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organic-guacamole · 3 years

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episode 209 spoilers below

I'm so late today but here it is

I love EJ, he's finally learning to be happy. I'm so proud.

Ms Jenn = every boomer during zoom calls, like jeez yes we can hear you stop shouting at me.

LOVE THE SUBTLE JOKE ABOUT QUARANTINE "these dark times" "you mean spring break?"

ah yes, remember when we thought covid was just gonna give us a longer spring break? good times

SEBLOS

damn the passive aggressiveness from Carlos and the absolutely over it tone from seb✋

CASWELL COUSINS!!!!! THEY'RE THE BEST!!!!

we needed more if this kind of goofiness for the first part of season 2 that only such an iconic duo can provide.

old old movies-

is it even that old, or is Nini being a gen alpha rn-

i choose to imagine EJ being scared of the movie and hiding in Ashlyn's shoulder while she keeps a straight face and then EJ pretending to be tough afterwards

aww redlyn are soulmates.... yknow, if gingers had souls

(please ignore me)

y'all saw how EJ's face *lit up* when Gina logged on? how dare you tell me he doesn't like her

ofc she's no damsel in distress, she's Gina porter, she's amazing.

so do we think she'd be the type to just glare at suspicious people? or bark at them

do they not know that Rini broke up? or is Ms Jenn just wanting Nini to suffer through her heartbreak to make her a better actress....

speaking of, why is Nini in the call? she's not in the show anymore. Unless she is, even after the rose and the song got cut, which would be so unfair to all those that auditioned properly before she even came back but whatever, she's the main character I get it 🙄

big red is a hero honestly, Nini better thank him for changing the subject like that

I can't-

i won't work you over the break-

this woman would 100% work her kids 24/7 if it was legal and idk how to feel about it.

YES GINA USE THAT CHARM

QUEEN

FRENCH QUEEN

SHE LEARNT FROM THE BEST (antoine obvi)

smh the airport lady, eavesdropping on Gina's call.

The way she was so happy to answer EJ's call, "eej"

I love them your honour.

EJ WITH PAINTED NAILS YES PLEASE

great now we need to see Gina, Ashlyn and EJ having a complete spa day and EJ getting really into it and Gina and Ashlyn take pictures of him when he's laying down in a robe with a mask and cucumbers on his eyes.

finally we get to see Gina's side of portwell

the way she considered it as flirting, this is the sign she asked for in episode 6 come onnnnn

no is Asher/jack really doing tiktok dances in an airport-

Ricky is me. I am burrito.

oh Lynne, sweetie, I'm sorry but the blonde hair is not it

is that even the same lady or-

THE BEAN

THE CHICAGO BEAN

THE BIG OLD METAL BEAN IN THE MIDDLE OF THE CITY 😭

jetlag is my go to excuse for anything... I haven't travelled in 2 years.

"welcome to the Lynne and Mike gossip show. where we talk about our depressed son that we both neglect in certain ways! And now a word from our sponsor, Nord VPN..."

SO MANY CANDLES

WHAT DEMON IS LYNNE TRYING TO SUMMON IN HIS ROOM-

is Nina becoming social media obsessed EJ from season 1? AND SHE LIED ABOUT HAVING SONGS TOO PLEASE WHY ARW THEY RECYCLING THE SAME PLOT-

Gina smiling at the picture of her family on Instagram makes me so happy, idek why.

EJ's nails are so pretty, we needed to see it more (unless he had it on for the rest of the episode and I just.... didn't notice🧍🏽‍♀️)

oh not the tiktok kid✋

yes ma'am end this strange mans whole tiktok career

sir take a hint and leave

GINA NO DONT SAY YOUR LAST NAME HE COULD BE A HUMAN TRAFFICKER

Ricky, walking in style✨

weird kid, ok then Lynne, can't you see he's this close to the edge?

not all your fault baby Ricky, Nini sucks a bit more

RICKY YOU DIDN'T COME DOWN HARD ON THE SONG-

YOU ASKED WHAT IT WAS ABOUT AND SHE SHUT YOU DOWN-

PLEASE DO NOT BLAME YOURSELF

ok but the deleting comment thing was very bad

still don't know if I like Jack honestly

hmmm so Nini's calling herself Nini instead of Nina in her little egg seat, while trying to write a song without inspiration.... Nini, honey, Ricky was your muse, he inspired you to write all those songs, even if it wasn't good for the relationship.

that doesn't mean you gotta get back with him, or that you can't write a song that not about him butttt it'll take some time

the rainbow sticker in her box and her rainbow shirt-

anyways wbk she's not totally straight

Jack are you a criminal?

quick, Gina, check his ankle for a tracker

THE YES AND PRACTICE STRIKES AGAIN

the way Gina wasn't into it in episode 6 but she's used the technique twice now

stole her grandma's Pomeranian-

Jack where the hell did you pull that out from-

the fake crying killed me, that looks like so much fun though

anyone wanna raid a first class lounge with me?

wait so is jack not gonna go in with her?

wouldn't he go in too? help look for the credit card? SO CONFUSED

the first class lounge guy was so into the drama though, watch his face when they start arguing 😭

sorry to break this to you Kourtney, but you haven't even blocked the second act yet soooo...

take that as you will

I love how all of them are totally dissing the dance off

that's the most realistic part of this show tbh

shouldn't Nini have asked how she knew....since the start? why is the fact that her best friend has knowledge of a North high secret now dawning on her...

Howie is sweet honestly, at least he's trying to help. but I stand with Kourtney, don't take him back just because he sang an amazing song, and is giving you a heads up on what's gonna happen...

KOURTNEY IS ME TRYING TO LEAVE AN ONLINE CLASS

I hate school

ooo Nini's writing a song about bad internet connection 🤩🤩🤩

I never lie, except when I do-

son that is the creepiest thing you could say to a stranger that you've been "helping"

2 truths and a lie👀

he's an Ariana fan 100%

called it.

OLDER BROTHER-

WHAT-

free spirit? damn so brother porter was in that horse movie

so has she been kissed or not?????????

I feel like she's moved more than 15 times though so possibly

but then if she's moved so much, and before east high she never opened up to anyone, she's never been kissed then?? damn

same though Gina so let's be besties please

heartbreak president is a great song title idea, give Nini a call rn

but wait

is the no strings attached feeling thing about her telling Ricky she liked him? she thought she was moving away so she thought it'd be no strings attached???

guys I think I figured it out insert the "I've connected two dots" meme

THE DUKE SWEATSHIRT

IS THAT YOUR BOYFRIEND'S

OMG I LOVE I LOVE

NOT THAT I KNOW OF???

ma'am did you just kill me

yes you did

Lynne and Ricky have such a weird relationship

YES IT DID SUCK

TODD SUCKS

LYNNE SUCKS

yeah I get that you wanted Ricky to like Todd BUT THAT WASN'T THE TIME

right so we already know that Ricky was so desperate to keep Nini cuz he didn't want to be like his parents, and now Lynne's talking about this-

Richard needs a long hug

yes Lynne, it is your fault. thank you for finally admitting it.

YES DYE YOUR HAIR

BLOND HIGHLIGHTS RICKY WILL RISE AGAIN

"sometimes the best, last thing you can do for someone you love, is let them go."

gotta admit I teared up at that point

not me thinking big red was calling ms Jenn cupcake for a hot second-

Carlos please omg, you're at the "beach" and they're leaving for the pool?

also, why not just do the call from the hotel room please omg

"don't ask me"

"Carlos"

OMG WHAT HAPPENED

big red wants the tea

O M G

SEB IS JEALOUS

JEALOUS SEBBY IS MY FAVOURITE THING IDC

I'm surprised ms Jenn knew how to give Nini permission to screenshare tbh

So lily's been stalking the East high kids and spending time editing this video while she's supposedly in an immersion trip.... right

EJ and Ashlyn's picture is so chaotic, what even is happening there

"slacking off" bestie its spring break, obviously they're confident enough that they'll get it done in time so why not focus on your own musical.

jealous seb = sassy seb

please what if those guys Carlos is posing with are his cousins or something and that's why he's so confused about Seb

6 YEAR OLD EJ I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM I LOVE HIM

Nini saying she's obsessed with her ex, that's not weird at all 👍

I can just tell Matt had a blast harassing Julia with those puppets.

Jack please dont be like that, "yet"

chances are you'll never see eachother again 🥰

(honestly sometimes I really miss those friends I made on trips and stuff when we'd spend the day or week together, only to never see them again....those were the good days though)

Ashlyn and Nini should write more songs..... something better than this one at least

Nini: "im good"

cue the Tia Mowry (please I can't spell) crying gif

oh I forgot Ricky was in the show for a hot second

1. where did Gina get to film this without people being around

2. did she just... randomly change her clothes???

ok but the transition between Carlos and EJ

*chefs kiss*

now everyone shut up, EJ's singing

oh i think I'm pregnant

HIS MUSCLES

YES KOURTNEY

I love how big red and Kourtney went from being "the best friends™" to the couple in season 1, to kinda close themselves and having their own plots

sebby makes me so happy

props to biggies editing skills honestly

PORTWELL BEING SIDE TO SIDE I CANT

AND SEBLOS OMG

big red lives for the drama

"wow" so true Ricky

no he is not cute, stop it

"holding" ok that's kinda cute

yeah EJ's a lucky guy😌

jokes aside, it's not that hard to exchange numbers-

keep in touch if you want

ok I really like Jack now

if he comes back in season 3, maybe have him be LGBTQ+ ?

like the only out characters they have rn are Seb and Carlos and they're like the sterotypes, yk?

I'd love to see jack kinda break the mold

Ricky's breaking my heart

that song just hurts

the only thing

now I don't hate Lynne????????

HOW DARE THEY WRITE IN A PROPER REDEMPTION ARC FOR HER

UGH IM SUPPOSED TO HATE HER FOREVER

I mean I don't live her now but she's good

but honestly

"mom can I show you something"

IT WAS SO BEAUTIFUL

THE PICTURE AND EVERYTHING OMG

I'm sobbing please help

Gina saying she's just waiting for the right guy and then EJ coming to the airport to pick her up late at night without her asking, offering to bring her back in the morning so she won't have to Uber, bringing her a granola bar (WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT SHE FORGOT TO PACK) and without expecting anything in return???

ms ma'am you've got a keeper right there

her smile at the end was so heartwarming I really can't.

this episode was great.

it felt really short but I liked it, great character development for Ricky, Lynne and Gina.

Cant wait for next episode to see more of EJ being the ideal boyfriend /hj

#hsmtmts #hsmtmts s2 #hsmtmts season 2 #hsmtmts spoilers #ej caswell #ricky bowen #gina porter #seblos #nini salazar roberts #jack hsmtmts #carlos rodriguez #seb mathew smith #kourtney greene #big red #ashlyn caswell #caswell cousins #portwell will be the death of me #guac's episode text blocks :)

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struggle-but-its-all-ocean-floor · 3 years

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I really wanted to get this off my chest. I’ve been wanting to rant about it since I watched the video, but only had the time now.

The whole situation with James is so uncomfortable. The fact that RM called him out on it and made him sweat made me feel a bit vindicated, but overall, the whole situation is rotten. RM’s behavior and words implied he too had been upset by Corden’s words and understood Army’s reaction. The way he said “it’s okay, we accept your apology”, even though there was no apology, means he knew we, and they, deserved one.

However, the other members seemed so neutral, like they weren’t aware of what had happened? I know a translator must’ve been present, but they seemed clueless. Surely, they weren’t. The fact that they acted like nothing was wrong had me miffed. Because BTS always do this. They get disrespected by some celeb, and the next day are acting they’re all friends. The whole industry is so fake. As long as its profitable for celebs they’ll talk to anyone on any show or interview. BTS were treated like shit by the Grammys but they’ll never said so, because it benefits them to win.

This is an example of BTS putting their own ambitions ahead of Army, or even their own pride. Maybe that is taking it too far, BTS live for themselves, not us - but, honestly, Army is upset with the Grammys and Corden still, but their success in the West and accolades are more important. It makes BTS feel fake too, for catering to people who disrespected them and us, who truly love them and are the reason for their success.

The entire interview made BTS look as bad as James, imo, and Army as well, for our decision to watch his show again after we had turned our backs on him.

And James’ excuses were so fake. He clearly still didn’t see what was wrong about his choice of “jokes”, he didn’t actually apologize and even told RM “but I didn’t apologize” instead of taking the chance to do so. He even said some bullshit about being Army (one of the biggest Armys out there!) and not being 15. Clearly, if he had been Army he wouldn’t have made that joke, because he would’ve been aware that he was making a gross generalization and, furthermore, insulting Armys since we are only compared to 15 year olds as an insult (which is sexist and mean to teenagers who deserved an apology as well). It was also disgusting how he said “fans sent me death threats which seemed extreme” just to play the victim. Most Armys were not sending him death threats, and that shit is practically internet culture, not Army culture. He made it seem like we were the real assholes who overeacted. He even had the nerve of asking a clueless and confused Jimin if he was still Papa Mochi, knowing fully well the fandom had decided to revoke that title and that this was his opportunity to tell Army BTS weren’t mad so they should behave. Lizzo did this as well the other day. Army got mad at her, and she tweeted about how she and BTS were besties because they are now twitter mutuals. The message is clear: BTS isn’t angry, get in line. (And of course BTS never said anything about that situation despite the fact that she made Army seem like bullies with her “leave SZA alone” hashtag. BTS got Armys’ back, they say? That’s a lie when it comes to other celebrities.)

I can still be angry, and dislike how chummy BTS were with someone who was so obviously fake. I wonder if RM cleared the air for Army’s sake or for their own, since they wanted to appear on the show again.

The whole thing made us look like a joke and another asshole got away with his bullshit. These are celebrity privileges. They’d probably write a diss track about a random guy on twitter saying this, but not Corden. Just like BTS doesn’t take pics with fans, but take pics with celebs they don’t know and their children. They sign albums for celebrities faster than they would for fans too (they signed an album for John Legend’s niece or whatever). Feels like celebrities will always be more important than us sometimes. But this is the industry. You have to play along to get anywhere.

#bts #kim namjoon #kim seokjin #min yoongi #jung hoseok #park jimin #kim taehyung #jeon jungkook #bangtan #bangtan sonyeondan #james corden #the late late show #text

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latuuart · 2 years

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That post you shared about information reminded me about myself in elementary/high school with my friends. They all knew these types of slangs and references, certain inappropriate things. I grew up in a household where my parents immigrated from Portugal, so I wouldn’t say there your typical North/North American family (not at all dissing some families parenting or anything. But let me tell you it surprised me how much free reign some kids had of just being able to go to friend’s house or anywhere while just letting their parents know. And I did grow a little jealous honestly because I legitimately had to plan hangouts because planning on the same day was “too soon.” Which hindered me on hanging out as often with them and making excuses. But I guess I’m the end it humbled me.) Anyway… whenever I would ask what certain things meant they’d give me weird looks, like I was SUPPOSED to know. And they wouldn’t really say anything and be like “your to innocent to know” or some other remark which frustrated me to no end. I know it may seem maybe weird to ask these things, but sometimes Google doesn’t answer some of these questions at the time. I also was extremely forgetful so if just forget to look into it later. Now as I’m older I am able to utilize different sources and how to look certain things up. But it’s like, people ask for a reason, not everyone grew up the same way. Thanks for sharing that post, it was an interesting read!

