#only when you compare them to extraordinary singers. which i do

[yuliangs]

they should give all of txt's songs to capable singers

#designer songs completely wasted on the most mediocre singers #all my respect to their 2? ok singers but on any other group they'd be lucky to be sub vocalists #ok im being mean sorryy they're not that bad #only when you compare them to extraordinary singers. which i do

[rithmeres]

phantom thoughts:

julia udine was a fantastic christine. really strong vocally, a courageous and compassionate and really solid leading lady. she starts out clueless and scared and grows into a capable and resolute person, even though she’s clearly damaged and still scared. i loved how her ‘wishing you were somehow here again’ came across as a rallying point for the character instead of just a lament. (hoped we would get to see emilie kouatchou in the role, since she was on the posters and promotional material, but alas)

ben crawford’s phantom was good, but unusual. he has weird diction where he tightens his vowels (instead of loosening them like most singers) which was a little distracting, but it wasn’t bad by any means. he played the role more like a straight-up villain which was exciting, considering my favorite and most-watched versions of the phantom are the softer/childish/sympathetic portrayals (we are hugh panaro stans first and people second) the only downside to this bad-guy take is that his change of heart during the final lair seems somewhat abrupt because of his prior villainy, but it was a fun change of pace to have an a-hole phantom. i wish he would have gone with a softer portrayal at times though because he was really really good in the quiet and tender moments!

he also did that thing where he doesnt know what to do with his hands any time he’s around christine, like he wants to touch her but isnt allowed to, ESPECIALLY when she kisses him (and i love it)

let me talk about my favorite ben crawford phantom moment now: the first high note in ‘music of the night’ (the high A♭ on soar). i was in shock bc i always hear vocalists go into falsetto or head voice on just that note and i was fully expecting to hear that little break/switch in the voice on soar but he sang it in full chest voice, and it still sounded gentle and floaty and ethereal.

as an aside, assuming ben stays on until february, i love that the role is bookended by two crawfords

paul adam schaefer was a solid raoul, no complaints. it sounds dismissive when i say it, but i mean it in the best way possible since raoul isnt as nuanced of a role compared to the phantom and christine. there wasnt anything that stood out as particularly different or extraordinary about his performance, nor anything negative. he was good and i liked him 👍

im just in awe of the sheer magnitude of the production. no expense spared. entire setpieces and props used only for five minutes and never seen again. the ensemble is massive and the costumes sumptuous and there’s always something else happening on stage (ballet chorus practicing during angel of music, stagehands running around ‘backstage’, etc) it’s so immersive. not to mention the chandelier 👁️👄👁️. and the pyrotechnics. and the hanging angel sculpture. and th

jaw on the mf floor when the curtain came up on the masquerade. the giant staircase, the entire ensemble in these insane costumes, the fake people on the ends of the rows. i could watch it twelve times and notice something new every time. they really dont make theatre like they used to

the two opera managers (nehal joshi as andre and craig bennett as firmin) almost stole the show. their comedic timing was impeccable and they both were able to inject humor into lines that i’ve seen otherwise played straight by other actors. & one of them is big and tall and the other is shorter and small, so theyve got that big/small comedy duo thing to add to the humor

emma thought meg sang a little flat when she wasn’t in harmony, but i didn’t hear it (emma is a much better vocalist than i am though, so i’ll just take her word for it)

raquel suarez groen as carlotta was just *chef kiss* she’s one of my favorite roles in the musical for the sheer skill required for such an underrated role

i still have no idea how he disappears through that chair at the end.

and finally, here’s me at da majestic, 9 years in the making :3

edit: i also bought this cool pin

#'are you wearing th-' 'the platform docs and the edward elric coat? yeah i am' #btw i pooped at the majestic during intermission. if you even care #im only here on tumblr because of phantom. literally i never woulda met you all if i hadnt been a freak at age 14 #so i owe this musical a lot #phantom of the opera #hot single dads in your area #long post #if anyone wants me to do a post like this for hadestown i can but it might not be as in-depth

[dylanobrienisbatman]

What made you ship Siena/Anthony?? Given that you also like Kate/Anthony. Obviously you can like both but I’m just curious since not many ship the former if they like the latter. The fandom isn’t big on multi shipping.

Oh hi anon!

Honestly, I liked them because they came from different mediums, so in the show Siena served a purpose in the narrative that made it work for me.

Honestly, the story of kanthony in the books isn’t actually my fave, the longer I’ve spent after reading it. I think book Anthony is very aggressive, and their dynamic is kind of weird in parts. But I loved the way she forces him to see that this plans to be lonely forever and to never find love because he’s sure he’ll die young are just… dumb. And I love how much she takes him by surprise. He never expects her and that’s always fun. Plus, the antagonists to lovers vibe is always fun.

Going into s2 tho, I LOVE the actress they chose to play Kate, and I love the changes they’ve made to Anthony, which I think also make me more excited for Kanthony. He’s a lot softer, I think they’ve taken out his aggression and turned it into him being very earnest in his efforts to do what’s right, if maybe he does the wrong thing through those efforts.

And honestly his relationship with Siena is part of that? Like we see that he’s not actually against love, just against a ‘proper’ love. He can die, and Siena won’t be left abandoned like his family was after his father, because they were never going to actually be a family. He allows himself to ‘love’ Siena because it’s safer. He knew they could never be together, so he doesn’t have to feel that anxiety when he’s with her. Now that he has to find a wife, he has resigned himself to doing his duty, rather than following his heart, because it keeps him ‘safe’ from that fear and anxiety.

I think him and Siena had extraordinary chemistry, and I think she was the perfect way to show us that Anthony has such huge capacity for love before his season, so that we know it’s only a matter of time before he falls for Kate. I feel like she got a lot of hate, and I don’t really get why? Like it’s obvious she was never going to be his endgame romance, and it’s also obvious that he wasn’t in love with her, he just loved her and found companionship with her. It also showed us that he likes women who don’t play by the rules, he doesn’t want a Daphne type debutante, he wants someone who will challenge him, which really reinforces that edwina is never going to be the right choice for him in s2.

I think Siena was the perfect set up to follow Anthony into s2, showing that he does want to find love, which will make his efforts to stop himself from falling for Kate all the more angsty and dramatic. Plus, I think him going into s2 with a bit of a broken heart adds to that angsty mess because he will have convinced himself that Siena was his true love, and that nobody could compare. Enter, Kate Sharma.

Honestly, I just think they both work for me because they serve different purposes? And honestly the chemistry and the fun, carefree feeling of Anthony and Siena’s relationship towards the beginning was so refreshing. I’m a sucker for him wanting to protect her and keep her safe even though he knew he shouldn’t. Plus, it makes Kate’s weird jealousy about the opera singer from the book actually make more sense. i also really want the show to focus more on ‘regular’ people, which is why i’m also a huge sucker for Theo x Eloise, and i was hoping for more Benedict x Genevieve too, though that pairing got way less development

Idk if that answers your question?

#this is MONTHS late i’m so sorry lol #i found it fully written in my drafts #anyway #siena x anthony #siena rosso #anthony bridgerton #kate sharma #kanthony #bridgerton

[beyondthepage]

The Importance of Live Music

Experiencing music live is a wonderful thing. When you witness music live, you get to witness what I believe to be the closest thing humans can come to creating real magic. The speakers boom with guitar riffs and drum lines, the lights reflect off the walls, and vocals echo through the venue. However, while it sounds like a party of their life for some people, will it still be worth it when threats such as bombings and gunshots are happening in the area? Thus, despite there being fundamental flaws in live concerts, it leaves an extraordinary impression not only on the musicians’ hearts, but also the fans' hearts.  

One of the most important advantages of having music live for both performers and audience would be being able to escape reality. On the internet, both may receive hate, disgusting and disrespectful comments - performers received backlash while some audiences experienced cyberbullying. Both performers and audience may sometimes feel like they are under a microscope or being treated like an object, which causes them to live in fear as a small mistake can escalate into a massive wave of hate. However, while receiving such threats can cause mental health issues such as anxiety and depression, meeting supporters or idols face-to-face during concerts can provide a sense of validation and joy. Performing live can be a rejuvenating experience for artists as they fully engage with their supporters in the moment. Additionally, live music has a strong emotional impact that allows audiences to connect with the music on a deeper level and experience cathartic release. Not even recording technology is capable of providing the same thrilling sensation as in the concert. When compared to recorded versions, the experience of listening to live music can evoke a distinct set of emotions in individuals, providing a sense of comfort and solace during difficult times. Therefore, having music live offers both performers and audience a chance to step away from their problems or disconnect from their daily routines and focus on the present moment, where they can experience the energy and excitement of the live performance in a direct contemporary time.

Another great advantage of having a live concert is being able to feel the feeling of success. Performers have trained for their whole life and sacrificed more than you think. Due to the long and hard training and exercise to sharpen their singing and dancing skills since they were so young, some of the performers like the Korean singers Minzy and CL from 2NE1 tend to have a different childhood from ordinary children, even some admit to losing theirs. Performers often find the adrenaline rush of being on stage and receiving feedback from the audience to be a form of validation that instills pride in their hard work and dedication. Sharing their talents and connecting with fans can also be an immensely gratifying experience as they get to share something they are passionate about. Likewise, for fans, watching their favourite artists perform live can be extremely thrilling and rewarding, especially after saving up money to afford the extravagant tickets. The ability to enjoy a special experience that they have worked hard for can be empowering as the energy and excitement of the crowd, coupled with the grandeur of the performance, creates an unparalleled feeling of elation and happiness that is difficult to replicate elsewhere. Just like the saying goes, dreams do come true.

However, even with all the above-mentioned advantages, there is one thing that provokes both performers and audience during live concerts, which is the lack of safety. Despite having tight security breaches in the area, some can snuck in unauthorised items inside the venue, endangering thousands of lives, including theirs. Let the bombing incident of Ariana Grande’s 2018 Manchester Concert be an example for this, where many innocent lives were lost that day. To add, the 2004 Lampung concert of Sheila on 7, an Indonesian pop-rock band from Yogyakarta, had four young women killed and dozens fainted due to thousands of fans trying to enter the overcrowded venue. Because of this reason, both the performers and audience’s lives are at risk and experiencing such horrible moments may lead to trauma.

Furthermore, the concert may surprisingly be not what both performers and audience imagined. Both sides have worked so hard to get where they are, but sometimes results aren’t that satisfactory. For performers, they have worked so hard to make the concert possible, but if the audience is not active or only a few came to watch, they will feel awkward. Girl’s Generation, for example, first experienced a “black ocean” back in 2008 at the annual Dream Concert, only a year into their debut. A "black ocean" is an organized protest wherein the audience turns off their lightsticks as a way to show their lack of support or displeasure at a particular artist, leaving the venue in darkness. As a result, they may not have the same cheerful feeling or vibe when carrying out the next few songs due to questioning upon their careers, skills and popularity. For the audience, they paid a substantial amount to see the musician’s performance live, but if their vocals are unstable and have unhygienic surroundings like a muddy floor, they will feel unsatisfactory. As a result, performers and audience will feel like their efforts have gone to waste even if both sides get to meet each other.

In conclusion, even though they are more exposed to dangerous crime situations, musicians will halt the performances for the sake of the audience’s comfort. On the day of performances  in Jakarta on November 4 2021, the 2016 best male rookie group in Korea, NCT 127, had to stop its concert midway due to a group of fans pushing and fainting. Since the pressure of the crowd was too great, the Korean idols and staff reacted quickly by giving the fainted ones water to hydrate themselves and instructing fans to not shove one another. Moreover, unlike hearing recorded music, which are often carefully crafted and edited, live performances offer a sense of spontaneity that can create a unique and memorable experience for both the performers and the audience. Stage performances give performers the opportunity to showcase their talents and to see firsthand how their music or art is affecting their fans. This can be incredibly rewarding to witness the emotional impact of their work on an individual level, and to see how their art is resonating with people in a meaningful way, which adds fuel to an artist's passion and drive. Additionally, the live setting can make the performance feel more personal and authentic for the audience, as they can witness the performer's artistry in real time, and can create a shared sense of excitement and enthusiasm among the audience from feeling the energy of the live performance. Therefore, it is important to have a live music experience for both performers and audience.

#essay #irene

[sapphire-knight]

You guys are giving me way too much power by letting me talk about acting

@minecant you wanted me to rant about Techno and Wilbur's acting? Well, you asked for it

Let's start with Techno bc I realized something this morning and I cannot get it out of my head, let's go.

Techno has a really peculiar way of acting compared to anyone else, his character is a lot more aware of the fourth wall than any other character is, and actually having to keep in check a character that, to certain acting degrees, could be almost considered self-aware is actually harder than you can imagine, and of course everything that's kinda hard in scripted acting goes to a whole new level of difficoult in improv; but on the other hand, his type of acting (more specifically: the voice acting) is on the same page of 3 other characters: Tubbo, Fundy and Niki. Follow me on this, alright? The basically only thing that these 4 characters, that narratively are so different from each other,is the way they are voiced. All four of then have a really specific way of talking and talking pattern, to the point where even if you were to put the voices in a voice-changer you could still know what character is talking just because of the way they talk. Let me elaborate: Fundy usually his voice doesn't let a lot of emotions through and his speech is usually straight to the point, keeping his tone medium and trying to keep his voice relaxed; Niki's usual tone is soft and lighter, is easy to not hear it with her low tone of voice and higher pitch that give her a kinder undertone; Tubbo's tone is also one in a softer scale and lower of volume, but where Niki is easy to miss Tubbo lets a bit more emotion in all phrases to make himself pop out, he doesn't tend to go straight to the point in conversations and his tone is pretty much constant; Techno doesn't let emotions shine through his voice, more like Fundy, but to the extreme, keeping a completly monotone type of speech in basically all the situations and isn't very talkative, a character that talks one when he feels like it's needed and goes straight to the point of the conversation, not caring how that makes him come across to the other characters.

These 4 have incredibly set in stone characters, keeping always to their own set of acting rules for them. It's not easy to set yourself acting rules for your characters in an improv, but if you manage to do it's an in incredible help. Even Wilbur's character was more unhinged under that point of view, his "standard" continuing to change slightly as his mental stage declined.

