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magisteramentia · 5 months ago

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The Program

Isabelle was into the program for the little changes, but she didn't expect it to be so... Intense.

Few months ago, as the year turned, she she made a resolution to eat more healthy and get fit. She was the kind of person that didn’t like going for easy and fast results. She was a smart girl, high school valedictorian, top three in her college class. Now that she was halfway through her masters, filled with anxiety and stress juggling her thesis and a shitty job that didn’t pay nearly enough. As a new year began she decided it was time for a change.

So she began researching for a way to get the best results no matter the effort or the time. And looking through her social media she found that many of her former classmates, male and female, went through amazing transformations.

There were pictures of her male ex-classmates in the beach with muscle bodies, even the engineering nerds. The women were posting pictures of themselves in the gym with crop tops showing their chiseled abs and their perfect bodies.

Looking at all her former classmates and friends looking so hot made her think that maybe she was bi.

She began contacting a few of them, asking them how they were and reminiscing about their time in college before asking them about how they achieved their perfect body. Most were dismissive saying, “I just don’t think it’s for you, you know”, Isabelle thanked them anyway but kept with her research.

Finally she reached to her best friend, Lizzy, the one that took the second place from her and the one that had gone the most incredible transformation. Isabelle wouldn’t dare to call her a bimbo since she was a very smart woman despite giving up her career to become a mother and a housewife, but…

But she could not put another word for the body she was featuring in her profile picture now days.

Nonetheless she contacted Lizzy and set an appointment to meet her at a nearby café.

Eagerly she told her about The Program. It was an invite-only website that she had signed up and so did most of their classmates.

“Are there any side effects?” Isabelle said taking note of everything Lizzy told her.

Lizzy giggled, Isabelle didn’t remember ever listening to her laugh that way.

“Uhm, like, I don’t think so?” She said taking a sip from her double mochaccino with whipped cream. She took a dollop of cream and licked it very suggestively.

Isabelle felt a bit uncomfortable.

“I mean, I feel a lot more horny lately, but I think that’s mostly the post-pregnancy hormones, you know? even my tits are bigger, full of milk to feed the twins.” She added squeezing her breasts together.

She could only remember her wearing baggy sweaters and didn’t know if she had grown a cup or two but they were definitely bigger.

“But other than that is great! I mean look at me, after giving birth I thought it would be difficult to get back in shape but I feel better than ever.” She said in a chirpy voice and took another sip from her coffee.

Isabelle took notes. She was skeptic but she could hardly argue with the results. She told her about all the other girls as well how much weight they had lost and how their lives had improved. It was almost as if The Program had cleaned their skin, watered her crops and even cured their depression.

She chortled and covered her mouth to hide her laugh. Lizzy didn’t realize since her babies began to cry.

“There, there,” She leaned over the stroller and hugged one while handing the other a bottle, “You don’t mind if I feed them, right?” Lizzy didn’t give her time to answer before she pulled out her breast and showed Isabelle her darkened and hard nipples.

The baby suckled and drank. Lizzy closed her eyes, but released a very audible moan.

Isabelle stopped writing and gulped unable to take her eyes away from the same age as her.

“You seem sensitive, does it hurt?” Isabelle asked licking her lips.

Lizzy seemed dazed and out of herself, her voice gave a pleasant purr, “Sorry?”

“Does it hurt? I mean, when they drink?” Isabelle leaned closer not knowing why she was so interested in her former classmates tits.

“No,” Lizzy said with a vapid smile on her lips, “It feels… incredible.”

Isabelle nodded and stared at her friend’s placid face. Then she gathered her things while talking as fast as she could, “Well, thank you it was a pleasure talking to you after such a long time, I will be seeing you bye.”

Lizzy watched her go, “The pleasure was all mine,” Was all that she could say in a husky purr as Isabelle left the café and people around her tried not to stare.

The young woman could not believe how turned on she was, but she could hardly deny the results of The Program Lizzy spoke about.

When she arrived home Isabelle opened the website and made sure to input Lizzy’s referral code. It seemed safe enough and not a scam, and it also seemed to work very well for everyone.

The only thing that was worrying her was how erotic the end of that conversation became. How distant and vapid her intelligent friend had become.

“But Lizzy was always a perverted slut,” She said out loud trying to reassure herself, “I am sure it will be okay.”

The landing page was very standard, images of fit men and women, testimonials, things like that.

After she signed up with her personal email she was led to a small introductory video. The instructions told her to use headphone so that the tutorial would be more effective and guide her through The Program.

It played as with any other exercise program with an instructor/trainer, a woman in her thirties wearing yoga pants and a sports bra, she explained the classic stuff of willpower and determination, building habits. It was shot in a calm garden with the sound of running water and birds as well as soft music playing on the background.

She moved on to explain in more detail the satisfaction rates as well as statistics. Isabelle took note of everything.

But after a while the music began to get into her head, it was too calming, too soft and relaxing. As much as she tried to focus, she ended up spaced out.

The moment the tutorial was over, the pen she was holding fell down. Blinking several times, she cleaned a bit of drool from her chin and moved on to the next page.

