#i think its really funny that poppy is 9 because i had always had the hc that Allister is 9. which would make them the same age. | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

titusmoody · 3 years

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It’s the end of the first quarter of 2021. Here’s a brief review of the things I watched/played/read.

Games

Donut County- pretty charming, very easy, fairly satisfying to play. I’d recommend Untitled Goose Game over this, though.

Heaven’s Vault- If you only have room in your life for one space archaeology game, play Outer Wilds instead. However, you get to translate alien writings yourself (in a simplified game way) in this one, so I’d recommend both.

Donkey Kong Country 3 103%- so many fun level mechanics in this one. The difficulty of finding and completing everything in the game was spot-on for me.

Donkey Kong Country 2 102%- Each level mechanic in this one is explored and used in far more interesting ways than DKC3, though I honestly had more fun with 3 this time around. This one is the “dark, edgy” one aesthetically which is extremely dumb. Also, there was a lot of guesswork involved in finding some of the hidden stuff, which I didn’t enjoy.

The Room 4- I like escape room games. This one was good. It continued 3′s trend of trying to shake up the format a little, which is fine (better here than in 3, I think) but I wouldn’t have minded if all 4 stayed exactly the same, just with new puzzles.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales- Everything about it was competent. Not only was each gameplay activity fine-tuned to feel good, but the structure of the game also kept kept you experiencing a good variety of each activity. PS5 graphics are good, too. Nothing about it really got me excited to play it, it was just a good after work unwinding thing.

Cyberpunk 2077- Exactly the opposite of Spider-Man in terms of quality consistency. There are aspects of this game that are amazing, horrible, and every step in between. However, I’ve thought about it quite a bit and will probably continue to think about it for both good and bad reasons.

Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair- Donkey Kong Country has better level design and controls. Well, the best levels of this were every bit as good as the best DKC levels, and maybe I’m just so familiar with DKC levels that I zone out a little during the boring bits, but had to pay attention to every moment of this game. Still, I didn’t have as much of an overall good time as the DKC games I played earlier.

Hue- Good 2D puzzle-platformer. I’m no longer surprised by these, but I still appreciate them, much in the same way as I like playing escape room games. I was under the impression for a few years that because I understood the potential of puzzle platformers, it meant I wouldn’t want to play any more of them, but that’s simply not true. I had a good time with Hue.

Shows

Gravity Falls- It’s fine. Pretty entertaining. I wish there were more low-stakes kinds of episodes, just to get more familiar with different sides of the characters. It would have made the characters and setting feel more rounded.

Cowboy Bepop- I didn’t get the hype for this show when I first watched it at 21, and now I can say that it’s simply not my kind of show. I have much more appreciation for it now than I did the first time, but it doesn’t hit me emotionally the same way that it seems to hit so many people.

Seinfeld- It’s Seinfeld. There was precisely one episode that I had never seen before, plus confirmation that I didn’t dream the episode that’s told in backwards chunks like Memento and is set in India.

Paranoia Agent- While it was disappointing that this ended up being a more simple morality tale than every Satoshi Kon movie I’ve seen, I still enjoyed watching this a lot.

Aggretsuko- I liked the mundane, every-day storylines like a modern, more empathetic Seinfeld. Unfortunately as the show went on, there were more and more wacky situations that no one actually gets into. I might watch the upcoming season if I hear that it’s less ridiculous.

Over the Garden Wall- This was really cool and I’m glad it exists. It’s ten episodes long, which is perfect for it. I thought it was at its weakest during the more lighthearted or humorous moments--precisely the opposite of Gravity Falls. The word “classy” comes to mind to describe this show.

Beastars- Really good when it isn’t falling into anime plot and dialog cliches. A lot of this first season is dedicated to introducing characters and the setting, which I thought was very well done. I’m curious to see what Season 2 is like.

Movies

Scott Pilgrim vs the World- It’s a fun movie to watch. It definitely makes many of the characters’ flaws seem like more fun than it probably should, but I’m more bothered by the criticism I hear that boils down to “it’s a bad movie because the characters are bad people” which I suspect is an impression you only get if you lack both empathy and media comprehension.

Big- Kinda bad. It has iconic moments that are only possible with its weird premise, but it’s just not a premise that supports an entire good movie.

Phantom of the Opera- Way better and way worse than I remember. Has the precise right amount of horses.

Knives Out- Not really a movie I needed to watch a second time, but it sure is good.

District 9- I didn’t remember most of this movie and unfortunately I zoned out for most of this rewatch, so I still feel like I don’t know what it’s about.

From up on Poppy Hill- Not one of the top tier Ghibli movies, but still really good in a down-to-earth way that I like from Ghibli.

Enter the Dragon- I knew to expect everything to be turned up to 11, which is good because it really is a lot. I liked it, though.

Shutter Island- I have never actually liked this kind of twist-reliant movie. I thought I would for many years, but I was always disappointed. At least now I am aware that it’s not what I’m into.

Soul- The premise is much too convoluted, but it does have an excellent moment near the end.

Onward- I liked this one a lot. Why don’t more people talk about this one? It’s definitely better than Coco, which itself was really good.

A Silent Voice- The kind of movie that reminds me that sometimes Japanese storytelling is more to my taste than Hollywood style, in that scenes can be more emotionally ambiguous.

Tangled- Good in exactly the same way as Frozen and Moana. I can’t really complain, but this isn’t the same situation as puzzle platformers or escape rooms. In this case, I do get a little sick of being completely unsurprised. This movie was made first, so it’s only by chance that this is the one that I saw last.

Monsters University- A good movie, but it really doesn’t have to be about the same characters as Monsters Inc.

Monty Python and the Holy Grail- Still funny

The Departed- Good if you want an enjoyable crime thriller to watch, bad if you want a Scorcese movie.

Titanic- Getting very drunk and watching this with Brittany might be the best time I had in the past three months. Maybe I won’t think too hard about why a movie about the overdue, violent death of a social order resonates with me right now.

Prince of Egypt- Impressive and grand, but I didn’t really care about the characters or story.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan- A good but not great (by TNG standards) concept for an episode that was made extremely enjoyable by the added budget and longer runtime of a movie.

Star Trek III: The Search for Spock- Not as good, but still watchable.

Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home- The kind of ridiculous concept you’d only make when you’ve already had three successful movies and are confident that you’ll be able to make at least another couple. The gang go back to the 1980s (present day to the original audience) and save the whales. It’s apparently exactly the right movie to watch if this is the third consecutive Star Trek movie you’re watching.

Mamma Mia- A lot of fun, but has weird problems that seem like they would’ve been easy to solve at the script level. Maybe if the conflicts had been introduced early on instead of dragging the whole pace of the movie down for much of the last 20 minutes, I would’ve enjoyed the whole thing.

Books

The Well of Ascension- The second book of a trilogy. Very competent. Introduces a whole lot of minor conflicts that really keep the momentum going and give the characters short-term goals that contribute to the overall plot and their arcs.

The Hero of Ages- The final book in the same trilogy. Equally competent. I wish there had been more long-term payoffs, which is the trade-off you make by stuffing the books full of those short-term conflicts. Spoilers ahead, but not ones that I think ruin the experience of reading. It’s very odd that of three of the central characters, one dies, one becomes a god and then dies, and one becomes God.

Check Please- About as pleasant as it gets. Full of the type of minor character that sitcoms end up running into the ground because they’re too one-note (Creed from The Office, for instance) but in a series with a pre-planned length, there’s no chance for it to get stale. Plus, I really liked both of the lead characters.

Milkman- Good book about “The Troubles” in Ireland. Very odd collection of characters, but the narrator had an extremely enjoyable voice to read.

And Then There Were None- Classic mystery story for a reason. Feels more like a Hitchcock movie than Sherlock Holmes. I read it in one day both because the prose was easy and I wanted to know what happened next. Not much substance to it, unfortunately.

Homegoing- Extremely ambitous book where each chapter is narrated by the descendant of a previous chapter, alternating between two branches of the same family. I liked it quite a bit, though because I only finished it yesterday I don’t have much reflection done yet so my opinion has yet to solidify.

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labyrinth-runner · 4 years

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One Day I’ll Fly Away

The Greatest Thing Chapter 9

Moulin Rouge Fanfic

Christian x OC

Read it here

Words: 2.9k

The season had come and gone and Estelle walked around like an empty shell of herself. London seemed less interesting, less like home without Christian. The only solace she had were her talks at William Cavanaugh's house. She spent most of her time there, now. Sneaking out by saying that she would be visiting with Annalise. They were lies, but only Mary really knew, and Mary didn't have the heart to give her up. She could see the tension between her sister and her father. Mr. Devereux's disappointment was palpable in the air whenever she came back without having a marriage proposal or at least an intention of courting from someone. He'd set her up on countless outings with the sons of his business partners, and she had managed to ruin any future with them all. His disappointment came to a head one morning at the breakfast table.

"Estelle, you're running out of eligible men in London, and you are ruining your name. Do you wish to become a social pariah, child? Because if you keep this up, you won't last another season," he huffed, watching his daughter pick at her breakfast.

"They're not suitable, father," Estelle replied.

"They may not be suitable to you, but they are suitable to me," he shot back.

Estelle looked at her father with such scorn, the likes of which Mary had never seen before. "Yes, well, you are not the one marrying them."

"You are my daughter, and I will give you to whomever I deem fit," he replied. His words were cold, but they felt like a hot slap across the face, shocking at first, and then a searing pain settles in.

Estelle calmly stood up from the table and left.

"Where do you think you are going? You haven't been dismissed," her father commented.

Estelle shook her head and continued out the door. "Prior engagement."

Mary sat in stunned silence. No one had ever walked out on her father before.

"She's too much like your mother," he sighed. "She'll ruin us."

Mary looked at her father for a moment, as if seeing him for the first time. Quietly, she asked, "May I be dismissed?"

He nodded.

She got up to leave, pausing at the door. She turned back to him and asked, "Ruin us, or ruin you?"

Her father swallowed and she left to catch Estelle before she left.

"Elle!"

"Mary, I don't want to hear it. I need air. I'm going for a walk," she replied, her hand on the front door.

"I know. Just... be safe and tell Will and Anna I say hello," Mary smiled.

Estelle nodded before going out the door. In truth, there was no prior engagement. She just needed to breathe. Her house was suffocating. She was being crushed under the weight of her father's expectations. Her social card was no longer her own these days. Her nights, however... those were a different story. She spent more time at Grub Street than she did sleeping, but she didn't care. Why dream of freedom in her sleep when she could live it? Her feet carried her on their own accord to just outside of William's building. She shouldn't be here, not in broad daylight. No respectable woman would be seen here, and her father would be furious should he find out.

"Fancy seein' you here, sweetheart," a voice called from across the street.

Estelle turned towards the voice and grinned, spotting its owner in the window of the building opposite. "Poppy!"

"Been seein' a lot of you lately out my window at night when I'm... preoccupied," Poppy smirked. "Come on up. Let's catch up."

Estelle looked around the street. A whorehouse. She was about to enter a house of ill repute in the middle of the morning. This might as well happen. Swiftly, she made her way over and into the house. The smell was oppressive, and the house looked like it needed some repairs. The wallpaper was peeling off the wall, and there was a layer of dust around the chandeliers, but she could tell that it had been nice at one point. Cautiously, she made her way up the stairs which creaked under her feet. She walked past open doorways, catching glimpses of naked women either sleeping or in other states of relaxation. Then, she found Poppy, smoking a cigarette while looking out her window. Gently, Estelle knocked on the door.

Poppy's eyes lit up as she turned towards her. "It's different to see you in the daylight. You're a proper woman, Ms. Devereux."

Estelle blushed. "Yes, well, so are you."

Poppy looked down at her night gown and laughed. "Proper is a relative term."

"So it seems," Estelle smiled.

"Well, come and have a seat. I've got a fresh pot of tea we can split," Poppy said, clearing off two of the chairs by her bed.

Estelle walked over and daintily sat on the edge of the chair, finding it to be surprisingly comfortable for its shabby design. Poppy poured them each a cup of tea before fixing her with a hard look.

"What is it?" Estelle asked nervously as she picked up her teacup.

"I'm not quite sure, but you seem melancholy," Poppy replied.

"What makes you think that?"

"Darling, you don't get so great at my profession without being able to pick up on these things," she winked. "I fulfill needs. All of them."

Estelle sighed, "I have been having a difficult time lately."

"Is it because that man of yours isn't here anymore?" Poppy asked.

Estelle choked on her tea, "Well, he wasn't exactly mine to begin with..."

"I saw the two of you together," Poppy murmured. "As much as I make love for a living, you can never buy that."

Estelle looked down, "Yes, well. He left a while ago. He's with the Bohemian's in Paris, now."

Poppy's eyes widened, "Like at the Moulin? Oh, darling, you may never seen him again."

"What makes you say that?" Estelle asked.

"Well, I may be good, but the girls at the places that those Parisians frequent, like the Moulin Rouge... Well, they are the best."

"Do you really think Christian could be with one of them?" Estelle murmured.

"I'd like to say no, but they are very skilled at ensnaring men, so anything is possible," Poppy shrugged.

Estelle bit her lip. "Teach me."

Poppy laughed, "Teach you what?"

"How to be like that," she replied. "If Christian is looking for someone a little more... worldly, then perhaps I should try to be that."

"Don't be anything you're not for a man," Poppy said pointedly.

"Poppy, I'm not asking you to make me a prostitute. I'm just asking you to teach me a little more about what you do and... maybe a classier way to incorporate it into my daily life," Estelle said hopefully.

"You want to learn how to talk dirty, but in high society? Is that what you're asking me to do?" Poppy asked.

Estelle shrugged, suddenly feeling embarrassed, "I just want to do things that might set his heart racing."

"Darling, what I can teach you will definitely get his blood pumping, but just to other places," Poppy winked.

Estelle leaned forward as Poppy began to teach her about suggestive phrasing.

"It's not always about the words you say, but rather the tone of voice and the hazy meaning behind it," Poppy explained after it was all over.

"Right, therefore I can turn something innocuous into something more charged based off the situation and how I say it," Estelle smiled.

"Oh, I'd like to see him leave you now," Poppy grinned.

Estelle deflated slightly, "R-right."

"Darling, I didn't... I mean... Oh, this is what happens when you befriend a whore. We say what comes into our heads without thinking about it first," Poppy said, resting her hand on top of Estelles. "I apologize. I'm sure he didn't leave you when he left."

"No, you're right. In a way, he did. He may have told William that he was leaving because of his father, but by leaving London, he did leave me," Estelle sighed, getting up. "Thank you for your kindness, Poppy."

"Atwell," Poppy murmured. "Poppy Atwell. I haven't said that part of my name in years, but I feel like I can trust you with it."

Estelle smiled at her. "Have a good day, Ms. Atwell."

"You as well, Ms. Devereux," Poppy nodded.

Estelle made her way back outside, running into William's chest.

"Ms. Devereux?" he asked in confusion.

"Mr. Cavanaugh," she said sheepishly.

"Were you just... leaving a whorehouse?" he asked carefully.

"This stays between us," she said sternly.

"You know I can't keep anything from Anna," he said in exasperation.

"I mean it, William," she replied.

"Estelle, I can't lie to her. She has a way of knowing whenever I'm keeping something from her. It's honestly a little frightening," he responded.

Estelle sighed.

"What were you doing there, anyway?" William asked.

"I was talking to a friend."

"Your friend is a prostitute?"

"Listen, have I ever judged you?" Estelle asked pointedly.

"No," he replied, running his hand through his hair. "May I escort you home?"

"I would prefer not to go home," she murmured.

"To Anna's, then?" He asked, holding out his arm for her.

She nodded, taking it.

"William, I know he didn't leave because of me, but that doesn't make it any easier," she sighed after turning off of Grub Street.

"I know, my dear. He really knows how to bungle things up, doesn't he?" he replied, gently tapping his hand on hers where it rested on his arm.

"I just wish he would write to me," she replied. "To let me know that he's alright."

"He's tried," William replied without thinking.

"What do you mean?" Estelle asked. "Has he written to you?"

"Estelle, he doesn't know what to say to you. He knows he's misstepped when it comes to you, and he isn't quite sure how to recover," William said, committing to telling her the truth.

"He talks to you?" she asked softly, feeling something in her break.

"Yes, but all he does is talk to me about you. He asks me how you're doing, if you've met a match, and if you are happy."

"William, I can't keep going on like this," she admitted. "My father wants me to move on and find someone else to court, but how can I move on when Christian is my future?"

