LOOK LOOK LOOK CHAPTER 5 OF MY KOTOR 2 FANFIC SALVATORIS ON THE SIDEBAR OVER THERE AND ALSO RIGHT IN THAT THERE LINK.

!!!

I win.

The Glass Plastiks appease the indie kid in me.

And the Trevor Lissauer fangirl. Miles from "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," anyone?

One final note: Eli is the best brother in the entire world because guess who I'm going to go see on February 2nd?



Ohhhh yes. You know it.

Yay for Alex "Claire Bennet" Trebek!

I need to retract something here that I've been saying for a while but shouldn't have.

Cycle 5 was not bad. Cycle 5 was just entirely rigged. But some of these photoshoots? They're amazing. Also, Nigel is just so hot.

It's Nigel vid time.

*drools*



Yes, it IS this Barker I want!









lol soaps are so lame. Feel free to skip to about 3:51.

Wow, "The Shot" sounds like a really good show, even without NB on it. But I could be wrong, so don't hold me to that. I think the point is that Nigel said something about it. NIGEL IS 6'3.5" OH EM GEE HE IS SO FIIIINE.

I'm out.

P.S. I guess at least it wasn't Jaslene again or anything.

I'm doing finals, so instead of actually blogging like I shouldn't be, I'm going to say that 1. Nigel was a smokin' hottie last night, 2. I am never going to become a field psychologist so DON'T LET ME, and 3.

OH NOES! Get better, Alex Trebek!

This is a useful list for all you Pop-Tart connoisseurs, aka me. Are there more of you out there? JOIN ME AND WE SHALL DOMINATE!

Dear Raizin_LUVr,
Nigel is half-Sri Lankan, and though he is obviously a domineering chauvinist, I believe that he is merely compensating for the fact that he is probably gay.
Love, The Leopard

P.S. I may be lying about at least one thing there.
P.P.S. I know where you live. :D

So today, I do not look like I've just rolled out of bed.

Ohhhh no. No, I look like I rolled out of bed, and then back into bed. Then out of bed again. Then under the bed. Then back out from under the bed, into the bed, around the bed, through the bed, and under a steamroller.

My clothes were not meant to be layered this thickly.

So we were watching "Tough Guise" in Social Psych today, which is a really amazing film and uses "Better Man" by Pearl Jam, which I, for one, appreciated (although many people didn't seem to understand why it fit the theme of male violence). Basically the theme is about how the media is extremely influential in perpetuating the stereotype of males needing to be tough and violent. It talked a lot about white male heterosexual dominance. It also talked about how females are all-too-often portrayed as basically sex and servility.

Uh oh, I thought, I'm a Top Model addict! Is that really a positive thing?

So I had some guilt there. But now I'm watching episodes from Cycle 3, and I'm not feeling so bad.

Why?

-Do you see any straight white males on this show?
-Do you see any servile females on this show? Well, maybe, but how long do THEY last?

Case in point.

SNEEZING EXPLOSION on the bus today.

What the heck, yo. I don't even feel that sick anymore.

So who saw last night's Heroes?

I did.

There's only one page on the whole world wide webz0rz that can possibly describe exactly how I feel.

It is this one.

I've been watching a lot of, shall we say, archived episodes of America's Next Top Model lately, and I'm really really struck by how different they have become over the years.

Okay, first, a disclaimer before I go on my rant: I love Top Model. I love it more than I love you guys, okay? Well, that's not true. (Except for you, Sylvia, but you replaced me with sourdough bread, so we're even. :P) I am not trying to dissuade people from watching it, and I am CERTAINLY not going to stop watching it myself. That would be dreadful. And I don't care if you hate Top Model, because I do a pretty good job, on the whole, of avoiding the majority of trashy TV, and certainly the majority of trashy reality shows, so I claim the privilege of watching this one show.

And Heroes, but that's not trashy. That's HOT MEN. I mean... art.

--RANT BEGINS HERE--

Okay, so I basically watched all of Cycle 2 last weekend (mistake, btw, given impending finals) and I realized that those were not only unmistakably high-fashion girls (for the most part), but also high-fashion shoots.

Leopard, you might say, what the heck are you going on about? No one even remembers cycle 2!

LIES! I reply angrily, slamming my water bottle on the desk. Cycle 2 was filled with ECHOES and SILENCE and PATIENCE and GRACE, and I will not have your slander!

Shhh! the librarian rebukes.

I'm going to calmly and coolly cite my sources now, just for you. Because I like you. Really.

Sources today, by the way, are brought to you by the All ANTM Temporary Gallery, because I don't know if their official site is actually fully uploaded yet. (New ones, though, will be added there.)

Incidentally, I love All ANTM because it's pretty. Or the pictures are, anyway.

Okay, brace yourselves, here it comes...

In Cycle 2, unlike many shoots in later cycles, the photoshoots were often actual high fashion advertisements or relevant shots. While it would be impossible to prove that none of the shots in later cycles are usable in high fashion, the fact remains that more actual labels were done in previous shoots. Shelly Segal's Laundry collection shoot is a prime example of a shoot that was both high fashion and good entertainment, featuring sobbing girls terrified of being held in harnesses over what seemed like a bottomless pit.



Underwater shoots were not done simply for the sake of putting girls underwater, but, in fact, to advertise Queench. Which is something. I know it is, because it has a name.



The big names continued: FreshLook contacts (shot by Niiiiiigel! Cycle 2, fyi, was his first cycle as a judge. So cuuuuute!), Steve Madden shoes, sunglasses by names like Dior and Max Mara, and HOT MEN ON VESPAS.

Which is a big name, because I write it in all caps.

There were also the now seldom-seen beauty shots. Yoanna points out that a model dreams of being able to take a beauty shot, to have her face become so widely known that it can be recognized on its own, without a product necessary to sell it.

