#like the whole album felt very underwhelming to me

[righteousdelusions]

the fear + love concept slapped, i wished it had a better execution

#and tbh ancients dreams in a modern land should've been a two parter too #like the whole album felt very underwhelming to me #i was so excited with the singles #some fans were happy because 'oh at first is a social commentary and then it gets personal' #and yeah... who asked ? #i loved highly emotional people but the whole album could've had a more tight concept #shouldve stayed in the commentary #and i mean marina is not very politically apt or subtle but i think it's nice like i think it's better than when she goes literal #she can do personal but it's better when it's theough metaphors #if she goes the tsw1ft route it just falls flat ajsjsjs #izzy.txt

[snapscube]

I remember back when the Cinematic song clips dropped you had opinions on it, do you still keep up with Owl City? Did you listen to Coco Moon (his newest album from this year)?

yeah i’m pretty much always gonna keep an eye on what adam young is up to :) his music is very special to me. i enjoyed a few parts of coco moon quite a bit although i found the overall selection kinda underwhelming after such a long wait. but man it’s been a WHILE since i heard a song from him that resonated with me as immediately and thoroughly as Under the Circus Lights. honest to god that one is his best release since like, any song on All Things Bright and Beautiful tbh. it’s so so good. there are a few tracks on Cinematic that i really loved but the moment i listened to UTCL it was like i felt… almost a release of tension? it was early morning and i was getting ready for a long drive and it was genuinely bringing me to tears cause it was a very specific kind of feeling i didn’t know his music would ever bring me again (not to diminish the quality of his more recent work as a whole)

but yeah! i could talk about it for hours probably lmao but i’ll leave you with that for now especially cause some of my more in-depth thoughts can get pretty messy and bummer-y depending on which part of the album we’re talking about.

[mobiused]

Just My Personal Opinion but i've found ARTMS very underwhelming so far... i really enjoyed heejin's debut album and loved the OEC comeback (but was not very happy with the promotion or creative direction of the OEC album specifically) so had some hope about the ARTMS sound...

i think the only track i've enjoyed as a full song was candy crush. birth was interesting with amazing conceptual styling, but it felt kind of like a prologue to me (which could have been a cool concept... but it's the last track?)

this whole project kind of feels like an mcu take on the loonaverse lol... like let's capitalise on nostalgia and callbacks without worrying about refining the tracks or concept of the album to be good... i've found modhaus to be very disappointing so far, i dont know. the girls continue to blow it away with their vocal performances, charisma, and visuals as a whole and i will always support them... but it feels so insincere... i wish they had actually followed through with the concept of "birth" and created a self-contained album instead of jaden trying to replicate staggered releases and recycled concepts.............

sorry to dump this in your inbox but i thought i'd add my 2 cents to see if any others feel similarly 😭

Well yes it feels so silly like trying to capitalise on the Old Times when the old times are like... 50% a bad memory and 50% unrecreatable and then theyre just rinsing and recycling the stuff they already released like PLZ JUST GIVE US SOMETHING NEW PLZZZZ

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

hoping this isn't a ~weird request but i would love to read your takedown/opinions of the failures of TRC as someone who was also reaaaally underwhelmed with how it handled an interesting setup/cast of characters and was left feeling very blah about the whole experience, and i'm having no luck poking thru your tumblr archives if it already exists :) no pressure ofc, enjoying your opinions on the new series regardless! (i personally deleted the ebook after struggling thru the first chapter oops!)

i was going to say "you have caught me on a day when i am crazy exhausted even after sleeping 12 hours so sure why not" but tbh i think that's giving myself too much credit re: my ability to resist this particular flavor of haterade, although it provides a nice justification. disclaimer that i haven't read anything from the original series since right after the raven king came out so i don't remember it super well. but like basically the problems with the raven cycle are two-fold: (1) the first three books are not very good (2) the raven king is the dumbest and most hateful piece of shit masquerading as a novel i have had the misfortune to encounter in my life. like you have to understand i went into this series having had it pitched to me but Dumb But Fun and for the first three books i was having a good time. i was often like "lol this is stupid" but i would say equally often i was like "aw my kids :')" in particular i remember that something clicked for me with BLLB where the books didn't get better but i suddenly like legit loved and cared about the characters and was invested in their relationships in a way where the flaws jumped out a lot less and i appreciated a lot of things stief had done and i made a pynch playlist and started drafting some fic and blah blah blah. and then the raven king came out and it was just, i can't emphasize enough, the worst book in the history of the printed word.

on point the first: the books are not great. stief comes up with some decent lines (funny similes, the occasional spurt of something pretty), and one of the things i will give her is that she can definitely set an Atmosphere (although this skill seems to have gone missing for CDTH) - monmouth manufacturing and fox way both feel like places that are just a bit too interesting to be real but in a nice way. overall though i find her prose weirdly stilted and artificial and tryhard. i think at some point i called her what taylor swift would be as a novelist, back when our most recent taylor albums were red & 1989, and i more or less stand by that - "losing him was like driving a new maserati down a dead-end street" feels like something stief could write, but instead of a 3-minute country-pop song, it's 350 pages of that. also i have genuinely never encountered an author worse at plotting. there's a weird and almost baffling shapelessness to the books that is truly like nothing else i've read in a bad way. like i said this a couple days ago but i felt like it gave me a new respect for every other bad to mediocre novel i had read in my life, because apparently those authors did all have some kind of basic skillset so fundamental i hadn't appreciated it until i read one who absolutely does not. and also the thing i have said before of, every book has a million chapters about the villain who has nothing to do with anything, and every single one of those chapters is boring as absolute fuck. the whelk chapters in TRB are sort of retroactively justified by the noah reveal, which on reflection i think remains the most successful thing she's pulled off, but the others are interminable and completely without reward for the reader.

even fans of the series seem to concede that plotting is not her strong suit, and the things people tend to like her for are (1) her writing, which... sure. i don't think it is good but you do you. and if i am forcing myself to be fair i will say that at the very least she does have a distinct voice and doesn't have that horrible flat YA Novelist Affect that has taken over what i sometimes feel insane swearing used to be a much more vibrant and stylistically diverse genre at least in terms of the things that made their way to my sphere of awareness. so. fine. and then (2) her characters. and like yeah the TRC crew is cute. they're fun. i liked that gansey was kind of insufferable and the books made no attempt to pretend otherwise. i did love classic scorpio depresso bean trauma freak ronan lynch, and i loved how as the series went on he was both a snarling anger machine and an idiot teenage boy with the most embarrassing crush in the world. i liked blue's ambition and her imperfect but passionate feminism. i loved adam parrish's teeth-gritted determination.

