#first time live since 2006 btw | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thislovintime · 1 year

Video

Clips from 1997 and 2006.

Q: “Why did you get into the music business?” Peter Tork: “Approval. Respect. Love. Girls.” - Beachwood Confidential, 1995 (x)

* * *

"What I was working towards was to be in a group. When the Beatles hit, where were all the folkies going to go? But I also wanted to be a folk music performer. A lot of what I did was hanging out, feeling for the first time that I was part of the scene, walking down the street and seeing people I knew, doing a little flirting." - Peter Tork, Bringing It All Back Home: 25 Years of American Music at Folk City (1986) (x)

* * *

"Dear Peter, I hope this doesn’t sound stupid. It’s something I’ve always wanted to know. Why do rock stars get all the women? I figured you would know. Even my sister likes you a lot and she doesn’t really like anyone very much. She says hi, btw. I was thinking of becoming an architect but that doesn’t seem to get the girls excited. Should I learn to play guitar? Thanks bro, Jon L."

"Dear Jon, Thanks for asking. I’ve never wondered the same thing; I’ve been too busy trying to get the women by being a pop star so I’ve never had time to stop and tell on the roses, as it were. But since it all came up lo, these many years ago, I’ve actually given the matter some thought. Here’s some of what I’ve come up with: For one thing, those of us who got into show business did so IN ORDER to get attention. This is sometimes an outgrowth of a conviction in childhood that people didn’t much care about us, or even notice us. We determined that if we could get the millions (or, say, dozens) to love us, then it wouldn’t matter that we weren’t much regarded on an individual basis in our youth. For some of us, it worked. Unfortunately, it has its drawbacks. You don’t get to know these ahead of time, so I’m going to tell you. One of them is, that the girls we do get mostly want us for the show we put on. By that, I don’t mean only the stuff that goes on onstage, but the way we present ourselves when we meet someone. I have a ready stock of funny stories and sly ways to hook a girl in, but in the end, that’s what she goes for, and when it comes time for me to be myself, she’s always kind of shocked. […] Check it out: architecture is a deeply satisfying career and you’re going to find a relationship that suits you if you’ll only let it happen and what you do for a living will be only one measure of your true value in the eyes of a worthy, intelligent, supportive woman. Good luck, Peter” - Ask Peter Tork, The Daily Panic, 2008 (x)

* * *

"In spite of all his clowning, Peter was a rather serious chap. […] Peter was a loud, powerful singer (I used to call him a romp’em, stomp’em type of singer), while I was a soft ballad singer. He had enormous stage presence and I had very little. He played the banjo, I played the guitar. […] He was restless and intense, while I was calm. He loved to be with a lot of people all of the time, whereas I liked to be completely alone some of the time. And last, but not least, Peter Tork had quite a way with the girls." - Bruce Farwell, 16’s The Monkees: Here We Are (1967) (x)

* * *

“Next to his music, girls interested Peter Tork more than anything else in the whole wide world. He loved them all — and most of them loved him. Peter wasn’t tall, dark or handsome, but he made up for his liabilities with his great warmth, enthusiasm and sense of humor. He was also basically a very kind and giving person. He just had a way of making people happy even when he was broke, freezing cold and there were no prospects for work in the future. That Pied Piper-ish quality Peter had attracted girls of all shapes and sizes. He had many brief romances and a couple of very serious ones, and even today Peter is still good friends with almost every girl he knew, dated, or fell in love with during his Greenwich Village days.” - Lance Wakely, 16, March 1967

* * *

“Peter was great for the chicks of the village… they queued up to see him and talk to him. But eventually he had an offer to join the Phoenix Singers, who were short of a guy to play banjo AND guitar. And if you still have any doubts about whether he really does play, and play well, then the thing to do is ask the management behind the Phoenix Singers. Even without the Monkees, there is little doubt that the amiable Peter would have mae the grade in the music business. When, eventually, Peter went to the West Coast, to California, he wasn’t kept waiting long for fame. Within two months he was auditioned and accepted for the Monkees. Behind him was a mass of previous girlfriends but, unlike many blokes, Peter has the knack of staying on very friendly terms with girls even after he’s stopped going out with them.” - Record Mirror, February 25, 1967

* * *

“...Inside his dressing room, he towels the sweat from [his] head, takes out a guitar, pulls up a chair and starts singing ME a song. [...] He DIPS me, yes, like a dance dip, asks me permission and then kisses ME chastely on my cheek!... [...] Months later, when I returned back to earth, I received a three page letter from Peter Tork (remember, he asked me for my address before the dip) which was just beautiful, poetry mixed with kindness, which is how I choose to this day to describe him as a human.”:

“I heard this on the radio!

‘TODAY at 4pm, THE MONKEES will be appearing at RECORD WORLD!’

I looked at a map to see where Record World was located (yes, I had a map in my glove compartment) and plotted and within seconds, turned the car in the opposite direction of Georgetown and hightailed to some mall in Virginia. The line to meet the Monkees was surprisingly huge. It wrapped all the way around the mall twice. Anxious to make it back to campus for the first night of my senior year, which we all know is the BEST night of the year, I became anxious the line was too long and The Monkees would leave before they got to me. I needed to come up with a plan, stepping off the line, I found myself moments later in Sharper Image, purchasing a small tape recorder.

With tape recorder in hand, I marched myself up to the security guard outside the RECORD WORLD where all four of the Monkees were signing records.

‘I’m here from the Georgetown University newspaper, The Hoya. I wasn’t even sure if that was the title of our school newspaper…a lucky guess.

‘I’m hoping to get a quick interview with the guys.’

‘Sure, right this way.’

WOW! That was easy.

They let me cut the line and stand RIGHT behind the Monkees while they continued to sign records. Me looking out at a sea of other Monkee lunatics, just like me!

OMG!!! I had NO questions, I had no way of handling being this close to the four guys that I spent my entire pubescent life fantasizing about marrying, dancing or at least camping!

‘Hello.’ Micky Dolenz says to me!!! and I go numb. I got nothing.

I look over to Peter Tork, who asks me my name and when I say Mary, Davy Jones chimes in and says, ‘Ah, Mary Mary.’

 WHAT!!!!???? Smelling salts please?? (Actually, true story, Lara did really pass out once when she met Davy Jones at a book signing!)

I stumbled my way through the interview, holding up the tiny tape recorder every time I asked a question. Thankfully they never caught on that the tape recorder didn’t even have batteries in it or that I had not actually pushed any of the buttons to start or stop recording. I just moved it from my mouth to their face, like a child playing make-believe.

I kindly say thank you and tear up. The security guard ushers me away from the table but right before I was about to steal a tuft of [Micky]’s hair, Peter Tork looks at me and said, ‘write your phone number down here.’

In a Monkees haze, I write it and then, I’m quickly whisked away by security.

I cried the entire 3-hour car ride back to DC, happy tears, and this was before cell phones, so I had no one to call and scream the news. Just me, alone, reliving how I had just pulled off a Monkees miracle.

When I arrived back to my senior year house, all my pals were wondering why I was so late and informed me I had thirty minutes to get dressed because we were all heading out for the BIG first night back at school. The night you waited all summer long for, so you could show off how great you looked to your biggest crush.

I threw down my bag, jumped in the shower and was interupted by my roommate telling me that I had a phone call.

Wet from the shower, I grabbed the call.

‘Hi. This is the Monkees Tour Manager. Peter Tork asked me to leave two tickets for you at the Will Call for tonight’s show. It starts at 8pm.’

I looked at the clock…it was 6pm….the concert was two hours away, back to where I had just left the scene of my delicious deception.

I HAD TO GO!

I started down my list of roommates to come with me, one at a time, rejection, followed with ‘YOU’RE NUTS!!’

Finally, I bribed my most beautiful and most fun pal Emily to join me. I think the bribe was, I’ll pay all your bar tabs the entire first semester if you drive to Virginia with me. If you saw how we drank back then, this was a generous offer.

She agreed to join me, but made me promise we could be back by midnight as to not miss out on the first night back to school.

‘Done!’

And there we were, back in my car, heading two hours south, right back to where I just come from.

We arrived at the concert hall and Emily (my personal timekeeper) reminded me. ‘You have two hours…that’s it.’

We had great seats and a bunch of songs in, a roadie came and plucked us from our seats to go backstage. WHAT!

There was an intermission or maybe it was the moment between the last song and the encore, but all I remember what that it was fast and there was a lot of scrambling.

This was the first ‘backstage’ I had ever seen. A minute in, Peter Tork comes over to ME!? Says, ‘I’m so glad you made it’ and invites ME!? into his dressing room.

I look at Emily, who somehow understands just how big a deal this was to me and grants me, sternly, ‘10 minutes!!’

Inside his dressing room, he towels the sweat from [his] head, takes out a guitar, pulls up a chair and starts singing ME a song.

The 13-year old girl in me dreamt about this moment for years and now it was right in front of me. My very own little concert with Peter.

‘2 minutes!’ An announcement comes up on a loud speaker, but the perfect amount of time for him to put down his guitar, change his shirt, tell me that I was a very special person (something about my aura), asks me to write down my address in a small book AND then………

He DIPS me, yes, like a dance dip, asks me permission and then kisses ME chastely on my cheek!

The door opens, Emily is now [tapping] her feet and thwarting off flirtatious talk by Davy Jones (with something I remember as subtle as ‘FUCK OFF!’)

‘You’re done!’ She tells me sternly.

I was, forever. Forever change, just like Marcia Brady was when Davy Jones kissed her on her cheek.

The whole ride home we laughed at the idea that we were ‘groupies’ and I tried to downplay to her how UNBELIEVABLE and SUREAL the whole moment was. Like I had manifested a dream.

Later that night, back with other people my own age, back to what we all deemed very important…shots and dancing, I was still reliving every moment of what happened that magical day, wishing I had a phone to call Lara (she’d never believe it) or that that there was a special Monkees hotline that I could call to discuss ‘my feelings.’

‘What is that!?’ My friend Chudney asked me mid dance to Franki Valli’s Oh What A Night, pointing to a small foam ball peeking perfectly outside the middle of my bra. I looked down, reached in and just started laughing.

Peter’s microphone fob (or whatever the furry thing is at the tip of the microphone) must have fallen into my shirt during our torrid dip.

This was sure to go into the Smithsonian of my life.

Months later, when I returned back to earth, I received a three page letter from Peter Tork (remember, he asked me for my address before the dip) which was just beautiful, poetry mixed with kindness, which is how I choose to this day to describe him as a human.

Yes I was 22 and he was 52, yes this moment would be fully frowned upon today, but it was my moment, willingly and open heartedly. I willed myself backstage and into that dressing room and I’m grateful for that his real sweetness and this (I’m hoping you find benign and funny) story.

Yesterday when I heard of Peter’s passing, I danced with my daughter (even dipped her a few times) and then expressed gratitude to Peter and The Monkees for keeping me innocent, for keeping me weird and for keeping me alive with possibilities of real love – the kind you get from a song, or a glance or a sweet cheek kiss.” - Mary Giuliani, thriveglobal dot com, February 2019

31 notes · View notes

eosofspades · 1 year

Note

better weather by kimya dawson finding nemo references?

WHY THANK YOU FOR ASKING I HAVE NORMAL FEELINGS ABOUT THIS

this is so incredibly niche lmao i listened to kimya dawson almost every day when i was little and then forgot about it until i rediscovered her like thirteen years later. i only heard 'better weather' for the first time since i was four just recently though, and at this point in time i have a baby brother who LOVES finding nemo so i've seen it approximately a billion times in rapid repetition

all that said. the references are so there

^ this is the entire song minus the first chorus! and it does read kind of silly when you isolate the lines but it's such a good song. anyway

lyric about fish that live in an anemone, specifically

lyric that makes a point about turtles in a current!! the current is like, a big focus in this movie for a while and a repeated thing with nemo wanting to know about turtles!!

the ENTIRE B-PLOT of this movie is that these fish want to escape the tank they're stuck in!!! and they keep coming up with escape plans!!!

and, finally. my favorite.

