#can one liquify music?

[dummpsterfire]

They put it on spotify!!!!!

Guys guys guys guys guys

They finally put it on spotify!!!!!!!!

https://open.spotify.com/track/492ceDtqmafb6QD1Xfhpmo?si=0SEO0QqNQK2_RH6mQjOoLQ

I can rest in peace now :]

[averlym]

ghost story premiere day! check @melliotwrites for more info

[chocodajib]

i dreamt of anemones

what was your expression?

lawlight week 2024 day 3: nightmares

inspo and thoughts under cut!

hello can you tell i've been rewatching madoka lolll

inspo!

i've been really into @ tothepointofinsanity 's art recently! it might be a bit to obvious hahah

with regard to the 'melting' effect, i was inspired by haruno's deep coma album art!

@ 19701125s on twitter! i didn't really end up doing too much similar to them, but i just really love the way they draw eyeballs or eyeball-like things

@ Veron_1411 on twitter as well! i wanted to take a lot more inspiration from their colours originally but uh. it was hard. so we will go back to blue and red

as aforementioned: madoka music has very much fueled this whole thing

i'm not totally happy with it since the whole composition is really unbalanced :/ but it was fun to just doodle a bit!

breakdown of the motifs and whatnot (i haven't done literature in so long....):

it's meant to be from light's pov! perhaps he is having a nightmare :)

many (L) eyeballs, mainly of when he's dying

the left side's wiggly 'column' of eyes going from open -> shut is L doing the dying thing; similarly, there's L's spoon that i liquified to death

tried to eyeball-fy the flowers and leaves too!

anemone

originally i was planning to have a heavier flower motif but then it was hard so. we just a little bit. as a treat. the floriography of anemone is usually pretty bittersweet (from wikipedia: Forsaken, sickness, brevity, withered hopes; anticipation), most of the time i just think of that one love live song tho

the colouring of the background, giant eyeball is loosely based on a red anemone flower (red white black). originally it was gonna be a moon cus like. light yagami's name. i didn't know how to make it look good tho

the flowers are in the corners of the boarders too

melting, rain ft. hands

uhh water goes dribble -> being washed away

L's pose is obviously a reference to The Rain Scene, but i struggled to do his cupping ear arm, since it kept unbalancing it even more. now it's just a hand lazily mozaic-ed. red since a) needed contrast, b) blood colour go drip drip, and c) wanted to like a. hands of gods thing. do you see the vision. (you can't because itis mosaic-ed)

(lazily drawn) chains are in there trust

wrote ryzaki, hideki ryuuga, l lawiet on the sides! mainly for aesthetic balance

light has really. violent ? english handwriting. i tried to imitate it

if you have read all of this tysm for joining me in my brain!!!!!!

p.s. not sure if i should tag a tw? and if so what tw? please lmk if i do need to!

[inklore]

dark red

premise: If your body hadn’t been liquifying in his hands with each curl of his fingers, with his filthy words against your skin, maybe you would have seen the warning signs.

pairing: chad meeks-martin x (f)reader

word count: 870

contents: unprotected piv, blood, chad being the killer au, dirty talk.

note: sorry this man is just scrumptious looking i needed an au where he was the villain for half a second, you know my thirst reaches no bounds lmao.

haunted hoedown day six.

His fingers had been wet when they touched your face. 

Your cheeks feeling cool when his hands left them to hold the sides of your neck as he kissed you. Pushing your back against the nearest tree and murmuring against your lips about how badly he’s wanted this. How perfect you felt underneath his hands as they moved along the curvature of your body. 

Up your shirt to cup your breast, and down your pants to run along your soaked underwear. His teeth and tongue bruising your lips with how hard his mouth connects with yours—with how hard he bites and sucks at the skin on your neck, your nipples when he’s moved your shirt and bra enough to give his mouth access to the prickling flesh. 

His mouth works against you, like he’s savoring you. Like he’s spent days, weeks, months thinking about it, and he’s not going to let anyone or anything stop him from enjoying you. Your taste, your moans, your whimpers that he coaxes from you. 

He’s tentative and knowing, like he’s studied your body, when really this is the first time you’ve let him touch you. 

It hadn’t been the first time you'd thought about it. Wondered if it should happen.

The two of you playing a constant what if? Or should we? Game for the last year and a half. 

And if any night was to be a perfect one, doing it now was as good a time as any—in theory. 

Logically, the two of you should go back to the house and find an empty room. Claim it before one of the others do. 

Your mind registers that you can no longer hear the thumping of the music coming from the house, just as Chad slipped his fingers inside of you. Making your body arch into him, your hips thrusting against his hand. 

“That’s it,” bit against your neck. 

If your body hadn’t been liquifying in his hands with each curl of his fingers, with his mouth on you, with his filthy words and encouragement—with the way you only trudged yourself in through the woods at the back of the house because you heard someone calling out for help—you would have realized something was wrong. 

But instead, a familiar voice had you stupidly stepping through the brush and into the dark woods, your phone flashlight being the only thing illuminating your path.

A light that gets dropped when Chad comes up behind you. A scream came from your gut and through the quiet night air, making him clasp a hand over your mouth before the both of you were laughing. Because it had only been him. Chad. 

Nothing scary. No monster. 

No killer.

You slapped him in the arm for luring you in here—or you assumed he was the one who did it; he doesn’t deny it. Only smiles in that way that shows his dimples and makes your stomach flutter. 

There had been no warning signs you could catch, no red flags to grasp onto.

Not when he’s making you come on his fingers. 

Or when he turns you so your cheek is pressed into the bark of the tree, your skirt pushed up, wet underwear pulled to the side, and he’s slipping inside of you. A sting of pleasure makes you gasp at the size of him stretching you out. Your fingers digging into the dirt stained bark. 

“Fuck, you feel so good.” Grunted into your shoulder as he fucks you. As his hips thrust into you at a hard pace, giving your body little time to accommodate his size. Your nerves are buzzing from how good he feels. How your body becomes limp against the tree, your legs shaking, when the tip of his cock hits that part inside of you that makes you cry out—in pain or pleasure, you’re not sure. It all feels the same. It all makes you moan out his name and ask for more.

His fingers finding your clit and rubbing circles against it until you’re coming around his cock, and he’s pulling out to come against your ass. His forehead pressed to the back of your head, your name tumbling from his panting mouth. 

A blissful smile on your face as the two of you righted yourself, Chad pulling you into his arms to press a soft kiss against your lips. 

“Let’s get back to the house; I want to show you something.” His smile warms your heart. 

A warmth that runs cold once you find your phone in the brush and notice the red on your hands. Confusion pulling your brows together as you search yourself for the source—the back of your hand swiping against your cheek—the bark possibly nicking your skin from the harsh movements of your body—the skin coming back red.

Your frown turns into a look of terror when you look over at Chad. 

The front of his shirt splattered with red. Dried blood marring his hands, the same way it’s in sploshes on his cheek and chin. 

A deep sigh heaving from his chest, “don’t scream.” The corner of his mouth pulls into a lopsided grin, a hand slipping in his back pocket to pull out a knife. “Please.”

[colourofthekites]

so my post about going through George Rexstew's insta cause I was writing a fic was semi-popular so I'd thought I'd just post the fic here. It's under the cut

Payneland - First Dance (One Shot) - 1629 words

The dim light of the office barely illuminated the book Edwin Payne had spread across his lap. The text was old and faded and hard to read but nevertheless, Edwin's eyes scanned the pages on various supernatural beings that could liquify a person from the inside out. Charles, on the other hand, was leaning on the desk, gazing intently at him.

"I can tell you're staring at me, Charles". Edwin spoke, not looking up from his reference book. "Is there something you want to talk about?"

"Can't a lad look at his best mate?" Charles said, huffing slightly. Edwin turned to him and raised a single eyebrow. "Nah just thinking, it's end of year dance season isn't it?"

It was the beginnings of August, schools would be breaking up now for holidays and teenagers would be coupled up and compelled to sway awkwardly with one another. Charles never had that. It was a strange thing to miss something you never really had.

"I suppose so," Edwin muttered, closing his book and looking up at where Charles was leaning. "Is there a reason you brought it up?"

"I just..." Charles shuffled his feet slightly. He's known Edwin for over 30 years and yet still feels on edge when pinned by Edwin's grey eyes. "...never had that. Would have been brills to actually dance with someone." Charles looked up at the ceiling, the paint was beginning to peel off.

"Well, if it's any consolation, I never had that experience either," Edwin sighed, drumming his fingers on the book cover "never had most of the high school experiences."