"How do you know that he is?"

"How do you know that Anna is?" she countered.

William sighed and looked down. "It's a little bit funny, this feeling inside that I get when I'm with her."

"Like a swarm of butterflies in your stomach that make you feel as though you could just be lifted into the air by it?" Estelle asked with a faraway look on her face.

"Or like I'm riding atop a carriage while drunk like I used to back in college. You feel a rush of excitement when you see them and you know that regardless of what happens, you'll have a good time," he chuckled.

"Did Christian also ride these carriages with you?' she laughed.

"Heaven's no. I needed someone to drive," he grinned.

Estelle shook her head at him as they made it to Annalise's house. They both waited for Annalise in her parlor. The grin that grew on William's face was as bright as the sun when she glided into the room.

"Mr. Cavanaugh," Annalise smiled. "What a pleasant surprise. And with Elle? I knew it was going to be a good day when I rose this morning."

Elle snorted. "It's nice to see you, too, Anna."

"I'll have the servants bring tea out to the garden. I'll meet you both outside," Annalise smiled before going to the kitchen.

The garden was quiet today. In the early afternoon sunlight, it almost seemed like they had traveled to another place, another time. The air was fresh after last night's showers, and Estelle closed her eyes as she breathed in the clean air deeply, letting it fill her lungs. She opened them, hearing the chirping of nearby birds.

"One day, I'll fly away like those birds," she murmured. "They're free to go wherever they want and start lives with whomever they want."

Annalise and William shared a look.

"But, Elle, London is your home," Annalise replied. "You can still find someone here to love you."

"Anna, I won't love them back. My days are blurring together like a Monet and all I long for is the nights discussing ideals with all of our friends. I can't stand waking up in my house with my father making the walls close in faster. London stopped being my home when he left," Estelle sighed.

"Home is a place," Annalise replied.

"No, home is where you feel loved and safe. It's where your words and dreams are valued and encouraged, not destroyed. Home is what I felt with my mother, and when she was gone, with Christian," she replied, looking back at her with sorrow in her eyes.

"Should we tell her?" Annalise asked William.

"Tell me what?" Estelle asked curiously.

"Where he is," William replied.

"Paris, I know," Estelle groaned. "It's a little far from London."

"Estelle, I have his address," William admitted.

"What am I to do, William? Show up at his house and demand that he talk to me? He could have a whole life without me by now. Not to mention, my father would never allow me to just leave," Estelle laughed.

"Maybe not on your own," Annalise said thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, after the season, it's not odd for members of society to travel," Annalise said, fleshing out her idea more. "What if you and I went on a European holiday? We could track him down along the way."

Estelle felt a bit of dread set in. What if she went all the way there just to find him in the arms of another woman? "What about Mr. Cavanaugh?"

"Who am I to stand in the way of true love, Ms. Devereux?" he grinned. "Besides, I'll still be here when you both get back."

He had said both, but Estelle knew he was talking to Annalise.

"We could also write," Annalise added. "In case Mr. Cavanaugh gets too bored without us."

Estelle looked out at the garden. She might as well not even be here.

"My father would never go for it," Estelle added.

"My father would pay for the both of us if I ask nicely. Besides, he owes me. I saw him out at the opera with his mistress and didn't tell my mother," she winked.

Estelle chuckled. "Alright. I'll ask him when I get home."

The rest of their time together was spent discussing the latest fashions across Europe as Annalise was extensively planning her wardrobe for the trip. When Estelle finally made it home, it was almost time for dinner.

"Estelle," her father called out to her from the library.

She took a deep breath and went to face him. "Yes?"

"About this morning," he said.

"I'm sorry, father. I should never have spoken to you like that," she replied, looking down.

"Are you really so unhappy here?" he asked.

"I just feel like I need a break from London after the season," she said, picking her words carefully. "I have done nothing but try to secure a husband the past few months. It takes a toll after a while."

Her father nodded. "I suppose it does."

Estelle came to sit on the floor next to his chair. "Father, Annalise would like to take me on a tour of Europe. Her father said he would pay for the two of us. I would very much like to go."

"Perhaps a change of scenery would do you some good," he sighed. "I'll allow it, on one condition."

"What is it?"

"You try to make some matches while abroad. Perhaps there are people outside of London who are of good social standing that may suit you," he said reluctantly.

"I'm sure I'll be able to find someone," she grinned. "After all, Europe is quite large."

Her father cracked a small smile. "Yes, well, we will discuss more of the finer details later this week. Go get ready for dinner."

Estelle squeezed his hand as she got up. "Thank you, father."

"You're welcome, Estelle."

She practically raced up the stairs in her joy.

#christian moulin rouge #Moulin Rouge #The Greatest Thing

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deanky · 4 years

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Here are some little like ‘reviews’ of all the Oingo Boingo albums... Under cut LOL... I just like to talk about Oingo Boingo I am so obsessed right now they have become tied for Mr. Bungle as favorite band... But anyways... Hope you enjoy ^_^

Only a Lad: Very fun sound as a whole. I enjoy how like poppy and synthy it is and stuff and that one weird electronic voice Mr. Elf man does in like every song. I remember like actually not liking most of the songs first time I heard it and I’m not sure why because I enjoy 9/10 out of them a lot now... But then again I like almost never really like an album the first time I hear it LOL I have a mean soul. A lot of the songs have pretty evil words in them but I have like slight respect for how much hatred Danny Elfman seems to have had for everyone on the entire planet at the time of writing. And for the majority of songs I cannot really complain about because I think it fits theme of like very happy sounding song but nasty words in it duality of man and such. Only one I really do not like is Capitalism because it has the whiniest lyrics of all and also it just does not sound good like as a song I think I am sorry. I must say it. Forgive me. I was so thrilled hearing Nasty Habits for the first time because I really like songs that sound like a homosexual cartoon villain would sing them to you. Well that’s all. Only a Lad itself was one of the first songs of theirs I heard except sped up and it had a picture of anime Bart Simpson on it. I like it. Good song. Recently I cannot stop getting it and Little Girls stuck in my head. That’s all

Nothing to Fear: Everything about this album is sooooo sooo good it is like so incredibly catered specifically to my tastes. One of the few albums I have loved immediately as soon as I heard I finished listening for the first time and was immediately like oh this is going in my favorites. I add some points also for absolutely incredible beautiful cover art it’s got weird colors weird animals logo made of worm things it’s so beautiful it makes me want to cry. I think it gets SLIGHTLY weaker in its second half but that is hard not to do with albums. That said though a lot of songs that I felt were slightly worse at first have risen to being my favorites of the album like Why’d We Come and Reptiles and Samurai. Didn’t know what to think about Running on a Treadmill at first but I think it works very well in its simplicity and it is very catchy I can imagine people like singing it on actual treadmill and like jumping around abd being in zero gravity for some reason it is like that music video where they are in the plane but it is treadmills. Well, hi. The only ones that feel like slightly slightly worse to me are Whole Day Off and Islands but I think I am growing to like both of those a lot more too. My favorites though are Grey Matter and Insects and Wild Sex and also Nothing to Fear the titular song and Why’d We Come and Reptiles and Samurai which is over half of the songs so I think that’s good. I remember listening to Private Life like 5 times before listening to the rest of the album but I always forgot how it went immediately after not sure why because I’d say it is a reasonably catchy song. Anyways INCREDIBLE album. Rude lyrics? Still a thing but tend to be much more agreeable like it is obvious who is being made fun of in like Grey Matter and Nothing to Fear and I say the fun making is well deserved! Even though I may be the target of Grey Matter I understand and I am sorry. The general sound is also amazing I LOVE all the weird noises and metal stuff and clanks and clonks and all the xylophone. Dude the xylophone is so good. Synth and xylophone and guitar they are all best friends and they sound so cool together and I think xylophones should be more widely used in like “pop” music as a whole whatever that defines. I keep wanting to start a band and just play xylophone. Like what’s anybody gonna do to stop me? I love xylophone. That’s all

Good for Your Soul: I wasn’t so impressed by this one the first time I heard it but it quickly wormed its way up to a very close #2 and possibly even tied with Nothing to Fear as my favorite album of theirs. The album art on this one is also really good I will say! I felt like slightly let down at first by it just because it’s so hard to live up to how beautiful of a cover Nothing to Fear has in my mind. But its art is so cool too. Muscle man in wobbly world. What’s more to love (Side note I enjoy the song Wobbly World it is not an Oingo Boingo song it is by Devo I should listen to more Devo.) The first time I listened the only songs that REALLY jumped out at me super hard were No Spill Blood and Fill the Void, and I think those 2 are still tied as my favorites. I LOVE the whole like rhythm No Spill Blood has going on and the weird animal noises and also the lyrics they are not about Animal Farm they are about The Island of Dr. Moreau he did those surgeries don’t you know he made the animals have to be men and they were like are we not men but they didn’t say they were Devo sorry I keep talking about Devo in this Oingo Boingo album review. And BTW Fill the Void also is really great and has possibly my favorite set of lyrics in any song ever to exist which is the part like “Every little thing is a piece of a larger thing / Every little fish is a tyrant of the sea / Every little atom is a master of his family / Every single piece calls my name / What do they want from me?” It is so good it makes me go so insane I love it. Another song that works really well in just being a simple thing. It is so nice and cool it feels like being in space and you are in one of the levels of one of those Kirby spinoff games where he’s like a ball and you’re rolling him around NOT Canvas Curse the other ones like Dream Course I think. Anyways though while I wasn’t super big on all the other songs they ended up like slowly coming back into my head one by one until I was obsessed with all of them. First it was Pictures of You. Then it was Nothing Bad Ever Happens to Me (would put that in my top 3 as well) and then Dead or Alive and then Little Guns and then Cry of the Vatos and then Wake Up It’s 1984 and then Sweat and then the titular song AND Who Do You Want to Be it was like. Wow. What a world. WDYWTB + Good for Your Soul + Sweat were the 3 that didn’t really do it for me as much for a while but now I’ve been really enjoying them too so I think I can say I love every single song on this album. It is becoming my best friend. It’s sooo good. It feels like living in one of those fake Utopian cities and there’s actually something sinister going on behind the scenes. Like I will start seeing colors and freaking about it any time soon. Random memory that unlocked in me is that I used to be incredibly obsessed with The Book Thief and its concept of death when I was in like 6th or 7th grade like uncannily so but I never talked about the book ever I just hid it away in my mind. My sad story. Sorry everyone. That’s all

So-Lo: This one is technically just Danny Elfman but you know it is an Oingo Boingo album man they got the whole band there they were just having licensing issues because new label and stuff is my understanding. And they were like. Well let’s take advantage of this and do some less standard Oingo Boingo songs. That is how I grasp this situation I don’t know how correct I am her I actually don’t know that much about O.B. outside of the songs at this point I still cannot name any non-Danny Elfman member and I am really sorry for this and must learn to atone for my ways. This is a good album though. Once again has really good cover art I will say. It’s like well hello there Mr. Elf man you’ve got some eyes sliding off your face and some funny colors and are controlling some little puppet things maybe it’s like you do you man LOL am I right or am I right! I like this album. This was yet another one where I listened the first time and was like. Man I’m not really feeling it with any of these songs. However I do enjoy that they all sound kind of like they were recorded on a Sega Genesis. I mean it does have very Genesis-y noises I know this was the 80s and it would be more accurate to say the Sega Genesis soudns like this album but you know what I mean. Anyways nothing grabbed me at first but upon my second listen I became extremely obsessed with the song “Go Away” and then listened to it on repeat for 2 hours straight and it still hasn’t got old for me I still like it very good song. Definitely my favorite. Tied with Everybody Needs which is also a very fun song I became similarly enamored with like a day later but didn’t listen to quite as much LOL. But anyways I went through that oh-so-familiar process which I must warn you is also the process I go through for every single album after this! - Where all the other songs started worming their way into my head and I was like oh brother I am beginnign to like them all now! Good for Your Soul, I think, marked like more obvious change from songs tending to be like “This is what Danny Elfman thinks of the world phrased in a humorous way” to more like actual stories and stuff, although the former wasn’t rid of entirely and the latter hadn’t just popped up or anything. But I think this album continued that in a really nice way and while it can be vague, listening to it I always feel that there is like one solid story all the song narratives go throughout. Someone pointed out in like Youtube Comments that Go Away feels like the sadder side of Cool City and to me it feels like the whole album is kind of in that vein. Seems to me like all the songs are in the Cool City itself and you’re seeing like the various different horrible things that go on in that town and horrible people that live in it. Yknow? Like Tough as Nails and Everybody Needs make me think of like various awful weird a$$ holbs living there and then stuff like Sucker for Mystery and Lightning and It Only Makes Me Laugh. Well they are clearly from the perspectives of some guy. The same guy? Maybe maybe not I don’t feel like they are the same guy. But it feels like they are like experiencing weird horrible sh*t in this horrible town that is filled with racists but also gay people. I like this album I enjoy it

Dead Man’s Party: OK I am sorry to say. This is a good album but it hasn’t COMPLETELY grown on me yet. But I DO like it a lot. I enjoy it it’s good. I really really love Just Another Day and the titular song and Heard Somebody Cry and Nobody Lives Forever and Weird Science which is over half of them so not bad all things considered. And I do not DISLIKE any songs. But the other ones haven’t quite grown on me yet. This album does kind of shift into like the more commercial stuff it’s not like generic pop or nothing. But it is like slightly strange to get used to. That said. The songs I like I REALLY like thye are so good. No One Lives Forever is an incredible incredible song just like Nasty Habits it fulfills my love of songs that sound like they are being sung by evil guys in cartoons but are not they’re actually being sung by Danny Elfman who is an evil guy in real life. Sorry I didn’t mean it he probably is not that evil I’m sure he’s perfectly nice Mr. Elf man if you are reading this I apologize. Anyways though. I like the general sound of this album I will say! I think though it has thing going on where like, in my mind, some of the songs feel like way too happy and overly peppy almost like mocking. I have a weird mind and a weird way of processing things and I am also incredibly afraid of everything on this planet so keep that in mind BTW I am sorry. But like Stay and Fool’s Paradise and Help Me and Same Man I was Before all have that kind of feeling to me, it’s like these are so cheerful and cheesy sounding to me it kind of scares me a little bit. However... I am starting to feel this less with Help me and Stay, and also I felt this a little bit with Heard Somebody Cry at first as well and I no longer do. So maybe I’m still going through the motions of song-liking as I do. As I said though the favorites on here are incredible. Weird Science may have been written for strange movie deal and they may be really saddened by its memory or maybe just the music video’s memory but it’s a very fun song nevertheless. Dead Man’s Party itself it really fun true classic. Very orange song to me. It’s orange and purple like I hear it and I am like ah yes I am experiencing orange and purple. Very nice shades of orange and purple though, and they are mixing together in pleasing ways and throwing a big party and everyone’s invited you might even say it’s a dead man’s party heh heh heh (grins devilishly). I think this like takes the kind of narratives in Good for Your Soul and So-Lo and like takes it to best form! In that it has a very clear yet not super specific narrative going on throughout the whole album, I really like whenever an album has songs set up so pleasingly and nice like that it makes me sad when they’re just like in random order. But of course this album is all about death and accepting it and stuff and like all the different feelings of sadness and happiness and stuff that all go into it! And I like its message a lot, like obviously you shouldn’t want to die but don’t fear it. It has a very nice depiction of the afterlife. I like all the stuff in Beetlejuice and Corpse Bride with their similar interpretations too although Beetlejuice isn’t quite as positive about it LOL. I want to watch Corpse Bride again. I want to see another singing Danny Elfman skeleton. I want to see the Peter Lorre worm. My one complaint with the album narrative is that Weird Science goes at the end it kinda ruins the whole story a little bit but I can’t fault them because like where COULD they put it? I think it might work kind of well as the first song because like trying to make frankenstein guy before all the accepting death stuff makes sense. But also. It would be a weird opener. Also the album art is so incredible I love it I want to join their party it’s beautiful. I did not mean for this review to get as long as it did. They just keep getting longer each album I’m sorry the length does not show my opinion but I just keep getting more excited each album

Boi-Ngo: Will admit this one is my least favorite. And once again my bias shows because it has cover art I don’t like very much. It’s just real guys looking at you. Where’s the funny Oingo Boingo touch where’s the charm people!??!? it makes me sad. And also, as a whole, while I DO like most of the songs I feel like I don’t like them as much as I like any of the ones on other albums, and it also has my least favorite song I’ve heard other than Capitalism which is We Close Our Eyes sorry I’ve seen a lot of people who really like that one but it just scares me. It feels so insincere to me it makes me feel that thing once more where it’s like this song is waaayyy to happy and peppy to not feel like it’s kind of sinister deep down. I apologize. It is a fun album however! I think it kind of goes back more to “Danny Elfman’s humorous observations about life”, which is not always a bad thing, but it seems to revert a little bit too much back to like him just being kind of whiny and not making much of a point in like, say, New Generation. Although it is a nice song I think! It scares me when he goes like now he’s got you by the balls. I understand the point of that lyric. But it frightens me. I think my favorites are Home Again, Elevator Man, Not My Slave (although lyrics feel like slightly concerning), Outrageous, and Pain. Which once again is more than half the album so shows what I know complaining about it this whole time.

