prefer that!

non-relationship drama fics:

→ Here in the Afterglow“If you hadn’t noticed, I don’t have many friends,” Louis whispers, the blossom of insecurity in his stomach unfurling and clawing its way into his throat.

Harry is silent for a long time, and then he speaks; a soft, slow uncurl that makes Louis’ stomach shake. “I’ll be your friend.”

1970’s AU. In a tiny town in Idaho, Louis’ life is changed forever by the arrival of a curious stranger.

→ Cameras FlashingWith his breakout single platinum three times over and his second album still selling out in stores around the world, Louis Tomlinson has made it to the top. However, his position as Pop Heartthrob of the Decade is threatened by the edgier, more artistic Zayn, who happens to be releasing an album a week after Louis’ upcoming third. Louis needs something groundbreaking- scandalous, even- to push past him in the charts. Much to Louis’ dismay, his PR team calls in The Sexpert.

Consulting with PR firm Shady, Lane and Associates pays the bills so that Harry Styles can spend his down time doing what he really loves: poring over data. On weekends and late into the evenings, he researches gender, presentation, and sexual orientation, analysing the longitudinal study that is his father’s life’s work. That is, until his newest client, the popstar with the fascinating secret, drags him off his couch and frighteningly close to the spotlight.

As the album’s release date approaches, will Tomlinson and Styles be able to pull off the most risky PR scheme of the millennium and beat Zayn in sales or will the heat of their feelings for each other compromise everything?

→ the impossible nowA wish on Christmas Eve sends Louis to an alternate dimension where Harry is a member of One Direction.

→ They Never Quite LeaveWhen Liam Payne inherited his great aunt's mansion, he never expected it to be haunted. With the help of famous ghost hunters Harry and Niall, Liam is hoping to evict the ghost and sell the house once and for all.

There's just one problem: Louis has been in that house for a hundred years, and he doesn't much feel like leaving.

→ I No Longer Feel I Have to be James DeanThe tale of how Harry married Louis, the bartender that's nursing his sorrows, three days after getting dumped by his fiance.

→ Run Like the DevilHarry stops pouting, but his frown is still fixed in place. “Are you sure?” he asks. “You know it’s your soul you’re signing away.” He sounds…sad? No, that’s not right, but there’s something.

Christ. This is the most incompetent demon Louis’ ever met. If he hadn’t seen the red of his eyes he wouldn’t believe he was a demon at all. How’d he get this job if he isn’t trying to convince Louis to deal? Or is it just another trick? A ploy for sympathy?

“I’m sure,” Louis says. “Come over here and kiss me.”

*Supernatural AU. Louis hunts demons; Harry's the strangest demon he's ever met, and he keeps fucking meeting him.

→ break open the skyBeing a werewolf isn't always easy. Especially if you have no idea what you're doing.

→ Long Before We Both Thought the Same Thing“So are you admitting you love Harry yet?”

Louis pauses in the middle of his story about the movie he and Harry went to see last night to raise an incredulous eyebrow. “What are you on about? Of course I love Harry.”

Has Zayn lost his mind? He’s been friends with Louis for nearly seven years and Harry for six, under what circumstances did it appear like they didn’t love each other?

“Okay, let me rephrase,” Zayn says, an amused little quirk to his mouth like he knows something Louis doesn’t. “Are you admitting you’re in love with Harry yet?”

Louis stares at him in bewilderment, mouth working as he tries to form a response. “I…what?”

Or, Louis maybe, sort of realises he's in love with his best friend of almost twenty years and he maybe, sort of thinks that said best friend could love him back? A prequel to If You Asked Me If You Love Him (I'd Lie).

→ Coax the ColdEngland, 1897.

English Professor Louis Tomlinson’s passion for the occult has been a source of mockery and derision for most of his life. When he hears whispers of a travelling freak show newly established in London claiming the existence of a monstrous sea hybrid, half-man, half-fish, Louis sees it as his ticket to credibility amongst his peers. The summer he spends undercover working on the show, however, gives him much more than that.

→ wings to break your fall“I’m glad you like my clothes,” Harry whispers, sliding his arms further along the couch until he’s speaking directly into Louis’ ear. “Would you like me to take them off?”

or: strip club AU. Harry’s work and family are keeping him busy. He really isn’t looking for a relationship, doesn’t want one. He just wants Louis. Problem is, Louis has other plans.

→ domestic monsters seriesHarry is a witch from a long line of power, an ancient line that’s one of the strongest left alive in their hemisphere. He can cast spells without a word if need be, fly on a broomstick, and has a black cat (a kitten, really) named Felix that is his animal familiar. He can shape galaxies in his cupped hands and can destroy them just as easily. He can choose exactly how to use his power, for encouragement and support, or for more nefarious causes if he wishes to.