Charles let out a little laugh and then stood. He walked over to a small table in the corner, with a strange device plugged into a speaker system. When Crystal moved out of the office to get her own space, she left behind this thing for the boys, said if they need to liven the atmosphere. Edwin barely understood it, but Crystal taught Charles how to pick songs on there, finding ones he liked so he can play them. Charles flicked his finger across the screen, finding the right song to play. He tapped the button and the speaker buzzed into life, playing a soft string melody from its latticed front. Charles turned to look at Edwin, whose brow had furrowed with confusion.

"Come on then," Charles said, extending his hand out for Edwin to take it. "first time for everything". He smirked knowingly. Edwin wasn't one for romances or sappy moments but if anyone could get him to loosen up, it was his best mate.

Edwin rolled his eyes and sighed, "really Charles? don't be ridiculous". He tilted his head slightly, goading Charles to carry on with his silly gesture. Edwin didn't want to admit it, but he enjoys getting Charles to convince him.

Charles furrowed his own brow and pouted. He put on his best puppy dog eyes, the deepest and brownest of the them all. "Come on Edwin, please?" Edwin huffed again "for me?"

Edwin stood with his usual flair, legs swinging over one another as if he was a gymnast. "Fine, but only for you" Edwin took Charles's hand and let himself be pulled into an embrace, his hands placed carefully on Charles's shoulders, while Charles's own hands went to his waist.

They stood like that, swaying from side to side as the orchestral music raised high and low, as if it was swaying in its own right. Even though they are dead, Charles could feel the stiffness of Edwin's shirt under his fingers, the taut muscle of his waist as they danced together. Charles wasn't sure if it was tension or just the way Edwin's body was. Either way, it didn't matter. This was something silly for them to do rather than scan over cases. Charles couldn't meet Edwin's eyes, instead looking down at how their feet were moving next to one another's, shuffling slightly as to not bump into each other. It felt... perfect. Like their movements and individual selves were made to fit one another spaces.

Charles finally built up the courage to look at Edwin. His face was set. This was ridiculous but Charles could see the slightest twitch of a smirk playing on the corner of Edwin's lips. Charles struggled to stifle a laugh, and, as if by nature, Edwin was laughing too. Little sounds that, if their lungs still drew breath, would send ripples through the air.

"This is stupid!" Edwin chuckled, tipping his head forward into Charles's space. The music was building to a crescendo, and all the boys could do was laugh with one another.

"I know! But it's at least it's stupid with you" Charles shifted his arms to pull Edwin closer, pressing their chests together in an almighty hug. Edwin tensed, and then softened into it, wrapping his arms around Charles's shoulders and neck. Charles could feel Edwin's fingertips at the base of his hair. Just a slight tickle but it was enough to make Charles wish he could feel his heart beating again, feel Edwin's beating against his.

Edwin was still chuckling, the shakes of his laughter going through his body Charles could feel every bit of it. He manoeuvred his arms to wrap tighter around Edwin's waist, and one moved up his back. Even through his shirt, Charles could feel the bumps of Edwin's spine, pulling him closer and nestling in the space between Edwin's neck and his shoulders. Edwin sighed deeply, and Charles followed suit. Ever since Edwin escaped hell with Charles, Charles looked at him in a different, but beautiful way. His best mate, his fellow dead boy detective was in love with him and he couldn't say the same. He felt like he hand Edwin's heart in his hands and he couldn't hold it the way Edwin needed. Charles said he'd figure out what the rest means, and he meant it. This dance, this gentle sway in the dim light of their office was figuring it out

Edwin pulled back from the embrace, still settled in Charles's arms. He met Charles's soft brown eyes with a gaze that reminded Charles of the most comforting forest.

"Charles, I..." Edwin trailed off, he laughed again and shook his head. He looked back up at Charles. "Thank you."

"What for? don't tell me you want to start dancing with each other more, mate, cause I'm gonna be honest. I do feel like a bit of a dimwit"

"For being the only one who can get me dancing in the first place" Edwin said, head titling in a way that Charles could never tell was exasperation or intrigue.

"Oh please, Niko could get you dancing I bet!" Charles and Edwin laughed. They both loved Niko so much and they promised to remember her as she was, brilliantly herself.

"Granted," Edwin chuckled "but not like this. Not like how I am with you."

"Listen, if I can get you smiling and out of those books, that's brills to me". Charles beamed his wondrous smile, one that could softened the heart of any demon, not that he would be willing to try that. Charles's slipped his arm from Edwin's back to gently cup his face, thumb grazing over the sharp cheekbones under his pale skin. He glanced at Edwin's lips, slightly parted and back up to his eyes. He didn't know, but Edwin did the same.

It was an unspoken moment, an agreement of want that sprung between them and the air between their bodies. It wasn't forced, nor a desperate surge for something. They leaned in, their lips locked in the softest of kisses. There was no warmth, no wetness or breathiness but it was as if the world, and Death herself, stopped.

This was different to kissing Crystal; with her, there was a deep need and drive for each other. Kissing Edwin was soft, gentle, and kind; just like how Edwin was. Charles could feel Edwin's lips move around his, slipping into one another and the light tingle of a tongue. Their non-existent breath was mingling in their mouths as Charles rubbed Edwin's face. Edwin moved his hands into Charles's soft curls, feeling them slip and glide over his hands like water. Edwin pulled them closer, pressing their bodies together in what felt like a new form of passion, different from anything Charles had felt before. Charles had longed to be alive before, longed to feel the heat of another. But this longing felt so much more. Like the entire office suddenly got brighter.

Edwin pulled back, Charles attempted to chase his lips. "Don't stop," he thought "I need more of this. More of you". But Edwin was looking into his eyes.

Silence. The worst kind, the moment after something happened where you are never sure if what you just did was wonderful, or the biggest mistake of your (after)life. Charles hated that silence, it ate away at him. It must have only lasted for a second, but it felt like eternity.

At last, Edwin let out sigh with a wide smile, and pressed his forehead to Charles's. And it was then that Charles noticed. The music. They kissed for so long, that the orchestra they danced to had ended, and the room was filled with nothing but the background hum of the lights

They both laughed, pressing their foreheads together before Edwin leaned in and kissed Charles again. Edwin was more sure this time, pressing into Charles like a weight that was holding him back was finally lifted. They broke apart and embraced each other. Edwin tightened his wrap on Charles, and Charles squeezed him back.

"I'm glad my first dance was with you." Edwin whispered softly into Charles's shoulder.

"Me too," Charles whispered back, "me too"

[tgmsunmontue]

It's all academic darlin' PART 2/10

12k+ Hangster AU. Updating 2-3 parts per week and will be finished by 31st January 2024. (Each part is ~1500 words).

Bradley is a professor but living his best life with IceMav parents. Jake is a pilot. Maverick sort-of tries (and fails) to play matchmaker, so he tries again. Touch of epistolary and sprinkling of one-sided unknown/mistaken-identity.

(Note for later parts/chapters - Ice uses sign to communicate at home, I’m typing it like sign is English despite the fact that I know it isn’t (while NZSL is my third language, I have no working knowledge on the grammar useage in ASL).)

PART TWO

                The next morning he wakes up slowly. There’s music again, although quieter, and he can smell coffee. He’d gone to bed early last night, using the excuse of the long drive, because saying he was developing a pressing headache wasn’t something he wanted to mention. He showers and inspects his bruises in the mirror, presses gently on the cuts where the stitches were removed only two days ago. Nothing feels inflamed or more tender than what should be expected.

                He grabs a black Henley from his bag and pulls it on, only feeling very mild discomfit as he moves now. It’s looser and darker colored than what he usually wears, however his usual form fitting things were dragging across the stitches, catching on them. So, he’d succumbed to Phoenix buying him some shirts that didn’t show blood every time he reached too far when playing pool or rubbed his stitches. Not that it’s a problem now that they’re gone, but the shirt reminds him that someone cared enough to help him feel comfortable. Walking toward the kitchen he finds Bradley standing at the stove, poking at the contents of a pan. Whatever it is smells good, and he hopes that there’s the intent to share.

                “Mornin’,” he greets, his voice sounding rough.

                “Hey, morning. Help yourself to coffee, or there’s tea and stuff. I’ve made some breakfast. Sorry it’s a bit, uh, mixed. I’m just trying to get through the perishables so no one has to deal with the repercussions next time we visit.”

                Jake has a closer look at the pan and sees fried potatoes with some ham and egg thrown in along with some spinach and tomatoes, small sprinkling of cheese and it smells a perfect combination of crispy-salt-fat and his mouth is watering.

