#instead i'm making sad fanmixes

[tunedtostatic]

[Additional Image Description: On a grey background, there are five small black line art illustrations lined up across the center. The first is a sword with a hooked blade pointing upwards, the second is a hand with magic curling up out of it, the center is a castle with wavy lines extending from it into a dark sky, the third is a beaker with steam curling up from it, and the last is a shortsword pointing downwards. The sword has a few dark red shading lines. In the lower right corner of the fanmix cover is the title, "heart of my own," in dark red medieval calligraphy font. End Additional Image Description.]

HEART OF MY OWN - A FANMIX FOR CASSANDRA DE ROLO IN THE TIME OF THE BRIARWOODS

Overgrown - machineheart // Edge of the World - Within Temptation // Ashes and Rust - Wynnie Stone // Take Me Home - The Paper Kites, Nadia Reid // Nobody (Live) - The Crane Wives // The Tangled Tree - Josienne Clarke and Ben Walker // Heart Of My Own - Basia Bulat // Don't She Run - I Draw Slow // Murder City - Abigail Lapell // Until the Fire - Ladytron // Control - Halsey // Lament - Mount Moriah // Catch the Light - Haroula Rose

Fanmix on YouTube

Fanmix on Spotify

[lonelyroommp3]

opinions on every Marina album

the family jewels: near perfect album. sonically interesting, lyrically biting, thematically and emotionally hits like a truck, i will say hand on heart that i'm biased because it's a tracklist built from the ground up for the desperately ambitious and desperately sad girlies (and those whose taste in fictional characters aligns with that... the family jewels carries my all marina tbosas fanmix) but i don't care. my personal favourite marina album and imo her strongest in general

electra heart: completely understand why it had tumblr in a chokehold, brilliantly done as a concept album in terms of visual and sonic cohesion throughout. doesn't have the same emotional impact as tfj to me but that's largely because my problems are tfj problems and not electra heart problems. my biggest problem with it as a finished product is that so many of its best songs (how to be a heartbreaker. radioactive. buy the stars. sex yeah. EVOL...) are relegated to bonus tracks. if i was curating that tracklist i'd honestly ditch some of the tracks that get a little bit samey in the back half of the album (valley of the dolls... living dead....) and let the excellent bonus tracks get the spotlight instead. if this had been released in 2024 i'd call it a marketing tactic to get stans to collect all the variants and get electra heart to #1 but sadly it was 2012 so i just have to assume questionable album curation decisions

froot: drop "gold" and "can't pin me down" and it's an excellent album. not quite up there with her first two as an overall product but contains some of my all time favourite marina tracks (blue is an absolute ALL TIME great marina song for me. also gotta shout out my main man "forget" which got me THROUGH baby's first major mental health spiral back when it came out and i was a fresh faced 18 year old wrecking my friendships through rejection sensitive dysphoria). plus froot of the month is one of my favourite rollout tactics ever. only time i've not complained about excessive pre-album release singles

love + fear: if this was an album by any other pop girlie i'd be totally fine with it. the songs are not bad. but it just lacks everything that makes a marina album for me. just not weird enough! for example: i think "orange trees" is a cute summer bop, almost put it on my summer playlist for this year, but every time i remember it's a marina song i just feel almost disappointed like girl you're better than this. you're weirder than this. come on. whereas if this was - and i'm sorry in advance bc this sounds far more backhanded than it actually is - say, a bebe rexha track. a pre-hyperpop camila cabello track, perhaps. i'd think yeah this is a great pop song. it's just disappointing from an artist i associate with more left field choices and for that reason i just can't get behind it. the one exception is "baby" which is really more of a clean bandit song anyway, which i think is why i can forgive its lack of personality. specifically the luca schreiner remix is a longstanding member of my "feeling hot before a night out" playlist

ancient dreams in a modern land: in some songs she is literally right back to family jewels form. venus fly trap - up there with my all time favourite marina songs. fucking obsessed with it. i think the title track is great too, enjoy "goodbye" as a more froot-style track, "i love you but i love me more" as a kind of post-electra heart cut. i even enjoy a bit of man's world from time to time mainly for the strawberry soda lyric which immediately made me sit up and go "okay, gender" upon my first listen. however in other places... absolute fucking lyrical stinkers. i would love to call this a good album but i just cannot even begin to forgive the existence of purge the poison

[goatsandgangsters]

🦗 and 🎵 for the emoji ask meme!