The soft hum kept playing in the background of the page and Isabelle didn’t find anywhere to turn it off, but even so she didn’t mute her computer or take off her headphones.

She filled out a questionnaire with everything from her height, weight, her goals. All the standard stuff for a health and diet program, or at least it was the standard until the second set of questions appeared.

How big was her chest, in a scale of 1 to 10 how sensitive are your nipples. When was the last time you had an orgasm? Would you say you cum more easily from penetration or clitoral stimulation.

Those were very invasive questions, but she kept filling them and listening to the soft hum in her earphones.

Before she knew it she was done answering all the questions, half of them she didn’t even remember.

The page loaded and finally informed her it had a plan ready for her to follow to achieve her goals before the end of the year.

Excited, Isabelle downloaded the plan on her phone. Every video and exercise began with a guided meditation with the calming soundtrack that she rapidly grew accustomed to.

After the meditation, the program would guide her through a series of exercises programed for that day.

Every week she would receive a newsletter with a progress tracker and some quotes to inspire her, the first one said that small changes in her habits could reap the biggest results.

And it did. The following morning she had her usual breakfast of milk, cereal and a glass of orange juice followed by her setting up her yoga mat and playing the first video on her phone.

She breathed, relaxed.

She listened to the voice of her instructor.

Focusing on the music humming on the background.

She breathed, letting air fill her chest.

She exhaled letting the stress go.

She nodded as her instructor’s voice made her fall deep into trance…

Then she dozed off.

Next thing she knew her alarm was going off, she was sweaty and sore. She barely remembered her workout at all.

It was already half an hour later and she would have to shower quickly to get on time to her job.

The water was cold and she was thankful for it, for some reason she felt horny, her pussy was dripping and even with the freezing water, her fingers slid easily over her clit trying to scratch that need.

Frustrated and sore she rushed and went on with her day job.

Retail is not particularly easy or stress relieving, but it was all she could do while working on her thesis, the afternoons were free for her to study and go to class or review with the professor in charge.

As the day went on, and the hardships of handling costumers piled up on her; Isabelle found herself instinctively reaching for her phone during her break, fiddling through social media and watching Lizzy in her fabulous milf body, bitting her lip she closed the app and decided to play the meditation video from The Program.

She breathed in.

Relaxed.

And the rest of her shift melted away in a pleasant, hazy daze. Before closing, a client approached her and told her what a pretty smile she had. Normally she would dismiss such comments, but this time she giggled and thanked him.

Back home she played the meditation file over and over again while she opened her books and sat down to study and work over her thesis.

Stretching, she looked at the clock and despite feeling like only a few minutes had passed she already had three pages written; hightlited several pages of different books and taken copious notes. Despite all that, she still felt relaxed and full of energy.

And despite the late hour, she didn’t feel any hunger. Then she reached to the side and found a protein mix that she didn’t remember preparing or even buying.

She gulped, feeling a bit nervous about having some time lagoons in her mind. But the music was so soothing.

So relaxing.

Isabelle breathed in and decided that the small changes were for the better.

Closing the books she walked to the bed, and threw away her clothes to the laundry basket.

She wasn’t sleepy, she was energized. But it was late and she needed to sleep. The Program remarked the importance of a good night sleep. So she climbed on the bed and left the phone charging on the side.

But the music never stopped.

Isabelle needed to do something with all that energy.

She turned off the lights and threw a pillow over her head. Tossing and turning she was not comfortable or ready to go to sleep.

The music was helping, but it wasn’t enough. She needed to- She needed to-

She took the pillow from her face and placed it between her legs.

“That’s better” she thought as she tried to get into a more comfortable position. Laying down, with the pillow between her legs.

Isabelle pressed her chest on the mattress, trying to focus on the music, But the pillow was rubbing her in a way that felt almost like she was naked.

And that’s when she realized, she was naked. She never grabbed her pajamas. She simply climbed on top of the bed and listened.

She tried to stand up, but the feeling of the fabric, the pillow rubbing her clit in just the most delicious way.

An image formed in her mind. It was Lizzy in front of her, her mouth gaping, her blouse open to let her big and full chest heave. She wanted to taste those dark nipples. She wanted her hand between her legs.

Isabelle rode her pillow, with her mouth gasping for air, repeating her friend’s name over and over “Lizzy,” as she teased her clit and her nipples.

She wanted to kiss her, she wanted to grab her by the neck and lead her down between her legs so that Lizzy would worship her pussy, licking, riding her face.

As she rode her pillow, teasing and playing with her pussy and nipples, there was a soft voice in the back of her head. It sounded familiar.

Focus on the pleasure. You are pleasure. You were made for pleasure

It drilled the words in her head. Echoing back and forth with Lizzy’s naked image in her mind. Her soft thighs, her toned ass. Her hard nipples.

You’re pleasure. You were made for pleasure. Focus on your pleasure.

The voice sounded like Lizzy, caressing her head, with that cadence that reminded her of the meditation file. Soft, relaxed, pliant.

Obedient.

You were made for pleasure. Focus on the pleasure. You’re pleasure.

