#anyway i had a blast streaming i cannot wait to do this again :3. maybe sometime next week

[donuts4evry1]

Stream Thumbnail (Without any text)

[celawrites]

Day 37

It’s 12am and my phone is buzzing and I cannot sleep. What the fuck is going on.

You have 20 new notifications

I click open our class chat first, and to my surprise, it’s all birthday messages.

Clown: Did you guys actually have to type me a whole essay? Thank you tho <3

Pebble: A well written essay!

Sam: Time well spent

My phone vibrates and I’m invited to a call from a handful of friends.

Joining Your Neighborhood Pizza delivery service’s call…

“It’s 12am let me sleep”

“Are you not happy that we’re wishing you happy birthday at 12am?”

“I am, it’s just I’m also exhausted for no reason”

“You’re going out for a McDonalds run right?”

“Yeah. You guys woke me up halfway through”

“Sorry”

“I’m sorry it’s 12am and I really wanna know who’s in this call right now”

“Ah! It would be Estelle, Beanie, Min, “

“Your son”

“Mint”

“Sun”

“What the fuck are you guys doing awake?”

“Admiring the stars”

“Sure. Totally believe you”

“Cressie it’s your birthday.”

“One year closer to my demise I guess”

“You’re insane”

“So I’ve been told”

“Ah. Check your mailbox in the morning! There should be a couple things in there”

I yawn. 6 hours of sleep isn’t enough to run on.

“Alright get to bed. Sleep your last 3 hours and I’ll be waiting for you at 3am”

“Mint you’re the most punctual out of all of us why are you picking me up?”

“I’ve never had a McDonalds run with you. Besides, It’s Friday.”

“Alright I’m sleeping now good night”

“Good night birthday girl!”

“That’s so cheesy ksjdfalfa”

Sure enough, at 3am, I wake up and find Mint outside my door, vibing in his car. I shake my head and lock the door.

“Good morning Mint”

“Morning”

“You’re mean you know that?”

“Happy birthday Mint”

“Right back at you”

“HEY REMEMBER WHEN YOU JUST STRAIGHT UP LEFT ME ON READ WHEN I WISHED YOU HAPPY BIRTHDAY-”

“I THOUGHT WE WERE OVER THAT ALREAY”

“My salty ass could never”

“Alright what do you want for your birthday?”

“Neither of us give anything-”

“Our Asian ass could never”

“HOnestly”

“Ah. I do have a present for you though”

My hand reaches into my backpack and I pull out a scrapbook.

“In true Crescent fashion, I present to you our scrapbook”

“What?”

“A collection of all the photos we have together with little commentary along the way. This is now yours” I beam.

“You’re joking”

“Nope”

“I didn’t even get you anything like his I-”

“You don’t need to”

He snickers and hands me a small box.

“I found it while shopping online, and it reminded me of that one time A gave you a rainbow rose so I figured I would give you an eternal one”

I stare at the rose. It’s rainbow, and I was surprised he even remembered that his brother had given me one.  I tear up slightly, maybe its because I wasn’t used to getting gifts from him, or the sudden change of heart but I mean-

“I’m crying”

“You’re always crying”

“SHUT UP KDFSKFSHDJF”

My hands clink at the glass softly, and Mint hums in appreciation as he flips through the scrapbook.

“Where’s this photo from?”

“Hm?”  He points at a photo where both he and his brother are jumping on the trampoline while I’m sitting.

“Your mom sent it to my mom a few years back”

“Ah”

There’s a comfortable silence that passes over us, and I decide to answer all the texts that I had received about my birthday while he flipped through the book.

After about a dozen thank you!’s and 4 conversations, I finish. Mint snickers when he flips to the last page.

“You just had to put that one last huh?”

On the last page lies Mint and I at Junior prom last year. It was a tradition to go with eachother, and my friend had taken a photo where we were pretending to make out.

”Why? Don’t want your future wife seeing it?”

“No. It’s just you saved the best for last” he snorts.

“Of course” I hum.

“Alright what do you want from McDonalds?”

“Ice cream”

“You’re literally bleeding this week no”

“Uhhh. Fries?”