Dark at the End of the Tunnel: I feel bad for this album because before listening to it I always forgot it existed, like I listened to Boi-Ngo and was like aw man I only have one album left! Oh wait nevermind I have 2. And now I keep fearing there’s another one I forgot not including like the live albums and singles stuff. Maybe there is.... haunting me But anyways... I already did like incomprehensible post talking about this one earlier LOL which inspired me to do more equally incomprehensible things on all the other albums hence this post. So I’ve already said a lot of what I have to say about this and hope not to repeat it too much... but... LOL I was so afraid wondering if I would actually like this one or not... I wanted to just because of how awesome the cover art is. And I was afraid because I wasn’t really a big fan of most of the songs at first. But I think with this album and the whole Boingo era they were moving towards like more orchestral stuff and changing their sound and all... So it was a bit strange to get used to at first but the more I listened the more I enjoyed everything I guess like taking in all the instruments and textures and what not. A lot of the songs in this one also feel like kind of creepily cheery but I think it works best for this album specifically, because as I’ve said before it feels very intentional - there is like whole dual thing of more dark mysterious sections and light-hearted happy sections in most of the songs. Although my top 3 are all songs that mostly just have the former going on... Right to Know, Long Breakdown, and Run Away. I also really enjoy When the Lights Go Out, Skin, Out of Control (though it still feels like vaguely scary to me LOL), and Glory Be... But I keep finding myself getting all the others stuck in my head as well. So still growing on me LOL! I am beginning to appreciate all the other songs more for those cheerier parts as well yknow... I think this whole album has a very fantastical vibe to it LOL but definitely like, a very old fantasy. Like they discovered this album in a giant wizard’s tower like ten thousand years ago and now it’s been unearthed again. But it was created by a child wizard who was like 5 years old. But still had a wizard beard. That’s the guy on the cover I’ve decided. Little wizard from long ago. However... It does feel like it’s kind of setting up something. Like all the songs do... whole album is good but feels like it’s kind of a preparation for the next one. Which doesn’t make it bad! Just like I feel like it’s kind of part of a set... Incomplete on its own yknow? I would probably rank it in my lower 4 of all the albums but I’ll still say I enjoyed it quite a bit, that is no insult. And I like wizards

Boingo: This album is SO good dude. I’m glad this is what they left off on. Really great finishing album... I have a weird timeline involving this one because it was actually the first album I listened to, my dad showed it to me, but I only ever listened up to Lost Like This before very recently and by recently I mean today and I am still listening to Changes for the first time as I write this which is probably a bad idea but I am doing it anyways. Anyways though... The first O.B. songs my dad showed to me ever were Insanity from this album and Dead Man’s Party the song, and despite how different their two sources are they both have extremely similar structure I think. And so I kind of painted this picture of like all Oingo Boingo songs being similarly structured around 6-7 minutes and mostly repeating the same different sections in slightly different ways. And I am pleased that this album kind of fulfills that - a lot of the songs are like 2-3x longer than they really need to be but I enjoy that because I love long songs. As I mentioned earlier, DatEotT feels like it’s just the beginning of something, and this provides a very satisfying ‘second half’. I think it works well by itself too, though! Boingo marks such a big change musically from everything else before even DatEoT but it somehow stays very true to their old spirit anyways.. But everything feels so much grander and I really like it. Almost every song has a pretty wistful melancholy feel but at the same time ALSO almost every song but like a different set of almost every song is very big and bombastic. So it definitely has that “well this is our last album goodbye” feel to it. But it’s OK. It’s like a big grand finale. If there was a like an Oingo Boingo musical that had every single song for some reason and lasted like 10 hours I feel like the other albums could be switched around the whole thing regardless of their actual releases, but this one would HAVE to be last. Adding to that, I feel like it really like takes a lot of the earlier concepts I’ve liked a lot in previous albums and had them return. Like So-Lo, many of the songs have pretty different narratives, but all feel like they can be one loose intertwined thing. Pedestrian Wolves and Lost Like This definitely feel connected for one... and like Insanity and Changes provide like nice bookends where the first is like analyzing the world around us and then the second is analyzing the self. Side note. Danny Elfman is always referring to himself as stupid in Oingo Boingo songs. And sometimes it’s just like PoV character or something. But it ticks me off a little bit because he is like clearly not stupid he is like a crazy evil genius. But ALSO I’m not really sure what exactly the whole story of Boingo is, but it just feels connected in some sort of mysterious way yknow? Maybe it will appear to me later... If Dark at the End of the Tunnel was created by a little five year old wizard ten thousand years ago, this was created by the same wizard when he was reaching the end of his life and was in the wizard’s nursing home in like the 1920s. It still feels like mildly aged, there is SOMETHING about it that feels like it’s meant to be played on like an extremely old awful record player, but it has a much more modern feeling. It almost feels like another interpretation of the afterlife... Maybe that more Beetlejuice kind where it’s just like real life at first but if you peek around the corner you’ll find all the weird sandworms and colorful ghosts and stuff. Anyways though. This album is so good. Not my favorite right now, but definitely in top 3, like at the moment of writing this I would say. #1 is Nothing to Fear. #2 is Good for Your Soul. #3 is Boingo. But I am loving it soooo much on my first actual full listen even though I’ve had time to like absorb half the songs already admittedly. So it might end up being my favorite after all! I think my 3 favorite tracks also on this are Insanity, Lost Like This, and Hey!. Random completely unrelated parallel to my other favorite band. I like that they have a song called Hey! and Mr. Bungle has a song called Hi! It all fits together. And they both have the exclamation point. But anyways ALSO since I’ve only finished listening for the first time Changes finished while I was writing this BTW. I am still figuring out my opinions on the rest of the songs. Don’t think the I am the Walrus cover QUITE does it for me, I like Spider and War Again but not sure if they’re favorites. I hated Can’t See/Useless the first time I listened but now I like it how about that! ONE MORE thing I like about this. Is its songs feel like continuations of stuff in other albums. Although that may just be because of similar themes! Like, War Again feels like a continuation of both Nothing to Fear and Little Guns but it’s about similar subjects to both. And Tender Lumplings, Little Girls, no real explanation needed there. Insanity and Nasty Habits match up pretty well, with both just being like about hating the world although Nasty Habits is more specific than that LOL. Mary is a girl who is unfairly ostracized, Johnny of Only a Lad is a boy who is unfairly praised, you know. And also one more thing ONE more I know this one ALSO kinda has the classic Danny Elfman yells about things stuff going on but I feel like this is the album where it works best. But maybe I am just a hypocrite. OK that’s all. Hi

#definitely going to delete this later LOL I get embarassed #but i had fun writing all this incomprehensible stuff

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amantisegreti · 4 years

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I was tagged by @theleavesoflorien to answer a few questions that dig a little deeper, thank you! 💕

1. Do you prefer writing with a black pen or a blue pen?

It used to be blue, now I can only use the black one.

2. Would you prefer to live in the country or in the city?

Country with a city close-by. I don’t like big cities and how hectic they are, but it would be nice to be closer to one.

3. If you could learn a new skill, what would it be?

As I’ve recently found out, I’m the least coordinated person in the world. I consider myself to be average at most things I try (except sports), but my God I suck at dancing.

4. Do you drink your tea/coffee with sugar?

Tea not really, coffee it depends, I try not to.

5. What was your favourite book as a child?

All the books of Geronimo Stilton.

6. Do you prefer baths or showers?

Baths.

7. If you could be a mythical creature, which one would you be?

A mermaid, I’ve always loved the ocean and it would be so cool to see what’s under there.

8. Paper or electronic books?

Paper books.

9. What is your favourite item of clothing?

My white shirt with rainbow stripes.

10. Do you like your name? Would you like to change it?

I wouldn’t change it and with time I’m starting to like it more, but I can’t say it’s my favourite name in the world.

11. Who is a mentor to you?

What is considered as mentoring? ‘Cause if we are talking about someone I look up to and admire it would probably have to be Claire Wineland. She passed away two years ago, and she was just the most inspiring and positive person on this planet. The way she talked about life and everything she stood for was simply amazing.

12. Would you like to be famous? If so, what for?

The idea of being famous sounds appealing, but then actually being famous would just make me too anxious so I’m not sure … But I would like to be famous for something i wrote.

13. Are you a restless sleeper?

Depends on how anxious I am at the moment.

14. Do you consider yourself to be a romantic person?

Yep, hopeless romantic over here.

15. Which element best represents you?

I’ve always been interested in water, don’t know if it represents me.

16. Who do you want to be closer to?

My dad? And some of my friends, I feel like we are drifting apart and I don’t like it.

17. Do you miss someone at the moment?

My ex best friend.

18. Tell us about an early childhood memory.

I remember playing with this girl and she had like fingerless gloves? And we were talking about this other kid who’s always been kinda problematic … not relevant to the story but she is a lesbian? Forever pissed she never liked me as a friend.

19. What is the strangest thing you have eaten?

Probably nothing crazy, I’m a picky eater.

20. What are you most thankful for?

My parents financially supporting me while I study and allowing me to change my degree to actually study what I wanted to.

21. Do you like spicy food?

Yeah, but nothing too wild ‘cause I have stomach issues and it would fuck me up for a week.

22. Have you ever met someone famous?

Not really. I saw this relatively famous man at an amusement park but it wasn’t that big of a deal.

23. Do you keep a diary or journal?

No, I like it better to just write when I’m really overwhelmed, I wouldn’t be able to keep it up more often.

24. Do you prefer to use pen or pencil?

Pen, I like a very thin line and it’s hard to get it with pencils.

25. What is your star sign?

Leo.

26. Do you like your cereal crunchy or soggy?

Crunchy, I’ll even eat cereal without milk if I’m in the mood.

27. What would you want your legacy to be?

Badass but very nice and kind?

28. Do you like reading? What was the last book you read?

Yeah, I just go through periods where I read 3 books in 2 weeks and then months where I can’t pick a book to read. I think the last one was Red White and Royal Blue?

29. How do you show someone you love them?

If I send you memes and dumb links, just know that I love you. I’m not really good with being affectionate.

30. Do you like ice in your drinks?

Yes.

31. What are you afraid of?

Death.

32. What is your favourite scent?

I like my poppy perfume? And maybe woody scents.

33. Do you address older people by their name or surname?

I avoid calling people at all tbh. But I’m more formal with older people if I haven’t known then for a long while. Like my friends’ grandparents, I just say Hi to them and my friends do the same with my grandparents.

34. If money was not a factor, how would you live your life?

I’d just like to travel and read a lot? I’d love to just decorate my own house and adopt a lot of animals who people don’t want, maybe because they are old or sick, and give them a second chance.

35. Do you prefer swimming in pools or the ocean?

Never really swam properly in the ocean but that would be cool.

36. What would you do if you found $50 on the ground?

If they were just there I’d pick them up and slowly walk away.

37. Have you ever seen a shooting star? Did you make a wish?

I think I saw a couple over the years, and yes I did.

38. What is one thing you would want to teach your children?

Just be a decent human being, help others and just let everyone be, it’s not your business.

39. If you had to have a tattoo, what would it be and where would you get it?

I want to get one of my cat and one Skam related.

40. What can you hear right now?

An helicopter and dogs barking.

41. Where do you feel the safest?

At home, in the living room.

42. What is one thing you want to overcome/conquer?

My anxiety.

43. If you could travel back to any era, what would it be?

Mmh that’s hard, I don’t think I know enough history … maybe around 1600?

44. What is your most used emoji?

The monkey covering its face.

45. Describe yourself using one word.

Empathic.

46. What do you regret the most?

When I was younger I used to say a lot of things just ‘cause I thought it was going to make people like me more or think that I was funny, when really I was just being a piece of shit.

47. Last movie you saw?

I watched the documentary about Marsha P. Johnson if it counts?

48. Last tv show you watched?

Skam France.

49. Invent a word and its meaning

I’m not even gonna try I’m not a creative person. Yes I know I said I wanna be known because of something I‘ve written, it’s not the same.

#thanks again!

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nooblet-sims · 4 years

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I was tagged by @silverspringsimmer - thank you as always ^.^

1. Dogs or Cats? Both! I love my cat and dog <3

2. YouTube celebrities or normal celebrities? Neither? They are just another person to me :) we all got jobs, doesn’t matter if some of our jobs get more recognised than others.

3. If you could live in anywhere were would that be? Somewhere without neighbours XD. I’d really love a property somewhere with lots of plants and a stream, and the closest neighbours like 389025729 miles away.

4. Disney or DreamWorks? Can I say both? I love movies from both of them

5. Favorite childhood TV show? Winx club, PB&J otter, H2O just add water, idk a bunch of them really haha but those are the ones that really stick out to me.

6. The movie you’re looking forward to most in 2020? I don’t even know what movies are coming out in 2019 let alone 2020.

7. Favorite book you read in 2019? Not sure! I’ve enjoyed all the books I have read this year.

8. Marvel or DC? No preference, couldn’t even tell you what super hero is from what universe

9. If you choose Marvel favorite member of the X-Men? If you choose DC favorite Justice League member? see above point “ couldn’t even tell you what super hero is from what universe”. I don’t even know what the heck the justice league is lmao. If I had to choose an xman though I’d probs say wolfy claw boy because of Hugh Jackman XD (gotta support the Aussies :P)

10. Night or Day? They both have good qualities

11. Favorite Pokémon? you know I’m really been exposed with my lack of knowledge on any pop-culture stuff. I haven’t seen pokemon since I was like 6 (19years ago) so I have no idea

12. Top 5 bands: I really like EDEN, Mako, Stephen, Panic! but I listen to lots of stuff. You can even check out my spotify playlists if you are interested [x]

13. Top 10 books: How can you choose just 10? I love so many books .-. tbh if its got a happy ending and involves fantasy I’m probably going to love it

14. Top 4 movies: Running with scissors [trailer because it’s not super well known], Howls moving castle, the harry potter series, Lilo and Stitch,

15. America or Europe? I have places I’d like to visit in both. Normally I would say both but I think I’d have to go with Europe at the moment as with the state of America I’d be too scared to go there. No offense or anything but the idea that every person is carrying a gun terrifies me.

16. Tumblr or Twitter? I use both :) I like some things on both platforms and I tend to use each platform for different things.

17. Pro choice or Pro life? Pro choice!!!!!!!!!!

18. Favourite YouTuber: myself because I am very modest and funny haha. I joke guys, I’m not that bad XD. I don’t really have a favorite but I watch a fair few.

20. Tea or coffee? Both! XD.

21. OTP? My current sims OTP are my RoM LP (and soon to my university LP sims) Oak and Poppy. If I had to chose one from a show/anime it would be Wolfram and Yuri from Kyou Kara Maou! OR Tohru and Kyo from Fruits basket. If I had to choose one from a book series it would be Sydney and Adrian from the vampire academy spin off series bloodlines.

22. Do you play an instrument/sing? Nop

Tagging whoever would like to do this :)

#non sims #tag game

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heathendolan · 5 years

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What is the moment you think the twins would be like yes that’s the girl i’m going to marry ?

AH I WAS JUST GONNA ANSWER THIS POINT BLANK BUT BECAUSE IT’S THE FESTIVE SZN I WANTED TO ADD LIL BLURBS

these are also absolute trash i wrote them hurriedly okay don’t come for me

grayson

It’s the first time he’s brought you to New Jersey for a holiday, and he isn’t nervous. Of course he isn’t, he knows your aura is overflowing with warmth and invitation and that his cousins are going to be crawling on you like you’re some sort of human tree.

But you’re nervous. God, Grayson can see it in the way your leg bounced at the speed of light all through the flight there. You’ve bitten your nails down to the nub and chomped through a whole packet of gum. You asked three times if your skirt was too short. (It wasn’t.) Grayson gets it; the first time he visited your family he hardly choked back nausea.

