🧥 A clothing item, fashion trend or "aesthetic" you would rather die than put on your body.
🤢 Tell us a few of your "icks".
🗺️ What is the ugliest (or overall least pleasant) place you've been to?
hurrah!
Re: fashion trends, obviously fast fashion. Clothing items I loathe abound, though at the moment, probably those narrow y2k sunglasses and bike shorts. Like there's nothing wrong with bike shorts if you actually ride a bike but you know that 7/10 times their wearer is not a cyclist. I think I hate it most because the style has penetrated the pre-teen demographic, and call me a prudish aunt, but I do NOT think that a 12 year old needs to be showing the entire curve of her backside. And in terms of "aesthetics," I really don't like the prevalence of the "coquette" style, mostly because it promotes an unhealthy eating disorder + drug use body image :(
This will turn into book trend analysis, but 100% my biggest ick is the daddy dom mafia ceo prototype that has escaped fanfic aus and has become this weird poster man for the rise of anti-feminism of these days?? Don't tell me women can just enjoy things; I don't want you to enjoy things if it means your own social degradation. Though my haterism comes in mostly because that prototype shares the same nominal space as the Gothic Byronic Hero, EXCEPT a Gothic hero either has to be a bit of a darling loser about you (Rochester) or you have to be dead (Heathcliff). Dark romance is not the same as gothic romance is not the same as dark romantasy! Please!
And as for the ugliest place. The Denver International Airport.
Just curious, how mainstream do you think the Anne books and Emily books are these days?
This is a good question--I think on the whole, Anne will always kind of flirt with the mainstream. Anne with an E probably returned her to a more public consciousness, but I do think what's interesting about the Anne books is they manage to exist almost independently of their adaptations. Other classics they're often paired with, like Pride and Prejudice or Little Women tend to drag their movies around behind them in damaging ways (the amount of times I see quotations assigned to "Little Women by Louisa May Alcott" when they've CLEARLY been invented for the movies drives me up the wall.
But I think Anne gets to survive on her own terms. Yes, she's still misrepresented by the cottagecore and light academia girlies, but I think on the whole she manages to remain kind of publicly known while retaining her literary flavor.
I don't think Emily ever is or will be considered mainstream, which I'm very happy about. That said, in about 20 years I'd love to "rescue" her from obscurity by writing a three-season miniseries adaptation starring ONLY unknowns (except for Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Ruth, who will be famous actresses of the Judi Dench caliber, and maybe Dean Priest if I could ever think of an actor who I think is capable of playing him) that will be the defining vision of the books for the modern generation.
Do you have any starter Kpop recs for someone whose only real Kpop exposure is Kpop Demon Hunters and APT. by Rosé?
(I did occasionally watch Pop Asia on SBS, but that was 10-15 years ago, so I'm not counting that because I can't remember any of the bands.)
I admit I was sitting on this ask for awhile because I wanted it to feel somewhat complete. Which means it's turned into a list of my favorites hehe.
I will warn you though that some of my tastes are OLD. I can’t claim the hag distinction because I only got into KPop 5 years ago (whereas the real ones have been around ~15 years), but if you want stuff that'll feel contemporary, I've split up my recs into Old and New. The Old Stuff is what I find essential education, but the New is fun and familiar (and you might have heard some samples of the songs on social media).
(Note: For all of the song recs, I do advise watching the MVs! Kpop is as much a visual genre as an audial one, imo, and enhances the experience).
Here we go!
I have some must-listen artists, who are either super famous or very formative to the genre. I'd start here:
Classic Boy Groups:
BTS. It's kind of impossible to ignore BTS, though my admiration for them has decidedly waned over the years. My top choice for them is Spring Day. If you like hip-hop, I love Mic Drop, and for something kind of upbeat/poppy, Save Me. The other super aesthetic one is Blood Sweat and Tears, if you want something luxurious and slutty.
Shinee. They're one "generation" back from BTS, but I think they're the original "ones who paved the way" and are typified by a sense of artiness. My favorite of theirs is 100% View, but Sherlock is the classic, and they had a really fun post-military service comeback Don't Call Me.
EXO. I personally think they have the best vocalists in the business. They had their heyday right before BTS, and I honestly love soooo many of their songs. Overdose and Monster are my favorite for sheer energy; Call Me Baby has the prettiest bridge of any kpop song; Love Shot and Ko Ko Bop are vibey. If you want something on the quieter side, the entirety of their Universe mini-album is glorious.
NCT 127. Now, the fine print of NCT would demand an essay in itself, but let's stay here for the moment. Focused on noise music, they produced a lot of earworms. Simon Says and Limitless are my top choices; if you like what they're doing, try Superhuman, Favorite, and Regular. (Note: these are the most normal stuff they've done. If you want the Meme Song, that's Sticker.)
Classic Girl Groups
Red Velvet. They're the Weird Girls™️ of Kpop. Psycho is my favorite girl group song of all time (I am obsessed by the Southern Gothic styling of the MV. Must-see). In My Dreams is a more recent sweet song; Bad Boy is a classic.
