#this album has grown on my a lot tbh

[jittyjames]

OKOK i think i have finally picked my top 5 from the new releases after playing on repeat for the last few days 🫡

who's afraid of little old me?

i can do it with a broken heart

loml

guilty as sin?

cassandra

#taylor swift #ttpd #this album has grown on my a lot tbh

[flowerflowerflo]

bee's record player: march edition. 🎀𓂃 ࣪˖

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 !! notice !! ♡

surpriseee <3 wanted to try and add a little of my personal influence to my girlblog since music is literally my entire life & thought it might be funny to show u all what makes up the chaotic glittery mess that is my brain (and because there are almost 1000 of you beautiful people following me whatt?? thank you😭). i've allllways wanted to do smth like this too so, here u go !! 🩷💗

(+ this is a way for me to rant about my interests without being annoying to my friends / moots 😭. to anybody who has listened to me rant or cry or scream or whatever over music ily guys mwa)

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 NEW ARRIVALS

goddess, laufey

♡ released march 6th, 2024

♡ single

♡ running time: 4 minutes 28 seconds

eternal sunshine, ariana grande

♡ released march 8th, 2024

♡ full album / LP

♡ best songs: supernatural, the boy is mine, we can't be friends (wait for your love), intro (end of the world)

♡ running time: 35 minutes 33 seconds

unheard, hozier

♡ released march 22nd, 2024

♡ extended play / EP

♡ best songs: too sweet (i adore this song.)

♡ running time: 13 minutes 59 seconds

super real me, illit

♡ released march 25th, 2024

♡ extended play / EP, debut! ♡

♡ best songs: magnetic, midnight fiction

♡ running time: 9 minutes 36 seconds

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 BEE'S TRACKS: TOP 10

♡ 10. my world, illit

girly girl song!! i've been obsessed with illit's whole super real me album, their debut is soo good oh my gosh. its criminally short but i seem to have listened to it a lot !! 😭

♡ 9. we can't be friends (wait for your love), ariana grande

i have SO MUCH to say about this song but it resonates with me so much in so many different ways and i just. oh my god. ariana i love u so much

♡ 8. we got so much, le sserafim

k so i initially didn't really like this song but... it's grown on me. a lot. since it first came out. um. it's pretty simple honestly and it's just really girly girl it makes me feel like a school girl i love it

♡ 7. this is what makes us girls, lana del rey

girlblogger anthem!! okay confession i did not get into this song until LAST MONTH. i know. it's terrible and i am ashamed i am so sorry. but i have formed such a strong emotional attachment to this song its crazy i adore it

♡ 6. imperfect for you, ariana grande

exposing myself pt.3 i was in a really big depressive slump for like one half or more of this month actually and this song helped me so much i can't 😭 i love you ari

♡ 5. the boy is mine, ariana grande

(are you noticing a pattern here yet) um another ariana grande song no lol um idk what ur talking about haha 🥰 this song is so twerkable im sorry i wasnt a fan at first but im obsessed i need to stop

♡ 4. smart, le sserafim

no words. once again wasn't a huge fan originally but oh my god im obsessed w it now. afrobeat type of songs are, will, and always be top tier and i will die on this hill. (i've been SO OBSESSED with le sserafim lately but i think thats fairly obvious here😭)

♡ 3. eternal sunshine, ariana grande

i adore this song oh my god. its become one of my favs of all time since it came out. this was on loop for HOURS when i first heard it and its such a comfort song for me. it shows her growth so beautifully and there's so much about it i just absolutely adore like i could write a whole essay on this song and still wouldnt be able to express how much i love it

♡ 2. magnetic, illit

illit was bound to pop up here again this month tbh ok so me and my bsf were listening to this on loop the entire time at school a little after it came out like we were sitting in the front row of our class and were still watching the magnetic mv under the desk on her phone. so in love with this song it makes me so happy n feel so cute i ahh <3

♡ 1. supernatural, ariana grande

SUPERNATURAL IS THE SONG EVER. first day it came out i listened to the album and this was on loop constantly for the next week or more. it's made it up to my top 10 fav songs of all time ever and i listen to A LOT of music. this song is my life<333

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 ALBUMS

♡ 1. eternal sunshine, ariana grande

fairly self explanatory. i love u ari. there was soo much ari this month bc ive been a diehard ari stan since i was 8 and have never looked back. since yes and released in january i have been ecstatic about ag7 releasing in march after 4 YEARS of no ari so this was MONUMENTAL for me 😭😭 THE DROUGHT IS OVER ARIANATORS RISE 🩷🩷🩷

♡ 2. super real me, illit

so basically the day this album came out my best friend was spamming me about them and i only listened to them like 2 days after cuz she was annoying me about it and OH MY GOD. i listened to them and then proceeded to loop the whole album for the next 72 hours 💗 and for a debut as well is amazing ily illit girlies

♡ 3. with you-th, twice

so i wasn't much of a fan at first bc they just sounded really similar and bland to me but its grown on me a lot since it came out and i've been listening to it so much throughout the entirety of march. its just so oddly comforting in a way and feels like a hug in music form (+ rush and bloom are the best songs argue with the wall)

♡ 4. easy, le sserafim

self explanatory. i'm obsessed with le sserafim at the moment and this album is everything to me. ass shaking album 10/10

♡ 5. k-12, melanie martinez

i have been revisiting one of my fav albums of all time this month and its as amazing as always. this has been my favourite album of all time since it came out and i will never ever get over k12 🩷 10000/10!!!! <3

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 ARTISTS

♡ TOMORROW X TOGETHER

♡ TWICE

♡ LANA DEL REY

♡ LE SSERAFIM

♡ ARIANA GRANDE

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 SPECIAL MENTIONS

♡ happy 1 year to portals by melanie martinez! oh my god this album helped me through all of 2023 and i went to see her on tour in london for my birthday last november and it was surreal. she's amazing. i adore her and this album (i have it on vinyl hehe) and love it SOO MUCH 💖

♡ expect ordinary things by ariana grande to be high high on my top 10 next month its been on loop for days now im obsessed

♡ there's going to be a LOT in next month's issue seeing as 2 of my all time favs are coming back next month, so prepare for that! so excited ahh <3 (one has already released at the time of writing this. prepare urselves.)

──★ ˙ ̟🎀 EDITOR'S NOTE

this was SO FUN oh my gosh. i am 100% making this a regular thing~ lmk if it was entertaining, improvements needed, artists / albums you'd like me to keep up with etc, or just general comments, ideas, reviews and so on. thank you so much for reading, this was so fun! look forward to next month 💗🫶💖

lots of love 💘

#very excited ab this <3 #hope you like it <3 #girlblogging #it girlism ୨𖹭୧ #wonyoungism #it girl #pink pilates princess #girlhood #female hysteria #self care #messy girl #girly stuff #girlcore #girly tumblr #pinterest girl #this is a girlblog #hyperfemininity #divine feminine #princess #pink aesthetic #pinkcore #sanrio #im just a girl #self growth #self improvement #music #magazine #music video #spotify #rockstar girlfriend

[placeinthisworld]

ttpdta review part one 🤠

let me preface this by stating that i am a swiftie first and person second in this situation. i have grown up with taylor and feel as if shes my big sister- yes i can make fun of her but if i see anyone else do it i will get fiercely protective. i do understand her music is not only art but also her form of therapy. that being said, throughout these nonsense notes i am constantly mentioning that taylor should go to therapy. i am aware of what she has said about therapy (and why she doesn’t go) but i would beg to differ with her…especially after this album release lol.

taylor is an extraordinary storyteller and song writer. i believe this album is full of evidence of that, but it also has some faults that prevent from being as good as i felt like it could have been. overall the album feels rushed.

i also feel like it’s important to recognize the elephant in the room. i know we probably all expected this to be a joe breakup album, so the fact that it turned out to be a “fuck you matty healy” album shook us all a little bit. i know matty had a controversial history, im not gonna sit here and defend him. i don’t know much about him other than what is forced against my will. i do however know that he struggles with mental health issues/ substance abuse/ addiction. i’m not gonna comment much about his personal issues, i don’t feel like that’s right and taylor’s constant references to drugs throughout ttpd definitely rubs me the wrong way. i should also mention i grew up with an active addict and do view things from that perspective, so i feel slightly triggered by the topic and my feelings about that may just be personal but i do mention that in my notes when it’s relevant.

lastly, i am not a music production girlie idk shit lol. i only know i am a aaron dessner stan so any song with his name im already biased towards and i am aware, if u don’t like that idk what to tell u lol. i just know what i feel like is “good” or “bad” but music is subjective🫶🏻

1. Fortnight:

Hate the functional alcoholic part. Like the beat, the chorus is catchy. One thing i love about a taylor swift song is that theres always a story and its always visual. I like the metaphor of the “good neighbors” of like having this teasing/ longing feeling for someone that you could have had a life with. “Your wife waters flowers/ i want to kill her + my husbands cheating/ i want to kill him” feeling like you were robbed of her life, feeling “all my mornings are mondays stuck in an endless february” reminiscing about the short period of time where you were together and convinced it would last forever (only for it to end before it even started). I do not listen to much post malone but i enjoyed his verse!! So many florida references we get it everything bad happens in florida.

i have not seen the video yet oooopsies

2. Ttpd:

i thought this was the opening of Hey Stephen (the remix) or something at first. gotta say i absolutely love the way she sings “you left your typewriter at my apartment/ straight from the tortured poets department” i enjoyed the vibe of this song, and lyrics up until the “you smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate (OKAY SOOOOOOO ME CODED NGL I LAUGHED at this point i could let this lyric slide- bit then she had to mention the charlie puth and golden retriever thing and ngl it almost ruins the song entirely for me. Tbh when i first listened to the leak i thought this was a fake AI song and that i was sending around a fake leak bc these lyrics started to get a little weird to me. ‘Sometimes i wonder if youre gonna screw this up with me/ but you told lucy you’d kill yourself if i ever leave” …………girl i am begging you to see a therapist (side note did anyone else have a friend in hs whos bf would say that shit a lot?? I remember straight up fighting with a friend who refused to break up w her bf bc he would threaten to end his own life is she did and he was like 16? If an adult is saying that same shit i would be Very concerned not gossiping about it???) “i chose this cyclone with you” my first reaction was: ride the cyclone the musical? Overall i liked the first half but you lost me at charlie puth (hes the one with eyebrow right? I think i get him and miles teller mixed up) (i dont know who either of these men are)

3. My boy only breaks his favorite things:

Okay tbh i thought this was gonna be one of my least favorites, but the total opposite happened. I think this is one of my top 5 favorites on this album. I do think that there is a difference between a poem and a song and that they are not always interchangeable. I feel like if this was edited into a poem it would be KILLER. The visuals, the the story, the vocabulary, the sadness in it. “Im queen of sandcastles he destroys/ There was danger in the heat of my touch/ once i fix me/ hes gonna miss me/ i felt more when we played pretend then with all the kens / cause he took me out of my box” i feel like ever since folklore, taylors been trying to push these big fancy words and sometimes it feels awkward and forced, but this is one of the rare songs that doesn't suffer from that.