There were the black-and-white ones for the top 6, in which they had to prove that their faces were strong on their own.



(I know, Sara's picture was not the best of the lot, but honestly, I liked it, she was robbed, and she deserves to be in this post at some point.)

Then there were the high-fashion beauty shots, where each of the top 3 was given a different look: Shandi and her masses of blue, Mercedes and her piece of wire, and Yoanna's motorcycle helmet.



In Cycle 1, I should add, Tyra states that the beauty shot is extremely important, that not every model can take one. Beauty shots, Tyra says, are "without mercy". Or maybe it was "merciless". I don't feel like rewinding.



In Cycle 3, there were still some high fashion shoots, and with tarantulas, to boot.



There were the Dooney & Bourke rollerskate shots, as well.



(Norelle is really pretty. She was like Jayla, but with talent.)

But CoverGirl had joined the mix.



(That's Yaya, btw, Syl.)

This, for me, was a downer, not to mention a bad omen, fashion-wise: the girls were doing energy drink ads and cell phone ads.



Okay, okay, I know, a model's gotta work, and the shoots were still pretty. They were mostly still fairly high fashion shoots at the time of Cycle 3, too. And, okay, yes, there was a beauty shot. But where are we now?

Cycle 4 brought us some advertisements: lingerie, lotion, etcetera. But it also brought us the widely criticized zodiac shoot, which I loved, but served little purpose, fashion-wise.



It also brought us the delectable and ill-timed Seven Deadly Sins shoot.



Oh, the reality showness! Little did Jay Manuel know that Kahlen had learned of the death of a close friend mere hours before having to do a photoshoot in a graveyard!

(Obviously, I don't believe that that was pre-planned, but it was just so... reality show, yadidamean?)

Oh, and Cycle 5. How much do I dislike Cycle 5?



Sarah-Brightman-and-Elijah-Wood's-love-child IS... America's next top model. (I'm a little touchy about the fact that Nik lost.)

Setting my personal feelings aside, what went wrong with Cycle 5? Well, let's see. Was it the superhero shoot with Kim's ridiculous braid?



Was it the fashion witch shoot, in which the girls were supposed to dress tacky (can that be used as an adverb?) and Nicole looked more like Sarah Brightman than Sarah Brightman has since the 70s?'



Was it Lisa?



Yes. It was all of these things and more.



But I will give credit where credit is due.

Nigel, you're hot. And I loved the Bollywood shoot. Absolutely loved it. I also realize that it was teaching the girls how to stand out in the crowd, which is an important skill as a model. There was Oil of Olay or something, and there was a Ford Mustang. There was the scary beauty shot, which would have been such a good idea if any of the girls could have done it well.



But it was obvious that the fashion angle of the show was slipping.

Cycle 6? I adore Cycle 6. It is like a beautiful, brightly frosted purple cupcake, and just as delicious. Joanie, I love you. Danielle, you are amazing. Leslie, you were my favorite, but even after you got kicked off, I loved Cycle 6. LOOOOOOVED it.

But oh, dear me.



Helloooooo, dolly. Welcome hoooooome, Dolly. Someone put you back in the trash, where yoooou belonggggg!

Kidding, kidding. But they were being dolls, and I just never understood why, much as I enjoyed that shoot and Furonda as a ragdoll. Never understood it.

Again, some labels. Payless, CoverGirl as usual, those bikinis that ended up in ElleGirl (I have that issue!)



Tyra did dramatic beauty shots, so I'll give her that. I really want one of those vapor sticks, but they're way too expensive.



And there were mermaids, but I'm using too many pictures relative to words right now, so I'm going to continue

CYCLE 7!

Okay, no mercy.

What do we have here?



My, my, my, is that...



Oh yes, they di'id.



Iiiiiit's FABIO!!

Okay, okay, that was the most entertaining thing in the world. Fabio, I love you, I adore you, and I wouldn't have traded that episode for the WORLD.

But, um... high fashion?



Maybe not?

And then there were the model stereotypes. Now, I'm learning life lessons from these, and so are the girls, I'm sure (just like with Fabio). But I just wonder what it would be like to bring them to real life go-sees...

Designer: So... What's this picture?
Michelle: That's me. I'm being a... a model.



Designer: Ah. A model.
Michelle: Mhm!
Designer: ...we'll call you.

I'm going to ignore any possible good parts of cycle 7 and just say that I was not impressed with Eugena. Oh, or Melrose. Oh, or Caridee. Oh, or--

I digress. Cycle 8!



May it rest in peace. I mean, really.

Cycle 9!

All righty, so I confess that I'm a little bitter, because my homegirl Lisa is (spoiler!) gone (ohhh there it is). And I don't want to write it off, really.

But...



It does make me want to start smoking.

Not really. Also: flowers? I loved it, but... FLOWERS?

Just food for thought.

Remember, kids, recycling is good, but that doesn't make it fashion.

I had a feeling that that would get Sarah to post. Sarah, if you beat 700 or 800 or whatever (didn't I just go over this with myself?), you'll get an animated text thing instead of just the one I made you that one time.

Incidentally, I don't think I gave credit for those before. I am a horrible person!

Credit goes to CoolText for making my life easier.

Whoa ho ho! Ladies and gentlemen, it would seem that we have a new SporkPoints leader! Give it up for...

SYLVIA AND/OR DANNY!

Also known as Sylvia, and Danny once. Also known as Raizin_LUVr, cuz dat's how we riggidy-roll.

ALSO they/she broke 700. Or maybe it's 600, I don't actually remember and I don't feel like checking right now. I'm a very busy person, you know.

(I have a tower.)

Yeah, it's 600.



Oo, that's huge. No one likes the sidebar anyway, right?