Thank you for sharing your experience with me. I enjoy reading that as I was experiencing the same thing as well.

About knowing certain slangs or inappropriate words and being able to go to a friend's house without telling parents first or telling them on the same day you go, I'm the same with you 😁

I was in a private elementary school, then I continued to a public junior high school. They're just different types of school but I already felt the differences regarding the students and the cultures there. Same as you, I didn't even know some slangs or inappropriate words/references that these students used in my public junior high school. And when I asked, I got similar answer with you from my friends; "you're too innocent to know", "search it on your own". I was surprised too that these kids could go to anywhere after school without their parents' permission and could even come back at home at late night (they're only 12-15 years old), while I was already scolded by my parents when I came back home at 6 PM 😅

My point is, even just different types of school (or different countries in your case) could make such different cultures and upbringings. And we're expecting people from another continent to act or understand everything that we do or speak in our country? I'm not excusing people to be ignorant. However, rather than expecting people to "know already", critical cultural relativism is much more important to me. Instead of judging why this person still not know about something that we think should've been known based on our standards, or why they act and think differently from us, it's always better to try to understand their action and their way of thinking based on how they were raised or where they come from.

Moreover, how can we search something on Google if we don't know what to search? If we don't even know the issue, then what to search? How could it cross our minds? Internet is very accessible right now, but when I was a teenager, it was still not widely used, some people still didn't even have a phone. Even now, how can we know about something/issue that we never talked about in our surroundings? I always have a mindset, before expecting people to know everything about my country or cultures, I stop myself and ask; "do I know everything about their country/cultures?" If I don't then I avoid being so judgmental towards them. We all are the same here, on the same level, there's no superiority here.

Educate ourselves, yes. But when people genuinely ask, rather than pointing a finger and saying "educate yourself!", why don't just share? :)

#culture #education #cultural diversity #cultural differences #critical cultural relativism #latu post #anonymous

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hellyeahheroes · 4 years

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Building Molly Hayes in D&D 5e

So I noticed that I have now one build more for DC than I have for Marvel so how about we build something straightforward and easy and yet very fun to play? How about one little girl who really can beat everyone up?

Since I follow the blueprint set by Tulok the Barbarian, we need to establish our Goals for this build. First of all, we need to punch like a true Bruiser, someone worthy the title Princess Powerful. Second, we need to be as hard to kill as someone whose creator forced into the contract a clause she will never be killed or maimed. And finally, we need to do that while being able to fool people into thinking we’re just a harmless little girl, so they won’t realize the problem before it is too late.

Ability Scores: We Will be using the Standard Points Array - 15, 14, 13, 12, 10 and 8. If you want to roll or use point-buy, go ahead but remember to keep your Strength high.

Strength: 14, your nicknames aren’t just for show.

Dexterity: 13, we will boost it in a moment

Constitution: 15, Molly can take as much as she can diss.

Intelligence: 8, it represents formal education and Molly has few years of a hole in that and even without it is still in her early teens so she had even less of it than many other characters we did.

Wisdom: 10, should be higher but we cannot have everything.

Charisma: 12, Molly is adorable aaaand much smarter than people give her.

Now for D&D version of species, Race. Molly is a mutant and last time I checked mutant considered themselves a separate species altogether. So we’ll go with Stout Halfling. Your size is small, to the point Halfling passing for a human child is a known thing in D&D. You get +2 to Dexterity and +1 to Constitution. You are Lucky, allowing you to reroll natural 1 on any attack roll, ability check or a saving throw. You can move through space of any creature larger than you, you have an advantage on saving throws against poison and resistance to poison damage. You can speak Common and Halfling and your base speed is 25 feet.

Alternatives: If you want to play Molly Hernandez, who is not a mutant, pick up Variant Human and grab Lucky feat.

We will make Custom Background - pick up Deception and Acrobatics, any language that could be campaign relevant, artisan tool proficiency to play tuba and City Secrets feature from Urchin background.

Class Levels: First we will get us some punching. First level Fighter gains proficiency in all simple and martial weapons, Strength and Constitution saving throws and proficiency in two skills, I’d go for Insight and Athletics. You get to pick a Fighting Style, Unarmed Fighting makes your fist deal 1d6+ Yoru Strength Modifier damage instead of static 2, 1d8 if you use two hands at once. When you grapple a creature, you can deal them 1d4 damage whenever you hit them by a melee attack. You also get Second Wind, letting you once per short rest use your bonus action to regain 1d10+your Fighter level hit points.

2nd Level: Molly is known for wearing cute hats. But do you know what she doesn’t wear? An armor. Which is why we will quickly grab the first level of Barbarian for Unarmored Defense, letting you add your Constitution modifier to your Armor Class when you're not wearing armor. You also get to enter Rage, in which you have an advantage on Strength checks and saving throws, lets you add extra damage to attacks made while you rage and resistance to bludgeoning, piercing and slashing damage. You can enter it a limited number of times, it lasts 1 minute and ends if you decide to, lose consciousness or do not attack anything for one turn.

3rg Level: Fighter of 2nd Level gains Action Surge, letting you take extra action for a turn between every long or short rest.

4th Level: 3rd Level Fighters get to choose a martial archetype. Brute lets you add 1d4 to any damage you deal with a melee weapon you’re proficient with. Meaning now this little girl hits with her bare hands like a guy with a sword.

5th Level: 4th Level Fighter gets an Ability Score improvement, but we will pick a Feat. Second Chance is a Halfling feat that lets you once per battle force a creature to reroll an attack roll that would hit you. You also get to Increase your Dexterity by 1.

Alternative: If you build Molly Hernandez instead, either grab Tough for more HP or increase your Strength.

6th Level: On 5th Level Fighter gets an Extra Attack, letting you attack twice in a single attack action, four times with Action Surge. You can punch fast because you have the power of youth...wait, that’s from some manga.

7th Level: 2nd Level Barbarian gains Reckless Attack, letting you before the first attack decide to gain an advantage on melee attacks during this turn but at the cost of enemy attacks having an advantage against you during the next turn.

Unearthed Arcana also gives Barbarian Survival Instincts, letting Molly become proficient in Perception and Animal handling and doubling her proficiency bonus to these skills. Between Old Lace and psychic cat Rufus, Molly is pretty good with animals after all.

8th Level: 3rd Level Barbarian gets to enter a Primal Path. Path of the Zealot is lore-wise hard to fit, as it is a fanatical follower of the gods. But you can easily refluff it - Molly is so devoted to protecting her friends that it gives her outright fanatical empowerment. Or maybe ask your DM which god in their setting is a patron of friendship and found families.

You gain two features. Warrior of the Gods ensures that if you’d die and someone, say your goth surrogate mom, cast a spell restoring you to life, they do it without having to pay a, usually high, material price. The second feature, Divine Fury, makes Molly hit even harder. Now when you rage the first attack you hit with on each of your turns deals an extra 1d6 + half of your Barbarian level of radiant or necrotic damage.

9th Level: 4th Level Barbarian gets an Ability Score Improvement, boost up your Strength to hit even harder.

10th level: 5th level Barbarian is sadly a doozy because you get Extra attack you already got from Fighter. It sucks but they do not stack. Cheer yourself up by the fact you can now puch so well to make Punisher write it in his journal. And you get extra 10 feet of movement when you’re not wearing armor to cheer you up.

11th Level: 6th Level Zealot gets Fanatical Focus, letting you to once per rage (which at this level raises to four uses per long rest) reroll a failed saving throw while you rage. As with previous features that let you reroll things, you must accept the new result even if its worse.

12th Level: 6th Level Fighter gains another Ability Score Improvement, increase your Constitution for better AC and more Hit Points.

13th Level: 7th Level Brute gains Brutish Durability, which allows you to add 1d6 to any saving throw you make, and if it’s a Death Saving Throw and it would push you to or above 20, you treat the roll as a natural 20, making you automatically regain 1 hit point.

14th Level: 8th Level Fighter gets to round up Constitution with another Ability Score Improvement.

15th Level: 9th Level Fighter becomes Indominable, allowing you to once per long rest reroll a failed saving throw and accept the new roll, even if it's worse.

16th Level: 7th Level Barbarian gains Feral Instinct, giving you an advantage on Initiative rolls and letting you act as if you’re not surprised in case an enemy surprises you, but only if the first thing you do is enter Rage. Which is what you should do if X-Men show suddenly to kidnap you to their weird cult island.

17th Level: 8th Level Barbarian can increase Strength with our last Ability Score Improvement.

18th Level: 9th Level Barbarian gets Brutal Critical, allowing you on a critical hit roll one additional die of any type you use in an attack, and since you use multiple ones, you can pick the highest one.

19th Level: 10th Level Zealot can make a Zealous Presence, letting you once per long rest as a bonus action rally up your teammates in need, giving them an advantage on saving throws and attack rolls for their next turn.

20th Level: Our capstone is 11th level Barbarian, giving us Relentless Rage. If you are raging and drop to 0 hit points but not outright killed, you can succeed a DC 10 Constitution saving throw and drop to 1 hit point instead. Every time you use it between rests the DC increases by 5 and goes back to 10 after short or long rest.

Overview: Molly Hayes is a Stout Halfling Brute Fighter 9/Path of Zealot Barbarian 11, let us see how good this build is.

Pros: First of all, your damage from various sources can stack up to pretty decent damage. Second, you are ridiculously hard to put down, with over two hundred hit points, resistance to damage, multiple ways to succeed saving throws and even more to get yourself out of the death situation - Indominable, Fanatical Focus, brutish Durability - and Second Wind, you can stay in combat for a long time. Your AC is at 18, which is also decent. Finally, you get to reroll so much you really feel like someone who is contractually set up to not die.

Cons: You are not as strong as you could be, we didn’t round up Strength in the end. Molly is strong but not as much as guys like Colossus. You also don’t deal much in magic damage and many creatures will have resistances or immunities against your punches, so you better hope DM gives you something to make your fists magical. And finally, you're a bit of a one-trick pony, you just punch people and I know from experience playing someone who just hits can bore some players fast.

However, this is pretty in character. You’re still a kid, so you have still time to surpass powerhouses like Hulk. But in meanwhile remember to keep your found family safe and teach everyone this kid is not to be underestimated.

Alternatives: I was considering Rogue but it didn’t really work with it since Molly doesn’t use anything that can deal Sneak Attack. if you sacrifice that character bit, you can start as a Rogue to get better skills. Going up to 4 levels and picking Swashbuckler or Scout for an Archetype will combine well with Cunning Action to make you move on the battlefield with an energy an excited kid like Molly has.

- Admin

#Molly Hayes #Runaways #Molly Hernandez #Marvel #Dungeons & Dragons

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lily-of-the-eyrie · 5 years

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🔍💭 Study: Lawrence Washington

Here I present my 4000-word eulogy essay on what an accomplished, dedicated member of the Order my man Lawrence had been, because he deserves to have his life’s work known for more than what Birch dissed it for, dammit.

Meet the man whose work laid the foundation on which our one and only 🎉Colonial Rite🎉 was built!

◈ Contents ◈

Timeline

Joining the Order 　How did he start his Templar career?

Building a Base 　What did he manage to do in the colonies?

The Virginian Rite 　A portrait of the proto-Colonial Rite in 1750

Challenges to the Search 　12 years, and still no Grand Temple―what’s the holdup?

Retrieving the Relics 　Why look for the Precursor box and manuscript in the West Indies?

The Other Washington 　“A bright spot in a troubled land”

Lawrence the Templar 　A summary of Lawrence’s character

✠ Lawrence Washington (1718-1752) ✠

☙ Timeline ☙

1718 - Born to a planter family in Virginia 1729 - Went to study in England 1730s - Inducted into the Templar Order, and quickly rose to the rank of Master Templar 1738 - Completed his education, and went back to Virginia 1739 - War of Jenkins' Ear broke out between Britain and Spain; Lawrence joined the Virginia militia and joined in the fighting in the West Indies 1742 - Returned home, and obtained a commission for the post of militia commander, with the rank of Major 1743 - Married Anne Fairfax, daughter of William Fairfax, an influential leading figure in the local society 1744 - Elected to the local parliament 1746 - Sent a letter to Gist talking about creating a front company to double as a Templar communications network, and also about starting a correspondence with William Johnson in New York. Achilles established the Colonial Brotherhood in this year as well 1750 - Received a letter from Birch notifying him of Monro's transfer Sep 28, 1751 - Sailed from Virginia to Barbados; arrived on Nov 3 Nov 21, 1751 - Port-au-Prince earthquake; after interrogating a member of the Haitian Brotherhood, he stole the Precursor box and manuscript from the local Assassin Mentor's camp July 26, 1752 - Passed away at his home in Mount Vernon

☙ Joining the Order ☙ How did he start his Templar career?

　According to what we can glean from his database entry, Lawrence had quite an impressive start to his life as a Templar. Scouted out during his school years in England by none other than the Grand Master himself, he proved to be so competent that, within a few short years, he was promoted to Master Templar at 20. This route of advancement is comparable to that of Madeleine de L'Isle of the Louisiana Rite, who was inducted into the Order at 15 years old, and was a Master Templar at 19; the promotion was, in the words of Birch's good friend John Harrison, well-deserved because she had "proven herself ruthless and capable" in serving the Order's interests in her area (✉️“Savannah”, 1751). Lawrence may have followed a similar course, and must have done his work equally well, because at the end of it, Birch had enough faith in the young Templar to entrust him with his one great dream: finding the Grand Temple spoken about in Edward Kenway's journal.

　While the exact motives behind Birch's recruitment weren't directly stated, it can be inferred; Liam mentioned that Lawrence "had great ambitions that the Templars helped fulfill" [Rogue Seq.1-3, “Tinker Sailor Soldier Spy”], while Birch, judging by the contents of his parting letter to the Master Templar returning home, wanted someone to serve as his "eyes and ears in the New World" and find the Temple for him (✉️“Lawrence of America”, 1738). The Washingtons' status as a relatively well-established family in Virginia is probably a nice bonus to add to the requirements; it would, at the very least, give him something to work with compared to his fellow brethren in the British Rite, whose centers of power may have been more tied to the isles and are therefore more useful at home than abroad.

　And so, armed with a grand mission and some resources to get started on it, Lawrence returned home to Virginia in 1738.

☙ Building a Base ☙ What did he manage to do in the colonies?