4. Down bad:

meh. Chorus is catchy. I dont love the narrative “fuck it if i cant have him/ i might just it would make no difference” but i also have never once experienced that over a person before lmao……….taylor go to therapy. Nothing really stands out about this to me otherwise. No offense, but it sounds like a generic jack antonoff song lol. Like maybe if another artist released this, i would enjoy it more but idk i wouldnt expect it from taylor i guess. Just kinda feels boring to me sorry if u enjoy it <3

5. So long, london:

oh man were done with british men now for real for real. “ two graves one gun. I'll find someone” its over for joe and matty (but thats fine if all she has to say about joe is what i think she said on this album i am happy i think We Get It…) Aaron dessner i love u (remember when he reposted me on his ig ahh).”i kept calm and carried the weight of the rift/ pulled him in tighter each time he was drifting away” + “I stopped trying to make him laugh/ stopped trying to drill the safe/ i didnt opt in to be our odd man out/ im pissed off you let me give you all of that youth for free” oof i FELT that one a LITTLE too hard. I think this is both a song about matty and joe- i think she had a life and an attachment to london just in general through both relationships, “im just mad as hell because i loved this place” and so reflecting back on how both are over and how all those plans with either are done. “You sacrificed us to the gods of your bluest days” OKAY kinda hate this phrase bc it feels like shes placing blame on whomever’s mental health/ depression, like as if they made the conscious decision to sacrifice the relationship solely. This very much feels like “how much sadness did you think i could take before i got bored???” overall top favorite songs bc it doesnt have too many cringey or odd lyrics and the production is 10/10 thank u aaron dessner ilysm king

6. But daddy i love him:

tbh when i got the leak this was the first song i listened to bc i thought it was gonna be the worst one and i wanted to get it over with (i was RIGHT until she dropped that second half……..) and i DIDNT have the lyrics obviously so i couldnt for the life of me figure out if she really said “im having his baby…..NO IM NOT!” until the VERY end of the song and bro…….the cringe. The cringe. The cringe. This is also when i started to question if this was real or if i was passing out a fake leak, lol. I dont understand how she could be saying this shit about matty. And like we all know it lol. “Sometimes growing up precocious sometimes means not growing up at all” …….but like does it??? I feel like thats kinda an oxymoron or something like i understand what shes trying to say and MOST of the time her metaphors and comparisons make sense to me but like this one doesnt. Growing up precocious means to grow up more advanced in maturity, how would that also mean not growing up at all? Is it just me getting stoned and overthinking things? “Ill tell you something about my good name/ its mine alone to disgrace” true that bestie ur doin a great job by being so politically quiet over the past couple of yeats after making a whole asss documentary about wanting to be on the right side of history. But I digress i am just one of those bitches performing soliloquies you'll never see. Overall this song is very weird and cringey imo and i wish it stayed in whatever vault it was sitting in lol.

7.Fresh out of the slammer: “In the shade of how he was feeling” -_- dont like this narrative already. I could honestly go on a rant about why i dont like this song but im going to spare for the sake of my sanity in this review of thirty one fucking songs but its along these lines “to the one who says im the girl of his american dreams” oh brother. otherwise i dont care for many of the lyrics, the chorus/ melody/vibe is mid i guess. It sounds like another jack song (i was right)

8. Florida!!!: “all my friends smell like weed or little babies” okay i know what she was trying to say but im SORRY you cant tell me she couldnt think of ANY other way to say her friends are either parents partiers lmao. Deserves jail for that but luckily the vibe and the chorus of the song are really catchy and florence’s voice is beautiful in it. “Well me and my ghost we had a hell of a time/ yes im haunted but im feeling just fine” CHILLS i loved it. I didnt think i would like this song but (maybe as much as i like no body, no crime which is meh) but no i lowkey love this song and think its really fun. Once again the drug references start to get heavy here in the album and like i mentioned i do get slightly triggered by drug mentions.

9. Guilty as sin?:

okay taylor we get it you masterbate. Another strong jack song and it’s pretty similar to others on the album so nothing besides the sexual lyrics stand out.

10. Whos afraid of little old me?:

“if you wanted me dead you should have just said/ nothing makes me feel more alive” ooooooooooh i love that. I feel like a live or an acoustic version of this song would give me CHILLS. “Is it a wonder i broke / lets hear one more joke/ then we can all laugh until i cry” honestly so relatable, “i was tame, i was gentle til the circus life made me mean” oh :( that hurt bc it just reminds me of the vibe shift during midnights era/ eras tour where it *feels* like she started to pull back from being taylor swift and started to become Taylor Swift (™) and the way her fans/ media has treated her made her mean or cold or something and that just makes me feel sad. “Whos afraid of little old me? You caged me and then you called me crazy! I am what i am cause you trained me! SO. WHOS. AFRAID. OF ME? Again the narcotics line kinda makes me feel icky but thats bc i have that thing about drugs and just dont LOVE all the references to them. Like i know its not that serious but theres a reason why i dont seek out artists that typically talk or write about that stuff ya know so its weird. Overall i think the production is one of the most unique ones on this part of the album.

11. I can fix him (no really i can):

i hate it all around i think. I hate the narrative of “i can fix him!! I can handle a dangerous man!!! No really i can!!!” there is a reason why this song is barely 3 mins long lol it should have been cut but i think taylor wanted to Be Edgy. i dont care for the productions or the lyrics, its very forgetful imo.

12. Loml:

okay i really thought this was gonna be a joe song (rip) so i was thinking it was gonna be really deep and sad and like it IS but with the context of it being the pt 2 fling with matty it doesnt seem like it now. Anyone who thinks this is not about matty please look at the lyrics and be so serious “whos gonna stop us from waltzing back into reklndled flames/ if we know the steps anyway” I think matty just said too much shit to taylor during their fling and taylor WAS truly convinced this her invisible string and he promised her a lot that he couldnt upkeep and ghosted her and she took it SUPER hard, i mean two breakups in one year is a lot (me, whos never been through a single breakup once). I just dont understand how she feels like matty is the greatest loss of her life. One of my favorite tracks on the album, “our field of dreams engulfed in fire/ your arsons match your somber eyes” a LOT of these lyrics are actually really good imo. I think im the only one that didnt find the “mr. steal your girl and make her cry” line idk i thought it was actually kinda neat, the phrasing of it, kinda contradicts the title “love of my life” because he was never that serious or respectful of her and only use her from the beginning. This is another song that i think would make KILLER poem over song. Overall i think the piano is haunting and a live version of this will make me die, thank u again aaron dessner 10/10

13. I can do it with a broken heart:

ngl i thought this was the opening to mastermind for a hot second- also gave me a scare on whether or not this was a fake leak lol. Catchy ass chorus but very YOYOK. “Breaking down i hit the floor/ All the pieces of me shattered/ as the crowd was shouting “more!” ooffffffff seeeeee that is exactly WHAT i was afraid she was feeling durning the eras tour after the joe breakup/ matty situation and all these stupid twitter and tik tok swiffers were out here overanalyzing EVERYTHING and demanding rep tv like every other day. “Im so depressed i act like its my birthday” …….okay taylor. Like a lot of people have said, i think she interchanges “depressed” for “sad” a lot and the two are not the same. I think taylor wrote this song (but specifically the “i cry a lot time but i am so productive” and was like “yup this part is gonna go viral on tik tok,” initially i wrote “feels like taylor saw that depression barbie commercial in barbie 2023 and wrote a song based on that” lol which i still agree with. Overall the production of this screams midnights reject lol, very jack antonoff. Over time this song has grown on me a lot. Originally i didnt care for it but now its kind of a bop but i think its bc its so similar to YOYOK. “Try and come for my job” @taylorswift deadass you couldn’t think of anything else to say instead. cmon. I was mostly on board until that very last part, just seemed very cheesy lol like its not a big deal but i thought it delivered well without it.

14. The smallest man who ever lived:

(aaron thank u for saving me and this entire album) “they just ghosted you/ now you know what it feels like” OUCH. “i dont even want you back i just want you to know/ if rusting my sparkling was the goal/ and i dont miss what we had but can someone give/ a message to the smallest man who ever lived” oh this was somber af. I am obsessed with the phrasing of the chorus. I also LOVE taylors deeper voice its def giving me the same feelings MTR gave me from folklore, that made me CRY and this was very similar. This is another classic taylor song that i could EASILY write like a ten page essay about if someone put a gun to my head. I know that its about a *romantic* relationship, but it feels general enough to be able to relate to anyone who is close to someone with an addiction or struggles with substances. A lot of addicts dont understand the impact of their addiction or their behaviors that they display while struggling. To meeeeee, this feels very much like “you were self centered and betrayed my trust, was any of this true? Real? Am i paranoid or is this that deep?” “it wasnt sexy once it wasnt forbidden” has me thinking lots of things. I think that describes taylors “type”if that makes sense? Like i said i would need to literally break this song down line by line like its ridiculous i have too many thoughts about this song i have listened to it on repeat six times by the time im typing this. “In public showed me off/ then sank in stoned oblivion” FUCK. “you treat her like an also-ran” honestly i have never heard of that phrase/word thank u dr. swift. “Were you sent by someone who wanted me DEAD/ did you sleep with a GUN underneath OUR BED/ were you writing a BOOK?/ were you a sleeper cell SPY? IN 5O YEARS WILL THIS BE ALL DECLASSIFIED?/ AND YOU’LL CONFESS WHY YOU DID IT!/ AND ILL SAY GOOD RIDDANCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” tears were formed besties. Also love the gracie abrams reference. “And you deserve prison but you wont get time” i feel like is very metaphorical like you DESERVE to be punished for what you did to me but you won’t admit to the guilt, you wont admit your wrongdoings, you wont admit that i would have done anything for you and you have no problem replacing me. “You said normal girls were boring/ but you were gone by the morning” first of all red flag girlie, nonetheless heartbreaking. “And in plain sight you hid/ but you are what you did” i say this with all the love in my heart, someone take taylor swift to a really good really private therapist. I could say more but i think i need to move on because i am now on my eighth cyle of listening to this song.