and i did absolutely fall for the pynch of it all. ronan lynch, who could have anything he wanted, desperate for the affection of the one guy who had no patience for his bullshit! adam parrish, who saw himself as so lowly, falling for this almost ethereal creature who dreamed beautiful things! the way ronan's main hobby was wallowing in self-pity but the person he was attracted to was the guy who refused to act like it wasn't time for ronan to grow the fuck up. the way adam had such a fraught relationship with anger, his own anger and that of other people, but he saw so keenly through to who ronan really was that while ronan's anger exasperated him, it never scared him or made him feel like he had any obligation but to be his honest self. the way hard-edged ronan dreamed adam lotion for his hands and labeled it in freaking LATIN, the way tense adam started finding a new respect for ronan without ever feeling a need to become more deferential or apologetic. i mean it was good shit. it was such good shit that i really and truly believed that while she was not the greatest writer in the world, stief must have built this particular dynamic between these two people on purpose. she must have deliberately planned for their slow-burning mutual attraction and deepening care to communicate these exact things about what their value was to each other - ronan giving adam space to dream, adam tugging ronan into reality - and while i was pretty sure the last book would be dumb, because all the books were dumb and she'd thrown a lot of balls into the air that she was not gonna catch, and especially because i had the sense she was going to want a neat happy ending which meant either gansey wasn't going to die (boring) or gansey was going to die but everyone was somehow going to be okay by the end anyway (stupid), i was also like, well at least pynch are gonna get together and it's going to be this really nice culmination of both their arcs.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

the short version of why TRK made me feel so wild with rage was that it made extremely clear that everything i had enjoyed about the books up till that point had happened 10000% by accident. pynch is a good example of this. all that stuff i talked about above, all the push-pull dynamics of them, all the stuff that made them a good ship - it turned out that none of it mattered. none of it was relevant. none of it was even worth mentioning. because none of it, actually, was on purpose. adam and ronan get together by making out, which i respect. they do not have a conversation after that happens. not like, they hook up and don't took about it right away. i mean they don't have a post-makeout conversation IN THE ENTIRE BOOK. there is no moment where either of them says or even thinks, like - why this person. which is dumb for ronan because he has been so horny about adam, but hateful for adam because he is out of ronan's league unless we're being very clear about why this is a good fit! the stuff about ronan helping adam normalize his relationship to anger, lmao. nowhere to be found. instead we get gansey telling adam, "don't hurt him." repeat: we get gansey telling adam, who tries the hardest all the time of all people ever and who is half convinced he should be in jail for having feelings, to make sure he is nice to ronan, whose ENTIRE BRAND is "huge fucking asshole all the time for no reason." because ronan is "fragile." which like, sure. he's a half-orphan [at that point] with a fucked up life whose brain tried to kill him two years ago. but adam is an 18 year old paying all his own bills who moved out of his parents' house the day his dad DEAFENED HIM IN ONE EAR, and somehow this does not grant him any kind of special dispensation for care in the ganseyverse. and this is not ever in any way contradicted or challenged or complicated or even referred to later by the text. crime!

meanwhile, ronan... [pinches nose, sighs heavily]. again i said recently that the dream thieves should have told me her hand was not steady on the steering well. because what happens in the dream thieves is ronan meets someone who is like him but bad, and learns from him, and then figures out how to be himself but good. which is a fun sexy idea for a story, but the book fucks it up because ronan is too aware at all times of what a dirtbag kavinsky is and too untempted by his wild ways. there's no real fall, so there can't be a real rise. he fucks up his best friend's car, which he knows is also his best friend's number one most prized possession on earth, and the resolution to that is: hey dude my bad i killed your car but it's okay i dreamed you a copy of it. ???????? that's like parent who runs over your cat and says it's okay because they'll take you to the pet store tomorrow logic [realized in the middle of that i stole that image from sandman sorry]. i mean, in a vacuum, i guess it's not exactly. but like: ronan doesn't address the situation by learning anything about how not to be the kind of person who destroys something of great emotional value to someone he cares about. he addresses the situation by learning how to do his superpower good. this is not emotionally satisfying fantasy writing. it's hollow and stupid. and it's extra stupid because the book's attempt at an emotional resolution later down the line is that ronan needs to... hate himself less. which he can do by... realizing he doesn't hate himself. ??????? once again: empty. unbelievable. stupid. there's no connection there to, like, "now that i hate myself less, i can and should be less of a dick to everyone all the time," much less "one way of hating myself less might be to stop doing things that make me extremely unlikable." just: he hates himself less, he's no longer alone, he can dream whatever he wants, he's cool with his big gay crush now. weak. and like it was weak for me at the time, but reading BLLB i did think: well, the hand lotion. well, the trying to dream up a soul for the dream people. well, the big hug with blue at the end. ronan is growing and changing following his experience. it's kind of a shame we don't get his POV on any of this. but we'll probably catch up with him in the next book.

and again: no. i mean, we get ronan's POV, yeah. but none of it is reflective of someone like consciously trying to break the destructive and harmful (to self and others) habits he had forged in his grief. none of it conveys any awareness on the part of character or text that, like, deciding on purpose to be a decent human being matters. that maybe it's the kind of thing you should commit to before falling into a long distance relationship with someone who probably has PTSD from their abusive parents. that it can be hard, that it's rewarding. none of that. instead - i don't even fucking remember what. at one point he feels guilty about holding adam back and then he thinks, i'm not asking him to stay, just to come back, like ok that makes it so much better. you're just asking adam parrish, a steel whirlwind of ambition, to go to the ivy league college he has just about killed himself getting to because of how desperately he wants to escape the shithole town where he had his traumatic childhood, and then move back in four years' time. which again is not discussed. it's just taken for granted that ronan wants to stay at the barns forever. he tells declan he wants to drop out of high school [a choice being made by an eighteen year old two years after the traumatic experience of finding his dad's murdered corpse] and be a farmer and drive a tractor in circles on the property, which would be kind of funny given that his family farm is populated by dream creatures, except that like the book takes him weirdly seriously and also this is not intended as a metaphor. like his endgame in that series is that this traumatized teenager is living by himself on the barns fucking around and dreaming forever with like 3 friends all of whom are leaving town and zero ties to human reality or goals or desires of any kind and this is treated as a happy ending. even though by the way his mom got brutally murdered eight months before the stupid epilogue. but he's doing fine [stief hates women so bad]. [again it's SO funny that the first dreamer book opens with "ronan realized that his life was totally pathetic and depressing so he decided to move." like there was not this level of complexity present when you wrote the dumb epilogue!]

i keep forgetting about how ronan dreams into existence a weird little feral fawn creature/person and is bizarrely chill about it. also how his mom is his dad's dream and his little brother is his own dream and it's really explicit that his mom in particular does not have a personality of her own but just responds by giving whoever she's talking to whatever kind of person they want to interact with, which is the moooooost fuuuuuucked uuuup thiiiiiing eeeeeeverrrrrrrrrrr, and the books are just like. yeah this is normal and fine. [again sooo funny that in the dreamer trilogy declan is like "unbelievably fucked up that my little brother and mom are dreams." like yeah it is! where did you get that idea maggie. was it in the tumblr tags.]

what else. she ruined blue liking space, which didn't seem possible. blue doesn't like space and want big things because she's a smart spunky girl in nowheresville virginia feisty enough to dare to believe she can make her own life. no. it's because her dad is a tree person and trees like the sky because they grow upwards. whenever i tell people this i have to emphasize how much i'm not exaggerating or making it up. this is what it says in the text. she's like "oh that makes sense." ???????? i dwell on this one a lot because it's soooooo so so so stupid, but also because i think it really encapsulates the thing that makes TRK not just stupid but actively repellant to me, which is that you get the sense reading it that stief thinks it's better when things come from weird magic shit instead of from like real human characteristics and psychology. like for a series about friendship it winds up feeling to me weirdly and grossly misanthropic - none of these people are special or worth caring about because they are human people, it's all because of their magic Stuff. it's all because oh they actually WERE more special than everyone all along, not because of the choices they made but because they were born to it (why is ronan the only one who can take from the ley line without stealing? is it because of the kind of person he is? no. it's bc he's Special). ronan's dreaming, blue's treeness, and then gansey being actually all along a time-shifted resurrected friendship amalgamation creature who felt an instant kinship with his friends, again, not because he was a lonely teenage boy seeking out fellow weirdos to care about, but because they literally had met him before. adam, the only genuinely human character left by the end, meanwhile still is constantly asked by the text to apologize for his existence, not just in the "don't hurt him" scene but in the absolute nightmare section in the end where he goes back to his abusive parents' house for closure(????) and reflects primarily on how ugly and small his trailer was (?????????) and feels startled to discover an instinct in himself to help other adams who might be stuck like he once was, and then immediately conceptualizes this as something blue or gansey would think, which is so hateful i can't even process it. like adam at no point in this last book is acknowledged to have had a positive influence on anyone else even though he's better than the lot of them put together, but he has to kowtow to blue and gansey in his own brain for teaching him (a poor abused kid) that he might empathize with poor abused kids???? when to my sincere recollection NEITHER of them has ever like on the page demonstrated any kind of do-gooding impulse? their hobbies are myth-hunting and unskilled clothing manufacture? perfectly acceptable hobbies for a pair of teens but like? why does she hate poor people and victims of abuse so bad...

