Making Me A Fighter

     The Katy Perry phase I mentioned in my last post was centered around one song in particular, "Who Am I Living For?" I'd be lying if I said this wasn't because the lyrics reminded me so much of Daenerys Targaryen, the most empowering character of all-time ever and my khaleesi for the rest of my days, from the HBO show Game of Thrones and George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire book series.

I mean, look at these lyrics:

"It's never easy to be chosen, never easy to be called,

Standing on the front lines when the bombs start to fall. 

I can see the heavens, but I still hear the flames calling out my name."

     Inspired by this, I devised plans for a playlist about Daenerys in my travel journal, originally titled "Dany, Pop Princess." Obviously, the title had to go, but the theme remained the same: empowering pop powerhouses to narrate Daenery's rise to complete badassery.

I'm proud to finally present, Making Me A Fighter.

Making Me A Fighter from reservoirsnogs on 8tracks Radio.

      I'm very proud of this fanmix (which also makes an excellent workout playlist, I might add), and all of the thought I put into selecting each song and determining the order of its appearance. I'm also quite happy with the artwork I designed for it. With that in mind, I'll quickly take you through some of the choices I made.  

Season One

1) Rootless - Marina and the Diamonds. Chosen to match the fleeing of Dany and her brother, "The Beggar King." Though Daenerys expresses a deep desire to go home, nothing resembling 'home' exists anymore.
2) Who Am I Living for? - Katy Perry. Chosen to show the frightening but truthful feeling Dany has that perhaps there is greatness in store for her.

3) Domesticated - VersaEmerge. Chosen because though Daenerys is the wife of a Khal, she was never meant to just be "someone's wife." The Iron Throne is not meant for her brother or her son, even; it's for her.

4) My Blood - Ellie Goulding. Chosen for Dany's decision to trade her son and succumb to dark magic in an effort to save her husband.

5) Drive My Soul - Lights. Chosen for the realization that it is time to let go of her husband, as afraid as she may be.

6) Last Hope - Paramore. Chosen for Daenerys' emergence from the flames with her newborn dragons at the end of Season One.

 

 Season Two 

7) Scared of Lonely - Beyoncé. Chosen for Daenerys' desperation and fear for the death of, or abandonment by, her khalasar at the start of this season. 

8) You've Got Time - Regina Spektor. Chosen because of the lyrics, "Remember all their faces, remember all their voices. Everything is different the second time around." She must appear strong and take risks to save her people. There is no one to save her and her khalasar but Daenerys herself.

9) The Outsider - Marina and the Diamonds. Chosen to show Dany's relationship to Qarth and its people.     

10) Dreams So Real - Metric. Chosen for Daenerys' journey through the House of the Undying. Though she sees strange visions and loved ones from the grave, she must suppress fear and continue on by herself.  

11) Bring Me Down - Kanye West.  Chosen to illustrate Daenery's final push into the realm of a royal mindset. When Pyat Pree, Xaro Xhoan Daxos and (in the show) Doreah think they can betray her, she punishes them ruthlessly and regains her power, along with her dragons. I especially think the lyrics, "They gon' have to take my life before they take my drive, 'cause when I was barely livin', that's what kept me alive" applies to Dany. She came from nothing, and will persevere. 

 Season Three

12) Fighter - Christina Aguilera. If I had to pick one anthem for Daenerys, it would be this. Everything she's been through has made her both badass and fiercely compassionate. She began as a meek little girl, learned to stand up for herself, and evolved into a legendary and insanely inspiring Fighter. 

13) Beat It - Michael Jackson. Chosen to illustrate the way in which men try to fight Daenerys. I love the lyric, "Don't wanna see no blood, don't be a macho man," because Dany always gives men the option to surrender peacefully, but their masculine pride leads to their downfall.

14) Bring the Noize - M.I.A. Mainly chosen for the lyric, "Just 'cause I'm a mum don't make me thick." Daenerys' compassion and motherly character traits only make her stronger, though ignorant opponents perceive them as signs of weakness. And so, she is ready to crush them into dust.

15) One Beat - Sleater-Kinney. Chosen because I find this song to be very empowering. The song instrumentally and vocally sounds so powerful. Lyrics on the topic of rising and discovering don't hurt either.

