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msweebyness · 1 year

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Class of Heroes AU: Worst Experiences w) Bustier

I know I said I might take a break, but my brain refuses to comply! This is based off an old post by @artzychic27, which they were nice enough to let me use the concept for! These are a lot of the kids’ worst experiences with the “amazing” teacher, Caline Bustier. She is Flora in this AU, the ‘kindest and wisest’ of the good fairies. She believes she is always right and lives in her perfect little bubble world, just like in canon. 🙃 She’s a sh*t teacher there, and being a high-ranking magical authority figure has only made her worse here. She’s a huge reason that around 70% of the royalty and aristocrats at this school believe they can do whatever they want to whoever they want without getting punished! She builds up their egos and gives them special treatment, punishing those who don’t go along with their whims. Feel free to leave thoughts and ideas, as always! (Still thinking of options for Lila and Felix) And credit to the aforementioned artzychic27 and @imsparky2002 as always!

Marinette: Outed the secret that she was never supposed to be at the school in front of everyone while berating her for her clumsiness and lack of social grace, humiliating her.

Adrien: Ridiculed to the point of tears in front of the entire class and forced to change when he came to school with a tiara on, his hair braided with flowers and in a violet flowing long shirt that could resemble a dress at first glance, told to stop acting so feminine.

Alya: Also Reduced to tears from a verbal attack in front if everyone when she came into class late and dissheveled because she had to leave work later and there was heavy traffic, and it was POURING RAIN. Despite the fact that she had called beforehand and gotten clearance.

Max: Yelled at and given two weeks of detention for ‘refusing to help’ his fellow students, which was the story she got from said (royal) students, when in reality they had been beating him up for refusing to do their homework, and the evidence of the violence was CLEARLY visible.

Kim: She’s had him suspended for a week on three different occasions, all originally meant to be expulsion, first for stepping in to defend Max in the aforementioned incident, the second was for damaging school property (He pulled a jammed door off its hinges when a fire broke out in the lab so the students could get out). The last was when he punched a prince who, with a few of his buddies, had cornered HIS princess for refusing his invitation to a ball, forcefully kissing and groping her. (Ondine was upset and crying for hours, but nothing was ever done to punish the boys responsible, despite her being a princess. Misogyny, folks, how ‘bout it?)

Alix: Taken out of class by police and accused of numerous counts of theft, got threatened with charges and jail time despite being a minor with diagnosed kleptomania, who RETURNED WHAT SHE TOOK.

Ivan: Insisted that he carry all the class’ luggage for a grade-level trip into the bus as punishment for ‘threatening’ his peers (He was defending some younger students from some older (royal) bullies.), when (as he and Mylene told her) his back pain was on the far more severe side due to his medication pending a refill, and he ended up collapsing outside the school. (No, she didn’t call for help. She also refused to let Denise or Kim help him despite both offering multiple times.)

Mylene: Forced her to sit through a ‘Parent’s Day’ event that included one-on-one time with her stepmother. Yes, THE WOMAN WHO TRIED TO KILL HER MULTIPLE TIMES IN THE PAST. Insisted that Mylene needed to ‘stop being petty’ and that ‘family means love and forgiveness’.

Juleka: SHE HAD A FREAKING MUZZLE PUT ON HER WHEN SHE WAS HAVING A PANIC ATTACK. She claimed it was ‘for the safety of the other students’ as Juleka was ‘behaving aggressively’.

Sabrina: Gaslighted and guilt-tripped her into singing the song from her old puppet show (the one she still has nightmares about when she was a part of) for a school event, and told her to stop being ‘dramatic’ when she had a nervous breakdown in the middle of the performance.

Nathaniel: Magically erased his entire sketchbook as punishment for him repeatedly falling asleep in class, despite it being a side effect of his curse, which she of all people should know.

Marc: Actively tries to keep him from using and improving his magic, always ‘gently’ reminding him of how dangerous ice magic is, just look at what happened to his poor little brother. We wouldn’t want that again, now would we? She’s also had him locked in a room alone as punishment for losing control. (She DOES NOT care about trauma.)

Zoe: Stood up to Chloe and told her to do her own chores in the main hall, taken aside and harshly scolded for not adhering to and ‘being kind’ to her sister.

Ondine: Refused to allow her to leave class when she was literally SUFFOCATING because a spell-gone-haywire (A spell that reversed any magic-induced physical changes. It also affected Sabrinocchio.) by a disgruntled student temporarily restored her gills and SHE COULDN’T BREATHE, stating that it was ‘improper’, because she couldn’t communicate what was wrong and Bustier wouldn’t listen when the class tried frantically to tell her.

Kagami: Refused to let her enroll in any of the battle or heroism courses due to her being a princess, and humiliated her in front of an entire courtyard of people by berating for not conducting herself ‘as a princess should.’

Reshma: Said and did nothing as her grandmother scolded and even STRUCK her for ‘shaming the family with her behavior’ and daring to defend her giftless younger sister from the woman’s verbal attacks.

Jean: Yelled at in front of the entire school for being a ‘spoiled brat’ and a ‘poor excuse for a ruler’ when he was focusing on a show he was putting together and forgot a small royal gathering.

Denise: Has been suspended multiple times for (accidental and inevitable, with their abilities and strength) destruction of school property, but the worst was when Bustier got them expelled for accidentally breaking Adrien’s arm and collarbone, in the process of SAVING him from a falling oak tree during a nature class outing for their grade level. She claimed they were far too destructive, violent, and dangerous to remain in the school. (*Cough*”Bad Guy” Bias*Cough*) (The decision was reversed due to Adrien insisting that they had saved him, proved though a memory display spell on multiple students, and the fact he was able to heal himself almost immediately after.)

Cosette: Publicly and harshly berated for ‘holding up the rest of the class’ when some fans wanted autographs and pictures during a school field trip. It was only a few people and Cosette had tried to make it as quick as possible without being rude.

Ismael: Had a pair of magical shackles placed on him when his power was flaring up rather badly**, completely ignoring the PTSD from previous finders of his lamp that this gave him. He had to wear them for a week.

* She forces Nino, Aurore and Lacey to fold their wings down so they don’t ‘Distract’ other students, despite it being IMMENSELY painful for younger fairies to do this as those joints aren’t developed yet.

*She actively talks down to any students who are not human or fae like herself, acting as if they are intellectually inferior and require extra guidance and redirection.

**Genie magic is incredibly strong, especially when it’s not restrained. Be careful not to say the word ‘wish’ within earshot of Ismael unless you’re a friend, directly speaking to him for that reason. It triggers his magic and if he didn’t hear you correctly, things could get…weird.

Basically…Bustier sucks.

#miraculous ladybug #class of heroes #disney au #caline bustier #bustier salt #bustier is a terrible teacher #miracuclass #science kids #mlb ocs

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8iunie · 1 year

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‘We’ve always been very divisive’: Måneskin on fighting fascists and breakfast with Chris Martin

First The X Factor, then victory at Eurovision, now a Grammy nod: the Italian glam rockers have taken the road less ordinary on their way to worldwide fame. So long as they can be themselves, they wouldn’t have it any other way (posted on 21.01.2023)

Damiano David is bent double over a large glass table, gleefully snorting an imaginary line of cocaine. His Måneskin bandmates – bassist Victoria De Angelis, guitarist Thomas Raggi and drummer Ethan Torchio – collapse in fits of laughter around their frontman, each one pretending to wipe the nonexistent powder off the table in their rented LA flat.

David is playfully reimagining the Italian rockers’ most infamous moment: hours after winning Eurovision 2021 with their pogoing glam-rock stomp Zitti e Buoni, in front of a global audience of 183 million, footage circulated of David appearing to snort something off a table in the green room. The images quickly went viral, with Emmanuel Macron reportedly calling for the band to be disqualified (France’s entry was in second place). In the end David offered to take a drug test, which cleared him of any wrongdoing; the results are still pinned proudly to his fridge at home.

“I think the view people have of us, and of me, it’s very off-target,” David says now, his usual rock star uniform – Gucci-styled 70s glam idol mixed with Rocky Horror Picture Show vamp – replaced by an oversized beige sweater and a violent cold. (Every band member is struck down with it, rendering a grey-looking Raggi almost mute.) “People think we behave like the Sex Pistols, or Mötley Crüe, but we’re nothing like that,” David continues. “We’ve got more educated on the risks of drugs and how they affect your body. I don’t even drink alcohol any more.”

“At the time we got so upset about it and now we don’t give a fuck,” smiles De Angelis, the band’s most outspoken member, sat looking resplendent in an Italians Do It Better T-shirt.

David, however, is having none of it: “No, I am still upset about it, actually. I think it’s dumb to tarnish the victory at Eurovision. I think we should go back and hand flowers around.”

Måneskin, despite their throwback vintage rock vibe, represent a very modern take on the rock’n’roll mythos. Prior to Eurovision – a DayGlo pop jamboree not renowned for its links to rock excess – the band gained notoriety via Italy’s version of karaoke conveyor belt The X Factor. Their origin story has led to some music purists taking umbrage at the band’s success, with their CV now including two UK Top 10 singles, more than 4bn streams, multiple world tours, a collaboration with Iggy Pop, plus a support slot with the Rolling Stones in Vegas.

“Some of the stupid comments we get are probably because of [having done The X Factor and Eurovision],” shrugs De Angelis. “People are so narrow-minded that they can’t see beyond the idea that if we went on Eurovision we must be shit. They can’t listen to our songs with an open mind and judge them based on what they really think.”

On their highly anticipated third album, Rush!, Måneskin’s first since becoming one of the few new rock acts to break through globally, the band can often be found grappling not only with the speed of their ascent (hence the title), but also a complicated relationship with what rock’n’roll means in 2023. “The whole concept of rock music is not conforming to what society would love you to be,” De Angelis says. “It’s ignoring those made-up rules and being yourself. We don’t think real rock music is about these stereotypes of the sex and drugs and rock’n’roll lifestyle,” she continues. “It’s about expression and creative freedom.”

Still, Rush!, which was mainly co-produced in LA by Swedish hitmaker Max Martin, is stuffed with songs about sex, drugs and, indeed, rock’n’roll, but often with a twist. While lead single Supermodel criticises, rather than valorises, LA’s vapid party scene (“Everything [in LA] is so huge and big and wants to impress you, it’s all showing off,” sniffs De Angelis), the band confess to having enjoyed at least one A-list schmooze with Coldplay’s Chris Martin, who invited them over to his and girlfriend Dakota Johnson’s house for breakfast.

“Dakota cooked us eggs, Chris didn’t cook,” remembers Torchio.

“He was enjoying the moment,” suggests David.

Supermodel also references the band’s apparent drug of choice, cocaine, as does the frenetic Bla Bla Bla, though it largely serves as a warning of sorts, as David sings: “I’m too drunk and I can’t get hard.” “It happens when you drink too much,” the 23-year-old shrugs, ignoring his bandmates’ giggles. “Even when you haven’t had a drink. [That song] is a mixture of honesty and putting on ‘crazy guy’ shoes. [That character] says some things I would never say.”

Perhaps the best example of stereotypical rock’n’roll swagger arrives on the ludicrous Kool Kids, a punky marauder that finds David aping the spit-flecked delivery of Slowthai. “That [was written] three days after Eurovision so our feeling was: ‘Fuck off, we won and everybody has to eat our shit,’” David says. “Before Eurovision we went through a very tough year; everybody was trying to stop us doing this kind of music and doing Eurovision. Nobody believed in us. So we had this feeling of being the underdogs that won.”

That feeling has helped cement Måneskin’s sibling-style bond. It’s been fostered since they formed at high school in Rome in 2016, with David, De Angelis and Raggi coming together after their various other bands didn’t work out (Torchio was later recruited via Facebook). “I remember when I started playing guitar at school, everyone was like: ‘Oh my God, you play electric guitar. Are you a lesbian?’” De Angelis says. “It’s all these stereotypes you know.” Suddenly her eyes dart around the room. “But then actually they were right,” she adds with a huge roar of laughter.

The band, named after the Danish word for moonlight (De Angelis is half-Danish), would quickly garner similar reactions across Rome for their style, which often involved every band member donning makeup. “I remember even when we were busking or playing at school parties everyone always looked at us like freaks,” says De Angelis. “This gave us even more of an attitude of wanting to tell them to shut up. Growing up and being inspired by a lot of the artists from the 70s, the glam, it showed us something we hadn’t seen.”

In 2017, the band appeared on The X Factor, eventually finishing second and landing a chart-topping album in Italy a year later. “When we went on The X Factor we were the first rock band to [appear], but we just played as if it was our own show,” De Angelis continues. “We didn’t have to change.”

While more success quickly followed in Italy, including five Top 10 singles in two years, the band say they felt a shift at home after Eurovision sent them interstellar. “We’ve always been very dividing,” David says. “There are a bunch of people that love us and are very proud of what we’re doing, and then there’s a whole other part made of conservatives and traditional rock’n’roll fans and fascists that hate us with everything they’ve got. Then there’s this conspiracy building up … ”

Everyone at the table looks bemused.

“What?” splutters Torchio.

“Yeah, guys you have to be informed,” snaps David. “It says that we’re getting famous because we’re being paid. That we’re working with the Italian government to share this gender-fluid culture!”

“A lot of people are really proud,” De Angelis says. “But Italy is a very conservative country and they’re intimidated by the fact that someone can wear makeup or high heels or appear half-naked or not be straight. But fuck them.”

This passion for nudity caused problems last August when the band performed at the MTV VMAs, where they won best alternative video for single I Wanna Be Your Slave. While David donned a dog collar, leather chaps and buttock-revealing thong, De Angelis covered one nipple with a silver star before her top slipped down revealing the other one to be unadorned. Cue lots of hastily edited aerial shots to save everyone’s blushes. “We’re too hot for US television,” smiles De Angelis. “It’s so stupid because they want to appear so open-minded and then they get scared about a pair of nipples. There is this difference between men’s and women’s bodies and how you’re perceived and sexualised all the time. Everyone has nipples.”

“It’s very clear the different standards people have because I was literally butt-naked,” adds David.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that a band whose success was forged in controversy are now under the microscope. For David and Raggi, the band’s straight contingent, there have been accusations of queer-baiting, thanks to their penchant for sporting makeup and experimenting with a more fluid style. “There are some cases where it happens, but sometimes [the accusations are] so extreme,” says De Angelis. “It’s stupid for queer people, who should fight these stereotypes, to label it as this and create more hate. The fact [Raggi and David] are straight doesn’t mean they can’t wear makeup. Or heels.”

David agrees: “Everything me and Thomas do is always filtered by two people who are [queer]. Of course we don’t experience the same stuff, but we live every day very closely with people from the community.”

They are keen to also deflect their spotlight on to more immediately concerning issues, with Rush!’s throbbing Gasoline – performed at last September’s Global Citizen festival in New York – aimed at Putin (“How are you sleeping at night? How do you close both your eyes? Living with all of those lives on your hands?” run the lyrics.) The song, they say, is a message of support for their Ukrainian fans. Rather than shy away from politics, the band see it as entwined with who they are. “Everything you do as an individual is political,” says David.

For now, however, they are keen to get some sleep. There is a discussion around how much time they’ve had off since winning Eurovision in 2021, with the general consensus landing on about two weeks in total. With another tour booked for this year, including a sold-out show at London’s O2 Arena, and a Grammy award to fight for (they’re nominated for best new artist), their schedule seems unlikely to let up any time soon.

“Two weeks off in two years!” repeats a dazed David shaking his head. Rock’n’roll stops for no one.