LIKE????? THIS IS TOO SPECIFIC AGSNSBSNS

other additional things i feel validate my claim is "the baby never knew his mother" line (obviously nemo did not know his mother but i'm out of images on this post), that kimya already referenced bert and ernie from sesame street by name in a different song so i feel there's an established precedent; and also that finding nemo came out in 2003, and remember that i love you, the album that 'better weather' is from, came out in 2006.

anyway. that's my better weather finding nemo post! it's a great movie and a terrific song/album btw go watch it if you haven't yet/haven't in a while and listen to the song/album immediately

#mine #THANK YOU FOR THE ASK I LOVE SILLY NICHE THINGS I REALLY WANTED TO TALK ABOUT THIS AHSJDHDN #music #kimya dawson #remember that i love you #finding nemo #disney #long post #EDIT: IT SHRANK THE FUCKING GIF

22 notes · View notes

tmabutlesbian · 2 years

Text

oliver study time? oliver study time. lets get to know ollie boy!!

i had tons of fun with mike crew so i'll be doing this to oliver banks now since i always get confused with his personality n also death so.

avatar of the end, duh. he sees tendrils tied to ppl who are abt to die. so like only ppl who r close to dying have those tendrils then? i'm assuming so.

originally he dreamed of ppl's deaths 10 days before their death. around 2014, maybe 2013, he started seeing the tendrils awake as well.

he has 3 aliases: antonio blake, the coroner (cool ass title), and Dr. Thomas Pritchard (random ass name but we move on)

he died by satellite impact but came back ofc, at a research vessel near Point Nemo

descriptions: tall, dark n handsome. lmao, he's tall, he's black, he's careworn???? don't know what that means. n also has worry lines on his face. boy is anxious. oh careworn means "tired and unhappy because of prolonged worry". boy is depressed and anxious, mood.

2000-2006: boyfriend Graham!! in 2000-2001. dated 6 years, lived together, broke up before 2007. Ollie moved to london around 2005 "to do his undergraduate degree at the London School of Economics and started working at Barclays directly after graduating" boy went to school! undergraduate means this is his first degree btw! also wtf is barclays? oh i googled it its a back. heh oliver banks. works in a bank. hehe. oh shit, boy got too stressed, had a breakdown after barely a year n had a dramatic exit from his job around 2007. his dreams started soon after.

ok i just saw graham's page. he died in 2006. no wonder they broke up, oliver probably realized smth was wrong or the notthem ruined their relationship. poor boy :( but also i cant remember if graham broke up with ollie before or after his death. hmm. they might have broken up since graham was obsessed with that table n eating notebooks n shit.

around 2013: 2015, oliver was working on a magick shop. king. they sold crystals n tarot cards. jane prentiss mentioned him looking at her with deep sadness n even fear. this is where jane worked not oliver

oliver worked on a shop that in soho that had a sign saying "Crystals. Books. Tarot" pretty straight to the point. he asked jennifer what she was listening to even tho she had no headphones on n when altered to this he just walked away muttering a warning abt protecting her ears. so. he's awkward as well. how cute

march 2015: he gives a statement, under antonio blake, abt gertrude's death. so gertrude died around this time then.

mid 2015-2018: "Oliver assumed the identity of a chemist and boarded an unnamed research vessel in the hopes of getting some restful sleep" boy what. how do you go from A to B here. i'll read the statement in a bit to get more context but this sounds WILD w/o context. n then when he notices theyre all abt to die cuz of the vines he. kills the captain? n leads everyone to a location that gets hit by a satellite killing them instantly.

2018: oliver gives the statement to coma jon, saying the web sent him, which is interesting how the web has so much power but its all so behind the scenes. when georgie encounters him he uses his alias antonio blake again, but she knows shes an avatar of the end right away n that he reminds her of someone evil which. yikes!

post-change: he has his own domain, corpse roots, n gives jon another statement, also theorizes abt the ruined world. he's a nerd <3

still unsure of his age but! if he started his undergratuate in his 20's in 2005, then by 2016, the start of the podcast, he's around his 30's, probs 31.

let's get into the statements

mag 11: Dreamer: ok so his work stress also had a hand on the breakup actually, n he left their home to stay with some friends. he slept on his friend's Anahita's sofa, n thats when he started having the dreams.

the dreams were irregular throughout the years, so at least it wasnt everyday. he read tons of books abt esoteric dreaming but found nothing of value.

he also saw his father's death, n couldnt stop it. even after his death, he saw his father in his dreams for a month and a half

he lied to get into the institute to give his statement to gertrude, knowing she would die soon. poor boy just wanted to help somebody, even if he couldnt help his father :(

mag 42: Grifter's Bone: interesting that jennifer did not die but oliver still warned to protect her ears. she didnt even suffer damage since she took precautions. how did he know? did he see a ton other ppl with tendrils in their ears? did he actually change the trajectory of her death by being a puzzling man warning her to protect her ears?

she did kill herself by hitting her head with a hammer. does this mean that, even tho she didnt die by the grifter's bone, she still did die? like oliver sees when ppl r going to die n the only thing he can maybe change is the way that it happens? thats fucked up

mag 121: Far Away: he can feel the tendrils when they appear irl! he feels a chill when he touches or brushes against one. he isolates himself since he doesnt want to see ppl's deaths, but he cant escape that entirely. probs saw neighbors n shit, or when he went grocery shopping. or just looked out the window, oof

point nemo is a point in the ocean that is the furthest place away from any civilization. the lonely must like him a little as well, damn. he cant dream abt the place since the vines dont let him. he finds out theres a scientific voyage going to point nemo, he replaces one of the members who is fated to die n takes his identity, deposing of the corpse. him n martin are so alike sometimes how fun. no wonder martin felt threatened lmao.

he has dreamless sleep for a while, keeping to himself. finally got the context lmao. but the vines return when they get to the destination, n he understands their fate n his purpose (as an avatar of the end? as a bringer of death? damn). he makes it so they reach the place where the vines originate from n they all die. this time, he's the one to cause the deaths, not just be a bystander. i bet he also wanted to die a little bit, loosing hope of having a normal life and just wanting it to stop :((

oliver embraces death, becoming an avatar. he also states he's going along with what "she" wants, which could be annabelle cane or just the mother from the web.

mag 168: Roots: (iconic "martin, are you jealous?" episode, just fyi) his alias here is The Coroner, which is rad as shit. he sees the veins of the end, n he has no power to stop the fate of death, but even if he could he wouldnt. "for to rob a soul of death is as torturous as its inevitable coming" grim poet over here lmao

interesting that he measures how close somebody is to death by "stretches" which are "waves" of terror or whatever. some ocean terms here, probs since oliver died in the middle of the ocean, so nice lil detail.

he likes to watch ppl be afraid of their inevitable deaths, even the inevitable deaths of others. we love a lil evil in out handsome men ofc.

he also has his concerns. the ppl will die, but without ppl to die there's no End. he may need other victims from other domains, but that will result in conflict. theres probs not new humans being created, so the humans will eventually run out if the apocalypse keeps going. and when that happens, all the fears will end and this reality will be rid of them. even then, there's no action to be taken to prevent this. the other fears will feed into The End, n he will see this happen, n while this might have terrified him before, he's too much of an avatar to be what he was before, he's more of the end than oliver banks now.

so! oliver is a handsome, tall, black man. he is anxious n also very sad, and awkward. a pretty chill guy regardless. he cares abt ppl, even those he doesnt know. he slowly comes to terms with death tho, n he just starts to like. not care less but just understand that it doesnt matter if they will all die n shit. he will also lie to get his way, n he has mostly good intentions, he's just desensitized to death now. also he might be into magick's. n he used to be a banker but that didnt go well. n also he's gay. king <3<3<3

#tma #the magnus archives #oliver banks #tma oliver banks #tmalesbeen talks #this was fun #hes just a lil guy!!! literally!!!

45 notes · View notes

chainrave · 4 months

Note

I think you should still consider making a list of influential fanfics, even if you don't have links to them or can't remember the details. Maybe someone on here will know what you mean! And even if not, might be fun (or emotionally damaging, kind of fun too) to reminisce!! :)

you know what you’re totally right! so here is a list of the ones i remember off the top of my head that are still up on ffnet (all kh fics btw, mostly akuroku)

Boys — Casey V soriku/akuroku. 90s high school au. a highly acclaimed classic for good reason. listen to nirvana for a more immersive experience.

A Lesser Beauty — Versace Frolic akuroku. modern-setting college au. another classic. *slaps roof* this bad boy can fit so much mental illness in it.

Suburbia — Falaphesian soriku. modern-setting au. interesting characterization & a gut-punch ending. references one of my favorite murakami short stories. holy shit this was written in 2006??

A Pillar of Salt — Versace Frolic akuroku. modern-setting au. vf hits it out of the park yet again. most succinct way to describe it is a single muttered "fuck..."

failures of flight — lhbaghead akuroku. modern-setting (sorta) au. fucked up boys being fucked up boys over a span of several years. 9/11 is mentioned and is actually kinda relevant.

Dispatch to the Sea Floor — Sowing Poppies akuroku. modern-setting au. some cross-dressing roxas to heal the soul. but also some tragedy to hurt the soul.

My Girlfriend, Who Lives in Canada — Quillslinger akuroku. modern-setting au. i'm overusing "classic" but it's a classic. who hasn't read this one?

Deceitful Above All Things — Quillslinger akuroku. canon compliant but written pre-days. axel-centric take on his time with roxas in the org. heart-wrenching, of course.

there are probably a dozen more. annie christ had some good akuroku fics but they're gone now, there's a bunch of high school aus i can't remember but i know i liked them, there's a few unfinished stories that haven't been updated since obama's first term, and of course there's all the purged smut & stories with """questionable""" content

#ask #.txt #i used to read a lot of fan fiction but i haven't read nearly as much in recent years #we're past the glory years but #there's still so many talented writers in the kh fandom #(i meant to reply to this sooner! sorry!)

6 notes · View notes

the-jam-to-the-unicorn · 1 year

Note

Hi jam! Hope you're feeling better!! Have you ever thought about writing a post with interesting facts about Vova and Olena's relationship? I know you already did some in the past but i think it would be interesting (and also knowing them super cute!).

Thank you and I do!

Well, I can always make one more post. 😁 For today - 20 collected things from reading about them for months. 😅

While Olena does most of the cooking and she says, she can cook, she's convinced she's probably not the best / biggest cook. Nevertheless Zelenskyy always makes her compliments about her cooking. Olena admits that this probably doesn't mean much since he eats almost everything.

He almost fainted during Kyrylo's birth (and was accidentally in the delivery room). And waited under her hospital window when Sasha was born.

While Olena says she's not a fan of extravaganze romance, she still has a romantic side and sometimes wishes Zelenskyy would be more romantic (even though, as she admits, he can be pretty romantic and does a lot of romantic things). She joked, that sometimes date nights felt more like business meetings.

Zelenskyy said that his wife is a really good "editor" of his humour and can be "brutally" honest. While Olena thinks she probably doesn't have much of a big influence on him, Zelenskyy says that her opinion is also very important to him and he values it a lot.

Olena thinks she's funnier (Zelenskyy disagrees 😁) but Zelenskyy admits she's the better writer.

Zelenskyy says he randomly makes her gifts of all kinds and she's always confused why, but he says he does this since she made him the two biggest gifts in his life (Sasha and Kyrylo).

He renovated their first flat on his own (the Kyiv one).

Zelenskyy likes to keep everyone busy on vacation and plans trips and everything ... while Olena and the kids (and the fam and friends) just want to relax. According to her, he needs 2 - 3 days to be able to relax. The first time they were on vacation abroad was 2006.

Zelenskyy never proposed to her sooner since for him marriage = start of a family / kids and he felt that they were both not ready (they also had absolutely no / barely money) (Olena btw never was stressed about the fact he didn't ask sooner since she kind of always knew that sooner or later he would ask her). Funnily so, they married in September 2003, Sasha was born July 2004 ... 😇😉

They both never worked 1 day in their jobs (besides internships). They got their university diplomas and that's it (and Olena actually finished as one of the best of her year).

