watching the Todd in the shadows top 10 worst hit songs of 2023 video you know todd and it reminded me that is to say ive come on here and started typing because i want to talk about how 2023 was actually a ridiculously good year for music like better than it had any reason to be. I'm going to make a list of my favorite albums that came out this year now:

PARANOÏA, ANGLES, TRUE LOVE - Christine and the Queens

My 21st Century Blues - RAYE

The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess - Chappell Roan

Did you know there's a tunnel under Ocean Blvd - Lana Del Rey

The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We - Mitski

Rituals On The Bank Of A Familiar River - Kiki Rockwell

Jaguar II - Victoria Monét

and these are just the ones i remember off the top of my head and also know all the words to. i liked the new hozier i like guts i liked but did not find the time to submerge myself into like a mudbath sufjan's javelin and in all honesty i did listen mostly to the same 3 playlists last year and then a handful of albums that all came out in 2022 because holy shit was THAT a year in music whew

let us all listen to good music in the new year G-d knows we need it

Action Comics 1006 variant cover by Francis Manapul

Happy New Year Everyone!

Oof so back in the day there were like entire posts on websites about why Kurogane and Fai were most definitely canon (there were LOTS of non-believers around believe you me) and like one particular point I remember is the dragon and phoenix symbolism that in many asian cultures means they’re like basically The Perfect Marriage, the best, made for each other, most auspicious, etc etc. So it’s not only about the phoenix, it’s- it’s also about the dragon and every time I remember I have to lay down and cry a bit. CLAMP KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING.

CLAMP absolutely do everything with intention. It's so uncommon to find a series where every minor detail has been so carefully crafted and tracked through each chapter with such close attention, so the big things like that are like CLAMP shaking a giant bell. It's BEAUTIFUL.

Absolutely wild to hear about the early days of the fandom too. The landscape of fandoms has changed so much since the *checks* mid 2000s?! Oh my god this series is almost going to be 20 years old soon! No wonder things were so rabid, the internet was CHAOS back then.

semi-old test stuff from 2022, featuring an early logo lol

bouncer isn't in any of these because i was still working on his design I think

hmm. im aromantic in the same way that my dog is a dog

it seems like my dad's default response to everything i struggle to do for whatever reason is "just do it"

i was trying to explain that i struggle to read books now because actually picking them up and reading them is hard to get motivation for. he goes "just pick it up. you have arms." so i rephrase to explain that while picking up the book isn't the hard part, opening it, starting to read it, and then COMMITTING to reading it is the hard part. i can read just fine when i get into it, but actually doing it is hard. he goes "then just push through it and read"

like. did you not just hear me. i struggle to do that exact thing.

10/? -> favourite fics read in ‘22

unearth the sun by @metagalacticx

yes, today’s entry is a self-rec. this is the very first fic i ever shared. i started writing it during winter and it has been such an immense source of joy— not only in losing myself in these lines and having it as a source of warmth during the cold months, but also in re-reading it on warm days. i want to extend gratitude to myself for writing and choosing to share this work, because having it out there has resulted in some of the most fulfilling experiences i’ve had this year, and some of the most enriching friendships too.

everything around this housing shit basically boils down to: what I said would be fine 2+ years ago isn't necessarily what's fine now

a shirt that says i <3 reconsuming media and making in depth analysis essays of them over and over again

ranking my kpop dreams: 2022 edition

yes, i’m doing this again. i had a lot of fun last year ranking my various kpop dreams & nightmares, so as we face the last few hours of 2022, i’m at it once more with this year’s subconscious offerings. there’s been fewer of them this year, but no shortage of weird shit happening in them...

14) seventeen were on a british talk show, so i dragged my family down in front of the tv so they could learn about the group. at first, the interview was fine. then joshua started talking. and talking. about what, you ask? about the fact that his semen is so “chemically potent” that it bleaches his ceiling when he has certain dreams. at no point did anybody attempt to shut him up. of the members, only vernon looked mildly concerned. and joshua just kept going on. and on. -50/10, i have no words for this. why, joshua? why?

