#second of all THE ENERGY ON THAT STAGE...........like do people who were there in 2016 realise how lucky they were to witness that

[yellowloid]

i was watching some 2016 tlsp videos for research right. hadn't done that in a while. needless to say it took approximately 0.5 seconds after they came on stage for an unprecedented wave of grief to hit me like a truck

#first of all who gave those videos the right to transport me back to when i first discovered tlsp and binged watched everything every day #second of all THE ENERGY ON THAT STAGE...........like do people who were there in 2016 realise how lucky they were to witness that #they were having so much fun they were so happy and cough in love cough........and the pure JOY that oozed from every performance i just. #i physically feel sick i might need to stare at a wall for a moment. pulling my hair out actually #ramblings

[jokeroutsubs]

Joker Out for Croatian website SoundGuardian

18.08.2023.

JOKER OUT RIGHT BEFORE THEIR PERFORMANCE AT ŠPANCIRFEST: "EXPECT AN ENERGETIC SHAGADELIC AUDIOVISUAL EXPERIENCE"

Joker Out is a Slovenian indie rock band formed in 2016 who blew us away alongside Buč Kesidi at Šalati a few months back, and now we find out what they have prepared for us for their new arrival in Croatia.

Hello guys, first off, how are you?

We're great. We just got back from an intensive recording session of our new single in the studio in which we were totally isolated from the world and just enjoyed the music. We had to rest after our UK tour and now we've gathered new energy for our next performances.

You've recently performed here, what was that experience like?

It's always incredible when you come to perform in a different country and people already know you. They even know how to sing your songs. That's what it was like in Croatia too. You've made us feel very welcome this past half a year and we thank you very much for that.

You're coming to Špancirfest with other great bands, how do you feel?

Ever since we were invited, we've impatiently awaited the performance. It'll be the first time that we play as an opening act for worldwide legends such as Franz Ferdinand. They're one of the main authors of modern British sound in which we often find ourselves, musically, and that's why it's a great honour for us to be able to share a stage with them.

What can fans expect?

Fans can expect an energetic shagadelic audiovisual experience which excites people from all over Europe all summer long.

We know you guys are great and we're looking forward to listen and see you guys again, we hope the feelings mutual?

Of course it is.

You've mentioned that you've just returned from recording your new single. Can you tell us more about that, as well as future plans?

That's right, we've just recorded our new single which will come out in September with a music video, and after that we have a sold out Nordic tour (NOR, SWE, FIN) and our biggest concert to date in Arena Stožice in Ljubljana with 12.000 people which has already been sold out for a couple of months. For autumn, we've already planned a European tour, and at the beginning of 2024 we'll begin recording our third album.

From the moment you were formed to now, which has been your favourite concert and how much have your lives changed ever since your Eurovision performance?

It's difficult to say which one's our favourite, but our top two concerts are definitely the ones were the ones that came with the release of our first album in the twice-sold Cvetličarna in Ljubljana, and then with the release of our second album in the sold out Križanke in Ljubljana and our performance at this year's Beerfest in Belgrade at which we felt like we were performing at Glastonbury.

What's your greatest wish as musicians?

To be able to create and to play our music live wherever we find ourselves in the world and to not worry how we're going to survive the next month.

We believe that Špancirfest will be great, what are your expectations?

We expect a very fun and energetic crowd, like everywhere else in Croatia. And of course, to dance the whole night.

For the end, we can't wait for you guys to come, but do you have any messages for the fans before your perfomance in Varaždin?

Dear fans, enjoy summer, love yourselves and never forget to carpe every diem.

Joker Out will perform on the main stage at Špancirfest as an opening act for Franz Ferdinand on Tuesday, August 22nd, starting at 19:30h (7:30 PM). The concert is free.

-

Translation cr: @grnpurplgrmln

#joker out #bojan cvjetićanin #nace jordan #jure maček #jan peteh #kris guštin #jokeroutsubs

[seasurfacefullofclouds1]

(Translated from Italian)

At the beginning of September, just when Harry Styles landed at the Venice Film Festival leaving behind a trail of gossip, another One Direction arrived in Milan, awaited by 34 thousand fans in raptures who in some cases camped out to sleep outside the concert venue . While the boy band of records is on hiatus indefinitely, Louis Tomlinson is also building a respectable solo career, more anchored to music and less glamorous than his partner, also launched as an actor, but still capable of moving crowds and raising hashtag on Twitter. "Honestly when I see all those people under the stage coming to hear me I still can't believe it," confesses Tomlinson, 30, "Oasis" haircut (a band he loves "for the songs and for the attitude") and very strong British accent.

His first album «Walls» had been hit in full by the pandemic, forcing him to stop after just two concerts: «It was a hard moment for me, but in hindsight it went better this way - he says -. We digest music very fast these days and at least people have had a couple of years to listen to the songs well, making the tour even more special. "

It will also be in the wake of this enthusiasm that his second work "Faith in the future", arriving on 11 November, with two dates in the palaces in Italy already announced a year in advance (8 October 2023 in Turin and 9 in Bologna), is an album made «keeping concerts in mind first». The title is optimistic: "I'm not saying that the future will necessarily be better, but it's about seeing the glass half full and having some confidence. Certainly thinking like this will not make things worse ». Compared to his debut, Tomlinson says he has gained confidence and dared more, jumping from pop to rock with hints of punk, drawing inspiration in some points from the first Arctic Monkeys, in search of an energy to be transferred immediately on stage. "I tried to be less closed-minded - he explains -. On the first album I think I limited myself a bit, while now I have a much clearer idea of ​​myself as an artist and therefore I trusted myself ".

The first single chosen was «Bigger than me», a song about changes because «there are so many [changes] at my age and I tried to reflect and accept them», he says, but also a reflection on the impact of his music: «As a performer, I always aim for perfection and it's easy to get a little too analytical. But then when I see what the songs mean to people, it's all much bigger than I think, as if the songs take a life of their own. "

What happened to him with One Direction, born in 2010 thanks to "X Factor", was certainly older than him: "I was 18 when I went to auditions and for me it was just an opportunity to receive the honest opinion of the judges - he remembers -. I came from a village where I hadn't had so many artistic inspirations and honestly there weren't many people who had made it to look at, so I would never have imagined anything so crazy ". About the band, stopped since 2016, «I miss a lot of things», he adds: «What I miss most are the comradeship spirit, the fun of doing everything together and sharing. No two days were ever alike ". As a soloist, however, it's all on his shoulders: «Now I really have to make the decisions myself and take on all the pressure. At the same time, however, it is a more rewarding dimension because I can take full credit for my successes ».

(Link to article)

#louis tomlinson #6 november 2020 #louis press #corriere della sera

[stormblessed95]

Memories 2016 Discs 1 - 2

So I asked awhile ago when I said I was going back to watch every memories DVD they have released so far, if you would be interested in commentary from me as I did so. There were a lot of people who said yes, so here we are! I have officially watched BTS Memories of 2016. Here are my thoughts as I went. There were only 4 DVDs in this one. Reminder that these aren't going to be smoothly written out thoughts. You get these like I'm live reacting, texting my bestie or live tweeting. Lol it'll be in like bullet point format sort of, just... a commentary post as I go. Lol Hope you enjoy anyway! Let's go!

Disc 1:

BTS 2nd Muster DVD:

The 2nd Muster was originally supposed to be held in July of 2015, normal time frames for their musters, but the show got canceled because of the MERS outbreak. So it was rescheduled and finally happened on 160124 instead and kicked off the year 2016 for us! The full title of the Muster was "BTS Second Muster: Zip Code: 22920." There were 2 shows on the same day with the same set list but different games played throughout the show in between songs. The show in this DVD was the 2nd show of the day, the one in the evening.

Track List:

1. Just One Day

2. Like

3. Boy in Luv

4. Dope

5. I Need U

6. Silver Spoon

7. Boyz with Fun

8. Run

Opening the show up with Just One Day and Like was so beautiful. Jin with a rose is a concept that should NEVER die. He looks so beautiful. Yoongis rap during Like always takes me OUT, especially when he really gets into it. And omg we don't get to see the choreo for like very often and it's soo good. I miss it! So smooth! Army singing too 🥺 ugh I love it

They had a guest come to be an MC and wow so much energy after their super cute introductions to ARMY. His name was MC Dingdong. Lol JK introduced himself by saying body of an adult, brain of a minor. Lmao and the MC also brought up that JK is now an adult. The new year has passed and it's 2016, Jungkookies coming of age year! The theme of the concert is obviously housewarming party. It's cute and funny!

The MC calling RM up to do a dance saying he is the dancer of BTS and him dragging Jimin up with him, refusing to let go until Jimin is for sure standing up there to dance with him too 😂 my minimoni heart 💜

They also play a game where a member shares concerns they may have and people have to guess which member has that concern. The first concern is from Jin who shares that before he can even get to his own bed, Jungkook always steals his bed and is in it snoring first. Lmao JK says it's because YoonJins room has nice beds and carpet. 😂 Jin then also tells us that JK sleeps wearing common clothes and Suga sleeps in just his boxers with cute bears on them. Cool, THANKS for that information. 🤣 and the way that JK and Sugas complaints were about each other. Lmao JK was concerned about Suga not cleaning up after himself after removing his makeup. Suga was concerned about going broke after spending so much money because JK eats so much food when they go out for lamb skewers together so much together and with Hobi too. The hugging it out after the complaining was my favorite part, so sweet. Plus all the giggles!

The way we were watching the cringiest y/n dating videos they filmed for muster back in June of 2015 for their second anniversary with ARMY and they were all DYING of embarrassment but yet Jimin somehow made it better by dancing across the stage and singing Born Singer after his video. Bless you, Jimin.

Boy in Luv! Tae growling through that whole song will always be my favorite. He owns that song. Plus j-hope flying over everyone to start his rap and jikook harmonizing. Magical 🥰

And now they are playing bts penalty monopoly 🤣 oh goodness. Jimin, hobi and suga getting too invested in writing their names with their butts on stage, all 7 just really going for it 🤣 although idk what was happening with the wows and spankings from jihope at the end there too. Tae singing after inhaling helium and Suga impersonating JK. Namjoons ARMY poem. NamJin dancing to a medley of their songs at different speeds lol. Namjoon singing butterfly, Jin rapping Killer (although Tae 100% jumped in and helped and took over a bit with Kookie playing back up Rapper and hype man. Taekook biggest Cypher enthusiasts!), and everyone singing Miss Right but switching their parts up. Lmfao it was great. Rapline sang and vocal line rapped. And they ended it expressing their gratitude and love for each other and how hard the others parts were. Jimins "ugh, rappers thank you" sigh of relief at the end and Yoongis "wow Jimin I love you" after trying to sing his high notes 🤣 love to see the mutual appreciation for the others skills!

We said goodbye to the MC and went right into Dope and then I Need U (Namjoons voice and Jimins high note kill me and JKs jump), which they killed as always. And then into a skit: one day in ma city. I have absolutely no idea what the point of this skit was other than an apology for the Muster being late. Please don't ask me to explain it past that 😂 after this skit though, they came back to the stage in New outfits. They went from cute and cuddly to dangerous in black for a Baepsae performance. Whoever was in that front row for that one, I hope they survived!! And Hobi breaking it down at the end, ugh he is so cool. Boyz with fun will forever be one of my favorite performances. Sope hyping each other up every song too 😭 link to Jhope being the coolest ever during this song because I can't help it.

Disc 2:

MD & Poster Making Story:

They are all freezing their butts off but omg this is the most cozy and cute concept 🥰 and i adore the Units! The hyung trio, Vmon and Jikook, all paired perfectly! JK heckling Tae with vocals and trying to distract him during his solo shoot was super cute too. And the way he kept copying and teasing Jimin during their unit shoot. I love him

Jimin giggling and calling Namjoon cute as he does his best voice acting for the counting in the VCR skit for muster 🥺

The units all continued to be the same for the indoor shoot. Love it. Jungkook staring at Jimin dancing to butterfly, captions "Jungkook stares at lively Jimin." Lol Jimin telling us about how he used to read all these comics with his father, just to later get a scene of Jikook cuddled up together looking at the comics and Jimin explaining the story to JK so sweetly 🥺

Jin in those glasses and turtle neck is legit the perfect look. He looks AMAZING and is killing it. He wins at life and everything he does I swear. This was the most precious photoshoot. So cute. Jihope randomly doing isolations in perfect sync in the middle of the group shoot is so them. Just main dancers things. Joon is killing his denim jacket, hobi is the worlds cutest human. I don't know anyone who can pull off Overalls like Tae. And my bias line is dressed to perfection and are killing me! Tae grumbling through his teeth while not letting his smile slip at JinKook being too heavy as they lean their entire body weight on him during the group photo. Lmao top notch professionalism! And the cuddle pile at the end just might be my favorite. So cute!

Practice Making Story:

The members posing with their own cardboard cutouts is taking me OUT 😂🤣

Jhope giving an explaination over their script practice for muster to the camera, all serious and all you here in the background is screaming and yelling. Camera cuts to Jinkook wrestling and slapping each other while giggling like mad 😂🤣 omfg. Headlocks and thigh pinching and takedowns, no holding back! I admire the way Hobi can ignore them so completely and not be totally distracted lmao

Started a mess, but they got serious fast! They work so hard. All the stage directions, speech practice and choreo practice. And I love how we always get super cute hopekook cuddles in rehearsals as they watch their work back or listen to directions. 🥺

JK practically pushing Joon into the center to do Hobis Baepsae dance break during practice and then Jin doing it after too! Love the rest hyping them too! And who told Hobi it was okay to dress so good for practice 😭

I know they had more than enough chairs there for everyone, why did 3J do their ending mentions for the camera on top of each other?! 🤣 JK sitting on Jimins lap and Jimin sitting on Hobi's lap. We could barely see J-hope the whole time! But Jimins arms around JK keeping him on his lap carefully the whole time so he doesn't slip is making me soft

The Day Making Story:

The cringing over the dating videos is truly the only acceptable response 🤣🤣🤣 I'm so glad they never did that again 🙈😭🤣

Jin: "we are performing Baepsae for the fans without warning. It is our gift to them." BTS giving the gift of excessive hip thrusts and hard beats to their fans. Don't say they don't give you anything 🤣🤣 love it so much. And I'm positive everyone who was there did too 🙈 omg in the other show not on the DVD Jin did Hobi's dance break though! I'm so glad they included that in this Making Film because he KILLED IT 😂

Tae leaving the stage after the first concert and being unable to stop the smile from taking over his face as he talks about the huge reaction army had when they surprised them with Baepsae 😭 and then his so sweet "oh be careful" and steadying hand for the camera person when they almost tripped over something. Who is the best and why is it Tae? Protect him always 😭😭

Some of the guys doing an impromptu photoshoot backstage before the second show. Lmao and goodness, Jin has been wrecking me so hard during this Muster and all these Muster making films. This little pretend photoshoot? He didn't have to go so hard! I love how they have fun together!

Jimin: " we still have the encore stage. Keep your eyes on us till the end." That was the plan!!

Jimin crashing Sope's ending mentions with the camera, nodding along to their words and just adding a "love you" is such a mood. I Love HIM!! They are all so sweet

And that's it for the first 2 discs!! I'll make a part 2 and 3 for the last 2 discs of memories 2016 soon! I loved this all so much. I love seeing them have a blast with each and with ARMY. Disc 3 looks packed full of content, I'm already looking forward to it! Thank you for letting me share 💜

#my thoughts over memories dvds #my thoughts over memories 2016 #jikook in memories 2016 #jikook in 2016

[neocatharsis]

Ten on his new Represent capsule, grappling with creativity, and evading genre lines.

As Ten Lee - a vocalist and dancer in K-pop groups NCT (with whom he debuted in 2016) and Super M, and Chinese group WayV - is musing over his proclivity for partnering music or visual styles in a way that others deem strange, he veers off on a tangent. “Anything can be matched… except juice and coffee,” he says, suddenly. “Those two should never be.” Ten is infamously anti-fruit. It stems from a mistaken process of association in childhood where “I had the image of a spider and the image of fruit mixed up,” he laughs awkwardly, “so now whenever I put fruit in my mouth, I think there’s spiders in my mouth.”

Random abstractions such as this pepper his rapid-fire conversation, like small fireworks fizzing through the dark. Excitable, enthused and sharply alert, if Ten’s energy was visible it would be a shimmering mantle of gold and silver dust. As a dancer, he moves with a sinuous, controlled power that can shift from elegant to explosive on a single beat. As a visual artist, the Bangkok-born, multilingual 25-year-old recently added the title of designer to his growing list of achievements, launching an already sold out collaboration with the bespoke merch platform Represent.

Aptly, he named his collaboration “What is ??? THE ANSWERS”, for although being a chameleonic artist is one of Ten’s greatest strengths, the personality traits that enable this created within him question marks around how he saw himself fitting into the world. “People ask me, ‘What kind of music do you like?’ And I say, ‘I like R&B but hope it sounds rock’. And they’re like, ‘That doesn’t make sense’.” It was troubling to Ten that people began telling him who he was and how he should be, instead of accepting him as is.

In a recent Instagram Live, the myriad of Ten’s contrasts tumble forthwith. He’s the doting cat-dad. His inner emo, who loves rock music, shows off dried roses, with the stern, black, geometric lines of the large tattoo on his inner right arm sometimes visible. But he’s also delicate in a way, with his butterfly tattoo and hair lightly permed, who names daisies as his other favourite flower, and plays Fousheé’s breathy TikTok hit, 'Deep End'.

“Have you seen the image where I have my name in a cross in lots of different languages?” He pulls the image up on his phone. The design sits on his Represent long sleeve tee. “I was thinking [about this], like, what you’re saying... Ten has this luvvie flower side and a very ‘rawwrr!’ side. I’m always like, ‘Ten, what kind of person are you?’ I do ask myself that, too, because everything I like is so different [to the other].” He could have conceded, and reined himself in. He’s pushed back instead. “I thought, ‘I can be anything I want, I can be this in the morning and this at night. I can be any person I want to be’. And that’s what makes me comfortable and happy.”

On his Instagram, Polaroids feature scrawled messages, like “Don’t tell me what to do!” and “Whatever! I’ll do it my way”. The designs of his collaboration seek to challenge being boxed in by other people’s standards, thus limiting ourselves. The recurring symbol of a cross tipped with arrows is a nod to the Chinese letter for 10, but doubles as a plus sign. He’s added it to his Instagram, writing “TEN_+•10” in his bio. “A plus sign can mean that you’re adding on and growing.” He points to another version of the arrow-cross, one with short diagonal dashes between its points that symbolise light. It means, he says, “that I’m radiating. I’m burning, I’m active, I’m doubling myself.” He touches his forearm, where crowning his geometric tattoo is a blazing sun. “I have this, like, if you want to be the light, you have to burn. I relate to that.”

This isn’t to say Ten’s self-exploration is complete. While celebrating his strengths, the artwork also portrays parts of himself not yet conquered. He admits to being a chronic overthinker: “Even very small things that happen to me, I rethink a thousand times, and I get stressed out because of the things I do. Like, the main theme [here] is me overthinking but trying to find an answer even though it doesn’t have any answer.” Fittingly, spiral shapes dominate his designs, looming large amongst bright, bold shapes that evoke 80s Pop Art and graffiti, though Ten shies away from defining himself as “fully an artist, I’m not in the position to say things like that yet.”

“I’m still learning and trying new things. You learn by getting different elements from different people and I’m in that stage now.” He enjoys wandering the infinite halls of Instagram and Pinterest where he screenshots art that he likes, lost in the images, often for hours. He explains that he’s mostly influenced by whatever his current visual obsession is. “I’m interested in tattoos lately so my paintings look like tattoo designs. I’m that person who, when they see stuff, it goes into my brain and instantly comes out from my hands,” he laughs.

Ten’s introduction to art and design was through his mother, who believed music, art and sport were more important in a child’s development than traditional academia. “She didn’t care if I got an A* or not, just don’t get an F or a D,” he grins. Like any kid forced to do something, Ten railed against spending his weekends at art school. He attended but he didn’t draw. He befriended his teacher and other pupils and, as they worked, he chatted. “I was a very talkative kid! When I came to SM Entertainment (in 2013), I had a lot of my own time because my parents were in Thailand and I was alone. I had to absorb all the new culture and adapt to a new environment.’” When he felt surrounded by “negative energy”, he began drawing, enamoured with the space and freedom it offered because in art, as he often says, “there’s no right answer.”

There is, however, sometimes a middle ground. His goal was to make the Represent collection accessible to his diverse fanbase. “I wanted to make things that people can easily wear because it was my first project to make something with clothes and it’s a collab. If you go too far out, no one will get it. If you go too far back, people won’t reach for it. So finding the middle ground is important but that’s the hardest thing to do. If it’s my own project, I’ll be like, ‘I’m the president of this brand, I’m gonna make all the weird clothes that I can imagine!’”

He sought second opinions to ensure his designs landed the way he hoped. “I have a lot of good friends around me - my choreographer, (SHINee and Super M member) Taemin hyung, my manager. I randomly ask people I’m comfortable with and have known for a long time, like Mark (Lee, of NCT and Super M). Mark has the same kind of perspective as me, but I’m a person who is arrghhh!” He waves his hands in the air. “And he’s very calm. I need a person who is opposite of me because when I’m in a mood, I talk nonsense - ‘I wanna do this, I wanna do that, I wanna make this!’ - and Mark’s like,’Bro, calm down’,” he says in a rather uncanny impression of the Canadian-Korean.

Ten works fast when he’s drawing. He has to. He describes his personality as someone who can't wait until the next day to do something. “I’m very impatient,” he smiles. “If I’m going to paint or draw, I’m going to finish it in, like, two hours. I can’t sit down for three hours.” When inspiration hits him, it’s off the back of deep contemplation, sometimes about the mundane - “Like, why do the cats come to me when they’re hungry only? Is it selfish or instinct? - at other times, something affecting him emotionally.