But you know where does the actual strenght of having these things set in stone for your characters? That the emotions are a lot more powerfull. Let's think about it, why most of the emotive scene shock us? You can usually feel the emotions because the tone of voice lets these emotions through, it hits you because it wasn't there before, it's a switch between the usual voice and the emotive one, it gives you whiplash, but why am I talking about this?

Because these characters are able to express their emotions with a lot more power, because they always talk in a really specific way, you get used ti their tone and speech pattern without noticing it, so you maybe not actually understand it, but your brain notices when the pattern breaks, and since it is a really set in stone one, when it gets broken the whiplash is extreme. Just like when Niki rebelled against Schlatt, the whiplash was her raising her voice and abandoning the soft tone she always used, but kept the classic amount of emotions in her voice, the same thing happens with Techno and his speech: some emotions start to get throught, he doesn't get to the point quickly as always, instead he keeps on talking with extreme confidence in every word, the same confidence he always has. Whiplash guys, whiplash.

I didn't mention Quackity as one of the set-in-stone-speaking characters, because he switches too much to set the rules enough to shock when broken. I'm not saying at all that he isn't a good actor, on the contrary, his acting just works on different bases, example, Try looking at the Quackity vs Schlatt argument compared to the Tubbo vs Tommy: when Quackity got angry it wasn't expected, it was a bit alienating, it didn't feel like the Quackity we know because it was incredibly different than how his character speaks, too different (Which still isn't bad, at all, that scene was phenomenal); when Tubbo got angry it still felt like Tubbo, you could still pinpoint it was Tubbo even without hearing his voice, because even if the voice is raised, the amount of emotions is the same and the speech pattern is the same, just to the next level. So yeah.

I don't even feel like talking about Techno's lines tho, these are amazing under every technical point of view and you guys know that, so let's go to Wilbur.

Wilbur, Wilbur, Wilbur, where can I begin with Wilbur? Not only he had an extraordinary arc for his own character, he also wrote an incredible story- this guy's voice acting is off the charts in every way possible, are you telling me he didn't take acting classes as a kid? i do not believe you. Like, at all. He has a perfect hang on his voice, but this could be because he's also a singer: expressing emotions during songs is harder than you think, because you cannot let emotions ruin your exibition by making your voice crack at the wrong part or making you mess up the timing, but you also need to let them shine through or the voice will seem flat and Wil knows that perfectly, just listen to Your City gave me asthma and you'll understand what I'm going on about here.

Wilbur Soot is a showman. He manovrated the stage to shine a spotlight on himself, making us see what he wants us to see: that's why it took us so much to realize that the character didn't just "go insane" out of nowhere, the seeds were always there, we had all the hints we needed, but he was able to move his character around it, around the arc, in such a way that made us overlook all of those details until they slapped us in the face. He showed us the consequences of his character through other characters, he acted and spoke in a certain way to get a reaction from the others, and the others reacted in the exact way Wilbur planned. And those things aren't scrpited, only major plotpoints are. Wheter this was intentional on his part or it was a coincidence it's not clear, but in either cases it's still pure skill and genius.

Wilbur knew how to act and interact with every character, it's impressive

He even knew how to get Dream on his act on the festival narrative, Dream isn't always top notch at improv and we know that, but if he can get in the loop he is absolutely a distructive force, it's terrifying, and Wilbur knew exactly what to do to get Dream inside the loop of events and it's incredible.

You could guess he knew how to act with Tommy, Tubbo, Ph1lza, Techno and Schlatt, of course he did, he already knew them, but right now he has an incredibly difficoult bit with someone I would have never guessed if I didn't watch the SMP, with Fundy. I have not been in the fandom for a lot of time, but it seems like the two actually met each other on the SMP. They are carrying and incredibly emotional taxing bit with each other, and the SMP lore started just this year- more or less 7/8 months I think? Correct me if I'm wrong. The story bit these two are on is a delicate one, one wrong step and the situation explodes. The fact that they are capable to carrying it even without having known each other for a long time is honestly impressive. Things like this are incredibly hard even when scripted, in improv usually only people who blindly trusted each other for a long time are able to carry it, meanwhile Wilbur and Fundy are flawlessly running with this story arc, the character interactions are perfect, ever act, every word is so incredibly in character for both of them, in scenes like this having to keep perfect track of your character is hard, you have to concentrate on the scene, you cannot stop to think about it, you have only one take and you cannot afford to slow down the act or you risk losing the atmosphere and the momentum of it, and if you do that you'e screwed, you lost an entire scene. In improv you cannot afford slipping up, but if you actually do you have to be incredibly quick to catch yourself, lose two seconds too many and the moment is broken.

Wilbur Soot is incredibly quick to adapt his acting to ever change in his character, having to jump from the power hungry, driven crazy, obsessive, unhinged, paranoid character that is Wilbur to the sad, guilty, scared, repressed, just-wanting-to-be-happy, forgetfull, ignoring character that is Ghostbur is not something easy. Like, at all. It's a cspital switch, and he did it from a day to the other like it's nothing.

Mr Soot please leave some talent to the rest of us come on-

#sapphire rants #sapphire talks. don't listen to her #long post #dream smp #dream smp season 2 #technoblade #niki nihachu #Tubbo #Tommyinnit #it's fundy #Fundy #dreamwastaken #Wilbur soot #you guys should stop giving me this much power before I end up ranting abou Eret; Quackity; Schlatt; Tommy and Ranboo's acting oh my gosh #THE ACTING RANTS

[teamfreewill2pointo]

Family Don't End with Blood Transcription

Family Don't End with Blood Transcription [twitter version]

Jared: So, in Supernatural, our character Bobby Singer played by the wonderful Jim Beaver has a quote, “family don't end in blood”. 

Jensen: You know, it's one of the many, kind of, mottos of-of Supernatural and it is the family that you choose and it is the people that you care about and that you fight next to and that you fight to save. And that inspire you. And that push you. 

Singer: No, I think definitely the family was going to be a theme right from the beginning. I mean the Pilot story was and- and whatever the mythology of season one was- was, you know, the search for dad. 

Dabb: You'll watch the first few moments of the Pilot and it very clearly plants this flag about what it is. It is a family show.

Misha: Like who's your clan and who are the people you care about the most? And obviously, two orphaned brothers couldn't care about anything in the world more than one another, but they envelop this community of people who also care about them and one another. Alex: Sam and Dean and Cas and Jack and these host of characters are kind of... with loss forced to reassess what family is, and what I love about the show is they kind of build their own version of that.

Jared: There's so many characters along the way that Sam and Dean treated as they would treat each other. Dabb: I think that was a core part of this, because Sam and Dean are two guys that, because they define everything by family, they're always looking for a family. 

Jared: You know, not everybody out there has a wonderful family life as far as their- their blood relatives.

Dabb: Sam and Dean come from a very dysfunctional family. Their father suffered this great, you know, world shattering tragedy and really spent the entire rest of his life trying to get revenge. And unfortunately, Sam and Dean came second to that.

Dabb: So when they got to be an adult, and I think a lot of people that come from dysfunctional families find this... is it becomes less about the family you're born into and it becomes about your family by choice. 

Jensen: When you find someone that's willing to fight alongside you for what you collectively believe is the right thing, then it instantly makes you brothers and sisters in arms. And that's exactly what these two brothers found. They found other brothers and sisters in arms.

Singer: Bobby really served as a, you know, a father figure. One thing we always tried to do is that if we had a guest character that really kind of hit the mark, we would say oh, you know, we got to keep going with this- with this person. Bobby, that, character is certainly one of them. 

Beaver: If you're walking the walk, and not just talking the talk, I think probably respects that immensely and- and he sees that in Sam and Dean. 

Buckner: Crowley, Charlie, Jack, Rowena... all these people had a commonality. I mean, they were all alone in their own little universes to a- to an extent. 

Singer: When Misha showed up... and created the- the Castiel character, we knew we had something special. 

Misha: It's been such an interesting arc with the character of Castiel on Supernatural.

Jensen: You know sure the story at the core was- was about these brothers, but it was also about this- this ragtag gang of fighters. 

Samantha Smith: Most hunters are solitary. It’s lonely. And, when they can connect with other people who understand their pain and their life and their dedication and their purpose, there's going to be a bond there.

Jensen: I'm thankful for, not only the characters and how they were written and how they affected the Winchester's, but also for the actors and actresses that have portrayed them, because they too have become family with Jared and I. And they are- they're part of this crazy circus that is supernatural.

Dabb: Jared and Jensen are both excellent actors, but I think their biggest achievement on this show is the example they were able to set for everybody. And you know, it's kind of a famous story, but Eric Kripke sat them down, you know, the first season we're like, “This is your show. You guys set the tone of this show.”

Kripke: They're bringing so much more to it than I ever could have written, in their grounding it and they're making it real. And it's clear you watch these guys, and they're smart guys, going through this story and I'm-I’m thrilled.

Dabb: Both Jared and Jensen are capable of carrying a show on their own. As they now will go off and do, I'm sure. The fact that we could get them together for this period of time- again, I don’t know that’s something you are going to repeat on a TV show for a while.

Buckner: They-they really are quite incredible. Jensen learned to tap dance for an episode... I keep hearing the phrase “once in a lifetime” and probably so. 

Dabb: To get two guys at this caliber who are leading men to come in and do that job into it so well, and so thoughtfully- again I-I said it earlier, but I don't think I'm gonna find that again in my career.

Jensen: That's the crazy thing about being on a show this long and- and not just being on a show this long, but being with a large- a large majority of our crew has been with us either from the beginning 15 years or they've been with us 12 years, or 10 years, or eight years. 

Jensen: That's a long, long time for these professionals to be in one- to be on one job. 

Singer: Our set was always loose. The crew felt part of the family. They were in on the joke. The guys were always great to the crew, had great respect for the crew.

Sheppard: Truly great people all at the peak of their abilities. Some great, great wonderful writers, some extraordinary producers over the years, the various showrunners from Kripke at the beginning, to Sera, to- to Jeremy, to Andrew. It's been an amazing journey. 

Misha: I've just been both grateful and inspired to be around a crew like this. We laugh so much and I-I know that Jared and Jensen and the producers all agree, we wouldn't be here if the crew of Supernatural wasn't the crew that it is.

Alex Calvert: I came into this show relatively late compared to everybody else.

The relationships that I've seen at work and away from work are incredible. People have started families. People have had kids on the show. You know, I think these people are-are gonna be in each other's lives forever because of this bond that they formed. 

Dabb: This is a show where assistants have gone on to write scripts. 

This is a show where crew people have gone on to direct. It's a show that has tried to be supportive to people who show that passion and that work ethic to get up there and do it. I certainly have felt supported. I mean, I-I went from a staff writer to running the show and you know, so obviously I felt very supported (laughs) in kind of my goals.

Jared: You know, I've-I’ve met my wife, mother of my kids. I met one of my groomsmen. I met a ton of dear friends, and I have a new extended family, our SPN family.

Jared: I'm honored and flattered and grateful that I got to be a part of that journey. 

Alex: I think the- the overwhelming thing that I'd like to express for me and I think for a lot of people on the show that maybe don't get a say, which I want to represent, is the crew and the people that build the show and paint the show. 

Alex: You know, costume to show and- and are here everyday working on it. I think a lot of it is just gratitude and thankfulness that- that we get to do what we do. 

Dabb: On the writing side of it here in Burbank, that's always felt like there's a family atmosphere. I feel it's a great gift where we work with so many people that are both talented and professional. 

Buckner: They- a lot of laughter in that room. I remember a tabletop strewn with toys, and play-dough, and slinkies, and etcha-a-sketches, and blocks that got played with endlessly. I know there's a whole wall covered with index cards with various, either funny, pointless, or stupid, things that the writers have said over the course of many, many, many meetings that's tacked up on a wall. And remember just a lot of give and take and a lot of feelings of safety in that room. It was maybe the largest production office I've worked in. The tiki bar in the middle of the office, always laid out with cakes or whatever for birthdays. 

Eugenie: We were a community. We were a brotherhood. We were a sisterhood. And, that kind of was the way everything was run. 

Buckner: One of the writers I remember once, had major surgery and had to come to work in sweats, a really loose fitting stuff. So a lot of the writers showed up in PJs as a-as a sort of show of solidarity. So there's just lots of ways that people supported each other. 

Dabb: And I just feel incredibly lucky to have worked with, number one with Bob Singer because I've worked with him for 15 years now. It has been the most rewarding... partnership, mentorship, whatever you want to call it, of my professional life. In terms of being able to learn from him. 

Jared: His involvement in the series was so necessary from day one. He can walk on set, look at me, not really saying anything, just give me a face, and I'm like got it. And that's built over time.

Singer: I come in with a plan, but it's not chipped in stone and then, you know, lots of times, you know, the guys would have ideas. Sometimes I would accept them readily. Sometimes, we had to talk about them, but there was always this mutual respect. 

Jensen: He has been just this... Yoda character for our show. I call him my confident captain. He's just- he's been- he's been the real compass of this- of the show for so long.

We have come together in times of crisis. We've lost several of our crew members. We lost Yap. We lost Matt Riley. We lost Kim Manners in Season 4. 

Singer: Kim was a great guy and a great director. Everybody responded to his talent but also to who he was. 

Jared: He used to say, you know, we're not curing cancer, and I spend more time with you than I do my wife, my kids, my dogs. So, if we're not having a good time, then what are we doing? 

And so we tried to make sure that we kept it light and that we all realized like hey, we're putting on makeup and playing pretend for a living. 

Sheppard: I came into a couple of episodes, with a show that Kim Manners told me I really needed to do someday because I would really enjoy it and I'd love the boys. And he was right. He was absolutely right. 

Singer: The hardest part of season four was- was losing Kim. And I think the… the best thing we could say about losing Kim was that we never replaced him. I didn't feel like anyone should have that job other than- than Kim. So, you know, that was hard.

Jensen: I'm not quite sure when the-the phrase was coined, but the SPN family, as the- the fandom is- is lovingly known as. What we are on set as a crew is now reflected in- in what we see as a fandom. 

Misha: The SPN family, Supernatural family. I've seen so many instances of people gathering together to go support a Supernatural fan.

