#so that june 2023 cut off got a lot of people

[thistaleisabloodyone]

I decided to go count how many posts on CL Live the different RMPG mbrs have made since June 2023 (since that's where my Exile Tribe Mobile blog count started) and, uhh...

Riku is the only one worth following for posts on CL Live.

#the rampage from exile tribe #aoyama riku #at least 3 people haven't posted to cl live since dec 2022 #so that june 2023 cut off got a lot of people #makoto's last post was may 2023 #kazuma's feb 2023 #so on and so forth

[kanmom51]

JK live 12 June 2023 7:02 am KST

Cr./ to creators of media used in this post.

JK came to us early in the morning, brought us into his bedroom, into his bed, to be with him as he falls asleep.

This was intentional, not a fluke.

JK knew he was going to fall asleep with us, and he also knew what the company's thoughts were on the matter, and he just didn't give a flying fuck.

One thing you couldn't see in the twitter translations was that cheeky smile, lol.

Man knew what he was doing.

He knew it. He just did. Fact: it took them longer to turn off the live this time than last time, lol. What was it? 6-7 minutes more or less?

JK tells it how it is.

He is gentle and genuine and just so real. When he tells us he's a human being he also shows it to us. He's not flawless and he isn't afraid to show us that either. He is a superstar with a heart of gold and some child like mannerisms. A pure soul. And I think that is partially the reason that millions of people will just sit there and watch him sleep for over 20 minutes.

Did he cut his hair again? Please no.

A summery of JK's live:

JK greetings to army.

An infomercial for the neck pillow, which is by now probably sold out.

"There are times when I snore and times when I don't...but I think I will I snore today."🤣

How can you not love this man? He literally turned on the live to fall asleep while telling us he missed us.

He tells us since he doesn't do IG, he doesn't do SM, so there aren't many ways to communicate with us. So he keeps looking for Weverse. Well, all I can say is "please don't stop".

Calvin Klein promotion from the worlds best brand ambassador ever.

Disappearing for a couple, talking to himself (most likely) in the background. I guess that answers his question if he talks to himself a lot.

Glasses on.

Glasses off.

Humming...groaning, lol.

Looks like maybe he fell asleep and then he comes back to us to tell us he was thinking just as he was about to fall asleep, that if he falls asleep: "If I really sleep I also think and imagine things that I don't want to think about. It's so fascinating..."

He ends with: "anyway, army you can't get hurt. I had a dreamlike thought about how you guys can't get hurt. We must be careful all the time. We can't get hurt."

I love his philosophical discussion with himself while half asleep. Granted, those are the times we are most likely to have our eureka moments. That is a fact. Lol.

I love how he is sharing these thoughts with us. I do hope that fans understand just how lucky they are for him to be doing this (yeah, that's wishful thinking, I know).

And from there on we have 21 minutes of JK playing sleeping beauty.

Live cut off by whoever it was in the company trying to figure out if and when they need to cut the feed off.

Well, at least they didn't have too many subs to add, hence the live being up and translated in a just a few hours.

Half of the subs for the live:

An almost perfect description of JK's live in 17 seconds:

JK's Weverse post 12 June 2023 14:34

You have got to love that man, lol.

Let's take a quick look at the numbers for a sec, again, just for fun.

JK's live was at 7:02 12.6.23

7+2+1=10

2+6+2+3=13

13/10

JK's post 2:34 pm 12.6.23

2+3+4+1=10

2+6+2+3=13

13/10

I think we have a few interesting weeks ahead of us.

I do hope that with everything going on we will still get to see this amazing so so special young man come to us to be with us.

And just before I go, I will leave you with this:

Oh Jiminah, you lucky bastard...

Also, love it when he has that JM out for show...

See you soon JK...

#Jungkook #JK #JK live #Jimin #JM #Jikook #Kookmin #Minkook

[andithiel]

End of year wrap up

I am so super late to this, but I’ve done this in the last few years and I think it’s a nice tradition to look back at the accomplishments I’ve achieved. 2022 was a very bleak year writing wise, and I’m happy to say that I’ve slowly started to get my mojo back a bit. My AO3 wordcount for 2023 was 36,936 words, but I’ve also posted some shorter things on tumblr, and I actually made a spreadsheet to track my progress and tally all my written words, including those that get deleted and also those not yet posted, and according to the spreadsheet I wrote 10k more. I still have a lot of WIPs hanging around in my drive, but I’ve managed to finish some of them, and I feel like I have more energy and excitement to finish some more, so, here’s hoping that 2024 will be the year that I actually end up with fewer WIPs at the end than at the beginning (something I tried back in 2020, before the world went up in flames).

Under the cut is what I published in 2023:

January 

Fading in Love (locked to logged in users) (Drarry, Explicit, 5k) I wrote this as a belated birthday present for @sassy-sassy3, it’s an 8th year secret relationship with a lil’ sprinkle of magical theory regarding the Dark Mark. 

February 

I decided to try a few prompts for HD Candyhearts and ended up having a lot of fun with them: 

Second Date AO3 tumblr (Drarry, Teen, 1,3k) with an insecure Draco after having spent the night with Harry.

The microfic Taste the love (for the prompt Sweet treats)

How deep is our love? AO3 tumblr (Drarry, Teen, 762 words) featuring established Drarry bickering and absolutely ridiculous Valentine’s cards.

The secret language of flowers AO3 tumblr (Drarry, Teen, 2k) featuring the classic tumblr post the fuck you bouquet.

Pillow microfic with Draco being a little shit

Charm me 8th year drabble FWB/secret relationship sort of vibes.

March

Take that ride (Drarry, Teen, 1,6k) I finally managed to write a fic idea that’s been scrambling around in my brain for ages. I wanted to create a mood and a feeling with this and I’m so happy with how it turned out.

I also wrote a short fuck or die drabble that I’m super proud of: Let me show you  

June

Hold back the tide (Drarry, Teen, 2k) Another idea that’s been with me for years that I finally got out (despite not having written the fic that preludes this).

October

Thunderstruck (locked to logged in users) (Drarry, Explicit, 8k) My god, my beast, this fic resisted me and to top it all off I got covid right when I was about to finish it. I struggled with this so damn much, also wanting to create a vividness that doesn’t really come natural to me, but I’m so happy with how it came out in the end. Plus I got to collab with the amazing @fictional who, as usual, knocked it out of the park with her glorious art.

November

The Potter Malfoy bathroom war of 2007 (locked to logged in users) (Drarry, Explicit, 8k) Another fic that’s been with me for some time, although “only” a year. I saw the prompt for last year’s Suds when claims had closed, so I tried to forget about it but it wouldn’t leave me. I had so much fun writing this, I love writing Harry and Draco bickering and fighting with each other when we as readers know it’s basically their form of foreplay. 

December

When it’s exactly twelve o’clock that night (Drarry, Teen, 6k) This was also a fic one year in the making. I started writing it to post on last New Year’s Eve, but I couldn’t finish it in five days (to my own astonishment), but I’m happy it got to marinate for a while because I added a scene with Scorpius that I’m very fond of.

I wasn't tagged by anyone and I'm sure people have already done this, but if this means you get another tag, consider pointing me to your own year wrap up so I can see it! @sassy-sassy3 @fictional @mystickitten42 @uncannycerulean @goblinmatriarch @phdmama @crazybutgood @dragonbornphoenix @wo2ash @rei382 @nv-md

#fic year in review #ao3 wrapped #andithielwrites #drarry

[bright-and-burning]

No bc I love women and football tell me all the gossip with mccabe and foord and the ex (who is she) ☕️

alright this is going to be long im sorry but get me started on woso and i just blabber. uhh most of my sources cited but this is mostly me going back thru texts from during the world cup and grabbing facts/pictures from then so a few of these claims are a little

BUT i promise i didnt make this up LOL i was Deep in google for the entirety of the world cup so i Know i got my info from somewhere

everything else under the cut bc this got SO long im actually so sorry

there's three primary people involved here:

katie mccabe: left back (but honestly left everything wonder woman). captains the irish national team. plays for WSL's arsenal, has been since 2015 (minus a lil bit loaned to glasgow in 2017). those are the two important facts here really but the below is ~flavor~.

she's 28 and 5'5 and she's a DREAM. scored an olimpico at the world cup (FIRST IN WOMENS WORLD CUP HISTORY!!!!) (THATS WHERE YOU SCORE A GOAL DIRECTLY FROM A CORNER. FIRST ONE SINCE THE 60S IN A WORLD CUP IN GENERAL!! LITERALLY INSANITY!!!)

also for context this world cup was ireland's wnt's first ever major tournament appearance. she's the first ever irish goal-scorer (of men and women!). she's amazing. here's her for arsenal:

ruesha littlejohn: striker/midfielder. scottish-irish, but represents ireland at the senior level. 33 years old. has played for a lot of teams club-wise. currently plays for london city lionesses, a second tier team, but that wasnt announced til after the world cup. her most recent wsl team was aston villa (but i mean it, she's played like everywhere lol). 5'6 if you're curious.

