media round-up + thoughts (end of summer 2021)

[permutative]

(gif source)

i want this post to cover august and the first week of september before i have to go to college, hence the new title :')) i honestly don't know how much media i'll be consuming during the school year... like for the first three years of high school i think i watched maybe 2 tv series and barely any movies or books. but i sure did a lot this month!

movies

ummm yes i watched a lot of movies this month. like seriously idk what came over me T___T part of it was just not finding a lot of compelling tv shows to watch and part of it was having everyone rec me good movies im not gonna lie :D i'm basically going to copy the format of kaia's 22 movies post except without the beautiful formatting <3 sorry this is so unbearably long ummmm

every movie i watched this month, ranked:

1. 🇭🇰🇫🇷 in the mood for love (2000) ★★★★★
2. 🇺🇸 pariah (2011) ★★★★★
3. 🇹🇼 a brighter summer day (1991) ★★★★★
4. 🇺🇸 minari (2020) ★★★★.5
5. 🇹🇭 bad genius (2017) ★★★★.5
6. 🇺🇸 eighth grade (2018) ★★★★.5
7. 🇺🇸 columbus (2017) ★★★★.5
8. 🇯🇵 princess mononoke (1997) ★★★★.5
9. 🇺🇸 good will hunting (1997) ★★★★.5
10. 🇺🇸 the farewell (2019) ★★★★.5
11. 🇬🇧 maurice (1987) ★★★★.5
12. 🇺🇸 knives out (2019) ★★★★.5
13. 🇹🇼 your name engraved herein (2020) ★★★★
14. 🇺🇸 steve jobs (2015) ★★★★
15. 🇯🇵 words bubble up like soda pop (2020) ★★★★
16. 🇯🇵 his (2020) ★★★★
17. 🇯🇵 perfect blue (1997) ★★★★
18. 🇺🇸 luca (2021) ★★★★
19. 🇹🇼 dear ex (2018) ★★★★
20. 🇺🇸 hustlers (2019) ★★★★
21. 🇰🇷 moonlit winter (2019) ★★★★
22. 🇯🇵 night is short, walk on girl (2017) ★★★.5
23. 🇺🇸🇬🇧(🇸🇬) shirkers (2018) ★★★.5
24. 🇫🇷 portrait of a lady on fire (2019) ★★★.5
25. 🇺🇸 moneyball (2011) ★★★.5
26. 🇺🇸 shang-chi and the legend of the ten-rings (2021) ★★★.5
27. 🇺🇸 the green knight (2021) ★★★
28. 🇺🇸 free guy (2021) ★★★
29. 🇮🇳 shubh mangal zyada saadvhan (2020) ★★★
30. 🇯🇵 dou kyu sei - classmates (2016) ★★.5
31. 🇯🇵 5 centimeters per second (2007) ★★.5

some random stats: my most-watched countries are usa (14), japan (7), and taiwan (3). the percentage of lgbt movies i watched was 29.0% (9 out of 31) and the percentage of movies with asian or asian american protags/actors i watched was 67.7% (21 out of 31). i think in the future i want to get to more of the african american-focused movies on my watchlist + try to watch more movies from varied countries!! also i definitely need to watch more indian stuff, there's this bollywood lesbian movie that seems similarly mediocre but i would appreciate Indian Film recs...  

1-5

in the mood for love (2000) ★★★★★

idt i'm going to add anything new with my thoughts but this was really so good and i see why it's so highly rated/critically acclaimed? it worked for me as both a movie and a film even with how slow it was at times, which definitely isn't the case all the time. IDK I JUST FELT LIKE THIS MOVIE WAS SO ROMANTIC... it's all about the quiet subdued process of falling in love and how those feelings still have such a large impact even if they're barely spoken about in the first place. T__T