                “Smells good. Thanks. You didn’t have to.”

                “Seriously man, you turning up means I won’t have to gorge myself too much today to get through everything. I don’t want to have to come back to this place and find liquified vegetables in the fridge.”

                “Learnt that lesson the hard way huh?”

                “Unfortunately,” Bradley laughs and shakes his head ruefully.

                Jake takes a breath, a shaky smile making its way onto his face in response to the wide smile and crinkling eyes. Bradley smiles so easily, like it’s natural to just be smiley and friendly and simply… good natured. Jake would bet money he doesn’t get called an asshole on the regular. Unlike him. Considering he’s Mav’s son though he might just be hiding his more asshole-ish tendencies much like Jake is ensuring he doesn’t stray from the societal norms of being the most polite and accommodating of guests.

                Bradley is making him think though, maybe finding someone who is more mild mannered and edges on too polite would balance him out. It’s not what Jake usually finds attractive, but with the year at work he’s had maybe quiet, safe, and friendly… could make a nice change. Not that he’s in a hurry for any type of relationship, but he might table it for consideration for the future, because maybe coming back to the same place, the same person, has started to have some… appeal.

                “Did you sleep okay?”

                “Yeah, better than I expected,” Jake replies, and he’s assuming the combination of drive and headache had made his brain unable to formulate its semi-regular nightmare fodder. That’s what disrupts his sleep these days, not the location.

                “That’s good. Here,” Bradley says, passing him a plate piled high with food and moving towards the dining table with his own. “You won’t get this again sorry. I’m leaving early tomorrow, so I’ll probably be gone before you get up.”

                “It’s fine. I lived plenty long enough looking after myself, I’m sure I’ll survive a couple of weeks on my own here. I didn’t expect any cooked meals when I decided to come stay. Are you driving back?”

                “No. Well, partly I guess. I’ve got a plane at Fallon, so I’ll drive there and then fly back to San Diego. Perk of the job,” Bradley says, and he grins. Jake assumes it’s a reference to Mav’s connections, that he can store a plane at Fallon and use the runway and airspace for personal use. That’s one hell of a perk. The food tastes as good as it smells and Jake lets himself savor it, enjoys the novelty of food being cooked for him.

                “Actually, I have a favor to ask. Nothing major, just… can I use you phone later? I need to make a couple of calls. First one needs to be to Mav.”

                Jake agrees easily, it’s no issue for him. They do the washing up and Bradley continues to sing along to the music playing from a portable speaker. The man doesn’t seem to care that Jake is virtually a stranger, no embarrassment at all as he belts out the words to the song being played and tries to encourage Jake to sing along as well. Jake guesses he’s someone who is truly confident, which with a new Hawaiian shirt today, easy smile, clearly happy with whatever lot he has in his life… well, Jake guesses Bradley probably is.

                He’d probably be just as happy right now with or without Jake there, singing along to himself. He clearly doesn’t feel like he needs to impress Jake, and for once Jake feels a little unsettled. Unsure about how he should act with no crowd to play up his own abilities, someone he doesn’t need to harmlessly flirt with, it leaves him without a guide book of basic social interaction and he feels unmoored. He excuses himself to go and grab his phone from his room and thumbs through to Mav’s contact and puts the call through.

                “Hello. Pete Mitchell.”

                “Hey Mav, It’s Hangman.”

                “Hangman. Good to hear from you. Did you find the place alright?”

                “Yeah. Although Bradley wasn’t expecting me. He wants to talk to you actually.”

                “He wasn’t expecting you and he can’t call me himself,” Mav says flatly. “Let me guess. He lost another phone.”

Jake barks out a laugh, because hearing Mav’s disappointed tone and not have it aimed in any way toward him makes him feel like he’s in on a private joke. And maybe he can go with a teasing thing rather than a flirting thing if this is a thing. He walks back to find Bradley lounging on the sofa, looking at something on a tablet.

                “Yeah, fell in the lake,” Jake provides and Bradley’s eyes shoot up to meet his, narrowing as he realizes that he must already be talking to Mav.

                “Jesus. That kid. I swear he goes through a phone a year. Falling in the lake is probably one of the least exciting ways it’s happened. There’s been the top of a car, wing of a plane, compressor which was a stupid prank when he was an undergraduate… Can you put him on?”

                “Yeah, of course.”

                “Hi Dad…”

                Jake moves out onto the porch, trying to be polite and give Bradley some privacy, but the other man just follows, clearly not seeming to want or need privacy as he listens to his father talking. “Yeah, I know.” “Yes. Another one.” “Please stop keeping count.” “I’m good. How’s everyone at home?” “Okay. I’m glad to hear that. Tell him I fixed the smoker.” “Yeah.” “Ugh, I know.” “You’d think so wouldn’t you?” “What? Uh, good I guess?” “Got a whole bunch of stuff done.” “Yes Mav, all the important shit.” “Jesus Mav, I’ll be seeing you tomorrow, you can grill me then.” “Well, it’s not like my fridge is going to be overflowing with food, I thought the least you could do was feed me dinner.” “I knew you’d want to see me…”

                Jake listens to the one-sided conversation, can almost imagine Mav’s side. Not that he knows who else Mav might have at home, but the easy laughter and conversation makes part of him ache for what he doesn’t have with his own father. It’s a small passing ache now; he’d like to think he’s managed to work through the worst of it and accepted that the rest is something he can’t change; more importantly accepted it isn’t his responsibility to change. He listens again and the conversation has shifted to confirming times at the airstrip for take-off and he briefly wonders where the plane is stored in San Diego, because from the sounds of it Mav is picking Bradley up and Jake knows Mav has his own plane. Actually, maybe that’s the one Bradley flew here. Or they store their planes together.

                “Yeah, love you too. See you tomorrow. Did you want to talk to Jake again?”

                “Here…” Bradley says, and he passes Jake’s phone back to him before walking away back inside, leaving Jake with his privacy and he appreciates it.

                “Uh, hey Mav…”

                “Hey kid, I hope Bradley isn’t too much… you’re meant to be taking it easy and I know you didn’t break that drive up over two days like you were meant to.”

                “I’m good.”

                “You are good kid, and I want you to stay that way. It’s why we follow the orders of our doctors.”

                Jake snorts because he’s pretty sure Mav ignored half of the orders he heard prior to his retirement.

                “I’m here now, and I will do nothing but rest. Once Bradley leaves with his blisteringly bright shirts and music it’ll be the perfect place to rest and recover.”

                “He’ll get rid of both if you ask –”

                “Nah Mav, it’s kind of nice having someone not walkin’ around like I’m about to collapse any minute. He even cooked me breakfast this morning, he’s a good host.”

                Mav makes a weird choking sound and there’s mumbling he can’t make out before he clears his throat.

                “Well, I’m glad. I’m going to call you in a couple of days and check in with you, okay son?”

                “Yeah Mav, that’s fine.”

                Ending the call Jake slides his phone into his pocket, although he should really go and see if Bradley wants to use it to make the remainder of his necessary calls. He wonders what he’d have done if Jake hadn’t turned up. He should probably call home and check in with Javy and his siblings. He flicks off a couple of messages and lets them all know he’s okay. He stares out at the sparse scrubby forest, can see the shimmer of water off in the distance, looks at the lean-to stacked high with firewood and wonders what it would be like to have a place like this of his own. Somewhere he chose to be for longer than the length of a deployment, somewhere to return to. Not to one of his siblings. Not Javy. His and his alone.

                The bang of the screen door startles him and he turns to see Bradley, changed into running shorts and a loose tank.

                “I’m just going to go for a run before it gets too hot. Did you want to come with me?”

                Jake pulls a face, because normally he’d love to, but the jarring nature of running would not be great for his head. Today needs to be a rest day.

                “I’m meant to be taking it easy. Running probably isn’t the best idea.”

                The look that that new information gets him makes him wish he’d kept his mouth shut, but he’s feeling okay right now, needs to allow his body to recover after the drive yesterday if he wants to get back to flying as soon as he can. Bradley just nods his head though, accepting it without asking further questions.

                “Okay. I’ll show you the best place for swimming later, and the docking spot if you want to take a kayak or paddle board out.”

                “Sounds good,” Jake replies, failing to mention that he definitely won’t be kayaking or paddle boarding, although normally he’d love to do either of those things. Swimming sounds good though. He’s been aching to exercise in some form and swimming is something that he can gently start with. Maybe work up to the others.

                “I’ll be back in an hour or so. Make yourself at home.”