“Sure”

Mint starts his car and we head off. The sky is a calm blue. A dark shade that leaves you wondering if there’s more out there. It was ironic that I had met him so long ago. It was even more surprising when he moved here for junior and senior year. I was horribly confused, and the only explanation he could muster out was a job change for his parents. But I was pretty sure they just wanted to have A mature in a different environment.

“Lost in thought again?”

“Mhm. You never told me how and why you moved here in detail”

“Nothing really. It was a job change on my parents part, and a new path for A”

“What about you?”

“I wanted to chase the only person who never gave up on me”

“You’re disgusting”

“Better than confessing to my crush every day for a whole year”

“LEAVE ME ALONE”

“You’re the one who brought up how I chased you all the way to California”

“I still wonder how you can pin after someone like me”

“At some point I realized you saw me as a brother”

“I wish I could do that.”

“You’re a hopeless romantic. Have some fun every once in a while”

“Are you implying I should have a one night stand?”

“Once you’re a legal adult sure”

“Bad decision making except it’s Mint giving me bad advice as a joke”

“I hate you”

“Love you too~”

“You’re disgusting”

“Bleh”

HE pulls up at the McDonalds drive-through and I scream.

“dEAR ARE YOU ALIVE?”

“OMG HAPPY BIRTHDAY DARLING! EVERYTHING’S ON ME TODAY”

“WTF DEAR NO”

“NO OBJECTIONS. IS MINT WITH YOU?”

“I’m here”

“Happy birthday Mint darling anyways what do you guys want?”

“The usual”

“Nothing new?”

“Nope”

��Alright! See you at the second window!”

“Cressie darling I got you a gift!”

“I- what?”

“Gift.” He tosses something through the car window and it lands in my hands.

“What is it?”

“Check”

I click open the box and I find a small pendant with a moon.

“I thought you were a broke high school student?”

“But the boss gave me a raise and told me to get something nice for my lover and like I don’t have one so I mean-”

“I don’t deserve you” I sniff.

“Stop crying darling you’re scaring me”

I really hope you find yourself a lover this year or I will fight everyone around me I SWEAR”

“You’re being too loud again Cress”

“Sorry”

He hands us our food and waves us goodbye. It was funny to me. I had so many friends around me now that I had grown.

“Are you gonna make a birthday post?”

“Oh for Serenity!” I gasp.

I type away and Mint steals a couple fries from me. I hiss at him while typing.

“Too bad” he shrugs.

School rolls around and I ‘m met with 20 happy birthdays and a couple gifts fro my other friends. Surprise surprise I have other friends. Z and Sun’s gift surprises me the most.

“Cress” Sun calls for me after school.

“Hm?”

“Happy birthday” He hands a medium-sized box to me.

“You always make us scrapbooks for our birthdays so I thought I’d try to make one for you”

“Have I ever told you how much I love you-”

“You remind me pretty often but yeah”

I open the box and a seat little scrapbook sits inside. There’s a white pen, a silver one, and a gold pen rolling around next to it, and there’s a small letter. Z tackles me from behind and I crash into Sun’s chest.

“Z what the f-”

“Language” Sun glares.

“Your gift!” Z hands me a small photo sized box.

“Photos?”

“You made a whole batch with notes on the back for me so I decided to print a bunch for you!”

“Thank you Z” I sniff slightly.

“What’s wrong! Do you not like it?”

“No no! I’m emotional haha” I muster up a smile. My cursed birthday luck was gonna catch up with me soon. I just felt it.

“No worries! It was the least I could do” Z smiles.

I nod in response. The rest of the day carries out like normal, and I find myself tired by the end of the day. My classmates threw me a party, and at the end of the day, my friends threw me another one. I enjoyed it, but I was waiting for my cursed birthday luck to catch up to me, I could never be happy until it occurred.

“If you’re thinking about that birthday curse of yours again, I’d advise you to know that with me, there’s no chance of having bad birthday luck” Mint hums. His birthdays had no bad things. It was like the universe favored him.

“I know. But I can’t truly calm down until I get to bed”

There’s a comfortable silence that settles down before Mint speaks up again.

“I’m sorry”

“Why so?”