16) Handlebars - Flobots. Chosen to match the immensity of Daenerys' string of conquers in the last season. If she wants to do something, she will sure as hell achieve it. And with her track record of freeing slaves, stopping rapes, and having an unfailing aura of chosenness throughout the show, the lyrics "my cause is noble, my power is pure" fit all too well.

     Maybe it's strange that I put this much effort into a playlist, but I'm very proud of this creation. I have never been empowered by a character like I have been by Daenerys Targaryen, the impact of which is made even more meaningful by the fact that one time I heard Emilia Clarke say in an interview that if one woman felt empowered by Dany, then she'd done her job. I'm that one woman, and there are thousands of more just like me. I've said it once and I'll say it again: I watch the scene of Daenerys buying and then freeing the army of the Unsullied every time I need to get pumped up for something. Afterward, I feel like I can climb Everest. And I caught up with seasons one and two of Game of Thrones simply because I saw the scene and wanted to know the context surrounding it. Dany means a lot to me, and my love for her keeps swelling as I make my way through the first book. I hope you take a listen and enjoy!

♥ Happy Listening ♥  

Back Home.

     Hello, friends! As can be deduced from the title and the current date, I've been home for a few days. Europe was amazing, and though leaving the Berlin airport saddened me, I experienced a near-equal level of happiness as we landed in Washington D.C. Seeing a Wendy's in the airport made me far more excited than it probably should have. And sleeping in my own bed on the night of August 19th was such a relief.

     Over the next few weeks (I haven't decided exactly how I will space out my traveling posts), I will tell the stories of my journey through Europe this summer. First, I feel some film and music-related updates are in order. 

 On planes to Houston, Texas and to Frankfurt, Germany

1) Our plane to Houston was super swanky, and their selection of films was beyond compare. Though it'd never appealed to the animation-lover in me before, I decided to watch Wreck-It Ralph for a good portion of the flight. My first instincts were completely off on this one; IT WAS AMAZING. While it is true that it's been a month since seeing the film and I do not exactly remember why I loved it so much, I do feel this intense, lingering sense of adoration. It was adorable and heart-wrenching at some scenes. I highly recommend a watch! 

2) During the nine-hour flight from Houston to Frankfurt, I decided to watch Side Effects. I'd wanted to see this film for a long while, and ended up having a reverse-Wreck-It-Ralph experience. I was disappointed and almost angry about the ending. To avoid any spoilers (because it is a bit of a thriller), let's just say the person I was rooting for ended up being the villain. Which isn't always a bad thing. But in this case... the ending just made me roll my eyes a bit. And by a bit, I mean I finally know what the inside of my skull looks like.

3) Seeing as I had a lot of time to kill, I then flipped through the music catalog.
 All that is written in my travel journal is "Bjork - All Neon Like," so I'd gander it was a favorite. Listening now, I do quite like the song. Lend an ear for yourself:

     At some point, while most everyone was asleep and the plane was in near-complete darkness, I listened to the entirety of the Les Miserablés (2012 version) soundtrack and mouthed along to the few lyrics I knew haha. Watching people sleep on a plane while listening to a very emotional musical is quite the humorous contrast.

4) The last film I watched was Identity Thief, because my options were far more limited than the flight to Houston. The movie was much better than I expected, actually! And I'm especially grateful that it ended up being a story of friendship rather than romance. True, it'd be cool to have a comedy in which a traditionally good-looking guy falls in love with a woman who is what modern society considers "fat," but romance in this case would have been too predictable for my liking. It was refreshing to see a film where falling in friendship is just as important as falling in love. So I give it points for that. But on another note, the only two People of Color in the film were villains... which made me a bit uncomfortable, to be honest. Just things to consider. My verdict: I wouldn't watch it again, but Identity Thief is not the worst movie you'll see in your life.

5) Lastly, as we flew over Germany in the morning, the plane allowed me to tune into a German radio station. It played a lot of American music, but there were a couple of songs that I'd never heard before.

I particularly liked (oh my god, looking up the lyrics now, it is so weird to discover that this song is by The Script. I used to hear them sometimes in middle school, when I listened to "VH1 Jumpstart" every morning as I got ready for school.) If You Could See Me Now by The Script:



...and I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS SONG!! I totally jammed out in my seat at 6AM on a plane.
Liebe Ist Meine Rebellion by Frida Gold:



Gallivanting across Europe : 
     Before leaving, I put a bunch of random music on my phone, not knowing what I would want to listen to while spending a month away from my laptop. I went through two notable phases during my trip: the two-country-long Katy Perry phase, and the two-week-long Lights phase. And my Lights phase was extensive-- when possible, I just sat and watched interviews, becoming ever more fascinated with the way she speaks, or I flipped through dozens of acoustic performances to hear her development as a singer. For whatever reason, she captured my attention (hurhurhur, if you listen to Lights: get the reference?) on this vacation.   

