#joy is a radical act

[raisedbythetv89]

I have no idea if this helps but if you struggle with self worth or don’t see yourself as having inherent value just for being you exactly as you are without doing anything for anybody or being “productive” please know you have been conditioned to believe that because people who can’t see their value can never understand when they’re being taken advantage of because you can’t believe you’re being used if you don’t believe in your usefulness.

White supremacy, the patriarchy, and capitalism ALL benefit greatly from us being desperate to prove our worthiness and value and they demonize loving yourself and knowing your worth by calling you egotistical, selfish and entitled.

Look at how much they’re panicking at declining birth rates yet continue to divest in education. They don’t want the current population wise, educated, and loving themselves. They want fresh bodies full of self loathing and desperation they can use and abuse for their own selfish gains.

Learning to love yourself, allow yourself rest, and recognize your inherent worth are some of the most radical acts of activism you can do because you’re removing yourself completely from the systems of oppression we seek to overthrow.

And sometimes learning to love yourself starts by doing it out of spite to the systems ruining our lives and the lives of generations of ancestors before us. Do your ancestors proud, fuck this system and become their worst nightmare by embracing your inherent value and worthiness for love and good things literally just for existing on this planet.

#radical self love #joy is a radical act #fuck the patriarchy #fuck white supremacy #fuck capitalism #you do not need to earn love or acceptance

[wholesome-supervillain]

I made an art

#art #night sky #astronomy #astronomy art #stars #digital art #stargazing #quotes #inspirational #motivational #poetry #joy is an act of resistance and love is an act of rebellion #and radical kindness can change our world #it is past my bedtime #goodnight

[mediawhorefics]

Scared of what? Lol

cant tell if this is a joke or not but the 1d fandom wasnt always very queer friendly (understatement lmaooooo. god even going back as recently as harry’s FIRST theatre solo tour the response to gay fans bringing flags was SO hostile) and there was a time long ago where interviews on lgbt topics led to a lot of people having their feelings hurt/feeling unwelcome. esp. when it came to anything associating louis with queerness. so its kind of a knee jerk reaction for me where i go OH NO whenever 1d + lgbt stuff are put together. and i def dont think thats louis’ fault but its there. i can’t help it. i’ve been burned a lot rip. which is kinda the point i was trying to make with that tag. so much as changed for the better!!!! we’re at a point where louis can openly address his lgbt+ fans and openly address the comfort that they find in him!! i mean its incredible !! if you’d told me in 2012 or 2014 or 2016 that we’d be here… i would never have believed you.

#about me #i find it hard to articulate how bad it was because SO much of the comfort and joy i found in being bi comes from the bi friends i made #in this fandom #but it was baaaaaaad #i know harry’s shows esp (but also louis’) have really Normalised the whole gay flags thing #but NEVER forget how radical it was to being lgbt flags to 1d shows #it was an act of defiance in a fandom that REALLY didnt want us there #from a team that REALLY didnt want us there either #(not the boys)

[newmusickarl]

Mercury Music Prize 2022: Ranking The Contenders

My favourite time of year has arrived – the season of the Mercury Music Prize. Back in July, the twelve albums nominated for the 2022 prize were revealed and, as ever, served up a highly diverse and eclectic list of some of the best British and Irish music released over the last 12 months – some familiar, some not so familiar. Each of these nominated records is now vying for the prestigious title of Album of the Year, the overriding criteria for which has greatly deviated throughout the award’s history.

Traditionally the prize winner would tend to be a lesser-known record, with the judges choosing to highlight the artist and album that may have been overlooked upon its initial release. However, as the profile of the annual prize has grown the judges in recent years have often chosen the album that has been most widely revered amongst music critics as the overall winner.

So, with the likes of Wolf Alice, Michael Kiwanuka, Dave, Sampha and last year’s winner Arlo Parks just some of the acclaimed artists that have taken home the Mercury Prize in recent years, the big question is - who is in with the best shout of being named the overall winner for 2022?

As I do each year, I’ve now listened to all 12 albums and tried to rank them based on what I think are their chances of winning. To be clear, this is not a “Worst-to-Best” countdown – this ranking is based solely on how likely I think they are to win the overall prize.

To determine this, I’ve considered

The impact and artistic achievement attained by the album

The popularity of the artist

The level of critical acclaim the album has received

How similar albums have fared in recent years

All clear? Good!

Without further ado, here’s my final thoughts and analysis on this year’s nominees.

12. Harry’s House by Harry Styles

Having not initially taken to Mr Styles’ third album when it was released earlier this year, I’ve now grown to appreciate it for all its folk and disco-infused pop chic. Opener Music For A Sushi Restaurant is an incredibly fun slice of funk, As It Was remains one of the year’s catchiest singles and tracks like Cinema and Satellite represent some of his most well-crafted solo material to date.

If it was anyone else this album could well be in contention for the overall prize but as it is global megastar Harry Styles, you must think the judges will choose to spotlight one of the other records on the shortlist instead. With Harry starring in Hollywood movies and tickets for his current tour reaching the £200+ mark (come on, sort it out Harry!), he certainly doesn’t need the £25,000 cash prize or the extra attention winning the award brings. Never say never, but this is probably one album you can safely rule out of contention.              

11. Supernova by Nova Twins

The debut album from London rock duo Nova Twins was probably the album on the list that caught me the most by surprise. Although when I listened to Supernova earlier this year I enjoyed the duo’s politically charged, chaotic mix of 00s R&B and various threads of alt-rock, I never dreamed it would be an album shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize. Listening again recently, it still feels out of place as typically the judges have always shied away from recognising any sort of heavy rock record.

Whilst it is refreshing to see a heavier/alternative album get the nod, I can’t imagine the judges going a step further and awarding the overall prize to Nova Twins. This one feels like the first small step in recognising albums from a genre that has often been overlooked by the awarding body, rather than a complete revolution against the prize’s ethos. So again, maybe another one you can mark as unlikely to win on the night.

10. For All Our Days That Tear The Heart by Jessie Buckley & Bernard Butler

A stirring collaboration between Irish actress Jessie Buckley and former Suede guitarist Bernard Butler, For All Our Days That Tear The Heart is an intricately crafted folk record that permeates beauty at nearly every turn. If you don’t believe me, see songs like Seven Red Rose Tattoos, I Cried Your Tears or the album’s title track.

However, whilst undoubtedly stunning, this is another album that seems unlikely to win simply due to its already immensely successful creators. Jessie Buckley’s flourishing acting career has already landed her BAFTA and Oscar nominations, along with multiple Olivier award wins earlier this year too. Bernard Butler is also the only artist on this year’s shortlist to have won the Mercury Prize previously, with PJ Harvey the only artist to ever win the award twice throughout its near 30-year history. With this being the case, I think this is another album that is deserving of recognition through being nominated onto the shortlist, but also doesn’t necessarily need to win the overall prize.

9. Forest Floor by Fergus McCreadie

Let me start by saying that this album was by far my favourite discovery of this year’s shortlist. If I was ranking the records simply on how much I love them, this would safely land in the top five. Drawing inspiration from the landscapes and folklore of his native Scotland, Jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie crafts intricate, sweeping instrumentals that will leave you thoroughly enchanted. Closing piece Glade is particularly gorgeous, but epic compositions like The Unfurrowed Field and The Ridge also showcase the best in what contemporary jazz has to offer.

There is no doubt that this is one of the finest records on the list, the only reason I have it down in ninth is simply because jazz records don’t usually fair too well when it comes to winning the overall prize. Even in recent years when highly acclaimed albums from acts like Sons of Kemet and The Comet Is Coming have been shortlisted, jazz albums have still struggled to get the final nod.

