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kazamastar · 3 years

Text

Welcome to 2021

Ver. 2.1 - Ok. February but still, here we are. “Behold it’s me” as Logic would say. [...] I’m sorry I’m a bit shook because I started to write at 10:01AM, and it’s precisely 12:07AM, I was progressing pretty well in the process of writting and then I made a bad move and lost everything I wrote. I’m kinda mad. Really, I was this 👌 close to give up on writting it, and you can notice that the pixels are touching. But I guess the “I said I’d do it, so I’m going to do it” mentality is taking me places, once again. Even if I have to start again (that's called mental strength, take notes). And I said I’d write it baked so here I am, baked and hella motivated to do it. So, W shouldn’t help me reminding me what I wrote in the first version but nevermind. So I guess I'll put the most things I remember. I can tell there were good ideas ! I'll take this occasion to remind everyone the concept of these posts but first we will recap numbers of this year (well, more or less accurate for 2020 as I'm writting one month late) (and I'll fucking stop writting on the tumblr site and switch to OpenOffice so my next words are not lost again). 637 Nakamas (thank y'all for being here, even if I post 12847 times in a row. You're the best). 3609 posts and 23 376 likes. (109 drafts : lol it's less than a few weeks ago)

Pic : Plot twist 2. No more smile, but the return of the bowtie. (aka « The 4 days late suit » aka « I'm old enough to know better »)

The choice of this picture was so simple. Or maybe I should have chosen the one with the mustache only I took during lockdown ? Ahah. But … this picture could almost resume the year on its own. If I'd describe it in depth and explain the context, I could review 70% of the events that happened this year (and I think I'll go for that later, interesting exercise).

So. First let me explain the goal of these sums up. Each « Welcome to XXXX » is a resume, a sum up of the year XXXX-1. I write these for me, it's a funny way to keep track of all these years. I try to describe more or less precisely what happened during the year. I allow myself to be more or less precise because I firstly write these for me. And sometimes these posts tend to be long. Especially this one. It's gonna be sooo long. Like, idk maybe highlight this line and take a few seconds to scroll down and see how looooong it is. Kinda discouraging isn't it ? Lucky you it won't go on forever though as today, as I'm writting that it's 12:23PM and I'll have to be gone at 4 or 5PM. But I think contraints make art, even if I don't like to write under any kind of pressure. But I'm determined to do it in one take. So in these posts I also write about the TV Shows, manga, anime, movies I've seen/read. Even books, as I finally had the chance to read « Le Petit Prince » this year. We all know we had time this year, don't we ? And at the end, I post a 12 songs playlist (+ songs that I discovered this year that also are going to remind me of the year). We can roughly say it's « 1 song/1 month » but it's not always true. These songs are songs I like a lot, like really (but not necessarily my favorite) but above all, they remind me of the year I'm resuming (it can also be older songs). I also post my top 3 albums of the year. I'm thinking also of detailing my choices of playlist. Maybe not explaining all of them but a few. [12:36PM. And I'm already hungry.] On the 1st try I remember I talked about the TV shows I saw. I forgot to mention it but I write in English for a few reasons. First is : it helps me exercising my English. For me, it's the most beautiful langage to talk and it's a good occasion to do so. And then I actually enjoy writting in English. And it prevents unwanted people who don't master English to read all that (as it is pretty intimate). But joke's on me, I'm conscious the people I'd like to keep away from reading this all master English, and even better than me for some of them. (It surely is the case for 27 at least, even though we all know she still won't read this lol). Yes, I never drop names in these sum ups. Or at least, some names are blacklisted. I always chose a number to nominate them they would normally recognize themselves. So, talking about English, I've seen « Emily in Paris » on Netflix. It may surprize you but I'm very interested in dubbing. French dubbing is amazing. For example I bought « Spiderman » on PS4 this year and the french voice is the same voice actor as in the « Amazing Spider-Man » (yes the one with Andrew Garfield). (UNPOPULAR OPINION : Andrew Garfield actually is the best spiderman. Or at least the one I prefer and by far). Emily in Paris is funny because I watched it in English and it kinda disturbed me that it took place in Paris but everybody spoke English. On the other hand, if you watch it in French, langages people are talking become logical (French people speak french) but you'll have to deal with the DEADLY ANNOYING French voice of Emily. And her accent. I think I just watched 1 or 2 episodes like that, I couldn't take more ?. If you have time you should take 5 seconds to listen to what I'm talking about. But it was quite a good show. It was so fun to see these streets I've been visiting for so long in a Netflix show. By the way, I think it's easy to say that I'm missing Paris so much. But not only for the tourism, but most and foremost for the competitions. Before being a tourist I was a competitor there. So, I'm missing Paris but I'm also missing karate competitions. And also just karate. I haven't stepped on a tatami for 3 weeks and it still seems like it won't get better, and we all know why. I'm curious if I could talk about this year without mentioning a very famous virus but I think it's just impossible. But this virus gave me a lot of time in March and April. Maybe less in November tho. I could finally finish The Walking Dead, which last seasons were surprisingly good. And it was so fun to watch the reactions of people on Youtube [#]. Talking about karate competitions, I also watched Cobra Kai ! What an amazing job they did there. Adding more depth to the first movie, it's funny to change perspective and see that the Daniel we were rooting for wasn't that much of a « perfect good guy » we saw (I'm not talking about the kick in the face etc). It's also funny to notice I kinda went fro Daniel to Johnny lol. But having a Netflix show talking about martial arts and value they teach to their students ? It was perfect, even more when you see that some of my students also saw it so when we were training I was refering to it they almost all got it. And it's also funny to see that it's not as Manichean as the 1st movie was. It's a 9/10 for me. If I read the last sum up right, I said : « This year 2020 I really need to watch Kimetsu no yaiba, Jojo, Violet evergarden, Gintama and i have to keep ready 7 deadly sins. » So : Kimetsu no Yaiba was dope. The anime was beautiful and the manga was very entertaining. Not a top tier manga but definitively a good one. Jojo's anime was cool but too long. I stopped after season 2 or 3 I guess ? Violet Evergarden was TRASH (and very bad for a date, if you ask me) and I didn't take time to explore the 2 others. I also saw : Assassination classroom (5/10, i couldn't finish it so i skipped directly to the last episode, was as moving as people said), Validé (8/10, with an insane final episode), No Game No Life (8,5/10, i loved it), Freaks and Geeks (7,5 but i didn't finish it, I really like the old school vibe), Code geass (7/10, great anime and great opening). I finally discovered Community and it was worth it. What a funny show. And what a pleasure to see Mr Donald Glover on screen. Makes me think that I need to watch Atlanta again. The problem with Community is the last seasons broke the 4th wall too much for me, it became painful to watch. But the 3 or 4 seasons are crazy. Another show that was even more funny : IT Crowd. I finally had the chance to see the episode of « I came here to drink milk and kick ass, and I just finished my milk ». This show is a 9,25/10. Grand Army was also a great show of 2020. Dom is an amazing character (but I already said it). Kengan Ashura was also so cool ! I think it's what Baki would have liked to become. This year I also started to watch « American horror Story » again (alone and not alone). These last seasons were awesome. I also converted Elodi to «my hero academia », it was so cool to share that. Other things I saw : SAO S4 (AMAZING, SO BEAUTIFUL), Erased, SNK Last season) ; The Mandalorian, 24's 9th season.« Queen's gambit » have been one of the greatest show I've seen this year. And I really want to say that I played chess before the show came out (add me on Lichess if you want to play with me. Same username. I'm not strong -about 1000 ELO I guess- but I'm always happy to play and learn). If you want a precise idea of my level, on the chess.com app, I can beat Emir 🇹🇷 (1000 ELO) often but I didn't win once against Sven 🇸🇰 (who is ~1100 ELO). I'm so happy talking about all these lengthen the post even more. Kinda satisfying. But I could also talk about Tekken and chess this year. I think I have a thing with dueling sports. I'm a Karate competitor, I love Tekken and I like chess. I guess someone has something to prove haha. But come on, chess is incredible. For the 1st lockdown, I was just playing (not alone) but I wanted to make progress just by practicing. And that's how I got BB 5 or 7 (yes, it means Beat By = my number of loss in a row). But at the end of the 2nd lockdown I finally allowed myself to study a little more, thanks to Youtube (once again). This is SO INTERESTING. Like the strategies, the top players. French content creators are fun but I like american ones more. Eric Rosen is my favourite. He's always calm, he often finds solutions. GothamChess is also very entertaining. You can say by how he talks he has been a teacher. He's great. So, once again on some shonen shit, I started studying more. Mid December, a kid beat me 2 times in a row. He's a smart kid, I like him. He didn't brag or anything. And then, during Christmas Holidays I spent 2 or 3 hours a day watching chess videos. I guess he hasn't been able to beat me since then haha. By the way I should play with him later on today. Playing chess is a way for me to make sure my brain doesn't let me down, like gym for the brain. At least, it's what I thought when I started but I quickly discovered that it's a game of patterns recognizing, so memory is really challenged here. I mean, in the middlegame you have to be smart to get by but at the beginning and ending … you have to know your openings. I have also thought of joining a club but I don't know if chess communities are benevolent. I also noticed that high ranked players seem to have strong personalities. And then for Tekken (yes, 3 years and a half later I'm still on this game) I'm still making progress. In March, someone made me want to play Heihachi. What a funny character. Not top tier, but fun. Leroy Smith is also fun to play. There was no offline tournament but I won one, the 1st organized by Tekken Toulouse and finished 5th at the second. It's funny to live that level of stress straight from my bed. Usually, that kind of stress making my whole body trembling is usually found nearby tatamis of Karate competitons. (Yes, these Tekken tournaments make me stressful and that's the reason I can't play Jin in tournaments). But Eddy is still a sure value. Still progressing in movement, and whiff punishing. Mishimas are getting more consistent on electrics but it's not perfect. By the way, if you love fighting games and Bruce Lee, there's a video you need to see (whoever you are) : [#]. If you're really interested in these topics, you should appreciate this video as much as I did [2:10 PM. I have eaten, but now I have the feeling that I'm late.] Btw I don't skip line to add some « length » effect. Once again I'm sorry if making it until here was painful to read, but I need to make this paragraph the least attractive I can. This line I'm writting is almost on the 3rd page of OpenOffice. And I try to avoid using emojis, so there's just text. Tout dans le fond, pas de forme. Also, congratulations for making it until here, you must be very motivated. I'm writting slowly because it's the 1st time I write this by daytime, and I swear at the begining people were harassing me ahah. It's fun because the sum up of 2019 was so short. Just with its form, you can tell how 2019 have been peaceful. I don't remember if I talked about it already but a disaster could have happened in September/October 2019. But karate kept my mind busy so the worst have been avoided. Time spent on the tatamis kept me away from overthinking about my problems. And that was a good strategy indeed. Because in 2020 it wasn't the same. If we count right. Dojos were opened in January, February, 1st half of march, reopened in September and october, closed on november and opened in December (Mon Dieu quel … CASSE-TEX hahaha merci c'est tout pour moi). It was a weird karate year. Today is the 1 year anniversary of my last competition. During the 1st lockdown, I had litteraly no desire to train. Some of you know why. But let's talk a bit more about COVID and lockdowns. The most important thing is that I didn't spent the 1st lonely. This was the most challenging time of my life, but I can say that I made it thanks to 0808 so I'm eternally grateful for that. So, if we recap months by months : January was a funny month. One thing that I thought a miracle happened (until I found out months later what a real miracle was). I also almost went into a brawl. I guess this weird ass month set the tone for the 11 months to follow. February … was one of the calmest month. I had an awesome dojo session in Balma with 0808 in February. I think there were a lot of beautiful sunsets this month. Guess our weather power was at its peak. These 3 1st months of 2020 had a lot of trainings, even if I was injured due to kumite. March and April are kinda the same for me. I won't talking long about these but I'd simply say that I'm glad that I hadn't to write to 27. So, the Miracle happened by mid April. Mid april to mid may, it was cool. We were at home but … the weather was nice, I was doing sport everyday (but no real karate trainings) and I could keep this rythm of exercising until … Half July, which is good. It's the first time in my life I'm that consistent in doing sports at home. From mid may, I started to train with Coach O. on a weekly basis. It was incredible. These days were still bliss in my mind. I was there, no « real problems » in mind, I wasn't alone, I was making progress physically … It was really great. And from mi may to end of July, it kept getting better.Indeed, I fell in love again in January and it was getting stronger by the months. It's been a while I haven't fell this hard for someone. But she gave it back to me nicely. And then … Mala suerte 3.0. This point of the sum up is funny because I do remember when I talked about mala suerte in the other sum ups. I do realize how it's always the same thing when I write those : « 1st part of the year is cool, then not cool, then cool again but in a weird way because I have insane difficulties to repair broken parts of me » but hey. This time it's not my fault. It makes me realize how cyclic all this is. So, August, September and October have been terrible and chaotic months. A level of sadness rarely reached until there. Maybe comparable to September 2018. A high level of anger also. But still, with rare occasions to train, so no occasions to let go off steam. In fact, let's talk a bit about this anger. I've always took a lot of pride in the fact that I could most of the time remain calm in a lot of situations. Plus, being patient isn't something natural but … I learned to be through the years. I was so surprised to notice how angry I became … It simply wasn't me. But the reason is simple : I really think karate brings me balance in life, on a lot of levels (and it concerns me a lot for when I'll stop competing one day …). But I realized it so I'm working on it. In 2020, I led a lot of fights, sometimes I won and often I lost, but I also avoided a lot of them. One of the reasons I think I'm not ready to be a good partner is first I think I'm too angry. I don't think I could be mean to my partner but … I think I could be annoying to deal with. But mainly, I'm not ready to better myself now. To find the good partner, you need to become a good partner first, and this is precisely what I'm not ready to become. Despite being not perfect, I'm fine that way and I know how far from perfect I'm right now. But nevermind. This is the kind of state of mind you can't afford when you're in a relationship. I'm not saying you need to change to fit your partner's ideals. But if you notice something's wrong in your behaviour/habits and don't want to correct it, you might be a bad partner (but I could be wrong, I'm not a couple therapist lol).

