twinkle twinkle up in the sky

peer pressure

2016-10-10T06:46:43Z

Dearest Yuletide Santa,

Firstly I am so sorry that you received an assignment with literally nothing to go on! Sorry I am such a twerp. I was not especially planning on doing yuletide this year (it has been several years since I have participated, I am, as you can perhaps tell, something of an internet ghost these days), but on the very last night of sign ups some friends of mine were talking about their sign ups, and I felt very left out. Of course I would decide to throw together a sign up all "I'LL WRITE PROMPTS LATER!!!" in a week where I had to buy a car (terrible) and also go out of town (not terrible but time-consuming). Also I did not realize assignments would go out so soon. But I suppose I would have been v. late by now even if they had not happened so quickly.

Anyway! Do you even want this? Have you already got plot ideas in your head? Have you already gone into "WELL, FUCK IT, I'M WRITING WHAT I WANT" mode because you basically received a blank recipient? If so you should feel free to stop reading because I was pretty specific in my character selections and it would be VERY DIFFICULT for you to write something with any of these ships that I love that I will not love. (Also I am a big lover of gen, so if you’re NOT into any of these people romantically, I will still be delighted, pinkie swear.) But I know that I, personally, find prompts helpful, so. Here are some of those.

Decathlon & Heptathlon RPF - Ashton/Brianne

The highlight of my Olympics was this stupid commercial and their stupid faces. I am a sucker for the silly competitive romcom dynamic as presented here (esp as combined with their support of each other relationship), so — I don’t know? More of that? All the stories about the beginnings of their relationship in college as related to various media outlets are darling, and I would love something set then. And I honestly am not normally into AUs, but RPF is an exception here, so if you wanted to veer out into a competitive video gaming AU or space cowboy AU or a spy marriage of convenience AU if that sounds more fun to you.

Being Erica - Erica/Kai

I was really disappointed in Kai’s return in season 4 — I actually stopped watching the show in season 3 because I couldn’t take the emotional stress of Erica losing her business on top of the emotional stress of ADAM & HIS MANPAIN EXISTING AS A ROMANTIC INTEREST (these scars run deep). I thought it was sort of dull to end an interesting, complicated romantic “problem” with “oh but he’s impractical, he goes for the immediate proposal”, so it can end neatly with the "he's the wrong choice, he doesn't really know her".

Do I want the season 4 return rewritten? Do I want them to figure out how to avert her death and be sad old people together in 2019? Do I want them to NOT avert her death and be sad about that? Do I just want a few more snippets of him visiting her whilst back on a regret? Do I want him letting her go? DO I WANT RESOLUTION? Or is it better without it because the romance is in the fact that there really isn't a way for it to ever happen? I don't know. I just want more of them.

Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery - Anne/Gilbert

I’ve sort of been thinking as I’ve reread these this year (for the first time since 2007!), that I wouldn’t mind a different ending for Anne and Gil than either the books or the movies (miniserieses? I’m going to keep calling them movies) gave us. The book series goes very Victorian after the marriage, and I’m a little bit sad that weird, dreamy Anne Shirley, gives way to Mrs. Dr. Dear, who spends more time keeping house than writing.

Obviously the third movie is garbage/the onscreen version of that not-even-good-enough-to-be-technically-mediocre fanfiction epic you start reading when you’ve exhausted all the good fic in your fandom du jour, but there were little pieces of it I liked (I guess Gilbert’s New York storyline? the fact that Anne was writing? the reunion scene? possibly just their faces, honestly). What I do sort of like is the ending of the second movie — the emphasis on home, her relationship with Marilla. But honestly I think I just want to read a different interpretation of where they end up — it doesn’t really matter what direction you take it.

Does that sound weird or hard? Do you hate it? If yes please just write me Anne of the Island fic, because I wish that book were 1000 pages and any little way you could expand it would delight me: more Phil! more Patty’s Place! the shift after “A Book of Revelations” that gives Gil the courage to try again (I would honest-to-god probably love a fic that was just Phil’s letter)! or like. Everyone’s reactions to the engagement, even, I was always a bit sad to have missed that.

Dream High - Jinguk/Hyemi

I was always kind of disappointed that Hyemi ended up debuting instead of going to Julliard — dreams change, I know, but she was so sure. Debuting seemed like a better future for her than everyone else. So I guess what I’d like is alt-poor Brooklyn hipster art student Hyemi. I personally liked her with Jinguk (I’m tragically doomed to always like the wrong kdrama couple, also tragically into people with ~history~), and wouldn’t be ADVERSE to him not shedding his scandal and having to study abroad like his dad wanted him to and pop up, but just Hyemi is good too.

So many words and these are still the vaguest prompts, aren't they? I'm sorry I'm the worst recipient in the history of recipients. I GUESS I'LL JUST THROW THE REST OF THIS AT YOU IN CASE IT HELPS:

Generally, I like humor & warmth, people being stupid about their feelings for each other, banter, female-driven stories, found family.

Generally, I don’t like: AUs, weirdly enough — I tend to usually like my favorites best in the fictional universe I found them in (although I love canon deviations and what-if stories!). The huge exception to this is RPF, and if that is what we matched on then please, AU away. I also don’t manpain, dubcon/noncon, or PWPs. Those are really the big ones.

If you are the sort of person who requires LOTS OF INFORMATION, or enjoys procrastinating on the actual writing part, I sympathize and offer up past yuletide letters, my pinboard with lots of fic I have liked in the past, and a tumblr that I am notorious for barely using. This livejournal is old and I sound dumb in so many of its posts, but I guess you can look through it, too.

You are the best. I appreciate this so much and look forward to whatever you produce.

xoxo

hi bye

2015-12-31T00:14:46Z

A couple of months ago, I was listening to a segment on NPR with Gene Kelly's widow, and she was talking about how his legacy -- she thought, and he thought -- was mostly about him changing the way dance was shown on film. Which makes sense: he's probably the only significant dancer/choreographer/director, right? Of course he was more dedicated to finding the best ways to show good dance on films. She was talking about how it's since regressed, and how whenever you watch a modern musical the dance scenes are all quick cuts, rather than long frames. Because it's not about the dance itself, it's about the fact that they're dancing. (Compare: An American in Paris to Dreamgirls).

I thought: I wonder if anyone has ever used this framework to analyze kpop music vidoes.

And then I thought: No one but you would ever do that.

And then I thought: I miss lj.

(And then I thought: actually, that whole thing would be pretty dull, because kpop is probably all quick cuts.)

I don't know why I had to type all that I'm actually just here because I love making people do this dumb meme I made up and there's still no better place to do it:

Top thirty kpop songs/promotional tracks from 2015. Go.

Same rules:
- thirty songs exactly, no honorable mentions or "these two are tied for thirty and thirty-one", you're gonna have to make some hard decisions and it's gonna be okay.
- RANK THEM!
- This is actually not really a "top thirty kpop songs" game, it's a "top thirty korean promotional tracks" game. So no Japanese tracks, and no album "filler" songs*. Which I know is kind of annoying -- I loved 4minute's "Whatever" and SNSD's Japanese singles more than a lot of the songs on my list. But I think there's a lot of interesting stuff that happens in the bottom ten when you're making just a list of promotional tracks. It reveals a lot about the randomer passing fondnesses you guys have -- in a way it's more interesting than the top ten (THOUGH THAT'S FUN TOO). Anyway. I MAKE THE RULES, AND THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE. THEY HAVE TO BE PROMOTIONAL SINGLES!
- This is a list of favorites, not a list of bests. Never forget that!

*this rule sucks EXTRA in the year of "Check" and "Papi", doesn't it?

elapses @ 2014-12-28T23:59:00

2014-12-29T06:59:07Z

Hey stinky old livejournal,

Wassup!

I guess you can't really keep up with me anymore. I'm up to my usual tricks, which is brief intense pocket phases of things I already watched (Downton Abbey since I've been home for Christmas, before that it was Star Trek bc I'm me). I live in LA now. Which has been wonderful! I'm so happy with the community I've built myself in six months in a city that isn't the best at community. Right now I don't want to go back because I have like, adult bullshit to deal with when I get there. When did I hit 25? Why can't I just go shopping w/ my sisters every day and see Into the Woods like nine more times? Colorado is so nice. It actually gets cold here.