But whereas his job as a singer and dancer sees him project his energy outwards, art offers the opposite. He’s often alone in his room when he works. As is for many artists, the right mood is fundamental. “When I’m in a good mood, I can’t draw,” he half-sighs. It’s also a multi-sensory process. “Smell or the temperature of the room, that really helps me draw. I light three or four candles. And when I draw, it’s kind of heavy, the feeling,” he explains. “It feels like you’re sinking into something, into yourself, and everything seems so small. Everything narrows down into me, my pencil, the paper.”

The more work he does in different creative mediums, the less Ten’s desire is to keep them separate. His art, dance and music influence each other, whether it’s customising his own collaboration pieces, a choreography video in an art gallery or dancing underwater with a film crew. When someone tells him that something won’t work or match up well, he refuses to let the idea go until he’s attempted it.

“I’ve had that since I was young. I think everything is possible. If you don’t try, you don’t know. When people say it’s impossible, like dancing in water for three minutes, I’m like, then let’s make it possible. You don’t need to walk a straight line [in life], you can walk this way,” Ten says, pointing along an invisible line before switching sharply in direction. “Then go back on track, go that way, come back. No one should tell you to walk in a line, I don’t see the point of that.”

© Clash Magazine

#nct #wayv #Ten

[michelemoutons]

and at last, the post that maybe three people maximum have been waiting for...

em's comfort retro rally videos: a masterlist!

in a much-needed return to this blog's roots, and as an antidote to all motorsport- and life-related chaos, i now present to you: the first edition of em's favorite retro rally videos!

general disclaimer/info: these videos mainly come from the group B era of the world rally championship (wrc), which generally speaking was in the '80s. i am only human, so expect a lot of bias toward my personal favorites...which will become very apparent as you read this list hehe. also i'm not even gonna pretend to be an expert on this or anything. a lot of these are literally just based on Vibes

table of contents

i. my top 5 rally coverage videos

mainly coverage for television, recorded on VHS and uploaded to YouTube by some truly incredible people

ii. honorable mentions

not rally coverage, but retro rally videos nevertheless

often documentaries, mini-doc features, interviews

for all videos, i have indicated the language (most are in english fyi); if any links fail or videos disappear, send me an ask or DM and i'll remove the culprit/find an alternative link.

and now, onward!

(TW for occasional flash photography in many of the night sequences of the videos, as well as a gif included in this post)

i. my top 5 rally coverage videos

in which my bias toward audi sport, mouton/pons, mikkola, toivonen, and vatanen are put on blast for all to see 🥴 i am not an expert in anything i am just very good at research and a whore for aud—[SNIPED]. for the sake of brevity, i narrowed my favorites down to 5. maybe another time i will share all the rest!

also, a general note about the commentary: sometimes, the commentary around michèle and fabrizia can get... weird. keep in mind, they were the most prominent female team partnership around that time, and the first to nearly clinch a wrc wdc, and to modern ears, the commentators really didn't know how to act around them. personally, it wasn't horrible for me, i just ignored the weirder bits, but i understand if others might find it off-putting. also for the sake of your sanity don't read the comments.

5. Rally of the 1000 Lakes, 1984 | finland

link: overall coverage (eng)

podium: vatanen/alén/toivonen (full final results)

comments: this was definitely a rally for most of audi sport's drivers to forget: bar stig blomqvist, who came quite close to the podium finishers with a 4:14:01 to henri toivonen's 4:12:57! both hannu mikkola and michèle mouton had to retire from the race, which may lead you to wonder: why does this rank among my favorites? well, it's always fun to watch group b rally cars sailing through the air against picturesque scenery, and this video also contains an intriguing (at least for me!) look at the scrutineering process, with drivers at their most casual.

owie :( they were fine though!

4. Lombard RAC Rally, 1981 | britain

link: overall coverage (eng)

podium: mikkola/vatanen/blomqvist (full final results)

comments: hannu winning by 11 whole minutes even after rolling his car in the middle of the forest is actual legend behavior! anyway this was michèle's first wrc outing in britain, and even though she and fabrizia had to retire, they still did quite well, consistently running high in the leaderboards after the first few stages. and that's considering the fact that michèle had a bad cold for much of the rally and had to ask fabrizia to drive the car to service park for her at one point bc she was so tired. which fabrizia did... with a pencil in her mouth. lot of big names in one video—also, jean todt makes an appearance as a co-driver!

shamelessly poached off of one of my text post edits

3. Marlboro Safari Rally, 1983 | kenya

link: overall coverage (eng)

podium: vatanen/mikkola/mouton (full final results)

comments: ok can i just say how stunning the video presentation is?? the opening sequence is just!!! the shots of the wildlife! the sprinting giraffes! wow! anyway the visual of drivers in deck chairs just tickles me for no reason, and michèle please tell me what you ask for at the hairdresser's and also where you got that orange blouse (this is obviously not just specific to this rally, she always eats and leaves no crumbs). this was michèle's first entry and only finish in kenya (and of course it was a podium mwah). it was also her last wrc entry in the A1 quattro, as she switched to the A2 for the rest of her program in the '83 season. also this is one of my favorite podium pictures ever.

lksdjffnnkd there's almost too much to unpack... fabrizia somehow surviving in high waist jeans in a hot car... michèle's do-it-yourself shorts... this podium picture was the subject of a very frantic video chat conversation between myself and a friend at 2am a few months ago

2. Rallye de Portugal, 1982 | portugal

links: short recap (eng) | overall coverage 1, stuck in the middle of two other rallies. timestamps in descrip. (eng) | overall coverage 2, very vibey with cool music (ita... also peep walter röhrl speaking italian)

podium: mouton/eklund/wittmann (full final results)

comments: GOD I LOVE THIS ONE SO MUCH AAAA! michèle's first podium of '82 being a win? this rally being the one where there's footage of her going shopping with fabrizia afterward? (more on that later) them winning by 13 whole minutes? and that's not even considering THEE most poetic victory ceremony of all time! in fact let me talk about that bc the racing and the win aside, that's why it's so high up on my list! literally poetic cinema! it's night, they're standing on top of the car and floodlit and surrounded by cheering crowds but they may as well be the only ones there in their own little world, laughing at each other and barely even having to look to each other when they're raising their hands—like god! shut up! we get it you're besties 😭

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and now... last but certainly never least...

1. Lombard RAC Rally, 1982 | britain

link: overall coverage (eng)

podium: mikkola/mouton/toivonen (full final results)

comments: firstly, if you were to ask me about my dream podium, this would be it. hands down, across all series of motorsport, my comfort podium would be hannu, michèle, and henri in any order. (there's such a cute picture of them from this rally on pinterest, standing in order on a staircase. henri is not looking at the camera because he is laughing at something michèle is saying and it's such a Vibe but i cannot find it wah). the battle for second between michèle and henri ran down to literally the last stage, and their times are separated by seconds, which is just wild to me. the context of this rally deserves another post, which i honestly don’t have the energy to make rn, but just take my word for it that it threatens to destroy me if i think about it too hard! anyway this is just such an awesome rally and i’ve watched this video so many times haha

i love this rally so much that i actually had a character in a story i was writing attend the ceremony captured in this picture as a small child and made it a formative moment in her life. no, there is nothing wrong with me.

ii. honorable mentions

(is it obvious who my faves are? yikes)

'Group B - Avec Michele Mouton' (eng) - taken from a longer feature presentation about group b, a segment specifically about michèle. a friend once described its vibes as ‘a synth wave edit of an 80s anime set in a cyberpunk world about racing’

'1983 Audi Sport National Rally with Michele Mouton' (eng) - in which michèle takes journalist sue baker as a co-driver for a spin in an A1 and a rally win. fun behind-the-scenes video

'Intervista a Fabrizia Pons, la Regina delle Note' 1, 2, 3 (ita) - very thorough interview which is mostly fabrizia telling all sorts of stories, including the very entertaining story of how she found out she was going to be michèle’s co-driver. also what a badass title

'2008 Otago International Classic Rally' (eng) - THE BESTIES REUNITE THE BESTIES REUNITE!!! michèle and fabrizia reunite for a rally that fabrizia convinced michèle to join, they suffer some problems but there are plenty of wholesome bestie moments to be had

'Michele Mouton hurls Group B Audi Quattro up Goodwood hill' (eng) - i mean, self explanatory. the sound of the chirping tires? asmr could never. very short watch if you want a quick pick-me-up

'1990 Louise Aitken-Walker feature' (eng) - a video featuring a female rally driver from scotland and her point-scoring run at the rallye monte -carlo. i am convinced that louise was john finnemore’s inspiration or at least an influence for the character of linda fairbairn. no my hat is not made of tin foil what are you talking about

hannu rocketing around michigan back in 2017 (eng)

hannu flying around goodwood in 2015 (eng)

sometimes i listen to fabrizia's recent onboards (yes, she's still at it!) and this one is one of my favorites, from 2016 (ita)

[ilovejevsjeans]

Daniel Ricciardo on his passion for combat sports, a walkout song and the time he asked Lewis Hamilton to ‘fight’

McLaren Formula One driver Daniel Ricciardo, who currently sits seventh in the driver standings heading into this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix, is among the world’s best behind a steering wheel. But how would he fare if he swapped his racing gloves for boxing or MMA gloves?

“I’d love to do a charity boxing match or something just to feel that adrenaline of walking to a ring,” Ricciardo said. “It’s on my to-do list for sure. At school I had a few little fights but nothing crazy. Nothing I’d brag about here.”

Ricciardo says he learned the sport of boxing from a friend who fought as an amateur growing up. However in recent years his love of combat shifted more toward mixed martial arts, a sport that is “quite beautiful. It’s an art form and I was just taken by it.”

The Australian — who boasts 4.6 million followers on Instagram — rarely misses a fight night, whether that’s a small card or pay-per-view. Every Monday he gears up for multiple MMA podcasts to hear analysis on what just took place in the cage.

In an exclusive interview with The Athletic, Ricciardo opened up about his love for fighting, which driver would make the best opponent and why Lewis Hamilton turned down an opportunity to get in the ring against him.

You’re an avid fight fan. How did this passion for the sport start?

One of my best friends growing up, when he was growing up, he was doing amateur boxing and got very good at it. I was then doing my racing and he was doing his boxing. We were both on a bit of an unconventional path — both individual sports, not really the typical sports the kids at school were doing. We had that in common. Once I started taking my racing more seriously I began taking my fitness more seriously. So I started going to his gym to just train. I really enjoyed doing it. But the truth is — I don’t want to lie to anyone. I’m not a fighter. As much as I would picture beating the bully up at school, it’s not me. But I just fell in love with not only doing it but also watching it.

I enjoyed watching boxing but it was really when I got exposed to MMA … It just had me. It was back in 2011 when I started properly getting into it. It was the quickest sport I had ever been absorbed by. I was all in.

My whole YouTube feed is just all MMA shows, whether it’s press conferences, interviews, podcasts. It’s just full of MMA stuff. I’m a full nerd now.

Being in Australia and traveling a lot, are you forced to get up at weird times for fights?

The beauty was I was in LA when (Conor McGregor vs. Dustin Poirier 2) was on so it was prime time and I was happy. But normally in Europe, it’s 4 a.m. or 5 a.m., which isn’t as good. Any kind of sporting event that you look forward to, it’s always cool when it’s in the evening because you have all day to get ready and talk about it. If you wake up at 4 a.m. it’s like “ugh,” and then you’re straight into it so there’s not as much of a build-up. But it’s all good.

So do you still train at all?

No. To races, my trainer carries some pads and gloves just to stay a little sharp and change it up. If I’m getting my reflexes with some tennis balls, maybe I throw in a bit of a boxing combination or something. Again, I’m not saying I’m good or anything. But I just enjoy the whole movement part of it.

Boxing was cool and I enjoyed watching it growing up. But there was something with MMA where there’s just so many different disciplines and the matchups … as a contest it was so much more open and for that, exciting. I feel — I know it’s not always the case — you can kind of tell in boxing if someone is getting momentum, the advantage. It’s like “this guy is going to win the fight.” But in MMA, it’s like “this guy is winning standing but if this goes to the ground, it’s back to square one.” So I just loved it. I was really immersed by it all.

Did you have a particular fighter or fight that got you hooked early on?

One of the first events I watched was UFC 116. Chris Leben was on the card and I think he was losing the fight. And then he got a triangle with probably 20 seconds to go in the third round, so that was really exciting. Stephan Bonnar was also on that card and he got a really cool finish on “The Polish Experiment” Krzysztof Soszynski. That was a card for me where I was very taken from that. Then I discovered “The Ultimate Fighter.” I just binge-watched all of those (seasons).

In terms of fighters, Leben was a character, I liked him. Carlos Condit. I’d say Condit and Cub Swanson were two guys I got behind early on. Condit, I love his style and the way he carries himself.

Have you been to a lot of cards in person?

The very first one I did was the best for me personally. To this day, it’s my favorite sporting event I’ve ever been to: (Conor) McGregor-(Chad) Mendes. Vegas in July 2015. Obviously McGregor, but he wasn’t yet a champion and still kind of on the rise. It was the energy and atmosphere. It was just wild.

The whole event too. (Robbie) Lawler-(Rory) MacDonald, which had the fight of the year. Every fight on the main card I think was a finish, so I got very lucky at my first event.

I’ve done (Michael) Bisping-(Anderson) Silva in the UK. That was a great contest as well.

There are a lot of great fighters from Australia and New Zealand like Israel Adesanya, Alexander Volkanovski and Robert Whittaker. Have you had a chance to meet any of them?

I haven’t met them. A couple of them I’ve had interactions with on social media. But I love Whittaker, obviously Volkanovski is killing it. I’m fairly patriotic to the Aussie fighters. If they are fighting, 99 percent of the time I’ll be supporting them. But one of my good buddies is roommates with Luke Rockhold, so I got to know Luke the last couple of years. I was trying to do some training over Christmas with him but it didn’t end up working out.

I know you’re a big shoey guy. What do you think of Tai Tuivasa doing it after wins?

I’ve had a bit of contact with Tuivasa as well. It’s obviously great. But one thing I can’t get behind is spitting. That’s a little extra.

Plus he’ll grab some random fan’s shoe.

He definitely takes it to the next level. It’s cool that — as disgusting as it is — we have some traditions like this.

Shifting a bit to F1, have you ever gotten into any big fights on the track? What was the worst fight you’ve gotten in?

Earlier in go-karting there was a bit more. Unfortunately in F1, I guess because you’re on the world’s stage, even if you push someone you probably are going to get a fine or get penalized. At times it’s a little too clean. But I’m still waiting for the day that someone confronts me and I just lay them out (laughs).

You also just seem a lot more laid back than a lot of other drivers, so you’d probably not be my first choice of someone getting into a fight soon.

I’m all talk, it would be nice obviously to not have to fight anyone. But no one would expect it from me. Even when I tell people I’m a fight fan, people are like “oh really? You’re into that? You seem too nice to like that.”

But to get where I have in the sport, you need a bit of a killer streak in you. I do have it, but don’t always show it.

What other driver would make the best fighter?

I know some guys have done — for fitness — hit some pads. Randomly, he doesn’t have a seat this year, but Daniil Kvyat started doing quite a lot of boxing last year for his training. I saw a few clips and it started to look like he knew what he was doing. I would say he would be the guy who has the most idea. I’d put him and myself up there. The rest I don’t think stand a chance.

So if you had a charity event, you don’t have anyone in particular you’d want to go against?

To be honest, I actually asked Lewis Hamilton. At the beginning of 2016, he posted a video on his Instagram hitting pads. I was as well at the time, so I was like “hey, let’s do a charity fight.” I asked him in person. But he didn’t bite on that one so I was a little sad.

I might re-ask the question.

What about Max Verstappen? For people who watched the first season of the F1 show “Drive to Survive” on Netflix, I’m sure they would love to see you guys throw down at some point.

That would have been cool as well (laughs). Max would be a good competitor in the ring. The way he drives, he’s quite stubborn. He’d be a hard guy to put away. He’s probably the guy that you’d choke him and he’s going to sleep and not tapping. That would make an interesting one.

In contrast, is there an MMA fighter you’d like to race on the track?

An obvious one would be Conor McGregor. To hear in his Irish accent all kinds of things, that would make pretty good television. And he loves his cars. It’s obvious, but that would probably be the best.

How often would you say you watch fights now? Not just PPVs, right?

Unless I have something like work or another commitment, I’m watching it every week. Mondays I’m getting ready for every podcast. I sound like a real nerd but it’s just an addiction. I love it. Anyone doing that for Formula 1, I’d be like “you’re such a nerd,” but here I am doing it with MMA.

Is it hard to follow everything during the race season?

If I can’t see it live, then 100 percent I’m going to watch the replay or buy it later. But it’s also a good escape. If I’m traveling and I’m in between races, to get my mind away from my competition, I like to watch it. I also try to pick up things as well. Whether it’s from a mental point of view … I’ll look at the walkouts and how they are behaving. I try to figure out if they are really as calm and collected as they are portraying or if it’s a bit of a facade. I’m trying to work out what I can use in my events.

Do you have a walkout song prepared if you were to fight?

I’ve thought about it. The short answer is no. You typically have to have something heavy and fast, but I fell in love with Chris Weidman’s “Won’t Back Down.” It’s not typically a song that will pump you up but it’s so iconic and now it’s his, it’s very fitting.

I’d go for something more lyrically powerful as opposed to instrumental. I loved Max Holloway’s, I think it’s called Mount Everest (by Labrinth). (X)

#hopefully this is the right one anon #daniel ricciardo #dan #interviews

[path-of-my-childhood]

Taylor Swift: Pop Star of the Year

By: Jonathan Dean for The Sunday Times Date: December 27th 2020

Rather than hunker down, the singer put out two albums in 2020 and won over new audiences. She’s the pop star of the year.

Taylor Swift met Paul McCartney in the autumn for a big interview in Rolling Stone. The two would have headlined Glastonbury this summer. Who knows if they will do that next year. Anyway, both recorded albums in lockdown, working from home like the rest of us. When they spoke, though, Swift had a secret. As well as Folklore, released in July, she had a follow-up record in the pipeline — Evermore, which was released this month.

Swift noted that the former Beatle was still so full of joy. “Well, we’re just so lucky, aren’t we?” he said. “We’re really lucky,” Swift replied. “I can’t believe it’s my job.” And she is right. Being a pop star is an extraordinary way to earn the living she does. But rather than accepting luxury and letting this tough year tumble on, Swift is also keenly aware what music means. Sad songs soothe, happy songs make us dance, but as fans of most artists waited for something — anything — this year, this 31-year-old released two albums that broke chart records, were critically adored and introduced her to people who once thought that she wasn’t for them.

“I’m so exhausted!” she said to the American chat show host Jimmy Kimmel, laughing, a few weeks ago, when asked if she had a third new album planned. “I have nothing left.” In addition to Folklore and Evermore, she filmed a TV special and even started rerecording her back catalogue, after a volatile dispute over who owns her work. By October I’d just about cobbled together my first sourdough loaf.

A decade ago Swift moved firmly into the limelight thanks to a squabble with Kanye West entirely of the rapper’s own making. In 2009, when Swift — then a nascent country music star — won the best female video award at the VMAs, West stormed on stage, grabbed her microphone and said that Beyoncé should have won. Swift was 19 — West was 32 — and she looked scared. This wasn’t just about her biggest moment yet being stolen, but also about her position in the pop hierarchy being questioned, very publicly, from the off. She stood there as that man bullied her. Apparently she left the stage in tears.

Years later West released Famous, with its infamous lyric “I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex/ Why? I made that bitch famous.” The alt-folk singer Father John Misty also wrote about sleeping with her. Every time that sort of thing happened, a powerful man in Swift’s industry was reducing a successful, talented, younger female to the level of a sex object. It was back-in-your-box belittling — as it was when a TV host groped her. (She successfully sued him.) While Swift herself would retort to West, as her music became less country, more slick pop, such retorts felt forced and gave the rapper too much of her oxygen. A nod to him on Folklore comes with the “Clowns to the West” line, but it is a sideshow now, not a headline.

Not that Swift’s life is entirely her own. She’s been one of the world’s bestselling female artists for a decade, coupled with curiosities such as a well-orchestrated relationship with Tom Hiddleston that kept her in the spotlight. Like many twentysomethings, Swift spent her youth apolitically, only to receive flak for staying silent during the 2016 US election. This year she endorsed Joe Biden, but what if she had wanted to stay quiet? Would the media have let her? She is under so much scrutiny that, after she made an innocuous hand gesture in a recent TV interview, similar to one women make to draw attention to domestic abuse, this headline ran: “Some people think Taylor Swift is secretly asking for help in her latest interview.”

Like many at the start of the pandemic she felt listless. The world we were used to was a wasteland, and we could only find the energy to watch Normal People. Swift’s ennui, though, was, well, swift. Stuck in LA, she emailed Aaron Dessner of the beloved beardy indie band the National to see if he fancied writing with her. No fool, Dessner said yes and, mere weeks later, the duo — with help from Swift’s regular collaborator Jack Antonoff as well as Justin Vernon, from the beloved beardy indie band Bon Iver — released Folklore. The gang just carried on working and, five months later, gave us Evermore.

Creativity is not on tap. Indeed, this year is not one for judging what others may or not have achieved. However, the silence of many big pop stars is striking because they know that even a single would make someone’s day; distract for a while.

Everyone needed to adjust to working from home, but Swift was one of the only musicians who did and, by eschewing the arena pop of recent albums for something more subdued, organic and folky, she gave the sense that she was letting fans in more than ever. She was at home, like us. This is who she is, and the first single from these sessions was so cosy, it was even called Cardigan.

“I just thought, ‘There are no rules any more,’” she told McCartney. “Because I used to put all these parameters on myself, like, ‘How will this song sound in a stadium?’ If you take away the parameters, what do you make? I guess Folklore.”

Maybe it is tedious, for a deft writer with a career of varied, brilliant songs — Love Story, I Knew You Were Trouble, Blank Space — to find respect from some people only when artists who appeal to middle-aged men start to work with her. On the other hand, pop has never been particularly welcoming to many until it sounds like something you are used to and, with delicate acoustics and gossamer-like piano, Swift’s two new albums recall, sonically, Nick Drake or Kate Bush. Thematically, lyrics seem to come from anywhere. Daphne du Maurier, for one. Even the Lake District and its poets.