Misha: It's so lovely and inspiring and I-I-I honestly, you know, hope that that could serve as a template for how greater society works.

Buckner: When these guys were feeling for each other, or for other characters, or when they were afraid, or, you know, when they loved somebody, it just radiated off the screen, and the fans really picked up on that. 

Jared: I know several of the fans personally and care about them deeply. And it's neat to talk about a shared passion. Man, I love Supernatural too. Like, I love the storyline too. I like that episode too. Like let's talk about it. 

Jensen: We have this unique situation with our show where we're able to do these fan conventions and we do them quite often and it gives us an opportunity to get in front of a lot of these people and have honest real conversations with them face-to-face. And that's, in my opinion, that's helped shape the show. 

Buckner: And this is not just limited to the United States. It's a worldwide thing. I mean, there are these conventions held, you know, everywhere in the world. 

Eugenie: The fans are so polite. They're- they're very respectful of each other's appreciation of the same show they appreciate. It's like we're all in this together. 

Alex Calvert: I can tell you that the people that I've met and that have been affected by the show and the fans of the show will- will tell you a hundred times over that this is not the end, that this goes on forever.

Singer: They've bonded over this show. And-and have created their own Supernatural family. And have a tremendous respect for what we do, but respect for each other. 

Just a motivation of why we wanted to always keep the show going and keep it fresh was not to disappoint the fans. We certainly didn't want to disappoint them, because we didn't want to disappoint family members. 

Dabb: There's nothing I won't miss. This has been, creatively speaking, an incredible gift.

Buckner: Just be able to go to work and have that kind of freedom and not dread going into a place. 

Jensen: We love the show. We love the story.

We love these characters. We love the- we love the people that we make this show with. I hope and I believe that that translates on camera.

Eugenie: You know, there's always reruns. I'll always be able to see Sam and Dean. 

Alex Calvert: I think everybody loves that- that Sam and Dean, you know, can go through hell together literally, and give each other a big hug at the end of it and know that they're gonna be alright because they have each other. I think that's a really beautiful concept of the show.

Singer: That bond is really, I think, you know, the heart and soulless show, and what gave us the longevity that we had. 

Misha: I also genuinely hope that the supernatural family is something that carries on past the end of the shooting of the show. I hope we can continue collectively to do good in the world and to set a good example and to be a family to one another. 

Jared: Sam and Dean, much like Jared and Jensen, over the course of Supernatural were allowed to add many members to their family, and they would do anything for their family members and vice versa. This world and this journey isn't just about fighting for yourself or fighting for somebody that it'll- it'll benefit you. It's not about the glory. It's about doing what's right and taking care of good people. And I think Supernatural from day one has been able to accomplish that. [Huge thanks to Kira who helped me clean this up!!]

End of the Road Special Transcription Winchester Mythology Transcription

#supernatural #spn #spnfamily #spn family #spn 15.20 #spn s15 #spn s15 spoilers #carry on #spn finale #sam winchester #dean winchester #jared padalecki #jensen ackles #brotherlylove #sam&dean #brothers man #tfw 2.0 #team free will 2.0 #castiel #jack kline #misha collins #alexander calvert #bts #dvd commentary

[justabeginner3000]

How I think obey me bro's would react to

Cheating on MC and start to regret it 😔😢

Lucifer

As you know Lucifer is a prideful demon and I think that he would love you but not really appreciate that love that you have given to him and is always working and basically pushing you off when he's working because you know how Lucifer is so this is how I think it would go down.

Lucifer is in his office doing stacks of paperwork because Mammon tried to sell off an important artifact the Dia gave to him and he hasn't been paying you much attention like he usually would do so you come in and try to get some attention from him since he's been ignoring me for months because it is all this work you try to get him to take a break since you're worried about his health since he's been working so much but he completely ignored you and tells you to go away but you didn't and insisted that he took a break which start a big argument because he was too prideful for that let's just say he said some very hurtful things to you when you said some hurtful things to him you ended up leaving crying and tears

He was very irritated and started mumbling how you're annoying and wish you would just understand that he's too busy for you right now. A few hours later Dia call them and tell him he's hosting a party for high Noble demons he asks if he's going to bring you but he said that you're not coming so he gets ready and he goes to the party he meets this higher class demonss and they start talking one thing led to another and he started seeing her behind your back he would have complained to her about you and wish sometimes you would like her in some ways after months of his affair you find out your heart broken and you confront him about this he just tells the truth and says that he doesn't love you anymore you break down and cry telling him that he's a narcissistic jerk and he's way too powerful for anyone to love him like you did he rolled his eyes as you stomped out of his office little did he know that karma is a b**** and he would know sooner than later what you meant.

It's been 3 months everybody in the whole house knows about this and it ended up getting a bit messy Satan and belfi almost killed the Lucifer when they found out Mommon just couldn't look at his brother he was a disappointed to say the least that he hurt his human beel and asmo comfort you after time spending wallowing in your sadness Levi encourage you to do one of your favorite hobbies like cooking or singing to pass the time as time goes on you get really good at your hobby Dia and Barb's support your hobby which turns into your career and sooner than later you get over your sadness and start working on yourself and become pretty famous and even demons respect you even though you're human you're known throughout all three realms as a very famous person so Dia holds this gala it's basically to show off your abilities let's just say for reference your singer this can be something else if you want and you're famous singer and you go to this gala of do a concert so you sing one of your favorites songs.

You see Lucifer after the concert which was a extraordinary by the way he looks miserable and he doesn't have a little fling with him turns out that his little lover was only with him for power and was using him while having a side piece on the side once he found out he was furious but this was about half a year after once he saw you he missed you so much he started comparing you with his little lover and when he found out his lover was cheating on him he was even more regretful he was mad at himself that he let his pride get away between you and him but you are over him and don't want nothing to do with him anymore and you and Mammon have gotten pretty close over the half a year and months and you are now a thing Lucifer knows but he really misses you and tries to talk to you but you tell him that you're not interested he had a chance and he ruined that Mammon is extremely supportive of you and loves you more than you can ever imagine you are happy with him and you wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.

What do you guys think this is my first time I ever did something like this sorry if I misspelled something or something didn't make sense. 😅😉

[opera-ghosts]

THE QUESTION OF HEALTH

"And you would first know how I keep strong and well and always ready? Perhaps the answer is, I keep regular hours and habits, and love my work. I have always loved to sing, as far back as I can remember. Music means everything to me it is my life. As a child and young girl, I was the despair of my playmates because I would not join their games ; I did not care to skate, play croquet or tennis, or such things. I never wanted to exercise violently, and, to me, unnecessarily, because it interfered with my singing; took energy which I thought might be better ap- plied. As I grew older I did not care to keep late hours and be in an atmosphere where people smoked and perhaps drank, for these things were bad for my voice and I could not do my work next day. My time is always regularly laid out. I rise at half past seven, and am ready to work at nine. I do not care to sit up late at night, either, for I think late hours react on the voice. Occasionally, if we have a few guests for dinner, I ask them, when ten thirty arrives, to stay as long as they wish and enjoy themselves, but I retire.

TECHNICAL STUDY

"There are gifted people who may be called natural born singers. Melba is one of these. Such singers do not require much technical practice, or if they need a little of it, half an hour a day is sufficient. I am not one of those who do not need to practice. I give between one and two hours daily to vocalizes, scales and tone study. But I love it! A scale is beautiful to me, if it is rightly sung. In fact it is not merely a succession of notes; it repre- sents color. I always translate sound into color. It is a fascinating study to make different qualities of tonal color in the voice. Certain roles require an entirely different range of colors from others. One night I must sing a part with thick, heavy, rich tones; the next night my tones must be thinned out in quite another timbre of the voice, to fit an opposite character."

Asked if she can hear herself, Miss Farrar answered :

"No, I do not actually hear my voice, except in a general way; but we learn to know the sensations produced in muscles of throat, head, face, lips and other parts of the anatomy, which vibrate in a certain manner to correct tone production. We learn the feeling of the tone. Therefore every one, no matter how advanced, requires expert advice as to the results.

WITH LEHMANN

"I have studied for a long time with Lilli Lehmann in Berlin; in fact I might say she is almost my only teacher, though I did have some instruction before going to her, both in America and Paris. You see, I always sang, even as a very little girl. My mother has ex- cellent taste and knowledge in music, and find- ing I was in danger of straining my voice through singing with those older than myself, she placed me with a vocal teacher when I was twelve, as a means of preservation.

"ILehmann is a wonderful teacher and an extraordinary woman as well. What art is there what knowledge and understanding! What intensity there is in everything she does. She used to say: 'Remember, these four walls which inclose you, make a very different space to fill compared to an opera house; you must take this fact into consideration and study accordingly.' No one ever said a truer word. If one only studies or sings in a room or studio, one has no idea of what it means to fill a theater. It is a distinct branch of one's work to gain power and control and to adapt one's self to large spaces. One can only learn this by doing it.

"It is sometimes remarked by listeners at the opera, that we sing too loud, or that we scream. They surely never think of the great size of the stage, of the distance from the proscenium arch to the footlights, or from the arch to the first set of wings. They do not consider that within recent years the size of the orchestra has been largely increased, so that we are obliged to sing against this great number of instruments, which are making every possible kind of a noise except that of a siren. It is no wonder that we must make much effort to be heard: sometimes the ef- fort may seem injudicious. The point we must consider is to make the greatest possible effect with the least possible exertion.

"Lehmann is the most painstaking, devoted teacher a young singer can have. It is proof of her excellent method and her perfect under- standing of vocal mastery, that she is still able to sing in public, if not with her old-time power, yet with good tone quality. It shows what an artist she really is. I always went over to her every summer, until the war came. We would work together at her villa in Gruene- wald, which you yourself know. Or we would go for a holiday down nearer Salzburg, and would work there. We always worked wherever we were.

MEMORIZING

"How do I memorize? I play the song or role through a number of times, concentrating on both words and music at once. I am a pianist anyway; and committing to memory is very easy for me. I was trained to learn by heart from the very start. When I sang my little songs at six years old, mother would never let me have any music before me : I must know my songs by heart. And so I learned them quite naturally. To me singing was like talking to people.

Contrasting coloratura and dramatic singing

"You ask me to explain the difference between the coloratura and the dramatic organ. I should say it is a difference of timbre. The coloratura voice is bright and brilliant in its higher portion, but becomes weaker and thin- ner as it descends; whereas the dramatic voice has a thicker, richer quality all through, es- pecially in its lower register. The coloratura voice will sing upper C, and it will sound very high indeed. I might sing the same tone, but it would sound like A flat, because the tone would be of such totally different timbre.

TO THE YOUNG SINGER

"If I have any message to the young singer, it would be : Stick to your work and study systematically, whole-heartedly. If you do not love your work enough to give it your best thought, to make sacrifices for it, there is some- thing wrong with you. Then choose some other line of work, to which you can give un- divided attention and devotion. For music re- quires this. As for sacrifices, they really do not exist, if they promote the thing you hon- estly love most.

"Do not fancy you can properly prepare yourself in a short time to undertake a musi- cal career, for the path is a long and arduous one. You must never stop studying, for there is always so much to learn. If I have sung a role a hundred times, I always find places that can be improved; indeed I never sing a role twice exactly in the same way. So, from whatever side you consider the singer's work and career, both are of absorbing interest.

"Another thing; do not worry, for that is bad for your voice. If you have not made this tone correctly, or sung that phrase to suit your- self, pass it over for the moment with a wave of the hand or a smile; but don't become dis- couraged. Go right on! I knew a beautiful American in Paris who possessed a lovely voice. But she had a very sensitive nature, which could not endure hard knocks. She be- gan to worry over little failures and disap- pointments, with the result that in three years her voice was quite gone. We must not give way to disappointments, but conquer them, and keep right along the path we have started on.

MODERN MUSIC

"Modern music requires quite a different handling of the voice and makes entirely different demands upon it than does the older music. The old Italian operas required little or no action, only beautiful singing. The opera houses were smaller and so were the orchestras. The singer could stand still in the middle of the stage and pour out beauti- ful tones, with few movements of body to mar his serenity. But we, in these days, demand action as well as song. We need singing ac- tors and actresses. The music is declamatory; the singer must throw his whole soul into his part, must act as well as sing. Things are all on a larger scale. It is a far greater strain on the voice to interpret one of the modern Italian operas than to sing one of those quietly beau- tiful works of the old school.

"America's growth in music has been marvel- ous on the appreciative and interpretive side. With such a musical awakening, we can look forward to the appearance of great creative genius right here in this country, perhaps in the near future. Why should we not expect it? We have not yet produced a composer who can write enduring operas or symphonies. MacDowell is our highest type as yet; but others will come who will carry the standard higher.

VOICE LIMITATIONS

"The singer must be willing to admit limita- tions of voice and style and not attempt parts which do not come within the compass of her attainments. Neither is it wise to force the voice up or down when it seems a great effort to do so. We can all think of singers whose natural quality is mezzo let us say who try to force the voice up into a higher register. There is one artist of great dramatic gifts, who not content with the rich quality of her natural organ, tried to add several high notes to the upper portion. The result was disastrous. Again, some of our young singers who possess beautiful, sweet voices, should not force them to the utmost limit of power, simply to fill, or try to fill a great space. The life of the voice will be impaired by such injurious practice.

VOCAL MASTERY

"What do I understand by vocal mastery? It is something very difficult to define. For a thing that is mastered must be really perfect. To master vocal art, the singer must have so developed his voice that it is under complete control; then he can do with it whatsoever he wishes. He must be able to produce all he desires of power, pianissimo, accent, shading, delicacy and variety of color. Who is equal to the task?"

Miss Farrar was silent a moment; then she said, answering her own question:

"I can think of but two people who hon- estly can be said to possess vocal mastery: they are Caruso and McCormack. Those who have only heard the latter do little Irish tunes, have no idea of what he is capable. I have heard him sing Mozart as no one else I know of can. These two artists have, through ceaseless application, won vocal mas- tery. It is something we are all striving for!"