13) i was walking with an old friend around our high school campus, reminiscing. then, some guy got right up in our faces, trying to push us into some mud! i shoved him in return. he fell into the mud, and in doing so, broke one of his legs so badly that the bone was poking out of his flesh. we decided to leave him there. later, on a bus, i glanced out of the window and saw stray kids’ bang chan, hyunjin, and felix dancing. felix was one step out of time with the others, but i was the only one who noticed. gradually, the bus began to empty, until it was just me... and four members of tomorrow x together. they were deeply worried, and searching for yeonjun. as it turns out, he was the guy i left screaming in the mud with a severe leg injury. they hadn’t heard from him all day, and had no idea i was responsible, so i kept quiet, and joined them on the search. we looked through bushes for hours, but all we found were ghosts of grey squirrels burrowing underground. -15/10, oh yeonjun, i’m sorry. but maybe you shouldn’t have started the fight? his injury was hideously graphic, and seeing as he was presumably lost forever, it’s a pretty shitty dream overall.

12) i was back in high school with a bunch of people, though we were all our current ages rather than teens. it was never clear what the class was that we were all in - i was too preoccupied with trying to get the attention of seventeen’s joshua. nothing i did seemed to work. in a last ditch effort at the end of class, i deliberately let a bunch of intimidating academic articles spill out of my bag, hoping their titles would impress him. he didn’t notice. 2/10, he looked very pretty the entire time, but god, how humiliating. all that effort for a man’s attention. and it didn’t even work.

11) i had to go to hospital to undergo various tests. however, i was travelling there from the future, and knew that one test in particular would be incredibly painful. to distract myself from the agony, i had downloaded that 2020 male idols collab performance of red velvet’s psycho… but when i watched it, it was actually just a video of stray kids’ hyunjin performing adele’s send my love. 4/10 i was anxious about the pain to come so it was pretty stressful, but hyunjin’s cover was pretty good!

10) i was fleeing from a house, dragging nct’s shotaro and sungchan with me. i never saw what we were running from, but i knew it wanted to hurt shotaro & sungchan, and i was the only one who could protect them. along the way to safety, i found xiaojun attempting to flirt with a woman. i decided to drag him along as well. he did not appreciate my decision. 4.5/10, there’s something oddly sweet in the idea that i could protect those three from something, but it was deeply stressful trying to actually do so. also, xiaojun was very stroppy.

9) shortly after his military discharge, exo’s suho did a buzzfeed interview, wherein he revealed a secret idol tradition… any idols who wished to date non-celebrities would ask for the phone number of that person’s father. later, i had a fancall with seventeen’s joshua. towards the end of the call, he asked for my dad’s number. i whooped and punched the air with glee, while he looked visibly confused. it turned out, the entire idol industry had somehow missed suho spilling the secret. 5/10 i love the thought of suho casually revealing industry secrets like that, no fucks to give. but if it was ever real, it’d probably cause a hell of a lot more drama.

8) one day, ateez’s san announced he was transferring to monsta x… and that he was also going to become a rapper! both fandoms were fine with this news, and everyone was hotly anticipating his second debut in mx’s upcoming comeback. but when his first mx song dropped… the beat was completely destroying him. he was clearly doing his best, and looked so happy to be there, but. man sucked. 6/10 this is actually a dream from 2021 that i forgot about when i did last year’s rankings, so it gets a bonus slot here! and i feel so bad that my subconscious decided san would make an abysmal rapper, but i have to award points for his sheer effort and enthusiasm, not to mention the supportive attitude of both fandoms involved. there’d be carnage if this ever went down in real life.

7) woodz was in my bedroom… with stray kids’ hyunjin on his lap… and hyunjin was… the two of them were… there is no clean way to say this. they were both fully clothed, but i’ll let your imagination do the rest. 7/10 look i’m not the kind of person who ships idols together, i promise… but holy moly this dream was hot.