Some songs are personal. She is dating British actor Joe Alwyn, and on one track she sings, “I want to give you a child.” Make of that what you will. But these records’ highlights are not about herself, but others. “There was a point,” she told Zane Lowe on Apple Music, “that I had got to as a writer, [where I was only writing] diaristic songs. That felt unsustainable.” Instead, she does what the best writers do and mixes subjective with objective. The Last American Dynasty is a terrific piece of writing about the socialite Rebekah Harkness, who lived in a Rhode Island house that Swift bought and was, by all accounts, a bit scandalous. Swift tells her story almost with envy. Imagine, she seems to say, that freedom.

“In my anxieties,” she said in Rolling Stone, “I can often control how I am as a person and how normal I act. But I cannot control if there are 20 photographers outside in the bushes and if they follow our car and interrupt our lives.”

Then there is Epiphany. The first verse is about her grandfather, who fought in the Second World War; the second about frontline workers in hospitals now. Sung in a high register, it is suitably choral. Marjorie, on Evermore, is even better. It is about her grandmother, an opera singer who died in 2003. “What died didn’t stay dead” is the repeated line, and it is eerie, gorgeous. Swift sings how she thinks Marjorie is singing to her, at which point some vocals from the latter’s recordings waft in. Touching, but the real power is in Swift writing about vague memories of a relative who died when she was young. “I complained the whole way there,” she sings. “I should’ve asked you questions.”

In person she is warm like this, and funny. When Kimmel told her there were far more swearwords on Folklore and Evermore than previous records, she replied: “It’s just been that kind of year.” She is also odder than people realise. In the way pop stars should be. Obsessed by numerology, she wrote, on the eve of her birthday when announcing Evermore: “Ever since I was 13, I’ve been excited about turning 31 because it’s my lucky number backwards.” When I turned 31 I just wished to be 13 again, with all that youth, but then, maybe, she is just joking. “Yes, so until I turn 113 or 131, this will be the highlight of my life,” she said. “The numerology thing? I sort of force it to happen.”

Swift, of course, is far from the first pop star to become public property, or have a close bond with fans. This year, however, she was one of the few to show that such adoration is not one-way. She is, simply, a fan of her fans — from planting secrets in her artwork and lyrics, to recording two albums of new music as a balm for them when real life became too deafening.

“One good thing about music,” sang Bob Marley. “When it hits you, you feel no pain.” The 80.6 million who streamed Folklore on its first day will attest to that idea. So will the four million who bought it. Swift is pop star of the year, no doubt — leaving her peers in her wake, on their sofas, rewatching The Sopranos.

#thanks to anon who brought this to my attention! #🖤 #taylor swift #the times #article #about taylor #folklore album #folklore era #evermore album #evermore era #twitter.com/hendopolis/status/1342959069792002050

[sevenkittensinatrenchcoat]

The Broadway Revival Doesn’t Get Comedy

Here’s another long essay hating on the Broadway Revival. I promise that this will be the last one of these, because I think I’ve summed up all the problems I have with it by this point.

The title of this essay isn’t universally true. There is good comedy in the Broadway Revival. But, most of it comes from the actors improvising. When it comes to the comic relief numbers of the show, the changes in choreography and staging, and even in plot in one case, generally fail to understand how the jokes in the numbers work.

Now, I know that explaining the joke makes it less funny, but in order to explain why the 2016 comedy doesn’t work, I’ll have to explain why older versions do. Why is the 1998 film funny, and why are bootlegs/pro-shots of earlier productions funny, in places where 2016 falls flat?

To begin with, you might be wondering, “in a show full of strange nonsense and little concrete plot, what would you call a comic relief number?”. There are plenty of numbers in the show that have a comedic tone to them that I don’t consider comic relief numbers. The Rum Tum Tugger is usually full of comedic bits, for example, but it’s not a comic relief number. Why? Because it does something other than be funny and lighten the mood. It’s a song all about a major character who’s just appeared. Apart form Chorus Tugger in the opening, who usually doesn’t stand out much, we haven’t seen Tugger yet. After the cats leave after The Naming of Cats, we don’t see him again until his own number, where he interrupts the party to tell us what he’s all about. Tugger, as a character, is introduced as high-energy and a troublemaker, which leads to comedy, so the song has comedic moments, but it’s not purely a comic relief number.

Most songs in Cats are like this. They’re songs about what makes a character tick, and because these characters are onstage for most of the show, it’s good to let the audience get to know them. But, there are a few numbers in the show that don’t introduce characters and don’t advance the plot. They’re just entertaining little skits that don’t fit anywhere else. These are the comic relief numbers.

In a full production of Cats, in which no songs are cut, there are three comic relief numbers: Bustopher Jones, The Pekes and the Pollicles, and Growltiger’s Last Stand. The first one might be confusing. Bustopher Jones introduces a character. Shouldn’t it count as one of the character songs like The Rum Tum Tugger? The difference is that, while Tugger sticks around and plays a role in other events of the show, Bustopher is only present for his number. He shows up, there’s a song, and then he leaves and is never seen again. This makes the number into something of a non-sequiter.

Gus the Theatre Cat also revolves around a character who’s really only there for his own song. In productions that cut Growltiger, this is all you see of him. But, Gus the Theatre Cat isn’t a comic relief number because it’s one of the few songs that doesn’t have a comedic tone. There are jokes here and there, and in most stage productions the character of Gus is more comedic than he is in the 1998 film, but the song has a softer tone, no dancing, and Gus eventually leaves in tears. Though the 1998 film stands out in this regard, even in other productions, this is not a comic relief number.

Another thing you’ll notice is that Bustopher Jones, The Pekes and the Pollicles, and Growltiger all come after more serious, less energetic numbers. Grizabella the Glamor Cat and Gus the Theatre Cat are both quite sad, and the play basically changes the subject to lighten the mood. Old Deuteronomy isn’t sad, but it’s slow and more serious. When the tone of the show starts to get serious, a comic relief number is added to lighten the mood. The pattern breaks with Macavity, with the song followed by a fight, to show that the stakes have been raised and things are getting serious. Mister Mistoffelees comes along as a more upbeat number, but the change in tone here is pretty much a plot point. Everything seems bleak and then Tugger starts this number to give everyone hope. Mistoffelees restores power after the light goes out as part of this shift. We were at our literal darkest moment and now there’s a spark of hope.

So, now that we know what numbers are comic relief numbers, it’s time to go into how and why they work, or how and why they don’t when things go wrong. Since the Broadway Revival cuts Growltiger, I’ll focus more on the other two, but the new version of The Pekes and the Pollicles borrows from Growltiger, so the stuff that was borrowed will also have to be discussed. But, before we get into all that messy business, let’s take a look at Bustopher Jones:

Bustopher Jones:

Most of the comedy in Bustopher Jones, though there are a few simple fat jokes in there, comes from how other characters react to Bustopher. Bustopher keeps an air of dignity about him as he formally greets everyone and discusses his clubs. He’s not the joke here. This is a song of Amusing Background Events. With the queens, you have Jenny’s crush on Bustopher and Bombalurina clearly not getting it but trying to be polite about it and not kinkshame Jenny over it. With the toms, you have the kittens getting over-excited and the older cats, desperate to impress Bustopher, rushing to stop them from making a scene, making a scene themselves in the process.

In particular, there are three characters to watch in this number who provide the best comedy: Mistoffelees, Skimbleshanks, and Munkustrap. Two out of the three of them, which two depends on the production, will go into fanboy mode, often competing for Bustopher’s attention. Broadway-based productions tend to have Misto and Skimble compete for Bustopher’s attention, while London-based productions, such as the 1998 film, tend to put more focus on Munkustrap. He barely contains his excitement and is shown to be Not So Above It All, though he’s usually more level-headed than whichever cat, Misto or Skimble, he’s being contrasted with.

Basically, the joke is that Bustopher is considered super-important, despite not having a clear place in the tribe’s hierarchy, and everyone goes nuts trying to impress him, get his attention, and make sure that everything is perfect and nothing goes wrong. This joke works best when Bustopher is actually pretty laid-back and everyone’s freaking out over nothing.

The 2016 version doesn’t get this. You do see characters scrambling around, trying to make sure everything’s perfect, and get Mungojerrie and Rumpleteazer as far away from Bustopher as possible, but, at the moment when it’s the most important to get this right, it fails.

The biggest problem with the number is Bustopher’s solo. It’s performed well enough, like most of this production. That’s not the problem. There are two main problems: a staging problem and a writing problem. The staging problem is where the above explanation comes in: When Bustopher sings his solo, no one gathers near him. In other productions, a group of toms gather around Bustopher where they hang on his every word, try to get his attention, and try to look important in front of the others. There’s always one, Misto, Skimble, or, more rarely, Munkustrap, who tries to stand way too close. But, 2016 Bustopher is given plenty of room to just stand there and face the audience. No one seems to be paying that much attention to what he’s saying.

There’s also a problem with how the solo is edited and the break that follows it. The problem isn’t that Bustopher’s solo is shortened. Lots of productions do that. The problem is in what’s cut.

The full solo consists of four quatrains: sets of four lines. The second and fourth lines rhyme with each other, so each quatrain ends on a rhyme: rules and Schools, Blimp’s and shrimps, bones and Drones, Glutton and mutton.

The original Broadway run of the show, and many other productions copying it, the second and third quatrains are cut. You go from Joint Superior Schools to “If I’m seen in a hurry”. The 2016 version cuts the first and second quatrains, only including the second half of the solo. The problem with this is that it cuts the first quatrain.

Cutting directly to the third quatrain is musically awkward, because there’s no build-up to this point in the song that’s song loudly with a choir backing it up. But, when it comes to the joke that’s being told in the solo, cutting the first quatrain removes the set-up and changes what the joke is. With the first quatrain, the solo is about the various clubs Bustopher goes to. Starting at the third quatrain, the joke is mainly a list of foods that Bustopher likes, even though the clubs are mentioned.

The first quatrain is the only portion of the solo to not mention food at all. It’s all about the social etiquette of gentlemens clubs. A gentleman in the early 20th century wasn’t supposed to belong to more than one club. So, in order to go to eight or nine, as Bustopher does, one would have to make sure that the clubs didn’t meet too close together, so that someone from one club might see them at another. It’s part of his strategy in going from club to club: he imitates the etiquette of the humans on the surface, while actually breaking all the rules behind their backs.

But, the point is, Bustopher is listing the various clubs he’s managed to get food from. He’s sort of cheating them all, though I doubt they’d care that a cat was frequenting more than one club. Going to different clubs that are located far enough apart that people from club A are unlikely to walk past the meeting place of club B is quite a feat and it takes a lot of skill to pull off. Bustopher knows what clubs he can do this with and what food he can get from them. If he wants seafood, he goes to the Stage and Screen. If he wants curry, he can go to the Siamese or the Glutton. Foxes is too close to one of his other clubs for him to go there, but he can get fresh meat of the same quality at Blimp’s.

The first quatrain sets up and explains the joke. Without this set-up, the joke becomes one about gluttony, making it more of a fat joke than it is when the first quatrain is included. To make matters even worse, the 2016 choreography adds this instrumental break where the cats put together a restaurant for Bustopher and give him various foods, doubling down on the joke being purely about Bustopher’s gluttony, not how he messes with high society. It’s still a joke and people might still find it funny, but it’s not the same joke and comes very close to being “it’s funny cuz he fat”.

The entire point of the number is that Bustopher’s weight is part of why he’s celebrated. He’s fat because he’s clever, managing to trick a bunch of rich humans into giving him fancy food off of their own plates. Because he looks like he’s wearing a tuxedo and spats at all times, the gentlemen at the clubs see him as fitting in, even though he’s most likely a stray. If he had an owner who was feeding him, he wouldn’t have developed this whole routine for getting food. The people who probably wouldn’t give food to a homeless human, seeing it as “feeding strays”, will literally feed a stray just for looking like he belongs. It combines two things that cats tend to love: food and messing with stupid humans.

So, the lack of emphasis on how other characters react to Bustopher and the reason why they react that way weakens the joke. But, to give credit where credit is due, I do like how they double down on Bustopher being Tugger for older women but have Jellylorum seem to be just as into him as Jenny is.

The Pekes and the Pollicles:

Here’s where the Broadway Revival goes completely off the rails. Both The Pekes and the Pollicles and Growltiger are often cut from productions to save time. They’re both “play within a play” scenes, which can be a bit confusing in a show that rarely ever uses dialogue to introduce the numbers. The Pekes and the Pollicles in particular seems to come out of nowhere. “Yay! Old Deuteronomy is here! Now let’s make fun of dogs!”

So, the Broadway Revival, like every production, had to decide what to do with these numbers. Would it keep them? Cut one of them? Cut both of them? But, for some reason, they invented a new option: Combine the two.

2016 Pekes and Pollicles isn’t The Pekes and the Pollicles. It’s a combination of The Pekes and the Pollicles and Growltiger’s Last Stand. The song is moved to where Growltiger is normally done and parts of the melody are mixed in. The Rumpus Cat, as a character, is equated to Growltiger as a character Gus played back in the day. This is where the trouble starts.

Now, I’ll once again stop to give credit where credit is due: The 2016 opening to The Pekes and the Pollicles is really sweet, with Old Deuteronomy encouraging Gus to play the Rumpus Cat one more time. Growltiger is basically a dream sequence of Gus flashing back to when he played Growltiger. Getting to see him actually relive his glory days one last time is nice. If they used this opening for Growltiger instead of The Pekes and the Pollicles, it would’ve been a good addition to the number.

So, Growltiger and The Pekes and the Pollicles are both plays within a play. Why not combine them? Well, the main problem is that The Rumpus Cat is not Growltiger.

Now, a lot of people hate Growltiger’s Last Stand and I’m not going to act like it’s some kind of masterpiece. I personally find the number to be sort of middle-of-the-road. If you see it more than once, the shock value of the cringey Asian stereotypes starts to wear off and, with a few exceptions, the number feels kind of dull. Andrew Lloyd Webber himself said that he was never really pleased with how Growltiger turned out and the London Revival rewrite might be worse than the original, at least musically. But, I’ve seen a few productions of Growltiger that I thought were kind of funny, usually by taking the racial stuff and sort of saying, “We know it’s bad and we can’t make it better, so we’ll just make it worse” and playing it up to the point of absurdity, like a parody of the sort of Yellow Peril stereotypes the song includes. I’ll also give credit to the Tecklenburg non-replica keeping the Siamese in silhouette behind a sheet.

When I say “The Rumpus Cat is not Growltiger”, I mean that how the two characters work comedically is completely different. You can’t just swap one for the other without rewriting the comedy of the entire number to match.

You’ll notice that Growltiger is in the title of Growltiger’s Last Stand. The song centers around Growltiger as the main character. The Pekes and the Pollicles includes the Rumpus Cat in the full title, but said title is so long that you rarely ever hear the song called that. The Rumpus Cat plays a key role in the story, but he shows up later on. The song isn’t about him. He’s not onstage for most of it.

This means that the comedy surrounding Growltiger and the comedy surrounding the Rumpus Cat work completely differently. The comedy of Growltiger is the comedy of Growltiger’s Last Stand. It all revolves around him. This is a joke based on a wacky character. The joke in The Pekes and the Pollicles isn’t about a single wacky character. It’s about a play where everything that could go wrong does with Munkustrap acting as the straight man. He’s the only one taking this seriously, perhaps a bit too seriously. The Rumpus Cat is just another thing that goes wrong. He’s funny, but so is everyone else who calls attention to themselves throughout the number.

Putting Gus as the Rumpus Cat into the Pekes and Pollicles is performing the number but with the joke from Growltiger. The Rumpus Cat enters the story too late for this to work, so Gus spends most of the number onstage, sharing the narrator role with Munkustrap. Furthermore, in order to include Rumpus Catified versions of Growltiger’s jokes, pretty much every memorable joke from The Pekes and the Pollicles is cut. Nothing goes wrong with the rest of the cast. The first Peke and Pollicle say their lines correctly. The March of the Pollicles and the Scottish Pollicles are cut, removing all the gags there, including Tugger playing the bagpipes at such a fitting moment that only Munkustrap is upset at first.

The fact that nobody messes up is especially weird in this version, because it’s spontaneous. Old Deuteronomy decides that Gus should get to play the Rumpus Cat again and everyone just automatically knows their role in the play. The Pekes and the Pollicles is a show Munkustrap put together for Old Deuteronomy. He had everything planned out. There were rehearsals. But, nobody showed up to rehearsals and nothing goes according to plan. If the play were spontaneous and everyone messed up, it wouldn’t be as funny, because that’s what you’d expect. Nobody had time to learn what to do, so they don’t do it right.

Instead of having the comedy come from the cast of the play messing up, the comedy is about how over-the-top Gus is. He’s narrating now, so why is Munkustrap even there? He does sort of play the straight man to Gus’ antics, but, because Munkustrap isn’t in charge here, he can’t show as much frustration. He can only awkwardly question things and be ignored. The worst case of this is with the “heathen Chinese” line. Most modern productions replace “heathen” with a less offensive word. It almost always feels a bit forced, but it works well enough. Some productions just leave the line as is, which makes it seem like they don’t care, but it doesn’t make the problem any worse. 2016 instead decides to call attention to how bad the line is by having Munkustrap question it, with the line being the older Gus’ fault. Not only does this make Gus less likable, it doesn’t actually solve the problem. The song can’t stop to acknowledge it, so, even though Munkustrap questions it, he still says the line anyway, making the whole thing a waste of time. They should’ve either changed the line or left it alone. But, they basically tried to have it both ways.

Trying to have it both ways is the fatal flaw of the number. They could’ve cut Growltiger like the 1998 film did. If you hadn’t seen any production of the show before seeing the 1998 film, you’d never guess that there was supposed to be a song between Gus and Skimbleshanks. It can be easily edited out. They also could’ve kept Growltiger and used redesigned, less stereotypical costumes for the Siamese, like the Vienna Revival did. It wouldn’t solve everything, but an effort would’ve been made. But, by combining Growltiger with another number, they both did and didn’t cut the number. Instead, the messed with and weakened The Pekes and the Pollicles so they could reference Growltiger without actually performing it.

The places were Growltiger’s melody is used for lines in The Pekes and the Pollicles feel forced, because those words weren’t written for that tune. That basically sums up the whole problem. One song was combined with another in a way that felt forced and awkward, because the elements of the two numbers weren’t meant to go together.

In conclusion, I think the Broadway Revival’s comedic downfall came from a sort of indecisiveness. They wanted to keep things the same but also change them, possibly not even knowing what they wanted to change them into, only that they wanted to change them. They wanted to shorten Bustopher’s solo, but not the way it’d been done before. They wanted to cut Growltiger, but not in the way it’d been done before. They wanted to do Cats, but not in the way it’d been done before. 

There’s nothing wrong with wanting to try new things. This could’ve been the template for an interesting non-replica if they really committed to doing things in a different way. But, they got stuck in between, wanting to be different, but not wanting to be too different. So, they tried to fix what wasn’t broken and sell it as New and Improved. This paved the way for the 2019 film to do the same, but with even worse comedy and without the advantage of the numbers being performed well by a devoted cast who knew what they were doing.

TLDR: 2016 messes with comedic numbers in ways that weaken them. It makes Bustopher Jones more completely about gluttony and tries to combine The Pekes and the Pollicles with Growltiger, failing both.

#bustopher jones #gus the theatre cat #the pekes and the pollicles #growltiger #cats 2016 #taking comedy too seriously tbh #do the thing or don't #you can't have it both ways

[argumentl]

The Freedom of Expression, radio version - Ep 39, June 2016 - Naked living, Tokyo Sports 'Lowlife Awards', Muhammad Ali's death.

Kaoru starts by saying at the time of this broadcast, the band will still be on tour and  they will only have two dates at Shinkiba left to do. Joe says he wants to attend the live on June 2nd. This date is also the day of the next broadcast of this show, so he will go to the live, then come home and listen to Dir's new single Utafumi on this show.

Kaoru's first topic relates to a British tv documentary shown on the channel Barcroft TV (now the youtube channel Truly) about a 'naked family'. Kaoru says just the word 'naked' reminds him of the naked old man living on an island in Okinawa, who was visited by Hiranabe. Getting back on track, he continues that the documentary concerns married couple Dave and Diane, who live in Cornwall, UK. This was Diane's 4th marriage, her third being with an abusive man who caused her to see little value in herself. Then she met Dave, who had been interested in naked living since his teens. After being with Dave for two years, Diane has learned to see value in herself again, and has also been happily living naked with him. Kaoru stresses that it seems like they only go naked at home, or at sanctioned places, they are not just walking down the street naked. Both he and Joe wonder about the mentality behind this. They mention the existence of nudist beaches etc. Joe admits that although he usually wears clothes both outside and at home, when he gets stuck writing his manuscripts, he takes a bath to ponder the issue. If he realises the answer to his problem, he will jump out of the bath, and get back to writing, not bothering with clothes. This is slightly different from a naked lifestyle, but it has that same liberating element. Kaoru comments that taking off clothes creates a neutral or 'flat' base. Some people might feel stress from wearing clothes. Joe mentions that the sociologist Kurimoto Shinichiro once said that human beings contain 20% human characteristics and 80% animal characteristics. Joe continues that from the viewpoint of an animal, wearing clothes is pretty odd. Its only humans that do it. In that sense its hard to see whats wrong with naked living. Kaoru agrees, but still thinks we can't all start going naked. Rules around this have developed over time. When you can't even show womens' chests on tv, going naked is a no-no. Joe says, imagine how awful it would be if Hiranabe came to the studio naked? Kaoru finds this pretty unpleasant and asks why Joe had to choose Hiranabe. Joe then brings up writer/actor Shimoda Kageki, who was once gifted a pair of Marylin Monroe print tights from a friend who studied design in New York. He loved the tights so much, he wore them a lot, but was ridiculed for it. His response was to say, 'whats wrong with me wearing something I love?'. Again, its slightly different from living naked, but it shows that what you wear or don't wear shouldn't have to be dicatated by trends. Kaoru repeates the idea that some people might feel stress with clothes, and liberated without them. He then changes the subject a bit to tell a story about one time he went to the toilet in Dir en grey's office. He wanted to use the cubicle, and it was unlocked so he pushed the door open, only to find a staff member in there with pants down. The staff member snapped at Kaoru, 'What are you doing?!' But Kaoru feels he didn't do anything wrong, as the door was unlocked. He didn't want to see a staff member sat on the toilet. Joe says Dir en grey's office sounds pretty interesting.