Oh. And that's the moment I can describe my photo to tell the story differently. So this shot was taken precisely on Sunday, 4th of October. 1302 got confirmed so we had to go to the Temple du Salin. I went there with my father and he decided to rock a bowtie so I wanted to match him. It was so fun. That was the first time we stepped in a church after « all these events ». It was a strong moment for me. So, this picture (taken by me, thank you tripod) was taken 4 days after I « took a gamble ». I took a lot of gambles this year. One memorable gamble that lead to beautiful pictures of Toulouse was on August 27th (lol). This was after our breakup. I gave her an adress and an hour, and I hopped she would come. She never came so this was a lost gamble. (So I had a great time watching « Back to the future » outdoors, on a big movie screen, but I was alone). But this time was different. I did suppose she would be at one place on a certain day at the end of September. And I gambled right because she was there. And even if the context was so particular, I can tell we had a great time. I was so ready that I put on my best white shirt, because I knew she kinda liked it. I was there to win her back but I simply failed. Guess the shirt wasn't enough. So it was funny to wear the full suit 4 days later, I was like « Dude, nice effort but it's too late lol» (plus the Temple du Salin is on the other side of the closest bridge from her home) but I still hopped to cross her road on that day. Oh and as we're analyzing this picture, I really like the bokeh on the autmun-colored leaves. I had the luck to have a very sweet light when I took these pictures. And the post processing was really funny. I have a lot of versions of this picture indeed. But all these colors in the background always make me think of a quote I love : « Autumn shows us how beautiful it is to let things go » and this quote is so damn right. I discovered this year that I have difficulties to let things go. The thing is I hate injustice. I hate to see things that litteraly belong to me, things I deserve, simply run away from me. Sometimes I'm telling myself it's just my karma making me pay for all the شيطان I've done in the past. But other times I just try to convince myself to let go. It's been the 2nd most challenging thing this year. These levels of depression have never been reached before. But still, here I am. But not stronger than before. I had this conversation a few weeks ago about « what doesn't kill you makes you stronger ». To support this idea, some people might evoke the principle of « Kintsugi » as an example. But I strongly disagree about the first statement. I'm not a goddamn bowl. I take the example of my lower belly scar : it didn't kill me but it didn't get stronger either. That's the exact opposite indeed. Sometimes it still hurts even though it's been done 12 years ago (the last time it hurt was this night, almost stopping me from finding sleep). It's a personal opinion but what didn't kill me made me weaker. And I'm not just talking about physical injuries. Losing the ability to trust after all these events isn't what I'd call « getting stronger », even though « I didn't do anything wrong ». That's an expensive price. Bref. I think you can overcompensate with something else but the damaged parts may stay weak after. [3:03 PM. So I have about 1 hour to finish it. Easy.] There's one thing I wanted to talk about in this sum up, related to the fact of « being strong ». I read Blach again (you can tell by my december posts) and I started with the lost agent arc, followed by the TYBW arc. There's 2 things about it : its poetry, through the words and the drawings will always amaze me (it amazed me even if it’s the 2nd time I’me reading it), and the 2nd thing : I love how Ichigo become stronger. He lost his Shinigami powers but then found his Fullbring powers. And that is very important because he becomes strong again, but it's a different kind of strong and I LOVE THIS. It's like in real life. I was very strong in June 2012 (videos as proof), but it's not the same strong as in July 2017 or April/November 2018. June and July 2020 have been a different kind of strong. Not that I gained 10 kgs in 2 months (unfortunately) but I was exercising daily. I was getting my body ready for the supposed heavenly month of August that was awaiting me (us). Unfortunately there was no videos of karate at this period (but I made some in september!) but I was feeling great physically. In fact. This May/June/July 2020 period could be considered as “bliss” for me. Of course there was some background problems but ... Mentally I was getting back on my feet, I was deeply in love, physically pretty feeling myself. Plus on the 1st half of July i could go back to the tatamis ... I swear this level of peace and life appreciation have rarely been reached before. Well, this concept of getting stronger differently is almost obsessing me for a simple reason : I'm feeling like I'm getting older. 27 is a weird age for competing in karate. If I look back, I realize I'm older than William when he stopped (it's his birthday tomorrow!!). Also older than Zak, Teddy and so on. I guess I'll never be physically like 10 or 5 years ago but I'm really asking myself if I can be better. But as seen as the pains I go through after the trainings … It's going to be complicated. Plus I did my body wrong this year. There was pain in mars, april, august, september, october, november and december. I tried a lot of things to make it go. I tried to smoke it, i tried to sleep it, i tried to drink it also. I tried to fuck it of course but none of these things worked. But can we consider I won if only my cock still works ? Compared to 2018 : yes it is a win. And at least when I'm with someone, that makes less time crying and overthinking shit. Anyway, I also tried to smoke it really hard. And that's an habit I'll have trouble to let go but nvmd. Still, one of my 2021 resolutions is to smoke less. Also, I took a funny resolution that is : « I'm not accepting defeat this year ». And I realized only a few days after taking it how hard it will be. I'm not dumb, when defeat is unavoidable, I'll just take it. But I decided to be a real Scorpio and be more stubborn than ever. We can say it's above all pride. Same pride as Vegeta, Bakugo or even Endeavour. Really touched me when Bakugo talked about « Absolute victory ». Sometimes I find myself too soft. I'm not going to become an awful person (or at least, not more awful than I am right now). I'll still be kind … But I'll go get the victories I deserve a little harder. Talking about my age, I'm a bit deceived I have no close old friends to share the memories. Every one is kinda gone. Sometimes it's my fault, and sometimes it's just people who are shit but life's like this. Also, every year I try to think of my best encounter of the year. It's kinda hard because sometimes, you meet someone a few years earlier but you really get to know each other later etc … So I'm not clear if this should count only people met this year or simply the people I've spent the best times with. Because I received a curious message this summer and my God. What a luck she took the chance to write me. We realized a few days ago we were in the same class in 10th grade (2nde) (we saw the class picture, what a laughter we had). We get along so well. And it's the proof that 2nd chances deserve to be given. I swear that I also lost some important people this year. But I'm not fighting to get people back anymore. I've done it too much and I'm simply done. People need to realize it's a luck to be in my life. I have my ways but you'll hardly find a friend that's patient and kind as I am. But nevermind, it always makes more time and attention for the people who are here, who really care for my hapiness. Focusing on the people who are here was one of the main concern this year, for a lot of reasons. I thought I was good for selecting the good people in my life but looks like I still can improve. So I'm still letting people go off my life. [3:36PM. Guess I said mostly what I had to say. Maybe 5 pages is enough, but maybe not.] Oh I can still tell the rest of the year. November have been one peaceful month. Away from all the obsessions. Focused on me. No karate but still courses by videoconference. The weather was very sweet even tho it was November. This second lockdown was not that funny but we've seen worst. And December … had it's ups and downs. It was cool to meet my kids 1 month after all these video courses. They clearly got stronger, it was cool. I could also talk about my experience as a sensei this year because there's a lot to say. At the beginning of February, it was my last competition but also for my kids. We litteraly took the competition by storm. On était TROP CHAUDS. But then the Covid stopped us. We kinda were ready for Occitanie championship, if you forget that I was sick the week before the competition. I'd have loved so much to see how far their training would have taken them on this competition. But thank God they cancelled it, guess He didn't want to see me lose ahah. So, I've seen a lot of kids getting better. What a pleasure. Later on this year I told them that I wanted to see them become stronger than me. Seems cliché, but I'm happy they took it seriously. Of course I'm dead serious. We also talked about I will be waiting for them in Senior. Hope they'll continue until then. And above all I hope I will still be competing. I really want to have a positive impact on these kids, competitors or not. And I guess it's working. (Btw I'll surely do a post about Whitebeard soon, just to show him love). So. What lessons can we draw from this chaotic year ? Always treat your high school comrades well. Be picky about who you let in your life. Before engaging in a relationship, ask why her previous relationship ended. Trust no B. (And BBW's are heaven sent). Now it's 3:50PM and I guess I'm done. But I keep myself the possibility to add things if I think of things to add. It's 6 pages long (Arial, 12) but if I can make it longer I will.