pariah (2011) ★★★★★

letterboxd review: i think this is my favorite coming of age movie... T___T

i feel like some annoying letterboxd user could be like "lady bird left dying in a ditch" and then get 400 likes or something HJKHDJ... okay but in all seriousness this was so heartfelt and enjoyable to watch. it's a pretty simple coming of age story but it just resonated with me so much... the way alike juggles different identities and friendships and is trying to find her way in the world and how she wants to be Seen for who she is and even her POETRY is like actually pretty good. i loved the ending and the family dynamics were so human even if they were frustrating. ngl i guess my only "complaint" would be the fact that the actors were apparently in their THIRTIES while filming this?!?! i didn't even know this until kaia watched the movie and told me though so like idk

a brighter summer day (1991) ★★★★★

letterboxd review: JKHJHAJKDHJGKHKAGHJKA WHAT THE FUCKKK!!!! tbh this was a little hard to get into at first and i was very scared of the runtime... i'm not someone who just sits down and watches four hour movies regularly LOL. and i think as a Work of Art and Piece of Cinema or whatever this is like... yes it's super good. it's funny to call the storytelling economical or w/e when it's literally four hours but there isn't anything wasted in this movie. and at first i was like why the helll is this four hours long... but it really is necessary to show the progression of si'r's character over time. IDK!!!!! i also thought chang chen's acting was good and i found si'r to be endlessly compelling even though he doesn't actually speak that much compared to all the people around him T___T like this movie could have been way more boring but it wasn't. and also i knew what was going to happen but i was still like damn............. Damn....

a little bit of context but this film is a ??? coming of age story ??? set in 60s taiwan, centered around a 15 yr old boy (si'r) and his first love. it starts off as just a schoolboy gang movie but then Escalates... a lot. i initially gave this film 4.5 stars because a) i can't believe i sat through four hours of this shit b) there were some parts that felt a little confusing to me but now that it's been a couple of weeks i'm honestly looking at the other films on this list like huh... why Didn't i give this 5 stars!! i would recommend watching this movie without reading the summary or wikipedia article and ummm tbh i would avoid reading movie reviews too — i feel like some letterboxd users are wayyy too effusive about this movie and that leads to unrealistic expectations? like no idt this movie is like "staring in the face of god itself" But i do think it's worth watching. i lowkey wished i had been able to experience it in one sitting but i think it would have wrecked me that way though.

minari (2020) ★★★★.5

this is such a random tangent but does anyone else remember reading kira-kira by cynthia kadohata in middle school? at first when i was watching minari i got similar vibes and i was really afraid that i wouldn't like the movie LOL... not that kira-kira is a bad book or anything but it sure does make you feel miserable! so glad i didn't feel that way at the end of minari. anyways this movie made me miss my grandmother sooo bad and the family dynamics were really well done :')) justice for anne though she deserved a personality

bad genius (2017) ★★★★.5

letterboxd review: i've never felt more stressed out in my life

emily's rec! jsdkhjgk it is so hard for me to be objective about this movie simply because i'm such a fan of BAD GENIUS: THE SERIES (2020)!!!! but i did enjoy this quite a lot — the ambiguous relationships were fun and the cheating_schemes_turned_into_heists were even more enjoyable

6-10

eighth grade (2018) ★★★★.5

letterboxd review: duuude this shit was so harrowing to watch like the second hand embarrassment and humiliation is REAL. my friend (who is a dude) who i watched this with was like "this is so overexaggerated that i don't feel embarrassed" but ummm clearly he wasn't enough of a LOSER during middle school. also i feel like being a girl in eighth grade is just... terrible T___T idk not gonna lie the dad going off abt how much he loves his daughter/supporting kayla in general was very like... White Parenting to me...? but also where else is she supposed to find support when she's kind of friendless. and also it's pretty sweet, idk, this movie really hit probably because i'm in one of those same transition periods rn from hs to college ($#&@(%( sorry for oversharing on letterboxd dot com

ngl the review says it all — i think i saw this because tori mentioned it (?) lol

columbus (2017) ★★★★.5

i'm johnchofan and after i saw kaia's review of this i was like oh shit let me see what's going on! it's a really quiet and mundane film but i love how careful every shot felt and all of the dialogue was so significant... i'm not surprised at all by the fact that kogonada has analyzed / made video essays about other filmmakers in the past because there's so much thought and care put into this movie. also haley lu richardson is so refreshing here!? i want to see more of her stuff now