And as fate would have it, he’s scared of haunted houses.

(Harry is a witch who carries around a stuffed pumpkin, Louis is a vampire with too much time on his hands, and their best mates Zayn & Niall aren't exactly what they seem...)

→ I would name the stars for you (I would take you there)"Harry Styles is a poem waiting to happen, Louis thinks, eyes tracing peach flesh and the undercurrent of blue veins. He wants to write him all down, to capture the image of green eyes and red lips and skinny wrists... dark ink spilled across the page."

Or a vaguely Notting Hill-like AU (or that made for TV Disney movie Starstruck if you’ve seen it… no? Just me?) starring popstar!Harry and bookkeeper/soulful poet!Louis; and including guest appearances by Fate, a wise elderly aristocrat, and lots and lots of pining.

→ Two Hearts Drawn TogetherLouis Tomlinson is 1/3 of a world-famous boy band. Harry Styles is a deaf university student. When they meet each other at a book signing, they experience an instant connection. They soon discover, however, that bridging the divide of their differences is easier said than done.

→ We Made These Memories For OurselvesBreath held, Harry squints his eyes open and focuses on the first stick. A blue line. Harry breathes out an unsteady breath. He’s pretty sure he read that one blue line is a negative, but he fishes the box from the bottom of the pile just to make sure.

“Negative,” he confirms, voice echoing around the small room. “Next.”

Now that he’s feeling a little less shaky, he scans the rest of the tests at once, is met with a headache-inducing mixture of pink plus signs and blue double lines. His heart rate picks up until it’s pounding triple-time in the base of his throat and the pit of his stomach, thundering in his ears and throbbing in his temples. He flips over the rest of the boxes slowly, but he knows what they’re going to say before he even looks.

[or, Louis is a footballer, Harry owns a bakery, and they're having a baby.]

→ FugueHarry falls asleep a 17 year-old who lives in Cheshire and is probably rockstar Louis Tomlinson's biggest fan. He wakes up 24 with a wedding ring on his finger, two kids, and Louis Tomlinson attempting to wake him up with a blow job. The doctor calls it organic retrograde amnesia, says he might never get back the last seven years of his life. The only thing that feels the same is how he feels when Louis touches him, and maybe that's enough to make him fall in love all over again.

→ The Dead of JulyBeing an Avenger means continuing to be Captain America and smiling and being honorable for the public and Harry does his best. But it doesn’t give him time to figure out who he is supposed to be once he takes off his uniform and puts the shield to the side. Just being Harry had always involved Louis, and Harry fears he doesn’t know how to exist without him.

or: Harry is Captain America, and Louis’ been dead for 70 years.

→ Hold Me CloserLouis Tomlinson is one of the most promising dancers of the English National Ballet, on track to become the youngest principal dancer in the company's history. That is, until forces conspire to significantly complicate his life, including: a surprise ballet, an unfairly attractive guest choreographer, and being pushed into a rivalry with his best mate. Featuring lots of wine, dancing, pining, and a happy ending.

→ Celebrity DiscountLouis fell for Prince Harry when he was ten and Harry was eight and peeked behind the Queen’s elegant gown for his first public appearance—a shy smile and a mess of curls. He fell for him when he caught Lottie putting up a magazine cover of Harry on her wall and all she had to say for herself was, “He’s such a good person, yeah?” and, yeah. He fell for him when Harry gracefully accepted his demotion. He fell for him when Harry came out and stayed out.

#I'VE NEVER READ THE PARENTHESES ON THE BOOKSHOP AU #IT'S BASED ON DANIELLE'S MOVIE hjakfshasdkflsah kfdhskfl hadsfkhasdlf IRONY IS FUN #anyway let me know if you like these!#relationship drama is fun sometimes but other times it's so nice to see HL vs. the world #fic rec #anonymous #rachel talks

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fourfifthsfromfame · 7 years

Text

Because I’m bored and alone.

1. Do you ever doubt the existence of others than you? Not their existence, but I sometimes feel as though things are centered around me. Particularly when I’m having a crap day or I’m in a hurry, and it feels as though people have been deliberately placed around me to ruin my mood, or slow me down.

2. On a scale of 1-5, how afraid of the dark are you? It really depends on where I am and who I’m with. Somewhere that I know like my house or my hometown (where absolutely nothing happens) is absolutely fine. But if I’ve been separated from my group in an unknown city or the woods, it would be at least a three.

3. The person you would never want to meet? Can I go for someone who I never want to meet again? One of my exes, because I honestly don’t know what I’d do. He absolutely broke me. I despise him, and I despise the person who I was when I was with him. We tried the “let’s be friends” shit for a while after we broke up, but then I cut him from my life with no explanation. I don’t want to face him again.