here's her in ireland's kit:

caitlin foord: forward! plays for australia internationally, and arsenal (so teammates with katie. this is important.) she's played for arsenal since 2020! used to play for the thorns in the nwsl once upon a time. 5'7, if, again, you're curious. she used to date a swiss footballer (lia walti, who's played for arsenal since 2018) but they broke up like six months before the world cup. walti unfollows the australian team on instragram right after they post a video of foord, it's all very dramatic (THEYRE STILL TEAMMATES AT ARSENAL THIS WHOLE TIME BTW). arsenal man, always at the scene of the crime.

ok so now you've met our main players!!

world cup happened this past summer (2023), btw. to give you an idea of timing.

katie mccabe and ruesha littlejohn dated for 6-7 years (some articles say 6, some say 7). they came out in june 2019 and said they'd been dating for three years already. their breakup was confirmed right before the world cup (like THE SAME WEEK??), in an article where mccabe was like "yeah, ruesha, my partner at the time..." very casual.

and then. in JUNE. (world cup starts july 20th!!)

foord and mccabe go to ibiza w an ex-arsenal player (jordan nobbs). who (in june 2023, not anymore) played at aston villa with. you guessed it. littlejohn. so yeah your ex gf goes on a trip to ibiza w a new girl and your current teammate, you might be a lil pissed off. maybe.

the sun's (i know, BOOOO but this made me laugh so hard) caption on a pic from the trip had me cackling:

(the title of the article was "inside the glam lifestyle of pals caitlin foord and katie mccabe after ireland’s star’s ex snubs world cup handshake." borderline galpals commentary like have writers there never heard of regular synonyms for friends?? there was also a line that just screamed please don't sue us: "However, The Sun does not suggest the Aussie forward had anything to do with McCabe and Littlejohn's break-up.")

so now we've got two exes on the irish national team going into their first world cup appearance, the captain of the swiss national team and an australian player having broken up like six months ago, and much more, but that isn't directly related to This Specifically.

while you, anon, presumably know how the world cup works, ill give a mini explainer for anyone lost: there's the group stage, where the teams get divided into groups (in this case, of four), and your team plays every other team in the group. you get three points for winning a game, one for a draw, and none for a loss. those points add up and top two teams move on. and then you go into the knockout stage, where you have to win to advance, and if you keep winning you make it to the final yay!!

but for this we only care about the group stage. and more specifically, about group B.

group B is made up of nigeria, canada, australia, and (drumroll please) ireland!!! it is the stuff reality tv shows WISH they could make happen.

ireland and australia play. it is (almost*) the very first game of the tournament (but it's still on july 20th). it is at 5am my time. you would not believe the timezone fuckery i went through that month.

(*ok new zealand played norway starting a bit earlier on the same day but that's not as dramatic sounding)

and you know how they shake hands with the other team before a game? yeah well here's littlejohn apparently refusing to shake foord's hand:

here's a lovely photo of a Look from littlejohn to mccabe:

here's a diff irish player (sullivan) separating littlejohn and foord after the game (australia wins 1-0, btw.):

and i already shared this on @powerful-owl's post BUT. here's mccabe's little sister, supporting mccabe. please note the date (july 20th) and the comment from foord (from after the game, im like 99.99% sure) asking if she wants her jersey now. me personally if i just beat my totally platonic friend/teammate on the world's stage i wouldnt be pulling up in their sister's comments asking if she wants a jersey now (also implication of the word now as in previously discussed, etc etc. this was the thing that pushed me over the edge into insanity at like 9am after no sleep)

i admittedly have not kept up to date on anything that's gone down since the world cup so it's entirely possible more has happened! in fact i would say that it is downright likely lol. i love soccer lesbians n the insane charts necessary to keep track of their relationships <3

#me? insane? #um. im so sorry guys daksjfdk i dont know what came over me #this took longer than i expected to track down all the stuff i wanted to include. here's the tea anon! #and also i may very well be wrong abt things. tbf this is from memory and i also dont follow WSL very closely #much less the TEA. but this was fascinating to watch play out live lol #anon ask #eve talks soccer

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

art by em year in review 2023!

for the fourth time, i present to you a selection of the art i did this year! this definitely was the Year of Understanding Procreate, and i think it paid off. as usual, reflections under the cut.

january: i saw @malcolm-f-tucker tag a picture of abigail thaw with a comment about a theresa faceclaim and it left no survivors, i.e. i decided that theresa should have greying hair and did not look back. this was from when i was still trying to figure out what brush to use for lineart in procreate. luckily i had learned my lesson from the sketchbook learning curve and realized that what i liked for lineart would most likely be in the pencil section. however i wasn’t a huge fan of the brush i used in this one, so i didn’t use it again. instead, for later pieces, i decided to customize the 6b pencil brush to my liking, and…

february: …this came out of it! this is still one of my favorite things i have ever drawn, and it’s my favorite thing i’ve drawn yet for herc and linda. this piece really convinced me to use overlay layers more in my art, and the amount of detail i managed to capture in this one still amazes me now. and before anyone asks, yes, they are doing specific things in the startup procedure for an airbus a320-family aircraft, except linda is doing things off the CM1 checklist and herc is doing something off the CM2 checklist, which i learned later is not really something that is done. let’s just say herc is not the tightest stickler to convention.

march: one half of an intended two pieces centered around the f1 au (which, regrettably, i have yet to continue… i just reread what little of the second part is on ao3 and god, it slaps actually, i really need to continue it so bad) depicting a pivotal scene from around the outside, where theresa and linda decide to put aside a childhood feud at the top of the banked curve at monza. at sunset. on theresa’s birthday. i know, very meaningful, incredibly homoerotic. read the fic to see how well that turns out!

april: i always knew i wanted to redraw the first filipino!hercolyn thing i did back in 2020, the one that completely solidified in my mind the notion that These Characters Are Filipino, Actually, and when i got comfortable in procreate i quickly jumped on that. (if you notice, a lot of the stuff i did this year were redraws of old pieces i really liked but wasn’t fully satisfied with.) of course i wanted to draw them in the traditional clothes in my parents’ and grandparents’ wedding pictures. the implication of this being, of course, that this is the soft shoe shuffle wedding. i have a fic planned centered around that, from douglas’ perspective. now that grad school apps are basically done, if my honors thesis doesn’t kick me too hard, i’d love to get on that as soon as i can.

may: YOU JUST GOT COLINED! SEND THIS TO A FRIEND TO TOTALLY COLIN THEM! ah, colin fairbairn: the figure whose presence haunts all of newcastle but is never actually. named. (much to the chagrin of a lot of people who genuinely thought linda’s dad was named colin bc i Wouldn’t Shut Up About It) i just love him so much and i love this piece, i wanted to depict the wistfulness of an older colin whose airline is on the verge of collapse, who has been secure in his job as chief pilot of air cal, who looks out over glasgow airport (that’s glasgow’s runway in the background) and wonders if it’s time to put himself out to pasture. wondering what he could have done differently. it’s okay bby. there’s no way that you could have prevented this. but he’d never believe it. he’s too duty bound. he lives in my head rent free.

june: another redraw, this time of a piece from 2021. i was so happy with this one, and i am very happy with it still! everything about the older piece i loved was improved massively by this redraw: the poses, the proportions, the line work, the coloring. honestly, just thinking about the two of them just existing in the airport, overlooked by bustling passengers, just part of the landscape, but having such a rich history and relationship between them… it’s something i think about a lot and i love it.

july: this comprises the third part of an unofficial trilogy of drawings i did centered around douglas/martin/theresa. in each one, i centered a different member of the ot3: i did one centering martin last year, one centering douglas in the spring, and this one centers theresa between douglas and martin. i really enjoy how i did the expressions in this one: martin, looking out toward the planes; theresa, following his gaze, eager to share in the passion they both have; and douglas, looking down at both of them (yeah i think they’re both shorter than him. i think it’s cute). i feel like when i draw these three, where they look and how they look is very important to me.

august: can you believe before this point i had never drawn herc and douglas together? yeah, me too. anyway, them 🤍 i’ve literally only ever drawn them as older men so trying to draw them younger was. lowkey kind of hard. i’m hoping to revisit air england herc and douglas in the future, especially since i didn’t intend for this to be anything more than a quick bit due to those bisexual divorcee brackets (which i don’t know what became of them in the end except that douglas got through and herc didn’t, lmao)

september: unposted self-portrait done as a part of my aerospace fellowship application i wound up getting rejected from because they required me to do a creative component. not much to say here. anyways.

october: yet another redraw, this time of a portrait of herc, carolyn, linda, and arthur i did a year prior, in october of 2022. i like to think that lfeu!herc carries pictures of linda, arthur, and carolyn in his wallet: he had never wanted to be the family man for most of his life, but in his new life, this new form, he can play it well. something about the coloring seems a little off to me: i think i may have to go in and adjust arthur’s skin tone because i think it doesn’t look 100% right. but i love this one too. i hemmed and hawed for ages over what they should be wearing but in the end i put them in what they’d wear for work bc i couldn’t think anymore. but it turned out super cute and i think it emphasizes what brought the four of them together in the first place: aviation.

november: a cute little doodle of young!colin with baby linda, from a bigger piece. something i generally feel like i’ve gotten stronger with this year has been drawing a larger variety of poses. i discovered that procreate allows you to import reference images in a smaller window that can be very easily dragged around and resized, which was a massive improvement over my previous strategy with sketchbook, which had been to import reference images as their own layers. often, moving it around or resizing reference images resulted in some loss of quality. anyways there’s something just so tender about colin and linda and i love to revisit them.

december: last but not least, we finish off the way we started, with theresa (and an added douglas lol). and boy, how different does december look from january? granted, it’s a different angle, but i personally think there is so much more dimension at the end of the year compared to the beginning. i was less afraid of using overlays to enhance the coloring. and the brush i wound up settling on for lineart really ended up serving me well this whole year, culminating in this piece. not much to say on this one, i like it a lot :)

overall thoughts: i didn’t think i drew as much as i wanted to this year, but looking back i still think i made really good progress and improved a lot from last year, so i’m still happy. definitely want to draw more next year, explore new subjects, and maybe work on redrawing more pieces from previous years because those projects have been very fun to undertake.

once again i want to say a big thank you to everyone who’s ever shared or commented or left a like on anything i’ve drawn: it will have been 10 years next year since the end of the show i primarily create fanwork for, and to still have people out there who like what i do is such a gift. yes i create for myself, but i do also like receiving feedback from others and sharing it with others, so thank you thank you thank you. and happiest of new years to all :)

#em draws #em retrospects #art by em year in review

[umlewis]

lewis hamilton, p3, during the post-race press conference [part 2], canada - june 18, 2023 (transcription under the cut)

Interviewer: "Lewis?"