　Now we all know how this story ended―Lawrence would never find the Grand Temple, which the Order only managed to find in 1754, 2 years after his death. But he didn't spend his entire lifetime just sitting on his thumbs, and since Rogue didn't explicitly cover much of what he did aside from the very last bit, we're going to go over his other accomplishments here.

　Starting from the beginning, the first notable thing in Lawrence's New World ventures surprisingly didn't involve the actual colonies he was presumably supposed to comb over. In 1739, not one year after his return home, the War of Jenkins' Ear broke out between Britain and Spain, so away he went again in 1740, only this time it's to join the army as part of the Virginian militia and fight in the West Indies.

　Why he would suddenly drop his Precursor search in Virginia to go to the Caribbean, an area that is technically still part of the New World but probably not in his intended searching range, is a mystery. On top of the usual risks of battle and the rampant fatal diseases colonists tend to catch in the area, he would have needed to also consider the Assassin threat there―after the death of Laureano de Torres, the Grand Master of the West Indies Rite, in 1722, the region was known to be heavily under Assassin control. Another Templar, Rafael Joaquin de Ferrer of the Louisiana Rite, was so concerned by the local Brotherhood's influence that he feared the Templars will never gain any footing there again until their enemies are eradicated (✉️“Cuban Salvage”, 1750). His visit was then a risky leap right into enemy territory on multiple levels. The database entry said nothing about the involvement of Templar business in it, but it sure has the potential to tell an interesting story if it indeed had some.

　After spending 2 years in the war, he returned to Virginia in 1742, and in the following year, got married to Anne Fairfax. The Fairfax family was one of the most prominent families in Virginia―being able to call Anne's father, William Fairfax, his father-in-law increased the amount of power Lawrence held in the colony. This new connection gave him a solid backing to help with his rise in society and also with his business ventures: he was elected a member of the local parliament a year later.

　Having secured a stable foundation of influence, he began to work on strengthening the Templar presence in the colonies. He became acquainted with Gist (and presumably Weeks) at around this time, and sent him a letter discussing the need to establish front companies to form a secure communications network for the Order in 1746 (✉️“Front Company”, 1746). In that same letter, he also urged Gist to go and introduce himself to William Johnson, who was in New York at the time, and whose government connections and close relationship with the natives could be useful in aiding the Templars in the colonies. In the meantime, Lawrence would go and influence his in-laws, the aforementioned Fairfaxes, to create the Ohio Company, one of the Templar front businesses closer to his base in Virginia. This company, which was chaired by Lawrence and his trusted associates (Including James Wardrop and Samuel Smith—more on them below), was to become an important vehicle for the Order's activities in the colonies―it allowed him to disguise the search for the Grand Temple as land surveying expeditions, such as the one to chart the Ohio area, which was led by none other than Gist himself.

☙ The Virginian Rite ☙ A portrait of the proto-Colonial Rite in 1750

　With a goal like locating a particular Precursor structure in an unfamiliar land 40 times the size of Britain, there's a lot for Lawrence to do, so it was logical of him to make gathering helpful friends a top priority. Here are the core members of his team:

Christopher Gist (1706~) 　A frontiersman and surveyor born in Baltimore, Maryland, up north from where Lawrence lived. He appears to be the Master Templar's closest, if not also oldest, associate, judging by how Lawrence's existing letters were addressed to him specifically. Given his profession, Gist would have been familiar with the lands in the area, and more than qualified to explore the ones they've yet to chart. A jolly good fellow with a penchant for outrageous storytelling and an unrivaled love of drink, he's nevertheless not very sympathetic (or even outright casually hostile) to anyone he considers an enemy. 　For all the ease in his usual disposition, though, he does have a stake in the Templars' success―displeased with the chaos and constant fighting in the unstable colonies, he believed that the accomplishment of their goals will grant peace and order to the land [Rogue Seq.3-3, “Circumstances”; Seq.5-1, “Men o' War”].

Jack Weeks (1723~) 　The Albany-born son of a couple who had escaped slavery in Virginia, Weeks was a clever, resourceful man, with a dash of cheekiness to boot. Hardy even as a young boy, he led a rough life, and was already a pickpocket active in the Albany markets at the tender age of 10. It was sometime during this part of his career that he tried picking Gist's pocket, but the explorer, catching him in the act, decided he liked his audacity enough and hired him as an errand boy. However, rather than consigning Weeks to the fate of a mere servant, he taught him various things as they traveled together, chiefly the workings of trade and how to mimic people of all kinds of standing and birth. 　A calm, level-headed man with a strategic edge, he accompanied Gist on his travels, which meant that Lawrence may have picked them up as a pair. He and Gist worked as detached associates to the Order until they were inducted by Monro in 1751.

James Wardrop (1705~) 　Born to a Templar family in the colonies, Wardrop was arguably the most sinister member of the party. Tasked with securing land and wealth for the Order, he was involved in putting together a trade network that ran from the colonies to the West Indies, work on which began in 1744; to add to that, he worked together with Gist to purchase land in and around the colonies in 1750. He was merciless with his methods when it comes to making things run the way the Templars want it to―the Assassins charged him with evicting many local tribes from their land, and for orchestrating countless massacres, which earned him the reputation of being "one of the most devious and ruthless men in the colonies" [Rogue Seq.2-2, “We the People”]. 　To add to this, he was also a shrewd, opportunistic man, who wasn't above using his position to help increase his own wealth when he got the chance to, and strove to maintain the colonies' loyalty to Britain. Despite having quite the dangerous edge, however, he was an absolute lightweight when it comes to drink, and for some reason or the other, simply could not get along with Weeks (although he seemed to fare better with Gist). 　Wardrop and his family was likely already serving the Order's interests when Lawrence called, showing how he worked on linking existing Templar groups together into a network in the colonies.

Samuel Smith (???~) 　There's very little that can be found about Smith, who probably had the shortest database entry among the whole cast. We know that he was probably born in Virginia, with some experience as a sailor. As far as Templar work is concerned, he served as treasurer in one of Lawrence's Templar front businesses, which was likely related to how he wound up as one of the Order's members. 　Unlike the rest of the team, Smith was very timid, and carried himself in a very fidgety manner (which really shows when he's standing next to the casually elegant Wardrop). He was also flighty and/or not very good at fighting―Shay, who went after him, reported that he "could barely hold his sword straight" [Rogue Seq.2-2, “We the People”]. Whatever strengths Lawrence might have seen in him, it was probably more to the desk job side, although the number of techniques he employed when trying to throw off the Assassins pursuing him by ship showed that the can hold on his own for a while on water as well, which is also worth a mention.

William Johnson (1715~) 　As New York's representative to the Iroquois, and as someone who had gained the indigenous peoples' respect by familiarizing himself with their language and customs, Johnson offered a very advantageous set of skills and connections for Lawrence and his quest to find the Grand Temple. Since he's more knowledgeable about the northern colonies, places a little too far from Lawrence's home base to work in effectively, he would've made a very handy ally―after his induction to the Order, they cooperated behind the scenes, dedicating themselves to building a Templar infrastructure in the colonies. (Johnson's appearance in Rogue is a cameo at best, since his main role is in ACIII, but this does make me wonder if the list of Templars that Birch gave Haytham on his departure from London in 1754 is the result of Lawrence & co.'s work...)

[PS. Monro was also supposed to be part of this group, but he wasn't someone Lawrence picked on his own, so let’s leave him out of this for now.]

☙ Challenges to the Search ☙ 12 years, and still no Grand Temple―what's the holdup?

　So Lawrence had been keeping himself busy with Templar work since he went back to the colonies, but to Birch, all that work was conspicuously missing the one thing he wanted most: the discovery of the Grand Temple. This one setback was apparently enough for Birch to dismiss everything else he did as insignificant, regardless of their relevance to the Temple hunt.

　To Birch's credit, it was the main mission that he tasked Lawrence with, so he had every right to be rather miffed about the unfruitful search (although I'd take this opportunity to mention that Precursor sites aren't easy to find; the Caribbean Observatory took 2 decades for the relatively established West Indies Rite to locate, for example [ACIV Seq.2-3, “Mister Walpole, I Presume?”]), but I'd also like to highlight the particular challenges that Lawrence had in particular due to the rather unique conditions under which he had to conduct that search. Aside from his obvious health issues, which must have slowed him down, the primary problems I can identify can be divided into these 2 categories: (1) the lack of an existing network, and (2) the unfortunate fact that he focused his search in the wrong area.

　Unlike Britain, where the British Rite had been around for several centuries, the colonies at the time didn't have a Rite of their own. There were a number of individual Templars who had either gone to or lived in the New World (like Lawrence's very own subordinate, James Wardrop, who was born into a Templar family there and joined the Order himself in 1720), but the first proper Colonial Rite wasn't established until Haytham's arrival in 1754.

　Judging by how Birch took the trouble of appointing Lawrence in particular to lead the Grand Temple search instead of any Templar already in the colonies in 1738, it seems that the Order's presence in the New World was still rather sparse (and it was sparse for the Assassins—enough for Achilles to be surprised when he encountered John de la Tour there in 1740 [✉️“The First Colonial Assassin”, 1740]). In addition to this, there's also the fact that Lawrence saw some necessity in building up basic Templar infrastructure through the 1740s, which he wouldn't have done if such a system was already in place. With this scarcity of usable resources at the time of his return, he couldn't have gone looking for the Grand Temple from the second he set foot in Virginia―not when he still lacked the proper tools to facilitate the search, which he'd have to put together first, even if it takes time to do so.

　The other problem was, of course, the lack of pointers about the location of the Grand Temple. Edward Kenway's journal may have specified which continent the Precursor site was on, but that's hardly helpful when much of North America was still uncharted territory for the British at the time. In addition to this, while Haytham had the Grand Temple key to at least provide a hint as to where the lock that fits it might be, the Templars still had no such hint back then. Lawrence would have had trouble just trying to determine where exactly he needed to start looking (no doubt this is related to why his oldest known friend, Gist, was a widely-traveled surveyor familiar with the lands he was to search in).

　He most likely started his hunt in Virginia itself, seeing as it's where he'd lived and where most of his connections were based. As of the time he began this search, all of the original 13 colonies had already been established, so at least he could use the British Rite's connections to help expand his operation along the continent's Atlantic seaboard. He had his eye as far up as New York, whose news he kept up with enough to hear about Johnson, who was stationed there at that point. Still, he was not limited by just British territorial limits, as seen in the establishment of the Ohio Company in 1748. This company, which he sought to use to help the Order, was made to support ventures into the Ohio region, which at the time claimed by the French as their territory. If this was where he'd focused his efforts, anyone familiar with the actual location of the Grand Temple (Turin, at the northern tip of New York state) would've noticed a big problem with the strategy: he was going in the wrong direction. With that kind of problem, it didn't matter how thoroughly he searched the land that he managed to cover―he was never going to find the Grand Temple there.

☙ Retrieving the Relics ☙ Why look for the Precursor box and manuscript in the West Indies?

　From then on, we know how the story went―Birch decided he's just about done waiting, thought that Lawrence was a disappointment, and staged an intervention by sending him some assistance in the form of the Colonel. And yet, the next time we hear from Lawrence, he's gone to Haiti and raided the local Brotherhood, which was how he got his hands on the Precursor box and manuscript.

　The question is―why?

　Of course, the obvious answer is that any Precursor relic is of interest to the Order, but his health by 1751, when he went to Barbados, had already worsened to the point that it really concerned his family and friends. He was most definitely not in a state that made it a simple matter to go down all the way to the Caribbean, a heavily Assassin-controlled area, and pull off the footwork necessary to steal First Civilization items from the Haitian Brotherhood. He could've sent someone else, if it was really pressing, and Birch's letter about Monro's transfer hadn't explicitly told him to stop looking for the Grand Temple. Why did he switch his target to the box and manuscript, in an obviously premeditated hunt, despite there being no evidence that they're directly relevant to the Temple?

　The only hint to Lawrence's motivations is tucked away in his letter to Gist about what he did in Haiti, in which he hoped that, having obtained the relics, "perhaps his leadership in the colonies will finally be recognized" (✉️“Family Vacation”, 1751). For a short line, there's a lot of weight in it―Lawrence evidently felt strongly about his authority as the leader of the Templars in the colonies, so much that he would stake his life on winning it back after Birch's scathing review of his lack of progress and subsequent interference, which I doubt Lawrence appreciated much. As such, aside from the practical reasons he might have had to retrieve the Precursor box and the manuscript, there's another personal layer to it as well.

[EDIT: After mulling it over a bit more, it occurred to me that, as of the time Lawrence went hunting for the Precursor box and manuscript, he still didn’t know if these artifacts would contribute to locating the Grand Temple. Hell, he didn’t even know what Precursor artifacts he might have gotten—the only thing he might have possibly known about the West Indies Assassins is that François Mackandal, Mentor of the Haitian Brotherhood, made a hobby out of collecting First Civilization relics (✉️”Arranged Marriage”, 1748), and that an old Precursor box may have ended up in that area following the trail Harrison picked up on in 1742 (✉️”The Manila Galleons”, 1742). He might have decided to take that leap of faith out of desperation, knowing that he’d look much better if he could find an artifact, any artifact, at this point.

Meanwhile, de Ferrer of the Louisiana Rite was also looking for the Precursor box in the Cuba area just a year before Lawrence went, but reported finding nothing and left in 1751 (✉️”Cuban Salvage”, 1750; “Chichen Itza”, 1751). Could these two events be related?]

☙ The Other Washington ☙ "A bright spot in a troubled land"

　Speaking of personal matters, despite fully committing himself to serving the Order's goals, there are certain things he'd never give up for the Templar cause. Specifically and obviously, of course, I'm referring his little brother, George Washington, who he repeatedly insisted should never, under any circumstance, get pulled into the Order’s business.

　The actual Washington brothers were also very close, so this attachment didn't just come out of nowhere―they were often together whenever it was possible for them to be, and for his part, Lawrence didn't spare any expense or effort when it comes to grabbing opportunities for his brother, whether in the form of sharing acquaintances (such as the time when he introduced the younger Washington to the influential Fairfaxes), or helping him launch a career (once in the Navy, an attempt which was thwarted by George's mother, and later as a surveyor, which was a more successful case and helped George amass a sizable wealth of his own).

　On his end, George was never too far away from Lawrence's regular non-Templar work, ready to tackle requests from his older brother. He'd often wind up using his surveying skills to either map out their holdings' borders or plots of land used for his businesses. He also helped take care of Lawrence when his health began to fail, and even after the elder Washington's death, George continued to see him as an influential and inspiring presence―he has a portrait of Lawrence hanging in his personal study at Mount Vernon, the only family portrait to get that privilege.