the big bad demon that is destroying the town is shaped like a wasp. gansey has a bee/wasp allergy and one time died from bees. these two things are never connected. henry cheng is upgraded to a main character because maggie heard you like diversity and now has a completely different personality than when he was an amiable preppy dbag who happened to be asian. now he has a mother in the mob and a tragic backstory about being kidnapped that taught him that you can't let fear rule your life and if you're scared you should be scared and then do it and be happy anyway, which is pretty good advice for things like an irrational fear of closed spaces that can't actually hurt you but really not applicable to someone who both does literally have a deadly allergy to bees and also has spent the past four years traipsing willy nilly all over the place not even bothering to keep his epipen with him. it turns out gansey's big moral lesson has nothing to do with for example his obsessive desire to control his friends but actually like ronan he just needs to love himself better and realize that his friends care about him after all. please notice again that ronan and gansey, rich boys acting out, need to love themselves more. this is dumb but if this was like the thesis of the whole series i would be like, that was stupid but whatever. but what of adam parrish, a poor abused kid who was abused so hard he is now a poor abused disabled kid? does he get self-love? no. he gets to realize that his rich friends have made him a better person, and be relieved that he's escaped from poverty because of how the aesthetics were bad. I MEAN IT'S SOOOOOO CRAZY AUGHHHHHHH

i forgot when i was talking about henry cheng the scene where blue and gansey go to the asian kids' house and are like "wow such diversity so culture," which is like a nightmare edward said had once. like they're just so excited to have discovered this exotic exciting new world and to learn about things like how henry cheng makes asian jokes because if he says all the bad things about himself first then other people won't say them. and i shit you not, the entire sequence is done in narration, with spoken lines appearing in italics in the middle of descriptive paragraphs, not rendered with dialogue as an actual scene, a technique she doesn't use anywhere else that i can recall and which really serves to just be like... here is this Mass of Asianness, as opposed to being normal about it and being like "here's some asian kids having a party." i haven't seen anyone comment on this technical feature but i think about it all the time because it makes me feel insane. it's one of the few things i've read in the past however many years where i read it and was like "i guess i was naive before about racism." like it's not that i didn't know but i was like, wow in 2016 you can still just transparently have your entire ability to conceptualize scene and narrative totally warped by an attempt to feature non-white people and no one will be like, hey we're all unlearning a lot of stuff but maybe let's rethink this before we go to print. there's a scene where ronan jokes about henry's mixed-raceness by saying "which half" which i do think is stief being unaware of the optics bc she's dumb but still comes across real bad and then there's also a scene where ronan does a "vaguely offensive" imitation of henry's voice which i truly have no fucking idea what the hell that is supposed to mean on a literal concrete basis other than making fun of an asian kid's accent. in both of these cases gansey and blue are disapproving and adam snickers and it's like, ok so pynch is racist now. cool. who asked for this, maggie. and also see above re: i really gaslit myself into thinking that one of the points of this series was that ronan learns to be a better person. my bad! (he sort of attempts at one point to make up with declan about how ronan has treated him so bad and also ronan was obviously his dad's favorite. but like his way of doing this is he gives him a toy he dreamed called a Orb. if i were declan i would throw his Orb back in his face. but like that's how broken the ethos of these books is. a heartwarming reunion between two brothers torn apart by the death of the father that they both equally lost hello declan is also a teenage orphan - and it's just. here's some garbage i got you. i didn't even spend money on it. it just happened.)

in addition to ronan's mom the lady bad guy also dies a horrible bloody death that feels a lot more gratuitously fucked up than any of the man deaths in the series. oh i forgot about how blue's mom is dating a hitman who killed ronan's dad and ronan just like doesn't care about this after the first five minutes at all. and neither does anyone else. and then he wanders offscreen... i forget why. we never get any intel on why blue is destined to kill her first love if they kiss or if that would have happened with anyone but gansey or if she and gansey can kiss after he's resurrected or what. like the prophecy that kicks off the series, and just: nada. gansey sells his beloved home to bribe aglionby into letting ronan graduate and the two of them never talk about this and the text never clarifies whether ronan bothered to graduate or not (and in CDTH it turns out he didn't). like another way this alleged series about friendship is weirdly misanthropic is i really was not convinced by the end of it that these people were friends. none of them are seen ever enjoying each other's company or thinking well of each other outside of the two romantic pairings and gansey going apeshit about how awesome henry cheng is. also gansey's whole big quest for meaning blah blah, like i don't super care that glendower is dead, i think you could write a good book with that moment working thematically even though it does fuck with your continuity because who the fuck were the three sleepers. what was with those birds. (there's a lot of mysterious/spooky shit that never gets addressed and like... again i think you could write a book where that works, i don't like to be prescriptive about this stuff, but again: play stupid games win stupid prizes. write a dumbass book that invests a lot of time in the importance of its magic and worldbuilding, and i will get annoyed when your magic and worldbuilding is dumb as fuck and/or totally pointless.) but it's like ok so then the idea should be that the whole point of gansey's glendower quest was actually an internal one, that the payoff of SIXTEEN HUNDRED PAGES of this is some kind of life lesson or emotional shift or whatever. and the payoff is that gansey realizes his friends love him (which again: but do they though? like do they really?), and that he and blue and henry take a gap year. that's the big exciting finale. a year off before gansey goes to college, with his true love and a guy he first hung out with eight months ago. HELLO? like who gives any kind of a shit about that. about any of this. what the fuck was all this for. this all happened so that two rich teenagers could like themselves better. are you fucking kidding me maggie? hateful!

anyway. i'm sure at the time there was more i was forgetting because this book was sooooo boring and every single thing that happened in it was stupid. i feel like this was very incoherent but in my defense these books are hard to critique coherently because they are, again, so stupid. CDTH from what i remember reading it through the first time and continue to pick up now like hangs together as a book better certainly than TRK did but my experience is such that every time she does something passably right i truly can only be like, wonder how she's gonna fuck this one up to kingdom come.

#askbox #the shmeamer shmilogy #the shmaven shmycle #i had a bunch of stuff under that tag at my old now deleted blog but not this one

[roberrtphilip]

Did you already give your full, honest opinion about the sequel [Disenchanted]? I didn't even know about it until I saw it popped up on my Disney+ dashboard... It came out in 2022! I felt very underwhelmed overall but happy to see Idina, Amy, Patrick, and James reunite.