4. What is your favorite word? I’m a big fan of “effectively” at the moment. Really unnecessary, but it makes some of my statements sound a little smarter.

5. If you were a type of tree, what would you be? I don’t know tree types, but something that was withered and is on the verge of being cut down.

6. When you looked in the mirror this morning what was the first thing you thought? “Fuck, that’ll do.”

7. What shirt are you wearing? It’s my “I can’t be arsed to try” dress. Still looks presentable, but it’s really just comfortable.

8. What do you label yourself as? Exhausted.

9. Bright room or dark room? Bright. Creates more space, and lifts your mood.

10. What were you doing at midnight last night? I think that I was watching The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as though my life depended on it.

11. Favorite age you’ve been so far? Eighteen. I had no real responsibilities, I had friends who I thought were good at the time, and I could drink and drive - not at the same time. But the thing that I really miss the most is how confident I used to be. I genuinely believed in myself, and never considered the possibility that things wouldn’t be ok.

12. Who told you they loved you last? That will be my mum.

13. Your worst enemy? The friend who fucked my ex. That wasn’t the main problem that I had with her though, she’d gently bully me and put me down in front of other people. It was so subtle that it was difficult to prove or explain, but whenever I met her, I always came away feeling worse about myself.

14. What is your current desktop picture? The piano in one of the music rooms in Bristol.

15. Do you like someone? Yes, but it will never amount to anything.

16. The last song you listened to? Ginuwine’s “Pony”. Practising my stripper moves.

17. You can press a button that will make any one person explode. Who would you blow up? I don’t think that I could pick just one person.

18. Who would you really like to just punch in the face? Oh, a colleague at work. She basically picks who she likes and then is a complete cunt to everyone else. But the set of people who she is nice to includes my manager, so it’s difficult to raise.

19. If anyone could be your slave for a day, who would it be and what would they have to do? A little boring, but it would be good to have someone to develop my skills for free. So someone like Einaudi to help me with my piano, or like a really established photographer, songwriter, or the entire Dutch korfball squad.

20. What is your best physical attribute? (showing said attribute is optional) Oh fuck me. I think that my eyes are alright.

21. If you were the opposite sex for one day, what would you look like and what would you do? I think that I’d probably get bullied. I’m fat and below average looking, and men are so mean to each other about their appearance that my own friends would probably rip into me about it constantly.

22. Do you have a secret talent? If yes, what is it? It’s pretending that everything is ok, and then having spontaneous meltdowns.

23. What is one unique thing you’re afraid of? I’m not sure how unique it is, but confrontation. I’ll do just about anything to avoid it, which is easy for people to abuse.

24. You can only have one kind of sandwich. Every sandwich ingredient known to humankind is at your disposal. Chicken mayo. I’ve never had a rubbish one.

25. You just found $100! How are you going to spend it? I’d put it in the bank, donate it to charity, or towards my crippling debt.

26. You just got a free plane ticket to anywhere in the world, but you have to leave immediately. Where are you going to go? New York. There are lots of places that I’d like to see, but I’ve always wanted to see what it would be like to live in New York, if only for six months.

27. An angel appears out of Heaven and offers you a lifetime supply of the alcoholic beverage of your choice. “Be brand-specific” it says. Man! What are you gonna say about that? Even if you don’t drink booze there’s something you can figure out… so what’s it gonna be? Strawberry & Lime Rekorderlig. Can’t get too drunk on it, but it tastes delicious.

28. You discover a beautiful island upon which you may build your own society. You make the rules. What is the first rule you put into place? Something to do with your success being directly proportional to how hard you work. It really upsets me how far you can get in life just by knowing someone.

29. What is your favorite expletive? Oh, it’s cunt. It just has the perfect level of impact.

30. Your house is on fire, holy shit! You have just enough time to run in there and grab ONE inanimate object. Don’t worry, your loved ones and pets have already made it out safely. So what’s the one thing you’re going to save from that blazing inferno? Probably my laptop, you know. Most of my other possessions are replaceable, but my laptop has things life photos, music etc.

31. You can erase any horrible experience from your past. What will it be? Easy: university. Wish I’d never gone.

32. You got kicked out of the country for being a time-traveling heathen who sleeps with celebrities and has super-powers. But check out this cool shit… you can move to anywhere else in the world! New York. That’s where everyone with super powers goes. Or if I could go back in time as well, I’d go back to just before the slave trade and kick whomever came up with that idea in the nuts.

33. The Celestial Gates Of Beyond have opened, much to your surprise because you didn’t think such a thing existed. Death appears. As it turns out, Death is actually a pretty cool entity, and happens to be in a fantastic mood. Death offers to return the friend/family-member/person/etc. of your choice to the living world. Who will you bring back? Fuck, that’s difficult. Three people come to mind.

