#Easter Poems for Kids

[captainpineappl3]

LEGO Red Dead Redemption is a game we need:

You might see a similar post from @phantom-of-the-501st because we were talking about this together!

Also spoilers for the RDR games.

Base Game Concept: We've all played a LEGO game and we know that they frequently make games for other franchises such as Star Wars. LEGO RDR follows the entire storyline from prequel of the second game all the way to the end of the first game. If the game is too big with all that then we remove the first game because RDR2 adapts much better (sorry).

The World: LEGO games have used a large scale open world before so we can assume the exact same for RDR. The LEGO Hobbit game I'm pretty sure used a massive scale map which admittedly you mostly fast travel around but you could walk around a lot too. Another good example is LEGO City Undercover, a very detailed world to explore.

(side note I only just realised the "i" in "CiTY" is the only letter that isn't capitalised)

Obviously including all of the side missions from Red Dead Redemption and Red Dead Redemption 2 would likely be too much for the game include so as an alternative, we reduce them down to character unlocks and small Easter eggs/tasks. Another good example of this is how it's done in LEGO Jurassic World where you can occasionally find sick dinosaurs and you have to search around the area to find what they need.

Now imagine this but with a random character from RDR/RDR2 like Albert Mason. You meet him, the coyote steals his bag and runs away, leaves it in a place that's difficult to reach. Now it's your job to work out how to get it back, perhaps using a lasso or hitting some targets or the good old LEGO building a small object to reach it.

Completing these small side missions can unlock the character for you or give you a red brick/collectibles perhaps (more on those later). Missions that can't be adapted very well can simply be turned into character purchases. Imagine wandering the bayou and finding that cabin with the poem about Jimmy Brooks, then you turn around and the good old Strange Man is stood in the corner ready for you to purchase him.

Unlockable characters also gives you easy opportunities for an Easter egg like Red Harlow.

The Story: The story is possible to adapt to a LEGO game form although obviously it has some significant difficulties we'll cover later. As stated above, RDR2 is our priority to include so the game of course starts with Colter, the whole gang is there in their beautiful LEGO form. Just like the original game, Colter is entirely used to teach the player the basic mechanics of the game. Here's an example of a few starting missions.

Outlaws From The West teaches you basic combat and you finish by unlocking Sadie as a character.

Enter, Pursued By A Memory teaches you how to do parkour and unlocks John (that or John isn't unlocked until the epilogue).

Eastward Bound where Arthur broke the goddamn wheel? Sounds like a great time to do some building, hitting targets and doing some parkour to go get the wheel and the rest of the stuff that fell off the wagon!

You get the point, the story is adapted into LEGO form making use of all the same stuff you've seen in LEGO games before. Some missions could probably be removed or several missions can be combined into a singular level. There's one massive problem you may have realised about this though...

LEGO is a very kid friendly company and well, Red Dead Redemption certainly is not...

How can we fix that?

Adapting Red Dead Redemption To Be Kid Friendly: Well obviously we have the simple steps of just... not including the murder dungeons? Head explosions via sudden increases in kinetic energy applied through double barrel shotguns wouldn't be a concern anyway since LEGO people literally explode into their individual pieces upon death anyway.

But then we have the big concern about the choice language in RDR.

Fixing Red Dead Redemption's Language To Fit LEGO: We all know where this is going right? An aspect of LEGO games that we all know and loved yet sadly hasn't been seen in ages. The non-verbal noises. We can probably steal a few sounds from the original games. Arthur has plenty of "argh"s when he gets shot that would fit perfectly with LEGO's style. But I think we also should still bring in the voice actors to make some noises for it.

In the event that we do keep a few voice lines, I personally recommend "LENNYYYY!".

But what about how this impacts the story? How will Dutch explain all his amazing plans? How will the Pinkertons threaten the gang? So much of the game relies on verbal communication to progress the story!

How To Replace The Talking: Our first issue is Dutch explaining all his plans. If he can't speak up then how could he get his points across about making a lot of money and leaving to Tahiti?

Simple! If you're not at camp, Dutch does an overly animated pause as he thinks before suddenly and excitedly reaching into his pocket and pulling out a hastily drawn diagram on a piece of paper illustrating exactly what to do.

If you're at camp then there's plenty of options available, my personal favourite being he wheels in a whiteboard and draws on it with his coloured pens whilst the gang all sits there on the floor with their legs crossed looking up at their great glorious leader.

It's the exact same for whenever the Pinkertons come to demand Dutch from the gang. They walk up and pull out a wanted poster of Dutch and angrily growl at the gang.

Also just to make sure Micah is still unlikeable despite not being able to insult anyone, we may just have to make him a bit of a bully. Stealing food, kicking and shoving people out his way, forcing others to do work for him etc.

Speaking of Dutch and his ability to manifest a whiteboard out of nowhere, it's about time we finally discuss characters.

Character And Their Abilities: LEGO games are known for their characters having different abilities and I think it's best we make the entire gang as playable characters of course. Maybe not all available at the start but they certainly are needed eventually. Here's the main ideas for the gang so far and their abilities. A lot of them are still yet to be worked out.

Dutch - Investigative (able to find details others can't that then reveal objects or their locations) Hosea - Disguises Arthur - ? John - ? Javier - ? Bill - Strong (able to break objects other's can't) Micah - Dynamite (can place it and thrown as a projectile) Charles - Tracker (able to see footsteps and follow trails) Sean - Pyromaniac (throws fire bottles like which cause splash damage on impact unlike dynamite which has a fuse) Lenny - Double jump/more agile? Sadie - ? Karen - Disguises/Distractions (able to lure NPCs away from places) Tilly - Double jump/more agile? Mary-Beth - Pickpocket? Uncle - ? but he has to throw out his back after any strenuous activity. Abigail - ? Susan - ? Pearson - ? Strauss - ? Trelawny - Disguises Swanson - ? Kieran - ? Molly - ? Jack (young) - Small and can go through crawlspaces.

Most if not all of them will also have some sort of ranged weapon depending on what they mostly use in game. Arthur likely with a revolver, Charles with a bow, Susan with a shotgun etc.

Some characters may also act slightly differently, a good example being brutes like Tommy in the Valentine saloon who is harder to fight and requires you to fight differently, like the stronger opponents seen in LEGO City Undercover.

Another important thing is collectibles.

Collectibles: Red bricks are obvious. They're in every LEGO game and there's always the obvious ones like stud multipliers. But we can also include ridiculous ones like: All horses become cars, Lawmen and Pinkertons have little police lights on their head, All guns become water pistols, Dynamite explodes in confetti, All guns fire explosives.

We could also consider other collectibles like special hats or weapons.

The final point I have to cover here is character deaths.

Character Deaths (obvious spoilers): The story has to reach some character deaths eventually... it's inevitable. But LEGO likely isn't going to be very comfortable with good ol' Sean Maguire getting the worst surprise party ever.

How do we fix this?