🦗Do you write in sequence or jump around?

I used to be Very Strict about only writing in order, but I started letting myself jump around ~two years ago and WHAT A GAME CHANGER, IT HAS SAVED MY WRITING LIFE!!!!!

I get so much more written by jumping around, because when inspiration hits for a scene I can actually take advantage. it makes my writing so much better when I have not just an outline for What's To Come but specific scenes written that I can write towards and mirror very intentionally with word choice, lines of dialogue etc. jumping around when writing multichap fic has made my vision for the whole thing clearer, my choices more deliberate, and—most importantly—it's made it more fun. because I actually get to write the fun parts that inspire me!! instead of torturing myself by dangling the good bits as a carrot of something I might theoretically one day get to write!

(general you, the writer reading this, try it. give yourself permission. if it's not for you, you've still learned something about your process. but if you've never tried and think "oh I could never write that way," I would have said that once too. but tbh if I'd let myself do this earlier, it would have made everything SO much better and I would have gotten so much more done. just experiment so you Know if it's really for you or not)

🎵Do you make playlists for your fics?

yes but they're waaaaay less Curated than if I were making a fanmix. my writing playlists are not "here's a highly selective 12-song playlist with lyrics and music that fit and that come together to tell a story musically" as with fanxmies. they are "I need a 13-hour playlist that's Vibes Only that I can put on shuffle and have the right ambiance for whatever I'm working on."

I've got specific ones for all my different Boardwalk AUs, then one for generic grishaverse writing purposes, and I think "sexy" speaks for itself

50s au: honestly not that long, I don't have that much 50s music

Focus au: ~7 hours. the great gatsby (2013) soundtrack is actually perfect vibes. plus a lotta amy winehouse, lana, etc. anything that feels humid and sultry

Grishaverse: ~24 hours. not fic-specific but works for anything in that fandom. I've got the shadow and bone soundtrack, the lotr soundtrack, a lot of florence, anything that has light/darkness imagery, anything that feels Bigger in a high-fantasy, fate-of-the-world way

High School au: ~24 hours. basically all pop music circa like 2008–2012 and some pop punk. whatever makes me feel Teenagery again. also functions as a fun nostalgia playlist

Hunger Games au: ~9 hours. as many soundtracks from the movies as I could get from my local library, plus anything folk-y and sad (the civil wars, etc)

Sexy: ~2 hours, not necessarily songs about sex, just songs that Are Sensual musically or kinda kinky bc let's be real about what I'm writing

also it's not a saved playlist, but I've been writing a lot of Edwardian-set stuff lately, so for that I'll go on spotify and put on early 20th-century English composers like Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughn Williams and let the algo take it from there

fanfic writer emoji ask meme

[all-mimsy]

i was a teenage exocolonist

fanmix for a rebellious sol

ANIMA! ✰ Streaks Seven years old with a brand-new coloring book Every page is a perfect design You can decide on the colors that you like As long as you stay in the lines

MGMT ✰ Kids The memories fade like looking through a fogged mirror Decision to decisions are made and not bought But I thought this wouldn't hurt a lot, I guess not

Frances Aravel ✰ The Child You Were The child you were will not return You fought for this a lot

Mili ✰ world.execute (me) ; Switch on the power line, remember to put on protection Lay down your pieces and let's begin object creation Fill in my data, parameters, initialization Setup our new world and let's begin the simulation

Sir Sly ✰ Astronaut All my memories are rushing back from when I was young A world of color I'm in the future and scared I thought I knew what to expect but I just wasn't prepared And now my brain A private theater Is it a 35 or 40 millimeter? (Is it a camera? Or is it a gun?)