In Isabelle’s mind, Lizzy held her close. Kissing her, leading her down between her legs. Touching and pleasing her. But now it was her turn. Now she had to please her. She was made for pleasure.

She leaned down, her tongue out, she needed to please Lizzy, to make her cum. Then she would cum. She was made for pleasure, she was pleasure, she needed to focus on the pleasure.

So close.

Isabelle drooled and bit the pillow, imagining Lizzy’s body, her sex, the short dark pubes, her voice guiding her.

And then the voice. The one on the back of her head, Lizzy’s voice, it whispered.

Cum.

Isabelle convulsed, grasping the sheets, holding her pillow tight between her legs. The moans and guttural sounds of her orgasm drowned by the pillow against her mouth.

Cum. The voice repeated. Cum for me.

Another wave of pleasure hit Isabelle. Making her feet curl and her back arch. Her whole body clenched as waves of electricity coursed through her body.

Cum for me, my pleasure doll. The voice whispered and vanished.

Isabelle passed out, listening to the soft noises of nature that had accompanied her orgasms.

———

Thank you for reading, if you like this story, consider going over to my Patreon. Or if you enjoyed it, consider inviting me a coffee to fuel more stories like this.

#magister amentia #magisteramentia #hypnokink #hypnosis #mind control #brainwashing #hypno kink #hypno k1nk #hypnok1nk #mind conditioning #conditioning #conditioning kink #conditioning k1nk

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wonder-worker · 4 months ago

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are there any books you'd recommend for Isabelle of Angouleme?

Hi! I’m really not an expert on Isabella of Angouleme so I'm probably not the best person to ask for recommendations for her. Here are some I've heard of, though I haven't read all of them:

"Isabella of Angouleme: John's Jezebel" by Nicholas Vincent (King John: New Interpretations). I haven't read it myself but I've heard good things!

“Maternal Abandonment and Surrogate Caregivers: Isabella of Angoulême and Her Children by King John” by Louise J. Wilkinson (Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era). It focuses more-so on Isabella's tenure as queen, the period shortly after John's death, and her decision to leave England. Despite what the title may imply, it's sympathetic to Isabella and analyzes her situation in detail.

“Co-Operation, Co-Rulership and Competition: Queenship in the Angevin Domains 1135-1230” by Gabrielle Storey, her PHD thesis which collectively focuses on Isabella of Angouleme along with Empress Matilda, Eleanor of Aquitaine, and Berengaria of Navarre. You can read/download it here, it's an excellent piece for all four women.

Sally Spong has written/is writing:

Isabella of Angouleme: The Vanished Queen (Norman to Early Plantagenet Consorts). You can see her conclusion here. It's nuanced and sympathetic, though not without its issues and pre-conceived notions.

Isabella of Gloucester and Isabella of Angouleme: Female Lordship, Queenship, Power, and Authority 1189-1220 (PHD thesis University of East Anglia).

“Isabelle d’Angouleme, By the Grace of God, Queen” by William Chester Jordan. You can read it online here, though I will say that it's ... very very questionable, accepting the sensational claims of lot of unreliable sources (including the idea of John abducting Isabella in a fit of uncontrollable infatuation) entirely at face-value.

“The Marriage and Coronation of Isabelle of Angouleme” by H.G. Richardson, available here on JSTOR.

Isabella has also been the subject of two complete French biographies till date:

"Isabelle d’Angoulême, reine d’Angleterre" (Aquitaine: 1998) by Sophie Fougere.

"Isabelle d’Angoulême, comtesse-reine et son temps (1186-1246)" [Actes du colloque tenu à Lusignan, 8 au 10 novembre 1996] by Gabriel Biancotto, Robert Favreau and Piotr Skubiszewski.

There are also a few blog posts about her (here and here) which may help if you want a brief overview of her life, though they can get a little sensationalistic sometimes.

Hope this helps! If anyone knows any others, please feel free to add on!

#I'm so sorry it took so long to answer! I'll add more if I find them #ask #Isabella of Angouleme #angevins #Sally Spong's chapter on Isabella is...complicated #It's detailed and sympathetic and I think it highlights some interesting aspects of Isabella's life #But it's also dependent on her own very fixed pre-conceived notions re Isabella's role as queen #Spong takes issue with other historians' observations about Isabella but...doesn't actually try to debunk the views herself?#It ends up seeming as though she's deliberately missing the point #And I think by reading things in the best possible light she ends up downplaying what may have been complicated experiences for Isabella #For example she disagrees with the idea that John was constraining Isabella's role by highlighting her ceremonial presence at court #But historians like Wilkinson HAVE highlighted this as well and emphasized how the 'ceremonial importance of Isabella's position as queen #consort and the dynastic significance of her maternity' were recognized and honored #But that does not discount or nullify the way Isabella's role does seem to have been constrained elsewhere by John #Namely her lack of control over her lands (many of which were granted away by John) and probable lack of access to queen's gold #Along with her absence from charters and the notable lack of prayers for her welfare save a single exception in 1204 #Spong also disagrees with the idea that Isabella was excluded from her son's governance after John's death by highlighting her #presence at his coronation and (months later) at the peace talks between England and France #Which is - again - sort of missing the point??#*Yes* - Isabella's presence in both those occasions is certainly interesting and important when talking about her life #But that does not change the fact that Isabella seems to have been either remote or excluded from central government #She was not directing or working with the council in terms of governance but seems to have been at a distance from power #Which is made even more clear when we look at her charters: her witness lists were comprised of more or less politically insignificant #figures and included no men associated with her son's regency council #It's a striking contrast to the former roles that Empress Matilda and Eleanor of Aquitaine had for their sons #With those very dynamic precedents in place I do think Isabella's remoteness from her son's government is very notable #And I feel like that's...very important when discussing her decision to return to Angouleme?#But because Spong is keen to view Isabella's circumstances in the best light possible she sort of dismisses these discussions #& potential difficulties #It got rather frustrating to read