I really love it :3

it's not without it's flaws, and I was actually in the camp of "Enchanted doesn't need a sequel" before it came out, but I still really enjoyed it. the first time I watched it I was giggling and kicking my feet the whole time ngl, it's just a fun movie to me !!

my biggest fear was them possibly ruining Robert and Giselle's relationship for the sake of ~drama~ but married Robselle was literally perfect and made me sob. I love, love, looooooooove how they were written.

and I like all the stuff with Morgan. I like how she was written (ngl she's So Me), and I adore her relationship with Giselle. again, it's not without it's flaws, and definitely needed a bit more work, but I still enjoy what we have.

and I love that Robert, Giselle, Nancy, and Edward are all basically a family, it's very cute !!! like them being Sofia's godparents is so sweet !

the only thing that I didn't like on my first, and even second, viewing was the music. it took awhile to grow on me, I won't deny that, but now it's my most played album on Spotify and I jam to the songs on a daily basis. I think the only one I don't like still is Fairytale Life (The Wish) and The Magic of Andalasia. Fairytale Life is fine in the film, but listening to it on it's own just isn't for me.

BUT ANYWAY,,, yeah, I love Disenchanted. I've enjoyed every rewatch, and I love where they went with the characters. it has a few problems, but it's still the sequel of all time to Me 😇

#robert & giselle cuddled in bed and kissed sooooo many times #and he calls her a princess & 'my sweet giselle' and he says knowing her has taught him to take leaps in life and we saw their wedding #and they had another daughter and he looks at her with hearts in his eyes every time she sings #and he said ''I love you and I couldn't wish for anything more'' #A N D they recreated the dance from the first movie #what's not to love 😋 #disenchanted #anonymous #ask

[adultswim2021]

Metalocalypse #37: “Dethrecord” | September 1, 2008 - 12:00AM | S02E17

Fairly simple episode about Dethklok experiencing crunchtime. The deadline for their new album is approaching fast, and the world may unravel if they are not successful. So we see little vignettes of the band attempting to record, experiencing setbacks, etc.

Everyone has a little spotlight here and there, each member performing their parts and it usually going wrong to some degree. Pickles gets annoyed that the band demands perfection on his drum tracks while the rest of the band enjoy French toast. Skwisgaar has to be airborne to record is guitar parts because it’s the only way they can stop an annoying buzz coming through. Nathan Explosion does something.

I was pretty underwhelmed with this episode at first. It was pretty by-the-numbers, and nothing felt too heavy stakes-wise. The humor was just okay. The best subplot in the episode wound up being Toki and Murderface’s. They are shut out of the song-writing process, so they go off and record their own song about “takin’ it easy”. As they nervously play it for the rest of the band, hoping for them to okay it’s inclusion on the record, we get a weird music video that seems to express Toki and Murderface’s warped concept of “takin’ it easy”, which somehow includes a lot of apocalyptic imagery. The scene ends with the band bickering, and Toki threatening to throw a basket of warm towels onto Murderface. This was the funniest scene in the episode by far, and it made the whole thing worth it.

They are clearly ramping up to the next episode, which is another one of their thirty minuters that they are FREAKING OBSESSED with making. But this one feels less like a good standalone episode of the show as much as it’s just an advertisement for the season finale. 

EPHEMERA CORNER

MAIL BAG

would you have sex with virginia madsen if she flew out you and a buddy out to an all-inclusive resort

I have a question: is virginia madsen a woman with a vagina. and an the buddy be my dad

lol ur definitely not easy pussy bro, never been more sure of my life

MMmmmm maybe you wanna ask virginia mastatdon about that

ACAB includes CORBS

That's why it's good when they get blasted! SEE IT'S A GOOD SKETCH

where's your favorite place to unwind that is not your home?you don't have to get too specific if you need to protect your location/idenity.

Very obvious: the video store. Or library, or thrift store or any place that has books or movies to browse. Legit was having a meltdown while I was driving the other day because I got too pissed off by mistake, and I pulled over and went into a thrift store and bought a Denls Leary DVD for a dollar and it immediately relaxed me. Also: seeing old movies at the theater, it's nice! Thank you for the NICE question

CORBS is astounding! Maybe the best summer camp piece of media ever.

MEAN. You are being mean about me calling M*A*S*H a summer camp movie on my letterboxd. It was even remade as Meatballs years later.

I think the ground just shook, and everywhere you look, all you see is CORBS

The scene in Billion Dollar Movie where Erik is jacketting off in bed next to Tim but then it cuts to a wideshot and the bed's legs collapse, momentarily jostling them in a brief freefall to the floor

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #metalocalypse #Youtube

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: February 2023

Okay I didn’t watch any movies this month BUT I’m very excited for the D&D movie and I watched plenty of youtube.

……….TELEVISION……….

Arcane (Episode 1.01 to 1.09) It took a few episodes for me to get invested (and a few mid-season eps that felt like a CW series...only young beautiful people allowed) but by the end I was into it. I know nothing about League of Legends and to the show’s credit, I couldn’t tell when there was fanservice. I’ll check out season 2 if it happens.

The Great (Episode 2.01 to 2.08) Loved the first season and currently love the second. Still a few eps left but it’s kept me guessing the entire time. Stellar characters, very funny, and the world continues to walk the edge between whimsical and dangerous.

Spy x Family (Episode 1.01 to 1.07) Super fun premise and very funny. I’ve only just started but I hope we get to see more of Yor’s world. It seems to be spy-centric and psychic-centric (which, based on the name and current plot, makes sense) but I hope it can start weaving in more of her role in the future.

Cunk on Earth (Episode 1.01 to 1.02) Sure I’ve only seen two episodes but both were very funny. Something about her timing and delivery just works every time for me.

……….YOUTUBE……….

Chronically underwhelmed? This might be why... by Daily Mindtrap A concise reflection on why we’re not having as much fun as when we were kids. Touches on a lot of thoughtful points though my hatred of subscriptions does make me a little biased. VIDEO

The Decline of Tim Burton by Broey Deschanel One thing that scares me as an artist is that I’ll get stuck in a spot and start copying and reiterating on my own work to the point that it becomes caricature. Just a random thought and totally unrelated to this video. VIDEO

How To Analyze Movies – Film Studies 101 and What Do The LOONEY TUNES Mean In 2023? by Patrick Willems Both really great in their own way. Film studies 101 is fairly universal as a lot of the topics apply to all art. And the Looney Tunes share a room in my mind palace with the Muppets: concepts I love but haven’t connected with anything of theirs in the last 15 years. VIDEO (Film 101) VIDEO (Muppets) 

……….READING……….

Your Friendly Neighbourhood Death Pedlar by Jimmy Sangster (Complete) The cover was so good and the write-up pitched it as a comedy that I took a gamble on a thrift store find. Swing and a miss. Comedy is difficult in your own time let alone 50 years after being published. Are the offensive bits a sendup of the time, or have they just aged poorly? Comedy that requires context doesn’t land for me so this whole thing fell flat. Anyway all this is to say I’m a sucker for a good book cover.

Confronting Capitalism by Vivek Chiboer (Complete) An easily digestible primer on Capitalism and it’s...faults. It really gave a lot of insight into the structural problems with politics in a capitalistic system and for that alone, I recommend. I wish the last chapter (talking about how a society moves past capitalism) was a little more robust, but hopefully I can find some other books to fill in those gaps.

Batgirl/Robin Year One by Scott Beatty, Chuck Dixon, Marcos, Martin, and Javier Pulido (Complete) Great introductions to both characters and the perfect balance of fun and dangerous. It feels like there are real stakes while not getting too dark. I’d love if a Batman movie could strive for this sorta tone, you know?

……….AUDIO……….

Paranoid by Black Sabbath (1970) One thing I appreciate about getting into Girl Talk years ago was it introduced me to bits of really great albums. And I somehow missed that Ozzy Osbourne was the lead singer. Anyway filling in a lot of blind spots here and War Pigs holds up so well. The whole album really. 

……….GAMING……….

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The group is unearthing some underground tunnels and playing the political game as well. If you want to read more of the recaps, they’re over here!

