Gearturner Quotes

"In the middle of a "forcing party" where friends and I are forcing one another to do the things that we've been avoiding.

So far: [bullet list] A passport has been filed for; An inbox has been zero'd; A personal website has been created; & more.

我们的天空 by 西瓜

This album is CRIMINALLY short with only three tracks, the last of which is my favourite. Really good screamo vocals in this one, and some electronic elements that compliment the instruments super well.

军臣 by 军臣

Better described as sludge metal, there’s a great combination of both scream and normal vocals, with some absolutely banging drumming and electric guitars. Like the last one, this is also a mini album, but luckily not as short.

Hypocrisy (Original title: 眼镜蛇 or Yanjingshe) by Cobra

Okay I lied, not all of these are hardcore metal. This is a rock band from the 1990s that combines certain traditional Chinese elements to a more 80s sounding soft rock/city pop, but I’ve been a fan of this album for years so I’ll never pass up an opportunity to recommend it. Cobra was also a pioneering girl band in the Chinese rock scene (I’m pretty sure they’re considered the first) so like… go listen to them!

Thanks by The Ugly Biography

"too many authors in the current market are focusing on selling 'spice' instead of telling interesting stories"

"oh yeah, i agree. i started reading one that i heard a lot about and it just wasn't-"

"and it's all of these women reading their fucking mommy porn out in public like FREAKS"

I have written on here many times how much I LOVE that Pride and Prejudice is an adaptation of Much Ado in a kind of stretchy, fanfic-AU sort of way. Austen definitely used the same characters and their dynamics with one another, but she actively adapted the story by giving them all interesting, English Regency versions of their Renaissance Tuscany/London challenges.

My favorite thing is that you see similarities in a) the scandal of an affair with the heroine’s unwed family member, and b) the willingness of the heroine’s “bitter rival” (Benedick/Darcy) to go far beyond what’s expected of him to save her family’s reputation, even when it might hurt his own

In her adaptation, Austen proposes that even if Beatrice/Elizabeth’s family member DID have an extramarital affair, Benedick/Darcy would still be morally obliged to help the family. This differs from Shakespeare, where Benedick believes that Hero is innocent. Sex scandals are therefore key elements in both plots, but Austen really pushes the original narrative to explore what the characters would do if the family member wasn’t innocent and the sex scandal was real. Would Benedick still have the same sense of duty to remedy the situation at great inconvenience/loss to himself? Would that duty be based in his love for Beatrice, or in his sense of ethics? Would Beatrice and Benedick have even fallen in love without their family’s interference?

So like, not only is P&P a wonderful (and very funny) adaptation of Much Ado, it’s also a refreshing, explicit exploration of the themes and issues Shakespeare clearly wanted to introduce to his 16th century audience. P&P doesn’t get to the violent, verbal extremes of “eat his heart in a marketplace” and “kill Claudio,” but it does push the character of Benedick to much more agency and responsibility as a privileged person in relation to Beatrice’s own (lack of) power. And to me, that makes it an exceptionally challenging and effective Regency adaptation of Much Ado.