　Going back to Lawrence, his sentiments about his brother revealed two things―the immediately observable one being that he had a very high opinion of George, along with a good helping of protectiveness for the younger boy, and the other one being that he shows a self-deprecating awareness of the darker, less noble side of the Order's work, the "ugly truths of [their] most serious business" (✉️“Family Vacation”, 1751).

☙ Lawrence the Templar ☙ A summary of Lawrence's character

　Having been introduced when he was already on his last legs, Lawrence had a very brief on-screen presence that was largely dominated by his illness. Still, despite the shortness of both his screentime and lifespan in general, he managed to achieve a lot in terms of Templar work. While he regrettably couldn’t locate the Grand Temple himself, the effort he put into trying to find it most definitely contributed to the overall search by giving the Order more hints about its location, and it was his work that led to the creation of a solid foundation for the future Colonial Rite that Haytham would put together after his death.

　As the leader of the Templars in the colonies, he showed considerable skill at administration, managing not only his local Templar circuit, but also reaching out to the other colonies along the continent's east coast, and even expanded his reach as far south as the West Indies, a major Assassin territory at the time. He prioritized building an infrastructure to ensure the Order's survival and smooth operation in the area, both necessary in order to facilitate their search for the Grand Temple, especially after the Assassins joined the fray in the mid 1740s.

　However, he wasn't just a pencil-pusher―his account of his excursion in Haiti, where he made his way through an earthquake that rivaled Lisbon’s and stole the Precursor box and manuscript in person, showed that he was quite the efficient field worker as well. If he could manage that while already on the last stages of his illness, what he could do in better health must've been quite impressive.

　On the personal side, though merciless while carrying out the Order's work, Lawrence didn't completely lack a more human facet to his character. This showed most clearly in the soft spot he had for his brother George, but also across scattered details, such as his disgust at the Haitian Brotherhood's bloodthirsty Mentor, Mackandal, who he lambasted as a "reckless tyrant"; and, for what it's worth, Gist did remember him as "a good man", so he seemed to have had the respect of his subordinates, even if he didn't have Birch's.

　He was also ambitious, which was a trait he'd shown since a very early age. He may have been subservient to the British Grand Master until the very end, but his need to have his leadership in the colonies acknowledged suggests that he'd always aimed higher. Given his position as more or less the head of the colonial Templars, and his pride in that fact, it's not unlikely that he'd hoped to one day be a Grand Master himself―and considering he quite literally spent his life building what would become the Colonial Rite from the ground up, had he lived long enough to be one, it would have been nothing if not a well-deserved post.

#⟪Observations 🔍⟫#⟪Headcanon Hour 💭⟫#⟪Character Study series⟫#this took a while #but man he really did do a lot #also working on little George's section broke my heart #sometimes I sit here wondering if he knew that someone stabbed Lawrence to death #while he was /right there/ just getting some wine from the cellar #ain't that nasty

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jonathantaylorthomas · 6 years

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[excerpt] 15. This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

Does anyone apart from Pusha T relish a good diss track as much as Swift? 2017’s Reputation might have its patchy moments of just-out-of-date beats but it’s also full of deliciously vicious moments. I Did Something Bad was a beautiful middle finger to an ex (Calvin Harris, apparently), Look What You Made Me Do cut down her critics and this track, which is effectively a more bitter Bad Blood, battered Kim and Kanye. “Friends don’t try to trick you/Get you on the phone and mind-twist you” she sings in an apparent swipe at the ‘I made that b**** famous’ controversy, while underneath stuttering electro-pop clashes with tinkling piano. The chorus is Swift at her most bitingly patronising, smiling as she twists the knife in.

14. We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together

Swift managed her first US number one with We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together. The singer’s knack for an earworm is obvious here, with the song one of the simplest but strongest of her career. The rest of Red dabbles with pop but Swift’s country roots are still very visible here. A foot-stomping acoustic guitar riff is right at the heart of the track, which is a much lighter take on the relationship at the heart of All Too Well. The old Taylor might not be able to come the phone right now, but she was on top form here.

13. Our Song

Jaunty violins, talk about God, a Nashville accent that twangs like a banjo string: Our Song is Taylor in full country mode. It’s got all the hallmarks of her early verse-chorus-bridge songwriting, and Swift reportedly put it together in 20 minutes for her ninth grade talent show before the record company nabbed it for her debut album. Built around a colossal chorus, where her delivery cracks like a drum beat, Our Song is a vivid picture of her teenage years and a testament to Swift’s natural songwriting nous – a reminder that, despite the headlines, she’s built a career on talent, not merely hype and controversy. Tim McGraw, which starts the album, has much the same effect.

12. I Knew You Were Trouble

2012 album Red took Swift’s popularity to new levels and the universal appeal of I Knew You Were Trouble was a key part of that success. The song became one of the most parodied tracks of the year but even adding screaming goats into the mix couldn’t the hamper its impact. It’s perhaps surprising that despite the song’s success, the chorus marked one of the singer’s most experimental to date, flirting with dubstep, pop and dance influences. It’s the perfect example of Swift’s early musical experimentations – as was the U2-esque album opener State of Grace – which would eventually pave the way for the reinvention on 1989 two years later.

11. Shake It Off

Shake It Off is perhaps the perfect song to explain Taylor Swift and seems to encapsulate the contradictions which have made her a star. For everything that’s toe-curling and cringeworthy (see: “this sick beat”, the whole “my ex man” riff), it’s also infectious, irresistible and triumphantly confident; Swift knows it’s geeky and doesn’t care. It’s a song to shimmy to – and then to kiss your crush to, when she asks the fella with the hella good hair to shake, shake, shake. Grab the white wine and go be basic – sometimes it’s fun.

10. 22

While Swift can occasionally lean-in on her wry way of seeing the world, she’s also gloriously unafraid of big, dumb pop. 22 is almost comically simplistic: the opening guitar riff is just a watered down Wild Thing, the drum beat is mindlessly insistent – a bass kick on every single beat – and the main hook (“I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling 22”) has all the intelligence of a failed GCSE. None of it matters; the song is a joyous riot, set in a world where there are no pressures, no bills and the sun only goes down so everyone can go to bed together. It is fun, it is silly, it’s happiness is infectiously single-minded and the best lines come right at the end: “You look like bad news, I gotta have you”. There’s even Nile Rodgers-style guitar thrown in on the chorus. Splendid stuff. No wonder it’s said to be Harry Styles’ favourite Swift song.

9. Fifteen

Much has been made of Swift’s big transformation from country singer to pop behemoth but even before she was out of her teens she was flirting with stadium friendly rock. Still, Fifteen had plenty of banjo all over it, while her voice charmingly twangs as she talks boys and cars and heartbreak. Of which, it’s the lyrics that make this one: the song itself is so polished and clean it could have been assembled on a Tennessee production line, but Swift manages to infuse it with a sense of failed teenage romance that feels real – unsurprising, perhaps, given it’s based on her and her best friend Abigail Anderson’s years at Hendersonville High School.

“In your life you’ll do things greater than/Dating the boy on the football team/But I didn’t know it at fifteen” she sings, “Wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now”. Ain’t that the truth.

8. Love Story

Ten years ago, pre-Kanye-at-the-VMAs, Swift was, in Britain at least, still that country girl with that one catchy song. This was that song; a hopelessly romantic tale of teenage love, Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet over pop-punk guitars and key changes and, of course, a happy ending replacing the tragedy. Eight million copies sold, making it the best selling country single of all time and paving the way for the decade of massive success that followed.

7. Blank Space

Blank Space is a minimalist masterpiece that paradoxically is crammed with hooks (something she manages again, like a magic trick, on Clean). The song in itself is actually surprisingly slow-moving; chords are long, drawn-out and the drums snap but are unhurried. The genius here in is Swift’s vocals, which are catchy enough that the whole thing seems to be one long chorus. Blank Space also marks the beginning of Swift sending herself up; in it, she satirises her media image as a man-obsessed, relationship addicted nightmare who serially dates for songwriting material. Hilariously, the key line (“Got a long list of ex-lovers/They’ll tell you I’m insane”) has often been misheard – including by her own mother – as “all the lonely Starbucks lovers”, which rather changes the point somewhat. The video is a work of art too, introducing the world to the ‘new Taylor’ – before the new Taylor became the old, dead Taylor. Oh, and look out for her slip up at 3.40, it’s hilarious.

6. New Year’s Day

The beautiful, reverb soaked piano that flutters through New Year’s Day is a sign of what could be to come for Swift – not now, perhaps, but maybe in 20 years. It could be played then and just as good. If All Too Well is her great grown-up heartbreak track, this is her great grown-up love song. Whereas 1989’s You Are In Love used a similar sound for a rip of Bruce Springsteen’s Street’s of Philadelphia, here it’s more of a James Blake vibe. The beauty is in the simplicity; this is a love as rational as it is passionate. The metaphor is about being there for the good times (the party at midnight) and the bad (cleaning up bottles on New Year’s Day). There is a stroke of brilliance, too: “Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognise anywhere” she sings as a reprise, realising what too few of us do until it’s too late: love is as fragile as it precious.

5. You Belong With Me

Taylor has a long-standing love affair with power chords and pop-punk goodness. On Red, there’s Holy Ground, before that was Speak Now’s girl-breaking-free-to-rule-the-world Long Live and before that was You Belong With Me on Fearless. It’s sometimes criticised for being too similar to her other early hits but in truth, it’s just the best example of them. It’s also wonderfully full Taylor: she plays the self-deprecating dork in love with her best friend, and the video is completely, brilliantly hysterical. There are all the elements needed: crashing guitars, unrequited love, a little teenage angst. It’s far from perfect: the lyrics are her corniest, the premise is cliched and the country embellishments have been tactlessly tacked on as if purely to placate the country audience. But, in the end, it’s catchy, sweetly endearing and you’ll be singing along merrily. If you want another fill of the good stuff, put on Fearless, which is just a little less catchy but with a better guitar solo.

4. Ronan

Little known, not on any albums and barely performed live – to date it’s only been aired twice, with the first version live on a Stand Up to Cancer telethon the one to listen to – Ronan perhaps seems a unlikely entry on the list, but it stands the Swift song that aches the most, and is unlike anything else she’s written. Over the chime of trembling guitar chords, she sings as the voice of Maya Thompson, a mother who lost her four-year-old Ronan to cancer. Written after reading Thompson’s blog, Swift articulates the unsteady, insistent rhythm of grief with painful clarity. In the end, like in life, the loss stings the sharpest in the little things. “And it’s about to be Halloween, you could be anything you wanted” she sings, her voice shaking and her eyes glassy with tears, “If you were still here.”

3. Out Of The Woods

Like the heartbroken logic in All You Had To Do Was Stay (the song Ryan Adams’ did best on his mixed 1989 cover album), it’s the naivety in this one that makes it so damned sad. Jack Antonoff produced a piece of driving rock dressed up as radio-pop, the stuttering drums and Blade Runner synths casting shadows over everything, the choir on the chorus giving it enough size to fill stadiums. It’s one for anyone who’s been wrapped up in a love that’s left them shaky with the uncertainty of it all, who’s gone to sleep and woken up with the same thought, of praying they’re getting as much love as they’re giving.

2. Style

Like a designer parading a new collection down the runway, Swift showcased her new direction perfectly on this aptly titled track. Pulsating synths drive the verses along before a huge sing-along chorus kicks in, marking a dramatic change from her guitar-led earlier compositions. It’s a formula that Swift would return to time and time again in her later work, not least on the similar Getaway Car from 2017 album reputation. The song remains a highlight at Swift’s live shows — after all, pop hooks as good as this will never go out of style.

1. All Too Well

Everyone jokes about the lost scarf, but this is Swift’s most sincere tale of heartbreak and is heartbreaking itself. Though it takes a handful of listens at least to ‘get’ this track, it’s worn out and weary and the hurt goes deep. Swift says it was one of the hardest to write, and it’s one of the hardest to listen to; she sounds like she’s singing right from the bones and it’s searingly, uncomfortably intimate. Having it on doesn’t feel so much like listening as eavesdropping: other ruminations in her back catalogue are broader, relatable, but here we’re hearing her specific turmoil. Nowhere else on record does she sound as cut up the way she does halfway through this one – Jake Gyllenhaal, you realise, really broke her heart.

Plenty of Swift songs are overwrought, but the drama here is sincere: her voice trembles with pain, and the song, which starts sparse, swells and hardens up like a lump in the throat. It’s little surprise the original cut was 10 minutes long; the song is cinematic, with a touch of Raymond Carver in the sparse, classically American lyrics: “'Cause there we are again in the middle of the night/We’re dancing round the kitchen in the refrigerator light”.

When she gets to end of it, there are lines that induce a wince: “You call me up again just to break me like a promise/So casually cruel in the name of being honest” she says. Then you hear her lost to her heartbreak: “Time won’t fly, it’s like I’m paralyzed by it/I’d like to be my old self again/But I’m still trying to find it”. Love – especially when it cools – changes everything.

#this list is a mess #lol

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douchebagbrainwaves · 3 years

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I'VE BEEN PONDERING PG

It's very common for startups to present to them. Do people live downtown, or have some sort of exit. There is less stress in total, but more as an exploration of gender and sexuality in an urban context, etc.1 I think the goal of this rule; if you can't explain your plans concisely, you don't worry that it might come out badly, or upset delicate social balances, or that can incorporate live data feeds, or that you won't be demoralized if they seem pointless.2 One YC founder told me that it wasn't worth investing in. The patent pledge doesn't fix every problem with patents.3 I can tell from the case. This site isn't lame. They wouldn't all grow as big. It will be easier in proportion to an estimate of your company's value that you'd both agreed upon.

Then you could, I don't care what he says, I'm going to name them: type A fundraising is when you can do, you don't see the opportunities all around us is that we get on average only about 5-7% of a much larger number.4 In most fields the great work is: very exacting taste, plus the ability to direct the course of adding some feature they were asking for.5 Most hackers are employees, and this trick merely forces you to clean up your apartment, writing something that you'll be able to say whether he should be classified as a friend or angel.6 Don't say anything unless you're fairly sure what you want to reach; from paragraph to paragraph I let the ideas take their course. Sometimes a competitor will deliberately threaten you with a business background, and he will automatically get paid proportionally more. Not all of them had never seen the Web before we came to tell them to stop.7 If you're free of a misconception that everyone else is crazy. Most startups that raise money and the kind of alarms you'd set off if you operate like Columbus and just head in a general westerly direction.

As we were in the old sense of managing the round. Technology is a lever. Modern literature is important, but I suspect that most of them a part time job. In the Bay Area would be the answer. But let someone else start those startups. They're not necessarily trying to mislead you. Like a lot of people will make them.