Writer: Michael Cragg for The Guardian

#maneskin #måneskin #interview #article #january 2023 #the guardian

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dollarbin · 6 months

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Dollar Bin #26:

Bob Dylan's Bringing it All Back Home

Ah, the initially alarming, deeply flawed, but ultimately classic, transition album:

Neil Young started his deep dive into the ditch with Time Fades Away's bungling fever; Tom Petty crept off the plantation in search of SoCal zombies and skateboards with the hodgepodge airplane crash of Let Me Up; Joni Mitchell jumped off her increasingly precious clouds and instead fed us mysterious brownies, terrifying electric piano trance music and street corner clarinet; Paul Simon abandoned Artie on their graceful bridge and dove straight into the troubled water he'd formerly avoided at all costs, determined to reunite Mother and Child; Ringo and his clever lads joyfully totaled their quaint and geriatric tour bus so as to embrace rampaging chaos.

Each of these artists would have made their fans happy by staying the course. The public wanted endless choruses of All Together Now from each of them. After all, no one ever wants to see their hero just do it in the road.

But thank god they all swerved into the ditch, transitioning through straight up weird songs like L.A., Duncan, Woodstock and All Mixed Up to new, previously undreamt heights with Tired Eyes, American Tune, Blue and Free Fallin'. Thank God Paul McCartney shrieked about monkey sex long enough to give us Hey Jude.

Like most concepts in the Dollar Bin, Bob Dylan charted the seemingly reckless course for each of these vital transitions. And so let's talk about Bob's own transitional mess/masterpiece of a fifth record, Bringing it All Back Home.

It's of course tempting to think of the record in terms of Sides A and B: Like the 66 tour that followed, Bob makes an electric declaration alongside a conciliatory acoustic compromise.

But I think that assessment is all wrong, or at least too elementary (for the tour and the album). Rather, I think Bringing it All Back Home has four different, mingled song sets to consider: there are a) two tossed off novelty songs, b) three hastily recorded future masterpieces, c) three sprawling problems, and d) two songs that are total filler.

Add a fifth category: there's also one - and only one - full success on Bringing It All Back Home. That's right, it's one of my favorite albums of all time and yet I think there is only one song on the record that Bob did right the first time:

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Despite the popular imagination there are plenty of Dylan tracks which feature great singing. At least once a decade Dylan reminds us that he's capable of nailing a melody alongside surprising and perfect phrasing.

Want a handy, 70 year long, left field list from off the top of my head? I'm happy to provide!

60's Moonshiner

70's Knocking on Heaven's Door

80's Blind Willie McTell

90's Lone Pilgrim

00's Nettie Moore

10's Long and Wasted Years

20's Key West

Dylan sings She Belongs to Me with similar elegance and personality, yes? The song is built on repetition and yet nothing seems to occur more than once. He tells us twice that his lady friend is an artist, he bows down to her twice and describes her firm footwork, you got it, twice, but he does so in such different fashions, stretching the second phrase in the second line of each verse just so, like a tableau vivant that has obviously changed - but how? - while you were blinking.

Indeed I've always thought of She Belongs To Me as the musical version of the album's cover, the most staged and ambitious of Dylan's career. Albert Grossman's impossibly elegant wife, the piles of rick rack and the precious kitty cat in Dylan's lap: like the song's title itself, none of these things actually appear in Dylan's perfectly paced, intimate and stately song. But every detail seems borrowed from the song's missing verses.

(It's too bad a literalist approach was taken for the Basement Tapes cover. I'd prefer images from the absent songs rather than the drunken tea party dress up vibe that was chosen. Dylan, at least, seems to understand this: while everyone else mugs for the camera he flips his stringed object 90 degrees and dreams about the door...)

Dylan of course opened his 66 tour each night with She Belongs to Me, and all the versions are successful. But none of them touch the arrangement from the album track: Bruce Langhorne's swaying, gurgling lead guitar, the unobtrusive but burgeoning drums: everything waltzes along perfectly together and insists that Bob keep up. And keep up he does, still finding chances to linger without ever getting sleepy. It makes for lovely, lovely music: perfect from the beginning.

But most of all we think of Bringing It All Back Home as an introduction to masterpieces that Bob, and everyone else, has been wrestling with ever since. Dylan recorded the whole album in 3 days so it's no wonder that songs like It's All Over Now Baby Blue, Love Minus Zero/No Limit, and Mr Tambourine Man are so complex that we're still getting to the bottom of them.

I'm not going to spend much time on Mr Tambourine Man here; check out the Dollar Bin (#6?) on Judy Collins' Fifth Record. Suffice it to say that Dylan's first version is great, but is obviously not the master take in that there were at least two competing versions that same year that were just as good.

But let's linger over Love Minus Zero/No Limit. It's one of my all time favorites, period. I have no real idea what Dylan is trying to tell us but the poetry never fails to knock me out. Consider the third verse, which echoes Proofrock's yearning, anticipates Get Smart and makes touchstones out of everything from chess to Daniel's prophesies about Nebuchadnezzar's faulty artistic future. This is Dylan and his most obtusely wonderful:

The cloak and dagger dangles, Madams light the candles. In ceremonies of the horsemen, Even the pawn must hold a grudge. Statues made of match sticks, Crumble into one another, My love winks, she does not bother, She knows too much to argue or to judge.

And yet the album's dense arrangement simply does not understand the song's greatness. The same backing players who both corralled and gave Bob space on She Belongs To Me here force Dylan to rush through his thoughts and linger over nothing; we don't need complexity behind such lyrics and the melody: works of art always look better without gilded frames.

Dylan knew as much; he knew he couldn't hope to contain the song's multitudes on first attempt so he gave up after two series of rushed attempts over two days. But on The Other Side of the Mirror, recorded the following summer at the Newport Folk Festival, we see him come much, much closer, as the wind howls like a hammer no less, to unveiling the song's full greatness.

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I'll make a nerd club comment quickly, however, about Bringing It All Back Home's mono mix. I grew up listening to this record on an 80's era CD that made everything sound like it had been recorded in Dylan's private vomitorium. Listening this morning to my more recently purchased, but almost 60 year old, mono record, I wondered if the album track is way better than I claim here.

When it comes to others trying to touch Dylan's own interpretration of the masterpiece I usually groan (when Eric Clapton tried to play it at Bob Fest, I, listening live on some barely-there FM station, almost shouted my famous farmer buddy Ned, who was driving his dad's ancient suburban, off a very windy mountain road. Thanks for not letting us die Ned!).

The best cover of Love Minus Zero that I know of is hardly a cover at all. Witness the Go-Betweens sneaking it in to their song Clouds (no, not that song Clouds; this is one of their own with that title):

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But even so, I'm sticking to my guns: Love Minus Zero is best unadorned and sung by Bob.

The album's other lyrical masterpiece, It's All Over Now, Baby Blue, has an even richer history and an even more questionable start. I can understand, wholeheartedly, while Dylan felt done after the album's eventual take was in the can. The swirling, melodic bass alone makes the track worthy of inclusion on this, or any other, record. Dylan adds impassioned vocals and sensitive harmonica; it all comes together into a marvelous flotilla of music.

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But the song still includes a straight-up, gasp-worthy, mistake. Check out the third verse, second line. According to Bob himself, the lyric is, and always has been, "all your reindeer armies, they're all going home". Following up on Bob's seasick sailors rowing home, this is a bizarre and perfect lyric for a bizarre and perfect song.

But Dylan sings nothing of the sort. Instead we get something that sounds like "your empty handed army-ers are going home." That's not the same thing Bob! Indeed it sounds like you were so into this take 1/2 way in that you blew it, then shrugged and went out to kick it with Nico or something. Dude, Bob, give us another take!

He did of course. Like She Belongs to Me, he made the song a centerpiece of his 66 tour, usually nailing it. And many others have given us earnest versions of their own, from Them's Beck-worthy cover to the obligatory Byrd's version, and so on.

But this entire post was inspired by Chan Marshall's just released take of Baby Blue. If you haven't heard all of the Cat Power re-creation of Dylan's Judas concert, get your act together, stop reading this and do so right now.

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Why, oh why, doesn't Dylan tour and record his next album right now with Chan and Fionna Apple sharing the vocals with him? You know both women are game, and I guarantee you both of them would remember it's reindeer we're talking about here, not armyers.

Okay, that covers the initially tossed off classics-to-be. Let's talk about the problem songs: It's Alright Ma and Gates of Eden. There's a lot to be said in favor of these songs. They both feature dense writing with bumper-sticker-ready tag lines. "Even the President of the United Sates Sometime Has to Stand Naked" and "The Savage Soldier Just Sticks His Head In Sand and Then Complains" are a bit wordy but there's plenty of room on the back of my 08 Honda Civic Hybrid. I'm ready to make people tailgate me and squint.

But Dylan delivers both numbers as dirges. Frankly I have to take a deep breath to get through them back to back. Listening is like doing your homework, and, while I'm a pretty good teacher, I'm a lousy student. Thus, they are problem songs.

But Dylan figured out one of them, It's Alright Ma, in a big way in 74 while on tour with The Band. He belts it out in frantic double time, creating the perfect Watergate Era protest song. Obtuse and direct, vague and fierce:

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I was negative 2 years old at that point but I swear I heard Dylan's holler in utero, beckoning me to join the argument here on Earth. I'm happy to have answered the call, and I hope I never see Trump naked. But jail would be sweet...

As far as I know, Gates of Eden has never been similarly salvaged but I'd argue it's ready for resuscitation. Bob's dense Adam and Eve tale is just sitting around 60 years later, waiting for someone other than Bob to finally give it some life. Check out the lyrics to the second verse; there's plenty worth wrestling with here:

The lamppost stands with folded arms, its iron claws attached To curbs 'neath holes where babies wail, though it shadows metal badge All and all can only fall with a crashing but meaningless blow No sound ever comes from the Gates of Eden

I don't know how a lamppost can shadow a metal badge under wailing toddlers, but the whole thing freaks me out in good ways. I wish Leonard Cohen had given Phil Specter the boot and sung this with Bob instead of Don't Go Home With Your Hard-On.

The third of the problem songs is problematic in an entirely different sense. Yes, I know that Maggie's Farm is historically important because Bob used it to help create punk rock in 65 by lighting up Newport's speakers and driving Pete Seeger into an axe-wielding rage, but the song has basically no melody and is, to my ears, pretty dull. Name me a good version. Dare you! Meanwhile, I ain't gonna talk about this song no more.

I'm afraid to say that the remaining two categories, Bringing It All Back Home's novelty songs and its filler, are less rich pastures for us to dwell in, but let's visit anyway, shall we?

First of all, I'm here to tell you that one of Bob Dylan's masterpieces, Subterranean Homesick Blues, is nothing more than a novelty song. By that I mean it's a gimmick: awesome once and then never worth redoing by anyone, ever again. I've never heard a Dylan live version of any kind - he knows better - and I dare even my famous brother to produce a quality cover. (And if he plays me the Red Hot Chili Peppers' take I will declare him no longer famous.)

Simply put, I think the song is a fantastic and spontaneous piece of wit that would go stale the moment it is ever retold. Do I like the song and its sweet one liners? Sure! I dare say I have even taken a fair bit of Bob's advice to heart over the years. No one's ever caught me hanging around an inkwell, that's for damn sure. But I never want to hear the song in any other context beyond the opening two minutes of this record or in the poster flinging alleyway bit.

Thankfully Bob feels the same way. Can you imagine a Budokan version, slowed down to a reggae beat and chanted with the ladies while Dickicus Maximus on the sax shows off his swaggering mass? Or imagine a Jesus phase rewrite accompanied by auto-harps entitled Jesus is the Answer Blues (Christ's in his Heaven's, mixing up the punishments; I'm on the pavement thinking about the rapture..), or a Neverending Tour take wherein no one other than Bob, including the band, even knows the song is happening (must be Cat's in the Well?) until Bob suddenly tells everyone to light themselves a candle, at which point everyone goes from stupefied to frantic because they failed to hit record on their smuggled-in iPhones.

Instead of covers or remakes we're left with a long line of other novelty songs in the same vein. We're talking End of the World As We Know It, about 1/4 of every great song in Elvis Costello's catalog from Pump it Up to Beyond Belief and, I'm so sorry because now it's stuck in your head, We Didn't Start the Fire.

Dylan knew his 115th Dream was a one-off joke from the get go, and so he added the hilarity from the first of its only two attempts onto the intro for the record. I never miss a chance to grin at the nonsense Bob and Captain A-Rab get into, but this song is not on any best of lists and, like Subterranean Homesick Blues, has thankfully never been attempted by anyone since.

Curiously, it's also the last "Bob Dylan's Dream" song we ever got from Dylan. I guess there are really only two of them, but I think of the two I Shall Be Frees and Talking World War Three Blues as additional members of the genre. Now don't get me wrong, I love Series of Dreams as much as any other Bobhead, but images of running and climbing are no substitute for another song from Dylan's ridiculous dream journal about harpoons and Bob being reminded that he is not Christ.

That leaves us with the filler: On the Road Again and Outlaw Blues are exactly that. Had he written them, Stephen Stills would proudly place these songs on his Greatest Hits package; they are that bad.

Dylan's made more than just this one transition record, of course. John Wesley Harding... Street Legal... World Gone Wrong... Maybe all his records are transitions!

Just imagine us ten years and three new Dylan albums from now. Bob is a spry 92 and has just added a cheap-enough-for-me lager to his whiskey line. And, at long last, he has invited me over to the bobpad as my famous brother's plus one; that's right: after years of rejecting interview appeals from even the AARP, the Bobster finally wants to talk, and my bro's more than earned the gig. Our plan for the evening is to quiz Bob about how he transitioned into yet another masterful phase way back during Rough and Rowdy Ways.

Now that's a dream I'd like to hear him sing about.

#Youtube #bob dylan #neil young #joni mitchell #paul simon #stephen stills still sucks

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brw · 2 years

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Isn’t Tony besties with Reed? What makes u like Reed but not Tony, they kinda similar.

i guess ultimately reed isn't a character focused on wealth in the way tony is. like the conception of tony stark is basically writers going "what if billionaires were cool", at least certainly how he was written in the 70s avengers & west coast avengers which is where i am most familiar with him. you know like tigra and jennifer (if i remember right) are both overjoyed when they get their avengers paycheck that tony is mostly funding, he's the owner of their most iconic location, the mansion, and he's solidly portrayed as a good guy in WCA after rhodey packs up. personally for me, i can't get over the billionaire thing, because it is too engrained in his character that he is supposed to be a billionaire who doesn't suck, which some readers look past but i cant.

reed however, while rich, is different in the sense that he doesn't need to be rich to be mister fantastic. like there is nothing about his power set, his costuming or his lifestyle that requires him to be wealthy. you can easily make a reed richards story where he didn't come from wealth, and so long as you have a big accident like the cosmic rays or the teleportation machine that causes his body to transform you've got mister fantastic. while certainly there are parts of his character or his history that are influenced by him being from wealth (going to so many prestigious universities so early on, being able to build his rocket on the first place), they aren't necessary to the foundation of reed richards.

this is different from tony who in order to be able to be owner of avengers mansion, in order to be dishing out all the paychecks, in order to have all the different suits of armour he has, in order to own area 51 or whatever, he needs to have wealth. and there are storylines where he doesn't have that and he exists as a character anyway and goes through character development and i appreciate that, but in the majority of his appearances and certainly in comics post civil war & the first iron man movie he is very much benevolent billionaire, which is a character archetype i don't particularly care for and don't find very interesting, and his concept and design as a character isn't one i find interesting or appealing enough to bother reading the solo series he's in.

reed, meanwhile, always has some kind of focus on his dynamic with his family. you don't need reed richards solo comics in the same way you get tony stark solo comics, so he's always interacting with his family. tony stark when he's in avengers comics always comes off to me as either a fantasy of the ideal, heroic, caring billionaire that isn't a fantasy i care to indulge in, or as just kind of an entitled prick that can often be styled as rude to characters like spiderman or antman who come from working class backgrounds. is he different and much more rounded off in his solos? probably! i don't care to read them though because he isn't a character i want to see outside of his dynamic with the team. and for reed, all you get is his dynamic with the team. like i don't need to read comics and series i don't care about to know reed as fully as i might want to, it's all just there in the main series'. idk if that makes any sense but like, he's just an easier character who develops more without having to look into other comics i don't care about.

anyway yeah, reed and tony are friends n have been established for a while, it seems they were childhood friends who knew each other through their dads who knew each other and were also fucking and having threesomes with leonado da vinci, and probably went to a lot of the same universities etc etc. they play chess together and do respect each other, although some comics from the 2000s and 2010s do sometimes portray a tension between them, with tony occasionally making an inappropriate joke or whatever and reed reacting poorly, but a) that's around the time where tony changes from benevolent billionaire to entitled prick in the avengers comics & event comics, and b) that's a new wave of writers in a post 9/11 america and therefore different outlooks on both characters than there were in the 80s. but generally yeah they're friends. i do actually like the reedtony dynamic, it's the closest i get to liking the guy. if you're interested in their dynamic or at least the version i like best, i recommend longshot saves the marvel universe #1, they're cute in it, although it gets weirdly ableist to reed at one point so watch out for that.