Next they welcome Tasai for the Tokyo Sports corner, and are slightly disappointed its Tasai and not Hiranabe, because they don't want Hiranabe to be on the show next week when Utafumi is played. Knowing what he is like, they would have preferred him this week so he would not appear on the Utafumi premier show. The song will be played at the end of the show, so any new listeners tuning in the hear the single will be exposed to Hiranabe. Tasai says Hiranabe is probably saving up his energy in preparation. Kaoru says he will cut Hiranabe's mic if he gets too carried away.

Tasai's first news is that Tokyo Sports have announced their own 'Low-life Awards', meaning a list of the most low-life, base stories of the year so far. The number one lowlife story so far is that of the scandal surrounding Tokyo Governer Masuzoe Yōichi. Other stories include the Becky scandal, and the scandal involving Funky Kato's affair. Kaoru mentions that at the time of recording, Masuzoe is still Tokyo Governer, but who knows what will happen. Joe says, the House of Councillors election is approaching, and the LDP/Kōmeitō may be trying to keep thier distance from Masuzoe, but there is still currently no candidate standing to replace him. Tasai speculates whether his ex-wife Katayama Satsuki could stand, or maybe Renho. Joe comments that its a difficult job to do as so many scandals around it get exposed. Masuzoe had been exposed as using public funds for personal luxuries, and one of his claims was for an Italian restaurant which is actually near Tasai's house. Its a family restaurant, which makes Tasai wonder why Masuzoe would claim expenses for this. Masuzoe was also found to have bought a Crayon Shin-chan book with public money, apparently for study. Kaoru thinks he's too stingy. Additionally, despite previously owning the horse that won the Tokyo Derby twice in a row (the horse was sold before his election), he even apparently used public money to buy a discount coupon book for his local area. Kaoru thinks he would probably forget to use the coupons anyway. Tasai thinks there will be a lot more dirty scandals to come in the second half of the year. As for private dirty scandals, Hiranabe would probably win it.

The next story relates to the death of boxer Muhammad Ali. Tasai says he knows and has heard a lot about Ali from wrestler Antonio Inoki, who had a match with Ali in 1976. Joe mentions that Ali appeared on the cover of the U.S. version of Rolling Stone many times, and was well know for his political stances in relation to war and segregation. Tasai then tells a story about Ali that he heard from Inoki. In 1995, Inoki took part in a two day wrestling competition in North Korea, which he also invited Ali to (by this stage his Parkinson's disease was quite advanced). Despite being unable to talk, Ali got up during the event, ran up the stairs and started shadow boxing. He felt some revival of his energy. The following year Ali acted as a torch barer in the 1976 Atlanta Summer Olympics, and according to Inoki it was because of this event in North Korea that Ali regained the energy to be a torch bearer in the Olympics. Tasai then talks a bit about the 1976 fight between Ali and Inoki, which consisted of boxing and pro wrestling in the same fight. Hearing Inoki's story reminds Joe of how Ali was known to believe that nothing is impossible. Joe also mentions the words Ali spoke in his Harvard speech in 1975, also known as the world's shortest poem, 'Me, We'. Tasai asks Kaoru about whether artists need to have a strong sense of will to get through struggles, like Ali had opposing the Vietnam war. He was heavily criticized for his opposition. Kaoru says Dir go by only doing things they like, and if that comes with struggle, then so be it. Its the path they chose, so they must deal with it. Tasai asks if there were any times where people havn't properly understood the band's actions. Kaoru says there is never a time when everything is understood perfectly by everyone. In fact, he prefers not to push specific explanations or meanings about Dir's music. The listeners can use thier own imagination. Tasai links this back the the new song Utafumi, and Kaoru once again repeats his desire for Hiranabe not to be on the show next week.

To finish, Kaoru plus the new jingle campaign, Budokan DVD, and tour, and reminds listeners to tune in next week for a first listen of the new single.

Songs - Dir en grey/Shokubeni

#dir en grey #the freedom of expression #radio

[stevenuniversallyreviews]

I don’t need you to love me, I love me

I’m gonna miss writing about Pearl.

As the loneliest Crystal Gem, a loyal servant who became a fierce ally, then a spurned lover, then a grieving survivor, Pearl’s story is about discovering who she can be on her own terms. Like Steven, she believes that her value comes from being valued, but unlike Steven, she was literally programmed this way and has an even harder time breaking loose, so she starts off at the toxic level of selfish selflessness that threatens to consume him, directed towards someone who’s been dead for years. She defines herself by her relationships, but struggles with all of them because she only understands a dynamic where one person is superior and the other is inferior; as such, her life is an endless evaluation of whether she’s worse or better than the people around her, thus whether she should be deferential or condescending. Her problem goes beyond not knowing how to develop loving relationships with equals: she doesn’t know how to love herself.

But she changes her mind.

“We need to talk about us.”

The first act of Change Your Mind (which lines up nicely with its first quarter) sets the stage with Blue and Yellow both converting to Steven’s cause, and while compelling, it’s appropriately intense. That intensity gets even higher as the episode continues, but this is still a big finale, so it’s about damn time for some fanservice.

After a quick “go to your rooms” to reinforce that White Diamond is the Diamonds’ mother more than their older sister, Connie gets the body part pun train rolling: “face-off” will soon be followed by “did you have a hand in this?” and “lend me a hand” (which earns a chuckle from Blue), Pink’s legs succumb when Steven takes a knee, and getting into White’s head becomes the primary goal of the second act (so all of this second quarter and most of the third). Still, the levity seems fleeting before two glints in the sky bring us the one-two punch of Bismuth leading the charge and Lapis and Peridot showing off their threads.

Bismuth fits right in as the leader of the B-Team, as beyond her seniority she’s clearly more competent at running a show than the other two (see: The New Crystal Gems). But her reverse electric guitar soon cedes to a glorious harmony of Lapis and Peridot’s themes as we see their new forms: Lapis gets pants and sandals, and Peridot gets ridiculous shades and a trashcan lid, the perfect adaptation of Static’s saucer for the Crystal Gems’ resident raccoon. Peridot goes ham with three stars, while Lapis wears a subtle dark blue variant that includes all five points if we count her legs. For a moment, everything is right in the world.

Their timing couldn’t be better, and not just because we need some stress relief. Steven begins the finale with one friend on his side, then he gets two Diamonds on his side, and now he has three reinforcements on his side, and this growing group of allies all represent what the Big Three Crystal Gems can’t: the family that Steven has chosen, rather than the family he grew up with. These relationships are all a result of his effort, whether going out of his way to befriend Connie or winning over the five former enemies that now stand at his side, and together they‘re one huge reminder that you can reach people if they’re willing to be reached. White Diamond isn’t a villain because she’s cruel, she’s a villain because she quashes any effort to change her mind.

Furthermore, seeing Lapis and Peridot  in particular next to a pale, prejudiced, recently-discovered member of Steven’s extended family who disagrees with a parent’s name change evokes that other long episode where Steven went out on a limb to change someone’s mind, and the comparison does wonders for putting White Diamond’s bigotry in perspective.

I’ve already made my defense of Andy, but in short, his irritable first impression masks how open-minded he ends up being. Sure, he has some lousy beliefs, but he’s willing to sit down with folks he disagrees with and try and look for ways to either compromise or straight-up be convinced that those beliefs might be wrong. On its own, Gem Harvest could be read as a little too hopeful, especially as it came out weeks after the 2016 election gave proud bigots the White House, but next to Change Your Mind it expands on the finale’s message: keep an open heart and mind, because people can surprise you if you give them a chance, but don’t let yourself be a doormat in the process.

White Diamond would never have come to the Crystal Gems’ table. She still hasn’t even shown up in person since Legs From Here to Homeworld, using a warped version of the same delegation Steven practices in his talks with the Diamonds: he helps others bring their individual experiences to light, showing that his position isn’t unique, while she blots out their individuality and replaces them with her. Blue and Yellow’s contrast has been a plot point for far longer, but Pink and White (and now Steven and White) are an even starker pair of foils, divided not only by personality but by size and age.

Knowing how hard it will be to reach White, Yellow and Blue again suggest that Steven and the Crystal Gems bail, offering their own ships now that Pink’s is unavailable. While this shows how profoundly they believe in him, it again reveals how unfamiliar these two are with being “good.” Beyond the plan only delaying the inevitable (White Diamond for sure could send more troops to Earth in this scenario), Steven points out that his mother failed in both of her identities to confront the problem in a healthy way, and continuing to avoid it will mean it never gets solved. Rose is still a progression from Pink and Yellow and Blue, as fighting for your beliefs addresses the issue more directly than running away, but Steven in turn is a progression from Rose.

Then Connie’s opening words in Blue and Yellow’s conversions pay off. This time she’s the one ending the conversation, and she’s gained enough of their attention that they don’t write her off as a blathering human. Steven never got to meet Rose, rank-and-file Gems don’t have parents, and White Diamond seems to be the root of it all, so Connie is the ideal voice to reach the Diamond Sisters: she’s the only other person on the planet with a living mother. Where Dr. Maheswaran at her worst once stood in for Yellow Diamond, she can now represent the bigger fish, both in her similar brand of maternal tyranny and in the hope that her attitude can change after a good talk.

And just as Connie takes over Steven’s role as the big finisher for Blue and Yellow, Steven takes over Connie’s role as the voice introducing bigger voices now that it’s time to face White. He works with his aunts to bring his grandmother to a standstill—not by beating her statue-like ship into submission, but by joining the arm-ships to the body and completing the picture—and says his piece briefly before ceding the floor to a pair that White has victimized for far longer than the past week or so.

I love that Yellow is the first to speak, flipping the Diamonds’ conversion order and subverting the notion that the more emotionally open Blue might take the lead. This isn’t just a matter of clarity, but bravery, and Yellow has always been the more confrontational of the pair. It’s also that much more impactful to see Yellow push past her fear and allow herself to be vulnerable, given how hard she’s worked to maintain her air of stoicism. Patti LuPone’s raw power has served the character well, and she keeps up the same petulant energy that saw Yellow dishing about White in Familiar, but now she funnels all of it into a stirring argument against the exacting nature of Homeworld society. And because Yellow helps pave the way, Blue can deepen their point by defending Pink’s role in the quartet and detailing how White’s orders have caused the whole family to suffer.

Steven bookends the Diamonds by suggesting that White can start helping everyone by helping her daughters. Then White shows what kind of “help” she’s willing to provide.

Pink’s former pearl was already proof that White Diamond has the power to possess others, but it’s another thing to see it in action. The whole episode so far has been about building up hope again after Steven is knocked down by Homeworld, but all it takes is one agonizing glare to send everything backwards. Blue and Yellow are even worse off than they were before, and as they’re brought into White’s fold, their arms follow suit. White drops the Crystal Gems and lets them fall, then Steven drops the Crystal Gems and dives after them.

As he slides down alien architecture on his shield, the soundtrack gives a nod to the theme song to prepare us for more fanservice. Now that White has made it clear that talking isn’t going to get us anywhere, it’s time for more action. Now that we’ve established the importance of Steven’s chosen family, it’s time to reconnect with the family he was born into.

Amethyst is first, because of course she is. She’s usually the quickest to reform, and she’s the only Gem that Steven has fused with, so Smoky Quartz is the best start if the goal is reeling off three fusions in a row with a growing sense of excitement. Smoky’s theme heralds this new development with glee, evoking the pure joy of seeing a new fusion from Earthlings as it becomes clear what the show is doing. Fusion has recently featured as a stand-in for marriage and an act of rebellion, but now it represents familial love, and doubles as an elegant plot device to get the poofed crew back in action. The wonder of fusion has always been that beyond whatever metaphor it currently serves, it’s also just a really neat piece of magic that lends itself to awesome visuals, and this whole sequence revels in the glorious spectacle.

Pearl is second, because we’ve already seen another version of Rainbow Quartz, so the biggest reveal is bound to be the Garnet fusion. Rainbow Quartz 2.0 blends the old with the new, immediately showing off the latest clever fusion of weapons (a shield and a spear into a parasol) and introducing a blue jacket that will soon belong to Pearl. The drumkit/chiptune mashup of Smoky’s theme is replaced by a piano/chiptune mashup, and then this new fusion opens their mouth.

Of all of Steven’s fusions with a female or female-presenting partner, this is the one with a male voice actor, and it couldn’t be more perfect. Rainbow Quartz was the only one of Rose’s fusions that we saw, and Now We’re Only Falling Apart shows that she was the second-ever cross-Gem fusion after Garnet (that we know of), so she was clearly something special. Pearl’s romantic interest in Rose complicates matters further, as Rainbow Quartz is an embodiment of a deeply imperfect relationship. This is a character with a lot of baggage, but casting Alastair James puts a hard stop to the idea that this is the same Rainbow Quartz, even before we hear them refer to themself as “2.0.” After the literal nightmare that begins Change Your Mind and the figurative nightmare to come, it’s wonderful to have one more piece of evidence that Steven and Rose are different people.

Amethyst and Pearl, like Lapis and Peridot, get great new looks, and they’ll soon be followed by Garnet (after the commercial break). If this was just for the sake of fanservice, it’d be more than enough: it’s always fun to get outfit changes, and between that and the fusions (including Sunstone and Obsidian; again, after the commercial break!) we get a pleasant treat to sate us between the drama. But as always, the show finds a way to create deeper meaning in the magic.

The Diamonds look the same now as they did thousands of years ago, and one of the reasons why is that they’re unbreakable. Creating a new form requires poofing, which is a very silly way to say that the Crystal Gems have found a way to grow through pain.

Life will always have its share of pain. Part of growing up, maybe the biggest part, is figuring out what you’re going to do about it. The Diamonds react to pain by closing themselves off and letting their problems fester rather than addressing them head-on. But over the course of the series, Lapis and Peridot and Amethyst and Pearl and Garnet have put in the work to learn from their pain and heal, and because they’re literal projections of their true selves, they get a physical manifestation of that growth that can only come after weathering one more blow.

To be clear, pain itself shouldn’t be glamorized. It sucks, and it’s okay if your reaction is to take care of yourself rather than use it for Creative Fuel. But the Crystal Gems are what happens when you deal with your pain, and the Diamonds are what happens when you don’t. And because Steven shares the legacy of both, Steven Universe is about him helping others through their pain and Steven Universe Future is about finally confronting his own.

We end with the most frustrating commercial break of the three, coming right in the middle of the second act, so we’ll just keep on going with fusions and new outfits next time. But if we have to stop partway through a scene, at least we get a Monty Python Foot to stamp out the first half of Change Your Mind.

I Can’t Believe We’ve Come So Far

Hilary Florido is the only storyboarder with their own recurring segment in Steven, Universally. But every other storyboarder had plenty of opportunities to make a fully realized High School AU in their promo art, and none of them did, so that’s on them.

Florido is obviously more than her promo art, but it speaks to a specific level of nerdy passion that made her and longtime coboarder Jesse Zuke so dang good at Peridot episodes, starting with just their second collaboration, the iconic Catch and Release. From there they gave us Too Far and Log Date 7 15 2 and Barn Mates and Too Short to Ride and Beta and Gem Harvest, and Florido kept the ride going with Raising the Barn. Peridot would not be Peridot without Hilary Florido.

In terms of more serious clods, Florido is the only person to board all three Kevin appearances (Alone Together with Rebecca Sugar and first regular coboarder Katie Mitroff, Beach City Drift with Zuke, and Kevin Party with final regular coboarder Danny Cragg, who also stopped boarding after the movie). She gave us as Ronaldo at his worst in Rocknaldo and Aquamarine at her worst in I Am My Mom. And as if she needed further proof of her prowess with harrowing material, she gave us Alone at Sea and A Single Pale Rose.

It’s weird to attribute good Steven writing to any one boarder, given he’s in every episode but Jungle Moon and he’s generally pretty great, but Florido worked on some of the most important moments of Steven letting us into his deeper thoughts: she’s behind him getting real with the Cool Kids in Joy Ride, with Amethyst in Steven vs. Amethyst, and with himself in a rare monologue in Lion 4. His ability to discuss the uncomfortable subtext of Mystery Girl’s visual similarity to Rose is key to the magnificent tone of Last One Out of Beach City, and his introspection about his mother’s older identity is just as important to Familiar.

In short, Hilary Florido rocked at characters with rough edges, whether it was Peridot’s ornery id, a bevy of outright villains ruining everyone’s day, normally sympathetic characters doing dubious things, or Steven giving himself enough of a break to complain. She stepped up as a storyboard supervisor for Steven Universe Future, but even if she hadn’t, her legacy would be secure.

(Frankly it’d be secure even if the only thing she gave us was this.)

#change your mind #steven universe #su #steven universally #review

[viviennes-tears]

Are you following me Mr Hiddleston? Chapter 21

18+ blog: It is YOUR responsibility, as a reader, to think about the content that you consume at your own discretion.

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Tuesday 16th March 2021

Tom arrived in Essex during the very early hours of the morning. It is his first official day of shooting The Essex Serpent. A project he had debated about taking on for a while, but he decided to take on the role in the end, thinking it might do him the world of good. After all he has some time in between going to South Sudan, and he thought about all the upcoming Loki promotional work, that was just around the corner. Although most promos and interviews weren't yet finalised, as Luke was still in talks with people. Also, he had been given time off on April 11th to attend to the EE BATFAS to present an award, which he was looking forward to a lot. Especially because he has a few friends who are nominated.

Tom received a text from Owen Wilson late morning about an inside joke. Which made Tom chuckle and he texted back a witty comment. Then Owen's follow up said "one of us is showing off their big ego again." The texts stopped soon after not for any bad reason, it simply was the fact Tom had work to do. Although, he did enjoy the quick Loki promo video he did with Owen the other day too. Which he found lots fun to do, as he got to show off his mischievous side, and banter back and forth with Owen again. Also he did a '30 seconds' recap on Loki on the same day, with a couple of other quick promo videos, which were planned to be later releases compared to the one with Owen. However, Tom's ego still felt broken that was his issue despite not letting anyone know. At least not officially. His friends have their suppositions, well more that Sophie, Chris and Elsa do. Ben seems to dismiss their suppositions, as he believes Tom isn't as bad as they say. He's admitted there is a change in him since New York, they all know that. He says "even though it didn't work with Kristen, it didn't mean Tom couldn't move on." Tom has even stopped updating Chris and Ben about everything. He knew he would feel ashamed if he told them, especially as he had once thought he'd grown out of this stage of his life. The part about sleeping around with different women on the regular. Right now though all he knew he had to think about was work. Regardless of his hesitations he knew the role of William Ransome, (a reverend in the Essex village of Aldwinter), was a role he thought would undoubtably be a good move to make. He'd read the book when it was published back in 2016, so he knew the material already before reading the script and an opportunity to have some sort of break. A break from the women he's been sleeping with.

Furthermore, after filming Loki Tom was reminded again of how much he enjoyed adventuring back to the small screen. Just like when he did The Night Manager. Bobby didn't make this trip as Diana offered to take him for a while. Tom didn't want to bother her with Bobby's over the top energy but she insisted, adding if she needed help she would ask Emma. Luke on the other hand was going to be with Tom, however as he had to deal with business matters besides organising promos, interviews and photoshoots, meant they were keep him in London right now. So he told Tom he would join him when he could.

While on set Tom couldn't stop thinking about Margot, about how scared she looked, and her sobbing her eyes out while being curled up on the sofa before he left. It just kept replaying over and over in his mind. He was at least thankful that none of these people had ever worked with him before, therefore, they had no idea how to dedicate his moods. Especially, compared to those who know him too well, and would pick it up in an instant. Not only was he thankful about that aspect, but he was also thankful for the fresh air, as well as keeping busy with work.

The confirmation of Tom's role went out publicly later on, along with his confirmed co-star Claire Danes, serval hours before the start of the new day. It was all sent over to Luke first via email, he wanted everything forwarded to him in the meantime. And the confirmation of his trip to South Sudan with Susan Kobayashi followed soon after. Usually Tom would avoid reading about himself, most of the time anyway. As travelling down a rabbit hole such as that can certainly weigh heavily on someone. However, for some unknown reason Tom found himself searching himself, while he lay in bed after a long day. Most of his searches were to do with The Essex Serpent, but he did find a loop hole, accidentally. Which lead him into the depths of the internet of some rare images from Charlie's party. He was drawn to one in particular after spotting himself in the background. As he focused in on what the image version of himself was looking at, he wondered how it hadn't become a popular image. Especially as the image version of himself seemed to be staring at Margot dancing with Charlie. Not just staring but full on looking as though he wanted to pull them apart. Seeing the look on his face stunned him. He certainly at the time hadn't realised he looked that way towards them. He even face palmed himself for discovering the photo, and for the way he looked back then too. He thought it was strange, due to all inside photos where only taken by guests. Yet, the photo was linked to a Tumblr account. He simply thought it may have been taken from else where, as it was the only explanation he could think of. Besides, seeing the web address underneath was far enough, as he knew it would be too dangerous to go any further. With that thought he decided it was time for bed.

Tom locked his phone and took off his glasses then placed both down on the bedside table, before reaching over to turn the light off.  He soon settled further under the covers and stared up into the darkness, while his thoughts where consuming him. Eventually Tom managed to fall into a dreamless and light sleep.