So here is my second post of 2014. Which might not have even happened, because what is even the point of making LJ posts anymore, but it felt like, fundamentally wrong to not do these two things before 2015 began:

1. post my christmas mix. LISTEN, I KNOW IT'S DECEMBER 28TH. I know it's practically December 29th. I had laptop trouble. And previous to that I couldn't decide where I would even post it. Tumblr, even though I have no presence there? LJ, even though nobody has any presence here? Also is it really posting it if I just link to the 8tracks? It totally does, right? I'm really only doing this for archival purposes. We're all sick of Christmas music anyway.
Deck the Hall - Nat King Cole
Throw Another Log (On The Fire) - Chic Gamine
Christmas at the Airport - Nick Lowe
A Girl on Cinnamon Lane - A Year Afar
Ain't No Chimneys In the Projects - Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings
징글벨 (Jingle Bells) - The Barberettes
Feliz Navidad - We Shot The Moon
Lonely Christmas Eve - Ben Folds
It Happened in Sun Valley - Jo Stafford
(Everybody's Waitin' For) the Man With the Bag - Black Prarie
Blue Christmas - Vandaveer
The Night Before Christmas (In Texas, That Is) - The Silver Fleece
Christmas In L.A. (feat. Dawes) - The Killers
Christmas All the Time - The Pollyanna Band
Let Us Come Together - How To Throw A Christmas Party
Merry Christmas - Judy Garland (THIS IS NOT HAVE YOURSELF A MERRY LITTLE CHRISTMAS, it's from In the Good Old Summertime, not Meet Me In St. Louis)
Christmas Is All Around (Love, Actually) - Sleeping At Last
Get Down for the Holidays - Jenny O. (this may be wrong on the 8tracks???)

(Psst: I do have a rar/mp3 version of this already uploaded, I just can't... remember the password I gave it? But I can probably figure it out if you need it. Even if you don't need it until December 2015.)

2. I wanna play this game again. Even if it's only three of us. Copy & pasted from TWO ENTRIES DOWN, god this is sad. Sry I have let you fall into such decay elapses. But this kind of game is exactly what you are unparalleledly made for:

Top thirty kpop songs/promotional tracks from 2014. Go.

Same rules:
- thirty songs exactly, no honorable mentions or "these two are tied for thirty and thirty-one", you're gonna have to make some hard decisions and it's gonna be okay.
- RANK THEM!
- This is actually not really a "top thirty kpop songs" game, it's a "top thirty korean promotional tracks" game. So no Japanese tracks, and no album "filler" songs. Which I know is kind of annoying -- I loved 4minute's "Whatever" and SNSD's Japanese singles more than a lot of the songs on my list. But I think there's a lot of interesting stuff that happens in the bottom ten when you're making just a list of promotional tracks. It reveals a lot about the randomer passing fondnesses you guys have -- in a way it's more interesting than the top ten (THOUGH THAT'S FUN TOO). Anyway. I MAKE THE RULES, AND THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE. THEY HAVE TO BE PROMOTIONAL SINGLES!
- This is a list of favorites, not a list of bests. Never forget that!

ANYWAY I LIKE YOU, OLD LIVEJOURNAL FRIENDS. Hope you all know that. Hope it's been a good year for everyone.

yarg i'm sick of these six icons

2013-12-15T18:06:07Z

Remember this kpop game from last year? Today I'm working on my craftier Christmas presents and watching Christmas movies with my roommates and MAYBE going to the grocery store bc even though I have a ton of food I don't think I have anything I could actually make into a cohesive meal, so what I'm saying is it's a good day to play this again.

So: top thirty kpop songs/promotional tracks from 2013. Go.

Same rules:
- thirty songs exactly, no honorable mentions or "these two are tied for thirty and thirty-one", you're gonna have to make some hard decisions and it's gonna be okay.
- RANK THEM!
- This is actually not really a "top thirty kpop songs" game, it's a "top thirty korean promotional tracks" game. So no Japanese tracks, and no album "filler" songs. Which I know is kind of annoying -- I loved 4minute's "Whatever" and SNSD's Japanese singles more than a lot of the songs on my list. But I think there's a lot of interesting stuff that happens in the bottom ten when you're making just a list of promotional tracks. It reveals a lot about the randomer passing fondnesses you guys have -- in a way it's more interesting than the top ten (THOUGH THAT'S FUN TOO). Anyway. I MAKE THE RULES, AND THIS IS WHAT THEY ARE. THEY HAVE TO BE PROMOTIONAL SINGLES!
- This is a list of favorites, not a list of bests. Never forget that!

!!!!!

2013-12-07T04:36:08Z

holiday love meme 2013
my thread here

HAVE YOU EVEN DONE ENOUGH INTERNET STUFF THIS YEAR TO DESERVE THIS, ALEXANDRA!?!? (yes, because everyone deserves the holiday love meme. even though it still feels a leeeettle bit strange not to do it at allthingsgood.)

this is what i do

2013-11-26T02:27:00Z

This would be what motivated me to make a LJ post: please name your top 10 romantic comedies, friends. Define "romantic comedy" however you see fit. (That sentence makes it sound like I want you to go indie or weird -- I don't, I just want to know your favorites. If your favorites are "You've Got Mail" and "Love Actually", that's what you should put. But if you're teetering on the edge of "does _____ count as a romantic comedy???", you should totally count it.)

tng episode guide

2013-07-26T01:12:26Z

IT'S REAL IT'S TRUE

the voyager one, as a convenient reference material

DNW
ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Tolerable!
Awesome?
I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS ~~BAR~~ SHIP
the Salamander award for COMPLETELY RIDICULOUS, would watch again

S1
1x01/1x02. Encounter at Farpoint
WEIRD ASS PILOT. The first half is absolutely terrible, in the second half Riker and Troi look at each other a lot. (...kidding? Kind of? But not really?)

1x03 The Naked Now
SEX POLLEN ♥_♥ (Docked a point because the resolution involved Wesley Crusher being a Gary Stu. BUT STILL SO GREAT!)

1x04 Code of Honor
"Honestly I kinda want to go with one star just because was really uncomfortably vaguely racist. But like.... I don't remember, Riker and Troi might have looked at each other."

1x05 The Last Outpost
Ferengi, no elaboration necessary.

1x06 Where No One Has Gone Before
Disappointing because they go past warp 10 and no one turns into salamanders, but this was definitely Wesley's tour de force in tolerability.

1x07 Lonely Among Us
Possession episode that was moderately entertaining in the context of this season of television so far (if only because you could make jokes about how the alien possessor was not socially awkward enough in his portrayal of Picard), not really that entertaining compared to actually entertaining television.

1x08 Justice
Ok honestly at this point the number of omnipotent beings on this fucking show is ridiclous (there's been one in every episode except 1x03, and possibly not in 1x04?? I don't remember). Also lol these aliens' outfits.

1x09 Justice
I'm p sure I would have given this a three if Catherine hadn't just grounded me with a reminder about the "dumb plot". IT'S NOT A THREE, there were Ferengi and I've just sat through too many super shitty episodes recently. I just find it weirdly endearing to watch Picard try and interact with people??? HE'S SO BAD AT IT.

1x10 Hide and Q
catherine: what was THAT
me: A FLAMING PILE OF SHIT

1x11 Haven (but 5 stars in the context of this terrible season of television)
LWAXANA TROI REDEEMS ALL STUPID PLOTS, also a million points for bratty teenage Deanna.

1x12 The Big Goodbye + 1/2
"the half is 4 beautiful beverly" "you say that like the other three aren't for beautiful beverly" (For real though, this is a dumb holodeck episode that ends in Wesley saving the day... BUT BEVERLY'S SO BEAUTIFUL AND EXCITED THE WHOLE TIME THAT LIKE... I REMEMBER IT FONDLY.)

1x13 Datalore
I think it was mediocre.

1x14 Angel One
Super dumb but contains the best moment to date, which is Deanna and Worf judging all their human buds for their history of partiarchy. BUT THAT'S AT THE BEGINNING AND I WOULDN'T WATCH PAST THAT.

1x15 11001001
Terrible/sexist/the holodeck scenes were actively awful to sit through.

1x15 Too Short a Season
Terrible/that guy was the worst.

1x16 When the Bough Breaks
Watchable, because Wesley acts like a normal smart kid instead of the savior of the entire ship. But not good.

1x17 Home Soil
Soooooo boring until, two-thirds away of the through, the "ugly bags of mostly water" line steals the show. The back third is probably just as zzzzz but we were still laughing so it SEEMED funny.

1x18 Coming of Age
Terrible.

1x19 Heart of Glory
Terrible.

1x20 The Arsenal of Freedom
We liked this one ok because it had a lot of Beverly and a lot of JLP hovering over Beverly, and apparently we have some feelings about that. Embarrassing Star Trek ships: a lifestyle.

1x21 Symbiosis
Terrible/preachy: the fatal combo.

1x22 Skin of Evil
Terrible. (But Riker and Troi were kind of snuggly.)

1x23 We'll Always Have Paris
Terrible.

1x24 Conspiracy
Terrible.

1x25 The Neutral Zone
Terrible.