[Friday. 00:55AM] Edit : Ok. The story is funny. I really wanted to finish that in one day. So I wrote the previous lines between 10 AM and 4 PM Wednesday knowing I would need more time, just to check and to add a few more details. And one of those Lonely Wednesday Night would have been perfect just to finish the job. So I planned to finish it on wednesday night but the fact is I forgot my computer home …. So here I am one day later. Still baked, so still in the right state of mind to do it. It gave me time to proofread myself (?) and most importantly, it gave me time to read again some of my previous sum ups. It was interesting to compare how they're all different, and also how my writting evolved. Tbh I think I'm becoming more comfortable with my English. Or maybe the more I express myself, the more I look at ease with the langage. This sum up is the longest I've ever written. But still, I'll add things because I still haven't told everything. For example, I haven't spoken about the fact that all the Kazamastar adventure might be closer to the end than the beginning. Like, I'm not immediatly done with all that. I'm still having a lot of fun here. Anon visitors are also part of the game, but it's still all fun. It also keeps my « photograph eye » opened. This makes me think of the quote «I want to be so awfully happy that I never need to write poetry again. » [#] and more precisely I'm thinking about : do I post more when I'm happy or sad ? But I noticed this tumblr kinda works like therapy for me. (And especially, this post is a therapy by itself. Wednesday I woke up feeling bad, lower belly aching and making this post really helped me going through the day.) I post a lot when I'm sad but it really allows me to get all of these negative feelings out of me. I do stylize things but I know I'm not a poet or anything. But can you imagine being so happy that you don't write again ? Would be an amazing feeling. (Indeed, I've already done it once [#]. I've ended a blog on a perfect happiness and yes it felt amazing. ) Imagine if I do it here. After all the trials and tribulations I went through, it would be a perfect way to finish this tumblr. But as I'm speaking, I think there's like … less than 5% chance that it ends happily. If it does, it could be in a long time. I have a few ideas of when and how it could end, but Imma have to keep these selfishly for myself. You'll see when we'll get there.:) Also, I'm realizing right now the things I'm adding to the text make the timestamps through the text a bit less accurate but that's just a detail. [2:37 AM] Earlier I talked about this blog being a therapy for me. But it’s not only this tumblr. This year I proudly finished another tumblr (yes you can guess I was proud as I posted about that 17325 times already and pinned a post). This was such a relief to end it after letting it still for litteraly 2 years. Well that’s it for tonight !

No transition : let's go for the explanations of my choices for the playlist followed by the playlist itself. It's kinda easy to understand why « la mienne » is here, for the first month. This “I can’t touch you I’m not allowed to” really made me think of someone and this someone came back. Incredible. The next song with a Boogie is perfect for February. Very peaceful month, really full of very good moments (in the backseat of a certain car for example). The 2 next songs are for March. These are kinda « lockdown anthems » as The Weeknd album came out right at that time and so did Laylow's. Plus « Escape from LA » have the vibe I really love from Abel. 2 next songs are for April. Dsvn really smashed when he put that « A muse in her feelings » album. (and the « Amusing her feelings » is even better but that won't happen before January 2021). The sequence between « Outlandish – Keep it going - flawless » was one of the best thing I heard musically this year. But keep it going is insane. « Meilleurs » from Oboy is … special. And so are the 2 following songs. Meilleurs is now blacklisted but it's still one good song. But I can't listen to it anymore. Maybe that's exactly because it reminds me June and July. Count me in reminds me precisely of August 8th. Btw what a funny day, very far from all expectations we built up through the years (let's remind that the countdown started with more that 400 days, but I guess patience and loyalty is not always rewarded). I might digress from the playlist one second, but on this day we were in Treilles with the guys, and thank God I had them in this moment ... That’s when I drank to heal, with “count on me” for soundtrack. For September, I hesitated between « DEUX TOILES DE MER » or « MEVTR » (which means « Meilleur d'Entre Vous Tous Reunis », the 1st stage name of Damso). Damso’s flow on MEVTR is huge. He makes a whole verse rhyme and on but … 2 toiles is more iconic. Talking about iconic, « Bande organisée » wasn't a masterpiece but a force to be reckoned with (i find this expression funny ahah). I mean, in hip hop nowadays we don't see often rappers teaming up with big groups like that. Plus on this song particularly some of them have interesing flows and a lot of energy. And you can tell it comes from the South. Not of them are goods, some are excellent but this makes a very decent track. « Route 66 » was cool, even tough it's for November (so 2nd lockdown) it gave me really lovely vibes. And I take this occasion talking about November 2020 to remind it was the 10th anniversary of Kanye West's MBDTF and I celebrated it the right way héhé. Finally, this featuring is really ending the year well. Dinos dropped an insane album, his best since a long time and Tayc also (respectively « Stamina, » and « Fleur froide »). So having them on the same track was risky but it paid very well, incredible vibe from those two combined. They could have been in the top 3 albums but some people made better than them. Trinity is my top 1 one 2020. The concept, the musics … it was INSANE. QALF was also great. It's insane to see Damso get rid of « artistic barriers » to focus only on sound and music. No communication etc … Just music. And Eternal Atake from Lil Uzi Vert because it was long awaited but also because it was perfect, also a 1st lockdown album so it helped me forget my loneliness but so much good tracks ! And finally we have the very special songs that I coudn't tell why I like them. I just love their vibes. So now is 4:15 PM and I'm offically finished but I still have to tweak it. Know I won't hesitate to add things that are related to 2020 and that come to my mind :) Thanks for reading me. Have a lovely day, or night.

2020 Playlist

Tayc – La mienne (Accoustic)

A Boogie – Reply feat Lil Uzi Vert

The Weeknd – Escape for LA

Laylow – Nakré

dvsn – Keep it goin ✨

PartyNextDoor – Believe it feat Rihanna

Trippie Redd & Russ – The Way

OBOY - Meilleurs

Kehlani - Serial Lover

Juice WRLD & Marshmello - Come and go

THEY. - Count me in

Damso - Deux toiles de mer

13 Organisé - Bande organisée

Joe Dwet File - Route 66

Dinos & Tayc - Je wanda

Spécial : Lil Tecca - Last Call YNW Melly - City girls

Jessame - Times we had ~ Dennis Lloyd - Never go back ~ Elliot Trent - computer love

3 top albums de 2020 :

Trinity de Laylow - Qalf de Damso - Eternal atake de Lil Uzi vert

#sum up #resume #welcome to #welcome to 2021 #2020 #me #myself #i

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sole-cuore-amore-e-droga · 5 years

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Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Lithuania to Eurovision with a rampaging mess that gave a lukewarm conclusion

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Oh dear.

When it comes to my country to choose, they’re often chosen to be overlooked by the Eurofan community, especially because of our insanely long procedure of choosing, that would often cause everyone to hear the songs live more times than they’re supposed to. And it seemed to be a similar case this year because while not as long as usual, we still had 7 shows + an additional week break (that allowed me to watch some more Destination Eurovision! Woo!), and a big pile to songs to swim through, usually submitted by all ranges of songwriters who’re willing just to get their names known to the world creditswise (looking at you Ashley Hicklin and co.) and often are paired with our talent show rejects that fade away as soon as they come in if their song and their chances crash out before the final (see Germantė Kinderytė - she didn’t make it to the lives of The Voice Lithuania, had a killer song though that didn’t make it to the semis thanks for the jury annihilating her pointswise TWICE and only ended up lucky the televoters’ 10 was enough to get her through. Another example: Benas Malakauskas, who got lucky to be on the selection for two years in a row, but did not go beyond the AUDITIONS in said talent show! Yet progressed to the second round at farthest both of his years). And even then, you’re never sure if these songs ARE even on the lineup. Last year we had angry Erica Jennings pulling her song out of the comp just because of having to hear the juries critique others so abrasively (at least abrasively I guess?) one show in, but then it suddenly re-emerged back, but instead sung by Monika Marija - fresh off her The Voice Lithuania victory. This year we had some names pulling off for no reason, some names pulling for A reason (like Sasha Song who couldn’t turn up for the live recording of Heat 4 because of his song not sounding the best way possible, and was fined for it lol), and some names being added last minute or even changed unexpectedly (Tomas Sinickis, you heard of him? Now he underwent by Tommy Modric... yes the footballer Modric). Which is as crazy as MIIIIHAAAAIIIII deciding not to compete in the Romanian NF because “it’s all rigged and me a tryhard won’t feel too safe enough to finally win on this one” oh boo-hoo, think of the kids who never liked your sorry ass anyway. And think of the kids in general before showcasing your half-naked or mostly-naked body in front of them.

Excuse me for my long ass paragraph number 1, BUT we were actually so dang dramatic this year that I cannot contain myself without letting y'all know why this NF deserved a much better winner to come out of it rather than THAT that actually came to be. I'm a native so I know every single detail. So if ya wanna know why exactly I'm underwhelmed, read 'em up. If you wanna know that I'm just underwhelmed, just skip ahead to the review, idc. Did you make your choice? Well then. Let's delve into the details:

• The first clear competitor, Monika Marija, releases a song that people really want to see in the selection but she assures everyone it’s not THE song. Then she shows her other one, and people honestly want the first one back, but grow to adapt to it.

• Lineup reveal happens with her in it, wbk. Along with some other interesting names like Jurgis Didžiulis (off InCulto), Jurgis Brūzga and etc.

• First show is filmed and broadcasted as normal. But, after the broadcast, a pissed-off parent is mad at his son’s result on Facebook (and the result seemed fair enough to me actually despite liking the song because it’s such a second-hand NF tier entry that isn’t meant to last that I’d even see fizzle out in... A Dal for example).

• Also a minor lulz related to one contestant’s song lyrics sounding like Russian swearwords (you know the ones the kids are yelling on CS:GO) but that was fixed

• Lineup changes that include Sasha Song, the second-most-recent X Factor Lithuania season winners at the time 120 (yep that’s the band’s name) and some other guy who came and went last minute without a word from him back as to why lol. (As well as one of the lost starlets of 2018, Emilija Valiukevičiūtė, was initially announced in the first lineup reveal but fizzled out by Heat 4 as well.)

• And it turns out Monika Marija chose both of her latest releases (including the first one she said she won’t enter) to participate because her fans want it so and she felt like it, although fans were more attached to the 1st one she entered.

• Jurgis Didžiulis brings Erica Jennings with him - yep, the same lady who withdrew because of the jury has grew some thick skin over a year and joined the lineup too. Among other things.