I think the aim is to get more people listening to jazz music that wouldn’t typically, so by simply nominating a record like Forest Floor it generates a wider audience and a bigger spotlight that it didn’t have previously. By this metric, Fergus has already won as more people are hearing his amazing album for the first time thanks to the Mercury Prize. So, although I enjoyed this album immensely, I don’t see it being the jazz record to buck the “nomination only” trend.

8. Tresor by Gwenno

Another one of my favourite discoveries this year is the supremely charming third album from Welsh musician Gwenno. Writing her lyrics mostly in Cornish, Gwenno channels the sonic spirit of previous Mercury nominee Bats For Lashes for a dark yet dreamy art-pop record, centred on her journey into motherhood. With a spellbinding blend of hazy guitars, folky strings, glistening electronics and her own ethereal vocals, it all makes for a truly glorious listen. In terms of highlights there are plenty to choose from too, with An Stevel Nowydh, N.Y.C.A.W and Keltek my personal favourites.

This is one I really wrestled with where to place in the ranking, as again its one of the better records on this year’s shortlist. Additionally, if this was on the shortlist during the late 90s/early 00s, you might say it would have a decent chance of winning as the more obscure records were typically favoured back then. That said, in recent years the judges have leaned more towards better-known records and my gut says that trend will continue this year. Also, if you look at albums of a similar ilk to Gwenno’s that have been nominated in recent years, you’ll find there sadly haven’t been many winners from that group. With this in mind, I think this is another album that you can say has already won through simply being amongst this year’s shortlist.

7. Reason To Smile by Kojey Radical

Almost at the halfway point and this is where the more serious contenders start to creep into the ranking. British rapper Kojey Radical finally delivered his highly anticipated debut album earlier this year, which serves up a captivating mix of hip-hop, neo-soul, gospel and R&B, with lyrical themes touching on family, relationships and racial divide. Helping Kojey out is a whole host of guest stars too, including the likes of Kelis, Wretch 32 and Lex Amor.

Overall Kojey’s debut is a strong outing and typically hip-hop records have favoured well in recent years, notably with the likes of Skepta and Dave picking up the overall prize in recent years. However as great as this record is, Kojey is up against another masterful hip-hop record on the shortlist and ultimately I think it would take a brave judge to give the prize to Reason To Smile over that album. More on that later…

6. The Overload by Yard Act

Leeds-based post-punk outfit Yard Act released their hugely impressive debut album The Overload earlier this year and it was no surprise to see this album nominated, having called it myself at the time of its release. Operating in the sweet spot between Britpop greats and fellow Mercury nominees like Blur and Pulp, as well as more modern contemporaries like Sleaford Mods and Shame, Yard Act have delivered a hugely charming debut that’s political, poetic and hugely imaginative. Built around two central narratives that run the course of the record, enigmatic frontman James Smith delivers his witty and shocking observations on Modern British life through a rags-to-riches-to-rags story with a strong anti-capitalist theme.

It’s an ambitious concept that they make look easy across a tightly controlled 37-minute runtime, with plenty of lyrical mastery and sonic experimentation to keep you well engaged throughout. From the raucous opening title track, the straight-talking funk of Payday, the stripped-back bass-driven single Rich, to the big knees-up anthem Pour Another, The Overload is simply littered with great moments. It is one of the most talked about debuts of the year which I think is a huge positive for it heading into awards night, however my gut says it will follow in the footsteps of Fontaines D.C., Sports Team and Black Country, New Road in just falling that little bit short of the top prize.

5. Skin by Joy Crookes

There is no denying Joy Crookes has an awe-inspiring voice. Drawing shades to the late-great Amy Winehouse, the British singer-songwriter blends together soul, jazz and grand orchestral arrangements to soundtrack her timeless-sounding songs of heartbreak and heritage, with her own breathtaking vocal performances always the star of the show. When all these elements are brought together, it paints a dazzling picture with Crookes always the one carrying the paintbrush – be it on writing, production or singing duties. There’s plenty of gems here that will keep you coming back too, like When You Were Mine, Kingdom or Feet Don’t Fail Me Now.

In terms of Mercury Prize history, Joy Crookes also has a lot pulling in her favour. Firstly, her album is a debut which typically favour well with the judges and, although stylistically different, fellow singer-songwriters like Arlo Parks, Michael Kiwanuka, Sampha and Benjamin Clementine have all triumphed in recent years. In fact, the only thing really going against Joy Crookes is the strength of the other contenders in the list. So, if you fancy a punt on an outsider this year, then lay your bet on this album.

4. Wet Leg by Wet Leg

Into the Top 4 then and I think this is now where we hit what I would call the serious contenders. Although I’ve not completely bought into the hype around them, there is no denying Wet Leg would be a hugely popular winner on awards night. Their self-titled debut album released earlier this year has been one of 2022’s huge success stories so far, with their mix of wit, profanity and infectious melodies garnering them legions of devoted fans across the world. Falling somewhere between indie-rock, post-punk and garage-pop, their massive hits like Wet Dream, Angelica, Ur Mum and, most of all, Chaise Longue have really come to define the past 12 months.

In terms of factors working against them, there isn’t many at all. The only thing you could say is that the Isle of Wight duo are doing quite fine on their own, with their debut hitting the top spot in the UK and Australia, with further chart success right across Europe. That said though, where commercial success would often prevent an album from winning the overall prize, it has not always been the case. For example, chart-toppers like Dave’s Psychodrama and Arctic Monkeys’ Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not have both claimed the prestigious title despite shifting some huge album sales. With this in mind then, I say Wet Leg have a very real chance of walking away the winners next Thursday.

3. Seventeen Going Under by Sam Fender

Although his career is still quite young in the grand scheme of things, there was no surprise to see Geordie singer-songwriter Sam Fender earn a Mercury Prize for his incredible autobiographical second album, Seventeen Going Under. Having already earned an Ivor Novello award and scooped the Brits Critics’ Choice prize in recent years, award success just seems to follow Sam wherever he goes.

Whether it’s confronting the memory of supporting his sick mother in her battle with the Department for Work & Pensions (Getting Started and the record’s incredible title track), disclosing his inability to effectively communicate with his father (Spit of You) or highlighting important issues of mental health and male suicide (The Leveller, Paradigms, The Dying Light), Fender’s exceptional talent for storytelling shines through with both grace and honesty, making for an utterly engrossing and heartfelt listen.

His debut made him a star but this album catapulted Sam into another stratosphere, solidified by his reception at this year’s Glastonbury Festival. In a short space of time, he has evolved into one of the country’s most prolific songwriters and I really wouldn’t be surprised if the judges choose to recognise and cap off his incredible year by presenting him with the 2022 prize.

2. Prioritise Pleasure by Self-Esteem

In all honesty, I do think this year really is a two-woman race. The final competition for me is really between this duo of outstanding, hugely acclaimed records and either one would be a massively popular winner within the music world. The first of these is of course the amazing second album from Rebecca Lucy Taylor, aka Self-Esteem.

Rightfully receiving widespread critical acclaim, Taylor’s aim for Prioritise Pleasure was quite simple – build on her debut album, Compliments Please. In her own words, she wanted everything to be “bigger and bolder” in the production of this new record, turning strings into orchestras and back-up singers into choirs. The result? Undoubtedly the finest pop record of 2021.

There was no doubting Prioritise Pleasure was a mightily impressive and utterly intoxicating listen, with Taylor exploring themes of love, self-care, sexuality, misogyny and toxic relationships across the album’s grand 13 tracks. The lyrics are meaningful, the instrumentation is extravagant and most importantly the songs are just downright excellent. After 2020 and the COVID pandemic had given everyone’s mental health a battering, this was the open and honest pick-me-up record the world needed. Lifted by empowering anthems like the album’s title track, Still Reigning and, of course, I Do This All The Time, Prioritise Pleasure is a daring and exciting pop masterpiece that has plenty of wit, words of encouragement and moments of sonic splendour.