TWICE. If RV are the odd girls, TWICE are the girls-next-door. I think they actually had a song in KPop Demon Hunters, so you might recognize their sound! Fancy and I Can't Stop Me are my favorites; they're both extremely fun for listening to in the car.
BlackPink. So I'm not much of a Blink, but if you're a fan of Rosé, she really contributes a LOT to her group. Kill This Love and How You Like That are solid, and watching Lisa (their main dancer) is always a joy.
Iconic Soloists (Note: A LOT of soloists got their start in groups!)
Taemin. This guy might be my favorite idol of all time. The youngest member of Shinee (see above), he managed to create a FANTASTIC solo career that has launched tons of new talent from sheer inspiration. I don't think you can go wrong with any of his music, but Move, Want, and Criminal are great places to start. Press Your Number was famously written by Bruno Mars, and I love the campy goth aesthetic of his debut, Danger. For something softer, try his Japanese releases, Under My Skin and Goodbye. Basically, I can't shut up about how great I think this guy is.
IU. The people's princess of Korea, she perfected the soft and plaintive sound. I really like her melancholy stuff, like Love Wins All and Ending Scene, but for something a little more chipper, try Lilac.
Hwasa. Hwasa is also a member of MAMAMOO, who are very much for the girls (I love their song Hip), but her solo stuff is wonderfully intimate and introspective. Her recent hit Good Goodbye is fun, but I really liked Maria and LMM from a few years ago.
Now, you might be getting information fatigue, but I'm not done! Here's a brief list of newer talent. A lot of the newer stuff is focused on rap and a harsher sound than melodies, but the look and style is always evolving, and I do like some of it.
Boy Groups:
Stray Kids: Back Door
Ateez: Deja Vu
TXT: Loser/Lover and ox1=Lovesong
Enhypen: Bad Desire, Drunk-Dazed, Fever, Given-Taken
Girl Groups:
NewJeans: Ditto and HypeBoy
Itzy: Mafia
Le Sserafim: Fearless
IVE: After Like
Okay, I'm going to stop myself here. However! If you particularly enjoyed any of these artists and want more unnecessarily encyclopedic info or recommendations, please come back into my inbox! I didn't spend 5 years completely obsessed with kpop not to share the fruits of my learning lol!!
I never read romance as a genre intentionally, so I had to go to my StoryGraph to see what books I've read that it thinks is romance! Not very foolproof, as it listed Daddy-Long-Legs (SIDEEYE), but it did give me The Ministry of Time and The Last Binding trilogy, which I would cheerfully recommend! Both take place against a speculative backdrop (the Last Binding is an alternate history with maigc, Ministry is futuristic real world setting with time travel), but the romances are a pretty solid part of all the plots. Good character work in Ministry especially. CW that the Last Binding has a decent amount of smut. Note also that I think the first book of the trilogy is most superior, so if you're meh on that one, I don't want to say that the series gets better. I hope they might pique your interest!
Pickles and mushrooms are the only two I actively avoid, though if you are a restaurant trying to sell me Asian food with basic ingredients at exorbitant prices, I will immediately blacklist you.
👸 Is there a historical figure you have personal beef with?
All of the Church Fathers, particularly Tertullian, I want to shoot on sight (it's the misogyny. Yeah I know you all had issues with women, why did you have to fuck us up for two thousand years).
Since you’ve been enjoying McKillip lately (and I think you’ve read Marillier?), I’m going to plunk you with another beloved Robin McKinley that feels most akin to those authors: Chalice. A very different vibe from Hero and the Crown (which iirc you read and liked), but a gorgeous and sweet read. It’s cozy fantasy for people who hate the term cozy fantasy and all it implies in these modern times.
proud to be of service 💀 (but i completely concur george is genuinely one of the most handsome men ive ever seen)
this boy was built to stalk the runways for burberry and ralph lauren or alternatively to act in a succession of jane austen adaptations, but it’s so much sexier that he’s dedicated his life to driving a very small car very fast
i'm reading that shadow card book you mentioned and when I got to this part, I howled:
The dramatic spacing kills me, especially as it keeps happening for really innocuous sentences as well 😂 (also to defend my honor, kindle underlined that!! Not me!!)
ALL of my thoughts and prayers are with you to lend you strength to finish this novel--you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din--when I could not. Truly, the writing of this gave me pain, and I should have jumped ship when I got to chapter 2 and saw this passage:
"Casting grotesque shadows" and getting "cast" into a carriage is bad enough, but the effect of the description just made me think of the father doing this:
Which was NOT the intended purpose I'm sure. The Nightmare should be doing this! Not the girl's weak-chinned dad!
Anyway. The premise would be fantastic and creepy if it were actually executed as a horror instead of a kind of half-baked adventure romantasy (?) (though I warn you the romance is awful--you saw my meme about the growling love interest), but alas. Half-baked it is. I figured out the "twist" as soon as it was hinted at.
Please keep coming in my inbox with complaints though, you know me and my love for talking shit about booktok sensations!