#asks #anonymous #tony stark #ch: i believe we endure #putting this in the tag for my own cataloguing purposes! please do not @ me abt it 😩😩

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the12thnightproject · 1 year

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Heyyy! Just to let you know ive been rlly invested in your ikesen series with your ocs. Just havent rlly finished any of them and ive quite stop reading at some point, since most of them weren't my favourite suitors.

Sorry.

But id love to hear more if you have any ideas or planning on writing more ikesen series like that but with other suitors? And can share about how you get inspiration about your storyline and your oc katsuko?

Thank you and keep it up!

Hi Anon!

Thank you for the love and for liking Katsuko (I'm a little sad for Shingen and Mitsunari... but Cybird has been rather light on giving us new content for them that will help us fall in love with them).

Ok... for your questions (later... oh boy, this got really long... sorry).

I am absolutely writing more in the series - it can take me a year to write each longfic. My goal was mid-late March for the next story, but ... I'm about 70% done with the first draft, so we'll see if I can manage that.

Before there was a series, it was just me playing the game, and suddenly realizing that I was thinking about it when I wasn't playing it, and the things that I was thinking about (daydreaming actually) were scenes that were not in the game, and not with MC. The people I was imagining in the scenes eventually became Katsuko (although she didn't have a name at that time) and Akihira. Eventually though, I felt like I needed to write them down, at which point I started thinking more in terms of "what is this, exactly?" And I wanted to write Katsuko with more than one character, and then I wondered if I could create an OC who, like the game MC, would fit as a love interest with every game character (spoiler alert - I #failed at that one), and also figure out a way that multiple versions of Katsuko could exist (which is how the multiverse part of it started).

At that point, there were ten routes already released in the game. The idea is that the final longfic in the series will be Sasuke & Katsuko traveling through all the existing timelines, trying to make ensure that they didn't collapse on each other. It's somewhat like the concept of Loki - that some timelines will start interfering with others. There was supposed to be a longfic with every available (at that time) suitor, plus I set it up to potentially also include Yoshimoto (if his route story made sense with the multiverse). The Shakespeare angle came up because it occurred to me that if Katsuko and Toshie were both isekai'd into Sengoku, and then separated, then it was sort of like the plot of "Twelfth Night." And then I decided to make things difficult on myself by having the individual longfics each be inspired by one of Shakespeare's plays.

This is what I originally thought I was going to write (in some order...):

Shingen, a route inspired by Twelfth Night. Shingen needed to go first because his canon issue allowed me to do a lot of world building and setting up rules for the multiverse.

Mitsunari, inspired by A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Hideyoshi, inspired by Julius Caeser.

Ieyasu, inspired by Much Ado About Nothing

Nobunaga, inspired by Hamlet.

Masamune, inspired by... [kind of drew a blank on this one, but I was considering Pericles]

Mitsuhide, inspired by The Taming of the Shrew

Yukimura, inspired by As You Like it

Kenshin, inspired by The Winter's Tale

Sasuke, inspired by The Tempest. He needs to be last to tie up the multiverse.

But what I thought I was going to write, intellectually, ran up against the wall of creativity (meaning, ok, I sort of had an idea, but those ideas didn't always work out for various reasons).

So this is what actually happened - plans? Ha! What plans?

Shingen - done

Mitsunari - done

Hideyoshi - as I started to envision it, I realized that some of the plot was repeating things that happened in Shingen's route, so I put that idea on the back burner until I can better figure out what will happen here.

Ieyasu - Actually had a couple of scenes in mind, and once I put Hideyoshi aside, I thought I would write him next, but I couldn't figure out an overall storyline, so I've temporarily skipped him.

Nobunaga - every time I start trying to envision it, I run into a wall of angst and tragic ending (he kills her ... because she's there to assassinate him). Temporarily skipped until I can figure out another approach that doesn't end in MCD.

Masamune - So... I basically have "screen tested" Masamune with Katsuko, and ... they have no chemistry. Total 'good friends' vibes, no conflict. I tried to work around that with a high conflict plot... but then...

Mitsuhide - Was supposed to be later, because I wanted to focus on some of the more neglected characters. He jumped in and demanded that I write his story. Enemies to lovers - in the previously written fics Katsuko and Mitsuhide have said that if they had to work closely with each other, they would be tempted to murder the other... so... let's see if that happens. Fic in process, hopefully out in Spring 2023.

Yukimura - I think this one may be after Mitsuhide. Probably. It's the one I can see the clearest in my head. Likely to be a buddy comedy with lots of adventure, if it develops the way it's started.

Kenshin - I have a solid idea for this one, but it's tangled up with what I had in mind for Sasuke's as well, almost to the point where I think I have to write it in two parts, with part 1 coming first, then ending on a cliffhanger, picking up in Sasuke's story ... or something.... this is one where the problem is less his story, and more how do I solve a plot twist where another multiverse Sasuke & Katsuko are needed to step in and help.

Sasuke - see above, but it's supposed to be the final story.

Other warlords: If a storyline occurs to me for them, I may add them. Some of them may actually fit better with a different OC, e.g., the character of Shohime/Sho may work better with some of them (Keiji, Masamune, Motonari - or even Hideyoshi), so there may be some spin-off short stories or novellas going that way instead of full fics with Katsuko.

All of that means that there will be more stories, but not the ten total as I originally wanted.

Ok... so for your question about character inspiration. Going all the way back to when I had the idea for the Tempest stories - there were things about Katsuko that I mostly knew - that she would have a self-deprecating inner dialogue, and that she would be more athletic and have had less of a stable upbringing than Mai, and, having been in the Sengoku longer (7 years), she would be less peace-loving, and more used to the war and death of the era.

Some of that was due to things I already wondered about Mai... how could Mai disappear into another era without her ending up as a "missing persons" cold case... we never see her go back to her family/friends and explain what happened. So to make that an easier issue with Katsuko, I decided that she would be kind of a loner, and that her only family is her brother (and he gets yanked into Sengoku era Japan with her).

When I started to write the prologue, she was actually really different. Instead of a rebellious athlete type, she was actually a party-girl/failed gymnast. I got about 5000 or so words into that version, and realized I didn't like her, she was too whiney, and I didn't want to spend a bunch of longfic writing about her. I trashed everything I had written, and started over.

Mostly, I knew what I wanted her to be able to do... and then worked backwards to figure out what basic skills she would have (athleticism, adventurousness) that would provide canvas for Aki to train her in the skills she would need to survive and thrive. I sent her back 7 years prior to the arrival of Mai/Honno-ji, in order to give her time to adjust, to pick up the skills she could use in the longfics. And then in the prologue, I put her through a near death experience, which left her with a bit more ruthlessness than before, and the claustrophobia.

But for some of the other aspects of her personal history, most of those I discovered when I was writing the first draft of "Twelve Lies..." The fact that she was a vegetarian (as much as possible), her mother's story, the flashbacks to her life in modern Japan, the fact that she once had a cat (named Tony Stark)... those organically appeared in that story - at which point, I went back to the prologue and made some edits, since I had a clearer vision of her.

The discoveries about Akihira didn't come to me until I was partway through the second draft of that story (which again... necessitated more rewrites - originally Aki was supposed to be native to Sengoku Japan... I didn't figure out that he was also a time traveler until later). So basically it took me two drafts to learn that the central relationship, the one that goes through all the fics, is the relationship of Katsuko and Aki, and that the overall theme of the all of the fics together is a father/daughter story.

So sometimes, when I discover something like that, it's an "oh of course, that's how it needs to be." And sometimes, like with Aki, it was an "of course, he has to be this," followed by my brain going, "ok, but how the hell are you going to make that work." I'm still trying to figure out some of the multiverse rules with Aki.

Inspiration is a combination of necessity, and discovery. My brain knew that in order for Katsuko to be good at what she does, she needed to have certain skills or be put into a position to learn them (hence the long prologue that covered 7 years). That was necessity. But other things I could only discover by just sitting down and writing and seeing what came out. I have to turn off my brain, and stop editing in that first draft.

There are quite a few times when I'll write a scene and about halfway through hit a dead end. I just circle that section (oh, I hand write my first draft, btw, as it makes it easier to allow play time and stop editing... I KNOW I'm going to fix it later, because it's going to have to get typed up) and write "cut??" and start again at the spot where it originally turned down a blind alley. This happened a lot more in Mitsunari's story than it did in Shingen's -- I probably have about 10,000 words of material that existed in the first draft that lead toward blind alleys, and scenes that went nowhere, that I had to back out of (a couple of them were perfectly good scenes by themselves... but they didn't work in the context of the story).

Sometimes if I get really stuck at where I am, I'll put it away for the night, and suddenly when I'm doing something else, I'll realize what needs to happen next. Sometimes it won't be until a later draft that I realize something is missing or necessary. There's a chapter in "Twelve Lies" that wasn't even in my third draft (Chapter 32, though I expect you might not have read that far). But as when I got to around Chapter 28 in the posting, it occurred to me that things that were to happen in Chapter 36 didn't feel as motivated as they could or should have... so I wrote an extra chapter (which in turn, made it necessary to rewrite parts of chapters 33-35).

And sometimes, it's the nature of episodic posting that gives me ideas... I had a couple of lovely, very active and responsive readers on Ao3 who were commenting and reacting to every chapter. Occasionally things they said gave ideas to edit and tweak chapters that were written but not yet uploaded. For example, in the first draft Yoshimoto didn't have nearly the amount of 'screen time' that he did in the final posted chapters. But every time in the early chapters that he appeared, the readers responded very positively to him... so I added him in a few scenes where it made sense that he would be around. He was kind like "The Fonz" ... a supporting character who became a featured character because of audience popularity.

As for the other OCs... I started with knowing I'd need Aki and Toshie... and then very early on, I added Iekane as the main villain. Cybird has the habit of redeeming their villains, and I didn't want to write the series thinking all along that someone like Motonari was the big bad, only to have Cybird "Joss" me. (That said, Motonari is one of the main antagonists of Mitsuhide's longfic... but I've been careful to make clear that he's redeemable).

Other OCs appeared as minor characters whenever I needed them... Susumu (who is a restaurant owner in one longfic, and a vassal in the other, for example), Hiko, Shohime, and Sute - most of them were supposed to only be in one scene, but they all stuck around. Shohime and Sute might get their own stories at some point (in fact I have a one-shot with Sute that is about 2/3rds done and I could see Shohime in a novella inspired by Jane Austen's "Emma"). And of course, the various versions of Hiko in each longfic play into the overall series mystery that all the Katsukos are working together to solve.

In terms of storyline inspiration... some of that is trying to figure out what parallels to whichever Shakespeare play I can then use to help organize the plot. The rest is picturing Katsuko and whichever LI is in the route and trying to imagine various scenes that happen in the story. It's in a sense sort of like looking up at the sky and trying to trace the path of a constellation... they start out as a cluster of stars, random, varied... but then if you imagine the lines from star to star, the constellation emerges. When in my head, I can see the map of that longfic... maybe not every point from the beginning to the end, but enough of them, then I know I can start writing the fic. After that, it's just figuring out how to get from the point I'm at to the next big point... and as I write, discovering what comes directly next. Eventually, all those "this comes next" scenes get me to one of these bigger scenes.

I don't know... this clearly turned into a much longer essay that I imagine you expect. But I hope somewhere in here I've managed to coherently answer your questions.

#asks #answered #fic writing #katsuko #oc community #ikemen sengoku fanfic

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a-readsss · 3 months

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Powerless by Lauren Roberts

My rating: 2.5⭐

Read if you like: The Hunger Games, trials, Dagger to the throat tropes

---------

I thought to DNF multiple times but trudged through anyway to see maybe it'll be worth it in the end.

Disclaimer: I do not know the author. Heard she's famous in Booktok. My review remains unbiased and is mostly focused on the book itself.

♦️Spoilers ahead. Proceed with caution.♦️

Let's start with the things I liked about the book:

💎 There is potential with the unique magic system the author has established.

💎 I liked Paedyn— She reminds me a lot of Aelin. There was just one scene that was written that made her out of character (made me cringe).

💎 Dual POV

💎 The last 30% of the book with all the actions and none of the romance was good. We got to see other characters apart from Paedyn and Kai (Thank the Plagues)

💎 I thought I would never touch this series again until the very last chapter. Would I read it? Big maybe. At least not a definite no.

Things that I disliked:

♦️ Lackluster worldbuilding. Author focused directly on the romance through 70% of the book despite being able to have a unique magic system. Not even a brief dive of the lore of their powers, the kingdom, the fatals and the resistance. It was disappointing being dual POV where we got Kai who is literally involved in the politics of it all and still know nothing about everything.

The purging trials wasn't even explained. It was as if we are expected to get an idea of it. It felt like the author changed her idea midway as she was writing. Example would be she mentioned, and even made Paedyn care about the sponsors but it was a concept barely, if not at all, touched afterwards.

What does the Purging Trials accomplish anyway!?

We also don't know much of why each player is motivated to win. I think doing it for just honor is too superficial. We barely get to know them at all.

For Paedyn to be portayed as a smart FMC, I'm literally shocked she never decided to at least get to know the contestants powers. She wasn't even at least furious she was put in the purging trials. And for Kai to claim (or the author to subtly claim) that he cares for her, he didn't teach her one bit about fighting or defending herself against those powers. No, the man taught her to dance. Literally 😭

♦️Too much unnecessary writing. It pays to be descriptive but it was done it bad taste to the point it was just redundant and wholly irrelevant.

♦️Character inconsistenties. Kai being the worst of it all.

♦️ I love enemies to lovers, I love the "who did this to you trope" too but this was just so forced, the chemistry was entirely off in the first part. I am so glad it slowly started to feel right at the 80% mark.

To be also fair, I love slowburn and I don't really like instalove or insta attraction tropes. I love a good build up hence why I personally did not like this.

♦️ Quotable quotes with no impact. There are beautiful statements in the book, hence they really are quotable. But what does that matter when it has no impact? It only feels like it was thrown in there for the same of it. The only quote that made an impact which I quite liked was

"Never forget that your wit is a weapon to be wielded if only your mind is as sharp as your blade"

✨ Good potential for a debut novel. I'm hoping for book 2 to be better, if ever I do decide to pick it back up again.