• Second show had a major televoting issue that affected the scores massively (basically only a few hundred votes were missing lol), and had the issue affected any of the nonqualifiers enough for them to qualify, they’d be added to the semis as a wildcard. So naturally, someone of the NQs complained about it BUT it turned out it did not affect anyone anyway. Another act got pissed for being mistreated by juries too by the way.

• Sasha Song withdraws last minute for reasons above, and his fine is 2000 euros. Well, now you have to know that if you, fellow Lithuanian, want into Eurovizijos, you need to be a bit rich to accept circumstances like these, otherwise you’re totally fucked.

• Heat 3 happens as normal BUT Heat 4 brings in some fire as it turns out that one of the contestants’ stepfather was offering his company’s services (like, those outside children play parks’ assets) for televotes to her dear stepdaughter’s song, with her EVEN NOT SEEING ANYTHING WRONG WITH IT. LRT, as clever as they are, decide to null her televotes in protest. Shame tho as the song was good, and way better Laurell Barker submission than the ones she got on ESC this year.

• One contestant, Alen Chicco (also from X Factor Lithuania, may or may not even be from the same season that was won by 120), causes a bit of controversy by having a black man on his performance

• During the semi stage, Monika Marija asks her fans not to vote for the 1st song she submitted to the selection, but rather support her 2nd song that won the semi comfortably, way after the folks were attached to her 1st song already and claiming it’s better for Eurovision (no it’s not), but it backfires spectacularly when the jury has enough guts to make her qualify with it, even if the televote for it was rather low.

• But before semi 2 happened and Monika Marija sang her weaker song, a contestant with the name of Migloko resorts to middle-finger the audience during her performance for no reason in semi 1.

• Monika Marija succesfully goes on to withdraw one of her songs (the one from semi 2) just to not split her fanbase even further when it comes to the final, therefore not lose. Also has to pay a fine of 2000 perhaps.

• Jurijus Veklenko, which was one of the front-runners along Monika Marija, was accused of having his song published on Soundcloud a year too early, but as a demo version, therefore not commercially viable enough for ESC rules. Later he was let off easy by LRT, but decided that EBU should investigate and report if they think it’s not fine, but if he was allowed to compete with that, he was possibly not in danger afterall.

• And since Monika Marija has got only 1 song, her final spot she got with that other song was given up for the aforementioned Alen Chicco.

• Finally, Monika Marija was still THE front runner of all this, having a sizeable amount of a fanbase enough to support her, even more so than the eventual winner... yes, she did happen not to win in the end. U mad?

And even if Monika Marija would have honestly been an anticlimactic winner, this next guy is even more so, because although shocking, his song is pretty much by-the-numbers Eurovision NF pop you’re gonna get, although not as cheap as the one written by constant NF failures that submit their stuff for countries like Moldova, Belarus, Romania and Malta (that until Malta ditched their NF). And the one that ended up winning is the said person whose song was uploaded a year too early as a demo - Jurijus Veklenko, but for now, he’s pretty much needed to be addressed as Jurijus. No wait, he’s back to being Jurijus Veklenko, but he dropped the “us” from his name, that’s odd. (By the way, he’s the only ounce of Ukraine you’ll ever have this year - his father is of that nationality, hence why the ever-so-Slavic Veklenko surname)

“Run with the Lions” is the song name, and for a title as anthemic as this, the song... not so much. Like I said, it’s pop, and it’s good that it’s pop, but it’s just pop. I doubt that Jurijus’s songwriter team did anything to distinguish the demo from its final product, hence why it was so easily autodetected somehow. Like, the structure is there, the lyrics are there (but what even ARE they? “if you wanna see, just open your eyes”?? “if you want a voice, just open your mouth”????), but where’s the depth, man? I really felt like I needed more of this song, especially in the choruses. Like, some additional background instruments like strings wouldn’t have hurt? In fact, this song has a slight revamp (I’m saying “slight” because no marginal changes had been done) that adds up some acoustics in the background of the 2nd verse and only changes one line (”there’s no need to be afraid” now is “you don’t have to be afraid”. Wow, revolutionary. What about “You don’t got to hide away”?? Why repeating “You don’t” twice in the prechorus???!!!... ooh I’ll be here all day if I only talked about nitpicks)... and it yet still feels too little. Thankfully the choruses have someone shouting something like “huh huh hoo” synthetically to liven it up somehow.

Yet somehow, out of nowhere, I admit liking this? Our boi is capable of singing live - both high and low; his voice and the song fit in delightfully with each other; and while basic, the melody is pleasant, non-offensive, non-ear-grating... perhaps the problem of it all is that it’s too inoffensive? Something that flows away in the wind and passes you by without you knowing. Something that you’re told that it’s not background filler and you were just not paying attention to the actual music that was playing. Something so algorithmic, you’re easily able to make your ears cancel it out as it were just some sort of white noise!

Yeah, I don't think I want to describe us all that much. It's a pretty okay pop song, it's nothing groundbreaking (bar the message of being free to do all you can do), I enjoy the sound of it, it doesn't annoy me, I can fully be down to supporting Jurijus and his voice. Too bad it's in a year AND a semi where MoR pop songs DON'T dominate - we're way past those ages. To stand out, it needs to be anthemic, it needs to have a stage presence, it truly needs some X factor, and our staging nor our song offers it. And guess what, various other people are still mourning over the loss of Monika Marija, which I find perfectly reasonable, but who would have to lend us their final spot instead if she won? Armenia? Romania? Denmark? So many questions, so little time left to answer them all.

Right now I will just conclude with me saying that I like this. It's inoffensiveness is pleasant, and in any other year we'd be the perfect filler songs for the final, like we were in the past. Cool cool.

Approval factor: Anything that will make me forget how much of my nerves did I waste over stanning someone in our selection while knowing that Ieva will win is a good noodle in my book. Jurijus wasn’t exactly one of my favourites (you’ll see why when you hit the unfortunately long NF corner section), but that’s perfectly fine, seeing that I can finally be a proud supporter of my own country’s song.

Follow-up factor: we're a completely and utterly random nation, sending anything our juries found amusing the most at the time. So don't bother about follow up consistency every being good or bad. We're just going with our own flow and... that's basically it. Though we could, on an occasion, do better with picking songs, that's for sure. And maybe finally we will not have a song that's littered with "oh oh oh, yeah yeah yeah" kind of sounds... like seriously, "Run with the Lions" has a bridge that mostly consists of "ooooooohhhhhhh" and then one actually non-interjective line at the end. (At least in Tel Aviv you'll be hearing the backings murmuring "run with the, run with the, run with the lions" during it, and that's something.) I love it that we never change in our random tactics, I'd just love it more to see some actual change in the song quality, y'know? THEN will it be a good follow-up.

Qualification factor: I’m so devastated at saying this, but foreigners say that we’re probably going down to deat meat levels this year. But I still have hope in us qualifying. Believe it or not, the people out there still don’t buy into the Lithuanian diaspora power, and genuinely believe that our harmless tune is chanceless. I only understand that it cannot work its magic when we send something risqué and incredibly opinion dividing (but most people dislike it anyway), but just look at our results on the years when we were generally received bad when we were just boring. “C’est ma vie” qualified. “Something” qualified. Back when Donny Montell was such an unknown in the Eurovision lore because 2012 was his first year and his song was considered “dated”, he still qualified. See something here? We still can, and WILL, be able to pull through possibly, and I don’t doubt it that diaspora will lap up our mediocre song because Lithuania. Patriotism strong! (Oh and a handful of votes for Jurijus for being so hot.)

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

I already discussed the Eurovizijos drama in lenghty detail, so expect me not to re-iterate everything down here shortly, but what you need to know off it is that it had every single drama aspect you’d ever want - faulty line-ups, voting frauds, televoting malfunctions, forced plagiarism accusations, too-early-published-song accusations, late entry withdrawals, qualifier replacements, technical difficulties allowing to repeat a performance and some contestants being visibly pissed off by the jury (and to some extent, the overall) results. A total jumble <3 Never change, Lithuania. (except for the godawfully smug-ass HoD, I started to get tired of him AND his bald head doing this to us. It's been 10 years, retire already.)

So it’s better to talk about all the non-dramatic things I liked about our NF this year! From songs to performances, from shits and giggles to something serious - I’m taking you for a hefty ride.

• First and foremost, I actually didn’t mind one of the Monika Marija’s songs? Yeah, “Light On” was a good and polished pop track that has THAT power to get you good, with them strong sublime female vocals. Even if it kind of sounded like an Ikea store version of "Stay with Me" by Sam Smith. Not that there's anything bad with it, but any kind of plagiarism cases have and will always be barred from Eurovision if noticed by the organizers. This is not 100% dead-on ripoff, but there are shades of knock-offery here and there. And it's even a better "Stay with Me", and with a better message - Monika Marija reminisces of that one time she was almost dying herself, but she's here, she's survived, and you musn't hang her off the lifeline. At least it's "Light On" that got all the love in the NF in the end and not the painfully mediocre "Undo" ripoff wailfest "Criminal". It was so slow and plodding and I never got why so many people loved it. If "Undo" was a product, "Criminal" would have been its "made in China" counterpart. Anyway, here's "Light On". And please don't spam me messages with how much this would have been a contender for top 10 over Jurijus. :P In Eurovision it's an added bonus if your faves do well - the fact that they were in Eurovision is the most important thing, and I perfectly understand why do you miss it here on ESC grounds. Just... I'm tired of "MM top 10, Jurijus bottom 3 in semi", okay? Monika Marija can try our NF again. She’s very talented, and there’s a possibility that we’ll see her in ESC in the end anyway. Pave the way for our Polyglot Queen, Eurovision 20xx! ^^

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• Now here's for once a cool Lithuanian artist that didn't come from a TV talent show! Antikvariniai Kašpirovskio Dantys ("antiquarian teeth of Kashpirovsky") is probably one of the coolest Lithuanian bands that I know - doing absolutely any kind of genre they're pleased with - from folk to rock to ska to acoustic pieces - I admire them for being so diversive! Too bad they entered with one of my lesser favourite tracks in their entire discography - "Mažulė" (one of the many ways to say "baby", as in, trying to call your lover cute, female gender case. Can also mean "baby girl" in this context). I have nothing against this kind of track they thrown in the selection, ska music and Eastern musical elements are gooooooood, plus I finally got to know what is a "forró" that doesn't mean "hot" in Hungarian - it's a music style popular in Brazil! However, the chorus could have at least sounded more "party"-ier. It doesn't really excite me to dance the window-cleaning dance to it. (Oh yeah and do you remember that this song is about a car, not an actual lover? They're basically confessing their love to an automobile. How they're protecting it from vandals, how did they dream of getting the car since young age, how wouldn't they change their car for any other. Romantic, I'd say.) However I am happy for the over 30 year olds that find this song completely and totally amusing when I can't quite seem to. I do say that I like those elements, the brass and all that. It was the only Lithuanian song in the sea of English ones in the final (just like A Dal was, but inverse - almost all songs in Hungarian but one English (and a bit Russian), and that's an achievement. AKD should be proud of themselves for impacting both our nation AND the international viewers which found fun in this! Respect. Maybe they'll win our NF soon if they keep on winning the audiences, or they'll probably GTFO forever. IDK, the latter is more plausible, sadly. They're so unique that they cannot be just a thing for more editions - just one for a try out, and that's enough.