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lucysarah-c · 6 days ago

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ooh please tell me semester's bingo is gonna be a series! i really loved it and i'd love to see more of it!

Oh!... Probably not? Maybe? Haha I just had that idea while writing my Senescence chapter in my thesis, cause? There's no cause lol I just get those random ideas out of nowhere. If I can't write them, I record voice memos on my phone for later.

You should see the amount of voice memos of Levi art or fics I have in my phone and they sound so ridiculous. They go like "so ...I got this idea of Levi teleporting to a bar and cleaning a beer pit behind the bar. Clink clink, sound of glasses, early tangerine light coming through and BOOM Isabel says she's leaving. Farlan is with a broom.... I need to buy new face cream, email to my boss at 7"

Haha try to be in my brain for an hour, its crazy in there.

#lucy answers #levi

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f1uckinghell · 2 years ago

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MAX AND DANIEL BEING OLD AND HAPPY IN THEIR FARM IVE ME ALL THE FLUFF GIVE ME THEM SITTING ON THE PORCH WATCHING THEIR GRANDKIDS PLAY THAT SAME ROPE GAME GIVE ME DRINKING COFFEE GIVE ME CUDDLING ON A SWING GIVE ME FLUFF TAG PROMPTS

I am so sorry for what I did 😭😂

send me prompts for cute little prompt fills

——

„Dad I swear to god if you don’t sit down here right now-“

Isabel sounds exasperated, and Max can’t blame her. Daniel can’t sit still, can’t leave her to work for once, always standing around, offering to drive the tractor, giving advice he has already given her hundreds of times.

„Alright, alright,“ Daniel groans, sitting down in the wicker chair that creaks only slightly worse than his joints. Max can’t help but laugh.

„Let her work, Dan.“

„Have some tea, Dad,“ Isabel tells him in a gentler tone now, wiping her hands on her work flannel. They have fine lines and a few pigment spots now, but Max still remembers when they were so little that they could hold on to only one of his fingers. „I’ve got it, yeah?“

Daniel nods, looking a little bit lost. Max reaches out and squeezes his hand. „She’s got it.“

„I know, I know,“ Daniel sighs, and then finally leans back in his chair. It’s hard for him to let go, but he has to eventually. It’s hard work, and even with their automatic machinery and all of their helpful tools, it’s too much for him now.

„You should call Clara,“ Isabel suggests, handing Max his phone that’s been lying on the porch table, „I bet she’ll be happy to be distracted from writing her thesis.“

„That’s a great idea, sweetheart,“ Max says, smiling up at her from where he sits. She smiles back. „…I’ll fix you a snack in a minute,“ he adds, and she sighs with a little laugh.

„You’re almost as bad as Dad!“

„Just some fruit-“

„Yeah, okay, Mom.“

„Hey, that’s unfair!“ Daniel protests, but Isabel throws up her hands.

„I’m picking my battles!“ she laughs, and quickly flees the scene to get back to work.

„Mothers are harder to say no to,“ Max tells Daniel, rubbing his shoulder. „Call Clara, I’ll join you in a second.“

„Okay,“ Daniel sighs dramatically. Before Max can go, Daniel pulls in his hand and kisses the inside of his wrist like he’s done countless times in their long life together.

#asks #virtues verse #fluff tag #vv!maxiel #vv!isabel

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thesinglesjukebox · 8 months ago

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KACEY MUSGRAVES - "DEEPER WELL"

youtube

Kacey's music continues to evolve! Is it deeper? Well...

[5.94]

Hannah Jocelyn: Kacey Musgraves makes the second-best Kacey Musgraves song we're covering today. [5]

Aaron Bergstrom: "Deeper Well" sounds like someone else trying to write a Kacey Musgraves song without fully understanding why that's something people would want. Over the course of Musgraves' first three albums, culminating in the near-perfect Golden Hour, we got to know this incredibly likeable, relatable songwriter. Her little nods to things like cannabis and astrology were fun quirks, but never core to her appeal. Now it seems like she views herself as some kind of novelty act, Spacey Kacey as caricature, and so to get back on track after the relative flop of star-crossed she's maxed out those specific character attributes. As a result we get a flat triangulation of a song with clunky references to gravity bongs and Saturn returns that seem disconnected to the point of being meaningless. [4]