Lewis: "I don't know what the question was. I didn't understand it. I didn't understand it, if I'm really honest. He said, 'leave…'"

Journalist (Pedro Fermin Flores of TheGodFlores): "What the engineer said to him, that you were catching, you were under two seconds, and then Fernando say, 'Copy. Leave it to me.'"

Lewis: "And?"

Journalist: "Yes, 'leave it to me.' You. 'Leave it to me.'"

[several people laugh]

Lewis: [laughs] "Okie-dokie."

Journalist: "He will do the work to give you, not catching him. 'Leave it to me.'"

Lewis: "Okay…"

Journalist: [unintelligible]

Lewis: "I don't get what the point is. He's a multi-world champion, so yeah, he knows what he's doing."

Journalist: "It's just like a joke."

Lewis: "Aaah! I don't get it." [laughs]

[time jump]

Journalist: "Célini Ehret from F1only.fr. Question for you, all three. This is Father's Day today. We know your father plays a very important role in your career, especially in go-karting. What is your comment regarding the influence of your father in your success of your career, respectively?"

Lewis: "Short, yeah. Yeah. Same as these guys. Happy Father's Day to my dad. Already posted about it this morning.

And he sacrificed everything for me to be here today, so continue to try and make him proud, and I know how hard it is was for him, with everything that he faced, 'cause I was right there with him. But ultimate dream is always to be like your father. I want to be like my father."

[time jump]

Journalist: "Jake Boxall-Legge, Autosport. Question for Lewis, please: Lewis, now you have a couple of races with the new Mercedes upgrades, can you just kind of explain how it feels in the car now, sort of pre- and post-upgrades, and secondly, what's next on your shopping list? 'Cause you mentioned the superior rear end of the two guys next to you. What's next, beyond that, as well?

Lewis: "In truth it doesn't feel a huge difference to the beginning of the year. There are some elements of the car which do feel different, and obviously with the upgrade, but yeah, it's just we have a little bit more downforce on the car. But the characteristics of the car are very, very similar to what we've had earlier on in the year, and so yeah, we need to…

For future, for next year's car, you need to take a lot of these things off and change them, for sure. It's definitely not, characteristic-wise, the car that's going to be able to beat the Red Bull just yet, and so we've got to work on that.

For example, it was very bumpy, this track, and I think everyone was struggling, but our car is very stiff-but I think we were all struggling with the stiffness of our cars-but today was bumpy. Yeah.

That's the one thing that I don't… I'll say that's the thing I dislike most about this generation of car, right? Back in the day it was smooth down the straight. I mean, you're generallly smooth…"

#lewis hamilton #f1 #formula 1 #canadian gp 2023 #fic ref #fic ref 2023 #canada #canada 2023 #canada 2023 sunday #tw max #fernando alonso

[memphisbluesagain]

Pattie Boyd 1961-1962 (Elizabeth Arden, Cherry Marshall and Norman Parkinson)

I couldn’t find much detailed information about lovely Pattie from 1961-1962, so I decided to put together this long form post. Please, do let me know if I’m missing anything. Thanks!

- June 1961, Pattie leaves school with three GCE O Level passes and is living at home in Wimbledon, with her single mother and four siblings

- Late 1961, Pattie’s mother pulls some strings and gets her daughter a job at the Elizabeth Arden hair salon in London

“After school, I got a job at Elizabeth Arden in Bond Street, London - because I wasn’t qualified to do anything and my mum knew the CEO there.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

- In the new year, Pattie moves to London and begins working as a ‘shampoo girl’ / ‘trainee beautician’ on a small wage of £4.50 per week - which roughly translates to £97.53 as of 2023

“I thought: ‘I must get out, I must try and be independent’ - so I got a job and shared a flat with about five other girls.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“I shampooed people’s hair and took their coats. I was a general dogsbody, but I must say that it was terribly glamorous because it was where I first saw fabulous magazines - like Vogue, Tatler and Harper’s Bazaar.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“The job at Elizabeth Arden was deadly boring. I was training to be a beautician, but my heart wasn’t in it and I’m not sure I would have made the grade. Elizabeth Arden herself came in one day and berated me for my makeup. She didn’t like the black pencil under my eyes; it was not the ‘Elizabeth Arden’ look, she informed me.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

- Early 1962, Pattie had been working at the salon for roughly two months, until a Cherry Marshall Model Agency staffer took a special interest in her look

“A client who worked for Honey magazine asked me if I’d ever thought of becoming a model.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“Imagine my excitement when a client came into the salon one day and asked if I had ever thought of being a model. I said: ‘No, but I certainly could.’” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

- The following day, Pattie was scheduled for a test shoot

“When I arrived, she had arranged for her in-house photographer, Anthony Norris, to take some test shots of me. He had set up some lights in a little studio and she gave me a couple of outfits to wear - I remember a beret and having to look sultry, smoking Gitanes. [a French brand of unfiltered cigarettes] They were black and white, moody shots, with a bit of a Parisian feel.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

- Anthony Norris sends Pattie along to a secretary at Cherry Marshall Model Agency and a personal meeting with Cherry Marshall herself is arranged - Pattie was signed to a modelling contract the very same day

“A successful model has just got to be strict with herself and lay off all fattening foods. That means no bread, butter, spaghetti or sweets! Watch out for ‘puppy fat spread’ - eat proper meals at regular times, with lots of lean meat and green vegetables.” - Pattie Boyd (April, 1965 - Letter from London)

“My fairy godmother phoned Cherry Marshall, who then ran one of the top model agencies and she said she was sending me to her. Anthony Norris went with me and told Cherry he thought she should take me on.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“My secretary brought Pattie’s picture into me and told me Pattie was waiting outside. ‘I’ll see her’ I said - and there was Pattie, a shy 17-year-old who when she spoke, bubbles with impish charm. It would have been a mistake to change a thing about her. All we needed was to groom her rebellious hair and slim down her puppy fat. She started training immediately, the following Monday.” - Cherry Marshall, 1964

“She was shy until she started talking and then she bubbled over with enthusiasm, as she spoke of her ambition to be a model: ‘I know I’m a bit plump - but I can’t stop eating sweets!’ I said: ‘Pattie, from now on you cut out all sweets - and I want you to report on Monday at the school for training’. I wanted her rebellious hair groomed into a straight gleaming bob and she had to be taught how to apply photographic make-up. Nothing else should be changed. The name was right, the look was right and it would have been crazy to do anything to subdue her sparkling personality.” -  Cherry Marshall, 1978

- Pattie attends Cherry Marshall’s modelling school - graduating within three short months

“So that’s the advice that I’d pass on to all of you who dream of becoming models: train at a school that has proved itself - not just one of those places that give you a paper diploma and nothing else - and don’t try to sell yourself when you have qualified. Let your agent do that.” - Pattie Boyd (April, 1965 - Letter from London)

- Pattie attends test shoots and works to build her portfolio - unpaid

“I knew I had a winner - everyone in the office agreed with me and they immediately swung into action. New pictures were taken, photographers and magazines informed, casting agents bombarded, press alerted. Here, we told them with absolute confidence that Pattie Boyd was the girl for the swinging sixties.” - Cherry Marshall, 1978

“Finding an agency was easy; finding a job was the hard part.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“We were too experienced to expect things to happen overnight, but we were impatient because Pattie was already seventeen and that wasn’t the youngest anymore. All we needed was to get one top photographer mad about her and she was made, but few of them would risk using an absolutely new girl on a job. They’d take test shots to find out what she was like and give her pictures for her portfolio, but no money. It was invaluable experience, but Pattie had to earn her living and we didn’t have much time.” -  Cherry Marshall, 1978

“My agent would phone me last thing in the afternoon and tell me my jobs for the next day and my diaries would be quite full. But not to begin with - I had to work quite hard, going around to photographer’s studios and showing them my portfolio.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

[Rayment Kirby, 1962]