Wednesday 17th March 2021

Ever since Margot was being followed by the stranger, she hadn't left her room for longer than she had to. She'd only leave to use the bathroom or gather food supplies, that took only a mere few minutes. Seeing Margot like this worried everyone, Peyton most of all especially because she won't allow anyone to report it. Luckily he'd gotten Samuel to agree to a couple days off to be there for Margot. Samuel of course knew how much Margot meant to him and she was in a delicate place right now too. Peyton like everyone else did their best to do what they could, but their efforts simply fell through. Peyton was at least comforted by the fact Margot hasn't started up the family videos. As he knew that's when things are at the lowest point. However, Ethan's birthday and anniversary of his death wasn't too far away now either. He hoped this rough patch wasn't going to bleed into that, because he feared it could really test her. Meaning he feared this could end up to her biggest breakdown yet, when it was meant to be the start of her new accomplishments and achieve her dreams.

As it neared the end of the day Marcus knocked on Margot and Elouise's door. Elouise answered and let Marcus in who was accompanied by Peyton. Marcus gave her a tight lipped smile on his way in, then Elouise gave him a curt nod, then she closed the door behind the boys. She followed in behind them into the room then she hopped onto her bed, with her coursework surrounding her as well as her computer sat nearby, while the boys stood beside Margot's.

"Hi, Mags." Marcus and Peyton said in unison with a gentle and soft tone. Margot appeared to be spaced out with her knees held up to her chest, while she was staring into nothingness.

"Margot?" Marcus maintained his gentle voice as he knelt down. "Margot, you need to get out of here. You need to take a walk and get some fresh air. I know we've all been saying this over and over...we're just worried about you."

"He's right Mags, you need to leave this room longer than to use the bathroom and get food. It breaks my heart every time I see you like this." Peyton's voice almost cracked as he felt tears prick his eyes, as he sat down carefully onto the edge of Margot's bed.

Margot eventually registered some of their words as they kept talking to her, and they could tell with the change in her eyes, recognition flicking within. Elouise just sat there on her bed observing their interactions with her notebook and pen at the ready, however Margot's interactions have been slim to none. But Elouise was there to keep Margot company and found the quiet good in a way to actually get on with her coursework, which was due the following day. Of course Margot hadn't finished either and with her current state she wouldn't be completing it any time soon.

"So, what do you say? How about we go out for a walk around Hyde park, or something?" Marcus suggested.

"Tomorrow." Margot replied quietly, barely above a whisper.

Marcus bit his lip and nodded in agreement. There wasn't much more that could possibly be said at this point. However before Marcus and Peyton left Marcus brushed Margot's tousled hair back from her face, in return she gave him a half smile for his efforts, but she appreciated it all the same. Peyton noticed that Marcus' flirtatious ways were slowly turning into genuine feelings. He had been noticing the change for a while in fact, but this was the turning point. A simple act of kindness and affections shown by removing her hair from her face, made it clear to him that he cared. Also before they left they looked at the photos within the frames on the wall, her memories and moments of a completely different Margot than the one sat in front of them. Seeing them only reminded Marcus that she had no blood family left, Peyton was her family and so were the rest of them becoming her family too. And as Peyton told them about her Dad's death anniversary and birthday are soon, including how things get around that time of the year only increased their worries, and the need to be there for her. When they finally left the room Elouise continued with her coursework and Margot snack back against her pillows.

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Once filming wrapped for the day Tom had taken a shower and changed into some grey joggers and a plain white t shirt, he then settled down with his script in hand and put his glasses on. Already some changes were changed to the script, although not many as they still wanted to remain truthful to the book. As he began reading the third page his phone began to ring. He sighed and dropped the script beside him, before reaching over to the side table for his phone. Diana's number lit up on the screen which gave Tom some relief. He didn't want to deal with anyone who he'd been sleeping with, or many people if he was going to be honest.

"Hi Mum, is everything ok?" Tom greeted her.

"Hi Thomas, yes thank you, all is well here. I wanted to check in with you and to ask you, did you drop off those treats Bobbers likes? You know the gravy flavoured ones?" Diana spoke softly.

"Yeah, all is well here too, thanks. Oh I thought I had packed them along with the chew bones. You could always pop by the house when you go to check on everything tomorrow. I'm sure Bobbers can wait until then." He found himself chuckling a little at the end, while thinking about Bobby's face because there weren't any of his gravy treats.

"I can do. Are you sure everything is ok?" Diana repeated.

"Ehehe, yes I am, more so. I am good. It's nice out here in fact and plenty of open spaces Bobby would love to explore, if he was here with me." Tom said honestly, because he did feel good or at least slightly better and was so far enjoying the fresh air. Albeit he still had his moments thinking about Margot crying among everything else.

"Right well, I shall hang up now to let you get some sleep. Night sweetheart, have a good day tomorrow and sending you all my love." Diana said and blew kisses down the phone.

"I hope you sleep well Mum and find the treats for Bobbers. Night and all my love to you both." They ended the call soon afterwards and Tom finished reading the script.

It was around 11:30pm when Tom switched off the lamp after finishing up his last cup of tea, brushed his teeth and removed his glasses, then settling down under the bed covers for an early night.

Tuesday 23rd March 2021

Tom and Claire seemed to be getting along really well. Although there was no surprise there, as he got along well with everyone including the crew. During the lunch break Claire was talking about her husband and children, which Tom enjoyed hearing about her stories of her family life. Even though it did sadden him a little as he thought he'd just reached his 40's and still hadn't settled down. But he did share the odd family stories about his sisters and their families, by doing so it made him feel some happiness from the memories.

Once they were back on set Tom was in full character again, one thing that was different is the fact he wasn't as distracted now. During filming he didn't think about Margot, he forced himself not to, so at the end of the day he thought it was a good sign. That way he knew he'd gotten through the day fine and hopefully the rest of filming too.

Later on after Tom came back from a walk (he was used to evening walks with Bobby so he went on one), he opened the door to the hotel, and upon entering he found a woman naked on the bed. She's the woman who lives near the Swiss Cottage Farmer's Market. He'd told her about being away for work, he just wasn't expecting her to show up. Although, he was surprised to see her and he was going to tell her no, because he felt as though she was crossing a line. A line that meant seriousness between them, which he wasn't looking for at all. Not with her anyway. However as she began spreading her legs wide to give him a full view of her pussy, was the moment when it seemed as though he'd forgotten the word no. He soon slipped off his jacket and then processed to strip down until he was naked himself. He stood a few large paces from the bed while he looked down at her and his mouth began to water. It wasn't long before she gave him a come hither finger and Tom didn't hesitate, he just dashed over and straddled her before he crashed lips on hers. She began stroking him on the back his neck and massaging his scalp as she kissed him back. Her actions made him moan into their kiss before they both had to take a breather for a moment. However it wasn't long until Tom kissed his way down to her breasts, taking each nipple in turn into his hot mouth and sucking and nipping at them, while simultaneously massaging the other breasts. All the while she tugged on his hair and whimpered softly and arch her back up off the bed. When Tom was done with her breasts he ventured further down latching onto her clit and broadly licking her making her squirm under him. After a while of building her Tom stroked her pussy lips with a couple of his fingers, then dipped them in further moistening them with her arousal. Soon enough he was curling his fingers around inside her and pumping them in and out of her, with added circulation around her clit with the soft pad of his thumb. He worked her up to her first orgasm and felt himself barley hard by her reactions.

A few minutes later she had recovered and could see Tom was having some issues, more than usual. Luckily again for him she wasn't like Kirsten. She made Tom lay down on his back so she could return the favour. She wrapped her hand around his soft cock and began stroking him as she leaded over and whispered into his ear. Her soft voice somewhat helped him as he began to harden, before she started massaging his balls with her other hand. His mind did start to drift like always these days. Images of being there for Margot the night she'd been followed, being with her on the sofa  that night over Christmas and waking up to find he'd had her in his arms. As well as the night they almost slept together in New York. Among the images he used before of her mouth wrapped around his cock, as he was currently receiving that exact treatment in the present moment. He began moaning as his nearly fully erect cock was being sucked and licked at the tip. However, before he could loose himself inside her mouth he pushed her off of him and pounced on her, his love affair of entanglement woman. One of many. She stopped him before he could enter which made him frown a little, until she told him to go into her bag to get a condom out. He quickly got off of her and the bed, then he raced over to the chair she'd placed all her belongings on. It only took a minute to find a condom in the zip compartment inside her bag, he tore the sliver packet open and quickly pumped himself a couple of times for good measure, then he rolled the condom over his shaft and jumped back onto his love affairs body who was still lying on the bed. He griped both of her wrists above her head in one of his large ones and griped her hip hard with the other, then he lined himself up with her entrance.

Margot groaned as Tom pushed inside of her and wrapped her legs around his narrow waist. He allowed her to adjust to his size before pulling out half way, then he pushed back in a little harder, then he began a rhythmic pace which she seemed to enjoy. As he thrusted inside her he pushed their chests closer together and began kissing her neck and nibbling on her earlobe, while he kept a tight grip on her wrists. Tom didn't take too long to find her lips next as he kept thrusting in and out of her. She even took charge with how deep she wanted the kiss and ran her tongue along his lips to get him open them. He chuckled softly and parted his lips allowing her to explore his mouth, and their teeth grinding together slightly as they kissed harder than before. As she pulled away after a while she took his bottom lip in between her teeth and pulled on it hard, but not enough to draw any blood. Tom eventually moved his head back out of her reach and moved back so he wasn't crushing her anymore with his weight. Yet, it didn't last long as she dug her heels into Tom's ass, and whined in the form of a beg with puppy dog eyes. She wanted to touch him more and get him to deepen his thrusts. How could he say no? He quickly kissed her again and letting her go so she could explore his body with her hands. She tousled his hair some more as she couldn't get enough of it. Then she ran her hands down his chest and down to his abs, lightly running her fingers across them, next her hands reached around to his back. She ran them softly up and down his back for a bit before shifting over slightly. She had to get him in deeper and right into the sweet spot. He chuckled again knowing she wanted him to be balls deep and build up a sweat, while giving her what wanted and where she wanted.

"Fuck, Margot!" Tom cried as he felt walls clamping around him, and he franticly began pounding harder and panting heavily. As he came his eyes rolled back and she came too, although more reluctantly at the end.

Tom's eyes suddenly snapped open as his cum spurted into the condom followed by a large gulp. He actually called out Margot's name while he was fucking someone else. Embarrassment washed over him as the realisation snack in. After all this time getting off on images of Margot or Zawe (barley these days), he'd never verbally expressed what he was thinking about. He cowardly slipped out and removed the condom, while the woman just lay there and stared up at the ceiling, also her breathing was still erratic from cumming only moments ago. Tom was still panting as he dropped face down next to her, he didn't keep his face berried for long because he needed to get his breathing back under control. He felt himself shudder from the mere thought about how the conversation was going to go later.

After half an hour later Tom heard movement next to him and the air growing cold around him. Not long after he sat up he knew it was time for their little chat. He hoped she wouldn't tell anyone especially reporters about what had happened. Luke wouldn't be all too pleased either about this, but he knew he'd have to have a chat with him too.

Saturday 27th March 2021

Margot had gotten a shower and got dressed for the first time in days. Once she had she went down for some breakfast before work, she was also carrying some pieces of lined paper and a few other things with her too. As she entered the living room/kitchen Elouise and Zac were chilling out on the sofa with their own breakfast, but they looked up as Margot appeared in the room. Elouise's jaw dropped from the sight of Margot in clothes other than the pajamas she has been wearing. While Zac's eyes widened in shock.

"Hi!" Margot greeted, as she placed her bag down by the door and the rest of her things onto the table, then grabbed the kettle to refill it with cleaner water.

"Hi?" Zac replied with a confused tone.

"Mags, are you okay?" Elouise asked, as she stood up and headed towards the counter and stopping opposite Margot, also placing her empty bowel onto the counter.

"I am, thanks." Margot's happy demeanour felt off to Elouise. It didn't feel forced it felt more like a weird bubble or something that had taken over Margot. Whatever it was though Elouise knew they would still have to keep an eye on her.

"Good." Elouise didn't sound convinced but it wasn't like Margot noticed really. Zac could tell though. "What time are you working till?" She asked, as Margot poured the water into her mug which was already filled with her coffee and one sugar.

"I'll be doing a double shift today, I said I would pick up the hours after being off. So I'm doing 10:00 - 4:00, then 8:00 till finish." Margot replied, then processed to drink a sip of her coffee after blowing on it.

"Are you sure you'll be fine with all that? I mean you're finishing late and one of us should be there with you when you finish." Elouise looked worried.

"Yeah, I'm totally fine!" Margot's voice was a little squeaky, but she genuinely seemed to believe herself, her current state was defiantly denial in some ways. Yet she didn't agree or disagree about having anyone with her when she's finished her shift. Clearly Elouise was on the right tracks even if Margot wasn't.

Zac ended up washing the breakfast things while Margot was busy writing something at the table. Elouise had already left with Marcus and Mary had left ages ago (even before Margot came down), when her street performer boyfriend picked her up. When Margot finished writing her sentence Zac had pulled the plug out of the sink and dried his hands on the hand towel. He watched Margot busy herself prepping her bag, before collecting her jacket from by the door on her way out. He noticed she'd left what she was writing in the place she once sat. He picked it up and began reading. It was a letter written to Nora and Ryan, or at least the draft of a letter to them. Many words appeared to be crossed out and and rewritten multiple times. There was even a good lengthy paragraph which was completed scribbled over and partially unreadable. What he could gist from it was that Margot was trying to sound as though none of the current events ever happened, and she clearly seemed to be struggling to know what to write. He put it back though so he couldn't be blamed for taking it, but he sent a quick text to the others Peyton included about her letter. He also volunteered to be there for her when she finished her shift, but Marcus said he would instead. Zac replied straight away and said he could instead of him.

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As soon as Margot stepped outside after her last shift she felt her heart beginning to pound in her chest, and her breathing became shallow, as she felt as though she's been watched from the shadows. Her co-worker and manager hadn't noticed as they were locking up and chatting to one another. They were the last to leave after finishing up on the cleaning and cashing up. Once the doors were locked they said goodnight and left Margot alone. Margot could only nod in response and watch them walk away. After they were no longer in sight Margot's eyes scanned her surroundings, everything seemed normal but she was on edge. Marcus suddenly sends her a text.

"Mags, I'm running a little late. Please forgive me. I won't be too long."

Margot quickly typed out her reply. "Please hurry!"

She huddled up close to the door way as though to feel some protection from the scary possibilities as she waited for Marcus. Luckily he turned up within fives minutes and nothing happened. Marcus stepped out of his car and Margot wrapped her arms around him feeling some relief. He returned her hug but he could feel her shaking against him. Without any words he could tell there was something wrong, yet he was glad she was safe regardless to how she seemed. When he deemed her calm enough he helped her into the passenger side of his car, then he got in himself. Just before Marcus pulled away Margot screamed. She saw the recognisable figure dressed in all black, with their pink lips only visible under their hood. Marcus swiftly got out of the car leaving the engine running and the door open. Then he began chasing after the stranger across the road. Margot watched from her seat while she kept shaking and hoping Marcus is okay, as he disappeared down the dark alley after the stranger.

Marcus reemerged out into the light several minutes later. He was bent over breathing heavily from all the running. He gave himself a minute or two to catch his breath before returning to Margot. She got out of the car leaving the door wide open and raced to meet him half way. Thankfully he appeared to be unharmed. She hugged him again but tighter this time and then they made their way back, once they pulled apart. As soon as they headed back Marcus told her that the stranger managed to slip away, and he reassured her that she was safe.

Elouise and Mary attended to Margot once they'd arrived back to their student accommodation, while Marcus and Zac sat at the kitchen table talking about what happened over a beer. Of course they informed Peyton, as they knew he would want to be kept in the loop. Peyton was quick with his reply too, thanking for the update and added he would phone her in the morning to give her a chance to try and rest in the meantime.

Meanwhile Tom and Luke were chatting in his room about his schedule as usual. It may have been late, but Luke said it was too important to wait until morning. So Tom just did his best to get through to the end, after all this was the first time they'd seen each other face to face since Tom had started filming.

"Well that's all the arrangements for the BAFTA's. TV Guide Magazine have asked for you to do a chat with their Tv Insider presenter the week before the premier episode, as they're thinking of you being on the cover too. Of course there's still a lot of others who are trying to fine tune dates, but Empire Magazine are looking to do a photoshoot and full interview for their next issue. That will be in a few days before they need to sort it all out before they go to print. Now Total Film Magazine are looking around the same time as TV Guide, but yet to confirm a date properly." Luke went on for a while longer about other setups for other photoshoots, promos and interviews. "As for Unicef they are thinking now about pushing back the visit until the end of July or early August, due to Susan Kobayashi's own prior commitments in Egypt, they are keeping her there longer than originally planned. Besides I think the later date is far better for both of you. And they wish to also send you both to Yemen too." Luke said as he scrolled through his iPad and marked the changes with a digital highlighter. Then he sent it all to Tom before turning to some paperwork, that was inside the folder he brought with him too, which was already over due and needed to be sent off first thing in the morning.

"I must tell you something." Tom suddenly changed the subject as he was unable to continue any longer otherwise.

"What is it?" Luke's expression changed from business to friend who looked at him with concern.

Tom cleared his throat first. "I erm...have been sleeping around still, before you say anything I know you don't prove. Especially after what happened with Kristen and I can tell you this time would have been worse. I won't say what exactly, you'll only get mad. The point is-is that I have decided to stop. I shouldn't have started these love affairs in the first place...I've just haven't been in the right frame of mind as you well know. It is still unclear even to myself why I went down this road. Although, I can assure you that I am going to stand on my own two feet and clear the air." Tom confessed.

Luke nodded in understanding upon hearing Tom's confession. "I hope you're ok, Tom. I know I've been hard on you about everything for the past year, I've only done so for your own benefit. We've been friends as long as we've worked together, and you know full well I think about your best interests and wellbeing first. On the other hand I'm glad you have stopped this nonsense with these women. You're much better off." Luke said with a small smile.

"I too. It has been more of a burden anything." Tom lightly chuckled and received a clap to his shoulder. Things between them were better now, more back to a normal and stress free now that the air was cleared.

They spent the next half hour finishing up with the over due paperwork, before Luke left with everything and headed to his own room for the night. When Tom was alone he changed ready for bed and felt as though a weight had lifted off of his shoulders. No more pressure to please women, no more hiding his love affairs from the public eyes, and no more hiding anything else from his friends.

Sunday 11th April 2021

Margot had finally gotten a new car a week ago. Everyone had advised her to finally get around to it and they felt she would feel safer that way too. So far they were right she did feel safer driving around than walking everywhere. Also it meant she didn't have to rely on the others for lifts either.

Despite that she'd missed a lot of uni, she only attended some days, which meant her part was given to someone else. And they ended up giving her a much smaller part, an extra part in only three scenes with two lines. But she was glad to still be involved in some way, as they were split up into various smaller groups, and perform short plays in nearby schools. Two groups per school also her group were to perform Dick Whittington. Even though uni wasn't going all too well she was at least making money while working, and she wasn't spending all her time in her room. This way everyone could relax a little knowing she was standing on her own two feet, or at least a little bit, and they were still there to help her out when she needed. And as Margot is completely all over the place these days, she knew she wouldn't be any fun company to have around for Peyton's birthday (May 26th). However she promised to spend time with him no matter what with the added fact that she wanted to too. And Margot had eventually sent Nora and Ryan a letter. The letter was a lot shorter than normal and by the end of it it didn't seemed hardly worth it. She kept out many details and it seemed so distant, she just couldn't bring herself to tell them much.

After Margot finished her shift in the late afternoon she was going to drive down to see Mary and see if she wanted to get food, however on her way she noticed the road was blocked with a detour. As the car park she wanted wasn't too far from where Mary worked at the V & A Museum, which is close by The Royal Albert Hall, (Mary had gotten the job in the cafe about the same time Margot was getting stalked). Margot soon spotted a bearded man dressed in a security uniform with hi vis vest over the top, he seemed to be talking to the drivers ahead of her. Whatever was going on Margot had now wished she had texted Mary beforehand, as it would have been better that way. As Margot drove forwards she eventually made it to the front of the queue. Then she was asked if she was apart of the staff, or an invited guest to the 74th British Academy Film Awards. As soon as she was asked her breath felt as though it was sucked out of her, and her heart began pounding loudly in her chest. The possibility of Tom attending she thought could be high. When she managed to come back to reality she shook her head no and was then redirected to the detour lane.

Once Margot managed to find a place furthest away to park from all the other cars waiting in the queue, she gripped the steering wheel tightly and tried to take deep breaths. It took several minutes before she deemed herself fine enough before texting Mary and waited for a reply.

"Oh god, sorry Mags! I totally forgot the BAFTA's was happening today, until I got in this morning. The museum closed early and things were getting setup for the fans to come and go, you know if they want to use the facilities. Or if they would like some drinks or food from the cafe. I won't be done until late, sorry again. I'll see you when I get back x" Margot understood and let Mary know as much, before she made her way back to her student accommodation.

As time went on and the BAFTA's was starting Elouise had switched on the telly ready. She sat there all giddy, while the boys where too busy playing some sort of card game at the kitchen table. Margot wanted to just grab a drink and leave but the boys insisted she play with them. She caved and sat down with them and they changed the game to Black Jack. Ten minutes later Margot heard someone talking on the red carpet mention Tom's name, which made her look her up from the game. Her breath hitched in her throat upon seeing him dressed so formally in his black tucks and bowtie. His hair was a littler shorter than he had it the last time she saw him, so was his beard shorter and he was looking incredible handsome as ever. 

Of course Margot noticed he was with an equally beautiful woman dressed in a lovely slim fitting sparkly dress, who was introduced to the at home audience as Gugu Mbatha-Raw his Loki co-star. They greeted the fans as they went along the red carpet, signing some autographs and taking selfies. The fans were screaming and all round exploding with excitement. Even though Margot wanted to avoid this, it was actually harder than she thought, and it was like she was fixed on the screen. She just couldn't turn and run like she her mind wanted. However, the boys were worried as to why she was in this state. Zac reached his hand over and squeezed her hand, his action made Margot jump back in her seat. Her eyes manage to then snap away from the screen.