My auntie, who died from cancer last year. It was so unfair and there was no justice whatsoever, and it really took a toll on my mum. But at the same time, if bringing her back meant that she still had to live with cancer, that wouldn’t be the kindest option.

The second option is one of the lads in my year group, who died in a car crash the year before (I’m growing to despise November). He was a good friend of mine who pretty much made high school for me, but when he died, I was left with an overwhelming sense of guilt from not having kept in touch with him after we left school. But two lads died in the crash, and to have only one of them survive would be incredibly cruel.

And the third is my cousin who died several years ago, aged fifteen. I’d only met him once in my entire life, but he was wise beyond his years, and was always eerily calm about everything. I wish that I’d gotten to know him more. I think that I’d bring him back, because he was taken way too young, and he really did have everything ahead of him.

34. What was your last dream about? It was really stupid. Some guy deliberately crashed into my car, and then just shrugged and said: “insurance”. I have no idea what to take from that.

35. Are you a good….[insert anything you’d like here]? I think that I’m a good singer. I’m nothing special, but the fact that I can sing in tune seems to go down really well at karaoke. It’s all relative though, compared to actual singers, I wouldn’t say that I’m good.

36. Have you ever been admitted to the hospital? Like a trip to the hospital that wasn’t planned? I don’t think so.

37. Have you ever built a snowman? You know something, I’m not sure if I ever actually have. I imagine that I would have gotten bored before I finished, or my parents wouldn’t have bothered with that nonsense.

38. What is the color of your socks? Not wearing any at the moment, but usually black.

39. What type of music do you like? That’s difficult. My style ranges from cheesy 90s to filthy dubstep to beautiful pieces on the piano, to dramatic movie soundtracks. At the moment, I’m really into the likes of Bruno Mars’ new album, which is all old-school 80s hip hop.

40. Do you prefer sunrises or sunsets? Sunsets. The sky looks amazing, and I imagine that it would be nice if you had company.

41. What is your favorite milkshake flavor? Not huge on milkshake, but it would probably be strawberry.

42. What football team do you support? (I will answer in terms of American football as well as soccer) Ah, I really wish that I cared about football, it seems like a really good thing to be a part of. I’d either take Newcastle like everyone else up here, or Man U, like my brothers.

43. Do you have any scars? Nothing cool.

44. What do you want to be when you graduate? Fuck if I knew that, I wouldn’t be the emotional fucking mess that I am today. Either something to with analysing figures and trends, or something in the third sector, where I can genuinely help people. Or if I knew that I couldn’t fail, a singer, photographer, writer, or all three.

45. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? The colour of my skin. I don’t care if I should be proud to be black, I just know that I’d be treated a hell of a lot better if I were white, and have less to fear as well.

46. Are you reliable? Yep. Always on time, loyal, and never broken a promise.

47. If you could ask your future self one question, what would it be? “Will I be ok?”

48. Do you hold grudges? Oh HELL yes. But contrary to what people think, it’s never just because of one thing that someone has done. It’s usually a build up of stuff so the grudge is a very long time coming.

49. If you could breed two animals together to defy the laws of nature, what new animal would you create? Something like a dolphin and an eagle. But only as long as I knew that the dolphin could survive out of water.

50. What is the most unusual conversation you’ve ever had? It’s not the strangest conversation that I’ve ever had, but it’s something that has always stuck in my mind. This.

51. Are you a good liar? When I really need to be.

52. How long could you go without talking? Not very long at all, I talk to myself. Back at school, I did manage a sponsored silence for a day though.

53. What has been you worst haircut/style? Just my hair as it is now. At that awkward stage where it can’t yet be relaxed, but it’s too thick to control. I might put it in braids again.

54. Have you ever baked your own cake? Yeah, but it would have been for food tech back at school.

55. Can you do any accents other than your own? I can do a really exaggerated Nigerian accent. My family is Nigerian, so I know how it sounds, and I know how to make it sound funny.

56. What do you like on your toast? Just plain butter usually, but I always forget how canny jam is.

57. What is the last thing you drew a picture of? Probably a penis.

58. What would be you dream car? Oh son, the BMW i8. Or if we’re going really big, some kind of Lamborghini or McLaren.

59. Do you sing in the shower? Or do anything unusual in the shower? Explain. I definitely sing in the shower, not sure how much further I can explain though.

60. Do you believe in aliens? Definitely. We’ve only seen a small part of the universe, and there’s no way that we can be the only inhabitants out there.

61. Do you often read your horoscope? Every now and then actually, but I don’t take them seriously.

62. What is your favorite letter of the alphabet? Q, because of how much damage it can do in Scrabble.

63. Which is cooler: dinosaurs or dragons? Obviously dragons.

64. What do you think about babies? Not all of them are cute, unfortunately.

65. Freebie! Ask anything interesting you can think of. I guess this is where it would have been nice to have people who read my blog.