Most importantly though, this is an honest, unconventional pop record that says the things other modern pop artists might be too afraid to say – and for that, Rebecca Lucy Taylor would be a very worthy Mercury Prize winner. From her interviews and reaction to her nomination, you also get the impression that the award would mean more to Rebecca than possibly anyone else on the list – this is something she has wanted for a long time and to see her finally win and fulfil a dream would be a special moment indeed.

1. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert by Little Simz

However - there is one woman that stands in Rebecca’s way. A previous Mercury Prize nominee who must’ve missed out on the top prize last time by the slimmest of margins. The most critically acclaimed album on the list and my own runner-up Album of the Year for 2021. That’s right, the album I think is most likely to win the Mercury Prize next week is (unsurprisingly) Little Simz’s Sometimes I Might Be Introvert.

Having transported listeners to the top of North London high rises where she grew up on her outstanding breakout and Mercury nominated third record, Grey Area, Simz now brings the listener into her world today on SIMBI, where she is found navigating an industry that isn’t built for a naturally shy person like herself. Where there is still the dazzling whirlwind of fierce lyricism and exciting eclectic sounds that made Grey Area such a success, here Simz also puts greater focus on the production and narrative too.

Much like her contemporary Dave, the introspection and sharing of personal experience from Simz is gloriously backdropped by some stunningly ambitious cinematic presentation. This is highlighted in both the grand, orchestral moments found scattered across SIMBI, but also from the album’s interludes where The Crown actress, Emma Corrin, occasionally turns up to play a sort of Fairy Godmother role to Simz.

It is no secret that spiritual title track Introvert has been one of my favourite songs of the last 18 months, and indeed the same for many others as well. You will really struggle to find a better opening track on any album in the last year and, at six minutes in length, it is an epic, triumphant and utterly majestic personal anthem. Outside of that track, the album is simply littered with more career highlights such as Woman, Speed, Protect My Energy and Point and Kill, to name just a few.

Grey Area was a special record, however with SIMBI Simz has surpassed even that amazing record. The scope, ambition, artistry and lyricism have all been elevated to another level, helping her to tower over the other nominees on this year’s shortlist. I said in my Album of the Year review that I fully expect Simz to land her first Mercury Prize win for this record next year and I haven’t changed my mind on that.

Winning this year’s prize would solidify Little Simz’s position at the top of the musical mountain and help her to shake the “best female rapper” tag she has been given, allowing her instead to finally be recognised for what she really is – one of the best working artists, man or woman, making music today. Period.

So fingers crossed for Simz and best of luck to all the nominees – I will be watching!

#mercury prize #mercury music prize #little simz #self esteem #wet leg #sam fender #yard act #joy crookes #kojey radical #fergus mccreadie #gwenno #harry styles #nova twins #jessie buckley #bernard butler #new music #best new music #album of the year

[knifearo]

being aromantic is like. hey btw you're going to live a life that is the culmination of most of society's worst nightmares. sorry lol ✌️ but then you turn around and take a really good hard look at it and it turns out that living in that nightmare is fucking awesome and you get to wake up every day and take that fear that other people have and laugh and hold it close until it's a great joy for you instead. and being happy is a radical act that you define instead of someone else. and you're sexy as fuck that's just a fact of life i don't make the rules on that one

#aromantic people are just sexy i'm not making the decisions here it's just facts #course ur hot as fuck. it came free with the aromanticism #being sexy is just default settings for aromantic people 👍 #hope this all helps. anyway i'm on my 'i hope i die alone <3 i can't wait to die alone <3' kick rn #i think the existential fear that people have of Not Partnering specifically is so. well. #obviously that shit is strong and it is SO awesome to be free of it. #realizing you're aro and you don't Want a partner can be such a hit to the solar plexus #cause society says that's the only thing that'll make you happy. so either you go without that thing or you force yourself #into doing something you don't want which would make you unhappy anyway. #so you think it's a lose lose situation and you have to come to terms with what amatonormativity presents as the worst possible situation #but then! whoa! turns out personhood is inherently valuable in and of itself and romantic partnering is just a construct! #and that nightmare is now your life to do with as you please... define as you will... structure as you want... #best case scenario. is what i'm saying. #every day i wake up ready to spit all that amatonormative rhetoric back in life's teeth by being alone and being happy #and it's so fucking satisfying. every day. #fucking JUBILANT being by myself. and i love being a living breathing 'fuck you' to the romantic system #you need a partner to be happy? oh that's sooo fucking crazy guess i'll go be miserable then. in my perfect fucking dream life lmao #yeah obviously it's the worst possible outcome on earth to die without a partner. so terrible. can't wait for it :) #aromantic #aromanticism #aro positivity #aroace #arospec #sorry to bitches who are sad about not having a partner. i could not give a fuck though get better soon #you couldn't EVER pay me enough to go back to a mindset in which my inherent value wasn't enough by myself. #FUCK that shit. absolutely miserable and a bad life outlook in general. like genuinely do the work w/ amatonormativity and get better #life is something that can be so fulfilling whether someone wants to kiss you or whatever or not #i'm on antidepressants and i have people i care deeply about. what the fuck would i need a partner for lmao

[not-so-rosyyy]

everyone's talking about the America Ferrera monologue and yes it was cool and all (she ate that delivery and she deserves her flowers!) but really the most powerful part of the film is the Ruth x Barbie scene in the final act with that Billie Eilish song in the background. THAT was what moved me. and my friends. and the sweet old lady behind me who was watching with her husband (overheard her say it was the first time in 3 years they went to the cinema!). and the mom of two boys and one girl beside us who kept apologizing to me because one of her sons almost blinded me with his phone's flashlight just before the movie started. and the full row of high school girls below us who were trying so hard to hide their sniffling from each other.

it was just after the last part of the credits rolled in that I realized how meta that experience was. watching an entire sequence that celebrates the joys of girlhood and womanhood along with this intergenerational group of women, mostly strangers to me but to whom I shared an unspoken bond with just because we're all the same gender trying not to lose who we are, discovering all the various things we're made for, and rejoicing in all the unique sorrows and triumphs of being a woman in a world that makes it difficult for us to just...BE.

I didn't think I came out of the theatre with an abrupt raging desire to crush the patriarchy asap, nor did it suddenly embolden me with radical ideas of feminism. but I could feel all of those women who watched it with me walk out of there with a certain power, one that the film reminded us we've always had. to simply...exist. unapologetically. as we are. without the need for permission from anyone but ourselves.

#barbie #barbie movie #barbie 2023 #greta gerwig #margot robbie #america ferrera #ryan gosling #film

[rthko]

I used to get insecure when reading radical critiques of "born this way" narratives, but I understand it differently now. I'm reading early defenses of homosexuals that concede that their "invert" pathology is worthy of sympathy, and that straight society ought to allow them to have sex (in the right circumstances) so they don't have to be miserable. They go on to claim that while some people who commit homosexual acts are victims of their circumstances, the real perverts are ontologically straight men who commit them by choice.

If I asked every LGBT person I know, "did you choose to be queer," virtually everyone would say no. I have never, to my knowledge, met anyone who would say yes. But if I asked them if they would turn straight/cis if they could, I believe that most, including people who have gone through great hardships on account of their identities, would still say no. The phrase "gay lifestyle" is considered politically incorrect, and indeed there is no one gay lifestyle. But we have also developed culturally distinct circles associated with pleasure as a virtue, creativity, individual dignity and collective care. Many of us learned to look at the straight world not with envy but with relief that we're not part of it.

