#Not me queueing this literally 1 day in advance

[vee-is-a-clown]

Happy birthday, Keith!

[thegreatimpersonator]

hey i see you to go a lot of shows (not a complaint ofc) and was wondering if you have any tips or tricks on how to secure tickets? i always end up failing and having to spend a billion dollars on resale every time i go to a show lol

yes i do! it's very complicated process so i'll explain as much as i can but if anyone has follow up questions i'll be happy to clarify.

one small disclaimer: i've only ever bought tickets in the US, so all this information pertains to shows in the US through US buyers, so if you're outside of the US i dont really know much about the systems to offer any help.

okay so! my first tips can be done in advance to gain knowledge and be prepared.

follow all your favorite artists on social media - this is to be made aware of announcements as soon as possible! it also lets you know of when to start saving up some money, because we know the normal schedule of how the rollout works, they announce a single, an album and then a tour (usually) and the presale for tours usually happen a week after the announcement- so very little time to save up. the second they announce a single or start teasing something is when i make the assumption that a tour announcement will follow shortly.

follow these update accounts - i follow concertleaks on twitter and they basically post a bunch of news the second it's announced. i know i said to follow your favorite artists, but sometimes some artists slip through the cracks or you just forget, this account has alerted me to so many artists i love (but forgot to follow) going on tour. i have alerts for this account turned on so i see the announcements immediately.

follow your fav local venues - either on social media or through email, they can send you updates of who's performing there once it's announced. i literally just did this and found out a band that made one of my favorite albums ever is doing an anniversary tour and performing that whole album live for the first time and got tickets!

have multiple ticketmaster accounts - ticketmaster is the monster that plagues the nation. however there are some ways to trick it. one of the ways is to have multiple accounts. i personally have 3, but with every account you'll need a unique/individual email and phone number. now email is easy, you can make as many emails as you want, but phone numbers get more tricky. i have 1 under my phone number, 1 under my moms and one under my brothers bc i know i can trust them to send me codes (the one ticketmaster sends you during the buying process) when they happen. so if there's anyone in your life that will let you use their phone number and can text you codes when necessary- make an extra account under that phone number. let's say you can make 2 accounts, this way you can use 2 different accounts during 1 presale and double your chances of getting through the queue earlier and getting tickets.

make sure your payment info is all set up beforehand - just makes things move quicker, make sure you have your credit card set up in ticketmaster so you're not sitting in checkout having to type everything. i also just have my card by me irl just in case lol.

that's all stuff that can be done beforehand. now for the actual buying process.

there's basically 2 categories in my mind of buying tickets. smaller artists and bigger artists. small artists are obviously a lot easier for many reasons. one is less competition and pressure in the actual buying process, but a lot of smaller artists dont only use ticketmaster. they use apps like AXS or go directly with the venues website. this one doesnt need much input outside of the steps we went over to be done beforehand. bigger artists is where it gets more rough.

it's presale day, dooms day, the big game. depending on the sale of the artist, i asses how hard im gonna have to go. for example- beyonce or taylor tickets require all hands on deck, i used all 3 of my accounts on ticketmaster, but i recently got lucy dacus tickets and i knew it wasnt gonna be as big of a war zone so i only used 1. when using more than 1 account, you cannot be logged into them all on the same device, ticketmaster will throw a fit and log you out bc it thinks you're a bot (like they care about bots anyways-), so if im doing all 3 i'll have 1 account logged into on my desktop, then another account on my phone, and another on my ipad.

i like to log on about 30 minutes before the sale. i get on ticketmaster, make sure my payment info is still all set up and the right card is set to the default, im in the right account (and if im using multiple, check that none of them are the same so im not in the same account on 2 devices) and then i search for the artists, find the show im planning on going to, and wait in the waiting room. i try to close all my other tabs so my computer is smoothly operating. i also have whatever presale code given to me typed up in a different window, so i can copy and paste it in, saves about 5 seconds and i can get in quicker.

about 10 minutes before the presale starts you get invited to go into the waiting room, i go in asap, make sure all my devices are also in the waiting room. and once you're let into the queue you just pay attention to which one is moving the fastest/closes to the front of the line. once you get into the buying process, past your code and this is where luck comes in. i just start hovering over and find the tickets in my price range (which is something you should also know beforehand). the second i click on what i need i RUN out and pay.

this was so much lol, but hopefully it helped!

[aventurineswife]

ok wait..

i was about to fall asleep, but then i realized something

so a little storytime (or big storytime)!!

i currently have only been playing flute for a little over a year, i sent in a request that mentioned the instruments i played i think

theres this girl in my flute section that literally NO ONE actually likes, shes literally a pick-me

anyway, so on my friday, my band teacher wasnt at school, so she wanted us to do missing assignments and stuff. most of us were bored and didnt want to do any missing assignments (including me 😪)

i was bored and decided to play one of my concert songs and it sounded kinda bad bc flutes arent supposed to be played cold (and i barely warmed mine up), and then i hear my pick-me classmate tell her new friend (keep in mind her friend JUST transferred schools the day OF our first concert of the uear)

my pick-me classmate tells her friend: "she's still learning."

LIKE HUH?!??!

IDK IF SHE WAS DIRECTING THAT AT ME BUT IM PRETTY SURE SHE WAS

also u can tell my classmate is a pick me, JUST BY HEARING THE WAY SHE SPEAKS

ANYWAY

ima just expose this fucking girl BC SHE HAS THE AUDACITY TO SAY IM STILL LEARNING WHEN SHES OVER HERE NOT PLAYING HER GODDAMN FLUTE DURING OUR SONGS

i will put this out here, shes been playing flute for probably a year or two longer than me

and im 100% SURE SHE DOESNT EVEN PLAY IT BETTER THAN ME

also bc my bestiest westie - whos also a flute sits next to her and never hears her play (when flutes are sitting next to each other u can usually hear ur right or left side more depending on ur angle)

also all that girl does is just hold her flute up and probably doesnt even play. like i see her hold it up when we r supposed to be resting (if u get what i mean) and doesnt get the queues our band teacher gives us when we are supposed start to play again

the way my band teacher does seating charts is like, least experienced to more experienced. and theres like 5 flutes in the official flute seating chart (we r excluding the transfer student cuz my teacher has yet to change the seating chart)

so like the flute seating chart is like this: 1-2-me-my bestie-pick me girl. pick me girl is at the end bc she was in advanced band last year while me and my friend were in beginning band

if the my pick-me classmate wasnt in advanced band last year the seating chart probably wouldve been like this: 1-pick-me girl-3-me-my bestie

i mightve confused u since i wrote a lot 😭

just tell me if u need things to be clarified :3

-:3 anon

THE FUCKING AUDACITY?! 🤨😭

Like miss girl, you ain't the main character 🧍‍♀️

It's honestly the audacity for her to make that comment when she’s not even properly playing. You’ve been practicing and improving, so for her to call you out like that is so out of line 💀

And the whole "pick-me" energy is just... ugh, so transparent (she reminds me of sister's ex- friend and my god, she's a pick me and annoying af💀)

And honestly, it’s hard not to let that kind of comment get to you, but it sounds like you have a solid grasp on your skills and you’re dedicated to getting better, which speaks volumes. Keep doing your thing, and don’t let someone like her get under your skin! 💖🫂🫶

[thelealinhypehouse]

Sometimes i cant complain on my healthsystem. Ok most of the time you wait months/years for the doctor. We have eternal queue that you cann die before any apoinment or you can go to ER and get everything in few days

Thats how i get my multiple sclerosis diagnose. If i fifnt go to hosspital in week where are 2 holidays my diagnose would be in 1 week.

On this monday i had my checkup and doctor give my quite alot of paper for Laboratory to get my blood and for xray

"Ok the laboratory is next to my office and then go behind main reception desk to find MRI/CT/X-ray unit"

Me: I was ok? Like...now?

Doctor: "Yes : D "

Soo i go there got a literal bag of many virals and nurse said "What they didnt have more?" in sarcasm Than the x-ray reception desk. Lady ask me "Ok when you wanna that x-ray?" Me: Well i would like today i have day off so i can wait till evening even. Lady: Ok *typing my info ect* Ok take this paper the x-ray technician gonna be in 10 min. Im shocked again. I got my next check up in next month, i got all my examination done and tada.

My medicines gonna be redy at october so i was waitin like half year when other people can wait over the year or more for this so i was lucky. The hospital im in is one of the advanced hospitals in my country, many experimental operations or so are done by the doctors here. And is part of University so all my medical records are used to teach next gen doctors. When i waled about my clinic unit i pass by literall classrooms. The STUDENS go rounds with doctor and doctor having the role of the professor at the same time talks about our illneses. They are not residents yet. They are students. They learn early to be better doctors and nurses later. Im amazed by my hospital and god damn free healthcare should be for everyone.

[givepie]

Some of my Unpopular Opinions about theme parks [that I will stand by and have in some cases]

1. Alton Towers is better than Thorpe, in my experience. I went Alton Towers and Thrope Park back to back last year, spending 2 nights and 2 days at Thorpe while visiting Towers with a school trip. The operations at Towers were better, and I am not kidding. When I went Thorpe i went on 2 rides [Swarm and Zodiac] where me and my mum watched and listened to the operators just stood around gossiping about other employees while the rides stood at hour+ queues. And then we tried to do ghost train [got there 30 minutes before it was due to open at 12 cause everything was 90+ mins.] And we waited an hour for that cause the ride broke down and they didn't tell anyone. The reason we could tell was because the line DID NOT MOVE for around 40 minutes and they turned people away from the fasttrack queue. For such a subpar experience me and mum were not bloody happy. Oh also Stealth was closed most of the time and it was in the middle of a 3 week long downtime for Inferno so we had Swarm, TWD, Colossus or Saw to go on. Compared to the day after where all of the rides were pretty consistent at Towers and I managed 3 large-queuetime rides such as Galair, Smiler, and Wickerman. Keeping in mind I missed ropedrop and left an hour earlier. Also all the rides were comfortable unlike 2/3 rides I went on in Thorpe.

Of course I enjoyed Thorpe and can't wait until I'm at uni so I can get a hotel room and do Thorpe + Chessington off-peak. Hyperia looks better than any coaster at Towers, but whoever says Thorpe has the better operations, environment, or lineup is incredibly biased.

2. A phalanx retheme for Galactica would ruin the Entire Fucking Point and would make the ride worse. This comes from the infuriating pov that thrilling = good and not thrilling = bad. In archival photos of the construction of air you can see the ride EXPERIENCE. THE LAYOUT. is based on a sense of victory and being the antithesis to Nemesis. Not the enemy, the FOIL. Air - and therefore Galactica - was created to be a sense of tranquility, removed from conflict. You are literally proposing a change to the ride that would be directly misconstruing the gentle nature of the ride. Isn't 13 hated for literally this exact reason. Like come on now.

3. Bigger=! Better. I was sceptical of Hyperia at first cause the title of "tallest in ___" is usually taken by a rather unimaginative ride with a lack of theming (or themed around cars.) which was created JUST to snag that title. This links in with my idea that Thrill=!good. Most b&m hypers (to my knowledge) are intimidators but not particularly thrilling. And yet, I have not met anyone who calls it a bad ride. Odd, that. Turns out, Hyperia isn't just a title snag and actually brings something new and creative to the table. On the other hand, I dislike rides like Stealth, Red Force, TTD, KingdaKa and anything else from that model on principle. I prefer coasters where the creators clearly had some fun. Where they actually thought about what they were doing.

4. I dont like Oblivion. I have never liked Oblivion. Lore wise? It's quite cool. But it is by far the most overhyped ride. Its a one-trick-pony. "but it does the trick really well!", so does Galactica! 13! Wickerman! But yall don't want to hear about that, you want rides where you can simplify it to something that seems quantifiable. In reality "It has a good drop!" is just as obscene as "It is a decently intense coaster that is not particularly intimidating so its a really good step-up". Or, "it really replicated the feeling of flying and freedom" or "a gentle ride with one relatively shocking element to help younger kids see that the sensations aren't that bad.". When it comes to ranking by my own criteria (taking out my own ride experience as I have not ridden all Towers rides), Oblivion ranks at the bottom of the SWs. Its not that technologically advanced compared to some of the others on lot; its incredibly short; and most of the ride is manufacturing suspense.