#me

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givontejournal-blog · 7 years

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DNA NO.9

On Friday April 14, Kendrick Lamar and Playboi Carti released their highly anticipated albums Damn. and "Playboi Carti, respectively. I'm here to say that I think they're both masterworks. I know you think I'm crazy right now but stick with me and I promise I'll try to make it make sense. Kung Fu Kenny and Cash Carti exist to many as opposite ends of the rap spectrum whereas they should be seen as two sides of the same coin. Too often in hip-hop history fans engage in the divisive "hip-hop vs rap" argument creating a false hierarchy and thus labeling certain sub-genres as lesser. Despite their differences, the two albums find themselves being equally important to the hip-hop climate and highly enjoyable affairs. K.Dot's album immediately presents itself as a cerebral event with its moody intro "Blood." The Bekkon-assisted affair finds Kendrick weaving a tale about helping a blind woman that ultimately betrays his good nature by shooting him without reason. Could she be representative of Lady Justice the blindfolded figure of liberty supposedly responsible for ensuring that justice is being doled out fairly? Or is the blindness representative of the ignorant perception of blackness and being inherently frightening and thus deserving of being struck down? This is just the intro, the man hasn't even started rapping yet and the intro track itself could spawn 50-page critical essays. Carti, on the other hand introduces an incredibly fun and accessible romp with a slew of hooks sure to be stuck in your head for the foreseeable future. Only four of Playboi Carti's 15 tracks top the 3:30 mark so it's hard to say that he over stays his welcome. Carti's energy is undoubtedly best as short, frenetic bursts where he compliments the beat with a wealth of ad-libs and syrupy hooks. All 14 songs on Kendrick's "Damn." will certainly be analyzed and praised for years to come partly due to Kendrick's approach to piety, introspection, and self-identity but Carti's stamp on the zeitgeist lies in the self-awareness of his approach. Each song on his album is more than capable enough to inspire a social media wildfire whether it be through new dances, memes, or video. Cash Carti is well-aware we live in an age of easily digestible bites often preferring to release snippets of new music on social media. Contrary to their disparate approaches, together they help to form a more complete image of the culture. Kendrick and Carti are equally necessary, Kendrick provides a rousing project filled with the social, religious, and personal commentary necessary in these tumultuous times while Carti paints an ambient and carefree soundscape that's inescapably infectious. We need to discuss the issues that Kendrick details in 'XXX' with the homies but we also need to hit a mean milly rock to 'Magnolia' with the homies. Too often we engage in analysis by comparison instead of analysing a project for its individual merits. Kendrick and Carti set out to create different projects and should be appreciated as such. Kendrick set out to craft an album that details vulnerability and self-discovery, a goal that he undoubtedly zoomed past. Carti's intention was to assemble something high-energy, insouciant, and easily digestible. The nuanced differences between the two should enrich the cultural dialogue that each album is initiating not create a false sense of what art is or how it should be created.

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unit42ppprobertfuller · 7 years

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Evaluation

Introduction

In this evaluation I will be talking about my role in the planning for the event and releasing the album. I will say what I have done well, what did not go so well and what I need to improve on for the next time it happens.

My Role

My role in the unit was a promoter. It involved me creating a Facebook page for the band which would be used to advertise the event, posting regular updates, advertising the album and single release, writing press releases that get sent out to the radio stations, Newspapers, local press and website. I would have to communicate with the performers to see what I am putting in the press release is what they agree with and if it needs to be altered then it would give me a chance to change it.

What went well?

I feel that what I did in the role was efficient for the band because I managed to get people to listen to the single on YouTube, which was my aim, and to make people on Facebook aware of the band. I have managed to get at least 4 people to attend the event.

What did not go so Well?

I think that I could have been more proactive in sharing the product around Facebook because I feel that I did not pull my weight on advertising it to the public because I did not get any of the advertising material that we should have captured in the rehearsals to use on Facebook.

Improvements

The improvements that I could have made were that I could have been more proactive in helping out because of my role being so empty and not needing to start until a month in. if I was to do this again I would try and help out more and take on more responsibility to the overall quality of the finished product.

If I were to do this Again

If I was to do this again I would better suited to do a practical role such as Visual Designer or Events Manager because one of the most stressful parts of my role that I did were getting my parts done on time. This role involved doing a lot of writing. One of the reasons why I think that I struggled with this role was because of my Dyslexia and the worry of everyone needing the press releases for their role, it made me panic to get them done.

Planning for the album

When we started the planning for the album we took meeting minutes to keep track of where we were to so that we could track what we did and what still needed to be done. We all contributed a little bit to the meeting minutes so that everyone had a clear idea on what we needed to do t get closer to get to the finished product.