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• So, Alen Chicco. What’s so special to have him in the final instead of Monika Marija's weaker entry? Well, he's just a fantabulous persona, unique in every step he takes. And surely I was excited to see him preparing something for Eurovizijos after I read his name on the participants list. And then his entry did come. I wasn't quite sure what to think of "Your Cure" at first but the chorus is a pop beauty I hold up to myself somehow <3 now I find the song nice as a whole, the theatrical-like verses peak my curiousity though the prechoruses feel too drawn out a bit and could have had some big pauses be shortened or removed... yeah. But the most interesting thing is HIS LOOKS <33 his wardrobe and level of expressiveness is vast, I love it how eveything here was different each and every time he performed, and it all was always presented incredibly differently. I admire ONE (1) chameleon

which Alen Chicco are you today? ✨

• And that's almost basically it I have to show you concerning my faves? Yeah, I definitely had enough of our NF having this many songs too, I almost had no good favourites that made it to the semis and people would care about slightly if they'd be willing to. Nothing I could be excited over, nothing I could be passionate about as I was last year about my fave. Well I did like some qualifiers to semis but I don’t think they are THAT worth y’all’s attention all THAT much... However, I will definitely let you in on two of my personal non-finalist faves. Allow me to introduce the first band whose song is a guilty pleasure of mine only - it's Laimingu Būti Lengva ("it's easy being happy") with "Pasaulio vidury" ("in the middle of the world"). Now, it's not very competitive or anything, in fact the guys looked like hobos on their live performance and one of them was randomly shouting "heeeeyyyyy" a LOT of times, like a random heckler that's supposedly livening(??? is that a word???) up the performance, and they sang disappointingly... but the studio version, man. I dare you to not get hypnotized by the slow electric guitar feel. (You probably won't but idc.) I love it, I love the beats and how trappy but cool they sound on those verses, I love the slow soft rhythm, I definitely love the whole melodic execution, and the vocals actually sound alright on there (mainly thanks to autotune but yeah whatever). I have problems though - with a band like this, I barely see how can I get genuine enjoyment out of this song myself without having to slap myself in the back for admitting to actually like this. So I call it my "guilty pleasure" quite a lot of times. The song's structure is quite interesting, but it's mainly the repetitive verses and choruses smeared across the whole song at random. I get the song's point so much that I hate the band for hammering it into my head all this whole time - the song's protagonist met a red-haired and blue-eyed girl named Isabel in Portugal (the supposed "middle of the world"), they fell in love, that's it. But they emphasize it a lot that the girl was blue-eyed... not even I would if I had to write this song, and *I* have a blue-eyed people bias. The whole package was completely unappealing and with how they showed it it didn’t really look like something that even needs a staging or Eurovision at all, but I still keep this song to myself, and will definitely replay it a lot this summer. Just as much as the song that you'll actually get to watch the performance of down below - it's "Song of My Life" by Soliaris & ForeignSouls. It's cool, funky, catchy, vibey, laidback and summer-fun-infested. I cannot really describe separate parts all that much because all flows in so well. It's a good song to chill out and have a cocktail too. And it features a rap part that doesn't bother me at all! Good one, Soliaris. I didn't like your music back when you did mediocre 00s R'n'B, but you positively surprised me, both by returning to our NFs after like 9 years of absence AND bringing this gem. It didn't need an extreme staging - just some dudes having fun and that's it. And they brought it. It saddens me that these kind of songs don't stand a chance to qualify to the very final in our NF anymore, as they kind of would have in 2012 or so, but I'm still happy they exist. I only have had some issues with the lyrics laying out the words in sentences ("spend with me this beautiful night" bothered me a bit because if you translate it to Lithuanian in the exact same sentencing way, it'd make even more sense than it does to me now), but other than that, I fucking loved "Song of My Life". It might as well be my overall NF winner, haha.

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• Oh and how could I forget Tiramisu??? That's perhaps my biggest discovery of this year. They moved on from utter unknowns to... still unknowns, but more known for the Eurovision fandom that does care about Lithuanian NFs. Here you have an oddly titled song, "The Smell of Your Eyes" (and you thought Safura smelling lipstick was extreme - but to her credit, lipstick DOES have a faint odor, doesn't it?), which is both insane AND original, and insane original is obviously encouraged. And the whole song sounds pretty damn good for a band that no one heard of and that used to do jazzy-ish and inoffensive musical flairs before. Here we have slight influences of folk even! And the violins, too. A generally charming piece that draws you into a pagan forest. Too bad the staging was completely misunderstood - they definitely had to put on some guy with a cheap Iron Man mask to pretend to give the band some intensity... lousy move. It could've looked way better if it were more mysterious and forest-like and had a more enchanting camerawork. And a little more colors than emerald and forest greens, too. The video clip looked way better and more high-budget than the staging came to be. Observe:

Felt like everything beautiful was stripped of it because the music video could not be repeated on stage. Ah well. The televoters gave them love but the jury did not let them to improve, and down the Bermuda triangle of fallen female violinists from the 2019 season went a lady of the name Rima Tamo, together with Gabriella Laberge and Tilla Török (who did not even appear on stage at that time of need!). Here's a spooky fact for all these 3: female violinists that all featured on songs in E minor, performed 1st in their respective heats/semis, were really loved by televote but hated by the juries, missed out on the next stage of the NF by 1 place. Coincidence? A curse? Tiramisu were obviously disgusted by the jury trashing their staging so they talked about hating them on Facebook. What's worse that they could have actually qualified if they've gotten at least 9 more telepoints that could've pushed them to get 10 televote points in general rather than 8, all thanks to a televote count error that removed large portions of votes. And that way they could have been wildcard qualifiers instead because they would have still gotten 8 televote points with the actual televote numbers, but the organizers of the NF said that if the televote failure would have hurt anyone's place in the final, they would have wildcard-qualified instead. No one did not, so screw it. At least "The Smell of Your Eyes" remains THAT song - lots of folk, lots of violins, lots of effort put into it, and the people actually loved it for that. Just that it's so sad that the jury didn't let them improve overtime... just like Hungarian jury didn't let Leander Kills go further... a shame, really.

• And now, onto the non-entry-events and stuff that happened, besides some actual good jury shade (like the one time at least one juror says that “you wouldn’t win even if all the contestants got sick”, technical errors in the production (thanks to one of them, one of the semifinal acts actually got to perform again... but the televote didn’t give her votes anyway lmao) and the constant reminder of one of our charities which gives tickets to Eurovision for the best disabled person story.. I don’t know where that is but our NF somehow acquired a skit from an Austrian man that’s been exploring stuff in Israel (I think) because of Eurovision this year... and man did I think that this skit was rather... hmmm... middle-ground funny? Slightly too annoying but still kind of alright to look at? It was fun, but certainly odd to find out about that it even exists.

• After feeling so disappointed with Hungarian juries's decisions on the night of February 22nd, I left my room to watch our NF's final on our living room TV, hoping for everything just to end already because I did not expect anything good happening on this final. I haven't even decided to go back to watch A Dal and see AWS reprise their song a little less louder than when they competed last year. And then our NF gave me a complete and utter surprise - The Roop reprising THEIR Eurovizijos 2018 entry. If you've been long enough here on Tumblr to know me, you would probably guess that I'm a big fan of "Yes, I Do" by The Roop, which I wanted to see winning our NF so badly last year, but in the end... you finish the quote so I don't have to. And it's odd because this year I felt the exact similar way with Hungary as with Lithuania last year - I have clear favourites I root for in both of those but deep inside I knew there was gonna be a different winner I only find okay and nothing else. (The difference is that "Az én apám" has grown on me since, "When We're Old" did not at all.) So back to discussing the interval act instead. For this one guest number of the NF's, the song began on a piano, "pretend" played by The Roop's lead singer, and then he got his butt off from the piano chair (unlike Duncan in Tel Aviv), to the microphone stand, and the song continued off sounding like its original version that was sung in last year's NF. I still love this song and even loved that version with piano at the beginning, but why did it not take over the whole song though? Just to not let the audience fall asleep before the Carousel would've? (Yes by the way, we got guest acts from other countries performing on our NF as well! But Carousel were the only ones to have a guest appearance, the other acts were either unchosen or perhaps busy doing Tel Aviv preparations, lol.) Well, good for them. I may or may not still would love The Roop entering and winning our selection someday, if they ever decide to participate again. They could've this year but they did not return, so maybe in 2021? Let this girl dare to dream for once, Lithuania ^_^

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• I love when our NF has postcards, no matter at which stage of introduction they are on. In 2016 the postcards were present in every show (the ones for the final were the best), in 2017 they were only introduced in the round 3 of heats (sometime before the semis), in 2018 - from the 2nd round of heats onwards, in 2019 though they were only for the final... what’s the punchline for this paragraph? Oh, there IS none. I just confessed my love for our NF postcards. Just keep scrolling :)

• Okay so I know no one really pays attention to our heats because we have too many of them AND we have too many songs in them, and the eliminated ones always stop mattering to everyone right away. But I'm here to bring you a favourite meme of mine that hailed just from the heats alone: miss RÙTA, who could have done much better during her performance if she didn't constantly look like she's incredibly constipated. I don't know what makes her look like that - the lipstick? the grin? her over-dramatic entry about wordly disasters, "Paradox"? I may never know, but I will let you have a good look at it if you don't want to watch the whole video I linked. Personally, I liked the red staging this song had, and the song wasn't bad, but the singer felt agonizingly nervous and never got the chance to do better, sadly. Oh and look at that sleek tattoo, mmm.

• Oh and our NF featured a metal song but it’s so formulaic and by the numbers dad metal that I didn’t even support it all that much.... however I’ll let you listen to it if you’d really like. And there's this best alternative song of this year's NF that I've heard that also ended in the semis, and it's way better than Fusedmarc's alternative (despite having some ugly beatboxing skills). Check it out too if you will.

And thankfully, that’s that for another year. I’m getting so awfully tired to compress my own NF even further more, especially with my enthusiasm for the actual quality of this NF going down the shithole with every single heat show coming after each other just like that, with more mediocre songs after more mediocre songs. I’m also openly declaring that I have barely any energy left with continuting these writeups, seeing that there’s too many to go and most of them are STILL undercooked drafts. But I’m tryna pull through. I have another completely completed review underway afterwards - just a few edits here and there on it and I’m done with it, m8s! And then I’m piling up new paragraphs after new paragraphs on other reviews.