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Mof1 group is busy making plans and saving Pirates. They recently acquired some protective suits so they’re now exploring the iron mines and its fluctuating temperatures!

And that’s it. See you in March!

#Monthly Media #Kolbisneat #Andrew Kolb

[mojavepumpkin]

2/21/24

11:00

i just deleted instagram. i want to get off of the internet. i want to use my time for something that makes me happier. i just am unsure if i am able to. i wish that i wrote here more in the past couple of days, but recently i've felt drained - i havent been busy - i just FEEL drained. today was... interesting? saw H. went well. but ive had a serious case of dread concerning the upcoming return to school. i do not anticipate it. im failing public speaking; and theres little i can do to fix that. i pulled my math grade up, im proud of myself. yesterday felt like a good day at work.

this whole president's day break has been weird. spent all of it in dahlonega. visited colleges (UGA n UNG), went on a hike - which i enjoyed. the UGA tour thoroughly impressed me, sucks that i wont be able to go probably. UNG was extremely underwhelming.

i wish i got to spend more of that break with myself instead of fulfilling other peoples prerogatives - oh well. i need to schedule the SAT. i have work tomorrow. i have a weird condition (rash?). its on my arm, its not a visible rash, feels like a burn, very tender to the touch. i put some liquid benadryl on it, i woke up with it. i also have an ulcer, but last week i had three, so i cant complain. reminds me of a john prine lyric. listened to jason isbell recently - "southeastern" - new favorite album of all time. full stop. period.

i dont feel like i really got anything out of me, which is usually how i feel when i write these. brain is still just as crowded as before.

#blog #post #r196 #196 #girlblogging

[theflyingfeeling]

Heey, I wanna know more about your relationship with Blind Channel, if you're willing to discuss it hehe. I don't know the band besides the things you post, but you seem really invested and I'm wondering what's behind all that love! Asking because I find it's so interesting getting to know how band managed to lure such an active fan!

Hey! Of COURSE I'm willing to discuss Blind Channel, that's what I do!! 😅 I wasn't expecting this ask to come form YOU though, of all my mutuals, but I'm happy to answer!

I don't know how much you know about Eurovision Song Contest, but Blind Channel representing Finland in it in 2021 was what started it all (I can't remember hearing about them before that, but then again I'm not really following the Finnish music scene). I really liked their Eurovision song but it took me a while to listen to their other songs. I guess I was scared I might not like them that much, because by the time I finally did I had already become invested with the band because I had seen all that funny pre-Eurovision content they had made and absolutely fallen in love with them as people. I guess that's my first bullet point on the long list of reasons why:

Their personalities. There are six guys in the band, and they're all such lovable, down-to-earth people that it's hard not to love them. They're honest in what they say (which is what they were praised for during the Eurovision), they're genuine, and what I perhaps like the most is that they're very clearly their own, individual persons. I mean, everyone is, of course, but I think with Blind Channel it's even more striking how different they all are from each other, although some of them do also share certain personality traits.

Their passion. I absolutely love listening to them talk about their music, because with every word they say it's obvious how much they love what they do, despite the many (many!) hardships they have faced over the years. They're so ambitious, but not in an arrogant way; they know exactly where they are currently, where they want to be, and how they're gonna get there. The other lead singer Joel in particular (the one with the long blond hair) has made me tear up with his passion for music and the band. Whenever he talks about Blind Channel, you can just tell the band means the absolute world to him. In the end of the final track of their latest album there are clips from their first ever interview from almost 10 years ago, and Joel saying "the best thing about being in a band is everything, every single second" made me cry my eyes out for the first five consecutive times I listened to the song (yes, I actually listened to the song five times in a row the first time around haha), and I still remember back in 2021 I was watching and interview in which he said, when asked if they have someone taking care of their social media, that they want to do all that stuff themselves, because they want the content they give their fans to be as authentic as possible. I literally teared up at that moment, and it was also the moment I decided I need to see them live. Which leads us to my third point...

Their live shows. All the other concerts I had been to before my first BC concert had left me...underwhelmed, in a way? I was always so uncomfortable with all the people (sometimes drunken) shoving me around or screaming to my ear; I often felt like I would've been much better off just listening to the songs in the safety of my apartment lol. But then I went to a Blind Channel show and oh my god I was addicted. Their energy on stage is unmatched, top tier, and other praise words. They're so much fun to look at, because they're all so into it, all of them, not just the singers. In so many bands the guitarist and the bassist are literally just doing their job of strumming the strings while showing no emotion whatsoever, and if that's how they prefer it, I'm not gonna judge them for it, but Blind Channel has a whole choreography for their shows and seeing how into the music they are makes you so much more into the music as well. I especially love watching the bassist Olli on stage; he interacts with the audience quite a bit (a lot more in comparison to the guitarist Joonas who's very into his instrument most of the time), and if you're close enough to the stage, it's so much fun just watching him vibe with the music with the most blissful expression on his face 🥺 He really is in his element on stage - they all are! But with Olli it's a little different, because off stage he appears pretty shy and quiet; on stage he's anything but, and it's always so amazing to see that. In addition, they have so many great songs that are meant to be sung as loud as you can, and doing so surrounded by like-minded people is the best fun you've ever had 🖤 (particularly if there's a separate over-18 section in the audience, as the kids can get a little...intense sometimes 😂 (their fanbase in the motherland is quite young))

Sometimes I myself wonder what the hell actually happened that I became this invested with a band, especially because it's been over 10 years since the last time that happened 🙈 But honestly speaking, I'm so glad I did, because if it wasn't for Blind Channel, I have no idea what I would be doing with my freetime. I had no idea what would be my main source of serotonin if it wasn't for them, or whether I'd have fallen further down in the dumps. I'm scared to even think about it.

And like, by now it's not only about the six dudes in the band and the songs they make, but also about all the incredibly sweet people I have met through them. I don't really have that many friends, but thanks to Blind Channel I now have all these super adorable people in my life who always manage to pull me back up when I feel like I'm drowning, and that's something really fucking beautiful, you know? I will forever be thankful for Blind Channel for giving me all these amazing friends and experiences that I otherwise would've missed.

#thank you so much for asking!! i had so much fun answering this ✨ #sorry if i'm sometimes flooding your dashboard with all this band nonsense 🙈 feel free to blacklist the tag if any of it bothers you! 🖤

[checkers-dance]

hi oomf. i come to talk abt The Music. usually i would have sent something the moment i got done listening to it but i was fighting for my life (migraine 😔) but its another day and i've had more time to rlly digest the songs so at least my thoughts can be more coherent.