Dave Moore: Lesser Kacey Musgraves even before the gravity bong shows up. The songwriting's gone mushy and circular, which is a shame because minor Musgraves is often charming (my low-key favorite song from her first album is still "I Miss You"). She seems to think that her tell-don't-show version of finding purpose, which somehow has more crackpot woo-woo in it than friggin' Kesha, is going to make up for the fact that, songwise, she's not going anywhere. [5]

Isabel Cole: Astrology is fake but I too have felt the power of the Saturn return — not an overnight transformation but the dawning sense that perhaps after all I could choose something other than what had felt foreordained by my own gravity, a force that once had seemed to me more immovable than the stars. I love how gently Musgraves bids farewell to the past here: “no regrets, baby, I just think that maybe it’s natural when things lose their shine.” Many things are worth doing for a while; few things are worth doing forever. It’s a perspective on growing up not as an abandonment of the youthful self but simply as a movement into new territory. And the song is so pretty, in an easy way that sounds lovelier to my ears every time I listen — pretty like morning light in summer, unhurried, serene. [7]

Nortey Dowuona: Oh, so this song was co-written by Daniel Tashian, son of the legendary Barry and Holly Tashian, songwriters of "I'll Take My Time Going Home"? You mean this had no other choice than to be good? That's not fair!? I wanted a choice in thinking this was OK! [9]

Taylor Alatorre: "Deeper Well" illustrates its core concept a bit too faithfully for its own good. It revolves around a musical holding pattern which is meant to serve as a sonic rendering of our dangerously seductive habits and circular tendencies, then lingers about too long in this pretty but hidebound pattern of its own making. Good for a master's thesis in music composition, not so much for a lead single teased at the Super Bowl. Its saving grace is how it departs from the divisive sound of star-crossed without reading as a mewling apology for it, instead sounding like the genuine product of a woman who's had her dial turned to Sirius XM's The Bridge for the past six months (been there). [5]

Will Rivitz: In much the same way earth-shattering acid trip revelations translate unremarkably to plain English, "Deeper Well" relays its life lessons in the pedestrian scrawl of a hazy afterglow Notes app attempt. With few descriptive details sans a single reference to a gravity bong, Musgraves' (admittedly correct) insights that "some people are not worth my energy, smoking weed all day can be a waste of time, and it's OK that I grew up in a small town" come across flat. That she's backed by a track as insubstantial as her pen does her no favors. [4]

Leah Isobel: "You got dark energy / Something I can't unsee" is such a terrible line it honestly makes me wonder if Golden Hour was even any good. That twinkling, felt-coated piano at the high end does ease my doubts -- but only a little. [3]

Michael Hong: This is Kacey Musgraves diving into the lifestyle influencer grift (self-help manual to follow), her voice doubled to take on a detached yet authoritative sheen. It lacks nuance, yet you search for it anyway -- for me, it's the way she sings "I found a deeper well," the melody left hanging, the thought left incomplete. Against all reason, I'm sitting here at the bottom of it, waiting and still wondering what comes next. [6]

Katherine St. Asaph: Hot take: "You've got dark energy" is fine (scansion aside). It's "my Saturn has returned" that's the deeper embarrassment, and I'm not sure how one dislikes the first bit of woo while being fine with the other. Anyway, this is basically "Merry Go Round" grown shaggy and unkempt and sprouting little weeds of "The Sound of Silence," plus the me-first self-care message beloved of inspirational pop culture. Think "Yes, And?" with the subtext of cheating swapped out for a subtext of depression. Kacey just seems so unenthused, so resigned; the future she sings about doesn't seem to offer joy, just the lack of sunk costs. The subtext is so unconcealed and consistent that it feels like it must be deliberate -- but it can't be deliberate, because no one ever portrays this kind of mindset as bad. Or maybe it can't be deliberate because, judging by the arrangement, the deeper well she's found might just be reverb. [6]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: The central tension in “Deeper Well” is that the growth and wellness that Kacey is singing about sounds like it came from a deeply unwell place. She says goodbye to relationships that no longer fulfill her, drugs that no longer bring her the highs they used to, and dark energy that can’t be unseen—but through it all, she sounds the most contemplative and at peace she has been in years. Adulthood is about coming to terms with the fact that the choices that you made were the best decisions you had at the time, and about learning to forgive yourself for not having all of the answers—about love, friendship, self-care—magically from the start. How can a process that feels so ego-shattering and devastating ultimately be so good for us—and how can we forgive ourselves for fighting it? As a 27-year-old, I’m not exactly hearing “When I turned 27, everything started to change” objectively, nor do I want to. Sometimes a song arrives at the right moment in your life to hit perfectly. [10]

Mark Sinker: Not sure if I’ve ever gone on about this here, but a thing I’d love to read or to be directed toward is a deep comparative study of melody within different genres, the shapes and turns and cadences that evoke this milieu, versus the others usual to that one. The key phrase here seems to me highly untypical of the kinds of tuneline you’d expect to find in country, and not just because it’s drenched in big indie echo (plus whispered). What exactly is building up these expectations? I need someone with a YouTube channel and audio examples alongside the staves and dots and sharps and flats – even just an overhead projector and a long pointy stick. They can prove I’m very wrong if they like! (Maybe I am!) [9]