"What's the matter Margot?" Zac asked gently, while still holding onto her hand and softly running his thumb over the back of it.

"Nothing!" Margot replied, although her voice was telling a different story, as her voice was at a higher octave than normal. And because she leaped up onto her feet right after manifested towards her bizarre behaviour. 

"Are you sure?" Zac asked as Margot seemed to be glued now to her standing spot, and Elouise had turned around her heard by this point too, she too was also looking worryingly towards Margot.

"Mags?" Elouise asked softly after a minute of silence within the room, but Margot said nothing. Elouise decided to turn the telly off to see if it would make a difference. It did, as Margot let tears fall, even though she didn't notice she was. However, her breathing was shallow and her body started shaking too. "Mags, is it you know...a certain someone who's making you behave this way?" Elouise asked once she made her way to Margot and gripped her upper arms firmly, but not in a hurtful manner.

Margot still couldn't say a word so she settled for nod in agreement instead. Elouise then gave Margot a half smile, before wiping away her tears from her cheeks, while the boys watched what was going on. Although, the boys had no clue that it was Tom who had effected her so. They thought it was her mind playing tricks on her about the stalker, or do to with something else that popped into her mind. They soon packed up the cards as Elouise guided Margot upstairs to sort her out, once the cards were away Marcus called Peyton to let him know what had happened. 

Wednesday 26th May 2021

Margot traveled back to Oxford as soon as uni was done for the day. She was exhausted the entire way there, but she promised to spent time with Peyton for his birthday, and she wanted to too. However, as soon as Peyton opened the door to his place the two of them enveloped into a tight embrace, Peyton also kissed Margot on her cheek before they pulled apart. Margot then picked up the gift bag she placed on the door step and handed it to him. He took it gratefully with a smile, then he led her inside and closing the door behind them. He soon took her by the hand to the living room. The room was filled with his family members, a few co-workers and Samuel too. In fact as soon as Samuel saw Margot he took her into his arms and gently rubbed his hand up and down her back. This was the closest and most caring affections she'd ever received from him before. Yet, she welcomed it. Peyton's Mum also gave her a loving embrace and whispered a few words into her ear, words of caring encouragement. Once they pulled apart Margot thanked her and smiled a little before taking a seat.

The little get together was more fun than Margot thought. Although, as she expected she wasn't the life of the party, but she did laugh and forget everything for a few hours. Of course that was the most important aspect of her time there. Margot even had a little to drink too as she knew that she wouldn't be leaving until the next morning anyway. Yet, she knew she couldn't drink too much, as she'd have to travel back to London quite early, in order to not be overly late for uni.

Peyton was happy to see Margot enjoying herself, despite everything that's been going on and he knew it wasn't over just yet. He was even in two minds as of late about talking to Tom, as he was the one who brought her back safely after the stalker incident. But every time he was close to getting in touch with Luke to get in touch with Tom, he found he couldn't do it. Tom still hadn't bothered cleaning things up with her. With those thoughts they only aggravated him to the core, all he wanted was for Tom to talk to her, like he said he would. Also as Peyton couldn't bring himself to make contact it slightly increased his other side of accepting it may never happen. Including thoughts about Marcus might be a better match for Margot. Even though deep, deep down Peyton was secretly still rooting for Tom to step up and be a man.

When all the guests left in the late hours Margot fetched her over night bag in from her car. Peyton had hugged Margot and kissed her cheek again. All before allowing her to settle down for the night in the spare bedroom, (Peyton had gotten a bigger place recently as he hoped that Samuel would move in, in the near future). Samuel had hugged again too, before wrapping an arm around Peyton's waist and then they headed towards the master bedroom. Margot quickly removed her plain cream summer dress and light brown sandals, followed by her knickers and bra then replaced it all with her shorts and top green pajamas set. She soon turned the light off and settled down on the unfamiliar bed, with a light blanket draped over her. She lay there and stared into the darkness, with all the thoughts returning to the forefront of her mind, the thoughts she had cased away for the past few hours away. Ten minutes later Margot heard Peyton hushing Samuel, as they made love through the thin walls. Which made her groan quietly to herself as she turned over onto her left side, and buried her head under the barley used fluffy pillow.

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Tom had gotten in late after a night out for drinks with the same friend who didn't turn up over Christmas. It was fun for him to let loose and catch up with his friend. As it turns out his friend's wife had gone into labour early, and between then and now they hadn't had time to get together. Tom of course had congratulated him on the birth of his son, it was certain something to celebrate. Although it was a celebration over due and shared it over a late drink for Tom's 40th, Tom didn't want to get drunk. He'd drank enough to feel a little merry, but nothing more. Also it was a nice night out after filming finished a few days ago. Right now he was letting Bobby out the back while he checked his friend got home okay. They'd taken a taxi home as neither had driven. After a couple of minutes he received a text telling him his friend had gotten home safety. Once Bobby was done he scratched at the back door to be let in. Tom tucked his phone into his pocket and let Bobby in. Then the pair got ready for bed ready for a new busy day ahead of them.

Wednesday 9th June 2021

While at uni Margot, Jeff and a bunch of others were working together on their coursework in the library. They had to write a 1500 word evaluation on their performances for each school their groups visited. However Margot still had to complete work on her last unit, which was covering current trends within the Performing Arts Industry, and include all the research and links too. Also she still had to write 2500 words on method acting and imaginative acting, as well as comparing and contracting the two, on top of her evaluation. Luckily Margot had caught up on everything else prior to this work load, thanks to Mary and Elouise helping her out. But she had until Monday to complete everything and study for the end of year exam. Due to how close the exam was and the amount of work she still has, all made her feel far from being prepared. An hour and a half later Jeff had completed his evaluation and emailed it over. Then he decided to scroll through his social media for the reminder of their independent study session. During the course of the hour and a half, he kept glancing over at Margot from across the table, occasionally she caught him looking and she tried to smile at him. But she felt uneasy at the same time, although, she didn't understand fully why she felt that way towards him. Yet, she thought it had something to do with the recent stalker issue. As the stranger who has been stalking her ever since March has made her feel uneasy, most of the time, which ultimately has her on edge with anxiety. She even felt ashamed by it all, and Jeff seemed harmless ever since he opened up a lot since the academic year started. Albeit, he has his quirks as anybody does, but again Margot was getting an uneasy feelings from him too. In fact the more she thought about Jeff and his recent behaviour, she found that he's been acting a little differently as of late. Not that she could pin point exactly at that moment when the change occurred. 

Later on when their independent study session was over Margot was the last to pack up her things and leave the library, as she made her way to Mrs Shaw's lesson she bumped into Jeff.

"Erm...hi, Jeff." Margot said feeling a little tense all of a sudden.

"Hi, Margot!" Jeff beamed. They may have spent their entire independent study session together, but they hadn't spoken a word until now. "Can I walk with you to Mrs Shaw's?" He asked as he walked beside her.

"I guess." Margot replied gathering she didn't really have a choice, as he was already walking next to her.

"Did you finish up on your evaluation?" Jeff asked still sounding too happy, yet there was still that ever present off feeling about him, which was lurking in the air around him.

"Ye-yeah, I emailed it over." Margot stuttered.

"Great! One other thing to check off your list." Everyone knew Margot was behind so it didn't sound weird. "May I say something?" He continued while now walking ahead of her slightly.

"Sure?" Margot wasn't sure what else to say or how to sound less anxious.

"I've noticed you are looking tried lately. I hope you're alright and if there's anything I can do to help...make you feel more relaxed just let me know. Ok?" His words made Margot stop abruptly in her tracks. She blinked hard a couple of times in between stares, as he stood before her with his current smile across his thin pink lips, which felt a little too creepy for her liking.

"No. No thank you." Margot pushed past him and quickly walked away, then diverted from her destination into the female toilets. 

Margot locked herself into one of the stalls while bracing her back against the door. She began breathing rapidly as her heart skipped beats and her head started to ache, along with a spinning feeling taking over. Jeff's creepy smile seemed to embed itself into her mind, which only increased how she currently felt.

Twenty minutes into Mrs Shaw's lesson she sent Elouise and Mary to go find Margot. They split up and looked everywhere they knew Margot could possibly be. Eventually Elouise decided to call Margot as the search was fruitless. The phone rang almost until the end before Margot picked up.

"Mags, where are you? Mary and I have been looking everywhere. We're worried about you!" Elouise clearly sounded panicked. 

"I'm-I'm..." Margot sounded breathless down her end and on the verge of tears.

"Margot, you sound awful! What's wrong? Where are you?" Elouise tried to sound a little calmer to keep Margot calm.

"I-I...'m scared. Oh god, I can't breath." Margot said before Elouise heard the phone being dropped, followed by a loud thud. 

Elouise quickly hung up on her end and thought there was one other and last possibly place Margot could be. So she raced to the nearest female toilets but she wasn't there. Then she thought about the fact Margot had gone to the library last lesson, while she and Mary had been down by the race track watching the sporty students run around. Along with the knowledge of Margot's last whereabouts Elouise ran towards the toilets that weren't far from there. Upon entry she could see Margot lying on the floor in one of the stalls. She quickly reached the stall and tried to break the door off, however her efforts were useless. As Elouise took a few calming breaths she texted Mary to get help and informed her of their location. Within minutes Mary, Mrs Shaw, a nurse and the caretaker all showed up. The caretaker managed to get the stall door open without any trouble, then the nurse took over and checked to see if Margot was alright. Luckily there was no bleeding or broken bones, yet she was going to have bruises no matter what. Eventually they moved Margot to a more comfortable place in the nurse's office. When Margot finally came to her vision was blurry for a bit as her eyes adjusted to the light. The nurse asked her a few questions and jotted the answers down, then instructed for Margot to go home right away with some pain killers, along with a note to see a doctor as soon as possible. 

As Mary drove back to their student accommodation it was rather quiet. Elouise had chose to ride in the back of Margot's car with Margot resting her head on her shoulder, and Elouise ran her hand softly up and down Margot's arm to comfort her. Mary had Marcus pick up her car from the uni car park at the end of the day. Marcus didn't drive that morning as he'd lost his keys somewhere, and Mary gave him a lift there. Also her keys were dropped off at the front desk before they left.

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Despite what happened earlier Margot sneaked out the front door and drove off to the theatre where her drama group was. For some reason she felt she needed to be there or at least try to be. As she stopped at a red light and waited for the lights to change she looked up out of her door side window, and looked up at a nearby advertisement board, which displayed the official Loki poster. She hadn't been able to get away from seeing Tom plastered everywhere for the past few days. And as she was so busy staring up at the poster she didn't snap out of the moment until the cars behind her beeped, telling her the lights had changed. She then quickly drove on and within no time she arrived at the theatre. When she stepped out of her car her phone went off as a text came through. She sighed and took her phone out of jeans' back pocket.

"Mags, where did you?" Elouise's text read.

"Out. I'm okay, be back later. Promise." Margot replied then entered the theatre.

For the duration of the theatre group session Margot was completely out of it. Her mind elsewhere while everyone else got up to perform their prepared monologues. When it came to her turn she stood on unsteady feet and somehow got through her monologue. She performed the Antigone monologue, that she used to audition for 'How to succeed in business without really trying.' Everyone was stunned by her performance as they never seen her this good before and they applauded loudly. Margot barley smiled when she heard what seemed like faint applause to her. She soon sat down and realised her current state somehow made her put on her best performance of the year, and she didn't see how it really was possible. Also it didn't even count towards her final grades.

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As the evening was drawing to a close the boys had planted themselves in front of the telly, pop corn was wedged between them in a large bowl, with various other snacks on the table in front of them. Along with their beers and cokes in a little cooler sat beside the sofa. They hadn't seen the last couple of episodes of The Falcon and the Winter Solider, so they wanted to binge them before moving onto Loki. They'd watched everything else prior to those episodes including Wandavision. They were clearly behind on their Marvel viewing as they've been so busy, and they would only watch them when Margot was present too. They knew she was the only other huge fan of Marvel, therefore it became they thing to do together. Whereas Mary and Elouise were only in it for the Chrises (Evans and Hemsworth), or Tom if they were in the mood for older Marvel content and if the others had it on. Margot may have had conversations with the boys but she avoided anything related to Loki, although she was not successful every time. Her photos from New York gave the boys clear sings that she was a fan, but they found it strange that she wouldn't talk about it.

Luckily as Marcus loaded up Disney+ on the telly, Margot had arrived from her drama theatre group session. She dropped everything by the door of the room and leaned on the door frame with a large sigh.

"Mags, it's good that you're home! Where have you been?" Marcus asked while standing up abruptly. His face was screwed up with worry making Margot feel bad, also she could see the same expression on Zac's face too. 

"I needed to get out for a bit. I was fine, I just went to the theatre. It is Wednesday." Margot shrugged.

"Next time if that's where you are, just say so. Elouise was pissed off with your reply. We're all worried with the stalker being out there still." Marcus said while closing this distance between himself and Margot. Then he rubbed hands gently up and down her arms.

"I'm sorry, I know...just...at the time it seemed the right thing to do." Margot replied giving him an innocent yet sad expression."

We're happy you're safe." Zac shimmed in for the first time. "Come sit with us, we're about to watch the last couple of episodes." He added excitedly.

"Sure, give me five and I'll be right with you." Margot said and raced upstairs with her bag and changed into her pajamas. Now she was back again she was finally not feeling as out of it, nor was she still 100% either.

When Margot headed back down Marcus got the remote to hover over The Falcon and the Winter Solider box, which is on the continue watch list. And as Margot got closer to them Zac moved the pop corn out of her way, so she could get comfy in the middle. She settled down on the sofa with her legs crossed underneath her, then she grabbed the pop corn from Zac and placed it in her lap, just before Marcus clicked continue on the next screen.Once they finished the last The Falcon and the Winter Solider episodes and watched to the very end, as tradition the boys stretched out a little. Margot by this point had uncrossed her legs in order to stretch them out too. They had also taken it in turns for a bathroom break in between episodes. Margot thought now they'd finished the episodes that they were going to head to bed, but.... 

"Loki time!" The boys yelled in unison, but were surprised when Margot hadn't joined in.

"We thought you'd be more excited." Zac said while he frowned his brows.

"Yeah, I mean he's your favourite, right?! I mean it's obvious when we've had these conversations. It's like your eyes secretly light up, if only briefly. Besides he's up on your wall too." Marcus playfully nudged Margot with his elbow. Margot had no idea that she reacted in such away about Tom, or in fact about Loki, during the conversations that she may have not avoided. However, she knew it was not the best idea to see Tom on screen right now, the poster advertisement was enough for her for one day.

"This is Loki's big moment!" Zac added. " He's literally taken over the Earth." Marcus chuckled along.

"I'm tried that's all. Margot said as she yawed. She was tried after such a long day so in that sense she wasn't lying. However, she knew deep down she'd been looking forward to this day for ages. Yet, everything between herself and Tom started to get to her for the billionth time. Even though the last she saw him he was being kind and helped her when she needed someone."I'm going to turn in. Maybe another night." She added and swiftly left the room.

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Tom felt exhausted after all the interviews and various other Loki promotions. He'd been up since 5am and on the go none stop, it was now 1:40am the following morning, and he's yet to get some sleep. He was glad that Luke was pleased with all his hard work and he'd expressed as much, before Tom left for home. Of course Tom had gone out for a walk with Bobby when he first got back and they both had some food too. Although sitting to eat was a moment to stop for a while, it just didn't really feel that relaxing until he'd showered and changed. He soon settled down on the bed with the covers laying at the bottom end. It was far too warm as of late to have them on and he found himself on occasion sleeping in his birthday suit, in order to cool down even though he had a fan on and the window open too.

As Tom had been so busy and had his phone on silent most of the day he thought he should return some messages before settling down. He had hundreds of notifications from Twitter and Instagram alone. He had serval text messages and many missed phone calls too. Clearly everyone was going crazy over the Loki premier episode. Well in fact he knew for the past few months things have been flooding the internet, especially when all the promos, teasers and interviews began to surface and circulate around. He was proud of himself and everyone who have been involved in the series, more so than ever as of late. As he scrolled through Twitter he smiled at seeing how many fans used the new Loki emojis and laughed at a few tweets. He didn't spend too long on Twitter or Instagram as he noticed Mark Ruffalo for one was trying to get his attention on Twitter to get a text. So Tom sent him a quick text among texts to the other Avengers, both to the original six and those who later joined. As for the phone calls he'd missed he just text a text telling them he'd phone back for a proper chat when he gets a chance tomorrow. Once he was done he turned the lamp off and settled down and Bobby had come to lay on the bottom end of the bed, he curled up in no time flat.

Thursday 10th June 2021

Margot was driving to work and she still felt worn-out from yesterday. However, she was asked to go in early to cover a shift, which meant she had a much longer shift, although it meant she didn't have to work again later. Even though she needed the time to catch up on her coursework. Yet, she accepted anyway. For most of her way she'd blocked out the sound of the radio, right until she immediately hears Tom's voice echoing from the speakers. She draws in a sharp breath upon hearing his laugh. She'd missed it, missed hearing his laugh. After a moment longer Margot turned the radio off and continued on her way in silence.

Later on when her dance lesson was over she made her way to her car, but she failed to hear the stranger walk up directly behind her, as her mind had drifted back Tom for the 100th time that day. The stranger's presents wasn't known to her until she leaned inside her car on the passengers side, and she felt them squeezing her hip firmly. Margot screamed in shrill of a voice as her blood ran cold. The stranger quickly let her go and whipped around to scan the area and someone from Margot's dance class had heard her screaming. Margot had swiftly got in her and tried to close the door, but the stranger was in the way for a bit. They soon fled though as they knew they weren't alone, then the stranger disappeared down the road. The person from Margot dance class went to check on her and she looked pale. They stayed with her until she said she was fine and drove away.

Once back at her student accommodation she rushed up to her room and hid under her covers for a while. She was alone and shaking. Eventually she forced herself to continue with her coursework and when the other came back they had no idea what had happened. She didn't tell them. They just left her to finish. She never even told Peyton either.

Thursday 24th June 2021

Thankfully the first year of uni had finished finally the week before and Margot felt the weight of the work load had let up. Despite that though the waiting for the results from the end of year exam was worrying her, on top of still being stalked and feeling on edge most of the time. Also she had allowed the boys to the Loki episodes on which were available thus far. She had found herself able to watch even though found herself crying during the first episode when Tom had, even in later moments when he wasn't. In fact the entire time they watched Loki she shedded a few times on and off, although she still laughed at the right movements too. Marcus had put his arm around her to comfort her after a while, she responded well as she leaned her head on his shoulder. Marcus smiled at that and squeezed her arm a little too. Zac had seen Margot rest her head on Marcus and sent him a smile his way, he was rooting for them to get together.

Currently though Margot had an early shift now that uni was over, which meant finishing early in the afternoon. Or at least she was free after 3pm until her dance lesson at 7pm. Albeit before she left everyone was surprised that Margot seemed to be fine, as she hadn't slept much. Also considering it was the 3rd anniversary of her Dad Ethan's death. Yet they knew if she were to spiral down they'd be there to catch her.

During Margot's break Peyton phoned her up to check on her.

"Hi Mags, how are you?"

"Hi P, I'm doing fine. Just on lunch. How's things with you?" Peyton could tell there was something off in her tone of voice, but he didn't mention it as he didn't want her to hang up on him.

"Oh good. Yeah fine, fine. Sammy and I are going to go visit your Dad this afternoon and take him some flowers. We'll catch him up on us and work." Peyton tried to sound delicate about mentioning Ethan, especially today of all days.

"Awh, I'm sure he'd love to see you both. Tell him I'll come see him soon!" Margot said in an eerily happy voice.

"Yes, I'll tell him." They talked a little longer before Margot had to go back to work.

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As Margot headed towards her car after her dance lesson she felt as though the stranger was nearby staring at her, yet out of her sight. She may have felt uneasy but the distance was good, or so she decided it was. When she did reach her car there was a note under the window wiper, which made her franticly look around to see if the stranger had moved. There appeared not to be no sighting. She took a shaky breath as she removed the note from the window wiper and unfolded the paper. The handwriting was scruffy and small, but also all too familiar. Not that she could at that moment place where she'd seen the writing before.

"My dearest Margot,

I have been admiring you from afar longer than you think. It took me what felt like an eternity to actually become comfortable to get as close to you, as I have as of late. I did not mean to scare you when I squeezed your hip. I only wanted to touch you. You have lovely birth baring hips by the way. Do not take this compliment as something to be scared of or take affiance to, it is how I see your body. You are a beautiful woman Margot. Also I am not a man who is all about looks, no, I am too old fashioned in that respect.

Your smile is sweet, your laugh is music to my ears and you have a great personality. Also you are a very talented actor, singer and dancer. I know you will go far in life.

Again when you sense or see me nearby, I do not wish to cause you harm or make you feel scared. I wish to only get to know you and touch you. To know Your likes, your dislikes, day to day routine and to know how your naked body moves. I am desperate to know how to woo you properly and how to please you physically.

A lady such as yourself with all the beauty you behold means you deserve to be wooed with precise perfection. Which I cannot give you unless I know every ounce of you.

My old fashioned ways guarantee you shall only receive the best from me.

All my love,

Your dark knight x

P.s get a goodnights sleep, you look awfully tried." Read the note.

Margot quickly crumpled up the note once she read it and threw it onto the floor of the passenger side of her car, and dumped her gym bag onto the seat. Next she hoped into the drivers seat and started up the engine as she took in another couple of shaky breaths, all before pulling away and driving back to her study accommodation.

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Straight after Margot had parked up outside her student accommodation, retrieved her gym bag and locked her car she raced inside. Marcus heard the front door opening and catch the tail end of Margot racing upstairs. He decided to head up after her and he found Margot with her knees held up to her chest, while she was rocking herself back and forth. She was also muttering to herself which was barley audible to his ears.