6) jiang yanli of the untamed challenged none other than monsta x’s kihyun to a challenge: who between them could make the best gazpacho soup?? to decide the victor, they had a sing-off. at the climax of her song, jiang yanli threw kihyun at a wall! when he landed on the floor, he found a lump of butter. he ate it. i proceeded to berate him over and over for his “raccoon behaviour”. 8/10, i know this is a kpop ranking, but jiang yanli deserves points for the vocals and for making great soup even in my dreams. also, kihyun did a fantastic job too, even if he did act like a raccoon afterwards. do raccoons even eat butter?

5) i was at my old high school (though again, everyone was their current IRL age), and my mum was showing me a photo of depeche mode that she wanted professionally printed for her birthday. however, i was more interested in the youtube thumbnail she had of seventeen, performing fear on a music show. she told me she was getting into them, and especially wanted to know more about “josh-hunk”. she said multiple members kept calling him that. i explained they were probably actually calling him hyung, at which point my sister yelled hyung at me and i said it wasn’t for girls. then svt appeared, and performed hot! at one point, joshua had a whole sexy strut moment that ended in him staring broodily out the window, right next to my mum! i internally screamed over not sitting next to her. then, jeonghan lifted mingyu off his feet and threw him at joshua! despite him hitting a brick wall, everyone thought it was good fun, mingyu included. 8.5/10, it was pretty cool bonding with my mum over a kpop group, but i can’t believe i chose not to sit next to her and consequently missed out on having one of the members that close…

4) seventeen’s joshua had transformed into a little yellow parrot called perus. he was being bullied by a bigger, meaner parrot, who kept insulting him and pecking him. eventually i stepped in, grabbing perushua and barricading us together in a bathroom where the other parrot couldn’t reach us. i proceeded to stroke his feathers until he relaxed. 9/10, despite him getting picked on for most of the dream, he made an adorable parrot, and his feathers were so soft.

3) i woke up one night needing to pee. i opened my bedroom door, and turned towards the bathroom - only to find a crowd of random people, all cheering for exo! exo were in a pre-performance huddle, right in front of the bathroom doorway, and as i watched, sehun slowly lifted his head and made eye contact with me. i promptly ran back into my bedroom and spent the rest of the night listening to their concert. after, i opened my door again to watch them leave. inexplicably, taemin was there with them, doing a little jig. 9.5/10, i spent most of the dream too shy to face them but even through a closed door, the concert was great!

2) i was taking part in some kind of gbbo spin-off with my old high school friends. inexplicably, seventeen were there too. at one point, jun was reading instructions. i was sitting between mingyu and minghao, and we had secretly inserted a pun of jun’s name into the instructions. i was watching for his reaction, and the three of us all grinned at each other when he realized. later, i looked up from making biscuits to find jun smiling warmly at me. 12/10, jun’s smile was just… so warm, and sweet. lovely smile to find aimed at you, even in a dream. i was also very snug between mingyu & minghao.

1) there was an apocalypse that turned people into bloodthirsty monsters! while porchay from kinnporsche was having a whole valiant hero moment, i was frantically trying to squeeze my arse through a window to escape. flash forward to a grand banquet thrown for all of the survivors. i ran into exo’s baekhyun, and told him we were cousins because we share a birthday. then he hugged me, and it was the sweetest, warmest, loveliest hug of my life. afterwards, i bumped into hyuna, and she was also my cousin, as she had replaced one of my real life cousins. we also had a pretty great hug. i went in search of more idols to hug… but got trapped by taylor swift, who regaled me endlessly with exclusive secrets about her music videos. i was too polite to walk away from her. 15/10 purely for the baekhyun hug. oh god. so warm. so firm. would hug him forever if i could.

and on that note... 2023, i can only wonder what dreams you have in store for me.

okay - i am seeing the rumblings on Carlos and the trope about promiscuous bi characters - I see you.

but I also - am trusting this week.