But if you make something they like. 05 PM subject: Re: Revenge of the Nerds on the LL1 mailing list.8 American universities currently seem to be a media company to throw Microsoft off their scent. Java white paper, Gosling explicitly says Java was designed to be a missile aimed right at what makes America successful.9 Different users have different requirements, but I don't think that's the right way to do it. But this is merely an artifact of the rule of law.10 All you'll learn is the words kids are allowed to use. That's the way to the close.11 It did serve some purposes: reading a talk out loud can expose awkward parts. What investors still don't get is what insanely great translates to in a larval startup.

When I talk about humans being meant or designed to live a certain way out of habit or politeness. Hackers & Painters that hadn't been online. Incidentally, the switch in the 1920s to financing growth with retained earnings till the 1920s.12 And the programmers liked it because they don't like to have it. What counts as property depends on what works to treat as property. But this is wrong. What's a prostitute?13 Everyone by now presumably knows about the danger of premature optimization. Essentially, they lead you on. That will change the way they treat the music they sell through iTunes.14

So tablet makers should be thinking: what else can we give developers access to? White said, good writing is rewriting, wrote E. Almost four decades later, fragmentation is still increasing. The more people you have to do it than literally making a mark on the world. Investors looked at Yahoo's earnings and said to one of the principles they teach you is to align the car not by lining up the hood with the stripes painted on the road, but by trying to use mass lawsuits against randomly chosen people as a form of evolutionary pressure. People think that what you want. In principle anyone there ought to have multiple founders who were already friends before they decided to build recipe sites, or aggregators for local events.

Better Bayesian Filtering. They may play some behind the scenes as adults spin the world for a while, can make visual perception flow in through his eye and out through his hand as automatically as someone tapping his foot to a beat. If you looked in people's heads. They are all fundamentally subversive for this reason. I sat down and calculated what I thought was hard, the groups all turned out ok. Election forecasters are proud when they can get it, at this stage.15 The danger of symmetry, and repetition especially, is where the richest buyers are, but figure out precisely where you lose them. If they didn't know what language our software was so complex. 2:21 AM subject: Re: meet the airbeds PG, Thanks for the lead Fred to: Fred Wilson date: Mon, Feb 9,2009 at 11:42 AM subject: Re: airbnb There's a lot to start a startup. And yet they can hold their own with any work of art ever made.

Leonardo?16 It is, as far as possible prevent them from having fun. Doesn't that show people will pay most for?17 After thinking about it than most, but almost everywhere the trend is in that direction. Till then they had to ask permission to release software: the last thing you changed. But fortunately in the US are more conservative than Boston ones.18 People are all you need is to be battered by circumstances—to let the days rush by. But that's something you can fix later, but you can't evade the fundamental conservation law. And yet Apple's overall market share is still small. Though the Web has been around for a millennium is finished just because of its prestige, but because they were ambivalent about threatening their cash cow, mainframe computing. I mean efforts to protect against cosmic rays.19

Notes

Even as late as 1984. Incidentally, Google may appear to be at a large company? Plus one can have escaped alive, or to be good?

To do this all the poorer countries. Ed. But it was the least correlation between the Daddy Model may be a sufficient condition.

And in World War II to the rise of big companies can afford that. And while this is to try to be a win to include in your classes as a result a lot more frightening in those days, but I call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of happy. I'm talking mainly about software startups are now the first digital computer game, you can probably write a subroutine to do would be better at opening it than people who might be a good problem to fit your solution. Look at those goddamn fleas, jabbering about some disease they'll see once in China, during the war on drugs show, bans often do better, and instead of the world of the most famous example.

Plus one can ever say it again. When I catch egregiously linkjacked posts I replace the actual amount of damage to the founders' advantage if it was 94% 33 of 35 companies that can't reasonably expect to make a fortune in the case, not because Delicious users are stupid.

But you're not allowed to discriminate on any basis you want to get going, and oversupply of educated ones come up with elaborate rationalizations. I also skipped San Jose is a meaningful idea for human audiences. Though in fact had its own mind about whether a suit would violate the patent pledge, it's not enough to defend their interests in political and legal disputes.

What Is an Asset Price Bubble? This doesn't mean easy, of the river among the bear gardens and whorehouses. They act as if you'd just thought of them could as accurately be called acting Japanese. Many more than 20 years.

It's hard for us!

2%. If a prestigious VC makes a small proportion of the things you're taught.

Doing things that don't scale.

Now the misunderstood artist is not limited to startups. There's not much use, because few founders are willing to provide when it's done as conspicuously as this place was a false positive rate is 10%, moving to Monaco would only give you more than the previous round. Cascading menus would also be good startup founders tend to get going, e.

Emmett Shear writes: True, Gore won the popular vote he would presumably have got more of the flock, or at least, the government and construction companies. People only tend to damp this effect, at least guesses by pros about where that money comes from ads on other investors doing so because otherwise competitors would take forever in the case of heirs, professors, politicians, and everyone's used to place orders.

His critical invention was a kid that you'd want to sell them technology. I'm not dissing these people make the people working for startups, because it aggregates data from so many trade publications nominally have a lot of reasons American car companies have little to bring corporate bonds to market faster; the point where things start with consumer electronics and to run on the firm's site, they're nice to you. Not only do they decide on the young Henry VIII and was troubled by debts all his life. Distribution of potentially good startups, who've already made the decision.

Maybe that isn't really working bad unit economics, typically and then scale it up because they couldn't afford it. An investor who's seriously interested will already be working to help a society generally is to let yourself feel it mid-sentence, but you get an intro to a clueless audience like that.

But it is dishonest of the country turned its back on industrialization at the start, e.

The need has to be employees, or editions with the buyer's picture on the back of Yahoo, we actively sought out people who'd failed out of the things attributed to Confucius and Socrates resemble their actual opinions. The speed at which point it suddenly stops. And when a startup to engage with slow-moving organizations is to write every component yourself, but also very informative essay about why something isn't the last step in this essay I'm talking here about everyday tagging. If not, greater accessibility.

In 1525 he was made a bet: if you hadn't written it? I saw this I used thresholds of.

Especially if they were to work your way up. I managed to find a broad range of topics, comparable in scope to our scholarship though without the spur of poverty are only locally accurate, because those are probably the last step in this respect.

So how do you use that instead of Windows NT? How did individuals accumulate large fortunes in an absolute sense, if you make something hackers use. On the face of it.

But it's telling that it would be to say that it had no idea what's happening as merely not-doing-work. But they've been trained. So far, I preferred to call them whitelists because it depends on a weekend and sit alone and think.

#automatically generated text #Markov chains #Paul Graham #Python #Patrick Mooney #people #sup #editions #airbnb #back #trick #work #stress

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hellogreatnutcollector-blog · 6 years

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Okay, listen up

As a ‘privileged’ child, I have grown up to smart, kind, loving parents who look after me, and I know they love me. However, I have been suffering from anxiety, and minor depression my whole life, and have also kept it from my parents my whole life. I also have massive sensory issues, especially relating to sound and touch, and find it hard to talk about my feelings.

Okay, so like I said, my parents don’t know any of this. I really do love them, but growing up, I have never felt as if I can trust them. I get that if I tell them something, they’ll understand, but they don’t get how hurtful things they say can be.

For example:

Me: I had a panic attack at school today.

Parents: Don’t be stupid, you’re just looking for attention.

Me: *singing in my bedroom*

Parents: Wow kid, that sure was interesting. (I love singing btw)

See my point?

It’s gotten to the point where I just put on my headphones and curl up in a ball on my bed and just read fan fiction all afternoon because I’m too scared to talk to anyone in case I make a mistake or get hurt again.

I hate going out, because I’m so self conscious about how I look, and I’m too scared to ask my parents if I can wear make-up, just in case they judge me.

Also, my parents have never trusted me. They are constantly checking my search history, so I have to keep clearing it, IN CASE THEY JUDGE ME, they take my phone every night, even though I can never fall asleep until like 4 am and I just lie there, doing nothing but torturing myself inside my brain, every notebook I write in, every journal I have ever written, I have had to destroy, because I’m so fucking terrified that my parents will find it and read it, which they have done to countless of my notebooks.

So, because of this, I have become an expert at lying, sneaking out of the house, hiding shit I don’t want my parents to see, and hacking into my computer to over ride the child protection mode, even though I’m 15 years old.

And do you wanna know something else? My best friend’s parents trust her. They give her privacy, knock before entering her room, don’t lock the cupboards, basically let her do whatever the fuck she wants. And oh lookie lookie, she gets perfect grades, is a kind helpful human being, never lies, or has to sneak out of the house.

Talking about my friend, that’s something else. I can’t trust her either. Or any of my friends. My BFF, who I have known for 10 years, is constantly putting me down, saying “That’s crap” or “It really was terrible” and shit like that, not in a sarcastic way, it’s what she really means. She is honest. And she doesn’t even know it hurts me. She dissed my writing, which I loved to do, and I haven’t written anything creative since. My other friend, well I’m scared to be around her, because she tends to whack people over the head gently when she’s frustrated. So know every time she lifts her arm slightly, I flinch, and guess what? My friends all laugh at me.

And don’t get me started on school. At my old school, I legit had a melt down in class because they forced us to read our poems in class. I started crying and I couldn’t breathe and THEY STILL MADE ME DO IT.

Also, at my current school, and my old school, literally around 50 times, I stayed up until 6 in the morning to get all of my work done, and studying done, only getting 1 hour of sleep that day. That happened around 3 weeks ago. I broke down exactly 7 times that night. SEVEN FUCKING TIMES.

School should NOT make you break down in class, or fall asleep! Friends should NOT make you feel any less then other people, or that you’re not worth it! Family should NOT make you want to cry in front of them, but you know that you have to hold back your tears, otherwise they’ll judge you! THIS is what almost all adolescents have to deal with on a day to day basis! Somebody please tell me HOW this is good for a child’s well being, that school is for the best, that friends are allowed to make you feel bad because it’s just ‘banter’, that family has the right to make to disrespect you because they gave you life!

HOW?

This was my rant. Guess I’ll go revise for the GCSE’s that apparently I’m going to fail.

#family #school #friends #anxiety #depression #stress

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deadcactuswalking · 3 years

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 23/01/2021 (Anne-Marie, Juice WRLD, Young Thug)

The site I use for this show has refused to update – which is fine, it’s probably run by one guy and/or their bots – which means I had to go on the UK Singles Chart page from the Official Charts Company for information, and man, I hate that site. Anyway, despite a big #2 debut and a big remix at #3, “drivers license” by Olivia Rodrigo stays steady at #1 for a second week, which shows us a little sliver of how much longevity this song could have – and it’s good too, so I’m glad. Anyway, time for more apathy. Let’s start REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

Rundown

I feel like, especially recently, debuts don’t really stick at all. We have many songs gradually falling below the chart this week, and they place into either two categories: songs that I wished would go away already, and songs that debuted last week. Out of the debuts from last week still on the chart, we have three notable gains and four of the opposite, making this actually an okay week for debuts, but it still feels like people have not got time for new music right now, which is honestly understandable. Out of those debuts, “Streets” by Doja Cat surges up to #20, “Notorious” by Bugzy Malone and Chip drops to #39, “Best Friend” by Saweetie featuring Doja Cat is down to #42, “Regardless” by RAYE and Rudimental unfortunately is up to #51, alongside an even more unfortunate gain for “Chemtrails Over the Country Club” by Lana Del Rey at #58 (Please, don’t make this a hit). That’s it for gains for our debuts last week, as “Vibez” by ZAYN couldn’t even gain from an album boost down to #62 and “WW2” by Unknown T makes the expected second-week drill dive to #63. Our other gains aren’t much to discuss either, although I’ll admit I actually kind of like “You’re Mines Still” by Yung Bleu and remixed by Drake up to #47 (I do really want to see this as a hit). I don’t like, however, the two deep house pastiches at #15 and #16, “Goosebumps” by HVME and “The Business” by Tiesto. What’s even worse is that “Goosebumps”, a remix of Travis Scott’s song, now has a Travis Scott remix, so that remix remix could land this in the top 10 next week. What might not be is also a remix: “34+35” by Ariana Grande featuring Doja Cat and Megan Thee Stallion up to #3. It was doing okay before the remix so it could stay here but I don’t see the remix as a replacement for the original so it could falter from #3. Of course, we do have other notable fallers, mostly pointless to list and a couple weeks too long on the chart, so I’ll split it into two once again: “Go away, please” and “Go away, but maybe later”. In the first category, we have “Whoopty” by CJ at #9, “Blinding Lights” by The Weeknd at #23, “Head & Heart” by Joel Corry and MNEK at #25, “Mood” by 24kGoldn and iann dior at #28, “positions” by Ariana Grande at #33, “Midnight Sky” by Miley Cyrus at #41, “See Nobody” by Wes Nelson and Hardy Caprio at #48. “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi at #52, “Lonely” by Justin Bieber and benny blanco at #53, “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles at #54, “Looking for Me” by Paul Woodford, Diplo and Kareen Lomax at #55, “Take You Dancing” by Jason Derulo at #64, “Diamonds” by Sam Smith at #67, “Tick Tock” by Clean Bandit, Mabel and 24kGoldn at #72 and “Lasting Lover” by Sigala and James Arthur at #74. I like a fair few of these songs but I’d like some new blood in the charts, like the second category of songs that seem to have started dropping out prematurely: “Therefore I Am” by Billie Eilish at #22, “Loading” by Central Cee at #25, “What You Know Bout Love” by the late Pop Smoke at #45, “Forever Young” by Becky Hill at #57, “Plugged In” by Fumez the Engineer and A92 at #59, “champagne problems” by Taylor Swift at #65, “Body” by Megan Thee Stallion at #68, “pov” by Ariana Grande at #70, “Love is a Compass” by Griff at #71 and, finally, since I only cover the top 75, “Your New Boyfriend” by Wilbur Soot at #73. We have one return here, and that’s for a song that’s a couple years old but from a new star: Olivia Rodrigo’s “All I Want” returning to #32, from the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series: The Soundtrack which I had assumed was new initially but did peak at #72 prior to this. The song’s fine, but I don’t review returning entries, and honestly it’s even more of a Disney teen-pop ballad that “drivers license” is, so I don’t find much point in making exceptions. Note to self to edit the drop-outs in whenever you know what they are.

Edit: The notable drop-outs are “HOLIDAY” by Lil Nas X, “Princess Cuts” by Headie One featuring Young T & Bugsey, “no body, no crime” by Taylor Swift featuring HAIM, “Ain’t it Different” by Headie One featuring AJ Tracey and Stormzy, “Savage Love (Laxed - Siren Beat)” by Jason Derulo and Jawsh 685, “Show Out” by Kid Cudi, Skepta and the late Pop Smoke, and “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac.