as a whole, i enjoyed myself a lot! it was very fun to listen to. there's something INSANE about hearing sh*wnu again. like wowwww i forgot how much i liked his voice??? it was such a joy, i think i ended up rlly latching to his lines. but hy*ngwon did rlly good too, i actually think his breathy tone (dunno how to describe it) was a rlly great fit for some of these songs, it was very neat. i feel like the entire ep sounded exactly like what i would expect from a unit with these two... idk but something about it just felt so natural. so i had a lot of fun! if i have any complaints, is that i wish it was a little longer... i RLLY could use a couple more songs, especially from hy*ngwon. as for more specific thoughts love me a little was reaaaally good, and i think it was the objective best choice as a title track so i'm glad they went with it. the chorus was SOOO good, its been stuck in my head all day. and the last part of the song was also sooo great, it had a rlly strong conclusion i feel. its rlly rlly cool to see hy*ngwon making title tracks, i reaaally hope he gets a chance to do it again. love therapy was not a fave but it had some rlly strong parts... i love love love the part where it's just hy*ngwon talk singing, it scratches such an itch for me. and that one high note by sh*wnu.... shaking throwing up /pos. roll with me was SO.... i think its my favorite. listen.... its the fucking piano... I KNOW IM SO PREDICTABLE BUT WELL.... it had a really fun darker vibe to it that i actually wasnt expecting, so i was very pleasantly surprised. and GODDD THAT PRECHORUS... TRULY A BANGER. play me was very cute, but i dont have too much to say about it. it was very fun but not a fav yknow. and lastly slow dance was SO fun and cute, its rlly romantic sounding and another personal fav. there's just something abt it. SO YES I HAD FUN... which is to be expected, i feel like its been a while since i've truly had anything negative to say abt anything mx releases which is sooo brainwashed of me but yknow 😔 ALSO i actually rlly dig the vibe of the cover. album covers in kpop are literally just text and a background, its getting so boring sjsbdbsbd yes this is still rlly simple but it has style to it yknow

outside of the music, the music video had some really cool shots, esp during the later half. but i was honestly kinda underwhelmed idkkkkk... I KNOW I SHOULDNT TRUST THEIR CONCEPT PHOTOS BUT LISTEN... THAT ONE VID THEY RELEASED WITH THE WEIRD ASS CREEPYPASTA VIBE?? they are literally just fucking with me at this point 😭

THERE MIGHT BE SOME TYPOS HERE BUT IM SLEEPY... I CANT BE BOTHERED TO CHECK IM SORRY

NO BUT IT'S ACTUALLY SO SAD THAT THEY HAD NONE OF THE VIBES FROM THE CREEPYPASTA MV......I was ready to sit here theorizing the meaning behind the tree and the lab thing and the beaker AND NONE OF IT SHOWED UP.....this is truly so sad. And yeah, the mv was cool but it didn't scratch the itch the preview video gave me 😭😭😭

Ik what u mean abt the breathy tone tho, hy*ngwon rlly does pull it off so well. And is it a coincidence roll w me is a fave of urs bc his breathy tone rlly is showed off there 🧐🧐. I liked roll w me, and yeah it def has a darker vibe

I agree w u abt play w me and slow dance so there's not much to say there

I actually rlly liked love therapy, minus the chorus which was just alright (BUT IT GETS STUCK IN MY HEAD OK...). The synth was simply too sexy. Also the fact that the song starts out w "I need some therapy" is so funny. This could've been the mx version of vixx's "lalala I need therapy" song. If the chorus was stronger I think this song would be a fave

Omg hy*ngwon composed the title track? Good for him. And yeah, the chorus is super catchy, and the build up to it is so good. Also the guitar at the end was SO good (<- extremely predictable for me). I was just listening to it again and I caught the subtle saxophone and IT SLAPPED......

#asks

[curio-queries]

I totally agree with you regarding JK’s solo area, and it makes me a bit sad because I had been waiting for his first solo album for years. Now that his promo has ended, I realize nothing about it has got me truly excited. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. For the most part I found it underwhelming. I haven’t been able to watch today’s concert yet though, I was busy at work unfortunately so I’ll try to catch up soon but it’s less fun not watching it in real time.

About GCF, to me it almost felt like watching a random YouTuber’s vlog and I find that meh. The whole point of GCF for me was that it was JK’s doing the editing on top of the filming but something is lacking now. It’s like they stripped GCF of its substance, as you said it could have been labeled as a Bangtan Vlog and I wouldn’t really have seen a difference. What I was expecting for this solo is to see the world through JK’s eyes and it hasn’t happened unfortunately. But I’m hopeful he’ll grow as an artist and come back with something more personal in the future. That being said he’s an amazing singer, his voice was really what stand out to me in this area!

Thank you anon! It's nice to know I'm not the only one! I've felt just so CONFLICTED this era. I YEARNED for JKs music for so long and now that we have it....hmmmm...I'm reminded why I try not to have expectations.

I honestly don't know if I'd feel better if I actively disliked everything so far because at least that would mean I felt SOMETHING about it all. It's just been so....meh.

Oh well, maybe when there's not so much 'pressure' and 'expectation' on him, we'll get more of what we've had a taste of.

Honestly, this whole GCF issue very likely just has a root cause of time. They clearly wanted it to release when it did but he's had a very full schedule and wasn't able to get the footage he usually would have or spend the time editing. I do wonder if he got the edit started though. The beginning is very much his style.

#jeon jungkook #jungkook #golden #gcf in budapest #GCF #anon ask

[music-catalogue]

Beyonce 'RENAISSANCE' first impressions review

OKAY. So I just finished listening to Beyonce's (long awaited) new album 'RENNAISSANCE' and I wanted to jot down and share some of my initial thoughts on the record.

Firstly, I should note how fucking annoyed and embarrassed I was to only realize more than halfway through the album that I had been listening to the clean version the WHOLE FUCKING TIME. THAT frustrated me lol, but that was totally my fault.

When the album cover and first single 'Break My Soul' dropped, I was expecting a very different record. I was expecting a much more straight-up 90s house kind of record with lots of simple, positive, and uplifting lyrics that maybe have more complex meanings. The album cover also hinted to me that there would be some disco influences in there as well, which I will address in a moment. This was a fairly accurate, but not ENTIRELY accurate impression of what the album would sound like.

I'll be honest as well, upon its release, I did not care for 'Break My Soul' at all. I just found it long, repetitive, boring, and not particularly interesting. Nothing about it really grabbed me. It just didn't go anywhere. I really tried to get into it and I really tried to like it, but it just didn't happen for me (however, I think it may be starting to grow on me now. Just a little.).

The opening chunk of the album has some absolute bangers in there, though the opening track itself didn't do much for me. I was honestly caught off guard straight away, as I was not expecting these sounds. Sis is really TURNING IT OUT with some of the production on this album. The album definitely draws heavy influences from disco, house, and funk music, and also keeps a very R&B vibe steadily throughout.

I was so impressed and infatuated by the vocal layers and harmonies on this album. Pure heaven. Like holy shit. They create so much depth and are such a beautiful effect. One of the notable examples of this is the layering on 'Virgo's Groove' - SO BEAUTIFUL. I am a fucking sucker for vocal layering. I especially love when she uses her deeper voice on certain lyrics or in certain harmonies because she has such a mature and BEAUTIFUL deep singing voice. It can be a nice departure from her usual (but still incredible obviously) singing tones, creating more depth and variety in the music.

The transitions between the songs on this record were absolutely FLAWLESS and incredible. Seamless. I was so not expecting that and sometimes I hadn't even realized when another song had started. Truly amazing production there. They crafted the transitions in such a way that didn't ruin the beginning or end of any of the songs by creating an obvious and interruptive shift in the music in order to produce a transition that wouldn't make sense if you were just listening to the song on its own. I admired that a lot.

One thing I didn't love about the album was some of the lyrical content. Notably on tracks like Thique, where the lyrical content is centered around tired ass topics like shaking ass, pleasing the male gaze, cash money, being a 'bad bitch', and just nonsensical garbage that you commonly hear in a lot of modern pop music. Just generic crap. I just thought it was disappointing, especially coming from BEYONCE. I feel like she's above that. It felt tired and, overdone, uninspired, and sometimes even a little, dare I say, substanceless. I get that some of it is just pure fun. I get that and I'm here for that. But it feels outdated at this point. There ARE more ways to communicate messages of empowerment and freedom and fun, which are more interesting and original.

I was also really excited for 'All Up In Your Mind' because of A.G. Cook's production credit, however, I honestly thought it was nothing too special. Quite underwhelming, especially coming from A.G. Cook. I hope the song grows on me more because I really wanted to love it.