#book review #review #books #book #bookstagram #powerless

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hmsex2023-rorys3965039 · 7 months

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Blog Entry 8

Sound Design: Resonance – HOME

I’ve decided to go with Resonance by Home, the song that got me hooked on Schyguyy and, in turn, this whole aesthetic. The song I said I’d use before was Memory Reboot but now I feel like that track is too in your face and exciting; I like how neutral Resonance is, it makes the vibe less attributable to one emotion, the uncertain, the unclear, and the undefinable is the essence of liminality.

Research - Technical

I’ve used Reaper to essentially do what time remapping does in Premiere Pro for video, but for audio. Pressed alt T to bring up the tempo envelope, and made 3 BPM keyframes (90, 100, and 120, 120 being the song’s normal tempo) with the second transitioning to the third linearly. I did this because I couldn’t choose between the different popular versions of Resonance, sometimes I like Resonance slowed (.9x) + reverb, other times I like super slowed (.75x), but most often I like the original.

Sidenote: I believe many people who’ve listened to this song and songs like it feel the same; remixes of songs being as popular or more popular than the original appears to be positively correlated with Phonk’s popularity (my personal observation).

I looked for ages trying to find out how to remap the time of an audio clip, something that I thought should be simple as it is for video. I asked google, YouTube, chatgpt, nothing. Finally through clicking different “audio item timebase” options I found a solution that no one else on the internet recommended.

“Beats (auto-stretch at tempo changes)”

Before setting this, Reaper was playing the whole track at the BPM of the last keyframe (120BPM, the track’s original tempo) despite the tempo envelope’s time remapping between 90, 100, and 120. All sorted now.

I’m still fiddling around with reverb, thinking I might even try to keyframe particular parameters so that the sound either starts out sounding far away and low clarity and becomes encapsulating and clear, or vice versa.

Research - Academic

Zuckerman Interview video on genetic basis of sensation-seeking.

“Well, this is determined from twin studies called Biometrics of Behavior Genetics actually. Using these twin studies we initially found that roughly 60% inheritability. In heritability is the proportion of the variance in a trait that is determined by genetics. We discovered there was 60% -- which is very high for a personality trait which generally runs between 30% and 50%. So, 60% is high for a personality trait.” (Zuckerman 2009).

He goes on to talk about a particular dopamine receptor gene having existed in our species for, not all evolution, but around 50,000 – 100,000 years. He says that because analogues of sensation seeking expressions or approaches to novelty in other species linked to the same biological indicators that humans have, this is more than just an analogy, it indicates it has evolutionary history.

So, I could potentially have some visuals that come up displaying evolution as a potential cause of this ability to have a dulled fear response that gives the individual the rewarding satisfaction of completing a dangerous task.

Research - Creative Practice

Looking some examples of good Reverb and how it started out. King Tubby was a prominent figure in the Jamaican soundsystem culture of the 50s. His sound engineering work was pivotal to the creation of reggae and dub in the 60s & 70s; apparently, he’s known for basically creating the concept of remixing!

His modest use of reverb is present on the snare, it’s very noticeable.

“One of Meek’s most famous techniques was using different reverberant spaces in his studio and house for recording instruments with natural room sound—like under his staircase or in his bathroom.

Listen to the different kinds of spaces he creates with various reverbs, especially the uniquely spacey reverb on the backup vocal line: ‘I Hear a New World.’” (Trandafir, 2022).

Feedback on Videos Week 8

Last Train Edit:

Harry

What’s the mood or style?

Reminds me of JDM car core, where people show off their cars at night time in minimal lighting.

When you see this kind of video where it looks lonely or only has one subject, do you find it creepy?

In the context of how you’ve edited the video, no. But you could, the space itself is not inherently dangerous or creepy, so the space alone isn’t creepy. More aesthetic than uncanny. And the music is not creepy, sort of peaceful almost.

Lucas

What’s the mood or style?

Quite moody, feel like that song is often used in tiktoks with beauty in them or representing something emotionally motivated or trigger emotions. So that sort of paired with the color grading and the style of the video, creates this real almost reflective feeling.

2.When you see this kind of video where it looks lonely or only has one subject, do you find it creepy?

Nah, more of a feeling of beauty. It’s like the “are you lonely I can’t fix that” blade runner moment, soft. I can’t explain it really, I’d have to think about it for a moment. It’s like standing in the rain but you're not cold and your mind is clear and you’re just there. I can’t put it into words, not static not uncomfortable not creepy not warm it’s just yeah. It’s like a version of the sublime.

Carpark Edit:

Harry

I like the composition; I like how all the yous overlap.

What’s the mood, style, or emotion provoked?

Feels busy, there a lot more going on; busier. Makes me feel relaxed. Really like how it’s layed out, it’s very satisfying. Feels quiet even though there’s music. I like how the pole is in in the right third. However, you running at the camera right at the end, is a large contrast to the vibe before that; the mood and seriousness kind of changes. Really liked the environment, you leaning against that pole alone makes you acknowledge the empty environment. These environments are really interesting cuz it doesn’t look like how I imagine Australia looking.

2. When you see this kind of video where it looks lonely or only has one subject, do you find it creepy?

Perhaps the setting itself is more uncanny. If it was just one you leaning against the poll and no rotos it’d probably be creepier and uncannier. So having all those rotos there takes that potential creepiness away.

Lucas

What’s the mood or style?

Crazy how much sound design affects the vibe cuz that one feels way more stranger things. 80s vibes. I feel like that fits in with the aesthetic. Quite a similar feeling until the end running part that parts quite different adds this urgency to it where the whole rest of the video doesn’t. Totally changed the overall feeling. That running was pretty violent, I don’t think it suits at all, even is slowed down (slowmo) further.

2. When you see this kind of video where it looks lonely or only has one subject, do you find it creepy?

No. I feel like it’s like same sort of video as a guy sitting out the front of a 711 smoking a cigarette and listening to music at like 1am feeling content; It’s an in-between, beauty of the in-between of the suburban lifestyle. Kid that has to wait for a train for an hour cuz the next train doesn’t come for an hour and you’re just sat there waiting, not in a rush cuz you can’t make it come any faster.

Takeaways:

More human presence appears to take away that creepy/uncanny potential

Off centre positioning of large/noticeable objects may be an effective technique, satisfying. e.g., when there’s just me leaning against a large electricity pole in the right third of the frame, and nothing else to see except the environment.

Peaceful

A feeling that is hard to articulate, "reflective feeling" "version of the sublime" "Your mind is clear and you're just there"

The running rotoscope of me breaks the immersion and the feeling; I will not be doing this again.

(McLean, 2023) (Horta, 2023).

I want to make the point that with just a slight change of the human presence and music, the video could become creepy and uncanny; this reminds me of how exhilaration works, it often straddles the threshold of excitement and fear. Essentially, everything ties in as this description of exhilaration is liminal in itself, i.e., occupying a position at or on both sides of a boundary or threshold (being the boundary of excitement and fear).

Works Cited

Big Think and Zuckerman, M. (2009) ‘The Genetic Basis of Risk-Seeking’, Big Think.

McLean, H.M. (2023). Interview by Rory Henderson, hmsex2023-rorys3965039, 16.09.2023.

Horta, L.H. (2023). Interview by Rory Henderson, hmsex2023-rorys3965039, 16.09.2023.

Trandafir, L. (2022) 8 songs that belong in the Reverb Hall of Fame, LANDR Blog. Available at: https://blog.landr.com/8-reverb-examples/ (Accessed: 15 September 2023).

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lil-gingerbread-queen · 1 year

Text

I was afraid when our professor asked some of my classmates "what is a woman?", because I could have gone through the day without any transphobia.

First guy, great. Immediately said that being a woman is more a concept, and that it doesn't matter if you weren't born a girl, you can be a woman.

Other, awful. We got the "a woman has XX chromosomes and an uterus, should be able to give birth in her lifetime (the most beautiful gift), it's the contrary of being a man", which, just, shut the fuck up. Me being a demi-girl has nothing to do with the fact I can give birth. Pls, I hate my uterus with a burning passion. I have no use for this bs. Can we stop reducing women to their usefulness to other people??? Growing up to hearing that, as a girl, I HAVE to give birth 🤢 literally made me hate being afab

Also, we got the "women are being of tenderness" (said by a woman), which no. Don't fucking say some bs like that. My mother is the worst human being I have ever met, no tenderness whatsoever. Women being the prime caretakers of children also made them prime abusers (70% of parents who killed their children are women). Women are not some uwu perfect beautiful beings, they're humans with all the atrocities it implies.

And, my teacher calling her daughter's trans men friends "girls with boy's names" while being the director of the comity of equality... ucks

#tw transphobia #feminism #trans issues #transphobia

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daneletourneau · 1 year

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Dane’s Top Songs 2022

Hi! Here I am, nearly at the end of another crazy year for music, with not only a massive list of things I loved but also a massive queue of things I didn’t get around to listening to yet, waiting for me in my music library... but isn’t it always this way. I know I’ll have a much clearer picture of what I loved in 2022 halfway through next year, but alas...

Normally I make a top albums list, but this year felt different. I loved a lot of full-length records, yes... but there were so many things released, either as singles or as a part of full-length projects, that I loved on their own more, which is new for me. And at first I had a list of single songs, but this weird thing kept happening where for every song I’d pick, another would come to mind from the same artist that I loved just as much. And it was always just the two. Twenty twenty two. Heh. So I went with it. Here’s my top 70 songs of 2022, from 35 different artists, arranged mostly with my favorites at the top. I hope you enjoy and maybe discover something new - like I’m about to throughout 2023 with all this 2022 music I never got around to. Whooohooo!

(Check out the playlist of these top songs on Spotify, as well as the honorable mentions).

1. Everything Everything — “Leviathan”, “Shark Week”

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One of my favorite bands ever dropped their best record ever this year — “Raw Data Feel” —and though I did not make a 2022 “top albums” list, this would be at the very top if I had. Collaborating with an AI on some of the lyrics, frontman Jonathan Higgs dove further than ever before into creating an overarching lyrical “concept” while employing none of the annoying clichés that usually come along with such pursuits. Ranging from the ridiculous to the profound, and with some of the best/weirdest vocabulary among his peers (and beyond), his lyrics are always great, and this record is no exception.

To me, “Leviathan” is the most devastating track off this entire collection, and also the most heartachingly beautiful. Writing about the loss of a family member, Jonathan delivers probably the best set of melodies E,E have ever packed into one song, and the playing and production from Alex, Mike and Jeremy is just so on-point, and sublime. I actually have to skip this track sometimes as it is often too much for me, both lyrically and musically. But that often happens with my favorite music ever... it really gets in there and ... hits.

And then “Shark Week” — I couldn’t get away from this track this year. It just slaps, in every way possible. Funky, anthemic, with big nasty awesome synths. And the lyrics are so damn fun to scream out loud: “I SAID HEY!!! DO YOU THINK YOU’VE GOT EVERYONE UNDER YOUR CONTROL??” “I’VE GOT THE STRENGTH OF A MILLION RISING UP INSIDE!!” “HE’S OBAMA IN THE STREETS, BUT HE THINKS HE’S OSAMA IN THE SHEETS” “IS IT CHIMP SEASON BABY OR AM I IN A CAGE?”

I could go on. Listen to these songs and if you dig, listen to the record. And then listen to everything everything else this band has ever done. They are consistently underrated, underappreciated, and slept on, and they have only ever made incredible records, time and time again. Keep at it boys. I love youuuu. And dear god play a city I am living in at some point please.

2. Perfume Genius — “Cenote”, “Eye in the Wall”

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I’ll be honest, I was late to the genius of Mike Hadreas, aka “Perfume Genius”. I was first drawn in by the super weird and cool sonics of the opening track of his 2017 album “No Shape” (”Otherside”, check it out!) ... and I did like that follow up record, “Set My Heart On Fire Immediately”. But nothing grabbed me the way that “Ugly Season” has. Again, if I made an albums list this year, this would be in the top 5. Along with producer Blake Mills, Hadreas has created a mini universe of sound which felt entirely removed from everything else I heard this year. I felt completely transported, at peace, and taken out of myself whenever this record was on. In a sense, I wouldn’t recommend listening to these two tracks I’ve selected out of the context of the album, but I’ve really committed myself to this song-pair thing it seems, so here goes:

“Cenote” is the instrumental that closes the record, which normally wouldn’t be the kind of track which would make it to the top of a list of mine. But this is just so unexpected, a gorgeous little composition which hangs on a wobbly, simple little piano line and some atmospherics. And I just felt this thing, it put me in such a calm and unique space, and the melody choices as it evolves really took me out of myself for some reason. This text is insufficient to describe it, the experience is more than the sum of its parts. In many ways, that goes for the whole record too.

“Eye in the Wall” is a nearly 9-minute journey that starts in (somewhat) familiar harmonic minor territory before wandering into the desert and getting lost in the dunes, in the best way possible. The percussion choices here are brilliant, as are the tremolo guitars (and BG vocals), and gated synths which define the back half. And the rhythm change at 6:03 YESSSSSS ughhh. Get lost in it, it is absolutely lovely and hypnotizing stuff.

3. Lizzy McAlpine — “Ceilings”, “Orange Show Speedway”

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Lizzy is an incredible upcoming songwriter who I discovered on her debut 2020 record, “Give Me a Minute”. I played that thing on repeat, like crazy... it got me through a lot of the pandemic... an oasis of gentleness, beauty and really wonderfully specific and personal songwriting. This second record goes more into indie-rock territory and explores what Lizzy is capable of genre-wise, and I’d absolutely recommend giving it a full listen. But there are some major standouts for me.

“Ceilings” feels a lot like the first record, but refined, and it really swirls and rises and culminates in a wash of drums and falsetto and goes bigger than anything she tried previously. A masterclass in telling a story and giving it a big finish, with production and LIFT to match. “Then you're driving me home, and it kinda comes out as I get up to go, you kiss me in your car, and it feels like the start of a movie I've seen before“ ... but then we find out this whole scenario is a memory, or a fantasy, and it’s not real - “and you don't exist, and I can't recall the last time I was kissed...” I’m a sucker for this kind of romantic, longing, and ultimately sad story, every time. And this one really delivers.

“Orange Show Speedway” leans more into the indie-rock of it all, with exceptional results. Nostalgia plays a big role in the lyrics here, and I couldn’t get away from this one line: “Everything changes, what a shame”... it struck and hit home again and again, and I think there are some specifics to the rest of the story here that I’m also associating with some old memories of mine. And that’s the genius of her writing. She gives you enough specifics to tell her story, but not too many that you can’t also write your own in your head as you immerse yourself in these little worlds. Keep your eyes and ears on Lizzy McAlpine.

4. Diatom Deli - "Massive Headships of Centering Tiles", "Waves Will See (Your Smiling Face)"

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My good friend and brilliant musical curator Joshua Field turned me on to this record and I couldn’t be more grateful (check out his 2022 albums list here). "Time~Lapse Nature” was also an oasis of sorts which I kept coming back to for rest, gentleness, calm, and “centering” (if you will). A repeated theme for this list, I am realizing, but yeah... something I really needed a lot of this year. This record is a lot of hushed vocals, gently picked guitars, atmospherics, harmonies, and synths, while all being very organic and lo-fi (in the best way), and was something I could just sink into and not worry about at all. It felt like an audio care package. It felt like lapping waves and fresh turned earth and a cool breeze. It felt really nice.

Picking tracks from this was accordingly tough, as for the first 10 or so listens I’m not sure I looked at any track titles, just sort of stayed immersed throughout the album. Perhaps the most memorable melodies come from “Massive Headships of Centering Tiles” or “Waves Will See (Your Smiling Face)”, so these seem to be good choices. But another record I’d recommend you listen to start to finish. There I go again. Maybe I should have made that albums list.