So I hope I let you know why do I think that the end result of ours is lukewarm - from a dramatic NF there should have been a slightly dramatic winner tbh, but in the end we got a pop song that only a few people like. Brutal. And with the biggest hopes in my eyes for our success I’d like to finish this off with two words. Sėkmės, Jurijau!

#eurovision 2019 #tel aviv 2019 reviews #lithuania 2019 #jurij veklenko #run with the lions #lithuania

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survivorkvaloya · 7 years

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Episode #7: “This Is What I Get For Putting My Trust In Cute Boys” - Colin

Me: I'm gonna teach my student not to be like me! They're not gonna be first boot or the last boot before merge...

Lauren: *Gets voted out one round before the merge*

Me: K....

In conclusion I flopped as a mentor! But this isn't entirely bad, hopefully I can find something at reflection island that can help and I'm also beating my ugly Sri Lanka placement by being there so :) As of right now I feel confident in where I am. I have the girl alliance of me, QuilLynn, Willow and Lily and then I feel pretty confident with Jackson and Ryan, and then I think I can make something work with Colin so we'll see! I'm just so happy to have made merge oh my gosh.

Lauren's gone! The vote was 2 - 3. I have Jackson and Colin believing that I voted with them, when really I changed my vote last minute so that they'd think big tuna flipped. I want them to trust me more than her, so labelling her as untrustworthy oughtta do it. I didn't wanna break ties completely with the girls on the other side if they saw a unanimous vote against Lauren. Damage control time ladies!

ok... so last tribal.... I got 2 votes.... when it should have been unanimous. I know it was either Chelsea or Danielle who voted me, and honestly??? Whoever did, props to them bc it created so much paranoia and distrust among the tribe and now at merge. They were prob thinking ahead and it makes sense looking back now. My gut is telling me Danielle wouldn't risk something like that but whomst knows. Also I just inherently don't trust Chelsea bc she seems shady. anYWAY. WE MADE MERGE WOOOO! IM LITERALLY... SO HAPPY. I honestly didn't think I'd be able to make merge in a main season, I flop in high stakes games, but I'm doing that! I made it!!! It's wayyy more tense and strategic at this point in the game but it's exciting!!

SOME MERGE FUN FACTS FOR YALL:

~There are 4 student/mentor pairs left in the game (Nicholas/Danielle, Ryan/Jackson, Willow/QuilLynn, and Chelsea/Gage)

~I am the only person still in the game currently to have multiple votes cast against them over the course of the season

~From the dissolved tribes (using this bc that's the tribe period that probably has the most tribe loyalty since we were on these tribes the longest), there are 7 OG NuKaldfjorden, and 6 OG NuErsfjorden

~There are 8 students and 5 mentors remaining

~And finally, the percentage of fake hoes remaining in this game is at 100%.

Well. Losing Lauren wasn't the best....I never like my alliances splitting up. But I'm my really sure if I could have done anything to save her. I really do wish she was here tho and would have made merge. I think willow QuilLynn Christine and I can still be a good group. And honestly knowing that we want to be top 4 together is real helpful. Most people are saying jack but I think Danielle is the smart move. I've got gage Chelsea and Colin for sure. And QuilLynn is down so it's just on convincing willow that it's the best play. I know she is probably nervous because there aren't a lot of mentors. But Danielle must have a lot of advantages. We need to blindside her and she wouldn't see it coming I don't think. We will see what happens!

I heard the vote is gonna be between me and Danielle, so I'm probably out, but the choice is obvious.

So.... I think I'm starting to get fucked in this game for really no reason that I can see. Andreas went home, which i wasn't crazy happy with but things happen. We lost yet again and Lauren was the easy vote there, seeming to be the case and her leaving wouldn't cause any drama. Well the vote turns out to be 3-2, 2 being for Colin and I'm sugar shocked. I couldn't believe that. Then, Chelsea has the audacity to pin it on me? Sister, you must not know who you are dealing with. She plays this game like she's a fucking god well guess what? You aren't. Her and Jackson are running this game and it's fucking aggravating to watch. Ryan doesn't want to do anything about it because Jackson is his student but like... being in this game with them running it is getting to be really annoying. Are we handing them the game here? Now Jack is going to be leaving and that's someone else that I could have worked with, my game is slowly starting to dwindle because I'm playing with Ryan. He can't make a move against them but I'm starting to not have any allies but him lolllllll. Oh well.

so the target is danielle now instead of jack. i'm happy with seeing her leave. I also want ryan and a few other mentors gone, I'm a lil worried they might be able to take control. also drewbert is my new fav host.

Hi I'm Jackson and this is my fifth confessional. Things have gotten pretty crazy. They always say the merge tribal is a shitshow, but for some reason I thought it'd be easier. The general consensus seemed to be that people wanted Jack out - after all, JD is on exile, and she's the only person as suspicious (and as close) to him. Which just leaves him. But Lily is itching to make a big move, and so, apparently, is Gage. They're pushing for Danielle to be voted out, which surprises me coming from Gage - the mentors shouldn't be so quick to target each other considering their numbers disadvantage! But either way, I wouldn't hate to see Danielle go. She probably has at least one idol piece, and the fact that last tribal was a 3-2 vote for Lauren instead of a 4-1 makes me nervous that I shouldn't completely trust her. I think she's a desperate player who will say anything to anyone. While I'm here, let's talk about that 3-2 vote. Colin knows I didn't vote for him because I had told him and Chelsea that my voting confessional was going to be a hiss, and it was. Colin didn't self vote, so that leaves just Chelsea and Danielle. I can see motives for both of them to flip. Chelsea might've saw me getting close to Danielle and wanted to split us up by creating distrust, thus her vote for Colin. I think Colin believes this is the truth, and honestly, I can't really blame him. Chelsea did make sure to mention several times that Danielle's vote makes her less trustworthy. Still, one could make a strong case for the stray vote being Danielle's. She's just a shady player in general and she might've wanted me to distance myself from Chelsea too. I'm going to assume that this version is the truth, because it's not like I can avoid allying with Chelsea at this point anyway. I'm going to carry on like we're still close (because we are). So anyway, Chelsea's on board to go with Lily and Gage, so that makes three. They think they have Colin, Willow and Quillynn's votes in the bag, which makes six, and that's majority since two people are on exile. But I'm not totally sure Colin's on board. I guess they could go to Jack if he's having cold feet. I'm obviously in the know about this plan, but I'm apprehensive because of Ryan. He's said multiple times he wants to work with Danielle, and I'm not sure I want to go against my mentor yet. I don't want to rat the Chelsea/Lily gang out to Danielle either, so I think I'm just going to vote for Jack and keep my trap shut, crossing my fingers that Danielle gets the boot. Everyone seemed to be pretty understanding and I don't think it'll hurt my place in the game. Let's just hope Colin doesn't get too set on Jack getting voted out.

tonights vote is going to be wild. It looks like its going to be between jack or danielle and honestly Jack's "minority het" ass annoys the absolute fuck out of me so I want him to go, but Tuna is a bigger threat and has closer ties. I'm hoping the Danielle blindside get pulled off and that Ryan wont hate me after, but we'll see. If it does then wow, maybe choose some better mentors next time?

okay what the fuck. The eclipse happens and everyone goes fucking insane. This is some voodoo pagan astrology shit. ahhhh i'm crying. Last night the vote seemed so easy. Jack is an easy target. No one is close to him. He's straight. Adios! But then Chelsea and Gage step the fuck up and wanna be messy! Gage is apparently hella anti-Danielle for whatever reason??? Chelsea is still trying to pin the blame of the hinky vote against me on her so I'm really suspicious. I trust Danielle a lot. I don't want anything to happen to her. Now apparently I'm a swing vote. Everything is coming down to me murdering Danielle. Lily and Gage concocted the plan and are gathering the numbers and they want it to be a blindside but bitch!! not on my watch!! Danielle ain't goin nowhere!! I will deadass idol her if I have to. Gage and I rarely talk and I ain't gonna be like Chelsea and Lily and play into his plans. The! Straight! Is! Leaving! Or Gage is leaving. Either would be great for my game. I don't know what Jackson is planning but he seems to still trust Chelsea but I..... do not. At all. I think blindsiding Gage when he thinks he's gonna be blindsided would be really fun. So I might do that. But also that would draw a lot of attention to me and I'd face a lot of backlash. Ughhh I just really really don't want Jack to go. But it seems like Chelsea and Lily are deadset on it. Quillynn and Willow seem on the fence but they're ultimately not gonna turn on the majority. ANYWAY! My plan. I'm gonna vote Danielle bc the majority expects me to. I'm giving my idol pieces to Ryan since I know he has one. If Danielle actually shows up before tribal and on time she's gonna get idoled and saved and Gage will be blindsided by Nicholas, Danielle, and Ryan. I will have an in with them, Jackson won't be bitter bc I did tell him of that plan, I just didn't tell him I'm actually doint it. If Danielle doesn't show up, she's leaving, and Ryan better give me my idol pieces back >: ( Anyway! if all goes well! Adios Gage!

I'm seriously about to be targeted because I've won a game this is so fucking stupid seriously find a better reason to target me before your ass gets voted out.

A lot has happened. Everyone wants to work with me but not with Danielle and now since I'm associated with the pop princess herself I could be in trouble. The day started with Jack going. But it felt too easy. I talked to Willow who is my 2nd closest ally next to Danielle. She didn't tell me. While I was on call with her Colin PM'd me cause I messaged him when I woke up. He told me of the plan about everyone voting Danielle. And I tell Willow this! Next thing I know he's like "yeah don't trust Willow and Quillyn" and I'm like... yikearoonies. Cause I literally had just told Willow. ANYWAY. Willow say's she won't say anything, she apologized for not telling me during our HOUR long call. She says that it's true. Colin then proceeds to give me two idol pieces to play on Danielle because I told him I have 1 idol piece (in reality I already have 3 and now technically have 5) And to play it on her. However, he's still gonna vote Danielle to save face. Now Danielle, Nicholas and I are the only 3 who have to vote for Gage. Gage because Colin wants him out. I'd rather vote out Chelsea but I want to save face with Colin if everyone is truly gonna try to murder us. My only FUCKING worry is that they split the votes between Dani and I. Because Nicholas has individual immunity. I'd be idoling myself out. I'm gonna try to get Willow to vote with us, incase the vote goes 4-4-4. I don't think they'd vote for me but I gotta be careful.