SLAPSTICK COMEDY!

We can't keep them around because the story doesn't make sense so we have to remove them in LEGO friendly ways. Here are my suggestions!

Jake Adler - Technically already dead but to avoid showing a corpse in the wagon we just go with a classic skeleton.

Sean - As you walk through the streets sudden swinging log booby trap flies down and absolutely punts Sean into orbit, never to be seen again before a the gunfight rolls out.

Kieran - Instead of being killed and rode into camp, a cutscene is shown where Kieran is on guard around the camp, caught by O'Driscolls and quickly tied up and thrown into a dingy which floats away before the O'Driscolls send a fake scarecrow copy of Kieran into camp which confuses the whole gang before the ambush attack.

Hosea - Instead of the scene that broke everyone's heart, Hosea boots Milton right in his little brick balls and jumps down a drain into the sewers.

Lenny - Whilst running across the rooftops Lenny is caught in a snare trap which quickly loops around his foot and lifts him away with party balloons.

Molly - Miss Grimshaw during the middle of Molly's rant pops Molly's head of just like a LEGO minifigure would be and boots it off into the woods causing Molly's headless body to go chasing after it. That or another idea which I think I prefer is Dutch and Molly have a dramatic argument in the middle of camp, once again someone gets kicked in the balls before Molly storms off, never to return.

Leviticus Cornwall - Whacked around the head with a frying pan by Dutch or Micah causing him to fall overboard from his boat and he is chased away by a shark.

Cold O'Driscoll - It may be best to change the story a bit here and instead of making sure Colm is hanged, you make to make sure he gets arrested by either leading them to the cops or leading the cops to them.

Eagle Flies - Instead of being shot he is whacked round the head with a frying pan and knocked out, almost arrested before Arthur saves him and you return him to the Wapiti tribe albeit a little dazed.

Agent Milton - Arthur, Abigail and Sadie beat him up, tie him up then shove him inside a barrel and stick it on a passing ship.

Miss Grimshaw - Tricked by Micah somehow (maybe by him pointing behind her making her turn away from him) before somehow she is dragged away perhaps by Micah typing her to a horse or something.

Arthur Morgan - Rather than Arthur dying, he helps John to escape (more on this later).

Micah - I'd love to kill this man but LEGO probably wouldn't allow that. I'm not sure how you work around that. Maybe you freeze him in a bit of ice and turn him in to the lawmen but honestly I don't know.

I don't know Red Dead Redemption 1 as a game well enough to discuss the character deaths in it as I have never played it through (sorry but I cannot ride a horse in that game) however with the death of John and Uncle, instead of being killed by the Pinkertons, in exchange for john's help capturing the gang, John, Uncle, Jack and Abigail are all rewarded with an all expenses paid trip to Tahiti. The final thing to note in all of this is what we see in the credits of the game and the thing I said I'd elaborate on with Arthur.

The Credits: Just like the original Red Dead Redemption games, the credits feature cutscenes showing the aftermath and current events happening once the gang falls apart. The cutscenes go like this:

Remember how Sean got launched into oblivion back in Rhodes? Well the first shot we see is of a nice sandy beach and who comes falling out the sky? The good ol' Irish legend himself! He's made it to wonderful Tahiti.

A little after Sean has set up his nice camp on the shores of Tahiti, who comes rocking up in a little boat still tied up by the O'Driscolls? That's right, it's Kieran.

Y'know it really is strange but did you know that the sewers of Saint Denis seem to connect up with the plumbing networks of Tahiti? It's honestly quite nice because it means Hosea was actually able to wander through them and eventually find himself with the others on the nice sandy shores.

Lenny! Whilst he's flying over the ocean looking pretty bored and annoyed that he got to miss out on all the fun back at that bank robbery, he suddenly notices Hosea, Sean, and Kieran all looking up at him from the beach and manages to untie himself from the rope of the balloons, dropping himself down to them where they all hug and reunite.

Turns out after Molly's breakup with Dutch she really just needed to get away from it all and clear her head. Good thing that she was able to afford a one way ticket to Tahiti!

Miss Grimshaw ends up their somehow I don't know.

Arthur. My sweet old boy. After helping John escape the gang and the Pinkertons he finds himself at a port, waiting for a boat. His brother John says one final goodbye to him and waves from the pier as Arthur pulls out a ticket from his back pocket and puts on his sunglasses and Hawaiian flower shirt and boards the ferry of too the wonderful Tahiti where he spends his days lounging around in a deckchair next to his horse (also in a deckchair), sipping his drink from a coconut through a straw with a little parasol in it as Hosea and Lenny come to sit by his side. Obviously because he's warm and relaxed his Tuberculosis heals too and he's cured. Amazing!

This concludes my 2395 word explanation of why we need a LEGO Red Dead Redemption game and the amazing ways it could be adapted. Come on, Rockstar, you're already a games development studio just get that partnership and work with Traveller's Tales and their experience to make this a thing!

[luna-loveboop]

Linktober masterpost

Well. That was a wild ride. Fun fact- I never planned on doing Linktober this year! Because I am not the best with 2d art, I just kind of assumed I couldn't. But on the literal first. Day. Of October, my adhd brain realised that I could do an October challenge in another medium- mainly eggs. I've been doing egg carvings for years, so I figured I could just. Carve eggs.... for Linktober... and then I did it??

From there it quickly evolved into a random personal challenge to see how many different art mediums I could stuff into these prompts. I carved rocks, glass, bottles, etc... about halfway through the month I ran out of eggs and had to wait for my chickens to lay more. And then on a random whim I actually finished all thirty one days, falling behind twice. Go figure.

Links below (hehe). I crack myself up sometimes (that's an egg pun).

{Day- prompt: subject, medium/material}

Day one- mirror: sksw link, egg

Day two- friend/companion: midna and wolf link, egg

Day three- zelda: sksw zelda + harp music and loftwing, egg

Day four- night/dark: remlit, egg

Day five- sacred: totk secret stone, x smoll egg

Day six- horror: ww redead, blue glass pane

Day seven- royalty: mipha, egg

Day eight- tunic: bunny lu legend, egg easter bunny reblog

Day nine- mystery: math meme + timeline lu wind, egg

Day ten- species: ww fishmen, opaque blue glass pane

Day eleven- dance: totk riju, brown glass bottle

Day twelve- favourite game: skyward sword + fi link duet music, blue glass pane

Day thirteen- link: the master sword, a fucking rock

Day fourteen- fairy: lu fairy hyrule, glass bottle

Day fifteen- sword: the master sword and triforce, duck egg

Day sixteen- time: totk zelink, poem and ink art

Day seventeen- dragons: farosh, doodle

Day eighteen- shopkeeper: beedle, doodle w/ words

Day nineteen- reward: purple rupee, carved and painted inside duck egg

Day twenty- mask: lbl puppeteer, egg

Day twenty one- spirit: tp skull kid and sarias song, green glass bottle

Day twenty two- favorite character: marin, a rock

Day twenty three- element: the wind waker, egg CONT. on egg day twenty nine

Day twenty four- deity: demise, egg

Day twenty five- ganon: ooa trident, egg

Day twenty six- echo: twilight princess music, egg

Day twenty seven- rest: lu wind yeeting onto sky, egg Meme reblog

Day twenty eight- bones: botw bokoblin's campfire, egg

Day twenty nine- deku: ww link deku leaf, egg CONT. on egg from day twenty three

Day thirty- mount: sksw zelda and loftwing, egg

Day thirty one- free for all: cucco with eggs and lu chain with words happy linktober 2024, egg

I did finish them all in October! The last couple posts' timestamps might say November first, but I posted them right after midnight. Anyways. I'm proud :D

Everyone has been so very kind and encouraging- thank you guys. Truly. I love you, my friends.