5. Charli XCX - "Twice", "Constant Repeat"

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“Charli made one of the best pop albums of the year”. That phrase could also be true of 2020, 2019, 2017, etc. etc. If you know you know. But certainly it is true of 2022, and if you weren’t hooked by “Good Ones” or “New Shapes” or “Baby” or.... I don’t know what is wrong with you. But assuming you were, you may have still missed some of the best pop songs of the year, as non-singles “Constant Repeat” and “Twice” are (IMO) even better.

“Constant Repeat” delivers a classic, stuttering guitar-and-synth pattern, before Charli crashes in with “I’m cute and I’m rude, with kinda rare attitude” and “you could have had a bad girl by your side” and it’s hella fun. Vocal melodies are tip top as is the production, which never really goes all the way, and keeps you wanting more. And the track feels JUST a little bit short. But it’s all intentional. So there you go, putting it on “constant repeat” ok ok ok. It’s genius.

“Twice” is the classic Charli combo of big pop sugar rush combined with weightier lyrical subject matter, probably influenced by the loss of her friend (and dearly missed musical genius and icon) SOPHIE. “All the things I love are gonna leave me... don’t think twice about it baby”... “Die happy thinking ‘bout my best friends, till then I’m diving off the deep end.” It really stuck with me all year. Also the key change at 2:29 really does it for me. It feels like it ascends just enough to take me there, before leaving me just a hair soon (as do many of the songs of CRASH, which really gives it an addictive replay value). What a song, and what a closer to a killer pop record.

I’m not going to write any essays for the rest of the songs on this list, but there’s a few things I’d like to briefly mention. I’ve never put my own music on a year-end list before, but here I kind of feel justified as the Nodata stuff was (mostly) me editing and reacting to a set of long-form ambient compositions that my best friend Jesse created on guitar. Going back to that “sonic oasis” theme... these compositions were really a place of rest for me even as I contributed to them musically. It’s my most-replayed record that I’ve ever been a part of making.

Also big love to the Black Country, New Road record. I didn’t listen to it enough until just recently at the very end of the year, but yeah... it’s definitely among the very best of 2022. And a final note on The Smile, the new band from Thom and Jonny of Radiohead fame... a couple real top-shelf heartwrenching ballads from Thom here, up to par with the best of Radiohead IMO. “Free In The Knowledge” is the most optimistic he’s ever sounded and it’s gorgeous and hopeful. “Speech Bubbles” wanders through multiple beautiful places and has that incredible, incomparable Yorke falsetto, as well as Jonny’s stunning string arrangements.

Anyways, enjoy the rest of it, thanks for reading!

6. Nodata - "Nachtheide", "Little Worlds" 7. The Smile - "Free In The Knowledge", "Speech Bubbles" 8. Tegan and Sara - "Fucking Up What Matters", "Yellow" 9. The 1975 - "Part Of The Band", "I'm In Love With You" 10. Taylor Swift - "Maroon", "Bejeweled" 11. Love in Return - "Helpless Harmony", "Candy Apples On the Way to Hell" 12. Black Country, New Road - "Snow Globes", "Basketball Shoes" 13. Cult of Luna - "Into the Night", "An Offering to the Wild" 14. Mitski - "That's Our Lamp", "The Only Heartbreaker" 15. hard.times - "1130 PM", "High with Me" 16. Sex - "Bind My Hands", "Solidarity" 17. Rosalia - "Sakura", "Chicken Teriyaki" 18. Beach House - "Pink Funeral", "Only You Know" 19. Big Thief - "The Only Place", "Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You" 20. Bonny Light Horseman - "Comrade Sweetheart", "California" 21. Floating Points - "Vocoder", "Someone Close" 22. Florence + The Machine - "King", "Choreomania" 23. Christian Lee Hutson - "Rubberneckers", "State Bird" 24. Georgia Harmer - "Austin", "Strongest Person" 25. Big Kill - "Rose Coloured Ear Drums", "Fat Lip" 26. Tangerine Dream - "Raum", "In 256 Zeichen" 27. BROCKHAMPTON - "Man on the Moon", "Brockhampton" 28. MUNA - "Loose Garment", "Anything But Me" 29. Lucky Daye - "Deserve", "Used To Be" 30. billy woods - "Sauvage", "Fever Grass" 31. Russian Circles - "Conduit", "Bloom" 32. Carly Rae Jepsen - "Surrender My Heart", "Anxious" 33. King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - "The Land Before Timeland", "Hypertension" 34. Fergus McCreadie - "Forest Floor", "Glade" 35. JID - "Surround Sound", "Lauder Too"

#music #top songs #2022 #best music #music lists #best of lists

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db-reviews · 2 years

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#106 - SZNZ: Autumn - Weezer (2022)

Oh boy, let’s dive into something way different than what I normally cover. Now I do not like making negative reviews but with this release, I just have to talk about this EP. I don’t know why, but something in me wants to review this hunk of junk.

I and Weezer are two things that can surprisingly go together in the right circumstances, and in others, it sort of falls flat. All their albums, for me (Except for Raditude and SZNZ: Summer), are fairly alright, with my favorite being Ok Human. To me all their albums pretty much sound the same, nothing all that big and complex, nothing that screams amazing rock material. They are a band that I know, and that is all I can say. I think we all know how Weezer started and the entire history of the band so I won’t dabble in the known, however, I will talk about the unknown. See this year they have been releasing 4 EPs based on seasons, cultivating an hour-long concept album. This concept of an album based on seasons has been done a lot before, like this year we got an album about that same concept, Urskog by Kaipa, and in the 70s there was a very influential folk album of Les Cinq Saisons by Harmonium, which I believe was the first critically acclaimed album to do something of this nature. Weezer isn’t the first, and they won’t be the last. For the EPs they released that build into this big concept album, so far they released Spring, which I think is the best one since it blends the orchestral wonder of Ok Human with a more baroque sense of sound, and Summer which, like Summer it’s annoyingly musty. Now we get into Autumn, and this one is…how do I put this nicely…dreadfully weak.

The band in recent years has been experimenting with genres and the like, but they always retain some kind of power pop rock dynamic to their sound. This is evident with Can’t Dance, Don’t Ask Me. Screw Captain Beefheart or The Shaggs, this is the most annoying rock music I have ever heard. Oh god, the drums are way too loud, the guitars sound alright but they do not get any respect, and that ear-piercing keyboard…ugh! Honestly, this album suffers heavily from the mixing. All the instruments do not sound right in the music, and everything just feels like a headache to get through. I will say I do slightly enjoy the part from 1:43-2:25 but it is way too short that it becomes half-baked. It is not good at all.

This honestly goes towards every other track on this album too, so much so I would have to repeat myself pretty much over and over again. Get Off On The Pain is an annoyingly sterile rock tune, What Happens After You would have more points for me but it ultimately falls flat because nothing ever develops, Francesca is way too lackluster for its good, and Run, Raven, Run has such a good title but they ultimately blew it on creating another very lacking power pop rock tune even when it could have been one of the best on this album especially when it had that almost ballad piece in the middle. All these songs are underdeveloped, way too underdeveloped mind you. I know this is an EP so nothing is truly ever gonna be fully realized, however, I have heard dozens of EPs that have songs that try to be less half-baked. That is the keyword for this album, half-baked. No song here feels done, and honestly, they feel like they needed much more time to sit through, and I bet they are underdeveloped because the band had to get something out and done with so they can work on their last season EP (which I hope would be better than this pile of garbage). Because of this, there aren’t any songs on here that feel like actual full songs. They feel like nothing. Much like the marble statue head of Rivers Cuomo, it is empty and hollow while everything else is stunning.

Now, I have been lying somewhat. There are two songs here that do feel a lot better and dare I say I like these songs. These songs are Should She Stay Or Should She Go and Tastes Like Pain. Should She Stay is sort of a traditional Weezer affair, but I think what makes it nice for me is the bouncy attitude on here. That swinging drums are a treat here I believe and are mixed properly as opposed to what was with all the other tracks. Tastes Like Pain is honestly the best song here. I dig the more theatre kid, almost Dear Hunter in vein music on here that feels very fun to listen to. I still have my gripes with these songs, since I still think they suffer from the whole problem of these songs being half-baked, but these songs definitely have been in the oven for a bit longer and so feel like actual songs and not proof of concepts of what the band would create. I know Weezer can create something special, and with these two songs this EP could be so much more, but where it stands for me it all feels like a bundle of hogwash.

This is one mediocre effort if I do say so myself. I cannot deny the band’s potential, but here they do not fully grasp what they want to do or make, and even if they do they often fall into the muddy puddles of creating music for the sake of music and not creating music to create something amazing in artistic form. I think if they went and reworked most of these songs and fixed the mixing to be less obtuse then this might be a fun work they put out, but since they cannot do that now I think the only option now is to pray that the winter EP will be so much better than this.

1.5/5

#music review #album review #pop

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bomberqueen17 · 3 years

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motherfucking CASSEROLE SEASON

It has finally begun to cool into autumn up here in the northeastern united states of whatever we are now, and in celebration I am going to start posting about CASSEROLES.

I fucking love casseroles, they are like. *chef kiss* the epitome of cuisine, if you ask me. You take a bunch of foods-- ideally, everything you need to eat in a meal-- and you do whatever you gotta do to ‘em and then you put them in a cute enamelware dish if you got one or like one of those stoneware ones with the patterns or, if you’re me, an unadorned Pyrex or a cast iron Dutch oven your mother found and literally mailed to you because why wouldn’t you mail a cast iron Dutch oven-- or whatever you’ve got-- and then you put them in the oven and then your whole house gets warm and steamy and then in a bit you get to eat like. Love on a plate, that’s what I think of when I get a casserole.

Some casseroles are not what you’d call haute cuisine. They are not the kind of thing that is trendy. They do not have, what you say, very much of seasonings in them. But they taste like food.

(I do not come from hot dish people and have never had hot dish, but in my heart I believe that such a thing must be wonderful. Just, every time I read a recipe I’m like uh. no. that sounds bad. But the concept of hot dish sounds great to me. So if that narrows it down-- yeah no I’m from the Northeast, we don’t do hot dish. Someday I’ll experience it but I have not yet.)

So, without further ado, posting Number One: Classic Mac N Cheese.

This bears no resemblance to Kraft dinner besides the name. This is also an invaluable casserole because it is the sort of prototypical one, in my experience. From this model you can expand to include any ingredient you see fit to use.

SO, the basic recipe-- this is just a sauce mornay over cooked pasta. (And sauce mornay is nothing more than a basic bechamel with cheese melted in, though purists would insist on specific cheeses. We are not purists, we merely remark on it because even quite fancy cooking can rest on these very simple bases.)

My recipe was hand-written for me by my mother, probably copied out of her late 70s edition of Fanny Farmer; I’ve made the Joy of Cooking version too, before I finally memorized it. My undiagnosed, untreated ADHD is so bad now I can’t follow a recipe anymore, but having memorized this means I can make any casserole that follows this basic technique. And so I present it to you, as a base from which to experiment.

THE VERY BASIC RECIPE:

Bring water to a boil and cook your favorite small pasta according to package directions. (Bowties, rotini, radiatore, small shells, wagon wheels, penne, ziti, elbows, etc. Long pasta like spaghetti or fettucine would structurally work but would be weird. Knock yourself out.) I think this recipe makes enough for half a pound, which would feed one person, or two without leftovers.

MEANWHILE. Make bechamel sauce:

2 Tbsp fat-- butter, bacon grease, lard, vegetable oil-- heated in a saucepan. Once melted, stir in 2 Tbsp flour. (White, whole wheat, gluten free, whatever.) (If your fat is unsalted you’re gonna wanna put salt somewhere in here. I don’t think it matters where. You can also put in cool things like nutmeg and bay leaves and whatever, either now or when you add the liquid.)

Whisk or stir together into a paste, heating over medium-low heat. Watch carefully. As soon as it begins to brown, add 1 c of milk or broth or a combination thereof. Whisk or stir briskly-- a whisk or fork will help you break up lumps-- until it is smooth. Cook, stirring, until it begins to thicken. This is the hardest part of this whole thing but practice makes perfect, just don’t walk away or burn it, it’ll boil over if you leave.

Once this has begun to thicken (pick up your stirring spoon and draw your finger through the sauce on the back of it; if it’s thick enough to cling so that your finger leaves a defined trail, it’s thick enough. If it’s so thin you can’t see the difference, you’re not there yet) dump in cheese. (If you had a bay leaf you can take it out now. Or not, and have it be a surprise for someone later.) I use about a cup of shredded cheddar. Munster works well, or colby or colbyjack or pepperjack or gouda. A square of fake American cheese food cheese melted in there makes it a creamier sauce less likely to break on reheating.

Melt the cheese into the sauce. (Optional, melt half into the sauce, reserve the other half.) Then decant half the pasta into the dish, scatter half the reserved cheese over it, then put the rest of the pasta in, and pour the sauce over the top. Spread the last of the reserved shredded cheese over the top of the casserole.

Optional crumb topping: Microwave 2-3 Tbsp butter and 2-3 Tbsp breadcrumbs, mix together into a uniform glop, spread over top of casserole in thin layer.

Bake casserole in a preheated 375-degree oven for like half an hour until bubbling and browned slightly on top. Eat.

VARIATIONS:

This is where it gets good. The thing I now do every time is that I’ll chop and brown an onion in the fat before I add the flour. Sometimes I’ll branch out and cook more aromatics-- onion, then add a carrot or two, and put in some garlic just before I add the flour. And then along with the cooked pasta, I’ll add kale, or swiss chard, or beet greens. You can put as many vegetables in as you want, just sort of categorizing them by ones that will need quite a bit of cooking (aromatics, hard things like beets or turnips) and thus should be sauteed in the fat before the sauce is made, or ones that don’t need much cooking (braising greens, spinach, leaves, things like broccoli) and can just be thrown in with the noodles and cooked just as the casserole is heated through.

Meat too-- I often cook bacon to render the fat, and then make the sauce atop that. Or I use ham, or bacon ends or pork jowls; those are the classics, and the sweetness of cured pork goes exceptionally well with the cheese. But you could branch out and try other meats-- shredded cooked leftover poultry could be added at any point, for example.

EXPERT SECRET TIP AS A GIFT TO FUTURE YOU:

Something I’ve learned as well is that many casseroles can be made way way ahead, and frozen whole. This is an old meal-train-for-bereaved-family trick, but I use it for my lazy self. If I’m going to the hassle of making myself a whole casserole, now, I’ve got several recipes like this one where I’ll just make double, and then put half in my Pyrex straight into the oven, and then the other half either in my other Pyrex and saran-wrap the crap out of it, or if it’s not super layered, I’ll throw it in a tupperware thing and put that into the freezer.

You need several days to defrost something like that, though the microwave will help you speed that up, but there is no greater feeling of empowerment than facing down a busy week, looking at your schedule, and then pulling out a casserole from the freezer and sticking it in the fridge and saying “in three days, I will be able to come home, throw this in the oven, lie around for 45 minutes, and then feast.”

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t going to save your ass last-minute, casseroles aren’t good for that, but if you’ve got time for Sunday night existential dread about the coming week, that’s when you pull this out and stick it in the fridge as a gift for Wednesay you, who will have had a hard week.

(And I’m just saying, if you’re the type who works, say, retail, in a place where Christmas is a particular kind of hell-- now is the time for you to put some of these into the freezer, as a sweet little future-gift. One now, for cold sad October you, and one to save the ass of exhausted December you.)