princess mononoke (1997) ★★★★.5

letterboxd review: san and ashitaka queered heterosexuality

right when i was about to give up on studio ghibli films i watched PRINCESS MONONOKE!!! and i loved it T__T btw this is so random but it's so funny to me that every ghibli boy protag looks exactly the same.. like u just see ashitaka and u Know he's protag <3 perfect boy <3 everything about this film was so beautiful from the animation to the music to the subtle romance

good will hunting (1997) ★★★★.5

letterboxd review: wasn't 100% sold on the romance portion but i also cried twice while watching this AND there's math in it AND it's set in cambridge/boston...

this is definitely like... a movie from the 90s LOL and there are some old-fashioned aspects of it (umm some of the jokes fall on the unsavory side imo) + the combination of harvey weinstein matt damon and ben affleck all being a huge part of this film being made is like :D??? BUT. all that being said, it's a great movie, a little bit cheesy/predictable but i think that's part of what makes it so strong and heartwarming anyways. also it's a movie about a guy who does math like ofc i'm going to like this... the romance was truly so underwhelming to me though and i don't get why they had to make her british. like what

the farewell (2019) ★★★★.5

letterboxd review: ahhh i loved the dialogue and it was a perfect mix of like.. humor and grief ig? also the extended family stuff just felt so deeply relatable T__T THE MUSIC CHOICES WERE PRETTY QUESTIONABLE THOUGH IMO like whenever the choir hit i would be like :D??? seriously??? i kind of wish they had chinese osts or something lol

yeahh i loved this movie. WHO DOESN'T LIKE EXTENDED FAMILY DYNAMICS... also this movie made me miss my grandmother [2]. aside from the music complaint i lowkey wish awkwafina had the chance to show more range in her character... it was interesting seeing her be super serious for basically the whole movie/it's a welcome contrast from her more comedic roles but it would've been cool to see her do both??? somehow???

11-15

maurice (1987) ★★★★.5

letterboxd review: damn i really liked this but i kind of wanted more RUPERT GRAVES screentime... </3

it is kind of unbelievable to me that a movie like this came out in 1987 AND it has hugh grant before his romcom phase AND most importantly rupert graves <333 i was super worried i wouldn't enjoy it because of how much kaia and emily hyped it up but like. it's good!! and ngl the way that the movie doesn't shy away from showing like... idk... two men touching each other. is actually so important!!! [person who watches a lot of asian BLs that end in very chaste hugs]

knives out (2019) ★★★★.5

letterboxd review: so fun and the ending was really satisfying ^_^

i didn't expect to like this so much! it's one of those movies where everything is plotted really tightly and when things come together in the end it's like Ah... I See... and it was so satisfying. sometimes neat endings Are better actually!

your name engraved herein (2020) ★★★★

letterboxd review: so incredibly messy and personal and even though there are some questionable plot/pacing elements that were like :D??? SOMETIMES IF IT HITS THEN IT HITSSSS T___T

set in late 80s taiwan. this movie was like... well i experienced so much while watching it but at the same time there are some scenes that still don't make 100% sense to me looking back and the development of the relationship felt a little inconsistent at times. emily told me after i watched it that apparently the movie is BASED ON THE DIRECTOR'S LIFE which i think explains a lot of things 😭 ultimately i really enjoyed this movie and the emotion/effort that the director put into this film really shines through n__n genuinely felt unhinged about this one i'm not gonna lie

steve jobs (2015) ★★★★

letterboxd review: THE DIALOGUE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! sorry for being aaronsorkinfan

this was soo good (person who is just aaronsorkinfan) but at the same time i'm like... isn't this just the social network but without the gay subtext? no? also as much as i liked the three launches setup + the focus that it provides for the movie i also wished that there was more variance in settings overall T__T u win some u lose some

words bubble up like soda pop (2020) ★★★★

letterboxd review: cherrysmile invented young love i think

CHERRYSMILE INVENTED YOUNG LOVE!!! no but this was so adorable and wholesome and probably one of my favorite anime romance movies (why have i watched so many mediocre anime romance movies!) T__T the color scheme is so bright and saturated and the landscapes are really pretty + i thought the incorporation of social media elements was actually pretty savvy :') anyone else love influencer gf x guy whose only likes come from his mom bf?