Zelenskyy said that they would either met or talk / text with each other almost every day. There are very rare days were they didn't saw or communicate with each other since they started dating. They would especially talk with each other when he was on tour. He also sleeps worse when he has to sleep without her. He also misses her (and the kids) terribly when they are apart. For example, according to Olena, during their time apart when she and the kids went into hiding and even afterwards since they can barely see him in person, Zelenskyy really sufferes and misses them a lot.

Zelenskyy also said that it was love at first sight for him when he met Olena, but needed a bit to realize he has feelings for her. Olena on the other side can't remember the first time they met. 😄 She was actually dating someone else / was in a relationship with someone else when she met Zelenskyy and had no plans to change this. But she connected with Zelenskyy so well and much and they had so many things to talk about and in common and he "convinced" her in the end to give him a chance. 😁

As much extrovert Zelenskyy is in public and with friends, Olena mentioned that he can be quite calm and taken back in private and needs this to "recharge". And while Olena is pretty shy / reserved in public several friends and Zelenskyy mentioned she can be quite outgoing and open and lively when she's with close friends and / or in a place she feels comfortable (even though it was not always like that and it developed over the years).

Zelenskyy said that he always tried to be with his family as much as possible and seeing them at least some minutes every day. But he also always worked hard to achieve their goals and provide for his family. Hencewise Olena became the "manager" of the family / home while he was the manager of Kvartal. Zelenskyy said that he always trusted her and knew she would decide the right things.

Olena said that she's probably the stricter parent because Zelenskyy will do absolutely everything for and with the kids, no matter what they ask. So she has to regulate that a bit and be the strict(er) parent. Zelenskyy always did gentle parenting when it came to his kids and Olena said that in all these years he never once raised his voice when it comes to the kids or said a grim word to them or was mad with them. He also doesn't like it when she's (too) strict with them and raises her voice.

Zelenskyy says that it was always important to him that he and Olena are equal in their relationship.

While the can fight, they do it (very) rarely and they say it's more like a (heated) discussion and not really fighting. Olena also says she can't be mad with her husband for long.

Olena's parents were unsure about Zelenskyy and if he is the right guy for Olena. They worried he will not be able to provide for her and their family (because of KVN and since he barely got money from it), but Olena always said that she has faith in him and he will come up with an idea / solution. When they saw how much he cares about Olena and how hard he works to provide for the family they no longer worried. Nowadays, according to Olena, her parents (especially her mom) love Zelenskyy so much that he's basically like a son to them. And Rymma views Olena as her own daughter. She was also very much Team Olena right from the start of the relationship and was also telling other women to leave Zelenskyy alone because he has Olena and he is no longer available. 😄 (Rymma Zelenska, the original shipper and Fan #1 😄)

Since they met at 17, their relationship was, of course, not always picture-perfect and Olena and Zelenskyy said they also had some hard and difficult periodes (personally and in their relationship). But they always supported each other and stuck to each others side, because they always knew their love was much greater and they always wanted to be with the other one.

They both love to read and read a lot. Zelenskyy said he tried to read her favourite authors, but was only partly succesful since they are not really his cup of tea.

7 notes · View notes

lawtistic · 1 year

Text

tier lists uhh woohoo

“who uses emails anymore” me. because i had to email one of these to myself so i could get it on my computer. now here we are

i went a did a shit ton of death note tierlists and now that i have the urge to shit myself i will post them because i need an excuse to post something on my masterlist when i get around to making that

characters:

i know who that manga guy is but i forgot his name and he is funny and sexy despite being present for 2 pages and thats why hes up there

im a certified sidoh hater btw

there is a number of characters i ranked pretty high just because theyre hot (mello [partially], namikawa, gevanni, lidner, nameless manga guy, wedy)

characters (adaptations):

i didnt watch the 2006 live action because i havent gotten to it, couldnt finish the 2017 netflix version because of the gore, and havent watched the korean musical because i am superstitious and the circumstances of that are triggering so yayyy! so the characters that are on here from those are ones i have seen clips of and feedback and such

and some characters werent on there??? like mikami was in the jdrama and was an important enough character why would u not add him

characters kind of deviate from their og rankings but that is either because i have gotten 8 hours of sleep in the past 48 hours or something stirred in my brain and i was being smart but i no longer remember it

adaptations:

i probably shouldnt have even ranked the 2006 live action and 2017 netflix ver at all but i probably thought the list was looking pretty empty when was doing this

theres also a lot missing but those are the main ones so i dont care that much

(i would have personally added the add-ons like L change the worLd, another note, and the video games but like i said those are specific additions. i would have also added the one shot, the c-kira story and a-kira story, as well as the relights, light up the NEW world, differentiated the different versions of the musical but but but its okay. i know im rambling but really i do get it [”make it yourself!” no i already made 1 tierlist for this post and also i havent consumed enough of that media for it to be worth it])

ships:

gonna be honest when it comes to L’s successors (excluding B and A) i feel weird shipping them with anyone else BUT each other

i would have ranked b x a higher if a wasnt a briefly mentioned character with little dynamics or personality talked about, and i havent seen enough collective fanon of them to rank them anywhere other than mid

the first 2 tiers are preeetty closely ranked i just put lawlight in the first one because i consume more of it, also i probably would have moved some of these around (like moving kiyomisa down to ohio) but this is pretty old so thats my excuse (i was also kind of hard on matsulight i am so sorry)

musical songs:

i dont hate any of the songs enough to put it in hunchback 2

also i need jarrod spector to sing an english version of the way things are i would cry. i put that in (the cheap, joking version of) my will but i accidentally said the way it ends and since it was an image that has since been plastered on multiple places its too late for me to fix it despite my efforts to correct it so oh well

ones i just genuinely cant remember were put in ohio (alongside the actual ohio songs) so if you see one in there that should definitely be ranked higher or lower that is why

i know a lot of people liked borrowed time but to me its just the simp version of titanium so i dont care that much

if i could rank the individual parts of secrets and lies i would be so grateful because the first part is pretty ohio but the last section is so boobs tier worthy that i just ended up averaging it out

i listen to the way it ends on loop every single morning

character themes:

this is the tier list i made and since i am very bad at making tier lists there are like 2 useless and unused images and its irritating but tiermaker says i cannot delete them so rip

kira’s theme is my favorite and while i know the three L themes up there are essentially the same thing they are also the same thing and i just put them next to each other

i played mello’s theme c while riding go karts once it was great

#death note #tier lists #death note tier list #death note characters #death note adaptations #death note themes #death note the musical #death note ships

3 notes · View notes

booklindworm · 3 years

Text

A rant against Karen Traviss' understanding of history and her FAQ answers

Did you base the Mandalorians on the Spartans?

<cite> No. I didn't. </cite> Fair enough.

<cite> I really wish history was taught properly - okay, taught at all - in schools these days, because history is the big storehouse that I plunder for fiction. It breaks my heart to hear from young readers who have no concept even of recent history - the last fifty years - and so can't see the parallels in my books. You don't have to be a historian to read my novels, but you'll get a lot more out of them if you explore history just a little more. Watch a history channel. Read a few books. Visit some museums. Because history is not "then" - it's "now." Everything we experience today is the product of what's happened before. </cite> Yeah, I do to. Please, Ms Traviss, go on, read some books. Might do you some good. And don't just trust the history channels. Their ideas about fact-checking differ wildly.

<cite> But back to Mandos. Not every military society is based on Sparta, strange as that may seem. In fact, the Mandos don't have much in common with the real Spartans at all. </cite> You mean apart from the absolute obsession with the military ["Agoge" by Stephen Hodkinson], fearsome reputation ["A Historical Commentary on Thucydides" by David Cartwright], their general-king ["Sparta" by Marcus Niebuhr Tod], the fact that they practically acted as mercenaries (like Clearch/Κλέαρχος), or the hyper-confidence ("the city is well-fortified that has a wall of men instead of brick" [Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus])...

<cite> A slightly anarchic, non-centralized, fightin' people? Sounded pretty Celtic to me. Since I went down that path, I've learned more about the Celts (especially the Picts), and the more I learn, the more I realise what a dead ringer for Mandos they are. But more of how that happened later... </cite>

The Celtic people are more than one people, more than one culture. Celtic is a language-family! In the last millennium BC nearly every European ethnic group was in some ways Celtic, and they were not one. Later, after the Germanic tribes (also not one people, or a singular group) moved westwards, the Celtic cultures were still counted in the hundreds. Not only Scotland was Celtic! Nearly all of Western Europe was (apart from the Greek and Phoenician settlers on the Mediterranean coasts). The word “Celts” was written down for the first time by Greek authors who later also used the word “Galatians”. The Romans called these people “Gauls”, and this word was used to describe a specific area, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, the Cévennes and the Rhine: “Gaul”. So the Celts, the Galatians and the Gauls were all part of the same Celtic civilisation. "Celts, a name applied by ancient writers to a population group occupying lands mainly north of the Mediterranean region from Galicia in the west to Galatia in the east [] Their unity is recognizable by common speech and common artistic traditions" [Waldman & Mason 2006] Mirobrigenses qui Celtici cognominantur. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History; example: C(AIUS) PORCIUS SEVERUS MIROBRIGEN(SIS) CELT(ICUS) -> not just one culture "Their tribes and groups eventually ranged from the British Isles and northern Spain to as far east as Transylvania, the Black Sea coasts, and Galatia in Anatolia and were in part absorbed into the Roman Empire as Britons, Gauls, Boii, Galatians, and Celtiberians. Linguistically they survive in the modern Celtic speakers of Ireland, Highland Scotland, the Isle of Man, Wales, and Brittany." [Celtic Culture: a historical encyclopedia. by John Koch] "[] the individual CELTIC COUNTRIES and their languages, []" James, Simon (1999). The Atlantic Celts – Ancient People Or Modern Invention. University of Wisconsin Press. "All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae live, another in which the Aquitani live, and the third are those who in their own tongue are called Celtae, in our language Galli." [Julius Caesar, De Bello Gallico] <= I had to translate that in school. It's tedious political propaganda. Read also the Comentarii and maybe the paper "Caesar's perception of Gallic social structures" that can be found in "Celtic Chiefdom, Celtic State," Cambridge University Press. The Celtic tribes and nations were diverse. They were pretty organized, with an academic system, roads, trade, and laws. They were not anarchic in any way. They were not warriors - they were mostly farmers. The Celts were first and foremost farmers and livestock breeders

The basic economy of the Celts was mixed farming, and, except in times of unrest, single farmsteads were usual. Owing to the wide variations in terrain and climate, cattle raising was more important than cereal cultivation in some regions.

Suetonius addressing his legionaries said "They are not soldiers—they're not even properly equipped. We've beaten them before." [not entirely sure, but I think that was in Tacitus' Annals]

Regarding the Picts, in particular, which part of their history is "anarchic"? Dál Riata? the Kingdom of Alba? Or are you referring to the warriors that inspired the Hadrian's Wall? Because no one really knows in our days who the fuck they were. The Picts’ name first appears in 297 AD. That is later. <cite> Celts are a good fit with the kind of indomitable, you-can't-kill-'em-off vibe of the Mandos. Reviled by Rome as ignorant savages with no culture or science, and only fit for slaughter or conquest, the Celts were in fact much more civilized than Rome even by modern standards. </cite> That's how the Romans looked at pretty much every culture that wasn't Greek, Roman, Phoenician, Egyptian, or from Mesopotamia (read, if you want, anything Roman or Greek about the Skyths, the Huns, Vandals, Garamantes...).