But he knows you. Knows you like the back of his hand, and knows there’s nothing to fear, not on this holiday, and grins to himself when his aunt immediately envelopes you in a bear hug that rivals his own.

Dinner’s fantastic–he’d be an idiot to assume it wouldn’t be when Grandma Bernadette’s wearing an apron. And you fit right in. Grayson hardly had room to fit in a word with everyone bombarding you with questions. And they aren’t the grilling kind of questions, Grayson can tell people are genuinely bewitched by your dazzling personality.

He isn’t surprised. Grayson knows it best.

He sees from the corner of his eye that you’ve got your hands full. No, really, you’re fisting forkfuls of potatoes with one and holding hands with his little cousin with the other. Grayson gets that funny feeling in his stomach he’s all too familiar with.

But it isn’t until later when you’re the only one who’s offered to scrub down the whole kitchen with Lisa; the boys have taken the easy route and ushered their little cousins into Ethan’s old room and opted to take a nap. It’s when he wakes up a few hours later and waddles on down to the kitchen to find you and Lisa with tears in your eyes, wine glasses in hands, settled at the counter giggling about god knows what. He hasn’t seen his mom laugh that hard in a really, really long time.

Grayson wonders if they have any Black Friday sales for wedding rings.

ethan

“Ugh!” Lisa cries from the kitchen.

Ethan thinks this can’t be good.

“Ethan!” she screams.

Ethan knows this can’t be good.

With hurrying feet he dashes into the kitchen, sliding on the wood floors on his socks. “Yeah, mom?”

“Ethan, go to the store and get more crescent rolls. I just burnt the god damn rolls!” she yells, fisting her hair into shaky hands.

“What does ‘god damn’ mean?” his cousin asks, tugging on Lisa’s sweater.

Ethan thinks his mom might cry.

“On it, mom,” he promises, leaning in and kissing the crown of her head. He scoops up his cousin, carries the giggling boy back to the living room and dips him into Grayson’s lap, and pulls you off the couch.

Ignorant to your grumbles and the fact he’s just completely interrupted your conversation with Sean, he drags you to the wrangler and hops in the driver’s seat. “Lisa’s gonna have a meltdown if we don’t get these damn crescent rolls,” is all he says.

You pout. “Your mom stressed? I should have helped in the kitchen or-”

“No, baby you’re good. But you’re going to help me get her back up.”

At least, that’s how it was supposed to go.

However, twenty minutes later you’re lying on opposite ends of aisle 9 rolling cylinders of dough back and forth, laughing your asses off.

“Ethan,” you shout through giggles. “Ethan, it’s going to hit a bump and exp-”

You can’t finish your sentence because, just as you said, the can hit the edge of a rack and popped loudly, the dough bursting from its seams.

Now you and Ethan are laying on the ground with tears streaming down your faces.

Only a minute later is a worker chasing you two out of the store, chastising you for your childish behavior, and you two can hardly flee from the scene your ribs hurt so bad.

Ethan and you have to stop at another store and fetch another container, and you’re a little late to Thanksgiving, but Lisa nor anyone else has the heart to be upset, not when your cheeks are stained with tears and flushed so red, not when you guys are begging to share the story.

You’re going around the table and sharing what everyone’s most thankful for. Poppy John says he’s most thankful for oven roasted turkey, Grandma Bernadette (begrudgingly) says she’s most thankful for Poppy John, Lisa’s thankful for safe travels and good company, Cameron says she’s most thankful she’s going to get some peace and quiet once the boys head back home.

“Ethan? What are you most thankful for,” Grandma Adrienne asks.

Thoughtlessly, he blurts, “That I’m going to be doing childish stuff with (Y/N) for the rest of my life,” his words so fast they tumble from his lips.

Everyone drops their fork and stares at Ethan with dropped jaws. Ethan looks just as surprised as you. “I, I um,” he stutters, cheeks a furious red.

“Me too!” you giggle, desperate to ease the mood. “I don’t think I’ve ever ran faster in my life, I-”

Ethan realizes he wants you to keep covering for him forever. A part of him thinks he’s always known that.

#blurb #ethan dolan imagine #ethan dolan #ethan dolan fanfiction #grayson dolan imagine #grayson dolan fanfiction #grayson dolan #dolan twins fanfiction #dolan twins #dolan twins imagine #e #g

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shannaraisles · 5 years

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Ship-a-thon!

I have been tagged by the always adorable @savvylittleminx, and this poked at my funny bone, so here goes!

I’m going to tag just a few - @kagetsukai, @skyholdherbalist, @puddle--wonderful, @ironbullsmissingeye, @dreadhobo, and @star--nymph - no pressure at all, lovelies, I’m just nosy!

1. First ship you ever wrote fic for:

Wow, that requires some searching back into the murky depths of memory. Or not, because the sheer embarrassment is etched into my mind. It was Aragon/OC in the darkest depths of 1997, and it never saw the light of day. I have always been an OC shipper, it seems.

2. Ship you write the most now:

Basically, Cullen Rutherford/OC, and the OC changes depending on my mood. ~chuckles~ At the moment, I have two actively on the go romancing him, and one lurking and waiting for her turn.

3. Ship you read the most now:

You know, I actually read a hell of a lot. I just am appalling at leaving any sign I was there! Let’s see, though ... in Dragon Age, I’d say I’m mostly reading Fenris/Isabela right now; in Mass Effect, it’s Kaiden/Shepard. in MCU, it’s a toss up between Steve/Reader and Bucky/Reader; last night, I trawled through the Thomas Sharpe/OC tag in Crimson peak. Oooh, and I spent a very informative four hours last week reading through Jester/Caleb from Critical Role. ~chuckles~ I’m not completely wedded to any particular ship.

4. Newest ship:

Newest? It’s Varric/F!Hawke, and yes, I do have an F!Hawke waiting in the wings for this to be written - Modern AU, mutually beneficial fake engagement/marriage type deal. And no Bianca bashing! I’m so proud of myself.

5. Rare ship you wanna read more of:

You know, I’d love to see some Athenril/Hawke, or more Carver/Inquisitor. I know, I know, if you want it, you should write it. Don’t I have enough stories on the go? :D

6. Your taboo ship:

Wait, a ship I will never read, or a ship I will never admit to? Because the latter one is kind of its own answer, and the former is any ship that has been written in an abusive manner.

7. They never met in canon ship:

Seeing as I only just got myself started playing Andromeda, I’m going to go with Kaiden Alenko/Ryder on this one. I’m not likely to write it, though.

8. Your unexpected ship:

Do I have one of those? Hmmm ... Actually, MC/Any of the warlords in Ikemen Sengoku except Kennyo. ~chuckles~ I was not expecting to even like Kenshin, much less be a complete puddle of goo over him. It has raised my expectations for Ieyesu.

9. The ship you always forget to give love to:

Shepard/Kaiden. I have intended to write my own version of this ship for so long and I just never quite get around to it. (Possibly because my concept is a little more complex than the straightforward story arc ship)

10. Ship your OC with a canon character (if applicable):

If applicable. ~cackles~ I do nothing BUT ship my OCs with canon characters!

11. Ship you’re embarrassed to ship:

I gave up on being embarrassed about it ages ago. Moving on!

12. Your most romantic ship:

It’s a toss-up between Alistair/Felicita, or Cullen/Erin, I think. Alistair is less conventionally romantic, especially since he has a queen to romance on a daily basis, whereas Cullen will definitely have to go traditional when it comes to making it absolutely plain to Erin that he really does like her.

13. Your sexiest ship:

Thus far? Avvar!Cullen/Rory, or Poppy Hawke/Cullen, I think. They’re the ones who have had the most sex, anyway! ~laughs~ I’m bad at these, aren’t I?

14. Your most tragic ship:

I had, and still have, an incredibly tragic Alistair/OC ship in the back of my mind that may never see the light of day. Bittersweet is a very good word for it, but I am really not at home with writing sustained angst or unhappy endings, so ... yeah, I don’t think I’ll be writing it.

15. A ship you want more content for:

Um ... all of them? Keep writing, keep arting, keep giffing, keep aestheticing, keep creating content for the ships you love!

#ship-a-thon #i have a ton of ships #i was bad at answering these though

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patricksilvrrozartistry · 5 years

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Top 10 Favorite Albums of 2018

It's time to present you guys with my top 10 favorite albums of 2018. There were a lot of amazing albums this year, but these 10 stole my heart. If you want to see my top 5 favorite EP's of the year, you can check out that post here. And just like on that post, we're going to see the honorable mentions first before we dive into the top 10. Let me explain my ranking system before we dive into this first though. If a release is followed by **, that means that I really enjoyed the album, but it wasn't enough to make it to the top 10. Now if a release is followed by ***, that means it had the potential of being on the top 10 and was an amazing release. One last thing before we get into this: I am a metalhead, so majority of the albums are metal albums (which I have the genres listed next to each release so you'll get to see that first hand). Ok, time to get on with it and look at the MANY honorable mentions.

Hell City - Flesh and Bones** (hard rock) Dimmu Borgir - Eonian** (symphonic black metal) Kamelot - The Shadow Theory** (symphonic power metal) Visions of Atlantis - The Deep and the Dark** (symphonic power metal) The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir** (sludge/stoner metal) CupcakKe - Ephorize** (rap/hip hop) Purest of Pain - Solipsis** (death metal) Fairy Bones - 0% Fun** (punk/alternative rock) Orphaned Land - Unsung Prophets and Dead Messiahs** (oriental symphonic metal) Elephants in Paradise - Wake Up** (hard rock) Anna von Hausswolff - Dead Magic** (dark ambient) Chaostar - The Undivided Light** (classical/dark ambient) Profane Burial - The Rosewater Park Legend** (symphonic black metal) Shadowrise - Shadowrise** (symphonic metal) Miss FD - Transcendence** (industrial) Collibus - Trusting the Illusion** (djent/progressive metal) Alexandra Martin - Fragments and Reflections** (classical) Caliban - Elements** (djent/metalcore) Whyzdom - As Time Turns to Dust** (symphonic metal) Lyria - Immersion** (symphonic metal) Graveshadow - Ambition's Price** (symphonic metal) Temperance - Of Jupiter and Moons** (symphonic power metal) Light Among Shadows - Under the Waves** (gothic metal) Emphasis - Soul Transfer** (progressive symphonic metal) Neophobia - Monstermind** (symphonic metal) Caligatum - Epidemus** (symphonic gothic metal) Apparition - The Awakening** (symphonic metal) Caedeous - Domini Tenebrarum** (symphonic black metal) Amorphis - Queen of Time** (melodic metal) Little Dead Bertha - Age of Silence** (blackened symphonic death metal) Midnattsol - The Aftermath** (symphonic metal) 11th Dimension - Paramnesia** (progressive metal) Witch Moutain - Witch Mountain** (doom metal) Inner Core - Soultalker** (symphonic metal) Lovelorn Dolls - Darker Ages** (gothic rock/metal) A Sound of Thunder - It Was Metal** (heavy metal) Sinistro - Sangue Cassia** (post metal) Meden Agan - Catharsis** (symphonic metal) Phosphenes - Find Us Where We're Hiding** (ambient/post rock) 69 Chambers - Machine** (progressive metal) Aeternitas - Tales of the Grotesque** (symphonic gothic metal) Florence + the Machine - High as Hope** (indie pop) Distorted Harmony - A Way Out** (progressive metal) Exlibris - Inertia** (power metal) Sacrificed - Enraged** (hard rock) Frozen Crown - The Fallen King** (symphonic power metal) Manes - Slow Motion Death Sequence** (dark alternative metal) Ängie - Suicidal Since 1995** (trap hop) Cinnamun Beloved - Stain** (gothic metal) Opera Queen - Phantasmagoric Symphony** (symphonic metal) Beyond the Black - Heart of the Hurricane** (symphonic power metal) Black Mirrors - Look into the Black Mirror** (psychedelic rock/rock n roll) Ethernity - The Human Race Extinction** (progressive metal) Cher - Dancing Queen** (pop) Zahna - Red for War** (alternative metal) Sick N' Beautiful - Element of Sex** (heavy metal) Mother Feather - Constellation Baby** (punk) Sylvaine - Atoms Aligned, Coming Undone** (shoegaze/post metal) Promethee - Convalescence** (progressive metal/metalcore) Dark Sarah - The Golden Moth** (symphonic power metal) Haken - Vector** (progressive metal) And Then She Came - Kaosystematiq** (alternative metal) Shadygrove - In the Heart of Scarlet Wood** (folk) My Merry Machine - Ignition** (gothic rock) I:Scintilla - Swayed** (industrial) Northward - Northward** (hard rock) In the Woods... - Cease the Day** (progressive doom metal) Décembre Noir - Autumn Kings** (doom death metal)

MaYaN - Dhyana*** (symphonic death metal) Amaranthe - Helix*** (modern metal) Rivers of Nihil - Where Owls Know My Name*** (progressive death metal) Ionnalee - Everyone Afraid to be Forgotten*** (synth-pop) Sanguine Glacialis - Hadopelagic*** (progressive gothic death metal) Realm of Glass - Reveries From the Haunted*** (progressive metal) Eleine - Until the End*** (symphonic gothic metal) TesseracT - Sonder*** (djent/atmospheric progressive metal) Kobra and the Lotus - Prevail II*** (heavy metal) Follow the Cipher - Follow the Cipher*** (power metal) Pryapsime - Epic Loon*** (avant-garde metal) Crownless - Confines of Silence*** (symphonic power metal) Trillium - Tectonic*** (symphonic power metal) Purple Nail - Red Sky*** (gothic metal) Dol Ammad - Cosmic Gods: Episode II - Astroatlas*** (progressive symphonic metal) Elyose - Reconnxion*** (symphonic modern metal) Dimilight - Kingdom of Horrors*** (symphonic extreme gothic metal) Piqaia - Artifact*** (djent/atmospheric progressive metal) Sirenia - Arcane Astral Aeons*** (symphonic gothic metal) Poppy - Am I a Girl?*** (experimental pop) Meg Myers - Take Me to the Disco*** (alternative) Solborn - Dark Lights of Delirium*** (symphonic metal) Enemy Inside - Phoenix*** (hard rock/metal) The Anix - Shadow_Movement*** (synth-rock) Circus of Fools - Rex*** (gothic metal) Marcela Bovio - Through Your Eyes*** (chamber prog) Circles - The Last One*** (djent/progressive metal) Voices From the Fuselage - Odyssey: The Founder of Dreams*** (djent/ambient/progressive metal) Aeonian Sorrow - Into the Eternity a Moment We Are*** (atmospheric gothic doom metal)

Now for my absolute favorite releases of the year!

10. Phantom Elite - Wasteland (symphonic metal)

If you enjoyed Marina La Torraca in Exit Eden, then you'll be able to get a different feel for her voice on this album. This is her main project outside of Exit Eden and their sound is so cool. The mixing could've been a bit better, but that doesn't bother me too much. In fact it gives it some extra character. I'm really excited to hear what these guys come up with next. This album really took me by surprise to just how good it turned out to be and how dramatic it got at times.

Favorite songs: 1. Revelation 2. Wasteland 3. Siren's Call

9. My Indigo - My Indigo (indie pop)

When I found out that Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation) was going to be releasing a solo album, I was really curious about what kind of sound she'd go for. I couldn't have imagined a better sound for her. Not a single dud on this album. It's so lovely and a breath of fresh air for her. You get a really great feel for her vocal range and there's some pretty cool vocal lines on here. Definitely a beautiful and touching album from start to finish.

Favorite songs: 1. Starcrossed Lovers 2. Out of the Darkness 3. Lesson Learned

8. Marmozets - Knowing What You Know Now (alternative rock)

I don't remember ever subscribing to their YouTube channel, but I'm so glad I did, because I found one of my top 10 favorite albums of the year because of it. Their sound is so in your face and on the verge of being alternative metal, but it's toned down enough to not be at that level. It definitely works for them. The music is so fun and absolutely wonderful to just jam out to. One of the most random discoveries I've made that I absolutely adore.

Favorite songs: 1. Play 2. Major System Error 3. Habits

7. Dream Ocean - Lost Love Symphony (symphonic metal)

I learned about these guys through a Facebook friend at the beginning of the year and wound up really enjoying them. This album is pure symphonic metal. It's got drama, power, energy, strong riffs, amazing orchestrations, and a mezzo-soprano with a gorgeous voice. I find it kind of funny that Mark Jansen is featured on a track called Never Enough knowing full well that Epica have a song of the same name. I'm definitely am gonna be keeping my eye on these guys.