AND OMG CAN WE TALK ABOUT THE DONNA SUMMER 'I FEEL LOVE' SAMPLE ON THE FINAL TRACK??? Literally stop. I was so shook. OBSESSED with that. Again, showing some of that disco influence. Hearing Beyonce's slower vocal delivery droning over the bumping upbeat production put me in a trance-like state. It was such a beautiful and simple effect. That is how you end an album!

Overall, I am pretty impressed. Usually, I'm not like a GIANORMOUS Beyonce fan, especially of her album tracks (jeez I'm really getting brave here today with the unpopular opinions), but she has really put together something beautiful here and I am looking forward to listening to it more and allowing the record to grow on me. It's a beautiful celebration of black and queer culture and music. I am SO excited to hear the other two volumes of this project!

STANDOUT TRACKS (on inital listen): COZY, ALIEN SUPERSTAR, CUFF IT, BREAK MY SOUL, VIRGO'S GROOVE, MOVE, AMERICA HAS A PROBLEM, PURE/HONEY, SUMMER RENAISSANCE.

What were your thoughts on your initial listen of 'RENAISSANCE'? Did you agree or disagree with any of my opinions? Keen to hear your thoughts!! Let's discuss.

#beyonce #renaissance #new album #new music friday #music tumblr #black music #spotify #music #mixtape #music recommendation #pop music #mix #good music #music blog #musicislife #music lovers

[ramblingghooosty]

AFI's Blood Album, resequenced by ramblingghooosty:

Tracklist (Spotify link)

Trash Bat

Still a Stranger

Hidden Knives

Get Hurt (Demo version)

Above the Bridge

Break Angels

Back Into the Sun

Get Dark*

Dark Snow

Snow Cats

Dumb Kids

Pink Eyes

She Speaks the Language

Feed From the Floor

The Missing Man

Okay, so I expect this to be controversial for a few reasons. I threw the whole Missing Man in there for instance. I have my reasons for everything.

This series was actually inspired by the fact that the vinyl version has She Speaks the Language and Above the Bridge swapped, even though I kept their usual relative spots on the album intact. But also

for me, when the Blood Album first dropped I was really underwhelmed by it. But when The Missing Man dropped I couldn't help but think that if those songs were on Blood, I'd have a much higher opinion of the album.

So yeah, anyway the OG list is mostly intact here, but with a few quirks.

Not every Blood track made it on my list, and that might be significant later (looking at you, Very Proud of Ya).

I've always been underwhelmed by Aurelia. Period.

On The Wind that Carries Me Away, I'm always glad when AFI tries to experiment. Sometimes it pays off and you get a Dulcería out of it. This isn't really that for me. I know this song has its fans, and if that's you, I suppose this could be a hidden song at the end of the record.

On So Beneath You, I have complicated feelings towards this song in a way I don't have for similar subject songs like Sacrilege, Prayer Position, etc. I think Get Dark* can be swapped for it though, if that's what you prefer.

On White Offerings, I felt like its presence was redundant with Get Dark, and to be honest I've never really felt like this song was about anything.

With those out of the way, I wanted to try to inject the Missing Man songs where they most made sense flow wise, and I agree with AFI that Trash Bat is a strong opener and The Missing Man is a great closer.

I kinda cheated and stuck the other three in order right in the middle of Blood.

I do think Above the Bridge into Break Angels works really well, and one unintended neat thing that arose in the tracklist is Get Dark -> Dark Snow -> Snow Cats. Though I admit the transition from Get Dark to Dark Snow is a little jarring.

I also love going from Pink Eyes to She Speaks the Language, and the accidental transition that happens there almost sounds intentional.

Last two things of note is that I pushed Feed from the Floor waaaaay back but I really like its placement there.

The other is that I have a strong preference for the demo version of Get Hurt and if anyone hasn't heard that they need to get on it. If that demo didn't exist, I'd probably wipe Get Hurt in favor of So Beneath You or White Offerings

Anyway, I don't expect this list to go over well with everyone. There's too much personal preference inserted into it, but I can't help but feel that I'd like the Blood Album so much more if the official tracklist was something closer to this

As always, let me know what y'all think! Like this? Hate this? Got a better list? I wanna hear it!

#afi #a fire inside #blood album #resequenced #the missing man #sorry for this abomination

[asherlockstudy]

I love your analysis of R&L's relationship. What's your take on Rhett's or should I say James's solo album?

Thank you 💕

I must admit I haven’t listened to it. I don’t really like the genres they work with (country & rap). Also, I can’t say I was fascinated by that little demo and I kinda didn’t want to listen to the songs and feel disappointed or see a potentially lukewarm reception and feel underwhelmed. I suppose that’s a very Rhett-like answer 😅

As for the whole drama, I haven’t listened to the podcast either because I was pretty much covered by the analysis and descriptions other MBs provided. First of all, I love Rhett and I want him to succeed and for this project to go as well as he wants. The negativity that some people might have, nitpicking his words to find something problematic, is a consequence of the discomfort we have seeing them doing something independently. Even when we (and I) state that this is a healthy thing to do and that we applaud it in theory, we still do have that instinctual response of discomfort and worry that we then try to suppress. It’s human nature. Link’s individual projects are a little different. The DJ thing is something we are not that exposed to and it is more like a hobby. The music podcasts with his cousin and the podcasts with his father kind feel like a branch of Mythical, like a TikTok Rhett might do on his own. Such a big profitable project as starting an individual “serious” music career seems way too different and this is why we aren’t sure how to respond to it.

Had I been in Link’s place, I would feel bad that Rhett didn’t tell me earlier too. This would be a cold shower at first. I am sure that’s what Link felt too until Rhett explained what it meant for the two of them.

Now, why did Rhett delay telling Link? I believe there were two reasons and Rhett sort of mentioned at least one of them. Rhett said that if they were both involved in the project, people might consider it another Mythical comedic product. I think he was honest but phrased it more politely than what he really thinks. I believe Rhett considers Link more “cartoonishly” comedic and that he would have a bigger problem to prevent comedy from infesting the project. Rhett wanted this to be “real serious” and he doubts how well Link can do “real serious”. If you ask me, I don’t think Rhett can be as real serious as he thinks and I believe Link can be at least a little more real serious than Rhett gives him credit for. I believe they are about the same level. But maybe Rhett can’t judge himself that objectively or maybe it’s me who is not objective by not betting on their real seriousness.

The other reason which I think Rhett didn’t speak as much about but I am almost sure it must be true is that Rhett was postponing talking to Link out of fear. Rhett hates confrontations and Link is a confrontational kind of guy. It doesn’t take much to infuriate Link and Rhett was afraid Link would take this very badly. Rhett said he was not thinking about talking to Link because he didn’t think he would publish these songs but I am not buying it entirely. I think he avoided the fuss until it was inevitable. But things went better than Rhett hoped. Even Link admitted that he reacted surprisingly well and this was a testament to his therapy work. So Rhett wasn’t wrong for fearing this. I too believe Link reacted unexpectedly well.

#Rhett and link #rhett mclaughlin #link Neal #anon #james and the shame #ask #opinion #ear biscuits

[ihophashbrowns]

2022 is ending and the public needs to know what your most & least favorite kpop releases were this year! there was good stuff, bad stuff, underwhelming stuff, growers, etc. lets hear yours! :D

the way it would be easier to count the stuff i liked vs the stuff i disliked 😭😭 anyways here's my favorite releases this year...