“Everyday I would go out with a list of photographer’s names and addresses and trudge around with my portfolio, hoping they would like what they saw and use me on a job. And if one did, I would try very hard to get him to give me some prints at a low rate, so that I could add them to my portfolio. I must have travelled on every bus and tube in London and when I was out of money, I walked. My diary for those days is full of IOUs for the odd fiver.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“Within three months her diary began to fill up and she (Pattie) was in constant demand.” -  Cherry Marshall, 1978

“If I had a job, I had a big, tall bag - no wheels in those days - with dark shoes, light-coloured shoes, all sorts of jewellery, wigs and hairpieces.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“I was lucky. The trekking around worked and soon my diary was full of jobs. Modelling was fun. I loved trying on clothes and fiddling with my hair and makeup. We had to do it ourselves - there were no hair stylists or makeup artists and certainly no chauffeur-driven cars to ferry us around. We were not celebrities in the way that today’s top models are. For advertising jobs, we even had to bring our own accessories. I have my old appointment diaries about what I had to take to a shoot. Usually, it was light and dark court shoes, flatties, gloves, costume jewellery, hats or caps, boots, makeup, wigs and hair pieces. You could spot a model a mile off from the heavy bags that she was carrying.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“I went on to do lots of lovely shoots, although I never enjoyed posing for Freeman’s catalogues. They’d book you in for three or four days in a row, which meant lots of money, but the clothes were hideous and far too big - they had to have clips on the back.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

“I rang Norman Parkinson, the king of them all - and asked if he’d see her. A model had to be really good before he could be approached, particularly as he was not impressed by an agent’s idea of who was photogenic. We knew that, superficially, Pattie had certain drawbacks - she was un-modelly in the accepted sense, her face was too round and she had a gap in her front teeth. She came back to us in tears, eyes swimming with disappointment, all set to give up. She finally blurted out: ‘He asked me if it’s fashionable these days to look like a rabbit!’” -  Cherry Marshall, 1978

“One day I went to see the great Norman Parkinson. He looked at my book, then looked at me and said: ‘Come back when you’ve learned how to do your hair and makeup properly’ I felt so humiliated.” - Pattie Boyd, Wonderful Tonight

“Seeing myself in magazines was so exciting. I couldn’t wait to show my mother and she was totally amazed, saying: ‘How on earth did you do that?’ - she had no idea that I’d been trampling the streets trying to get jobs and hopping on buses and trains to persuade photographers to take pictures of me.” - Pattie Boyd (December, 2022)

- Late 1962, Pattie began working for Honey magazine, which led to many other opportunities...

I will try to make a Pattie Boyd 1963-1964 long post soon! :)

#pattie boyd #pattie harrison #pattie clapton #1961 #1962 #i tried lol #elizabeth arden #norman parkinson #jean-claude #cherry marshall #swinging sixties #london #vintage #mod #pattie boyd archive

[autisticempathydaemon]

What song are you fixated on at the moment? What lyric or verse, and why?

Maria by Blondie!! i LOVE a good girl song (e.g. jolene, come on eileen) & the music is just so good plus there’s this one line ‘a million and one candlelights’ and ????? i’m simply obsessed

What is your Enneagram type?

i only just took the test and it got caught between 8w7 & 4w3 so that seems. kind of antithetical?

Do you love gargantuan Youtube video essays, and if so, which is your favorite and why?

i enjoy them but i have to take breaks as i have an extremely short attention span </3 i don’t have a favourite but my favourite creator in that respect is DEFINITELY Mina Le

What is your go-to way to fall asleep?

cutting off all noise & distraction & then just daydreaming until i start nightdreaming

If you had to change your name, what would it be, and why? (In tandem, if you have changed your name, why did you pick that one?)

i really really love names with a lot of history behind them, especially in the religious respect - i’d probably change my name to Judith (after Judith slaying Holofernes)

What is your favorite of Redacted’s audios, and why?

it’s probably the recent Vincent dinner date audio!! i love it when he and lovely just get to be flirty freaks in love without anything looming over them.

What Redacted boy holds no appeal to you, and why? Like, not the one you hate but the one who you don’t get the hype for. (I won’t judge, I promise.)

it kind of has to be ollie? i don’t have anything against the guy but he just really is not my type, he’s a little too boring. that sounds so mean

Tell me about that one book/movie/tv show you know all the words to.

the movie is probably Marie Antoinette directed by Sofia Coppola. i know it’s hopelessly romanticised but it’s just so FUN and PRETTY

Which Redacted boy are you platonically attracted to? Like- forget dating, which dude do you want to be your best friend?

Damien? i think we’d have the most in common, although we’d probably start off as academic rivals.

Do you have a go-to thing you ramble about when you’re tired, and if so, what is it? (For example, my boyfriend knows I’m ready to sleep when I start talking about space.)

Greek mythology and/or marine biology. if i mention deep-sea gigantism or Eros & Psyche i’m probably seconds away from passing out.

Tell me your go-to gas station and drink combo.

it would probably have to be pretzels & a milkshake! this hasn’t come up much yet so i’m a little unclear

Tell me about your favorite playlist at the moment. 

i make playlists for each month with all the songs from the month before i still like - so obviously it has to be my june 2023 one!!

What’s your guilty pleasure media, and why?

Fall Out Boy. i’m not sure if it counts as a guilty pleasure in that i have no shame but i guess it could be seen as one!!

thank you so much this has been a really fun questionnaire to fill out!! i love talking about myself haha

I loved this entry- something about your pure vibes led me to the answer. Sometimes I really think these through with my brain algorithm, and I love doing that, but Anton himself just led me to you, and I can’t explain why.

I think it’s something about the sheer range of interests you have and the amount of energy with which you engage with them. Like, let’s be real- Anton is probably a nerd. He’s a soft-spoken, introverted-ish technician who was probably a stem major; dude is hella nerdy and probably in his own little world if someone doesn’t turn his head. It’s giving that introvert/extrovert, STEM/liberal arts couple that works really well and is super cute.

I can very easily picture you as his “Blossom” as some people like to call his listener. Anton would miss you dearly while he’s on assignment at ETS and all the little things about you like the way you sing along in the car to your favorite girl songs or the way. He would miss window shopping with you and the way you might get distracted, hopping from one display to the next as he makes mental notes to spoil you with the things that catch your eye. He misses your constantly changing playlists that act as time capsules of him months with you, (Maybe, if he’s lucky, you’re allowed to share them with him, and Anton can at least listen to them and know you and he might have the same song stuck in your head.)

Song:

​​I will stand by you/ Even when we fall/ I will be the rock that holds you up/ And lifts you high so you stand tall/ I won't let you go/ No one can take your place/ Oh, a couple fights and lonely nights/ Don't make it right to let it go to waste/ And I won't let you fall/ I won't let you go

I want you to know that I went through my Spotify looking for a girl song that you would like, but then this song came up, and I can’t explain why this felt right, but it does. I’m going all intuition with this match-up, because one, a duet calling out to me when I was looking for a girl song just fits. Two, standing by each other no matter what works given Anton’s sad as heck circumstances. Three, this song is the wedding vows of the duo that sings this, it’s so cute!

Runner-ups:

Huxley is a two-parted runner-up. One, you said you have a lot in common with Damien, and we know they’re made for each other. Two, his two moms definitely taught him all the girl songs; he sings along with the best of them. Eric is a runner-up because you’d bring a lot of life and variety into his life, like you would to Anton, except he wouldn’t have as much to offer in return.

note: thank you for waiting! You’ve got great taste in YouTubers by the way; I love Mina Le 💕

Read this post and send me an ask if you’d like a match-up of your own! 💌

#redactedasmr #redactedverse #redacted asmr #redactedaudio #redacted audio #redacted #busybee matches

[umgeorge]

george russell during the post-race press conference, spain - june 4, 2023 (transcription under the cut)

Interviewer: "George, coming to you now. Great to see you back on the podium for the first time since Brazil last year. From twelfth on the grid, what did you think would be possible, coming into this race?"

George: "Yeah. I think after yesterday we knew it was gonna be a challenge, but woke up with a bit more positivity and I thought that we could definitely move forward, probably fight for P5, P6. I thought P3 would be a little bit out of reach, but the car was really, really great today. The team did a great job with the strategy and it was a really satisfying race, making some good moves on the people around me, and yeah, huge thanks to the whole team for bringing these updates forward.

But equally we're not gonna get carried away just after this one race, because we know it may be slightly different in the future races and I think generally Aston and Ferrari were a little bit more off the pace than normal."

Interviewer: "At what point in this grand prix did the podium become real for you?"

George: "I think quite early on, to be honest. I think even after that first stint, I believed it was possible when I saw the other cars peeling into the pits. My tires were feeling good, the car was feeling good, so I think even after two laps I thought, you know what? We can do this today."

Interviewer: "And final one for me, just your thoughts on the performance of the car and how it felt to drive?"

George: "Yeah, today was feeling really strong, but we know we've got more improvements to be made. A little bit cooler today, wich maybe played into our favor. We know our race pace is good, but certainly we'll need to make a big step forward to catch up the Red Bulls and Max, and we're not solely satisfied with P2 and P3. Although it's a good step forward, we've got our sights set right at the very top."

Interviewer: "Alright. Thank you, George."