Thank you to everyone but mainly my trusty pink sweater, that somehow made the perfect background for pictures of eggs.

Link to my favourite post I've ever made. Please remember you are loved

Happy Linktober guys!!

:)

[masterdetectivexx]

Hey bro, any thoughts on the latest files with Heiji and the monks? What about that easter egg for the next case, regarding that long lost detective that will be back, is Gosho hinting at Saguru? Or just Shinichi? Do you think the next files could be Rum arc resolution?

File 1116-1118 Review

I enjoyed the case a lot overall. Already starting from File 1116, Ran was getting a proactive role in the Heizuha romance plot, which I found so refreshing and endearing (since Ran has gotten so sidelined lately).

The whole monk themed case was a such a nostalgia trip as well, and I love how Gosho also gave our other Mouri, Kogoro, a proactive role in the case, showcasing once again his judo moves.

As for the Heizuha confession build up, that started since File 1113 (Muga shinkansen case), contrary to my expectations, it still didn't pay off in any way, as Heiji once again failed due to forgetfullness (File 118), despite Ran's efforts.

What however made this quite disappointing was that even the Hyakunin isshu tournament setup from the previous case was also resolved off-screen and didn't remain as a potential plot-thread to a future official confession case setting. However, that very same Momiji scene that resolved the tournament setup also gave a teaser/foreshadowing to Momiji potentially starting to act more actively towards her romantic goals with Heiji. She referenced a Hyakunin isshu poem that bears a similar message to "time is money", where she mentions that time can easily pass by in the blink of an eye if one keeps acting indecisive (File 1118), as if she is planning on officially making her move soon.

This could be Gosho still building on the confession-anticipation momentum from the this and the previous case, and that the next upcoming case could still tie into the Ōoka/Heizuha subplot in some way as the official confession case approaches. If not, then it will truly feel like Gosho wasted an actual opportunity of building up tension towards an eventual confession.

As for the teaser of a long lost detective finally reappearing in the next case, it does fit with the idea of it being Hakuba Saguru (who fans have kept nagging Gosho about when he will return in DC). This also fits with the AC teaser that he will be drawing a vertical double-spread magazine cover featuring Kid.

While this may seem as an immediate confirmation that it will be a Kid case and that there will be no further Heizuha/Ooka material in the next case, there is still potential that Gosho is actually planning on intertwining them again, like in Fairy's lips case (File 1018-1021) & Queen's bangs case (If the falcon elder is Former prime minister [FPM] Ōoka). This is due to Gosho also promoting M27, which is a Heizuha-Kid Movie, in the same magazine as the double-spread, and he also teased in another AC that he will be drawing the Naniwa (Osaka) duo in the poster art for M27.

In other words, there is still hope that Momiji's teaser in the latest chapter bares importance in the following Kid case. Also, if the ongoing speculation that the falcon motif seen with the Falcon elder belongs to the Ōoka family and that they are related to Hakuba Saguru (who has his own Falcon pet) is true, then this upcoming Kid/Hakuba case would further be inviting more Ōoka/Heizuha material (that potentially keeps the Heizuha plot streak going).

While not impossible, these AC teasers does lessen the chance of us getting Rum climax in the upcoming case, unless the teased detective was meant to be Shinichi all along (which I currently feel is unlikely, since Crimson School Trip did not happen too long ago).

[lilitblaukatz]

Librarygate addition from the time-unrelated side

Richie's joking. But I'm not.

We know that the Duffers are huge Stephen King fans.

There are three significant library arcs in Stephen King's works which I can remember (add if you can, please): the novella "The Library Policeman" (1990, one of the FOUR HOUR STRIKES (the third) in "FOUR past midnight" collection); and two belong to "It": Mike Hanlon was a librarian, but also Ben Hanscom has a big arc with the Derry Library.

I will start with Ben (he is a part of our love triangle parallel after all). Ben's ties to the Derry Library are shown both in miniseries and in recent movies, but to know the full story you of course need to read the book. I've read it two times and the last one was about 15 years ago, so forgive me for any wrong memories (pun intended).

1.. Ben loved the Derry Library. Not only because he was lonely and it was a place he could spend time. He liked to learn, he had good relationship with the librarian. But most of all he liked the bridge part between the two library buildings (idk how to call it in English, that part joins the children library and the grown'ups one with well-lit warm hall with glass sides and roof, probably?). When Ben grew up, he built a building based on that hall and got an architect award for it. He liked the hall because you could use it to go from one library to another even in the winter and be warm and dry and look at all the cold and snow outside. It is probably a metaphor for that tween period of life King loves so much that most of his kid characters end up being eaten by monsters about 11-12.

Ben had bad things happen to him there as well. I don't really remember the accident with the boy and easter eggs in the book, but Ben was really scared of that photograph and the story of Kitcheners' blow up and killing a hundred of kids. Also when he was staying late helping the librarian one winter night, he saw Pennywise on the ice when Ben was crossing the river by the bridge. Yeah, that same bridge Adrian Mellon was thrown from years after Ben's encounter.

But also Ben wrote that poem about Beverly's hair in the library :)

2.. Mike Hanlon. Mike was a fellow loser to Ben. He was interested in Derry history as a kid and figured out that awful things happen in Derry every 27 years for centuries. He grew up and became a librarian in Derry Library. He was the one with his memories intact and called all the Losers when It came back 27 years later.

3.. Library Policeman. It is a hard story. I've read it when I was a kid myself, maybe 12, 13? Years later I remembered the chill and re-read it. It was still years from now so yeah, I'll do what I can with Wikipedia not helping much.

The protagonist of the novella is Sam. When Sam was a child, he was r*ped in the bushes outside of his hometown library by a man who called himself the Library Policeman who punish children who don't return their books on time. At another place, where grown-up Sam lives, he needs some books from the local library for the first time since his childhood. He accidentaly destroys the books after he uses them and then supernatural stuff start to happen. The entity calling itself the Library Policeman is terrorizing him, and the old librarian who gave him the books is long dead. That woman was not human. It is a monster who is feeding on childrens' fear.