[actuallysara]

Hey I'm sorry to bother you about this but I know you're going to the convention in paris and I would really like to come too but I've never been to a convention before so I really don't have any idea of how these events work and I don't even know where to start? Do you have any tips for me? 😭

Hello anon, this is not a bother at all! this turned out into a full DREAMIT CONVENTIONS GUIDE so I apologize in advance lol but hopefully it will help you and other people out! You can also always dm me about it, I really don't mind talking about it or helping people out in any way I can.

This is all from my experience at DINAH last year so please mind that some things might be a bit different for FRR but here you go:

DREAMIT:

This is dreamit website (you can select the language on the menù at the top on the right), twitter and instagram.

I suggest you turn their notifications on to keep updated since twitter and instagram are where they make all their announcements.

WHEN AND WHERE:

WHEN: June 3rd and 4th, 2023

WHERE: Centre Evénementiel Mairie de Courbevoie in 7 Bd Aristide Briand, 92400 Courbevoie, Paris, France.

The location is not in the city centre but there are several big chain hotels nearby such as: Best Western, Ibis and Mercury hotels among the many.

How to reach the location from the city centre: either by metro, train, taxi or uber. If you use public transports get ready to walk a bit.

GUEST LIST:

Guests are announced whenever Dreamit gets a signed contract. According to their last update (March 2023) they're now focusing on bringing more Station 19 and Grey's Anatomy guests while 911 Lone Star guests are currently on hold. There will be minimum 10 guests.

So far the guests announced are: Stefania Spampinato from Station 19 (bonus guest), Ronen Rubinstein and Rafael Silva from 911 Lone Star (regular guests).

BONUS & REGULAR GUESTS: the difference is basically on their request and their cachet. Bonus guests cost more and their activities will therefore be more expensive than regular ones.

PAYEMENT:

You can pay on their website with credit or debit card, by wire transfer and with PayPal. PayPal gives you the option to split your payement into 4 parts if you want.

ACCESS PASSES:

You need to have one of the below passes to access the event and to purchase extras:

FIRST RESPONDERS PASS: a pass for the whole weekend. It can be paid in 2 parts. In this case you need to buy the First Responders Pass 1/2 first and then the First Responders Pass 2/2.

EMERGENCY PASS: a pass for 1 day only, either Saturday or Sunday.

FAST ACCESS:

This is an extra pass that gives you priority for activities for all/some guests, they basically let you skip queues:

Fast access+ will give you priority access to all the guests activities for 1 day only (you need to choose for which day or you can get it for both days).

Fast access Stefania/Ronen/Rafael/etc etc will give you priority access for the activities of the chosen guest(s) for 1 day only (you need to choose for which day or you can get it for both days).

I personally don't recommend getting these cause they're expensive and not worth it in my opinion. Queues are not that long anyway and there's time for everyone to get their extra done so there's literally no rush. Also sometimes these priorities in line aren't really respected and queues are where most friendship start so just take advantage of that!

PACKS:

Packs allow you to buy extras in a bundle and save a bit of money. They are on sale per guest and per day:

REGULAR PACKS: include a photo, an autograph and a selfie for 1 day only for 1 guest.

FULL PACKS: include a photo, an autograph, a selfie and an individual meeting room for 1 day only for 1 guest.

ACTIVITIES:

You will get a complete schedule of all the activites 1 week before the convention by email.

Every activity gets announced on screen in the panel room. So you don't have to wander around waiting for the activity to start or for your turn. You just need to sit in the panel room and wait for the activity to get announced. Once the activity has started, you can go where it will take place. Staff members will be everywhere to help you out in case you need it. Photo ops are all taken in one room, autographs in another and meeting rooms in other rooms.

PANEL ROOMS: with any pass you can get access to ALL panels for all guests. In a panel you basically have the guest(s) on stage and you can ask them questions going through a moderator first. They usually last 30 minutes.

MEETING ROOMS: they're basically a panel but have place in a separate room with a limited number of people (max. 30 people + guest(s)). They last 30 minutes. You can ask the guest(s) questions and just talk with them. At the end a group photo is taken. Sometimes they let you take an individual photo/selfie with them instead. These meetings can also come under the form of breakfasts, tea time, board games, etc etc. Meetings can be individual (with one guest only), or group ones (with 2 or more guests). The duo/group meetings usually happens with actors from the same show or who portray a couple on screen (see Ronen Rubinstein and Rafael Silva). There's usually an individual meeting per guest per day and a duo/group meeting per guests per day.

1:1s: usually very limited. You have 3 minutes with the guest alone. At the end you'll get a selfie with them.

PHOTO OPS: it's your chance to get a photo with the guest(s). There are individual photo, duo/trio and group photo ops. There are usually 2 photo op sessions per guests and per duo/trio/group per day (one in the morning and one in the afternoon). If you want you can show guests what pose you want to do on your phone or you can just explain it to them. Obviously no inappropriate poses are allowed and guests are allowed to say no if they don't feel comfortable with any suggestion. At the end of the day you will get printed copies of all your photos. Once the convention is over you will get the chance to buy the digital copies too.

AUTOGRAPHS: it's your chance to get autographs from the guests and this is the only moment where you can give them gifts if you brought any. You can get signed anything you want, something you brought from home or photos that you can buy at the convention. You can ask guests to write anything you want on the autographs and have them personalised.

SELFIES: they happen at the same time as autographs so you need to have an autograph if you want a selfie. If you have a selfie ticket but not an autograph one, they won't allow you to take a selfie with them. So you get the autograph done and then you can take a selfie with them. You can ask the guest to take it for you if you want.

PARTY: limited. It happens on Saturday night and NOT all guests will be attending (Stefania Spampinato will be there, Ronen Rubinstein and Rafael Silva won't).

ONLINE ACTIVITIES:

Sometimes they add some online activities so that people who can't be there in person have the chance to interact with the guests too:

ONLINE 1:1s: it usually happens on zoom and you get 3 minutes with the guest alone. At the end you'll get a screenshot of the two of you.

ONLINE 3:1s: it usually happens on zoom and you get 5 minutes with the guest and 2 other fans. At the end you'll get a screenshot of the group.

SHIPPED AUTOGRAPHS: you can order autographs from guests that will be shipped to your home. Dreamit will give you photo options so that you can choose which one you want to get signed and you will have to email them your personal details, shipping info and any request you have for your autographs so that you can get it personalised. They might take some time to get delivered.

VIDEO RECORDINGS: you can order a video recording from guests. You will have to email them any request you have for your video so that it will be personalised. If you don't have any special request the guest will just record a general video. The lenght of the videos is usually around 1 minute but depends on the guest. They will be sent it to you by email. They might take some time to arrive.

TO KEEP IN MIND:

DISCOUNTS: Dreamit has a fidelity program called "Dream It Club" so that you can accumulate discount points with each purchase made. You need to sign up for it here. It's 1 point for 1€ spent: -10% with 500 points, -20% with 1000 points, -40% with 4000 points, -50% with 6000 points.

FANBOOKS: if you want to do a fanbook for a guest you need to fill in a survey that Dreamit will post on twitter to show your interest. You need to have a pass beforehand. Dreamit will randomly pick a winner and contact them directly to be in charge of it.

Bring water and food with you. They don't have stands at the convention where you can buy something to drink or eat so be prepared in advance. There are some grocery stores in the area where you can go during lunch breaks if you want.

The convention place has no running AC so be aware that it's gonna be very hot in there but bring a jacket too cause it gets chilly outside in the evening.

There are several bathrooms at the location.

IMPORTANT:

VIDEOS: the general rule is that you cannot film anything including guests except for the welcoming and farewell parts of the panel room. You can film some bits here and there of panels as long as they're not too long. They'll be making a DVD of the event so they don't want people to leak the whole thing before that happens.

PHOTOS: you can take as many pictures as you want during panels. You cannot take pictures of the guests anywhere else or during any other activity.

AUDIO RECORDINGS: you cannot record anything at any time.

BE DECENT: people are there to have fun, have a good time and share the experience with other like minded people. Every single person will get their chance and time to interact with the guests. If you have a ticket for an activity you will get that activity done. If something happens at one session and you can't get it done then, you will get another chance at another session, that's exactly why there are multiple sessions during the weekend. The staff will make sure that you will get what you paid for. So there's no need to scream, yell, run around, push people to arrive first or be disrespectful to anyone, whether it's other fans or staff members who are just there to help. Please.

[literaticat]

Hi! Real question. Not being snarky. Why does it take MONTHS for editor/publishing contracts to be done? What are the agents and editors actually doing?

I mean we'd all love it to be faster. The bottleneck is not generally happening with agents and editors.

Here's how it goes. (Picking numbers absolutely out of thin air, I have no idea what the actual numbers would be and I imagine it varies!):

You have a publishing house, right? In the kids division, let's say there are six imprints, with six to ten editors each. There are new book acquisitions weekly for sure, probably multiple, at each imprint. Let's say 1-2 books gets through acquisitions at each imprint every week, so between 6-12 new books across the board. We'll aim high and assume 12 new books get offers, which some are accepted some are not, and say they end up moving forward with 8 new books per week across these 6 imprints.

First -- before accepting! -- the editor and agent negotiate a deal memo (this is the basic thing that says all the "big picture" terms such as advance, royalties, etc.). Sometimes things have to be approved by the financial folks, etc. Once the deal memo is complete and we have officially accepted the offer, the editor sends all the paperwork to the contracts department. It is now out of both of our hands.

The "contracts department" may consist of like... two people, and an utterly overwhelmed assistant. They are SWAMPED. They are DYING. They are, I have to assume, trapped in windowless cells doing a painstaking job that requires lots of attention to detail and is utterly thankless and probably getting yelled at by assholes all the time. (I'm so sorry, contracts people, I LOVE YOU, and I don't thank you ENOUGH! You should all get raises!)

So each contract takes time to draft. They can be 20, 25, 30 pages long (or longer!). Each agency does have their own "boilerplate" which at least gives them a place to start so they aren't reinventing the wheel every time, but each book deal does have its own terms (as outlined in the Deal Memo) and there are new terms and bits of wording being changed and asked for all the time -- for agencies like mine, with a lot of business at certain publishers, the contracts people and the agents are basically in a constant conversation, making sure that new terms are being carried over properly, etc etc. It's a nit-picky thing, they are comparing multiple contracts with one another at a granular level, it just takes a long time. No I don't know how long - but I know it takes ME hours to even read them, so I would imagine it's at least a solid half-day with no interruptions to draft them.

Once the contract is drafted, it gets sent to the agent, who carefully reads it and makes notes, those notes get sent back to the contracts person, who carefully reads them and responds, there may be a little more back and forth, finally we get a final contract that can be signed.

(This whole process might, in a fast world, take 1-2 weeks, because the agent ALSO has a queue of things and needs a solid half-a-day to do the notes, and when the notes get back to the contracts person, they go into the notes queue, then the agent needs to re-read the final version, etc. But it could for sure take longer than that. I would not be surprised if it took a month just for a normal contract with all the back-and-forth, and if there are significant changes being asked for, it might literally take months as each side has to get lawyers and such involved to make sure the wording makes sense, etc. This is pretty rare but it DOES happen.)

So back to our bottleneck. The big number of editors filter a ton of submissions into 8 books that are moving forward, those 8 books get filtered to 2 contracts people -- each of those contracts people might be able to realistically do, say, 2 draft contracts per week and 2 notes/final contracts per week. One of them went on vacation once, and both of them have had COVID this year, so unfortunately they are always backed up, and can never actually catch up, because there are more coming in every week than they can possibly do and there's already a queue.

So... That's why contracts take so long. Sorry. Everyone is doing their best, I promise.

[mcknitface]

My top 10 in advance of the final

so. i've finally written and thought about my actual top ten songs going into the final. i've actually also compiled my top 40 and my tops for the semis, but that's a bit late now. i'll do them in advance of next year though!

so, here, with comments, is my top ten for the final

1 - DE DIEPTE - an amazing song, by an amazing artist. i'm british but very into the dutch alt-pop scene (a joke scott and rylan made on tuesday) and when S10 was announced i was so excited. this song is everything i wanted and more - she's changed her style to suit a wider audience, and the da-da-da-da oeh-oeh aa-aa really brings in non dutch speakers, essential for this competition.

