#falling in love with a conglomerate rock

[alopiidae]

i wrote a recount of what happened this summer

this is the public version, if u know me or we’re mutuals u can dm me if you want more details. hell anyone can ask about more as long as its not work related

after a long job search, I managed to land a temporary position at a park featuring a natural wonder and I'd totes dox myself if I said anything about it. I'm cool with sharing details in DMs with people I know are legit watchers and whatnot buuuut there's people that I don't want to be able to find my trail and just saying as much as I will would be identifying enough haha.

The job itself was great, the site was gorgeous. The problem was that it was in a small town and I had to move there. And there was only one place to move to. I actually looked at another place too but it was 50 minutes away... and well. for 750$ a month, i could rent a tiny room (or the "harry potter room", a windowless room featuring ancient posters of daniel radcliffe and a literal broom on the wall) in a run-down family estate, that was once a secret resort. there were holes in the deck, taxidermy all over every wall, and invitations to family dinner. the host explained the resort history as we looked out to the helicopter pad island in the lake. guests like oj simpson and the prime minister had stayed there back in the day.

anyway the other place was 600$ for a room in a bungalow 2 minutes away from work. Sounds normal, right? Oh, what could have been...

My boss actually asked one of my references if I could live in a house or something. I thought he was weird to do that, but well, maybe he was just tuned into the flow of time or whatever. My landlord rented out the rooms of the house separately, so I did not know my roommates prior to moving in together. A fun fact for later is that my landlord did not run a background check on any of us.

We had, besides myself:

- Landlord's employee, a deeply traumatized woman who did not care what I knew about her. Let's call her R.

- Her irresponsible on-off fiancé. The two of them lived downstairs so we didn't need to see each other much. He shall be C.

- Roommates were a couple. One was G, a man the age of my father who was visibly recovering from a meth addiction...

- And N, his fiancée not too much older than me. A fun fact about her was that she would be making noises constantly. It was baffling.

My roommates would buy something new every day despite having no money. They let food go bad all the time. They watched TV so loud it was like there was a shootout in the dining room, and they reacted to it like it was real. The downstairs neighbors were loud and didn't care what we saw. But I didn't care! I actually liked my job and everything was fine for a whole  almost three weeks!

By the end of those three weeks, I knew something was coming. I didn't know what it'd be, from home or work, but I just had this feeling like there was another shoe about to drop that didn't go away, even when it came out one of my coworkers was charged with something reaaaaally bad. That wasn't personal enough.

Literally the next day after I expressed this sentiment to some people at work, my roommates left in a huff and I got a text from my landlord threatening to kick me out if I spent more than 15 minutes in the bathroom at a time. Which is insane even if you don't factor in how I'm chronically ill, the fact that I get out or don't go in if I know someone else may have to, and the fact that she'd been up for two hours already that morning. And I promise I didn't wreck the thing LOL. Sharing a bathroom was THE thing I was most worried about when faced with a roommate situation, it's always been something that stresses me out and EVERY TIME I've had to move out it involved adding to the stress (public bathrooms at my last job, composting toilets practically in the middle of a public kitchen at the one before), and the fact that they went to the landlord before saying anything to me had me very worked up and panicky at work.

Then I got called into my boss's office.

I had no idea what it was about and was still trying to not be too paranoid or whatever so I didn't think it'd be anything bad until I looked... They'd gotten an email about me saying that I was using slurs and vulgar language to the guests and not talking about the site, that I smell, and expressing distaste over my ambiguous gender. It called for my immediate termination.

The email address... was my roommate N's full name at gmail dot com. I hadn't heard her surname at that point but that was first and middle and too much of a coincidence that it was the same day. My boss physically tracked down my landlord since he wasn't picking up, and confirmed it was her email. So, thank god she was stupid enough to use that address LOL, I swear to god if I got fired for that...

Naturally I was freaked out. I went back to grab some of my stuff (no one went with me but I wanted to go during work hours so someone would at least notice if I disappeared lol) and she was in the shower so we yelled at each other until G stepped in. She was holding my toothbrush hostage n shit lol. I took what I could and went back to work since I had no where else to go. Eventually, my dad took the long drive down and we stayed at a shitty motel since it was the only thing open while trying to work things out with my landlord. We also looked up N by her full name and found out she'd been charged with assault with a weapon on a teenager a few years ago (and responded to the article about it with LMAO), so that put things into perspective a little more.

Me, dad, and landlord went and met with G who allegedly had no idea what was going on. Never saw a man that broken. He admitted she was physically hurting him too, he had some deep scars on his scalp. She was apparently having a mental health episode which tracks but that's a bit too far for me. They were given a while to move out but in the meantime, it wasn't safe for me to be there, so I put most of my stuff in my car, and my dad took the rest to my uncle's. Apparently while I was gone, N was extra annoying to R and C. R apparently heard N say I did 10 loads of laundry at once?? And that R smokes and plays loud music, which is true, but N also smokes and played loud TV so that was stupid.

So I went to work and somehow carried on in my public-facing job like normal even though I didn't even know where I'd sleep that night, which I think was strong of me. It was planned that I'd go to my uncle's and just do a long commute, but he admitted he wasn't in a good headspace for guests, so he and my parents collectively ended up putting me back in that motel for 10 days.

Let's do the five senses for this experience, okay?

- Touch: the feeling of rough carpet on your legs when you exhaustedly wipe out after removing your work clothes and don't wanna get the bed dirty.

- Sight: stained walls, microwave stacked on top of a mini fridge, dated everything.

- Taste: dried out microwaved oatmeal and watery half-cooked instant ramen.

- Smell: my socks drying waaaay too slow, surprised I found no mold, really.

- Sound: all the most annoying whiny Simple Plan songs in the folder of random music I stole off my dad's computer, to accentuate the misery, and how the wifi didn't fucking work.

I checked the bed, and joked that they had every kind of bug except bed bugs (I think we all know where this is going but we'll save it for later). There was a shop where you could get like, the random junk that's in the average grandma's closet on the floor. The guy who ran the place was unsettling. The restaurant was bad enough I didn't go a second time. There was no parking lot, you just drove into the lawn. At least they had a pool. Not a good one, but better than nothing when you're on your feet in the blazing sun 8 hours a day.

When N and G did leave, I thankfully had the foresight to not cancel my last night booked at the place. They left the place a MESS (more on that later). This resulted in the incredibly rare instance where it was wise to pour the milk in before the cereal; I poured milk into a container and left it in the motel fridge so I could put the milk in the apartment fridge instead of taking it to work the next day when I checked out before my shift.

Anyway. The place had been a mess when I FIRST moved in before N and G did. I had to scrub everything. There was dog hair in the fridge and this like, layer of rot and yellowedness on practically everything. So I was pissed I had to do it again, since they left lots of wonderful things like;

- Used kitty litter

- Cigarette ashes on my mattress

- Rotting liquid spinach in My side of the fridge, after I'd been declining their polite offers for me to eat it previously

- Lots of random shit and garbage. I did get some unopened food and houseplants out of it, though that doesn't make up for... the everything else. I also discovered they'd stolen some of my snacks, and a drawer full of stuff I missed. It ended up costing about 1500$ in damages between the items, motel, and clean-up effort.

They'd also been insisting they were cleaning when I asked what chores I should do around the house when things were normal. Interesting how much whiter everything got after I cleaned it again.

I hung out with R and C and it was a little crazy. More of N's crimes and issues, things that implicated R in crimes (she's done time haha), trying to steal a guy for me from his gf (we ain't doin that), R realizing her bisexuality, lots of real deep talk, aaaand the fact there was mice in the house. More on that bit later.

I went home for a visit and got some stuff to keep the mice off my food. I crashed hard emotionally because going home does that to me, makes me feel like I'm not getting anywhere. By this point I was exhausted from work. I hiked about 40km a week, was on my feet and in the sun all day. It was good but hard. And keeping up with the housework was very hard as well. I had the whole thing to myself, and my landlord, to try and make things up to me, didn't let anyone else move in while I was still there and didn't charge me for one of the months. I was too wiped to do anything besides keep everything clean, and myself fed.

I spent an entire day off cleaning so I'd be free the next day. My last task was putting my bedding back on. When I was done, I sat down, and I saw a funny green bug I didn't recognize. My pal avery got real fixated on figuring out what it was, and eventually went to reddit for an ID.

They said it was a masked hunter nymph, an immature assassin bug. Then he said to me, he didn't wanna tell me what else they'd said... that they primarily feed on bed bugs.

So the next day I took everything off my bed, checked the whoooole thing for eggs, blood, bugs...

And there was One Dead Bug, between the mattress and boxspring. One.

The landlord nearly cried on the phone. My mother manifested in my home and poured HEAPING AMOUNTS OF DIATOMS (literally just supposed to lightly dust it) on the floor, and basically we spent the WHOLE DAY STEAM CLEANING AND VACUUMING only for the landlord to get back like 'yeah a company will come and do a treatment tomorrow' so I had to REMOVE all the diatomaceous earth ALONE with no vacuum, which is hell, and prepare everything to essentially be sprayed with pesticides.

Man I was tired BEFORE I had to vacuum five days in a row and do all my laundry every treatment. All my stuff was in trash bags. I was pretty miserable and bitter, but I did manage to get out swimming one day which was nice. One night I managed to accidentally stab myself and set off the fire alarm within minutes of each other.

Now, back to the mouse. I'd never really had to deal with mice, we had one once when I was like 10. I see em outside all the time, no problem, but it's very different to have it inside and know you have to GET IT. They are very cute. I screamed. I threw a frying pan. Somehow R and C didn't wake up. I eventually caught it in a bowl, dumped it in a trash bag, and started walking, unable to bring myself to kill it. Eventually I heard an owl call, and decided that fate would have its way, and let the mouse go. When I returned... there was a second mouse. I didn't catch it, but I didn't see another the whole time. My boss liked to make jokes about the frying pan thing in front of the guests. By now, most of my coworkers my age left for school so I didn't have many people to talk to at work aside from the guests. Man do I have weird encounter stories about them, ahaha. My coworkers had drama too, that I was not involved in.