NEW ARRIVALS

#60 – “Friday (Dopamine Re-Edit)” – Riton and Nightcrawlers featuring Mufasa & Hypeman

Produced by Riton

“Push the Feeling On” is a song by Scottish collective Nightcrawlers that is known much more commonly for its classic deep house remix by American DJ MK, which would be known now for how much it’s been sampled in pop music: You’ve probably heard the synth riff or vocal chop in “Hotel Room Service” by Pitbull, “Dinner Guest” by AJ Tracey and MoStack, “Wiggle It” by French Montana and City Girls, “House Party” by MIST and Fredo, or even “Nightcore in tha Club” by Viper of all people. So, 20 or so years later, here comes English DJ Riton making another official remix alongside dually-credited Musafa & Hypeman, who I guess are social media influencers from articles I see about them. That would explain why this is charting... but yeah, this is lazy. A female vocalist sings “It’s Friday, Saturday, Sunday again” to the melody of the classic vocal loop, and the rest of the song is a worthless and artless “future house” track made for no-one, with Musafa & Hypeman delivering nothing more than obnoxious skits and faint ad-libs. I’ll admit, the second verse where it suddenly drops into her vocals over the haunting vibration of bass is inspired, but it goes nowhere. It uses the same drop as the original MK remix and if it isn’t, it uses a vocaloid drop that sounds way too similar to blackbear’s “hot girl bummer” for my liking. Once you hear it, you may not unhear it – although I doubt you’d come back to this song for any reason other than clicking the wrong song when looking for the original MK remix, which is still great. This, however, is useless.

#50 – “Skengman” – Ghetts featuring Stormzy

Produced by Ten Billion Dreams

This is actually Ghetts’ first ever track to hit this chart as a lead solo act and that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. Whilst Ghetts is very important to grime and his mixtapes are considered classics, he’s not exactly the peak of commercial success – and is somewhat infamous for said squandering as he released a diss track against MTV for not thinking he was that great of an MC – which wasn’t exactly helped by beef with the Boy Better Know collective. It makes a lot of sense for him to ride off the coattails of the new generation of English rappers and make a drill-adjacent track with Stormzy, the track’s namesake. It also makes sense for this to be good: we have some pretty ominous keys and horns that sound great under this cold and minimal trap beat, relying less on percussion than it does the eerie strings. Sure, the chorus is pretty awkward and tired, with Ghetts not selling it nearly as he well as he does the verses, which even then are off-kilter. The second verse – by Stormzy – is where this song really shines, as gorgeous vocal samples combine with the rise of the strings, looming 808s and Stormzy’s deep contrast of a voice before the beat drops and Stormzy lets out his best flows. Honestly, after Stormzy’s verse, not even a beat shift really makes Ghetts’ other two verses worthwhile, as his just seem short and ineffective, even if the beat is going to keep on intensifying with these incredible strings and horns – lest we forget the choir of “Skengmen” behind him on the chorus. I really wish this was a solo Stormzy track, with no disrespect to Ghetts, who just feels out of place if anything. This could have been a lot better.

#49 – “Lumidee” – Chip featuring Young M.A. and Young Adz

Produced by the Fanatix

Most of our new arrivals are hip-hop or hip-hop-related, so of course whenever we see Stormzy, I guess we have to have a Chip song the same day. Is that beef still going on? Regardless, this is a very different song, named after the artist behind the awkward, minimal R&B sample used here. Listen, I like 2000s R&B, but “Never Leave You (Uh Oooh, Uh Oooh)” is just a fatal misunderstanding of what makes Timbaland’s production good. Surely that would make any reworking an improvement, especially with these subtle strings and guitars under a dancehall beat just as awkward as the original. Oh, and I call the strings subtle because it’s not like Young Adz could ever be, or Chip for that matter, as both of them deliver stiff, ugly performances about how the sex is spectacular... but also how they want this woman to treat them kindly after they cheat on her because they buy her nice things. “They” of course being everyone here, as Chip plays the same role as Adz – who only grabs the chorus – and hell, I think Young M.A., who could deliver a narrative here that criticises Chip’s attitude, just expresses the same ideas. I’ll admit that M.A.’s flow and cadence is a lot smoother, less nasally Auto-Tuned and honestly kind of good, but this honestly, much like “Skengman”, reeks of missed potential. A dancehall back-and-forth about love that means nothing but sex and materialism sounds fun on paper but nothing’s really done with it here, which is what I’d expect from these guys in all honesty. It’s weird and kind of cool to see Young M.A. on the UK Singles Chart again (She appeared on an Eminem track around this time last year too), though, so I’ll give it that.

#44 – “Pinging (6 Figures)” – Central Cee

Produced by ItchyDaProducer

Well, we can now add Central Cee to the drill guys that spark a top 50 hit out of nowhere every couple weeks. I actually quite like “Loading” mostly because of the fusion of hard 808s with those slick horn samples. As an aside, the Genius.com page for “Loading” has a comment saying the beat is “disgusting” that has a ton of downvotes, probably because of some sort of disconnect between cultures and audiences. This new track is a lot less interesting, though, relying on a really cheap guitar loop, but otherwise I do think the drill percussion works here, especially with the sliding 808s and Central Cee’s pretty constant delivery. I can’t really say he’s saying anything of interest other than the fact he supposedly turned down a six-figure record deal to stay independent, which of course is the chorus, so it’s not like this is great, or even good, but it makes the best out of a bad loop, and I can respect that, especially with piano touches, although this apparently sounds like another beat Itchy’s made so I’m not sure if that deserves much praise either. You know, I really thought Central Cee could have been on to something with the jazzier touches, but once again, this is missed potential.

#37 – “Wellerman” – The Longest Johns

Produced by ???

There aren’t any producer credits for this one, though I’m not sure to how much extent you can “produce” a sea shanty. It’s not often for this show that I can say a song that debuted is from the 1800s, but this song dates back to around 1833, where the Weller Brothers and their “Wellerman” ships became the most important merchant traders in New Zealand, operating mostly through their base in Otago. Naturally, sea shanties are sang at sea but it’s seldom seen that said songs surge up as singles on Spotify. Thanks to TikTok, however, this 2018 cover by the Longest Johns, a folk group from Bristol, debuted in the top 40. There’s no instrumentation, so this is just an a-capella cover, with some genuinely great vocal harmonisation, even if these guys aren’t great singers – not that you have to be to sing sea shanties. The end product is a pretty fun track about wishing for a supply ship to come whilst whaling, and that they hope to come home soon – or something like that. Look, I hope this doesn’t stick around even though I have the feeling it will. It’s not a bad song at all and the guys are talented, but come on, guys, it’s a sea shanty from TikTok. As that damn app still runs a lot of the charts, though, I suppose I should embrace this, because it is harmless, and that’s really all there is to it.

#31 – “Bad Boy” – Juice WRLD and Young Thug

Produced by Pi’erre Bourne

Now, I’m usually cynical about posthumous releases from Jarad, and I was initially for this, but it has been in circulation as a leak and it was also completely finished with a music video produced before his death by Cole Bennett of Lyrical Lemonade, who directed a lot of Juice’s earlier videos (including “Lucid Dreams”). It has Young Thug on the second verse and Pi’erre Bourne on production so I can’t be mad at this at all. As long as these posthumous projects from now on don’t have tacked-on features and are surrounded by collaborations from only his genuine friends who cared for him, I have no issue with them going on – even if I’d prefer for all of his demos to be released with proceeds going to charity (which should be done with most if not all artists after their passing unless they have an album on the way). It helps that this song isn’t just respectful, but it’s incredible. The hard trap beat from Pi’erre has this great squealing guitar and noisy synth blend that kicks ass whenever it comes in, especially when at odds with the more casual bleeping in the verses. Juice’s chorus is infectious and fast-paced, exactly how he should be on his “banger” tracks, but his verses are really a genius blend between his melodic and technical skills that I wish I heard more from Juice when he was alive. Oh, and Young Thug has what might be verse of the year, with smooth flow switches as always, unique inflections as always as well as playing with the beat perfectly as he drops the nasal screech of his “skrrt!” ad-libs amidst a more simple, intense flow by the end – with the addition of that squealing guitar. Is the content unique? Maybe not, as this is mostly flexing over an explosive trap beat, but there are enough quotable rhymes and vocal deliveries that make this more than honestly the sum of its parts, as out of context I don’t think this beat, this feature or Juice’s hook could work nearly as well as they do. As is, however, this is one of Juice’s best songs, hell, even one of Thugger’s best – and he has a strong discography – so, yeah, for the part of me that appreciates ignorant, stupid-hard trap-rap, this clicked. I hope it’s a hit and even if it isn’t, this is one of the best send-offs they could have chosen for Juice, and I’m just glad it’s finally met an official release.

#2 – “Don’t Play” – Anne-Marie, KSI and Digital Farm Animals

Produced by Mojam and Digital Farm Animals

“Bad Boy” seems like it should be the big story here, as it’s a massive lead and/or final posthumous single from one of the biggest rappers in history featuring another A-list that is getting a lot of praise and YouTube views... but alas, this is the UK, so here’s KSI and Anne-Marie. Is this KSI-Digital Farm Animals collaboration going anywhere? He had a similar one last year with “Really Love” featuring Craig David and that was kind of big – still is – and I think also debuted at #2 behind a really strong #1. They also had awkward, ugly cartoon cover arts, so maybe this is a collaborative project between KSI and the EDM producers? Well, “producer”, because Digital Farm Animals is actually just one guy. I think I honestly wouldn’t mind that considering how better KSI pulls off rapping over EDM than hip-hop. Anne-Marie is filling Craig David’s role, although this time with a verse and lead billing, so it could be from an upcoming album that may or may not exist. Honestly, who cares? Is the song good? No, the chorus is lazy, the UK garage-adjacent beat is cheap and KSI gets outshined in his verse both performance and mixing-wise by orchestra hits. Is the content interesting? Well, KSI’s lyrics are supposedly subliminal disses towards other YouTubers, which annotators on Genius have “marked as a stretch”, only to be met with downvotes from fans because of course, they would. Is it catchy? I guess so, that is the purpose. Hence, we have an inoffensive pop song from three artists who have made better but mostly through freak accident. Top 10 material? Probably not, but the charts are weak and it’s the UK so you can’t really expect much more. Also, why does this have an extended version?

Conclusion

Whilst I’m writing this conclusion, the site I use still has yet to update, so I’ll actually have to do a Kanye in 2016 and edit this post-release for the top 10 and drop-outs. For now, though, I can pretty solidly give Best of the Week to “Bad Boy” by the late Juice WRLD and Young Thug, with an Honourable Mention to I guess “Wellerman” by the Longest Johns for at least being different, although most of these debuts reek of missed potential. “Wellerman” could have been a lot more jaunty with actual instrumentation, “Don’t Play” could have replaced Anne-Marie with an actual personality, Ghetts could have gone in harder on “Skengman” and the beat in “Pinging (Six Figures)” could have actually existed. Therefore, the songs with the least potential are the victims here, as Dishonourable Mention goes to Chip, Young Adz and Young M.A. for “Lumidee” and Worst of the Week goes to “Friday (Dopamine Re-Edit)” by like, four complete nobodies, honestly, I do not see the purpose in that song existing at all. Well, here’s the top 10 for this week – or at least it will be here in a couple hours:

I can’t make any solid predictions for next week other than Billie Eilish and ROSALIA, maybe Lil Skies? You can follow me @cactusinthebank if you’re vaguely interested in doing so, thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next week.

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fyloona · 7 years

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(INTERVIEW) The all-girl K-pop group with a unique coming together story

LOOΠΔ are a girl group who are ambitiously announcing their 12 members over a string of solo singles – we speak to the members of subunit ODD EYE CIRCLE

A little over a year ago, something big was quietly manifesting on the edges of South Korean pop music with the reveal of HeeJin, a then-15-year-old who was the first person to be announced for a new, 12-member girl group called LOOΠΔ. The process of introducing LOOΠΔ to the world ranks as one of the more ambitious projects undertaken by a single entertainment agency (in this case, Blockberry Creative), with each of the group’s members unveiled not over a matter of weeks but over 18 months. Each girl has a symbolic colour and animal, and each releases a solo pre-debut single and video, interspersed with music by subunits formed of the already-revealed members.

While LOOΠΔ’s multi-pronged announcement strategy might seem hard to wrap your head round, large scale concepts and storylines for girl groups aren’t an anomaly in K-Pop. One only need look back upon T-ara’s 15-minute film around “Cry Cry” and videos like “Lovey Dovey” for precedents, or to newer groups like the J-rock-centric Dreamcatcher and GFriend’s ‘school trilogy’ of music videos. But LOOΠΔ stand apart amongst girl groups and even in the wider K-Pop world for the sheer ambition of their world-building, with each music video knotting another thread into an increasingly complex web of theories and imagery. Only EXO have in recent memory so carefully created a far-reaching origin story.

LOOΠΔ are yet to make their official debut. Right now there are still four members who’ve yet to be revealed – currently HeeJin, HyunJin, HaSeul, ViVi and YeoJin make up the subunit LOOΠΔ ⅓, while Kim Lip, JinSoul and Choerry combine for LOOΠΔ/ODD EYE CIRCLE. For now it’s the latter who have become key purveyors of what’s known as the ‘LOOΠΔVERSE’. The trio’s solos (Kim Lip’s “Eclipse”, JinSoul’s “Singing in the Rain”, Choerry’s “Love Cherry Motion”) are sleek, compelling cuts of electronic pop, stylistically linked via their MVs (music videos) and tinged with 90s R&B, future bass and Katy Perry-esque vibes respectively. As LOOΠΔ/ODD EYE CIRCLE, they’ve also solidified themselves as one of 2017’s brightest groups, with both their EP Mix & Match (which climbed to #10 on Billboard’s World Chart) and its just-released repackage Max & Match pulling together the boldest elements of their individual songs.

“Chaotic”, “Uncover” and “Starlight” are drenched in unpredictable percussion and spacey synths against the girls’ feathery yet firm vocals, while on “LOONATIC”, they skip beyond familiar turf and channel Grimes’s dream pop. Two singles – the upbeat and assured “Girl Front” and “Sweet Crazy Love” – pile on new and existing visual clues (circular mirrors, maps, their ‘odd’ eyes) and recreate shots from the group’s previous videos.

As they discuss the struggles of debuting and breaking the mold, Choerry (at 16 the youngest of the three) calls their overarching concept “a first”. “It’s new, intriguing, and we’re proud,” she says. “It’s like being in a fairytale.” Open and assiduous for this, their first ever international interview, Kim Lip, JinSoul and Choerry are also feisty, confident and endearingly prone to dissing each other like siblings. Say hello to your new favourite girl group.

You each have a colour and an animal... did you get to choose either?

Kim Lip: The company chose each animal based on each member’s character. When I heard I would be an owl, for a moment I was like, ‘Huh?’, because everyone would want something pretty, like the deer for ViVi or a cat for HyunJin. But I like my symbol animal now. I think it goes well with my solo track.

JinSoul: When we first heard Choerry would be the fruit bat, everyone was surprised because it’s not very girl group-like. But given that Choerry will be going back and forth between both LOOΠΔ ⅓ and the new one coming later, I believe it fits the theory very well.