“You had always wished me happy birthday so consistently, and I never replied and I just feel really bad and all-”

“Don’t worry about it.” I tap at the red solo cup in my hand. “I probably deserved all that”

“You don’t and that’s why I kind of. Um”

“Mint you’re my editor what did you do-”

“Bought tickets back home?” I gape at him. My jaw is dropped, and he seems to panic. “My home’s open and all! I know your house is rented out and the renters for my place just moved out and we have thanksgiving in a month so I figured I would take you back for the break and I’m sorry! I probably should’ve asked first and all but-”

A choked sob escapes my lips. I’m shocked, I hadn’t gone home in so long. How did he know? A stream of incoherent words escapes my lips and Mint tries to soothe me.

“You know.” I managed to force it out. “Some days I question why I stopped crushing on you. You spoil me rotten, and I don’t even deserve someone who cares for me and knows me like you and you always seem to know how I’m feeling and-”

Mint rubs soft circles on my back, and I let out my emotions. My birthday curse wasn’t a curse. It was a tradition. A tradition to cry at least once on my birthday, and for the first time, I was crying tears of joy. A couple minutes pass, and I feel my emotions slowly draw back.

“Thank you” I mumbled weakly.

Serenity made a new post!

It’s my birthday! Thank you to all of you who sent in birthday wishes (and death threats)! Another year has passed and I truly wish that I could thank you all face to face for the support!

Once again, my lovely editor Leaf shares a birthday with me so go ahead and send in some birthday wishes to him as well. For today’s gift from me, you all get a blast of joy! Much love!

-Serenity

Previous : Masterlist : Next

[deadcactuswalking]

“REVIEWING” THE CHARTS: 4th August 2019

Honestly I cannot write REVIEWING THE CHARTS this week properly because there are no new arrivals in the UK Top 40, so me and my Twitter followers have come up with ideas, but honestly I kind of want a break. I’ve been doing catch-up on catch-up with albums recently and I’m already really overwhelmed with that, so... will there be any new arrivals reviewed this week? No. Will this episode take literally 10 minutes to write? Yes. Is this pre-amble longer than the episode in word count? Maybe even that, but it feels refreshing to write one of these off in less than an hour like I used to be able to in 2018, and there are a lot of projects I’m working on related to both this series and the neglected YouTube channel that is intended to accompany the cactus brand, “Kanye Best”, including a Top 5 Best and Top 5 Worst Hit Songs of 1984 – or 2004 – list, so we’ll see that down the line, but for now, listen, let me just grind this out because nothing happened really, and I just want to have a chill-down week, I’ve done a Top 20 ranking on Twitter if you’re interested for more content this week.

Top 10

Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello are spending their third non-consecutive week at #1 with “Senorita”, and there doesn’t really seem to be much competition here.

Also in the top five, because it’s the British pop charts, we have two consecutive Ed Sheeran singles, with “Beautiful People” featuring Khalid standing still at number-two.

Running up to the runner-up is “I Don’t Care” featuring Justin Bieber, but I really think this one is gone after not moving this week, it’s been here too long at number-three for chart rules not to punish it.

What I am grateful for is number-four, as up three spaces is AJ Tracey’s “Ladbroke Grove”, a fantastic song.

Not moving at number-five is “bad guy” by Billie Eilish, which surprised me, I thought it would drop off pretty quickly after the Bieber remix.

Also staying steady at number-six is Lewis Capaldi with “Hold Me While You Wait”... why?

As I expected, “Cross Me” by Ed Sheeran featuring Chance the Rapper and PNB Rock is down three spots to number-seven, but I did expect it to drop a lot lower.

Another incredible song moving up in the top 10 this week is “3 Nights” by Dominic Fike, up six to number-eight, becoming Fike’s first top 10 here in the UK. I know we’re really late to this guy, if Australia’s reception to him is anything to consider.

MIST and Fredo’s “So High” is down a spot thanks to the climbers at number-nine.

Finally, we have a second new Top 10 entry, and it’s the first posthumous hit for Whitney Houston, remixed by Kygo, “Higher Love”, up five positions to #10, becoming Houston’s first UK Top 10 hit in more than a decade, and her 18th overall. It’s Kygo’s third, but don’t pretend you care about Kygo.