16-20

his (2020) ★★★★

letterboxd review: basically comfort food but in movie form

THIS WAS JUST SO SWEET AND QUIET AND COMFORTING T__T the domesticity of it all, the cooking/sharing food scenes, the small village setting... i really enjoyed this <3 and i think that the director does a good job of incorporating interesting female characters which cannot be said for the majority of asian BLs that i've seen LOL

perfect blue (1997) ★★★★

letterboxd review: see here (spoilers)

this was crazy and the animation was soo beautiful... ultimately i'm not the type of person who enjoys psychological thrillers / i do think it gets a tad confusing at parts but the commentary on being an idol/celebrity in the public eye is still relevant 20+ years later.

luca (2021) ★★★★

i think this was literally the first thing that i watched this month when i renewed my disney plus subscription KJHJKDHF... i remember really enjoying it and i didn't see any of the Gay Subtext necessarily but i did think it was more heartwarming than a normal pixar movie

dear ex (2018) ★★★★

this was a refreshing setup for an lgbt film because it involves the dynamics between a closeted gay man's wife, his teenage son, and his "male lover" (that's what they call it in the movie lol). i thought that the editing style with the scribbles/doodles was a fun way to show the perspective of a young teen and the coloring was gorgeous T__T

hustlers (2019) ★★★★

letterboxd review: realistically closer to 3.5 but idk... sometimes when something does the thing it's supposed to do and does it well it just HITS! lowkey wish cardi b and lizzo had more screentime tho

does anyone else love it when men aren't important characters!? yup me too <3

21-25

moonlit winter (2019) ★★★★

letterboxd review: im sorry this was just kind of slow... but also what does it say about me that saebom + her bf were my favorite part of this movie T__T

okayyy wait this makes it seem like i didn't enjoy moonlit winter when in fact i did! i think kaia said it best: "the way it was just ok but also rly good but also just decent but also weirdly touching" LOL. like some moments genuinely made me tear up and the whole motif of the snow piling up day after day even when you shovel it away... T__T i felt so much!! but also this is just decent and i wish they had more overt romance with the lesbian couple ngl?? am i just being nitpicky

night is short, walk on girl (2017) ★★★.5

letterboxd review: gives me the same fever dream vibes as spirited away but so much better and also actually?? funny?? <3

initially had it at four stars but ngl three weeks later it doesn't have as much staying power... still better than spirited away tho

shirkers (2018) ★★★.5

letterboxd review: sometimes u aren't a documentary person and that is ok

i think i had really high expectations for this film or something TT___TT i think that if it hadn't been recommended so highly by emily and kaia then i probably would've just stopped watching after like 30 minutes LOL like i just don't find documentaries that interesting... the og footage of shirkers looks BEAUTIFUL though

portrait of a lady on fire (2019) ★★★.5

letterboxd review: didn't rlly resonate with me and i was sort of falling asleep

okay. to be fair i think i wasn't in the proper setting/mindset to fully take in the movie because a) i was watching it via zoom screenshare and the subtitles were a little laggy and b) i had already driven for like two hours that day i think?? so maybe i'm being unfairly harsh on this movie but yeah it's very slow and meditative and didn't really catch my attention / felt quite stilted and awkward at parts. kaia explained the Deeper Meaning of some stuff to me later though and i kind of want to give this another shot at some point 😭 i hate pretentious white people movies though so maybe this isn't for me???

moneyball (2011) ★★★.5

letterboxd review: sorry for being aaronsorkin fan for no reason... also baseball is one of the more tolerable sports out there and i just really enjoyed the sports_anime_trajectory of it all

the dialogue isn't As crazyamazing as some of sorkin's other movies but brad pitt definitely has his moments — especially the telephone scene where he's calling like four people at the same time, it's just so fun :D