Okay so first this round we get the flag challenge and have I ever mentioned how much I hate the fucking flag challenge?? Anyway I somehow managed to score even lower then I did on an unfinished flag I made in Solomon which is pretty sad. Also this vote is crazy??? its going in like every direction. I mean that typically happens first vote of merge but omg. Anyway so originally everyone was cool to vote out Jack bc he's utr or whatever. But then Lily suggested we actually vote out Danielle and I was okay whatever. But then apparently Danielle and Chelsea have beef from earlier with the Lauren vote bc they all said they would vote out Lauren but then they weren't sure who the other vote for Colin was, and apparently they don't like each other now or whatever. So anyway Ryan calls me bc hes worried about the Danielle and Chelsea rivalry and he says Danielle is getting worried and he's getting worried and stuff and then of course I'm a dumbass and lie straight to his face about how Danielle isn't getting any votes. And we were talking about how we would prefer it to not be Jack, and he throws around the idea of actually voting out Chelsea bc she's made a lot of deals with people, and I fake agree to it. And then he tells me something he's never told anyone in the game and that's that he got the Into the Box idol piece for the mentors, and so he actually has 2 idol pieces and not 1. So then I tell him about how I played a side with Colin and that hes really good at Into the Box but that I could be wrong about him having the student piece. And I haven't told anyone about the idol piece bc I like Ryan a lot and I want him to trust me even though hes not going to after this vote :( So earlier on in the day Lily decided to tell Colin about how we were planning on blindsiding Danielle, and then Colin decides to be a rat and tell everyone, so then Ryan tells me, and of course my immediate reaction is to tell my whole entire alliance chat about what's happening. Ryan tells me they're planning on idoling Danielle and planning on blindsiding Gage bc apparently hes trying to make deals with everyone?? which he isnt really but whatever lol. So when I tell my alliance chat this they all start freaking out but then I decided we need to switch our votes to Colin since he ratted and since they're playing an idol on Danielle. But I tell Ryan that we're still all voting for Danielle. But then he comes to me paranoid and says I should vote Gage bc hes worried they're splitting. and I'm like okay I'm cool with that. But omg I feel so bad bc I really like Ryan and I want to continue to work with me but hes really not gonna trust me after this vote fuck. Like it'll be good for them to waste an idol and for it to be Colin going home since he's the rat but I just feel so bad for lying to Ryan especially when he's trusted me the whole time and told me stuff he hasn't told anyone else in the game. Anyways I think I forgot some stuff but so much has been happening and there's so much to talk about idk how to get it all out into one confessional.

[9:28 PM] Ry[an] Matthew ⚅⚅⚅: <<< thank you so much. i would be fine if lily didn't throw that idea out to danielle but it's to hard to not be able to talk to anyone but you cause everyone else is lying to my faceRy[an] Matthew ⚅⚅⚅, Today 9:28 PM omg I feel so bad bc I'm doing that exact thing of lying to his face but I think it'll be better for my game to stick with the plan and have them waste an idol and blindside Colin.

*Colin Is Voted Out*

i fucked up that vote because of when colin was telling me of the plan i was calling and talking to willow and i told her everything before i knew she was a SNAKE. willow is a SNAKE!! SNAKE!! like she was literally my 2nd closest ally. someone i used to want out (nicholas) is now my 3rd best ally. christine #2. danielle #1. jackson admitted to knowing about the danielle vote but not the colin vote and said he was the jack vote. i wanna commit soup of side

chelsea is fucking crazy. she's telling me that i shouldn't associate myself with danielle. she's telling me nicholas is a snake. she's trying to say no one lied to us about the vote. she's saying that jackson didn't lie cause he voted for jack even though HE LITERALLY KNEW ABOUT THE DANIELLE VOTE AND ADMITETD IT TO ME. chelsea is fucking crazy

Okay so we definitely have us 6 strong? hopefully? but then after voting out Colin he had already lost his mentor Brett so that leaves 12 of us in the game now, which is where it gets a little complicated. Bc I'm not sure where JD and Christine stand. Like Christine is in an alliance with us but they could both easily flip and then it would be tied? bc even though Christine has an alliance with us she is also very close with Ryan.

Me before tonight: Has been enjoying the past few days in bliss with JD and my brand new fancy shmancy vote steal Me after tonight: Is currently in absolute hell I mean. COLIN!?!?!?!?!?! WHAT THE HECK. Literally at the start of merge it was literally so simple just to get Jack out. Im literally calling this right now, Jack is going to the end because people are too focused on getting out big targets. Ryan let me know what happened and how Willow ratted him out which stinks cause I liked Willow. I also learned I was apparently target the week Brett went home. So that's nice to know :) I don't trust the alliance I'm in with Lily, QuilLynn and Willow at this point. Willow's apparently a snake, Lily is waaaaay too focused on making big moves and QuilLynn? She is literally controlling this game. Literally everyone that I wanted to work with at the beginning of this game is gone. My ideal group of Brett, Lauren and Colin died immediately and then Connor left me too. I'm just so bummed cause I don't get a genuine connection from really any of these people. Like I'll try to talk to someone like Chelsea and it just goes....absolutely nowhere. The only people I feel like I can work with are Ryan, Jackson and....well myself. I like Danielle cause she keeps things real but she's also causing too many fights for me to attach myself with. With that being said, I think I'm in an ok position but not a great one. I wanna keep the pattern of students leaving right now and I'm keeping my legacy advantage a secret but I told Ryan about my vote steal and in return he told me he had two idol pieces so essentially we have an idol. So yeah, as long as Ryan doesn't get blindsided anytime soon that's a thing. Also this challenge is gross and the fact I was apparently taken out because of Random.org is even more disgusting.

Last tribal was great. We had a perfect plan to get out Danielle, but then Colin ratted, so we had a last minute switch to take him out while simultaneously wasting his Idol. Now there are lines drawn in the sand and I feel like i'm in an okay position on this tribe. I still don't trust jack or JD at all especially after Jack infected me in the last immunity but we have to keep them for numbers now. I want the plan to be right now for people to think we will split the votes between danielle/nicholas when hopefully we can actually take out Ryan. I have a bad gut feeling about this round and it could be over for me, but we'll see how this plays out!

The Danielle vote may have backfired, but the Colin blindside went as planned! Lily has won immunity which I'm happy about. Ryan and Danielle are annoying because they're trying to fight me on "not being personal" with them. I'm not fucking obligated to talk about my personal life with you! This is a survivor ORG, people are busy, sorry I'm not crying on your fucking shoulder about boy problems! I talk to the people I trust & who make an effort back. Get a better argument to fight me on because this just makes you look pathetic.

I don't know what the hell happened at the last trib.... Which is a lie, I've been told by a could people what happened but like... It just sounded nuts. Literally everyone in the alliance I put together the first week is getting picked off one after another.

Holy fuck! I'm gone for one night. short story everyone is crazy. long story is that some how Ryan and Q ended up on opposite sides of a thing and I like both of them. Fucking stress. I was finally able to have a good talk with Nicholas, who thought I hated him because I hate Nick... Just wrong names, but hella wrong people. So we got that all worked out and he is stressing. I don't blame him ether, I would have been pissed if Liam throw me under the bus like Dani did him. Q told me earlier that she wasn't sure were a few of them were really and I'm just like... Imma try to keep Ryan and Nicholas alive as long as I can but I'm not gonna fuck up my game for them. We'll see how things go I guess.

i've exposed willow and q and their shitty receipts to JD. i'm hoping jack plays his double vote on chelsea. i'm hoping danielle nicholas me christine and jd also vote with jack and his double vote against chelsea. this is the only play. im also gonna tell jackson a fake name i'm voting to see if he'll vote that way. but im leaving christines name out of every conversation i have (aside from with danielle) idk im not a pussy ass bitch and im not gonna get with the fucking majority everytime. that fukcing furby is gonna get it

oops jack told me i was the vote. my ass? more likely that you think

Hello. So I won immunity? Niiiiice. Haha. I didn't see this one coming but glad I didn't have to do anything to win. That's cool. I'm very concerned about this vote. I've got a lot of people who want to work with me. I think me as well as the three others in my alliance along with Jackson JD jack Chelsea and Gage. That's a lot of people. But it honestly makes me feel good about my position. And the more we aplit up the pairs the better for me and my mentorless self. And no one knows about my extra vote either. I feel bad for not telling my alliance but it's not like Christine has told us at all about what she got on reflection. But I'm honestly worried about whatbmight come out of reflection island still. It looks like tonight's vote is gonna be on Danielle or ryan. Leaning towards Danielle. Danielle is pretty mad and I'm sure she would have one intense jury speech. Not sure if I can handle it. Wish me luck!

I'm nervous about the numbers on this vote. We have 5 that I think are solid and the other side has 3, but there are 4 wild cards that are Jack, JD, Christine and Jackson that could flip and change everything. I'm just hoping for the best!

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Me danielle and ryan have developed big plays. We're playing a vote steal and an extra vote in order to get chelsea out here

Hi I'm Jackson and this is my sixth confessional. Wow okay so the shit hit the fan last week. Remember when I said I hoped that Colin wouldn't get too set on Jack going home in place of Danielle? Well, it looks like he did literally just that. Without telling me (although he did say he was thinking about doing it, to be fair) he gave his idol pieces to Ryan to save Danielle and blindside Gage, but Ryan accidentally told Willow who got everyone to change their votes to Colin, so Colin went home. I wasn't told about the vote switch, nor that Colin was actually going to do it, so basically I was left with my thumb up my ass thinking everyone was a rat. This week things aren't looking amazing for me. Danielle is all but done with me, and Ryan says he still would like to work together, I think he's just trying to use me to save his own ass. Basically, I'm stuck with the majority group led by Chelsea/Gage/Willow/Quillynn, but I can't actually be an active participant in the gameplay until Ryan goes home. Because Chelsea is telling people I'm feeding information back to him and that they can't completely trust me yet. Sigh. Also, I'm now pretty sure that Chelsea fooled me and she actually did vote for Colin at the tribal where Lauren went home, so yeah, I'm not super excited about working with her anymore. At the same time, I'm not feeling like I have any other options. I'm probably voting Ryan tonight unless I hear something different, and to be honest, I really hope he goes home. If Chelsea's side loses majority now, I'll be stuck with them on a sinking ship, because I don't think Ryan will trust me at all once I vote for him. Hopefully a week spent at Reflection Island will do some good for my game and open up some opportunities for me to actually do something. Because if I had my way, Chelsea would go home for lying to me and just being generally too manipulative, Gage would go because he's suspicious af, and me and Lily would make a F2 deal. Oh, and also I want to win a challenge. And maybe finally get a damn idol piece. So yeah, basically that's it. Let's hope I haven't been lied to even more!!

Wish this game had nice hosts. Hope danielle goes tonight and Ryan plays another idol!

whew ok so im kinda in a sticky situation right now. im really on the outs in this game and im not sure what to do. i know quillynn and trixie have my back to a small extent but they are just keeping me around so that when they have to betray their alliance they have an extra vote or at least they assume that i will be a vote for them on jury which honestly is true. i have this lovely legacy advantage and if anyone does me dirty in this game you had best bet i will use it as pettily to my advantage as possible if i am on jury and someone screws me over. i dont vote bitter at the end of games, but i do play bitter sometimes if its necessary! either way im torn on this vote. i can either vote out ryan [which i dont want to do because i feel like without him and danielle im fucked], vote chelsea [ which i dont want to do bc i love chelsea as a person and i know she is keeping my name out of the other sides mouth] or just throw away my vote. i dont want to throw away my vote because thats such a cop out but every time i work the numbers it seems like no matter what i do ryan will leave.