There are characteristics of our queer identities or behaviors that are a choice. I did not choose to be attracted to men, but I did choose to be promiscuous. I did not choose to be uncomfortable with "male" gender roles, but I did choose to challenge them through gender expression. An emphasis on innateness would imply that the only characteristics of my identity and behavior worth defending are those that are inevitable. It would ask why I still insist on living the way I do when my sexual desires can now just as well be satiated in a legally recognized monogamous marriage.

The subtext of this question, a choice or not a choice, is whether a person is worthy of support. Much like the elusive "gay gene," some trans advocates are searching for the definitive proof of "male brains" and "female brains" that will validate the existence of trans people once and for all. If gender becomes medically or scientifically "provable," perhaps science would then validate trans people. Or, perhaps a brain scan would determine who should or should not consider themselves trans, and create new rationalizations to misgender on "scientific" terms. We need only look back to the sexologists of the late 19th and early 20th century, often gay themselves, who developed scientific rationalizations for queer behavior in good faith only to have them reapplied to nefarious ends.

Many will insist they support LGBT people in the abstract but not the specifics of queer culture. These are the tendencies that don't have a scientific or metaphysical explanation. It is less often we hear claims that one is born to be flamboyant, promiscuous, left wing, kinky or polyamorous, so these tendencies are superfluous. There is a platonic ideal of a lesbian, a gay man, a bisexual or a trans person who follows their natural proclivities and not a step further, and you're not it. So arguments against born this way narratives are not just in defense of those who see themselves as having chosen their gender or sexuality--for what it's worth, I have not knowingly met any. It's that this is a flimsy claim to legitimacy, one that has been used against us, and one that can only be taken so far. I'm not interested in determining who is "faking it." I understand more and more that everyone's body belongs to them, and the steps they take to experience joy and mutual pleasure need no explanation.

[robinante]

Emily Axford acts with unyielding wonder and empathy for everything she touches and Brennan knows it. When he confronts Emily with a power larger than her, or a power stranger than her, he does not bother trying to intimidate her. He knows she will look his gods in the eyes and speak to them with understanding. He knows that she will not shy away from touching what shouldn’t be touched if it means she learn from it. He may not know what she will do exactly (she is a bit of wild card) but you can always tell that he’s prepared for her to seek a connection and I love to watch it every time it happens. She is radical hope and understanding and pure unadulterated joy for what any world has to offer. Emily Axford and her role playing is fucking amazing.

#poured my heart into this one boys #Emily Axford #dimension20 #fantasy high #fantasy high sophomore year #the unsleeping city #a crown of candy #starstruck odyssey #neverafter #fig faeth #sofia bicicleta #jet rocks #saccharina frostwhip #sundry sidney #ylfa snorgelsson

[jessicalprice]

So I've spent a lot of time untangling Christian exegesis of parables and talking about how the way Christians interpret parables almost always ends up being antisemitic.

But aside from how it makes them think about Jews and Judaism and Jewishness, I also want to talk a bit about how it makes them sympathize more with abusers than with victims.

The easy-to-point-to culprit here is the trilogy of parables that culminates in what most Christians know as the Prodigal Son story.

The common interpretation of these parables is that God does (and therefore Christians should) value a repentant sinner over someone who's never sinned.

The problem here isn't the stories themselves--they're pretty enigmatic as far as their actual meanings--but Luke's gloss:

"Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."

(Mark says, "So it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost," which is very different.

So on its face, in 2023, that's a blatantly dangerous, abuser-supporting belief. What is it like to be a child sexually abused by your youth pastor and to hear that the fact that he hurt you is part of what makes him somehow spiritually "better" than you?

And we can see it play out in the way Kevin M. Young, a popular progressive pastor on Twitter (who describes himself as "post-evangelical" and was the senior pastor at a Quaker congregation) responded to being told one of his tweets was antisemitic, and then jumped in to support a woman who responded by identifying herself as a fan of John Chrysostom (the literal author of "Against the Jews" and the most antisemitic of the Church Fathers, which is saying something).

I'm not going to transcribe the whole thing, because it's not all that important for what I have to say about this, but I am going to call out a few lines:

"The American Christian approach to t'shuvah sees the victim's spirit, character, and speech as equally important to the offenders. I.e. in Christendom, the victim can exceed the sin of the offender simply by their reaction (if it be in sin or acted in a way that is not Spirit led)."

So, to be clear, if someone assaults you, and you don't meekly forgive them in a "Spirit led" way, you're somehow worse than they are.

The uniquely Christian brain rot here is in seeing every sin as an opportunity for forgiveness. After all, if being a repentant sinner gives you a higher spiritual status--if there's more "rejoicing in Heaven" over you--than that of your victim, then you have to sin to get there. It treats other people as props in your salvation journey, not as fellow humans whose suffering matters. (Combine that with the Christian idea that suffering is somehow virtuous in and of itself, and you've got a very toxic recipe. Not only, by abusing others, are you guaranteeing your own value as a repentant sinner, but you're giving your victim the opportunity to ennoble themselves through suffering.)

Of course, a key word here is repentant. Put a pin in that.

These sort of exchanges on Twitter--a Christian being outright genocidal toward Jews, and a supposedly progressive Christian figure jumping in to defend the Christian, with seemingly no ability to comprehend that the Jews in the conversation are human beings who may have their own trauma around violently antisemitic language, with boundless empathy for the Christian abuser and none for the Jewish targets of their abuse--happen frequently and just as frequently leave Jwitter baffled in addition to angry.

Why all this empathy for the abuser and none for the victims?

I think a lot of this comes out of progressive Christian exegesis of parables, which is frequently looking for the radical "twist" to the story.

E.g. in the story of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, the assumption is that the audience of the time would have empathized with the Pharisee, and thus the twist is to make them empathize with the tax collector. In the story of the Good Samaritan, the assumption is that they would have seen the Samaritan as a threat, and the twist is to make him the hero.

The thinking goes that the audience would have had empathy for certain groups and none for others, so the stories push them to feel that empathy for the latter, and that this was needed to balance the scales, to make sure everyone was receiving love and empathy and care.

Except that this, in modernity, has the effect of simply reversing the roles, not balancing them. The groups that are assumed to be in good social standing get no empathy, even become the implicit villains, and the groups (supposedly, since this is now a Christian-dominant society) traditionally looked down on get all of it.

That might still be a balancing act if the "looked down on" groups were actually marginalized. But in the Christian imagination, that role is filled by sinners in need of Christian grace, not necessarily demographically marginalized groups.

The idea seems to be that the victims are getting sympathy from elsewhere, so it's the Christian's job to make sure the abuser/sinner gets sympathy too.

But I'll point again to that pesky word "repentant."

Ultimately, when it comes to treatment of Jews and Muslims and anyone else who points out that a Christian has in some way harmed them, Christian sympathy goes immediately to the offender before the offender has even expressed any repentance.

The repentant sinner is so much more valuable, at this point, than their victims that they must be preemptively forgiven, that they are more valuable purely because they now have the potential to repent.

And this seems to be lurking under not just how "progressive" pastors act on Twitter, but in a lot of our cultural narratives around, say, college rapists and their futures, around white people who are publicly called out for racist acts, etc.

#jumblr #tshuvah #christian forgiveness culture

[genderkoolaid]

the reason a lot of transmascs experience some level of regret/depression after medical transitioning is, imo, the exact reverse of the reason TERFs think we transition in the first place.