                He watches Bradley head off to what may or may not be a regularly run track before heading inside. He’s not going to snoop around, but he figures he can definitely go through the kitchen and maybe figure out what he could make for lunch. There’s an odd assortment of things, but he thinks he could cobble together some type of sandwich, but there’s no bread. Okay. This gives him something to do. He likes his bread too much not to have some on hand for a quick snack so he quickly searches for a recipe. No yeast that he can find, but there is beer, so he sets to work.

PART THREE

[transed-junkrat]

so i actually started a list of quotes from my father and i havent told him about it but i wanted to share it

- "i think i definitely got at least a couple of those letters that make up those words."

- "would you consider a pogo stick footwear?"

- "oh thats historical sludge! its gonna pay off one day!!"

- mom: "my [car] seat feels weird" dad: "i was spreading pudding on it this morning, i dont think that would do it though"

- "and i can start listening to christmas music year round, the way nature intended"

- "im coming back as a worm in my next life"

- "its not fair. these damn mannequins can afford better clothes than i can."

- (to himself, filling the dogs water bowl) "operation liquify the dog"

- "yeah ticks give me the heebie jeebies. mother nature really fucked up on that one"

- (about a car taking too long to turn) "should i tap em?"

- "you were never as invested in The Wiggles as i was"

- "well shes a specialist on fast reading, im a specialist on slow reading. you dont get any slower than me, i can out-slow you anytime"

- "thats a dangerous driver, and to make the world safer, i should kill them."

- "you dont play as many war games as i do without learning how to fold your towels usa army regulation style"

- "it all starts with iced coffee. havent you ever read the bible? on the first day, god invented iced coffee"

- "if a bear takes a wrong left in the woods.... does anybody hear it?"

- playing Pokemon GO: *gasp* "it fled on me that son of a bitch i hate those fucking guys theyre dead to me now."

- "ooh groundhog! jump out and pinch it's butt, Chip. ill take a picture"

- "alright.... we're almost at our mojo dojo casa house"

- *dad has two pairs of pants on*. mom: "why dont you take a layer off?" dad: "this is how i roll. im like a taco."

- *offering gum around the car, everyone declines* "alright! I'll take 4"

- *to the dog, upon returning from their walk:* "you may settle in now, and lead a life of wholesome fulfillment. i hope you make good choices."

[cupcakestreets]

Fren wants more ask game emojis??? Okay.

☕️ and 🎼 plus 📚

Yeah, dynamism is a bitch, so I don't blame you at all for getting nervous about it. Of course, the biggest change you can make is foreshortening and perspective, but that takes finding a source that can teach you in a way you understand, a lot of studying, and then trial and error. Which is worth doing, we (I'm saying this to myself too) really should study that. And it's a nightmare because first, you gotta find a source that explains the material in a way that makes sense to you, then you have to find a way to make the studying more fun and worst of all, you have to actually commit and do it. With foreshortening and dynamic posing in particular, the study can take a long while to complete because it does demand an understanding of anatomy, breaking the body down into simple volumes, applying perspective to each piece then knowing how to shade each volume correctly. So, depending on where you are with all those components, you may have to backtrack further.

So, what little changes can be made to increase dynamism in the interim? A pretty easy one is Rim Lighting, pure white is common, and so is really dropping the color values paired with a vibrant colored rim light (red, cyan, magenta are popular). Pushing the shading a bit more will help accentuate bent limbs, rotated torso's, overlapping body parts without having to go ham on foreshortening. Exaggeration of shapes like how Sonic uses big ass hands and big ass feet. Or the Big Pant Big Jackt meme and its variants from Twitter/X. You can try making frames and having feet, limbs, weapons or the top of the character's head extending past the border (typically the more, the better because if it's too little, it reads as a mistake than a choice). Line weight variation is pretty easy (thicker lines towards the shadows, thinner towards light source). Or extending certain lines past the outline and into the shape to create a more 3D look. While the whole trend of "fixing" other artist's art is controversial, one good thing I've learned from watching a few vids is the idea of using the Liquify tool on a finished piece to exaggerate the line of action on something a bit too static.

I hope you don't mind the ramble. If you're interested, I can send you a link to some vids or my playlist of tutorials I've saved.

Spice.

☕ Do you do warmup sketches before drawing? (Bonus: do you have any to share?)

No I do not do warm up sketches i just get straight into it usually. So no bonus sketches but he's a doodle page of my robot oc L-11AC

🎼 Your favorite music to draw to right now?

Future Funk music! It keeps me awake and i can groove~

📚 How many layers do you typically use?

Max i use is 50 layers, but i think i use 20-30 layers daily

Also thank you for comments too! These are literally all the things i think about. Still i do try to teach myself new stuff when i can

[bildadshusband]

cathartic writing about crowley immediately after ‘every’.

i dont think crowley cried straight away. i think he almost cried in the heartbreaking shot above, and then he totally shut down. he couldnt help but wait for aziraphale to go. he put himself out there again and again because he loves him that much. 

and aziraphale misunderstands, and stomps all over his heart. when hes waiting by the bentley i think he desperately wishes he could get in and drive off, torn apart with the force of a crucifix, he physically can’t move. he is so desperate to be understood. and so this box, makes itself comfortable sitting above his stomach, gets heavier by the second, until his heart is in agony from being ripped and dragged down.

aziraphale gets in the lift. 

and the box turns to lead. he gets in his car. he drives, to nowhere. he just keeps driving and driving, no speeding and no music, the bentley daren’t for this lead box is so heavy, that it has sucked all sound and all meaning from the car. shut out the music, for there is no use for joy anymore. shut out the tears, because there was nothing there to mourn. shut out the anger and shut out the trauma, no one ever cared.

about two hours later, london is behind him. he has stared ahead at nothing. there’s a lot of half countryside in the uk (next to towns, and not quite empty country), so now he’s on a road with the wind pattering on the windows, knocking on his door, asking him to break the silence. there’s plain fields, and sad oak trees, that taunt him with their emotional freedom. slowly, he starts to think. the lead box morphs more into air, growing pockets, and filling his chest with spaces, ready draw in his excruciating pain. suddenly, he can’t remember how he was breathing before, because no one left any space for it in all the bustling travellers of his emotions growing stronger in his chest, elbowing each other for another seat. shallow and rasping, he feels himself swoone, and in one movement, he parks the car up on a grassy roadside entrance to a farmer’s field. with nothing left to keep him travelling, he chest quickens as he starts to hyperventilate. he feels his back writhing against the beautiful old seat, and his own gasping breaths becoming painful droning deep in his ears, and in one excruciating moment, his chest explodes. pure liquified anguish of everything burns his heart, like stubbornly cold fingers in bitter dark winters.

and he screams. rattling and indescribable, he screams. 

huge hot tears spill over, his cheeks high and red seem to sear with the salt, and he finally removes his glasses to let the rivers run. loosing all feeling of a physical body, he rakes his throat with an inhuman scream. his hands find the steering wheel so he can push his body through this unbearable agony. knuckles white in seconds from pressure, his entire body screams its pain through his shoulders then his hands as he lets out everything he can into the wheel, lining his palms red from the seams digging into his flesh. he tried his hardest, reaching his breath to the sky, but he cannot find enough air to fill his sorrow. rivers of tears meet his neck and ruin his shirt, it feels ugly and uncomfortable, and nothing could make him stop as his soul puts every ounce of him into pouring out everything he has in tears. he chokes, and tries again to take a big breath. the world seems to rattle with the effort of it and he finally gets enough to scream “FUCK!” his palms slam into the steering wheel, and the car really does shake. again, and again, he screams and swears so loud his ears ring on every hit of the poor car. he screams with every hit until his arms feel numb and his temples seem to press into his brain, blurring his vision and stinging his head. ragged, long breaths draw out from him as his forehead meets the wheel and he stares down at the darkness. he watches his tears fall out of focus and splash across the floor as he moans and weeps, watching time cease to exist. 

as his head gradually calms to a dull mourning, he sniffs and looks up. immediately his eyes sting with the reality of the world and time reintroducing themselves, but for the first time he forgets his glasses. without real connection to his legs, he opens the car door and the calm fresh day slaps across his face. with uncertain legs, he steps out and watched the world around him swirl with insecurity. he finds himself in front of the field, hands gripping the cold brush metal of a farmer’s gate, as his eyes stare to nothing. where would he go? what is there to find, when he can’t even see the trees in front of him? he, for the slightest of moments, wonders if the angel is in heaven yet, and asks what he is thinking. the thoughts reverberate against his sternum and clang through his body. the tears come again, he hates himself for feeling so much, but there is no space left to feel such hatred as every tear bubbles over faster than the last, and his hands make their way down the fence, his knees buckle and he falls in the dirt like his first fall to nothingness and darkness, to weep like an abandoned baby. where can he possibly go? what can he possibly do? his hands cup around his eyes so that nothing can penetrate his anguish as he cries into himself.

eventually it stops, and then he, without thinking, stands to sit back in the bentley, nowhere to go, no love to feel.