"Margot? Margot, it's me. Ssshhh." Marcus spoke softly and sat beside her, then ran his hand up and down her back. "What happened?" He asked and Margot's muttering stopped, but she never answered his question. Although tears began rolling down her cheeks causing Marcus to wrap his arm around her, pulling her closely to his side causing her to stop rocking.

A good twenty minutes later Margot had finally stopped crying, but still refused to speak, or at least about what happened. Yet Marcus had an inkling that it was the stalker. However, Margot made Marcus leave her alone, so she could shower and change ready for bed. He did as she asked of him and thought it would be best to phone Peyton in the mean time.

"Hi Peyton, it's me Marcus. Margot is crashing fast and she won't tell me what happened. All I know is she's looking and sounding worse than ever. She's working a lot and running on very little sleep. I think she'll start up the home movies, just like you said she might. " Marcus explained.

"Hi Marcus. Fuck, I wish I could be there more often for her. I truly thought she was ready to move back, to start over...to follow her dreams. Now I fear she's far from it. The shit won't stop hitting the fan." Peyton sighed heavily with frustration.

"I agree. Only if we took her out she may never come back."

"No, you're right. She may never go back again. I have to go. There's a lot I need to organise for tomorrow's meeting. I'll call her on my lunch break. Thanks for calling." Peyton spoke honestly, as he was swamped with paperwork and all sorts of files, that he needed to go through before the ten o'clock meeting.

"Right, will do. Bye." Marcus said and they both hung up. Then Marcus slumped down on the sofa barely paying any attention to what was on the telly, which he left on before heading up to see Margot.

Once Margot got out of the shower and got changed, she turned on her computer and began watching home videos, just like Marcus thought and said to Peyton that she would. She needed the outlet after holding herself back from doing so much sooner. She has been plummeting down into this spiral depression state for quite some time now, and she wasn't sure how much longer it was going to continue to suffocate her. She needed her Dad right now. She needed Peyton. After a few minutes in Margot was crying again, while she was watching the home movies and she began rocking herself like more before. Legs up to her chest and rocking back and forth on her bed, but with her computer now sat in front of her, and the light emitting from it being the only light source in the darkness.

An hour later Elouise had come into the room and found Margot in laying on her side with her legs held close to her chest. Her cheeks stained with her tears and more yet to spring from her eyes. Elouise could hear laughter from what Margot was watching, which was followed by a young  girl's soft voice speaking, and then an older male voice naming said girl as Margot. Elouise knew it had to be the home movies. She carefully made her way over to Margot's bed and tried to take away her computer, gently from her hands after Margot went to snatch it closer. Eventually Elouise was successful and hid her computer away for now. She left the room to grab Margot a glass of water, then she sat next to her coxing her to sit and have a drink. Margot did sit up after a couple of minutes and slowly sipped the water. As she drank Elouise started stroking her hair to try and comfort her. It did help a little to begin with until Margot flinched and moved away, causing Elouise to sigh and take the glass from Margot. She placed the glass down within reach for her and then she took a shower herself before turning in for the night.

Monday 28th June 2021

It was only four days since Margot had read the note she found under her window wiper, four days since the anniversary of her Dad's death, four days since things got worse. Despite she was slowly trying to rebuild back to a more stable manner and start anew, everything felt more out of her reach than ever. Not only that she hated feeling like this and crying all the time. Although she was lucky to have such good friends and their support around her. However, she hadn't told anyone still about the note and the words were constantly on her mind. Whenever she used her car though she just had to have the crumpled up paper hidden under a blanket. It was out of sight even if not out of her mind.

Margot had an hour's worth of sleep before her alarm went off. Work again. She didn't want to get fired so she kept forcing herself to go, despite really wanting nothing more than to sit in the dark and block out the world around her, just like before. During her shift however, she tried her best to get on with it even though she was spaced out, and her manager received a number of complaints about her behaviour.  And before leaving her manager sat her down and had a little chat with her. Her manager pointed out the dark circles under her eyes and clear to see given her face is bare, which seems to be more often than not as of late. Her manager had included points about her absents has been noted as the reasoning for the dark circles, and they express their worry too. Margot eventually reassured them she was fine and was still perfectly fit to work. The weird bubble aura had been just as present in her life since Elouise had noticed it, the denial eating away at her. There was a bit of a twitch to Margot's left eye as the stress and lack of sleep taking its toll on her, a slight crack in her mask too clear to ignore.

When Margot was allowed to finally leave she found herself on the road heading to Oxford. However, during her journey she felt as though she was being followed, followed closely behind but not too close to be overly noticeable. She had turned the radio on for a while during the drive, but she couldn't find anything good to listen to. So she turned it off and switched to her own music playlist instead. She thought it was far better than being left in silence with her own mind.

After the drive Margot had parked outside a florist first. She picked out a lovely bouquet of mixed flowers and wrote out a small note on a card to add to them. She paid for them and as she left the flower shop she found another note under her window wiper as she approached her car. She'd never seen anyone near her car while she was inside nor now that she was out in the open. She gulped hard and removed the note from the window wiper to read it.

"Dearest Margot,

I know why you've come here to Oxford. I know all about your late father. My condolences. Just know I am not far away. I will be watching over you while you visit him.

All my love,

Your dark knight x" Margot shivered as she crumpled the note up just like the last one. Then she put it next to the other one under the blanket on the passenger side of her car. She soon began on her way again but she had to wipe away tears from her eyes a number of times, as she didn't want her vision to be compromised while driving.

Twenty-five minutes later Margot arrived at Ethan's grave. She stood there staring at his headstone with her tears now freely falling, her breath shallow once again and she hadn't stopped shaking since she read the note. And just like the note had said he was watching her from a far. She'd caught him hiding during the daylight behind a tall tree a few feet behind her. She had heard a snapping of a twig causing her to look around after being there for a few minutes. Also considering how hot the weather is he still wore the same all black outfit, surely it would be rather stuffy in it. Not that she would have care if he had suddenly fell to the hard ground from a heat stroke. However, Margot tried not too look at him for too long as she wanted this time with her Dad anyway. She misses him terrible.

"Dad, I feel...lost. I know what I want to do. I want to act still, but I don't know if I can cope. The man over there has been following me since March. He and other things have been diverting me off my path..." Margot whispered quietly enough for the stranger not to hear her, and she'd knelt down to make the moment more personal between herself and Ethan. "Of course Peyton has been there for me every step of the way, even though we're miles apart...he'd told me that he was coming to visit you last week. I'm sure he told you on my behalf that I was coming soon...I miss you so much." Margot started sobbing softly and trailed off from what else she was going to say.

Next Margot lay down the bouquet on Ethan's grave before she stood up to her full hight. Then she kissed her fingers and lay it to Ethan's name and wiped away her tears with her other hand. As she began to walk away she directed her eyes to the stranger and keeping her distance. He pulled his hood down further so she couldn't see his face as she past. She wanted to run but her fear forbid her from trying, as he might chase her back to the safety of her car. Once there was a fair bit of distance between her and Ethan's grave the stranger had continued to follow behind, and watching her get into her car. He watched her drive away from the gates of the grave yard.

Tom Hiddleston Masterlist

Source: @viviennes-tears​

#are you following me mr hiddleston #fanfiction #tom hiddleston #tom hiddleston fanfiction #hiddles #HIDDLESTONERS #betrayal #Harold Pinter #charlie cox #Zawe Ashton #margot foster #chapter 21 #viviennes-tears

[annetteblog]

The photo you posted earlier got me thinking about Jikook and the Red Bullet Tour in 2015. The performances from then were spellbinding. The energy! The youthful rebellion! The HEART! Bangtan did that! However, there is one little part of it that beautifully highlights the way Bangtan have evolved as queer allies since 2015. It's the part with the bed and the pushing. The song 'Blanket Kick' (also known as 'Embarassed') featured staging with a bed. There was some awkward pairing off between members and sometimes some of them would suggestively push one another onto the bed. What I see in some footage looks to be nothing more or less than classic kpop appropriation if BL vernacular. Neither 'bad' or ill intentioned, the gay undertones were likely meant as a playful capitulation to their fans fantasies. It was what it was.

Despite South Korea being a technologically advanced and globalized nation, it's progress in LGBTQ+ issues is stalled (as you have discussed in many of your amazing blog posts). In the face of this, homoeroticism performed by ostensibly cis het pop stars has long held commercial/selling appeal in Kpop. Traditionally, this pseudo gayness has NOT been a tool of defiance against prevailing homophobic attitudes. It did not support actual LGBTQ people when, say, GDragon and TOP kissed on a variety show, but rather, functioned at their expense (I love GD and literally SO MANY second gen kpop guys did the same thing so I don't want to seem like I am picking on them). Traditonal homoeroticism in kpop reframed lgbtq markers as existing only for the profit and entertainment of cis het audiences. LGBTQ people do not have a public place in South Korean Society. They are excluded from representation in the media, yet their identity was (and is, hello Irene and Seulgi's 'Monster') being sold and packaged to titilate.

2015's 'Blacket Kick' was an extremely light version of this. The tone was playful and not actually erotic. But there is no doubt in my mind that if BTS were performing this song today, it would not be like this at all. This is what growth and enlightenment means. They course corrected.

The ability to delineate 'queer coding' and 'queer baiting' is an essential part of Jikook appreciation and discourse, in my opinion. Jikook appear to include queer coding in their personal and artistic expression. Their queer toned art is full of love, beauty, domesticity and subjectivity. It is never cynical or objectifying. There isn't a hint of fetishization. They read, instead, as 2 *potentially* queer artists who self produce queer toned content. GCFT and GCFS vibrate with love. The Swan duet was as transcendently beautiful as it was casually subversive. From cozy bedtimes in the blue room, to mornings in LGO, Jikook are communicating the sweetness and ordinariness of lgbt+ love. They have come so far 💜👏

Dear Anon,

I honestly don’t know what I should add to your ask, because it’s so beautifully written :) Thank you 💜 

So I guess I make a bit of a side rant 😄

I always support people’s growth in terms of thinking patterns, values, morals, etc. For me the important thing is not being totally utterly flawless, but the ability to admit your wrongs, reflect on them and move forward. Because it’s not possible to be perfect all the time and never ever make mistakes. We are all just people. So in case of BTS I really respect their courage to change. Like NJ, who admitted the wrongs of some old low-key sexist lyrics. 

As for “queer baiting”. Years ago, I was very glad to realize that BTS didn’t do this extremely cringe (for me) stuff, which some others did, because for me it was (and still is) just really awkward to watch. I remember a moment in some K-show where they appeared (but I actually don’t remember what show it was or when, something from 2016 probably??), and there was supposed to be a game with transmitting a piece of paper from member to member using only lips. So, you know, it would look like a kiss. The first person holding the paper was YG, who just coughed so it fell and said something like “did we lose?” And I was like omg I love him so muchhhh 😄

As for Jikook. Again, I am very glad to realize, that they are not creating a “cool” fetish to be sold, but their art is something way more personal and deep. For me it’s something honest, pure and sincere. 

I don’t know what else to add, so I’ll just say once again that I really love their  Black Swan duo 😄 Seriously, mesmerizing!!! 

And thank you again for such detailed ask :)

#annetteasks #jikook #kookmin

[eurosong]

Undo my ESC '21 (semi-final two)

Good afternoon folks, and welcome to the second part of Undo my ESC – my annual quest to make the year’s Eurovision better (at least, for me xD) by making a feasible change in each country – it could be something as small as altering a lyric or a staging detail, or as big as a different artist entirely winning the NF. Semi-final one was here so let's jump straight into SF2!

🇸🇲 San Marino: We're thrown into the deep end here with a fan fav that doesn't do at all for me. I'm one of maybe 5 people on the planet who prefers Freaky by far, I guess? I'm happy for Senhit to be getting so much love and for the diminutive serene republic to finally have a shot at a good result - but I'm not so keen on the way it's been done. There's a bit of cognitive dissonance for me because my favourite thing about Adrenalina is Flo Rida's rap, but I don't like the idea of bringing in famed American artists like "ringers" to elevate a song above one with "only" local talent. I would be so tempted to give the rap part to local artist IROL instead to spit some hot bars in Italian.

🇪🇪 Estonia: I had hope this year, I really did, for my era of absolutely adoring Estonia at ESC to be revived after 4 painful years. There were so many good songs at this year's Eesti Laul, like those of Ivo Linna, Egert, Gram of fun, Heleza - but ultimately, my huge favourite was, as expected, Jüri Pootsmann. Anyone who followed this blog back in 2016 knows how much I adore Jüri and was desperate to see him get a redemption arc at ESC itself. Magus melanhoolia was one of the best songs of the season for me and one of the best stagings. As much as I prefer '20 artists to get their shot in '21, problematic Uku with his toxic ex vibes song will have to step aside and let the Jüri renaissance happen here.

🇨🇿 Czechia: I really dig Benny Cristo - he has personality, presence and his own enjoyable style. At first I was kinda disappointed with Omaga because I was expecting something more in the vein of Kemama, with more pronounced Afrobeat influences. But it has grown on me a lot too. My change? Add more Czech than just one blink-and-you-miss-it line, mate! (Article continues below)

🇬🇷 Greece: I see this being talked up as potential televote top 3 and I just don't get it. Maybe it's the way the chorus rhymes dance with itself three times (and uses the term rockin' romance unironically); maybe it's the way that there are better 80s-inspired songs both in ESC and many fallen tributes in the NF season... it just leaves me cold. I actually preferred Supergirl and my change would be for Stefania to bring something with some actual Greek flair.

🇦🇹 Austria: I’ll echo what I said last year about Österreich – how did they go from Conchita to a guy who wished he wouldn’t have gay kids like this? I find both of this guy's songs insipid in different ways and I would invite Pænda back instead to avenge her getting robbed with the beautiful Limits. Or give a second shot at glory to the incredible Cesár!

🇵🇱 Poland: Unpopular opinion, but I absolutely love The Ride, and I feel bad for Alicja, but I much prefer it to Empires. What started as an ironic fondness for Rafał's cringy uncle vibes ended up being genuine appreciation - it's one of the few 80s-inspired songs that sound like they actually could have come out of that decade rather than like modern pastiches. And Raf actually does have an awkward charisma. My change - insert some Polish! Poland does so well with natural sounding bilingual efforts in JESC, they should bring it to the main contest too!

🇲🇩 Moldova: I was lowkey prepared to be disappointed by Moldova - I actually enjoyed Prison a lot and the news that they were going in a completely different direction didn't sit so well with me. And yet, I also love Sugar. Natalia's power! My changes: get rid of that weird scene with literally egg on her face - too on the nose for me. And incorporate a bit of the stellar Russian translation, Tuz bubi, because I'm always going to be advocating for more linguistic diversity xD

🇮🇸 Iceland: Daði Freyr can literally do no wrong with me. Whilst it doesn't have the same intense extra-fandom hype that Think about things did, I think I like Ten years even more. Nothing to change here.

🇷🇸 Serbia: It's no secret that Hurricane were far from my favourites at Beovizija 20, and that I find this a downgrade for Sanja compared to her powerful '16 song. And yet... Hasta la vista grew on me a lot, and so has Loco loco. It's something that is definitely scratching an itch at this year's ESC and the burst of anarchic energy it'll provide will be amazing. I am seriously tempted to change to the acoustic version, though, which has all the attitude of the original but is more beautiful for me and lets the girls' voices shine more.

🇬🇪 Georgia: Georgia keeps serving acquired tastes, and as a patron saint of marginal genres and I love them for that. This year, they've gone for something that even many fans of Tornike find hard to swallow - gone is the roaring rock of last year, replaced with a much more contemplative, soft effort that reminds me a little of Lou Reed. I enjoy both songs, but I can't deny preferring 2020. At the same time, I admire the chutzpah required to send something so different. I just wish there could be a moment to properly showcase T's powerhouse vocals.

🇦🇱 Albania: It was an odd Festival i këngës this year, outdoors in the freezing cold and without the orchestra that makes the songs soar so much more for me. Karma is a perfectly respectable winner, albeit one that lacks the immediacy and rawness of Shaj, Ktheju tokës and Mall. In my ideal alternate reälity, Arilena Ara would have been invited back. She'd bring a song as beautiful as Shaj - and not do a revamp into English that removes its edge this time.

🇵🇹 Portugal: 2015-2020 was a full on Portugal stan era for me. I want to believe that this year is an aberration and that in 2022, our lusitanian neighbours will produce the goods once again. Because ending a colossal streak of not sending songs that don't include Portuguese for this? I am baffled. I wanted the anthemic Joana do mar, produced beautifully by Luísa Sobral, or the timeless Contramão, which sounds like it escaped a Nouvelle Vague soundtrack. Saudade, Por um triz or a number of others would have been grand too.

🇧🇬 Bulgaria: I wasn't expecting much from Bulgaria - I really didn't and don't like TGS and the majority of songs in Victoria's NF-but-not-really aren't my cup of tea. I was happy she got her second chance, but resigned to not liking the song much that would get picked. And then, my fav, which was last in many community ratings, ended up being her pick. I adore GUIGO and believe it has the possibility to do very, very well at Rotterdam and be one of the 'moments' of the evening.

🇫🇮 Finland: CRIMINAL how YLE treated Aksel - it felt like he wasn't the defending champion, and that Erika Vikman had won the previous year. They also - I believe, deliberately - split his vote by making his just one of a number of ballads, so of course what stood out most were the two decidedly non-ballady songs. Finland only two years ago had a single-artist UMK. They could and should have brought it back for Aksel. I'd hope Hurt would win it, because that song is stunning.

🇱🇻 Latvia: I was, and am, delighted that Latvia stuck with Samanta Tina. The lady lives and breathes ESC, even wrote a university thesis about it, and if she tried so many times, finally won and then DIDN'T get to go to ESC, I would have gone to LTV headquarters personally to remonstrate. I really like both her songs. The moon is rising is poised, powerful and like nothing else this year. The only thing I'd change is adding some Latvian because it's a gorgeous language and we've been waiting for ages to hear it again.

🇨🇭 Switzerland: Gjon's song is once again not really my cup of tea, or tears - but I enjoy it better than last year's and I'm glad he's back. Highkey wish it did include Albanian or Romansch like confused commenters last year thought it did.

🇩🇰 Denmark: There is literally no excuse for Denmark's treatment of Ben & Tan. I'm not even a big fan of their music at all, out to not even allow them to compete in DMGP to defend their win with Iron heart? Even though there are songs that competed in DMGP that I prefer a lot, most notably Står lige her, I would probably have let them have a proper second chance.

And the automatic qualifiers voting in this semi -

🇫🇷 France: For me, France had an absolutely enthralling, sincere, perfectly Gallic entry that hit me so hard in the feels. And whilst I respect Voilà, no, that wasn't it. It was Pourvu qu'on m'aime, easily one of the best songs I heard all year inside NFs or out. I find Voilà a little too mannered and affected, whilst PQM is a shot straight from Juliette's heart into mine. In my dream, it'd have won CVQD and be receiving the same love that Voilà is right now.

🇪🇸 Spain: Whilst it is getting next to no love in the fandom and seems quite forgotten, I find Voy a quedarme one of the best songs sent from this country in several years - and I say that having preferred Memoria. I am proud of Blas and love that he had a hand in writing this song. My change? He said recently that the staging in Rotterdam won't be inspired by the poignant music video despite wanting it to be - I would incorporate elements from it in the live.

🇬🇧 United Kingdom: Frankly, I think almost all the Big 5+1 brought it this year, with the notable exception of Germany. Embers is the banger that I never thought was coming from James Newman, and it's been one of the biggest earworms of the season. I wouldn't change anything about it - I'd just ensure that the staging replicated the energy of the video as much as possible!

#eurovision #esc 2021 #opinion #eurovision song contest #eurovision 2021

[thekillerssluts]

Will Butler explains how his Harvard degree developed into his second solo album

“Yeah, it’s terrifying,” Will Butler says, pondering how it feels to be releasing music away from the umbrella of Arcade Fire.

“It’s the classic thing about all writers,” he continues. “The creative process makes them wanna puke the whole time they’re writing something, then they read something back and it makes them feel worse, then a year later they read it and think ‘yeah, it’s okay’. It’s a glorious experience, but it really makes your stomach hurt.”

On the one hand Will Butler is well accustomed to this writing process, being a multi-instrumentalist in the Canadian indie-rock band fronted by brother Win - Arcade Fire. But on his own terms, it’s an entirely new process. Butler’s second solo album Generations arrives five years after his debut Policy, a collection that rattled with a ramshackle charm and what he describes now as a ‘consciously very unproduced’ sound. Arcade Fire wound down from their Everything Now tour in September 2018, leaving Butler with the last two years of playtime. Most musicians, particularly those accustomed to big album cycles, set aside their downtime for family or other musical projects. Somehow Butler’s managed to do both while also completing a masters degree in Public Policy at Harvard.

“I went to school for a variety of reasons but there was an artistic side to it too,” he says. “I have always tried to let music and lyrics emerge from the world that I’m in; you fertilise the soil and see what grows. It was a way to better understand where we are, how we got here and what's going on. You know, ‘where am I from? What's going to happen?’” Both of these questions explored in his degree are used as fuel for Generations.

It’s easy to imagine an album by somebody who’s just pursued a Public Policy MSt to form in reams of political commentary, probably set to an acoustic guitar. However, Butler instead engages character portraits soundtracked by a broad range of thrilling sonics. Opener “Outta Here” is shrouded by a monstrous bass that lurks beneath the depths of the instrumentation before bursting out midway through. “Got enough things on my plate without you talking about my salvation,” he screams.

While the cage-rattling “Bethlehem” is mania underpinned by a thrashing guitar and bubbling synths that help lift the track to boiling point.While there’s no current world leaders namechecked or any on-the-nose political commentary across the LP, the angst of its contents is instantly tangible, backed by the intellect of somebody who’s spent the past few years studying the ins and outs of government processes. A perfect combination, you could say.