#Geraldine Farrar #Metropolitan Opera #Le nozze di Figaro #Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart #Don Giovanni #Giacomo Puccini #La Bohème #Tosca #Madama Butterfly #Manon #Jules Massenet #Georges Bizet #Carmen #Mignon #Ambroise Thomas #Roméo et Juliette #Charles Gounod #Les contes d'Hoffmann #Jacques Offenbach #Mefistofele #Richard Wagner #Faust #Pietro Mascagni

[ariparri]

✨Shine Ship Headcanons✨

Alrighty here’s some content with fandoms&flowers’s Brook Powers and Carson Ivey!

There was so much to write about these two, I wasn’t expecting them to be this cute (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)

These two are very big on PDA and physical affection. Carson’s not afraid to announce it to all of Hogwarts. In fact he would definitely interrupt a quidditch match and announce it there by fighting for the megaphone with Murphy (he would do this with all of his ships honestly). He may even gift Brook a large bouquet, balloons and a plushie he clearly didn’t bug Veruca to make it. Veruca eventually got fed up and taught him how to make one.

Carson likes to cup her face and sometimes squish it before cooing at her for being cute. He would let Brook style his hair and put bows in it.

Due to Brook’s constant nightmares, she hates sleeping and barely eats. Carson gets worried over her, and starts stressing himself out trying to get her to take care of herself.

To try to help her sleep, Carson would tell her stories of his childhood and maybe some funny, embarrassing moments between him and Veruca. He would also try to feed her when she’s not eating herself. Food is important and he’d hate to see her starve herself.

Both of them love to cook together, especially baking. They’ll start out prepping everything perfectly normally until someone smears food on the other’s face. It eventually turns into a mini food fight causing the each other to laugh. They also share recipes they love, Carson especially shares his mother’s lemon poppy seed blueberry muffin recipe.

Shiny things aren’t the only thing these two both love. Both Brook and Carson love to go swimming so water dates are a common thing between these two.

Carson would prefer to go swimming at a pool or water park since there’s no animals. However he will take Brook to the beach or a lake if she wanted to swim near the fishes. He’ll put up with them swarming him.

Despite Brook disliking her scales, Carson loves them. He loves the way they shine under the light and especially when in water.

He actually loves them so much, he switched from using blue and purple glitter for gold. He would even say that they may be shiny, but they can’t really compare to the way Brook shines.

If they’re out on a normal date and it starts to rain, Carson will pull her close and they’ll start happily dancing and having fun. Brook will even start singing Love Like You

Since he knows just how much trouble Ismelda can bring to Brook, he would diffuse the situation by distracting Ismelda or quickly bring Brook somewhere else. He wouldn’t want to see Brook get hurt or upset by her so he would always step between them and defend her.

Brook’s mother being a famous singer was a bit of a surprise to Carson. When he found out who it was, he at first was excited since he was a big fan. But after seeing Brook look bothered about him talking about her mother with such high regard, he’ll apologize for making her uncomfortable. He stopped talking about her or listening to her songs.

After finding out about what kind of woman she is, Carson was furious. He was so disgusted and ashamed of himself for even being a fan of her. He’d rant about how someone could be so awful to their own child. He burned whatever merchandise he had of her.

The Ivey’s are quite an oddball family, but always welcoming. Hudson can be a party animal and loves the usual dad jokes and Raylene is the same. When they first meet Brook, Raylene immediately pulled her in for a hug and practically cooed at her being cute. Hudson even joked about Carson taking after him a little too much as they were easily attracted to the extraordinary ones. Their kindness may have been a bit too much as Brook started happy crying.

Carson’s mother would absolutely consider Brook to be her daughter. Brook ends up getting her own little mug, designed to fit her style, as a way of being accepted into the Ivey family. They love hot chocolate and everyone has their own little mug.

When Brook finally cuts off her own mother, Raylene instantly brings her into a comforting hug, happy she was able to stand up to that wicked witch.

He may have a love hate relationship with creatures, but since Brook loves her pets, he will let them pounce on him if only they don’t try to destroy his clothes.

Brook in her animagus form is the only animal Carson would be able to be around with until the other creatures are fine with him. He can’t help but find her being a fluffy otter adorable.

Post Hogwarts, Brook owns a thestral ranch, and while Carson is very cautious around them, he won’t mind being around since Brook has them perfectly tamed. The ministry often assigns her to house other dangerous creatures until a home can be found for them. With small creatures, Carson will put up with. However with the bigger creatures, Carson would have to be sent to stay at a family or friend’s place till everything is completely settled.

He mostly stays with Veruca since they’ve been friends the longest. Though while he's there, he's going to be extremely bored and whine nonstop to Veruca about 'missing his babe' which would make Veruca roll her eyes and tell him to write her letters since he missed her so much. He does just that. Both Brook and Carson send each other increasingly sappy love letters.

At some point in their life, Carson catches Brook doing something absolutely reckless and when he confronts her about it she simply responds with “I try not to think it interferes with my being nuts.”

Carson was instantly hooked onto her and blurted out for her to marry him then and there. He would love to have someone match his crazy, and Brook perfectly suits him. Of course, he would still plan for a big proposal. Just to make it extra special for Brook, Carson ‘tried’ to get all of Brook’s beloved pets and creatures to be part of the proposal.

Everything was fine for most of it. Until the puffskeins got restless and jumped on him halfway through proposing.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay so that’s the first set of polls complete! I now have to work on Isa’s introduction post, along with Shooting Stars and Hot Coffee. It’s the 23rd right now, but I should start planning the May birthday arts for Carson, Chester and Badeea.

🚫No Reposting🚫

#ariparri #shine ship #carson x brook #carson ivey #brook powers #hogwarts mystery #hphm #harry potter hogwarts mystery #mc x mc #au ship

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I noticed you did post to acknowledge the death of Uderzo, the co-creator of the Asterix comics. I have to ask Tintin or Asterix? Which one do you prefer?

It’s like asking Stones or Beatles? I love both but for different reasons. I would hate to choose between the two.

Both Tintin and Asterix were the two halves of a comic dyad of my childhood. Whether it was India, China, Hong Kong, Japan, or the Middle East the one thing that threads my childhood experience of living in these countries was finding a quiet place in the home to get lost reading Asterix and Tintin.

Even when I was eventually carted off to boarding school back in England I took as many of my Tintin and Asterix comics books with me as I could. They became like underground black market currency to exchange with other girls for other things like food or chocolates sent by parents and other illicit things like alcohol. Having them and reading them was like having familiar friends close by to make you feel less lonely in new surroundings and survive the bear pit of other girls living together.

If you asked my parents - especially my father - he would say Tintin hands down. He has - and continues to have in his library at home - a huge collection of Tintin comic books in as many different language translations as possible. He’s still collecting translations of each of the Tintin books in the most obscure languages he can find. I have both all the Tintin comic books - but only in English and French translations, and the odd Norwegian one - as well as all the Asterix comic books (only in English and French).

Speaking for myself I would be torn to decide between the two. Each have their virtues and I appreciate them for different reasons.

Tintin was truly about adventure that spoke deeply to me. Tintin was always a good detective story that soon turned to a travel adventure. It has it all: technology, politics, science and history. Of course the art is more simpler, but it is also cleaner and translates the wondrous far-off locations beautifully and with a sense of awe that you don’t see in the Asterix books. Indeed Hergé was into film-noir and thriller movies, and the panels are almost like storyboards for The Maltese Falcon or African Queen.

The plot lines of Tintin are intriguing rather than overly clever but the gallery of characters are much deeper, more flawed and morally ambiguous. Take Captain Haddock I loved his pullover, his strangely large feet, his endless swearing and his inability to pass a bottle without emptying it. He combined bravery and helplessness in a manner I found irresistible.

I’ve read that there is a deeply Freudian reading to the Tintin books. I think there is a good case for it. The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham's Treasure are both about Captain Haddock's family. Haddock's ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock, is the illegitimate son of the French Sun King – and this mirrors what happened in Hergé's family, who liked to believe that his father was the illegitimate son of the Belgian king. This theme played out in so many of the books. In The Castafiore Emerald, the opera singer sings the jewel song from Faust, which is about a lowly woman banged up by a nobleman – and she sings it right in front of Sir Francis Haddock, with the captain blocking his ears. It's like the Finnegans Wake of the cartoon. Nothing happens - but everything happens.

Another great part is that the storylines continue on for several albums, allowing them to be more complex, instead of the more simplistic Asterix plot lines which are always wrapped up nicely at the end of each book.

Overall I felt a great affinity with Tintin - his youthful innocence, wanting to solve problems, always resourceful, optimistic, and brave. Above all Tintin gave me wanderlust. Was there a place he and Milou (Snowy) didn’t go to? When they had covered the four corners of the world Tintin and Milou went to the moon for heaven’s sake!

What I loved about Asterix was the style, specifically Uderzo’s visual style. I liked Hergé’s clean style, the ligne claire of his pen, but Asterix was drawn as caricature: the big noses, the huge bellies, often being prodded by sausage-like fingers. This was more appealing to little children because they were more fun to marvel at.

In particular I liked was the way Uderzo’s style progressed with each comic book. The panels of Asterix the Gaul felt rudimentary compared to the later works and by the time Asterix and Cleopatra, the sixth book to be published, came out, you finally felt that this was what they ought to look like. It was an important lesson for a child to learn: that you could get better at what you did over time. Each book seemed to have its own palette and perhaps Uderzo’s best work is in Asterix in Spain.

I also feel Asterix doesn’t get enough credit for being more complex. Once you peel back the initial layers, Asterix has some great literal depth going on - puns and word play, the English translation names are all extremely clever, there are many hidden details in the superb art to explore that you will quite often miss when you initially read it and in a lot of the truly classic albums they are satirising a real life country/group/person/political system, usually in an incredibly clever and humorous way.

What I found especially appealing was that it was also a brilliant microcosm of many classical studies subjects - ancient Egypt, the Romans and Greek art - and is a good first step for young children wanting to explore that stuff before studying it at school.

What I discovered recently was that Uderzo was colour blind which explains why he much preferred the clear line to any hint of shade, and it was that that enabled his drawings to redefine antiquity so distinctively in his own terms. For decades after the death of René Goscinny in 1977, Uderzo provided a living link to the golden age of the greatest series of comic books ever written: Paul McCartney to Goscinny’s John Lennon. Uderzo, as the Asterix illustrator, was better able to continue the series after Goscinny’s death than Goscinny would have been had Uderzo had died first, and yet the later books were, so almost every fan agrees, not a patch on the originals: very much Wings to the Beatles. What elevated the cartoons, brilliant though they were, to the level of genius was the quality of the scripts that inspired them. Again and again, in illustration after illustration, the visual humour depends for its full force on the accompaniment provided by Goscinny’s jokes.

Here below is a great example:

There’s a lot of genius in this. Uderzo copied Theodore Géricault’s iconic ‘Raft of the Medusa’ 1818 painting in ‘Asterix The Legionary’. The painting is generally regarded as an icon of Romanticism. It depicts an event whose human and political aspects greatly interested Géricault: the wreck of a French frigate, Medusa, off the coast of Senegal in 1816, with over 150 soldiers on board. But Anthea Bell’s translation of Goscinny’s text (including the pictorial and verbal pun ‘we’ve been framed, by Jericho’) is really extraordinary and captures the spirit of the Asterix cartoons perfectly.

This captures perfectly my sense of humour as it acknowledges the seriousness of life but finds humour in them through a sly cleverness and always with a open hearted joy. There is no question that if humour was the measuring yard stick then Asterix and not Tintin would win hands down.

It’s also a mistake to think that the world of Asterix was insular in comparison to the amazing countries Tintin had adventures. Asterix’s world is very much Europe.

Every nationality that Asterix encounters is gently satirised. No other post-war artistic duo offered Europeans a more universally popular portrait of themselves, perhaps, than did Goscinny and Uderzo. The stereotypes with which he made such affectionate play in his cartoons – the haughty Spaniard, the chocolate-loving Belgian, the stiff-upper-lipped Briton – seemed to be just what a continent left prostrate by war and nationalism were secretly craving. Many shrewd commentators believe that during the golden age when Goscinny was still alive to pen the scripts, that it was a fantasy on French resistance during occupation by Nazi Germany. Uderzo lived through the occupation and so there is truth in that. Perhaps this is why the Germans are the exceptions as they are treated unsympathetically in Asterix and the Goths, and why quite a few of the books turn on questions of loyalty and treachery.

Even the British are satirised with an affection that borders on love: the worst of the digs are about our appalling cuisine (everything is boiled, and served with mint sauce, and the beer is warm), but everything points to the Gauls’ and the Britons’ closeness. They have the same social structure, even down to having one village still holding out against the Romans; the crucial and extremely generous difference being that the Britons do not have a magic potion to help them fight. Instead they have tea, introduced to them by Getafix, via Asterix, which gives them so much of a psychological boost that it may as well have been the magic potion.

I re-read ‘Asterix in Britain’ (Astérix chez les Bretons) in the light of the 2016 Brexit referendum result and felt despaired that such a playful and respectful portrayal of this country was not reciprocated. Don’t get me wrong I voted for Brexit but I remain a staunch Europhile. It made me violently irritated to see many historically illiterate pro-Brexit oiks who mistakenly believed the EU and Europe were the same thing. They are not. One was originally a sincere band aid to heal and bring together two of the greatest warring powers in continental Europe that grotesquely grew into an unaccountable bureaucratic manager’s utopian wet dream, and the other is a cradle of Western achievement in culture, sciences and the arts that we are all heirs to.

What I loved about Asterix was that it cut across generations. As a young girl I often retreated into my imaginary world of Asterix where our family home had an imaginary timber fence and a dry moat to keep the world (or the Romans) out. I think this was partly because my parents were so busy as many friends and outsiders made demands on their time and they couldn’t say no or they were throwing lavish parties for their guests. Family time was sacred to us all but I felt especially miffed if our time got eaten away. Then, as I grew up, different levels of reading opened up to me apart from the humour in the names, the plays on words, and the illustrations. There is something about the notion of one tiny little village, where everybody knows each other, trying to hold off the dark forces of the rest of the world. Being the underdog, up against everyone, but with a sense of humour and having fun, really resonated with my child's eye view of the world.