Sam, his friend with whom he falls in love with, and a former lover of the librarian are on the mission to defeat the monster, who wants a NEW HOST to attach itself to, like a parasite. The former lover DIES while helping Sam and his friend, the monster manages to attach itself to the friend's neck and Sam saves her by pulling it off of HER NECK and throwing it under the wheels of upcoming train where it is smashed out of existence. It is a heartbreaking moment: he makes her to look forward and recite a poem or count, I don't remember, while standing behind her he lifts her hair and sees this thing on her neck (which causes some personality changes in her or just a headache I don't remember sorry), and he takes it off when the train is almost there and throws... This monster was compared to a spider too (the flesh form of It was a spider). I like the idea that it is a soteria in Will's neck, but I'm afraid it can be a part of the Mind Flayer.

So we have Hopper and Joyce go into the Upside Down through the Lab gate to find Will. S01 was heavily influenced by Alien and the Duffers don't just do an homage, they use easter eggs and parallels in the plot.

The first thing Hopper finds in the UD (the first thing Ben Hanscom had found in the sewers… was an orange Pennywise pom-pom when he was a child and red Audra Denbrough's purse as an adult) is a busted-out-of egg which is of course an egg a facehugger is grown in.

Who was born from that egg in the Stranger Things is unclear. Could be a demogorgon. Dragons lay eggs btw.

Then Joyce and Hopper inspect the Castle Byers remnants, go to Byers' house where amazed Jonathan recognizes his mother in the lights and Joyce hear him calling her gently. It is irrelevant here but fascinating. Then they follow the trace of blood into the Hawkins Public Library.

There is some kind of lair. It is similar to both the egg lair in the Alien and in the Aliens.

The difference is that in Aliens Momma is still around. Also we have cocooned corpses in the Aliens too:

Stranger things s01e08:

It's all of course from the Aliens and It: Hopper and Joyce parallel the couple from Aliens who found the ship with the eggs, the death of the father points to Hopper's future death.

Joyce finds Will like Ripley finds Newt in the lair, cocooned:

Bill Denbrough finds his wife Audra in the lair, cocooned.

But whose lair is it?!

Vecna had his lair in his old house, where he was being charged in a dock like an electronic toy...

Flesh form of It (the Spider) layed eggs in its lair which Losers destroyed (sadly, not on screen in both the miniseries and the movies) by stepping on them.

Alien Queen layed eggs in its lair which Ripley destroyed (by fire!)

Who lays those eggs (we saw one) in the UD? Whose lair is in the library???

And just what else I have on the place: Will was FOUND in the library on Nov 12th, but the sign says (Vote here) Nov. 6th when he was taken walked willingly disappeared. So can library be a part of his dissapearance too? Or even in the first place.

Dragons steal princesses and keep them in their lairs too...

King's prototype of It was a troll from a fairytale, who lives under the bridge and eats children. Do trolls eat princesses? I'm not that familiar with foreign folklore...

And the last but not least:

Team Tigers vs team Falcons:

(the shots of the library with pigeons and then pigeons were followed by shots of Joyce in her car arriving at Melvalds s01e02)

Many noticed the stalker shots and Vecna's parallels to birds.

Birds were absolutely the spies in the Duma Key by Stephen King.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

irishtimes.com

* * * *

Blackbird in Dun Laoghaire – a poem by Joseph O’Connor

Blackbird in Dun Laoghaire was read by Joseph O’Connor at the funeral of his sister Sinéad O’Connor ::

There’s a blackbird in Dun Laoghaire When I’m walking with my sons Through the laneways Called ‘The Metals’ By the train-tracks.

And he sings among the dandelions And bottle-tops and stones, Serenading purple ivy, Weary tree-trunks.

And I have it in my head That I can recognise his song, Pick him out, I mean distinct From all his flock-mates.

Impossible, I know. Heard one blackbird, heard them all. But there are times He whistles up a recollection.

There’s a blackbird in Dun Laoghaire – And I’m suddenly a kid, Asking where from here to Sandycove My youngest sister hid. I’m fourteen this Easter. My job to mind her. Good Friday on the pier – And I suddenly can’t find her.

The sky like a bruise By the lighthouse wall. We were playing hide-and-seek. Is she lost? Did she fall? There’s a blackbird in Dun Laoghaire And the terror’s like a wave Breaking hard on a hull, And the peoples’ faces grave

As Yeats on a banknote. Stern as the mansions Of Killiney in the distance, As the pier’s granite stanchions, And Howth is a drowned child Slumped in Dublin Bay, And my heart is a drum And the breakers gull-grey.

The baths. It starts raining. The People’s Park. And my tears and the terns, And the dogs’ bitter bark. There’s a blackbird in Dun Laoghaire, And I pray to him, then, For God isn’t here, In a sobbed Amen.

And she waves from the bandstand, Her hair in damp strings, And the blackbird arises With a clatter of wings From the shrubs by the teahouse, Where old ladies dream Of sailors and Kingstown And Teddy’s ice-cream.

And we don’t say a word But cling in the mizzle, And the whistle of the bird Getting lost in the drizzle. Mercy weaves her nest In the wildflowers and the leaves, There are stranger things in heaven Than a blackbird believes.

– Joseph O’Connor, 2010

[sunburnacoustic]

Since the last Muse ask game took off but was a bit old, and since we all seem to like to get nerdy on the details on here, here's a new one:

Muse Down-To-The-Nitty-Gritties Asks

What's your favourite live performance?

What's a Muse song that sounds better live than in the studio?

What's a Muse song that sounds better in the studio than live? (if any!)

Favourite Muse cover?

Favourite Muse acoustic song/version?

Favourite one of Matt's dances?

Favourite Muse outfit? (from whenever, not just gigs)

Favourite 'live' performance? (mime ;) )

Favourite iconic Muse post (*Question originally said 'favourite iconic Muse Tumblr post' but that would disqualify 'wub wub fuckers' which came from Reddit)

Favourite non-studio lyrics (demos, live additions, etc.)

Favourite song that's never been played live

Favourite Muse/members Tweet/Instagram post

Favourite scene from a making-of DVD

Favourite live riff/jam/intro/outro

Favourite Dom live moment?

Favourite Chris pic?

Dan or Morgan?

Favourite Muse merch (including cover artwork)/fave era for Muse merch of any sort?

Favourite photoshoot of the band?

Favourite live moment?

Favourite wtf moment in an interview?

Favourite guitar/bass riff/drum fill?

Favourite Muse lyric?

What's something you wish Muse did that they don't normally do?

Dream Muse setlist (or just a few songs you'd like to see live if not a full setlist)

Favourite Muse pop song

Favourite Muse heavy song

Favourite Muse piano part/song(/organ, for obvious reasons)

Favourite Muse rarity (including hidden tracks)

Favourite Muse fan art?

Have Muse impacted your life?

Have you ever followed Matt's advice to not give a fuck if people think you're a pretentious wanker?