 

26-31

 shang-chi and the legend of the ten-rings (2021) ★★★.5

letterboxd review: see here

I LITERALLY CANNOT BELIEVE TONY LEUNG IS 59!!!!!! shaking and crying and sobbing etc. but also he doesn't look like he's aged more than a couple of years since in the mood for love like he's honestly a king for that... i loved the ensemble cast and honestly the only weak spot was shang-chi's sister for me 😭 also sorry for being an incorrigible katy/shaun shipper like i already saw some katy/xu xialing fic in the tag but T__T um okay i'll shut up now

the green knight (2021) ★★★

letterboxd review: this was two hours and twenty minutes long for literally No Reason...

i feel like this was a movie in which nothing happened 😭 and it was so long and drawn out but a) i did enjoy the cinematography b) something about dev patel's indian mom being sisters to pasty white king arthur was honestly kind of iconic. also the music kind of irritated me it was so screechy and unsettling?

free guy (2021) ★★★

letterboxd review: it was fine????? also totally worth watching just for that scene that's filmed in SEAPORT <3

this was fine?? like super unremarkable and honestly pretty enjoyable even with the gamerz in it. does anyone else find the people who go on longass letterboxd rants giving franchise/overly commercialized films 1 star really annoying 😭 like no one expected this to be peak cinema so just let it be!

shubh mangal zyada saadvhan (2020) ★★★

letterboxd review: so crazy and stupid AND PERFECT I THINK!

one of the first gay bollywood movies and it's not very good but it sure is a lot of fun to watch KJHDJKAHS like only a bollywood movie would have a subplot about genetically modified cauliflower ok

dou kyu sei - classmates (2016) ★★.5

letterboxd review: i really liked the final act and its realism T__T SOMETIMES A FIRST LOVE IS LITERALLY THAT SERIOUS!!!! the watercolors are also really beautiful! however um.... i didn't really enjoy some details. you'll know when you see i guess

i feel like this would've been closer to three stars if not for (spoiler) gur enaqbz fghqrag/grnpure xvff!! bhg bs abjurer!! yvxr frevbhfyl nal ytog pbagrag jvgu fghqrag/grnpure qlanzvpf cvffrf zr bss fbbb onq vg yvxr haqrezvarf gur fnapgvgl bs grnpuvat gb zr

5 centimeters per second (2007) ★★.5

letterboxd review: i thought ocean waves was bad but damn...

don't watch this. actually if you're looking for a new desktop wallpaper then maybe it's worth watching because every frame of this film is sooo beautiful and the landscapes are just gorgeous... but other than that the romance just rings as empty/soulless and the disjointed three part structure does not do the movie any favors

 

tv shows

i didn't watch that much tv this month actually! well actually for the sake of full transparency i tried to start a bunch of tv shows but i'd just watch the first 1-2 episodes and then be like hmmm... actually i don't think i want to watch this LOL 😭

high school musical: the musical: the series — season 2 (2021) ★★.5

okayyy to be quite honest i totally forgot that i watched this LOL... like this isn't good television but i enjoy it so much for no reason 😭 it's crazy to me that over half of the main cast is lgbt and i know it's not woke BUT WHY ARE THE NINI/RICKY OPTICS LITERALLY PERFECTTTT i understand why olivia rodrigo was casted to star alongside joshua bassett on the basis of "chemistry" or whatever like they look like such a good couple. why did they have to DATE and fuck that up!!!! also for some reason big red is legit one of my fav characters T__T there's something so sweet about the way he's played and i appreciate how like... he isn't super ambitious and it's portrayed as a good thing! like sometimes u just want to live a simple life with your friends and family and that's all you need to be happy 😭 idk i feel this more and more as i get closer to entering college where everyone is told they're gonna Make a Difference and Change the World and Build a New Startup and im just like damn... can i just be left alone and have a relatively quiet existence T__T this might sound crazy but i genuinely feel so unambitious rn LOL