C was very unhelpful during the bug treatments. The first one, I was trying to give them time to get laundry done too, but neither came back til after dark. When I tried to explain to him his clothes were covered in pesticides, he said "you seem agitated" and offered me a hit of his joint. These people are in their 40s btw. They fought often. Every time C fucked something up, R would escalate it to being about how he'd left her before/the other woman. Eventually, he snapped and started getting physical about it. Kept me up all night once and I was so tired at work, I leaned on a rock and fell enamored with how it was supporting me for a solid while. After he was similarly irresponsible following another bug treatment, they fought, she locked him out, and he literally kicked the door in. They broke up, but then it was time for a HURRICANE!

I did good at prepping for the hurricane and managed to not lose any food over the 2 and a half days between my ice collection and C's generator, which he fueled by smoking btw. I got a couple days off from work, during which I... sat in the dark. Listened to R and C reconcile, carnally. And shower by pouring cold kettles of water in my hair. Goooood tiiiiiimes. When I got back to work I got to see a powerline explode! C did leave afterwards. I wish them both therapy.

For the sake of not writing too much, I'll leave it there, but I did go home after the park closed for the season, a few weeks short of me being EI eligible despite having to move to an area with fewer jobs to get one and having a disability with an astronomically high unemployment rate. I still think about it all a lot. I'm like, haunted man. Now I have to get another job?! I'm interviewing for something close to my childhood dream job on Tuesday, and I'm very intimidated. I really just feel like going back to my art right now tbh lol...

[violetsiren90]

~BTS Masterlist~

Content key: fluff 🌸, angst ⛈, smut 🍑, hard smut 😈, crack 😂, tragedy 🥀, hurt/comfort ❤️‍🩹

All I Haven't Said - 🌸, ⛈, eventual 🍑 (ongoing)

Genre: soulmate AU; canon compliant; strangers to lovers; chapter fic

Summary: You found your soulmate - or rather, he found you. Turns out he's an idol of much acclaim who needs you for very real and unglamorous reasons. What could become of two hearts so used to giving of themselves when they are confronted with needing each other?

It Had to Be You - 🌸, 😂, eventual 🍑 (WIP - coming soon!)

Pairing: idol!Seokjin x f!journalist!Reader

Genre: soulmate AU; canon compliant; dorm-life era; enemies to lovers; chapter fic

Summary: You're a tabloid journalist looking for a big break in a cut-throat industry. Just when you're finally beginning to make a name for yourself, a disastrous encounter with Korea's hottest boy group reveals your soulmate to be the member who loathes you and your work the most.

All Ye Need to Know - ⛈, 🥀, ❤️‍🩹

Pairing: idol!Yoongi x Reader (ft. Namjoon x Reader)

Genre: Gender-neutral reader; one-shot; heavy angst; hurt/comfort; strangers to lovers; idol AU; canon compliant

Summary: You had no idea that you were what Yoongi had been looking for when he showed up at your cafe one rainy night - turns out he hadn't known either.

Send Me To Hong Kong - 🍑

Pairing: idol!Yoongi x f!Reader

Genre: one-shot; pure, shameless smut; established relationship; canon compliant

Summary: Yoongi discovers one of your major kinks.

Things That Grow - ⛈, ❤️‍🩹

Pairing: idol!Yoongi x Reader

Genre: Gender-neutral reader; drabble; canon compliant; established relationship; angst and hope; goodbyes

Summary: You've arrived at Yoongi's place to spend some time with him before he leaves, but the newest change is making his enlistment more of a reality than you can bear.

What the Moon Saw - 🌸, ⛈, 🍑

Pairing: best friend!Yoongi x f!Reader

Genre: one-shot; non-idol AU; young love; loss of virginity (sex between consenting adults); friends to lovers

Summary: Having been with each other through thick and thin, you and your childhood friend, Yoongi, realize that nobody knows how to say goodbye.

Drabbles: - Stolen Tides 🌸, ⛈ (You reunite with Yoongi after over a decade apart) - Beacons Ashore 🌸, ⛈ (A few months after meeting you, Yoongi finds himself at the hideaway on a night in March) - The Lighthouse Keeper ⛈ (Yoongi shares a beer with a friend on a lonely summer night years after you've gone) - Under the Hunter's Moon 🌸 (When Yoongi happens upon you at your school's Fall Fest, you find yourselves breaking an unspoken rule)

With What I Know Is In You - 🌸, 🍑

Pairing: idol!Yoongi x Reader

Genre: gender-neutral reader; drabble; vignette; established relationship; D-Day tour; canon compliant

Summary: You're there to meet Yoongi when the lights and screams of the stage fade.

A Madness Most Discreet - 🌸, ⛈, eventual 🍑 (WIP - coming soon)

Pairing: CEO!Yoongi x VP!f!Reader

Genre: chapter fic; corporate AU; slow burn; enemies to lovers

Summary: When Yoongi steps into his late father's shoes as the president of a large corporate conglomerate, his radical humanist ideals begin to rock the company by its foundations and you, as VP, are in the eye of his storm.

Make Me - 😈, plantonic?🌸, mild⛈

Pairing: idol!Hoseok x f!Reader

Genre: one-shot; idol AU; canon compliant; hard smut; BDSM; friends to fwb

Summary: You've been friends with Hobi for years, and he's your comfort zone - but when he gets wind of a dark secret you drunkenly let slip, things between you take a sudden extreme change.

Thunder and Pineapple Rum - 🍑 (WIP - coming soon)

Pairing: SO!Yoongi x f!Reader (ft. Yoongi x Jimin & Hwasa x Reader)

*Teaser here*

Genre: one-shot; established relationship; MxM; swinger AU; Yoonmin; PwP; ft. bartender!Hwasa

Summary: While visiting his alma mater for a class reunion, you and Yoongi stop by an intriguingly atmospheric bar for drinks with his erstwhile underclassman, Jimin. After Jimin and the beautiful bartender make a surprising revelation, you and Yoongi decide to help them close down for the night...and explore some uncharted territories.

Yet to come 💜

Blame Me - 🌸, ⛈, eventual 🍑 (ongoing)

Pairing: best friend's bro!Jungkook x f!Reader

Genre: chapter fic; childhood friends AU; summer love; noona romance; friends to lovers

Summary: Upon returning to your hometown after breaking off your engagement to your boyfriend of three years, you reconnect with your childhood best friend as you attempt to put the pieces of your life back together. It seems like nothing has changed in the sleepy little town until your bestie's younger brother returns home from college - very, very grown. As the summer stretches on, the stakes get higher - can you play with fire without getting burned, or have you ignited a flame that won't be extinguished?

Kissing the Members: Vibes Edition - 🌸

Genre: lists; "BTS as"; scenarios

Summary: What I think it would be like to kiss each member of BTS, vibes only

[stevetonyweekly]

SteveTony Weekly - December 17th

Real life has been crazy as my kids went through finals week and I went through--helping them through finals week. There’s very little on this week’s list--but my holiday break is starts Wednesday so I expect the next few weeks list will make up for the brevity of today. And of course, y’all can look forward to holiday lists and my end of year round ups in the next few weeks. 

*

One More Dream by citsiurtlanu

Steve is an animator dreaming of breathing life back into a stagnant industry. Tony is a musician dreaming of introducing electric violin to rock. In December of 1981, they meet and come to realize what it means to follow said dreams.

Also known as the artist!Steve/musician!Tony La La Land AU no one ever asked for.

the perfect blend by downeylove, robertdowneyjjr

Tired of the stress and pressure that comes with being the CEO of a global tech conglomerate, Tony hands over control of Stark Industries to Pepper and decides to open a cafe in Brooklyn.

Then an exhausted high school teacher named Steve walks into his life looking for coffee and doesn’t make any effort to leave. Not that Tony’s complaining.

Blacksmith's Hands by Amuly 

Based in Marvel's 1872 Western Universe, where Tony is a blacksmith and Steve is the town Sheriff. Blacksmith Tony hears Sheriff Steve's birth date is coming up, and decides to give him the present he deserves.

darling I fancy you by complicationstoo 

Steve has had a plan for April fifteenth for months now. He’s finally back in New York tonight, officially done with the semester abroad in London that he and Natasha started in January. He loved England, but after months of conversations through text and brief phone calls alone, he just wants the taxi from the airport to drive faster to take him back home. Back to Tony, who Steve has been in love with for the better part of four years and is finally ready to tell how he feels.

cold coffee by complicationstoo 

In retrospect, Steve can admit that he overreacted to the entire situation. His only defense is that he was already stressed out by the bad grade he got on his art project. It’s weak, he recognizes, but he worked really hard on that project and Professor Hill called it “contrived” and “unnecessarily complex.” He was fuming by the time he walked out her office, having failed at arguing for a better grade, and getting freezing cold coffee spilled on him was really the icing on the top of the world’s worst cake. Can he really be blamed for blowing up on the guy?

(Yes, he’ll admit later, he can. But not now.)

Met You on a Monday by justanotherrollingstony (adoctoraday)

The Chitauri invade on a Monday, the same day that Steve meets Iron Man for the first time, and then Toni Stark--and then everything he thinks he knows about both of them goes right out the window.

Indulgence by FestiveFerret, One and Five Nines (Obani)

All it took was one word from Tony, and Steve fell to his knees, every time.

He wished he didn't need this so badly.

Before We Part (The Adventure's End Remix) by citsiurtlanu

Minutes away from incursion, Steve and Tony realize that this adventure will be their final one.

Size Doesn't Matter by izazov

An incident results in Steve reverting to his pre-serum body. It may be the worst thing that has happened to Tony Stark. Or the best.

Love of Inconvenience by AvengersNewB

Tony had a plan; bond with Steve to keep him from deportation until he could find Steve's childhood friend Mr. Barnes.

Temporary.

For convenience.

The plan did not entail falling for this perfect beautiful omega.

Tony Doesn't Love Drama (It Loves Him) by tonystarkssnipples

Steve carefully folded his fingers together and took a steadying breath. “With all due respect, sir, I do not think it would be a wise idea for me to be a part of this project.”

Steve seethed. His boss did this all the time; talked him into doing things they both knew were not good for Steve. In the end, Steve always went along with what his boss said because that’s how jobs worked.

-or-

Steve is a photographer hired to take pictures of Tony Stark and they end up falling into bed together.

Just Like This by BlossomsintheMist

“You are,” he murmured in Tony’s ear, “the sweetest, most generous, most wonderful boyfriend a man could ever have.”

Steve and Tony share Valentine's Day together, and Steve wants to make a point.