15. The alchemy:

already kinda hate it. “What if i told you im back/ the hospital was a drag/ worst sleep i ever had” do you think taylor swift has ever been admitted to a real hospital in this context. Feels very out of place and like i said earlier i dont love the psych ward visuals/ references she keeps inserting in this album. “He jokes its heroin but this time with an e” thanks! I fucking hate that line so much. Feels very icky, not funny. I get what shes going for but it falls so flat for me. The football references (yall know my opinion on meathead!!!!!!!! I will not engage!!!) are fucking dumb. Production is kinda lame and uninterested. Will only listen to this song if by force and will not repeat it ive head enough lets move on.

i have Lots Of Thoughts. i don’t think anyone cares about what i have to say though so i don’t think i’ll bother posting the rest lol but i did do a lot of work so ill post just a bit to make myself feel better.

#personal #ts ttpd #ttpd #the tortured poets department

[sleepanonymous]

Hi! I hope you don't mind, but I would like to ask your input on something, since you post a lot of "lost media" stuff. Do you know what the general etiquette for talking about members' past bands/projects in public spaces?

Here's the thing: I only discovered Sleep Token a few months ago, and when I first listened, I was shocked to recognize Vessel's voice immediately. Apparently I've actually been listening to one of his old projects for like 8 years now 😭 It's lovely to know he's still making music and it's wonderful to see how he's progressed with his skills (his voice!! Oh my god, he's grown so much), but I can't help but feel a little sad because I'm worried I'll be shunned if I mention his old works around ST fans. What has your experience been with this sort of thing? I just don't want to start a fuss on accident.

Hi, Anon 🖤 I don't mind at all, thanks for the question. With the anonymity of Sleep Token, it's very tricky to talk about any of the band's past projects in fan spaces. Basic etiquette is to not mention them at all because of the names and faces associated with the projects. For that reason, the rest of this answer is going below a "keep reading" cut.

If you are a Sleep Token fan, and don't want to see past project names, do not click on "Keep Reading."

First off: Anon, I'm so jealous of you! Lol, I'm surprised you found Blacklit Canopy first, that's such a rarity in this fandom! You have no idea how many times I'm like "Where was I in 2012?! Why didn't I find this in 2014?!"

Secondly, my whole experience with this particular corner of the fandom has been lovely tbh. But I think I get away with posting "lost media" because I make sure to keep names/YouTube/anything identifying detached from the posts. I only ever refer to him as Ves (and not his full stage name) and I don't mention Sleep Token (or if I do I abbreviate to ST). I think the closest I ever got to mentioning Ves's past project actually was in this lost media post.

Another reason I think a lot of fans would consider it improper to mention Ves's old project is because the relationship he was in with the other half of Blacklit Canopy technically changes 70-80% of Sleep Token's songs. The intricate lore that fans have created is suddenly lost, and we're left with roughly three albums about "the girl that got away" and how Ves coped with it. That isn't inherently a bad thing, but I understand why it's not everyone's cup of tea. Since you're new to Sleep Token, I'm going to assume you haven't seen these interviews: about why the member's identities "don't matter" and what Sleep Token's goal is as a band.

I have seen people make posts about Blacklit Canopy here on Tumblr before without receiving backlash (at least outwardly), but that's only because it was in a similar manner to this post (the majority of it was under a "read more" cut), they kept the band names separate in the tags i.e. they didn't tag Sleep Token, and didn't mention Ves's name at all. On the opposite end of the spectrum, I've seen posts literally stating "It is disrespectful to listen to Ves's old music," which I don't agree with. One: there's an entire other person involved. Two: if Ves didn't want his fans to know, why are the Blacklit Canopy YouTube channel and Twitter accounts still up? And three: they literally released a deluxe EP on Spotify at the beginning of the year which Ves is 100% aware of and signed off on, if it wasn't him who published it in the first place. I'm not here to tell fans what they're feeling is wrong— on either end of the spectrum— because I understand where they are coming from and why they might feel that way.

All of the above said, there are safe fan spaces where it's perfectly acceptable to mention both Sleep Token and Blacklit Canopy in the same sentence; even identities. That goes for all Sleep Token members, past and present, and their other projects. So if you were wanting to keep them a mystery, then I'm sadly out of suggestions aside from DMs maybe. There are more people on this site Who Know™️ than you might think.

On Reddit you have both r/BlacklitCanopy and r/SleepTokenTheory

On Facebook you have the Blacklit Canopy Fans page

On Discord there's discord.gg/blacklitcanopy

I'm not so active on Reddit, and I don't have Facebook, so I'm very biased toward option three I'm also an admin there.

#anon asks #sleepanon answers #i'm actually terrified and might delete this post later

[hillbilly---man]

A list of my works on AO3

(they're all Saiki K fics at the moment but I'll add fandom categories to this post if I ever get a new interest lol)

It doesn't fit my plans; it's something I don't understand

Published July 11, 2021

Summary: Saiki is fascinated by Satou Hiroshi, and the people around him start to see that this might be more than just a platonic curiosity.

What is this feeling called love?

[Notes: Bittersweet ending. Nobody gets together. My insistence on theming these early fics after songs is pretty embarrassing now. I'm not proud of my writing here but the story is ok. I might rewrite it someday. Not bad for my first fic since like 2003 though]

Something Changed

Published August 11, 2021

Summary: Aiura wrote a letter to her soulmate the night before they were supposed to meet.

She's predicted a lot of things... how could she have gotten this one wrong?

[Notes: Another sad ending. The format of this is almost entirely an excited letter about the future Aiura imagined that would never come to pass. Not really much of a story happening here tbh]

Won't it be strange when we're all fully grown?

Published August 28, 2021 (INCOMPLETE)

Summary: With graduation quickly approaching, the psychics of PK Academy (and Akechi) worry that they'll drift apart. Luckily, they come up with an idea.

"Let's all meet up in the year 2030!"

A lot can change in a decade.

[Notes: Kind of like a psychicker class reunion where they're all adults with jobs and everything catching up. Future chapters were going to have almost a Scooby Doo vibe (with a twist reveal at the end about Aiura's husband!) I abandoned it because I posted some art and someone called my art creepy and it made the whole fic feel bad to think about. Maybe I'll get back to it someday. It's cool to see how quickly my writing improved. I was also super proud of how well I wrote Akechi's dialogue here]

Hotel Valentine

Published September 24, 2021

Summary: Toritsuka Reita is a pretty lucky guy. He somehow managed to not get expelled from PK Academy, he graduated, and he's avoided creeping on any living girls for a few months. To celebrate, the PK Psychics paid for a one-night stay in the fanciest hotel in Tokyo so Reita can creep on the ghost girl of his dreams. Pretty lucky, right?

Too bad things aren't going his way. He's being ignored by the staff, he's bored out of his mind, and he can't find the ghost girl anywhere. Some vacation, huh?

[Notes: Spoiler: Toritsuka's a ghost stuck in a nice hotel. This is based on a concept album that most of you have never heard but hear me out! It really has nothing to do with the Cibo Matto album of the same title except that the chapters are named after the songs and there are fun Easter eggs for fans of the album. Another slightly sad ending but not too bad]

Coffee & TV

Published August 27th, 2022

Summary: The new silence in her house felt heavy on Kumi's shoulders. Everything reminded her of Kumagoro... especially her grandson Kusuo, who has been coming to visit more often than ever before.

[Notes: this is my least popular finished fic and I understand why. It's about grief and the loss of a grandparent. It's about the unique pain that a psychic would have after failing to prevent that death. There's a sad twist that TBH I think I was a little too subtle with. One of my favorites]

Friendly Fire

Published January 8, 2023

Summary: Being an adult is great until the Problems start. Good grief.

30-year-old Kusuo's psychic powers have been pretty well controlled for over a decade. Why are things starting to go haywire all of a sudden?

[Notes: Friendly Fire my fucking beloved!! In this fic, Saiki gets essentially psychic multiple sclerosis and has to deal with some complicated emotions. I don't think it's a masterpiece or anything but it was cathartic to write and I'm in love with the versions of these characters that I wrote here. So much so that I'm writing a sequel just so I can write more of them. Also, FINALLY a happy ending!!]

Ramen Ikouze?

Published April 28, 2023

Summary: After being dragged to get ramen with Nendou every week, Kusuo starts to realize that it's not so bad after all.

[Notes: I love Nendou, he's so good. This fic is very cute and about their friendship. A couple of fun twists]

Saiki has Plans?

Published May 2, 2023

Summary: Saiki mentions having plans after school, and the overactive imaginations at PK Academy work themselves into a fuss trying to imagine what he could be doing.

[Notes: This fic follows around a bunch of Saiki's classmates as they gossip and snoop to find out what he's up to. It's my most popular fic for some reason]

A Bright Flash

Published May 13, 2023

Summary: Saiki develops an annoying new ability, and through some comedy series logic is forced to tell Teruhashi about it. She tries to be a good ally to her "newly psychic" crush.

[Notes: Teruhashi accidentally finds out about Saiki's new power and he's like "fine. I'm a psychic. But it's just this one power and nothing else."]

Heat Wave

Published June 6, 2023

Summary: There's a historic heat wave in Hidariwakibara, and some of our favorite PK Academy students end up running into each other while taking refuge from the hot weather.

A series of four standalone (but connected) stories taking place at the same time:

Aiura has a vision of disaster, and she and Nendou try to stop it

Yumehara gives Toritsuka some advice to improve his game

Akechi meets Teruhashi's brother

Saiki really wants some shaved ice from the kakigori stand where Mera is working

[Notes: The summary explains it well but also I weaved so many connections between the chapters (that are all happening at roughly the same time). It was also a lot of fun writing interactions between characters that didn't get much in canon. Also you can tell it was hot as hell when I wrote it because I definitely gave Saiki some kind of psychic heat intolerance lol]

Immunity

Published July 6, 2023

Summary: She didn't know why, but Kokomi was finally able to see the truth.