2 - MEÐ HÆKKANDI SÓL - wasn't too keen on the first listen (morning of sunday 13th march) but by the evening of the monday i was obsessed. amazing meaning behind the lyrics, and icelandic is such a lovely language to listen to. when this was announced as a qualifier i almost screamed (had to not tho as i was in the queue for a club) as i had prepared for the worst.

3 - LIGHTS OFF - one of the first entries to be released back in december. i had covid at the time, was on day 8 of 10 of isolation, and this buoyed me through the last two days. a great dance bop, the revamp arguably isn't as good but i love the pause before the chorus. she's improved a lot as a singer as well, literally screamed when this qualified, amazing song.

4 - IN CORPORE SANO - watched it, was bemused, watched again, watched again, looked up the lyrics, obsessed. amazing concept, almost performance art, i cannot get enough of this. look up the rest of her triptych, it's amazing. the other songs are called nobl and mekano, and the fact she entered the serbian national selection only to broaden her songs' reach, not intending to win, is iconic.

5 - HOLD ME CLOSER - i don't really have much to say here, it's just a very good song. a powerful chorus? maybe that's what draws me into it and separates it from other ballads for me.

6 - SENTIMENTAI - lithuanian is a beautiful language and it's amazing to finally have a song in it in the final. the older feeling of the song lends it an elegance and from everything that i've seen monika is an icon. i'm mostly excited about the lithuanian, but it's a song that i can't help swaying to. again i was thrilled when this qualified as it was borderline

7 - FULENN - i am in love with this devil-summoning masterpiece. something different from france, and in one of their marginalised langauges, really make this stand out. i particularly like the vibration-esque part of the second chorus, after the "tria' a ra ar c'haoud". great to have some celtic language representation as well, it's a travesty that we've (in the uk) never sent a welsh entry.

8 - TRENULEŢUL - this is another one which came out fairly early. i can't help bopping along to this and i really hope it does well in the final. it's such a jolly song with a serious meaning behind it, and the music video is so fun. not sure what i think of the slight revamp - i will still listen to the original - but i understand why it was revamped for the stage.

9 - SNAP - a non-offensive song with a great staging (that's unaffected by the broken sun). i didn't really pay attention to this until the second rehearsal on youtube, but i really do like it. maybe not something i'll still be listening to in a year, but definitely one i want to see do well.

10 - LLÁMAME - a nice surprise qualifier from thursday. the song definitely works better when you can see it being performed, but nonetheless it's a great song, with great choreo, and we love us some bisexual representation.

in case anyone is interested, my original top ten was the netherlands, iceland, czechia, slovenia, serbia, sweden, latvia, croatia, lithuania and france. semi one was particularly painful - i'd like to have seen thirteen of those songs through (but only seven from semi two)

judge me as you will, and enjoy the final!

[indigoelfinspirit]

All the odd numbers, please :D

All the odd numbers hmm? You would do that to me 🤣 1. how big is your mods folder? I think it's almost 3gb? Which is huge for me. I had to be super careful about package sizes with my old laptop, so I have lots of little things. 3. what is your favorite challenge? I love BPRs (which might be why I have multiple 😅). I will read any and every BPR I can get my hands on. I just don't follow the rules. There are a few cute new challenges I want to try, but I always come back to the BPR format. 5. what type of cc do you hoard?   All of it? 🤣 Um... the largest offenders that are my must downloads are skin details and tattoos. I also have a fondness for houseplants, kitchen clutter (I love the Snowy Escape cabinets because I can clutter the shelves), and rugs. 7. how many urls have you had, and what are the meanings behind them? Oof. Coming after all the secrets. So My main has a double meaning. Indigo Elfinspirit has been my online moniker for a while. Indigo for actual decades, and Elfinspirit for about 8-9 years. Elfinspirit is a combination of the fan club names for my two favorite Kpop groups Super Junior (E.L.F.) and Infinite  (Inspirit), but it also means elf in spirit because I absolutely love Elves and Fairies and Shee (if you couldn't tell from my berry elves running around everywhere). My other urls are not so special. @Elvinarchive is just a place to keep things for simblreen or other treats that I don't want on the main page. Though I have thought about actually using it to archive things someday. @Elveinposelibrary is me keeping to a theme. It is literally just the place where I reblog poses I think I might need someday and for some reason people follow it... 9. who is your favorite storytelling blog?   Dangerous Question. I have a lot. @simmancy's Pastel Pastilles was my first BPR and I will always love it. @simblrinterests Light Family Legacy is probably one of the best written one's I've ever read. It is beautiful, and painful, and magic. Jex and Kit's stories are my inspiration. Jex's made me want to write my own BPR, and Kit's mix of fantasy and personal experiences inspired me to write Starfall with all the personal messy experience mixed in. So blame them the next time things take a turn 😉 Everything @samssims does is just pure joy in a post, and makes me happy. @tainoodles is posting again and I am loving every second of it. Then there's the little story called Mimic that is everything my sci fi loving heart could hope or dream of. The days it posts are magical. It also has this really bad habit of making me want to do a Sci Fi story, but I don't have the time to make it look right. Literally I think I've start a sci fi save every other time you've posted a Mimic update in the last 3 months. 11. how do you edit your photos? I don't.  I am notoriously lazy. I don't use reshade. I only crop or occasionally turn a photo black and white when I absolutely have too. I did edit one photo properly in photoshop for Sam's love photo challenge. I have learned how to use tab mode and my new laptop is capable of running poses in game (and a real graphics mode) so the photo quality is at least going to get better. 13. what do you do when you are unmotivated? I start a new save 🤣🤣🤣. Or I pick up an old one. Usually either option involves taking tons of screenshots and posting them on discord and talking about posting them on tumblr, but never actually doing it because I always end up missing Starfall and Rusty and go back to working on Starfall and Halcyon Days (I literally have two AU saves where Rusty gets a long and happy life, because he is my favorite... don't tell the others).  15. who is your current favorite sim that is not by you?  Questions that are impossible to answer hmm? I will take Atlas from @lazarish‘s story almost anyway I can get him. I love Jack from Jex's legacy. Rae in @ancenth's NSB is adorable. Oh, and Tharen, Hal, and Freddy, of course. I have a real weak spot for Tharen, and I ship Hal and Freddy something fierce.    17. do you talk about sims with people in real life?  Never actually. I have practically no life outside work, tumblr, and discord. Simblr is how I socialize and I have met some amazing people on here. (Lest ya'll worry too much I do have irl friends but with the pandemic and my crazy job and the fact that we're now spread across the country we don't physically see each other too often. I'm not like a weird hermit or anything).    19. how many posts do you have on your blog currently?    934 👀👀👀   21. how many posts are in your queue currently?   7, I rarely queue more than 3-5 days in advance because tumblr screws something up if I do. In this case I just haven’t queued next weeks posts yet.     23. are you in any sims related discord servers?     Just one really awesome one.    25. how many hours have you played sims?      Nobody knows... I have played on 3 different laptops in the last couple years, and the tally doesn't transfer. I think I was at 500+ hours on the one I used during the pandemic.     27. what’s the farthest you’ve gotten in a challenge?     LMAO challenge? Me? I don't actually follow the rules or play challenges as challenges, so it doesn't actually count. I technically haven't gotten past Gen 1 yet in any of them. Though I am so close to Gen 2 in my Starfall save like I can see the finish line

[guigz1-coldwar]

'Followed': New chapter for "Redemption in a Spirit in a Cold War" is out !

'Followed'

'Grigoriev, what you did is going to have big repercussions...you're the first one in line to affirm that!'

Chapter Summary: Yirina, Park, Zasha & Portnova are heading to the nearest Burger Town of London but something soon caught the eye of Yirina...something that is more a problem...

Link of the Picrew used !

To read it on AO3, click here!

Words : +3500

Taglist : @snowgoldwaylon , @clxudtea , @efingart

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After the shocking news & the meeting with that CIA agent in our office where I was almost unable to stop Park to throw a punch at the guy as he was trying to get on her nerves and mine too, it was time for me, her, Zasha & Portnova to left the building and to get some lunch to maybe distract ourselves from the situation for the moment and it came to me like that that we should go eat at Burger Town and I was surprised when everyone including Park and even Portnova agreed on that.

Of course and to make sure that our efforts weren't in vain, the nearest Burger Town in London was in another borough than the one where Century House was located: in the Southwark borough and when we approached it after a lot of walk through the streets of London, I could see that the place was having a nice view on the Tower Bridge as it was just located not so far from the restaurant. At least, our efforts weren't in vain after all...

"Finally," Zasha was sounding a bit exhausted after the no-stop walk when we arrived in front of the Burger Town, leaning to put their hands on their knees. "I thought that we were never going to make it," They stated.

"Zasha, we did only 1 kilometer and a half of walk," Park said to them, releasing a little & lovely laugh off her mouth.

"Really, I thought we did larger," They proclaimed as Portnova moved to tap gently behind their shoulder.

"You're very exaggerating, Zed," She scoffed, keeping her hand behind them as they go back in a normal standing position

"Yeah, I remember the time where you could run with me," I told them, causing them to look at me with a raised eyebrow, thinking that I was joking. "Come on, it was just a joke," I clarified as their look at me weren't changing.

"You better hope so or we're making a race after we eat," They warned me, pointing at me but the smile they were making betrayed the threatening part of their voice.

"Anyway, are we going to stand around here the whole day or we're getting inside?" Park demanded, sighing at us with her arms crossed as we were still standing in front of the restaurant because of Zasha.

"Of course not," I replied, taking the lead of the group and walking to reach the front door.

The exterior was filled with people who were eating, talking...everything that what we should in a restaurant in resume...and for me, it was quite strange to find myself in the middle of a place that was having a lot of people around as it was my first day back out of the apartment, now wondering if it was in fact a good idea of me to go into a place like that and when I reached the door and putting my hands on the door handle, I was looking a bit confused as if my mind wanted me to run away...

But I hold on and I managed to keep calm, get myself back together by stepping out of the apartment, and that thought in my head, hissing in my ears makes me able to open the front door of the restaurant seconds before the others could ask why I wasn't opening the doors, my thinking almost happening for a millisecond for me, and then, we could step inside the typical American fast-food restaurant, discovering how it was.

It was my first time inside a Burger Town as every time I was eating something coming from that place, it was always someone else who ordered the menus and bring it to me, remembering the time when Woods literally go out of the car during my first mission back into the team 4 months ago to go take out some burgers for him, me & Park and to say, the decorations of the restaurant looked very American to me.

"So, how do we proceed?" Zasha spoke up after the group was all inside the place, them closing the door gently. "Who is paying?" They asked literally.

"Is this really a question that you just ask?" I looked at them, crossing my arms, joining Park & Portnova who were having their eyes on Zasha. "Of course, you're the one who will pay," I joked, having faked my incomprehension.

"Ha, ha, funny," They rolled their eyes, making a laugh out of their mouth but looking on their face that the question was also a little serious. "Seriously, how do we do?" They repeated.

"Well, I can pay for Yiri while you two are paying on your own," Park proposed to them, gesturing to the two. "If you two have brought their wallets with them, I presume," She added before Zasha moved their hands inside their jacket, taking out a black wallet.

"Have it with me," They said, showing up the walled to me & Park.

"Now, we should..." Park stopped to look at the two queues near the counter with behind it, the opened kitchen while two cashiers were taking the commands of people. "Get ourselves in the two differents queues as we could all have our lunches at the same time," She resumed, gesturing at the two queues.

"Why not?" Portnova agreed on this, followed by a nod from Zasha.

"Okay, we'll see where we'll eat, supposing that we eat inside," Park told them before the two decide to walk towards the right waiting line as I & Park were moving to reach the left waiting line behind it, now awaiting.

"Uhm...Park?" I silently called her out about something I've been wondering at the moment we arrived in line.

"Yes?" She breathed.