TERF beliefs are generally that transmascs dysphoria is actually a natural uncomfortableness with how misogynistic society defines women, and that our transition is an attempt to conform to the idea that being nonfeminine means you aren't a "real" woman, instead of realizing that we only hate ourselves because society tells us women like us shouldn't exist, and actually radical feminism is the real liberation.

but for example: when i first starting on T, every change was 100% pure joy. i was so ecstatic, everything was amazing and wonderful. i truly loved everything.

but then the longer I was on it, the more transandrophobia I encountered because I was on T. I started feeling more and more ashamed of having hair on my arms, my thin facial hair, my "tranny voice". Things that made me really excited before starting making me a little bit uncomfortable because of how society treated it. It was literally like Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria but exactly the opposite.

Now this wasn't and isn't as strong as the gender euphoria T has brought me, and it hasn't caused me a lot of real "oh no do I regret this" distress because I have been able to immediately recognize that I am only uncomfortable because of how people started treating me differently. But especially for transmascs without support systems, without understanding our own internalized transphobia, can very easily feel a lot of trauma associated with transitioning because of the way that society treats trans men. when every change of your body is met with mockery and scorn and disgust, its natural to get affected.

and this is why its so fucked up when other trans people share stuff about how "soo many trans men are gonna regret T because they're all stupid little girls who think T is gonna make them sexy yaoi boys, since they all have no idea what it's like to really be men and just fetishize gayness!" because you are literally the reason. People mock and shame trans men, they make spaces hostile for anyone with a testosterone-dominant body, they act hostile to trans men and our experiences constantly. and then when trans men internalize that disgust and blame ourselves for how other people treat us because of our transition, those same people turn around and use that as a way to further mock us.

#m. #transandrophobia #top 10 posts Tumblr queue almost winked out of existence

[mazeinthemiroh]

Heyy there! I just love your ateez reactions so much and I saw that requests were open, so here is mine, I hope that's ok.

So, I've seen this concept a bit with other groups but I never found an ateez one, when they give the reader gf privileges, like the reader kiss them on the cheek and they don't have a problem with that (looking at you, hongjoong) and other things like that they don't let the others members do at all. I just imagine the others being so dramatic about it too lol.

ateez giving their s/o partner privileges

genre: crack, fluff, everything in between

word count: 1.7k

warnings: cursing, wooyoung acting like... wooyoung, sanho bromance, idk its all very chaotic ok??

a/n: there is a LOT of wooyoung in this like he's in most of them because idk he's an icon and i felt like he fit the criteria for most of these so that's that. tysm for your request, this is such a cute and fun idea i love it! sorry it took like 10,000 years for me to do 🧑‍🦯

hongjoong

wooyoung had his hands on his hips when he found hongjoong cuddled up with you on the sofa. legs folded over yours, arms wrapped around you tightly; he had never seen his leader show this much physical affection before. it was a weird sight to see.

"what do you want," hongjoong peered over your head, which currently lay on his chest, to see wooyoung still watching you both.

"oh," wooyoung said bluntly, "i see how it is."

"what are you on about," hongjoong rolled his eyes.

"i can't even poke your cheek without you squeaming away, but then they are all over you," wooyoung gestures to the cuddling session taking place, his tone exasperated.

hongjoong rolled his eyes and grinned slightly.

"yeah well, they're just better than you," hongjoong stated before placing his chin atop your head as you snuggled down further into his arms.

"why are you acting all jealous, you weirdo" hongjoong added as wooyoung continued to glare.

"disgusting behaviour," wooyoung fake gagged at the two of you being cute together. he'd have to get used to this side of hongjoong because you couldn't help but bring it out of him.

seonghwa

seonghwa had a thing about his hair. in the sense that... he didn't want anyone touching it.

stylists can, sure. but when his members came close to it seonghwa would throw hands. they would always mess it up, especially woosan, who were both rough with him in general and liked pulling on his hair to tease him.

but you're his partner. who was he to deny you of such a pleasure? playing with his hair brought you great joy.

so you sat on the couch, his head in your lap and eyes fluttered closed as he was telling you about his day in his usual calm, low voice. your hands folded through his hair, fingers lacing in between the fibres.

"oh i see how it is" wooyoung and san collectively joined the room to ruin the peaceful atmosphere, "you let them touch your hair but not us?"

you just grinned as you watched your boyfriend's eyes roll dramatically at his friends.

"go away" he mumbled, closing his eyes once more.

before you could stop them, the pair came over and messed up his hair quickly and not-so-gently, making him gasp and sit upright.

"little shits" seonghwa snarled as they ran away chuckling to themselves.

"you love them really," you said with a smile, pulling his head back down gently to your lap as he closed his eyes once more.

yunho

you had many benefits from dating yunho. he was handsome, kind, hilarious... you loved everything about him. but a privilege you have with him is helping him pick out his clothes.

"maybe try this colour tie instead," you handed him a burgundy tie, which seemed to please him.

hongjoong leaned against the door frame, watching yunho slide the tie around his collared neck.

"is this why you don't ask me for fashion advice anymore?" hongjoong pursed his lips as you smirked and winked over at him.

"that," yunho had elegantly twisted his fingers and folded his tie expertly quick, "and the fact that you have a very radical style. too noisy for me, i like things simple."

hongjoong shrugged a bit, "why be boring when you can be bold?"

"why where black when you can wear yellow?" yunho remarked back, grinning at you in the mirror as you stifled a laugh.

"fine, i get it" hongjoong pushed himself off the door frame, "have fun dressing your doll, y/n."

"oh i will~" you hummed, slipping your hands over the shoulders of his suit once he turned around to face you, a small grin still on his lips.

"perfect."

yeosang

"oh look it's mister 'don't touch me'" jongho mused as he came in to find yeosang spread out on the sofa with you hanging onto him like a koala.

"oh hello," yeosang vaguely looked over in his friend's direction "what's your name again?"

"oh you think you're so funny," jongho shook his head as yeosang snuggled into you gently. "i was gonna watch the football game in here."

"go ahead" you piped up, your voice sounding muffled because your face was buried in yeosang's neck. the vibrations of your voice tickled his neck, making him giggle. yeah, you guys weren't going to move anytime soon.

jongho's blank expression didn't change; public displays of affection were not his thing.

"nah forget it," jongho said, "i'll leave you lovebirds in peace."

"good, bye-bye" yeosang yawned and you hit him lightly for being rude, giving him a little glare

"i mean 'nooo, stay with us'" yeosang was so unserious he literally can't go 2 seconds without being sarcastic.

jongho shook his head "i couldn't possibly think of anything worse. having fun!" and he walked out with no other words said.

san

san is quite handsy with everyone he is close to so there's not much he wouldn't do to his members than he does to you.

but he would just concentrate his affection on you a lot more. you'd get all the kisses and cuddles you'll ever need to last you the rest of the year!

and the members noticed this.

"no goodnight kiss?" yunho would ask san in a teasing voice.

"not for you," san grinned sleepily, making his way towards his room, where you were waiting for him.

"wow, you've changed" yunho hummed before going back to his video game. of course, he didn't care, he just wanted to get under san's skin.

and he did. san pouted slightly, feeling guilty that he hadn't shown his friend much affection recently.

"you're just jealous because you don't have a partner" san would say, folding his arms over his chest.

when yunho didn't reply san rushed to him and placed a kiss on his cheek "goodnight" he grumbled and yunho grimaced in disgust, leaning away.

"ewww save that for your partner, lover-boy" yunho grimaced in disgust, leaning away from his affectionate roommate, who looked at him in defeat.

mingi

"stop biting me, wooyoung"

this was the third time mingi had scolded the younger member. yes, wooyoung had the tendency to bite the other members. this did not come as a surprise to you at all. in fact, you found it hilarious.

"you let y/n do it," wooyoung said matter-of-factly as your face flushed. mingi rubbed the back of his head and chuckled shyly.