Why Saiki seemed to appear and disappear without explanation. Why it seemed like he always knew what she was planning. Why he wore those weird hairpins.

It was all so obvious now.

Saiki had psychic powers.

[Notes: The veil is lifted suddenly and all the truths that Saiki kept locked behind his mind control were revealed to Teruhashi. He and Aiura have a chat with her about it. Also this was the first fic of mine that an IRL friend read (to my knowledge) and his comment was something like "I don't know anything about your boy but he sounds autistic and gnc" and I took that as a fucking compliment! You know you've written Saiki right when people can see that shit from space]

The Disastrous Financial Situation of Saiki K

Published August 9, 2023 (IN PROGRESS)

Summary: Adjusting to his new limitations has been annoying, and now Kusuo (age 31) needs a car to get around.

Unfortunately, taking time off work has drained his savings.

How is he going to get the money for a car now?

[Notes: This is my sequel to Friendly Fire but it's a lot lighter in nature. 100-Yen-Man goes around doing stuff for Saiki's friends. There are mentions of his disability from Friendly Fire and it's plot relevant but I think you can catch on even if you didn't read the original. I haven't updated in a while but I am actively working on it!! A Yumehara and Makino chapter next and then a Toritsuka chapter after that. TBH this isn't my best work and it's pretty unpopular but I'm having fun and that's all that counts)

#i got my work done so as i promised.. this is my reward #this is for organization purposes and to get me thinking about the things I've written again #my fics #saiki

[ask-serendipity-sky]

"If you look at who Jk is, he lives his life in phases"

I noticed this as well. Honestly, as for me (it’s only my opinion so please don’t come at me) I’m a bit bored by that current phase, but I think he needs it. It almost seems like he’s going through a second puberty lol trying to be perceived as the cool guy and all, but it’s because I’m too old for this now, I find it cringe and immature. But I also know that in a few months he’ll probably be into a new phase lol it’s the way he learns and grows up, it’s okay, and he seems fine after all, it’s not like he’s putting himself and his career in danger. Tbh I think he’s one of the members who could really be into his military service. I think he’ll mature a lot there, he’s still a bit young and carefree, it’s normal. That being said, in contrast I’m impressed by Jimin’s maturity. He seems to be an old soul! And his emotional intelligence never cease to amaze be. Honestly I think they’re a really good pair and the perfect balance!

Hello,

Your opinion is very valid and I agree with it.

I think this phase was triggered by the change that last year brought to Jk. First, it was the hiatus then Jimin prioritizing his album. His 2 comfort zones were taken away.

Jk's identity was always "the maknae" and I think him seeing people around him grow up while he was still babied, plus the comfort zones being taken away, plus other personal issues, created instability and caused some sort of existential crisis.

That's why he feels like he has to prove people that he's grown. And also, he has grown for sure.

I agree with you. People with brains like Jk do really well with routine even if they are reluctant. The military will provide stability, and hopefully be a place where he can be away from the insanity that follows him. I hope.

Yes, Jimin appears to have reached maturity faster and he fuctions different than Jk. He has his eyes set on something and he doesn't lose focus. He's very consistent.

I think they are good together too.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

[actuallylorelaigilmore]

2022 MOVIE OF THE WEEK #33

disenchanted. i......have been avoiding this review since literally months ago because just thinking about reviewing this movie makes me sad and tired. if you loved this movie, which i think some people must have because i��ve seen the occasional gifs from it on my dash, feel free to skip this. it’ll go behind a cut, because i suspect it’s gonna get long.

(spoiler alert: it got ridiculously long. how did i have five thousand words to say about this? and if anyone besides leander reads this i’ll be shocked but that’s fine cuz they were the one encouraging me to make it through this rant and if they hadn’t i definitely would have given up even trying a long time ago.)

and it is pretty much universally negative, because i could not have been more looking forward to this sequel featuring literally my favorite disney (noncanon but still mine) princess and it not only let me down (as sequels tbh do a lot so that’s not even surprising) but it sincerely broke my heart. 

in a ‘wow i’m being really overdramatic about a disney movie’ sort of way, but it’ll make more sense after i explain it, i promise. you had to be there, i think, to care as much as i do, and only @actuallylukedanes was, so it was also pretty convenient that i ended up watching this with them when they were gonna watch it with their partner and invited me to join. cuz they felt the same way i did about the sequel, which is how i knew i was not overreacting. 

it was also leander who advised me to start posting completed reviews of other 2022 movies since i was stuck on this one, even though i never posted them out of order before. (i ended up realizing in january that i totally forgot a movie from 2022, so it’s good i wasn’t as obsessed with perfect chronology anyway.)

the first warning sign i had with this movie was honestly its release. they had been talking about an enchanted sequel for so long that i had stopped hoping for one, and then when it was really happening they wouldn’t even put it in theaters!! i was so pissed off about that, because enchanted felt like a magical (pun intended) experience for me in 2007. 

it came out exactly on my birthday, when i turned 23, and @actuallylukedanes​ and i saw it in the theater to celebrate. we lived in utah then, and were happy rather than homeless, and we paid for the movie using a card that had a ‘reward’ system like a lottery where they told you they would at some random time choose a single purchase you made, and reimburse you for it. out of everything we paid for with that card, it was the tickets to enchanted that they made free.

and i couldn’t have been more excited to see enchanted back then, because it was a real live musical, and those have always been rarer than i wish they were, and the cast was ridiculously great. long before amy adams was making bigger movies, she had played tara’s cousin on buffy and a memorable one-episode character on charmed, and i had just always loved her an unreasonable amount like i had been waiting for her to be a movie star. plus i had discovered wicked in college and dove deep into other idina menzel musicals as well as every one of her solo albums (and singles that weren’t sold anywhere, which i downloaded illegally because that is called devotion) and was just generally obsessed with her for years. 

and then there was patrick dempsey, reliable dreamy star of grey’s anatomy (which i gave up on quickly but he was good in) and james marsden of the x-men trilogy i had watched a zillion times. (his character was not one i liked in that, but he was great as a comedic part of this.) i had grown up with susan sarandon and wasn’t used to her as a villain but she brought just the right level of Too Much, and her henchman was perfectly cast. they somehow managed to even make the child in the story not annoying, which can be really rare, especially when she has an actual role--but she’s great. 

the mix of animation and live-action was really fun, and when giselle’s dress goes from cartoon to sparkly 3d it was so swoony. truly like a disney fantasy sort of moment, they brought so much to life. and they did so even where it shouldn’t have worked! the basic plot of ‘two couples aren’t meant to be so they switch partners amongst themselves and then it’s perfect’ is not one i like in other movies, but here i’m just like, yeah absolutely, dance with patrick dempsey in your pretty dress, and let idina menzel go live in a fairy tale. 

but in addition to all of that, and the catchy, catchy music, what i really, truly loved about enchanted, and why it was one of my all time favorite movies to put on that i never got sick of (along with mamma mia and a few others, i really like musicals okay), is how much it turned out that i identified with giselle. how much she not only made sense to me, even as she was supposed to be this wide-eyed disney princess, but how she gave me language for things i was still figuring out, and i got so attached to that.

i was 23 years old. i had left home less than two years earlier, and i didn’t know i was autistic yet, let alone bipolar/anxious/adhd/disordered eating all knotted together. i hadn’t begun thinking about what it meant to be ‘developmentally disabled,’ and how unprepared that made me for adulthood, independence or being in a relationship. I had just leaped into all those things, and i wasn’t necessarily all that good at any of them. 

but there was giselle, singing her way through a world she didn’t understand how to navigate either, and it was okay because there was somebody who loved her for her exact weird self and a child who needed her. (substitute cats for child and you see where i’m coming from.) she was relentlessly optimistic but also cursed by forces outside her control, and she was full of creativity. 

my absolute favorite moment that giselle has in the whole movie, when it comes to why it was important to me, is when she experiences anger. at first she can’t even name it, and then there’s a kind of joy she finds in it, in having a new feeling...in having the FREEDOM to feel that difficult feeling, and not need things to be perfect all the time. until i saw that scene, i had never realized that my childhood had trained me to not be angry--before i was even conscious that had happened. and once i saw that scene, i started to wonder if maybe anger was something i was allowed to feel, after all. 

i think if you’re not me, or you didn’t know me at 21 (a fragile adorable unstable bby desperate to be rescued from my life), it might be hard to understand that, how i didn’t just love giselle for being giselle, but loved her for being the most me a character played by amy adams could be. 

up until i fell in love, and was loved in return (my only real wish thanks to moulin rouge), i collected tv and movie characters, made little lists of them, and they were always the ones i wanted to be like, ones i wanted to grow into. usually the snarky best friends, the deadpan wits, the ones who pined but never got the guy. (bby me didn’t think anything but ‘guy’ was an option.) i didn’t spend time claiming characters that were like me, that made me feel seen, until i was older. (i couldn’t, when i didn’t know who ‘me’ was.) so giselle felt like one of the first ones, with her autistic literalism and trust in humanity and her joy in everything. 

then flash forward fifteen years and they’re continuing the story. even more amazingly, they’ve brought back the whole central cast (minus the child actor, who i assumed they replaced because New Morgan sings and dances, but i didn’t look it up or anything). idina is much more famous now thanks to her frozen work and of course amy adams is amy freaking adams now, nominated but never oscared, but they both came back. the direct-to-streaming release worried me, but i saw a trailer and the movie looked way better than i kind of expected, so i was excited after all. and as mentioned above, i settled in to watch it with my family. 