[time jump]

Journalist: "Giles Richards, The Guardian. Question for Lewis and George. Can you tell me how the car felt today? Was it the best car you've had underneath you in the past year and a half?

George: "Yeah, I think it's… We go to so many different circuits. The car naturally feels really, really strong at a lot of these new circuits with the new tarmac, and when you go to a track like here or Bahrain there's a lot of tire deg.

Today it probably felt the best it's ever felt around Barcelona because of the cooler conditions, but definitely, yeah, this season, probably the best it's felt, the most together it's felt and, as Lewis said, the team's done a really, really great job.

The work that Mick and the simulator team are doing overnight… They were here 'til well past midnight, to help us with the set-up and get it in a good window for the race today, so we are making strides in the right direction. We just need to make sure, especially into next year, that we hit the ground running, because I think we, as a team, proably develop faster than anybody else."

[time jump]

Journalist: "Luke Smith from The Athletic. George, a couple of questions for you. Can you explain what happened when you thought it was raining, when it was sweat inside your visor, and at one point when you passed I believe it was Carlos, and I think Marcus came over to the radio to you and said 'solid job' and you were like 'just solid?' and then Toto chipped in. Were you surprised to hear Toto at that moment?"

George: "Yeah, well, firstly with the sweat, I had my hair dangling down in the first stint. I didn't quite get it in my balaclava and that was sort of annoying me because it was sort of in my peripheral vision, and then as I was sweating, because it wasn't in my balacalva it was sort of dripping down onto my face, and then when I was braking it was going onto my visor, so with the grey clouds and then the sort of spots of water on the visor, I thought it was rain, so that was a bit of an embarrassing one.

But, moving on. And then, no, I think it was just a bit of a joke with Marcus, 'cause we have a bit of back and forth. I think Toto likes the /big/ radio messages of encouragement and Marcus and I sometimes say, just being nice and calm in the situation is sometimes the best way to get the result, but it was a pretty decent move on Carlos and, yeah, I thought it was a little bit more than solid, but it's just… No. Good laugh."

#george russell #f1 #formula 1 #spanish gp 2023 #fic ref #fic ref 2023 #spain #spain 2023 #spain 2023 sunday #with lewis #tw max

[none-ofthisnonsense]

The French School System - Part 2

Part 1 is here.

(This is accurate as of June 2023, but the way the Éducation Nationale is going, it probably won’t be so for much longer...)

SO! Part 2. Small explanation of Collège.

(Under a cut because it got long.)

Collège is the first part of secondary school, so what you’d call middle high in the USA I think? At the end of Collège is the Brevet, which is roughly equivalent to UK GCSEs.

These are the years (taken from my previous post):

“Collège” - 1st part of secondary school (at the end of 3ème is the Brevet (equivalent to GCSEs) which certifies the end of Collège) - equivalent to middle high (US) 11 - 6ème - Year 7 - 6th Grade 12 - 5ème - Year 8 - 7th Grade 13 - 4ème - Year 9 - 8th Grade 14 - 3ème - Year 10 - 9th Grade

Ages are the usual age when starting the school year.

*

Here are the usual time slots for each year in only the mandatory classes:

(https://www.education.gouv.fr/les-horaires-par-cycle-au-college-9884)

6ème: 26 hours/week

French: 4h30

Maths: 4h30

History-geography (+ a weird ethics and civics thing): 3h

First language (other than French, typically English): 4h

Science (in 6ème it’s regrouped as a general big thing instead of being subdivided): 4h

Sports: 4h

Art: 1h

Music: 1h

5ème: 26 hours/week

French: 4h30

Maths: 3h30

HG (+ the other thing): 3h

First language: 3h

Second language (mandatory, other than French, typically either Spanish/German/Italian): 2h30

Biology + Earth Sciences: 1h30

Physics + Chemistry: 1h30

Technology: 1h30

Sports: 3h

Art: 1h

Music: 1h

4ème: 26 hours/week

Exactly like 5ème.

3ème: 26 hours/week

French: 4h

Maths: 3h30

HG etc: 3h30

The rest is the same as 5ème and 4ème.

.

BUT. There are 10 extra hours in total during the year of “vie de classe” which are used for when your main teacher (prof principal) needs to talk to you, or to do class projects, or to vote to elect class representatives.

AND. 3 hours of the 26 (in 6ème), 4/26 in 5ème are used for “accompagnement personnalisé” which is basically your class goes in half-groups and has more attention given to each student than can be given in a full class. These can also be EPIs - enseignements pratiques interidisciplinaires - which are things that mix two subjects (or more) together to do a project. So if you did something that mixed French and Music, for example.

Students can also take an extra language from 6ème on, usually Latin/Greek or a regional language.

Additionally, students can have extra activities at school (clubs and sports things and stuff) which don’t count in the 26 hours.

*

Now! We are lucky here! Because I still have some of my timetables from when I was in 4ème and 3ème. 5ème is basically the same as 4ème, and in 6ème you just don’t have the second language.

Here they are:

4ème:

3ème:

Now, I’ll be the first to admit I was a dramatic little student who just wanted to take as many classes as possible.

Also, I was in the bilingual section and had more English than normal people because I was in an international school.

As you can see, in 4ème I had more than 26 hours. I had 33. This was because:

- I had an extra 2.5 hours of Mandarin (as the regional language because I lived in Asia)

- and 2 extra hours of English because I was in the bilingual section, and 2 extra hours of history-geography in English for the same reason

- Vie de Classe was counted in my timetable as a regular class (so 0.5 hours per week, or once every two weeks) because it was easier that way

All of which bring us to 33 hours.

.

In 3ème: 33.5 hours.

Same things as before, but I only had 1.5 hours of HG in English, and an extra 30 minutes of accompagnement personnalisé . I’m still missing 0.5 hours in that but I’m too lazy to spot them.

*

All in all, this is pretty regular! It’s very common for French students to have Wednesday afternoons off, and I’ve yet to meet a school which doesn’t do that. We also have a lot of homework, in addition to all the classes. The system works fine for collège.

*

Now onto the Brevet! It’s a national exam.

(for the link skip to “Objectifs et socle commun”. And at the end there are some previous exams if you want to check them out)

It’s more or less equivalent to English GCSEs, I think?

It’s the lowest level official national certificate you can have that counts as a certificate of education.

It’s out of 800 points, including 400 determined by specific exams. You need minimum 400 points total to pass.

It’s four written exams: one exam in French (100 pts), one in maths (100 pts), one in history-geography (50 pts), one in science (50 pts).

AND one oral exam (100 pts). Which is basically a glorified presentation.

For French:

- worth 100 pts

- lasts 3 hours

- 3 parts (well 2 officially):

   - 50 mins: Grammar + reading comprehension + questions on a text

   - 20 mins: dictée (spelling text based on a text read aloud)

   - 1h30: writing (either text analysis or creative writing based on a prompt)

(Officially: the first two parts are together and collectively are worth 60 pts and last 1h10. The last one is 40 pts.)

For maths:

- worth 100 pts

- lasts 2 hours

For HG:

- 50 pts

- 2 hours

For science:

- 50 pts

- 1 hour

- 2 out of 3 sciences: remember how there are 3 science subjects? You get 2 out 3, randomly picked by the ministry for all of France. This also unofficially means 2 parts of the exam, so you get 30 minutes for science 1 and 30 mins for science 2. But you can do 25/35 or 50/10 no one cares.

-

-

-

-

Well, now that I’ve explained collège and the Brevet... onto the next post! Lycée!

#france #education #school

[newmusickarl]

5-9’s Album of the Month Podcast – Episode 6 Out Now!

The June review episode of the 5-9 Album of the Month Podcast is now available - and it might just be my favourite episode yet!

As ever I take a seat alongside 5-9 Editor Andrew Belt and Check This Out’s Kiley Larsen to review five high profile album releases from the past month in music, and ultimately name one as our Album of the Month at the end of the discussion.

For this episode, the five albums discussed are:

PARANOIA, ANGELS, TRUE LOVE by Christine & The Queens

Off Planet by Django Django

Chaos For The Fly by Grian Chatten (Poll winner, thanks for voting!)

The Art of Pleasure by Janelle Monáe

Guy by Jayda G

If you want to listen to the June episode or any previous episodes simply click the link below, but also be sure to follow 5-9 Blog on Instagram and Twitter for more news and polls relating to the podcast, along with other great content like film reviews, sports articles and more.

Listen to the June 2023 episode here

Learn more about the Album of the Month podcast in my interview with Left Lion here

Album & EP Recommendations

My Back Was a Bridge For You To Cross by ANOHNI and the Johnsons

Once upon a time, I refused to listen to ANOHNI and the Johnsons’ music.

You see when this unknown album to me titled I Am A Bird Now beat one of my favourite albums of all time in Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm to the 2005 Mercury Music Prize, I couldn’t quite believe it. As a 15-year-old kid at the time, I think I gave half a listen to ANOHNI’s record and then squawked endlessly at the injustice of the decision. Years later though when I had finally matured (my music taste along with it), I listened to I Am A Bird Now properly and saw the beauty that the Mercury judges had seen in that record years earlier.