     I also developed a habit of listening to music in museums when I could not handle tourists' constant buzzing. On my 8Tracks, I'm planning on putting up all of the beautiful, slow songs I listened to while watching the sunset from the top of the Eiffel Tower, and making a separate playlist of rockabilly songs Cathy gave me, which I ended up listening to (and literally dancing around to) in the Musée d'Orsay. Keep an eye out for those!

      So this post doesn't get horrifically long, I'll simply leave here the song I was infatuated with for the majority of my trip. I would get so elated when the Wifi in our hostels was cooperating, simply because I felt a constant NEED to listen to this. Here is a cover of U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking for" by Lights. 

 

On the plane back to Washington D.C.
      I only had the ability to watch movies on my eight-hour flight from Frankfurt to Washington D.C. (though I'm lucky I got movie options during the longest chunk of airtime), and the journey seemed to take forever! This time around, films didn't make the hours go any faster. 

1) The first movie I chose was Admission. I have a deep love for Tina Fey, which is why I was surprised when my main complaints about this film were on the basis of feminism. The mother in the film, who was actually a total fucking badass, was not treated as a feminist queen, but a constant joke. I couldn't shake thoughts of The Straw Feminist trope, as addressed by Feminist Frequency, while watching. In addition, the resolution left a strange aftertaste because the main character basically trades in her career for motherhood. This isn't inherently bad, but media is notorious for making women choose between one or the other! I know her arc was about not staying in the same place out of fear, but couldn't they have thrown in some kind of new and exciting job for her at the end, rather than having her new-found happiness defined by her boyfriend and the possibility of motherhood? In the end, this movie didn't just feel like a sub-par romantic comedy, it felt borderline offensive.

2) While I was watching Admission, the woman next to me was watching Safe Haven. While I had no interest in checking it out before, catching glimpses of a few scenes (especially discovering that Cobie Smulders plays a minor character) peeked my interest. My viewing experience was simply lukewarm. I'm not sure how I feel about the film's portrayal of domestic violence; I liked the scene where Katie talks about her depression in relation to the abuse, but I felt a slight lack of continuity when she shows no signs of fear or nervousness when her new beau yells at her during their first fight. I've fortunately never experienced domestic violence, so I suppose I'm not in any position to talk on the subject. But the movie felt a little bit like "abuse is a one-time thing and then you meet your new boyfriend and he fixes you and it's totally fine," which seems wildly inaccurate to me. In summary, I won't be watching the film again. But, side notes: Julianne Hough looks gorgeous with that haircut. Live your dreams, girl. Also, I found it beyond amusing that Cobie Smulders and Julianne Hough had WAY more sexual tension and chemistry than the two main characters.

3) A favorite of my parent's, I decided to watch When Harry Met Sally..., circa 1989. I am obsessed with Meg Ryan's fashion over the course of the movie! Her post-high school 70s outfit is definitely my top pick. As said by my cousin, her fashion arc is crazy similar to that of our mothers', making it all the more enjoyable. I also really adored Carrie Fisher's presence! When her name appeared in the opening credits, I thought maybe she would be in a few scenes and blend in with the wallpaper, but she played a significant character! The Star Wars kid in me was rather excited. But I digress. To the important stuff: this movie was my favorite of the three I watched by far. It was such a great romance film, and Meg Ryan's character was so relatable and entertaining. It was quite elevating to have her high-maintenance qualities not be seen as crazy and in need of fixing, but aspects of her personality to be loved and appreciated. She had opinions, but some of them changed with her personal development. And when she faked an orgasm loudly in a restaurant to prove a point... flawless. Much love. Just... YES!!

     And that is a pretty comprehensive round-up of the media I consumed during the end of July and first half of August. I will be posting more about the films (most of which have been documentaries) I've watched and the music I've listened to since returning to California soon! I will also been working on travel posts as much as possible before starting training for my new job on September 4th. Feels good to be back at the keyboard! :) 

♥ Happy Watching / Listening ♥