Favorite songs: 1. Somewhere Untouched 2. The Last Dance 3. Divine Light

6. The Hardkiss - Залізна ластівка (progressive pop/rock)

These guys are evolving so much. This album is definitely a lot more on the rock side, but it still has a bit of that pop element. I'm waiting for them to take the plunge and release a full blown metal album. I think this album is a good first step in that direction. The production gives this album a bit of a sci-fi feel to it that I really like. It's so different compared to their previous releases and really stands out. I also really like how majority of the songs are in Ukrainian. It's always been the other way around for them, so it's a nice change.

Favorite songs: 1. Complicity 2. 00:00 3. Koxaнці

5. Silent Stream of Godless Elegy - Smutnice (folk doom metal)

I really started taking a liking to these guys in the later part of last year after falling madly in love with their song Mokoš, so I knew I had to check out the new album when it dropped. This album turned out to be a lot more pretty than what I was expecting it to be. It's so beautiful and powerful. Every song has its own dynamic to it and not one song sounds similar to the other. And I just adore the folk instruments they use. It really adds to the beauty of the album.

Favorite songs: 1. Malověrná 2. Synečku 3. Za nevěstou

4. Witchcraft - Cinema (progressive gothic metal)

It was so hard to rank this one at number 4, because it's neck and neck with my number 3 pick. This album turned out to be so much better than I had anticipated it being. It's beautiful, raw, and very unique. I love the samplings to other iconic songs on a few tracks (Requiem for a Dream and the themes for Silent Hill and The X Files are the ones I easily picked out). Their sound has evolved so much over the years and I feel as if this is the best of their releases. It shows off everything that is absolutely amazing about this band.

Favorite songs: 1. Реквием 2. Silent Hill 3. На разных планетах

3. Oceans of Slumber - The Banished Heart (progressive doom metal)

Winter was a wonderful album, but holy shit did they outdo themselves with this album. It's a lot darker, a whole lot darker. Cammie's voice also sounds a lot better on this album. I don't know what it is, but seems as if her voice is a lot stronger and has more emotion attached to it on these songs. There also just seems to be a lot more emotion in these songs in general. It's such a stunning album from start to finish. If you wanted Winter to be more doomy and intense, The Banished Heart definitely lives up to that want.

Favorite songs: 1. The Banished Heart 2. No Color, No Light feat. Tom Englund (Evergrey) 3. At Dawn

2. Elvellon - Until Dawn (symphonic metal)

It shouldn't come as any surprise that this album is high up on my list. This was my favorite album of the year for the longest. It's such an amazing symphonic metal album that was definitely worth the wait (in terms of it being released, not in the shipping issues that I ran into with receiving it). These guys are definitely ones to look out for in the symphonic metal scene. Nele's voice just stands out so much compared to the many ladies in the scene. The stories told in each song are absolutely wonderful and the production is everything.

Favorite songs: 1. King of Thieves 2. Fallen into a Dream 3. Shore to Aeon

1. Once - After Earth (symphonic metal)

This is the album that took Until Dawn's place of being my favorite release of the year. I honestly wasn't expecting to love this album as much as I do. This album is so powerful, dramatic, beautiful. It even has a whimsical vibe to it that I absolutely adore. The writing, production, and execution are everything with this album. You get a beautiful feel for Alina's voice on this album and just how talented she is. The orchestrations are turned up a bit high on this album, but it doesn't take away from the experience, but instead compliments it so well. This album is just perfection and I can't wait to see what these guys have in store for us.

Favorite songs: 1. The Sins of Saints 2. Awake 3. The Hour of Eden's Fall

Like I mentioned earlier, there were a lot of amazing releases this year. I can't wait to see what next year has in store for us. I just know it's gonna be a wild one. I hope you all will enjoy these releases as much as I did if you haven't heard them before. What were some of your favorite releases of the year and which ones are you looking forward to next year? I'm always down to check out new music.

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teakiii-archive · 6 years

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wow ahh eek okay !?? 2k? that’s insane wowow ily all sm

tbh i think im always a bit of a flop so a huGe thank you for making me feel so loved + happy ♥

but...ofc i have to mention people that have always stuck with me + go on tangents about how much i love these simblrs !!

@surreysimmer aH OK wOW molly *sweats* you are such a great friend + i love you lots !! you always make me smile and you make my day on the daily, a few months ago, we probably had no idea we were going to get so close but im so thankful that we’re just good friends i mean wowza your blog is top notch all the time. not to mention ahem my otp poppy and august (i can fight nicola thanks) is acc the cutest thing i’ve ever seen like???? how??? ilysm ♥

@honeyiko eek you know how much i love kate diego ! you are such a funny person to be around and you make me laugh so hard i can’t breatHE,,,,and like amara + zaRA gorgeous goddesses wow i love them, you make me feel better when im sad :’) idk what i would do w/o you tbh not to mention you pushed me to broaden my cc horizon ( i have 9 gbs now diEGO) thank you for being the diego to my dora, ilysm

@littlemissnellie eL ah where do i begin? i remember meeting you back in around maybe august? and we talked about roast dinners and how adorable you and your accent is! i know youre not too happy abt your blog currently (psa: go send el some love !!) but i loVE it lots and the daleys kill me everyday ♥ ill miss them for sure; but you + your health come first! so never forget that. you are such an adorable lil bean and it really sucks for us to start drifting apart a bit eek!! i hope we get to catch up on the weekend a bit more ♥ always remember that i love you lots!

@rosypyxels wOO rose omg ! even though sometimes we go days w/o talking we just fall back into it immediately! you are so incredibly talented and sweet (um not to mention gORGEOUS) i know you’ve been going through a hard time recently; but i love how we constantly fan over how hOt all those models on pinterest are i mean wOWZA ! you never fail to amaze me with those crazy good makeup skills + your style?? where do i even start??? its so great??? ilysm + even though you don’t post much here; im glad to have you in my life :’)

@tiredtoothache saV oH my goodness gracious !! your blog like how??!! your sims are so prettY?? and i cant handle it?? and ken?? wow?? wcif that talent???????? i remember coming across your blog around hmm maybe late july/ august and thinking wow her story? john? i cant deal!! you are also v kind + super sweet, even though we don’t chat too much im v glad that we’re friends ! (ps we really should chat more but i suck at carrying conversations rip) ilysm sav!

@okyio chrisTy im sobbing where do i even begin? im still insisting that you were sent from the gods to make us cry bc of those dazzling editing skills (not to mention how cute sage + mu are ) i know recently things have been happening but im sending never ending love n support! (let me know if im overbearing) but seriously; you never fail to wow me with how gentle and patient you are. you are so kind and nice to everyone, i hope you feel a lot better soon but until then make sure to take care ♥ ily!

@dust-bubbles albertaaaa !! you are such a fun, genuine person to be around. you are so talented and not to mention super modest ♥ you are too sweet !! your cc is always top notch (i cant deal like actually) i hope we get to know each other better bc wowza you are such a cool bean and im glad i’ve gathered the courage to talk to you a few months ago because i’ve gotten to know one of the sweetest beans on the planet ily!

@citruswhims caL omG i was there back in the day with little callia bean !! and i remember i texted you to ask if you were doing okay and then blossomed a beautiful friendship filled with a lot of dog pictures and talking in all caps! you are unbelievably vibrant and just a bright person overall ! im glad we got to know each other (even though sometimes we don’t talk too much) i love you sm + im just so haPPY that we’re friends ♥

@amessofsims LINA LINA LINA you are such a spontaneous bright ray of sUNSHINE!!! exCEPT for the fact that we all know we pour the cereal first, then the milk (take notes lina) you always make me laugh + wow i just love you ok??? never forget that !! thank you for always making me smile ♥

@vvindenburg jiLLS!!! i remember finding your blog through i think a giveaway in june? (when i only had a cc finds blog that only tumblrbot followed omg) i fell in love with gem and julia the moment i saw their adorable faces !! and now we have delos + delphi (sorry phi; but delos is just the better twin :/) you always make me laugh through funny posts that reference memes oR your editing bc thanks for making me crY jiLLS ilysm ♥

@brndletonbae hILLS! (as you can see it rhymes with jills) but yes i remember i think in july?? i jumped up and starting screaming bc yesdarlingsims had followed me. (ahem nodarlingsims now) but you-POPPY- OLLIE sO mucH lOVE im going to cRY, thank you sm for inspiring me to make this kinda mess of a blog, even though we dont talk too much; im glad we chat through asks sometimes! ily hills ♥

@idioticjenna (jenna ok i had to move you down for the gifs im sorry)

people i love lots:

@alwaysimming (can we talk about how nice and supportive you are?) // @vvatore (ok but your textposts just make my day)// @simsluname (hello you beautiful gif queeN ily) // @tea-sims (your blog?? is goals? wcif all that amazing talent??????) // @sammyshuno (where’s bella is and always will be something that is worth staying up still 6 am to read) // @cellblocksimmer (betH omg can your sims kill me please) // @simshuie (tbh lauren we aLL know that lorcan + elide are the cutest + thank you for being sweet n great) // @smubuh (abby, your tutorials are the bEST and idk what i would do w/o you or your blog; your willingness to help never fails to astound me) // @sandy-sims (amazing poses?? great sims ?? phenomenal stories?? yes please!! ) // @thisk (your sims are my weakness wOW! your townies !!? i love!?) // @ahhkaitlyn (you are so sWEET??? i love your blog??)// @domiella (domi ily!!? sm!! wow you are so beautiful inside and out!) // @whiisker (you know i love frankie bc she wOW !! i love your aesthetic skdjf)// @woohoodlums (crazy gorgeous sims + edits?? sign me up) // @meisiu (your houses !! slay me!?) // @grapfruit (your psds !! your edits!!! wow!!) // @panda-plumbobs (ahh amber !! i love your blog?? sm?? we should def talk more ♥) // @tigerellasims ( i crY i love your legacy !! so much!! ) // @cowplant-pizza (your legacy *ahem* those amazing spICY posts !! your poses! ) // @sundaessims (quinlin!! ily!! your tags give me life + your bio too) // @mooon-sims (your lookbooks!! i die!) // @faeflowr (your gameplay pics! and your cc finds ahhhh) // @kiwiikio (im crying bc your blog is just so perfect and i love it so much im going to cry wow) // @harrybuts (you know ily mack ) // @ridgeport ( i LIVE for nES and your mind-blowing cc) // @rosetrii (your dOODLES I caNNOT) // @roseyki (your cc and your sIMS ahhh) // @starryllamas (jESS your sIMS i and your edITS ily) ps gotta spam your blog soon so watch out ;)

side note: i tend to forget things a lot!!! so if you think i missed you, message me ♥ (im vv sorry)

@idioticjenna even though our friendship didnt exactly start off on the right foot, im glad i’ve gotten to know you better! jenna you are hiLARIOUS omg i just love it, you have so much talent like wth ??? thank you for being so sweet n kind ♥ have a gif:

thank you all for all of this, i couldn’t possibly ask for anything better than this ♥ please take care of yourselves, i love you all so much. please dont forget that my messages and inbox are always open if you ever need anything !!

#thank you!#woW #♥#nonsims #elys.txt #2k

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jordantanevisualessay · 3 years

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Nicolas Connor Barnes

My mom named me after the actor Nicolas Cage and I hate it, its horrible. Also my dad apparently named me after Sinéad O'Connor you know who she is? the one who sang “Cause nothing compares to you” that girl who is now a crack head so my dad just pulled her last name and put it in mine. Anyway that’s my name.

Tell me about your family?

My Mom’s family is a bunch of crack heads. My dad’s side obviously don’t know my dad, but I still keep in contact with my Aunty, Uncle, Grandma and Grandpa from that side. My mom was a single mom, she remarried. But besides all that they are all from Australia and just plain white.

Describe your aesthetic

Extra , Boujee, Colourful would you say I’m colourful

What do you mean by colourful?

Like I have a lot of colours, like yellows and blues and purples.

Oh like you’re colour palette?

Yes, so yeah I said colourful, would you describe my style as designer? Like is that a thing?

What designer brands are you into?

Gucci, Louis Vuitton, love me some Prada, Dior, Chanel, Dolce, Versace, Bottega Venetta, Jimmy Choo, Fendi, I could be here all day.

So just anything designer essentially?

Of course

So obviously we have known each other since high school, and we have seen a lot of our friends change dramatically, so my question is do you think you have changed since high school up until now? Or even seen a change during high school?

I think I have definitely started to come out of my shell more, like I felt more comfortable to kind of wear what I want, I don’t give a fuck now, like I don’t care if you don’t like it, If I wanted to wear a fur coat to class bitch I will and I’ve done it.

Through this project I have been reflecting back in year 9 till like both of us in our 2nd year of Uni

Oh I had terrible style in year 9, actually I think we all did, we all thought we were hot fly and sexy.

How would you describe your sense of humour?

Certainly very dark and inappropriate, but also like I find very immature things quite funny. You know actually imma go real deep here, the reason I think I enjoy immature jokes is cause I never got the chance to be immature as a kids and that’s a fact. Hit the dong on the head with that. But yeah that’s the thing with you and I, feel like we both missed out on our childhood’s and kind of being a kid almost, so yeah that’s probably why I’m the way I am. I find certain stuff really funny but at the same time very mature for my age.

Do you feel like people don’t like that?

Mainly people would just say oh you can’t laugh at that. But I would generally say it turns some people off but at the same time I don’t really care, I’ll do what I want.

In regards to your humour and perdsonality do you feel like you need to hold back at times?

I just don’t care. If you don’t like my humour you can just fuck off somewhere else. Like what I find very self deprecating humour funny some people obviously don’t and like I find that very funny and if don’t like it its not my problem.

So tell me, what are your influences?

In terms of what like in life?

Yeah, before we get into like you’re aesthetic influences, I would love to know your life influences or even you why

Definitely my mother, 100% my mom and also just my self influence of wanting to do well for myself. But its definitely because of my mom I am where I’m at, she’s the only influence I need.

What actually got you into designer clothes?

This is going to sound really stupid, but around the time of year 11 was when I started to become interested in it. And around that time I started watching, this is so terrible, I started watching you know house wives and all of their designer wear, it was all a different world to me. So I would be like ooh I like that and would google it have a look at the website and find more stuff and then it was a continuous thing, each week a new episode would come out you would see it. Also a lot of the music I listen to its all about the Gucci bags and all of that. It wasn’t until about year 13 my last year of high school I started to watch more Youtube luxury videos of like unboxings, but yeah in year 13 was when I was like I really want these things but can’t afford them. And I actually started to buy fake designer items. And that was around about 6 months and then I stopped, got myself a nice little collection, then once we came out of lockdown the following year, I had all this money and I was like you know what I always wanted to go and buy something and that’s where it started and it hasn’t stopped. So now I don’t buy any fake designer items my stuff is real. A lot of people can call me shallow or whatever but in a way that’s what I put value and that’s my pride, happy and joy.

Do you feel like you value objects more than people?

Yes omg facts, and they wont turn your back on you they will be right where you left them yesterday.

I know you mentioned before that one of your first designer influences was house wives, what actually got you into the show?

I still watch them, it was because I had a lot going on for me personally during that time, and for me that show even today its the same reason, you see a bunch of people fighting all the time, they go on holiday, they go shopping, and that is a life, not like what I want to have but a life you can almost live by curiously through, so I can put my shit on the side and invest in someone else’s drama, cause its not my drama so I can watch you fight and its not my problem. And it just spiralled out of control but like I have a picture of fucking Lil’ Kim on my wall dressed in Chanel like she is obviously an influence on me and so is foxy brown. And if whoever asked who are your style icons and I know they are woman and we cannot wear the same things, I mean we could but it would be very strange, but those are my style influences.

I know in this day of age a lot of people are crossing those gender boundaries when it comes to style, is that something you would want to explore?

Like would I want walk across the street in heels, no. Thats not for me but I generally feel once I move out of home, cause my mom does make some comments on what I buy and decide to wear, but once I do move out of home I will be able to wear more. Im not huge on purses or anything like that not for me. Honey I sit there all the time looking at them, like they are so beautiful. But still not for me, but still there are some for when I do move out of home then I may be able to start looking into that more. I more kind of want to explore that unisex area of more feminine fashion but also masculine at the same time. I wouldn’t go for a purse which is feminine but I just want that balance.