banana fish (2018) ★★★

hjdskahgj okay so one of my irls was like "i want to watch an anime with you!" and i saw tori raving about banana fish and asheiji last month so i figured... maybe i should check this out! honestly ummm.... okay if i had watched this alone i feel like i would have just given up on this show after like three episodes but since i was watching it with a friend we eventually powered through (it took like three weeks for us to watch 24 episodes that are like 22 minutes long though KJHDJKSAHJKG). i respect asheiji as a ship and i think that their relationship is super compelling but at the same time i didn't enjoy the ending of the show and felt like the topics of rape, abuse, trauma, etc. were kind of just there for shock value LOL and were super extreme for no reason... also the manga was originally written in like the 80s but they updated the anime to present day and it was just like... when u have random outdated 80s dialogue but it's supposed to be set in 2018 😭 okay then. ALSO i hated the ending. like tori explained the significance of it to me but i still hate it i'm sorry... i don't think animes are for me and idt banana fish was for me either! but hey at least i can say that i've successfully finished one (1) anime now

bad genius: the series (2020) ★★★★.5

okay you can just read my bad genius dreamwidth post for more longform thoughts but this is going to be the NON-SPOILERY REVIEW... basically this show took over my brain for a week and it is SO SERIOUS!!!! it's a remake of the original bad genius movie but extends the plot and develops the relationships between the main characters much more. i enjoyed it a lot more than the movie (which i also really loved) IDEK... it's about the sunk cost fallacy and making bad decisions because you love someone and cheating on tests and it's super stressful and FUN! i highlyyyy recommend watching and yes i also tinhet the two main actors... jaonaayjuné is that serious.

his: i didn't think i would fall in love (2019) ★★★.5

this is a short movie-length BL miniseries set in 2006. it's the same director as the his movie and it has a lot of the same vibes and characteristics that endeared the og movie to me: nonurban setting, food-sharing scenes, strong female characters, quiet affection, and random moments of wisdom from older people. ngl it kind of gave me the same vibes as ITSAY without the physicality down to the Extremely abrupt ending JKHADJKFH...

some random shows i watched the first episode of and then didn't continue:

• light on me — van's rec! well i witnessed the dildo scene which is all that really matters
• project s: sos — same director as bad genius: the series and the cinematography is sooo good T__T i lowkey might continue watching this it's just that i've been kind of busy and i'm not super invested in it! the plot is "depressed kid finds happiness/friendship via SKATEBOARDING" btw and the main character is played by the actor who played pat in bad genius the movie hehe
• to my star — kaia's rec! i watched like 28 minutes of this and tbh i love the DYNAMIC (older effusive famous x younger tsundere nonfamous) but umm... idk i just wasn't super interested. pimple popping as a plot point is definitely fresh and original though

reading

not going to lie there isn't that much going on here LOL just my usual questionable reads...

• educated by tara westover ★★★★ — i read this for school because the author is going to come visit at some point... i feel like everyone has heard about this book / knows what to expect so idk. the prose is readable and the story is compelling but i feel like the criticisms (aka how the fuck do all of her family members survive such ghastly injuries without modern medicine) are also valid. i really enjoyed reading it though KJHJKD even if it felt a little gruesome at times
• this one summer by jillian tamaki, mariko tamaki ★★★.5 — ummm idk. i wanted to use up my barnes & noble giftcard and buy another graphic novel and this one looked decent so i bought it! i didn't enjoy the previous book that i read from the tamakis, skim, but i was hoping this would be better. and ultimately i think it was slightly more enjoyable/i thought the art was good but i didn't think it was amazing or anything.
• how we fall apart by katie zhao ★★★ — YAFDÔKHGK THIS IS SO STUPID!!!! this is a "dark academia" ya novel with all asian american main characters... set at this prep school in new york city... it's so funny actually. like i don't think this is a good book but at the same time i couldn't stop reading 😭 does anyone else like trashy ya "romances" LOL. i can't stop thinking about how she made the korean character's name krystal and she's like this lesbian who has a "dark past" kjhdsjhgkj okay just don't read this. and don't question why i read this either... i feel like asam ya books set in competitive academic environments can get cringe reaaal fast
• tokyo ever after by emiko jean ★★ — THIS IS SO STUPID!!!! [2] it's literally princess diaries but japanese But made more interesting (imo) by the fact that her father isn't dead. but it's still bad... this author's writing style is truly so strange like she overuses sentence fragments so much and it felt so stilted and disjointed as a result even as she was going for a really casual conversational voice... the romance here is like Sooo tropey but i think i just wanted to read something stupid and feel good. and so i did!!
• the poet x by elizabeth acevedo ★★★★.5 — okay finally some good ya in here!! i read this in one sitting because i was at this library that i didn't have a usable library card for JHKASDG and it hit me like a truck ngl... i don't really read that many books in verse nor do i have the patience to appreciate poetry most of the time but elizabeth acevedo is soo good :')) the messed up parent/child dynamics made me cry and the mc's friendships/relationship with her brother were explored really well within such a short read T__T