Ian Mathers: Not really a great sign when the most interest I can muster is in the way the bassline periodically threatens to pivot to full-on "Walk on the Wild Side." The "deeper well" stuff just isn't signifying for me, nor the "dark energy" bit. Sure, it sounds like personal growth, and I bet from the inside it means a lot, but it registers as... kinda nothing? There are a couple of floaty bits that are nice, and certainly nothing dips below "pleasantly competent," but if I could just about squint and see what people were raving about with "High Horse," my vision isn't quite as clear here. [5]

Alfred Soto: Kacey Musgraves makes agreeable music that holds my attention while it's on. "Deeper Well" has the misfortune to sound like middling Taylor Swift -- something from the back half of Speak Now, say. This well is shallow. [4]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: In a few years I will hear this while perusing vegetables at a nice grocery store and hum along pleasantly without being aware of what I'm doing. For now, in my conscious experience, I am utterly unmoved by her studied, philosophical blankness – people didn't like the last album very much, but at least it had hooks! [4]

Joshua Lu: In the over ten years since I first listened to Kacey sing about weed, it's been legalized in my state, I grew old enough to legally purchase it, I reached a point in my life where I wanted to dabble in it (2020 was a time), and I got hooked enough to build up a substantial tolerance. Through all this time, I had her music: rolling joints in "Follow Your Arrow," letting the grass just grow in "High Time," having a "Slow Burn." If she could've snuck in a reference to a bong in her Christmas album, I bet she would've. To hear Kacey sing about dropping weed thus felt more cataclysmic than anything else she could've done. Yes, I was excited by her return to a more standard country sound, even better with that metallic tinge that embellished some of her greatest recent work, but Kacey Musgraves singing about leaving weed behind? Listening to "Deeper Well," though, it can't help but feel natural: it was just a thing that she liked once but would rather leave behind, and some things in life are just like that. There's no judgement or embarrassment, just an acknowledgement of a change in her life, and I appreciate how the song isn't explicitly about getting wiser or more responsible or any of those things that people assume come with aging. It's instead framed as a continued discovery of who she is and what's out there in the world, and the route she took to become the person she is today. Funnily enough, I stopped taking weed this year too. I'm glad I now have a Kacey song for that process as well. [9]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox]

#kacey musgraves #music #music writing #music reviews #music criticism #the singles jukebox #deeper well #Youtube

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terrainofheartfelt · 1 year ago

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Do u have any book and movie recommendations?

sooooo many. you might regret asking.

I love books very very much, just in case you didn't know, so let me fire off at random some of my all time faves with and without blurbs.

poetry: Devotions, Mary Oliver | No Matter the Wreckage, Sarah Kay | Leaves of Grass, Whitman | Post Colonial Love Poem, Natalie Diaz

nonfiction:

My Life in France, Julia Child --- her memoir of moving to France with her husband post WWII and her discovery of cooking and deciding to write her cookbook and it's so charming and so her and it's just a delight

Open Me Carefully, Emily Dickinson --- a chronological collection of letters, poems, and letter-poems Emily sent to her lover sister-in-law Susan Dickinson. it's intimate, playful, kind, passionate, and the editors do a great job of putting it all together. and you read it and just know that you are only skimming the surface of the deep love these two women had for each other i gotta lie down

What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding, Kristin Newman --- funny sexy travel memoir by a TV writer who spent her hiatus months in the aughts summers by traveling solo and having whirlwind romances and also her reconciliation between being the woman who can't be tied down but also wanting to build a life with a partner.

The Real Traviata, Rene Weis --- an opera book because me. a biography about Marie Duplessis, the French woman who inspired Dumas to write La Dame aux Camellias and therefore Verdi's Traviata and THEREFORE Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge. she had by the most objective accounts a difficult and short life full of fear and illness and abuse but also full of strength and color and love and I found it really moving.

fiction: aka the novels I am thinking most about right now.

House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende --- an all time favorite. a historical, multigenerational epic that left me staring at the ceiling after finishing it. and cemented Allende's place as one of my fave authors

The Sentence, Louise Erdrich --- it's about ghosts and independent bookstores and indigenous women and community and love and trust and the pandemic. great novel.

Sex and Vanity, Kevin Kwan --- people are always looking for who they should crown the modern Jane Austen, and it's him. it's kevin kwan. this is a modern remix of A Room with a View and it is funny and sexy and sweet and was a delight to read.

Beautiful World, Where Are You, Sally Rooney --- my favorite of hers. I love how the chapters of story are interspersed with emails between the two leads. yes there's romance, but the real center of this story is the friendship between the two women.

On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous, Ocean Vuong --- entirely lives up to the tumblr hype. possibly exceeds the tumblr hype. I told my best friend to read this book. which she did. then scolded me because while she agrees it's beautiful it's also so heartbreaking. truly some of the most beautiful prose I've ever read. I checked it out from the library but i really want a copy of my own to mark up.