Which Muse member's autograph do you like most?

Have you met any of the band (/if not, any favourite fan interaction/gig stories)?

Favourite Muse moment that's overused in the fandom to literal meme status (e.g. fuck off you cunt, Soldier's Poem was on Absolution, anything at all from Panic Station, Hey You Crazy Kids!, etc.)

Favourite song to sing along to

Songs with lyrics that embarrass you in front of other people (no shame, our Matty has plenty of those too lol)

Favourite Muse instrumental to play (if you play an instrument, otherwise to listen to if you don't)

Do you prefer Muse in a club/small venue or a stadium?

Favourite live era?

Favourite stage/set?

Favourite festival performance?

Who's your favourite out of Muse's influences?

Have/Would you block someone for posting too much about Muse (asking for a friend)

Tell me a little-known fact about Muse

(Biased question but) Best Muse fan community? (Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, muse.mu messageboards, MuseWiki, any other old fansite, your IRL group of Muser friends)

Petition for takeabow19 to post again

Have you made friends through Muse fan communities?

Have you ever taken part in old Muse easter eggs? (e.g. anagram puzzles, the 2005 bicycle treasure hunt, etc.)

Chris' curls or the legend of Pedro?

Dom - bleach blond era, 90s slacker-band, wraparound shades-era, surfer dude era, Drones black era, 2022 'pornstache' baby blue era, or 2006 aviators era?

Matt offered £50,000 to whichever member of Muse is the first to go shirtless in the 2015 Nick Grimshaw Radio 1 interview. Who's getting paid?

brie or bananas?

Mirror Manson or Glitterati? (or any other Muse gear?)

Favourite catchphrase? ("Cheers!", "I've lost the plot", It's WOTPing time!, etc.)

Favourite silly Muse video (general)

Favourite music video?

Does the singer from Muse have only one tooth

(Okay I promised niche) Favourite Muse accessory? (Matt's OOS era thick necklace, the guitar-pick necklace, any rings, etc.)

(Let's pretend it's 2011 for a minute and the fandom is still losing their mind over Matt swearing in song) Favourite song/lyric that has Matt swearing?

[kirkwall]

tagged by @camelliagwerm <3 tysm harps!! this is probs gonna make me sound like a lunatic tho bc im still in my self-made vampire chronicles prison lmao

tagging whoever is reading this and wants to do it :3

1. the last book I read:

i finished blackwood farm (vampire chronicles #9) like a week ago. idk what to say about this one except that it has the first appearance of the word bisexual which is WILD in a series where at least 90% of the characters are in fact bisexual

2. a book I recommend:

have you heard of our lord and saviour babel by r.f. kuang? now you have. no but seriously it is so fucking good and all the ppl saying it's overrated or gets recommended too often are simply wrong lol

3. a book that I couldn’t put down:

also babel tbh. i vividly remember reading the last 150 pages in one sitting and then looking at my phone for the first time in hours only to find out the queen died in the meantime lmaaooo. 10/10 experience

4. a book that I’ve read twice (or more):

honestly i don't think i have? i went from barely reading at all to wanting to read so many books that i haven't really found the time to re-read anything beyond looking up specific passages. i do wanna re-read babel and iron widow tho

5. a book on my TBR:

way too many 💀 i think once i'm free from my vampire chronicles prison i'll tackle what moves the dead by t. kingfisher next

6. a book I’ve put down:

uhh i think leech by hiron ennes? we read it in the book club and it just didn't really grab my attention long enough but i honestly don't remember if i finished it and forgot or if i never actually finished it. i also have like two books on pause bc i forgot about them but i'll pick them up again at some point i hope lmao

7. a book on my wish list:

the gilda stories by jewelle gomez. among other vampire books bc no offense to miss rice but i need to read some that are not Like That lmao

8. a favourite book from childhood:

i really did not read as much as a kid as i should have tbh. i remember reading a series that my aunt got me called abby lynn by a german author. it was about a girl who got arrested and sent to the penal colony in new south wales in the early 19th century and i remember liking it bc it was a lot darker than i assumed was appropriate for my age lmao. but looking at it with an adult brain the colonialism of it all would probably kill me

9. a book you would give to a friend:

i have actively shoved my copy of babel into multiple ppl's hands already lmao. but i also love recommending this is how you lose the time war by amal el-mohtar and max gladstone

10. a book of poetry or lyrics you own:

oh boy i don't think i do. my copy of edgar allan poe short stories might have some of his poems in it as well? but i'm not sure

11. a nonfiction book you own:

one that i recently enjoyed is otherlands by thomas halliday. i passed most of my biology books on to friends but i still have one on immunology and i have a really cute edition of from so simple a beginning

12. what are you currently reading:

prince lestat (vampire chronicles #10). really sad that this one didn't have a signature lestat cringey my immortal type intro :( the showrunners said s2 is gonna include nods/easter eggs for this book which feels wild given how far ahead it is but i'm really curious to find out!!!

13. what are you planning on reading next:

blood canticle (vampire chronicles #11) 🤡 and only 2 more books after that one and then i'm free (to read other books, not mentally tho)

[mariacallous]

The opioid crisis — and the family that helped birth it — has inspired a number of books, documentaries, and TV shows, many of which aim to highlight the suffering caused by Purdue Pharma's criminally reckless marketing and promotion of OxyContin. In Netflix's The Fall of the House of Usher, however, Haunting honcho Mike Flanagan uses the works of Edgar Allen Poe to explore how moral and physical rot consumes the all-powerful (and fictional) family behind a sinister drug empire. Like Succession reinterpreted by the world's foremost author of Poe fan fiction, Usher is a Gothic-tinged horror lark that's more superficial than Flanagan's previous work but still delivers some creepy chills.

Fortunato Pharmaceuticals CEO Roderick Usher (Bruce Greenwood) has six children (by five different mothers), and when Usher begins, all of them are dead. The series is told in flashback, as a broken and ailing Roderick delivers his "confession" to Auguste Dupin (Carl Lumbly), a federal prosecutor who has been trying unsuccessfully for decades to bring down the Usher family's corrupt drug company. As a violent storm lashes the night outside, the two longtime enemies face off inside the dilapidated remains of the home where Usher and his brilliant sister, Madeline (Mary McDonnell), spent much of their very unhappy childhood. Over the course of eight hour-long episodes, Roderick eventually reveals the true reason his children met their ends — as visions of their mutilated corpses appear to torment him without warning.

Usher is packed with clever Poe Easter eggs. Roderick's children — incompetent eldest child Frederick (Henry Thomas), icy wellness entrepreneur Tamerlane (Samantha Sloyan), shamelessly ambitious medical engineer Victorine (T'Nia Miller), drug-addled man about town Napoleon (Rahul Kohli), ruthless family publicist Camille (Kate Siegel), and hedonistic youngest child Prospero (Sauriyan Sapkota) — share their names with notable Poe characters. Two other key players, cruel Fortunato execs Mr. Longfellow (Robert Longstreet) and Rufus Griswold (Michael Trucco), are named after poets Poe had personal beef with. And Madeline's lifelong quest to develop an AI algorithm that would bring users "virtual immortality" echoes Poe's obsession with (and fear of) death.