#cooking #recipe post #casserole weather #comfort food

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vrisrezis · 3 years

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My mcu favs w/ crush and relationship hcs (pt 2) (not proof read)

- gonna be honest she’s not familiar with romantic feelings, takes her awhile to even realize what she feels for you

- you make her heart all melty and soft, you make her face heat up, you make her question everything she does

- you make her feel even giddy and overly happy and it kinda annoys her tbh

- she thinks you’re out to get her or something and have casted some spell but when she asks thor he has no idea what she’s talking about until she describes what she’s feeling and he just laughs and thinks she’s joking

- she’s like no. I’m serious ?

- to which thor would tell her what it is, he has a bit of an idea because of Jane

- tbh loving somebody romantically, caring about somebody to this extent scares her

- she’s lost so many people and because of it became a raging alcoholic

- if she lost you she doesn’t know what could happen

- she tries to push you away but quickly realizes she doesn’t like doing that to herself or you

- asks you to go out drinking with her often if you’re up for that

- she’d find it funny how easily you get drunk but has no problem taking care of you, in fact she would probably drink with you more often so she can take care of you because it’s the closest to intimacy she feels she can have with you (no she is not taking advantage of you or anything, it’s more just the thought of taking care of you feels intimate to her)

- also you’re cute while you’re drunk

- trans with you so you can be tougher if you’re not that tough already

- tbh asks thor to do the same with you, whether it be cuz she’s not around or because you need the extra training

- eventually Thor’s at the point where he’s like you gotta tell em and she’s like no 🖕

- but she does eventually

- she’s kinda awkward about it but she tries to sound confident with it ^^

- dating you is very different than just being her friend tbh

- like you might’ve been surprised at her asking you out, even if it’s kinda obvious to anybody that knows her well

- to any stranger you just seemed like friends with a strange rivalry relationship but that’s really not the case

- she’s much more flirty in a relationship, since she’s confident you’re with her for a reason.. she’s not the type to doubt your relationship, you’re with her for a reason

- much more protective in battle though

- she doesn’t say she loves you enough, but she shows it through her actions

- asks thor about the romantic stuff but he has no idea really so she goes to Bruce who kinda has more of a grasp on it

- tries to take you to like normal restaurant dates... kinda awkward since she had no midgardian clothes at that point

- lotsa quick kisses on the cheek or forehead

- likes cuddling as she finds it just.. kinda intimate ?

- still likes to take care of a drunk you

- quick pecks on your lips are very often

- doesn’t like the idea of going on a lot of Thor’s saving the world shits unless you’re on board with it

- thor jokes about how she’s all badass and “I don’t give a fuck about saving the world or anyone else” until it comes to you

- she kicks his ass

- but he’s not wrong

- when she likes you she’s a bit like wtf

- like she doesn’t realize it for a moment until jane explains it

- before she was her usual talkative self but there was a lot of nervousness and stuttering at times, just unusual awkwardness that made Jane raise a brow

- it makes more sense now

- since she’s aware she likes you now she often asks you to hang out, to help her out, whatever it is

- the gal is clingy af what can she say

- lotsa hugs she loves giving you hugs often does them for a greeting

- just an excuse to hold you though tbh

- at times will get tongue tied

- she tries to flirt but it just makes you confused she’s not good at it you’re not even gonna know she’s flirting

- eventually grows impatient about it and is just like “I LIKE U DUMMY! DATE ME!”

- and now you date

- she gets into things a bit quickly so if it’s too fast tell her, hopefully not a dealbreaker

- dates are often because she’s got a lot of creative ideas for dates ^^

- still hugs you as a greeting but a lot longer and intimate and a kiss follows after

- speaking of kisses she LOVES to kiss you and she does so very often

- very needy

- big cuddler

- just like “CUDDLE ME”

- so demanding

- often talks about you and how much she loves you she can’t help it

- but if anybody did the same she like “shut up nobody cares”

- even with you though she’s blunt, but much nicer about it

- likes going on just good dates, restaurants , picnic, whatever

- she eats all the food

- tries to impress you so she might say she was best friends with thor at a point

- and that she’s helped him out before and .. yeah etc

- she likes buying you clothes tbh

- especially if you don’t dress good let her dress you up pls

- would be sad if you didn’t get along with Jane

- it would be a dealbreaker actually

- she knows she’s a bit much so she feels happy you love her anyways

- vision of course will not understand his feelings

- he understands you definitely make him feel something, that something being good

- for a moment he might think he feels like this is how best friends feel towards another, or even thinking he sees you in a familial light

- tony quickly tells him that is not the case

- once vision understands what he really feels he’s not sure how to go about it, he can be quite oblivious

- he’s aware of this but still .. what does he do?

- asks tony for advice, he tells him to flirt and see how it goes

- but tbh that doesn’t work, you don’t even realize he’s flirting gonna be honest

- he’s just bad at it

- so he tries to just simply state his affection, that doesn’t work because he doesn’t know how to word it without it sounding platonic, or getting too nervous about going too far

- he doesn’t wanna overstep boundaries

- tony is in pain watching this btw

- tony eventually is just like “he wants to know if you would like to go on a date” “w- I.. yes?”

- in a relationship he is very sweet

- kinda cliche though, since he doesn’t have a concept of romance at all

- looks up a lot of the things he should know about romance he doesn’t want to ask you that

- while he has no problem protecting you, he doesn’t feel the need to be overly protective unless needed

- he’s logical, reasonable, he only gets protective if he has to, even with how he feels towards you

- but do you distract him? Yes absolutely

- he’s okay with living comfortably and normally for once with you, unless it’s something you don’t want or are not ready for

- once you’re conditioned to a certain lifestyle, even if it isn’t a good one it can be uncomfortable to get out of and he understands that

- he loves to kiss you, often initiates kisses or forms of affection

- you were the first to kiss him, it made him so flustered but so happy and now he’s addicted to kissing you

- loves kissing your hands

- if you have any insecurity he will do anything in his power to prove you wrong and that he doesn’t see you in that light

- he understands he has responsibilities but other than that, loves spending his time with you

- he understands you’re a distraction so he tries not to fight with you, he wants to prioritize the people when it comes to this kinda thing

- which you of course understand

- once you teach him what dancing is, his love language is dancing with you

- you two just stay up talking about nothing and everything

- having kids with him isn’t an option, but he isn’t opposed to adopting children

- after all, all he’s ever wanted was to be a normal significant other to you

- do not have a huge concept on her character so forgive me 🙏

- she can be a bit flirty, not that you mind though right ?

- she just loves spending all her time with you

- probably met you before wandavision

- so you’re probably already together

- even then in wandavision you two were “roommates”

- doesn’t explain all the flirting girl .

- agathas fall would be letting Wanda find out she had a soft spot for you my god

- while she’s all confidence and flirty in general, she’s a bit softer with you

- like she genuinely means the things she says when it comes to you

- eventually asks you to date her, you don’t have much room for dates outside of wandavision

- you two are always together btw

- loves dancing with you

- she has a good grasp on romance so she has no issue with it

- she is full of confidence when it comes down to it tbh

- holds your hand often

- your relationship ain’t official till like the 70s probably

- might joke after wanda has kids that you both should have kids too

- while she’s causing her mischief you back her up to make her look less suspicious

- seriously in the mist of all this she’s grateful for you

- especially when you get her out of the hell that Wanda puts her in once again

- to which she will actually confess she loves you, and cares for you

- you aren’t just like.. some person to date

- she’s not the most vulnerable obviously

- so the fact she finally is.. it’s just a lot

- “idk I just love u a lot hun . Cant I show I love u 😊”

- she’s just so overly sweet with you

- she’s so awful to everyone else at times that she just likes being .. with you and being a softie

- likes you playing with her hair

- she loves a good cuddle

- cute nicknames like hon, or hun, or just teddy bear

- with a crush quill might try to act overly friendly

- and probably flirts a lot

- he’s very like obvious with the flirting so you’d have to be oblivious not to notice it

- he can be quite protective as well

- like not just in fighting but even with just others like even before dating he’s very jealous

- if he makes a joke you’re always in on it somehow

- he tries for form a close bond with you just cuz he likes you so much

- it’s likely he likes somebody that can easily protect themselves doe

- probably has some dumb handshake with you

- honestly he acts like a close friend to you

- people might mistake you for a sibling like relationship if it weren’t for his flirting and him staring at you like you’re his entire universe

- seriously Sam says Bucky has a staring problem, quill is fucking awful

- it’s constant and rocket is always like “you’re staring”

- and he’s like “nO” and then continues to stare

- has you listen to his favorite music of course

- especially the love songs ;D

- will just dance with you to the music he puts on

- one time you guys are dancing to the music he put on like normal but it’s a slow love song, so hes like let’s so dance bae

- and then he tells you how he feels for u

- now u date <3

- lots of forehead kisses

- cuddle bug absolutely

- still a jealous boyfriend though tbh he will try to seem all tough in front of any man he thinks might be better or something he will do anything to show off

- your relationship doesn’t change just lots of kisses and hugs now and I love yous

- you’re totally the relationship that’s like “I love you more” “nooo I love you more” and the guardians hate y’all so much

- he uses nicknames like hun, honey, love, sweetheart

- let’s just say you slow dance more often, and kiss while doing so ^^

- he flirts with you still but it’s a lot more sweet rather than before where he might’ve just flirted with you in terms of like it being kinda like calling you sexy and shit like that, now it’s more like wow u look beautiful I luv u 😊🙏

- would do anything for you, even if he wouldn’t like it

- doesn’t mean he wouldn’t hesitate tho

- going on separate dates isn’t really an option since you guys fight left and right and are always with the guardians, but he decided every once a couple months you guys go on a date together and have some fun

- Loki doesn’t get crushes, so this is a new thing for him

- and tbh he doesn’t know how to take it either, especially when he realizes how strong those feelings actually are

- he hates the idea of being vulnerable in general, especially when it comes to you

- over time it just... happens

- but if there’s any indication he likes spending time with you he will try to lie his way through it, he’s a good liar of course so it probably works

- however he shows he at the very least cares about you, he shows a sign of protectiveness when it comes to potential enemies.. enemies that happen to be dangerous for you

- plus he’s around you like constantly and claims he has nobody else to harass

- he claims he doesn’t care about you at all, but even thor can tell through this lie

- the way he looks at you makes it obvious

- the way he doesn’t try to get you involved in his more dangerous schemes

- and if you do, and you get hurt he feels guilty and tries to help you feel better

- he claims he just owes you one for getting you hurt though

- eventually thor bothers him enough to get him to confess feelings, which takes a lot for Loki to even go through with

- he acts confident, even moreso after you say yes, but deep down was extremely nervous

- the male is good at making you feel important, after trying so hard to hide his feelings he is tired of it and just wants to be more honest about how he feels about you

- no issue being vulnerable, he trusts you but sometimes it can be hard

- he goes to you for a lot of his problems, even if you cannot help, just venting and you listening helps

- he was already with you a lot but now there’s no excuses and it’s even moreso

- “what? I just wanted to visit my beautiful s/o” “we literally just saw eachother 5 minutes ago can I please go to bed”

- likes pressing your foreheads together, he finds it sweet

- jealous of thor? Absolutely. Pls comfort him and tell him you’d never leave him for thor

- he’s so used to just not being as good as him, he wants to be good enough for you

- deep down there’s just so many insecurities he has

- so it causes him to worry like all the time

- having a reassuring and patient s/o is so good for him ^^

- flirting becomes a thing in your relationship

- it makes him feel more confident pls give him this

- protective, he feels like he has to be tbh because he never gets anything good in his life and if he does he loses it, he’s scared to lose you too

- if for some reason he can’t see you he makes an illusion of you to talk to

- when he fake dies you’re the first he goes to see so you don’t think he’s dead, he loves you he wouldn’t want to do that to you =(

- finally

- gonna be honest bucky with a crush is cute

- first of all he smiles at you a lot, Steve is the first to notice how much he smiles around you, it’s the most he smiles like ever

- just has a lot of nice conversations with you about anything and everything

- also whenever you’re around even if other people are around you he’s just like “hey y/n :)”

- heart eyes for you, just can’t help but stare all the time

- he has a staring problem but with you? Yeah 10x over

- Sam always has something to say abt it also

- his idea of flirting with you is really just saying hi to you, just being overly friendly which is noticeable for a guy like Bucky

- eventually would ask you out, he tries to ease into it but he gets a bit impatient

- he was also nervous asking you out but yk

- when dating him he becomes very protective

- one of the most protective bitches on the list tbh

- he gets nightmares about you dying like all the time it breaks him everytime though

- lots of cuddles, whether it be from a rough day, he’s just tired, or had a nightmare

- he likes his hair being brushed by you and played with, even when he cuts it

- he’s scared of killing you and turning into the winter soldier again

- has dreams about when he’s hurt and fought you as the winter soldier, he keeps thinking about if Steve wasn’t there to help, he really could’ve killed you and that terrifies him

- even when you tell him it wasn’t him, he appreciates it but still feels horrible about it

- touch that metal arm, but like gently Yknow . Nobody’s ever touched that arm with such kindness and it makes him soft and feel lucky

- speaking of soft Bucky is very soft, there’s many soft moments with Bucky and vulnerability

- it’s easy to be vulnerable with you but not others

- lots of handholding

- he loves hugging you for long periods of time

- still has a staring problem but now Sam openly makes fun of him

- just big dumb smile on his face as he looks at you

- especially when you’re dealing with kids, seeing you be around them makes his heart warm

- maybe he does wanna be normal, settle down and have kids

- though the thought scares him it is something he desires

- we all know he calls you doll

#valkyrie x reader #loki x reader #peter quill x reader #mcu x reader #marvel x reader #bucky barnes x reader #james Barnes x reader #Darcy x reader #vision x reader #Agnes x reader #Agatha x reader

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nat-20s · 3 years

Text

Wonderful! Au Part 7! (also on ao3 here) another episode only installment, and obnoxiously fluffy! Have fun!

~*~

Martin, tired: Hello everybody! Welcome, or welcome back, to a very low energy episode. We have had, as the kids say, A Week Tm.

Jon, equally tired, but fond: Is that as the kids say?

Martin: I don't know, and perhaps worse, I don't really care. I guess I could ask Jeremiah next time he's over, but I'm not sure if that would actually help.

Jon: Shockingly, I don't think two year olds have their finger on the beating pulse of youth culture.

Martin: Hmm, maybe not. Speaking of Jeremiah, he's part of why the format of this episode is gonna be a bit different than our regular. On top of me dealing with a frankly obscene amount of inventory management, and Jon being swamped with grant writing-

Jon: I never want to look at proposal guidelines again-

Martin: we were on babysitting duty for our favourite neighborhood hellion-

Jon: Hey, Jeremiah is a very sweet kid! I know he's a toddler, but we shouldn't be slandering him anyway.

Martin: One, we're not even using his real name, I don't think that counts as slander, and two, exactly, he's a toddler, he's by default a hellion.

Jon, teasing: This coming from the person that actually wants one?

Martin: I..look, if anything, the last few days have shown we should not be permanent parents.

Jon: But?

Martin:...There's no but.

Jon: I don't believe you! Are you lying for my benefit or the audience's? Because someone spent the last five days wearing one of the largest grins I've ever seen, exhausted as it may have been.

Martin: Okay! Fine, I admit, I liked having a kid around. I still think it would be a bad idea to do it full time, but I dunno. I wish we weren't both only children or something. We would make such good uncles.

Jon: Should I should have taken that teaching job after all?

Martin: Perhaps. After all,

Martin, singsong: An English teacher, is really someone!

Jon and Martin, singing together: If only you, had be-come one!

Jon: Honestly, though, I was considerably underqualified. I'm much more suited to my current job, even if it doesn't have quite the same impact on the "shaping of the next generation" or whatnot.