"I never ask if I've got a paycheck as I'm working with..." I started to demand but as we were in public, I couldn't say that our jobs were at the MI6. "Well, you know what I mean,"

"Are you asking me this now?" She asked and I nodded at her. "Of course that you got a paycheck, you're working with me," She responded, grinning at me.

"And...why I wasn't aware of it before? Do I have a sort of...bank account since I'm a British citizen?" I questioned, taking a step as we were at least two people before we could be taken into account while Zasha & Portnova were at the same level as us.

"First, you didn't ask about it at all but I thought about it and two...yes, you have one but as I said, you never asked about it," She answered, fully honest in her voice and adding a lovely nudging at my left arm, making a very silent moan because of it.

"That's hurt," I said in a low voice.

"Come on, it was nice," Park protested in a good voice, and honestly, that part of her did really manage to get over the recent events of today and that was for the better. "So, what are you taking?" She asked me, making me look at the panel where everything about menus, drinks & desserts were shown up.

"Let me think," I muttered, my hand moving above my chin in a thinking pose by looking up, the various choices of burgers flowing in front of my eyes as we advanced in the line, arriving in front of the woman who was the cashier.

"Hi, welcome to Burger Town, what are you ordering?" The woman asked hands-on the cash register.

"Hi, I would take a Classic Burger with medium french fries & a coffee," Park started, having made her choices pretty fast before turning her head around to look at me, still having my eyes on the big panel. "Made your choice?"

"Yeah, I would take a...Crispy Chicken Burger with medium french fries too & a coffee...like my girlfriend," I responded and Park's eyes went wide at my last word, adding a cute blush on her face.

"Oh, you two are together? That's so great," The cashier exclaimed, Park, turning her head around with a smile to her.

"Uhm...yes, we are," Park affirmed, giving me the best grin I could make, peaking my eyes a little to my right to see Portnova & Zasha still waiting for their turn.

"Wow, I can say that you're looking both cute together," The cashier confessed, this time, blushing with Park on my face. "Anyway," She purposely coughed. "Your order has been registered, it will be 11.22 pounds," She announced the price as Park got her own brown wallet out of her jacket and giving two bills and some coins to the cashier. "Thanks, we're going to assemble your order, you can wait here," She said, pointing towards a meter away from our position.

"Thanks," Me & Park told in unison, complying with the cashier's demand to step aside as some people behind in the kitchen were starting to prepare our order.

"Wow, I didn't expect that," Park spoke up.

"Expect what?" I narrowed my eyes at her, wondering about what she was thinking.

"About been together, that's good and surprising to say," She revealed before surprising me literally by giving me a kiss on the left cheek, bringing back my blushing that I was only able to get away. "Thanks, Yiri," She whispered, keeping the smile on her face and reciprocating it on my own as we were now waiting for our lunch.

The people behind were working very fast to gather what we ordered, never saw people moving like this and...it kinda makes me think that this place wasn't called a 'fast-food' by now looking at how those people weren't making a pause in their moves, always moving, never saw one actually stopping at the same place and only a simple minute after we give away our order that it was ready and given to us on a platter.

Park took it in her hands, now looking around inside to find an empty table and our search wasn't so hard at all, having found a perfect table in one of the corner of the restaurant and directly moving towards it and sitting on the comfortable seats, Park getting in front of me, letting either Zasha or Portnova sit next to me. About them, we were just getting sit that they were also finished with having their order and finding us.

"You got everything?" Park asked at seeing the two arrive near the table, Zasha holding the platter in their hands.

"All good," They replied, putting the platter on the table as Portnova moved to get sit next to Park, Zasha sitting next to me. "What did you get?" They demanded.

"Well, Yiri got a Crispy Chicken Burger, medium french fries, and a coffee like me...and all of us," She started, moving my hands on the things that are mine: burger, fries & drink and also looking at both platters, seeing that everyone ordered coffee. "And me, staying classic with a Burger Town Classic Burger," She added. "And what about you both?"

"I ordered a Double Cheeseburger with large french fries," Zasha responded, taking their things from the platter.

"I asked for a Burger Town Special Burger even if I'm new to this sort of place," Portnova told, moving the platter towards her.

"You never had eaten a Burger Town?" I questioned her, sounding curious.

"No, our old Mother Russia isn't having restaurants like this, and my lovely Zed didn't introduce me when I arrived here...until now," Portnova answered, unwrapping her own burger, not looking like the one on the panel...but still looking tasteful. "That's going to be the first burger of my life,"

"And to say that I had to ask the cashier about removing the tomatoes from your burger," Zasha scoffed, Portnova looking at them with a sort of deadly glare. "What? I remember that you said that you hate tomatoes,"

"I do," She smirked, not sounding affected as I was unwrapping my own burger and the little bag of fries along with Park & Zasha. "And you, Grigoriev? Did you eat a burger before?"

"I did...the last time I ate one was the day of my birthday," I revealed, remembering the night that we came back this day with Zasha at the MI6 safehouse in West-Berlin, Garrett & Greta having ordered Burger Town for us & them.

"Yeap, I remember, that was a nice day," Park smiled at me, thinking either of the birthday...or what happened during the night..."Anyway, I think that our burger awaits to be eaten, right?"

"I'm damn hungry so yes," Zasha breathed, taking their own Double Cheeseburger in both hands before taking a bit from it.

"Enjoy your food," I exclaimed and everyone smiled at me before tasting my own Chicken Burger in my mouth.

It was nice to make some changes from the usual food we were eating since days at the apartment and that was a thought shared by the others who were enjoying their fries & their burgers by looking at their faces and of course, we talked about everything and nothing except for work during the large part of the lunch, wanting to keep it a bit enjoying for the moment but also to stay discreet above all, having bystanders around us and acting like normal people taking a lunch....if only it wasn't acting.

"Well, our burgers were nice, now for the coffee," It was Zasha sounding enthusiastic as we were all finished with our burgers & fries after a good ten minutes, grabbing their coffee in their hands.

"You were more excited to be on that part of lunch than the burger, right?" I presumed, seeing them like that.

"You & your coffee," Portnova rolled her eyes around with a smile on her lips.

"Ain't my fault if I catch a coffee addiction," Zasha protested before taking a sip of their coffee, seeing on their face the relieving part of having caffeine in them. "So...Uhm...can we talk about what happened with that CIA guy?" They started after looking around, the place was less filled, and no one was passing or near us for the moment.

"Wasn't so nice, to be honest," I replied, my right fingers moving in a circle around the top of my cup. "Guy acted like an asshole, he said that the CIA was 'going to do what the MI6 couldn't do'" I added, gesturing with my fingers about the last part.

"What? The CIA is in London? And they're going to give us troubles to search for Perseus?" Portnova demanded, sounding a little confused.

"They have ears & eyes everywhere and yes, they will give us more troubles than help," Park responded, taking a deep breath while looking outside.

"Do you think that they'll try to disturb us in our search?" I nodded when Zasha asks that, knowing the CIA too well now.

"It's the CIA, don't need to ask for that when you heard its name," I muttered, shaking my head before looking outside, seeing a lot of cars along the sidewalks of the street.

"Guess that's something typical from the CIA," Portnova added but then, I was getting less into the discussion as a detail in the street was troubling me.

In all the car that was parked, there was a particular one that was keeping my attention: it was a dark black one, looking like a sedan type of car on the other side of the street but then, its occupants were suddenly too familiar for me...the same CIA guys that were guarding our office earlier in Century House, the same ones and for me, they weren't here for the burgers or the coffee but for us...the CIA has eyes & ears everywhere...

"Fuck," I thought to myself, only moving my lips a little, drifting my eyes back on the discussion between the trio, trying to think of something until I found in the middle of the table, a salt shaker..."Might be useful," I continued to speak to myself in my head as I grab the shaker in my right hand, putting it between my middle & ring finger. "Zasha, can you move? I need to go outside to get some air,"

"Uhm...of course," They complied in an instant, moving to get up and allowing me to move.

"You're okay, Yirina?" Park asked, worried.

"Yeah, it's just...I need some air, I'll be not long," I replied, reassuring her even if I was lying about it before I start to walk away from the table to get outside by a side door.

Honestly, I didn't know what my plan was going to be but I couldn't let the CIA have their eyes on me, and making a stand was the only way for me to get it done and a direct confrontation with those two agents was going to be the thing. I took the salt shaker with me for precaution, keeping it between the fingers of my right hand and not wanting to be spotted by the two, I decided to faint to go away from the restaurant.

After a few seconds of having faked to walk to another street, I came back, taking the pedestrian crossing to get on the other side of the street where their car was and thankfully for me, the street was empty to let me do what I needed to do here. I took a deep breath and checking if everything was good until I arrived at the right side of the car, seeing from up close the two men looking in the direction of where we were sit in the restaurant.

"Hey," I started, knocking with my left fingers on the window to get the men's attention on me and they turned around, their faces looking a bit confused. "How it's going?" I asked, awaiting no response before I go into action.

I used the salt shaker in my right hand to punch the window so hard that it breaks at the impact but the punch wasn't stopping here at it landed right on the man that was on the driver seat, hitting him right below the right eye and bloodying him before wrapping my left arm around his neck to get him up and reach his gun at his belt as the other one was trying to get his one too but...

"Don't!" I ordered in a clear voice to the man, stopping him and aiming this friend's pistol at his face. "Show me," I said, causing him to take out his gun, holding it with two fingers at his grip. "Give it to me," I demanded, still complying as he handed over the gun, the cannon aiming at the ground and I took it in my left hand. "Let me guess, CIA?"

"Yes, we are," The man replied, his hands up. "It's 'Alex' who ordered us to follow you, said that it was 'orders from the top'," He added, giving me away what I needed.

"Hudson?" I suggested.

"I don't know, miss, that was the only thing he said to us, nothing else," The man responded, his eyes trying to look away from me as I moved my left hand to hide the second gun below my jacket, releasing the unconscious guy.

"Tell your 'Alex' that you don't follow me and my friends because if you continue, it's not because we're 'allies' that I will start to cut off every ears & eye of the CIA in London, is that clear?" I warned him and the man nodded in fear before I aimed down the gun. "I don't like being followed, hope that got well warned, asshole," I continued, done with those guys now, having given my warning.

Once done, I walked away from the scene, taking out the guns and disassembling them along the walk, unloading them and make them useless before throwing them both inside a trash bin on the other side of the street, crossing it like that to join back the restaurant and tell the others about what happened, still having the salt shaker between my fingers.

"We should go back to Century House," I spoke up when I arrived near the table with the others as Zasha got up, thinking that I wanted to sit back.

"What's wrong?" Zasha asked me, Park & Portnova looking at me confused.

"The CIA has followed us, the same two guys that were guarding our office are in this car at the other side of the street," I replied, pointing outside with my hand towards the black car who at the second I said this, was starting to drive away. "That's why I got to get outside,"

"Bloody hell," Park muttered, breathing in desperation of that. "They actually meant it that they were having their eyes on us," She continued, Portnova going up from her seat.

"What do we do now?" She demanded.

"Go back to Century House and...keep an eye at our backs now," I suggested to the trio who nodded at me in approval. "They will maybe still listen and keep watching us despite my warning," I thought as Park got up from her seat, Portnova putting on her jacket and Zasha taking the last sip of their coffee.

"You're right, let's go back to the MI6," Park whispered, moving to get next to me before Zasha & Portnova take the lead to get out of the restaurant, now having another personal problem to face in just one day...

"If it wasn't enough, the CIA has to stay the assholes they're always has been,"

[thecassadilla]

Change of Pace - Chapter 3

Pairing: Kristanna

Chapter 3 on AO3

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Word Count: 3,481

Summary: With her sister’s blessing, Anna takes a step back from her royal duties and finds herself working for a ski resort nestled in the mountains. A chance encounter with the resort’s maintenance technician leads them down an unexpected path, as they must work together to plan the resort’s annual ball - and maybe fall in love in the process.

Author’s Note: Hi everyone! Happy December! I can’t believe it’s already December - like, I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but this has simultaneously been the fastest and slowest year of my entire life lol. Anyway, here’s the next chapter. I hope you enjoy it!!!