[milkyfederation]

Violence as entertainment sadly seems to be universal, since battle arenas are a common sight in space. The Milky Federation has, of course, outlawed these brutish displays, but in some places outside its jurisdicion they not only exist, but have become a cultural phenomena.

For instance, Rand Conglomerate presents King Zavier Colosseum 's fights are one of the most watched sports in Mars, and they even have some fans in the Federation.

In them, hyper modified specimens in weird clothes and excentric personas seemingly fight to the death for victory.

Seemingly? Yes, in actuality it is staged and acted, their modified bodies do not actually fall when they're stabbed and graphically torn apart live. So when your favourite character dies, there's still a chance they'll come back next season with a new arm and a bloody revenge arc against whoever stole their title.

So yeah, basically gladiator wrestling. It's a joke that's been done a lot, but I still enjoy it, and I always like the Space Colosseum trope. I just wanted to draw buff alien fighters.

Here we have a martian woman who's been in the sport for years, and has died a bunch.

A young Neocropolitan upstart, he's the city's big new investment, and they're bribing the writers for him to win everything.

Teed the Creep is a mussossian with a villain persona who uses human audience's myths.

This smug and preppy liloquian is a villain character meant to represent the MF.

A member of a mechanical hive-mind species who wears a mech suit to fight in the arena, even artificial beings can join in the bloodshed!

Rock "Crabhammer" Lobstah doesn't use weapons or armor, their natural defences and modified hyper claw are enough for him.

The big guy is the current champion, so far they have never been beaten, will they follow the disgraceful plotline of the young Neocropolitan taking their title, or will they improvise and beat him into a pulp live?

This joke character is The Janitor, he appears after battles and cleans the blood, everyone loves him. No better way to make the audience hate a character than making them kill The Janitor while they're working.

The half robot half human guy has been in the business for a loooong time, he refuses to quit no matter how many times he dies.

I appear to have invented a triple swords wielding tentacle alien.

I'm not that satisfied with this piece, this last week I was sick and it's been pretty shitty. At the end there I just wanted to get it done, don't zoom in too close, like, anywhere. It was too ambitious, but I'm happy I did it.

[lichenaday]

Kuettlingeria teicholyta

This lichen falls somewhere in the space between crustose and foliose lichens, falling closer to the crustose side with its continuous to areolate-rimose centeral thallus, but still nodding in the direction of foliose with its stubby, lobe-like structures around the thallus margin. The upper surface is pale gray in color, with abundant blastidia (globular asexual propagules containing both fungal and algal cells) covering the center of the orbicular patch. Most lichens have soredia (loose conglomeration of hyphal tissue and algal cells) or isidia (structured chunk of lichen thallus material containing fungal and algal cells), but blastidia is somewhere in between those two. It only rarely produces apothecia, which have a deep red disc and an orange proper margin (rim made of apothecial tissue), and sometimes a thin, blastidiate thalline margin (rim made of thallus tissue). Really, K. teicholyta seems to have a hard time just choosing ONE THING. It loves to sit in the margins and deny simple classification. You can find this unique little paradigm-shifter growing on calciferous rock and human-made structures warm-temperate regions of the Middle East, Europe, and North America.

images: source | source | source | source

info: source | source

[things-about-cars-in-posts]

favorite band/artist?

Sheesh. Complicated one.

You see, my music tastes are, to put it mildly, rather varied. I think it showed in my music recommendation post and the post that further explored one of those artists, but to further illustrate, my library includes:

Earth, Wind & Fire

New Kids On The Block's Jordan Knight's first solo single

Dubstep band Hadouken!’s Lana Del Rey cover

A mashup of Wham! and a fishing anime

A Japanese bilingual melodic punk rock band's two songs about bowling

80s remixes of Justin Bieber songs

A Japanese "punk ska and melodic hardcore band"'s cover of Scatman’s World

A 140+ song Beatles remix collection, featuring such gems as "Octopus's 3D Garden", "I Saw Her Yankin' There" and "Help!" (suspicious)

A eurobeat female duo of rotating Italian and British members’ Abracadabra-sampling track about falling in love with a banana

A remix of Azumanga Daioh’s Sata Andagi scene I retrieved from a porn site reupload

Moldovan folk punk band and folk musician duo’s collab about celebrating the reopening of a railroad

The soundtrack of Pictionary for the NES

A mashup of AVICII, Rick Astley and Chumbawumba

An 80s pop Linkin Park remix

Black Sabbath covers by The Cardigans (of Lovefool fame)

JT's solo debut

A Flock Of Seagulls (of I Ran (So Far Away) fame)

One (1) DJ Khaled song

A 2011 My Little Pony-themed song by then commentary youtuber

(And I beg each and every one of the people who read this list and thought "Okay that one cannot possibly be good" to hop in my askbox and allow me to prove them wrong.)

But let's go through bands and artists I've not posted about before.

Two Door Cinema Club Just out of statistics. I can prove I played I Can Talk over a hundred times and I can tell you any number under two hundred is underselling it. There is genuinely some problem with my brain that that intro slots into perfectly.

Oh also all the rest of their first album this comes from is this great too, and if you ask me what a perfect album sounds like I will tell you it's not that far off their second album.

OK Go Now, I like the music. Actually, I'd left my two guitars alone for years until an easy OK Go song made me think "Oh, maybe I can play this" and realize that rather than -as I had prior- just play the music I'd been taught, I could actually teach myself to play the music I was listening to, which snowballed into playing more OK Go songs and then it expanded and now I have a ukulele, a bass, a third guitar I need to merge with that bass (it's complicated), a fourth "guitar" (it's complicated), a Casio calculator/synth (it's complicated), a melodica, a launchpad and a kazoo. Whoops. But really, all you need to be sold on OK Go is see two of their videos. One to find out what they're like (and you're already good on that front because you have visited the internet ever and have thus seen Here It Goes Again aka "The Treadmill Video" aka what when posted to YouTube upon its CEO begging them to do so became the biggest video of all time) and another to find out that no the first one was not a one-off fluke. I am serious, go click that link, it takes you to a playlist of their videos and each one is crazier than the last. I mean they played a song with a car. A song. That has a guitar solo. With a car. Have you seen the name of this channel.

Ah, right, the name of this channel. I guess I have to say a thing about that car now. Uhhh this video was sponsored by Chevrolet to promote the Aveo which, despite being badged as a Chevrolet, like many of the more Europe-oriented Chevrolets was made by the automotive branch of Daewoo, brand General Motors picked up after the Daewoo conglomerate (then the second largest in South-Korea which may as well be called Samsungland) went bankrupt in '99 over almost $90B modern dollars in debt. Its founder Kim Woo-chong (because Lord knows the "woo" in Daewoo did not stand for "woo what a great car") earned a ten year sentence, but I feel they focused too much on the wrong guy. The REAL criminal is whoever penned Daewoo cars.

A good person doesn't do this on purpose.

Owl City I have too few of his songs, but I absolutely love how comically upbeat he is. He is so precious. If c: walked this Earth. I mean "Golf and alcohol don't mix and that's why I don't drink and drive / Because, good grief, I'd knock out my teeth and have to kiss my smile goodbye". Protect this man at all costs. Also one time I saw the Fireflies video after what must have been a good decade and you know when you feel near crying? I adored that song when I was a kid and I was right.

Liquido European one-hit wonders - and not even "people know them just for one song", not even "people don't know them and just know the song"; I found you can tell people the name of their hit and they won't know what you're talking about. But hum the riff and infallibly, invariably any single person in my country (and, in my limited experience, the rest of Europe) will go "Ooooooh, that one". And to be fair, those guys did stumble on one of the most memorable riffs in modern history.

Not saying this is a hidden gem of a band, I am sure some bigger music nerd would stamp a big fat "SEEN BEFORE" on all their stuff, beyond some enjoyable splashes of "I wonder how much of this is them leaning into it" cheese (yes, even more than that video) - but I've still got their whole discography including all the B-sides, because to me, so what? It's good music and I'll treat it like it. What's the point of praising "groundbreaking", "genre defining" works and then glossing over those inhabiting the ground they broke and making the genres they defined? When I eat bread I don't complain that it doesn't innovate or set itself apart from the rest of the genre, so as long as my music doesn't bore me why should those be problems there? I feel like people have a problem in general separating their enjoyment of a work from its artistic merit. I'm digressing.

The Beatles If you ask me "What's your favorite number of pant legs?" I'm not going to answer five because two would be cliché.

And now we get to the final answer, the real answer, in such a league of its own it deserves to be separated from the rest via a Read More.

I lied, this is under a Read More because it's an entire fucking dissertation. Your fault for asking.

Caparezza I've spent well over a decade of my life mulling over his lyrics to the point me and my ex-flatmate played this game where she told me a random word and I'd try to find it in his lyrics (e.g. the first word of your ask, "favorite", was used in the second verse of the sixteenth track of his sixth album, yes I am neurodivergent why do you ask), and still it happens that as I am going through my everyday life I happen to accrue some information and slam my forehead going "Oh my God THAT'S what he meant there". His songs are more layered, more deep, more thoughtful, more cutting, more witty, more clever than most prose you see around and still he manages to play with his words and rhymes with incredible dexterity.

Take his last record, Exuvia - actually, take the previous record Exuvia picks up from, Prisoner 709:

Its name not only introduces the theme of imprisonment, but also of dilemmas and juxtapositions, since the prisoner's number, 709, stands for the dilemma about the number of the record: it's the 7th in his discography as Caparezza, but the 9th if one also counts the two shit records he made under his previous name Mikimix (we don't talk about those). Its tracklist, indeed, while being as typical for him incredibly varied in topics (from religions to his affinity with Ludwig II of Bavaria to "I'm not [x], BUT-" types) is arranged as chapters of the story of an imprisonment (The Crime, The Punishment, The Weight, The Psychologist, The Letter, The Visit, The Yard Time, The Torture, The Revolt, The Guard, The Infirmary, The Window, The Evasion, The Hiding) and associated to dilemmas - for instance, as the record is about his feeling imprisoned in his body and in his role, the first song -and first chapter, The Crime- is indeed Prosopagnosia (i.e. face blindness), a track about him no longer recognizing himself in the artistic reputation he built himself, with the dilemma being between "Michele", his name, and "Caparezza", his rap name. Oh, and if you also want a taste of the impressive wordplay, well, count the letters of those two names. Yep. Every single one of the 16 tracks is a dilemma is between a 7 letter word and a 9 letter word. Because of course it is.