In his most famous short stories and poems, Poe wrote of people being brought down by greed and paranoia, addiction and violence, sometimes a senseless need for revenge. The Usher family is beset with each of these maladies, though their chief desire is to secure a life of complete comfort, which they do by amassing a fortune built on the pain of others. Young Madeline (Willa Fitzgerald) and Roderick (Zach Gilford) are launched on their path of moral decay by Verna (Carla Gugino), a mysterious demon who has built a successful career out of entrapping human "clients" by catering to — and then punishing them for — their inherent selfishness.

The poison apples don't fall far from the tree, and one by one Roderick's adult children destroy themselves in the name of avarice and glory. The Ushers and those in their orbit succumb to agonizing fates featuring many of Poe's greatest hits: Madness, mania, paralysis, and of course, premature burial. Each of Roderick's offspring gets a showcase episode that culminates in a grimly creative set-piece death — which is kinda fun, but it also, unfortunately, takes the place of true character development.

Fewer kids (and fewer scenes devoted to characters quoting Poe's verse) would have allowed for more time spent establishing who the children were as people, making their downfalls more poetic. Instead, they are all various shades of "good riddance" awful. The series spends the most time with Frederick, dubbed "Froderick" by his scornful siblings who dismiss him as a joke and daddy's number one suck-up. Thomas is wonderfully entertaining as the jittery, hapless Usher heir whose creeping suspicions about his wife (Crystal Balint) lead him to exact horribly unjustified and macabre revenge.

The cast, many of them members of Flanagan's Netflix repertoire, is dependably strong. Trucco brings a sleazy menace to Rufus, an arrogant boor who underestimates how far Madeline and Roderick will go to usurp him. Mark Hamill infuses Arthur Pym, the family's ruthless and unflappable attorney/fixer, with unexpected empathy, and Gugino delivers many a masterful monologue as Verna, who excoriates the various victims in her smooth and silky whisper. (Alas, her showdown with Madeline, an impeccably frosty and formidable force in McConnell's hands, is far too brief.)

The strong performances help sustain Usher in its sloggier stretches, though I still maintain that all streaming series should decide how many episodes they'll need per season and then subtract at least one. Flanagan's latest may not be his best (I'll save that spot for Midnight Mass), but it did give me an actual nightmare, one in which I was keeping my brother's severed head in a cardboard box — very much against his will, I should add. Poe would almost certainly approve. Grade: B

[grrrenadine]

One of my favorite spreads from a kid lit poetry book I illustrated last year! It’s called Стихи для настоящих мальчиков девочек всех (Poems for Real Boys Girls Everybodys) and written by Galina Sokolinskaya. 

This particular spread is from a poem titled “Boys Cry”.

Can you find a couple of pop culture Easter eggs?

[razorsadness]

I've not been writing many personal posts, because between writing a poem draft a day for the Tupelo Press 30/30, working on future Substacks and mini-zines, random scribblings in my private journal, and daily life and work stuff, well. I have had neither the time nor the inclination.

So this will just be short. Things are pretty good these days. I've been getting through this Mercury Rx with minimal troubles, knock on wood (not like last go-round when I completely lost my shit and had a nervous breakdown). Of course there has been some bullshit, but that's life, Mercury Rx or no—one of my recurring health issues has returned (fortunately it's not one of the Very Concerning or painful ones, just annoying and uncomfortable), I'm stressed about money and everything I need to do as per usual, the kids have been a little extra cranky, and I've had a lot of sleepless, toss n' turn nights. But it has been manageable.

The main Mercury Rx-related things that have arisen are general tech issues, and falling too deep down the nostalgic rabbit-hole and getting sad.

But there have been a lot of good things.

Like getting to see my best L. at the end of March. We ate sushi and talked and listened to music, and it was perfect. I got her turned on to Einstürzende Neubauten! She had never heard them and since I was getting all stoked for the release of Rampen I played her "Ist Ist," plus a bunch of stuff from Alles in Allem, and a few older tracks (though I stayed away from their super-strange-noise earlier albums, because I know her well enough to know she probably wouldn't dig that stuff as much). But anyway, she dug it! She said: "This is weird, but...in a way that I really, really like." My work here is done.

Like Easter—the kids had a great day, and it was one of the least stressful holidays I've ever spent with my parents.

Like taking the kids to Frank's Diner, and getting to watch them experience my favorite breakfast joint. Like the solar eclipse; watching the shadows go blurry and the world get dusk-dark in the middle of the afternoon, without a cloud in the sky.

Like all the writing—as hard as it might be, having to draft at least one poem a day has been really good for me. I've got the seeds of some things I think may be really quite good, one day.

Like all the small things—happy moments with the kids, sunny days, long walks, birdwatching (Friend Crow has returned to the tree behind our house!), books and films and delicious food.

And, of course, it's spring, and I've got that good ol' restless melancholy. I know, I'm melancholic and restless in every season, but in spring it's the most acute. I wanna go, anywhere (I don't care I don't care I don't care), or, to quote Kim Addonizio: it's spring, and it's starting again—the longing that begins, and begins, and begins.

Yesterday I found out that the downtown YMCA, where I used to see a lot of shows as a teen, is getting torn down, and man, I am having feelings. The poem draft I wrote last night, that went up today, is about that. Today I decided to go downtown and take some pictures of it while it's still there. They have it encircled in a tall fence topped with razor wire, but I walked all around the outside, taking pictures, and I also got some further ideas about stuff to write re: my history there but also ghosts and memory and whatnot. I'm eventually going to put it all together in a hybrid photo-and-text essay, which will probably be published as a mini-zine. I thought about how, in my younger years, I would have returned under cover of night to explore and take pictures inside the building. I either would have brought wire cutters to make a hole in the fence, or just braved the razor wire and climbed it. (And then I immediately thought of "On the Ave." At the reservoir you impaled your wrist / on razor wire climbing the fence...) But I'm not as brave as I once was, when it comes to things like that. It's not fear of injury, or even fear of who or what I may encounter inside the building; it's more that, since having kids, I'm not willing to risk getting arrested for shit like that. Taking photos of the outside wasn't as romantic as going inside would have been, but it scratched my exploration itch, and gave me artistic inspiration, so it was good enough.