S1
2x01 The Child img src="http://pics.livejournal.com/elapses/pic/000ry0t1">

2x02 Where the Silence Has Lease img src="http://pics.livejournal.com/elapses/pic/000ry0t1">

2x03 Elementary, Dear Data img src="http://pics.livejournal.com/elapses/pic/000ry0t1">

why is this so funny to me IT'S NOT THAT FUNNY

2013-07-13T18:31:33Z

There's a "state of my life" post sitting in my livejournal client right now and like, it's too big for me to not post now so I'm sure you'll all see it eventually but

I'M WATCHING ORANGE IS THE NEW BLACK, RIGHT, and there's this whole stalker-courtship thing going on in episode three, which culminates* in a terrible verbal poem that goes:

before I met you the sun was like a yellow grape
but now it look like fire in the sky
why?
because you light a fire inside me

And like the delivery was great and the poem is appropriately ridiculous but as I watched it I was like... that grape metaphor... is extremely familiar... but where could I possibly have read a poem that horrible...

ANYWAY THE ANSWER IS THAT DURING MY JUNIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL, my friends and I were fabricating this really stupid plan to get our other friend to go out with this guy she was friends with who we kind of liked and kind of hated?? (It was high school, I don't know.) The only part of the plan that ever got executed (we were the kinds of girls for whom the making of the operation notebook was much more deserving of attention than any actual operations) was this secret admirer note we threw in her locker to plant the seed. You know where this is going, right? Kind of? The guy was like, super pompous and super ridiculous and obviously it HAD to be a poem if we wanted her to suspect him, but idk even though he was a smart dude we couldn't imagine him writing a good one...

...so during my lunch hour-and-a-half one day I googled "bad love poetry" until I stumbled across this site.

I think the one I paraphrased as Jared was actually the first one, the u turn one ("you turn" hahahahahaha STILL FUNNY) but look at the second one:

Before I met you, the sun looked like a grape.
Now the sun looks like a mass of flames.
Speaking of flames,
Have you felt the heat of the flames
Of my love for you?

JENJI KOHAN AND I HAVE IDENTICAL GOOGLE FU

soulbonded by our "shit I need a bad love poem but I can't think up one on the spot" plagiarism

*actually technically the poem bit is hardly the apex of that storyline and so it doesn't culminate there BUT I REALLY LIKE THE WORD CULMINATE AND I'LL USE YOU HOW I WANT TO USE YOU, ENGLISH LANGUAGE

tortured moan

2013-04-17T00:22:25Z

WHEN WILL THE ZOE/GEORGE MADNESS END

elapses @ 2013-04-11T18:29:00

2013-04-11T23:29:38Z

essay q's (for all of yous):

1. Have you ever, at any point in your misspent youth (or recently, I don't care), participated in a "save our show" campaign in any capacity?? Or something like it? If so, I want details.

2. Can you help me think of het pairings with a lot of fic? Like, comparable to some slash pairings amounts of fic? I said Mulder/Scully, goldenmelisande agreed and also said Veronica/Logan. I was wondering about Buffy pairings, and maybe even something from HP -- Ron/Hermione and James/Lily always felt a bit finite to me -- I was wondering about Harry/Hermione, I guess, or Draco/Hermione, or something else I'm not thinking of. Or anything from another fandom I'm not thinking of! Hjalp, friends list.

dear friends let me know if you want albums! i was going to just upload them but mf is being twatty

2013-03-22T04:55:36Z

Diego Garcia used to be the frontman of this band called Elefant, which I kind of listened to in 2004?? Maybe some of you did too? I say kind of because I only listened to this song, which I only just now realized is SUPER DUPER CREEPY, which like, duh Alexandra, it's called Lolita, but I'm sitting here like... I don't know. When I was 14/15 I was obsessed with mp3 blogs, and I used to make these mixes for my friends and my parents called "Indify me #whatever" (I think I got into the 20s before I stopped??? And sometimes I wish I still labeled my car mixes with 'Indify Me #82', not because I still care about 'indifying' anyone, but because then I'd have something identifying to write on them besides "I'm sick of all the music in my car"), and I'm SURE that song had to be on one of them and like, how would you be if your 14 year old daughter was like "DAD LISTEN TO MY NEW INDIFY ME!!!" and that song was on it. I guess my parents just had more to worry about in 2004? And it's not like I ever noticed...

So I was familiar, but not a fan, and then idk a year or two ago I was like "whatever I remember that band I'll try his solo album" and surprise, AMAZING. It's called Laura, and it essentially chronicles a breakup, but in this really beautiful, mature way that is more about love than bitterness. This is my favorite song from it.

Is it me or do solo projects done by frontmen usually end up sounding exactly like the band they fronted?? I'm suddenly weirdly obsessed with the SHARP CONTRAST between him by himself and Elefant. Elefant is so 2000s grunge, so dirty NYC boys, so uninteresting. What he does by himself is barely even reminiscent of that -- it's like he was freed from that particular anchor and allowed to make music that was about himself, about his ex-girlfriend, whom he loved. I know I said mature already but I think that the maturity of his work as Diego Garcia is striking when you compare it to his work with Elefant. And all his songs feature this really amazing, intricate, Spanish-style guitar work, and last night he proudly introduced his guitarist (who was amazing!) as "from Argentina" (Garcia himself is Argentinian). It's about him.

Anyway last night I went to see him at the Central Presbyterian Church (you guys I ALMOST CRIED when I realized because it was a church I could sit and listen to him and Boy, this qt German band I like a lot. APPARENTLY working Tuesday and then staying out till 2 for f(x) followed by a bunch of day shows Wednesday afternoon was almost a little more than I could handle??), and he played songs from his forthcoming album for the FIRST TIME EVER (he said he'd been busy in the studio and it was weird to have to look presentable for the first time in four months hahahaha but he was actually dressed pretty formally -- again with the being an adult now!).

This is a video I took (I am terrible at taking videos because I never want to look at the video while I'm taking it -- I want the video to preserve my experience but I don't want to not have an experience, if that makes sense? Anyway this post is full of such videos so I guess I am saying, watch them at your own risk):

also he told this story about how he'd practiced his "lalalala"s every morning (they're integral to one of the songs) and then told us that the moral of it was that he was diligent, "and then... she came back" and I JUST WANTED TO CRY, bc I'm not weirdly overinvested in his relationship with this Laura girl AT ALL (wikipedia says THEY HAVE A BABY NOW!!).

Anyway you know how there are just concert experiences that you TREASURE and will remember forever as the best?? He was absolutely one of mine, along with Marina & the Diamonds at SXSW '09 (it was super cold and we were in this tent with heaters??? And it was before she'd even put out "The Family Jewels" in full so it was literally just all those songs she put out in the very beginning, aka my very favorites, I Am Not A Robot, Mowgli's Road, and Obsessions, although I think the only reason I love that song so much is because of that show), SMTown with cambridge and goldenmelisande, the Boy Least Likely To which was my sister's first concert!!, Michelle Branch which was mine (of course!!), and Rooney/Tally Hall with Vivian and Summer.

also FALLULAH!!!! I don't know what to say about her except that sometimes I feel like if someone wanted me to describe my music taste I could just give them a Fallulah song. Also she has an amazing voice and she's electric on stage. I saw her twice this week, although I didn't see a complete set either time, because I was late to the first show (I thought it started at 1:30 but it was 1:15!) and the second time I had a show that started 30 minutes after hers that was about a 15 minute walk away. The video is from the first show, which was kind of awkwardly unattended (it was at mid-afternoon on a Wednesday and you couldn't like... hear the music outside so you literally had to be specifically taking time off to see going to see this random Danish girl so... yeah)... the second show was better audience-wise but not nearly as pretty, with the clouds and the purple dress. I didn't know she had a new album out until this week but she does and it's soooooooooooo good, just as good as the first one, and I loved the first one. This is a bit of her first US single:

I LOVE HER omg

I don't know what to say about f(x)!! I got to the venue at maybe 11?? So there were two bands before them. There were a lot of people who had pretty obviously come just for f(x), and a loooooot of Korean-Americans (I think maybe more than other kpop stuff I've been to -- I think because it was cheapish? and also probably partially because of the other bands there), but also a pretty good number of 30-40 yr old people with badges (so industry professionals/media), which is/was the point, I think, both of SXSW in general and of this showcase specifically. (But it all was the point -- the point was to have that exact mix of people, so they had people who were there to scream loudly every time f(x) did something and people to witness that screaming.) They put money into this! There's a pamphlet of official music happenings that literally everyone with a badge/wristband gets handed and on the back of it was an ad for "Kpop Night Out". Even the fact that it's called Kpop Night Out points to SM money -- the other acts were Korean but they were nooooooot Kpop. (I liked Jeong Cha Sik, did not like Galaxy Express.) I was closeish but not that close -- there were probably seven people in front of me. Of all the shows I went to it was BY FAR the hardest one to get close for -- I think the second hardest was prob Dessa, but with literally everything else I could get third row (and in a lot of cases closer!), and I'm not that pushy. There was a lot of stuff I didn't try to do the crowd jockey thing for, there were points this week where I was just so exhausted that I was like "I only kind of care about this band, I care more about sitting on this nice floor than I care about listening to them). Anyway f(x) was like -- I started trying to get up there TWO BANDS BEFORE THEM and never got anywhere. But I guess that's not shocking, the people who were front row must have gotten to the line outside at like 4pm and been standing there in front since the doors opened at 7:30pm and f(x) played at 1:30am. I am not capable of that. The crowd was solid for everyone but INSANE when f(x) came out -- everyone was waving cameras, which is part of why my already bad videos were SUPER bad, arms kept popping up in front of me.