^^^^and that is where this review left off, almost a year ago--because it was still so hard for me to wrap my brain and my heart around writing it. but at this point i’ve reviewed all the other movies i watched in 2022, AND i’ve watched almost 20 movies this year and reviewed most of them, and those reviews are just sitting in my drafts waiting for me to post them once i finish this. so here goes:

this movie was bad. obviously that’s a personal opinion or value judgement or whatever, but like...it was really, really bad. it bore no resemblance to the original and painfully reminded me how disney’s moviemaking these days is so soulless when it comes to trying to squeeze more money out of its existing IP. and i can handle fairy tale/princess modernizations that aren’t all that impressive (idina was in one of those as well, cinderella), but even those had parts that i liked or that were fun once i was grading on a curve for the whole movie. i can’t say the same for this one.

first of all, we’ve skipped time since the original, which makes sense, since everybody’s older. but nothing about the time progression makes sense, because offscreen fifteen years have passed, making amy adams 48 when this movie came out. giselle and robert have just had a newborn whose royal inheritance is what leads to the movie’s plot--at best, i guess we can assume amy was supposed to be playing giselle a lot younger than she, the actress, was. or maybe her andalasian genes make her immune to fertility averages? 

either way, though, that still doesn’t explain morgan. who in addition to becoming literally a different person (and i hope they only replaced her because the original actress opted out, because she was so great in the first movie i’d resent disney for dumping her just to make the new one sing and dance, or whatever other justifications they might have) is a teenager now. Original Morgan was nine years old in enchanted, or the actress was, anyway. if we assume they meant for Original Morgan to be only seven or eight as a character, that still doesn’t explain a now-high-schooler morgan in this movie. it has been literally twice as many years in real time as it would have to have been in this movie world for morgan to be this age! and unfortunately for the movie, it’s mainly about adults, who have aged the fifteen years you would expect. so that’s ridiculous.

but anyway. somehow, all the adults from enchanted look fifteen years older but morgan’s a teen, and her parents have had a shiny new baby. idina’s character moved with prince james marsden to his world, and literally everyone is depressed now except prince james marsden (and presumably the baby). giselle sees a billboard and decides that’s a plausible reason to uproot her whole family from the city she fell in love with and that the others were from even before meeting her...to move to the suburbs. 

at first, because of the impression i got from the trailer, i thought she would be moving to a perfect-seeming little enclave that was secretly evil, like a magical stepford or something, and that it would turn her evil and throw her family into peril. but the real plot is not that creative. it’s literally just the three of them moving to an ordinary suburb that (gasp!) doesn’t automatically fix their lives. instead, robert has a slog of a commute now, and in their own ways, giselle and morgan both struggle to fit in with their new local peers.

everything establishing this movie’s setup baffled me because it felt so random and flimsy, when the original was a beautiful sendup of classic disney tropes that managed to be subversive but still magical. i referred earlier to giselle deciding on a plausible reason, and i felt the same way about disney and this sequel: it felt like they decided this concept was a plausible reason to bring the cast back together, mix in a few new actors, and try to make money off the result (in this case by locking it inside their streaming service as though that would force new subscribers to disney+ instead of what i’m guessing actually happened, having less viewers for the movie than they would’ve gotten in theaters--cuz even i, the biggest fan of the original, wouldn’t have subscribed just to watch it).

but their ‘plausible’ setup is therefore that everybody’s feeling a bit meh in new york city. robert’s not excited about his job, morgan’s a sullen teenager, and giselle misses the days when everything felt magical and new and perfect. instead of recognizing that they have a freaking newborn, which i may not have experienced personally but have certainly heard is a difficult phase of life (especially the first time, for giselle), and that they simultaneously have a teenager, which anybody who’s ever been or met a teenager can tell you is a difficult phase of life for both the teen and their parents--heck, instead of just going to THERAPY when new york city is one of the few places it may still be easier to find access than everywhere else these days--they move to a random place where they know no one for truly no reason.

the movie wants us to believe that the reason is giselle seeing a billboard and believing its promise (or still being unusually literal?) but neither of those makes any sense because even if we had reason to believe that giselle hadn’t learned anything or grown in the last mysterious number of years and would truly treat a billboard like a promise rather than an advertisement (and i don’t think what we see of her in the sequel supports that idea) it’s still robert she’s married to now, and we know he’s always been someone who lovingly but firmly points that stuff out. 

morgan’s unhappy because she’s a teenager, she doesn’t actually want to move, and as much as robert loves giselle, i don’t believe at all that he would just let her have her fantasy of a fresh start without injecting reality into the situation--so i think the real explanation is that both robert and giselle, for their own reasons, are desperate enough to try it despite knowing it won’t be a magic fix. but then idina menzel and prince james marsden (i should remember their character names but i really don’t at the moment) pop into their new, still-unhappy-just-in-a-different-time-zone, lives and make everything even worse. way to go guys!

continuing the flimsy plot setups, they’re visiting to give a gift to the new baby, to basically proclaim how special she is and make morgan feel like she’s neither special nor giselle’s ‘real’ daughter. giselle is thrilled by the gift from her childhood home and her former prince remains as hilarious as ever (the acting in this movie is good, they’re just not given as much to work with; ‘campy humor’ was the only element they could successfully recreate for some reason). but nancy is clearly already Over It, the former new yorker not exactly as enchanted with prince james marsden as she used to be now that she has to live with his personality 24/7. 

you might expect this to be woven in with the central family’s ennui in some way, but you would be disappointed--that general intermittent eyerolly energy is never directly addressed and as far as we know by the end of the movie, she’s still with him. and i guess will remain so forever? because that’s the rule when you choose a fairy tale life?? even though giselle’s story was entirely about leaving fairy tales behind when they weren’t what she wanted???

maybe we’re supposed to read nancy’s reactions as like, lovable occasional annoyance at How Very Much her guy can be sometimes. but it didn’t come across that way to me; it seemed intentionally to mirror the dissatisfaction giselle and robert were struggling with. i could have been giving them too much credit there, i guess, in assuming deliberate parallels. 

but the real point is that the adults were unhappy in the city, and now, in the suburbs, they’re still not very happy. after the gift-givers go back to andalasia, giselle makes a wish using her baby’s magic present, wanting to make their family into a fairy tale...and she gets her wish. morgan goes from a strugglng teen to a cheerful girl again, running around singing and eventually having to be the savior of her family. robert goes from a commuting lawyer to a wannabe monster slayer, and giselle slowly transforms into an evil stepmother--while the women in town who’ve been snubbing her turn into an actual villain with henchwomen in tow.

from then on, it only gets more ridiculous. amy adams is an immensely talented actor, and like i said, i’ve loved her since she was on tv. but she is not doing her best work here, switching between normal giselle and evil stepmother giselle in response to a chiming clock in a way that reminded me of one of those over-the-top acts where a guy hypnotizes people and then can trigger them to be a chicken or something. it was just so over the top, and lacked any of the emotional depth the original movie brought to her character that made me care.

and poor robert, it was clear, they did not know what to do with. a convoluted exchange with prince james marsden before the wish created circumstances where he was carrying a sword around on his commute. that, i’m sure, was supposed to help make it seem like it made sense for him to become a giant fighter or whatever. but really, they had a sequel to make in which he had to be there because he was her happily ever after in the first one, except now robert isn’t a love interest anymore, there’s no drama between them--and the actor was never meant to be a major contributor to the musical part of these movies, so what’s the point of his story? to run around looking for monsters, totally separate, and mostly unnecessary, it turns out.

the fairy tale transformations mean that we go from watching giselle being sad and hurt in response to morgan’s attitude to morgan’s being mistreated by her now-evil stepmother--neither of which is fun. in giselle’s intermittent ‘good’ moments, she tries to encourage morgan to be free of her and get help, and eventually morgan does end up in andalasia with nancy (she’s also a cartoon at that point, i think). nancy helps her understand what might fix things, and the fact that it’s up to their teenage daughter (whose complaints the whole time have honestly seemed the most reasonable to me compared to her parents’ vague ennui) to save not just her own family but both worlds from doom...it doesn’t seem at all fair. but okay. 

the solution for making giselle good again involves morgan’s memories and singing and the idea that with the power of love it’ll all be fine, but what i remember most about it is that the scene is really just a vehicle for idina menzel to get her own song. which, duh--i was very disappointed that she didn’t sing in the original, and given the success of frozen, it would’ve been crazy for them not to showcase her more this time. 

but the song she’s given? it’s so bad. so very bad. the others i was watching this movie with spent a significant portion of the song time mocking it, and i couldn’t blame them. at a certain point, it just devolves into idina belting the words ‘love power’ over and over and over. you know how some words or phrases become completely meaningless if you say them too much? this definitely felt like that, like the big drama’s ‘solution’ was flimsy to begin with, and then they forced a song into it that wasn’t even a good song, and got idina to sing it. she’s so much better than that! it genuinely made me wonder if she has some kind of disney contract that left her stuck dealing with this.

somehow thanks to morgan, though, giselle does stop being evil by the end--i don’t remember exactly how that scene plays out so i doubt it matters too much--and ending the sort of wish curse she inflicted on everybody means they go back to living in a normal suburb. the woman who briefly became her villain nemesis apologizes in a ‘sometimes i’m a lot oops’ way, and giselle is just like ‘hey, me too, no big deal.’ 

and this brings me to my two biggest problems with the movie, outside of how much it felt like it was trying to destroy any love i still held for the original. 

this movie has no real villain. unlike the first one, where susan sarandon was camping it up in a delightfully appropriate way, and was defeated in the end...this movie falls into the same hole that so many New Disney Movies are determined to, for unknown reasons. we can’t have classic straight-up evil anymore; our heroes have to instead be facing antagonists that are less specific or even less corporeal. it’s family! who of course will no longer be in conflict by the end, and don’t actually need to be ‘defeated.’ or it’s emotions! and once they can be accepted rather than avoided then things will be okay again. 

i’m not saying that’s a bad thing, in general. i love encanto, and i thought turning red and inside out were great. but when you’re dealing with a now-franchise whose original style was to reference and gently mock and lovingly rework classic disney tropes...why would you toss that out completely and make a sequel that feels like the other movies disney makes now? why can’t people appreciate that beloved movies are beloved for a reason and you can’t just slap the ‘brand name’ on whatever you want and act like it’s just as good?

but yeah. this movie decided to have no villain by way of having two villains, both of whom were only temporarily villainous due to indirect magic and who became normal again once it stopped. they bear no real responsibility for being villains, because after all, they aren’t really. post-movie, it seems like they may even become friends! all’s well that ends well. 

which really annoyed me, lol, because it felt so incredibly pointless once i knew that was how it ended. our main character accidentally makes herself evil, makes somebody else evil, has to be saved from being evil while fighting the other evil, and the grand conclusion is that they just finish back where they started? how is that a story that moves forward, let alone a good story with some kind of point or even just a good-versus-evil win, fairy tale style? 

it’s like the main conflict of the movie is created by them having problems, but then the problems they were having...are solved because they’re no longer in conflict. which brings me to my second issue with the movie’s ending: apparently the ultimate lesson of this follow up to enchanted is that growing up means learning to settle, rather than believing in happily ever afters.