"yeah, don't think i don't notice the love bites you come home like every other day," wooyoung raised and eyebrow and shrugged. mingi did in fact have one of these love bites laying perfectly on the skin of his neck as he spoke.

"well, that's different, we're dating" mingi protested after his initial embarrassment about being exposed, "you bite me because you... hell, i don't even know why you bite me."

"it's my way of saying i love you" wooyoung gave mingi big wide eyes while you giggled at this, wrapping an arm around your boyfriend.

"i don't care why you do it, and that's gross" mingi's face screwed up into disgust. you hid your face in the crook of his neck as you hid the laughter into his skin.

"why are you in his neck, y/n? wanna bite him again?" wooyoung interrogated as you raised a leg to kick him.

"find someone else to bite, this one's mine" you finally decided to fight back, giving as much attitude as wooyoung was coming out with.

"i don't why anyone has to be me at all, really..." mingi stared at the ceiling, wondering what he had done to deserve this affectionate abuse.

wooyoung

wooyoung was another affectionate member. in fact, he was so affectionate that he broke the physical boundaries the members found normal, to begin with.

"you're all my partners, in a way" wooyoung would gesture to the entire room as the other members groaned, and you sat up next to him with an amused look on your face. it was always fun to see your boyfriend interact with the others the way he did.

"san is my wife, for instance" wooyoung laughed at himself, earning a punch in the shoulder from san, who shook his head, clearly offended. this was the usual behaviour he had to deal with.

"but i love you the most" wooyoung leaned on your shoulder and fluttered his eyebrows as seonghwa let out a little 'aww', the other members rolling their eyes.

"thank goodness. now we don't have to deal with the snoring anymore," jongho remarked as the boys started laughing. wooyoung glared at the younger member playfully.

"what an honour and a privilege," you said in a non-impressed, monotone voice. wooyoung glided an arm over your shoulder.

"it is, isn't it?" wooyoung beamed while you stared at him with the same blank expression.

"i need more wine."

"i'll have some more too~"

"no, alcohol makes you snore louder!"

jongho

jongho is another member who isn't as affectionate as the rest. but he finds himself being different nowadays, because he is dating you. you've definitely softened him, he usually initiates most of the physical affection between you both!

"look at you two," mingi teased, playfully, grinning at the two as you walked arm in arm. you were currently on a walk with all the other members and they all couldn't help but notice how jongho was so open with his affection for you.

"what are you looking at?" jongho whined at his hyung, but his grip tightened on your arm. you blushed lightly at this warm gesture.

"you guys being desperately in love with each other," mingi teased and jongho stared at him with a blank expression. you laughed at this simple exchange.

the 99' liners kept going 'aww' and taking sneaky photos of you two because their precious maknae has found the one.

"leave them alone, guys" seognhwa scolded, but smiled dreamily at the sight of you two. he couldn't help it, you both looked so cute.

"it's nice to see jongho like this," he remarked to hongjoong, who nodded along with him.

you both looked like an exceptionally perfect couple, and the members couldn't get enough of how adorable it all was.

#ateez #atz #kpop #ateez imagines #ateez scenarios #ateez x reader #atz scenarios #atz imagines #atz x reader #hongjoong #seonghwa #yunho #yeosang #san #mingi #wooyoung #jongho #kpop scenarios #kpop imagines #kpop x reader #kim hongjoong #park seonghwa #jeong yunho #kang yeosang #choi san #song mingi #jung wooyoung #choi jongho #ateez crack

[raisedbythetv89]

It will always be so funny to me (in a hahahaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!😭😭😭😭 kind of way) that j*ss wh*don, a man famous for ensuring Buffy suffers literally as much as humanly possible, watched Veronica Mars, a show where in just the pilot we learn:

A girl and her dad are social pariahs, who were abandoned by her alcoholic mother. Her best friend has been murdered. They lost their home after her dad was fired because of said murder. Her ex boyfriend basically ghosted her while still going to the same school - just ZERO words or explanation as to why or that they were even broken up. Her first sexual experience is SA that isn’t taken seriously and MOCKED by law enforcement and she can’t even tell her dad because she’s worried what he’ll do. Her dead best friend’s boyfriend, who used to be her friend too, has now made it his life mission to make her miserable. She lost her entire friend group, and she has to work as a PI seeing the worst of the worst of human behavior to help pay the bills that often puts her in danger.

And wh*don went:

“Now THAT is television!!!”

So much so he made reference to Veronica Mars season 2 in the comics and he did a guest star appearance 💀

Don’t get me wrong I love Veronica Mars but I just KNOW it’s for completely different reasons than j*ss does.

I am just so sure he was absolutely THRILLED by all the horrors and pain they were able to dump on a young girl in one fell swoop (like I can literally picture him cackling like a supervillain like he did after writing the angel to angelus storyline, at the evil genius-ness of it all) when it took him many seasons for all the trauma and hardships to really pile up on Buffy. It’s just so obscenely on brand for him it becomes comical in a “I have to laugh so I don’t cry” kind of way while also pointing to the larger issue of how most male writers and directors use their female characters and more specifically - their pain and trauma - to move a story along

This is made even worse if the woman is a person of color which is a whole other conversation that I as a white woman don’t really feel it’s my place to delve into the history of the exploitation of racial based trauma by a predominantly white run hollywood because that would be just another white person talking about an experience that isn’t mine but it felt important to acknowledge that this post is about two white women characters and I know it is so much worse for women of color which we even see examples of in both shows.

Seeing our own pain reflected in media is important and valuable in many ways but so is seeing joy and love and I didn’t realize how bad things were until I watched the movie “Ibiza: Love Drunk” several years ago and the entire time I was holding my breath waiting for someone to get kidnapped/sa’d/tricked by a fuck boy/fight amongst the group of girlfriends - because it was about a group of girls traveling, having fun partying, and meetings boys and hooking up with them and that literally ALWAYS ends badly in media!! And it didn’t this time and I didn’t realize how much I needed it and how RARE it was until that point 😭😭😭 which no surprise it was written by a woman who’s goal was to show women’s JOY in media and that bad things don’t always happen when we live our lives and have fun.

#joy is a radical act #buffy the vampire slayer #veronica mars #fuck joss whedon #buffy summers

[ineffectualdemon]

I saw a tiktok that has been bothering me since

Now the context doesn't really matter but she was saying basically that when you first come out there is a stage where you are all happy and excited about your identity and dressing in rainbows and joyful

And then basically said that everyone does (or should) grow out of that stage and end up in the angry, cynical, pissed off activism stage

Essentially saying that taking joy and excitement in your sexuality/gender is "cringy" and "immature"

Now she wasn't being awful and was saying people should leave those who are excited and happy alone and let them be but it's still bothered me

Because you can be both

You can be excited and take joy in your sexuality and gender while also being filled with rage about injustice

I don't know. Maybe this is because I am knocking on the door of 40 but to me taking joy in your gender identity and sexuality is a radical form of defiance

Our stories were tragedies

Our identities were shameful

Picking up a rainbow flag and saying our existence is beautiful and magical and lovely and something to take joy in was an act of rebellion and reclaimation

To say that people experiencing joy in themselves is some how "cringy" or less important or useful than people being angry is...misguided to me

The rage at injustice is important but I also think the celebration of a part of yourself you have been told to hate is just as important

And they just aren't mutually exclusive

Self love can be a "fuck you" to people who want you to hate yourself

#queer #lgbtqia+ #queer things #just my two cents

[drchucktingle]

mr. dr. chuck, i'm a few months ago i told a doc of mine that i believe i'm on the spectrum (after yeeeears of considering all the reasons why i thought so) and she agreed with me. then i came to some conclusions about members of my family. then i started melting down and haven't really recovered.