Bright Young Women, Jessica Knoll (out Oct. 3rd) --- i got this ARC at the librarian convention. I'm in the middle of it right now but I have to talk it up because it is sooooo good. It's about women who meet because they have the worst possible thing in common: their best friend was murdered by the same serial killer. It hops around between the '70s and the present day, reads like a thriller, and the thesis is really about destroying the myth of the criminal mastermind, a la all those true crime docs about dahmer and bundy. I'm almost halfway through and the murderer is only referred to as "The Defendant." It's about taking the narrative away from him, the universal defendant, and recentering it around the exceptional women whose lives he ended and/or destroyed. Again, please check it out when it comes out this fall. But be forewarned that the subject matter is dark.

as for MOVIES, well, if I tried to make a list like the one above I'd be here all day, so why don't I just list a handful that I consider central to understanding who I am as a person:

Monty Python and the Holy Grail

The Life of Brian

The Blues Brothers

The Princess Diaries 1 AND 2

Little Women (2019)

Juno

The Holiday

Pride and Prejudice (2005)

Star Wars, the OG and prequel trilogies

and, last winter I stumbled across The Four Seasons starring Alan Alda and Carol Burnett, and I thought it was delightful.

#asks #anon #recs #i'm almost done with BYW now and it's. god. it's so good. I've annotated my copy to bits #the themes of appearances over substance #and the systemic valuing of men's comfort over women's safety #it just HITS #also half the main cast is gay and you know I love that #if you like gillian flynn and feel weird about the true crime fandom phenomena then you will like this book #i shared a post by the author on insta and she responded which is super cool

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icelogged · 2 years ago

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see the taglist project [live reconstruction]

long obnoxious tags with deeply personal meanings my beloved! I add on as i go!

[last updated 2023/05/12 AD]

#evidence of life - original posts

#cold #warm - vibe tags

blog/main project tags: #they say there's something in our seas / we should all be careful / i'm not swimming anyway / i'm too busy moping #thesis

organizational tags that group specific motifs

#and if that means changing shape if that means putting together the unexpected that is any monster's ancient right - monster grrl trans wrath

#behind you - darkness

#christ haunted - Christianity related

#crime scene - not real crimes scenes just settings for writing or art

#deer in headlights - deers, stags etc

#doll bones - dolls, dollkin

#flower girls play lover grave games in the courtyard - wlw coven monster packs

#fortress of cold stone - vamp castle vibe

#found face down on the ground - body dumping grounds

#freezer bride - freezer bride aestheticisms

#gallons of the stuff - BLOOD

#he promised to kill what he loved - a bad man

#holy backrooms - backrooms liminal spaces

#i'm left in the fumes of a guilty machine - SA related

#if you have the stomach for it - romance tag uno

#i wanted it to be home - my house in nebraska is a cottage in *grey hound bus passes*

#left blood on the oil painting - reds

#lightning hit my wings - fallen angel, angelcore

#like a fist like a knife - romance tag dos

#mermaid blood - mermaid aestheticisms, fresh and sea water

#smile you're on camera - found footage vibes

#tied to a tree and fed strawberries - weird forest date

#waterlogged - waterlogged corpse vibes

#winter fairy - winter, snow, winter coquette

media

#art #moodboard #web weaving

#horror

#[haunted] cabin fever - the shining

#a tragedy in three parts: daughter wife and mother - the story of a preacher’s daughter wife and mother as told by Ethel Cain

#by a cord of sticky flesh - dead ringers

#canadian coming of age documentary - ginger snaps

#cannibal apologist - Hannibal NBC

#girls will say i know a place and take you to silent hill - silent hill

#inherited divine suffering - hereditary

#la casa awoo - la casa lobo

#lollipop chainsaw massacre- TCM

#maddened by the breath of god - Possession (1981)

#my auntie buffalo bill - the silence of the lambs, Hannibal (2001)

#shakespearean tragedies for magical girls - 魔法少女まどか☆マギカ

#tests to gauge one’s will to survive through physical or psychological torture for rehabilitation to some and valentine’s gift to others - saw franchise

#vroom vroom (1996) - crash

#wouldst thou like to live deliciously - the VVitch (2015)

#music #music box - audio files

#chelsea wolfe #deftones #ethel cain #nicole dollanganger

personal

#face reveal - about me /silly (actual pictures of me are in evidence of life plus my icon and header if you’re curious)

#gender class study material - my attempts at gender absorption #gender: broadcast - how I’m tryna be 🏳️‍⚧️🤍🥩

#make it go away - this blog’s comfort tag

#memory fuel - photos that break through dissociative fog

#my meals - self explanatory yay edrecovery

#wardrobe - stuff I’d wear, fashion, looks

#wrapped in ribbon - favourite posts

lovermaker.exe / ocs with left beef

#huckleberry

places

#eternal rest - cemeteries, graves

#manitoba #ontario #saskatchewan

Entities [leads to their tumblr unless stated otherwise because you should check them out]