The thing about both Asterix and Tintin books is that they are at heart adventure comics with many layers of detail and themes built into them. For children, Asterix books are the clear winner, as they have much better art and are more fantastical. Most of the bad characters in the books are not truly evil either and no-one ever dies, which appeals hugely to children. For older readers, Tintin has danger, deeper characters with deep political themes, bad guys with truly evil motives, and even deaths. It’s more rooted in the real world, so a young reader can visualise themselves as Tintin, travelling to these real life places and being a hero.

As I get older and re-read Asterix and Tintin from time to time I discover new things. 

From Asterix, there is something about the notion of one tiny little village, where everybody knows each other, trying to hold off the dark forces of the rest of the world. Being the underdog, up against everyone, but with a sense of humour and having fun, really resonated with my child's eye view of the world. In my adult world it now makes me appreciate the value of family, friends, and community and even national identity. Even as globalisation and the rise of homogenous consumerism threatens to envelope the unique diversity of our cultures, like Asterix, we can defend to the death the cultural values that define us but not through isolation or by diminishing the respect due to other cultures and their cultural achievements.

From Tintin I got wanderlust. This fierce even urgent need to travel and explore the world was in part due to reading the adventures of Tintin. It was by living in such diverse cultures overseas and trying to get under the skin of those cultures by learning their languages and respecting their customs that I realised how much I valued my own heritage and traditions without diminishing anyone else.

So I’m sorry but I can’t choose one over the other, I need both Asterix and Tintin as a dyad to remind me that the importance of home and heritage is best done through travel and adventure elsewhere.

Thanks for your question.

#question #ask #comics #tintin #asterix #personal #arts #culture

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Croatia brings no men in a hamster wheel to Rotterdam 2021

Now could this be the teddy bear uprising invasion Muse has warned us about 12 years ago?

And LITERALLY, these review series make me feel like Croatia is openly taunting me - I watch the days go, I’m losing track of time, and when another day comes, I’m screaming “oh no I forgot to publish a review sooner than wanted!!”. Guess I’m for one glad there’s a time related song this year, hum?

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

Repping the Adriatic coast nation that got all the sea instead of Bosnia & Herzegovina is some 22 year old Albina Grčić, who first popped up on X Factor Adria back when that was a thing, and got lumped into a girlgroup in later stages, but to that she said “hvala ne” and moved on with her life, getting eliminated just like that. Queen <3 She did get her second chance to compete as a soloist and make a more prominent mark on her career when she ended up on The Voice in Croatia. She did well, placing third overall in the season, but somehow, during the duel stage, her coach initially favoured her fellow Dora 2021 contestant Filip Rudan:

Her Voice success landed her a record deal with the Croatian division of Universal Music, she released a debut single, sometime later ended up on Dora, and here she is now, on Eurovision.

“Tick-Tock” is the song, a standard upbeat pop song, and one of the ones that talks about a girl leaving a terrible relationship and being so well over it that she “found [her]self and [she’s] finally free”, and the “tick-tock” here is used to represent the time passing by, not the sound of her heart, unlike a fellow ESC entry of a similar title. The tune (or its lyrics only) is co-authored by some dude you might’ve heard of from France’s 2018 preselection Destination Eurovision, and that is Max Cinnamon - some half-English guy with a half English song about love (”Ailleurs”) that did moderately averagely in the final... I don’t even know if his influence shows, I just love how 2021 has sort of become revenge of the NF flops but they’re writing other entries instead (Suzi P, “Adrenalina”).

REVIEW

I often don’t really fully vibe with female bops in Eurovision as much as I want to, like, for the most part they’re overhyped, and I let the “yass queeeeen” audience gorge on the everything their favourite bops give them. But this year there are plenty of great ones to choose from, as I think that it’s safe to say that most, if not all, are tucked in somewhere inside my top 20, top 25 at the very minimum. Croatia managed to even do the impossible and land into my top 10.

Why?

Well, the answer is that the song is just so damn good.

I mean, what’s NOT to like about it? It’s a catchy and upbeat song that incorporates xylophones (or whatever is it that sounds like them), guitars and synths; has a good bassline in the chorus; and it’s just... a very good composition overall, like, all the instruments in it are just in their right place and uplift the song massively. I also like Albina’s performance on it, both live and studio, it clearly shows that she’s a very good singer (also shown on her cover of the scandalous Oscar award snubbery “Husavik”). Sounds like a song a common pop loving Eurofan could gear themselves towards. Besides, it also has possibly my favourite pre-chorus section of the 2021 year? Oh wait, there’s also Switzerland, scratch that. “Tick-Tock” has one of my favourite pre-chorus sections of 2021. It builds up so well instrumentally and the way Albina sings it is even better. I obviously like to believe Albina heard those voices from far away that helped her to escape, has found herself, and she’s finally free from her “partner’s” bad lovin’ and restraint. Yas queen go be free you didn’t deserve his tomfoolery anyway!  👏 (Also I admire a section that’s not quite the pre-chorus but is still before the 1st chorus, the one that goes “If you pull me down then I'll come around” - literally just a lot of the parts of the song are full of nice vocal performance and I don’t regret ranking this in my top 10 not a second.)

If it has any drawbacks, it’s just that it gets a tad too repetitive after the halfway mark... like, the pre-chorus before the second chorus is the one to be repeated once again, and no new verse, nothing - but it does launch itself into something extraordinary, and that is a chorus in Croatian, which I assume she would perform in Eurovision because there’s no Eurovision version on the song promo bundle, I suppose. Comparatively the Croatian chorus is not as complex in lyrics as the English language one, and flows slightly differently too. But the song still has a long chorus by the end, and song with too many choruses is never a good sign for those that look for a song that’s constructed well, but I guess it’s a good factor for those that value the song’s catchiness. I guess that’s what one of the two Eurovision 2005 hosts valued the most when writing the Ukrainian 2006 entry “Show Me Your Love”, which if you ask me, is straight up 75% chorus, lol.

So yeah my verdict is that almost everything about this song, I like. I’m just a little devastated that in a usually very easily gorged on category of female bops, this just tends to lag behind in love, like a fellow song I really like this year, Israel. Instead people tend to prioritize Cyprus (which I get because they’ve established themselves as a girlbanger nation since Fuego swept Eurovision) and... probably even Azerbaijan? (which I might also get because Eurovision rarely has this thing called an ethnobop anymore, and it has more ethno than “Cleopatra” did, but still unnecessarily underwhelming lol.) Well then, in a year of female bangers, I would just like Croatia to not be swept under the rug come semis I guess. Yeah “Tick-Tock” may not sound like it brings something totally never seen before in a Eurovision environment (foreign language lyrics, themes about a break up, hell even her dancers looked like they were wearing the same hats as Tamta’s dancers), but you got to have a lot in you to sell a worn out idea to the new heights, and Albina does exactly that in my eyes.

Approval factor: Yeah! There is a lot of it in here for me. Follow-up factor: A great follow-up, not so great in regards to panini but musically it’s just going up and up from what we had in the past few years. I’ve actually not minded “The Dream” for the most part but I knew it was a chanceless plodding ballad and Roko harboured heaps of wasted potential working with Jacques Houdek and having wings as part of his performance, uff. *_* And then there’s “Divlji vjetre” which I also like a lot - a much better male ballad winner choice! If the Dora re-up winners keep being decent imo just like this, I have a feeling I will follow it a lot more often than I did just this one time this year. I am just saying that panini-wise, it was a sucky move from HRT for not allowing their last year’s winner promote his new song with Tijana (from Serbia 2017) on the Dora night, so we sadly only heard a pre-recorded opening version of “Divlji vjetre” to start off with :( Otherwise I think it’s not Dora’s fault in itself that Damir himself chose not to even submit an entry this year because he hadn’t found a good one - much like with Diodato for Sanremo (he was NOT rejected, if you think he still was, shush). But aside that, musically, it just keeps going up for me. Well done Croatia, for you’ve used to be a Eurovision country I don’t necessarily care about, that you brought two pretty damn good entries in a row. Qualification factor: I can absolutely trust in Albina bringing in a little bit of her charisma and well-likedness, and on top of that, a great vocal performance, in Rotterdam. Don’t ask me why, I just do. She doesn’t really perform her song live on pre-parties as much as I’d like to hope she would, but you heard girlie on the national selection, she didn’t win for nothing. Yeah yeah there might as well be female uptempo songs hungrier for the last spot, but I’d like to think Albina is one of the ones ready to devour than to be devoured. Go girl! Take us all dancing!

NF CORNER

To be honest with you, “Tick-Tock” winning Dora caught me by surprise. Ever since its re-up, the last two editions were kind of won by male ballads, and maaaaybe the dancey females were doing moderately well enough for themselves, but not overall? But look, juries were very keen on Albina, probably because she can SANG and she creates one hell of a fancy presence on her performance. And somehow she ended up snatching a win out of the hands of 5G conspiracy theorist 2016 representative Nina Kraljić, who was at first too drunk to care, but too unexpectedly sober to yell all over the soc. media how she was robbed and how the contest was rigged against her with her being on first and all that. Which is a shame that she is one of THOSE people, because her NF entry “Rijeka” is kinda nice? We did have the Balkan-esque ballads coming from Croatia in recent memory, but we haven’t had a truly proudly folksy one at that from Croatia for a long while, if not ever. Nina could’ve very well brought that to Rotterdam (and another mismatched wardrobe choice oops). But instead she was the one screaming “oh no, oh no, oh no”.

Actually I regarded Nina as one of my faves pre-show, and Albina was on her way, though she didn’t really cement the personal fav status until after all performances, thus making Nina and Albina switch spots for me. But truly, the one song that was my top favourite, iiiiiiiiiiis

GIMME AN OCEAN! OF LOVE!

2021 made me realize that damn, maybe anything that’s funky is my favourite music genre afterall. Up until then I vibed with entries like “Tonight Again” and “What’s the Pressure?” that had this sort of energetic flair and very rhythmic kinda sound to it, but 2021 just simply cemented it to me that my music world has probably been about nice and smooth and funky all along. I owe so much gratitude to ToMa first and foremost along the lines of more to have come in this year’s lineups - I just can’t not want to dance to “Ocean of Love”, and ToMa is quite alright at selling it live as well. There are small gripes with some instrument usages but that doesn’t detract from the fact that I love love LOVE funky guitar tunes.

Aside from that, I can give shout outs to Beta Sudar, whose song not only was underrated, but also had an underrated meme format throughout its performance:

My other props go to Bernarda, who not only competed in a national selection singing a song about seeing “Colors” while blind (and ironically there was a song called “Blind” in that same NF sung by a well-seeing guy!!), but also for finally putting this every country’s reject to rest. Seriously. That particular song was passed on to everyone in need of a competitive Eurovision bop, from Poli Genova to Helena Paparizou as of recently. Oh well, at least the song died a honourable death - well performed slice of good typical Eurovision pop (maybe even overperformed a little towards the end), that got a good rank with the regional juries, but somewhat murdered in televote, fellow Boris Milanov composition “Chameleon” style.

This one Mia Negovetić chick was promising too! Her song was written by the Debs and you might be tired of them trying to continue infiltrating Eurovision at this point, but a lot of their Eurovision songs are usually something I enjoy, “She’s Like a Dream” is no exception. Nothing but 3 minutes of pastel-dressed Croatian Ariana Grande doing what she does best <3

Oh and also some dudes tried to play chess on stage too I guess. But their song is not worth looking into, because one of the acts on it is apparently also a conspiracist, and maybe because oft this their entry is aptly titled “Sing, for the freedom has arrived!” lol I wonder what exactly is the kind of freedom you’re thinking of my guy

Was this the “better mood game” Laura was warning everyone about? Beats me

NF CORNER (NON-COMPETITIVE)

• It’s still hilarious to me as to how one of the acts this year, Brigita Vuco, was planning to bring in backing dancers, only for them to show a fake COVID test or something and outright BARRED from coming with her on stage. <3 Whatever she intended to do with them dancers, I have absolutely no idea, but at least she committed to her song being about drunken nights visually by having all these blurry shots

• Nina Kraljić’s greenroom shenanigans, from the “1-2-3, 1-2-3, drink” to numb the sadness over some results (and the 8 she got from the region Rijeka for the song “Rijeka” lmao), to whatever she saw on the phone that made her smile or go neutral

• Greenroom reactions in general. I swear, this year had cameramen in every single corner everywhere just to make sure something covers up for a human audience instead of severals of Zoom screens permitted to act as an audience. Random people in greenrooms were doing some sort of emotions after random acts, and also randomly they ended up pointing a camera towards an act that lost, but the act didn’t treat losing as if it were such a big deal <3

• All the other memes the Croatian Twitter might’ve noticed me for:

seriously Bernarda was locked in a bluelight mathematical dice contraption. how fucking cool is that

ANY LAST WORDS?

I just fucking hope that Albina shatters any doubts that people have had about her song come rehearsals, and somehow Croatia AND Israel slip through, because never too many female bangers I appreciate in the final, if they all are the bangers I appreciate, lol.

#eurovision #eurovision 2021 #rotterdam 2021 reviews #croatia #Albina Grčić #albina #tick-tock

[bananaofswifts]

Taylor Swift has already won Album Of The Year Grammys for both country and pop offerings. (Fearless and 1989, respectively). She could feasibly take home a third with folklore. Which is excitingly difficult to horn into any particular genre. There are country and pop elements in the mix, but also folk, indie and Americana. The result is a heady, rustic brew that evokes fog-smeared forests and log fires, time-stained love letters and whispered truths.

What makes folklore so extraordinary is the songwriting. Taylor’s pen has always been a fearsome weapon, documenting every step of her life from wide-eyed school girl to Reputation-tarnished superstar. On folklore, however, she goes a step further by creating her own universe. One that is simultaneously personal and fictionalized. The 30-year-old regales us with tales of love, lust and scandal, and then charms with stream of consciousness offerings that feel like diary entries. The fact that it all hangs together so perfectly is a testament to Taylor’s talent as a curator (something she doesn’t get enough credit for) and the restraint of her collaborators.

The Cats survivor makes her intentions clear from the album-opener. A mournful ode to the one that got away, “the 1” is a body blow of a song. The loveliness of Aaron Dessner’s production combined with the heartfelt simplicity of Taylor’s lyrics is enough to take your breath away. There’s also a newfound grace that comes with life experience. “If wishes came true, you would have been the one” is a lyric that wouldn’t sound out of place on any of the hitmaker’s previous albums, but this time it’s an act of acceptance instead of a lament. But don’t mistake folklore for a downer.