So now, let's get to the last record, Exuvia.

Nah, the pop-up edition's cover fucks way harder.

That's more like it.

Exuvia is the exoskeletal remains left behind by ecdysozoans after ecdysis, i.e. when creatures like insects and crustaceans develop a new exoskeleton and crawl out of their old one, as this record starts from his escaping from the anguish compounded through all his previous records and through a deep analysis of his past, his self, his surroundings, his fate, condensing it all and moving on to a new self, a new birth, a new shell. (Understand how I feel when people say the greatest rapper of all time is one whose greatest record is called "Damn" because the songs made him go "Damn" and whose biggest song is "Biggie Smalls' Juicy but this time about me".)

Well, in the second track of it, about running away from the dire situation of hatred, decay and persecution described in the first track, he says, and I paraphrase,

I give it all up, I'm dying, I retreat - Caporetto plus Waterloo Dripping and smelling like my head was in a station's toilet- oh.

introducing the desperation and hopelessness of military defeats and immediately following it up with an image whose comedic nature makes a contrast so stark as to surprise even him while still, being a reference to the military's hazing and bullying, latching back to the line before. While the prose I represent it with is deliberately poor, the concept behind the words is brilliant enough that it would be a good line if it didn't rhyme at all. And yet the original lines rhyme for twenty syllables. TWENTY.

Thing is, you can be as clever as you want, but the underlying music, you know, it can't be clever, it can just be good or bad. One would think. And yet the music is not just good but full of clever, witty samples and ideas that don't just reinforce the track's mood but tie the instrumental inextricably into the lyrics' themes, like Larsen (the track about his tinnitus, which he calls by audio feedback's technical name of Larsen effect) using high-pitched synths and emphasizing cymbals, Prisoner 709's title track being 79bpm (I wager 709bpm was a bit non-doable), House Credibility's instrumental featuring intercom buzz and cowbells reminiscent of cookware, or, well, everything in Exuvia's second single. See, that song is about the choice he faces between the story of Beethoven, who despite all his challenges kept devoting himself to music until the day he died, or that of Mark Hollis, lead of Talk Talk, who despite all the fame peaced out to focus on his private life - and the entire instrumental is devoted to that concept: the verses' reference Für Elise, the chorus Such A Shame, and the bridge I Believe In You; and when you tun into the background choirs you find they are rhythmically repeating "I don't know".

You start to get a clue why there's three years between his records.

So if his songs are so fucking good, why is he not famous? Well, he is! Except for his first album which no one really noticed (fairly so in my opinion - while I like a few songs I feel he really got going in his second one), the following records did really well for someone with such dense content: his third record has been certified gold! And all the others platinum. Some twice. Never since the first one did a record of his peak under 5 in the charts, and he's got 8 gold singles, 3 platinums and a double platinum. And don't get me started on the shows.

(That's me in the background!) Hell, he's even been on the cover of Billboard! So why've you never heard of him? Well, see the word next to Billboard.

Yep. The man, Michele Salvemini, is an Italian born and raised and, like any proper Italian, doesn't speak a whole lot of English, so pretty much all the English you'll hear in his music are the handful of English features, like Michael Franti, DMC (!) and Spandau Ballet's Tony Hadley, with which he made a song about Italy's emigration crisis.

Emigration that is also internal, from the underdeveloped, falling aparty and criminality-run south of Italy to where all the industries are, the richer and we-pretend-it's-not-criminality-run north. And since he's from Apulia, Italy's heel (his rap name in fact means "curly head" in Apulian dialect), he's made a song about its woes too, featuring the music of the tarantella, Apulia's traditional dance. (I don't know why y'all add an A in front. It's fucking "Puglia", y'all.) Here's an imperfect translation with a couple of helpful explainers to the asterisked terms over in the video's description.

It depresses me every time I think about it that all the English speakers I know will never be able to fully appreciate his lyrical brilliance. But oh well. At least y'all can appreciate the music... so fuck it, have that song whose music I yapped about so much. You'll hear the choirs in the background say "non so" (I don't know)... and a bunch more Italian words (translated here for those on desktop who want to follow along).

Links in blue are posts of mine about the topic in question - if you liked this post, you might like those!

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Totally Hits 3 2000 Alternative Rock / Pop-Rock / Pop / R&B / Adult Contemporary / Teen Pop

Time for yet another fun turn-of-the-millennium trip down memory lane, folks! Yesterday we got into a dispatch from America's bestselling contemporary hits series, Now That's What I Call Music!, but today we've got something from what was once their greatest competitor instead: Totally Hits.

And the biggest difference between these two series was ultimately the partnerships between the labels that put them out: the US version of Now was the result of a link-up between Capitol, EMI, Universal, Virgin, and their many subsidiaries, and Totally Hits represented Sony, BMG, Warner, Elektra, Atlantic, and their many subsidiaries. Now always wound up having the upper hand with the more popular collective catalog, but Totally Hits wasn't any slouch, either, even if they were Now's perpetual kid sister.

So, here we have a pretty solid collection of late 90s and early 2000s commercial fare that should provide for a nice nostalgia rush, but the most glaring omission on this third Totally Hits installment is that there aren't any boy bands at all. And that's because, by the time this album had come out, NSYNC—who had made an appearance on the prior volume—had successfully left their label, RCA, citing the glaring and overt exploitative practices of their manager, Lou Pearlman. And as a result, at the height of the teen pop explosion, the massive conglomerate that made up Totally Hits only had acts like Christina Aguilera and Vitamin C to show for it, whereas Now, with Jive Records appearing to fall under their umbrella, had not only NSYNC, but also the Backstreet Boys and Britney Spears as well. And as a result, Totally Hits suffered because of it.

But TH wasn't to be totally ignored, because their releases still had plenty of good pop music on them, and although they may have faltered in the teen pop arena, where they seemed to make up for it was in alternative pop-rock and R&B, with late 90s-early 00s entities like Matchbox Twenty, Barenaked Ladies, and Third Eye Blind holding down the rock side of things, while dominant forces like Whitney Houston and Toni Braxton were able to supply some of the quality R&B.

And another dimension that Totally Hits had that Now really didn't was country. I might dislike the pair of tunes that TH selected here for this album, between Faith Hill's super poppy "The Way You Love Me,“ and John Michael Montgomery's eyeroll-inducing and deeply Christian-overtoned "The Little Girl," but including a very popular genre that Now wasn't paying much of any mind to at all definitely helped Totally Hits to differentiate themselves.

So, I'd expect a lot of people to be familiar with most of these songs, but two that I'd like to point out especially are Dido's "Here With Me" and Next's "Wifey." Both of these acts each had a hit that was far more popular than the one that ended up on this album—Dido's "Thank You," which was also liberally sampled for Eminem's "Stan," and Next's "Too Close," a #1 hit song about trying to suppress an erection while grinding on someone 😂. But "Here With Me," which was actually Dido's debut single, is a beautiful piece of tender female singer-songwriter pop, and "Wifey," the lead single off of Next's sophomore album, is a terrific slice of dreamy and softly funky male group R&B.

So if you're ever trying to piece together an eclectic representation of a turn-of-the-millennium American commercial pop music landscape, Now is, of course, essential, but it'd be foolish to sleep on what Totally Hits had to offer, because while Now was definitely better, they weren't monopolistic, and TH was there to capitalize on that circumstance.

Highlights:

Pink - "Some Girls" Matchbox Twenty - "Bent" Vertical Horizon - "Everything You Want" Third Eye Blind - "Deep Inside of You" Barenaked Ladies - "Pinch Me" Dido - "Here With Me" Toni Braxton - "He Wasn't Man Enough" Christina Aguilera - "What a Girl Wants" Next - "Wifey" Vitamin C - "Graduation" The Corrs - "Breathless" Whitney Houston - "Fine"

[scifimagpie]

first lines meme!

The delightful @omokers tagged me, so I'm going to oblige with as many lines from my published works as I can. I put the first set in chronological order for the sake of ease.

And the Stars Will Sing - book 1 of The Meaning Wars. This short, friendly novella tells the story of a young wormhole engineer's first foray into deep space, clashes with her coworkers - and the escalating danger that descends on the ship.

Dear Sarah, So, I find myself preparing for my first job, and I should be excited, but I'm really just dithering. I hope you don't mind if I ramble at you.

2. The Stolen: Two Short Stories - book 2 of The Meaning Wars; this features a collection of short stories (though the old edition had only two) set through different periods of the Human Conglomerate, including one from before it all went wrong. The opening comes from "The Fields," the first story in the (now multi-story) collection.

It was a dry spring - that was one of my last memories before the reformatory. As I recall it now, it plays like one of the old films from the beginning of Earth cinema. Dry yellow-green fields, dusty roads whirring past.

3. The Meaning Wars - book 3 of the same series; this is a soft reboot that picks up a little while after book 2's ending. Crystal and Sarah finally catch up after a few years apart!

Crystal wiped her mouth and straightened. Space-sick again. It was one of the things she hated about small craft like these.

4. Poe's Outlaws - book 4 of The Meaning Wars, and the beach episode book.

As he leaned against Paulo's side, trying to get a good hold on his arms, Toby's face was turning red. Paulo twisted away, writhing with more agility than she expected from such a large man.

5. A Jade's Trick - book 5 of The Meaning Wars, the last one in the series; this sees Sarah, Crystal, Toby, Paulo, and Patience bring the fight against the Human Conglomerate back to the Solar System.

"We have a problem," said Paulo grimly, leaning against the ladder-side wall up to his loft bed. His glowing irises stood out sharply from his ceramic white sclera, but there was nothing unnatural about the scowl he was giving all of them.

6. The Underlighters - book 1 of the Nightmare Cycle, is told through journal entries written by Janelle, a scrappy young electrician living in Underlighter City - a bastion of civilization after the fall of the mysterious Dust killed much of humanity and forced the survivors deep underground. Janelle is starting to see things, and if that wasn't bad enough, her relationship with her girlfriend is on the rocks. And then the children start going missing...

The conversation went like this. "You seem tired, kiddo. And...uh, what happened to your shirt?" "Uh...I killed a dragon on my way home from work."