despite the cheerful singing at the end of the movie that tries to make us believe it’s just as great an ending as enchanted got, i was so underwhelmed and disappointed and tbh freaked out, that they reached that conclusion. the story we were given was giselle and robert and morgan are a family now just like they wanted but they’re all unhappy, so they move out of the city to seek happiness elsewhere. and it fixes nothing which instead spirals giselle into cursing the town but in the end everybody’s okay and there are no consequences and nobody’s mad at giselle cuz she didn’t mean to do it...so she and robert and morgan commit to trying even harder to be happy in their new suburban life.

and all i can wonder is, why is that the lesson? why is that the right place to end up? why couldn’t they go back to the city and figure out their problems there, since clearly suburbia wasn’t a fix on its own? there didn’t seem to be a real reason for requiring giselle, who loved the sparkly harsh city she landed in years ago, to become a suburban mom--or for uprooting morgan, or making robert become a ‘small town practice’ kind of guy. 

i guess what grates on me about it is that it has such a hallmark christmas movie vibe of just assuming their real happy ending would naturally be escaping the city, no matter how central it was to their original story and lives. whatever their deeper issues were that made them unhappy in the city, they haven’t addressed those by the end of the movie; they’ve just somewhat improved the issues that moving TO this new place piled on. 

therefore my logical brain goes, you were unhappy and tried to fix it by moving but that only made things worse. why wouldn’t you reverse the making-it-worse part by going back, and then continue trying to figure out how to fix it? i just don’t get it. and i may be kind of offended by it, because the giselle who i have always adored is a completely different person in this movie, and not because of some wish curse.

she’s older, and sad, and it’s like nothing about her life is fun anymore...and maybe there could’ve been a way to craft an interesting story out of that, though i don’t know what it would be off the top of my head. but we don’t get whatever that could’ve been. and we don’t get a sequel about our faves from enchanted having more hijinks and having a to fight a new tropey villain, in the style of the first one. what we get is a story about everybody from the first one not liking their lives and having to fight the fallout from that and then concluding that hey, at least the world didn’t end so they must be better off than they thought, time to make the best of it. it deeply depressed me.

and look--i’m not saying i demand happy endings always. i don’t even require happy endings mostly! but unless there is some requirement i’m not aware of that post-pandemic we are no longer allowed happy endings at all, this was not the movie world to bring back just to say ‘the best you can hope for is meh. good luck.’ giselle and everybody else deserved better.

i will say that there was one thing about this movie that i liked. exactly one thing, sadly, or at least only one i clearly remember. i was really excited about the casting before this came out, because i love jayma mays, and maya rudolph is reliably good always. once i actually saw the movie, i was bummed that jayma mays and the other henchwoman didn’t have roles worth including, but maya rudolph was as good as i expected. 

and since this movie was such a mess, she also just really stood out. she’s a ‘can do it all’ kind of performer, in a way that makes it look easy, and i feel like that’s the difference between amy adam’s background in a lot of dramatic roles and maya rudolph’s background in snl. they’re both super talented and both have range, but are a good fit for different things because of that. 

so there is one song in this movie and one performance (cuz it’s the performance of it that makes it good) that i genuinely enjoyed. it’s basically a face off between the two not-actually-villains, kind of like ‘anything you can do i can do better’ but sillier and maximum camp. it’s the only part where it felt like that was what the movie was deliberately aiming for, and both actresses are fully going for it while sometimes we’re watching them parallel on splitscreen...it was ridiculous but in an entertaining rather than cringe-inducing way. 

so that part is great, but also highlights even more what this movie could have been. if only they had let maya rudolph be a proper villain, the leader of a trio of new antagonists for our faves to face, that would’ve been potentially a great movie. she could have gone evil after getting her hands on the baby’s wand, then gone down fighting after the family consulted with their andalasian friends on how to deal with magically corrupted humans. the ending could have been more interesting with bigger stakes than ‘everyone survives and decides to play nice.’ 

heck, i could write that version of that movie! lol. but i won’t. because it would probably necessitate rewatching disenchanted and that is something i never ever want to do. that was a piece of my heart you fucked with, you jerks. and i’m gonna stay mad.

#disenchanted #rant #amy adams #idina menzel #patrick dempsey #james marsden #susan sarandon #actuallylukedanes #actually autistic #autistic #jayma mays #maya rudolph #negativity #enchanted #2022 motw #my formative years

[jyndor]

gotta say that midnights seemed slightly off to me from the get go. like I remember thinking the themes felt like a step backwards in terms of emotional growth after folklore and evermore, and bejeweled immediately had my mind going ???? because it was giving me sorry off of lemonade vibes, like not necessarily the same context or sound but something about it kept reminding me of sorry. that like, fuck being taken for granted, I'm gonna go be cute in the club like of thing.

and midnights does have this melancholy thing throughout which resonated with me deeply but it was also hard to swallow question and bejeweled and even tbh maroon and lavender haze (specifically the 1950s shit line from a woman who has never been shy in her music about wanting that traditional fairytale ending, but i just assumed she had grown into understanding that love doesn't have a fairytale ending, its ever evolving and takes on different forms over time).

but knowing what we likely know now, midnights can reflect the deeply complicated and often contradictory way that relationships work and don't work. you don't just go from love to resentment overnight, and sometimes it's both.

and I'm definitely not speculating, have no interest in learning what happened (it's not our business) but I wanted to share my moment of clarity on the album because I finally had it last night. I always liked it, but I couldn't get over how disjointed it felt. now it makes more sense to me.

maybe I have some young followers and I just want to say I've seen some really heartbreaking and concerning behavior from swifties since the news. I'm not gonna shame someone for getting too caught up in a parasocial relationship with a songwriter who has always put a lot of her personal life and emotions into her works, even if they are fictionalized and reworked into something she can sell. it's understandable that people would feel so connected to her, that's her business model. it isn't healthy which is why she's pulled back so much, but its still part of how her brand works. that carefully curated authenticity.

many of her fans are young, literal children. I don't want them to think that this idealized kind of golden love is possible to begin with - it is IDEALIZED. even with how realistic she has made their relationship sound in contrast to the fairytale loves she wrote about when she was younger, we don't know what they were actually like. you don't know. it's like thinking of their relationship as something from fiction, because in many ways what she wrote IS fiction - it's inspired by reality but fictionalized all the same.

there's a study that looked into when relationships tend to end on average. it's five years. it makes sense, after five years people really do know each other for the most part and likely have grown into more mature people. five years is a long time. five years ago I was just getting my esthetics license and now I'm a business owner. I know more about who I am and what my goals are. my goals have changed. sometimes people's goals become incompatible. it's normal and it doesn't make the love any less real.

this was probably her first serious and mature relationship. by all accounts she was at her lowest point when they met, and she's clearly grown a lot in the time since. that is not even taking into account his own journey and growth. again, this is normal and sometimes people can work through those changes, and sometimes people can't. it's not black and white though, it doesn't have to mean that what they had wasn't real love.

we weren't there, we don't know her or him and we shouldn't. taylor lets us see what she wants us to see. she's a mastermind, right? you don't know her and this is a great example of that. so hopefully younger fans especially can take some time to reflect on how to set better boundaries in the future to avoid feeling so hopeless and full of grief over someone else's relationship.

#taylor swift #swifties #im worried about the kids tbh #taylurking

[cowboylikedean]

You don't have to agree with me but my hot take is that clean has always been about harry.

When the flowers that we'd grown together died of thirst->Love thorns all over this rose->With the wilt of the rose

It was months and months of back and forth- aka the entire vault

Youre still all over me like a wine stained dress I can't wear anymore-> I slept all alone you still wouldn't go

Hung my head as I lost the war->And the only way back to my dignity Was to turn into a shrouded mystery

When I was drowning that's when I could finally breath- I took it as her writing all these songs were the only way to get over him

There is a lot more reasons but the lyrics parallels are insane

When the album first came out, I thought it was mostly about her feelings re: the media. With redtv, I joined the jake train.... But noooowwwwwww

It's the "months and months of back and forth" to me. Like it WAS INSANE the back and forth. my argument before that it wasn't about harry is that she wasn't clean, but the vault illuminates how badly she wanted to be. And it being written in February 2014, shortly after Say Don't Go like... she wanted so badly to be clean, to be over him. she wanted to move on.

the 10 months part doesn't line up still, i don't think. 10 months before february is june and we know she wasn't clean of him in august at the very least. but other than that, this is quite compelling.

i think it's less of actually being clean of him, and more about wanting to be clean of him. but then also ithink that she drew a line in the sand in early 2014 that she had already washed away by mid 2014 when she played him the album and they started hooking up again so I think she was like actually really turned around and confused by the whole thing and it was super dizzying tbh

#ask #Anonymous #haylor #clean

[timetravellingkitty]

I WATCHED BRAHMASTRA LOL

By timetravellingkitty, Consumer of Galaxies (ok I stole that title)

Brahmastra: Part One- Shiva is a 2022 Hindi fantasy action-adventure movie that released on September 9, directed and written by Ayan Mukerji (the guy who also gave us Wake Up Sid and Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani). It's the first in a planned trilogy of movies, following this guy named Shiva who finds out he has cool fire powers and he has to prevent this thing called the Brahmastra which is the strongest Astra (they're weapons in Hindu mythology) from falling into the villains' hands

THE GOOD

The movie has like really cool, high stakes (does that make sense?) action sequences

The CGI is REALLY good and it definitely shows how our film industry has grown when it comes to visual effects (no thanks to Adipurush, I'm sure you all have seen the teaser for that, but that's a story for another day). Also enhances the fight scenes. It's a great visual experience

The music is really good. Dance ka bhoot was such a fun song, Kesariya is still nice and sweet (I know love storiyaan exists okay but tbh I dont even care anymore. Rasiya was a pleasant surprise (best song in the album, change my mind) and Shiva's theme goes HARD

I liked the focus on the astras, the character backstories and the world whenever we got them and I want more

Mouni Roy do I need to say more

Nagarjuna and Amitabh Bachchan do I also need to say more

Ranbir Kapoor was satisfactory 👍

THE BAD

The love story. It was way too rushed. There is no chemistry between Isha and Shiva. These fools just declare that they love each other days after meeting each other-? THEY DONT EVEN KNOW EACH OTHER THAT WELL THEY BARELY HAVE ANY MEANINGFUL INTERACTIONS

Isha's character could've been cut from the movie and there wouldn't be any change. (New drinking game: take a shot everytime Isha screams "SHIVAAA!!!")