<cite> They also kicked Roman arse on the battlefield, and were very hard to keep in line, so Rome did what all lying, greedy superpowers do when challenged: they demonized and dehumanized the enemy. (They still used them in their army, of course, but that's only to be expected.) </cite> They were hard to keep in line, but they most definitely did not kick Roman arse on the battlefield. Roman arse was kicked along the borders of the Roman Empire, such as the Rhine, the Danube, the Atlas mountains, etc. And mostly by actually badly organized, slightly anarchic groups, such as the Goths or the Huns (BTW the Huns were not a Germanic people, even though early 20th century British propaganda likes to say so). Though they were also decisively stopped by the Parthians. Who were very organized. Ah well. <cite> While Rome was still leaving its unwanted babies to die on rubbish dumps - a perfectly acceptable form of family planning to this "civilisation" - and keeping women as chattels devoid of rights, the barbarian Celts had a long-standing legal system that not only gave women what we would think of as equal rights, but also protected the rights of the elderly, children, and the disabled. They had a road network across Europe and worldwide trade long before the Romans ever got their act together. And their science - well, their astronomical calculations were so sophisticated that it takes computers to do the same stuff today. </cite> See? You even say yourself that they weren't actually anarchic. Also you're not completely right: 1. women (of most Celtic cultures, with one notable exception being the Irish) were not allowed to become druids, e.g. scientists, physicians, priests, or any other kind of academics, so they did not have equal rights. Also, as in other Indo-European systems, the family was patriarchal. 2. the roads they had were more like paths, and did not span the entirety of Europe; the old roads that are still in use are nearly all of them Roman. Had the Celtic inhabitants of Gallia or Britannia built comparable roads, why would the Romans have invested in building a new system on top? 3. world-wide? Yeah, right. They traded with those who traded with others and so were able to trade with most of southern Eurasia and northern Africa, as well as few northern parts (Balticum, Rus), but that's (surprise) not the whole world. 4. most people use computers for those calculations you mention because its easier. It's not necessary. I can do those calculations - give me some time to study astronomy (I'm a math major, not physics) and some pencils and paper. 5. and - I nearly forgot - the kids didn't die. That was a polite fiction. The harsh truth is that most Roman slaves were Romans... <cite> So - not barbarians. Just a threat to the empire, a culture that wouldn't let the Pax Romana roll over it without a fight. (Except the French tribes, who did roll over, and were regarded by the Germanic Celts [...]) </cite> WTF Germanic Celts? What are you smoking, woman? Isn't it enough that you put every culture speaking a language from the Celtic family in one pot and act as if they were one people, now you have to mix in a different language-family as well? Shall we continue that trend? What about the Mongolian Celts, are they, too, proof that the Celts were badass warriors? I think at this point I just lost all leftover trust in your so-called knowledge. <cite> [...] as being as bad as the Romans. Suck on that, Asterix... </cite> Asterix was definitely a Celt, and unlike the British Celts, he was not a citizen of the Roman Empire.

<cite> Broad brush-stroke time; Celts were not a centralized society but more a network of townships and tribes, a loose alliance of clans who had their own internal spats, but when faced with some uppity outsider would come together to drive off the common threat. </cite> They might have tried, but they didn't. The first and only time a Celtic people really managed to drive off some uppity outsider would be 1922 following the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921*. The fact that France, Spain, Portugal speak Romance languages and the British (or Irish) Isles nearly uniformly speak English should be proof enough.

*Unless you count Asterix. <cite> You couldn't defeat them by cutting off the head. There was no head to cut off. </cite> You mean unlike Boudica and Vercingetorix. Oh wait. Tacitus, in his Annals, said that Boudica's last fight cost 80,000 Britons and 400 Romans their lives. He was probably exaggerating. But it definitely stopped much of the British resistance in its tracks. <cite> To the centralized, formal, rather bureaucratic Romans, for whom the city of Rome was the focus of the whole empire, this was a big does-not-compute. The Celts were everything they didn't understand. And we fear what we don't understand, and we kill what we fear. </cite> While that is totally true, it's also completely off the mark. The Romans demonized the druids, not every Celt, and they were afraid of what was basically an academic network. That had nothing to do with war. <cite> Anyway, Mandos....once I took a single concept - in this case, the idea of clans that operated on a loose alliance system, like the Celts - the rest grew organically. I didn't plan it out in detail from the start. </cite> That's really obvious. Maybe looking at some numbers and remembering that you weren't planning a small, local, rural, medieval community would have helped, too. I mean lets have a look at, say, Scotland (since you specifically mentioned the Picts): they still have less than 6 mio. people all together, and that's today. Mandalore is a sector. A sector of Outer Space with at least 2000 inhabited planets. How do you think that translates? It doesn't. <cite> I just asked myself what a culture of nomadic warriors would value, how they would need to operate to survive, and it all grew inexorably by logical steps. The fact that Mandos ended up as very much like the Celts is proof that the technique of evolving a character or species - find the niche, then work out what fits it - works every time. It creates something very realistic, because that's how real people and real societies develop. </cite> Celtic people were usually not nomadic! And, once again, non of them were predominantly warriors! It's really hard to be a nomadic farmer. I believe the biggest mistake you made, Ms Traviss, is mixing up the Iron Age (and earlier) tribes that did indeed sack Rome and parts of Greece, and that one day would become the people the Romans conquered. And apart from the Picts they really were conquered. <cite> So all I can say about Mandos and Spartans is that the average Mando would probably tell a Spartan to go and put some clothes on, and stop looking like such a big jessie. </cite>

I'd really like to see a Mando – or anyone – wearing full plate without modern or Star Wars technology in Greece. Happy heatstroke. There is a reason they didn't wear a lot (look up the Battle of Hattîn, where crusaders who didn't wear full helmets and wore chainmail* still suffered badly from heat exhaustion). [Nicolle, David (1993), Hattin 1187: Saladin's Greatest Victory] *chainmail apparently can work like a heatsink CONCLUSION You're wrong. And I felt offended by your FAQ answers. QUESTION You're English. You're from England. A group - a nation - that was historically so warlike and so successful that by now we all speak English. A nation that definitely kicked arse against any Celtic nation trying to go against them (until 1921, and they really tried anyway). A nation that had arguably the largest Empire in history. A nation that still is barbaric and warlike enough that a lost football game has people honestly fearing for their lives.

Also, a Germanic group, since you seem to have trouble keeping language-families and cultures apart. If we were to talk about the family, we could add on the current most aggressively attacking nation (USA) plus the former most aggressively attacking nations (the second and third German Reich), also the people who killed off the Roman Empire for good (the Goths and Visigoth), the original berserkers (the Vikings) and claim at the very least the start of BOTH WORLD WARS. Why did you look further?

Some other sources:

Histoire de la vie privée by Georges Duby and Philippe Ariès, the first book (about the antiquity) I read it translated, my French is ... bad to non-existent

The Day of the Barbarians: The Battle That Led to the Fall of the Roman Empire (about the Huns) by Alessandro Barbero

If you speak Dutch or German, you might try

Helmut Birkhan: Kelten. Versuch einer Gesamtdarstellung ihrer Kultur, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien

Janssens, Ugo, De Oude Belgen. Geschiedenis, leefgewoontes, mythe en werkelijkheid van de Keltische stammen. Uitgeverij The House of Books

DISCLAIMER

I’m angry and I wrote this down in one session and thus probably made some mistakes. I’m sorry. Or maybe I’m not sorry. I’m still angry. She can’t know who reads her FAQ and at least two of her answers (on her professional website) were offensive to the reader.

#history #england #scotland #ancient celts #roman empire #mandalorians #sparta #proud warrior race #shitty research #rant #me ranting #fuck this #karen traviss

81 notes · View notes

transmasc-wizard · 2 years

Note

hi nico!! happy storyteller saturdaysunday time zone! if it's not too spoilery a question (if it is I can hit you up with a different question!) - what did Val's four-years-ago saving of the world actually entail? I am curious of the Backstory™

hello!!! Happy storyteller weekend-day-starting-with-S-day!! Thanks for the ask!!

It is not a spoilery question. It's found out fairly early, since pretty much the whole world is aware. (though admittedly this is a detailed version lmao.)

First off: obviously, Val is the chosen one. This story sprung up as a "what happens to the Chosen One when they're done saving the world?" story (though it's much more than that now). I've never been fond of the idea that the Chosen One lives a perfectly normal, content life, nor a wonderful grand and in-the-spotlight life, because that's not something trauma lets you do. And that's what Val's backstory is; trauma.

But you asked specifically what it is! And for that we need to look at the world history in Val Saintly.

Basically, for about a century, there was an underground organization run by "the faerie king" and his "kingdom" (which had many cult elements), who did terrible things to people. Specifically, if they approached you, you either became one of them or they killed you. If you did become one of them, they made you kill others to get whatever the faerie king (not an actual king but that's what he called himself btw) wanted. To some people they were nothing more than a bogeyman, but it was undeniable to most that eventually the faerie king would take everything.

Then, in 1997, a shitty wizard guy gave one (1) prophecy by the side of the road. He proclaimed that some time in the next 10 years, the girl who would put an end to the faerie king and his kingdom would be born. She would be a witch, marked with purple eyes and no parents past age 3, and she would save everyone. (It's supposed to be stereotypical with the eyes and parents and stuff. Her surname is Saintly, lmao.)

Lo and behold, on the first day of 2003, Valarie Saintly is born. In 2006, her parents are killed. In 2007, the shitty wizard guy becomes her new caretaker. In 2013, she meets her companions (Sarah, Daniel, and two others). And then, at 14 years old, she starts her journey with her friends.

Meanwhile, the faerie king has nearly 150 groups scattered across the world. Every member of his kingdom is connected through his magic. They can still die, but it's very difficult for them to, and really the only way to guarantee they will die is to kill the faerie king, an action that will kill them all.

Val and her group spend about a year looking for him. They fight people along the way, but Val doesn't kill anyone. That's against her morals, and she doesn't want to kill unless she absolutely needs to. So the others kill for her, destroying a bit of this kingdom, one person at a time.

And then, just after her fifteenth birthday in 2018, they find him. Sarah, her closest friend, takes the bait of becoming part of the kingdom as a distraction.

And then Valarie Saintly, with just one knife in one man's ribs, kills hundreds of people--including the one she loved most of all.

That got very... prose-ish, but it's what happened. Val never really lets it sink in how many people she killed, mostly because she refused to let anyone know the number. (this changes.) She knows that on some level they were all destined to die terribly anyway, but it's hard to not hate yourself when you've probably destroyed more families than you'll ever meet. Yeah, the faerie king planned on taking over the entire world. Yeah, she did the best thing she could. She's been immortalized as a hero, and people at the very least love the idea of her. But it hurt her.

And so, in 2022, when she meets an odd vampire and his friends who all know she's the World Savior but still see her as a their cool friend Val, she realizes she'd let the world fall to pieces to keep them.

[there is a tag ramble. that was an accident because i didn't expect it to get long and i'm too lazy to re-type it in the post so here we are.]

#this got very long and it's probably a lot more depressing than you were expecting but i hope it's interesting lol #i think its important story-wise to note that i could tell this as a story. this could be it's own book.#its a very deliberate choice NOT to make Val Saintly about that #because when you look closer? it was really fucked up. her mentor used her; her friends were encouraged to sacrifice their lives;#they were all only 15. to tell the story of ''Valarie Saintly Saves the World'' would be to act like it was a grand & noble thing #instead of acknowledging that it never should have been her burden to bear nor any other child's.#VS starts when it does because that's the part of the story in which Val actually matters. *Val*. not the Chosen One #just Val as herself with no strings or fates attached #the entire story would loose all it's meanings and themes if i told it *during* her backstory because there is no way to do that #from val or anyone else's POV; not without treating it like a wonderous and magical thing #instead of a horror story #Valarie is someone who came from a horror story masquerading as fantasy but only just realized it #Val Saintly has to be *this* for it to be the story i'm trying to tell #asks #albatris #sts #storyteller saturday #wip val saintly #writblr asks

13 notes · View notes

dangermousie · 3 years

Photo

1. That’s quite a kiss for a proper, serious historical. But then I suppose you don’t hire a Taiwanese star if you want really bad kissing.