7. After the Garden - book 1 of the Memory Bearers Saga. Set in the same world as The Underlighters, though quite a bit later, this features the adventures of Ember - a young woman who's erased her own memory and left her secretive home village to search for the truth of her mysterious memories. Fortunately, she runs into some people like her along the way. Unfortunately, she also runs into a vicious cult that hunts those same people - Memory Bearers, individuals gifted (or cursed) with fragmented recollections of people from The Time Before the world broke.

The girl paused on the hill, shading her eyes from the sun. It had been a long journey, and she was getting tired of it - especially with the sun blazing down. Too exposed.

8. Bad Things That Happen to Girls - this standalone novella is a dive into literary fiction, featuring the disintegration of a family, fairy tale themes, and a queer awakening.

The day my sister fell in love was a gorgeous, sunny Tuesday afternoon in March. We were sitting on the roof of the shed behind our house when she told me about what had happened in school that day.

I'm not sure if there's a theme, but I'm tagging @pinkchaosart @dyrewrites @ventela1 @the-chiefster @jpohlmanwriting @the-chaotic-writer @careful-fear @thechaoscryptid and @palebdot anyway!

[spellucci]

Lafayette

Sunday-Wednesday, October 15-18, 2023

Lafayette, Colorado is a suburb of Boulder, a short drive from the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains. The signature rock formation the residents of Lafayette get to gaze on is called the Flatirons.

When ice and water wore down the Ancestral Rockies, rock rubble slowly moved down the various canyons and gradually spilled out on the plains below. The rubble spread out into a distinctive shape called an alluvial fan. The Flatirons are a set of five alluvial fans that were once compressed into conglomerate rock, eroded, and then somehow tilted and uplifted until they form the face of Green Mountain.

Our RVing friends, Glenn & Jeanne, live in Old Town, the eclectic downtown of Lafayette. We love to come and stay with them between travels. Their home is casual and filled with comfortable chairs, quirky artwork, a kitchen to hang out in, and a backyard oasis of shade, plants, sculpture, and graceful ceramics.

They have two dogs, Moe and Mustard. Dora is initially thrilled, but quickly discovers that Mustard is friendly, but too old to play with, and Moe is a little bigger and scrappy. Dora is nervous. Detente finally changes to play by Wednesday, when we have to leave.

The weather is typical for the fall, hot days and cold nights. Days are filled with walks in Old Town and in the dog park. Tim helps Glenn on the fence being installed along a new apartment/garage/pottery studio behind the main house. The dogs supervise. Jeanne helps Jeanne prepare for guests who will be arriving later in the week. It is all very domestic and relaxing, a welcome change from the week of hard driving to get out here.

[gatekeeper-watchman]

To Begin With

          I am compelled to share this with you as I feel so very impressed with it as well as with its author, Mr. Gerry Spence. It is the introduction to his book, From Freedom to Slavery, copyrighted in 1993 and published by St. Martin’s Press and which I highly recommend to you. I hope you will enjoy it as well as I do. His introduction begins as follows:

“Writing a book about a lofty subject such as freedom is like trying to jump from rock to rock across the creek without getting your feet wet. No matter how you plan your course, you are likely to slip off into the water somewhere. The choice, of course, is whether one wishes to stay on the bank with dry feet. Or take the risk of wet feet to get to the other side.

Doctors called upon to attend to the sick cannot prescribe a cure unless they are first able to diagnose the illness. Even before that, they must detect that the patient is ill. In the case of our freedoms, I can confidently say the patient is in grave danger. Having said so, and should you agree in whole or in part, we have, together, taken the first step toward the cure.

As for the solutions, there are only two kinds—those from outside the self and those from within. The first suggests that we destroy our enemies, that we manipulate or neutralize them, that we discover detours around them, that we suffer their impositions against us, or, at last, that we even love them. In any event, the solution acknowledges the existence of outside forces that deter our progress and impede our happiness. On the other hand, there persists the idea—one with which I agree—that solutions are mainly matters of the self, that power vested in others is often irrelevant to our freedom, and that the only change essential for the betterment of the human condition is to change within, that we are the fountainhead of power, and that, therefore, we need not free the world—we need only free ourselves. Yet I have never been an exclusionist. It makes no more sense to argue that all solutions should fall into one category or the other than to argue that mustard plaster is the proper remedy for every ailment.

The problem, however, is not so much in finding solutions as in making the solutions work. Any splinter can cause a fatal infection. This being so, one also knows one can never detect all the splinters that make up the smoothest stick. Marx, for example, hated the exploitation of the masses, but his solutions, however, corrupted in their application, resulted in the enslavement of whole nations. Christ also had a good idea—that we love one another. But his followers, attempting to realize his simple, perhaps perfect remedy, disagreed on what they thought were crucial points—whether they should hold their meetings on Saturday or Sunday—whether members of the flock at baptism should be nearly drowned to wash away their sins, or whether a few drops of water on the head would suffice. In the end, his followers proved to be strong on organization, unsurpassed on dogma, supreme on sophistry, but not much on love. They fought endless wars in his name, murdered hordes of the innocent, burned countless women at the stake as witches, bashed in the heads of “heathen” Indian children, and left the world riddled with guilt and fear.

Freedom in America, as bountiful and precious as it is, has always been a strange conglomerate of the divine and the fanciful. Understanding freedom in America is like listening to a one-armed piano player. His one arm performs not only its assigned task but has painfully attempted to undertake the function of the missing limb. He plays the melody with the magnificent frills and rolls of the virtuoso. He represents all of the higher virtues of the species: He is resourceful, creative, vigorous, and he is very brave. In listening, our minds provide for us what our ears do not—the music of the other hand. But after we assess his performance, as admirable as it has been, we know that something is, indeed, missing.

Freedom in America works best for those who can afford it. As the fellow said in The Grapes of Wrath, “You’re just as free as you’ve got Jack to pay for it.” It is not as much an idea as it is a commodity. It is not as much a liberated state of being as it is an item on the shelf that, along with the purchaser, may be purchased. It is not as much a right as a component of commerce.

The danger, of course, is that we have become the purchasers of the fable of freedom. When we vigorously argue to our neighbors that Americans are free, our neighbors will likely assert that they “buy” that. Having bought the fable, it belongs to us, and we fight to keep it like howling apes protecting their trinkets and their tinfoil.

On the other hand, some of us enjoy a state of freedom that never enters even the dreams of those in many other cultures. I sit warm and comfortable at my desk recording those thoughts. My stomach is full—too full. I do not fear intrusions from brown-shirted agents of the government. If I make minimal efforts at compliance with the rules that preserve the power structure, I will likely be left alone, even if I criticize the power structure, I am essentially free to rant and rave and to emit all manner of noxious noise. It is this dichotomy that serves as both our pride and our poison.

Today there are, as indeed, there have always been, insidious, enslaving forces at work in America. Today’s emerging tyranny emanates from a New King, from a nonliving power center composed at its core of monolithic corporate entities encased and protected by endless layers of governmental bureaucracies. The primary state of the New King is to convert all rights, all human energy, all goals and, at least, all humans into fungible commodities, for the New King exists solely for commerce and its life’s blood, its green blood, its money—and its singular mission is profit. The New King’s principal means of control is the media that sells us the myths of freedom, that, when we doubt, reassures us we are free, and that programs us and our children to accept the notion that all humans function, all human desires, indeed, even immortality itself can, at last, be satisfied at the marketplace.

I am not against religion—nor am I against commerce. I am, however, reluctant to offer solutions. If the Church has anything to do with it, those who offer solutions outside the scriptures will be condemned to eternal hell. If government has anything to do with them any sound idea will be consumed in the bureaucracy, and if the idea should somehow escape the grinding teeth of its machinery, the author will be labeled an enemy of the state and disemboweled in one fashion or another. If corporate America has anything to do with it, any ideas that threaten its power will be branded as leftist, commie, or un-American, and the author of such reform banished as a heretic against the most sacred of all religions in America, Free Enterprise.

At last, I have tired of the issue as well as these arguments. If this collection of free-floating thoughts about freedom is to have any efficacy, it will come from freely saying what is on my mind, saying it as well as I can, saying it in such a way that satisfies me, or even amuses me; and if a solution seems to appear, well why not give it recognition It does no one any good bounding around in the mind’s soupy fog where, in all probability, it will eventually be cast into the trash pile of the magnificent and the forgotten. And if no solutions seem at hand, well, I was never born to solve all of the world’s problems, and those who tried were either fools or martyrs.

Sometimes it is easier for a poor man to tolerate his corns than to go barefoot and discard the shoes that cause them. Despite the existence of sharp rocks and cockleburs, there is something magical about a boy’s barefoot freedom. If only we could convince the world’s leaders not to walk in each other’s shoes but, instead, to meet and talk to each other in their bare feet likely, the people, as well as the earth, would benefit immensely. I think, therefore, I shall walk bare-footed herein. I think I shall walk wherever my feet will take me. I hope you’ll come too." From: Steven P. Miller @ParkermillerQ, Founder of Gatekeeper-Watchman International Groups Wednesday, May 17, 2023, Jacksonville, Florida., Duval County, USA. Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/Sparkermiller.JAX.FL.USA, https://www.facebook.com/StevenParkerMillerQ Instagram: steven_parker_miller_1956, Twitter: @GatekeeperWatchman1, @ParkermillerQ, https://twitter.com/StevenPMiller6 Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/gatekeeperwatchman, https://www.tumblr.com/gatekeeper-watchman, https://www.pinterest.com/GatekeeperWatchman1/ #GWIG, #GWIN, #GWINGO, #Ephraim1, #IAM, #Sparkermiller, #Eldermiller1981

[qocsuing]

Watch Kaytranada & Anderson .Paak Get “Glowed Up” Live In Denver

Watch Kaytranada & Anderson .Paak Get “Glowed Up” Live In Denver

As far as we’re concerned, Kaytranada and Anderson .Paak are the undisputed MVPs of 2016. Aside from being prominently featured on each other’s breakout records, they’ve also contributed heaps to countless cuts from their peers. Last night they joined forces at Denver’s Gothic Theater to perform the 99.9% turn-up anthem “Glowed Up” and inciting sheer pandemonium in the crowd. The performance offers us a glimpse into what Roots Picnic attendees may be in store for this weekend, as both .Paak and Kaytra will be gracing the stage. You can watch Kaytranada and Anderson .Paak cross the streams and get “Glowed Up” in the clip below. Cop Kaytra’s new album on iTunes today and scroll down to peep his full slate of forthcoming tour dates. Get familiar with these two. You’ll be seeing and hearing plenty more from them in the weeks and months ahead.To get more news about uplive recharge, you can visit topuplive.com official website.