This fuel was partly discovered through Butler reconnecting with the music that defined his teenage years: namely Bjork, The Clash and Eurythmics. While these influences certainly slip into frame across Generations, they were paired with something of an unlikely muse: “I got into this habit of listening to every single song on the Spotify Top 50 every six weeks,” Butler explains. “So many of them are horrible, terrifying and just awful but there’s something inspiring about how god damn avant garde the shittiest pop music is now. Just completely divorced from any sense of reality - it’s just layers upon layers upon layers - it’s amazing. It’s like Marcel Duchamp making a pop hit every single song.”

We turn from current music to current events. Navigating Covid-19 with his wife and three kids in their home of Brooklyn, a majority of 2020 has been caught up in family time for Butler. “The summer’s been easier because everybody’s outside, whereas in spring it was like ‘it’s family time because we have to lock our doors as there's a plague outside.’” While being surrounded by the trappings of lockdown since his second solo album Generations was completed in March, the album itself wriggles with the spirit of live instrumentation, which at this point seems like some sort of relic from a bygone era."I think eventually rediscovering this album back in the live setting would be amazing - we’re a really great live band, it’s a shame to not be in front of people."

The source of this energy can be traced back to the way the songs came together; they were forged and finessed at a series of shows in the early stages of the project. “It just raises the stakes. You can tell how good or how dumb a lyric is when you sing it in front of a hundred people,” he reflects. “It’s like ‘are you embarrassed because what you’re saying is true?’ or ‘is it just embarrassing?’ It’s a good refiner for that stuff. I think eventually rediscovering this album back in the live setting would be amazing - we’re a really great live band, it’s a shame to not be in front of people.”

Like his day job in Arcade Fire, Butler’s solo live group is something of a family affair - both his wife and sister-in-law feature in the band, alongside Broadway's West Side Story star, and the student of the legendary Fela Kuti drummer, Tony Allen. Together this eclectic mix of musicians conjures an infectious spirit through the raw combination of thundering synths and pedal-to-the-metal instrumentation; an apt concoction indeed for lyrics that are attempting to unhatch the bamboozling questions that surround our current times.

The timing for Butler’s decision to study Public Policy couldn’t have been more perfect, with his course starting in the Fall of 2016. “I was at Harvard for the election which was a really bizarre time to be in a government school, but it was great to be in a space for unpacking questions like ‘my god, how did we get here?!’” he reflects, with a note of mockery in the bright voice.

“I had a course taught by a professor named Leah Wright Rigueur. The class was essentially on race in America but with an eye towards policy. The class explored what was going to happen in terms of race under the next president. The second to last week was about Hilary Clinton and the last week was about Donald Trump. We read riot reports - Ferguson in 2015, Baltimore in 2016, the Detroit uprisings in the ‘60s and Chicago in 1919 - it's certainly helping me understand the last 5 years, you know. Just to be in that context was very lucky.”

As we’ve seen with statues being toppled, privileges being checked and lyrics of national anthems being interrogated in recent months, history is a complex, labyrinthine subject to navigate requiring both ruthless self-scrutiny and a commitment to the long-haul in order to correct things. The concept of Generations shoots from the same hip employing character portraits to engage in the broader picture.

The writing, at times, is beamed from a place of disconnect (“had enough of bad news / had enough of your generation”), from a place of conscious disengagement (“I’m not talking because I don’t feel like lying / if you stay silent you can walk on in silence”) and from a place of honest self-assessment (“I was born rich / three quarters protestant / connections at Harvard and a wonderful work ethic”).

“I’m rooted in history to a fault,” he says. “My great grandfather was the last son of a Mormon pioneer who’d gone West after being kicked out of America by mob violence. He wanted to be a musician which was crazy - he got 6 months in a conservatory in Chicago before his first child was born. He always felt like he could have been a genius, he could of been writing operas but he was teaching music in like tiny western towns and he had all these kids and he made them be a family band and they were driving around the American west before there were roads in the deserts - literally just driving through the desert! He would go to these small towns and get arrested for trying to skip bills and just live this wild existence.”

Butler’s grandma, meanwhile, was just a child at this point. She went on to become a jazz singer with her sisters and married the guitar player Alvino Rey. “The fact that me and my brother are musicians is no coincidence,” he smiles. “It’s not like I decided to be a musician, it’s down to decisions that were made at the end of the 19th century that have very clearly impacted where I am today. The musical side of it is very beautiful, it is super uncomplicated and a total joy to have a tradition of music in our family...but also in the American context - which is the only context I know - it's also these very thorny inheritances from the 19th century and beyond that influence why my life is like it is.

“For me it’s like, ‘I made my money because my grandpa was a small business owner’ or ‘my grandpa was a boat builder and got a pretty good contract in WW2 and was able to send his kids to college’. Both of which are so unpoetic and unromantic but it is an important thing to talk about, that's a personal political thing to talk about; there's horrifying and beautiful aspects there.”

The lament of “I’m gonna die in a hospital surrounded by strangers who keep saying they’re my kids” on “Not Gonna Die” could well be croaked by somebody on the tail end of a life lived on the American Dream. At times, Butler plays the characters off against each other, like on “Surrender,” which chronicles two flawed characters going back and forth played by Butler’s lead vocals and his female backing singers that undermine his memory; “I remember we were walking” is cut up with the shrug of “I dunno” and “maybe so”. “I found having the backing voices there gave me something to play with,” he explains. “Either something threatening to the main character or something affirming to the main character, just providing another point of view.”

Elsewhere, “I Don’t Know What I Don’t Know” explores the feeling of being unsuitably equipped to unravel the complexities that surrounds us day-to-day. “The basic emotion of that song is very much ‘I don’t know what I can do’ which is an emotion we all have,” he ponders. “There’s also the notion that follows that, like ‘maybe don’t even tell me what to do because it’s going to be too overwhelming to even do anything’.”

Some of these portraits materialised in the aftershows Butler began hosting while on Arcade Fire’s Everything Now tour which found him instigating conversations and talks by local councilman, politicians and activists on local issues. “On some of the good nights of the aftershow town halls, you’d feel that switch away from despair and into action,” he says smiling. “The step between despair and action is possible, that sentiment isn’t spelled out lyrically on the record but it’s definitely there spiritually.”

“I learned anew what a treasure it is to have people in a room. Getting humans in a room can be absurd. And we were having from 5,000 to 15,000 people in a room every night, most of them local. I’m very comfortable with art for art’s sake; I think art is super important and it’s great people can like music that's not political. It was sort of like ‘well we’re here and I know a lot of you are thinking about the world and you’re thinking about what a shit show everything is. You want to know what we can do and I also want to know what we can do!’ So I put on these after shows.”"The dream lineup would be to have a local activist and a local politician talking about a local issue because that’s the easiest way to make concrete change."

Butler would find a suitable location near the Arcade Fire gig through venue owners who were often connected to the local music and comedy scenes to host these events. “The dream lineup would be to have a local activist and a local politician talking about a local issue because that’s the easiest way to make concrete change. Arguably, the most important way is through the city council and state government. The New York state government is in Albany, New York. The shit that happens in Albany is all super important so I wanted to highlight that and equip people with some concrete levers to pull.

“In Tampa we had people who were organizing against felon disenfranchisement, like if you’ve been convicted of a felon you couldn’t vote in Florida, and something absurd like 22% of black men in Florida couldn’t vote and there were people organising to change that - this was in 2018 - and you could just see people being like ‘holy shit, I didn't even know this was happening!’

“These were not topics I’m an expert in - it’s like these are things that are happening. The thought was trying to engage, I’m sad to not be doing something similar this Fall, I mean what a time it would have been to go around America.”

Understandably the looming 2020 election is on Butler’s radar. “It doesn't feel good,” he sighs. “I’ve never had any ability to predict, like 2 weeks from now the world could be completely different from what it is today. There was always a one-in-a-billion chance of the apocalypse and now it's like a one-in-a-million chance which is a thousand times more likely but also unlikely. It’s going to be a real slog in the next couple of years on a policy side, like getting to a place where people don’t die for stupid reasons, I’m not even talking about the coronavirus necessarily just like policy in general. Who knows, it could be great but it seems like it's going to be a slog.”

There’s a moment on the closing track “Fine”, a stream-of-consciousness, Randy Newman-style saloon waltz, where Butler hits the nail on the head. “George [Washington], he turned to camera 3, he looked right at me and said...I know that freedom falters when it’s built with human hands”. It’s one of the many lyrical gems that surface throughout the record but one that chimes with an undeniable truth. It’s the same eloquence that breaks through as he touches on the broad ranging subjects in our conversation, always with a bright cadence despite the gloom that hangs over some of the topics.

The live show is without a doubt Arcade Fire’s bread and butter. While Butler questions how realistic the notion of getting people in packed rooms in the near future is, he reveals the group are making movements on LP6. “Arcade Fire is constantly thinking about things and demoing, it's hard to work across the internet but at some point we’ll get together. It probably won’t be much longer than our usual album cycle,” he says.

You only have to pick out one random Arcade Fire performance on YouTube to see Butler’s innate passion bursting out, whether it’s early performances that found him and Richard Reed Parry adorning motorbike helmets annihilating each other with drumsticks to the 1-2-3 beat of “Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)” or the roaring “woah-ohs” that ascend in the anthem of “Wake Up” every night on tour. It’s an energy that burns bright throughout our conversation and across Generations.

https://www.thelineofbestfit.com/features/interviews/arcade-fires-will-butler-new-solo-record-generations

#Arcade Fire #generations #will butler #interview #hq

[hiphopscriptures]

Fresh Artist Fridays: Nicky Jam

This week’s Fresh Artist Friday comes with a twist. Today we are featuring Nicky Jam, a Puerto Rican reggaeton artist hailing from Boston, MA. He has just dropped his sixth studio album called INFINITY. Check out a break down of both the album and Nicky Jam’s impressive career below:

INFINITY is Nicky Jam’s most versatile album yet, taking the listener on a trip through all the genres he has mastered throughout his career. Starting with a bang, bringing his old school reggaetón sound to the forefront — yet feeling very current — the album then portrays all the different facets of Nicky’s artistry, from the raw and real rap verses to the romantic and melodic slow-tempo songs that really showcase his singing voice.

INFINITY begins with “Magnum,” an ode to old school reggaetón with a 2021 feel that will make the listener dive into the beats and rhythms and let go of their inhibitions. The track features one of “la nueva’s” (the new generation of reggaetón) most prolific voices, Jhay Cortez, adding his unmistakable style to make this meeting of two generations iconic.

“Tell me what are you going to do because I’m looking for someone who can drive it // I’m going to do to you whatever you let me // And the Magnum that protects me down below // To go all night so you don’t complain,” Nicky begins this cheeky song, while getting the listener in the mood for more, before Jhay Cortez disrupts with his unapologetic verse telling it like it is.

The music video, directed by Ariel Navarrete “NAVS” and produced by Maite Calzacorta with The Way Films, takes place in an underground party where people just enjoy the moment and live with no regrets. Throughout, flashes of both Nicky and Jhay singing on a stage are shown, matching their physical energy to the unparalleled vibes of the song, creating a visual orgasm for a track that is nothing like we’ve ever heard from the two artists.

Following “Magnum” on the album, Nicky Jam tones it down with “Miami” (6 million YouTube views), a slow-tempo romantic reggaeton that talks about missing a woman he met in Miami and the great times they had together. He then slowly turns the beat up again with “Te Hace Falta,” and “Celosa,” which features tropical vibes fused with urban sounds.

Then it’s the turn for “Se De y Se Da,” a more commercial reggaetón where Nicky asks his love interest for forgiveness, alluding that he wants to fix things and give the relationship another try. The track is followed by Nicky Jam and El Alfa’s explosive collaboration “Pikete” (14 million YouTube views), which tells the story of a woman who seems unattainable because of her beauty and attitude.

“Clavo” is up next with a more melodic tune, toning it down a bit to give way to “Te Invito” featuring up-and-coming artist Rios, which starts out as a ballad until the beat drops almost a minute into the song, transforming into a slow-tempo reggaetón that really highlights both artists distinctive voices.

Nicky Jam takes advantage of the mood to give way to “DM” featuring Manuel Turizo, which gets a bit sexier and more mysterious, talking about sliding into a woman’s DMs and trying to seduce her. “Guayaa” follows the story, as if Nicky were telling the listeners that he got the woman, and now they’re dancing, twerking, and having fun, to then give way to “Polvo,” featuring Myke Towers (93 million YouTube views), reminiscing of the fun times that ended, with a potential to reignite the flame.

The temperature rises with “Playa,” then the album takes a seductive turn with “Dándote,” to then surprise the listeners with “Melancolía,” a ballad where Nicky puts his vocal range to full display. He then ends with “Fan De Tus Fotos” featuring The King of Bachata Romeo Santos, a subtle reggaetón full of sensuality and rhythm with Romeo’s unique voice and Nicky’s distinctive flow, wrapping up Nicky’s most diverse, yet authentic project to date.

Besides the album, Nicky Jam also announced his upcoming INFINITY TOUR 2022. This will be Nicky Jam’s first official tour post-pandemic that will hit major cities across the United States and Canada. The tour will kick off in Boston on February 3, 2022, and end in Seattle on March 27, 2022 with stops in New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, Orlando, Houston, Hidalgo, Ontario, Los Angeles, and San Jose. CLICK HERE TO BUY TICKETS.

Check out his music through the links above and connect with Nicky Jam through his socials to make sure you never miss new music. Remember to follow Hip Hop Scriptures to stay updated on the latest Fresh Artist Friday.

ARTIST BIO:

Nick Rivera Caminero, Nicky Jam, is one of the pioneers of Reggaeton in the world. At the age of 11 he recorded his first album called "Diferente a los Demás." Nicky Jam reached the top of his career by achieving several radio hits such as: "Yo no Soy tu Marido," "Me voy Pal Party," "Fiel a tu Piel," "La Combi Completa," among others, that led him to travel the world and become one of the greatest international exponents of the genre. He was forced to stop his career for 3 years due to personal problems. But in 2013, he debuted his new look and came back stronger than ever. He scored five hits on the radio: "Piensas en Mí," "Curiosidad," "Juegos Prohibidos," "Voy a Beber," and the global hit "Travesuras." In February 2015, Nicky Jam teamed up with Enrique Iglesias to release "El Perdón," his most internationally acclaimed single to date. “El Perdón” reached #1 on Billboard's Hot Latin Songs chart for 30 weeks (the second longest single in chart history). In January 2016, Nicky released "Hasta el Amanecer" which also became the biggest Latin song of the year. In 2017 Nicky Jam released his hit "El Amante," and his studio album titled "Fenix." The single "El Amante" quickly became an international success, reaching platinum certification 7 times, as did his album, which was awarded 11 platinum certifications. In 2018 he achieved 3 new Latin Grammy nominations, and collaborated on the song “Te Boté Remix,” which became the most watched video of the year worldwide on YouTube. In addition, Nicky Jam had the honor of singing the official theme of the 2018 FIFA World Cup: “Live It Up,” which he performed alongside Will Smith and Era Istrefi. His autobiographical series “El Ganador” premiered on Netflix at the end of 2019, as well as his seventh studio album “Íntimo.” Nicky Jam returned to the big screens in early 2020 in the sequel "Bad Boys For Life," starring alongside Will Smith and Martin Lawrence.

In 2020, the artist bared his soul with the release of the single “Desahogo” feat. Carla Morrison. Right after, he premiered “Fan de tus fotos” with Romeo Santos (+60 million views on YouTube). Most recently, he released “Pikete” with the master of the dembow El Alfa, a solo single “Miami,” and a collaboration with Musicólogo, “No Hay Fallo.”

EXTENDED BIO:

Nick Rivera Caminero, known as Nicky Jam, is recognized around the world as a pioneer of Latin Urban music. Born in 1981 in Boston, he moved with his family to Puerto Rico when he was just a boy. At the age of 11, he recorded his first album “Diferente a Los Demás” (Different From the Rest), which attracted the attention of DJs and artists on the island. 

As a young adult, Nicky Jam quickly rose to the top of his genre with radio hits including “Yo No Soy Tu Marido,” “Me Voy Pa’l Party,” “Fiel A Tu Piel,” and “La Combi Completa,” among others. He toured the world and became one of Latin urban music’s first international stars.

Just as he was enjoying his hard-earned accomplishments, his life took a 180-degree turn. Suddenly, instead of being on stage, he was in prison, and he fell into a deep depression. Finally, after three years out of the limelight, Nicky Jam performed a show in Colombia. There, he found an audience that was ready to give him a second chance. He vowed to show his fans that he had escaped drugs and alcohol. With discipline and hard work, he began to make up for lost time. 

He soon decided to move to Colombia to rebuild his career. In 2012, he created a low-budget music video that went on to rack up over 15 million views on YouTube. In 2013, he debuted his new image and returned stronger than ever. He notched five radio hits: “Piensas en Mí,” “Curiosidad,” “Juegos Prohibidos,” “Voy a Beber,” and the global hit “Travesuras.” At the time, “Travesuras” was Nicky’s international comeback hit, and after a 10-year absence from the charts, it peaked at #4 on Billboard’s Hot Latin Songs. His social media following grew 3000 percent by late 2014, making him one of Latin urban music’s most talked-about and respected artists.

In February 2015, Nicky Jam teamed up with Enrique Iglesias to release “El Perdón,” his most internationally acclaimed single to date. Tallying over 1 million YouTube views on the day of its release, “El Perdón” was #1 on Billboard’s Hot Latin songs charts for 30 weeks (second longest-running single in the chart’s history). An English version, titled “Forgiveness,” helped the song peak at No. 56 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 2015.

In January 2016, Nicky released “Hasta el Amanecer,” which also became the biggest Latin song of the year. The single was #1 on Billboard’s “Hot Latin Songs” for 18 weeks, which was the longest run of 2016. The official music video reached 100 million views in the first month, averaging over 3 million views per day. It also scored the No. 1 year-end spot on the Latin Airplay, Latin Pop Airplay, Latin Rhythm Airplay, Latin Rhythm Digital Song Sales, and Latin Digital Song Sales charts. A remix featuring Daddy Yankee and an English version (“With You Tonight”) helped the song stay 19 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 (peaking at No. 73). 

In 2017, Nicky Jam released “El Amante,” and his very first solo album, Fenix. The single quickly became an international hit, reaching 7X platinum status. The album also enjoyed quite the success, achieving 11 platinum certifications worldwide.  

Entering 2018, Nicky Jam began to conquer new territories in his artistic career. His songs achieved more than 14.5 billion views on YouTube and 1.1 billion streams on Spotify. Singles such as “X” (35X platinum certification) featuring Colombian sensation J Balvin and “Cásate Conmigo” (5X platinum certification) in collaboration with Silvestre Dangond, became international anthems. The singles obtained recognition in the most important Latin music awards, including the prestigious Latin Grammy, achieving nominations in categories such as   Record of the Year, Best Urban Song of the Year and Best Tropical Song of the Year.

His collaboration with the single “Te Boté” featuring Casper Mágico, Nio García, Darell, Bad Bunny, and Ozuna became a worldwide phenomenon. The single captured the world’s attention and became the main topic in all award ceremonies during the year. It also surpassed all YouTube records, becoming the most-watched video in 2018.

Additionally, Nicky Jam had the honor of recording and performing the official song for the 2018 FIFA World Cup “Live It Up,” featuring Will Smith and Era Istrefi. His undeniable success in the music industry earned him two Latin Billboard Awards that year in the categories Top Latin Album of the Year and Latin Rhythm Album of the Year (Fenix). 

Nicky Jam also dabbled in the fashion industry, becoming a brand ambassador for the elegant and prestigious watch brand Hublot. 

The Latin idol showed the world his acting side with his autobiographical series “El Ganador.”  Telemundo joined the giant Netflix in the creation of a series that tells the story of how the superstar came to be. The series trended in Latin American, Spain and the US at the time of its release in early 2019. 

2019 was also a year of vast success for the singer. Nicky worked with some of the biggest names in the industry, such as Sech, Anuel, Ozuna, Ñejo, and others, collaborating in the production of the most-played songs of the year, generating millions of streams on all digital platforms. His tour "Sorry USA Tour 2019" was a total success, with sold-out tickets in 13 different theatres nationwide.

On November 1, 2019, he officially released his seventh studio album Íntimo, one of the most anticipated albums of the year, hand in hand with Sony Music Latin and La Industria INC. Íntimo included 15 singles, including international hits “Te Robaré” featuring Ozuna and, of course, his the mega hit “X” featuring J Balvin. The album also features collaborations with Anuel AA, Darell, Sech, and Rauw Alejandro.

The urban pioneer finalized the 2019 like a real champion, appearing in the top 6 positions of Billboard Year-End count charts: Latin Rhythm Airplay Artists, # 5 , Tropical Airplay Artists, # 4. Latin Rhythm Albums Artists, # 4, Latin Airplay Artists, # 5, Latin Pop Airplay Artists, # 5, Latin Streaming Songs, # 6

Starting this new decade on the right foot, Nicky Jam returned to the big screen joining the cast of the new sequel of the action-comedy classic “Bad Boys” named “Bad Boys For Life,” working directly in Hollywood with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence. Additionally, and for the second year in a row, Nicky Jam joined the list of nominees for Tu Musica Urbano Awards 2020 (7 categories), as well as Premios Juventud 2020 (3 categories). 

While 2020 was a challenging year for everyone, Nicky Jam made the most out of it. He started the year with a bang and joined forces with Daddy Yankee to release “Muévelo” (175 million views), then stripped his soul with the release of “Desahogo” featuring Carla Morrison (41 million views), started teasing his new album with the release of “Polvo” featuring Myke Towers (93 million views), and kept all of his fans entertained with his very own YouTube talk show “The Rockstar Show” featuring special guests like Maluma, El Alfa, Karol G, Luis Fonsi, and more.

In 2021, Nicky Jam surprised with an unprecedented collaboration with the King of Bachata Romeo Santos, “Fan de Tus Fotos” (61 million views), followed by “Pikete,” an explosive song with dembow king El Alfa, and then gave us another sneak peek into his most vulnerable and romantic side with “Miami” (6 million views), all in preparation for the release of his new studio album “Infinity,” out August 27. 

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