What went well?

When we did these Meeting minutes it gave use a structured plan on what needed to be done and when. This allowed us to plan for future activities that need to be done and when for. I think that it helped us visualise the time frame we had to get it all done by. We did this weekly so that we could try and stay on top of things however with some of the targets that we set were a bit unrealistic to get them done by when we said because of it being too much work to be done in a week. I think if it had two people on the same activity then it might have been able to be achieved I think that I did not want to step up to do it because it was out of my comfort zone and I was uncomfortable doing a poster design and coming up with visuals for the event.

Looking at some of the meeting minutes I could have took some of the stress off of Dan because I feel that he took on too much responsibility. Some of the jobs that had to be done were writing the press release for the album because it is not that complicated to write après release and if I did this then Dan could have got on with doing something more productive to get further to the end product.

I could have done a lot more than what I did because looking back I feel that I sat back a lot of the time until it was necessary for me to actually step forward to do it. If I just stepped up to do the activities on the meeting minutes then the jobs would have been finished quicker and the end product would have looked more professional. Because I did not do this it had a consequence of not having everything done in time such as having the visuals in place for the event, having the album uploaded in time. Maybe if I were to do this again I would definitely take some of the stress away from Dan. However I did help him do some of the mixing because it was necessary at the time of having to do it because Dan had to much to do I decided to mix three of the songs which were Stardust, Temporary and Understand. However Dan still had to master the tracks so that the album sounded coherent with all the other tracks.

About a week before the event was set to take place we still had a lot of things to do but we ran out of time. If we planned to get the materials ready like two weeks before then we could have probably managed to do this. I feel that Ash and Heather could have probably got the visuals together for each song because they did not really have that much to do in the planning of the event so they had spare time to get the visuals ready, they could have worked together to get it ready which would have halved the time to get it ready. I think that they did not really want to do the album. Although they did the just did not want to plan for the album launch event.

Overall I think me Ash and Heather could have taken a lot of work off of Dan because he did seem to take a lot of the responsibility of preparing for the album release. If I were to do this again I would have taken a front seat to try and get the overall product to the best standard possible in the space of time that we had. I think I would have tried to get Heather and Ash to take some of the work off of Dan as well so that Dan does not feel overwhelmed with the amount of work

I think Ash and Heather could have helped me come up with advertising material that could have been used to advertise the release of the single and Album. Which then could have been used to advertise for the event as well.

How we reflected on how well the release of the single went, we analysed the figures on all of the websites that we put the single on and reflected on how many views they have got and put them altogether.

On the Night of the Event

On the night of the event there were still integrity things that had to be put in to place such as providing the sound engineer with the backing tracks, setting up the stage for the event, getting the album online ready for the release.

We all had different roles for the night, Ash’s role was Head Manager, and Heathers was Making sure that everyone was present and ready to go on stage and at the correct time.

We started to setup the stage at 4:30, we had 2 hours to setup the staging with all the equipment setup and ready to go before the doors opened to the public. It took us about 35 minutes to get the staging from the hub into the theatre and in place. However whilst doing this I felt like I took over Ash’s role to setup the stage and to check whether we had all of the equipment that we needed. For me to do this I had to ask Calum what amp he wanted to use. This created an issue that was sorted quite quickly because it was a five-minute job to go and get the amp from another room and set it up. We decided to lift the amps up using chairs so that we could use our amps as monitors so that we could hear what we were playing. However this took time away from the sound check.

With me having to take over from Ash’s role I needed to make sure that everyone was doing what everyone needed to be doing. If they were not then I had to keep on at them to keep them focused on the task. On the night I had to keep trying to find where some people were so that we could do the sound check we plenty of time to spare to distribute programmes to the public. However it took me a good 5 minutes to find out where they went and to get them to do the sound check, which took time away from doing the sound check, which made the sound check closer to the start time of 7pm.

With the lack of a sound engineer we had to rely on Sam to do the sound for us on the night. I think that if we were prepared and put a sound engineer in place earlier in the planning stage it would have been sorted and would have been clearer on who were doing the sound for the night. However I think that Sam did a good job with the sound.

One of the parts that we did not manage to get done on time were getting the album uploaded on time before the event. I feel that if I helped Dan master the songs then we might have had enough time to upload the songs. It comes down to letting Dan do all the work again.

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playsfordaaays-blog · 7 years

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Wellington Theatre 2016

First post, 22nd January NZ time, hi!