Lead single “cardigan” is the kind of dizzyingly romantic love song that could only be conjured from Taylor’s brain. They say to kill your darlings, but something tells me that this track is full of them. While the clothing metaphor works through sheer force of will, the less-flashy moments are what linger in the mind. “Leaving like a father” and “I knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs,” in particular, belong on Taylor’s songwriting sizzle reel.

Just when you think the superstar is about to lay herself bare, she ushers us into the scandalous world of “the last great american dynasty,” a song that is reminiscent — for a reason I can’t quite put my finger on — of Speak Now. Perhaps it’s the salaciousness of the storytelling, or the relish Taylor takes in putting herself into someone else’s shoes. Maybe it’s just the comparatively-jaunty production. Either way, I love it wholeheartedly. In a way that I can’t quite embrace “Exile.” Taylor’s much-lauded collaboration with Bon Iver is staggeringly beautiful, but there’s a sterility to it I find jarring.

After four extremely good songs produced by Dessner, Jack Antonoff steps up to the plate. “my tears ricochet” is one of chart-topper’s famed kiss-offs, but this isn’t so much accusatory as anecdotal. The album’s only entirely self-penned track is simply about coming to terms with the emotional scars that inevitably form when someone leaves you. Sonically, it’s one of the most interesting compositions with strings and layers of background vocals that create a crescendo of emotion.

Next up is one of my favorite cuts on folklore. “Mirrorball” is the dreamiest ditty on the album by some margin. Falling somewhere between Mazzy Star and whatever is playing at The Bronx in your favorite Buffy episode, this slow dance envelopes you like a warm blanket. Another Antonoff-produced track that has the potential to be a classic — imagine having more than one on an album — is “this is me trying.” Raw, eerie and true, this encapsulates the terror of trying to make things right.

The holy trinity of Antonoff productions is complete with “illicit affairs.” Like “the last great american dynasty” it finds Taylor role-playing — only this time, instead of imagining sweeping, romantic moments, the singer/songwriter puts herself into a grittier milieu. She plays The Other Woman, one making do with stolen moments in parking lots and cheap hotel rooms. In some ways, it is a glimpse of where Taylor might be musically if she had stayed with country. The song owes more to Lucinda Williams, Shelby Lynne and EmmyLou Harris than any of her pop contemporaries.

Of the Aaron Dessner-produced songs that dominate the second half of the album, a couple standout. The eerie and evocative “seven” could soundtrack Sofia Coppola’s remake of The Beguiled, while “Invisible String” is the most charming rumination on the twists and turns of fate that I can think of. It’s a reminder that while Taylor lost her rose-colored glasses somewhere along the way, she can still tap into the wide-eyed wonder that made her first four albums absolutely hate-proof. It is another song that will stand the test of time.

There’s something remarkably free and unforced about folklore, both thematically and sonically. Taylor is allowed to follow her muse down the leafy pathways of her mind. While some stops are better than others, none are unwelcome. In fact, it’s easier to list the things I don’t like about folklore than the ones I do. The last two songs feel like an afterthought in comparison to what came before them, and the mid-section of the album sags a little. But that does nothing to dim the enormity of this achievement.

Rating: 5/5

#taylor swift #folklore #review

[stuckonstarker]

Happy Birthday, Mr. President.

In this one, Peter is President Stark’s ‘secret’ lover. Loosely based off of JFK and Marilyn Monore. Very loosely. This is a happy birthday fic to myself! Happy 19! Hope you enjoy.

“We have a very special guest tonight, here to sing our president a song. Peter Parker!”

The spotlight illuminated an empty spot on the stage and the thumping drums quickly quieted. Peter was late to the president’s party.

Rhodey - President Stark’s vice president - awkwardly paced around the podium before laughing, “Let it be said that our guest doesn’t need an introduction.”

Rhodey looked to the spotlight and waited, Peter was absent still.

Rhodey laughed with the crowd as he continued, “But I’ll give him one anyway, Peter is an extraordinary singer and actor. He has had many achievements in his life. And he is one of the most important people to our president.”

Then the spotlight caught Peter sprinting on stage, his sparkling suit catching the light from all angles. Rhodey stepped aside, allowing Peter to be at the podium. On Peter’s shoulder was a white fur coat that Rhodey took off for him. The crowd gasped at his shining suit and cheered at his mere presence.

“Mr. President,” Rhodey said, “from the late Peter Parker.” 

Peter softly apologized to Rhodey as he took the microphone. His smile was wide and his eyes shone brightly. He was the only person on stage, eyes glued on him. The crowd’s cheers and applauds turned into roars. It would’ve been overwhelming had Peter not been used to it. 

As Peter stood at the podium he looked out into the crowd and right there, front and center, was Tony Stark. Peter’s honey-brown eyes met with President Stark’s dark umber eyes. He had a soft smile, that reflected in his eyes. Next to him though, was President Stark’s less than amused wife Virginia. She stared at Peter, her cold, calculating blue eyes pierced Peter. He smiled at her, trying to ease both of their tension before he sang. He looked from her back to President Stark whose smile had dimmed, but not disappeared.

Peter waited, letting the crowd’s clapping fade and their cheers turn into silence. When all that was left were quiet whispers, the pianist began playing a soft tune and Peter began singing, his melodic voice filling the air:

“Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday to you,

Happy birthday Mr. President,

Happy birthday to you.

Thanks, Mr. President

For all the things you’ve done

The battles that you’ve won

The way you deal with US steel

And our problems by the ton.

We thank you, so much.”

Peter smiled as his song finished and he cheered, “Everybody! Happy Birthday!” He jumped and clapped, a wide smile on his face. 

The soft piano of Peter’s song faded into the booming sound of Happy Birthday as multiple people brought out the giant birthday cake for President Stark. Peter walked off stage, looking back at President Stark with adoring eyes.

“Now,” the announcer said, “for the president.”

President Stark stepped on the stage with a wide grin. He looked at Peter who was shadowed in the darkness. Peter smiled up at him, hugging his fur coat closer. He had ‘borrowed’ some of Tony’s cologne and sprayed it on the coat. As Peter listened to Tony’s thank you speech, the low baritone of his voice fizzled into a warm instrumental and lulled him into a state of delusional contentment.

Then, Tony’s speech was over and he walked over to Virginia and kissed her on the cheek. He whispered something into her ear and she nodded with resentful resignment. He turned away from her and grabbed a drink, it was then when Peter realized he had been staring.

Peter snapped his head away the second Tony turned to look at him, but Peter didn’t hide his smile. Peter took a drink from a waiter’s tray, despite already taking multiple shots before the song. The alcohol helped curb his anxiety - being the president’s secret affair was stressful. And ‘secret’ was a generous word to call the affair.

When Peter looked over at the president again, Tony was speed-walking toward him. It made Peter giggle a two-prong giggle.

“Peter,” Tony said, rushing to Peter’s side, “that was quite the performance you put on.”

Peter smiled, “Thank you, Mr. President, I’ve been practicing.”

Tony went silent for a moment, his warm eyes scanning Peter before saying, “I don’t think anyone’s beauty can compare to yours, darling.”

Peter’s face was an inferno as he said, “Beauty within is the most important thing a young man can have.”

“I’m sure your blood cells are the most beautiful of any humans, dear,” Tony said, sipping some of his whiskey. The glass, however, could not hide his smirk.

Peter sighed, “You are a pest, dear President.”

“As I’m told every day by colonel Rhodes himself,” Tony said.

“To be fair, he’s got a point.”

Tony smiled, “You two, always ganging up on me.”

“Aw,” Peter teased, “did I hurt little old Stark’s feelings?”

“Okay, okay,” Tony said, “first of all, I’m not little, secondly, I’m not old - shut up -”

Peter giggled as he took a sip of his cocktail.

“And thirdly, I don’t have feelings,” Tony continued. 

Peter hummed, “You have feelings for me. Right?” To phrase it as a question was only a formality, at the end of the day they both knew the answer.

“Of course,” Tony whispered, his voice rasped with raw emotion. His eyes, however, were not so quiet about his love for Peter. They shone like crystals whenever they landed on Peter’s face and they brightened instantly whenever Peter talked. Tony’s eyes doomed him. Tony’s heart, his soul gathered in his warm brown eyes and they reached out to Peter.

Peter snapped back into reality and realized. He realized that he was close to Tony, so very close to Tony. It made Peter’s heart thump in his chest and made his heart ache. But, this was reality, and Peter and Tony were doomed to be a shadowed affair hidden from the public eye, so Peter stepped back. His legs felt like lead as he moved them. Peter’s body screamed to touch Tony, to hold him close and dear and never let him go. Peter’s mind patiently reminded him that he was in a long line of people who wanted Tony. Peter was just lucky.

Tony didn’t move, he only smiled and sighed, “You are welcome to visit me in my hotel suite, Peter, I’d love to have you.”

“You’d love to have my company, Tony, you’d love to have my company,” Peter said, “we’re in public.”

“Which is why I’m inviting you to my hotel room,” Tony said.

Peter nodded, “Sounds delightful, Mr. President.”

Only a mere hour later, multiple news outlets were reporting on the scandal with multiple ‘insider’ pictures of Tony guiding Peter up a hefty flight of stairs. Each picture was a rare public documentation of their love for one another. 

In the hotel room, Tony and Peter ignored them. The outside world meant little when they were in their bubble. They basked in their moments of domestic bliss, wishing life had brought them together in different circumstances, so they could fully bathe in each other’s love. 

Tony watched Peter, eyes full of adoration, fingers tracing the delicate edge of Peter’s jawline. Tony whispered, “The world is ours tonight.” Peter smiled and leaned in to breathe in Tony’s cologne.

“Tony,” Peter began, breath catching in his throat.

“Yes?”

Peter pulled away from him and his head hanged low. He took a few breaths as his heart raced and his mind flooded. Peter looked up, gazed into Tony’s soul and whispered, “I love you.”

Even if Tony never said it back, Peter could see it. It was like butterflies dancing in the air and ocean tides beating against the shore: it was the natural beauty of their love. Two souls filled with aching and yearning and longing, finally finding each other and reaching out to one another from across the universe. 

Silence sang for some time before Tony leaned into Peter’s neck. His hot breath painting Peter like a work of art. Tony’s mouth brushed against Peter’s ear and, just as Peter felt resigned, Tony whispered:

“I love you too.”

Peter pulled back and reached up to land a kiss on Tony’s lips. Tony reciprocated easily, he held Peter close. Their lips moved in perfect time and their hearts beat on the same rhythm. They were intertwined and there was no going back. 

Tony pulled from the kiss and said breathlessly, “I think I’m meant to be with you.”

Peter smiled, “I know that wherever you are, I belong there with you.”

Tony leaned in to kiss Peter again. He whispered against Peter’s lips, “We’ll find each other again, someday, if I have to travel through all of time itself.”

“I would do the same for you, Tony,” Peter said, “as long as in the end, I get to be with you.”

Tony nodded, “You will, somehow. I’ll find a way.”

“I believe you,” Peter said, wrapping his arms around Tony’s neck as Tony held onto Peter’s hips. They slowly shifted into a calm sway. Soft piano music played from a stereo in the background. Peter felt like he was floating as if he were the weight of clouds drifting in the sky. Tony used one hand to pet hair out of Peter’s face.

Peter sighed, “I wish I could be in your arms forever.”

Tony nodded and spun Peter in a small circle. Peter giggled and landed back in Tony’s chest. They both began laughing as Tony held onto Peter as if he were a young deer learning to walk.

They calmed down, eventually, and they continued to look at one another. Tony grabbed Peter’s hand and gently guided him to the balcony. Tony admired Peter again. The dark sky dotted with bright stars served to illuminate Peter’s endless beauty.

Tony held both of Peter’s hands in his and looked down as he whispered, “I love you. I wish I could promise you more than my love, but I’m stuck and I’m sorry. I owe you so much more than you receive.”

“Being able to hold you like this is enough for me,” Peter said, trying to hold back tears, “I love you too, Tony, nothing will change that.”

Tony leaned in and kissed Peter, their promise of love imprinted on the backdrop of the endless night sky. Only the stars and moon saw what they truly meant to each other that night and many other nights after that.

#starker #marilyn au #fluff #max writes #cheating mention

[talesofafangirlwithadvr]

What to Binge Watch While in Quarantine

Do you feel yourself running out of things to watch on DVR or you don’t know which streaming platform to explore for your next watch? Or do you just find yourself with more time on your hands and don’t know what to do? If you answered yes to any of these questions I hope this thread helps you out. A lot of these picks are some of my top choices no matter what the case (which means I might have spoken about them before-possibly A LOT. Or they may be upcoming March picks, which just shows how great they really are). So without further a do here are some things you should consider bingeing as you maintain your social distancing and seek a form of escape...

Need a laugh?

Check out DERRY GIRLS

This half hour comedy (which honestly should be longer because the episodes go by too fast and there are not enough of them in the seasons) follows Erin Quinn as she navigates high school during the 1990s in Northern Ireland. She attends an all girl Catholic school along with her cousin Orla, and friends Michelle, Clare and James. (That’s right James also attends the all girls school. He’s a Brit and it would be too dangerous for him to attend the boys school during this time of civil unrest.) As the girls experience trivial problems like how to get to a concert or how to avoid people eating pot brownies at a funeral, the historic problems play out in the background. During the pandemic we’re experiencing we can take away living in the moment like these girls from Derry and not overly stressing on big world problems.   

Streaming on Netflix

Wanting more of a ROM COM kind of escapism?

Then look no further than the Netflix original Set it Up. 

Two assistants, Harper and Charlie, work in the same building and are experiencing a very “Devil wears Prada” relationship with each of their bosses. They meet one night at work after hours and believe they have the worse boss. A plan gets set in motion to set up their terrible bosses with each other. Then when they’re happy, the two assistants can have their lives back. You already see where this is probably going and who this love story is actually following: Harper and Charlie. I’ve been raving about this movie since 2018 when it first came out and it is still just as great as the first time I watched it. It honestly still gives hope for a great romantic comedy. 