Climbers

Thanks to the video that went pretty viral, I’m having to my face my fondness for Chris Brown’s new single “No Guidance” featuring Drake once again and honestly I feel second-hand guilt for anyone who likes this song... in fact, that’s first-hand, I enjoy that track a fair bit and am not pleased to admit that. Last week’s Love Island soundtrack debut, and, yes, I’m not joking, is also a climber as “Sorry” by new DJ Joel Corry featuring Hayley May is up a pretty surprising 17 spaces to #21, barely missing the top 20, and I’m not really complaining, it’s a decent effort. Apparently it broke records for the most recognised song by Shazam ever, and that’s pretty hilarious considering that app is mostly irrelevant unless it leaks some info about some upcoming pop queen’s new era, in which case Shazam is a gift from the Gods. Also up 17 spaces is last week’s debut of “RAN$OM” by Lil Tecca... joy, yeah, apart from the coincidence that both our lowest debuts from last week have moved up 17 chart positions, there’s nothing fun about that song. Otherwise, “Ritual” by Tiesto, Jonas Blue and Rita Ora is up 12 spaces to #26 (although that doesn’t exactly match up, I’m trusting the BBC on this), and “Truth Hurts” by Lizzo is up five to #34.

Fallers

We have a few consecutive five-space-fallers here at #37 and #38, “I Spy” by Krept & Konan, Headie One and K-Trap, and “Summer Days” by Martin Garrix, Macklemore and Patrick Stump of Fall Out Boy respectively. I was thinking of how the Top 40 presentation on BBC Radio One and how it would flip from a pretty innocuous edited version of “Summer Days”, which is a nice, summery EDM tune no one could really get all too offended by unless they REALLY hate Macklemore (I don’t blame them if so), to a hard-hitting trap song that hits you several times in the CHORUS, with an intimidating voice commanding you to, “Suck your mother”. I’m sure that’ll appeal to all audiences. Apart from that, there’s nothing really worth talking about here. “Home” by D-Block Europe is down six spots to #31, “Crown” by Stormzy crashes down six positions to #19 (Not looking good for that upcoming album, but with how massive “Vossi Bop” was I’m sure nobody’s worried about this), and that’s all we have here that’s all that notable.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Looking at what’s outside the Top 40, I swear the Official Charts Company manipulated the data purely out of spite for me criticising their format, leaving me with no songs to review and Christmas hits to fall back on, because there are new songs by Taylor Swift at #43, Drake at #42 and Liam Gallagher at #49, yet none of them could have crossed over? Instead of any of those songs, which, you know, would be interesting to talk about, “Bounce Back” by Little Mix returns for another underwhelming performance week at #39? Sure! There’s not even more than one drop-out to talk about here, we’ve only got “Grace” by Lewis Capaldi out from #30 and that’s definitely the recurrent streaming cuts rule – and it’s not like this was a boring, slow week. If I only talked about #41-60, which is half as many songs as I usually talk about, I would have seven new songs to talk about, well, perhaps six since I’ve already discussed “Lalala” (charting at #50 this week) by bbno$ and Y2K as a Featured Single – man, maybe I should bring that back – but still, that’s more than what I’m left with this week.

NEW ARRIVALS

#000 – “N/A” – Official Charts Company featuring the BBC

Produced by blasted buffoons and wacky wombats – Peaked at #1 in Abyssinia

Conclusion

Okay, so, I was debating on what to do for this section, but I think I’m just going to rate the new arrivals outside of the Top 40. Best of the Week would probably go to “Lalala” by bbno$ and Y2K to be honest, but Taylor Swift would be following closely with “The Archer” as an Honourable Mention. Worst of the Week would go to “Harder” by Jax Jones and Bebe Rexha for just being boring, and I might not have had a Dishonourable Mention in place of a tied Honourable Mention for the sake of memery, as I’d give that Sam Feldt song called “Post Malone” a joke placement here at least. It’s pretty sad I can predict my own jokes before I make them. Anyway, the fact, I’ve written an episode this long with no songs to review has honestly kind of impressed me, so follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more musical ramblings and I’ll see you next week, where hopefully we’ll have any songs to talk about.