(I write poetry for myself a lot, and this was so insightful and free-flowing for me to write that I am thinking of adapting it and adding it to my collection of poetry)

[queenlucythevaliant]

See and Hear Everything Twice

(Or, How I attended a Taylor Swift concert with my sister in spite of my severe photosensitivity)

So as I indicated on this blog while we were sitting in traffic, I went to Taylor Swift's Eras Night 1 in Foxbourogh over the weekend.

"But Leah," I hear you saying, "How in the world did you manage that? Surely such a thing would liquify your poor, photosensitive brain! After all, twinkle lights have been known to give migraines before. Surely a stadium concert is a bad idea!"

Well. Yes. My sister went into the concert alone. I listened from outside the stadium.

My sister and I are long-time, vintage Swifties. We started out listening wearing grooves in the Fearless CD, and we've never let up. My sister and I are also night-and-day different in both our interests and dispositions, to the point where I've had friends ask, "But what do you do together?" And the answer to that is a lot of things, but "sing along to Taylor Swift" is definitely a big one.

I looked hard and was eventually able to get my sister a single ticket to Eras for her birthday (which has the added advantage of being substantially cheaper than two tickets together). The idea was that I would (a) become the Coolest Big Sister ever by making this happen for her and (b) be able to experience the whole thing secondhand. Both of us took that concept very seriously.

I don't know if you know it, but there's a Christmas story that we like in my family called "Why the Chimes Rang." Here's an excerpt:

"But I cannot bear to leave you, and go on alone," said Little Brother. "Both of us need not miss the service," said Pedro, "and it had better be I than you. You can easily find your way to the church; and you must see and hear everything twice, Little Brother - once for you and once for me."

My sister quoted this to me the morning of our concert and I can't describe what it meant to me. She saw and heard everything twice. Sitting outside the stadium (and wearing both the concert tees we bought on top of my regular clothes - it was a cold night), I got to hear the music that we grew up listening to together. More than that, in a lot of ways, it felt like my incredible little sister was sitting right next to me, like we were listening together. Really, it was kind of surreal.

I've long since made my peace with the idea that there are lots of things that my illness won't let me do. Yet it was really beautiful to be able to cross one impossible thing off that list this weekend, with some help from my sister.

I've waxed poetic enough, so I'm just gonna bullet point some of the details below for anyone who's interested:

The traffic on the way in wasn't terrible, but when we stopped at a rest stop for lunch the place was stuffed with Swifties in full concert apparel. A feeling of fun and camaraderie in the air.

The merch line was a good hour and forty five, but I was able to get a poster for the shadow box that my sister plans on making (she's crafty like that).

Everybody's outfits were NUTS. Lots of sequins, sparkling cowboy boots and hats, replicas on iconic T Swift looks, etc. One gal was dressed as the crumpled up piece of paper from "All Top Well."

Friendship bracelet swapping was SO fun. I spent the run up to the concert knotting bracelets and everyone I talked to seemed to think they were really cool!

There were probably 40-50 people hanging out by the stadium the night of our concert. Lots of folks were picnicking. There were these four little girls in identical concert sweatshirts there with someone's mom and they were having a grand time dancing and singing and oh boy was it infectious. You could hear all the music clearly from where I was, though probably only about 20% of the dialogue.

My highlights were probably the Fearless set (something buoyant in the air + truckloads of deep fondness), august into the illicit affairs double bridge (SHIVERS), 22 (a fave + fond moment with my sister over text), and the end of the 1989 set (high on the night and singing along).

Our surprise songs were "Should've Said No" and "Better Man." My sister sent me some genuine hall-of-fame texts as Taylor was announcing them. Both are firmly A-tier songs for which I have a lot of love. Also, we both found it funny that the Yeehaw Swifties won so big in Massachusetts, of all places.

The traffic getting out of Foxbourogh was horrific. We barely moved for the better part of two hours after getting back to the car.

After the concert, my sister came running when she found me and all but leapt into my arms. For all that I loved the music, that was the best part of the night.

[deludedfantasy]

Trimax Vol 4 Ch 5-7

My thoughts for the last half of this volume! I read part of this at like 1 am because I just couldn’t stop so if some of this is incoherent...that’s why.

Ch5

Wolfwood announcing the remaining Gung Ho Guns as if this is common information and something anyone should know if they weren’t part of the group…where’s that post about him being a bad liar. 

The problem with having a character that fights using music or a musical instrument is there’s no cool way to do it. I’m sorry, Midvalley is just over here playing careless whisper and the windows explode. It’s a look, but is it cool? Questionable.

Wait, I take it back? What the hell did he just do to Wolfwood??? Did he just make his brain bleed? Knock him out? Liquify his organs? What???

Oh no, Milly :(

Is she just scared or is someone using their powers to hold her back?

Vash said, “Fuck off with your coins. I’m not playing your games.”

Hoppred, I think you’re projecting a bit, because that is not the face of a man who is enjoying this fight, at all. 

The problem with having watched Tristamp first is I can’t remember who knows what at this point in the manga, and I forgot Meryl doesn’t know about Knives or that he’s Vash’s brother. Also, goddamn, Vash, you really need to tell your friends things because it is not fair for them to follow you blindly into your quest without even knowing who you’re going after. And then have the villains reveal your backstory to them! It’s a bad look, dude.

Ch6

Oooh, more Vash backstory, maybe? Always up for more Vash backstory. 

The fights with the Gung Ho Guns are getting more and more personal. First Leonof, and now Hoppred, who’s talking about revenge and July. This is going to be deliciously painful, I can tell.

Hoppred is crying from all of his eye holes??? Oh my god.

Oh, it takes much longer for Meryl (and the reader, to a certain extent) to learn Vash is an independent Plant here than in Tristamp. And it’s worse here in a way because Meryl finds out from an enemy, not from Vash directly. Not only is she in an already upsetting situation, but now someone is giving her information that explains so much about Vash and she can’t even say they’re lying to hurt her because it makes too much sense. 

It’s also interesting that, unlike in Tristamp, after the Big Fall, Vash stayed with Knives for years before striking out on his own and deciding to help humans. He must feel so complicit in humanity’s suffering because of that. 

Ah yeah, Meryl looks really scared and fucked up by this revelation.

Milly hears “black-suited moron” and immediately comes running. She’s like, “There’s only one person who that could be!”

Really not liking what Wolfwood’s saying here. It sounds like he’s about to go on a rampage. 

Uh-oh, is that Knives coming to join the party?

Ch7

Vash starting to remember July is so, so painful.

These panels where everything looks like eyes: the moon in the sky, the explosion of power in July, with Vash’s eye focused in the middle. It works really well as a transition for him remembering.

Seeing Vash calling himself a murderer, feeling like there’s no atonement or way for him to move forward, it feels so wrong. It hurts so badly whenever he starts to doubt his own beliefs and ideals. They make up so much of his life that it really underscores how much he hates himself and what he did. 

Flippant comments about knowing the angel of death and how they’re coming for him—this man has a death wish unlike any other I’ve seen in fiction. 

But I do love when Vash lets the rage take over. Because despite his pacifism, he’s actually full of it! I’d actually argue his anger is what’s behind those ideals. His anger at Knives, at what he’s done, at the world, at himself, it feeds his want to do better. It makes it all the more poignant that he refuses to kill when he very much so wants to. 

He’s willing to tear Hoppred apart if he gets in his way. Anything that keeps him from getting his revenge on Knives, not only for the Big Fall and Rem, but for July and every terrible deed he’s done, there is enough anger in him that he would kill for that. 

Whether Wolfwood was trying to provoke Milly so he could knock her out or he’s actually serious about leaving Meryl behind, that’s a dick move. And I know he knows it, which makes it worse. The chorus of random bystanders is right, “Booooooo.”

They’re purposefully being drawn into some kind of trap and a new, not-before-seen Gung Ho Gun is on the scene. I’m scared. 

Oh, cliffhanger ending, wonderful. Even though I’ve already read this, I might start the next volume this weekend and read ahead a little because I cannot be left in suspense after all of this.