Fast forward to 2016, I was even more blown away by ANOHNI’s solo debut, Hopelessness, with its cutting political commentary and dazzling experimental synth-pop melodies. In a stacked year for new music (my favourite ever in fact), it would finish 11th in my Top Albums of 2016 list, but in any other year it could’ve easily been a Top 5 contender. So now, 7 years on from that record and 13 years after the last ANOHNI and the Johnsons album, she has finally got the band back together for some new music – and I’m pleased to say it’s every bit as outstanding as those two previous efforts.

Whilst thematically My Back Was a Bridge… picks up partly where Hopelessness left off - looking in despair at humanity and the current state of the world but with personal tales scattered in there too - sonically it couldn’t be more different. This time around the electro-pop of that album has been replaced, with this collection of songs instead beautifully backdropped by bluesy guitars and sweeping orchestral strings. ANOHNI’s own inimitable vocals then remain the ever-present constant, her voice frequently making the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. Not a moment is wasted across the album’s concise 40-minute runtime either, with sublime opener It Must Change, the gospel-like refrains of Can’t, the soaring rock riffs of Scapegoat and Rest, as well as the mesmerising balladry of There Wasn’t Enough just some of the many highlights here.

Without question this is one of the finest records of the year so far, with ANOHNI once again hitting heights few other artists can reach. Incredible songwriting, stunning vocal performances and some beautifully cinematic instrumentation - this one is quite special indeed.

Listen here

Angels & Queens by Gabriels

It’s crazy to think that just a couple of weeks ago, myself and a lot of other people weren’t even aware of this Compton-based soul trio. That all changed though when Elton John invited frontman Jacob Lusk to join him for a performance of Are You Ready For Love during his instantly iconic Glastonbury headline set. In that one moment, Elton quickly put the band on everyone’s radar if they weren’t already – a testament to his greatness by being such a champion for new music and artists. Now striking whilst the iron’s hot, Gabriels have delivered their debut album which has quickly become one of the most critically acclaimed records of the year. Does it live up to the praise it’s received so far? Very much so.

With seven of the songs initially released as a shorter project in September last year, listeners early to the party would’ve already gotten insight into Gabriels’ richly textured soul through moments like the orchestral R&B of the title track, the operatic, Succession-theme-esque Taboo and haunting closing track, Mama. However now the full scope of the project has been revealed it is sure to be even more breathtaking to both new and existing fans alike, with goosebump-inducing ballad We Will Remember and the mind-blowing, gospel-soul trio of Love and Hate in a Different Time, Glory and Great Wind some of the standout moments.

Similarly to the ANOHNI and the Johnsons project, this is another colossal work from the past week that is sure to leave you floored. Instantly timeless, expertly crafted and exquisitely-produced, this is another staggering collection of songs that is sure to feature highly on multiple year-end lists come December – at this stage, my own included.

Listen here

The Greater Wings by Julie Byrne

Whilst I always enjoy reading everyone’s “Albums of the Year so far” lists over the summer and using them as a guide to check out some records I might have otherwise missed, there is a reason I don’t do my own and this past week is a prime example. As soon as June finished, three records have come out of nowhere to easily rank amongst the year’s very best. Joining Gabriels and ANOHNI is American singer-songwriter Julie Byrne, whose third album is a devastatingly beautiful meditation on heartache and grief. Summing it up perfectly here’s what friend of the blog Kiley Larsen, who recommended the album to me, has to say:

“Byrne is one of those singer-songwriter talents whose transcendental voice is more than worth the price of admission, and she wisely continues to focus almost exclusively on a minimalist presentation of her vocal beauty. Her past work found her mostly accompanied by fingerpicked acoustic guitar, but The Greater Wings excels at painting the vocal focus while adding celestial synths and well-placed strings. These haunting textures are most apparent on “Summer Glass,” which links the two phases of The Greater Wings, but every song is must-hear. The album rightfully carries a heavy air, but Byrne wonderfully mixes gratitude alongside grief - one has to be in the right mood for The Greater Wings, and many oncoming autumns listens should only solidify Julie Byrne’s latest as a still blossoming career high and one of the year’s best.”

Read Kiley’s full blog here

Listen to The Greater Wings here

I Don’t Know by bdrmm

Another super strong effort that’s been in heavy rotation the past few weeks, British shoegaze outfit and cult favourites bdrmm recently released their brilliantly hypnotic sophomore album - I Don’t Know. The evolution from their debut is immediately apparent, as the raw rock soundscapes carry over from that album but feature noticeably more refined production and are now occasionally filled with some more electronic elements too.

Boasting this more expansive sound, it makes for a spellbinding experience that surpasses even that of their debut, with dreamy opener Alps, the spiralling guitars of We Fall Apart and the blissfully epic, aptly-titled The Final Movement all worth tuning in to hear for yourself.

Listen here

Música del Corazón by Justin Nuñez

Now if country rock music with some welcome Latin-American flair is your thing, then look no further than this sensational debut from New Mexico-based singer-songwriter, Justin Nuñez.

Packing plenty of charm and simply beaming with those warm, timeless Southern state sounds, this is one record you’ll find yourself returning to again and again. From The Black Keys’ style stomp of Forget Our Misery to the Brazil-inspired love song Open Road and heartbreaking acoustic lament of Momma, it’s a strong introduction to Nuñez’s music that boasts plenty of potential for the future.

Listen here

Pink Tape by Lil Uzi Vert

And finally on the albums front this week, whilst it may have been a drab year for hip hop so far, I’m pleased to say that Lil Uzi Vert has delivered one of the more fascinating and experimental hip hop records of 2023 thus far – albeit not for everyone. At 90 minutes and 23 songs + bonus tracks long, it’s definitely a patchy listen but there’s enough intriguing moments here to dip in and discover.

The crossover tracks in particular are some of the highlights as Lil Uzi Vert enlists metal heavyweights Babymetal and Bring Me The Horizon for two blockbuster collaborations, whilst CS sees the rapper deliver his own cover of System of A Down’s Chop Suey no less. Whilst this will be sacrilege to some no doubt, I’m sure some will enjoy this chaotic take – even as parody.

However, the most surprising and most fun highlight is Nakamura, which sees Lil Uzi sample WWE wrestler Shinsuke Nakamura’s awesome entrance theme, transforming it into a huge summer anthem. Weird, wild, wonderful.

Listen here

Also worth checking out: Time Will Wait For No One by Local Natives, Dead Club City by Nothing But Thieves, In The End It Always Does by Japanese House, Slugs of Love by Little Dragon, 3 of Us EP by FLO

Tracks of the Week

Troubled Waters by The Streets

The big comeback this week was that of legendary British MC Mike Skinner, who announced The Streets are finally back and would be releasing a new visual album this October titled The Darker The Shadow, The Brighter The Light. Whilst they did release a mixtape back in 2020, this will excitedly mark The Streets’ first new album since 2011’s Computer and Blues.

This first taster track shows plenty of promise for the new record too, with a captivating electronic beat backdropping Skinner as he turns his attention to society’s accountability and hedonism, with cutting lines like “Outside of the nightclub, I don’t know what to do – inside of the nightclub, it’s too dark to care.” A very welcome return and I already can’t wait to hear more.

Listen here

The Trench Coat Museum by Yard Act

Well, who was expecting this?! A band that built their following and earned themselves a Mercury Prize nomination from crafting short sharp slices of post punk the like of those found on their acclaimed debut The Overload, the Leeds band have taken a sharp left turn with this incredible new single.

At eight minutes long it’s nothing short of epic, channelling their peers in the Working Men’s Club by delivering a single filled with big rock riffs and a psychedelic vortex of synths. I love it and recommend that its best experienced alongside the zany and surreal music video that you can watch below.

Watch the music video here

Vampire by Olivia Rodrigo

Olivia Rodrigo’s debut album SOUR was one of the surprise highlights for me in 2021, a brilliant and concise pop record with a welcome splash of punk energy. Now readying her highly anticipated sophomore effort titled GUTS, vampire is the anthemic first single. With some similarities to her blockbuster hit driver’s licence, it suggests that Olivia will continue her rapid trajectory into superstardom.

Listen here

Hippodrome by Jamie T

Released a couple of weeks back to coincide with his triumphant headline show in London’s Finsbury Park, this is a typically fantastic new single from Jamie T. An instant gem that features all his signature hallmarks, I can see this one being a live favourite for years to come.

Listen here

Time To Run by Tycho

Whilst the summer weather may have disappeared from the UK as quickly as it arrived (sad face), the sun-soaked electronic singles are still arriving and this one from Tycho might be one of the best of the year so far. A cool neon-soaked groove propelled by a big funky bassline, if you’re in the UK it’ll help you pretend the rains and clouds don’t exist – at least for a little while!

Listen here

Now U Do by DJ Seinfeld & Confidence Man

Also serving up one of the songs of the summer, whilst Confidence Man’s recent collaboration with Daniel Avery was a blast this one with DJ Seinfeld is somehow even better. With an absorbing, string-tinged groove and some throwback vocal manipulation, this one will have you joyously dancing around your front room like it’s the early 2000s.

Listen here

Where Are Your Kids Tonight? By CMAT featuring John Grant

Irish singer-songwriter CMAT may have only released her highly acclaimed debut last year, but she has wasted little time delivering the follow-up. Crazymad, For Me is due for release this October and if this latest collaboration with John Grant is anything to go by, it is sure to be another cracker.