The dialogues can be pretty cringy and juvenile, and it really grated on me. My favourite one is probably "Light uss roshni ka naam hai-" behenchod light IS roshni what crack are you on

Sort of related to the previous point: can be a bit spoonfeedy and unnecessarily exposition heavy at times ;-;

VERDICT:

I give this movie 3.25 out of 5 stars. It certainly has a lot of potential and I really hope that the director takes all the criticisms and works on the weaker parts of the movie to make the second part better than this (that build up btw? We need to talk about that). I would be lying if I said that I didn't have an enjoyable experience watching this. It's a great attempt with okay execution, so while I wouldn't necessarily hold you at gunpoint to go and watch it (although our film industry needs to continue taking risks like this so-) I wouldn't dissuade you from watching it either

Brahmastra: Part One- Shiva is an enjoyable, entertaining yet flawed story with so much potential, and I have hope that the sequels will live up to it

#brahmastra: part one shiva #brahmastra #indian cinema #hindi movies

[struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor]

TXT minisode 3: Tomorrow review

Imo, their first minisode is excellent and one of my favorite TXT albums, but lately their albums are only mediocre - the tts are catchy and solid, but the bsides are generic and lack TXT's initial charm.

I'll See You There Tomorrow - the choreo is fun and 100% something BTS would do. The track is nice and light, albeit a bit repetitive; vocals sound decent, but some of the low notes are unpleasant (eg. Soobin's). TXT are not strong vocalists and I find myself noticing that more and more. 7.5/10

Deja Vu - this track grew on me a lot. It's catchy and the choreo is good (very early BTS coded). I used to love Taehyun's voice, but sadly I think it sounds strained and kind of whiny now. He reminds me a lot of Jungkook though, especially lately (re: his stage presence and dancing). Imo Taehyun suits the center position pretty well, and they're doing well giving him some of Yeonjun's center time and dance breaks. Soobin and Beomgyu's voices are very limited and sound really weak imo. Yeonjun's voice sounds the best to me lately - he has the fullest, most natural sounding voice, as well as the most versatile and catchy. Hueningkai's tone has never been pleasant to me - it sounds kind of muffled, but he's a capable singer. 8/10

Miracle - kind of an annoying song tbh, very Avril Lavigne. There really isn't much to say about it. 6.5/10

The Killa (I Belong to You) - this track is incredibly cringy. Hearing Soobin say "I want you to take me now" in the most innocent and flat tone is... well... I get that people think he's hot, and that's surely why they put him on this track, but Soobin is just not an expressive and versatile idol, except perhaps in variety content (I don't know enough to say). Moreover, this song has such a generic beat - it's so flat and by the book -, it's not sexy at all. They also don't have the vocals for it. Yeonjun does well, but why on Earth did they choose Soobin for this? Because he's the most popular and sexualized along with Yeonjun? Beomgyu is much better at pulling off sexy than Soobin, and their singing is kind of on the same level. 6/10

Quarter Life - more rock stuff, I really want TXT to drop this sound. Kai fits this genre well, but this track is annoying and genetic. Taehyun sounds strained too, unfortunately. Beomgyu has pretty much no lines... 6/10

Anyway, this minisode is okay, but imo TXT are very much hindered by weak vocals and awkward stage presence (and beyond). They're very popular, but they could probably be more popular. Imo, TXT lack the IT factor in many ways. Besides lagging behind in vocals and stage presence, they're not that funny or charismatic. I think they fall behind pretty much all other BIg4 bgs (+ other popular bgs). I'm being "objective" about it, since TXT are certainly not going to read this, but I kind of question how Hybe put the group together. They're maybe the only boy group I found boring on Jonathan's show. I often don't know any of the groups who go on that show that well, or at all, but end up finding them charming and funny - like "Ah, I get it. This is why fans like them". Not TXT. Every time I watch interviews or variety stuff I think they seem stiff, don't interact very well with each other, and their humor is off. Imo, that's why Enhypen and SKZ surpass TXT in terms of overall popularity. SKZ are great performers who sing live and now how to engage fans. Enhypen are much better singers than TXT overall, with better stage presence and capacity to draw in fans.

Anyway, this is my opinion, but TXT are a group with the potential to be greater - perhaps with a different lineup, or if they learn to make their "weaknesses" less obvious. TXT's appeal to me was always unique and unconventional music, but now that they've lost that and sound a lot more like a "normal" kpop group, I think their limitations have grown more pronounced.

Surely, most people will disagree with me, but anyway... I'm fond of the boys as a person, but as a consumer less so.

#txt #text #reviews

[taylorkit]

QUICK STATS ;

Name: Kit Taylor

Age: 38

Gender & Pronouns: Male & he/him

Sexuality: Heterosexual

Time in Covington: From birth to 21, then from 30 to now

Occupation: Country singer & owner of Southern Drawl Country Bar & Line Dancing

Neighbourhood: Riveroak Farms

Relationship Status: Single

CLICK BELOW FOR QUICK INTRO & MY DISCORD!

QUICK INTRO ;

Drugs tw, addiction tw

Kit was born in Covington, his dad taught him how to fish and how to drink. His mom taught him how to cook and how to treat a woman right. He was always into music even as a kid, was inspired a lot by the music his parents would listen to.

His parents knew he had a passion for music but pushed him to attend college and do a 'serious degree'. Kit obviously didn't want to, and hella disappointed them when he told them he'd be jumping on a bus to Nashville to try and make it big with just himself and his guitar.

He worked his ass off for a short while, busking on the street and singing in bars to the same drunks. But then he got noticed and he got signed, and his music flew from there. The usual story of one album became two, and he went on tours around the country. Did pretty well for himself tbh, was relatively popular amongst the country music scene.

He met a beaaaautiful blonde and fell in love. She dreamed of becoming an actress so they moved to LA together. She was heavy into partying and dragged him into it, and in his early 20's he developed a cocaine addiction. I see them as a lil bit like Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake early 2000s vibes, but with a dash of chaos from Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson energy.

She fell pregnant at 23, and they had a daughter. They were the 'cool parents' who didn't shelter her from the lifestyle they had.

But his agent pushed him for more music and he wrote some songs but they just weren't right. He realised he needed to move back home to the south, to his roots, to see if that would kick start his music again. Kit and his partner had an amicable break up, and he moved back to Covington while their daughter stayed in LA.

He wrote some music, but ultimately over the years decided he had moved on from releasing music and touring, and just wanted a simple life. Kit wanted to sit on his porch with his guitar and a beer, and his dog, and write music he loved.

He bought the line dancing bar and he uses it to bring people together with country music and a damn good time. He still loves to party tbh, and will hold nights where he'll either play some of his music or he'll showcase local talent. You can generally find him either working behind the bar or somewhere nearby, talking to his regulars.

His daughter is now 14, and in the past couple years or so she decided to move to Covington to live with him, and she is an avid horse rider.

Kit is pretty happy living his life in his hometown, writing music and sitting on his back porch with his guitar. He will pretty much always have either a beer or a cigarette in his hand. Loves a cowboy hat. Loves horse riding and fishing. He owns a couple horses and has a golden retriever called Rex. He can be pretty chaotic despite being a fully grown adult and a father. He will get you drunk and find it hilarious when you can't handle it. He's just here for a good time, not a long time, you know?

#( intro. )

[maskspurpose]

for superhero fic: 2, 8 (besides wtei), 9 for fine reunion: 7 for tori, 20, 22 and 13, 21 in general

Oh my god hiiii who are you <3 Putting these under a cut bc of how much I wrote LMAO

Superhero AU

2: How did you get the idea to write this?

WataEi week on twitter had a list of prompts and one of them included hero/villain au which made me think about how those are like... complicated and interesting roles for wataru and eichi respectively since theyve both played the protagonist and antagonist and how this could be an AU where you can explore that and another theme (masks) in a really fun way. It kinda like. appeared in my head fully formed especially bc superhero comics are a past special interest i've come back to a couple of times now.

8: Which character is gonna have the biggest storyline?

I meant to follow the broad strokes of ES1 main story and just retell it in this new framing device or rather like... see where it goes from there, so it would probably end up being Tori or Hokuto depending on where the dice of my focus falls. In a version of the story I was thinking about doing a type of monster of the week format similar to how many magical girl shows do it where the monster in question is like... the manifestation of the Mental Issues someone is having so I think in that version a lot of them have the potential to get a day in the spotlight.

Thinking about it some more though I really enjoy the worldbuilding I did for Yuzuru so. Honestly he's also a big candidate. It just feeds really well into a lot of the stuff that's happening.

9: Is there anything in the fic you're not so excited about writing?

I got extremely stuck on the worldbuilding and overarching plot and how to make it work without it being boring (bc of how much of it is retelling the main story) and also just... making the kinda complex morality stuff I wanna highlight work in a kinda cartoony setting?

The other thing is smaller but Wataru alternates pronouns depending on their identity in this story (at least in Eichi's POV) and keeping that straight is a headache and a half for me tbh.

fine reunion

7: What are your plans for Tori?

Okay so the setup of this fic is, essentially, what if EP:Link bad end where fine ends up disbanding, which means... you kind of have to imagine Tori's development re: the rest of fine as being stuck in that specific point in time? The last selfish thing he asked for didn't come true, so what does that mean... in this case it means he's suspicious of Wataru and passively pissed despite being aware that it's not fully justified.

I think at the same time he's grown more independent. He's grown up in a lot of ways that we can also see in ES2 and I think has become a lot more savvy and aware of unsavory business practices both by his own family and others. I think out of fine he's the one who seems like he's changed the most simply by virtue of being the one who had the most growing up to do. I think he's both become a bit more like Eichi in the roles he fills and a lot less like Eichi in how he does it? And where it all goes... we shall see!

20: Give a vague description of something that will happen without revealing too much

fine reunion album tour. four people with pent up emotional issues. in one bus and/or hotel room.

22: Will this fic include more angst or more fluff?

The reason I'm like willing to write it is because ultimately I want to lean towards fluff? I think there's ways to do this that get angsty really quickly and my original concept for it was leaning into that but ultimately I wanna focus on like... the fact that yes if fine split up these characters would stay the same in some ways but just how much personal growth is up to you as a person and imo one of the now most important things abt fine which is that they are together as a unit because they like each other and want to be.