[dc-said-bi-robin-rights]

I’m working on a series of DC animatics and the first one will be for my favorite character, Rose Wilson. Stay tuned… or don’t, because there’s a nonzero chance I just don’t do it lol and even if I do this is probably a year long project at least.

@roseworth @uuuuutan @val-el @slutshartsstuff let me know if you would like to be alerted when/if it’s finished, as I broadly consider you my Rose mutuals lol.

To them and to everyone else who sees this, please, tell me what you think! I’m much more likely to actually finish this if people are gonna want to see it.

Outline below:

Music: I’m Gonna Win by Rob Cantor

Primary colors: Black and Red

Style: shot by shot

Title: I’m Gonna Win

[Animatic opens with Rose in full Ravager gear, swords in hand, running down a long hallway with no ceiling.]

My life is a constant entrapment of tunnels

[Camera zooms out to reveal the long hallway is in fact an endless labyrinth that seems to blend into a fuzzy mass around the furthest edges as Rose runs, giving the impression that it’s solidifying around Rose and liquifying as she gets further away].

Which tangle and wind and beguile

[Camera zooms back into Ravager as she turns and snarls, swords held high as if she’s seen something we can’t, and she turns and runs down a different tunnel, implying a chase.]

And regardless of where I may tumble or funnel

[Chase]

I wonder what’s really worthwhile

[Rose walks into a “clearing” in the labyrinth, camera watching from above and then swirling so that it’s to the side and then to the left of her, revealing her quarry: her father, Deathstroke. There is blood dripping from his hands and sword as well as a blood splash on his mask. The two stare each other down for the duration of the guitar solo, camera switching back and forth between them, before Rose raises one of her swords horizontally over her face. We catch a brief glimpse of her reflection before she tilts the sword up further and the glint transitions us into the next scene, a black, swirly screen meant to represent fog.]

Sometimes it can seem like a merciless dream

[A hand swirls out from the fog and yanks us in]

Like I’m falling with nothing to hold

[Cut to Ravager, seen from the side, falling into a body of black water that seems endless in both directions]

Sometimes I get flustered

[Fuzzy figure of a child with no discernible features being shoved forward and shot by a hand and leg from out of frame, gunshot is a bright flash that serves as transition]

And beaten

[Rose, no eyepatch and much younger, on the floor but tied to a chair, peers up at the camera through curtains of dirty hair. Blood runs freely down her face from a cut on her cheek. On her face is a look of seething, terrified rage, though no tears. Part of the frame is blocked by the silhouette of an arm that ends in a hand holding a shard of glass, cocked back as if to slice her face again, implying that our POV is just over Wade LaFarge’s shoulder.]

And blistered

[Rose, seen from behind, flinches backward and to the side as a shot fired by a gun held by an edge-of-frame hand hits her shoulder]

Abandoned outside in the cold

[Rose, much younger and with both eyes, seen from the front but from some distance away, on her knees. Wind swirls around her, demonstrated by a leafless tree to her right and behind her swaying in the breeze, giving a sense of desolation. Peaks around and behind her, implying she’s on a mountainside. A flash covers the scene and it changes to Ravager, snarling, swords in hand, emerging from the snowbank during the events of Fresh Hell except with the artistic addition of a broken mask lense. The camera slowly zooms in on her eye, which is narrowed in rage]

But I’m gonna win

*Primary colors change to black and white to emphasize the end of a struggle, relief, safety*

[In the POV of Rose, we look up from the bottom of a foggy pit to see Nightwing crouched at the top with his hand extended, a half smile curling his lips.]

I’m gonna try

[Ravager halfway into the wall, wiping her mouth, wounded, her costume torn at places, a smirk curling her lips as she prepares to continue single-handedly fighting off the Terror Titans to get Eddie back and give Wendy and Marvin time to escape]

I’ll never lose

[Persuader looks up as Ravager’s gloved fist crashes into her face]

I’ll never die

[Clock King, seen from the front and side, eyes wide, looking terrified as blood runs from his nose: Ravager has just gotten a shot in and he has no idea how. “She’s exquisite,” he’ll say later.]

You’ve seen me before

[Seen from the side, Ravager leaning against the wall, smiling to herself, as Jaime and Eddie wrestle over the tv remote]

You’ll see me again

[Ravager, duffel bag over shoulder, looks up at a destroyed Titans Tower. She’ll be back.]

I’ll never give up

[Ravager, seen from behind and above, slumped over a sink]

I’ll never give in

[Ravager looks up at the mirror, letting us see the look of rage on her face through frazzled curtains of hair]

[Scene explosively changes back to the labyrinth with the beat drop, primary colors switching back to black and red]

Till I’m bloody and bruised

[Ravager, seen from the side and behind, wipes at her bloody mouth and hefts her swords again at Deathstroke, who has bits of his armor missing, revealing the textured fabric of his undersuit in some places and cuts on others]

Till I’ve broken my bones

[Ravager, costume torn, seen from the back at an angle, pushes herself to her feet with her swords in front of a clearly wounded Deathstroke, mask torn off, broadsword still in hand but lowered, blood exaggeratedly rushing from his body in waterfalls. Floor is red, as if a single puddle of blood.]

Til I won’t be abused

[Ravager, seen from the side, impales Deathstroke through the chest with her remaining sword as he goes for an overhead strike. Her other sword lies broken at her feet.]

Til I’m laughing alone

[Camera turns to see Ravager from the front, a demented grin on her face. With every ‘strike’ of the beat we zoom in further on Ravager’s face, each shot having her grin diminish until it turns into a look of horror. We then cut to black before the guitar solo begins, the center of the frame dominated by the words “I’m Gonna Win” written in red, drooping as if written in blood, giving a final sense of sharp irony to the animatic]

(End)

[clementinefight]

cold summer

My stress this summer is so bad, my neck is permanently stiff. Rigid, nervous, stone. A girl wakes in the middle of the night, she's alone in a deep world of empty houses, and in the dispossessed sleep of her childhood branches have started to grow from her arms, limp orange muddy leaves have overcome her hair, and she is rooting from toes down into floorboards. Nobody to ask a thing, like whether or not her experience of life is normal. So the branches grow, gather, then she is this isolated nature in her isolated bedroom, turned over to a cyclical light of day or night she sees only through gaps in her own weather, and so big with bushiness she can’t get out the manufactured door and enter the wood where, unbeknownst to her, are the others just like her, made of branches and leaves and who have solitary spirits also, though still need their roots to touch the roots of another. Or something. Sometimes, and I’m not proud of this, I look out at the green backyard and I see the peach-juice sun in the sky and I see the invisible breezes of July curling with tendrils of dark flora and it seems not like I'm here, but like I’m watching television, something bright and far away. I forget it’s my day, that I can even go over there and touch if I wanted to, I could even pee on the land like a dog would, if I wanted to, and claim this in some way.

Haven’t swam enough, haven’t walked enough, I’m becoming a little suburbanite cruising around in my dented car, seeing everything through eyes of windshield. The bushes, the houses, the pink sinking light—it’s all over there, and nothing is here but the music. This puts a strange layer of distance between me and summer, me and real things. I will make a point later to stick my toe in some mud – or press my bare hand into black pavement, will the asphalt to deflate like it’s a hot chocolate cake. Wouldn’t you like for the parking lots to liquify and sink below ground every summer, and for the black waves to rock our heat glistened cars around, up towards the marshmallow clouds; or for the greenery to not stop where it stops but extend until it’s like a shag of shining lime hair over the shopping mall, the movie theatre. If you don’t have a car, good for you, stay pure

Something else I’ve noticed — I’m such an impulse buyer. Buying feels close and friendly, like putting on some leather gloves. I would never want to see me at an auction. Stressed, my emotions lift to a crescendo where they then collapse from jitters into an almost hysterical net around my entire body—a pantsuit of stress, and it’s three colours: blue, red and purple, the baby. Feels warm, then cold. Here I either go to the grocery store to buy new condiments, shortbread, or jarred vegetables in brine or oil; or I’ll buy books online.

Today it was books. A small NYRB haul. I guess this is a fairly tame impulse, but I’d really rather be that one who stresses out and goes for a walk, or a swim, or a bike ride, or a scream into their pillow. Instead I just fill my cart, and it’s like filling a hole for a little while. Hate my methods. Look forward to the books. The Liar by Martin A. Hansen (“and for years now Johannes has lived alone”), My Friends by Emmanuel Bove, Machines in the Head by Anna Kavan and The Juniper Tree by Barbara Comyns. I’m drawn to stories with the desperate or resigned thud of loneliness in them; it’s what I relate to most; or maybe it’s not; it’s funny, even when people reach out for connection, I still want to believe it’s being alone I’m most capable of, even made for (I say that in a soldierly way, which makes it even more embarrassing). Björk was in a movie called The Juniper Tree, which was inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tale as was the novel by Comyns. Maybe I’ll read that too.