Okay I can't make a move yet but I think I can make my move next round, #hevotedouthisstudent

Grr so of course on the random.org thing for the challenge I'm out first and have no shot at immunity lmao. I think in a sense the challenge was very telling for who's with who. I infected JD first bc I just don't know her at all. I think most of the infections went in a normal order except for when Jack infected QuilLynn like it was very weird but then later he explained to me that hes never talked to her before so maybe that's its? but hes a red flag of course So originally everyone was thinking Ryan bc hes being really mean to Chelsea and I was like okay whatever. But then I was thinking and I'm like Jackson is a number for us (potentially) and he would be sent to reflection island but Nicholas will never be a number for us so why not vote out Danielle so that he will be at reflection. Anway a bunch of rumors are going around right now and its about to be tribal and I think everyone is going kinda crazy.

I literally feel like I'm gonna be sick. Tonight I'm proving I'm a true #rebel and flipping. This is gonna be so crazy but Quillynn, Willow and Lily all came to me saying we should vote out Danielle rather than saying in the alliance chat which was sketchy. Then Gage acted like he didn't care which was sketchy. Then I talked to JD and she was experiencing the same so I think we're being used which is dumb cause I'm tired of Quillynn consistently lying to me. I gave Ryan my vote steal and in return he gave me his idol pieces so I'm hoping this works. I'm obviously just a number for the girls and they don't really care what I think so this way will hopefully be better. If Danielle does go home I'll look like a paranoid mess but this is the best option cause I know Ryan at least trusts me...anyway I can't wait to go home tonight woohoo.

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travelforone-blog · 7 years

Photo

Slagelse

#ckringenisforthechildren

Date Location Discipline, club Result 2017-04-01 Slagelse, Denmark Landevej, CK Ringen 21/28 and about 15 dropped

Pre pre race

Waw, it's been a while since cross ... I went to Tenerife after last cross race, you know, because everyone has to go to Canary islands to cycle, right? RIGHT? Fuck that shit, one night we got so drunk we lost a friend, he never made it home, we assumed he was dead ... I guess that's what happens if 5 shots cost 5 EUR AND you get a bottle of shit champaigne on the top ... #carbloading? So ... experiencd looking for a corpse with a massive hangover in weird piss smelling corridors under bars in party alleys. He was ok, he went to an afterparty with Norwegians. Fucking Norwegians ... Never planned to touch a bike that week, would probably punch it after .... also, beer costed 1 EUR. Ah yes, I was pretty fed up with bikes by that point, I counted 15 cross races and 13 road races from last season ... I should probably write a retrospective post ... By the looks of it I spend ... 28 days racing and ... at least twice that amount training, AT LEAST ... so ... FML ... wait, I have no life ... UGHHHH Come January I hooked up with a coach and this new super system called xert which has numbers and graphs and these projected values and shit and I started training again ... Indoors, in front of a fan ... soooo muuuuuch fun I like having a coach, I lack the discipline to be my own coach ... Ola, you the MAN! So January, February, Marchuary was a combination of 3 - 5 - 5 - 1, XSS here, XSS there ... What this means is: 3-5x hard session per week, rest, contemplate dying, train, rest, can one die from exhaustion, train, hate life, train, hate bike, train, recover, cook, eat, cook, eat, eat, WHERE IS MY CHOCOLATE??? Let's buy some chips ... I will totally start eating healthy when the season starts ... repeat Nothing new ... So I spend ... way more than 30 hours training in jan, feb and march ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ In the meantime we shot a promo video for a company to earn some money for the kids in the club. See screen grab above ... we had fun ... At some point I get a VO2max and lactate threshold test, best numbers ever. I was in a shit mood tho, work got in the way that day, it got in my head, IN MY HEAD ... But then I also started riding outside, like ... well, - 130km with my cross bike in rain with dry chain lube (now THAT was funny) - 120km and 100km with my road bike - 1x lågtempo intervallen with klubben - 1x shitty attempt at solo intervals that resulted in my knee hurting and me feeling like shit for 2 days Ah yes, my knee started hurting on my bike, I guess the saddle went to shit ... Get paycheck, buy licenses (plural, this shit is real yo!), sign up for Slagelse, let the tension rise ... Shave legs, best 2 hours of the week ... Contemplate cutting hair, but after a comment from Glenn: 'Dude, I am losing mine, so you are definitelly keeping yours, I encourage long hair' I decide to keep it ... Stop by Musette and SLAM THAT STEM (thanks guys, you're the best) Avoid alcohol whole week, yeah right, stress at work, meet deadlines, amazing, have 2 beers on Thursday, friday night ... well, I had a hof after 3 alkoholfree beers, let's leave it at that ... Wait, are we doing the whole alcohol thing again this year? FUCK ...

Pre-race

Play this and read on ...

Yodh by מזמור

Samling klubben kl. 8, ahhh, the little perks of racing in C Jonte shows up all wet, got cought by rain cycling form Lund #hardcore We take a trashcan full of cans and a bag of cement out of the van and off we go, TO DENMARK! Arrive at location, wait in line to pickup numbers, Jonte is shaking because he's cold, I take my jacket and cover him His parents observing: Aaaaawwwwwww, rigtig bra vannër ... situation almost gets emotional for a second Observe some TreBerg pros just chillin on their expensive bikes, observe some other pros chill on some other expensive bikes ... fuck me I am poor .... ehhhh Marcus is coming by in D so we go and watch, the mandatory D break passes, mhm, he did not make it ... peloton comes by, he's in there HEJA MARCUS KÖR HARD ... Me and Jonte: he looks tired ... yes, he does, he was sick whole week ... how was his training this winter? ... Well, not so good ... ah, he's a student, right, so just partying and shit, girls, booze? ... Haha, no, does not drink or party at all ... WTF? ... Yeah, he just plays videogames ... Ehhhhhh Get to van, grab bike, try to register, system says I am a Junior, some dudes laugh at that, me too, hahahaha det ikke dig? neeej, det var ikke mig ... HAHAHA ... fuck me I'm old ... Eventually, things get sorted out ... Notice the registration trailer is made by Adria, #ifeelslovenia Also notice the bed inside has a sticker that says: MAX 70kg ... well, that's kinda pointless ... Warmup, lineup for start, observe Jonte has no arm warmers ... take off arm warmers ... observe Jonte has no gloves ... take off gloves ... Jonte's dad: wanna take off the shirt too? Nah, forgot to shave chest ... Observe a random Swedish cyclist from ... Jönköpings Cykelklubb ... Observe the Sagan look and the lack of interest in marshall talking ... All photos by: Tim R. Larsen

Plan

Plan before today: exchange in chasing down attacks, stay in front, don't attack unless it gets really booring Plan today: Jonte - I'm just gonna chill for the first 2 laps, me: DEATH BEFORE DNF, AARGGGHHHHHH, you're kidding Jonte, right?

Race

We start, I stay up front, good job Miha There is this huge ABC dude who is like all over the place, looking back, talking loud ... jerk, I hope you get dropped After first couple of rolling hills we enter into a big road and KANTVIND YES, I WAITED ALL FUCKING WINTER FOR THIS BRING IT OOOONN!!!!1! booom, attack, couple of riders go, I am in front of peloton, normal pace, waiting for Jonte to launch behind ... nope Pace picks up, I wait ... nope EVERYONE SPRINTING FUUUUUUUCK Chase, chase, chase ... ok, we're goood, contact regained Right turn, again, pace picks up, as we hit the first smaller climb attack, uphill, kantvid Left turn, kantvind, downhill, attacks keep coming, we're chasing, I am chasing for my fucking life here ... Jonte? Nope ... Random Swedish dude goes, for like 2 seconds ... Big road, kantvind, new break of 3 is like 15s ahead, I lead the pack, try to chase ... I tire myself out chasing and then everyone starts springintg again AGAIN ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? ... well, it was painful but I got back in pack, in the back Oh, there's Jonte ... (later, the xert graphs show it was like really painful, like, lines were crossing and shit ... amazing) Final climb - kantvind, attack again UUUGHHH Start-finish straight, kantvind, attacks again ... Lap 1 done Internal evaluation of the situation: This is gonna hurt ... Lap 2 mellows down a bit, but it's still fucking crazy in kantvind Big road, we're all over the place, avoind oncoming traffic by like 2cm just to have that wheel RANDOM RANT: Hey douchebag driver, I wonder if you would be so fucking brave enforcing your right of way against an oncoming truck in your lane. Or a tank. Or a plane ... Yeah?!? ... I thought so ... fucking arrogant cunt, fuck you ... I mean there is this downhill section with kantvind, we're going all out, really ALL OUT just to keep the wheel of the guy in front ... Insane ... Jettison an empty bottle just after the finishline #feelingpro Lap 2 done Notice Random Swedish dude is dropped, so is large ABC loudmouth ... haha Internal reevaluation of the situation: Well, actually, this is manageable ... ASS CRAMP FML At some point there is an attack and Jonte joins GO JONTE ... but we all accelerate, so they're caught Lap 3 is fun, we actually form a chasing group up front, we're 5-6 cyclist chasing a group of 3 that made it at some point I even shout a bit since people stop working after a right turn Mmmm, shouting at people ... By the end of lap 3 just before the climb noone wants to really pull, so ... little break, we're looking at eachother ... NOTE: last climb is a small road, so it's important how one is positioned, so about 2km to that intersection all hell breaks loose when people want to get into right position There we are, just looking at eachother ... and BOOOM, people start going, all over the place, chasing here, there ... I do a bit of too much effort, shoft to the wrong side in the wind ... Try to catch a wheel but everyone is zooming by, no gaps, no nothing 20 like riders pass me FUUUUUCK Chasing, chasing, chasing ... ok, contact Last climb, finish straight fast pace ... I'm dead ... I definitelly burned my last match there Internal reevaFUCK THIS SHIT, FUCKING WIN IT OR DIE Death metal song plays in head ... Last lap Plan - keep things under control, stay up front, whatever happens, stay up front ... It hurts, but I stay up front I slide back a bit on the big open road and BAM, CRASH, BIKES FLYING AND THERE IS A RED TREK COMING MY WAY IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII OK, AVOIDED Aftermath ... chase, chase, chase ... Internal thought: Maybe the DIE methafor was too much? Close every gap, EVERY FUCKING GAP Enter last climb, good position, all good, let's see if we can get the final attack in LEG CRAMPS I guess not ... Ease the pace, nicely get to the finish with another dropped dude

Post race

Get to the van, change, barely walk Buy a chocolate milk, cake and water with money I won at a cross race #feelingpro Look for bottle in grass, no bottle, it's gone ... Get in van, get home Foam roll, eat, have 2 beers, watch a documentary titled 'The Swedish theory of love', sleep

These help me do what I love, go pay them a visit: Musette 184 RACEDAY

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