Luna was SO PRETTY in person -- they all were??? (I kept getting distracted by how pretty Luna was and then by how pretty Sulli was and then I just gave up because they were all rly beautiful and more striking than they are in pictures, I think? Except Krystal looked like, exactly the same, she was not more striking, but I mean she's beautiful in pictures so I don't mean that in a bad way?? It's just weird how some people look different in person than they do in videos and photos, and some people really don't. I think I look super different -- and worse!! -- in pictures than I do in person).

It was fun and of course I'm happy I went but it was a little uninspiring. I know I shouldn't've expected more than their four most recent/recognizable singles -- that's what kpop bands DO, when they do those festival things back in Korea -- but remember when they went to Cannes and did an English version of Chocolate Love and Luna did that amazing cover of 'I'm Telling You I'm Not Going'?? And of course they didn't have four singles back then but. But!!!

Anyway I don't have a full video of any song but I have at least a piece of all of them -- I was having a lot of trouble with people waving cameras in front of me, and that's kind of obvious if you watch these. I am sure there are much better fancams out there if that's what you want but, these are mine and indicative of my f(x) experience. I already made some of you watch these on twitter... I was gonna post some of the different ones but MAN they're bad. Like this is bad but those are bad:

One of the funniest things about the show was that at the beginning some guy who worked for them came out and tried to make everyone step back from the stage???? And everyone was just like no. He tried over and over again but then finally I guess he went to the club staff, and they STOOD DOWN THERE FACING THE CROWD. You can see them!! They're so intimidating!!

Amber was obviously so happy to be there, and everyone else seemed pretty energetic and happy too, even though I think they flew in Monday night, had one day in Austin culminating in this 1:30am show, and then left again. This is my terrible video of their intro, which came after Nu Abo + Danger, before Hot Summer + Electric Shock:

It was "Nu ABO" > "Danger" > intro > "Hot Summer" > "Electric Shock". My dream four-song f(x) concert would have been "Mr. Boogie", "Topbillin' Love", "Love" (you know this is fantasyland because they've never done that one live) (and they've never done "Mr. Boogie" live with Amber right? FUCK THAT), and idk... either "La Cha Ta", "Nu ABO", or "Hot Summer". Why do I love Hot Summer so much :(

Anyway I thought the NYT Article about the show was pretty accurate, the end especially:

The set was all catchiness and choreography, with lots of angular elbow and shoulder action, like Janet Jackson above the waist; hip motion, not so much. ”Hot Summer” included one move like wiping sweat off the forehead. The group was impeccable, twitching and twirling and hitting its marks with smiles while an audience full of Korean girls squealed and took photos. South by Southwest or not, this was pop, and no one wanted idols brought down to earth.

I'm reading a Judy Garland biography right now (you're all surprised) and there's this quote about MGM in it that made me think of SM:

"he other big studios--Paramount, Warner Bros., 20th Century Fox and Universal--also had their own stars, talented technicians and collections of art, of course. But whatever they had, Metro had more.

There had never been, nor probably ever will be again, such a splendid moviemaking machine. Nothing was allowed to stand in its way. No problem was too large to take on, or too small to notice; an obsessive attention to detail was built into the system. At other studios, good was often good enough. At M-G-M, it could invariably be better. [a couple of paragraphs about perfectionism in a "this scene is flawed because a door squeaked" sense and test audiences]

The worst Metro movie usually had a sheen and polish that declared that no corner had been cut, no effort had been spared. But if it turned out few truly bad movies, Metro also turned out few truly great ones, particularly after Thalberg's death in 1936. Greatness thrives in an environment of independence and innovation, and both were viewed with profound suspicion at M-G-M. Talent was prized only as long as it worked within the tight framework of a team; anyone who attempted anything radically new was deemed a malcontent.

I've honestly always thought there was an arguable connection between the studio system of old Hollywood and the idol factory, but this made me stop and wonder WHY I AM SUCH A BRAND LOYALIST for the bland, moneyed, giants. I am!!! I love MGM and I love SM. What is it about me? You gotta wonder.

The Dessa show wasn't honestly one of my very favorites like the rest of these (which is fine, I've seen her twice before this and she hasn't put out new material since then) (it was really just that it was crowded, I was tired, and I almost fainted?? which I do sometimes, this is the third time it's happened and I wasn't as close to actually collapsing as I was those other two times). But when I was looking through the video I took I rly loved them because I got a lot of her talking (I wish I'd filmed the talking more than the songs more often in general! So mad at myself for not filming Diego Garcia saying the thing about "she came back" ugh), and she's just so GREAT and so SASSY I love her more than anything.

I love that I got her talking about the bands she liked, because she and Marit Larsen (who I'll talk about in a couple paragraphs) I had both seen at SXSW before and idk... I just love that some of these artists love SXSW?? Not all of them do but it's fine, but people like Dessa and Marit Larsen obviously LOVE IT and try to do it every year that they can, regardless of whether they're putting out new stuff or not (that's usually a big thing -- people come when they're about to put out a new album or just recently put out a new album). Anyway like I said I saw both of them at SXSW in 2010 and this time both of them were like "YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS AMAZING BAND!!!", like they love it as spectators as well as performers. It's definitely a thing for a specific kind of person. Anyway here's Alibi and then just a video of Dessa talking:

I was super annoyed by the dancing boys at the time, in retrospect they're kind of cute. It's kind of funny to me that she has rabid fanboys, she seems so female to me, and the more "female" a thing is the less likely I think it is to have fanboys?? But I mean, she's the only female member of a rap collective that has a bunch of dudes. So. I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy.

I'M IN LOVE W/ THIS BRITISH GIRL GROUP CALLED STOOSHE, DID YOU KNOW?? I think I mentioned them once on my infrequently updated music blog but never here. The rest of you have your One Directions and your Little Mixes and your Girls Alouds (actually I was rly into Girls Aloud too at one point) (well, into them, not REALLY into them), I have Stooshe. Anyway they played at the Perez Hilton party thing, WHICH WAS SUPER WEIRD TO BE AT because like, it was SXSW and it was also just NOT SXSW. Like it was totally officially part of the festival, but (this entry aside hahahaha I LIKE SPECIFICALLY SEEK OUT THE POPPIEST STUFF AT SXSW), SXSW is like, about almost any genre of music BUT pop. Like you can be pop -- like Fallulah or Marina & the Diamonds -- as long as you have a band backing you and not a backtrack, you know?? Anyway the Perez show wasn't like that?? It was a weird mix of people who were already at SXSW doing the SXSW thing and a bunch of sets everywhere (Foxes, Angel Haze, Lissie), and people who had flown in specifically to do this one Perez Hilton thing (Stooshe, Kerli, Wynter Gordon, and apparently Fall Out Boy closed but I was gone by that time bc I had other more important shows to be at?? ACTUALLY IT'S REALLY FUNNY, because he acted like they were this big secret and wrote "special guest" on his schedule and then tweeted a big reveal the day of the show BUT IT WAS LITERALLY IN MY PROGRAM THAT I GOT TUESDAY THAT THEY'D BE THERE) (the other thing he did that annoyed me was wrote on his website that the "only way to get guaranteed entry" was to buy a ticket on his website -- which was not true at all, at the actual show they were a lot nicer about badges and wristbands than the other people which is how it's supposed to be and how it HAS to be, since it was officially a SXSW showcase not a separate party, but it just irritated me that he sold tickets like that) (PEREZ HILTON IS DUMB) (but we have the same taste in music sort of, I rly hate Kerli and Wynter Gordon but he was like "you know what I like??? LADY RAPPERS AND GIRL GROUPS" and I was like "...yeah :(")

ANYWAY SOMEHOW THAT WAS ALL SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT HOW STOOSHE FLEW IN SPECIFICALLY FOR THIS PEREZ HILTON THING, and it was literally their first ever show in the US and even though Perez Hilton is dumb I LOVE THEM and I'm so happy I was there:

The sound on this is SUPER SHITTY because I was really near the speaker (and also because the bass was turned WAY RIDICULOUSLY HIGH on all the speakers there for some unknown reason, there were points in the DJ sets where I literally just wanted to gouge my ears out), but I also kind of love it because for some reason the backtrack didn't record very well, it's all bass and their voices, like my very own mr removed thing, completely by accident (it didn't sound like that when I was hearing it live!). SUPER COOL.