Today I’m in Montreal. I'm visiting my little brother. His balcony looks out onto other nondescript buildings, and he leaves the door wide open while he naps and I work on my laptop out here on the couch; trucks and cars roar a kind of grating metal noise down below, this noise feels prehistoric rather than modern, like out of sight the earth has split under lava and now we are getting not the sight but the noise, the noise. I decide to welcome it. The noise is not a fixed feature of my life anyway, but of his life, in this way it’s easy to welcome. Brief everything. Brief and body me. Bonobo plays on the television, then Seabear, and last night we watched some episodes of King of the Hill—the tornado episode had some beautiful red and green skies. My coffee this morning brought on nausea and I thought I could wave this dislocation off by eating a raisin croissant, but that made it worse, though at least it was good. Now I sit here with a foggy head taking forever to get my work done. EEEEEK

Later going to meet my brother’s girlfriend for the first time over some ramen! Then going to see the 10:15 show Oppenheimer with both of them, all three of us together.

In two weeks I leave for my trip! Ireland, Scotland, London, Iceland!

[joemuggs]

The Lonnnnng View

The brilliant Charlie Fracture just sent me his new blog post, Let's Take It Slow: The Wonders Of Slowing Down Music And The Importance Of The Long Form Listening Experience, saying "thought you might enjoy reading it". And I did, I really did. It REALLY spoke to me. I love slowing things down, I'm always doing it when DJing, as on this short mix when I took early hardcore rave and slowed it back towards the speed of the hip hop it was sampling. And I thought, hmm, I'm sure I've written about this somewhere... after a bit of head scratching and searching through old emails, I found the following article from the 2012 WIRE end of year issue. It's a bit sprawling, but it's on to something, you know... and somehow looking back over decades (as Charlie's piece does too) suits this topic. So.........

👇🏻

Off the grid

Club music's relationship to its own regularity has always been complicated, but 2012 saw these complications multiplying and the music pushing at its patterns and grids in some radical ways. While for many the story was of a retreat to the safety of familiar forms – mid-nineties house and techno in particular dominated, with a jungle revival nascent – in darker corners things were pulsing and warping, starting to ooze and waft around the steady four-square rhythm patterns that have been foundational at least since the invention of the sequencer. This was not a new genre or style in the conventional sense, rather the convergence of some key trends in 21st century music, the coming to a head of certain pressures, creating an uneasy but thrilling sense of potentiality. These are: slowness, rhythmic slippage, and a more physically expressive interaction with the digital means of production.

The tendency to slowing has been brewing for a long time but was everywhere this year. In 2012 the likes of Andy Stott, Demdike Stare, Raime, Holy Other, Old Apparatus, How To Dress Well, Lukid, Om Unit, Hype Williams and Downliners Sekt all dropped releases with rhythms so stretched that they become textural waves rather than percussion, magnified so that every surface of every sound becomes an environment. The tracks, when played on suitably sizeable speakers, are chambers into which one can enter – sometimes desolate and forbidding as with Raime, sometimes voluptuous and dangerously seductive like Holy Other, sometimes Tron-like and glossy like Om Unit, sometimes fantastical and bejewelled, as in the baroque complexity of this year’s EPs by Old Apparatus. This was “post-dubstep” not in the standard sense of simply applying dubstep's tropes to new rhythms, but in building from first principles entirely new takes on what it could have been.

Dubstep itself had an eye on those first principles, too. This was the year that the “dungeon sound” became prominent: the creepy-crawling update of the earliest half-step rhythms with added production finesse and technologically-enabled sense of detail saw the stock of originators like Distance, Tunnidge and Kryptic Minds, and newer talents like Mancunians Compa and Biome rising. It was a reminder that dubstep's original appeal was about bodily immersion and undulating push-pull physical dynamics rather than about the rave rush and the spectacle of the “drop”. Though we were reminded by the increased profile of Digital Mystikz's Coki – incredibly only now after a decade of dubstep production becoming a full-time musician and launching his own label – that even the harder end of dubstep doesn't have to be predicated on percussive impact: at the heart of even Coki's most violent tunes is always the sluggish undercurrent of his preposterously fractal, semi-liquified “scrambled egg” bass tones.

Even drum'n'bass continued a relationship with slowness. While one end of the scene intensified like commercial dubstep into hyper-pop, reaching vast new audiences, the spaced-out half-tempo “Autonomic” tendency of the last couple of years continued to develop. An album from ASC, various releases on the Space Cadets label, and most fascinatingly a terrifyingly psychedelic EP by Archer & Asanyeh on Romania's DubKraft label all turned d'n'b's velocity in on itself, creating suspenseful, gravity-loosened environments in place of demented drive. House rhythms, too, proved capable of suspending time, particular in the hadns of those re-examining the sparser strains of UK Funky and its potential to draw dubstep and Grime’s sonorities and double-time funk into a more considered space. Wen, Visionist, Beneath, Filter Dread, Shy One, DVA and Cooly G all to some degree created eerie, strangely static rhythms in this way. And throughout the underground, like an underlying pulse that influences all around it, increasingly ran samples of or references to the ‘trap’ sound of US hiphop: layered 808 kicks separated by large space through sheer necessity due to their gigantic size, and looping pitched-down vocal samples running throughout, a 21st century counterpart to the dread signals of reggae vocalists that were cut up into 1990s Jungle.

As Bristol DJ/producer Pinch put it in his Wire Invisible Jukebox interview (The Wire 346), “the way we perceive tempo and the rhythms we're most affiliated with does change, based on situations you're in and the way you tune your head to the world.” What it seems the new techniques of music creation allow is getting closer and closer to real-time manipulation of these changes, to “tune” not just the head but the whole nervous system of the listener in more and more precise ways: where the rhythmic codes of other dance rhythms may aim for the head, hips and feet, the enveloping flows and larger spaces between beats of slower music speak to the entire body as a whole. All of this is about the positioning of bodies in relation to music, allowing new ways of coming close to and entering into the music: about sculpting the affect of the sound in four dimensions. And it's technologically-enabled, the ability to zoom into the finest detail and view all the inhuman complexity of those sonic surfaces and spaces a function of just how much information is being pushed through digital signal processing (DSP) now: we are reminded in no uncertain terms that the dancefloor experience is the interface with that vertiginous information flow. As the hyper-acceleration of jungle illustrated the foaming wave of the digital future cresting as it rushed towards us, so this tendency speaks, perhaps, of it having broken and immersed us.

Rhythmic slippage is directly related to the way that slowing music makes it come in waves as much as beats or pulses. Dubstep, as mentioned, continued to prove it was about tones that undulate around and over the beat as much as the beat itself. Chicago's footworking sounds established that their determinedly tricksy rhythms were here to stay as part of the international dance language. The psychedelic hip hop of Flying Lotus and co has been elaborating on the lurch of J Dilla and the astral analogue funk of Sa-Ra for some years now, but in 2012 we saw plenty of proof in tracks like Fly-Lo's “Pretty Boy Strut”, Mark Pritchard's beats for Wiley, and the gloriously juddering melting pots of Geiom's and dÉbruit's albums, that this too is now established globally as dancefloor-rocking music, not just some over-elaborated gentrification or neo-triphop. It's no coincidence that the London club night where Kutmah, Om Unit, Kidkanevil, Blue Daisy & Offshore play these decentred beats is called “Tempo Clash”: this is, again, about grooves slithering out of expected tempo constraints, and more generally out of expected patterns.

Once again, this was about the body in relation to data: about the physicality of musical (re)production, the sampling of complex jazz playing, the hands dancing across MPC pads, the passed-down skills of the scratch DJ being applied to CDJs, touchscreens and other Ableton controllers. Whether in footworking beats or Fly-Lo's Brainfeeder imperative, it was the return of the repressed b-boy drive, a deranged scrawling of digital wildstyle lines across the weird, wired world. And again this was a tendency that had been building for some while, but in 2012 it became apparent that a convergence was taking place between tempo meltdown, rhythmic looseness and this new sense of placing of the body in relationship to the music. We begun to see – in dramatic contrast to the overtly cerebral abstractions of 1990s “IDM” – how the input-output between fleshy bodies and digital transmission systems could be made bigger, sloppier, stranger and more involving.