Streaming on Netflix.  

Up for a good mystery? 

Give Cw’s Nancy Drew a try.

One of the Cw’s latest new shows this season, Nancy Drew, re-invents the classic stories we all know and love with a more darker and supernatural spin. If you like Riverdale and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina then this might be right up your alley. However, as someone who doesn’t watch Riverdale and didn’t fall in love with Sabrina, I am still a big fan of this new adaptation of Nancy Drew. I feel like I’ve experienced a roller coaster of reviews with this one, from really liking it to not so much (because there was too much of the supernatural involved and I just wanted a good mystery) to now really liking it again. I think I just needed some time to understand the vibe of it all and now that I really know the characters I’m liking it a lot. I’m also excited it has been renewed for a second season. 

You can catch up with all 16 episodes now on the CW app or online cwtv.com. New episodes return in April. 

Want more of a magical kind of mystery?

Then you gotta watch Locke and Key.

Thanks to Netflix’s new trending list I decided to check out Locke and Key and I am so happy I did. It was fantastic and I can’t wait for season two. Based on the graphic novel by the same name, the series follows the Locke siblings who have just witnessed their father’s murder before traveling cross-country with their mother to his ancestral home, Key house. The house is filled with these magical keys that all have different properties from getting into your mind and looking at your deepest thoughts and desires, a key that opens any door and can take you anywhere, or one that opens a music box that lets you control people. The kids get drawn to the keys and unlock a deeper mystery of the keys and how their dad was involved in it all. Plus, there’s a sinister presence that is after the keys and will stop at nothing to get what they want. Definitely worth checking out!

Streaming on Netflix. 

Need some music in your life?

You must watch Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist

This show gets better and better each episode. After a freak accident, Zoey gets the ability to hear people’s innermost feelings through song and dance. She’s the only who can hear it, which means she needs to help the person get through the problem in their life. Each episode has a good amount of musical numbers from popular songs to classics and even musicals. Great cast. There is not one character I don’t like. If you are a fan of Glee I would highly suggest checking it out. It’s the show that often gets compared to it, but you don’t have to be a fan of Glee to enjoy it. I wasn’t a die-heart fan and I’m loving Zoey’s Extraordinary Playlist. It’s a feel good watch that is just what we need at a difficult time like this. 

Watch it on NBC on demand. 

Did you love High School Musical?   

Then why haven’t you watched High School Musical the Musical the Series?

This show has been promoted since Disney Plus was released back in November. There was a lot of hype over it, which made me unsure if it would be worth it, but I gotta say that I really enjoyed it overall. A cross between Glee and the Office, HSMTMTS follows students who attend the school the Disney Original Movie Series was filmed. When the new drama teacher comes to “East High” she is shocked that the drama department has never put on the musical for themselves. There’s a love triangle(s), a large cast of talented singers, drama and mystery. Great new songs that will get stuck in your head and the promise for a second season with a brand new musical to perform. (I’m just bummed it’s Beauty and the Beast and not HSM 2). The episodes are only about 25 minutes and you’ll find yourself finished with the 10 episode season in a matter of hours.

Now streaming on Disney+.  

Feeling a telenovela musical?

Then Violetta is for you!

Drama, laughs, love, and music (with more catchy songs you won’t be able to get out of your head), this Disney original from Buenos Aires has it all. You will get sucked into the episodes just like I did and be shocked how far into the series you are in such a short amount of time. I watched all 80 episodes (that are about 40 minutes a piece) in a matter of 2 months. (And now I’m upset that Disney Plus hasn’t released season 2!!) The show follows Violetta Castillo who has just returned home after traveling the globe with her father for years. She wants to be like a regular kid and attend school rather than having a tutor, but her father forbids it. He’s over protective because her mother was a famous singer who then tragically died. He ties it back to the music and forbids Violetta from performing as well. Throughout the first season, she is exposed to a music school where she makes new friends, enemies, and becomes a part of a love triangle (naturally). In the process she rises to be one of the most talented performers, but constantly is worried her dad will find out the truth and make them move again. 

Streaming now on Disney+. 

Needing a Sci-Fi fix?

Tune into the Cw’s Pandora.

The show aired on the Cw this summer and needs more love and recognition. I was surprised over how much I enjoyed it. When each episode aired I wanted to watch it right away, which then made me upset because I had to wait a week, but you won’t have that problem! The show takes place in the future in the year 2199. Our main character Jax witnesses her family getting tragically killed and is forced back to Earth to live with her uncle who runs a training academy. Jax enrolls in the school and makes several friends a long the way (there are so many ships on this show that I often had trouble deciding who I liked with who). While at the academy she starts to piece together that her family’s death might not have been an accident and that more lies behind it as well as her own past. There were times when I was confused by how much time had passed from the last episode because characters would be very close or references would get made and I’d be like: Did I miss something? But despite all of that I really enjoyed it and am happy there will be a season 2. It feels very Cw in the best way possible, so if you already watch a lot of shows on the network then you should give this one a try. 

Watch the entire first season on the CW app or online @ cwtv.com

Wanting an ironic watch in this difficult time?

Then add Daybreak to your queue.

This Netflix original had been on my list for a while and once the Corona virus was getting more and more serious I felt I needed something to take my mind off of it and also to have a good laugh. Daybreak is doing just that. (I am currently still watching the series so I don’t have a full review just yet.) This show takes place during the aftermath of a nuclear attack. In this apocalypse adults have turned into “zombie-like figures” who are muttering the last thought they had (often a very funny one). The kids are now in charge and each clique in high school has a territory. We follow social-outcast/new kid at school. Josh who is on the search for the love of his life, Sam, that he lost during the night of the explosion. Along the way he finds allies and they form their own tribe. This show is constantly breaking the fourth wall, having characters directly talk and look at us. I thought I would hate it, but I actually really like that feature and am kind of upset now that Josh has not narrated an episode in a while. 

Now streaming on Netflix.    

Still looking for more laughs?

Add Kelsey’s 100 Baby Challenge to your Watch Later

Throughout last year, Buzzfeed multiplayer’s Kelsey Immpicciche took up the 100 baby challenge in the Sims 4. What she thought would be a fun challenge and a couple videos blew up into a full series spanning 50 episodes, multiple spin-off series and even a line of clothing (which I am happy to say I own a sweatshirt). Who would have thought watching someone play the Sims and try to have 100 babies with all different parents would be so much fun? Kelsey has made me want to play the Sims and have my very own 100 baby challenge. This challenge is hilarious and fun. I loved all of Kelsey’s commentary as she plays as well as reading the comment section where everyone tries to give her tips. It’s so exciting to see how so many people got involved in this challenge. I hope she continues for season 2 soon! 

You can watch all of season 1 on YouTube.

Need a change in location?

Venture back in time and to Prince Edward Island with Anne with an E.

L.M. Montgomery’s beloved series is adapted with a fresh new take on her classic characters and setting. Across Anne with an E’s three seasons we watch Anne Shirley come to Green Gables and form a family with Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert. We watch her shake up school and form life long friends. Something that I love about this series is that it is able to incorporate so many of the issues our society is facing today. While not always 100% accurate to the original novels, the show takes liberties with the source material and expands upon it to create something audiences can see as an echo of our conflicts. While this has been a problem for some, I think, once you realize this, you can enjoy the series even more. I know of so many people who have turned to the book after watching and falling in love with this series. Now, during this time, it is the perfect form of escapism. With each season spanning about 10 episodes you will be done and wanting more just like I am. I’m still upset the series has not been renewed. 

Streaming now on Netflix. 

Early Releases:

LITTLE WOMEN is now available on digital copy.

FROZEN 2 has been released early to Disney Plus.

Rumor is that EMMA will be released on digital copy as early as March 20th.

With so much to watch I hope that you can endure this quarantine happily. If there’s a show you’d like to add to the list make sure to attach it below in a comment or by sharing this post!

#coronavirus #covid19 #quarantine #quarantine binge-watch #derry girls #erin quinn #netflix set it up #harper x charlie #cw nancy drew #netflix locke and key #locke and key season 1 #zoey's extraordinary playlist #high school musical the m #hsmtmts #disney’s violetta #violetta castillo #disney plus #pandora #pandora cw #netflix daybreak #100 baby challenge #buzzfeed multiplayer #kelsey impicciche #anne with an e #renew anne with an e #anne shirley #amybeth mcnulty #little women 2019 #Greta Gerwig #frozen 2

[nctinfo]

[TRANS] WayV’s interview with Leon Young July 2019 issue!

Their musical style changes frequently, sometimes extremely gentle and loving, sometimes explosive and fiery. The seven boys are like seven completely different gems, difficult to gather in the first place, and yet still able to radiate a unique and harmonious light, invoking surprise and curiosity.

KUN | Capricorn leader, full points for his leadership

Blood type: B Star sign: Capricorn Favourite food: Beef Favourite music genre: R&B I am Qian Kun, a treasure boy, waiting for you to unearth.

Qian Kun, who yearned for the skies since young, has a hobby for researching on planes, collecting model planes and also playing flying games. “I especially like to sit on the plane, every time we travel by plane I will take videos of the clouds in the skies through the small circular window.” Other than being a singer, Qian Kun’s biggest dream is to be a pilot. In WayV’s newest single <Dream Launch>’s MV, he could experience his “space obsession” —— traveling through space and time with the wormhole, and launching his dreams towards outer space.

As the leader, he can’t be this imaginative every day. In the team, all seven boys have distinctly different personalities, so collecting everyone’s different opinions, and bringing all the members closely together, will be impossible without impressive leadership capabilities. “Teamwork” is WayV’s team spirit, and Qian Kun is everyone’s “gege” that they admire and listen to.

Kun is very good at writing lyrics and composing, and when asked where his inspiration comes from, his words were quite shocking —— when he’s showering. “Often when I’m showering, a melody will suddenly appear in my head. I will then quickly rush out of the bathroom in a bathrobe and use the fastest speed to record the melody in my phone.”

Q: When did you realize you have a talent in music? A: When I was young, I would participate in the singing competition in our school every year, and would get first place every time.

Q: Who is your favourite singer? A: Jay Chou, I’ve liked listening to his songs since I was in the first year of primary school.

TEN | Be careful! The smiling eyes are electric

Blood type: A Star sign: Pisces Favourite food: Rice cake Favourite music genre: R&B I am TEN, born for the stage.

Born in Bangkok, TEN particularly loves Chinese traditional food.  His favourite is rice cake, soy bean milk, youtiao (fried dough), and lamb skewers. Every type of food brings him a different surprise, and makes him say “wow, this is good!” every bite he takes.

When TEN was studying Mandarin, the other members were available to be his personal “language teacher”, so he improved at an incredible speed. Other than that, TEN has his own study tips as well, which is to learn Mandarin via watching Chinese variety shows. His favourites are <Running Man>, <Our Brilliant Masters>, and <Back To Field>.

TEN’s explosive dancing is one of the highlights of a WayV stage. He looks very gentle when he smiles, but is shockingly powerful when he moves. TEN says that he mainly trains two aspects of dancing: the first is physical strength, the second is the details of the choreography. He spends at least an hour in the practice room every day doing push-ups and planking, amongst others, then practices specific dance moves after completing physical training. Because perfect movements must have good muscle control as a foundation.

Q: What is your favourite sport? A: Badminton.

Q: How have your parents supported you in your career? A: They respect my decisions very much, and let me freely do what I like to do.

WINWIN | Dancing elf, more charming the more you appreciate

Blood type: B Star sign: Scorpio Favourite food: Shrimp Favourite music genre: R&B I am WINWIN, a guy that gets more and more charming the more you look at me.

“I’m slightly introverted, but others in the team always bring me lots of joy, so I feel like I’ve been ‘opened’ by them.” Though WINWIN appears to be mysterious and cold, he’s actually very soft-hearted. His favourite thing to do is to watch movies, listen to songs, and chat with his fellow members in the dorm.

WayV has a tradition of watching a movie together in the dorms every week. They would discuss the plot after the movie and share their own thoughts and realizations. Additionally, they also regularly hold “meetings” to share their own worries with other members, while providing suggestions to others. WINWIN likes to turn off the lights and light some candles when this is going on, creating a relaxed atmosphere around everyone.

From the time he was a primary 5 student, WINWIN studied traditional Chinese dance. Years of dance background gave every move he makes a sense of calmness and elegance. Dance has a priceless meaning to WINWIN, “it is the basis of my everything, dance is what brought me here today.”

Q: Which song from the new album do you like the best? A: <Let me love u>, it’s a love song from us to the fans.

Q: Which of your facial features are you most satisfied with? A: Eyes. The outer corner of my eye tilts up slightly, and seem to have a classical beauty.

LUCAS | Clever and mischievous, imaginative and unrestricted.

Blood type: O Star sign: Aquarius Favourite food: Apples Favourite music genre: The quietest music and the most explosive music I am LUCAS, thank you to all the people who like me, you’re all really cute!

“Comparing before and after I joined WayV, the biggest change I made was learning how to take care of my younger brothers.” LUCAS says he used to always have the image of a “younger brother”, but after joining the team and facing members younger than he is, he naturally upgraded to become others’ “older brother”, and knew more about how to understand and help others.

At 183cm, LUCAS has a tall and straight figure. Coupled with big eyes that seem to be able to speak, his features make fans swoon. LUCAS, as someone who has lots of visuals and even more style, has been nicknamed a “walking poster”. When asked about his method of selecting and matching clothes, he has much to say, “we have to first understand our body before we can better match our clothes, and not just follow the trends.” He thinks colorful clothes can help add colour to the city, and if everyone can wear their own style, then the whole city will have a unique style to it.

Aquarian LUCAS always comes up with strange ideas, for example, he says that when he listens to music, he can not only hear the melody and rhythm of the song itself, but also the feelings of the composer and lyricist, and even how the drummer looks when they drum on the backing track. He also frequently lies down on the carpet to think about “the difficult questions in life”, like “the fans do so much for us, what should I do to let them feel our love too?” What is the answer? It is very simple, and also very pure - make even better music, which makes them happy after listening to it.

Q: What is your biggest wish lately? A: For WayV to hold their own concert, and interact with the fans with no distance between us.