Netflix, which is dipping its toes in the live-streaming water with a Chris Rock standup special in March, has committed itself to become the live-streaming partner for the awards event that originally put the streaming giant on the Hollywood trophy map eight years ago, the Screen Actors Guild Awards.

Netflix will live stream the 29th Annual SAG Awards on its YouTube channel on Sunday, February 26. And starting next year under a multiyear agreement, Netflix will stream the event on its main platform -- which will ostensibly have built out a dedicated annex for live events by that time.

Warner Bros. Discovery cable outlet TNT had served as the exclusive live TV partner for the SAG Awards since 1998. But the heavily leveraged media conglomerate, in the midsts of $3.5 billion in cuts, elected not to re-up its contract with SAG.

“As we begin to explore live streaming on Netflix, we look forward to partnering with SAG-AFTRA to elevate and expand this special ceremony as a global live event in 2024 and the years to come," said Bela Bajaria, Netflix head of global TV, in a statement.

Traveling back in time to the more formative years of Netflix's original series expansion, it was recognition by the SAG Awards that preceded love from the Emmys and the Oscars.

In February 2015, House of Cards star Kevin Spacey received one of Netflix's first major showbiz awards when he won SAG's best lead actor in a drama series trophy. Spacey and co-star Robin Wright would go on to win both of the Emmys' dramatic series lead actor categories later that fall.

[michaeldboren]

Elysium Album | Richard Theisen | New Age Music

Purchase Album at: richardtheisen.com Richard Theisen - New album release ELYSIUM is the latest release from Grammy-award-winning composer, Richard Theisen. Beautiful, dramatic, original music. A wonderful combination of voice, ethereal pads, and epic fantasy vistas. A very unique collation of musical visions. ........ New Age music planet One of the highly pursued purposes of music is to heal and calm the mind. I found this album doing this in a phenomenal way. In this work, the composer of New Age and Ancient Chant Music uses his music for a spiritual purpose. Listening to these tracks makes you forget your worries and get immersed in your supreme consciousness............Vivek Kumar -New Music Alert Grammy award winner Richard Theisen has built a successful career in the music business from the studio to the stage. Currently, he composes New Age and ancient chant music for his popular youtube channel NRZEN. Richard's film credits include: "Beverly Hills Cop" as co-writer of the Grammy-winning album cut, "Rock n Roll me Again" performed by The System. His latest album, Elysium, is original, beautiful, and dramatic music. There are eight tracks in total, playing for around 36 minutes. The unusual combination of vocals, epic fantasy vistas, and ethereal pads make this a stunning production any music lover will fall in love with almost instantly. Let me briefly tell you what to expect in each of these tracks before these songs give a spiritual treat to your being. The opening track is a modern rendition of the ancient hymn ‘Hymn to St. John the Baptist’. This chant was believed to bestow powerful spiritual blessings on the subject. ‘Requiem for Uvalde‘ is a soothing piece of music that talks to the core of your heart sending messages of peace and benedictions. I found the tracks of this album put the listener through a deep mind-calming session. In the process, the audience is sure to discover journeying to some unearthly planes. Paradis, the French name for Paradise is the ultimate opus in the album according to my sensibility. The track reaches stunning levels right from its opening accompanying the listeners to enjoy a heavenly existence far removed from the sufferings of the world. Traveling with the music, you feel more peaceful and serene enjoying a blessed state of mind. Final Word Theisen has a serious spiritual purport for this album “Elysium”. This is precisely the reason why he chose to name it after ‘Heaven’. All the way through the album, you feel the conglomeration of peace, joy blessedness, and serenity. I found this one of the most inspiring albums that have enriched my collection. Any listener discovering its far-reaching magical impact is bound to feel the craving to listen to it often whenever calming the mind and tuning it with the higher realms is necessary...... Vivek Kumar - New Music Alert via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_DoVJyx7ow

from NRZEN - Blog https://nrzenusa.weebly.com/blog/elysium-album-richard-theisen-new-age-music

[darkandstormyart]

Xicheng fic recs

(figured i might make a list of my own)

(to be expanded as i dig out more treasure/remember stuff)

in no particular order:

Deep as the Yearning Night by FreckledStarKnight

“At first, it was pure chance. The second time was accidental. And the third time? Well, they say the third time’s the charm, after all. Lan Xichen discovers that Jiang Wanyin sings beautifully and is immediately enamored by it. His pursuit of Jiang Wanyin’s secret talent leads to a discovery and a series of events that he did not anticipate at all. Not that he’s complaining, of course. He got what he came for and more. Or, how two sect leaders get together through the song called love. CQL-verse.“

post-seclusion lxc

trying to get jc to sing

bonus lxc & jin ling feels i hadn’t considered before

cute

Always use protection by hesselives

“In which Lan Wangji attempts to hire a new bodyguard for his older brother, a well-known traveling exorcist. Jiang Wanyin doesn’t even make his carefully considered list of Top Ten Candidates, and yet here he is.

Lots of wandering in the countryside, distant yelling, and mildly inconvenient spirits.”

bodyguard au

honestly just really intersting worldbuilding

Rewrite the stars by Arashii

“Five great kingdoms have been fighting for years and when the kingdom of Yunmeng is destroyed, the Crown Prince Jiang Cheng vanishes.In Gusu, Lan Xichen makes an offer impossible for Jiang Cheng to refuse. His life or revenge? There’s only one option and Jiang Cheng swears loyalty to the man he hated the most his whole life, the Crown Prince of Gusu, Lan Xichen himself.Written for XiChengFest2020 - Day 4“

ROYALTY AU ROYALTY AU

enemies to lovers!

flashbacks! i love flashbacks so much ohmygod

No paths are bound by Arashii

“In seclusion, Lan Huan has the support of a ghost no one has seen since the massacre of Yunmeng Jiang. His feelings start changing with the often visits and conversations they share. Before Lan Huan can confess though, he ascends, leaving everything and everyone behind him.

Two hundred years later, back to the Human Realm and without powers, the Martial God Zewu-Jun has a mission to uphold. His Heavenly Calamity started. The clues are little and the support comes in the most unexpected form, the current Ghost King: Sandu Shengshou. Now they need to stick together to contain a menace that is slowly growing.“

TGCF AU TGCF AU

ghost king jiang cheng come on

doesn’t follow tgcf plot, just the setup so no spoilers

jiang cheng gets the dogs and the xichen he deserves

once upon a dream by cafedeolla

“Xicheng soulmate AU

An au where your dreams are small snippets of your soulmate’s day. They’d show small things like buying coffee, reading a book, or hanging out with people from their perspective.

The problem was that people always have expectations and Jiang Cheng knows he always falls short of them. Time and time again.“

soulmate au, but being soulmates is more a problem than a solution

misunderstandingssss all over the place

now with a squel (in progress?)

Lan Furen series by jagaimocchi

“Jiang Cheng leaves Lotus Pier before the Wen Internment Camp and before the destruction of his home. When he meets Lan Xichen on the run from the Wens after the burning of Cloud Recesses, his plan to live a peaceful life away from cultivation sects is quickly derailed. Now, free to make his own choices, he cannot find it in himself to leave the other man's side.

With love, patience and time, Jiang Cheng finds his own happiness and peace with his past.“

have you ever wanted a fic where jiang cheng peaces out from home in search for a better life, bc he’s Had Enough??? jags got you covered

adorable xicheng

good uncle-dad-figure Lan Qiren

ongoing <3

Just around the riverbend by JungleJelly

“One day.

Jiang Cheng just wanted one day of peace and quiet, away from home, away from his responsibilities, away from his idiot brother and his nutcases of a mother and father. Just a few hours alone — him and a boat and nothing else.

Clearly, that was too much to ask for.”

now with a new story in the series which is adorable too!!!

mermaid!lxc need i say more?

Bad ideas (where they lead) by JungleJelly

“Jiang Cheng is a busy man. Fortunately, he is also a huge pushover when it comes to his sister, so when she recommends that he start doing yoga, he agrees pretty easily.Featuring Lan Xichen in yoga pants, Jiang Cheng’s inability to handle a crush, and, perhaps most importantly, a big fluffy dog.“

done for 2020 MXTX MiniBang

yoga instructor Lan Xichen

Jiang Cheng is: struggling with a crush on the yoga guy from youtube & very angry about that

If there’s a price for rotten judgement by TheWanderingHeart

“All Jiang Cheng wants to do is, well... his job, really. Other than that? Keep the city safe, keep his nephew alive, keep his sanity intact (if possible).

So when his brother calls with unexpected news, he knows all of that is about to fly out of the window.

***

[Every instinct is telling him don’t ask, you don’t want to know. By this point, Nie HuaiSang has scooted closer to listen. Jiang Cheng takes a steadying breath and pulls out his antacids. “What did you do?”]”

superhero au, come on

jc just trying to do his job in peace

(he can’t)

i love it so much oh my god *sobs*

The Form of Boneless Ice by TheWanderingHeart

“Mythical beasts have long ago been driven to extinction by the gentry — hunted for sport, but more importantly for their magical cores. Since then, there remains only one creature that has never been caught. The Jiang’s retreated a long time ago. Abandoning land altogether, they sought safety where the humans could not reach.It all comes to a head though, purely by chance. (Or is it by fate that a spontaneous decision allows for them to meet? If fate were a rock!) Jiang Cheng suddenly finds his whole life balanced on the head of a pin — on the flimsy promise of a human boy. In his opinion, things cannot possibly get worse!(But then they do when the Wens decide it’s finally time to search for the elusive merpeople, and suddenly nowhere is safe.)“

there she goes again, with another beautiful xicheng story full of awwww and mythology

actually one of the first xicheng fics i read

i chose it because there were mermaids

painfully accurate takes on Jiang family dynamics

kids! lots of kids!