2. Vic Chou was my first ever drama crush as he was the ML of my first ever drama Mars (still one of my all time faves.) Back in 2006, before some tumblr users were probably even born, I read the manga, wanted to see if there was an anime and discovered there was a live action instead. I found it and the rest is history. If someone told 2006 me that 15 years later I’d be swooning over him as a future Song emperor...eh why not?

3. I find it interesting how they stick a somewhat cliche fairy tale romance into a pretty serious period drama only to turn it inside out in a very dark way. If this wasn’t a situation where we know Liu Er eventually becomes Dowager Empress and dies of old age, I’d be up for the narrative contained in the first episode because it has such a lovely dark tinge. I am not even talking about the fact that Zhao Heng is love’s young dream to her but not a great husband to his actual wife - she has just given birth to a son and heir and secured him a place as the Crown Prince and while he is unfailingly proper and polite to her, he has zero warmth towards her or hesitation to bring a new wife in when she’s barely recovered from childbirth. (Though it’s probably a very realistic set-up when he and his official wife were an arranged marriage; propriety is the most you can expect - to wish for love and warmth, let alone monogamy, is a pipe dream.) No, I am talking how it’s sort of a fairy tale set up. She is a peasant girl who fishes out a bona fide royal prince out of the river.

And not just any royal prince, but a gorgeous one to boot (I have never found someone who looks like that in a river, dammit!)

And she, a peasant girl from Shu (and one that already gave birth too though I believe miscarried, but definitely no pristine high born virgin) wins his heart.

And he brings her with him to the capital and not just that but literally asks the Emperor for the permission to make her a wife.

And is loving and devoted and sweet and spends all his free time with her.

Sure, he already has an official wife (and possibly concubines) but it’s a polygamous society so Liu Er has seriously hit the fairy tale jackpot. I did crack up like mad when he tells her this though:

“Yeah, we will be together forever. You, me, my wife, and all my concubines.”

Anyway, so far this is basically Song Dynasty Cinderella. Except his child gets stabbed in her care and of course the Emperor condemns her to death and despite the Prince’s pleading she is given a cup of poisonous wine and that’s the end for her (or not since we know it’s ep 1.) Because a peasant girl with no family or backing would not walk into a happy fairy tale with a handsome prince but get tripped by one of a million dangers in the capital...and I love that.

The pacing of ep 1 was all over the place btw. I know this is 61 eps but I am wondering if it was cut down even further from 70 or 80 and they just cut down in the beginning. Because we are thrown in medias res which is fine even if my knowledge of the Song Dynasty is basically wikipedia-based; if this was a show set in medieval Russia or England or France of Italy, I wouldn’t be as lost as I am. The medias res thing I actually like. But also the amount of stuff ep 1 cowers is something we normally get a dozen eps for - we get the earthquake, the Emperor picking a Crown Prince, the secret that the Emperor killed his brother, our ML going to walk, getting caught in an earthquake, being presumed dead, being saved, falling for FL, bringing her back, his baby being assassinated and FL drinking poisoned wine. I mean - that’s more plot than entire actual dramas have! The actors are all excellent, the cinematography is beautiful, and honestly even one ep and with such a pace I already see them as fully living and breathing people which is very impressive, but it feels like a survey course or maybe a Cliffs’ Notes version. I really hope this is sort of the prologue and the pace calms down - otherwise they are gonna be able to cover the entire Song Dynasty in 61 eps with room left over.

#cdrama #palace of devotion #liu tao #vic chou

25 notes · View notes

red-sector-rivendell · 3 years

Note

media reccs? 👀 since apparently you are a man of good taste?

Wow thank you 😏 I have a masterlist of movies that have changed me I often recommend to people, I'll just copy and paste here with quick synopses lol, it's kinda long. I'm not super great at writing synopses tho so bear with me

Dead Poets Society (1989)

One of my favorite movies of all time and a total classic. It's about a group of boys at a strict boarding school who are inspired by their new English teacher (played by Robin Williams) to think for themselves and chase their dreams. This movie literally changed my life lol

Quadrophenia (1979)

This movie is based off of the story behind the concept album by The Who of the same name. It follow the life of a young man named Jimmy who is in a gang called the Mods. Theres this huge gang war between them and the Rockers (I think that's their name, it's been a while since i watched it) and Jimmy questions his beliefs about coming-of-age and his values in life throughout the film

Cabaret (1972)

Based off of the Broadway musical of the same name, this movie is about a British man who moves to Germany during the beginning of the rise of Nazis. He meets a woman who basically turns his world upside down, and it follows their love affair and sexuality and anti-semitism, and it's hilarious and heart wrenching and a beautiful movie

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

This is a super trippy romance film. Basically in the universe of this movie, theres a technology that is developed that can delete memories of an entire person from your mind while you are in a dream-like state, and the main character of this movie (played by Jim Carrey) decides to undergo the procedure after a bad breakup. Its soooo good I highly recommend this movie

It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)

This is an animated film about a man named Bill who is going through brain cancer. Its told from the perspective of an unnamed narrator essentially communicating everything Bill sees, hears, and experiences. This is the movie that got me into film and it is still a complete masterpiece and one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen

The Dirties (2013)

Loved this one a lot back in high school, it's been a while since I watched it. This is a film made in Canada about a high schooler named Matt Johnson and his friend Owen who decide to make a short film for their class about them killing the gang at their school that bullies them, and things take a dark turn. It's a hilarious movie and hits pretty close to home for me in a lot of ways haha

Logan's Run (1976)

Great movie, pretty cheesy though so be warned. This is based off a book with the same name, and it takes place in the future where most of humanity is wiped out except for a small society that lives under a domed structure. No one is allowed to leave the dome, and to control overpopulation, no one is allowed to live past the age of 30. It's really bizarre but I love this movie

Donnie Darko (2001)

Pretty sure this was Jake Gyllenhaal's first big hit when he was super young (I think he was like 19 in this movie but I'm not sure) basically about this kid, Donnie Darko, who is somewhat schizophrenic and has a habit of sleepwalking. After one particular incident he has a near-death experience and starts seeing a man in a bunny costume everywhere who makes him do weird stuff. Another pretty trippy movie with a crazy ending

American Psycho (2000)

Honestly I'm sure a few on this list you've probably seen (most likely this one included) but I didnt wanna leave any out because they're all so good. If you haven't seen this, it's about a Wall Street executive named Patrick Bateman who is a materialistic phony by day and a serial killer by night. I tried to read the book but the inner dialogue was really hard to get through lmao. Awesome movie though huge recommend.

Clockwork Orange (1971)

Yet another trippy one. And fuck it's been a long time since I've seen it so I might get some stuff wrong here. But it's basically about this serial rapist guy who hangs out with this group of goons and they all like to go beat up homeless people and shit, but the main character gets captured and has to go through reformation therapy to make him a better person. It's an extremely bizarre movie but soooo good and kind of hilarious lol

Creep (2014)

Of course this is on my list haha. If you haven't seen it yet, it's a horror movie about this freelance film guy who answers an ad on craigslist to help a man with cancer film a movie for his unborn son. And shit gets weird real fast. One of my favorite horror movies ever, I wouldnt say it's super scary but it's fun as fuck

Hereditary (2018)

If I'm being honest, I don't like a lot of big movies made in super recent years and especially not horror movies (mostly because they're all cheap cash grabs with no substance) but this one is an exception for me. Hereditary is fucking masterful in my opinion, legitimately creepy as hell and well-produced and well written. To put the plot as vaguely as possible without spoiling anything, it's about a family (mostly the mother) who go through some crazy fucked up shit. That's literally all I can say without giving anything away. Super good flick, big recommend

Gattaca (1997)

This list isn't in any particular order, and I love all these movies to death, but if I had to rank them this would probably be on the lower end. It's not a bad movie, it's still great but it's just not as life-changing as the other ones lmao. This takes place in the future where genetic modifications have progressed to a point where you can modify your unborn child's DNA to have the perfect baby. This has led to, essentially racial bias against those who never had that procedure when they were born. The main character was not one of these "special" children, but he wants an extremely prestigious job which requires that of the employee. Through the film, he is trying to fake his identity and fool the company into thinking he is one of these perfect people. Still a great film

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998)

Johnny Depp, man, he is something else. I LOVE this movie. Based off a true story and a book written by the man who lived it, Hunter S. Thompson, this follows the adventure of the writer and his attorney as they go on a drugged-out, psychedelic romp through Las Vegas with the original intention being to cover a story on a motorcycle race, but things go off the rails as they both terrorize the entire city in a way. Just a fun ride the whole way, a great movie

The Truman Show (1998)

God I'm realizing this list is long as fuck. Don't watch all of these movies, it might take you a lifetime lmao. Anyway, this is a classic Jim Carrey movie and another one you've probably seen. But again, if you haven't, this movie is about a man whose entire life has been fabricated and shot for television without him knowing. Super great, super moving, fantastic film 10 outta 10 I gotta wrap this shit up

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

A lesser known Keanu Reeves movie, but fuck I wish more people have seen this. This is one of my favorite movies of all time, and it's based off a book which is just as amazing. This movie takes place in the near future, where facial recognition technology has progressed wayyy too far, and drugs have gotten to the point of no return. The plot follows a detective who is undercover in a junkie house trying to figure out who is the top of the drug dealing totem pole, but ends up wrapped in the junkie lifestyle a little too deeply. Seriously, I recommend this movie to everyone who asks, it's so damn good

Fight Club (1999)

Another popular one. If you havent seen it, it's based off a book by Chuck Palahniuk following the story of a man (the main character actually doesnt have a name lol) who meets a guy named Tyler Durden who changes his entire perspective on how the world works. They start an underground boxing club together to help themselves and other men blow off steam and get away from the capitalist consumer-centric lifestyle they are forced into. Big twist at the end, great movie five stars on yelp

Harold and Maude (1971)

This is a weird one. Gotta say. It's about a guy in his 20s who meets an old woman at a funeral and falls in love with her. Sounds pretty ok at face value but theres a lot of really strange subplots and a huuuuge twist at the end (one of the subplots being the guy compulsively fakes his suicide to get his mother's attention) big recommend

Polyester (1981)

This one I cant even explain u just have to watch it its fucking bizarre

Fargo (1996)

Ok lightning round on the synopses, this movie is about a man who wants to commit fraud by hiring guys to kidnap his wife so her father can pay them ransom and instead the husband gets the money but everything goes wrong it's really good

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Another modern movie I actually like, last time I watched this I was on shrooms and it was crazy but it's about this hotel right on the border of california and (Nevada I think?) And all these weird people are staying at it and there are twists at every turn and chris hemsworth is a cult leader in it its great

Memento (2000)

GREAT MOVIE GOD PLEASE WATCH THIS ONE it's about a man who develops short term memory loss after witnessing the rape and murder of his wife AND WHEN I SAY THERE ARE TWISTS LIKE EVERY TEN MINUTES I MEAN IT. The film is chronologically backwards, in that the first scene takes place at the end of the story and works back from there in increments of like 5 minutes. Basically each scene is a segment of time that this guy remembers before his memory loss kicks in and he forgets and FUCK it's so good please god watch it

Almost Famous (2000)

This is another one that would probably be low on my ranking but still a great and fun movie, it's about this kid that wants to write articles about rock stars for the rolling stone (based off a true story btw) and he ends up running away to go ride on a tour bus with some band and gets into all types of shenanigans and its great and sad

Parasite (2019)

Another modern movie I love, fuck this is getting too long lmao. Poor family wants to make money and they hatch a scheme to pretend to be bougie and work for this rich family but shit gets weird and everything goes wrong and it's so good (also literally the only film ever that made me speechless afterwards)

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Pretty much lives up to the hype, I totally forgot the plot but it's pretty damn good I remember that lmao

The Warriors (1979)

Fun movie, theres a bunch of teen gangs in New York and the leader of all of em is like "hey we should rally all the gangs together and fuck up the cops so we can rule this city" but then he gets shot by someone in the crowd and the gang The Warriors gets blamed so the whole movie is them running from all the other gangs so they can get back to home base and it's just an all around fun time movie

12 Monkeys (1995)

THIS MOVJE IS CRAZY it takes place in the future where a virus has almost completely wiped humans off the face of the earth so these scientists send this guy back in time to figure out where it came from so they can stop it from ever happening but obviously everything goes wrong and yadda yadda yadda it's amazing

Waking Life (2001)

Gonna preface this by saying this film is definitely not for entertainment, it's kind of an arthouse-type flick. It's the type of movie you have to think really really hard about to watch. The basic plot is the main character is stuck inside his own lucid dream, and is walking around listening to all these characters in his dream talk to him about, idk like the meaning of life and consciousness and shit. It's really good if you're in the mood for that type of thing.