Q: What would you like to remind the fans of? A: Eat more fruits, you can absorb many natural vitamins, which is more effective and healthier than taking vitamin tablets!

XIAOJUN | Honey voice, difficult to forget

Blood type: B Star sign: Leo Favourite food: Sour candy Favourite music genre: Ballad I want to be magic, I want to be bigger than I am.

“Take Off” is XIAOJUN’s favourite from the new album, “Even if I have no wings, I still want to fly, courage is needed to face your dreams. This is similar to my current state of mind.”XIAOJUN’s voice is not one to be easily forgotten, it’s crisp and hoarse, yet soft and dense; it’s fine, and gentle - he’s referred to by the fans as “honey voiced”.

XIAOJUN has been obsessed with music ever since he was a child, and usually likes to quietly practice singing by himself. Even though he is now a member of an idol group, and has to frequently face many busy announcements and tough rehearsals, he still persists in at least three hours of vocal practice every day. How does he protect his “honey vocals”, then? XIAOJUN has his own good practices, of course. “I drink a glass of honey water when I get up every morning, this can reduce heatiness, and moisten the throat.

”Though skilled, XIAOJUN admits that he is very nervous before meeting fans. Not long ago, WayV participated in Hunan Television’s “Happy Together”. When shooting the episode, many WayV fans went to the location of the shoot to support them. “Even though I look calm and collected, my heart is beating wildly. But on that day, the moment the curtains opened, I saw many fans holding boards with our names on them, heard them screaming and shouting our names, and only then did I really calm down.”

As someone who newly debuted, XIAOJUN thinks that luck was most important in him becoming a member of WayV, and that it was intended by the heavens. But he still wants to tell the juniors who carry their dreams and want to debut that, “you cannot lack in luck, but behind luck, you have to have an extraordinary amount of hard work. Luck will only find you when you transform your talents into skills.”

Q: Your eyelashes are long and curled, what’s your secret? A: Actually, you don’t have to take extra care, just use warm water to clean everyday, and don’t rub roughly when you wash your face.

Q: Amongst life’s sourness, sweetness, bitterness, spiciness, and saltiness, which is your favourite flavour? A: Sourness, it gives the tastebuds a curious feeling.

HENDERY | Curious BOY, always “unlocking” new skills

Blood type: O Star sign: Libra Favourite food: Chicken feet with fermented black soy bean paste Favourite music genre: Hippop I am HENDERY, who likes the colour pink.

HENDERY has a new wish recently, and that is to learn to play the jazz drums. He’s roommates with TEN. One night, he unknowingly started to play a beat as TEN sat on his bed and played the guitar. So TEN told him, “you can learn to play the drums, then we can perform together.” This sentence ignited a small flame in HENDERY’s heart, so he resolved to learn to play the jazz drums and was unstoppable afterward. He would go online to watch tutorials on jazz drums when he was free, and frequently forgets to eat because he was so absorbed.

HENDERY always likes to try new things. For example, before joining WayV, he didn’t frequently have hotpot, but was influenced by everyone and loves hotpot like no other now! Whether Hong Kong-style, Sichuan-style, or Chongqing-style, if it’s hotpot, he likes it! “If we have time, we go out to have hotpot twice a week! And it’s seven of us together every time!”

Looking back at his biggest change since debut, HENDERY thinks that his stage experience has become more diverse. He used to focus on the training itself but rarely paid attention to showcasing on stage. However, recently, he frequently finds and watches past performances by the group to re-assess himself on stage from a fan’s perspective. For example, when watching these videos, he would find that at one beat where he focused on a body angle, the camera was focusing on facial expressions instead - amongst his replays, HENDERY keeps working hard to find the best feeling on stage.

Q: The fans call you “Disney prince”, what do you think about that? A: Thank you all~ But I don’t want to be just a “prince”, I would instead like to showcase different sides of myself in songs.

Q: What do you hope for WayV’s future? A: I hope more people listen to our music, watch our dancing, that’s all.

YANGYANG | The most doted on by the group, the maknae is very busy

Blood type: O Star sign: Libra Favourite food: Hotpot Favourite music genre: melody RAP I am YANGYANG, easy-going offstage, perfectionist onstage, this is my “duality”.

As the “maknae” of the team, YANGYANG is the recepient of much love, and is always taken care of by the other members. “Uh…I am indeed a little mischievous sometimes, like when I purposely wake others when they sleep, but they never get angry at me.” WayV haven’t debuted for long, but they have completely become family from brothers, always looking out for one another. For example, when everybody goes out to eat, they would always ask the youngest brother what he wanted to have, then everybody would go according to what he liked.

The fans’ warm-hearted actions frequently touch YANGYANG deeply. Sometimes, when a new song has just been released, the fans still sing the song with them word for word at live performances. “They must have listened to it many, many times, this makes me feel really warm.”

<Say It> from the new album makes YANGYANG particularly excited, as it is the work of renowned band London Noise. YANGYANG has been a huge fan of London Noise since he was a child, and this time, he was able to sing what his idols made for him, so it’s a dream come true!

Q: Other than music, what is your biggest interest? A: I love car racing, my dad and I would go go-karting every weekend when I was little, I really like the feeling of a competition.

Q: Why is it that you can maintain a perfect body while loving to eat hotpot? A: Sorry, I just can’t gain weight, haha. But I usually workout to maintain my strength too.

Translation: Jess, Seol @ FY! NCT (NCTINFO) | Source: Leon Young — Do not repost or take out without our permission!

#NCT #wayv #kun #ten #winwin #lucas #hendery #xiaojun #yangyang #t:interview #t:trans #Leon Young #Leon Young: July 2019

[tawakkull]

Spirituality in islam: Sakr and Sahw (Intoxication and Sobriety)

In the language of Sufism, sakr (intoxication) means that an initiate is enraptured by the rays of the manifestations of God’s “Face.” His/her returning to his/her former, normal state is sahw (sobriety). These two terms are usually used together as sahw u sakr.

There is a relation between intoxication and absence. If the inner world of seekers after the Truth who feel intoxication is not satisfied with the Divine gifts, then they lack something in intoxication, and suffer irregular tides with respect to the state of absence. It is coloring, rather than self-possession, which is witnessed in their actions. For this reason, such seekers should be regarded as those who have perhaps feigned intoxication rather than being actually intoxicated. However, it sometimes occurs that the gifts come in showers and invade the whole being, with the result that then they do become fully intoxicated.

Intoxication sometimes arises from a strong belief, a considerable knowledge of God, and is balanced by fear and awe, making itself felt in a broader sense. As for the degree of intoxication which is felt by those who have advanced further on the way and who have approached nearer to God, whenever such travelers are honored with the light of the manifestation of the “Face” or with the vision of the “Face” beyond all concepts of modality, they immediately become intoxicated. The spirit overflows with zeal and joy and the heart feels excessive excitement.

Sobriety means that the intoxicated ones return to their former, normal state. Like intoxication, sobriety is also an undeniable part of the journeying toward the Almighty. Whenever the Truth invades the very being of the intoxicated lovers of God the Almighty, who spend their lives immersed in spiritual pleasures in the valleys of absence, they feel as if they have immediately fallen into an ocean and have vanished like a drop into the world of feelings, or that they have been burnt away like a dried, flammable object and that their nature has changed. Furthermore, the ways and bridges of sensing are demolished one after another and He alone can be felt everywhere and in everything. There are many who see a relation between such a state and what is meant in the verse (7:143): As soon as his Lord displayed an exclusive manifestation for the mountain, He made it crumble to dust, and Moses fell down in a swoon (as if struck by lightning). Just as Mount Sinai, or a part of it, was rendered dust, despite its immensity, and just as Prophet Moses, upon him be peace, fell down in a swoon as if struck by lightning, despite his being one of the five greatest Messengers of God, people of ecstasy feel as if they have changed their nature, they take up different attitudes, act as if intoxicated and utter words that suggest intoxication:

O cup-bearer, pour wine into the cup, it is time to break the fast;

Restore this ruin; it is time to display the favor we receive. (M. Lutfi)

This day Nasimi displays intoxication with the grace of the cup-bearer;

I have always seen Mustafa in the wine which intoxicates me. (Nasimi)

There are many other words uttered that concern intoxication, but it is beyond the scope of this book to cite them all. Only consider that the famous Hafiz al-Shirazi begins his Diwan with the verse, Beware, O cup-bearer, bring a cup and pass it around!

Intoxication is a state in which one is enraptured with pleasures; of sobriety the main characteristics are knowledge and self-possession. A traveler is in waves of unintended, unpremeditated joy and pleasures in the state of intoxication, while in sobriety, he or she is conscious, self-possessed, and makes deliberate efforts to feel the All-Holy Truth.

Some consider intoxication to be when a heart boils with extraordinary joy and excitement in the moment when the person feels deeply the All-Beloved One. We may interpret this state as the human self being immersed in joy and pleasures in the face of the gifts coming from the Unseen World or when an initiate loses him or herself, being overpowered by love. If the human self gets intoxicated because of immersion in joy and pleasures, this is regarded as a natural state of intoxication which an initiate gets into. If love drives the person into intoxication, this is the state of intoxication into which God Himself draws him or her. However, whatever the reason for intoxication, the traveler to the Truth lives wonder-struck and acts in tides of zeal and joy. As seekers deepen in intoxication, they begin to wander in the valleys of amazement and astonishment. Sometimes their will-power may even break down, with the result that they begin to feel as if they were a shadow of the Light of His Existence. Those who have reached this point are called the “willed ones.” Their finite attributes are replaced by the manifestations of the Attributes of the All-Permanent One, and they become a polished mirror of the fact that he sees by Me.

Indicating this highest point, it is said in Thamarat al-Fuad (“The Fruits of the Heart”):

My voice, which sings like a nightingale, has been made to speak by Him;

My eyes, which see, see by Him, and I have heard speech from Him.

He has favored me with speech, with which He has brought mysteries to light.

By the all-brilliant Light of God, my heart has been made extremely bright,

And by the light of Muhammad, I have become one with a pleasant heart.

Some have disapproved the use of the word intoxication for a spiritual state as it celebrates a concept that is scorned by both reason and the Shari'a. But intoxication, which we can describe as the state of losing oneself due to the depth of love and ecstasy, is a metaphor used to express being exposed to or being favored with the rays or gifts of the Almighty which enrapture. Initiates enraptured by these gifts or rays cannot distinguish anything because of the depth of the waves of joy and pleasure in which they are drowning. In a hadith concerning repentance, God’s Messenger, who is the most advanced in reasoning and sensibility, tells us that a man of the desert expresses the excessive joy he feels with the words coming from his mouth unintentionally: “My God! You are my servant and I am Your Lord." This may be a good example of what may happen within the ecstasies that one experiences due to being favored by the Almighty’s stream of gifts.

There have been numerous people overpowered by this state, who burn with love and yearning. With his words, "O singer, play the instrument, for tonight I am intoxicated!”, Muhammed Lutfi Efendi, taking advantage of the permissibility of metaphors, declares nothing more than the joy and zeal of a lover.

As it has been to date, many travelers to the Truth will from now on murmur the same things each in their own style in the face of the Divine lights, colors and forms that they observe everywhere. In fact, when a heart falls in love with the Eternally Beloved One and is invaded by ecstasies, and in its conscience feels His company, only those who have Prophetic insight and resolution can save themselves from confusion. Other faithful lovers, who dive deep into the cataracts of love (or who flow abundantly like a river swelling with rains,) will sometimes overflow their limits; they will let themselves into the huge waves of love due to the rejoicing originating in feeling in His company, and always live in wonder, uttering “He!”

The feeling of absence that a traveler to the Truth has during intoxication is expressed by “He!” Although some suggest confusion, the following verses are beautiful in expressing this:

The lights of my eyes are He, and the direction for my reason is He;

My tongue always utters He is He, and I sigh and groan with He.

My heart goes on an excursion in He, the love of my soul is He.

Those who are lovers and intoxicated are always with He.

My soul has sacrificed itself in the way of its Beloved,

Its union is with He, its parting is with He;

And the cure for its afflictions is He.

Sobriety is the condition when one favored with knowledge of God comes to after having gone into an absence of feelings and consciousness, or, as with the Prophets, when one spends a lifetime in wakefulness and consciousness. It is the opposite of intoxication. The following couplet of Tokadizade Sekip is worth quoting in this respect:

The people of peace intoxicated with intimacy in Your Presence,

Do not want to exchange their rapture with sobriety.

Intoxication is a state, while sobriety is a station and is more objective, secure, and straightforward when compared to intoxication. While intoxication comes from a subjective consideration of the Truth, sobriety is based on the consideration of the All-Exalted, Majestic Being known by His Names and outlined by His Attributes and Whose Essence cannot be perceived. From another perspective, an initiate is out of his or her senses when in a state of intoxication, but is sensible in sobriety. Intoxication suggests “self-annihilation in God,” but sobriety implies “subsistence with God,” which is subsistence by His Subsistence and is defined as “subsistence with God and being in His company.”

Some prefer intoxication to sobriety, yet this is the view of the intoxicated when overpowered by the state or induced by traveling through the valleys of coloring. There is absence in intoxication and in sobriety there is peace and rest. Sobriety is a few steps higher than intoxication. Intoxication means being overpowered by state; it is accompanied by coloring, and is the way of some saints, while sobriety depends on consciousness, is accompanied by self-possession, and is the way of the Prophets and the purified scholars. The Qur'an declares (15:99): Worship your Lord until certainty, which is bound to come, comes. An approach to this Qur'anic declaration is: “Continue on the way to God until you are fully awakened by death to the truth of the belief’s pillars, for traveling toward the Infinite One is endless.”

In addition, sobriety is closely connected with the consideration of life and requires strong will-power. While in intoxication, the considerations of one’s feeling annihilated in (God’s) Existence and one’s feeling annihilated in the Witnessed or in His manifestations, sometimes keep the will-power under pressure, there is in sobriety special assistance and protection that come from the company of God, such as that which is expressed in: He hears by Me, and sees by Me, and holds by Me, and walks by Me.

Our Lord! Grant us from Your Presence a special mercy and arrange for us in our affairs what is right and for our good!

May Your peace and blessings be upon our master Muhammad and his family for ever.

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