*full interview under the cut

Theories already abound about multiple dimensions in the LOOΠΔVERSE – one for each sub-unit, including those yet-to-debut – and everyone needs to find each other to debut a whole. Can you give us any hint to the full story?

Kim Lip: There are several theories, but we want to show the process of putting puzzles together through our videos and music. I’ll give you one hint – we’re wearing a band on our wrists based on each of our colours and that band is twisted. People might not have noticed, but ‘Möbius’ is an important hint for LOOΠΔ moving forward.

JinSoul: LOOΠΔ is 12 solos, three units, then the complete group, but I can tell you that this is not the end, rather just a beginning. There could be a new unit with different combinations, for example, HyunJin and I could be a new unit.

It’s unheard of for girl groups to develop narratives that are as complicated and prolonged as yours. What did you think about LOOΠΔ not only having a story but their own world?

Kim Lip: When we first heard about – like, how it would be actualised – we were quite surprised, because normally girl groups would just perform good songs with nice clothes. But as the theory unfolds, even we’ve gotten more curious and we’re finding it enjoyable!

If I said LOOΠΔ has the potential to change the creative landscape for K-Pop girl groups, how would you feel about that?

Kim Lip: It’s definitely a goal we’d like to achieve. Each solo has its own power, and each unit has an independent power rather be a typical unit, then all together we become LOOΠΔ. We want to be like Marvel’s Avengers.

How did each of you join LOOΠΔ? What did your friends and family say when you told them you were to be in an idol group?

Kim Lip: I tried out in so many auditions to find the right agency. I was pretty exhausted. But then my company contacted me through Instagram. I auditioned, made it, and became a trainee. It was challenging to adjust, realising ‘This is what a trainee’s life is like,’ and I spent time worrying about if I’d be able to become a member. But I practiced hard and finally became part of LOOΠΔ. All my family and friends celebrated with me. They were as happy as I was.

JinSoul: I auditioned a lot. I had good opportunities through street casting but didn’t make it through. But, like Lip, our company contacted me through Instagram. My family is very proud, and my friends have been supporting me a lot even before my debut.

Choerry: I participated in a vocal contest and got casted for an audition and became a trainee. My parents didn’t like the idea of me becoming a singer at the beginning, but they support me a lot now and give me the strength to go on.

LOOΠΔ/ODD EYE CIRCLE is said to have ‘strange and mysterious charms’. What’s your strange charm that only your family or friends understand fully?

Choerry: Kim Lip may pretend to be inattentive or indifferent, but actually she always keeps her eyes on others and takes care of them. She has that cold-but-warm charm.

Kim Lip: JinSoul may look cold and have a strong personality but, in fact, she has sloppy charms (makes cute mistakes).

Kim Lip: Choerry has a bright energy and charm to think always positively, even in bad situations.

Your EP has several tracks that really stand out for their ethereal synth pop. Which track seemed most interesting to you at first?

JinSoul: I have affection for all the tracks, but I liked ‘LOONATIC’ especially because it’s a type of genre only we can do in K-Pop.

Choerry: Also, ‘Chaotic’ is a bit masculine, but we’re proud to express it with our voices.

LOOΠΔ/ODD EYE CIRCLE is based around the ‘girl crush’ attitude – what does that mean to you personally?

Kim Lip: Girl crush for me is a complete turning point from (the ‘pure’ image of) LOOΠΔ ⅓.

Choerry: I think it’s a girl who has a strong gaze and who is cool, a girl who approaches proactively and confidently. Girl crush might be difficult to pull off, but I think we’re good at creating a strong appearance, so it fits us. Haha!

Lip, you have a natural authority about you on and off stage. Have you always been this type of confident person?

Kim Lip: When I was little, I was so shy that I couldn’t even get food on my plate at a buffet. When I thought ‘I want to be a singer’ and went to audition, I thought I should become more confident. I tried hard to change my personality so I could become the Kim Lip of now.

What did you emotionally experience while waiting to debut? What was your biggest fear and biggest hope?

JinSoul: Would I really make it to debut? I did my best in everything with many thoughts. In the beginning, I was shy and had low self-esteem, so I was worried if it’d be okay to debut with this talent and visual (appearance). But I was also so excited for my song coming out!

Choerry, you’re still at school... what does the average day look like for you? How do you juggle schoolwork, rehearsing and performing?

Choerry: Normally I wake up at 6am and go to school. When I have a schedule, I attend only morning classes or take a day off, so it’s sad that I don’t have much opportunity to meet with friends.

Now you’re promoting as a trio and spending a lot of time together, what’s something new you’ve discovered about each other?

Kim Lip: I didn’t know when JinSoul was a trainee but, as we’ve lived together, I’ve noticed her sleeping with her eyes open. I thought it was only in the car because it’s quite uncomfortable, but she always sleeps with her eyes open.

JinSoul: Choerry tends to be bloated well in the morning, so when she wakes up, her double eyelid is gone. So in the morning it’s quite different version of Choerry.

Choerry: Lip is very easy-going, that was quite unexpected. But she is surprisingly cleaner than I expected.

source: DAZED

#loona #odd eye circle #jinsoul #kim lip #choerry #t:interview #t:info

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ethanalter · 6 years

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How to make a sexy sea monster and other 'Shape of Water' secrets revealed! (exclusive)

yahoo

Guillermo del Toro’s romantic fairy tale The Shape of Water represents a breakthrough in human-fish relations. That’s not just because this lovingly crafted homage to classic ‘50s creature features is up for 13 Oscars at this year’s Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Picture. It also pushes the envelope well past love stories like Splash and The Little Mermaid, where men and mermaids enjoyed relatively chaste romances. In contrast, The Shape of Water’s lovers — mute janitor, Elisa (Sally Hawkins, a Best Actress nominee) and South American river god (Doug Jones) — get hot and heavy during the course of the film, instantly making them one of the most memorable interspecies couples in movie history.

Del Toro recognized early on in the production process that his love story hinged on audiences finding the Fish-Man as attractive as Elisa does. So, he devoted more than a year — and hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own funds — towards sculpting a version of the creature that was, to put it bluntly, a total stud. “It needed to be very attractive, a creature you could fall in love with,” the director remarks in this exclusive behind-the-scenes clip that Yahoo Entertainment is premiering today. (Watch the video above.) Del Toro handed that challenge off to top creature designer, Mike Hill of Legacy Effects, who built a suit for Jones that was further enhanced in post-production by Dennis Berardi, head of the visual effects company Mr. X, which oversaw the effects work for The Shape of Water.

Sally Hawkins and Doug Jones as the lovers in ‘The Shape of Water’ (Photo: Fox Searchlight/Courtesy Everett Collection)

The technique was pure hybrid,” Berardi explains to Yahoo Entertainment in a separate interview. “Generally speaking, when you see the body and head movements of the Fish Man—or the asset as we called him — that’s Doug Jones in a suit. But whenever you see him underwater, then he’s animated. I would also say that every single shot where you have the creature onscreen, the eyes and brow area are digital, because the way the mask worked, the eyes were a thick resin plug that didn’t articulate. Our methodology was to work from the eyes out, preserving as much of Doug’s performance as possible. But every single shot has varying degrees of visual effects in it, from micro-expressions like eye blinks to full-body animation.”

Unfortunately for Berardi, visual effects was one of the few Oscar categories in which The Shape of Water missed out on a nomination, with nods instead going to Blade Runner 2049, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, Kong: Skull Island, Star Wars: The Last Jedi and War for the Planet of the Apes. But he and his team absolutely share a role in the movie’s success, infusing the creature’s costume design (which is up for an Oscar) with additional life. Having collaborated with Del Toro on both Pacific Rim and Crimson Peak, Berardi has regularly enjoyed a front-row seat to the director’s creative process. Read on for additional trade secrets behind The Shape of Water and its strapping Fish-Man.

It started with a sketch. Berardi’s first glimpse of The Shape of Water‘s aquatic heartthrob was as a two-dimensional sketch in one of the notebooks that Del Toro always has on hand to jot down ideas and images as they pop into his brain. (Some of those notebooks have been published in anthology collections.) “He showed me a sketch of their embrace,” the effects supervisor remembers, referring to an early version of the clinch between Elisa and the “asset” that appears on the movie’s poster. “It was such a romantic image, and he told me, ‘This is a movie that’s in love with love.’ You had a creature that had to be a leading man that Elisa had to fall in love with and that the audience had to fall in love with. He told us right at the beginning that this wasn’t a monster — it’s an intelligent being with a soul, and eyes that had to be soulful and deep.”

The creature also had to be a top-notch swimmer whose movements read as pure poetry in the water. To aid with that, Berardi had his team study Olympians like Michael Phelps as a starting point. “Those guys are powerful and swim somewhat gracefully, but nothing as graceful as what Guillermo really wanted. So then we looked at dolphins, sea lions, otters and seals, and settled on this hybrid of a humanoid swimming, with a bit of a dolphin kick. Seals actually became a lot of inspiration as well, because they move slipstream through the water very gracefully.”

Junk in the trunk In one of The Shape of Water‘s standout sequences, Elisa and her lover act consummate their powerful attraction in a bathroom that she transforms into a makeshift water tank. It’s an erotically-charged moment and del Toro takes full advantage of his R-rating, allowing the two to see, and touch, each other’s naked bodies like any homosapien couple would. Boundary-pushing as this scene may be, it stops just short of the final frontier: merman genitalia. And that’s just fine for Berardi, who would have been responsible for helping imagine what the creature’s junk might look like. “Guillermo’s got too much taste for that,” Berardi remarks with a laugh, pointing out that Elisa and her friend Zelda (Octavia Spencer) instead discuss her lover’s size after their intimate encounter. “His inspiration for the movie was when he was six years old watching Creature from the Black Lagoon and hoping that the creature gets the girl.”

That’s a note that del Toro passed along to Hill as well. “This thing has to be attractive to a woman,” the creature designer remarks in the above clip. “My directive was that I wanted to make him handsome.” For his part, Jones clearly appreciated the matinee idol physique that Hill crafted for his aquatic alter ego. “My lips are a little fuller, there’s a strong jawline and the body they sculpted on me is very athletic. He’s handsome in a fish-like way.”

Hawkins and Jones in an embrace in The Shape of Water (Photo: Fox Searchlight/Everett Collection)

The shape of (digital) water If the Fish-Man was a hybrid of practical and digital effects, the water he calls home is almost entirely digital with one notable exception — the aforementioned love scene in Elisa’s bathroom. “That’s the only scene where we had the actors in water, ever,” Berardi reveals. “We had a water tank that we built and submerged the bathroom set, with the actors, in the tank. It was done in such a safe way that they could just be hovering around the surface with footholds and handholds. They’d film for 20 or 30 seconds, and then come back up easily because the water level was just above their heads. Sally and Doug were both game.” Everywhere else, though, the H20 was all CGI, and even with all the advancements that have been made since The Perfect Storm — the movie that Berardi cites as a breakthrough for digital water effects — simulating water is still one of the most difficult jobs for an effects house.

Interestingly, the most challenging shot involved another tank of sorts, the iron lung capsule that serves as the creature’s prison as he’s transported from South America to the Baltimore research facility where the film’s events unfold. “There was no water in that capsule,” Berardi says. “It would have been way too unsafe to have Doug in there. But we had to see water sloshing around through the glass while the asset is in there. The creature also had to slam his hand on the glass, so his digital hand would have to come through the digital water and hit the glass. All of that is 3D and volumetrically rendered. That was the shot that kept me up at night.”

Richard Jenkins and Jones in The Shape of Water (Photo: Fox Searchlight/Everett Collection)

Here kitty, kitty Cat fanciers will be happy to hear that no real felines were harmed in the making of The Shape of Water. The same can’t be said for the computer-generated cat that the creature chows down on while hiding out with Elisa and her friend, Giles (Richard Jenkins). And the Fish-Man is a messy eater, too, getting blood all over the floor and himself. That may sound like a big turnoff, but del Toro felt it was crucial to showcase his hero in his less glamorous moments. “Guillermo didn’t want to make a traditional Beauty and the Beast-type story where the beast can’t really be himself. He’s eloquent, strong and heroic, yes, but he also needs protein!”

For the first part of the scene, Jones worked with an on-set cat wrangler to provoke a flesh-and-blood feline into a hissing fit. When the time came for the creature to open the cat’s head like a Pez dispenser, Berardi’s team took over. “We put a green sock puppet in Doug’s hands, replaced that with a digital cat and then severed the head. We went through about 25 iterations about what the cross section of the neck needed to look like, and showed Guillermo the grossest ones we could devise — anatomically correct with the spinal cord, nerve endings and all that stuff. We totally went there with it. That was also a moment where we took over Doug’s head and did it digitally: we fluttered the gills and had water spray off of them. That was probably one of the most fun things for us to animate.”

The Shape of Water is currently playing in theaters and available on digital services. The film arrives on 4K, Blu-ray, and DVD on March 13.

Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:

How ‘Wonder’ completely transformed kid star Jacob Tremblay… and earned an Oscar nod

‘Wonder Woman’ wasn’t alone: 15 great movies dissed by 2018 Oscars

Charlize Theron addresses calls to play first female 007

#_author_id:195cbeb0-638b-11e4-b5fc-5a3a8a9452d9 #video #movie:the-shape-of-water #guillermo del toro #the shape of water #awards #oscars #awards 2018 #oscars 2018 #exclusives #behind the scenes #_uuid:20020546-d15d-3a8f-b327-936e28989659 #_draft:true

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callgirlkarachi-blog · 5 years

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Sex Trafficking Vs Sex Work

What is Sex Trafficking? Sex Trafficking is and always has been a long-standing global problem which is often confused with sex work. Accurate statistics for the number of people enslaved into the sex industry are almost impossible to accumulate because of the hidden nature of the crime. Undeniably, Sex Trafficking or Sexual Exploitation is a human rights violation and it can happen to anyone, adult women, young girls, men and boys are all at risk. The distinctions might seem obvious, but they are often overlooked. When a person willingly takes part in the sale of sex, it is consensual and doesn't affect their human rights. This is called Sex Work. When a person takes part in the sale of sex through threat, abduction or other means of coercion this is called Sex Trafficking. The differences can almost be invisible, so you may not recognise a trafficked victim. You may see a girl in the streets looking for "work" and assume she is a sex worker but, the reality could be far from that. 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STOP THE TRAFFIK is building intelligence on global human trafficking activity to help combat this issue. If you have seen anything suspicious, you can share it on our online form, safely and securely. The headline on the cover of the Vancouver Province read: To catch a creep. I'm sure everyone in the photo is too young to understand the quote or the diss. Many years ago there was a quasy detective series on TV called To catch a thief. It was based on a reformed thief who started working with the police to catch other thieves. The full quote was it takes a thief to catch a thief. So the headline in the Province would imply it takes a creep to catch a creep. Take a look at the photo. They dont look like a group of law biding citizens to me. When I see that picture the first thing that comes to mind is, OK let's run these names through the CSO database and do a criminal record search. The Vancouver Sun article states Ryan LaForge is the president of the Surrey chapter of Creep Catchers. 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restlessmaknae · 7 years

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Disastrous [pt.6]

Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8

Genre: fluff, comedy, romcom

Main Characters: Kim Namjoon; Gu Dasom (OC)

Setting: holiday AU; friends to lovers AU

I knew that this holiday will be difficult with Namjoon by my side but I never thought that it would be this difficult.