The chorus of Kiss Chase:

I really love pop music you guys :(

Honestly you guys if you're not aware of how much I love Marit Larsen (once of M2M fame, omg she had a blondeish girl with her this time and it was SO WEIRD, like, she's been a brunette forever and I'm so used to it, but I'm not used to her being the more brunette of two girls if that makes sense??) you prob don't know me, but now I've said it and you know. She only played one show, and I didn't think I was gonna get to go because I almost had to go to a dinner party on Saturday, but it ended up not happening and I'm SO GLAD, because I JUST LOVE SEEING HER SO MUCH. She was Vivian + I's favorite SXSW show when we went two years ago, we wanted to see her a second time that week but then we were too lazy from all the SXSWing. SHE'S JUST DIVINE, U KNOW??? And even though I loooooooove seeing new stuff there's just something about seeing someone whose songs you all know by heart?? Idk I was a little drunk when I went to see her but I just sat there and EYEHEARTING AS HARD AS I POSSIBLY COULD it was the best. She was so cute, she kept joking about her previous SXSWs, and how this was by far the best venue the festival had ever given her (another church!), and telling these stories about the time she was next to a strip club and she could hear the uhn-ta uhn-ta uhn-ta music, and another time she was upstairs from like, a metal band, and trying to play her soft acoustic girl stuff. She also talked about how Joni Mitchell got her big break by writing a song about songs playing on the radio, and so she tried to work the word "radio" into a song and ended up with her biggest hit, this beautiful little song:

she kind of fucks up at :54 it's adorable :(

I'm really mad at myself because I TOTALLY could have gone up and met her afterwards and gotten a picture with her, but I wasn't brave enough. SOMEDAY I'M GOING TO SEE HER AGAIN AND TAKE MY SISTER WITH ME, because she'd make both of us.

dun dun dun

2012-12-31T03:18:08Z

Last year I made goldenmelisande make a list of her 30 favorite kpop songs from 2011 so I could compare it to my own list, and it was THE BEST, because some of our choices were exactly the same and some things were hilariously not the same?? I don't know, it was fun. So this year I am asking everyone ~~that I know who likes kpop, so like... FOUR OF YOU but w/e~~.

But wait first some very arbitary but important rules:
- RANK THEM!
- thirty songs exactly, no honorable mentions or "these two are tied for thirty and thirty-one", you're gonna have to make some hard decisions and it's gonna be okay.
- they all have to be Korean promotional tracks!! I don't know why I insist on this, but I do. So no "Let's Try" and no "Paparazzi" (...I guess I'm gearing that sentence at myself, BECAUSE I LOVED BOTH OF THOSE THINGS). Mostly what qualifies is songs sung in korean that have music videos, but I think there are minor exceptions to that -- Hello Venus' "Like A Wave" doesn't have a MV and I'd say it counts, and Boa's "The Shadow" DOES have a MV and I would say it does not count.
- this is a list of favorites, not a list of bests. That means weird little things like "the mv was really cool and spacey" and "BUT I JUST LOVE THEM SO MUCH I CAN'T HELP BUT LIKE EVERYTHING THEY PUT OUT" are allowed to factor into your decisions.

So yes! Do it! I'll probably end up putting my own list in the comments later. Also I doubt anyone will do this but I just thought I'd say that if you have friends that are not my friends that you want to compare ~your list~ to, I would love to see their lists too. I really love reading a range of opinions. I don't know what that is.

i came really close to accidentally posting this in ingenieus lololol whoops

2012-12-07T03:25:26Z

holiday love meme 2012
my thread here

I GUESS WE'RE DOING THIS ONE???!

YOU GUYS I HAVE A TON OF POSTS TO MAKE IN DECEMBER, most importantly thecolorbetween's now-belated birthday post, bc I am the worst and I'm only 75% done SIX DAYS AFTER THE FACT. (I LOVE YOU CLAIRE!!!! I'm sorry that your birthday fell in the middle of my trip!) But also other things. I need to pick your brains about my IPHONE CASE DILEMMA when we're not all focused on the meme and I have three end-of-year things I want to do and I guess I already did the Christmas mix and then now the holiday love meme thing so maybe that was it. I DON'T KNOW IT FELT LIKE A LOT LAST WEEK

I'M NOT DOING YULETIDE THIS YEAR, which is kind of sad but not that sad or I'd've signed up I guess

2012-11-10T01:04:49Z

View Poll: I DON'T KNOW, OKAY

ETA: sorry I just realized I forgot to lengthen the character limit on the dream question! YOU CAN EITHER BE CURT OR TELL ME IN COMMENTS, I guess??

ALSO OPEN TO ANY/ALL COUGH MEDICINE RECOMMENDATIONS, ugh

what is this "real post" that you speak of

2012-10-09T05:53:32Z

Things I feel passionately about at the moment:

- thecolorbetween's beautiful visual representations of my relationship with Audrey/Nathan fic
- the relative health value of sweeteners (I don't KNOW)
- trimming down my tv schedule because o m g I can't do this I can't watch everything I want to watch it's just not possible!!!
- I actually really love my insurance provider idk (and I think American health care would be a lot better if all the insurance companies followed their model??)
- this SNSD article from the New Yorker that cherise linked to on twitter?? There's this part where they go into autobiographical detail about Lee Soo Man and explain how his past affects his company and apparently that's all I've ever wanted?? (omg though is SNSD coming back this month like they've been rumored to for AWHILE or are they just going to do the Japanese single/album?? Because I consider October SNSD comebacks a personal birthday present and I've had one every year I've been into them :'( )
- Dod Kalm and Fearful Symmetry: I FEEL PASSIONATELY THAT THEY ARE TERRIBLE

Songs I had stuck in my head today/why you should feel bad for me:
- There Is a Sucker Born Every Minute
- I Want To Believe
- My J (I really liked The Boys: the album, COME AT ME INTERNET but not this song, I don't think I've listened to it in like a year so I don't now what THAT IS, brain >:( ) (actually I've listened to none of these songs AT ALL RECENTLY until I looked them up to post here)

THERE WAS A FOURTH AND IT WAS THE WORST ONE but I guess I should be glad I can't remember it anymore.

the last time i read all of these i was nine. NINE!!!

2012-09-21T03:36:29Z

If you have ever indulged yourself with Tamora Pierce/the Song of the Lioness books, THIS IS A POLL FOR YOU:

View Poll: this is not a judge-free zone sorry

i'm going on vacation soooooooooooon

2012-08-18T03:41:43Z

so once upon a time thecolorbetween was like "alex jw can you clone yourself but edit a gene or whatever so that that person watches haven?" and I was like wow how is it that I am such a brat that people have to wish for CLONING TECHNOLOGY because I just don't watch things?? THE WORST FRIEND!!!!

So I started watching it. Let's talk about that.

It's like, super unfortunate that you basically have to watch all of Season 1 to really understand the cool stuff in Season 2?? I mean, it's build-up, and it's important. But it's so easy to believe, in that beginning stretch, that Haven is just like this super generic (supernatural) cop show with a lot of really pretty vistas. The X-Files (lite), in Maine, with no aliens.

BUT NOPE SUDDENLY IT IS JUST WONDERFUL

Like ugh when I first started I was so lukewarm on Audrey?? She just felt like this total stock FBI-woman. And you think the building backstory about ~the woman in the picture~ is going to be like, oh, well, YOU WERE BORN HERE!! And then something happened to your mom and you went into foster care!! And that's not interesting at all. But then the show is like NOPE STOP SHE IS A STOCK FBI-WOMAN, but only because she LITERALLY ABSORBED some other Audrey Parker's memories and identity. Because it turns out she's not really a lady cop but basically this supernatural person who picks up other people's identities/memories?!?! And like the process of her PROCESSING that she's like, not even really quite a person, and that she's had god knows how many other lives IS SO COOL in part because she IS doing it as this sunny stock FBI lady, because that's the only person she knows how to be. Ugh seriously I could write like eight paragraphs on how much I love the dichotomy of Audrey, the sunny FBI girl who can't dress herself or remember people's names and Audrey, the only person (non-person?) who can help troubled people, who draws back to Haven like a magnet every time the troubles come back!!!! IT'S SO COOL!! And I can't wait to see what they do with her FBI boss, and maybe figure out if Nathan's dad knew more about her than he implied?? Because like no one really knows who or what she is but also there are all these people who apparently know way more about her than she knows about her. And that's not really fair.

also she's just really pretty, there is that.