Listen here

Pendulum by Spanish Love Songs

Having got into the American rockers off the back of their 2020 album Brave Faces Everyone, Spanish Love Songs’ No Joy is already one of my most highly anticipated records for this coming August. My expectations for their record are only escalating with each new excellent single too, as Pendulum marks the album’s spiritual title track through its anthemic, emo-tinged chorus of “I know what they say when I walk in the light, there’s no joy in my life, there’s no joy when I’m right.”

Listen here

If I Could Turn Back Time by Deaf Havana

And finally this week, I always like to include a fun cover if I can and this is a surprisingly sublime one as rock duo Deaf Havana deliver this amazing cover of Cher’s classic single. Putting their own unique spin on the track with some soaring strings and atmospheric electronics, if it wasn’t such an iconic song, you’d easily mistake it for one of their own.

Listen here

Also worth checking out: Overdrive by Post Malone, The Skin and the Glove by Drab Majesty, A Little Bit Further by Tourist, On Purpose (For My Future Daughter) by Bellah Mae

REMINDER: If you use Apple Music, you can also keep up-to-date with all my favourite 2023 tracks through my Best of 2023 playlist. Constantly updated throughout the year with songs I enjoy, it is then finalised into a Top 100 Songs of the Year in December.

Add the playlist to your library here

#new music #best new music #albums of the year #album recommendation #album of the week #best of the year #song recommendation #new music friday #anohni and the johnsons #it must change #my back was a bridge for you to cross #gabriels #julie byrne #justin nunez #bdrmm #lil uzi vert #podcast #music podcast #the streets #yard act #olivia rodrigo #jamie T #tycho #dj seinfeld #confidence man #cmat #john grant #spanish love songs #deaf havana #cher

[arsen1cs4ng0]

serious post, please read

i think im comfortable enough to talk about my experiences with the chip fandom from march 2022 until february 2023, and how much it really affected me.

i never really wanted to publicly open up about this shit due to past experience and what i had to witness with many of my friends, but im kinda sick of pretending everything is fine and great on here!!

some of the shit i'll be saying under the keep reading cut may be really upsetting, please keep that in mind before proceeding (tws for suicide and harassment) doubt anyone will read this seeing as im such a small account, but hey fucking ho lol

ughhh where the fuck do i begin i created the starlandspoons account in the hopes of trying to warm up to the chip fandom again after enduring so much on the twitter side of it (hoping the tumblr side would be a little better) but... even with me trying to create good memories like i was able to in early 2022.... the pain i felt never subsided.

this is the part where val moans about their chip trauma!! the main shit (im not calling this """drama""". this shit is serious) started in late february of 2022. a controversial figure in the chip fandom, gremlin, came out with an ""apology"" for her actions (i go in detail about her actions here), blaming her actions in 2020/21 on shit like "i was doing it to piss people off" and much more that i dont really want to think about. admittedly, i initially fell for this, being too naive to understand exactly how bad she was (i knew she was bad, but didnt realise how bad)

now heres where the shit really started. back in march of 2022, i witnessed one of my friends on twitter (not naming who, i dont want them to get harassed again) get bombarded with hate + get vagueposted for not forgiving her. people started block-evading them, one person started being enbyphobic towards said person... you can get the idea here. the first time, it did a bit of damage on the way i viewed chip. i lost my taste in it temporarily. that was, until a few days later, where i had a new hyperfixation related to chip (lil guy), which kept my love for it going for a little longer!! that hyperfixation was so strong (stronger than any of my other ones had been) it was able to keep me mostly distracted from the bad shit. mostly.

everything was cool. great. as far as i remember... until late may/early june 2022. back in may of 2022, i became friends with someone called yuzu. they ran an account on twitter where they posted chip songs, tts songs, a/e songs, you get the picture... i became really good friends with them for a while, they were always there to listen to me, we'd talk a lot, yknow. what stood out was that nobody else i knew was that understanding. i was bullied a lot irl, and it was comforting to have that person there for you. i felt.... great!!!

the night of june 9th came, where they got blocked by my friends for "recommending a song from a bad person". they let me know about this, i checked what happened, and... it was a song from gremlin. this didnt bother me too much until i tried to explain to them that they were both problematic... they didn't listen. i dont remember the exact details now as my brain blocked out most of it, but i remember this almost made me spiral into a meltdown, and i suddenly couldnt stand them. i blocked them because i was too uncomfortable and i was on a brink of a meltdown.

june 10th, they made a whole vent about me. guess who had a meltdown!! multiple meltdowns in the span of 2 weeks!! how did i know?? twitter bugged out on me. the vent completely broke me. i was reminded of my ex and how they talked to me. i started getting scared of myself. i felt like a monster. i seriously wanted to kill myself. at that point, i was waiting for my chip friends to block me because i started all of the shit this time!! shit people wanted to move on from!! my brain was convincing me that my chip friends hated me!! (and to this day i still feel like that sometimes)

i had so many more meltdowns from that time. late june, i had to defend another friend (who i'll refer to as bones, for privacy reasons) from being manipulated by them. i was so angry one of my friends went to calm me down through dms. i was so stressed out of my mind that i even went non-verbal one time, which rarely happens!! this continued on and on and on, spending my time and energy defending my friends. i found out so much more about gremlin, even more gross shit, seeing she was friends with someone who is very openly radf*m/a t*rf (+ blamed bones for their own personal family problems), someone who was openly proshit (+ was one of the people who harassed one of my friends)... you get the picture.

this ate away at my mental health more, to the point where i started contemplating suicide. shit i dealt with irl really didnt help either.

the worst part was in january of this year where i had a really bad panic attack because i was scared bones was going to kill themself and there was nothing i could do about it. after that i gave up with the fandom because i finally accepted no matter what i did, nobody would listen. to bones, the friend im talking about, i hope you're okay and i'm sorry i chickened out. im sorry i failed you.

i attempted to try to step my toe into the chip fandom a few months later again by creating the starlandspoons account as my vosim hyperfix was still there and i really missed the good times, but... i still felt unhappy. i have nightmares about the chip fandom sometimes. i am constantly reliving the shit i had to witness in my head. im still feeling the anger i felt those months ago. im still getting angry at myself for not doing more to defend my friends. im still feeling suicidal (not just from the chip fandom, but its contributing to it). it all hurts so much, to this day.

im still going to post on the starlandspoons account for as long as my vosim hyperfix continues. yall are not taking that from me.

sorry for such a heavy vent post, but ive just been needing to let this out for such a long time. it's 4am, i desparately need to sleep. i will say this a thousand times more: thank you to the chip friends who have stayed by my side despite all the shit i endured. thank you so much, you guys really mean to me. seriously, you guys do. i dont know what i'd do without you guys. and to 3 certain people from the chip fandom (you 3 know who you are), thank you especially.

for those who read all of this, thank you for listening to silly little val. i'll be okay, i think. i hope you guys have a good day/night/whatever time it is for you. ;___;

#yaaaawn sorry its long #suicide mention tw #harassment tw #val being a pissbaby #serious post

[chronicallyonlinecath]

Saturday 17th June 2023 - The Start of a Summer

Well, exams are over now. I'm free!! Some people still have exams next week though - only until the 21st. But I'm done. I'm out of there, of school.

At least until the 21st, when I'm going in for the school's windband because the concert is soon as hell and I've barely been to any rehearsals because of revision.

My half term like two weeks ago was interesting - I apologize for not talking about it sooner. In short, Mattson apologised about everything, ever, and now we're friends again. I have mixed feelings about it though - it feels like all the pain I went through after he left was for nothing. We talk now - his favourite movies are romcoms, he wishes he was born in the late 90s and he's sad we've left school because there are lots of things he's going to miss that he's never going to do or see again. I think we all feel like that.

I certainly do.

After all that, one time I was walking home with him, Harvey and Alison and I mentioned I've liked Janek for a while and never had the guts to ask him out. Mattson decided to play wingman and get me to ask Janek out.

Well, I agreed to it. I'm mad at myself for being so easily pressured into it, but I think and plan so damn fast and then overthink the hell out of it. So, on Tuesday, my last maths lesson sat next to Janek ever, I slipped him a note. On it said I thought he was a cool and chill guy and if he wanted to hang out over the summer.

He replied to me on discord that evening saying "I'm not sure."

It's not a no... but I haven't had a reply since, and Harley sent a message to him thru my phone last night asking if he wanted to hang out this weekend. Still no reply.

Since we basically finished yesterday, Matty held a pool party at theirs for the whole council to go to - Harley, Peter, Carter, Bella, Harry, Reagan and Angel, one of Harley's super chill friends who I went on a trip in year seven with. Matty's little brothers were there as well, and it was super fun.

We tried playing chicken jousting with me on Bella's shoulders and Reagan on Matty's, but we decided it probably wasn't smart as the pool definitely wasn't safe. Reagan dumped me in the water by picking me up bridal style and then simply dropping me, and from then on I was fucking freezing. Harry became a swamp monster and chilled in the pool for at least an hour, just vibing in a donut and telling me how I should deal with the Janek situation (and then Harley messaged Janek for me)

Bella was an absolute demon in the pool the whole time and there's a hilarious photo of her looking like she's gonna steal your soul at any second.