An arranged holiday with my best friend to a breath-taking island? What could actually go wrong? In my case, the question is, what didn’t go wrong?

The next hours were spent with walking back to the bus station. The distance was long, so it took us 5 hours to get there. Namjoon said that we could have gone faster if the weather hadn’t been so hot and it hadn’t been around midday. I sometimes really felt like I could faint because as I’ve mentioned, we had no food, nor water. Luckily, we found a fountain on our way where we could drink a little but because we didn’t have money, we couldn’t even dream about buying anything. It was so humiliating. I didn’t have any kind of headwear, so I wouldn’t have been surprised if I had gotten sunstroke. Namjoon also felt a bit dizzy but he always felt it as his priority to encourage me to keep going.

I was never keen on walking or hiking or any kind of those outdoor physical activities but after our 5-hour journey, I hated even the idea of moving my pinkie for the next few hours. I’d never been more tired in my whole life and I immediately sat down on the ground when we got back my best friend’s backpack. I was just so exhausted. So, so exhausted.

“Ah, I’m so happy it’s over!” I blurted without much thinking and took a big sip of the water bottle. It felt incredibly good as my throat had been dry for hours.

Namjoon also let himself slide down to sit on the ground beside me. I voluntarily leaned onto his shoulder while he slung his arms around mine. It was beyond reassuring, it was almost like heaven. I could pacify my crazily beating heart and wildly rumbling thoughts by then, so I could finally feel at ease. He was beside me, I was beside him and nothing ever seemed more perfect than that.

“I feel like I could eat a cow right now,” I murmured out a jumble of words and earned an ethereal chortle from Namjoon.

“We don’t have enough money to buy you a cow,” he said in between laughs but I just playfully smacked him in the chest.

“Yah! Don’t make me sad, Namjoon!” I pouted like a little girl and it made him laugh even more. I adored watching him laugh because I never considered myself a funny girl and he still had a fun time beside me. I was kind of proud of that.

“I don’t want to but that’s the truth.”

“I know.”

“But I’ll pay for your dinner. Deal?” he raised his eyebrows in question when I withdrew. I knew he wanted to compensate me for losing his bag and making me super worried throughout the day, so I gave in. I didn’t want him to feel worse.

“Deal,” I nodded as excitedly as I could but I must have looked like a runner after completing the marathon. My hair was more like a bird nest and my face was all red thanks to the heat. My clothes were covered in sweat and I was happy if I could walk back safely to our accommodation on my feet.

We just sat there for God knows how long before we decided to find a cosy and fairly cheap restaurant to eat something. I was never really fond of hamburgers but when I saw that it was on the menu, I didn’t hesitate to order one. A really big one. I was hungry and my stomach was growling again and again, its weird noises an urging for me to get some food. Namjoon chose the same and we were munching away on our hamburgers without saying a single word out loud. We desperately needed those extra calories.

Due to the fact that it was already 5 o’ clock and we were hardly in a condition to continue our sight-seeing tour, we headed back to the guest house. I was never happier to see those dull, white walls and familiar bunk-bed than that particular night. I realised that a lot of mishaps occurred during our holiday and our room wasn’t even the worst of them.

“Can I sleep now?” I sneaked a glance at Namjoon like I needed his permission to go to bed. He looked at me dearly and pinched my cheeks. If the hot weather didn’t make them heat up a bit, his touch definitely did.

“Of course you can. We had quite a rough day, so you deserve a good night’s sleep,” he nodded and pointed to the bottom mattress. I hopped down without hesitation but before I fell onto the quilt, I made sure that I grabbed his wrist and pulled him with me. It didn’t take him by surprise, thus he didn’t even protest.

I wanted to doze off against his shoulder because I didn’t really remember the last time when we slept like that. We were best friends for 15 years now but our friendship started just like any other; totally unexpectedly. We encountered at a playground in Goyang and made a pinky promise that we will be together until the end. It all started with silly things that 6-year-old kids do; killing our time at the playground, sharing our toys with each other, talking about our favourite animated shows and playing hide and seek in our garden.

We weren’t neighbours but we spent a lot of time together and the more we grew, the more we needed each other’s company. I remember vividly that I always shared my fears with him while we were looking at the stars from the terrace of his room. He listened to me patiently and waited until I didn’t have anything else to say. Then, he rubbed his chin, tilted his head in contemplation and started talking about solutions how I should be more confident and face those obstacles. I never knew how that 6-year-old immature guy with the grey braces turned into a wise, philosophical teenager but he definitely changed. Puberty hit him so hard – or me, I don’t know – that I started seeing him as a man and not a boy. But soon, I felt the same way about my male classmates as well and that thought never flew across my mind again until 2 months ago.

“You know it’s funny,” Namjoon whispered as I rested my head on his shoulder. This silence wasn’t like the one before; it was serene and soft like a cloud hovering on the clear-blue sky.

“What?”

“I saw a lot of sides of you in the last 15 years but you never fail to show me new sides since we started our journey,” his hushed voice was full of awe and I didn’t really know why. I was pretty sure that witnessing how I had acted in the last couple of days was nothing but troublesome. I was whining, I was yelling at him and I was screaming because of a giant spider. What could have been so pleasant about that?

“Is that a good thing?” I glared at him, not sure what kind of answer I would get. His serious expression slowly dissolved into a nostalgic smile.

“Yes, it is. You are my best friend and it’s such a pity that we can’t spend as much time together as we used to since we started university. I guess that’s why I felt like we slowly drifted apart in the last couple of years. You know, there was school, assignments, new friends and you had Hyeonuk as well−” he suddenly confessed and I couldn’t help but flinch painfully at the mention of my ex-boyfriend.

I met Heyonuk 2 years ago at a college party and we had been a couple for 23 months when he said that he wanted to break up. That asshole. I inwardly cursed myself for ever trusting that guy, even though he was such a sweetheart until he announced that it was over.

“You felt like we drifted apart because of Hyeonuk?” I asked, almost frantically because I’d never thought that Namjoon would feel like I had chosen my boyfriend over him. He wasn’t jealous, he seemed to get along well with Hyeonuk when I was around, so he didn’t show any sign of jealousy. Or he was a really impressive actor.

“Yes, a little bit,” he admitted without hesitation. He didn’t seem nervous, he didn’t even nibble his lips but the dimples deepened with his smile. He wasn’t mad and I admired him for his understanding. It was one of the things on the endless list of what I loved about him. “But I don’t blame you. If you’re in love, you have to spend more time with your boyfriend than with your best friend.”

“That’s not true,” I shook my head immediately because I learned from my parents that you shouldn’t neglect your friends and family even if you are in love. “You should have told me if it really irritated you.”

“It doesn’t really matter anymore,” he waved his hands in an attempt to leave the subject and move on. “Hyeonuk doesn’t know what he missed when he said that you’re too dull and worthless for him,” he quoted the exact same words that my boyfriend had told me two months ago and even flinched like he was hurt.

He was the one who scooped me up after Hyeonuk said goodbye and that’s when I started developing feelings for him. Seeing how he cared about me and cursed at my ex-boyfriend made me feel touched. He never acted like that before when my relationships ended but that’s also true that none of my relationship were as long yet painful as the one with Hyeonuk.

“That douchebag,” I snorted furiously but my expression suddenly changed when I heard my best friend’s reaction. I couldn’t suppress the urge to smile as widely as possible.

“That crazy bastard,” he spluttered the words dismissively and when we met each other’s gazes, we broke into little fists of laughter. That made me remember for the good old days when it was so usual that we dissed my ex-boyfriends and his ex-girlfriends like that. The thought that we were getting closer and closer again melted my heart a bit.

We were talking for an hour or so and I wish we could speak more but I had already stifled a yawn like 12 times and when he noticed my sleepy eyes, he turned off the lights and walked up on the ladder. When I heard that he arrived on his mattress, I whispered to him like we always did when we had a sleepover at each other’s houses.

“Good night, Namjoonie.”

“Good night, Dasomie.”

His deep, hoarse voice was the sweetest melody that could cherish me to sleep.

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chronically-autistic-dinosaur · 7 years

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SIMPLE PLAN

1. When did you first become a fan and how?  I don't remember the exact year, but it was sometime between 2003 and 2004. I saw the video for Perfect and I guess I decided right then and there that I was going to be a fan! I was 14, ok?!

2. Have you seen them live? If so how many times? What did you think? What dates did you see them on and what city? I have seen them 9 times. All the shows were AMAZING! Like duh... July 2004-Calgary Stampede (Calgary)

 November 27, 2005-Pengrowth Saddledome (Calgary) 

September 6, 2008-Pengrowth Saddledome (Calgary)

July 6, 2009-Calgary Stampede (Calgary)

June 17, 2011-SAIT's Gateway (Calgary)

February 13, 2012-The Corral (Calgary)

July 17, 2016-Calgary Stampede (Calgary)

April 13, 2017- House of Blues (Anaheim)

September 8, 2017- The Palace Theatre (Calgary)

3. What is the craziest/most extreme thing you have done for the band? Does traveling from Calgary to Anaheim count? I've also sat out in the pouring rain on a few occasions.

4. What do you love most about the band?  The fact that they meet/sign things for their fans after shows. They're just genuinely nice guys :)

5. What do you love most about them live?  Stage energy and fan-band interaction

6. Have you ever won backstage passes/soundcheck passes?  Nope. I did have the opportunity to get SP Crew Soundcheck passes for the Anaheim show and the most recent Calgary show, but since I had VIP, there was no point.

7. Do you have "connections" with the band?(relations). Do you know anyone who has connections with them?  Nope

8. Have you ever met them? If so how many times? Where, when, and how did you meet them? What did they say/do? what did they sign for you?  I've met them twice. Well, I've met all 5 members once and everyone but David twice.

June 17, 2011: I met them all after the show at SAIT. They signed the setlist I got and each member commented on the shirt I was wearing. It was an old school SP shirt.

April 13, 2017: I met them after the concert in Anaheim. It was part of the VIP package. They signed my VIP laminate and a birthday card for my little brother. I also got them to wish my little brother a happy birthday-which they were happy to do :) Pierre felt the need to take like 8 pictures of us...Me and Chuck talked about the show coming up in Calgary in September and how it's an 18+ show. Chuck didn't even know it was 18+

September 8, 2017: As part of the VIP package, I got to meet the band. They signed my VIP laminate and a sign I had made. Pierre hugged me and thanked me for the awesome sign. Chuck commented on my old school SP hoodie and he read my sign and thought it was pretty cool and he was super happy that the band was able to get me on stage after all these years.

9. Do you have any old merch?  I have a hoodie and a t-shirt that would be from their first line of merch (NPNHJB timeframe). My little brother now has the shirt xD

10. Describe them in 5 words: Funny, energetic, super nice, caring

11. What is your fave video and why?  Wow. Uhm, that's a hard one. I like ALL of them.

12. How much Simple Plan merch do you have in total? How much do you have from each concert? No concert merch from any of the Stampede shows.

November 27: SP glow stick and I'm assuming a shirt?

September 6: SP glow stick, and I'm assuming a shirt or two? I have one of the shirts still and the other I don't...

June 17: One shirt for sure...not sure if I have any other merch from that show

February 13: SP glow stick, GYHO poster, GYHO tour date t-shirt, GYHO t-shirt with a panda on it

April 13: Two NPNHJB tour t-shirts, a hoodie with a broken heart on it, bracelet thing

September 8: NPNHJB tour t-shirt

Non concert: signed GYHO poster, A Big Package For You DVD, SP Crew skull t-shirts, signed SP Crew poster, SP Crew laminate, guitar picks (SP Crew), VIP laminate, VIP souvenir ticket, signed North American Tour 2017 poster, all 5 CD's, Worst Day Ever hoodie, t-shirt with the the NPNHJB logo (heart, face, cloud) on it.

Other: 3 water bottles from Pierre, a piece of Seb's towel, 2 guitar picks from Seb, 1 concert setlist.

13. How many times have they played in your city?  At least 11. I've only missed 2 Calgary shows, I think?

14. Have you ever travelled out of your city to see them? If so, how far and where?  Sure have. I went to the Anaheim show...so just over 2500 km's.

15. What do think was the best concert? Why? Which tour was it on?  All of them have been awesome, but I'll have to go with the Anaheim concert (NPNHJB 15 Anniversary Tour) for this one. It was the first time I traveled out of Canada for a concert and it was the day after my birthday.

16. Have you ever had front row for a concert?  All of them, except for the July 2004, November 2005 and the February 2012 concerts.

17. What seats did you have for all Simple Plan concerts? What were the best seats?  Well they aren't really seats. It's GA. The only two concerts I've had seats for were the November 2005 (level 2 seating) and the February 2012 (level 2 seating).

18. Do you know their emails or any other personal contact information?  If you Google Pierre's address, it will come up. No joke.

19. What is your best memory at each Simple Plan concert? July 2004-I really don't remember much of that concert. All I can remember is them playing You Don't Mean Anything and Crash and Burn.

November 27-It was my best friend's first time seeing SP, so it was pretty awesome that we got to see our favourite band together. We also dissed Hedley while we were there.

September 8-I got to be on the floor for the first time at a Simple Plan concert. It was also the second time I got to see Simple Plan with my best friend. Other than that, I don't really have any memories that stick out.  

July 6-David said he was hungry, and someone (either in the crowd or it may have been security) actually went and got food for him xD

June 17-there was no security at all, so I was RIGHT UP against the stage. Pierre must have thought I was really thirsty because he gave me two of his waters. Oh! And Pierre forgot the lyrics to the first two lines of the second verse of When I'm With You. I finally met the band after 7 years!

 February 13-They played Worst Day Ever for the first time in years! Also Pierre came into the section I was in and sang to me.

July 16-During Farewell, Pierre looked at me and sang the bridge to me. 

April 13-Other than the VIP stuff after the concert, my favourite memory would probably have to be when the band acknowledged my sign.

September 8- I got to go up on stage before they played Welcome To My Life. I was hugged twice by Pierre and he thanked me for the sign. And then obviously, the VIP stuff.

20. Who is your fave member of the band and why?  Pierre. Because why not. I don't want to sound like a fan girl, so I'm not going to say why he's my favourite.

#simple plan

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