LIKE DON'T YOU WANT THERE TO BE A SHOW/MOVIE/SOMETHING where she and Yvonne Strahovski are just like, obscenely beautiful blonde sisters?? I mean actually that sounds exceptionally boring but I might still watch it for their fces.

AND THE REVELATIONS ABOUT DUKE'S TROUBLE IN THE LAST TWO EPISODES???? O M G. Like, what a cool story to give the bad-but-good character -- the moral dilemma of being able to "cure" people by killing them. I'm super obsessed with the implications that have suddenly been thrust upon this strange tentative friendship between Duke and Audrey (and Nathan!! but not really Nathan, I just like the way the three of them fit together so I'm including him as a parenthetical aside), like -- they're close enough now that she was there when he found his Dad's journal, and there's a certain amount of trust they've built up, but at the same time... in 2x10 she completely believes that he's turned on them and gone to the Rev. So the trust is there but it's tentative, and like, what a place to be AT, in your relationship with a person, when your Dad is convinced that the only way to save an entire town from mysterious ailments is for her to die, and for you to be the one that kills her. I mean, you guys know me, I really (really) love platonic friendships, but I think what made me suddenly love theirs was the possibilty of it breaking, and this whole big STRESS CLOUD that's going to be hanging over them this season.

CAN WE TALK ABOUT HOW DUKE AND HIS DAD LOOK NOTHING ALIKE THOUGH:

Like who would EVER look at Helo and go "yup, he should definitely play Eric Balfour's dad"! NO ONE. NO ONE. Except for the Haven casting producer. Apparently.

I find it hard to explicate my Nathan/Audrey feelings though. They were like, the first thing in season 1 that made me go "whoaaaaaah, no wait maybe I COULD actually be into this", specifically I was super into the part where it turned out he could feel her touch? Actually no, specifically I was super into the way HE reacted to that, the "Let’s say a guy like me, who can’t feel anything, meets a woman and discovers he can feel her touch. That sounds... seems like fate, doesn’t it?" And I like that the show has actually developed past that, made it such that it definitely ISN'T fate, but I also like that he was in this weird private fate spiral over that and he didn't share that with her??? I D K YOU GUYS, I can't help who I am, and who I am is super charmed by emotional ridiculousness like that. But when I was talking to Cee earlier she was like "you don't really have a lot of Nathan/Audrey feelings, do you??" and I don't know if I would say t...hat exactly. It's just that I'm not sure how I feel about the sudden developments at the end of season 2. You know?? It's strange to me that they even have time to think about that when the whole town is poised on a fault line, about to split in two, and they seem like the only two people even trying to hold it together.

BUT I'M ALSO IN LOVE WITH THE IDEA OF HER LIKE, being in love in the first place, having that added complication on top of everything. I've like, barely cracked into the fic Claire's given me but one of the ones I did read had this line where he said "you didn't disappear" as they leave Haven and drive up (or down idk) the coast??? AND I LOVE THAT. I love that one of the old reporter dudes was apparently in love with her past incarnation and how there's no way to know what she is or why she's there or how long she'll last and just like....... I DON'T KNOW

BASICALLY HAVEN IS A REALLY GOOD SHOW AND YOU SHOULD ALL THINK ABOUT WATCHING IT!!! SEASON 3 STARTS IN SEPTEMBER.

Even though she's ~the prettiest girl in the world~ I think Sulli has these moments where she could visually kind of be a convincing dude, androgynously:

But they have her ACTING so irrepressibly girlish (the high voice, the squealing) that it's ultimately just so unconvincing. Also her character's personality is currently "stalker fangirl" so that's not helping?! AT ALL!?!?

But lbr, I am probably going to end up deeply enjoying this, despite all the ridiculous factual inaccuracies.

this livejournal is so self-indulgent

2012-08-15T07:21:47Z

When I was a kid (a really little kid, like 4-6), I was convinced that High Society was infinitely better than Philadelphia Story (if you are not an old movie buff -- they're the same story: PS is the original version, adapted from the Broadway run. It came out 1940, starring Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart, and Cary Grant. HS is the musical version of that movie, from 1956 I think, with Grace Kelly, Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby). Obvs this was a phase -- I think bb me thought all movies without singing were horrible abberations. At the same age I remember being incredibly disappointed that there was no baby in Bringing Up Baby.

But anyway. Tonight I was thinking about this song, from High Society:

Which I love. It's so silly!!! I like to pretend it's the spiritual predecessor of this song. I love it so much I think I wanted to do a skating program to it (there was NOTHING 12-year-old me loved more than choreographing comic duets)

ANYWAY DIVERGING TOO MUCH, but while I was watching this tonight, it occurred to me that the song is meant to replace this scene:

I don't ever want to throw shade at musicals, because I love musicals deeply and truly, but isn't it a bit mad, how they take all that incredibly important exposition out of there, the interest of the two characters sort of grating against each other, and only keep the idea of Character A being drunk and Character B indulging him???, and distill it into that? High Society is full of that, though. Like this song is all lovey-dovey... I mean obviously they have to be able to sell these songs outside of context, and it's a faaaaaantastic song. But the romance of it makes the Sinatra character sleazier than the Stewart character was -- and that was like, the entire interest of the romance between the reporters -- he was so dumb and she was so wise. It's not the same here. Because of the music!

This is courting in High Society, this is courting in Philadelphia Story. No comment.

What has really always killed me, though, is the way they have to set up the Crosby/Kelly romance with flashbacks in order to make the audience believe it and want it??? They never do that in Philadelphia Story. You just know. It's how all writing should always be.

also 4 real I love Frank Sinatra to itty bitty bits and pieces, and although I cannot say the same about Bing but I don't dislike him or anything, BUT: who the hell was like "yes, these two dudes should play Grace Kelly's love interests!*" KATHARINE HEPBURN GOT JIMMY STEWART AND CARY GRANT, like. It's just not fair.

I mean obviously it was because it was a musical, and they both have lovely voices, and they needed two dudes with lovely voices to make up for hiring Grace Kelly just because she was hot. But still.

anyway now I'm sad because it's too late to break out the DVDs but my favorite two Philadelphia Story scenes are not on youtube :'( But: tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. Although tomorrow me is going to be mad that I posted about something that is as important to me as this is when I was more tired than coherent. But you know.

why do i have "whistle as you work" stuck in my head?

2012-08-11T04:15:50Z

Today I found a guy who has published 2 poetry anthologies, but apparently has spent most of this year on X-Files poems. He has a lot! This is my favorite:

"Everything Is Weird"

Wolf Boy is allergic to shaving cream and that’s sad because how will he shave off the wolf parts of him? An entire episode with fake thunder. Everyone and everything is in black and white because maybe they couldn’t fit color into the budget because maybe Mulder wanted more silk in his suit or maybe the fake thunder cost too much. Sometimes the fake thunder sounds like a wooden rollercoaster and sometimes it sounds like tin cans tied together with shoelaces but that doesn’t make sense because the fake thunder always sounds the same, so what the fuck? Facts: There is always a burrito in me, it’s easier to drink from a mug than a bottle when you’re already drunk, and cutting a woman in half will not get you two women. Between the fake thunder, the doctor says to his wife What do you want, a baby or a Nobel Prize? His wife cries on the comforter because a Nobel Prize doesn’t cry on a comforter or in a crib or in the sink that is being used as a bathtub. They’re burning corpses and it takes forever to get the dental records, so it’s just yellow body bags on top of yellow body bags. Something about a resistance and faceless men. This is a different episode. First degree burns and I’d still touch Scully on the small of her back. These moments are too obvious. Every episode I write ends with me doing the dishes while Dana sorts the laundry. After the credits I use pillow talk as a verb while Dana uses my chest as a pillow. She never lets me call her Scully in bed.

In one of his blog posts he says "i feel shitty, here’s another unpublished X-Files poem. if you are a journal or a press & you want to see more X-Files poems, let me know." Which is basically poet code for "I've written a shit ton of X-Files poems because I'm a little obsessed so it'd be great if ya'll would take some off my hands." I like them because there's a certain shared consciousness to them, you know? I feel close to them. Because I am. (There are a couple more, if you are intrigued.)

Today I also bought some shoes:

when I picked them off the sale shelf my best friend was like "wow Zanza you are so predictable I COULD HAVE PICKED THOSE OUT OF A LINEUP" but... I feel like if my predictable is sunset platform shoes, I am doing pretty well in life.