Let me Slytherin to Your Heart by TheWanderingHeart

“Jiang Cheng never thought he'd return to Hogwarts, but in hindsight, he probably should have known that someday he would.With his nephew about to start school, he reluctantly takes his good friend's bad parenting? career? advice and ends up tumbling head-first back into the madness that he hoped he'd left behind... and rediscovering some feelings he thought he'd left behind too.“

Harry Potter au!

just really fecking cute

lots of snakes

[I am not going to link all of Jo’s fics, though I probably could, just my 3 favourites. UOSB is there by default]

Talent Hunt Crew Finds Angry Guy Shouting On College Campus, Recruits Him For Vocal Projection Abilities by oh_fudgecakes

“Jiang Cheng, resident Angry Guy and heir to a conglomerate empire, has never been the apple of his father’s eye. Quashed under the shadow of his brilliant brother, the music prodigy Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng sees his chance to turn things around when he is recruited by the All-Stars Lan Talent Hunt. One problem: he can’t sing to save his goddamn life.As he struggles to develop his nascent singing abilities, Jiang Cheng finds himself sucked into the whirlwind drama of reality TV, helped along by his adoring siblings, his irritable vocal coach Wen Qing, and strangely enough, the unfairly attractive host of the All-Stars Lan Talent Hunt, Lan Xichen. Somewhere in the glare of the stage lights and an unexpected first love, Jiang Cheng stumbles upon the thing he was searching for all along: the courage to dream — and to attempt the impossible.“

done for 2019 MXTX Big Bang

uuuuuuuuuuh i might have cried maybe

heartwarming? painful at times? lots of family love?

slowburn xicheng being lovely

The Provenence of Hope series by velithya

“A chance meeting on a night hunt sets a course of events into motion that will change everything. Featuring Xicheng getting together, recovery for Lan Xichen, healing for Jiang Cheng, and always, always, hope.“

got everything. feels. hope. love. ~~healing~~

A Small Measure of Peace by Sandstone112

“With his brother in seclusion, Lan Xichen finds himself in temporary custody of his nephew with little to no expertise in the child-raising department. Uncertain and alone, Zewu-Jun is willing to do everything to be the person Yuan needs—even if it means inviting Sandu Shengshou to a playdate.“

a loooot of adorable family times with jc and lxc taking care of their nephews

good grandpa lqr!

canon but fixed and less painful

🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋if you wish to avoid scurvy:🍋🍋🍋🍋🍋

Some day I’m gonna make you mine series by locketofyourhair

xicheng getting together through the years

friends with benefits but the real benefits are the friends we made along the way

Take me over (take me tonight) by velithya

jiang cheng has a tattoo and lan xichen doesn’t stand a chance

i'd be the sweet feeling of release (mankind now dreams of) by piyo13

two bros, chilling in a cave, no feet apart because they don’t want to lose their cultivation powers what are you gonna do

haven’t read yet and shame on me, but AM GONNA:

Upon Our Silver Bridge by TheWanderingHeart obviously

““When the path ignites a soul, there's no remaining in place. The foot touches ground, but not for long.” ― Hakim Sanai

**

Lan Xichen's sorrows have caught the attention of something. Unlike the adventures and foes they have faced before, there is no obvious enemy here to defeat. If this is the same thing they thought had taken Nie Mingjue's life, then he believes it is fated for him to die as well. Nothing can stop the black fire when it wants to burn.Jiang Cheng is sure his part in this is over. Wei Wuxian is back, his grand adventure concluded, and he'd never been at the centre of it anyway. So what does it matter what happens to him in the end? Slowly, he will come to realise that there will always be a battle to fight, a story to tell, a choice to make, and there is no such thing as an end to anything.“

it was difficult to do things in 2020 and few i regret not doing more than not reading uosb yet :’(

i will tho

Emergency Help Wanted by piyo13

“EMERGENCY HELP WANTED I lied when I got my job. I told them I had a kid so I could leave early from work to pick him up from daycare, take him to doctor's appointments, and occasionally miss a day when he's sick. Long story short, I'm in too deep. I didn't think it through. Looking to rent a kid for bring your child to work day. Must be a boy ages four to six, longish dark hair, likes soccer. Must also be artistic as the macaroni noodle paintings I made seem a little advanced for his age. Also, I will pay extra for someone willing to play the role of husband when dropping him off. He's a prosecuting attorney who often brings his work home. Message me for further details. Serious inquiries only.“

Running Our Hands Through Embers by MarvelousMar

“If asked, Jiang Cheng would compare falling in love with Lan Xichen to a moth inevitably drawn to a flame.It burned.***In which Jiang Cheng discovers that even death can't help him escape from his trauma, so he embarks on a quest to save the people he loves, fix what he can, make the love of his life fall for him, and maybe, somewhere along the way, do a little bit of healing.”

The Beginner’s Guide to Moving On by InvincibleMel

gone from ao3, but i think there’s a link with a pdf going around

[mx-julien]

Zane is a heavy, immovable tank of a lanky, tall robot nindroid young man. the non-mechanic ninja are sometimes a little afraid to ask if he's increasing in weight because (1) it's rude and (2) then what are they adding to his body to make it that heavy because as far as they can tell he looks the same.

this definitely isn't a new idea. ref: there's some art somewhere in which Cole, w/ his elemental strength powers, is the only one who can pick him up since he's ~400 lbs, @min-play 's comic where a bookshelf falls on him but he's fine, and just also the fact that he's METAL and machinery is usually HEAVY.

this post will have hcs and then a little snippet story to go along with each one.

maybe he isn't as heavy now in his titanium form as he was when they met him. love to dr. julien but my boy used a lot of steampunk-esque internals and those things weigh a ton.

The mirror isn't making Kai's bruise look any better now that he's out of the shower, so he accepts the ice pack that Cole throws at him from the bathroom door. Zane had accidentally hit him for real in sparring and, now Kai hasn't taken as many hits as the others, but he's pretty sure they're not supposed to hurt that bad. The guy's hand felt just like if someone had thrown a rock at his head- well, his right cheek. Zane must've gotten some kind of blessing from the First Master to become that swole. Looks can be decieving, and somehow this applies to the tallest and most string-bean like ninja of their group. Ninjas in training. Swole ninja in training, in Zane's case.

"Kai?" the door creaks and white socked feet politely sit themselves just outside the bathroom doorway.

Well, he can't really blame the guy for being fit - is kind of what they're here for. Kai will just have to get better at dodging.

he was probably hard to find parts for back then, too. can you imagine Nya and Jay at the outdoor market bargaining to get some gears and glaring at anyone who tries to buy them first because their dear boy needs these specific parts but they can't just tell the shopkeeper, "no, but you don't understand, we need these specific ones because they're for our friend who literally requires them for his body to function properly. he's a robot- a nindroid." they've probably been tempted to, though, with all the times they've had things snatched from right under their noses. Jay's real bad at it though so they just end up being friendly with a parts seller while Nya's making deals left and right.

all of ^^ is sans pixal because after season 3 (during s3 they were actively running from anything robotic so that's out too) they definitely have Borg machine all the parts they need and probably get them at a low price w/o markup so they don't need to scavenge like they did in seasons 1 and 2.

The sun's beating down, but it's a dry heat and the linens Nya and Jay are wearing aren't particularly heavy. They're still sweaty and gross and tired, but that's mostly because they've been tromping around this shanty conglomerate that the sign dubbs a "Mechanics' Market."

There are poles with multicolored, holey tarps pulled between them that create a mosaic of visuals on the dirt they stand on. Each vendor's stall is a sharp contrast to their neighbor's, but oddly enough they all smell the same. The space between stalls is pretty narrow and people bump into each other whenever a fourth person wants to span the narrow walkway. Most of them are selling used parts, then there are some ciunterfiet pieces from Borg Industries, a startup in Ninjago city with a label that looks smug and self-important. Still, every new sight is sickeningly predictable: more weaved baskets and cardboard boxes overflowing with metal and rubber, but the day's covered in sepia with the conrast and saturation cranked to high, so Nya's halfway to a pretty bad headache already.

Jay's used to these things, having grown up with Ed and Edna. He's walking back to the stall Nya's standing in front of after haggling with another nearby vendor.

... the continued here on Tumblr and Ao3 bc otherwise this post would be loooong

he's definitely used as a weight for Cole's workouts and in a glacier world i can imagine Zane having zero complaints with this.

It's Cole's turn to be incredibly oblivious when Zane offers to let Cole pick him up for weightlifting. Read on Tumblr or Ao3

also that'd be great strategy for a mission. can you imagine them being like, "oh no we need to make this thing collapse in a very specific place but we can't make noise or anything because it'd alert people." (this situation comes up in kids' action shows a lot more than you might think) and Lloyd just looks over at his strategist buddy and is like, "zane my boy what if we tie a chain around you and you just stand on the dang thing."

Lloyd is new to leading (it's season 3), Zane is just trying to get the parts they need for their vehicles, and in the middle of a mission they have to think creatively to avoid getting crushed. Here on Tumblr and Ao3

the distribution of weight is probably superb, though, because dr. julien is best tech dad. he's probably a lot like those elephants that have soft pands on their feet to sneak around

it would make sense in canon, too, since he doesn't have a human body for the elemental powers to jack up, so his ridiculous weight would allow him to have that Ninja Strength.

after he becomes titanium, he's lighter and it takes some getting used to. but overall it's pretty good because he doesn't have to be as careful as he used to be.

Zane's picking his way through a forest, keeping eyes and ears out for an escaped Kryptarium prisoner. The leaves barely rustle even as he places his feet atop them.

It's nice, being lighter. He doesn't need to calculate his jumping as carefully and now he can now throw himself on the ground, his bed, and on top of the others. Less worrying about if he'll accidentally crush someone or something.

Before, when he was on his own, he didn't really notice anything amiss. He wasn't around other people enough to have accidentally fallen on someone. As for dalling on the ground, well he just assumed other people made indents when they tripped and fell.

After he found out he was- well, is a robot. He started to connect the dots. A few broken floorboards later, Nya's industrial scale told all. Now that he weighs more or less that of someone his height and age, it's a bit of a relief.

Literally, it's a weight off his shoulders.

the others probably really enjoy it, too, since he can fully relax when he lays his head down on one of them, and he can fall asleep ontop of someone, too. he has to do less constant work to take the weight off them.

he's the most relieved about elevators, though. he used to have to wait for everyone to go up before he got on. either that or stairs. what i'm saying is please just imagine Zane sitting beneath the little elevator arrow button in the middle and patiently waiting to go up by himself because if he doesn't then he might cause the cable to break.

it was a very big deal when he finally got to go in an elevator with everyone.