Okay I'm finally done, you probably didnt expect this but I've been meaning to put my movie recommendations on this blog anyway haha. I deleted some just cause it was getting wayyyy too long. If u want a shorter list I can just give u like a top 5 in DMs but there u go have at it, every movie on that list is a banger I swear

#long post #movies #film #cinema #cinephile #ask #movie recommendations #you have no obligation to read all that #really shows how bored i am that i wrote out this whole fuckin thing on my phone lmao #youre welcome?

26 notes · View notes

medea10 · 3 years

Text

My Review of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni GOU

(a.k.a. When They Cry Gou)

I know what you’re thinking. Why the heck am I reviewing this anime again? I’ve already written a review in 2009 and re-polished it in 2016. (Here it is BTW) I’ve made my point on who I like, hate, what ships are worthy, and poked fun at all the deaths that happened throughout the series. I think some time has passed that I should say some thoughts on this…um, story. After all, Higurashi is one of my favorite animes.

STORY: Ah shit, here we go again!

Higurashi or When They Cry is about a boy named Keiichi Maebara who recently moved to a place called Hinamizawa. And ever since moving to this town, he’s found his days are filled with fun mischief with fellow friends Rena Ryuuguu, Satoko Hojo, Mion Sonozaki, and Rika Furude. But little does Keiichi know that there’s a little murder mystery that surrounds the town. During a town festival known as Watanagashi (or Cotton Drifting), there’s usually one or two people that go missing or turn up dead. And this year, Keiichi is next. So let’s relive the horrors that plague the town of Hinamizawa and…

One episode later.

Wait, what the…?! It’s episode 2, why are we seeing Hanyuu? I don’t remember that in the manga. The visual! THE VISUAL! WHAT THE FUCK?! ISN’T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A REBOOT? WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE FUCK?! WHY IS THERE AN ADULT RIKA?! WAIT, IS THAT ADULT RIKA OR BERN? IS THIS GOING TO BE THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE TO THE WITCHES OF UMINEKO?! THE SHADOWS IN THE OPENING ARE TOO FAMILIAR FROM OTHER WORKS! Ryukishi07, you magnificent, fucking troll master for keeping this hidden until the second episode’s air date!

Many of us did not see this coming. When they announced a new Higurashi series that was going to be done by a different studio, many of us speculated whether this was going to be a reboot or a sequel. But then we got the PV trailers and it looked like we were going to get a reboot to correct the mistakes Studio Deen made years ago. Rika’s head doesn’t look like its gonna snap off because her body is so small in comparison. Improvements! I mean, they showed everything we were already used to like the yandere girls, the original soundtrack, the original freakin’ cast, and death by baseball bat. Hell, the first episode ended with an Eiko Shimamiya song! It was on track to being a reboot! A better looking reboot!

Here in lies the sequel aspect! After episode one, we get a scene that isn’t usually seen until the Kai part of Higurashi (a good 4-5 arcs away). And they give away the secret that Rika Furude is repeating the timeline of June 1983 over and over because she keeps dying. And as the series progresses, you notice little things different from the original series. Many of the well-known storylines end much differently than what you remember. Instead of Keiichi killing Rena and Mion with a baseball bat, you’ve got Rena going psycho on Keiichi. And Rika’s fate is somehow worse than the stories of the original series. So let’s head back to Hinamizawa to hear the cicadas cry and watch a murder mystery unfold.

THE SUB: All the original voice actors have returned to voice their respected roles. Perfection in a nutshell!

LICENSING: You’ve gotta be shitting me!

As I’ve mentioned years ago in my review, the original Higurashi anime went through a turbulent time being licensed in the states. It was originally licensed and dubbed by Geneon. But once Geneon collapsed, FUNimation licensed it and did absolutely fuck all with it. Geneon could only manage to squeak out one season. At this point, FUNimation was picking up titles that Geneon used to have before it fell under including Familiar of Zero, Kyou Kara Maou, and yes, Higurashi. All of these titles mentioned here were done absolutely nothing with despite having cult followings, second seasons, and OVA’s.

A year or two after licensing it, the license expired for Higurashi. For nearly six years, the only copies you could get were out of print and estimating at $500 at the very least for a full collection. Single DVD’s could be found in rare shops, but it would take like 13 years to complete the fucking collection if you did it that way. And that was only for the first season. Second season, the best all of us could do was bootleg DVD’s from Japan Town or fansubs with glaring errors for the best season to Higurashi. We had to deal with this shit until Sentai Filmworks licensed and released the first 2 seasons and the Rei OVA’s.

AND NOW YOU’RE TELLING ME FUNIMATION IS CLAIMING HIGURASHI ALL FOR THEMSELVES?!

Where the shit was this love 10 years ago when we were asking politely to release Kai? People ignorantly blew Higurashi off for years because season two was never released in the states until 2016 because they thought the damn anime ended after Rena held up the school. I’m already irritated with FUNimation after the Interspecies Reviewers debacle and I’m still quite butt-hurt over them re-releasing Nichijou with a dub to make a quick buck. Licensing Higurashi just brings back old anger. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy Higurashi is legally licensed and can be seen on at the very least Hulu. It’s just that I hold grudges and this was a big one.

THE DUB: Holy…um, okay! This is a rather big gulp to take in. As I’ve repeatedly mentioned in past reviews, the Higurashi dub was a mixed bag of okay, bad, and oh gasperts kill it with fire. So, not great! The good folks at Geneon (before bankrupting in America) dubbed the first season with a good chunk of folks that put their fake names to the credits. Again, not great! To me, there were some aspects of Megan Hollingshed, Mela Lee, and Grant George’s performances of Mion, Rena, and Keiichi that were okay. SOME! John Snyder and Karen Strassmen as Ooishi and Takano were the best out of that dub. Everything else was just irredeemable! It needed a redub, an overhaul, and a spit-shine. For years, I’ve wondered who would be the dream cast. Sentai Filmworks unfortunately never dubbed the remaining seasons when they released them. Would Luci Christian be the heavenly voice to do Rika Furude? Could we get Hilary Haag to do Satoko? Okay, that never came to pass.

This dub is a breath of fresh air. Rika doesn’t sound like Mihoshi. Satoko doesn’t sound fake, Keiichi doesn’t sound like a weird Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s perfect. ESPECIALLY BRITTANY LAUDA AS SATOKO! I knew the second she was cast as Satoko that she was going to excel the fuck out of this role. And I was not disappointed! The only voice I’m still not quite used to is Michelle Rojas as the Sonozaki twins. Probably because I was somewhat okay with Megan Hollingshed’s voice in the 2006 version that it’ll take some time! And we FINALLY got a voice for Hanyuu. I am super excited that Xanthe Huynh is the voice and I know she’ll do great with this role! With all of that said, here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Keiichi is now played by Khoi Dao (known for Kiriyama on March Comes in Like a Lion, Murata on Demon Slayer, Chaka on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Pt. 3, and Iskhan on SAO: Alicization)

*Rena is now played by Emi Lo

*Mion/Shion is now played by Michelle Rojas (known for Shizu Delta on Overlord, Touka on Assassination Classroom, Minase on Psycho Pass, Kanan on Love Live Sunshine, and Kusakai on Keijo!!!!!!!!)

*Rika is now played by Apphia Yu (known for Rio on Assassination Classroom, Marie on Black Clover, You on Love Live Sunshine, Victorique on Gosick, Natsumi on Danganronpa 3, and Laki on Fairy Tail)

*Satoko is now played by Brittany Lauda (known for Riko on Made in Abyss, Meidri on Interspecies Reviewers, Lessar on Index III, and Ichigo on Darling in the FranXX)

*Hanyuu is played by Xanthe Huynh (known for Menma on Anohana, Haru on Persona 5, Hanayo on Love Live, Hidomi on FLCL: Progressive, PallaPalla on Sailor Moon Super S [redub], and Sachi on SAO)

ANY CHANGES IN YOUR HATE-O-RADE:

Okay Medea, let-a-rip!

*inhales and exhales*

Teppei Hojo is trash. He is ultimate trash. This fucker needs to be murdered in every timeline. He is a turd in a Glenn Quagmire shirt. Him and his wife are trash. And when this pile of trash is cheating on that pile of trash, he sleeps with peak trash named Ritsuko. Teppei Hojo needs to die in every timeline. Whenever Keiichi bashes this cum-burger’s head in with a blunt instrument, I scream at the top of my lungs, “DIE SCUM, DIE”! And nothing, I repeat, NOTHING will change my opinion of Teppei Hojo.

Episode 23.

Oh, fuck you Higurashi Gou!

MUSIC: Okay, thank you for proving me wrong. I did not despise the opening theme. Having Higurashi with no Eiko Shimamiya is like having Pokemon with no Rika Matsumoto. Or Rozen Maiden with no ALI PROJECT. But this new opening is fine by my standards.

That’s right, get the niceness of the review before I get angry down below.

THESE TIMELOOPS: Rika tries to find solutions to end her time-loop in June 1983. Much like the original series, we follow stories from the Onikakushi-hen, Watanagashi-hen, and Tatarigoroshi-hen arcs (the first three stories to Higurashi, although now these have different names). However, all of these arcs have different endings. And after a positive turnaround with Satoko escaping from her abusive uncle, shit goes south when Detective Ooishi, who up to this point has never suffered under the Hinamizawa Syndrome or died a painful death goes on a murderous rampage. Higurashi style! That means, he’s after Rika Furude, will slaughter anyone in his way, and scratching his neck because he sees maggots (part of the hallucination effect).

What the shit? Ooishi for the most part has been a great guy. With the exception of the Tatarigoroshi-hen storyline, he was a nice guy! In the limbo with Hanyuu, Rika now remembers who has killed her. Every time Rika dies up to this point, she never remembers who was the cause of her demise. Hanyuu implanted that power to remember the deaths and a clue for Rika to use and then she disappears.

Now seriously, imagine Rika’s plight here. She has been repeating the month of June 1983 for over a hundred years. And each of these times she repeats, she’s horribly murdered. Rika got the shit-end of the deal in the murder department in the original series, including being dissected on while alive. Then, leaving her bloody, naked corpse out in the open of the Oyashiro altar! She’s tired of this shit! She wants to live a happy life away from Hinamizawa. She wants to grow older, become a teenager, and have fun. And this series made it worse by having her die four times in one episode. Not just that, but murdered by the most unexpected people including Akasaka, Chief Kimiyoshi, Mion’s mother Akane, and Keiichi. Keiichi has never killed Rika in any of the timelines up to this point. He has killed Mion and Rena, but never Rika. Keiichi loves Rika! Welcome back to A Million Ways to Die in Hinamizawa.

I’ll just add decapitation, drowning in a lake, set on fire, drowning in a sewage pipe, and death by…um…

Alexa, play Chandelier by Sia.

ENDING: We all know by now that in the original series, Miyo Takano is the betrayer and the reason behind all the murders during the Cotton Drifting Festival. This time, it’s someone closer to Rika that’s causing Rika so much pain. After we watched the worst kinds of murders happen to Rika, the episode after gave us our answer. Satoko, Rika’s friend and confidant is not happy that Rika is turning her back on Oyashiro and Hinamizawa. All the while pulling out her intestines!