~icons~

2012-07-30T01:24:34Z

There are some things I like about the new scrapbook but it also totally ruined the very careful system I had for storing the small number of icons I've made myself? HOW IRRITATING. And I feel like I need to have them somewhere, so I briefly entertained the idea of a community somewhere but... I know myself. And I know I make like 15 icons a year. So I'm just going to dump them all in a post and if I ever make any more I will just. Update this post, I guess. Um I kind of doubt anyone will want these because when I make icons they tend to be for my fringe interests, sort of? Really just of things I had trouble finding icons of. And there are only so many people with paid accounts now, so less room for icons in general. But if you do want them all you have to do is credit me, I guess. I don't know! This feels awkward.

So here is a post of all the icons I've made, starting in 2005 and going until now. And icon styles were a lot different in 2005 (and apparently weirdly sharp?), so there are some super strange ones in here... but you know those people who are prone to deletions and journal changes and are constantly in search of a fresh start? I am the literal actual opposite of those people. I basically want the internet to exist as my own personal historical record.

people

amy adams

blake lively

ellie kemper & mindy kaling

emilia clarke

jennifer aniston

judy garland

hailee steinfeld

mischa barton

rachel bilson

tv

bones

gillian anderson

friday night lights

friends

glee

how i met your mother

the o.c.

the office

pan am

sex and the city

star trek: enterprise

star trek: voyager

the west wing

the x-files

movies

captain america

for me and my gal

harry potter

mean girls

oklahoma!

music(ians)

2ne1

chi chi

danity kane

f(x)

michelle branch

miss a

rainbow

shinee

so nyeo shi dae

super junior

wonder girls

stock

u love me

2012-07-23T22:46:01Z

I was going to preface this post with "Boa just put out a new love song, SO HERE, HAVE ALL THE PICTURES EVER OF MY KPOP OTP" but

it turns out it was a breakup song

misleadingly titled "Only One"

but I already dug all these up from the ethers of my gmail account so this post is going to have to go ahead just the same.

So in June all my dreams came true when these pictures came out, first of all because they are adorbs, but second of all because they came from a REAL LIVE TALK SHOW that they were doing together. These links (1 2 3, part three is a different subber though) are their part of it in its entirety, subtitled, and the whole thing so beautifully epitomizes everything I love about their ~*beautiful friendship*~ that part of me is like AAAAAAAAAAAND POST!! But I mean you've all met me, the unrambly part always loses. Anyway, please note:

- he introduces himself as her bff!
- their body language when he gets grumpy at the girls for not inviting them to their Christmas soiree at the wine bar is just SO two people who have been buddies for ages
- MY FAVORITE PART is the bit where he and Ara are sort of going back and forth trying to describe Boa/her relationship with men? And the hosts are like well, she's a cold career girl, no time for boys, and Ara's like yeah, I see that in her. And then Yunho is just like, no, she's interested, she just doesn't know how to express interest in men (and Boa interjects "yes!! That is what I do!", all delighted that he knows that) (btw Ara I love you but come on do you READ Boa's twitter? She's always like "maaaaaaan I want a boyfriend to snuggle me") (although I don't think she's like that AT ALL irl) (#psychoanalyzingkpopstars).
- his answer to "what kind of guy do you think she should go out with?" is "a guy who can accept everything about her, someone who has a big personality, someone who's more successful than her (??? that really narrows down her dating pool tbh)", all of which kind of basically describes him except idk if you'd actually say he's more successful than her?? But maybe. BUT THEN WHEN THE HOSTS ARE LIKE "WHAT ABOUT RAIN, HE'S A ~WORLD STAR~" he's like "noooooooooooo not him!"
- the part where he says, "well once I was having personal issues with people and I asked if she'd lend me an ear and she was like OF COURSE and came right away and really helped me work through my feelings" IS SO LOVELY and also going to be really integral to the rest of this post
- ummm this and this
- honestly this entire thing is basically just him complimenting her in every possible way

(After this came out people were like "WELL THAT SHIP JUST SUNK" because there's all this stuff about her/other guys and they specifically say they don't see each other ~that way~, and in her twitter socialcam they took while they were there he's like "HEY EVERYONE ASK BOA OUT", but all I can think when I hear that is HAVE YOU PEOPLE NEVER SEEN A ROMCOM because this is exactly how they work.)

In the beginning of that video they're talking about how they didn't like each other at first, and when they're asked what made them end up so close neither of them can come up with a specific time or a specific incident? I don't buy it. My theory is 2010 made them close. But first please enjoy my collection of Boa/Yunho STUFF from 2005-2009:

- A DBSK/Boa/CSJH perf in Aug 2005, queued to the part where they rap together, a fancam of the rehearsal which is maybe even cuter because of the way she jumps up (her way of saying STOP BEING SO TALL, YUNHO) and he crouches down, and some lq but adorable pictures of that rehearsal.
- Some hugging at a end of year festival (I think?) some year. 2005? 2006? Maybe? (I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT EARLY DBSK/BOA, obviously, always.)
- These two, of her trying to steal his award, are definitely from 2005. There's also this video?
- He thanked her in the notes of DBSK's third album and told her not to ge sick, because he is a mom.
- Once when he got injured and had to fly back to Korea (from Japan), she gave up her first-class seat for him :3
- Ehmm I'm guessing this is from 2007 or 2008?? But I have no idea what I'm talking about or how to carbon date based on DBSK hair so maybe don't listen to me. What I do know is that these pictures are super cute:

Anyway it's all cute, but nothing mindblowing, right? Basically what you'd expect from two busy stars working under the same company who probably don't ACTUALLY even see each other that often. Also I think she was closer to other people in his band at the time for sure.

SO FLASHFORWARD TO 2009, when 3/5 members of DBSK suddenly file a lawsuit against their management company, the band effectively splits up, and Yunho (and Changmin) are left lollygagging around the SM building for all of 2010, suddenly without much to do after yeeears of being super busy. He lost friends, but more significantly to this post, his career was basically pulled out from under him, with little to no warning.

AND THEN ON THE OTHER HAND YOU HAVE BOA, who was extremely successful in both Japan and Korea for awhile, but had seen declining album sales since 2005ish, because she had rose to popularity as a 13-15 year old and that's... what a lot of people wanted from her. Obsessed with this quote (from wikipedia, l o l):

Though her earlier releases were marked by a "cute" and "youthful" style, BoA began to present a more "mature" image starting from the album My Name. In a Talk Asia interview, Anjali Rao noted that some felt that My Name marked the beginning of BoA's decline in popularity and asked if the public would always see the singer as "Little Baby BoA"; BoA replied, "So while I apologize to those people who still want the baby BoA, in fact, what can I do? I just keep growing up! I can't stop that from happening."

It DID start in 2005, but it wasn't all bad then, you know?? There was a definite decline, but she was still selling hundreds of thousands of units. But in 2009 she released an American album that didn't do that well, and, worse than that, in early 2010 she had a big fat flop album in Japan. Apparently she looked really depressed in her last couple of performances there aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand

I mean obv this is total speculation and there is no real evidence to back it up, BUT IN MY HEAD, this 2009/early 2010 period is when they did bond. When they both basically had to face, at the ripe old age of 23/24, that they'd already passed the peak of their careers, and whatever came next, it would probably be less. They're both still trekking along with it and they're both doing pretty well, but they're not the stars they were. There are fanaccounts of them hanging out around this timeish too, with Changmin and Ara and other SM people. Idk. They're both the kind of people who take things like that super seriously and also to heart, and they are cleaaaarly super close now so... something happened, at some point. But maybe it had nothing to do with any of that. I don't really know their lives, I just really enjoy speculating wildly about them.

What I do know is that right before Boa made her Korean comeback in mid-2010, they were ~tight~:

I think that was an event that had something to do with SM partnering with Samsung (I guess?) to make a couple of dumb 3D musicals? But my memory might be bad. I'm kind of guessing based on the timing and this picture. It doesn't really, matter, I guess. What matters is they were there and they were qt there. (I also have a grainy gif of this picture, as well as one of Boa being so short she's barely visible, which is not that relevant except that I find the height difference between her and DBSK hysterical).

When she actually did come back, Yunho took off from practicing for his musical to head over to KBS to support her during her comeback. I think this (adorable!) twitter picture is from that but I'm not 100% positive (lol god do I know anything about where these pictures come from??):

These are all SM Town LA '10-adjacent:

on the plane together

this might actually be SM Town Seoul '10? Idk for sure but I know that it is a beautiful gift of a picture, and that's really what matters to me. (Here's another one of them, plus Boa giggling at Pseudochoi because it's qt even though it's not that relevant.)

Striking the same pose at the LA press conference! (Lol okay suddenly I feel like I sound like one of those really delusional tinhats??? I DON'T ACTUALLY THINK THEM CROSSING THEIR LEGS AND LOOKING BORED AT THE SAME TIME MEANS ANYTHING, don't worry.)