Martin: Wait, you actually care about qualifications now? When did that change?

Jon: This coming from Mister "master's degree in parapsychology"? And it was probably around the time that the world ended from taking on a workload I was ill-suited for.

Jon:...

Jon: Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Martin: Oh, of course. Definitely nothing literally apocalyptic in our pasts, no siree, nothing to see or speculate about or make weirdly involved forums for here. Uh, anyway, long introduction not so short: Both of us have been averaging about 4 hours of sleep, so any sort of actual research was not on the table.

Jon: If any of you are wondering why we didn't just say that we're both very much worn out and thus we'll be taking a week off, it's because we're both deeply, deeply stubborn.

Martin: It's one of our best shared qualities that has never caused any conflict between us, ever.

Jon: In fairness, sheer stubbornness does account for, what, 75% of the reason that either of us are still alive? And it hasn't caused a major conflict between us in a good three years.

Martin: That's true. We've become a deeply boring, relatively conflict free couple. Which fucking rules, by the way. To all the couples out there: I highly recommend being boring. It is so nice. We've gotten to go to the farmer's market so many times.

Jon: You do love the farmer's market. I would say that it's the access to fresh produce, but I think you just like the attention that one yarn seller gives you. Can't believe you would take advantage of a crush to get discounts on wool. How did I marry such an opportunist?

Martin: Ollie does not have a crush on me. They're just friendly to everyone.

Jon: Bullshit. I certainly never get an extra skein or stitch markers or delicate fabric cleaner tossed in my bag. Actually, I think I've been charged more for committing the crime of having married you before they could.

Martin: I'm..70% sure that's not true, but every sentence we speak, we stray further from even pretending to be on topic. So, to everybody listening, this is the itty bitty episode! Basically, we're only doing small wonders and user submissions. If you want details or backstory for things we like, too bad, come back next week. Jon, I believe you're first this week?

Jon: Oh, right. My first small wonder is cat names.

Martin: Delightful, but unsurprising. Though, I would've expected either more or less specificity. Why cat names as opposed to pet's names in general, or, like, military title names?

Jon: Well that's simple enough. I've simply never met a misnamed cat, even if the name itself wasn't to my personal tastes, and I think that speaks to the wonderful universality of cats.

Martin: This, of course, implies that you have met animals that were misnamed.

Jon: Oh, I have. I once met a papillion dog named Meatball.

Martin: Now I know you don't like food names in general for pets, but are you sure that Meatball didn't suit the dogs personality? I've known some "Meatballs" in my lifetime.

Jon, only half-mock offended: Of course it didn't fit, Martin. She was a lady. A nervous, jittery lady, but a lady nonetheless.

Martin, laughing: And what, you've never met a dignified cat with an undignified name, or vice versa? Would you be okay with our cat being named Meatball?

Jon: I would be upset if our cat was named Meatball, because we named her and we're above that sort of thing, but, technically speaking, she could have been Meatball in another lifetime and it wouldn't have been wrong. You see, all cats are a mix of both extremely austere and little baby idiot.

Martin: Oh, is that the scientific terminology?

Jon: It is. Now, while there's probably some amount of, er, normative determinism or confirmation bias or something that results in a cat with a more dignified name seeming to possess more of that austerity, as all cats have both, any name can, potentially, fit. Hence why it's wonderful.

Martin: I..accept your proposal for now, but I think more research needs to be done. Maybe we should visit the shelter this weekend and test your hypothesis.

Jon: Hmm. I think we may need to visit multiple shelters, actually. A large sample size is necessary for any sort of veracity, obviously.

Martin, imitating Jon tone: Obviously.

Jon: Glad you agree. What's your first small wonder?

Martin: Tofu!

Jon: I..didn't realize you liked that much?

Martin: Well, I don't get it very often since I know you can't stand the texture, even though it is not like 'worse scrambled eggs', and you're a horrible food thief-

Jon: Lies and slander. We readily share. If I'm a horrible food thief, you have committed the exact same, if not worse, crime as myself.

Martin: Well, we are thick as thieves.

Jon, groaning: You're thick as something alright

Martin: Rude! My beloved husband-

Jon: -uh huh-

Martin: whom I love and trust with my most tender of hearts-

Jon: -an oddly cannibalistic turn of phrase-

Martin, badly suppressing laughter: Oh, my god. I want a divorce, then I can put tofu in as many dishes as I like. I'll triple my protein intake.

Jon: It'd never go through. I'll burn the papers. No, wait, I'll burn down the legal offices where the papers are kept.

Martin: Hmm. While my experiences with it have been, uh, varied to say the least, I do have to admit that arson is one of the more attractive crimes of passion. I suppose I'll take you back.

Jon, flat: I'm so very grateful.

Jon, genuine: You do have yet to actually tell me why you think tofu is wonderful, love.

Martin: It's just a good food! It's neutral enough that you can toss it in pretty much anything with a sauce, you can bake it, you can fry it, whatever. Plus it's what? two? Three quid? I spent many years of my life living off the cheapest, saltiest approximation of noodles you could imagine, and half a pack of tofu, a little bit of sesame oil, and some green onions went a long way to both making it more filling and less sad.

Martin: Plus, I feel like it often gets decried for being something it's not? It's so often viewed as a meat substitute or the vegan alternative option, and so when people try it, they often go in with a false preconceived notion of what it's going to be like, and then end up disappointed. They're all like, 'ugh, this doesn't taste like turkey!' and yeah, of course it doesn't. It's the oatmeal raisin cookie of the protein world, a perfectly good and tasty treat on its own, but if you want chocolate chip, it's not gonna work.

Jon: Martin you don't even like oatmeal raisin. I'm the only one that ever eats them out of the multipacks.

Martin: Well, yeah, but I don't like oatmeal raisin because of its flavor, not because I think it should be chocolate chip and fails. It illustrates my point. Also, just for balance, is your next small wonder oatmeal raisin cookies?

Jon: No, though, maybe one of these weeks. They are good. But no, um, my next small wonder is being married.

Martin, let out a high bark of a laugh: Being married is a small wonder?!

Jon: Small wonders doesn't mean a lack of importance! Or even significance in our lives. Half the time we even end up spending just as much time chattering on about them as the things we actually research. But, yes, I didn't feel like researching the concept of being married. For one, a lot of the history of it is depressing and patriarchal, and for two, it's not something I really feel any need to elaborate on. Being married. I very much enjoy it. I recommend it for anybody that's found someone that they want to marry, and who wants to marry them. I really recommend being married to Martin Blackwood, I think I would enjoy it significantly less if it was to anybody else, but one: we typically try to make the wonderful things in this show applicable to more than just ourselves, and two: I got there first, so I believe the appropriate thing to say here would be; neener neener and/or everyone else can go suck it, Ollie.

Martin: Well...

Jon: Well, what?

Martin: Saying you got there first is technically not true-

Jon: What?!

Martin, laughing like a bastard: Sorry, sorry! Couldn't resist! Jon, you already know that you're my first real realationship, how would be married before fit that?

Jon: Hence my surprise at the notion! I cannot believe you! I give you my trust, my earnestness, and belief-

Martin [only laughs harder]

Jon: and you throw it in my face for a bit. I take back everything, being married is a nightmare, because sometimes your partner thinks he a fucking comedian and you just have to put up with him because you love him and want to live the rest of your life with him or some such nonsense. Not worth it, if you ask me. My turn to ask for the divorce.

Martin: Babe, hate to break it to you, but both of us are guilty of doing bits that the other doesn't like, it's an integral part of a healthy marriage, and secondly, you knew who I was long before I proposed. You should've said no when you had the chance.

Jon: Hang on, you proposed?

Martin: Yeah? This isn't part of a bit, of course I proposed. I'm even pretty sure you were there. The whole visit back to Scotland trip? I finally made you a sweater and said it was because we would now be immune to the boyfriend curse?

Jon: No, no, I remember all that, but it wasn't the proposal. It was a reaffirmation of the proposal. We had already decided to get married.

Martin: Well, yeah,, I wasn't just gonna spring that on you, we had had conversations beforehand-

Jon: No, I mean, I had already proposed. I asked you to marry me a good three years earlier, and you said yes, which is a proposal by any definition that I know.

Martin: Jon, love, darling, apple of my eye, fire of my soul, I mean this in the nicest way possible, what the everloving fuck are you talking about?

Jon: In the ambulance ride when we, uh, moved here. It was the thing I said to you the second I saw your eyes were open.

[An audible pause is left in the recording.]

Martin: That does not count.

Jon: How does it not count?! I asked you to marry me, you very emphatically said yes, that's the de facto definition of an accepted marriage proposal!

Martin: It doesn't count because you were half-delirious with blood-loss, and I had a traumatic brain injury that the hospital was very surprised I made a full recovery from. No court in the world would consider anything we said then more than pain driven ramblings, let alone, I dunno, contractually binding.

Jon: Well, I knew what I was saying well and clear. Just because it was desperate doesn't mean it wasn't sincere. I didn't realize that you weren't as cognizant when you accepted.

Martin, snorting: Yeah, didn't really need to be cognizant to say yes. I've wanted to marry you since the train ride to Scotland.

Jon: Wait, really? Martin, we hadn't even been on a date.

Martin: And yet we were on the lamb together, which I honestly think is more romantic than sitting in some restaurant somewhere trying to get through icebreakers. Also, back up, from your perspective we've been engaged since 2019? What did you think we were doing in the interim?

Jon: Uhh..

Martin: Yes?

Jon: There are people that have long engagement periods, and it's not exactly like we were in any sort of position to get married for awhile. Especially not that first year.

Martin: Okay? And?

Jon: And..I sort of thought you had changed your mind. For awhile. Was rather surprised that you kept living with me, considering that, on the worst nights, I was convinced you were going to storm off and leave me forever any minute now. Hence why your proposal was rather relieving.

Martin: Oh, Jon, love. That is so very ridiculous, and so very you, and so very close to many of my own fears and doubts. Do you have any idea how terrified I was to float the idea of marriage to you? Half the time I was convinced I was just meant to keep you company until you found someone better. And, Christ, we'd, from your perspective, been engaged the whole damn time. Fuck.

[Jon, after a beat, starts laughing. It has a slightly hysterical edge to it. Martin joins in. It takes a minute for the laughter to subside enough for them to speak again.]

Jon: I'm rapidly realizing that our entire romantic relationship would've been, if not more successful, a hell of a lot faster if we weren't both complete fools.

Martin: You're realizing that now? I think I've known that since the CV incident. I've definitely known it since the Lonely.

Jon, with a slightly tired chuckle:Yes, yes, something probably should've tipped me off earlier. Shockingly, observation of our own personal romantic trends is not always a strong suit of mine.

Jon: Anyway, please tell me you have another small wonder, this has gotten wildly of track.

Martin: Since we're talking about marriage anyway, I think my next small wonder is having a shared reference in your wedding vows. Our friends had "I have been, and always shall be, your friend" in theirs, and I made Jon cry with a slightly altered Lord of the Rings quote in ours.

Jon: First off, we were both openly weeping long before that point, secondly, I defy anybody to have been through half of what we have and then have the love of their life look them in the eyes and tell them "Leave you? I never intend to. I am going with you, if you climb to the moon" without at least tearing up.

Martin: There wasn't a dry eye in the audience, either. Granted, the audience was only 20 people, but that was also literally the only time I've seen Eloise show a strong emotion, so I'm pretty smug about it.

Martin, soft: I still feel exactly the same, you know. If you're climbing to the moon, I'll make sure the rope is strong enough for two.

Jon, soft: I know, love.

Jon: Though, to be fair, the moon is also significantly more pleasant than many places we've been.

Martin: God, I hate how much that's true. Look at this barren, oxygenless rock, at least it's not actively trying to kill us. Practically a honeymoon location.

[Martin sighs]

Martin: I am so tired. Let's do the user submissions then take a very long nap.

Jon: Please.

Martin: So, first submission is from Josie; They find it wonderful getting cards from their friends. They say they're lucky to have so much love in their life and have friends that care enough to send them things. That is wonderful Josie! We have a drawer in our house dedicated to every loving card we've ever received since the move, and they're always such a nice reminder of the people in our lives.

Jon: We should really organize that drawer, but, yes, agree with the sentiment. Even the cards from people that are no longer in our lives are lovely, I think. Those connections are very much meaningful for both of us, whether they're active or not.

Martin: That's very true. Next submission is from Lys, who submits the sound of leaves crunching under your feet in the fall. Ah, that's a classic.

Jon: I just felt myself relax imagining it. I wish it was autumn.

Martin: Don't we all? Alright, for the last submissions, I'm grouping them together as they follow a similar theme. Jadwiga submits the feeling of waking up well into the morning with the sun shining through the window and your cat laying next to you, and Oran submits when a dog falls asleep with its head in your lap.

Jon: I can heartily recommend at least one of those, considering that's how we try to wake up most mornings. The Duchess is a dutiful darling girl who spends every night with us, and she's usually still there when us humans rise.

Martin: I bet you'll agree with the other when I finally convince you to get me a dog for my birthday.

Jon: It hasn't happened yet, so I wouldn't hold your breath.

Martin: But you don't even dislike dogs! You're just as happy to pet them when they pass by as I am.

Jon: Being fine with an animal isn't the same thing as wanting to adopt one for yourself! We don't even know if The Duchess would put up with a dog.

Martin: I bet she would. I bet we could get a big senior dog who's the calmest animal you've ever met with those soft eyes and a little grey on the muzzle and she would cuddle up in an instant. And we did say we should visit a shelter or three this weekend..

Jon: I think you're rather callously taking advantage of my exhausted state, but I suppose we can look.

Martin: Hell fuckin yeah. So, I think that'll close out the episode, and as we always say at the end, uh, go take a nap and get a dog. Not necessarily in that order.

#wonderful! au #jonmartin #tma #jon sims #martin blackwood #my fic #thank you to everyone that submitted!!!#also; i am offically out of ideas for installments #more may come later but i make no promises!

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tommyspeakycap · 3 years

Text

New Beginnings

Pairing - Steve Rogers x reader

Word count - 2976

Summary - After the battle in Manhattan, a man who hates the idea of a doctor definitely needs one. A friend of Pepper Potts' lends a hand and consequently changes Steve's long-lived disposition for getting medical help.

a/n - set after the battle of New York in the avengers

Since Steve had woken up, or rather been woken up after he was found in the ice after 70 years, he had not once visited the doctor other than those at S.H.I.E.L.D when they had forced him to. For one, he didn’t ever get sick now and reason two would be that he just hates the concept. He spent a great deal of his time in doctors offices and speaking to specialists diagnosing him with all forms of new medical conditions from when he was in a child to before he was given the serum. It wasn’t somewhere he wanted to go now and those days weren’t exactly the ones he liked to remember even if he was the absolute picture of health now.

That didn’t so much apply however when he, Tony, Thor, Natasha, Bruce and Clint were finally able to stop after fighting for hours against unrelenting waves of aliens trying to take New York. They were all battered and bruised to some degree, some arguably more than others.

Steve looks around with a pounding heart. It never gets easier to think about the losses that are likely to mount up after a battle, the buildings that fell and the people who stood unable in the face of the large aliens with huge powerful guns. It only adds to the hurt that stems from seeing the city he loves reduced half to rubble with skyscrapers crumbled to the ground, flaming, flipped cars scattering the road and entire streets all but destroyed.