Would you use/wear a purse or like have them on display?

Like look at my Chanel bag I’ve never warn, but yeah once I do move out of home there are bags I do want like the Chanel Boy bag, its not a super feminine its more one of the masculine bags they have but it certainly not a ‘guys’ bag. It’s probably one of those things that I will grow into at some stage.

Theres certainly a scale of some kind of masculinity and Femininity what are your personal thoughts on that and where would you fall on that scale?

Personally for me, Im certainly not the most masculine fellow out there but there are way more feminine people than me as well, but I would say I’m in the middle but leaning more towards the masculine. Im certainly in that middle point because there are some part of me that can be quite feminine.

So yeah back when we talked about Influences you talked about housewives and but then mentioned a bit about music so tell me more

I listen to a lot of current things when I was young like whatever Britney Spears had put out, whatever was just on the radio, we didn’t have Spotify or anything like that, and then it go into 2014 I got very interested in Nicki Minaj, she’s kind of into her fashion as well but I didn’t really take any notice of her. This is really strange but I found out about Lil’ Kim cause they both had beef, instantly liked Lil’ Kim more than Niki Minaj, and that’s when I began to notice she was a bit more out there. One of the first songs I listened to by Lil’ Kim the first line was “Being the first rap bitch to rock Chanel” and it was just very prevalent, and even all of her outfits and everything was very extra.

What Is the main difference between Lil’ Kim and Niki Minaj?

Honestly they are quite similar to each other, and thats why they had problems. For example Doja Cat, I almost would say Niki Minaj, Cardi B and Doja Cat are in the same box in terms of how they are very poppy, rappy. But Lil’ Kim is outta of the hood, and she’s never really done like pop music its very hardcore rap. Same with Foxy Brown, again all hardcore rap and even some of their music has heavy depth. I was thinking there’s a quote by Foxy Brown “And if you only knew I hold my minks at nights with cheap, Or no other hands can hold me right” Things like that are just like ouch, like I feel that. Obviously they are both very like into their designer labels so I was like me too. I just love that they don’t keep it PG and I can relate to that as I’m very outspoke myself. I just love me some hood music.

Yeah and you just started recently going clubbing now too

Yeah I got to the point where I was like you know what I need to experience it at least once before I’m too old, and now I just keep going. I actually saw old videos of me slut dropping and back in that moment I thought I was hot as fuck but after seeing that not anymore.

What Clubs do you go to?

One of the first places I went to was Shadows which in enjoyed since they played early 2000s music I was all up in on that. Went to Ding Dong, it was creepy, didn’t like it, it was a very satanic vibe. It was an underground bar with a bunch of strip polls and shit like that, it was weird. Bar 101 is terrible, been once and never again. Went to Cassette for like 4 hours, Cassette was so much fun and then I went to Family Bar for like the rest if the night. But yeah my main bar/club is Family Bar. Even though there is just drugs everywhere shirtless people like where am I.

What you mentioned before about once you move out and have more freedom where do you see yourself in that future ahead?

Hopefully I will be graduated by then. I really don’t think my style is going to changed its just going to be more of it. Alot more outfits, shoes, bags, hopefully some diamonds. Love me some diamonds. Me as a person, I don’t think I’m going to change much either, I say that because I look at everyone else I grew up with especially from high school I would say everyone changed completely compared to myself, some for better some for worst. I’ve felt like I’ve been consistent with who I am, so I don’t think that’s gonna change. I’ve never had that rebellious phase that most of us goes through. I had to keep it real, having that childhood innocence taken from you and having to be mature early on, theres no room for that rebellious side, there’s so many bigger things in life than just vaping and doing that shit. But like I still have my fun you know, just have my head screwed on straight.

How have you coped with this current lockdown?

I’ll be honest with you, I’ve really struggled with this lockdown. Like I just don’t wanna do anything, I will literally just sit here dead sad, so I just start drinking and I will just drink, like last night I got fucked. I’ve drank everyday, I’ve finished a bottle of grey goose in a couple of days. I’m just really struggling but I know once this lockdown is over, my life will pick itself over. Im not worried I will become like an alcoholic or something but its been rough.

Tell me about your Instagram Lux with Nico

Oh no, oh god, okay well its my Instagram page, which I haven’t on for a long time. It was a way for me to get into the community of designer lovers, like I’ve met some amazing people through it. Especially here in New Zealand, people don’t really get the whole designer thing. My mom is always like what the fuck, why do you need this, and a lot of my friends don’t understand it either but they kind of accepted it but I do feel some sort of judgement from some people, they just don’t get it. So its nice to have that community not in a bragging kind of way like omg I brought a Gucci bag, and there’s other people excited for you and when they get something you get excited for them, and its a nice community to be apart of it. You get to see a lot of other peoples things and they get to see yours and you can get into those conversations. It’s nice but it always does has it dark side to it, its like a blog and you are wanting that blog to grow and they only way for it to grow is when you buy things. So I felt this kind of self pressure to be like “omg I haven’t gotten anything a new thing in like a week, what am I gonna post” so then I would go look at Prada like go looking for anything to buy just so I can upload something, to keep growing my account. Cause I did this everyday for awhile, and I just ran out of things. You look at other peoples accounts and they buy like Louis Vuitton bag like every week. I came to realise that was very fucking stupid, you should only buy things that you want and can afford. So yeah there is that dark side to it and you can go down that hole, you feel like you have to buy things for other people to look at. Which really it’s not what it’s about.

Do you wish to continue with that account and going into that social media realm?

I do, but I got this point where I ran out of things to post about. Like do I start posting pictures of the same thing but in a different angle? I mean I’ve brought things that I haven’t posted. But for me if i’m going to start posting again, I want it to be regular thing. And yeah I can post maybe weekly and space it out but you can’t really grow your account, you need to be very consistent if you want your account to really grow. I got to like 300 followers in a month, like I know that’s not huge and that’s even 3 times that what I have on my own personal account. After awhile the numbers were kind of slowish because you reach all the people that are interested in your shit. More people did come and I even had people like I had this girl who did custom designs on designer items and I had people like that who reached out to me, being like “oh we love your collection, we would love to do this for you etc” that’s stuff is nice and all but I did get to the point where I was like I don’t know what else to do here.

Using your imagination is there anything else you would love to do besides posting of your designer items etc? Like even create your own stuff?

I would love to make my own collection of something, actually I would love to sell shoes, like design my own shoes. Would love love to do that, but then i’m like how would even start that sort of thing, would people even buy my shit.

Would you say your favourite designer item is shoes?

Well, the only things i’ve brought this year have been all shoes. I mean I love my shoes, that’s my thing.

And on top of all of that your studying psychology

Yeah I’m wanting to get into the Clinical side of psychology, I’m currently in my 2nd year doing a bachelor of Psychology at University of Auckland. I think the reason of me wanting to get into that field stems from childhood things, like all of the people studying psychology are fucked up so. But yeah I would love to help someone else and give them that second chance. Currently at the moment we are doing a section on relationships and intimacy, I would love to be a relationship therapist that would be great, like that to me is super interesting.

Why are you more interested in the relationship side of psychology?

Don’t know really, just very interesting to me, seeing how relationships work through its ups and downs and all that kind of stuff. And for order for me to get into Clinical I will need to get a PHD and write a whole thesis, so I was kind of thinking of doing something on the lines of retail therapy, and I feel that would be very interesting for me to explore in a psychological level.

So I know you are wanting to become a psychologist after your studies but do you think you would ever get into designing your own stuff like you mentioned before?

I would love to have my own brand or design something, that’s not a realistic goal though. You have to work fucking hard, everyone will say the work you put into is what you get out of it. You can put your heart and soul and even money all kinds of shit, but if no one buys you’re shit you’re not successful. So half of it is yeah people have to like it and want to buy it cause otherwise you ain’t going to be making shit. But if you go into a job in like psychology there is good money associated with and there is money for it, so for me that’s the most financially responsible decision.

Were you born here in New Zealand?

Yeah I’m actually from Palmerston North, we lived briefly in Rotorua and then lived in Auckland up until now. I don’t really have a sense of belonging to a particular place, like Auckland yeah I grew up in the city and I have respect towards it but I don’t wanna live here, but also know that I’m very luck and very thankful for being in Auckland cause I don’t not think I could survive anywhere else. I know that sounds terrible but like Wellington I don’t like the atmosphere, Christchurch is the same. And anything smaller than that no thanks, we live in the city and I’m very thankful for that, we’re in the most established place in the country, and I’m grateful that I live here in Auckland. Im a mother fucking city girl.

Do you wanna move outside of New Zealand then?

I know for a fact I do not want to stay here, I would actually love to live in Dubai or like Sidney or even London. Theres nothing really keeping me here in New Zealand, like I don’t have a huge family or anything and the opportunities here are very far in-between, cause I do feel like in New Zealand there’s a certain place you can end up, and no room for growth but I feel like in other countries there’s more opportunities, more money to be made and even more places you can go. So that my reason.

Like you mentioned before about not having a lot of family holding you here, I know for a lot of people they are rooted to where they come from and have that connection what are your thoughts on that?

Yeah I just feel like this is where I live and that’s about it, I don’t see myself being here forever.

Do want that family aspect like in your future would like to start your own family?

I think so, I want to find a place where I can call my own, I mean you never know once you explore the world. Its quite interesting thinking about life like that. Yeah I’ve never realised how much your childhood affects you in your adult life until now. Especially of the way I am, that I’m very closed off. I do have that part of me that wishes for a family which I didn’t have growing up but then at the same time I’ve gone along time without it so why do I need it. Honestly I feel like would be a good parent but I don’t think I would want children, cause I would always try to do the best for my children and at the same time I don’t have real desire to have them.

How are you with people Generally?

Oh still hate people, I think everyone is a piece of shit.

Final question of the day but what are your life goals?

Having a job, be financially stable and just do the best I can for me personally. I know that sounds very boring and cliché but that’s the truth.

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back-and-totheleft · 3 years

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"It's possible I was angrier as a young man"

For many years, Oliver Stone tried to make a movie of The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand’s epic novel about the arrogant ur-capitalist and architect Howard Roark. Stone’s version would have reinvented Roark as a visionary designer of public buildings—maybe a guy like Fidel Castro or Hugo Chávez, two gifted egoists Stone has been known to pop a Fresca with. That’s interesting company for a born Republican and decorated Vietnam volunteer, though maybe not for the man who gave us Wall Street (1987) and Gordon Gekko, or who wrote Brian De Palma’s Scarface (1983).

Stone’s new film, W., is a biopic of George W. Bush that the director has scrambled to finance, shoot, edit, and release before the 2008 election. Surprising only to people unfamiliar with his work, Stone paints a politically excoriating but emotionally sympathetic portrait of our 43rd president. Josh Brolin stars in the title role, alongside Elizabeth Banks (Laura Bush), Jeffrey Wright (Colin Powell), Richard Dreyfuss (Dick Cheney), Thandie Newton (Condoleezza Rice), Scott Glenn (Donald Rumsfeld), and James Cromwell (George H. W. Bush). W. is Stone’s third crack at presidents or their legacies, following JFK (1991) and Nixon (1995). What could he possibly be thinking?

DAVITT SIGERSON: When I was first thinking about talking to you, lines from that Bob Dylan song “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” came to mind: “If my thought-dreams could be seen/They’d probably put my head in a guillotine.” Do you ever feel like you’re running in a different time zone than the rest of the world?

OLIVER STONE: Why do you ask that question? Because I’m making a movie on George W. Bush?

DS: Well, no . . . We’ll get to that. But I have my own theories about why you freak people out so much.

OS: Oh, really? This is a great way to start. I like it. At least you’re honest. I would love to know your theory, if you can give me the short and sweet of it. It could help me frame my own life, I suppose.

DS: Well, I think this: You’re an impressive formalist, and you can be as grand or as vulgar as the material requires-for example, with the use of television and different film stocks in your movies. I also think that your films follow function because it seems you are, above all, a rabid moralist who is intent on saying what you’ve got to say. And I think that really freaks people out. People prefer a tasteful formalist to a rabid moralist. Even though you have elements of both in your work, I think that you . . . Well, I think you know what I think: that saying what you’ve got to say is the most important thing for you in your movies.

OS: Interesting. Very well said. I mean, I suppose in our culture—in our lifetime—we’ve always enjoyed people who tell it straight. We like our presidents, our comedians, and our actors to do that . . . It’s funny. You say that people prefer a tasteful formalism—as opposed to an oppressive formalism—but I do feel very strongly that form follows function. I really do. I’ve said repeatedly in many interviews over the years, “Look, the styles in my films have changed, and each film has a function at the time at which it was made.” But I don’t know that the point has really ever gotten across yet. I have skipped from style to style from film to film, and I love doing that because it’s given me the ability to free myself from the past. Perhaps one of the worst feelings that I can have is the feeling that I’m locked in, like a prisoner of myself, which is something we all feel at some point in our lives. So part of making those stylistic jumps is just to free myself up-to get away from the old or the old Oliver Stone. When I make a new movie, I always get stuck with, “That’s not an Oliver Stone film.” But I don’t know what to do about that except just move on. That’s why I was really happy to do W. It’s a chance to shrug it all off again. That’s the way I approached making the movie, and I know it’s one of the issues with its relationship to the other two presidential films I’ve made. But I’m leading you now-

DS: That’s all right. That’s good. I actually feel a lot of parallels between W. and Scarface.

OS: That’s interesting. Why is that?

DS: Well, let me disclose that I’ve seen a couple of versions of the script for W., and one of the things that struck me is that it seems you set off to make a film that is in many ways a very sympathetic understanding of George W. Bush. It’s certainly not a positive portrayal, but it definitely feels like you set out to get inside of him as a character and to understand him on his own terms—which is, I think, exactly what you did with Tony Montana in Scarface.

OS: That’s correct. It’s what I tried to do with Nixon, too.

DS: W. has that autumnal quality that Nixon had, but I also feel there are ways in which you and W. . . . For all the things that you and George W. Bush don’t have in common as people, there are some things that you do.

OS: Well, we both went to Yale, class of ’68. And although W. came from a much more powerful family, both of our families did have aspirations for us. I didn’t have the size of the family that he did-I don’t have brothers and sisters or a lot of cousins. We didn’t have boarders at our house or anything like that. But I did go to Yale and was raised Republican-Eisenhower Republican or Rockefeller Republican, I like saying. My dad was staunchly pro-Vietnam, and, you know, I believed everything I read in the media and saw on television in the ’50s and ’60s. I really did. And I watched the war in Vietnam unfold on that basis, without irony. I went as a volunteer.

DS: You requested combat duty.

OS: I requested infantry—I didn’t want to get fucked out of that. I didn’t want to end up in Germany or in South Korea or anything. And I got what I wanted. I got it in spades.

DS: Well, there’s a big difference between you and George W. Bush. You skipped out of Yale, and W. skipped out of Vietnam.

OS: I know. There are a lot of differences at that point—the fork in the road is huge. And I wish that George W. Bush had gone to Vietnam, because he would have seen history in a different light. He would’ve experienced it in a different light because I don’t think he understood the nature of war.

DS: But you do get us to like George W. Bush. There’s a scene, for example, where he drives up drunk after getting into Harvard Business School—

OS: Well, it goes beyond him being a kid. I, quite frankly, find him to be likable in the way that he’s a goofball president—it’s like having a bit of a goofball in the White House. I mean, people don’t like Richard Nixon. I found that out when Nixon came out—people just did not like the movie because they did not like the man. I think the movie is very well made, but there’s a thing about Nixon that turned people off: a dark side that Cheney also has. But in George W. Bush, there’s no evidence of a dark side that people see, and I think that’s fascinating about him. So people, of course, like him and trust him. As [Karl] Rove said, He’s a man you can have a beer with. And there’s an ineffable charm in that. Even my mother, who is a diehard-you know, she’s a Republican-and she’s seen what’s happened these last eight years, but she’s rigid about that. She said, “Don’t make a movie, Oliver, where you demean Bush or you hurt Bush.” And I was trying not to do that. I was trying to be, you know, fair is a tough word . . .

DS: Well, when it comes to hurting his cause, W. has already got the job covered, hasn’t he?

OS: Yes, George W. Bush speaks for himself. I mean, the fact that we haven’t had to make up words is the beauty of it. With Nixon, we had to reach inside and find some of that material-Nixon was very much a man behind closed doors. With Bush, you don’t have to reach very far. He’s put a lot of great, colorful stuff out there.