“I’m sorry...what? Are you kidding?...Okay, we’ll be right down,” Holly said, slamming the receiver down and standing up. “Come on, Anna, we have to go.”

“Wait, what happened? Where are we going?”

“We have to go to the ballroom,” Holly explained frantically. “Right now.”

Anna slid her chair back and stood up from her desk. “Did something happen?”

“Come on, we have to go.” 

“Can you please tell me what happened?”

“There’s some kind of an emergency, Bonnie didn’t go into detail but she said we have to talk to the maintenance guys because we may not be able to have the ball here.”

“What?”

Holly waved her hands dismissively. “I don’t know, we have to go.”

The two women ran out of the office and into the elevator, all the while Anna wondered what possibly could’ve happened that would have derailed their plans so far in advance. The party wasn’t for another three months, so she was trying to remain hopeful that whatever had happened could be rectified by then. Just as they reached the first floor and the doors slid open, Holly grabbed Anna by the wrist and began to pull her in the direction of the ballroom.

“Is this really necessary?” Anna asked, trying to pull back slightly. 

“Come on!” Holly answered frantically, tightening her grip and pulling harder.

“I don’t really have a choice!” 

They made it past the lobby and to the back area of the hotel where the ballroom was situated with only minimal staring; Anna imagined that two of them had to be quite funny to look at, especially considering that Holly was a lot shorter than her and had still managed to drag her across the length of the hotel.

When they finally reached the end of the hall, they were met by a tall, blond man staring at them with brooding eyes. Her first impression was that he was incredibly handsome and strong-looking, but she quickly made note of the fact that he seemed quite angry, as if he was having the worst day of his life. It did nothing to soothe her anxiety, and instead increased it tenfold. 

“What’s going on?” Holly asked breathlessly, finally dropping Anna’s wrist.

“Pipe burst in the ceiling,” he answered, irritatedly. “The ceiling is destroyed, the floors are destroyed, the tables and chairs are ruined.”

“How soon can it be fixed?”

“With damage like this? A couple of months, at the very least.”

“We’re supposed to be having a party here in less than three months. Will it be fixed by then?”

He scoffed before shaking his head. “Not a chance in hell.”

“Do you mind if I take a look?”

He shrugged. “Do I look like I care?”

Holly walked over to the entrance to the ballroom, opened one of the doors, and peered inside. In the meantime, stared at the stranger in front of her while he was keeping his eyes rolled towards the ceiling; his eyebrows were tightly drawn together, his lips were pulled downwards in a scowl that would not budge, and his nostrils were flared as he breathed heavily. Despite his agitated demeanor, he was quite attractive, and she thought back to the conversation she’d had with Holly about dating just that morning - maybe she had been looking in all the wrong places. And then he caught her looking at him and she quickly diverted her eyes to her feet, feeling her ears burn with shame.

“Okay, that’s bad. Like, really bad,” Holly announced upon returning.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Anna groaned. 

“I wish I was kidding.”

“First, Jenny quits and now this?! What am I supposed to do?”

Holly took a deep breath before placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Anna. There are plenty of other venues in the area - not here in Valley, but within a few miles. You’ll have to call around, but we can’t think of this as a death sentence.”

She shook her head, trying to maintain her composure and avoid a breakdown. “This is terrible. No, it’s worse than terrible - it’s a literal nightmare.”

Holly nodded sympathetically. “I know. I’m sorry. Look, I’m going to see if Bonnie is in her office and then I’ll go through Jenny’s paperwork and see if she had any connections to catering halls nearby. We’ll have better luck if we start calling around right away.”

“Thanks,” Anna said, though as soon as the other woman was out of earshot, she turned back to the man. “Are you certain that the repairs will take that long?”

“Do you want to see the damage for yourself?” he offered. “The entire room has to be gutted. It’s not an easy fix.”

She nodded, and he motioned to the door. She peaked inside and her jaw nearly hit the floor; the room was in shambles, far worse than she could have imagined. “One pipe caused this much destruction?”

“Unfortunately.”

“This is unbelievable.” She raised her hands to cover her mouth. “Oh my god, what am I supposed to do?”

“I don’t…I’m so sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” she sighed. “At least I have some time to find a venue. Thanks for letting us know.”

He fidgeted in place for a moment, and just as she started to turn away and head back up to the office, he called out to her. “What if I told you that I know a place?”

“You do?” 

He motioned for her to follow him, and he led her over to the textured map on the wall of the lobby, before pointing to a building that was located in the mountains. “Right there.”

She squinted. “What is that? Where is that?”

“It’s a huge, empty building that was supposed to be a restaurant, but they scrapped the idea when they expanded the resort. You can take the C Ski Lift up there and check it out for yourself.”

“There’s a ski lift that leads to an empty building?”

“It doesn’t lead directly there,” he explained. “It’s not a far walk from the hot chocolate bar, which is the first stop.”

“I’ve never been up there,” she admitted. “I don’t take the ski lifts. I don’t even ski.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You work at a ski resort and you don’t ski?”

“I’m not proud of it. If it’s not too much to ask, would you mind taking me up there? I can’t pitch it to Bonnie unless I know what I’m working with.”

“...I don’t take people places.”

“Please,” she begged. “I’ve never been up there and I really don’t know where I’m going.”

“Fine,” he reluctantly agreed. “I guess I can do that.”

She breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you so much, you may have just saved me.”

“No problem. Let me just go tell my boss that I’ll be right back, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed, watching as entered the decimated ballroom. She rocked back and forth from her heels to the tips of her toes and rolled her shoulders back in an attempt to relieve some of the tension that built up while she was freaking out. In no time, he emerged.

“Let’s go,” he said, as he strode past her.

She raced to catch up to him. “I don’t believe I caught your name.”

He glanced over at her for a moment before answering. “Kristoff.”

“I’m Anna,” she smiled, offering him her hand. 

He paused to shake it before pulling his hand away and continuing. “So, uh, how’d you get roped into this? You said someone quit?”

“My boss did - it was very unexpected. I was her assistant and now I’m...her.” 

“Isn’t that a good thing? You got a promotion.”

“A promotion I did not want, or ask for. A promotion that is requiring me to finish planning a huge party with not much time to spare - something that I’ve never done before, by the way. And to top it all off, the one easy part of my job got destroyed today when a pipe burst.”

As soon as the automatic doors opened and the blustery wind hit her, she crossed her bare arms over her chest to preserve any warmth she could. It probably wasn’t the best idea to agree to an outdoor excursion without a coat or any other winter attire. 

“Weren’t you around the last time your boss planned this party?” he asked, as they got into the queue for the C Ski Lift. There was no line, so when the next gondola approached, they climbed in and the doors closed around them. “Like, can’t you just go off of memory and try to replicate everything from last year?”

She sat down before shaking her head. “I just started working here in September. This will be the first and last time I’m responsible for something like this.”

“Last?”

“Yeah, I’m only here until the season ends and then I’m going home.”

He furrowed his eyebrows. “Home?”

“I’m not from here,” she explained. “I’m here temporarily for work.”

“Oh, sorry, most people who work here are from this area and I just assumed.”

“Are you?”

He faltered for a moment before answering. “Yeah, I live in town. I’ve worked here for a few years and I’ll probably work here until the day I die.”

“That’s depressing.”

“Not everyone can afford to travel around and work temporary jobs,” he pointed out.

She grimaced. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize. If it’s any consolation, I was born into, um...my family’s business, so I don’t have much of a choice in terms of my career, either.”

“Our stop is coming up,” he said, changing the subject and saving her from any further embarrassment.

The car pulled into the station, and when the doors opened they stepped onto the platform. 

“That’s the hot chocolate bar?” she asked, pointing to the small building next to the ski lift station. 

“Yup,” he answered. “We just have to take this path and we’ll be there.”

All she could see to the left of her was snow. Lots and lots of snow. “I don’t see a path.”

“It’s buried.” And without further hesitation, he started along the hidden path,  burying them deep in the snow and then pulling his legs straight up with each step.

“You would think they would shovel this every once in a while,” she remarked with a scoff, taking the bottom of her midi dress in her hands and stepping into the two foot deep pile. With each step she took, the cold snow fell onto the tops of her exposed feet and she sorely wished that she’d managed to put her snow boots on before she left the office. She was only partially grateful that she’d chosen to wear a dress today. Though the snow was stinging her legs, it was better than the alternative - wearing cold, damp pants until her heater managed to dry them.

He glared at her. “First of all, nobody ever comes this way so the path doesn’t have to be cleared. And second, you’re talking to one of the guys who would be responsible for shoveling if it was necessary for this path to be cleared.”

“Today is really not my day,” she groaned, feeling her cheeks heat up. “I am so sorry.”

“Let’s just make this fast, okay? I have to get back to work.”

Luckily, the building wasn’t very far from the station, and they were there in no time. Her first impression was that the building was large and could seemingly accommodate the amount of guests that were invited. There was an entire wall that was made of paneled glass, which provided an excellent view of the ski resort down below, the snow covered trees that surrounded the area, and even the sky. The interior was much more modern than the ballroom, with hardwood floors as opposed to carpet, elegant chandeliers dangling from the high ceiling, wall sconces, and a neutral color scheme. 

“Wow, it’s so nice! I love all of the windows,” she said excitedly, as she peered through the glass. “And it’s huge inside. There will definitely be enough room for the guests and a dance floor, and tables and chairs. And you said that it was supposed to be a restaurant, so there must be a kitchen where the caterers could set up and store the food. I actually think this may work.”

“Told you.”

“You’re a lifesaver! I just need to figure out a way to get all the equipment up here and then I think I’ll be all set.”

“There’s a road right over there.” He pointed to the large clearing between two wooded areas. “It hasn’t been plowed, but if Bonnie is willing to let you have your party here, it’ll get done. The path will be shoveled, too, so people can take the ski lift up from the hotel and walk over.”

“Seriously, you’re the best!”

Before he could respond, she’d managed to pull him into a hug, squeezing his waist tightly. He awkwardly patted her on the back until she pulled away.

“Sorry, I probably should’ve asked if it was okay to hug you.” She sheepishly tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I’m just so thankful that you showed me this place.”

He cleared his throat, obviously a bit flustered from the sudden contact. “It’s fine.”

“We should probably head back now,” she said. “You said you have to get back to work, and I’d like to run this by Bonnie.”

“Good idea.”

By the time they got back to the ski lift station, her teeth were chattering and she was shaking like a leaf. She couldn’t wait to get back to the resort and warm up, deciding then and there that she’d never venture out into the cold without the proper attire ever again. As soon as they were seated in the gondola, she bent down to rub her reddened legs with her hands, hoping the friction would heat them up faster.

“You should probably wear snow pants and boots.”

“To be fair, I work in an office,” Anna rebuked, glancing up at him. He quickly diverted his eyes away, as if he’d been staring at her. “I wasn’t expecting to come outside and walk through the snow.”

“Touché.”

“At least I can go back upstairs and sit next to a space heater for the rest of the day.”

“Be careful with those things, they catch fire easily.”

“I wish I could go without it, but I’m not keen on numb toes,” she laughed. “But I do remember to turn it off and unplug it before I leave for the day.”

“Good, the last thing we need is another disaster.”

“Tell me about it. It’s been quite an eventful day.”

“I’d describe it as hellish, personally,” he remarked. “I had a bad feeling about today. I thought about calling out.”

“Really? That’s so interesting,” she mused. “I had a great feeling about today.”

“Well, you were given a promotion and I was given a huge mess to clean up.”

“I didn’t want the promotion,” she reminded him. “If it makes you feel any better about today, you’re basically a hero in my eyes. You literally saved the day.”

He offered her a lopsided smile. “How about you hold off on the gratitude until Bonnie approves this as the new location?”

“You don’t have to be so humble.”

“It’s really not a big deal,” he said with a shrug, standing up just as their gondola reached the station. 

They stepped onto the platform and speed-walked toward the entrance of the hotel in a silent attempt to escape the blustery cold. 

“Thank you again,” Anna said, once they’d reached the lobby. 

“You’re welcome. And I believe the person you’re looking for is right over there.” He pointed to the front desk, where Bonnie was engrossed in conversation with another employee.