okay for fic idek... i had this minor sulu/chekov phase in the beginning of august where i reread every hollycomb chulu fic like a crazy person!? OH and finally a decent ipytm post-canon fic + i reread this EAMES/ARTHUR FIC BY HELENISH... wait why did i do that. there wasn't a lot of friendfic this month but i did have fun with these two jaywons, mira's amazing tyunning longfic, this crazy jakehoon, and there's also a lot of random good heejay in my bookmarks :')))

music

okay this is just my august data because i like doing monthly scrobble analysis LOL

total scrobbles: 2366
average scrobbles per day: 76

top artists:

1. stray kids (218)
2. muna (105)
3. charli xcx (99)
4. carly rae jepsen (82)
5. that kid (78)
6. jinyoung (73)
7. slayyyter (68)
8. glaive (66)
9. somi (59)
10. weeekly (52)

top tracks:

1. stayaway - now, now remix — muna (103)
2. pacemaker — stray kids (99)
3. dive — jinyoung (73)
4. honey — that kid (63)
5. dumb dumb — somi (50)
6. over this! — slayyyter (44)
7. butter (feat. megan thee stallion) — bts (40)
8. all i wanna do (k) (feat. hoody & loco) — jay park (33)
9. down (feat. grey) — a.c.e (26)
10. real ones — kazi (25)

i'm looking at my top tracks like damn 😭 i cannot believe all of this happened during AUGUST??? let me get into this...