DS: I wanted to ask about that: One of the things about the movie that I found myself really enjoying is that the material is so familiar. I felt it was sort of like going to a Rolling Stones concert. They’re going to play “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” and “Brown Sugar,” but you don’t know when. There is a reference that W. makes to his poppy, George H. W. Bush, throwing up in Japan . . .

OS: Yeah, there’s a lot of that going on, a lot of inside stuff.

DS: But the way you handled weaving in some element of the Rumsfeld “unknown unknowns” briefing from 2002 about evidence that Iraq was supplying terrorists with weapons of mass destruction . . . It makes up for the, perhaps, overfamiliarity of the story by providing all these little moments.

OS: One of the dangers about making a movie about a current president is that everyone thinks they know him. I think that people think they know a lot about George W. Bush—I mean, wherever I go, everyone has an opinion. But people don’t really know everything they need to know about him. They don’t know the history. They know how it all plays into the present, but they don’t think about it in terms of the whole span of his life and how his past contributed to what his thinking was at various points and how he allowed these certain things to happen. So by putting his life into a two-hour framework and dealing with some of the complexities of his time growing up and his youth-the first act-and then the second act, where he really had his greatness, I suppose, in the ’90s with the baseball team [Bush was part owner of the Texas Rangers from 1989 to 1998] and the Texas governorship, where he reached his level, so to speak . . . And then the third act becomes very interesting because this is the payoff: the seeds of the man now and the growth and the strength. This is the man who became stronger than his father and became president. So the movie really takes place at that point. The fulcrum is in 2001, after 9/11, and the movie is climactically about that 2001-to-2003 period. We didn’t go beyond the beginning of ’04—once he goes into Iraq, we know what happens. We didn’t want to go into the crumbling apart because we sort of know what’s happening now.

DS: You’re right. Especially around W.’s campaigns for the governorship of Texas, there are some key moments, like where he stands up to his poppy about the fact that he’s going to run. There’s also the conversation with Rove, where Rove says, “I’ll tell you what to say.” And W. says, “You’re the wordsmith, you give me the words, but I’ll tell you what we’re saying.”

OS: There’s also one of those defining moments when he tells Laura that his father lacks the decisive spirit of a decision maker. Stuff like that. We took dialogue from everywhere. We did sometimes put it into another context, but we tried to stay true to the feeling of it. In other words, like Rumsfeld’s line—”I know what I know and I know what I don’t know . . . ” He’s a great press conference guy, Rumsfeld, but we’re not showing him in a press conference, so our difficulty as dramatists is to get that stuff contextually into dialogue so that it makes sense. You have to do that as a dramatist-you have to have the people in front of you. I reread all the same research books—I think the book about Paul O’Neill by Ron Suskind [The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill] was the first to break in 2004, and then Richard Clarke’s [Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror]. We read all those books, and they really started to change the picture of what was going on in the Bush administration. I really could not have made the movie in 2004, because we didn’t have the information. I mean, Bob Woodward penetrated a lot with his books, and there was also the other Suskind book, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11. We got a lot of that stuff into the movie, which was really tough to do. We put in a lot of rancorous disputes with Powell fighting with Cheney and Rumsfeld-there was sort of a triangle, and we went out on a limb in presenting that. Now I’ve been reading more and more that there were some big arguments behind the scenes, but that hasn’t really come out yet because Powell won’t write anything about it. Rumsfeld’s memoirs are coming, though I don’t think they’re going to be different than you’d expect—they’re going to be above it all, so to speak. But Powell did have some arguments. He did fight on behalf of his beliefs. All of these actors are great, by the way—Jeffrey Wright, who plays Powell, and Scott Glenn, who plays Rumsfeld. I can’t believe the humanity they brought to it.

DS: How did you handle presenting W.’s relationship with Laura? I really felt the truth of that couple. What did you do to get inside of that?

OS: There’s so little written on Laura-we read everything that we could, but then we had to go into the dialogue.

DS: That line, though, that’s in the film, “I read, I smoke, and I admire”-Laura Bush actually said that, didn’t she?

OS: I believe she said that in another context. Again, we have to deal with lines. If they said it to the press and we’re trying to fit it into a one-on-one situation, they won’t talk as they do sometimes to the public.

DS: There’s a moment of tremendous beauty in the script when W. and Laura are in London and Laura says, “Why don’t you go buy a suit?” And W. says, “The shoulders never fit.” That’s almost Death of a Salesman-like.

OS: “The shoulders never fit . . . ” I remember that line. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t shoot it.

DS: No?

OS: Yeah, I wrote the line. I don’t know if W. ever said that, though.

DS: Who cares?

OS: You liked that line?

DS: Oh, you’re fucking killing me.

OS: You have to recognize that this film was made -under Spartan conditions. Nobody in America wanted to make it, basically, except for one small company. And if it wasn’t for China and Australia and Germany, we wouldn’t even be talking about it right now. So thank God there’s a little diversity of thought in the world. But, you know, we made the film for $25 million, which is about 60 percent of what Nixon was made for, and we made W. in 46 days, which is amazing considering the amount of footage we got in that amount of time. Normally it would have been a 60- or a 70-day shoot, so I’m just saying that you have to let things go. You can’t fight for everything. So London is not in the film. I loved that scene, though, because I was in London when W. went through there [in 2003]. It was this remarkable moment in history, to just see an entire city closed down. They had to close down all of central London and keep everybody away from him. There were demonstrations. And the American media, again, did not really report it correctly.

DS: Well, obviously there was a hand behind that.

OS: Oh, yes. But that’s another movie, I suppose. In fact, I’m working on a documentary with Mark Weisbrot [the American economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.]. He’s very good with media subjects and the dirty tricks that go on.

DS: When I look at your three presidential pictures, it does feel that, as different as they are, you could almost weave them together into a sort of John Dos Passos-like triptych on American disappointment.

OS: Wow. I wrote a long essay on Dos Passos in high school.

DS: Did you really?

OS: Yes, I was a big fan of his. I was a Republican in school, and I remember liking Midcentury. I was very impressed with that. The style was unbelievable. He hasn’t been appreciated. He really got the workers, you know? When I was a young man, I thought, Wow, I’ve never read something like this. I really -understood what the Wobblies were about, the socialists . . . And I didn’t realize it at the time, but I identified with them. I had my own political framework, but the humanity of it got through to me. I remember the sex in those books-as a young man, reading those things under lightbulbs in dingy rooms. Farm girls and stuff.

DS: Let’s talk about Natural Born Killers [1994] for a minute.

OS: Sure.

DS: I understood that maybe Quentin Tarantino, who wrote the script, didn’t like what you did with it. I don’t know if that’s something you can talk about . . .

OS: Quentin never saw the film at that time, frankly—he admitted. Quentin and I have since spoken many times. You know, he was a young filmmaker. He was coming up, and there was a big dispute with him and two producers, Don Murphy and Jane Hamsher, who had he thought undermined him and gotten the rights. It’s a complicated story, but basically everything was done legally. And then I announced I was going to make the movie, and he was upset because it was his movie. But he had never expressed a desire to do it.

DS: So it was a business fight rather than one about interpretation.

OS: According to some, he never saw the movie-or he walked out of it 10 minutes in or whatever. But he just didn’t like the fact that I had changed his screenplay. Quite considerably-that was his issue.

DS: What’s funny about Natural Born Killers, having seen the film when it came out, was that there were things about it, like certain aspects of W., that seemed very familiar—the predatory newsmen characters, for example. Yet over time, between YouTube and Abu Ghraib, it has shown itself to be an unbelievably prescient movie. The main characters, Mickey and Mallory, have these roles as the self-cast stars in their own drama. That’s become the story of our world today.

OS: You know, I felt at the time that those characters in Natural Born Killers were archetypes that we should do big and broad and that we should make it a cartoon . . . This was the way the world was going. I put my feelings at the end of the movie very clearly. There was a run of things happening at the time making front-page news. It started roughly around the time of Tonya Harding and John Wayne Bobbitt’s penis being cut off and terminated with O.J. Simpson. It was just these three years in the media where all of this stuff was seeping onto the front page of The New York Times. It was ridiculous. It’s when the news became entertainment, I guess. Wasn’t it Laurence Tisch who started that up 10 years before, at CBS, when he said that the news -division was going to have to make money on its own? It was around ’86 when Tisch got a hold of CBS-and I say that because I remember it very clearly. It was a shock at the time. CBS never recovered.

DS: And now you get the pictures from Abu Ghraib, and it does look like a cartoon. I mean, it’s an indecent cartoon . . .

OS: Well, it’s been written about like a cartoon because it never went further than that. The media never invested in really following up. The hard news takes time—it’s not one-day stuff. It took years to bring that to the surface, you know? It took so much time. It took a lot of work. And even now more details are coming out. So hard news takes time. It takes a nonprofit sensibility.

DS: I was reading something, I think around the time all of these Abu Ghraib pictures first came to light, about why the people were smiling in the pictures. There’s an amazing Weegee [Arthur Fellig] photograph called Their First Murder. It was taken on a street in New York City. It’s of all these people standing around [an out-of-frame] dead body, and there is one kid looking up and smiling straight into the camera-because that’s what you do when there’s a camera, right?

OS: Well, we have pictures like that from Vietnam, snapshots of people standing over bodies. It’s that white-hunter thing. It’s part of the human instinct, the death ray that we all have—that dark side in every single person. Even Mr. Bush. If anybody is a walking optimist, it’s George W. Bush, but even he must have a dark side. I think we took a few shots at exploring this idea of who he is toward the end of the film. It does come out—Josh Brolin did an extraordinary job of bringing that to the surface.

DS: Back to Scarface: Tony Montana is an ultimate example of a character who you’re totally blatant about as a writer in terms of your moral judgment of him. And yet you show him so purely that he has become a kind of ultimate folk hero. Did that surprise you? Or was that part of your goal?

OS: There was an impulse in that direction. I think Mickey and Mallory in Natural Born Killers are the same thing. I remember what happened in Scarface vividly because I did most of the research in Miami and in Fort Lauderdale and the Caribbean-there were just guys like that around. They were obviously not as big as Tony was, but there had been some chain saw murders, as you know, and the AK-47 had been introduced into the streets of Miami for the first time in around 1981. As a dramatist, you could imagine where things were going to go because the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] was getting into the war on drugs down there big time-but they had no idea of the amount of money that was involved. They had no idea. I remember that the first estimates were in the $100 million range. It’s that big, you know? But little did we know that really, if you go back now and check Pablo Escobar and all that, the take was even bigger. It was probably in the billions.

DS: But what happened with the Tony Montana character afterward was like how Macbeth became a hero for Scotsmen.

OS: Yeah, well, I could say I was amazed. It did take off right away on the street. The black and Spanish communities really took to the picture, and they made a hero of the guy. I don’t think he was one. I think Al [Pacino] played him as an antihero, as a Brechtian character. Arturo Ui was really my influence in that, but it’s amazing . . . The same thing happened in Wall Street. Gordon Gekko was the antihero of the picture.

DS: You told me about the documentary that you’re doing with Mark Weisbrot, but what is the subject of the other one you are currently working on?

OS: It’s a secret. I’ve been working on it for a year. I’ve self-financed it up to today. It’s another one of those tough ones to get made.

DS: And then what’s next after that? Do you know?

OS: No, I really don’t. I wrote an original, which is a smaller film, but it’s really important to me and hopefully-maybe-I’ll get a chance to make it. The market has changed so much, and the business in the last 10 years—it’s gone, the way I know it. I’ve been operating on the edges since Nixon. I’ve been independent, except a couple of times when I went back and worked for studios under completely different circumstances than I had before. It’s just that the risk factor in making a film has become so enormous. The corporations have become bigger. The accounting mentality is completely dominating the business. So people like me-and directors in general-are kind of like a thing of the past.

DS: This can be a function of aging, but do you think you’re less angry than you once were? Because I think it would have been pretty fair to characterize you as an angry guy. Whenever I see pictures of you, you have these puffy eyes, and I always think, Oh, he’s been crying tears of rage his whole life.

OS: [laughs] Oh, really? It’s possible that I was angrier when I was younger. I think a function of getting older is that you figure out more and you become more compassionate toward everybody, even people who dislike you. I don’t think it’s an issue of what’s fair—I think that compassion is the key because in a movie, you have to relate to the person you’re telling the story about. Even if it’s Richard III or Henry VIII or Macbeth, you have to relate to that person. And that’s been part of my learning curve, too.

-Davitt Sigerson interviews Oliver Stone, Interview, Nov 25 2008 [x]

#oliver stone #w.#interview magazine #davitt sigerson #quentin tarantino #natural born killers #scarface

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thebooksaidthat · 3 years

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20 Favorite Books of 2020 Recommendation List!

Phew, 2020 is about to end. What a year, isn’t it? It’s been a long, tiring and bad year all round for a lot of people in different aspects and reading is a way for all of us to escape our realities. I’ve never had a year like this at all, in terms of my reading habits. The lock downs and time off from school allowed me to read probably the number of books in my entire childhood in less than a year. I read 100+ books this year, varying in pages and formats but it still surprises me that I managed to read that much. This probably won’t happen again in the coming years because of college and etc but I had a good time reading. So, I thought I would share some of my favorite books/series’ that I’ve read this year and give a short description/opinion on it. Hope something catches your eye here!

side note:

most of these fall under the fantasy category but there are some other genre’s too like romance/contemporaries/non-fiction

the books are listed only based off their category and not in any specific preference order but if you’re interested to see a review/rating on it you can visit my Goodreads profile.

1. Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon

Do you enjoy reading fantasy books with powerful female protagonists? Do you like dragons? How about a queer F/F pairing as the main couple within the story? Priory of the Orange Tree was a book which I didn’t expect I would enjoy when I read the first few chapters. It’s a book that requires quite a bit of commitment considering the sheer page count of it (though if you read any Stormlight Archive it shouldn’t be a problem) but I grew on the plot line and characters after a bit. There’s classic tropes thrown in here and there but what made me enjoy it was that it focuses on female characters as the heroes rather than male ones. Don’t get me wrong though, I enjoy some books with male-centered characters too but it’s nice to see some good ol’ fantasy with protagonists I can identify with. 2. Beyond the Ruby Veil by Mara Fitzgerald

The first book of a series(unsure how many books atm), this debut was just a fun read. I love strong and rule-defying characters and this book gave us just that and more. Although I think the storyline might be a bit bumpy for me, I found that this book perfect for my reading slump and I really liked how it ends too. It might be worth waiting till 2021 to read this because the ending is pretty cliff-hangery in my opinion. I’m hopeful for the sequel to be even better because there are hints of a slow burn, enemies to lovers(F/F) pairing for this one! 3. Girls of Paper and Fire by Natasha Ngan

This was one of my earliest reads of 2020 and I really enjoyed it. The premise of the story is not one I’ve seen before in YA books and it should appeal to many readers. In a world where the ruling king ‘captures’ beautiful women from around the nation to be made his concubines, we follow Lei as she experiences all of that and her journey in going against everything. This is the 1st book out of 3 and its definitely a strong start to a series. There’s some great topics touched upon that is great for discussion like sexual-abuse and the aftermaths of it. Romance(F/F) also plays a big part in this book so if you’re into fantasy + romance that is done well, add this to your long TBR list! 4. Crier’s War by Nina Varela

Another debut book but this time make it sci-fi! Crier’s War is a fast-paced book set in an era where Automae(robots?) are the rulers and humans are their servants. It’s about how a female Automae, Crier, goes against her father’s opinions about the humans and basically overruling all the norms of Automae being prejudiced. It’s hard to describe the book much without spoiling but this is 1/2 of a duology and the second book picks up right where the 1st ends so make sure you read that too because it gets even better in its sequel! 5. The Weight of the Stars by K. Ankrum

Sometimes all I want is a quiet, character-driven book. This checked off those wants for me in the best ways. In a story where I believe focuses more on character relationships, I found that I enjoyed this more than I thought I would. It’s a comfort read packed with some occasional twists and the writing style is immaculate! The book is about how two misfits get entangled into each other’s business when an accident happens to one of them. It’s a slow burn(F/F) romance which I think was written very well and the characters had good chemistry. This includes their other friends in the circle too which is nice to see! 6. Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