After that I grabbed an oat milk cappuccino from a downtown cafe, then got back in my car and headed off on various errands. I listened to an old mix tape that a pen pal made me back during the same time frame I was going to shows at the Y (or, well, the 8tracks version of said tape, as I no longer have a car with a cassette player in it), and I'll be damned if those songs didn't sound just as good as they did the first, tenth, one hundredth time I heard them. And the world was full of signs, today, quite literally—a sign outside a church that said Delight in the Small Things, and a sign outside a diner that read Never Let Your Heart Harden. And it was all so much deja vu; driving through those neighborhoods I know so well, remembering what I used to do there, remembering what used to be there, while listening to those songs I know so well. I've been writing so much about my teen years lately, and it's funny, because when I lived here as a teen, I thought I hated this town. There were things I loved about it, but mostly, I just wanted to get out. I was also adamant that I was not from here. After all, I wasn't born here, and only lived here for seven years before moving away the first time. I never envisioned that I'd one day move back here for real, let alone that I'd come to love it for real. I may not live here for the rest of my life (and in fact I don't plan to), but, yeah, at this point it's my hometown, for better or worse.

[coralacytheauthor]

Easter as a witch

I grew up celebrating Easter as the rising of Jesus Christ, along with a lot of pagan traditions that were Christianized over the centuries. But as someone who pulled away from religion for a while and has only just recently started to come back into deconstructing my experience with Christianity, the more I see posts, poems and just little quotes about Mary of Nazareth.

Mostly in the view of the motherly side of Mary. Many of you have probably seen the quote; "Do you think when Mary wrapped Jesus in his shroud, she thought about how she swaddled him as a baby". Recently, I saw a poem that someone wrote for Mary, basically imagining how she must've hurt when they took her son's dead body off the cross (poem found on TikTok by AltheaDavis) and how everyone loved the Son of God, not Mary's boy and that tore me apart.

As anything does with the deeper understanding of Mary, not only as a person, but as a mother. Even as a kid I saw this holiday as more of sad one rather than one of joy, because for us to be saved, a mother had to give up her son--and as far as we know her only child.

It breaks my heart thinking about that, and how Mary must've hurt for so long before and after.

[katiajewelbox]

Happy Easter! I hope you and yours have a joyful day. For me, Easter is a celebration of springtime and a way to "welcome" the new season by putting up decorations, making special foods like devilled eggs and hot cross buns, and having an Easter egg hunt.

This game is surprisingly good for for grown ups as well as kids! In my version of the game, I write poems and put each line of the poem in an egg on a slip of paper. Each hunter has 1-2 egg colours assigned to them, and they have to scour the garden to find all their eggs. When the hunters return to the cottage, they open their eggs and assemble the poem so they can read it out loud.

However you and yours like to celebrate the occasion, I hope you have a lovely day.

[murderoushagthesequel]

my cover for teach them how to dream by @im-still-tryin-to-find-it is done!

the full image is here, and below the ~keep reading~ will be the front cover, spine, and back cover individually in better quality with explanations (this will include minor spoilers, mainly references to specific scenes i think are cute)

for those of you that haven’t read tthtd and don’t want spoilers, read it! you won’t regret it. if the color and joy i tried to convey on this cover is any sign, it’s every bit as cute and bright as i’ve drawn it.

---

front cover (click for better quality):

so the front cover obviously has the most easter eggs, but i’ll explain them all here for all y’all who are interested:

the stars above the blackboard are meant to resemble the glow-in-the-dark stars that are referenced a few times throughout the story

i really hope some of you get this but i added those white/blackboard borders teachers would always put up with fun patterns on them, i picked the alphabet

the chalkboard drawings!

a stack of chocolate chip pancakes because harry is obsessed with them

a whisk from james and regulus' halloween costumes

a text convo because the texting is pretty important in this fic

the framed poem!!

forget-me-nots because they just remind me of jegulus

snowflakes and hearts because of james’ love confession on christmas

butterflies flying in the shape of a heart: one is red for james and one is green for regulus

and finally a sunrise/sunset because james texting reg sunrise/sunset pictures!

ofc regulus likes reading in general but i drew the books specifically thinking about when regulus goes to lily’s bookstore and they first become friends

a pen cup both because it’s a classroom and because i wanted a way to represent regulus and james’ love of writing (thinking about the scene where regulus just looks at james' empty google doc and starts writing)

a rotten apple to reference one of my favorite scenes, chapter 6: the apple orchard, when regulus and james are talking about the kids finding rotten apples and then james has to eat one because harry asks him to

the desk, idk why i just picture regulus having this needlessly fancy wooden desk

and finally the sun streaming through the windows, i’ll explain a bit more when i get to the back cover

spine (click for better quality):

not much to go over here but

used the ao3 logo as a publisher mark

same writing of the title as the front cover but in solid writing instead of chalk

paint splatters for the background!

back cover (click for better quality):

starting with the background, again we got paint splatters

most books have a review on the back so i included an excerpt of my own review at the top

then one of my favorite quotes which is just so cute shut up don’t talk to me (this quote is part of the reason i included the sun streaming through the windows on the front cover)

and the official description by gabby from ao3

i used hearts as a separator between the words just because love!

and there are little doodles around both to fill space and also for the vibes

copied the cover art credit format from some books but without the publisher cuz there is none

and then the barcode! believe it or not there’s a lot here:

first of all the price, books in the us usually have prices written like that but the second one is canada- i changed it to international because it's the internet! and the marauders fandom is international!

the barcode itself is made up i just drew it

but the numbers are code for a series of letters (the alphabet where every 10 letters is assigned to the numbers 0-9) it spells “caught the moon” which is a reference to regulus and sirius’ memory of sneaking out to go capture the moon

and the qr code is a real qr code that leads you to the first chapter of tthtd!

ok that took forever to type out lol

i had a bit of trouble trying to balance out the kindergarten-y aspect with the actual plot and love story but i'm pretty happy with how it turned out anyway

if you haven’t read teach them how to dream yet PLEASE do, making this cover and going back through all my favorite parts of the story was such a joy and i really hope you appreciate it! i could only include so many references on this cover, there's so much more in the story.

going to go take a break and not move my hands for 5 hours because i just typed this all out on my ipad.

[norsesuggestions]

You mentioned kids getting candy on easter and I'm curious how it differs from Finland. You mentioned the kids just ask for candy because it's easter, no threat of tricks. In Finland kids give out decorated willow branches and recite a little poem of wishing someone health for the coming year. Is that a thing in Sweden?

We dont do the branch things which tbh sound really cute (and fun to make!)

The children useally draw cards, at the genuine made by a 6 year old art level, with an easter theme

Like.. a chicken. Maybe one has written happy easter on them. Never recall seeing any store brought cards, only cards with vague shapes drawn by children is what is used.

So some sort of exhange is going on. Buuuut, the happy easter cards are not obligatory, and also. Often very small. And low effort

They are not the main event as such. So, it feels very much like just going:

"Hi neighbour i am dressed as a witch, give me candy thank you"

(Being dressed as a witch is obligatoric though. No candy if you just. Show up in your regular clothes.