I swear they hung around together at the concert ending but all I can find are two pictures?? So maybe that happened in Seoul too. Actually I have this memory of them hanging out at SMT concerts IN GENERAL but I am doing a terrible job of digging that up. This is them in Anaheim?? I know they were next to each other at the end in NYC??? And I don't remember which SMTown this is from. I DON'T KNOW CATHERINE HELP ME AM I MAKING THIS ALL UP?

Idk, moving on. DBSK finally came back (with just Yunho and Changmin) at the beginning of 2011. Boa was very excited (this is before the song even came out, hee), and after it came out she and Yeonhee came to see them. (Boa tweeted a different version of that picture and said "Totally handsome TVXQ! Yeonhee who came to support! We are waiting...Yunho said this hehehe").

In April/May 2011 Boa was filming a dance movie in Canada and he flew over to make a cameo:

(She's tweeted a couple more pictures of her + them, this is from August 2011 and this is from April 2012.)

ANYWAY SOMETHING INTERESTING HAPPENED AT BOA'S BIRTHDAY FANMEET IN NOVEMBER '11 (this is copied from my email, I prob got it from omona originally):

During the second part of the event, a video comment featuring congratulatory messages and birthday wishes was shown. DBSK's in particular was the most memorable, as BoA kept replying back to the screen as if they were really there:

Yunho: "I really wanted to celebrate the day together, but unfortunately we had to send the VTR."
BoA: "Then you should really come!"
Yunho: "Lets go to dinner and bowling, too!" (Changmin was next to him making a cute gesture of drinking sake)
BoA: "Oh Yunho, you and your love for bowling. I frequently receive emails from Yunho to go bowling together, but his schedule is tight and he has to go to different countries and such. I've never gone bowling with him. For dinner, we've only eaten together on business (laughs).
MC Takeuchi: "Yunho has an unusual character. Ah, he is a good-natured person."
BoA: "When we meet, he always greets me 'BOOOAAAAA!'; he is very friendly. During the SMTOWN concert in New York, Yunho came to my dressing room, sat down, and we had a chat for 30 minutes."
Changmin: "25 years old. 25 years old is the starting line for ladies (laughs)."
Yunho: "YES."
BoA: "These two are like comedians, they're so close to each other!"

Obvs this is an adorable example of Boa's TOTALLY BIZARRE but completely endearing personality but my favorite thing about this is that I'm pretty sure she is lying.

(I tried to explain this in paragraph form but it sounded dumb so whatever, I already have my email chain with Catherine open, I'm just going to copypasta like the lazy bum that I am.)

elapses: DIDN'T WE FIND PICTURES OF THEM BOWLING

goldenmelisande: NO IDTS? someone went bowling, i don't think it was them tho

why am i such a weird creepy tinhat about them omg

elapses: YunRa had 2 outings together recently:

June 18th: Went bowling with BoA and Changmin

June 20th: Went bowling with Minho and Changmin

I KNEW IT WAS ARA AND POINTY CHIN ADJACENT

but

what

elapses: Well, I did see pictures that BoA was with Changmin at the bowling alley just recently with Yunho too, but I didn't realize Ara was there with them. LOL!

SO BASICALLY THERE WERE PICTURES, I JUST CAN'T FIND THEM

catherine my inner self-tinhat alarm is going off

goldenmelisande: ohhhhh HMM

ARE YOU LYING MIDGET OPPAR?! maybe she means just the two of them...

elapses: OR MAYBE SHE'S TRYING TO COVER SOMETHING UP

(who let me be a person)

goldenmelisande: do you mean your alarm is going off at yourself or at the bowling thing

elapses: at me

sorry

too... something to talk properly

goldenmelisande: CRYING WHY ARE WE PEOPLE

ALSO WHY AREN'T THEY MARRIED

Um for the record I've dug up enough creepy stalker links to be pretty sure that they did all go bowling??? Which makes it weird that she was straight up like "I'VE NEVER BEEN BOWLING WITH YUNHO" because she has. But the really weird thing about that is I kind of really don't think they're actually dating or whatever so idk why she would... say that. Mysteric!

I guess this is the part where I am lazy and just link to the last couple of things as tumblr gifsets? Like this! Insignificant but qt. And last year when Yunho and Changmin went on Running Man there was this incredibly hilarious segment where he drew a "rhinoceros" and this year when BOA went on Running Man she gravitated towards his masterpiece. And pretty recently Yunho said in an interview that she was one of the SMTowners he was closest to...

BUT YES BASICALLY ONE OF MY GREATEST DREAMS IN LIFE IS THAT ONE DAY ONE OF THEM WILL WAKE UP AND THINK "I'M IN LOVE WITH MY BEST FRIEND", romcom-style, and then fret about it for awhile and then blurt it out and THEN they will get married and have beautiful babies of completely average height that they'll bring to the SM building so that everyone under SM can take pictures with them (except Tiffany, because Tiffany hates babies), like those babies of the people who work at YG.

But jsyk the madness continues!! This is from like three days ago and o m g I'm pretty sure you didn't have to bend over her like that just to giggle when she made fun of you, Yunho. Plus last night while I was sleeping aliice tweeted me that they did a ~couple dance~ together that's going to air on the 28th (THERE'S A BLURRY PICTURE) and I kind of feel like I was cosmically rewarded for writing (most of) this post yesterday.

ETA 7/28/12: SO THEY DID THEIR COUPLE DANCE, and it was magical and also this is now a screencap that exists.

(;_;)

So now I am sitting here trying to talk myself down from the crazy RPF ledge all "this isn't that bad though! LOTS OF PEOPLE ACTIVELY WISH CELEBRITIES WOULD DATE/GET MARRIED/REPRODUCE, the world wants beautiful babies! At least you don't feel this way about other RPF ships!" LIKE REMEMBER MY DAVID/GILLIAN PHASE?? I did not ever want them to get married, I just wanted to giggle and read fic about how bizarre they are together, but then I remembered BJ/Mindy and how I not only want them to get married but also kind of DO actively believe they are dating (THEY ARE OKAY) and I guess I just... have to accept that my lot in life is being one of those people :'(

I'm hoping posting this list of posts I want to make will actually make me post stuff
- something about my childhood best friend, who is visiting me right now, and how great/hilarious/aggravating she is
- stuff about forthesky & I's X-Files rewatch
- I suppose something about Haven if I ever finish it (I MEAN I'M GOING TO FINISH IT I'm just such a slowpoke)
- idk I swear there was something else...

JAMZ

2012-07-07T03:22:10Z

can we talk about how much I love this because I LOVE IT SO MUCH

(Lame sailor outfits have always been my kryptonite. DAMMIT.)

(NOT THAT THE NON-SAILOR PARTS OF THE SISTAR SONG ARE NOT JUST AS GREAT, BECAUSE THEY ARE JUST AS GREAT.)

IMPORTANT QUESTIONS

2012-05-27T03:53:58Z

Has anyone else been having notif issues lately??

sentimental fool

2012-05-12T23:45:15Z

I remember this time where whenever I had Things To Say about tv, or pop culture, or even sometimes my life, my first impulse was posting it in this journal. Not so much anymore, huh!! Now I just email people. Which is great in its way, but even though I have the absolute GREATEST handful of people to email about my things, I miss out on talking to the rest of you. MAYBE ON MONDAY I WILL TELL YOU GUYS, and not just Claire, my Hart of Dixie finale feelings!!! But then again maybe not. I don't know.

View Poll: pop psychology

dear livejournal i sprained my ankle a fourth time, ugh

2012-05-02T22:29:36Z

My number one rule of livejournal is not to post chatlogs longer than three lines. No one cares about that really funny thing you and your friend came up with, Alexandra, not when it is presented in that format!! IT IS THE WORST FORMAT FOR READING, AND SO: RE-EDIT, ALWAYS. But today I am breaking my own rule because it is my buddy Catherine's birthday, and I wish to show you Catherine, in her natural form, so you can all see why I love her:

goldenmelisande: every single time i check my facebook
without fail
the only thing that interests me is the star trek page's updates..........
EVERY
SINGLE
TIME
elapses: WHAT DO THEY SAY?
goldenmelisande: WELL SOMETIMES THERE'S FUN POLLS
LIKE "WHO'S THE BEST CAPTAIN"
OR LIKE, FUN QUESTIONS
OR THEY'LL HAVE THINGS LIKE "50% OFF _____ AT STARTREK.COM!"
AND RN THEY JUST INFORMED ME ABOUT A NEW DS9 BOOK
AND THEY ANNOUNCE LIKE
BIRTHDAYS OF STAR TREK RELATED PEOPLE
IDK IT'S JUST GREAT :(

Dear heart, thank you for being my partner in crime for all this time. HAPPY 21ST!!!!