“We have to go tell her. Come on,” Anna insisted, motioning for him to follow, which he did. “Excuse me, Bonnie?”

The tall woman spun around at the sound of her name and smiled. “What can I do for you, Anna?”

“I may have found a location for the ball,” Anna explained. “I wanted to talk to you about it.”

Bonnie nodded excitedly. “Go on.”

“What do you think of the empty building near the hot chocolate bar? It’s big so it should accommodate the amount of guests on our list, there will be enough room for a dance floor and a buffet, and it’s on property.”

“What a wonderful idea!” Bonnie gushed, clapped her hands together. “How did you come up with that?”

“It was all Kristoff’s idea,” Anna insisted, motioning to him. “I really can’t take any credit.”

“Really?” she raised an eyebrow, looking over at him. “Well, I think I found your new assistant, then.”

Kristoff’s face fell. “Excuse me?”

“You’re going to help Anna finish planning the party. We won’t have enough time to hire a new assistant event planner, and since you came up with the idea to use that building as the venue, then you can assist with the rest of the planning.”

“No, no, no,” he interjected. “I am not a party planner. I’m a maintenance technician, and that ballroom is currently in shambles. I have plenty of other things that I’m supposed to be doing.”

“Relax, it’s only temporary. As soon as the season is over, you will return to your regular position.”

“But -”

She raised a single finger and he stopped talking. “No buts. Starting on Monday, you will report to the event office upstairs and you will assist Anna, or you will be looking for employment elsewhere.”

Bonnie’s word was final, and as she walked away from the two of them, Anna finally gained the courage to look at Kristoff’s face - which was clearly a mistake, because if looks could k*ll, she’d surely be d*ad.

And once again, she found herself apologizing to him. “I’m so sorry, Kristoff, I had no idea that she was going to do that.”

“Why did you tell her that I was involved?”

“Because you deserve the credit! I didn’t even know that that building existed until you told me about it.”

“You shouldn’t have said anything,” he snapped. 

“You don’t even have to help me,” she insisted, trying to placate him. “You can sit in the office for the next couple of months and not do anything, and I won’t tell her, I swear. Kind of like a paid vacation - just come to the office and play on your phone.”

“And what do you plan on telling Bonnie when she comes in and sees that I’m not doing anything?”

“I don’t know! I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

“I guess I should start looking for a new job,” he sneered, before marching away. 

She felt herself physically deflate; she had made mistakes before, but she’d never managed to make someone that upset. It wasn’t even technically her fault, it was Bonnie’s fault but she still felt horrible. She stood in place for a moment before slinking over to the elevator and ascending to the third floor.

“Where’ve you been?” Holly asked, as soon as she re-entered the office.

“I found a new venue for the party,” she answered, in a low voice.

“How’d you manage to do that?”

“That maintenance guy knew a place,” she explained. “Right here on property, not too far from the last stop on the C Ski Lift.” 

“Ooh, the maintenance guy! He was really cute! Did you get his number?”

“No, he hates my guts.”

Holly’s eyes widened. “Wait, what? Why?”

“I think I ruined his life.”

“Anna, what are you talking about?”

“I thought that he deserved recognition for finding a new venue for us, so I mentioned it to Bonnie. Now she’s forcing him to step away from his maintenance job and be my assistant for the rest of the season.”

“Why would she do that?”

Anna shrugged half-heartedly. “I don’t know, but he’s not happy about it and I don’t blame him.”

“You were doing the right thing, though. He can’t hold that against you. It’s literally not your fault.”

“I don’t know, Holly, he seemed very upset with me.”

“You’re the sweetest person on the planet. I guarantee that he won’t be able to stay mad at you for very long.”

“I guess we’ll see what happens on Monday.”

With a resigned sigh, she retreated to her desk and buried her face in her hands. How the day had gone from bad to worse in the blink of an eye? She wasn’t sure, but her snap judgment when she saw Kristoff in the lobby and assumed he was enduring the worst day of his life was correct - if only she had assumed that this would be her worst day ever, too. 

[vgm-in-irregular-time-of-the-day]

DAY 1850) Tron 2.0 - Credits Medley

Composer: Nathan Grigg, Wendy Carlos

Given that this is a medley; there’s lots of timesig changes but they’re more like unrelated sections from each other, often totally fading in/out or with ambiguous pauses, so I’ll just talk about each section separately.

0:00 - 1:29 is all just 4/4, frantic drums, crazy synth sound design, but no odd time really for this section.

1:29 - 1:44 i’m counting as triplets in mixed meter: 4/4, 4/4, 5/4, 5/4, 6/4, 5/4, 4/4. if you were to count those as 8ths instead of triplets it’d be more like 12/8, 12/8, 15/8, 15/8, 18/8, 15/8, 12/8 (replace the 8s with 16s if you’re going to be weird like me and count them as 16ths if you find x/16 more natural to think about for some reason) !

1:46 - 2:17 is polymetric! The syncopated bell-like synth ostinato is in 7/8, but the slower synth hits and most everything else behind it really are in 6/4. For a short bit before 2:17 I guess there’s some 5/8 polymeter in one of the synth layers also. Some other more ambiguous stuff you might be able to interpret as even further layers of polymeter but the point is like, yeah this part’s lots of layers looping in different loop lengths from each other on top of each other!

2:17 - 3:06′s at a bit faster a tempo than the previous section. Also polymetric but a lot simpler case of it. 4/4 in that metallic bell-like synth rhythm, and 6/4 polymeter in the beeps under it from 2:17 - 2:42

3:06 - 4:03, here it’s 6/4 through most of the parts of this that have enough of a rhythm to latch onto something, which only really happens starting with the echoy drums that come in at 3:31.

4:03 - 4:45 is interesting; this is taken from “FCon/The Root of the Problem (Combat)”, which is one of the tracks I have on my biiiiig queue of possible tracks to eventually post on here but never happened to ever post. I’d count this snippet of it as all 7+8, 15/16, but just being aware that there’s a constant four-on-the-floor “4/4″ kick acting “polymetric” to it from the bits at 4:15 - 4:21 / 4:27 - 4:34.

4:45 - end is all loose, but just 4/4 stuff whenever concretely countable

Hopefully I addressed everything important here! there’s a lot going on in all of these sections, so it wouldn’t surprise me if I missed an obvious polymeter layer or something and just didn’t realize it! Lots of these sections come from other tracks in the game too, so are in a bit different of a context musically from their amalgamation here. Obviously wild tempo changes between each section that i’m not bothering to write out lol

This is a great cross section of the crazy stuff present throughout this ost though, tron 2.0 is totally one of the most odd time/polymeter/etc filled game soundtracks out there. Part of that’s obvious influence from Wendy Carlos’s original score to the 1982 film being much like that (and this game borrowing a lot of the material she wrote), but Nathan Grigg’s style is always full of that kinda thing as well, and he only adds to that intricacy in his original additions to the mix!

For all those reasons I thought this would be a pretty good sort-of-sendoff for this blog i’ve been running for over 5 years...........

....so...

...!

...THE FINAL DAY sort of...! As I said many posts ago (https://vgm-in-irregular-time-of-the-day.tumblr.com/post/623135939348365312/day-1828-shining-force-cd-track-25-composer) [probably a better read than my post right now here today], this will be my final post that’s in the “1 song presented with a text post daily” format; I’ll take a break but I will eventually shift to talking about this again in (most likely) YT video vgm mixes, including other related content besides just the very specific odd timesig stuff in vgm too!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me all this time! ULTRA SPECIAL SHOUT OUT TO CHz who has helped me out with this blog FAR more than anyone could possibly imagine, he’s done far more work than anyone ever needed to do, far beyond my expectations to help me along with this. And he doesn’t get enough credit for that, this blog would’ve probably died a long time ago without chz’s help. Thank you so much CHz for all your assistance! Sharing me things you remember when I’m in desperate need of a new track to post at the last minute, uploading so much music for me, helping me organize so much, writing out timesig charts for me so many times, sharing overwhelmingly huge amounts of odd time vgm with me, probably even more than anyone else. So many other things all these years you’ve helped me with on here, I can’t thank you enough!

That said, thank you to EVERYONE who has shared odd time vgm with me (and this is like, a LOT of people, far too many to list, and i’m sure plenty would be uncomfortable being listed too, so i won’t subject this post to that).

I’m very bad at responding to PMs and other messages sent to me; I apologize greatly if i’ve left you hanging for months...or years...or forever. I’m just bad at that form of communication lol, but I’ve read the majority of what’s been sent and still try to keep as much as possible in my big list backlog of stuff to eventually post. I get excited and happy when I see people linking me new odd time vgm i’ve never heard and stuff like that; so if i’ve never responded or never posted stuff you’ve linked me here, please know that I actually do appreciate it even if i might not show it haha. I’ve honestly mostly only maintained this blog pretty sporadically and rely heavily on queuing everything in advance on occasion, rather than constant observation of it.

Once i shift to the new format of presentation i’ll still include the suggestions that’ve been linked to me, and stuff. I’ll maybe try to be more communicative in the future now that i’m not going to be bogged down by the load of keeping a constant daily stream of these posts. (though i probably won’t be paying too much attention to tumblr for a while during my break from doing this stuff)

thank you to everyone for every positive comment, every intent to help by sharing, and just...general inquisitiveness and enthusiasm about this THING i’m doing for no reason! This is all literally just me nerding out about my favorite combination of niche subjects together “proggy/mathy/etc music” and “video game music” at the same time as each other. I never expected this would get anything close to the following it’s gotten, but now occasionally it’ll get pointed out that this blog is me in some group i’m in or something and 5 people will be like “WAIT...that’s YOU?! I’ve been watching that blog for years!” or something; like i’m really startled by how many people follow this sometimes lol.

Really thankful for everyone showing interest in me just being me, having fun talking about things i like in music. I hope that can continue even if i’ll be changing what I talk about and how I talk about it!

It might be quite a while before I return to doing this kind of thing again, and it’ll definitely be a much less constant pace, but I think that trade-off be worth it. I’ll return to making posts here again when I finally have new stuff to post, big video mixes with animated visual transcriptions or WHATever i wind up doing (probably a new dedicated youtube channel for the new stuff too) and stuff! I’ll find out what that will be when I get there

Thank you all for everything!

THank you!

WOW

THANKJ YOU for all 5 years of this website being a fun place to post music i like inside of

BYE

OH WAIt here’s my twitter/soundcloud/etc links and stuff if you want to contact me in a place i’ll be far more attentive to than tumblr, since i won’t be paying attention to here for a while:

https://twitter.com/chimeratio_

https://soundcloud.com/chimeratio

ok now ACTUALLY BYE

THANK YOUI

(thank you part 2)

[samssimsarchive]

i love your sims and your storytelling!!! do you have any advice for storytelling/story writing? i really want to start my own simblr, but i dont know how to make an intriguing story -bee

Thank you!! And a very interesting question, I am probably not the best person to ask since I have like 17 stories and can never seem to stick to one. But I’ll offer some advice that could help: 

This got longer than I thought so under the cut for more: 

Find something you like

Find the subject you want to write about. Magic! Mermaids! Magic mermaids! Find the theme you want to go with. Romance or action or both. Find your niche and dig in!

Create the characters!

The coolest part of sim stories is how visual they are. They personally combine both my interests of writing and movie directing because you are doing literally everything (the sets, the sims, setting the scene, the dialogue) like you are the director putting this show on. And that’s just such a creatively cool thing we get to do with this game. Have fun in Create-A-Sim. Push and pull places you haven’t before. Match clothes you would never. See who you get. And then get to know them. 

Have fun with the game

Reminder that you are playing the sims. And honestly maybe you wrote something but your sim does something totally different in game. Roll with it. Or don’t But keep you options open and have fun with it. Let your sims create their own story when you get stuck!

Have fun with it! 

If you are not having fun, set it aside, work on a secondary (or like your seventh project if you are like me) and come back when you are feeling inspired. Don’t stress yourself out over it. And so long as you are having fun with it, it’s going to be a fun read! 

Utilize the queue.