Adam Goodall’s excellent article on the Pantograph Punch, "I Am More Important Than Shakespeare": Ten Moments in Wellington Theatre 2016 opens by analysing the general state of Wellington theatre in 2016. Given that I don’t know anything about the state of Wellington theatre in 2015 or 2014 or in any previous year, I can’t do anything similar here. In 2015, I started to be interested in theatre and went to a few plays, much fewer than this year, drawn by an interest in the theatre department at my then-new school Wellington High and by going to the plays put on by the Wellington Young Actors, a company which my friend Gabe Parkin is a member of. However, I didn’t really have anything approaching an understanding of what was even happening – I didn’t so much as know who The Bacchanals were until about December, and I managed to miss A Christmas Karel Capek. 2016 has been my first year in theatre, as it were, it’s been my first year where I’ve been attending plays regularly and keeping up with developments and criticism. As such, all I can say with my lack of context is that the year in theatre has been good, and that a lot of people have made good plays during it. This list is about those plays.

First item: my top ten plays of the year, in the order I want to give them attention

Hudson and Halls Live!

Everyone loved this play. It got fantastic reviews, apparently did very well at the box office (though I’m unaware of any available figures, I’m just going off how many people I heard talking about it and the large audience I saw it with) and swept the Wellington Theatre Awards. I’m slightly resentful of that last one – it wasn’t even from Wellington! – but I can see where the judges are coming from. Hudson and Halls was a very funny and completely engaging play. The most interesting part of the play for me was the core conceit that this was a live filming of an episode and that we were the studio audience, which allowed for the audience to be very naturally involved in the action because we were present in the diegesis.

The Trojan Women

I put this here primarily for the text. Greek tragedies aren’t put on terribly often, and this one was very rewarding to see. The new translation by Simon Perris was very good, and because of it you can now cite “f*** you and die” as a quotation from Euripides. The production itself was strong, with good performances that handled the meter well. Particular note should be given to Katie Alexander, playing Kassandra with captivating intensity, and to the Mad Max (mostly Fury Road)-based design. (I’d credit the designers, but the program contained the credits in a separate piece of paper and I’ve lost that piece of paper! I’m getting names from Theatreview, and I can get from there that Ashleigh Dixon and Rudimiller Mafi are the costume designers, but there may have been other people doing other aspects of the design and I’ll credit them if I find the credits.) I think that the entrance of Athena, borne aloft by a team of ten Greek men dressed like Fury Road’s War Boys, was probably the coolest thing I’ll see in a theatre for a long time.

Smells Like Xmas

I started writing this post just a couple of days before I published it, but I was considering starting much earlier (yay procrastination!) Several weeks ago, I was considering making a start, but I thought I should wait until that Saturday, the 17th, when I would see my last two shows of the year: The Better Best Album Party That Anyone Has Ever Been Two and Smells Like Xmas. I considered it unlikely that any candidate for this list would arrive so late, but I was wrong. Binge Culture’s Christmas show was a great success of experimentalism. Its series of skits were often abstract and sometimes difficult to follow, but they were always absolutely hilarious. I’m of the understanding that Binge Culture has quite a good reputation; judging by this, it’s well deserved.

Hamlet

Quite a lot of people heard about this production, most of them were misinformed as to its nature. It was at the Pop-Up Globe for a single day, which is what most people know about it. It was actually touring the North Island, with the Pop-Up being a brief but notable stop. I don’t have that much to say about it, other than that it was a very solid production and that the all-female casting worked very well.

Titus Andronicus

2016 was a very good year for Aotearoa Tituses. This play, once one of the least popular, had three productions this year: one in Auckland at the Pop-Up Globe, one in Hamilton, and this one, in Wellington. It was the only one of these productions I saw (of course), and it was very good. Put on by a brand-new company going by the name of the Lost Shakespeare Company, which states that it is dedicated to putting on more obscure Shakespeare plays, it was a solid minimalist production. One thing that was very notable about it was that it had no fake blood or gore effects; a startling choice for this splatterfest of a play, but one which worked very well, allowing it to play more like a straight tragedy and clearly presenting the themes and characters in the lessened presence of shock.

Riding in Cars With (Mostly Straight) Boys

Another Auckland import! Sam Brooks had two plays running in early December: Making Friends Collective’s production of Wine Lips, which I missed, and this, his own production of the semi-autobiographical play which seems to be his signature. Another one where I don’t have much to say about it, just that it’s a complex, well-written and well-acted piece of work, and that Brook’s Bruce Mason Award is well deserved.

Well

I really wish I had a script of this. Well was a piece of verbatim theatre by new feminist theatre company Women Aren’t Wolves, dealing with mental illness from the perspective of people who have it. As a document it was vital, providing a space for people with mental illness to define their conditions in their own terms. The descriptions stated that they wanted to explore “what it means to be well”, and this production met that goal admirably.