• i started listening to stayaway because it was the top song in van's july roundup and now it's my top song in august... her impact <3 i think she got me into down by a.c.e too TTT
• I HAD THIS HUGE HYPERPOP MOMENT T___T like idk why but that's def the genre i'm gravitating the most towards rn outside of my kpop listening... i think the production really appeals to me and it sounds great in the car :')) some of my fav songs in the genre (outside of honey by that kid and over this! by slayyyter which are genuinely SO FACKING GOOD) are vacation bible school and hand crushed by a mallet. btw it's so embarassing that real ones — kazi made it into my top ten songs because it's like ONE MINUTE LONG T___T (← guy who lacks a proper attention span)
• look. i know the most obvious thing is the TWO HUNDRED EIGHTEEN STRAY KIDS SCROBBLES JKHDSAJKHG i don't know what came over me. like yes i don't like stray kids, i am not a stay, if you catch me straying to stray kids then stay away... but a) i did a discography crawl and b) i became obsessed with two of their songs — first pacemaker (which is literally soty for me) and then top which is literally some random korean anime op JKHSKJHDKDF. no comment
• i looped butter remix while editing my ficmix btw.. why is the remix so so so much better than the original??? is it just because i'm secretly a bts anti? we will not answer this question
• everything else is pretty self-explanatory. dumb dumb is like half of a song but i can't stop compulsively looping it so T___T and dive is genuinely perfect!!!
• i know a bunch of comebacks happened this month but i don't remember much... going thru my liked songs rn and it's like...
  • stayc — slow down > stereotype and then the other two songs are just mid. the visuals are so good!!
  • bang yedam — okay idk when he released wayo but i like it... any mediocre ballad fans?
  • cravity — GAS PEDAL GAS PEDAL UH!!! WE SWERVING ALLL NIGHT!!!! i must be fucking crazy but i love listening to this in the car 😭 i lowkey can't remember if i checked out the full album or not but idt anything else stood out sawry
  • stray kids — i listened to the new album but i was showering so i didn't remember to like the songs that stood out to me KJHSDF i remember there was some stuff in the later half that was good + i'll probably relisten soon so that i can add more bangers to my library :'))
  • cix — i liked 20 a lot at first for some reason... maybe because of the generic synths??? wave is also good. and then kaia was like "have u listened to bad dream" and i thought it was decent but preferred gas pedal to it so umm........... anyways cinema soty
  • txt — lo$er = lover IS SOOO.... like idk it's impossible for me to loop and i don't think the that whatever genre losver + 0x1 are is perfectly to my taste... but at the same time i love watching performances of losver and the chorus is so fun and i LOVE yeonjun's rap and tyunning's joint chorus slay!!!!!!! and beomgyu's hair no longer irritates me that much! why is kang taehyun the most perfect beauteous boy ever btw
  • hi-l — kaia sent me "too too (22)" and it's a good song 😭that's all i got these girls are Truly Nugu
  • sunmi — i liked borderline and narcissism on her ep! her single had cringey rap though i'm sorry
  • somi — wait she also had cringey rap but her song is perfect <3 i don't make the rules
  • weeekly — I LIKED HOLIDAY PARTY JKHDASKJHGJKAHSGSJG the way this comeback turned me into a dailee for a couple days 😭 monday is literally the perfect girl. la luna is also a decent b-side
• wait going thru my liked songs just made me realize that i spent much of the first week of august doing intense discography crawls!!!! i think that's why crj and charli xcx ranked so high in my monthly artists LOL... i also revisited troye sivan's stuff and the bloom album sounds so much better to me than it did a couple years ago :D
• why is bet on it from hsm2 in my liked songs

writing

i wanted to be like omg i did no writing!!! but that's a lie... or actually that is the truth, i haven't done much writing, but i did post two fics. one of them will be revealed as part of ficmix pretty soon and then the other one was a reallyyy rough heejay that i posted on anon T__T i don't think either are worth talking about LOL and generally i've felt very unmotivated to write, and okay with that lack of motivation (?) lol. i feel like the only things i'm interested in writing atm are like... a) bad genius-adjacent hetfic or b) jaywon squibfic au T__T

reflections

ummmm wow i feel like i disconnected from fandom a lot this month... i think i'm reevaluating how public i need to be and how... extroverted i have to be? i feel like before i felt obligated to like, approach and befriend every enhypen writer KJHDJKA but i'm realizing now that my personality is uh................. i don't think i have a very good personality and there's something a little depressing about realizing that i've like tried to befriend and then later softblocked like a shit ton of engine writers. it's nothing personal and i still rlly admire these ppl's writing but i'm just neurotic and i think it's better to just be like.... disconnected from fandom sometimes. idk if what i'm saying even makes sense!!! i feel like i've reached this point where if someone wants to be friends with me sometimes i'm like... wait r u sure about that. i have a terrible personality. etc

also i'm very nervous and excited about starting college. i'm on quarter system which means that my school starts in late september and all of my friends have already moved into college so this past week or so has been a little lonely i'm ngl 😭 it's crazy that i spent most of quarantine like this and it makes me even more thankful for the online community have here on dw/discord/twitter because idt i would've been able to survive senior year without it... and now that i'm in a better place mentally i feel like it's pretty clear that i fixated on enha/read insane amounts of books/wrote so much fic because like... i was LONELY JKHSDAJKHGJHASKG um

i also quit coffee a couple days ago and i hope that it sticks... we'll see how it goes in the next roundup i guess KJHDSK as long as this post was, i doubt they'll be anywhere near this length in the future so yea dw <3 thanks for reading and i'm so sorry for this long-winded post KJHDJHKJ i hope this wasn't too boring!!!