Tumblr isn’t always the best sharing platform but there are pros and cons. I use the queue to set up my post about a week in advance so I can work on my projects during the week and just queue them over the weekend or whenever I am feeling inspired to. That way I don’t have to stress about being on here every day for an update. And it’s okay if your post rate is only 1 or 2 posts a day. And it’s also okay if you don’t use the queue at all. Post when you are ready to share content. This is your story, not a race.

Use Sims as a rough draft. 

In this I mean, don’t stress if it isn’t perfect. The good news about sims is you can reboot it at any time. Or keep moving forward and learning. I promise if you continue writing on a simblr you will improve with practice and first generations always tend to look weaker as you grow and become more confident in your writing. And that’s okay!!! Growth is good! Do not be afraid you are too “weak” to start. Everyone starts somewhere. (Looking at you DPR Gen 1-5 and BPR Gen 1-3)

Use Inspiration

I for one love tropes. Use some common tropes. One Bed? Love Triangle? If it’s interesting to you and self indulgent for you, then it’s going to be fun to read about. Create the story you want to create. Retell a story but change all the genders and make it gay (hey @lazarish good job!). This story is for you. What content is missing from your world? Go out and write it! 

Plan Ahead

I say this loosely because I plan nothing, lol. I am writing dialogue as I queue. But some people have tons of files with scenes and dialogue and things scripted out. It’s different for every person. My biggest advice in this category is just to have an end goal. Know your characters are going to start at Point A and need to get to Point T but wherever they go along the way can be looser so long as you keep going toward that end goal. And if that end goal changes midway through writing because you figured out Point R was actually where we were going, well, that’s just writing.

I am sure I have more and would love to talk more about writing or storytelling at any time! If you have anymore questions or want more advice, feel free to drop me another line in my inbox and I’ll rattle your ear off more about it. I love story telling (as you can tell from my million unfinished stories....) and writing and using the sims to do it. It’s such a fun and creative way to see your work really come to life. 

Thank you for this ask! And if you made it all the way to the bottom, bless your heart. I hope something in here helps!

[fundielicious-simblr]

wips!

Hey y’all, author here (still feels weird calling myself that ngl) I was inspired by @meetthefundies​ post about pose making from a while back and decided I’d take the dive and finally get into cc making for the sims 4. It’s always something that I’d thought about, and with corona basically shutting everything down I’ve had ample time to try and learn how to do things. The whole of last month was basically a bunch of trial and error, YouTube watching, and Tumblr scrolling (coupled with my parents asking why I have pictures of random white people saved onto my google drive almost every other night 😂💀)

In the middle of august my dad caught corona, and so the government isolated my whole family and I in the house (he’s all better now thankfully) for 2 weeks, meaning I had 14 uninterrupted days of just coming up with different designs and trying to make things work. So this post is to basically just put out there what I’ve been working on, a few have made it into my game to be play tested, but so far only one has actually left CAS 😂 I know these are definitely major works in progress, but my anxiety means that I’d keep redoing things over and over again in an attempt at perfection while the rational side of me tells me that everyone has a starting point - this one is just mine. Anyway, I’m rambling (as usual), so let me just post the damn picture so I can go back to actually working on these pieces 😂😂

I’ll start with the casual clothes,

This is what I’m working on right now, ironically it’s the easiest thing I’ve done so far. This is essentially one of those ‘Snoga’ sports skirt things that fundies wear, this is the second round because the first had annoying clipping that meant I had to go in and change the design. If this one turns out fine enough then I will make different skirt/legging length combinations, but for now I just need this to be usable enough in game to warrant making different styles. 

Sleeveless frumper dress thing (I’ll sit down and come up with names for these later 😂) 

This was inspired by Anna Marie Maxwell and her #fabulous frumpers as well as the frumpers the Maxwells used to wear in the 2000s, I stalked the Maxwell blog right back to the beginning and just started saving pictures 💀 This is so far the only thing that’s made it into an actual game save, and you’ll be seeing a sim or two wearing this in different swatches in around a month since my queue is now below one month long. This dress is probably between the 8th and 10th attempt at making a basic frumper as this is what I started trying to make as I was trying to learn everything I could about making cc.

Basic short sleeved cheap looking dress (like I said, official names will come later 😂)

This your basic average amazon dress that fundies love ( a la bates sisters boutique style) I’m at that point where my instagram explore page thinks I’m a 14 year old Apostolic girl or a baptist mother of 8 looking to change my style, so I have a wealth of inspiration to choose from 😂 This is something I made and forgot about because I got excited about the exercise skirt almost working in game, meaning that this hasn't even made it into blender yet. 

Now we can move onto the formal stuff:

Ruffle mother of the bride/groom dress

This is my attempt on that blue ruffle dress that Kelly Jo Bates wore to Erin and Zach’s weddings. I initially tried to make it exactly like the dress she wore, but then I realised I was falling into the tendency of making things hard on myself unnecessarily 😂 This has made its way into CAS but there was some awkward clipping around the arms which I need to fix in blender, and will fix the textures before I can try and test it again.

Fishscale type dress 

Yup, you guessed it, this is my take on that dress. This made it into blender, but seeing the uv_0 layout made me go “eek” and distract myself with something else 💀 I’m probably going to go in and change the design, take some creative license and change the ‘fishscales’ around because there's only so much space in the uv map. 

Wedding Dress 1 aka the ‘Anna Marie’

I’ve highkey been calling this one the ‘Anna Marie’ in my folders because this wedding dress is directly inspired by hers (fyi: this link does take you directly to the Maxwell family blog, that web archive website is banned where I live and I’m not sure how to upload an archived link with my vpn on cause sometimes my laptop starts moving mad) This dress is one step away from being tested in game, and was so far the easiest dress to ‘design’ because there's literally nothing on it. I have been watching some more advanced texturing tutorials and want to try and make this look a bit better than it came out in my initial texturing attempts before I bring it I game to test.

Wedding Dress 2 aka the ‘Elissa’

This dress was inspired by Elissa Maxwell’s wedding dress, there's not many close up details of her dress so at some point I just got creative and probably the only thing I can really lend to her dress is the gathering on the side. The bolero came in as an idea after I had attempted doing these cute sleeves but was defeated after a while, so I changed things up so as not to frustrate myself 😂 This dress also has a bit more texturing needed before I can attempt to see how it looks in CAS, but I think I'll just see what happens with this one.

Wedding Dress 3 aka the EBP

In my head this dress was meant to resemble what Erin Bates Paine wore to her wedding, as in, a dress that is fine and would be considered modest (albeit a bit dated) but is chopped and skewed to make it EVEN MORE modest. The kind of changes that are obvious so the whole world knows you’re extra special and extra modest. This dress was an experiment as I played around and attempted to construct a corset back for this dress and the ruched tacked on sleeves, which turned out alright but it needs a bit of tweaking here and there, as well as an overhaul of the initial texture I'd tried out for this dress. In the notes app on my phone the initial look I was going for with this dress was “EBP overly frilly disaster” because that’s what I thought her wedding dress was like, but when I found pictures I decided I’d save the overly frilly disaster for when I was slightly better at the whole cc making thing.

Anyway, this is what I’ve got for now, I’ve got a swim dress thing next on my list which might be slightly easier to bring from start to finish? Not sure, at this point its hit and miss with how the weights transfer which affects the end result. I do have to say, seeing all these unfinished things laid out has sort of reinvigorated me to try and finish what I’ve already started before making something else, especially since a lot of them just require me to play around with the texture.

[musicollage]

Arve Henriksen. Towards Language, 2017. Rune Grammofon. ( Guitars, Electronics – Eivind Aarset )  ~ [  Album Review |      1) Pitchfork  +  2) All About Jazz  +    3) Headphone Commute   ]

1) Arve Henriksen makes jazz for people who like ambient music. This might sound like an unintentional insult—the Norwegian trumpeter is well trained and celebrated in jazz circles, and he often performs among Scandinavia’s most prominent younger players, such as Christian Wallumrød—but it’s also hard to deny. Towards Language, Henriksen’s ninth album under his own name, begins with a slumbrous murmur of bass and an unfurling trumpet theme, and this mesmeric register never wavers throughout the album. The melancholy saunter of Henriksen’s lines is isolated and sculpted by glimmering, whirring atmospheres full of emptiness and portent. Testing different ways to contrast eloquent material and enigmatic medium, the record plays like some lost collaboration between Wynton Marsalis and Brian Eno circa Ambient 4: On Land.

Henriksen’s long association with free-improv supergroup Supersilent and its influential label, Rune Grammofon, were his gateways to esteem in circles beyond jazz. But he has earned his wider attention with a trumpet tone so communicative it’s almost psychic, which he has described as being modeled on the breathy, insinuating timbre of a wooden flute. *Towards Language *would be the perfect album title imaginable for Henriksen if he hadn’t already made one called Chiaroscuro. Sometimes augmented by his ethereal vocalizations, his instrument always seems on the verge of speaking, writing a smoky legato calligraphy on the air. If the language is obscure, the emotions are instantly legible—romantic seclusion, piercing beauty, and a steadfast determination.

Henriksen is joined by Jan Bang and Erik Honoré, two old friends who’ve appeared on some of his greatest albums (Chiaroscuro, Cartography, Places of Worship), as well as the ECM-affiliated jazz guitarist Eivind Aarset. Together they gin up brooding, minimalist chamber music in which the simplest melodies whisper of unfathomable depths of feeling. The outstanding “Groundswell” is a dusky jungle seething with hidden birds and snakes, slow trap claps, and lapping waves of mysterious tonality, before Henriksen fills it up with his leafy curlicues and looping vines. “Demarcation Line” is a showpiece for his signature physics, how he swoons from interval to interval and bends pitches so sweetly it almost cuts.

*Towards Language *is also infused with a deep sense of history, like an excavation standing open in layers. It’s both personal—the atmosphere of “Hibernal” is tuned by a rusty harbor-bell clank, a device heard as far back as 2007’s Strjon, which suits Henriksen’s noir-ish style so well—and cultural. Album closer “Paridae,” turns a traditional song in the Kven language of Henriksen’s ancestral northern Norway (sung by Anna Maria Friman of Trio Mediaeval) into a waterfall leading to another world. Henriksen creates the feeling of an opaque jazz album you can walk right into, all timbre and feel instead of time and modality, the edges and angles sublimated into aching curves. You don’t need to be able to identify a head melody or count off arcane rhythms, but only to know the way you feel when you see fog slowly seeping through a valley, or smoke curling off a cigarette in the lonesome glow of a streetlight.

2) Following hot on the heels of Rimur (ECM, 2017), Towards Language is Arve Henriksen's second album of 2017 and brings his tally of releases to ten in the past five years. One of the more remarkable things about Henriksen is that even though the quantity of releases increases, their quality remains as high as ever. All of the hallmarks that make his music distinctive are still in place, as good as ever—the haunting melodies, soaring falsetto vocals and exquisitely beautiful trumpet. His sound is as individual as a fingerprint, the true mark of a great player.

Studio-recorded over two days in August 2016, Towards Language consists of nine tracks, of which the longest runs for just seven-and-a-half minutes. Such concentrated, economical music has typified Henriksen's output on such classic albums as Places of Worship (Rune Grammofon, 2013) and Chiaroscuro (Rune Grammofon, 2004). Henriksen has always stressed the importance of his collaborators in the creative process and, as on those two albums, here he is again joined by the team of Jan Bang and Erik Honoré of Punkt, the presence of whom is practically a guarantee of success. As before, the pair display their knack of constructing uncluttered environments that perfectly frame Henriksen and allow him to be heard to best advantage. Guitarist and electronicist Eivind Aarset is also present on every track and was involved in writing each one; he adds subtle shading without in any way deflecting the limelight from Henriksen.

Anna Maria Friman of Trio Mediaeval (with whom Henriksen recorded Rimur) sings on the album's closing track, "Paridae," a traditional "kven" or ancient Nordic song, her voice and Henriksen's trumpet combining in a perfect blend. On other tracks, it is left to his own voice and trumpet to conjure up an ambiguous mix of emotions that include melancholy and wistfulness. The end result is yet another stunningly beautiful set from Henriksen.