In this there were close parallels with The New Aesthetic – the (mainly) visual movement that coalesced in the spring of 2012 around a panel organised by British theorist James Bridle and popularised by Bruce Sterling. The New Aesthetic zooms in on the cracks in our day-to-day datasphere, glitches in normality, the sudden Turing Test fails, the moments when the comforting shields of digital culture wobble and you see the bots' myriad eyes peering out at you and assessing you. It's about revelling in ruptures between what we have naively cast as two separate worlds: the physical and the digital. The New Aesthetic – and the lurching, pulsating weirdings of electronic club music that warp and crack the regularity of sequencer patterns – are about the horror and thrill of realising that what is inside the computer and what is outside are all the same system, that we are submerged in floods of data.

It may even be that Burroughs's adage that “when you cut open the present, the future bleeds out” has some traction here: by defamiliarising the rhythms of common genres, by warping and cracking them, we may be discovering ways through the illusory impasse of the everything-available-all-at-once overwhelming by the past and present. Certainly these techniques are a way of breaking the comfort and ease that readily available sound manipulation technology – in particular the omnipresent Ableton Live – engender. Whether it's the excessively sensual surges of sound in Holy Other, the flailing iPad abuse of Gaslamp Killer or the rusted and irregular-edged grime of Filter Dread and Sd Laika, everything here can be seen as a reaction to the predictably mixed and mixable flows of the Ableton DJ generation. When precision and perfection become easier than making errors, magnifying and repeating errors suddenly seems hugely compelling.

Whether it can go further, or whether these remain just pockets of resistance, is questionable. Dance by its very nature is predicated on some degree of regularity and coherence, and the global forces of “EDM” – the all-encompassing term used since house and dubstep bizarrely gatecrashed the US mainstream at the turn of the decade – seem to increase the pressure to conformity and easily-packaged units of DJ culture. Again in The Wire, Pinch talked of wanting to emulate the freedom of tempo and metre in the Qawwali music that he has often taken inspiration from but bemoaned his lack of the “musical intelligence” of the Qawwali musicians – hinting towards an entirely new understanding of the production of rhythm that needs to be collectively built to cope with the possibilities of more flexible and expressive technology.

Dr Matt Yee-King, teacher of Computer Music at Goldsmiths college, and researcher into technological interfaces between sound, mind and information says: “musicians might start to realise that the best way to escape the grid is not to use the grid,” that is to abandon sequencers entirely in favour of all-live coding and manipulation, but it is still extraordinarily rare that club musicians and DJs feel able to break loose completely from the metronomic diktats of sequencing tools like Ableton. The grids are still in place. The slippage and melting of rhythmic and tempo constraints that have come to a head in 2012 are not a revolution in themselves, and whether one is possible is yet to be proved. Could a digital Coltrane or Hendrix, or a collective sound as improvisatory and free as Qawwali, emerge from these new opportunities, and actually become a part of the world's nightlife rituals? For the first time maybe since the peak of jungle's rhythmic fury, these extreme possibilities don't seem entirely ridiculous.

[thatnateguy]

"Honey, I've been planning the heist of the century."

"Again?"

"Well, yes, but this one will be more fun than last time."

"Promise?"

"Of course. I'm assuming you're in?"

"well, you need someone to keep those ideas of yours in check."

"You flatter me dear."

"Thank you, I try. Who else did you have in mind?"

(the following is a crew list for a fictional heist set in a far-off galaxy. While I'd love to draw them, I suck at art. Hopefully my text paints good enough pictures that you get a feel for the group and who they are)

The Mover - the master planner, slick talker, guy in charge of main negotiations for the team. The "Frank Ocean"-esque character. Humanoid, typically dressed in a suit of some kind, taller, but with a distinctly non-human head. Frequently tries to wear sunglasses in an attempt to make himself look "more cool," despite said sunglasses being completely incompatible with his head.

The Infil - Con artist, intelligence gatherer, and identity maintainer. THE woman with connections, especially in the intergalactic criminal network. Maried to The Mover. As a result, she's able to take his plans and carefully refine them to sleek perfection. Also humanoid, but only dresses as sleek as her husband when the need requires. She also makes a really nice cup of hot cocoa.

The Pilot - While on the surface he may just look like the getaway driver for the team, his roles extend much deeper than just that. If you need a ship, rover, craft, parade float, not only will he drive it, but he'll modify it to seemingly-impossible extremes. Before turning to a life of crime, he was a racer on the RIP Racing Circuit, before an incident with an illegal mod he made forced him into an early retirement. Still collects royalties from his cameo in an old Gala-coolant commercial.

The De-Con - Parts scavenger, explosives and weapons expert, and avid tinkerer. Need an electro-pulse atom de-shaker that can perfectly liquify the security door of any interstellar vault? He's already got six (leftovers from a previous heist). Helped introduce The Pilot into the network after seeing his mod in action, and the two frequently collaborate on larger projects. Listens to music whenever he works.

The Broker - The daughter of the Empress of the Western Celestial Body. Unfortunately for the Empire, she prefers to get into trouble and she has the funds to help the crew cause lots of it. Fortunately for the Empire, The Infil has managed to find connections and alabis that keep The Broker (and her funds) from ever being involved with the crew. Has been taking pickpocket lessons in her spare time.

The Squeeze - Born the smallest in its generation. His species is also known for their flexibility and able to contort and adjust their bodies. As such, is a masterful cat burglar. Kinda looks like a Tangela (the Pokemon), but without any legs. Since it has no mouth, it communicates in gestures and sign language via its various appendages. During meetings, it'll typically perch on someone's shoulder or head so that it can actually catch what's going on.

The Bio-Modifier - Cyborg with a split personality due to computer bug and a cheap cybernetics engineer. While the two halves of her may disagree on certain elements of their life, they both work together at bio-modification. The mechanical half handles modifications on the digital sphere (endo-scans, digi-spheres, etc.) and the synthetic half handles physical appearances (disguises, aliases, and such). Both avid chess fans, and mostly evenly matched in skill.

The Sys-Hacker - after his creation and programming outside the boundaries of the Inner-planitary Robotics Code (as well as the death of his creator for breaking said Code), the robotic form that is the Sys-Hacker lives a life under the radar. His programming not only allows him to hack into systems and terminals, but also "hypnotize" other AIs into doing his bidding, whether that's deleting footage or allowing security bipasses. Fortunately, his creator also gave him enough of a conscience to "wake up" those AIs... after he got what he needed, of course.

The Rookie - Human. Age 19. Pick-pocket back on earth, and currently studying psychology online. Still isn't 100% sure how he managed to get involved with the crew, but his human adaptability has given him the tools he needed to truly succeed. Teaches his pickpocketing skills to The Broker when she has the time and he doesn't have homework.

[vegetablewithapencil49]

I have no idea what to put here. Also new art piece while I find out how to decently draw in ibis paint X. Anyways, I'm sharing trivia about Aveline.

Aveline is an abyssal, a void creature that eats energy for sustenance, including matter. She eats light, magicka (magic energy), magnetic energy and matter.

She can shapeshift into four forms. Two forms she has by default and two "novelty" forms. Her shadow form is the most powerful but the least sensitive (meaning her senses are weaker than a human's). Her humanoid form is the opposite, since half of her power is restricted. Her jellyfish form is self explanatory and her ball form has the properties of a basketball but with the texture of cold skin present in all her forms but the jellyfish one, which feels like literal jello.

Aveline likes 80s music and her favourite song is Everybody Wants to Rule The World.

Her colour scheme is vaguely inspired by glowstick parties and neon nightclub signs.

She is Filipino (she's my persona of course she's gonna be a Pinay)

Her ball form is inspired by this video:

At some point she went into an underage drinking party with her friends because they didn't know that it was. They were promised by their schoolmates organising the party to have normal stuff in it. They left shortly after because they are disappointed and it's dangerous.

She likes to eat a lot and prefers either sour and savory food. (light purple liquified energy, which is an abyssal's equivalent of "fat", mainly goes to her legs).

Even if Aveline is almost always perpetually tired to some degree, she can act kinda hysterically when feeling strong emotions.

She is ace biromantic.

She can't cry. The triangle thing under her eye is supposed to look like a stream of tears when she's sad (as seen in the image above).

Aveline can actually change the colour she glows but violet is her favourite colour so she decided to glow purple.

The light she emits can't light up rooms.

She has a magical stylus pen. It can turn into a purple katana-like lightsaber and open portals to different universes. (She doesn't know about the latter)

Aveline likes spiders and absolutely despises cockroaches.