#camojacketfag #churchrummagesale #deejayphoto #hayden anhedonia #isabelle adjani [leads to tag] #michael donovan #plastiboo #shelley duvall [leads to tag] #tearsandtheteeth #user ojibwa

tags so people i want to show stuff don’t have to dig through their @s

#march #my twin God made our two bodies two minds one soul and yeah it was good

etc #collection - trinkets and things lotsa knives :3 #friends - animals #BATS !!! - self explanatory #message in a bottle - asks #visual stim - self explanatory #words - self explanatory

backlist / warning

#ed tw ed tw in tags - not a ed blog im just a girl with an ed that runs a blog and sometimes complains about it

#horror - this a horror blog and content that could be unsettling content can be untagged! the horror tag mostly covers horror media specifically! if you’d follow but this is a problem i suggest stopping by my main instead :3

#mdni - minors don’t interact

#nsft - i doubt this tag will be will be used. for example this text post would not be tagged [silly and not graphic but alludes to sexuality] nor would this painting [“artistic” nudity] i don’t plan on posting anything that would warrant that tag but it’s what I would use in the event that I do

#sfx gore - self explanatory real life cuts, bruises, injuries, medical, violent text posts will be untagged unless someone requests something specifically tagged. remember blood has a tag. there will be no promotion of self harm or irl/non-SFX gore imagery.

#icelogged: tags

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drsorrell · 1 year ago

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Fri. 9.8.23

Reminders & Announcements

Keep thinking about and, if possible, writing about what we do as an activity today over the weekend. The more you do this, the more you will be ahead of the game for Paper #1.

Keep up the good work! All three classes of Core Writing this semester have been fantastic in terms of friendliness, ideas, and participation (really). I appreciate it!

Activity: This is on Schoology under Friday Activity (IN CLASS), but I'll paste it (indented) below too:

Review So we read: - Stephanie Owen and Isabel Sawhill, "Should Everyone Go to College?" (488-505) - Charles Murray, "Are Too Many People Going to College?" (506-526) - Gerald Graff, “Hidden Intellectualism” (548-555) - Sylvia Mathews Burwell, “Generation Stress: The Mental Health Crisis on Campus” (556-566) - Charles Fain Lehman, “The Student Loan Trap: When Debt Delays Life” (567-577) - Gabriela Moro, “Minority Student Clubs: Segregation or Integration?” (538-547) - Liz Addison, "Two Years Are Better Than Four" (527-530 - Anna Clark, "Why We Need to Keep the “Community” in Community Colleges" (531-537). - You also read Chapters 1-2 of your textbook: “‘THEY SAY’: Starting with What Others Are Saying” (19-31 and "HER POINT IS": The Art of Summarizing” (32-46). Both of these emphasize that to make a good argument, you need to: - Join an ongoing conversation that people already think is important and are talking about - Truly try to understand what the other person is saying and represent their point of view correctly, even if you disagree with it - Use your "They Say" summary moments to "forecast" your own argument. This is probably the point that I would tell you to pay attention to the most. - So your summary doesn't just have to be something like, "Lehman is worried about student debt." - Your paper will be much stronger, and your reader will be much more interested if you say something like: "Although Lehman admirably tries to focus on the case of Rodney Soangler to highlight issues related to student debt in this country, he doesn't end up talking about Spangler all that much!" I'm already moving your brain toward my idea, which is, after all, the most interesting part! - Or consider this example: "Graff makes some excellent points about how, if students are more personally invested in what they are studying, they will try harder and work better. Unfortunately, his use of old-fashioned words and description of a childhood in Chicago that happened almost a century ago ultimately weakens his ideas; it's harder to trust someone who calls people 'hoods.'" - I'm correctly summarizing some of Graff's main ideas, but along the way, I'm pointing out some stuff I really don't like. Maybe I'm headed toward an essay where the thesis is something like: "Even if they are written by famous education scholars, essays about educating college students should include the voice of actual college students." Activity: Instructions - Think about which reading from the college unit hit you the hardest. This can mean you liked or hated it the most, or it reminds you of something in your own life, or you dug the author's style. It could even mean it was the easiest to read, so you were happy about that! - Choose the essay that interested you the most, that you think you'd have the most to say about (the essay itself or the issues that it raises). - Write 4-5 "They Say" sentences about this essay in which you start to forecast a possible direction of your own argument or idea. - If drawing this out works better for you, you can diagram it out. The same goes for outlining--whatever works best for you. (For me, I have to start writing, and then I figure out what my actual point is.)

Homework: Read Ch. 3 (47-56) + complete Ch. 3 Tutorial.

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quoteoftheweekblog · 1 year ago

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QUOTE OF THE WEEK 22/5/23 - EVELYN WAUGH (AND MARTIN AMIS) ‘ “I wrote my thesis on ‘Hairstyling in the Orient’.” ‘ (Waugh, 1951, p.73).

Waugh, E. (1951 [1948] ) ‘The loved one’. London: Penguin Classics. *****

THIS QUOTATION IS PRESENTED AS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED. IT CONTAINS OUTDATED CULTURAL TERMINOLOGY

*****

FOR MY SON

WHO HAS SUBMITTED HIS PHD THESIS ENTITLED