There's still gonna be some angst and some topics are unavoidable just bc it will touch on like. idk a large part of the premise is that Eichi is doing the whole reunion bc he's doing an early retirement as an idol because of his health (no acute reasons and more of a precaution but it's still. yknow) and that Wataru left after EP:Link to become an actor. So there's issues.

General Questions:

13: Is there any unwritten/unpublished fics you haven't mentioned you're gonna do?

No promises but I still want to write something about Wataru and Keito working together on a script for Dramatica and what that would entail. I also wanna do a 5+1-ish (4+1?) thing/series about Wataru kissing the other eccentrics or something.

Part of me wants to one day do a collaboration on something with my boyfriend but we'd have to figure out the mechanics and I haven't brought it up to him yet, soooo 🤫🤫🤫

21: Is there any unwritten fic that you don't know if you ever will write?

Originally I was going to do a proper sequel to the Watareichi fic I wrote that's been shrinking in scope for a variety of reasons (less interest in writing wtrei as anything but exes, dissatisfaction with the fic it'd be a sequel to). There's a longer version of the Wataru & HiMERU drabble I wrote that'll never be done because uuuuuuh I really don't care for HiMERU anymore.

I have this whole AU i plotted out at some point where Wataru and Mama have a unit together bc I thought it'd be funny for a unit swap prompt but ultimately that's probably never going to happen.

IDK I have WIPs from fandoms I'm no longer in does that count?

#enstars / #ask meme #thank you for the questions <333

[bisamwilson]

Friendly Sam Wilson Anon, 

I know it's been a while, but I am back !!!!

It's the holiday season and I am feeling festive !!! This is my favorite time of year and the music, and the togetherness are my favorite parts. So, we are here to create a holiday playlist for our beloved Sam Wilson and his wonderful ships. It does not matter what Sam ship you ship, let's have fun and make sure you tag Sam Wilson and the ship that you ship 🙂. Be creative and let's vibe out to some holiday music !!!

I hope these playlists inspire new fics, artwork, videos, edits and so much more. Lets tag it "Sam Wilson Holiday Playlist" and let's use the same hashtag for his ships !!!!!

Happy Holidays ❤️

hello, friendly sam wilson anon! i've missed you, i hope you've been well <3

oh, and merry christmas eve!

sorry this took so long for me to answer--holidays have been much busier than expected!

this is less of a playlist per se than songs that i think sam would enjoy/listen to, or that remind me of him and/or sambucky (+ some explanations why)

this is in no particular order

All I Want For Christmas Is You - Mariah Carey

gotta start with the classics. sam was a teenager in the 90s. he probably would've been all over it when it was released, and now that he's in his 40s he loves it just as much and is extra obnoxious about it bc goddamn it it's christmastime and he can be obnoxious about it. he sings it to bucky first thing on november 1st every year, purposefully missing every high note as atrociously as he can, and bucky, while outwardly grumpy, doesn't think he's ever heard anything so beautiful in his life as sam's off-key scream-singing, laughter laced through every lyric

The Mistletoe Jam (Everybody Kiss Somebody) - Luther Vandross

look, i think sam would be ALL over all of luther vandross's christmas album, but this one is my particular favorite, and i think it'd be sam's too. it's fun, it's sexy, luther's voice is spectacular as always, and i can ABSOLUTELY see sam and bucky getting a little down and dirty to luther crooning "you still got the flavor / and i'm hungry for your love / so i'm gon play this one jam / that'll make you want to kiss somebody" ESPECIALLY when they're a little bit older and just having fun/comfortable with each other

Let It Snow - Boyz II Men, Brian McKnight

once again, sam was a teenaged boy in the 90s. this is absolutely one of his favorites, for the same reasons he likes mistletoe jam. smooth, sexy, romantic, and who doesn't love a bit of boyz ii men tbh

I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm - Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong

i think this might’ve been one of the songs that sam’s mama and daddy had on vinyl when he was a kid, one they’d swing around the house to after they’d all trimmed the tree and put out the fancy christmas tableware. sam and sarah would both laugh and smile along as they danced through the living room, before they’d get pulled in themselves.

years later, when he and bucky move into their first place together and after they’ve decorated for the holidays, sam pulls out this record and sees if bucky remembers how to swing

Go Tell It On the Mountain - Mahalia Jackson

a VERY different type of christmas song than the ones thus far, but one i think sam loves anyway. if we're mixing in a bit of his comics background, his father was a pastor, and he would've grown up in church. he's probably got a lot of fond memories singing this one around christmas time, maybe even was in the church choir himself, and i know some of my own favorite christmas songs were the ones i grew up singing in church. it probably reminds him of his childhood, so he always has to make sure he hears it at least once every christmas season, whether it's on spotify or at the christmastime service he still goes to for his late mama's sake, even if it's not necessarily an "on repeat" kind of christmas song

I’ll Be Home For Christmas (If Only In My Dreams) - Frank Sinatra

i don’t know if this is necessarily one sam listens to every year, but i do think he’d probably relate to it during certain times of his life. it was written in wwii from the perspective of a soldier overseas, and it probably would’ve hit home for sam both during his tours and during the two years he spent on the run, missing his family but unable to go home. probably would’ve been one steve was singing along to, as well, as he would’ve heard bing crosby’s original version back in 1943, when he was overseas himself. it made for a melancholy christmas, sure, but i think this song probably would’ve been a comfort in some way as well

this is less a playlist and more a christmas song led sam headcanon session lmao, but hopefully it works! thanks for the ask, friendly sam wilson anon, and happy holidays <3

#sam wilson holiday playlist #sambucky holiday playlist #sam wilson #bucky barnes #sambucky #otp: i’m coming with you #marvel #ask #friendly sam wilson anon

[wallisninety-six]

Tbh, idk if there's many other Beach Boys fans who think that Sunflower is equally good or as special as Pet Sounds like I do- I know that's probably hyping it up a *lot* but I really, genuinely do adore it on that level like few other albums

I don't know what it is about it, but it grew on me in a similar way that Pet Sounds did- merely liking it quite fine at first but then being sucked back into it for reasons that I didn't really understand

Like I initially thought Sunflower was pretty good, but I never understood the hype- but like all the best BB work, it's so deceptively simple! and it shows it's true form the more you listen- it has some of my favorite, most spiritual-sounding BB harmonies ever- incredibly infectious, genuine expressions of love of music & love itself- *amazing* & hypnotic production and an incredibly whole sound to it all- and with a whole group effort to boot, it's truly harmonic in every aspect for me that makes my brain feel at ease.

Even the songs I merely found okay or 'meh' at first I've grown to really, really like and I can't imagine the album without them now- it all sounds so of it's time, yet so ethereal, calming and timeless to me- and idk how the fuck they were able to do it in the rough shape the band was in at the time- it blows me away every time.

Like Sunflower is some of the most gorgeous, optimistic, and serotonin-inducing 70s sunshine pop I've personally heard- it's like listening to a vibrant, glowing rainbow in audio form for me

#there was no real point to this i'm just aimlessly gushing about how much i love sunflower #sunflower #the beach boys #70s #70s music #classic rock #brian wilson #carl wilson #dennis wilson #bruce johnston #mike love #al jardine

[straightfromthetorturedpoetsdept]

THE BISEXUAL FISHIES IS SUCH A CUTE THING TO ADD OMG

RIGHT ESPECIALLY WHE. THE KOI FISH ARE SUCH A ICONIC PART OF SPEAK NOW ERA, I HAVE SO MUCH TO SAY ABOUT THIS MUSIC VIDEO AND I WANT TO START WITH THE LAVENDER FIELDS.

Did yall notice how she gets high off the lavender haze (STONER TAYLOR FTW) and then crawls in the lavender to walk towards the midnight rain easter egg ? The fact that she pulled that open and showed us the world around her, in purple with koi fish, I'm losing my shit at the queer implications of that!!!

I also really love how she referenced both speak now and lover, her two explicitly queer themed albums with the fishbowl/koi fish scenes. The video was the definition of bisexual woman dating a man, and I loved it. It's such a beautiful concept, I love how there is magical elements in all of these videos because it really shows us the youthful qualities Taylor still possesses. I love magical realism as a genre so I love that in her "meet me at midnight" era, we are see the return of magic in her work.

I think it's truly beautiful that lavender haze mv references speak now so heavily because it confirms my suspicion that "you'll do whatever it takes to protect that haze" is about her past decisions/mistakes of choosing to be closeted and how now that she's living as a queer woman (represented by the lesbian colors of her top), she's able to fully be present in her relationship with Joe and I also like that she's learned that her love interests don't have to represent the people she's actually dated in her mv because we're seeing a lot of people who are marginalized in the industry be played as love interests in such a nonchalant way, I love it actually.

This is the type of change that has grown ever present since 1989 and I hope she continues it.

I love the vinyls being song titles of hers and I love that each song has a different cover that is thematic relevant. Like I said about the mastermind vinyl, it has constellations on it with her and Joe's signs and that's so fucking cute but like it's definitely the theme of that particular song and im convinced there is a mastermind music video I will not be taking further questions at this time

I also like that taylor kind of focused the video on her, even though she had friends around her and her boyfriend in a few scenes, most of the video was just her getting high and rolling around in Lavender and honestly SO ME TAYLOR.

I think the pool of her just being sexy as fuck was so necessary and put it in for me specifically and I thank her for her service. I will never ever get over this.

This was unnecessary, it's literally exactly how I picture lavender haze in my mind like she's literally getting high with Joe and dancing around and just living life in her little bedroom with him and it's so fucking !!!! I do wish we could have seen her in an explicitly queer scene because lavender haze is very obviously queer coded and I don't really like how hetlors are going to weaponize this video tbh and she should have thought of that while filming but the lesbian outfit honestly is more true to her situation with Joe, because she is very loud and queer but she is committed to him so I think once we have explicit confirmation of taylor coming out herself, it'll be really good bisexual representation.

I also really like the visual representation of her being sad and having that storm cloud above her, it's giving "the rain is always going to come, when you're standing with me" and "every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness" and I just really like how by the end of it, the cloud is bigger but white and she escapes into it, like I think that was very cool and interesting to watch.

Overall, best music video she ever did. I loved it.

#taylor swift #gaylor #midnights #lavender haze #anon love #ask and you shall receive