I am trusting Robbie and I am therefore trusting that the nuance will come - Carlos is set up to be pinning after Mary tbh - to turn into the overlook best friend trope I think.

The problems come when there are only single representations, and there are not a plethora of bisexual men on television, we never GET explicit bisexual representation that's not exploitative for the male gaze. On Buffy they wanted to make a prominent bisexual character but felt lucky to have permission to instead have a gay one. Rep is few and far between and complete and nuanced representation really requires more prominence on television, a variety of portrayals.

You cannot portray a rainbow using only a single color.

So clearly. The proper solution is to have more bi main characters on television. #MakeMaryBisexual2022 #CanonBiMary

cosmo wanda i fucking wish students understood that universities have limited reach and that public silence does not automatically mean no action is being taken internally and that the decisions of collectives / institutions do not reflect the decisions of all of the people within them (e.g. all faculty staff and administrators within an institution) etc etc. god DAMN it to hell. you people (not anyone reading this im saying this as if im talking to the student body at my school) look so fucking stupid @ing the social media accounts of distinct departments like that’s actually going to do anything. you think they ARENT doing anyrhing????? that’s probably ALL they’re focusing on rn and they’re spending days carefully gathering information so they can share it. and shit is hitting the fan in MULTIPLE areas rn if you haven’t noticed and also it’s winter fucking break so no one is even supposed to be working anyway. so what is wrong with you. why are you fucking making demands. getting a college to finally post an update about something is not the same as cancelling someone on twitter and the fact that so many of you think it is is indicative of how SICK our society has become. PLEASE calm down.

2022 reads // twitter thread

The Last Cuentista

MG sci-fi about a girl who gets on one of the last ships leaving earth before a comet hits

when she wakes from cryo, everyone's memories have been erased to create a society of people with no differences or reasons for conflict - except for her.

the importance of culture and stories

visually impaired MC

misc. photos of the past few weeks or so :0

I was going through your Laurel tags because apparently I missed a whole lot of reblogs and I enjoy reading tags you put on them, and I saw one you reblogged based on Reba’s ‘Survivor’ song and I just wanted to say: Laurel is a single mom because she basically adopted Thea and was the only one to ever actually make sure Thea was taken care of doing okay. We didn’t get as many moments between them as I would have liked, but I think it was pretty clear Laurel did a hell of a lot more for her than Thea’s own brother did.

i wholeheartedly agree with you, anon! there was definitely a major 'divorced couple struggles to co-parent their daughter' dynamic between laurel and oliver when it came to thea. and an incredibly stereotypical one at that.

oliver…tried. i can give him that. he was well intentioned, he clearly loved thea very much, he did his best to keep her physically safe, but he also continuously made promises to be there for her and never followed through. he always let her down. he always ended up choosing felicity over her when he mattered, he rarely saw when she was having problems, unless they were super obvious ones like her drug use - and even then what did he do when her drug use got out of control? he handed her over to laurel and said fix this for me.

and she did.

because that was just how it was. laurel was the one constant thea had. she always showed up. she always cared about her emotional and mental well being as well as her physical well being. she always made sure there was space in her life for thea.

oliver chose brooding and keeping his dick wet over thea every chance he got.

meanwhile, the only thing that ever took laurel away from thea was death.

it was all very ''disney dad shows up when he wants to, consistently chooses new family, and mom gets to pick up the pieces and clean up the mess over and over and over until she literally fucking dies.''

Man, having younger siblings who are similar to you really just never fails to prove that every single thing you thought you were unique for is… really not that special, or was just a product of being online in specific circles.

I remember relating to tumblr posts talking about wanting to eat glitter and rocks and being into gremlincore when I was 14 (before it was a popularized thing), and thinking I was like, idk some kind of fun weird minority that experiences this— but no. I’m now 19 and my 13 year old brother just talked about how much he wants to eat the mica powder my mom bought and how tasty it looks. And this is just one out of many, MANY times something like that has happened.