20. generation - tripleS

fun, upbeat, the mv has a nice laid back "aesthetic" feel to it. the only ppl who didnt like it were miserable newjeans stans! 😭

19. hair cut - xdinary heroes

i actually liked the chorus... doesnt have much replay value but i do listen it whenever it comes on

18. antifragile - le sserafim

i DID love this one, it had to grow on me but its catchy af! 😭

17. forever 1 - snsd

this one had to grow on me too! but its super cute and sweet!,

16. mascara - xg

people who said they didnt like this are liars!! have you considered not messing with your mascara..?

15. nabillera - hyuna

there were a LOT of growers this year! even when i first listened to it i thought she was going for babe pt.2 and when i started liking it i knew that was in fact the case!

14. stupid cool - dawn

i got it on the first listen. i love the beat and i thought the lyrics were absolutely adorable :(

13. talk that talk - twice

pop perfection! the chorus is everything

12. aria - yerin

u either get it you dont! the two gfriend soloists deserve so much better it surprised me how much buddys slept on this release. but i was SEATED!

11. dice - onew

father was fathering through the whole album IDGAF!!! like every song is so good and well made, well sang. this is the superior kpop song named dice that was released this year. lol.

10. maison - dreamcatcher

its catchy af and the message is so REAL! ngl at first i thought they made that word up for the song but i looked it up and its french for "home" so 😭😭 extra points for making me think they came up with that word themselves

9. illusion - aespa

its cunty! catchy! i definitely got it on the first listen! (points off for the yummy yummy yummy in your tummy tummy tummy line tho)

8. bop bop! - viviz

if u hate this song you hate fun tbh! the thing i loved about this song is that it felt less like a debut song and more like a comeback song. we love you viviz.

7. good boy gone bad - txt

i had to pretend like i didnt get it on the 1st-and-a-half listen bcuz i was still very much in my txt anti era. but now im normal so i can appreciate what this song means to me ❤

6. jikjin - treasure

why were so many people pretending like they didnt fuck heavy with this song. perhaps broaden your mindset like. [korean korean] jikjiiiiiiinnnn woooooooooooooo. anw it feels like pop rocks to my brain and in the best way possible so its here.

TOP 5. These were the objectively best releases of 2022!

5. last sequence - wjsn

thats gay clubbing music baby! something about this song feels so... not 2022. more like i opened a time portal and went back to mid-2017. idk why. but i love that vibe.

4. shut down - blackpink

the lyrics, production, that violin, everything about this song was an instant hit. no im not just saying that because blackpink was my first group. their comeback this year ate and served cunt severely. we love you blackpink.

3. 2 baddies - nct 127

i like thot music! the way ppl complained about it was so 😭😭 its an nct song what were you expecting. shut up. you either rock with it or you dont. like the song was made BY baddies FOR baddies. so if it isnt hitting...

2. pop! - nayeon

ms. im nayeon put the POP in kPOP with tjis song! and it was her SOLO DEBUT? PLEASEEEEEEE........ i love the girly cutesy bubblegum-y fun of this one. so. so. so. much. like everything about it SO iconic. she not only solidified herself as a capable soloist but as a pop princess too!

1. brand new - xiumin

are you surprised? im an exol after all! but fr this song had me GAGGED since the mv TEASER dropped! everything about it is so good, the beat, the lyrics, the vocals... everything! when it comes down to the mv minseok had $10 and a dream but he still made it work. that song was MADE to be a hit!! when i heard it i knew NOTHING ELSE released this year was gonna top it!

very honorable mentions that didnt make the list for lack of space :( (imagine they are in 2nd place with pop by nayeon)

i don't even mind - chen, invu - taeyeon, hurdle - suho, feel my rhythm - rv, candy - nct dream, gasoline - key, gingamingayo - billlie, loveade - viviz, dreamers - jungkook 🤪,after like - ive

#this was a long but FUN list euheuheheueuhe #songs i disliked - whatever nmixx gidle bts nature & sk.z released #✉️ #anon

[dojae-huh]

As for the song itself, I was underwhelmed too. The beat is nice but it’s not distinct enough for me like most of their songs. Most of their title tracks have sounds that I rarely heard before. From firetruck to sticker, most of them has really weird sounding sounds that suck you right into the songs. I recall their songs through their beats as opposed to the melody. That’s also why I think most people can vocalise their beats. They are distinct. I think for me this might be the least 127 sounding title track for me.

The beats is one thing but the rap is also not memorable which is almost never the case with Mark and Taeyong’s rap. I personally only like Jaehyun’s rap. Doyoung line in first verse is really good on its own but it doesn’t flow smoothly from Jungwoo. Honestly, the whole song is like that for me. It’s not connected smoothly. I’ve been listening to this song for more than twenty times already. It’s not getting into my head. I just can’t grasp the construction of this song. This is coming from a person who really like the controversial sticker and chain, so I really think it this is really is just about my personal preference. I conclude it’s just not for me. I’m glad tho that most of the feedbacks online is positive. Still hyped for the rest of the album too.

(Okay i listen to the song again after writing all above . Letting go of all the negative things, just enjoying the song without scrutinising. Honestly, it’s not that as bad as I’ve written above. Ugh why am i like this🥲. I am so set of wanting this comeback to be the next sticker. It clouded my judgement. Lesson learnt. Just let go of expectations, enjoy it and now i’m actually bobbing to it. The same goes to my mv opinion before. I honestly felt like I open the door and let the song in when I let go of my expectations. My brain catch the song pretty fast. Interesting. It was just now I cannot accept the song but once I opened up it instantly clicked? Is there better way to explain this? Being too scrutinising really takes the fun out of everything but i think it’s only a normal reaction when you put expectations on things.) I feel like I’m spamming your ask today sorry T T

2 Baddies is a ear-worm, there are several parts that start to rotate in the mind with ease. The way Haechan and Doyoung sang their first lines is the "distinct" you are looking for.

I do suspect the song was made out of two. It's hard to imagine that the chorus/rap parts and the vocal-line retro parts were thought of by the same person, they are too distinct in colour. I find the song a tad too slow in the beginning, but it has a nice vortex effect in the end, as a viewer/listener you are being pulled in by the speeding up tempo and the synchronised choreo.

I like Mark's rap, he is experienced enough to make it interesting. Agree about Woo-Do transition. It's a very patchy moment. Do's retro moment should have been longer or repeated again. Because the effect from it dissipiates quickly. Again, agree that the song is not connected very well overall. The task was probably very difficult to begin with. I really like the end of the song though, it has a very good build up with nice adlibs and Jaehyun's finishing line (the way he pronounces it) is good.

I think it's a song to tune in and out, that's why it's better as a performance, when the boys and the moves distract you. If you look at it as a whole, pay close attention, the architecture isn't solid, a rough voice transition here, a not smooth switch of tempos there, however it does make you fall for the rhythm and bop your head.

One musician with perfect hearing said he can't listen to orchestras, can't enjoy them, he is distracted with the players making minor mistakes. Once you stopped looking at the song with a magnifying glass, you was able to fall for the primitive urge to follow "the rhythm of drums", to follow the crowd.

"2 baddies, 2 baddies, 1 porsche" is a super stupid phrase with no wit in it, but it's a chant, and Taeyong says to follow him, so you do, heh.

As for the comeback, it's the first one after 2,5 years with live fans on music shows, face to face fanmeets, comeback shows with live singing. So you are lucky. It looks like the comeback would be of small scale promotion wise (depends on what 127 will do in US), but neos themselves are hyped. Tired, but happy. Except maybe for Doyoung who has a burn out and Haechan who is evidently tired from the double shift (he isn't as physically strong as Mark), all others are at the best place mentally and emotionally as they don't need to prove anything anymore, the scandals are in the past, plus the fandom is finally active and united.

#ask me away #NCT2Baddies #cherries in the sky high