Oh Higurashi, don’t stop being gory!

Yes, Satoko is aware of past timelines much like Rika and is almost on a god-like state. So what the hell happened to her? I know Satoko’s past has been a cluster-fuck of horror with her brother disappearing, her parents dying, and every form of abuse from her uncle. But she was able to prevail after all that. After surviving 1983, a lot has changed in Hinamizawa. The three big families of Hinamizawa put an end to the Cotton Drifting Festival and claiming there is no curse of Oyashiro. Mion and Shion moved on and are going to high school. And Rika decides she wants to move away from this village. By attending St. Lucia! And she wants to do this with Satoko.

Oh, if you don’t recall St. Lucia, Shion attended this academy until she escaped during the Meakashi-hen arc. It was also the same school that Ange from Umineko attended. But of course Ange attended it in the 90’s and we are clearly in the 80’s. Moving on!

Rika and Satoko studied their butts off for years and their hard work paid off as both were admitted into St. Lucia. Now Rika was able to prevail and fit in with everyone. Satoko on the other hand couldn’t do the same as her grades took a dip, her manners are atrocious, and she doesn’t seem to fit in with anyone. And this caused a drift between Rika and Satoko! And so during a trip to Hinamizawa, Satoko went to the old shrine where she ended up getting sent to that limbo place Rika and Hanyuu were at many times before. There, she meets Eua (God, I hope that really isn’t her name). She’s much like Hanyuu except a lot more condescending. Oh, and she’s that mysterious shadow during the opening theme. She bestows the power to Satoko of reviving on death and returning to a certain point in time. In the hopes that Satoko is able to stop Rika from going to St. Lucia! But Rika is not going to budge. She wants out of Hinamizawa no matter what. And Satoko just wants to be with her friend no matter what. Satoko is even shown Rika’s past and still no dent in…Okay, this is bugging the fuck outta me. Pause the Ending portion!

MY GRIPES WITH SATOKO: Satoko, girl, the fuck is wrong with you?! I know Rika is like your main chick and everything, but for fuck’s sake loosen the grip you have with Rika. This season has changed you and not for the better. You made a connection with ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS from Hinamizawa. Big connections! At least in the original series you did. Look at your moments with Keiichi and Shion. Are you just going to shove them off? And what really sets me off is that Satoko literally had the opportunity to learn about Rika’s hundred year’s loop of death. And feels nothing about it! Only that it’s a challenge to break her herself! God damn, at the end of season one, Keiichi learned the truth and he was remorseful. This bitch doesn’t care that her friends were murdered in such a way. And Rika’s been shot in the head, had a live dissection performed on her, and other forms of torture…AND IT DOESN’T FAZE SATOKO!

I know in my original Higurashi review, I felt sorry for Satoko as she did seem to get the short-end of the stick living in Hinamizawa. I mean, her parents died right in front of her, she suffered abuse from her uncle, abuse from her aunt, ostrisized by the town for years, and a myriad of all types of shit to befall her. But Higurashi Gou has ruined this character. Rika didn’t really do anything wrong to Satoko. She didn’t snitch on her when Satoko got in trouble. She offered help to Satoko when she thought her grades were slipping. Satoko just held onto this petty vendetta. Satoko acted like Rika sexually assaulted her and have two other people gang rape her while drugging her. Okay, that’s a call for revenge, not your petty shit.

YOU SEE WHERE I’M AT WITH YOU SATOKO?! Your actions are so bad that you have me siding with the protagonist from Redo of Healer.

REDO.

OF.

HEALER!!!

I’m done with you! Girl, bye! We now return you to my talk about the ending already in progress.

BACK TO THE ENDING: Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Yeah, Satoko is leaving a bad impression on many of us who have been following the Higurashi story for years. And it just gets worse as she uses her new power for petty shit and abusing it at that. I mean, we saw Rika use her power in order to find a way to live past June 1983. Satoko is just using that shit to win some games and have things go her way. What else could this series bless us with? How about an epiphany from Teppei Hojo?

What?!

Teppei changes for the better.

What?!

Look, I admit that these moments with Teppei and Satoko were tame compared to the shit she’s pulled in the last several episodes. But this is Teppei Hojo! The same guy that used Satoko as his personal punching bag! The same guy who fleeced Rena’s father! The same guy many of us who cheer every time we see him on a moped because we know someone’s going to bash his head in with a baseball bat. Even my best friend knows how I am with this guy. When she gave me Higurashi free swag, I took everything except for Teppei. I don’t take trash. So seeing him so remorseful makes me…conflicted.

So now Satoko’s got things turned around for her. Her uncle has…changed?! Add to that, her God-like power. Satoko decides to change the past for her own advantage. This includes changing one of the biggest stories in Higurashi Kai with the kids vs. Miyo Takano. If Rika doesn’t experience the pain in those timelines, she won’t think about leaving Hinamizawa. And if she doesn’t leave Hinamizawa, she’ll stay with Satoko forever.

Oh what a tangled web of crazy Higurashi Gou was! I gotta tell you, Higurashi got me excited all the way up until we learn it was Satoko. And then it went straight to Hell. They turned Satoko into a straight-up selfish monster. Totally unlike the Satoko we’ve all grown to love in the original series. Yes, Satoko had those moments where, yeah, you would want to throw a chair at her and beat her ass with it. But that was only temporary! You would always see the good in Satoko despite that mischievous laugh and those episodes in Higurashi Rei. And God help me, I was a shipper of Rika x Satoko 10 years ago. Not a big one, but a supporter of it. Now, I would rather support Amourshipping from Pokemon than root for this. And I despise the living fuck out of Amourshipping. That should tell you something!

If original Satoko were bestowed the powers from Eua, I think things would be different. Satoko would probably use her powers to prevent all the bad stuff from happening to her friends and to her brother Satoshi. I mean, my goodness, not once did I see her think, hey maybe I should find a way to help my ailing brother. Change a few timelines, make him all better! And of course, feel sympathy for Rika’s plight. Do it for Rika’s sake, not your own selfish desires! Rika has died horrificly for hundreds of years. And I seriously just can’t get over Satoko’s reaction to that when she learned the truth. Instead, she wants to treat Rika like a caged bird. Best friend my ass!

Now can Higurashi SOTSU fix the hot mess of Satoko? Time will only tell! And good on them for having Higurashi air in the summertime. Summertime is for Higurashi! Autum is for Umineko. Speaking of, it’s been since 2009. Any chance you want to give Umineko the old reboot or sequel it sorely needs? Oh forget it! My likeness for this season is conflicted. I was annoyed by it, but I didn’t fully hate it. It’s just that last arc with Satoko really burned my beans. And I’m sure a lot of you all feel the same way.

Guys, if you want to watch Higurashi Gou, do yourselves a favor and watch the original series first. Let that swirl around your heads for a while. I know the creator tricked us at the beginning of this series thinking it was going to be an honest-to-God retelling. It is not! It is a sequel. And a sequel that isn’t based off a game or manga of all things. So fans are jumping into this with eyes closed! And if you’re a fan of Satoko Hojo, I’m sorry. I’m just sorry.

If you want to check out Higurashi Gou, it is available to watch on FUNimation and Hulu. But please, if you haven’t watched the original series, go to HI-DIVE now and watch “When They Cry” and “When They Cry Kai”. I think you can manage without watching any of the OVA’s.

I’d rather watch that Kira OVA where the fanservice is thin, you can practically lick off the whipped cream from the Sonozaki’s tit.

That should tell you something if I’m starting to say something nice about Higurashi Kira.

See you in a few months when Higurashi SOTSU comes out.

#anime review #Higurashi no Naku Koro ni #higurashi no naku koro ni gou #When they cry #when they cry gou #Rika Furude #satoko hojo #mion sonozaki #keiichi maebara #hanyuu #rena ryuugu #miyo takano #eua #teppei hojo

13 notes · View notes

khaotungsfirst · 3 years

Text

ali‘s embarrassing celebrity crushes throughout the years

thank you to @fengqing for wanting me to expose myself, i hope y’all don’t judge me too much 🥴i had to go through my archive to remember most of these cause as fast as these crushes hit me sometimes, some of them went away just as quickly.

tagging: @schnaf @manhasetardis @morifinwes @xiaodaozhang @huigusu @yibocrisis

ok here we go, putting it under a read more cause this got long

MEN (since 2006)

tom kaulitz nothing more attractive to 10 year-old me than this 15 year-old with dreadlocks and pants that hit the floor askdjhgkjfdg

joseph gordon-levitt i..... can’t even explain this?? lmao.. i mean inception was and is my favourite movie but not because of him so like??

niall horan niall girls unite!! i was a niall girl until i got into larry and then that was all i cared about for a long time ksadjgkdf but i still love him!

dan howell he was funny and british, that’s it

dylan o’brien listen every teen wolf fan was mainly there for him, don’t even lie about it

seb stan holy shit i was crushing on him so hard after the winter soldier came out. he was the epitome of perfection to me! this was a big one for me but it went downhill once he started growing out his hair afgkjdfgjkd retrospectively i’m not sure if i was only thirsting after him because everyone else on my dash was doing it (also does anyone remember political animals??)

dane dehaan oh god..... listen, it’s all the fault of the amazing spiderman 2! also his look is so versatile like in some photos he looks really nice and in others..... 😬yikes lmao skdjgfdk idk man

loïc nottet this was a short-lived crush but he absolutely killed it at the 2015 esc and tumblr went wild over him so... 🤷🏻‍♀️

marc bartra so we’re getting into football players now and just look at him! he joined my favourite team (bvb) and i immediately loved him cause he made such an effort to integrate himself. after the team bus was attacked and he got injured my love for him only increased. he just seems so sweet and nice aaahh

niklas stark idek how i came to know abt him cause he plays for hertha which i don’t care abt aksjgjghjf but he has such a beautiful smile i think that’s what got me

andré silva i just thought he looked neat (still does but he doesn’t blow me away anymore)

héctor bellerín 2016 bellerín?? oof!! don’t look him up on google tho, he’s had a lot of... questionable hair and fashion choices throughout the years 🥴the way we all dragged him for it was really funny tho. i still love him he’s a great guy always supporting good causes

arón piper listen earrings and curly hair maketh the man

matthías tryggvi haraldsson once again a crush resulting from esc. he was my icon before i turned into a mdzs blog. i don’t even think he’s super attractive, i just love the contrast between hatari matti and normal matti

harry styles i’ve given in to the harry supremacy propaganda. he really is my favourite 1d member these days, musically-wise and looks-wise

bill kaulitz we’ve come full circle!! nowadays bill is my favourite kaulitz twin. it’s funny cause they literally have the same face so it all just comes down to how they present themselves and bill is just my preference

MEN (recently/currently)

wang yibo i don’t even have words!!! his look, his personality, his talent just!!! I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT HIM!! (as we all do) (also big genvy causer)

lesbian yibo this gets a separate bullet point cause i had this realisation like two weeks after falling for regular yibo but oh boi am i gay for her

xiao zhan he’s just.. so pretty and lovely. i thought about putting wwx into the fictional characters category cause i think xz looks the prettiest as wwx but xz as a person just seems so nice and down to earth that i had to put him here

bright (vachirawit chivaaree) a baby!!! his smile is so pretty and overall he gives off very ~soft~ vibes. also how does he look so good when crossdressing??

boun (noppanut guntachai) once again the jewellery got me. boys with earrings really will be my downfall one day... (this is not to say that he isn’t pretty without them, his face is also very much up there on reasons why i stan him)

tul (pakorn thanasrivanitchai) get you a man who is as comfortable in his masculinity and sexuality as tul

felix lee will i ever get over the dissonance between his looks and his voice?? probably not. also he’s just a fucking cutie

hyunjin felix might be my bias (oh god i’m starting to speak in kpop lingo) but i’m also kinda simping for him, what can i say?