3) So here is how it goes… In terms of extended control of a single solo instrument, we’ve got Nils Frahm on the piano, Hildur Guðnadóttir on the cello, Mario Batkovic on the accordion, Andrea Belfi on the drums, and Arve Henriksen on the trumpet. [Please don’t all at once jump on me and point out other artists that I’ve missed or misplaced – this was more of a compliment and recognition of the above, versus an offensive statement to the ones I have omitted. Deal?] If you’ve been following these pages, and listening to the music contributing towards the evolution of this Norwegian trumpet player, then, at least you should agree, that, when it comes to breathy brass works, where the instrument completely merges with the voice, Henrikson is unlike any other.

I last visited with Henrikson’s music, released once again by Rune Grammofon, back in 2014, with Places Of Worship which derived its inspiration from the literal places of worship, sharing ten tone poems set around holy places. On his ninth album, Towards Language, we find this “major representative of a golden generation of Norwegian jazz musicians” supported by his longtime collaborators, Jan Bang and Erik Erik Honoré, as well as the “ECM-associated guitarist extraordinaire“, Eivind Aarset, exploring the language of music through the partnership with others. Improvised music, and in particular jazz music, has always established its own set of musical words, phrases, and sentences, exchanging ideas between each performer through predefined queues. A great example of that, of course, is none other than Miles Davis, who often recorded his sessions (like the Bitches Brew in 1969) without much advance notice or direction to the musicians.

“To express something on your own can be quite challenging at times.” says Henrikson, “I have for years been in creative collaborations with musicians and producers that have encouraged and inspired me. With this help and inspiration to discover new sounds and music, I have struggled and made my way to gradually be able to create some sort of language and a way of telling stories with my trumpet and singing. They have all coloured and gradually transformed me through different artistic timezones that I have passed through. All the information, concerts, discussions and impressions have had a significant impact on the process of gradually coming closer towards the core of communication through music.”

It’s fair to admit that I fail to recognize whether or not some of the music on Towards Language is improvisational or not, but what I can clearly hear is a conversation between the instruments sharing the same story. This conversation, of course, can not happen without a predefined lingo, without question and answer, without the space set to say something and, in turn, the space left to listen. It’s probable, that as an active listener, conveyed through this musical account, I, too, become part of the language, interpreting tales, narration, and chronicles, as they fit into my own sound-colored world, where certain notes trigger a feeling, a memory, or a response deeply buried inside my own psyche. For this to succeed, the artist’s ability to properly communicate must be splendid. And as a listener, I’m part of the music, of course, because, without language, the message is lost.

[sebseyesandbuckysthighs]

Three Soldiers and a Baby | Part Eight

summary: Three handsome bachelors find their day to day operations disrupted when an unexpected new roommate (who comes complete with a diaper and a pacifier) shows up at their doorstep. How will they deal with this new and baffling responsibility without losing their minds or killing each other in the process?

pairings: Bucky x Reader (eventual) featuring Steve Rogers & Sam Wilson

warnings: none, just make-believe goodness, and some swearing

a/n: Well, we’re back with another chapter! I’ll be honest with you, I nearly forgot about posting this chapter today. I spent the weekend at home, but now I’m back at my place and literally putting this in my queue with only a half hour left. 😆 Anyways, I hope you enjoy this chapter!

*warning to mobile users, the “keep reading” tab may not work so apologies in advance*

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 |

| previously |

It was past midnight when a click stirred Steve from his sleep. He thought perhaps Ellie had woken up and was fussing around in her bassinet, but when he looked over she was still sound asleep. He thought perhaps it was Sam’s light snores that woke him, but they hadn’t before and when he heard the click again he knew something was off. He tossed a pillow at Sam to wake him, gently of course, and just as he did something crashed at the front hallway. Sam was awake just as Steve leapt to grab his shield from beside the couch. Both were on high alert as to who the hell could have broken into their apartment. They both circled in front of Ellie protectively, moving forward inch by inch until suddenly all the lights went on. Steve threw his shield toward the door and instead of it knocking out whoever dared to trespass into their home, a metal hand caught it with a deafening clang.

“What the hell?” The deep sharp register of a man’s voice yelled out in the night.

“Bucky?” whispered Steve just as Sam growled, “Barnes!”

The three men stared each other down as the threat of danger faded away and heart rates returned to somewhat normal levels. Before anyone could say another word, though, there was a soft huff heard from the living room just before a wailing cry pierced into the night.

Bucky’s eyes widened dramatically and his skin paled slightly. “What the hell is that?”

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“What the hell are you doing here?” Sam exclaimed as he glared daggers at the infamous soldier.

“I live here?” Bucky said rhetorically. “So much for a, “Welcome home, buddy” or a “How’d the mission go, pal?” The hell’s a-matter with you guys anyways? And what’s that noise?” He started inching closer to them only to be blocked off by the pair.

“You want a nice welcome home, how about I strangle you with my bare hands for a nice welcome home!” Sam was about to lunge at Bucky, but Steve had anticipated the attack and yanked him back by the collar of his sleep shirt. Bucky was a little thrown off by the active hostility and the tension in the room wasn’t getting any better with the baby crying in the background. Steve was a little annoyed with Bucky himself, though.

“We thought someone was breaking in,” Steve said defensively as he placed his fists high on his hips. 

The statement made Bucky stare at his friend, both confused and amused. “Breaking in? With a key?” He laughed. “Damn, you guys are intense tonight. What’s gotten into the two of ya’s?”

The crying got more frantic and deafening as the men slowly backed into the living room. It was Steve that broke first and lurched over to Ellie, effortlessly scooping her up, and in seconds flat was calming her down after all the commotion.

All Bucky could do was stare as his best friend held a screaming baby in his hands, rocking her back and forth and murmuring soft words to her. He was frozen in place, shocked at the scenario he found himself in suddenly. The living room looked like a tornado had casually passed through it. He tried zoning in on what was going on between his two friends, but he couldn’t seem to focus on that spot where they were standing.

“Guys, what is that?” he asked shakily.

“Dammit, Barnes. What’s she look like? A labradoodle?” Sam patronized.

“That’s a baby. What’s a baby doing here?” Bucky’s voice sounded far away even to himself as he sputtered out his words. “Who’s is it?” he asked, gravely. 

“She,” Steve said proudly. “Her name’s Ellie.”

“Elizabeth actually,” pointed out Sam, puffing up a pillow on his couch and flopping down onto the cushion. “As for her last name that’s up for debate. For right now, though, you could say that her last name is Barnes.”

Bucky turned ashen as Sam said the words. Petrified and stunned into complete silence, his heart beating faster than he ever remembered it doing so. His jaw was so tense that the sound of his teeth grinding together somewhat woke Bucky from his trance. What the hell were they talking about?

“You better sit down for this one, Buck.” Steve said calmly, gently placing a fast asleep Ellie back into her bassinet. “It’s a bit of a long story.”

* * * * * * * * * * 

“The fuck do you mean you don’t know where she is?” Bucky exclaimed, his fists held firmly at his sides. He was about to go off again when both Steve and Sam told him to shut up before he woke the baby again. Bucky looked apprehensively at the little bundle in the other room, needing to grip onto the island countertop when he saw her again. He still hadn’t even begun to process the baby thing when he was too busy worrying about her mother.

For the past year and a few odd months, Bucky wasn’t able to get you off of his mind. Finding you after all he had been through, and all you had been through during the day you two met, was like a shining star at the end of a long dark tunnel. Thirteen months he spent with you secretly by his side and Bucky couldn’t remember a happier time in his life. A time that he hadn’t been able to find again since. The end of the relationship came abruptly and without any cause or reason. Everything had been going so well until one day, with tears in your eyes, you told Bucky that it had to end. He fought you on it for hours, even went so far as to beg and plead with you to reconsider, but you would just tearfully shut him down. He grew suspicious about your reasons, clearly seeing that it was breaking you apart as much as it was him. Yet you kept insisting.

So Bucky went away. For your sake he thought because if it was up to him he would still be fighting you to this day to take him back. He only realized when it was much too late what his desperation was really trying to tell him. Now you were missing. Probably scared and alone too. At least enough to leave behind the child the two of you brought into this world together. Except you weren’t together. You had been all alone when Ellie was born and for months still after that. Bucky was smart enough to know that raising a baby on your own was the hardest kind of work there was. He felt sick to his stomach that he wasn’t there for you and worried to his core now that you were nowhere to be found. There was one part of the letter he kept seeing over and over in his mind, unable to shake it. 

“I needed to leave her with someone I know I could trust. I’m so sorry, Bucky. Please don’t hate me. Take care of our little girl.”

What kind of trouble could she have possibly been in that she couldn’t come to him with in the first place. “Where could she be, though? What happened to her? Oh god.” Bucky exhaled sharply. “Fuck. I need to go find her.” He pushed away from the island and rushed away towards the front door, but was stopped by both Sam and Steve who barricaded him back into the kitchen. 

“Hold on, Buck. We’ll figure that out together. We’ll fix this.” Steve reassured.

“Just calm down, man.” Even Sam sympathized with Bucky at this point. He could see the genuine worry on the soldier’s face.

“But why wouldn’t she come to me? I could have helped her. Could have protected her.” Bucky dropped his head, ashamed and upset. “Should have protected her.”

“She did come to you, Bucky.” Steve said, then pointed over to the living room. “The proof is right over there.” 

“Okay listen, Barnes. Just breathe for a second and hear me out.” Sam moved closer to Bucky, resting a firm hand on the man’s flesh and muscle shoulder. “When a woman says, “I need you to do this for me,” then that’s it. You do it. Without question. Cause otherwise she would handle it herself. This woman trusts you enough to leave her child with you. Now there’s no accounting for tastes here, but I think you owe her this much. Trust her to know what she’s doing just like she trusts you enough to take care of her baby.” Sam paused, looked back at Ellie and then straight to Bucky again. “Your baby.”

Bucky still had a look of apprehension on his face, but even he had to admit that Sam was right. Still silent, he took a deep breath in and out before he decided on what he would do next. This was a big step forward in his life and he absolutely could not risk screwing it up. With one final goodbye to his old days, Bucky looked off into the living room at the small basket that stood out like a beacon in the once upon a time bachelor pad. As far as he was concerned, that frilly bassinet in there held his future.

With a resolute nod, Bucky puffed out his chest and nodded. “You’re right. That’s my baby in there and I’m gonna do right by her. But you guys promise that we’ll do something about finding her?” He referred to you. Both Sam and Steve nodded in genuine agreement. “Alright then. I’m gonna go meet my baby girl.”

Steve and Sam remained back in the kitchen as Bucky took measured steps towards the living room where his daughter currently slept. While he was making his way over there, Steve turned to Sam and pat his friend firmly on the shoulder. “That was a nice thing you did for Buck, Sam. You may act like you don’t like him, but you really came through for him just now. I appreciate that.”

Sam just smiled and nodded proudly. “Not bad huh, Cap?” He stopped nodding then gave his friend a wicked side-eye. “But actually what I did just now was set that man up for a sleepless night after an almost week long mission. Not to mention that little girl had green beans for lunch and dinner today.” Sam sighed happily and walked away towards the bathroom for a quick shower, leaving a bewildered Steve and clueless Bucky behind.

Bucky didn’t even notice Sam walking away as he slowly inched closer and closer. He was just glad no one called him out on taking his sweet time getting there. When he finally reached the edge of her bassinet, Bucky felt as though all the air left within his lungs rushed out in a single exhale. Looking down at the slumbering face of his daughter was almost too surreal for Bucky to handle. In that moment he was sure that she was the most beautiful being in existence. “Holy shit. She looks just like her mom,” Bucky quietly whispered, his voice hoarse from all the emotions flowing through him. “She’s fucking beautiful.”

Steve had remained quiet as he watched the scene between his best friend and his daughter. He too was overcome with emotion, but was holding it together better than Bucky was. He walked forward to join the pair and noticed the moisture building up in Bucky’s eyes while he continued to stare at Ellie. “Yeah she is, Buck. Congratulations, man.” 

Bucky finally looked away from his daughter, a light stream of tears flowing down his cheeks as he reached out to his best friend and pulled him into a tight hug.

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part seven << part eight >> part nine

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Series Masterlist

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