Kilo Kish ✰ Existential Crisis Hour If you say I'm in control and my actions serve to give my life meaning Does it have a meaning if I choose an action? (no) Are my goals necessary or do they just serve as a way to pass the time in an existence that began outside of my control? (no) Does it matter? (no)

Mother Mother ✰ Infinitesimal And they say it started with a big bang But they say it came out of a small thing Lately, I'm feeling like a big bang 'Cause I've been making something out of nothing (Like my soul)

Simple Plan ✰ I'm Just A Kid I'm just a kid And life is a nightmare I'm just a kid I know that it's not fair Nobody cares 'Cause I'm alone and the world is- Nobody wants to be alone in the world

FEiN ✰ #Grownupz Daddy, I don't wanna grow up anyway Grownupz are all sad Doesn't matter where I come from anyway I'll grow up and get sad Instead, I'll clap my hands on every beat Who would ever wanna grow up anyway? I don't, no, we don't, oh

Halocene, Lollia ✰ Teenagers They're gonna clean up your looks With all the lies in the books To make a citizen out of you Because they sleep with a gun And keep an eye on you, son So they can watch all the things you do Because the drugs never work They're gonna give you a smirk 'Cause they got methods of keeping you clean They're gonna rip up your heads Your aspirations to shreds Another cog in the murder machine

Against Me! ✰ I Was A Teenage Anarchist Do you remember When you were young, and you wanted to set the world on fire?

AViVA ✰ Blame It On The Kids Home in bed or out at night Don't think twice Just don't think twice Make a choice, one you won't regret This is your life This is still your life

Benny ✰ Boys Will Be Boys I'm no longer taking lessons from those that broke before Now that I am done confessing the words have left me sore When you feel the restless pain as it crawls out of your heart And the thoughts of yesterday bring you to where you are And all these voices that once controlled me Can't contain me here

The Lumineers ✰ Flowers In Your Hair When we were younger We thought everyone was on our side Then we grew a little And romanticized the time I saw Flowers in your hair See, it takes a boy to live Takes a man to pretend he was there

Gabriel Koenig ✰ Stars At Sunrise [Instrumental]

AJR ✰ Turning Out I'm a little kid, and so are you Don't you go and grow up before I do I'm a little kid with so much doubt Do you want to be there to see how I turn out? 'Cause I'm still turning out

Athlete ✰ Rubik's Cube Credits roll over The edge of the horizons But I haven't discovered yet I'm like a kid who just won't let it go Twisting and turning the colours in rows I'm so intent to find that's what it is This is my Rubik's Cube I know I can figure it out

[sparxwrites]

for two half-elven bastards - alone in the world, but still together, against all the odds.

[listen]

i. unsteady - x ambassadors // ii. give us a little love - fallulah // iii. wild things - alessia cara // iv. turn up the faders - nathan asher and the infantry // v. foreigner’s god - hozier // vi. mercury - sleeping at last // viii. write it on your skin - newton faulkner // ix. story of my life - astronautalis // x. children’s work - dessa

[laurelwinchester]

Today is April 6th. It's the one year anniversary of Laurel's death. I miss her so much i can't believe she's really gone and it still hurts this much. :( Anyways I've been reading How the light Gets In again and I'M SO HAPPY THAT STORY EXISTS. Do you know when the next update will be?

today is a dark day, anon. i’ve kind of been trying to ignore it but i definitely feel that sadness too. i miss her. but it’s nice to see that people still love her just as much as they did back then. i think it’s nice to know that even though it’s been a year, none of that love has gone away. there are still fics, still art and gifsets and edits and fanmixes. the laurel lance fandom is still very, very alive. i think that’s something to take comfort in. :)

and hey! i’m happy to hear that you’ve been enjoying htlgi and that maybe it’s filling a little bit of that void! i can’t say for sure when the next update is going to be but ideally i’d like it to be before the end of the month. that’s the goal. i wanted to have it up for today but that did not happen.

in the meantime, because today is what it is and because i’m sad i don’t have anything to post for today, here’s a little preview of the next chapter:

–

How the Light Gets InPart Three (Preview)

April, 2014

“And how are you feeling otherwise?” She sounds cautious just asking the question, and Bea Drake never sounds cautious.