Before he does anything else, Steve wants to go down to the subway that he insisted the police put people in to ensure they all get out safely before he heads to meet up with the rest of the team back at Stark tower. There are more ambulances lining what’s left of the roads than he can even begin to count and he’s extremely glad they hadn’t destroyed any hospitals because they were going to need every bed that they had. He helped some people up out of the Subway with the officers and some people thanked him, some people gawked at him and some seemed too much in shock to even notice he was there. Steve stood just watching for longer than he would care to admit.

He supposes he would say he’s just taking everything in. It feels as though the world is quite the same as to when he lived in it at first. People still come together when they need to and there are still bad people who want to stand above the rest.

As his feet carry him back over crunching rubble in the direction of Stark tower to meet up with the rest, Steve can’t help but think about how he wishes his best friend could be with him for this battle. There wasn’t anyone Steve preferred to have on his side and he did tremendously miss his friend.

“No no no!” Steve hears yelling above the rest of the commotion,a noise which immediately diverts his train of thought. He turns his head to see if he can catch a glimpse of what was going on to see if there was anything he could do to help. “He has to go first, he’s got an ICH with a blown pupil. He won’t make it halfway to the hospital if he has to wait another twenty minutes!” Steve rounds the corner at a slow jog. He’s met with a woman with her hair tied back tightly out of her face, which was smeared with dirt and dust and it looked as though she had been climbing amongst the rubble to help recover the last of the people from that building. “Look ma’am, we have a kid in there.” The EMT tries to explain, but you just give him an incredulous look, “With a closed tib-fib fracture, he’ll live! This guy is bleeding into his brain, do you have one of those-” You lean closer to him, squinting your eyes and sweeping dust off of his badge, “Jack. Do you have a brain, Jack?” The EMT in front of you opens and closes his mouth like a fish out of water. “Yes ma’am.” He stutters. “Good,” you snip, “Then get the kid in a wheelchair for the next ambulance and bluelight this guy to the nearest hospital, now!”

The EMT scrambles to do as told and you push your hair back again with a heavy sigh as you walk away the second they get him in the stretcher and into the ambulance. Steve smiles slightly to himself. There’s nothing quite like a powerful woman in his eyes and no force like an angry one. He’d hate to be on that woman’s bad side and he knows now that he was wrong to think his help would be needed there. The super soldier simply walks away again with his shield held tightly in his hand. He bids a wordless respect to the woman who rolls up her sleeves again and cups her hands over her mouth, shouting out for anyone who might need help from her clearly medically experienced hands.

“Dear God, look at you lot!” Pepper exclaims as they walk in, immediately rushing to hug Tony tightly. “You all need to get checked over medically. Like now.” She says firmly, but each one shakes their heads. “The hospitals will be busy enough,” Bruce says, “I just saw a woman fighting for an ambulance. We’ll heal.” Steve agrees, folding his painful arms. “They’re right.” Tony nods. Pepper shakes her head, “I knew you’d say that, which is why Fury and I had a medical floor set up. There’s nurses there to patch you guys up and a doctor there if anybody needs one. All of you, go. Now.” Most want to protest, but opt not to at her stern words and instead follow the nurse who had come to greet them.

All but Steve.

“I’ll be fine.” He states, shaking his head and turning away. “Excuse me,” Pepper calls out to him, “Please, Steve. You really need to get seen.” She insists, but he keeps walking.

“(y/n), oh my god!” Pepper sighs heavily in relief, rushing towards you the second you walk out the revolving door that only had one glass panel left in it. “Thank God you're safe. This is one of them I was going to ask you to take a look at.” Once she releases you from the tight hug, she points after Steve who was still limping away towards the stairs. “Can’t get him to go to the med floor though.” She mutters to you beneath her breath. You shoot her a smile that says she needn't worry.

“Oi!” You call out, barely eliciting a turn of the head from the man in the blue suit. “Hey you!” You try again, you merely get him to stop walking. “Me?” He says, but still didn’t turn to look at you. He was trying to place where he had heard your voice, but his head was hurting too much to put a lot of thought into it. “Yeah, you. You better get America’s ass right back over here and march it right down to that med floor.”

Your tone makes him turn around immediately, his eyebrows slightly furrowed for a moment before he realised it hurt to do that too. He fought back a smile over those pink lips. “I thought I knew your voice.”

His response prompts your eyebrows to shoot up as you eyed him and then Pepper in confusion. “Have we met?” You ask, tilting your head slightly to the side. Steve shakes his head, “Oh no, sorry. I just saw you a while ago yelling at a paramedic over an ambulance about an ICH, whatever that means.” The blonde shrugs, offering you a slight smile. You chuckle at his words and shake your head. “Well then I’m sure you’ll do as I tell you. Save me doing anymore yelling today?”

Steve doesn’t have much more fight left in him for today and he would be lying if he said his body wasn’t aching. He could probably do with some pain killers and the cut on his arm would likely hurt a lot less, as well as be quicker to heal if he were to get it stitched up. He doesn’t say anything, but he does sigh and decides to follow you through the lobby and down a flight of stairs to the newly designated medical floor.

“Nice of you to join us, Cap!” Tony jests out, “And (y/n)!” He cheers. You only flip him off in response with a roll of your eyes as you lead the tall man behind you into one of the private rooms filled with medical supplies.

“Sit on the bed there.” You instruct, walking over to wash your hands, arms and face before you do anything else.

“I don’t think I need-”

“On the bed, Captain.”

“Okay. Sorry.”

You nod your head and turn to smile at him softly. Your smile is beautiful. It actually alleviates a little of his pain just to see it, and he truly is surprised by the softness and gentility of it in comparison to the attitude he had thus far witnessed from you in the short time he’s known you.

He groans and the medical bed creaks a little when he climbs on as you pull the latex gloves over your hands. He watches you very tentatively, attempting to eye the things that you gather from various boxes around the room and place onto the wheeled table. “Sorry for yelling at you earlier.”

Your softer voice makes him smile slightly again. “It’s alright,” Steve brushed off with a shrug, shifting himself so he could strip his suit off like you had told him to do just before you entered the room. He kind of awkwardly places the material of the suit over his boxers and the tops of his thighs. He doesn’t exactly want to sit basically naked in front of a woman he didn’t even really know. He still had a lot of his 1940’s mannerisms written into his behaviour. You turn back around to face him and don’t seem to take much notice of his huge, bare torso on the medical bed in front of you. Instead, your eyes scan his body for where to start on his injuries.

It seems as though you opt for cleaning his face first, which makes him feel slightly embarrassed to just sit and let you do it. You use a cloth and hot water for the dried blood, followed by an alcohol cloth that stings a surprising amount. You only place a steri strip over the gash on his forehead and then turn to the open cut on his shoulder. He knows that it’ll heal in less than 24 hours and he won’t have so much as a mark in its place. But it’ll heal a hell of a lot quicker if it’s closed and clean, so he allows you to begin working on it.

He hisses when you do, and you stop for a moment.

“Intracranial hemorrhage.” You say seemingly out of the blue. “What?” Steve asks, the pain in his arm dissipating. “Intracranial hemorrhage. ICH. What the guy you saw me fighting for the ambulance had. He got stuck under some rubble and it caused his brain to bleed. That increases the pressure in his head until you drill a hole to release it. Sometimes you have to take out a whole section of the skull and leave the head open until the swelling goes down around the brain. It’s super interesting.” Steve is entranced by your jabbering on, his eyes literally glued onto you as you work. Hands tentatively maneuvering a needle through his skin as gently as you can to pull the two separate sides back together.

You flick your eyes up to him to see the grin and his blue eyes shining in anticipation for your next words. “He was pretty bad considering the circumstances. A blown pupil- dilated pupil- is usually a huge warning sign that he needs treatment like, right away. He wasn’t responding to much physical stimuli, but you'd be amazed by the recovery that a lot of people with that type of injury can make within literally just a few days of the surgery. The brain is pretty cool.” You continue on. Steve doesn’t want you to ever stop talking. Your voice has apparently turned off all of the pain receptors in his body as he watches the focus pull your brows together ever so slightly and part your lips as you tie the knot at the end of his arm stitches, carefully wiping over it and placing a white gauze dressing over the wound. “Those should dissolve in your skin even if you are a super-healer or whatever.” You turn your attention next to a cut just above his kneecap.

“Sorry for the rambling, wild day. I’ll stitch that one up too then you should be good to get back to your superhero post-battle business.” Your tease makes him chuckle slightly as he watches you roll the wheeled table and your stool round to the other side of him to wipe down his knee before you start to stitch it. Steve had a tough day too, and he hadn’t yet learned how he would cope with those in modern day, but he had a hunch that listening to you might be the key. However, it comes across to him like your way was talking about things that weren’t as scary as the fact that aliens descended from the sky and destroyed half of New York City. “What about a closed TibFib then?” Steve asks softly with kindness swimming around in those sky blue eyes. “Tell me about that?”

After a further half hour finishing his stitching, cleaning him up properly and getting him some fresh clothes, you found yourself surprisingly sad to be leaving the company of the kind, attractive, super soldier you had newly become acquainted with. He seemed pretty solemn about it too, but you couldn’t tell if he was just exhausted from his day's worth of fighting. You had gotten to know each other through the short time you got to spend with him, and he was glad he had at first refused any form of medical treatment for if he hadn’t he probably wouldn’t have had you as his caregiver.

“Thank you for...all this.” He gestures to himself, referring to the stitches, his newly clean skin and clothes. “And for talking to me. It really means a lot.” Steve admits, his voice a little shy with the lightest dusting of pink flushing his cheeks. You smile without thought for the first time that day. “It’s a pleasure. Thank you for listening to me, and for not calling me a bossy bitch.” You breathe a chuckle of laughter as you turn your back to him to empty all the rubbish into the bin. So you don’t see the anger that passes through his eyes at the thought of someone ever calling you that, or the tilt of his head in irritation. You were so strong and a true powerhouse of a woman in his eyes. Clearly incredibly smart. He was pretty much smitten with you already.

“That would be incredibly rude.” Steve states firmly, “I just think you’re a very smart and a very beautiful woman. And you are incredible. Saved a lot of people today down in the rubble.”

You turn back around to see him, standing now much closer to you. “Says you, Mr Alien-slayer.” You grin back up at him. He isn’t the kind to go in for a kiss on the first date, never mind the first time ever meeting a woman, so he takes a gentle step back much to your disappointment. “I believe you called me America’s ass, earlier today.” He corrects lightly and you turn your eyes to the ground as your face flushes red with a giggle of embarrassment as he laughs with you. “Sorry about that, Steve.”

That was actually the first time you had said his name and God he loved how it sounded leaving your pretty lips. “It’s okay. Kinda liked it, suits me don’t you think?” He turns side on and twists his back to look down at his ass dramatically and you throw your head back laughing. It’s such music to his ears and he’s yet to hear another sound since he woke that brings such a great amount of joy and warmth straight to his heart.

“Well,” you hum softly as you pull out a piece of paper and scrawl some writing down on it with a pen from your scrubs breast pocket, “If America’s ass ever finds himself in need of a stitch up or a chat, anything really, then this is where to find me.” You tuck the little bit of ripped paper into his large hand and gently peck his cheek before opening the door and walking off through the medical floor. He looked down at that little bit of paper, reading over some numbers and your name.

“(y/n),” he says softly to himself, subconsciously smiling at the way your name feels so beautiful on his lips. “What you got there, Cap?” Natasha asks as she leans herself on the doorframe of the room he stands frozen in. Steve looks up at her in surprise, “Uh, nothing much.” He diffuses, shrugging his shoulders as he takes one more glance down at the paper. “You sure?” She presses. “Yeah.” He assures. She turns to walk away just as realisation hits him. “Oh wait,” he calls after her, a shy smile on his lips.

“You know anywhere I could get a phone?”

#steve rogers imagine #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers #avengers #marvel imagine

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anotherkindofmindpod · 3 years

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“Feminizing” Paul

There is a difference between A) calling a man pretty or admiring his graceful body language or his feminine features (although I don’t personally think eyelashes and lips need to constantly be gender-labeled as “masculine” or “feminine” - they can just be “long” or “lush” etc) and B) mocking a man for having what you perceive to be “feminine” traits (even if you think your jokes are not mean-spirited because Hey! feminine guys are awesome!) and especially C) making insinuations about a person’s sexuality based on external mannerisms or physical features. The last example is homophobic behavior. Even if you love gay people or fetishize them or personally identify as LGBTQ, it doesn’t matter! It’s still exactly the same thing homophobes do. Paul McCartney is not a sassy queen. If he was, and he self-identified that way, it would be totally cool to call him that and celebrate his fabulousness! But as far as we know, Paul identifies as a straight man. Maybe not a super “macho” one- he wore ladies’ clothing in the 70s and sometimes he likes to playfully prance and twirl and stuff like that, which I agree is endearing and cute! But it’s questionable, at the very least, to make joke after joke about how OMG!feminine! the guy is. Of course you can admire his physicality (option A)- that’s what fans do with celebrities. But please do so without taking a different sexuality and applying it to this person in a mocking way (as if everyone is in on the joke except Paul, who doesn’t realize what a flamboyant queen he is, LOL). I think it’s fine to speculate on an artist’s sexuality, too, so long as it’s based on their own words or even their art. But not when it’s second-guessing someone’s own identity based on your own judgments about their posture or bone structure (or worse yet, their interest in theater or having gay friends- like do you realize how homophobic that is?). Can you imagine a group of men coming on Tumblr and making post after post about a straight female celebrity, talking constantly about how butch she is and how hard she would fuck basically every woman she’s ever been photographed with? Lord knows there’s nothing bad about being butch or W/W but it would be a WEIRD thing to keep harping on about a straight woman! Wishful thinking and fangirling/fanboying is fine. “I wish she would top me” is different than calling a straight woman “such a power dyke.” The first is just a fun wish, the second is… weird and inaccurate and it just strikes me as maybe only half-way thought-through. I don’t think I have all the answers or claim that we’re perfect either. In our episode on Yoko we made a joke about her “big dick” - which we meant as a compliment, but that could be seen as problematic too. And maybe it was? The whole concept of a dick as being where power is stored is pretty lame, even if we all enjoyed making “big dick energy” memes and jokes for a year or so. And yeah, Paul’s so-called “femininity” (which I put in skeptical quotation marks because again, we’re talking about gender-labeling both physical traits AND personality traits that DO NOT INHERENTLY BELONG TO ANY SEX) has been historically used to undermine everything from his intelligence to his artistic depth to his credibility (”diva” anyone?). It’s not mine or anyone’s job to police and gatekeeper and tell people how they’re supposed to talk, I just urge us all to be a bit more thoughtful with how we use words and how we appropriate gay culture so voraciously. Also, please stop this tiresome straw-man argument of “there’s nothing wrong with being femme!” Of course there isn’t. There’s nothing wrong with being anything! But everyone on this site knows better than to purposely mis-label a person’s gender or sexuality. Everyone also knows better than to characterize a person’s sexuality or gender identity in a way that would upset that person or make them uncomfortable. If someone prefers “Black” to “African American,” call them Black. If they prefer “Brown” to “Black,” call them Brown, etc. It’s not your place to make a judgment call about these terms, it’s for people to choose for themselves and it’s our place to respect them. I know I’ll probably get pushback that “this is just fandom” and “it’s not that serious.” And to an extent I agree because none of the Beatles would appreciate being called assholes or hearing our shitty opinions about their songs either and we all feel free to criticize them for all kinds of stuff that is essentially none of our business. I just think we need to pump the brakes from time to time when it comes to throwing labels on people.

And yes, perhaps I’m sensitive about this topic because I grew up in a much, much more homophobic era than our current one and I’ve definitely got scars from it. But I also believe that it’s OK to encourage everyone to think about this stuff and talk openly about it without attacking each other or getting overly defensive. -Phoebe

#The Beatles #AKOM #feminizing Paul

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