i'm in my 30's, but my life feels like it's been the mistake-addled 24th year for over a decade. people, choices, wants, they feel like things that were silly blips and not of much substance. i'm tired and my body hurts, so it feels harder to get to things i need. doctors don't seem like they can be trusted because of all the other ways i show up in the world.

i'm worried about my life and my future, and it feels like my magic is gone (or that i can't touch it right now). do you have any words of wisdom for someone who found out this really big thing about themselves kind of late?

thank you.

hello buckaroo thank you for writing. first of all i will say MOST IMPORTANT thing to remember is that it is okay and valid to FEEL the way that you feel. your reaction to this news or any news really is not wrong. that does not mean you cant wish for another reaction or WORK TOWARDS another reaction, but in grand cosmic sense this is just your way. YOUR TROT IS VALID and we all have our own unique way. sometimes that path is an easy path with sunny days and smiles and a glorious view, and sometimes it is through the darkness of shadows or crawling through the old bog. we can PREFER one path over the other, but neither is WRONG.

when giving advice old chuck tries to not PROJECT what i think YOU should do because that is not really the point. this is your trot to trot and i do not think it is my place to act like some authority of your way. what chuck can do is tell you MY story of diagnosis and how it made ME feel and maybe you can take little pieces of that for yourself.

chuck learned of way on autism spectrum when i was in early twenties by doctor who said 'yes this is your way'. when i learned of my spectrum way my reaction was: wow this is very very cool i am so lucky because all of my heroes are autistic and now i am in this RADICAL CLUB. we are special and unique and DANG what a treat wish i could have a membership card in my wallet to show all my buds.

now obviously this is not everyones reaction, but as starting off point i wonder what it would have meant to my future if the news would have HIT ME IN A BAD WAY. if i would have felt let a dang robot alien who didnt belong. maybe id be swimmin through the bog ever since.

thing is I LIKE ROBOT ALIENS they are very cool. doctor did not MAKE me different, i was different already, our talks just popped a nice little name on it for me to take or leave. i took the name proudly because DATA from stars trek (certified robot alien) is exactly how i already felt and dang what a cool character and dang what a great life. so was DAVID BYRNE. so was every cool buckaroo artist that i liked. cowboys are OUTSIDER HEROES and that is how my autism makes me feel.

so like i said, i do not know about YOUR way, but MY WAY of hearing this news was heaps of joy and excitement. i will also say that it is very DIFFICULT to find this reaction later if your first leap is feeling in a sad way about it. so maybe if you want to trot back in your mind to those first few steps it would be helpful. maybe mentally trot to where you were pushed off a dang cliff and think "well was i pushed off a cliff or was i just told 'hey bud youve been floating this whole time?"'

because if youve been floating then DANG thats a lot of power. thats not falling. you can float up, you can float down, you can float side to side.

the next thing i will say AS AND ARTIST is that years of toiling and feeling aimless are NEVER actually aimless when it comes to creation. and to LIVE in a human body is to be an artist, because you are CONSTANTLY CREATING the future. when i am writing and i dont have an idea for my next book that can be frustrating, but it is also PART of the process. if i walk to the store to rustle up my mind, or wander around the park, or spend a whole WEEK feeling weird because of writers block THAT IS ALL PART OF MAKING GREAT ART. that is not wasted time. in other words, your years of toiling are not wasted time, that is just the process we all have when we are creating a future masterpiece.

#love is real #autistic #tingleverse

[climatecalling]

“Guerrilla gardening is the practice of planting in public spaces in your neighbourhood” she says on a humid summer afternoon, walking between outlaw flower beds in Hackney, east London. “And that’s how I define it … because, for me, it’s all about community ownership and belonging, and I think we have a right to cultivate these spaces in the areas we call home – and a responsibility to, as well. “So-called public spaces have been really privatised, and communities actually don’t get a chance to interact with them often. So I think we do have a right to do that in the places we put down our roots, where we live.” ... “I do think there is an issue in society at the moment with the lack of agency and autonomy for people,” she says. “Guerrilla gardening, even if it is just sowing something in a tree bed, it might not change the world – you might help some bees, you might bring joy to someone walking down the street – but you’re also reminding people, or awakening something that is like ‘Maybe this is how it should be.’

#guerilla gardening #anarchism #green spaces #urban gardening #climate crisis

[radiofreederry]

Dorothy's Top 5 Games of 2023

2023 was a remarkable year for gaming. The number of major, high-quality releases was truly astonishing, both in the AAA and indie scenes.

2023 was also the year I started leaning more into gaming as a hobby, beginning to do Twitch streams in April. Because of this, I thought I'd go through a few of the best games I played this year, and talk a bit about what made them so enjoyable. Consider this my "games of the year" list, like I know so many people are going to be doing this year.

My list is reflective of my own preferences and tastes; I tend to play a lot of RPGs, action-adventure games, and platformers, so you won't find a lot of fighting games or shooters in contention here. Feel free to comment or reblog with your own list - you don't have to write little essays about everything like I did, but it'd be fun if you did!

Honorable Mentions:

Pentiment (Obsidian Entertainment): Released in November 2022, but didn't play until this year. One of the most gripping and original RPGs I've ever played.

Persona 5 Royal (P-Studio): Released in October 2022 for Xbox, but I've been streaming it and having a lot of fun with @lakemojave and others.

Katamari Damacy Reroll (Namco): Released in 2018 for Switch, but played it for the first time this year and had a blast.

And now, the list proper.

Fifth Place: Hi-Fi Rush (Tango Gameworks)

There was a sort of game prevalent in the sixth generation of consoles which doesn't exist much anymore outside of the indie space. These were bold, bright, games which were unapologetically "video gamey," and wore their medium on their sleeve. Playing Hi-Fi Rush, I felt as if I was Anton Ego eating the titular dish in Ratatouille, and being transported back to that forgotten era of gaming. Hi-Fi Rush is stylish, hilarious, and deliriously fun, mixing the rhythm and action genres to create an experience unlike anything else currently on offer in gaming.

With addicting timing-based combat, a killer soundtrack featuring a suite of certified bangers (such as a cover of "Free Radicals" by the Flaming Lips, one of my favorite bands), and a delightful cast of colorful characters, Hi-Fi Rush carries the off-beat spirit of games like Jet Set Radio and Viewtiful Joe in its DNA, and had it been made 20 years ago, I do not doubt that it would have an animated adaptation airing on Kids WB.

By evoking the spirit of a bygone era while remaining utterly unique, and by virtue of its slick presentation and impossible-to-put-down gameplay, Hi-Fi Rush manages to punch far above its own weight and snag fifth place on my list.

Fourth Place: A Highland Song (Inkle)

A Highland Song came out of nowhere at the tail-end of the year and forced me to completely reevalute my game rankings. It is one of the most delightful and charming games I've ever had the chance to play, and has managed to do what I thought was impossible: create a roguelike experience that I actually want to see through to completion.

A Highland Song does this through its emotive embrace of the Scottish Highlands as a setting, with those ancient hills acting as both the main antagonist and a stalwart companion in main character Moira's journey to cross the mountains and reach her uncle's lighthouse by the First of May.

The Highlands are your dear friend. They will provide you food, shelter, and the tools you need to complete your journey. The Highlands are your worst enemy. They will deny you a safe haven when you're exhausted, out of energy, and being soaked through by torrential, bitterly-cold rain; they will give you tools long after you've passed the point where they would have been useful. The hills will preserve you. The hills will kill you.

It is in these contrasts that A Highland Song shines. It is a game about finding yourself, and pushing forward in the face of impossible adversity. There is an indescribable joy to spending days in-game exploring a section of the Highlands, trying to find the way forward, and finally running through one of the game's rhythm-based sections, triumphant Celtic folk music blaring in your ears as you finally find your way. All the while, Uncle Hamish's warm, fond recollections of Celtic folklore and Moira's descriptions of her family life make you want to push on, to learn more about this magical place and the people who inhabit it.