[terrence-silver]

Some Yandere!Terry Silver headcanons, please?🐍🖤

giffie provided by the beautiful @atmostories

- When Terry hates, he hates all the way. No middle grounds. Without limits, reservations or boundaries. Same goes for when he loves someone, as rare as that may be. He relinquishes all sense, all reason and absolutely embraces bias and favouritism without even hiding that he does. As I keep reiterating, his person is simply the best, the greatest, the loveliest, the most correct person that ever was, purely by virtue of them being his person. There might be a great trace of narcissism to such a stance too seeing as how Terry can't comprehend a world where anyone associated with him isn't purely the most admirable individual because why on earth would he of all people associated with anything less in the first place? Sure, objectively, you might be the most commonly mundane person, but not to Terry. No. To Terry you're extraordinary and he'll demand everyone else to hold such an opinion under duress if need be, and he tends to turn real antagonistic and standoffish real quick if he finds someone isn't fawning over his person the way they ought to. But, if they fawn too much, well -- that doesn't please him either and might just inspire jealousy. No winning with him. He loves that he's so hard to appease.

- He is also one for control. He is a control freak to excess. So, a Yandere!Terry might hold a certain resentment if he falls in love. Because one can't control who and when they fall for someone. It is usually entirely spontaneous and unpredictable and Terry doesn't like surprises, especially not of the emotional kind because he might feel it leaves him exposed and vulnerable. Endows him with another weakness he didn't previously have - so, in light of that, for a while, he might be out to hurt you. Toy with you. Test your resolve. Prod and poke at you, like a voodoo doll - sadist that he is. He might even take you and tuck you away somewhere within some dark corner of his mansion and not let out out until he figures out just what to do next, strategically. Or he might observe you. Stalk you. Research you from afar. Collect some of your things, or steal them rather. Outright manipulate and induce mental anguish in a roundabout way - he doesn't quite enjoy the emotions you've inspired in him, due to his own issues of just needing to have ever miniscule thing in order, at all times, even the things connected to his own heart. Especially those things. So, once you do, for the longest time, you're Terry's enemy and you've officially declared war. The devil works hard, but Terry Silver works harder.

- He gives obsession by definition a whole new meaning, because in spite of his partial resentment and adoration towards you, he'll also want all of you. All. Literally all. The good. The bad. The very worst. The very best. Everything in between. There's honestly just no telling how far it goes when he starts adopting actual tid-bits of your behaviour or mannerism into his own because that's how he shows his love. His attachment. Through imitation. Through...adopting some miniscule trace of your habits or your appearance, or maybe he just starts tapping his fingers to excess on the surface of a table in anticipation once he catches wind of you doing, or perhaps, he starts incorporating your favourite color into his attire, purely because it's your most preferred one. Not unlike a black hole, Terry has the tendency to consume. Consume fear. Consume power. Consume markers of hedonism. Consume identities, if need be. Either due to grief. Remembrance. Possession. Merely because he can. Because he wants to. Your body's his. And your heart is his. Your soul is his. Everything you own is his. Your very personhood might as well be his as well. He sees no reason why he shouldn't usurp everything his darling has to offer and then some. What he does with his new stake of ownership is another thing entirely - whether he loves or destroys or both is of little importance, because he sees, he likes, he claims and then proceeds doing whatever he pleases. End of discussion.

- People from your past might mysteriously start, uh, falling off. Disappearing. Distancing themselves from you. Surely, Terry had no part in it, except, well, now that he's here, he sees no reason why you should need anyone else? Isn't it a given he's the best? And as such, more then a worthy replacement for any amount of individuals serving as your support system prior to him arriving? Surely, he's a far superior choice. He outmatches anyone and everyone. You don't need those other pesky nobodies. Those distractions. He slips sweet poison into your ears and convinces you he's all you ever needed and craved, but you simply didn't even know. But, oh, he's the face of kindness and he came along in the nick of time to help you. What an angel. He's all favours. Good, well-meaning advice. Strategic encouragement. Protection. Being eerily there whenever you need him. And he'll make sure you need him all the time. He wants you to be unable to function without him, crippling all your defenses. He says the exact perfect thing you want to hear, at the exact, perfect calculated time, like someone capable of reading minds. He gives affection and then removes it. Gives it and removes it. Hot and cold. Hot and cold. He keeps repeating the process, both overstimulating you emotionally, only to suddenly deny you enough times where you're a simpering, stuttering pathetic, dependable little mess for him. Putty in his hands. He'll play you like a fiddle. And you'll dance to his tune eagerly because he'll make sure you adore him and want to appease him so much he'll land himself with a sweet little slave. No, no - he's not an egoistic narcissist, he's just looking after his investment and making sure nobody infringes upon it. And how could anyone possibly, if there's nobody beside you but him?

- Although, that being said, nothing's for free, right? Not even him caring for darling you. Don't you know how very exclusive that is? How rare? How unusual. Terry hasn't been significantly close to much of anyone but John Kreese, and that's a camaraderie forged in blood and war, two decades in the making, so for you to be deemed so very special, above all others, the least you can do is repay Terry's emotional courtesy, after he's allowed you into his inner circle like this. After he's allowed as much as your fingers to graze his skin. Don't you know he doesn't fancy being touched by much of anyone else, almost? Don't you know he isn't kind to just about anyone, but his people? Don't you figure you owe him something after he's provided you with every luxury and comfort known to man? Practically pampering and fussing you to trips and trinkets and indulgences? How lucky you are. How privileged. One in a million. And of course, being something of a petulant, unpredictable Yandere himself, what he expects in payment is your undying desire, devotion and discipline. He wants you yearning for him, always. He wants your undying, absolute loyalty. And he wants you attuned, focused and his. He expects to domineer every aspect of your life just due to the fact that he showed you the vague mercy of allowing you in. He's nitpicky and a perfectionist, so, if he singled you out as something or someone he wants, he expects the fact he put in actual time, effort, conditioning and proper seduction into you to a fruitful venture. Don't you know that for a billionaire with his own world-wide conglomerate, time's the most expensive capital in the world? So, if he gives you some of his, he expects it given back by the tenfold.

- For all his many shenanigans, cat and mouse games, tricks, ploys, schemes, obsessive outburst, denial, once Terry loves you, he loves you, and not in five, ten, fifteen, fifty years will that state of mind ever change for him and in spite of his best, most desperate borderline strategic methods to prevent being commanded by a feeling, he still ends up very much controlled by it and really, everything he does to you, ultimately, he does to himself too, invertedly, falling into a trap of his own making. If he strived to make you his slave, he becomes yours. If he tried to make you putty in his hands, he eventually became just that where you are concerned. If he wished to make you disciplined, devoted and full of desire for him, that's the stance he takes towards you. He becomes a mirror image of all his actions and they reflect back on him, and his dedication to you becomes a lifetime affair. You're his most prized person. His madness. And rock. And light. And everything. Where Terry's concerned, you're one. You're an Ouroboros. Snake biting a snake's tail. Infinity. Where he begins and you end is hard to gage, because in his plans to slowly consume you, you've consumed him as well, it's best not to test or try him where the question of just how far he'd go for your sake is in question, because Terry would go to any lengths, by any means, for any and no reason, and if he had to pollute and burn down and kill and manipulate the whole world for your sake, he would. His adoration, turns out, can be a very dark place to be.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Totally Hits 2 2000 Pop / Alternative Rock / Teen Pop / R&B / Adult Contemporary

Man, they weren't ever gonna find a way to eclipse the goodness of Now That's What I Call Music!, but the conglomerate that made up Sony, BMG, Warner, Elektra, and Atlantic came damn near close with this second dispatch from their competitive Totally Hits series here. Leans a bit too heavy on the soft, anodyne, slow, and schmaltzy adult contemporary-type of pop ballads at times, but the rest of it still sure makes for a top-notch nostalgia rush 😊.

So, for some headlining, certified instant classic, turn-of-the-millennium hits here, we've got songs like Santana and The Product G&B's "Maria, Maria," Christina Aguilera's huge debut smash, "Genie in a Bottle," and the cringe-inducing swing revivalist one-hit wonder pop of Lou Bega's "Mambo No. 5." But after that, the choices seem to get less and less obvious, and that's where this comp seems to truly shine. Songs like Filter's radio-friendly "Take a Picture," which marked a gaping departure from their super heavy and aggro debut hit from four years prior, "Hey Man Nice Shot," are included, as well as Moby's terrific "Natural Blues," a song that didn't even manage to chart on the Billboard Hot 100, but helped to get him back in the good graces of serious music critics after having been vociferously written off for his previous and widely panned punk album, Animal Rights.

And we also have Madonna's "Beautiful Stranger" here too, a song that never actually ended up appearing on any of her studio albums, but was instead the lead cut from the soundtrack for Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. With this great tune, we see Madonna and veteran UK producer William Orbit picking up from where they left off on her 1997 album, Ray of Light—often considered by many to be her magnum opus—to deliver a rich pop song that was both simultaneously futuristic and 60s retrodelic as well. And other songs that had been turned in for that soundtrack, like Lenny Kravitz' cover of The Guess Who's "American Woman," while decent, did not come anywhere close to achieving the same type of vibe that "Beautiful Stranger" did, and so it was a no-brainer as the song of choice to represent the film.

So, another really great trip down late 90s/early 2000s memory lane here. Totally Hits would run out of steam and end up bowing out from the contemporary hits compilation game some years later, but specifically with this album, they were certainly proving themselves as a more than worthy adversary to top dog Now That's What I Call Music! Their collective catalog and roster never had the same firepower as that of the combination of Capitol, EMI, Universal, and Virgin, but what they managed to amass here was still plenty good pop music anyway.

Highlights:

Santana feat. The Product G&B - "Maria, Maria" Christina Aguilera - "Genie in a Bottle" Third Eye Blind - "Never Let You Go" Sugar Ray - "Falls Apart" Lou Bega - "Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit of...)" Madonna - "Beautiful Stranger" Whitney Houston - "My Love is Your Love (Jonathan Peters' Radio Mix)" Filter - "Take a Picture" Missy Elliott - "Hot Boyz" Moby - "Natural Blues" Donell Jones - "U Know What's Up" R.E.M. - "The Great Beyond" Sarah McLachlan - "I Will Remember You"