WOMEN (sadly not as many but you know, heteronormativity)

scarlett johansson literally everyone on this planet thinks she’s hot and they’re right (yeah she’s kinda problematic but i can still appreciate her looks)

halsey remember when halsey used to kiss her fans at her concerts?? completely unrelated to that, i really wanted to go to one of her concerts..... 🙃 also i once dyed my hair blue bc of her

kiko mizuhara she was fancast as blue from the raven cycle so many times and i was so on board with it cause in my head she fit the character perfectly but maybe that’s just because i thought she was really really beautiful and wanted to see more of her 🤷🏻‍♀️

rihanna i mean... c’mon

michelle phan oh man this goes way back.. she was one of the first youtubers i watched in like 2010 before i even played with makeup myself. she just always gave off such calming vibes and she seems so nice. also look at her 😍

zendaya oof zendaya is a big one for me. she’s just so fucking beautiful just... how?? what??? i- AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

lena i started actively following her on ig after she released her last album in 2019 (which is great btw) and... damn girl do i want to be you or date you??

xuan lu oh god she’s so adorable but then also so hot but then also so etheral but then also so cute but then also so beautiful but then also s-

FICTIONAL CHARACTERS

stefan salvatore (tvd) gotta love how even at 14 i already knew not to make the toxic choice 😊

legolas (lotr) if you didn’t have a legolas phase you’re lying

draco malfoy (hp) if villain bad then why sexy?

anakin skywalker (star wars) if villain bad then why sexy? 2

noora amalie sætre (skam) she’s just really pretty, ok? the red lipstick didn’t help either...

chris p (skam) if villain bad then why sexy? 3 (ok he’s not a villain but he’s an asshole)

tokio (money heist) hhnnnnnnnggggggg girl with a gun make brain go brrr

wen qing (the untamed) funny how in the show i’m simping for wq but irl i prefer xuan lu... someone explain that to me. but anyways, she’s pretty, she’s fierce, and she looks fucking hot in red

#tag game #this took forever omg

18 notes · View notes

prettyoddfever · 3 years

Text

what happened when Panic! at the Disco opened for The Academy Is...

The same situation happened in both the UK and the US, so I’m combining both of the early 2006 tours here and just talking about one aspect. But here’s some background context first...

So it was pretty clear by late 2005 that Panic! at the Disco was popular enough to be headlining their own tour even though their first show ever had been in August. The problem was that the band didn’t feel like they had enough experience playing live yet, plus tours had to be booked pretty far in advance… and nobody could’ve predicted how quickly the band would become big. I’m not sure exactly when the two TAI tours were booked with P!ATD as an opening band, but those plans had definitely been established before the end of P!ATD’s very first tour since fans were talking about it by late September when AFYCSO was released. Brendan from The Receiving End of Sirens was on that first tour with P!ATD and said “on the first date they were still relatively unknown. But [their fame] happened so fast that by the last date of the tour they – by anyone’s account – should’ve been headlining the shows. But they were billed as the opener and that’s the spot they were in.”

Then P!ATD moved on to open for Fall Out Boy, AFYCSO was released, their fanbase continued to grow at an exponential rate, and some headlining shows were quickly created for the December break between tours. Those shows sold out super fast so extra dates were added, which then sold out too (those ticket sales happened in November btw). P!ATD seriously had the fanbase to pull off their own tour just 3 months after playing their first show… but then their first couple months of 2006 were devoted to tours that had been booked during what felt like a totally different era.

I think if you just hear the idea nowadays that Panic! at the Disco opened for The Academy Is… it might sound like that was cool of TAI to help out P!ATD and get them some exposure lol. But that’s so far from what ended up happening. Panic! at the Disco didn’t need any help at that point – their rapidly escalating popularity actually detracted from the band they were opening for. Both the UK & US tours felt like they were co-headlining tours at best. Sometimes it seemed like TAI was more of a footnote on P!ATD’s tour. I liked both bands, so I didn’t know how to feel about this whole season… I wanted to be thrilled for P!ATD’s success, but at the same time I felt really bad for TAI.

It became evident early on that the reason so many of these shows had sold out ridiculously quickly was because of P!ATD. I remember some of TAI’s fans were confused in fall 2005 over why the shows for early 2006 were selling out so fast and being upgraded to bigger & bigger venues since TAI had just finished playing those same small UK venues in October. The London date for January 2006 got upgraded to the freaking Astoria. It did seem weird for the size of TAI’s crowds to change overnight. Meanwhile, British P!ATD fans were frustrated that the shows kept getting bumped to bigger venues because they only wanted to see the opening band (and didn’t realize so many other people were doing the exact same thing).

So a good portion of the tickets were sold to P!ATD fans, which meant that people were actually leaving the shows right after P!ATD finished playing. I heard so many stories from fans who felt horrible that TAI had to come onstage to see a decent chunk of the crowd headed for the door. It was their tour! Even the Hellogoodbye fans were grumbling online that most of the crowds seemed to be P!ATD fans who didn’t care about the other bands yet were still blocking access to the stage.

Way too many people started referring to both the UK & US tours as “the Panic tour” – even some media outlets too. There were venues that had only P!ATD listed online for the band that was playing. I also remember some sites & radio shows seriously said “Panic at the Disco (and guests).” A lot of magazines & reviews did seem to give equal coverage to both P!ATD and TAI, but that still just made it seem like a co-headlining tour. There were two other band on the US tour too! Acceptance and Hellogoodbye were opening just like P!ATD... and Panic wasn’t even direct support initially.

interview quotes & article excerpts from the UK tour:

This review from the Glasgow show basically sums up what many fans were also saying:

A large portion of the crowd headed for the door when Panic! At The Disco left the stage. It seems the bands tonight most definitely played in the wrong order, as The Academy Is were left with a modest and seemingly difficult to impress crowd, but they took it in their stride and played a jolly good set of somewhat more average emo tunes... It’s obvious tonight that Panic! At The Disco were the main attraction, with The Academy Is taking their second place with dignity and poise. This whole tour seems to have been a sell out, and it’s obvious the reason why is the band with the exclamation mark in their name. (x)

From Rock Sound’s print review of the Manchester show:

“Next up is the band that everybody came to see, the grammatically wanton Panic! at the Disco. Taking to the stage dressed like outcasts from a fancy dress shop at closing time and pounding straight into the syncopated vaudeville post-emopop anthem ‘The Only Difference…,’ an impolite riot of young dancing girlies infects the venue. Staggeringly obvious is the band’s immense swagger, poise, and suggestive confidence; reminiscent of a group who have been in the game years rather than months. Also apparent is the genuine popularity of the group as each staccato beat or hip twitch of lead singer Brendon Urie makes the many boys and girls in attendance move, scream, gasp for air and convulse in ways not seen since The Beatles made their first Stateside trip.

The Academy Is… have the unenviable job of topping the frenzy of their electro-infused underlings… despite frontman William Beckett’s gender-bending dance moves and pornographically tight trousers, the band do not cause the same consternation among the gathered mass… when compared to the very public and very dramatic ascension of Panic! at the Disco, they fall unfortunately short of the night’s glory. Three bands and only one conclusion: all hail the new dawn of the Panic! revolution.”

From P!ATD’s spring 2006 Rock Sound cover article:

...British critics struggle to effectively describe the furore [P!ATD] has had the temerity and indignity to create without any real UK media ‘push.’ Let’s not forget that they have only truly become an “it” band in this country since the turn of the new year [through] word-of-mouth and Myspace… On their debut UK tour Panic! blew their label mates (and headline act) The Academy Is clean off the stage; no mean feat considering the support and fan base of the band they usurped. Has such talk from press and fans caused any tension between the two groups?

“It was a weird thing,” acknowledges Ross sheepishly. “We did not expect it would be that way at all. I don’t want to say it was obvious, but it became apparent that we did better than them on some nights.” Urie chimes in immediately, keen to downplay any hint of tension between the two parties: “They were totally polite with it too though; I think they saw it too but they just joked about it and asked us to tone down our set as we were wearing the kids out before they came on! They were not jerks about it at all, so that made things much easier to deal with.”

a review from the Leeds show on the first night:

“… It was almost as if these guys were the main attraction, and even when speaking to The Academy Is… after the show they were worried that Panic were a bigger attraction than them! I was really surprised when the band themselves were setting up their own equipment on stage.” (x)

another review from Leeds:

“…The biggest injustice of the night is provided when large amounts of the crowd abandon the Cockpit after P!ATD have, in underwhelming fashion, left the stage. Maybe because it's a school night, more likely because The Academy Is... aren't cool enough for their presence. But tonight the scenesters have got it spectacularly wrong. The Academy Is... are over in England for the second time in three months after a pre-emptive showcase of their album last October. Then, as now, they epitomise how pop-rock should be done: effortless, stylish and plain fun to watch.”

One fan at the Leeds show said she she was close to the stage and didn’t notice too many people leaving after P!ATD played, but she said a couple hundred people walked out after P!ATD finished playing at the Manchester show the next night. Fans from other shows said it didn’t seem like that many fans left after P!ATD was done, though... so it varied.

ARTICLE EXCERPTS & REVIEWS FROM THE US TOUR:

Here’s an excerpt from a Billboard review from the first week of February that was titled “Panic! at the Disco Upstages Tour Mates in Toronto:”

“The second stop on the Truckstops and Statelines tour was scheduled for a much smaller venue, but ticket demand moved the show to a new venue roughly six times larger. Perhaps it's because The Academy Is... was headlining the four-act lineup, but most likely it was the fact that Las Vegas buzz act Panic! At The Disco was on the bill too. And while The Academy Is... delivered a solid, catchy and hook-riddled set to close the night, the horde of teenage girls was clearly there to see Panic! At The Disco's lead singer Brendon Urie deliver retro-dance, electro-pop tunes whose wordy titles are nearly as tedious as a couple of their songs… Panic! At The Disco made a quick exit after the winding, almost Queen-like ‘Build God, Then We'll Talk.’ Sadly, roughly one-third of the crowd followed suit. Those who stuck around saw The Academy Is... put on a strong, tight rock show… but even the punchy "Attention" and "Season" didn't create the havoc for which [they were] hoping… As the show wound down, Beckett thanked Hellogoodbye and Acceptance but omitted Panic! At The Disco. An oversight? Perhaps, but a move also easy to chalk up to showmanship. Because while The Academy Is is the top banana on this tour, in terms of popularity and crowd response, it's playing second fiddle.”

The TAI fans I came across online seemed to agree with that review even if they didn’t like what was happening. However, a lot of them were also celebrating when almost half of the crowd cleared out at some shows right after P!ATD played because then the TAI fans could move closer towards the stage. They were like mildly offended that people were leaving, but also thrilled at the same time lol. But the amount of people leaving at each show definitely varied throughout the lengthy US tour… sometimes a ton of people walked out and other times it sounded like most of the crowd stayed for TAI.

Tom Conrad’s February 6th update on TAI’s site said “every band on this tour has been slaying it. some of you though look a bit tired by the time we take that stage. we need to work on your stamina.” In an interview during this season Mike Carden said he didn’t see people leaving after P!ATD... then he tried to focus his answer on how the bands were like brothers on the same label. I really don’t know much about what TAI said about the situation (especially after the tours), so maybe someone else can add more. I mainly just know that Tom Conrad later posted some responses to Alt Press questions in March 2007 and said: “…Warped Tour, however, was not where the morale significantly dropped within the band. It began during our sold out headlining tour with Panic! At the Disco, where the shows started feeling like a co-headlining tour to the leaders within the band.”

Kerrang wrote in a future article that they had first met P!ATD “back in March when they were stealing the limelight on a modest co-headlining club tour with The Academy Is…” and I honestly have a really hard time not remembering this as a co-headlining tour too ha. It absolutely felt that way. But it was actually a good thing that P!ATD wasn’t headlining yet since they had made it clear that they wanted more experience before they tried to headline their own tour. So it was fortunate that they had late January through March 2006 with TAI to work on their stage presence and learn more about being a band before they did their first headlining tour in April.

THE MAIN POST

20 notes · View notes