Rukahu

James Nokise is completely amazing. I don’t think that there’s anyone disputing this. This play was simultaneously one of the funniest things I’ve seen all year and a searing piece of cultural comment and criticism. Some of this was lost on me, as I don’t really know enough about the sort of theatre he’s parodying to understand how his character, Senior Pacific Artist Jon Bon Fasi, applies to how real-life Māori and Pasifika theatre is handled by CreativeNZ and the general theatrical establishment (if that is his target, I think it is), but what I could understand was incredibly insightful. Nokise could write a book, but that wouldn’t get the audiences he wants, and it wouldn’t be as funny. This is what political theatre is for, and I’m not sure it even is political theatre.

When We Dead Awaken

This show was massively underappreciated. I’ve heard very little talk about it – there are quite a few reviews of it floating around, sure, but only because it toured the North Island and was reviewed in the newspapers where it went. It certainly had flaws, with the acting sometimes lacking variance in intonation, but this production of Henrik Ibsen’s symbolistic final play was extraordinarily powerful. Stripped down to just under an hour (an Ibsen play!), it was particularly notable for its blocking, its design (though the colour pallet was composed exclusively of my favourite colours so I am biased), its music, and the vocal work of the actors. I saw the first performance in the Fringe Festival and the last one at BATS in October, and both times the ending made me gasp from the catharsis.

Galathea: Into the Bush

Ania Upstill had a strong year, first directing Love’s Labours Lost for Summer Shakespeare (which was OK), then Hamlet, then this. This play was an update of John Lyly’s Elizabethan play Galathea (or Gallathea or Galatea) about two girls being disguised as boys and sent into the forest by their fathers to escape being sacrificed to Neptune and falling in love while in the captivity of Diana’s Hunt, all surrounded by the machinations of various gods. Typical Elizabethan story. Opening a week and a bit after Trump’s election, this play wasn’t just funny (and it was very, very funny), it was happy, it was celebratory, and it represented a great variety of and was primarily aimed at LGBT people. All this made it very appropriate for the time, in a different way to most things of which that can be said. Representation will be increasingly important under Trump, both to humanise the people he’ll dehumanise and to create a space for said people. The humour, the acting, the theatrical skill, and the politics of this play are all things I hope I see more of in the plays of 2017.

Second Item: Shows I missed but really wish I’d seen

Shot Bro: Confessions of a Depressed Bullet

The Vultures

Mana Wahine (I need to make a note of the Kia Mau Festival next year!)

No Post On Sunday

The Fence (directed by the older siblings of one of the WHS Shakespeare directors this year!)

Wine Lips

A Trial and/or It’s a Trial!

Rose Matafeo: Finally Dead

Perhaps, Perhaps… Quizás

Not In Our Neighbourhood (though there’ll probably be another chance to see it)

Third Item: Now For Something Completely Foreign

It wasn’t a New Zealand play at all, but I saw a cinema screening of the RSC Hamlet with Paapa Essiedu and it was completely incredible. Keep an eye on Essiedu, he’s probably got a strong career ahead of him based on his performance. Keep an eye on anyone involved in this, really. This is possibly the best play I’ve ever seen in my limited experience.

Fourth Item: Ten favourite plays with enthusiasm translator (like the Obama anger translator but for enthusiasm)

Hudson and Halls Live!

Really funny! Good theatrical technique!

The Trojan Women

Yay tragedy!

Smells Like Xmas

Experimental! Hilarious!

Hamlet

Yay Shakespeare!

Titus Andronicus

Yay Shakespeare!

Riding in Cars With (Mostly Straight) Boys

Yay well-written character-based drama but also with jokes!

Well

I know things I didn’t before!

Rukahu

Best editorial is a comedy show!

When We Dead Awaken

Really impressive presentation of interesting overlooked text!

Galathea: Into the Bush

Spreaded non-holiday-related cheer! (I realise spreaded isn’t a word)

Fifth Item: Shows I’m Looking Forward To In 2017

The Undertow

January. Four history plays about Wellington, viewable two at a time or in one ten-hour session with intervals.

Stoge Chollonge 2006

February. Fringe Festival. Comedy show about Stage Challenge and 2000s period piece.

Possible Bacchanals show

Only exists if David Lawrence manages to get out of the Pop-Up Globe or much less likely, if they go on with less of his involvement. Lawrence has said that he does really want to do something with The Bacchanals for the election year

Nearly Inevitable PSA Show

Almost certainly coming to the Comedy Festival. With an election year AND President Trump for meat.

Anything Ania Upstill makes next year

Anything James Nokise makes next year

Good luck for next year! I don’t think there’ll be much good for the world, but theatre’s going well, however much that even matters!

#wellington #theatre #wellington theatre #shakespeare #sam brooks #james nokise #ania upstill #catriona tipene #women aren't wolves #galathea #hudson and halls live!#too many tags?#I hope not

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