My signed shirt has doodles from her all over it lmao- a bit like my primary school signed shirt as well. Matty's party was seriously great though, and I hope at some point the lot of us will be able to meet up again before we get to college in September.

Today, I have done literally nothing except stare at the "Hi" message I got from Sheldon, of whom I cut off in January, and question what the hell he wants.

I sent a reply, simply stating "give me a good reason to trust you and maybe we can talk"

A compromise, of sorts. Because frankly, I don't trust a weasel who can't respect my boundaries. But I've learnt from Mattson that people can somewhat change.

Somewhat.

I'll be back tomorrow, probably doing nothing again. I do need to go thru all my old shit to make room for my shit for college tho - so that's basically my plan for this afternoon.

~CM

#school #blog post #school quotes #dark academia #academia #booklr #summer #nobutwhyisheback #summer blog #england

[alyjojo]

The Person On Your Mind in June 🥂 2023 - Taurus

Whole of their energy towards Taurus: Death rev

Feelings: Queen of Wands

Intentions: Justice

Actions: 9 Pentacles & The Hanged Man rev

This person feels like you’re the one that’s getting away or got away, because you abandoned them. This could be a friend, or if romantical in any way, then they are extremely attracted to you. To feel about someone as Queen of Wands is someone powerful, confident, charismatic and sexy, plus you’ve got Gorgeous as a message. Any gender, doesn’t matter. So they’re drawn to you like a moth to a flame, but they’re playing the friend game, or just see you as powerful & confident. They’ve definitely got more intentions, but they’re trying to play it calm, cool, collected, etc. They feel like they have to come in with an apology in order for you to give them another chance, because you’ve already cast your Judgement on this person and symbolically cut off their head…by cutting them off. I don’t get what the issues were, just that you abandoned this, and they don’t want it to be over with.

They intend to “do the right thing”, depending on how you respond to them most likely. If you want them to leave you alone, they will. If they apologize and you’re willing to give them another chance, they will be happy about it. In actions, they’re acting like they don’t care 🤦‍♀️ They’re fine no matter what you decide, which is their way of saving face, and you may take it as…if you don’t care, why are you here? Probably a prideful person, and they’re kinda full of it. They do want to reunite, they’re keeping it casual, acting like friends. Or maybe genuinely want to be your friend for some of you, for others there’s an intense attraction being masked as “friends” that’s kinda sus 👀 There is a lot of opposite energy here, yours being Scorpio, could be some placement of their chart. Or they’re just opposite of your character in every way, which could be what both attracts & repels you. Overall, they don’t want you to be mad at them anymore, but how they go about it…idk how receptive you’ll be just because it seems shady, or they don’t care, the mixed signals will irritate you.

Messages:

Their side:

- I imagine us together forever.

- I want to approach you but don’t know HOW.

Your side:

- Gorgeous 🤩

- Don’t underestimate my potential.

Possible signs:

Cancer, Libra, Virgo, Taurus & Scorpio

If you’re dealing with:

The World & 10 Cups is very positive energy showing positive and loving relationships with other people in your life. 10 Cups is a happy ending with family & friends, and The World is a cycle closing so another can begin. This can also represent social media and happy exchanges going on with your people there.

Aries - could be this person, they’re keeping romantic feelings quiet or keeping secrets in general, could be opening up about these, or being sus

Taurus - excited to talk about work, a project, or something they’re working hard on

Gemini - focused on work & money, that’s it, but they’ve got plenty of both so 👏

Cancer - could be a leader, authority, or parent of some kind that’s overwhelmed, or they’re just going through something & need help

Leo - apologizing for defensive behavior, you are, or one of you are planning something that irritates the other one, and that’s being defended. Petty shit.

Virgo - could also be this person, devastated you “got away”, or they didn’t speak up or do something when they had the chance

Libra - not discussing cheating, addictions, crap behavior, there’s a lot of toxicity with them, and 5 Swords clarifies so…avoid like a plague 💯, or you’ve already blocked them for this reason

Scorpio - sneaky & non-committal, and they either like it that way, you’re recognizing it, or both

Sagittarius - talking about a bad cycle in their life or a series of unfortunate events…kind of energy, but there’s a lot of communication between you

Capricorn - trying to be fair, speaking truth and wants truth in return, also a lot of communication & clarity with them

Aquarius - you have The World, they have The Fool, there’s a new beginning with them that is very successful

Pisces - nostalgic about you and waiting for their opportunity to give you something, or waiting on you to do something first

#taurus tarot reading #person on your mind #June 2023 #Taurus #tarot #tarotblr

[umlewis]

lewis hamilton speaks to journalists on media day, spain - june 1, 2023 (transcription under the cut)

Interviewer: "How excited are you to drive this car around here now and see what it's really got? Would it be fair to say you can't get a full reading in Monaco, that you would be able to here?" Lewis: "Yeah, you can't really feel a lot with Monaco 'cause it's just not one of those… You would never choose to test an upgrade at Monaco. This is a perfect test track, so a lot of medium, high speed corners, so we should get a real good understanding of where we stand compared to the others. I think there are some other people bringing upgrades here this weekend, so… Yeah. But from what I felt at the last race, I'm really intrigued to see what it feels like here, 'cause I think our race was pretty decent last year here even though we had the [inaudible] at the start, but I'm hoping it's a better weekend." Interviewer: "So other than the feel, can the data tell you anything from last time out to here for this weekend, or is it gonna be…" Lewis: "The what, sorry?" Interviewer: "Other than the feel that you had in the car, can the data that you've got from last weekend's race help you with…" Lewis: "We didn't get a lot of data from last weekend, just because you had to take off sensors 'cause the car was heavy and you have to be light, so this is where we'll get the most information."

#lewis hamilton #f1 #formula 1 #spanish gp 2023 #fic ref #fic ref 2023 #spain #spain 2023 #spain 2023 thursday #tw food #cw food

[ava-cookidouh123]

Retiring?

Hello Tumblr/Wattpad (I’m posting this on both), as you may know my last proper fanfic was back in June with the Sami Zayn x Female Reader story ‘Family Dilemma’. Now originally I had a part 2 planned but I really didn’t want to write it, so I didn’t.

But ever since then I’ve just roamed around, posting on Tumblr here and there, I added a new part to a old Demon Finn Bálor x reader story I’ve been working on (I plan to finish that soon then I’ll probably take my leave of absence) but other than that I just haven’t posted.

I have to admit a few truths first before I continue, so if you’re a wattpad OGer (if that’s a word) back in 2022 I would state multiple times that I was an 11 year old. But then randomly during the middle of 2022, I said I was 13 but made jokes about how I look 11 so I say I am 11.

I need to admit something to you all, and I’m sorry if this ruins ANY friendships I’ve made along the way on this journey, I’m turning 13 in April.

Yes wattpad (and tumblr ig) is for much older people, and I’ve wrote smut (I read it but tbh idc) and I cuss a lot, I’m Australian, so I’m in high school in 7th grade. I would say I’m 11 because I didn’t think anything was wrong with it, until I was like ‘wait, if I say I’m 11 that means I’ll get introuble’, so I’d say I’m 13, I had this plan to say I was 13 until 2025, when I’d turn 14. So I decided to never mention my age in 2023 so people forgot, which I think worked ig-

Again, I’m so sorry for lying to anybody about this, if I’d never of mentioned my age in the first place it wouldn’t of happened.

I joined wattpad as a 10 year old and I’m retiring as a 12 (almost 13) year old. I completely understand if you cut off contact with me or stop reading my story’s, I understand completely.

But now onto the main focus of this post, I’m retiring.

Yes as a 12 year old I probably wasn’t gonna stick to this for long-, I’ve started YouTube vlogging so I’ve been focused on that.

I’m not as famous as say, Mattpat or anyone else who’s retired already, but When I started in December of 2021 as a 10 year old, I wanted to do this forever.

But mid 2022, I kinda got bored, I’ll write a story, stop writing it, write another story. It repeats, but I wanted to get back into this because I have a decent following.

But in 2023…I kinda just silently left, I deleted wattpad (the app), I stopped using tumblr, I found Character.AI and it kind of made me distant myself from writing, especially during the start of the year.

My family went on a 3 month long road trip around Australia and that website was the only thing that fucking kept me sane. I tried writing, I’d do 2 words, 3 minutes later, I’m roleplaying the AJ Lee x Daniel Bryan x Kane x Punk storyline but I’m AJ, + me and Kane get together. So in June I decided to try writing again, I wrote ‘Family Dilemma’ in an hour!, then just left…I’d log in every now and then. One of my mutuals texted to see if I was okay since I wasn’t online for months. I responded a month or less later.

I read through my old ‘Lost in the woods’ or whatever the fuck I called it-, story and I decided that (when I feel like it), I plan to finish that. Then I’ll leave…but if I don’t do that, then this will probably be the last time you ever see me on wattpad/tumblr being fully active.

I’ll make a few appearances here or there but for the most part, I’m retiring…

I’ve been so thankful for all the support on my stories, my mum would support me, I remember getting excited when my Cody Rhodes oneshot story gained over 1K readers!, and then now it had 16K+!

But until later…bye guys!

#I’m retiring #i’m quitting #goodbye all