If you want to read a different kind of fantasy/sci-fi book, you’ll have to check GtN out! It’s a humor-filled necromancy book with great characters and such an interesting premise. The 1st out of 3 books from The Locked Tomb Trilogy, GtN follows a murder-mystery plot line, similar to And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie but much more fun of course. The main character is also a lesbian which is always nice to see more of in the crowded space of books. Make sure you check out Harrow the Ninth too after GtN because that picks up right after this one and is so different but still does an incredibly good job of hooking readers in. 7. The Poppy War Series by R.F. Kuang

The Poppy War series holds a special place in my heart. I binged all 3 books this year and let me tell you this: I usually find sequels in a series to become less interesting/loses its magic but this is definitely not the case for this. With a very different setting from what we usually see in the fantasy genre, TPW is set in ancient historical China and the books are heavily influenced by real events that happened before. It’s a grim-dark type of series for sure and the protagonist, Rin, is sort of morally-grey in many ways which made it a much more compelling read to me. The final book for me was and iis one of the best ways I’ve seen a writer end a series. If you’re looking for a fantasy series with a fascinating magic system with a grim-dark plot, you’re up for a treat here! 8. To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers

I rarely read novellas but when I do, they usually leave me fairly unsatisfied at the end because I find them to be hard to connect to because of its length. To Be Taught if Fortunate is another book which I would describe as ‘quiet’ and just overall a comforting read. It’s hopeful, filled with a diverse group of characters which is always welcomed in the books I read. I think one of the best parts of the book is the way its written which had a very soothing feel to it. It’s hard to describe but reading this made me really interested in reading other works by the author. The ending is also excellent too and leaves you thinking for a while. 9. A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine

Is political intrigue something you enjoy in your books? Do you like your characters interestingly named like Six Helicopter or Three Seagrass? How about analytical banters/discussions between characters about language? If that’s so, AMCE is a space-opera that will check all those boxes. Seriously, this is a well-built world with fun characters and I loved them so much! There will be a sequel coming out early next year but the book ends with a fairly satisfactory ending so you can jump into this without a commitment to the series (a duology if I remember correctly). 10. The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

The 1st book out of a currently 6 book series(with more to come), The Final Empire is an action-packed, female-lead book in a world where slavery still exists. The magic system here is one of the more interesting ones I’ve seen too. The thing about Sanderson books is that they are typically written in a straightforward, non-prosey, type of style. I appreciate that especially right after reading a book filled with purple-prose and I think this added to my enjoyment, for sure. In a fairly long first book, the world building here was done well and I think it does a good job of not pushing everything into your face all at once and instead, builds the world up slowly in different interactions between the characters. Although a tad bit cheesy, especially when it comes to the romance, I enjoyed this greatly and will probably continue with the rest of Era 1 in 2021. 11. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour

I’ve read a few of LaCour’s work but I still find myself enjoying this the most. When I read contemporaries, I like characters who I can identify with and drives the story well. In a fairly short novel, the book made me cry several times and I still think about the book once in a while nowadays. The story centers around Marin’s relationship with her grandfather and her best friend Mabel. There’s a mystery regarding her grandfather which is the main plot line of the book but its definitely a more character-driven type of book for sure. It’s a book where you’ll need to read it to understand the hype surrounding it so try this one out if you’re in a mood for an emotional contemporary with good mental health representation.

12. The Falling in Love Montage by Ciara Smyth

The Falling in Love Montage is hands down one of my favorite romance novels that I had read recently. It’s funny, romantic and also touching in all sorts of ways. The main character is a queer,sarcastic mess which frankly, I relate to a whole lot. It’s a book to read if you like your romance novels not entirely very light but also pulls on your emotional strings when you’re reading it. The writing style is also commendable for sure for a debut! I’m very much looking forward to future works from this author for sure. 13. The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

I rarely read historical fiction but when I saw this recommended in a Goodreads article/list, I was intrigued! This is one that surprised me a lot just cause of how it all ties together at the end. Some things didn’t feel very relevant at first but once it was revealed, I couldn’t contain my surprise. Also, Evelyn Hugo as a protagonist was such a delight to read about! She’s an empowering woman who’s ambitious and did a lot of things to achieve her goals and she’s an amazing role model in that and many other regards. Besides that, I think this also had great representation on bisexuality too and Madam Evelyn will always remain as one of my favorite fictional bisexual queens!

14. Loveless by Alice Oseman

It’s rare to have a book which includes asexual characters in general and it is even rarer to find a book with the topic of asexuality as a whole be the main theme of it. Loveless was such a delightful and insightful read into a character who although I don’t identify with, I could understand her frustrations a lot. This is a book about self-discovery and accepting oneself and one another for their identity and I think the author did a great job tackling this topic. If you’re looking for a contemporary book to diversify the type of characters you read about, Loveless is a good choice.

15. You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson

If you liked books such as The Falling in Love Montage, You Should See Me in a Crown is another you should definitely try! This light and fun romance(F/F) follows Liz and her journey trying to win her school’s prom. It’s a great title to pick up if you’re in a middle of a reading slump because of it’s pacing and it’s overall just a book I enjoyed a lot.

16. Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

Do you sense a pattern here? I love reading these light-hearted queer romances which doesn’t go through a series of stressful moments like coming out or homophobia etc. It’s important for books to have representation like that because it still exists and needs to be acknowledged but taking a break from that feels good too. Written in the Stars is an adult romance novel which I can see being a Hallmark-type of cheesy movie for sure and for good reasons! It has all those tropes that people love, enemies-to-lovers(sort of), fake-dating and the whole refusal of feelings for each other even though it’s obvious to the reads type of stuff. Hoping to see more adult romances like these in the future! 17. Who I Was with Her by Nita Tyndall

Who I Was with Her is an emotional roller coaster of a read, in a good way, of course. This book reminds me a lot of Hold Still by Nina LaCour mainly because of the way both the author’s dealt with the topics of death and grief. It’s a book that should be read when in a good mental-state as it might trigger some people as there are discussions on a character’s death. One of the main reasons I like this book is how the main character dealt with her attachment to her ex-girlfriend and her associating running with their relationship. It was a book that was difficult to get through but ended with a meaningful tone.

18. They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

I love empowering and strong female characters. Even when they’re kind of morally-ambiguous like Scarlett Clark. A woman who goes around killing men who sexually abuse others? Sign me up for that heroic Killing Eve shit! In all serious notes though, this was a great read and I loved the whole alternating viewpoints which seems unrelated at first but ties together well at the end. It’s not exactly super thriller-y like its advertised but its for sure a character-driven book with a bonus romance(F/F) plot too plus bisexuality rep! So if you want to read about a kick-ass lady and don’t mind some murder involved in your books, read this ASAP!

19. One Life by Megan Rapinoe

I’m not a soccer fan or anything like that but Megan Rapinoe’s advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community and racism intrigued me about her. I listened to this over a few days and I think anyone that wants to have an insight/experience with topics like sexism in the soccer industry, sexuality and racism, this is a must-read. I didn’t find her to be self-flattered or anything like that which I have encountered in some memoirs and I respect her humbleness a lot.

20. Becoming by Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming, was an incredibly fascinating read about her life from her childhood to becoming the First Lady of America. I found her writing to be pleasant and flows very well for a memoir too. It’s a fairly long read but I enjoyed learning about all these experiences she’s had such as her time being a lawyer and her life when Barack Obama, decided to run for president. It gave me a different perspective on her and I have new profound respect for her so much as a person.

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tunesof1982 · 6 years

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Top 10 Tunes of 1982

Yes, friends--it’s about that time.

My top 10

A little disclaimer: my top 10 isn't going to be based on whether I rated these a 10. A song can be a 9, or even an 8, and still be way more enjoyable than a song that's technically perfect. Throughout this blog, I've tried to rate songs based on a combination of objective fact and subjective opinion, but my top 10 is purely subjective. And that means there’s a hell of a lot of new wave in here. Deal with it.

10. Don’t Fight It - Steve Perry and Kenny Loggins (#76). A true firecracker of a song, exploding with creative energy and chemistry. It’s low on the list because I haven’t listened to it much since, but it’s always a rip-roaring ride.

9. Don’t You Want Me - The Human League (#8). It’s funny how Philip Oakey loathed this song, as it’s by far my favourite thing The Human League ever did. There are so many good elements at play--the chords, the perspective switch, the danceable rhythm, the vocals, even the very poppy production. A true new wave classic.

8. Young Turks - Rod Stewart (#26). Gorgeous, propulsive rock, with Stewart firing on all cylinders. Of all the big ‘70s songwriters, his transition to the ‘80s was the most seamless; the synths sound great and his lyrical skills are as sharp as ever. Loads of replay value to this one too.

7. Only the Lonely - The Motels (#84). Speaking of replay value...I could listen to this song a million times and never get sick of it. It’s just so well-written. Like I said in the review, most of the big ‘80s love ballads leave me cold, but this one warms me every time. Martha Davis’ singing is fantastic, technically stunning and emotionally spot-on, and the melody is gorgeous.

6. Nova Heart - Spoons (#100). I can’t get enough of those invigorating SYNTHS, my God. So much synthy ‘80s goodness in here. But besides all that, it’s a song with a coherent lyrical hook that’s represented through the music, and that’s rare. Plus, there are so many amazing musical layers in here, from the bassline to the ethereal background vocals, and all of them are great.

5. Under Pressure - Queen ft. David Bowie (#41). A messy hodgepodge of a tune that also reflects its subject matter extremely well. Both vocalists turn in sensational performances, and the multi-part structure allows for some really creative, ingenious moments. It stands to reason that two renowned artists like this would pull out something so magical, but I think “Under Pressure” is even better than Queen or David Bowie on their own. Paul McCartney, take notes. (Oh McCartney. I don’t hate you, but you were not a force for good this year.)

4. Steppin’ Out - Joe Jackson (#52). WOW did I underrate this one. I listened to it recently and it’s at least a 9. This is some damn fine synthpop, driven by a bouncy bassline and sparkling synths, and Jackson’s classic emotional conflict comes through loud and clear. Maybe it’s because I’m such a Joe Jackson fan that I didn’t think this was as good, but in the context of 1982 it’s undoubtedly a standout hit.

3. Love Plus One - Haircut 100 (#86). This was always going to be the tune to which other tunes were compared. I started picking my top 10 knowing that “Love Plus One” was going to be somewhere near the top, probably #1, and while it’s not quite that high, I’m still very fond of it. Yes, it’s dumb. Yes, it’s insufferably cute. But it’s still an amazing tune, packed with musical ingenuity and intelligent songwriting. It takes a really good band to pull off such a tuneless chorus, and the breakdown after the second chorus is especially good, one of the most blissful moments all year.

2. Six Months in a Leaky Boat - Split Enz (#58). It’s funny, because in the review I was lamenting the hard act to follow, and yet “Who Can It Be Now?” isn’t even on here. Now, that’s still a good song, but this is the one I prefer by a long shot. Again: it’s the reflection of music and lyrics. The old-fashioned adventurous spirit of the lyrics is perfectly matched by the music, with its whirling synthesizer and motley blend of instruments (including an accordion). I love its tremendous energy--no other tune this year had this much enthusiasm. It’s brilliant, creative, and a joy to listen to. In fact, I want to put it as my #1. But my heart is telling me something else.

1. The Look of Love - ABC (#17). Might be weird to start this off with a negative, but I cannot stand that intro with its slathering of atonal sax. It nearly kills the song before it’s started, and I’m honestly not sure why I didn’t mention it in the original review. AND YET. Despite that glaring flaw, it’s still #1. I originally had “Love Plus One” at the #1 spot, but there’s no way it’s as good as this. I could feast myself on its delicious cheese all day. I love love love the lush instrumentation, the catchy melody, Martin Fry’s singing, the spoken-word segment, and the impeccable production. But what I love most is the build. Throughout the song, the instruments and Fry’s performance get more and more dramatic, culminating in the ferocious climax where he’s screaming “YIPPIE HI, YIPPIE HI YAY-YAY” in your ear. And it all totally works. Most bands couldn’t pull this off, but ABC did it with aplomb. (Incidentally, I’ve become much more of an ABC fan since the review.)

So there you go! I’ll stick some of my general thoughts on the year in another post. It’s been one helluva ride!

#tunes of 1982 #top 10

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badword · 7 years

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do all the odds :~)

ur crazy for this shit1. Is a kiss considered cheating?uh ya i think so3. If you could have one superpower, what would it be?shapeshifting duhh5. Tell us some funny drunk story.apparently when i was drunk a few months ago i befriended a girl i had just met and forced her to promise to watch forrest gump with me and i have no recollection of this7. If you had to choose one way to die, what would it be? stabbed/murdered in general9. Do you like someone?uhh i mean kinda. i have small crushes on a few ppl rn but nothing big!11. Do you like your body?no i hate it 13. If the whole world listened to you right now, what would you say?this is such a big q, i guess id promote my art idk tht seems boring15. If you could choose only one food to eat to the rest of your life, what would it be?begetals. i love a good veggie17. Something you don’t mind spending all your money on?i only ever spend my money on my friends and food19. When was the last time someone told you you were beautiful?elizabeth said it like the other day but she says it all thw time, besides that probably never tbh21. Do you keep a journal?i make a lot of lists of things which is similar, i also keep a sketchbook but not a real journal i guess23. Is farting in front of people irrelevant?i dont understand the question and i wont respond to it25. Are grades in school important?umm artistically i wanna say no27. What was the last book/movie that really impressed you?i watched american psycho again last night and it always leaves me absolutely shaken because its an amazing movie. also when i saw 2001 a space odyssey i like couldnt even speak after it was so good!! for books: misery by stephen king29. Dumbest lie you ever told? god i dont even know i lie about dumb shit constantly but its mostly just small stuff its never rly gotten me in trouble31. Something you did and you are proud of?got a REAL job designing logos for a business :))))) im really excited33. Something you are good at?this is hard to answer honestly. im pretty good at art but not lately35. How are you feeling right now?nauseous mostly. a bit depressed37. What do you need to be happy?the thing that makes me the happiest is spending time with my friends that i love39. What was the last gift you received?someone made me a friendship bracelet41. What was the last concert you went to?saw twin peaks at taste of chicago :-) and LOVED it43. Who inspires you?my dad45. How old were you when you first got high?ripe age of 1647. When was your first kiss?the day after my 8th grade graduation49. Is there something in the past you wish you hadn’t done?i regret a pretty big chunk of stuff from my past but most recent big one is letting this horrible person fuck me over badly and KNOWINGLY51. Who are you most comfortable around?my closest friends53. What kind of books do you read?sci-fi/fantasy mostly!! but i also love a few realistic fiction books55. What is your favourite flower?poppies i think57. What kind of people are you attracted to?this q is pretty vague but nice and funny people. nice is essential59. Is there something you don’t eat? Some food that truly disgust you?i fucking hate mushrooms61. Something you find romantic?its SO easy to be romantic to me like just going out of the way to think of me is like the number one thing to make me fall instantly in love63. What are 3 things that irritate you about the same sex?i love girls theres nothing every girl does that bothers me65. What are you saving money for?moving out asap67. Are you actually a good person? Why?tough. im chaotic neutral and very much so, im rly good to people i care about but anyone who makes me upset i treat them like shit with no remorse69. Have you ever done anything illegal?i KNOW a cop is reading this. i uhhh decline 2 answerjust kiddin ive done the usual illegal stuff. drugs and alc and some small time crimes71. Have you ever made someone feel bad about themselves intentionally?ya and i havent really regretted any of the times that i have73. Have you ever cheated on someone?nope i would rather die75. Is there a blog you visit every day, or almost every day? Tag it! i go on tumble dot com once a week at most77. Favourite TV series?the office, psych, twin peaks79. What was the last book you read? Did it impress you and why?the last book i actually finished was misery by stephen king and it was VERY impressive and i would recommend it to anyone who likes horror/thrillers81. How long have you been on Tumblr?since 2012. god83. McDonalds or Subway?subway is disgusting and expensive. mcd85. Alcohol or drugs?im typically more of an alc guy87. Meaning behind your blog name?its my one personality trait and my age89. Last time you were insulted?my therapist told me my haircut was ugly today but it was indirect91. Perfect date idea?perfect date idea is someone taking me on a date. but uhh idk a picnic at night with some good music would be so ideal93. What colour are the walls in your room?yucky purple color that i hate with some painted over areas in random colors95. Share your favourite quote.quote from man stabbed: "what are you going to do, stab me?"97. Do you like horror movies?love! them! but its hard to find good ones i feel like99. Do you feel lucky or special in a way?i feel incredibly lucky that i know the most amazing people and that they are my friends

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