Being:

1. a child

2. dressed like a witch

Is step one to getting that free easter candy haha)

[academiaipromise]

everything i want everyone to know about the return of true tv pt 2 (riverdale season 7 episode 2)

jughead (who of course no longer remembers the present storyline) submitted a story to a comics company and they STOLE it i get it jughead i really do

oh thank god we’re having a sock hop this week 

fun fact about this comic book theft storyline is that every person i know (including me) who works in creative industries has a story like this. i feel like someone in the writers room is taking out some frustration. protect your work!!!! no one else will.

i forgot to say last week but betty and kevin are dating in this timeline...so i’m sure that’s gonna go well. i wrote this comment about kevin famously being a flaming homosexual with no regard for his own safety but i am watching archie and betty dance together and they actually might be the more immediate issue 

ETHEL “WE’RE GONNA BE A SHIP” MUGGS IS BACK (good for shannon purser i guess?) 

“we’ve been dating for months and we’re not even going steady yet...you haven’t even pinned me yet.” i’m in PAIN. 

they introduced clay walker in this episode, who is kevin’s husband in archie comics. eat your heart out mcu film bros i am an easter egg master. 

ARCHIEKINS has made its first appearance in the 50s timeline

i somehow missed how toni moved here an episode ago and joined a gang. sorry to those who rely on me paying enough attention to follow this but there’s a lot going on. anyways, she is threatening the sock hop! so cheryl has narrowed in on her enemy (to lover, obviously)! 

archie coming out in his suit that doesn’t fit is very high school musical 3 to me. no further comment. 

“ah jeez mom” AGAIN 50s archie is oddly endearing. 

archie writing a poem for veronica but then giving it to betty to read...i never said the writers weren’t plotting. 

VERONICA INVITED ALL OF THE POTENTIAL DATES OVER AT THE SAME TIME?! perhaps i am anti girlboss i’m sorry to admit this during the week of barbie supremacy 

“what if we went together?” “like...for kicks?” [i am on my 50s jughead canonically ace agenda i don’t have time to get into it here but this made me laugh] 

molly ringwald is kind of chewing her dialogue a bit good for her she really called her son simple (affectionate) 

maedchen amick is also...kind of terrifying in this episode. i support the older riverdale cast just doing whatever the hell they want at this point 

....is the show. implying that hal cooper was also gay in the way kevin is gay. or am i reading too much into that dialogue. anyways, we don’t have time to get into this. 

is ethel still in a cult in this universe or did everyone get a blank slate? perhaps she’s just still creepy 

betty clearly on her way to ask archie to the sock hop now that veronica is no longer taking him only to be stopped by kevin to give her this PIN so that they can GO STEADY genuinely makes me kind of sad like there is no way for this to end well. pinning someone won’t fix your problems kids!

ethel muggs didn’t show up for the detention she got for drawing her illustrations for jughead’s story and hurray! they got the job! take back ownership of your work kids

fangs breaking out into tutti frutti really got my “watched grease/other 50s-setting content as a kid” fight or flight instinct 

damn if my principal singled me out to wax homophobic righteousness i think i would have to resort to something drastic 

well okay cool yeah happy the creepy music following ethel around went somewhere (the sock hop episode ended by implying ethel killed her parents). 

important follow-up: again, the episode ended with ethel, covered in blood, saying “something terrible’s happened.” this was the immediate trailer for the next episode:

anyways. who’s excited for veronica’s make out party??? (my eye twitched writing this)

[mosraev]

Lyrics through the decade 4/10

I've decided to collect all the songs I've made through the last decade and share my favourite snippets with you guys. The pictures for the backgrounds will (as much as possible) be pictures I've taken the same year as the lyrics were written. The full lyrics may or may not be made official someday.

Part 4; 2016

For some reason I wrote a lot about death and mortality together with the smallest things in life such as getting pissed about social media, having trouble giving a compliment and being a over-the-top fanperson. So yeah this one will be a rollercoaster.

More info under the line

Stay creative, my fellow foxes 🦊💚

Song 1 (pic1); Faith

I wrote this song after learning about a terrorist attack in Tyrkey happening on Easter sunday so it plays a lot on the morality across religion and looking at the world with bitterness but also a bit of hope that things might be better (how naive thinking about what happened in 2022)

Featured lyric:

((Extended)) Go for trust and go pray on this sad, holy day

Who are you praying to?

It might affect if you'll see another day.

Song 2 (pic2); Scarred

A song about mortality and being a flawed human being. Building a lot on the 'digging your own grave' metaphor and other 'wow, you're a deadbeat person' sayings. Btw, this was when I was studying something I ended up learning was not for me so I guess I dealt with not feeling good enough through writing.

Featured lyric:

((Extended)) You can’t reach me, I’m lost at sea

In a ship that’s slowly sinking.

I’m digging my own grave,

But happen to pull myself out again.

I’m a trainwreck but I’m alive.

Song 3 (pic3); The Fan Song

And now we have the other side of the coin for 2016 - Silly songs and/or songs about the little things. This is a song I wrote in jest describing the experience of being a fan of something. Little did I know this feeling shown in the featured lyric would have a name one day (parasocial relationships) x'D

Featured lyric: You’re my closest friend,

My first real lover.

I know everything about your life, but we haven’t met each other.

Honorable mention;

I don’t know why I’m screaming in your face,

I guess it is all too much to take in.

Song 4 (pic4); Vulpes Mortem (Don't Cry for the Fox)

Now, why did I write a song about a dying fox framed in religious undertones by playing a folkish 6/8 melody? Because I dang well could x'D no, I am not kidding that is the whole reason :'D Fun fact: I've recorded this song with help from an impro choir and flute. When I get to it it'll be back on soundcloud.

Featured lyric: Don't cry for the fox, little one

She made peace with her death.

Song 5 (pic5); Beautiful

Honestly, one of my favourite little songs because it is so pure in its story and intention. It is basically about giving compliments to strangers and how honestly terrifying it can be.

Featured lyric: Hey, is it strange that I think you're beautiful?

Song 6 (pic6); My Own Worst Enemy

We're back to me having a minor crisis about my place in life (it might show even better than Scarred how I just didn't feel like I belonged at this study at university or in life in general). I never finished this so it is mostly just a very existential poem at this point.

Featured lyric: I guess it’s only me holding me down.

Keeps my feet on the ground,

puts extra weight on my shoulders, so I can’t fly.

((Extended)) I’m my own worst enemy.

Song 7 (pic7); Lullabye for the Universe

This is actually a rewrite of a song I made the year prior called Luna and it is about two lovers in a long distance relationship. I really enjoyed the pictures created in this song yet I am still not really impressed with the melody so it is on hold for now.

Featured lyric: Can you sing me a lullaby from the other end of the universe

While I’m waiting for the sun to rise?

Song 8 (pic8); Doll

Another very existential or maybe even more so a self concious poem that never fully made it into song status. I was speaking a lot about how wrong I felt yet how I didn't do anything about the feeling of wrong - the featured lyric also show my people pleasing tendencies.

Featured lyric: Pretty little agony, give until you break.

Your love is so cheap it’s on sale.