You will not make it to the sea in time in your first run through A Highland Song, nor likely your second or third. Yet each time Moira passes through the mountains, you learn more about them, become more familiar with the slopes and pathways that carve through these lands that are older than time. You will stumble, you will fall, and then, eventually, you will make it to the sea by Beltane.

Third Place: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Nintendo EPD)

How do you follow up one of the most important and well-regarded games of the 2010s, improve almost everything about it, and even correct its flaws? Tears of the Kingdom manages that and then some. The direct sequel to 2017's Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom follows that game's version of series lead Link through a melancholy journey through a world ravaged by unnatural weather, blight, and time. Link is himself nearly torn apart by the corrupting influence of returning series antagonist Ganondorf (voiced in this installment in fine fashion by Matt Mercer), and the hastily replaced arm granted to him by the sage Rauru grants him new abilities, which replace and improve upon the ones he possessed in the last game.

With these new powers, the game becomes a truly open sandbox. Link is able to build almost anything with his Ultrahand ability, and the Fuse ability not only virtually eliminates the previous game's major flaw, its weapon durability system, by allowing the player to turn virtually any weapon top-tier by properly leveraging fusion materials, it also creates a resource management loop that discourages being stingy with strong resources - since they can be used to create very powerful weapons. Meanwhile, the Ascend and Recall abilities open new avenues in traversal and speed up exploration through Tear's of the Kingdom's massive map, which not only uses the previous game's world map as a base - with lots of altered and added locations to signify the passage of time, including a host of explorable caves - but more than doubles it by also adding floating islands in the sky and a dark, hostile undergound below.

The intense focus on exploration, not to mention some of the best dungeons and bosses in Zelda history, make this a game I had genuine trouble putting down at times as I sunk hundreds of hours into it, as I always felt like there was something new to find around the next corner, or some new treasure to find deep in the underground. Tears of the KIngdom is a masterclass in crafting an open world experience, and easily secures a spot in my top five. It only places so low on this list as a consequence of some blemishes on an otherwise extremely polished and technically impressive product - specifically its story and progression, which feels too much like retreading the structure of Breath of the Wild and not enough like it's blazing its own trail.

Second Place: Cyberpunk 2077 (CD Projekt Red)

Let's get this out of the way first: Cyberpunk 2077 originally released, infamously, in late 2020 in what was essenitally an unfinished state. However, with its 2.0 update that fundamentally restructures how the game is played, as well as the massive Phantom Liberty expansion dropping this year, I feel comfortable regarding this game as a 2023 release.

I didn't expect to have Cyberpunk 2077 on this list. I certainly didn't expect to see it so high on this list. And yet, here it is. I went in with almost no expectations, and came out with one of my favorite games of the year, and one of the most thoughtful RPGs of the decade. Cyberpunk 2077's great strengths lie in its richly detailed game world and its extremely strong writing, both of which impressed me beyond any preconceptions I may have had, especially given how the game originally launched as a broken, buggy mess.

Cyberpunk 2077's Night City is as fully realized a game world as I've ever seen, brimming with detail and things to both see and do. It is incredibly immersive, and I often found myself forgoing the game's fast travel system in order to simply cruise the moody, neon-soaked streets on my motorcycle as I sped from one gig to the next, taking in little details like the ethnic enclaves in different districts, or how infrastructure differed in poor areas compared to rich ones.

Cyberpunk 2077 tells a story about struggling against impossible odds, and finding hope and beauty in a hopeless and ugly world. In a future where capitalism's atomization and hyperindividualization rend the flesh of society at-large, the life of protagonist V is enriched through the human connections they are able to make as they race against time to save themselves from the biochip in their head eating away at their existence - a piece of technology stolen and then impulsively inserted during their first big job, a job taken in pursuit of the ephemeral and ambiguous glory that comes with being a legend of Night City. Their deteriorating condition throughout the game, and the ever-present acidic commentary of rockerboy Johnny Silverhand, serve as constant reminders of the folly of chasing such impermanent glory.

Whether it's Johnny's former bandmate Kerry, whose insecurities lead him to ostentatious acts of violence and destruction, or Judy, who has suffered loss after loss and desperately tries to find a situation she can control and someone who won't use or leave her, my journey as V centered around finding these connections, and using them not only to save V's life, but preserve her humanity. These themes carried through with the Phantom Liberty expansion, which explores such topics as freedom, survivor's guilt, and governmental corruption and exploitation, and features a delightful turn by Idris Elba as a weary government agent burdened by regret. There are plenty of bombastic setpieces, cleverly-written quests, and moments of intense action, but the things I think I'll always remember are quiet, intimate, human moments, from sitting with and comforting a girl whose girlfriend just killed herself, or meditating with a monk who has no ulterior motive but to bring V a rest in the midst of a grueling situation.

All that to say that while I had a lot of fun with the gameplay, the game world and the writing were what made me fall in love with Cyberpunk 2077, what will likely keep me coming back to the game on replay, and what landed it at number two on the list. The only reason it didn't end up at number one was because there's just one game I played this year which impressed me just that much more - and even then, it’s a thin margin.

First Place: Baldur's Gate 3 (Larian Studios)

Here I must confess not only have I never played the original Baldur's Gate games - early works by BioWare, a company whose work I generally respect - I had until this year never touched Dungeons and Dragons or any ancillary media. Total blind spot! Never even saw the movie this year! I'd played plenty of tabletop, but never any DnD.

What a treat, then, to be introduced to the world and mechanics of DnD through such a game as Baldur's Gate 3. This game glistens with careful and thoughtful design, and proves the vibrancy and potential that still remains in the classic CRPG style. Baldur's Gate 3's great strengths shine in two major areas, which I will go in more detail about now.

Firstly, the game offers a truly remarkable amount of freedom to the player in allowing them to resolve a situation in a myriad of ways, emulating the flexible nature of tabletop storytelling to an extent I've rarely seen in the video game medium. Want to defeat a boss that's giving you grief by running up to him and shoving him off a cliff? Sure, that works! Want to stealthily surround an enemy camp with explosive barrels and then cast fireball? Ok, go for it!

The other side of this coin is that the game permits a lot of flexibility in permitting the player to truly fuck up royally, while keeping the narrative going and not forcing them into a game over because they "played wrong." Took too long to save some gnomes from a cave-in? Too bad, they suffocated to death! Allowed an important NPC, whose spell was protecting a community from a curse, to be defeated in battle and captured? Tough luck, all those people have died a horrible, agonizing death! It's your fault! Now keep moving. In Baldur's Gate 3, all of your decisions, good or bad, have consequences, and you have to live with them.

Baldur's Gate 3's other great strength lies in its character writing. Every major character, and many minor characters, are written with such depth and nuance, with varied motivations, backstories, and moral alignments, which the player can both influence and be influenced by. Notable standouts include Astarion, the cynical vampire whose acid tongue is a defense mechanism to not let anyone get too close and who delights in thumbing his nose at others and seeking power for himself, but who can be guided towards a more empathetic and caring place; and Shadowheart, the cleric of the dark goddess Shar who finds herself torn between what she sees as her duty to her goddess and what she knows deep down to be the right thing to do.

Every character in Baldur's Gate 3 has a story to tell, and they're all good ones. That alone would land it on this list, but combined with the astonishing freedom it allows players and its infinite replayability rocket it to the top spot. Baldur's Gate 3 is my game of the year.

#long post #game of the year #goty #cyberpunk 2077 #baldur's gate 3 #tears of the kingdom #hi fi rush #my writing #star wars