Laurel watches worry seep into her grandmother’s grayish-blue eyes. It’s the same look she gave her when she learned about her panic attacks. Laurel glances back down at Mary, just so she can tear herself away from the concern burning bright in Grandma’s eyes. She tried so hard to keep her pain a secret from her grandmother, to spare her the burden of watching her granddaughter unravel. She should have known that would never work. She has never been able to keep secrets from her grandmother. The unpleasant feeling in her gut, easily recognizable as guilt, gnaws away at her insides. “I’m…” She pauses. She tries to come up with something to say. “I’m getting better.”

She’s not sure what else she can say. She could lie and say she’s healed completely and that nothing like that will ever happen again. She could say that she’ll never again splinter apart, that she will always be able to recover, to make it over the mountain, but there’s just no way of knowing if that’s the truth. She could say that her mind is no longer a battlefield, except that it has been a place of wreckage for twenty-nine years. She’s alive. That’s all she can offer. She’s here, and she’s still breathing. Is that not good enough?

She’s thinking of taking up smoking again like she did after the boat went down. There’s an ugly little thing inside of her telling her that if she trades one addiction for another, if she dies slowly instead of all at once, maybe no one will try to stop her. Cigarettes make her sick but she could be a smoker, she thinks. Maybe a part of her would even welcome the sickness. Except that Dean used to smoke when he was younger, long before her, before any of it, back when there was just bars and back alleys and the open road. She could be a smoker but she doesn’t want to remind him of those wide open spaces she’s keeping him from. That is her selfisness. She doesn’t want him to know that the world is waiting for him because she doesn’t want him to leave. She is not a back alley he can walk away from.

These days, she’s traded drinking and Xanax for a lot of intense counseling. It doesn’t give her a high or numb her into oblivion but it fills some of the spaces. It kills the time. She goes to therapy. She attends AA meetings almost every day. If all she can hear is the roar and her hands are shaking and she can’t remember why she quit, she goes twice a day. She’s started working out again - she goes to the gym on Fridays, yoga on Saturdays, she jogs every morning. She’s eating healthier. She’s gained back some of the weight she lost. She’s back at work, throwing herself into every case, more determined than ever to save the world. (Hey, if she doesn’t, who will?)

She is rebuilding. She is coming home. She no longer stifles screams under the hot spray of the shower because everything hurts and she can’t make it stop. She is able to smile now, and make it real. She kisses her husband, she sings her daughter to sleep, she has lunch with friends, and she is working on repairing things with Sara. She feels something other than the hurt now. The misery is quieter. It’s still there, it has always been there, but it’s quieter. The raging sea inside of her has calmed dow now. She thinks she could be healing. She thinks this might be what recovery feels like.

She’d like to give credit where credit’s due and thank Dean for saving her life that night but every time she tries, he just looks at her oddly and says, “What did I do? This survival is yours. You’re the one who did all the hard work. You decided to stay, Laur. I didn’t make that choice for you.”

How is she?

Well, it’s simple, really. She’s got a restless, reckless heart and her bones still ache every day but she is learning to be grateful.

She made it through February. She made it through March. Now she just has to make it through April and every month after that. She thinks she can find a reason to do that.

“It’s been a long year,” she says, raising her head. It’s been a long life. She smiles then, pulls her lips back into this wide grin, tests it out until it feels like it fits, and adds on, softly, genuinely, “Today was a good day.”

Her grandmother smiles back. She leans across to bring her hand to Laurel’s cheek. “I’m glad.”