#it really is so repetitive but it just. idk it scratches an itch in my brain

[evilhorse936]

Thoughts on Yellowjackets season 3

Replying to @slowtovvn

Not sure how to answer it because it's just ended up back in my inbox (???) but I also overall enjoyed it even though it got off to a rocky start. I really enjoyed Shaunahat and grew a real appreciation for Lottie through her teen shroom escapades so was thoroughly disappointed by what happened in the adult timeline truly unsatisfying.

In contrast whilst I initially crashed out over Van's death because it was perpetrated by Swanklissa of two episodes I've come to peace with it. I don't think adult Van had much going for her + Lauren Ambrose really didn't work for me (genuinely no idea why) + I like it as a move towards a darker adult timeline that could be more interesting 🤞

On the topic of Swanklissa, I enjoyed her dynamic with Shauna + their interactions opening the door for adult timeline cannibalism but I'm really displeased with her being the eighth survivor ™️. I think he was a really interesting device to explore teen Shauna + I think it should've culminated in Shauna killing her. It just pisses me off thinking about Melissa in the presumably intense scenes of seasons to come with that fuckass hat on and omg I can't believe Melissa Hat gets to return to her family and not Mari!!! Also loud and proud Hillary Swank looks nothing like Jenna Burgess + had no traits of Jenna Burgess' performance in hers, not even her stupid smile!!

Leading on from Mari I've been a day one Mari's not pit girl truther and the look on my fucking face when she revealed the pit girl night gown. I've also been a day one Mari stan so it was literally the worst thing ever for me #Imissyoumyangel #flyhighMariIbarra. Also I agree they should've left pit girl for later I would've preferred seeing them wacko insane + I'm displayed with Shauna being the Antler Queen. I've always seen the Antler Queen as a very spiritual presence when Shauna is overwhelmingly not that and I hope that the Antler Queen mantle will be passed around the group + let Tai get her moment in the spotlight please god please.

Severely disappointed with the lack of supernatural wilderness rep this season. More specifically the spiritual element of the show. We obviously got Mari's cave speech but à mon avis it felt like MCU multiverse shit + not the deeply unsettling feeling I got in season 2 in particular although I don't know if that was just because I had been told it was a show about spooky happenings in the forest so I didn't bother with trying to interpret it as exploring trauma™️. I also think the lack of wishy washy shit in this season links to the absence of Laura Lee (even in Lottie's death sequence (no hanging myself emoji but I'd be using it)). She should be no. 1 narrative haunter but because this season has leaned so hard on (often formulaic) explorations of trauma™️ she has not had her time to shine and tbh this general point is my main issue with this season. Ignore how repetitive this paragraph has been lol

I loved Shauna's transformation into Bisexual Stalin so much it's unbelievable. I really enjoyed when she's writing about how much she hates them all in her journal #justlikemefr

For some reason I do not like Nat idk if it's my dislike of her adult timeline outfits leaking through or the fact I am very much on the side of the psychosis sisters but she's not for me.

Have loved costume design this season even a couple of moments in the adult timeline have #scratched the itch. I've loved all of Lottie's outfits so much especially her red dress w/ the flesh toned undershirt and her furs in the fast episode. I also loved the acolyte costumes

Akilah is such a cutie pie but I fear for her. Her name means knowledge, she was studying for her SATs in the cabin, she has her animals, she did NOT appear to make it out of that cave. But I hope the loss of her as a pillar is a corruption so my pookie bear can escape the wilderness + wasn't there a leak if a woman who kinda looked like her getting out a car but I don't know if that came to anything. I really enjoyed her more prominent role.

I liked Ben's plot + how long it was dragged out for and tbh I would've liked it dragged out for longer #crazedsicko. Saw someone saying it should've taken fewer episodes to fix the pacing + no I loved that shit

I feel Misty has been sidelined this season. Not enough interesting stuff to do but I love my pookie #Misty4eva + people were infuriating about her kissing Ben's corpse god forbid she has her own thing going fucking hell she's not (I think it would be a little bit insensitive if I put a genocidal dictators name here but that's the idea I'm trying to get across). Like while she was objectively dehumanising him that's literally not what was going on. She's 16 and the guy she's been comphet crushing on has just died cut her some slack!! Just because she's not glam and troubled doesn't mean she doesn't have feelings!!

I think that's everything sorry for it being so long lol

[dreamerwriternstargazer]

I saw this after waking up a little anxiously from a nap and it made me smile so much ^_^

Ah I’m glad it helped you gain a new perspective too! Idk if I’m particularly good at accurately finding things to change in my life I think I just overthink a lot 💀💀 but sometimes overthinking is like fishing; you occasionally catch an oyster with a pretty pearl in it (I don’t know I’ve never fished, I just had this image in my head of a net picking up oysters as well as fish XD)

As for hobby suggestions, well I love to think of advice my good friend @crystal-rebellion gives which is; are you in a making something headspace or a consuming headspace?

This question often helps me scratch that hobby itch because it helps me narrow down whether I’m more interested in doing a thing or interacting with someone else’s work. Another reason why I think social media can be draining in that sense is because you’re making and consuming media all at once and it’s sometimes way off base with what your brain needs

My sister loves crocheting as she almost definitely has ADHD so she loves the tactility of it and the repetitive action, and she can watch something while crocheting. I personally prefer painting (watercolour primarily) as a make hobby, and either watching or reading a good story as consume hobby.

I’m also starting to get back into gaming, I loved the Professor Layton games as a kid and I’ve had all the games for years on a hacked SD card my dad gave me so I’ve been meaning to get back to it. I feel like gaming really does well as a replacement for social media because it’s low effort and it’s on a device. I also totally got pulled into the Genshin Impact hype and got an account a while ago (though I haven’t played so much!) so if gaming is your thing maybe try some RPGs? Animal crossing is very nice and soothing after a long day

Couple of other soothing make hobby suggestions:

Diamond gem art (these are like art kits where you use little gems to make a whole picture, my mum does this)

Calligraphy, very fun art if you’re a writer

Sewing! Embroidery is so fun and so simple once you figure out the basics

Colouring books, especially if painting is intimidating for you, you could try buying a watercolour book (heikala one of my favourite artists just released one! It’s got thicker paper so you can use watercolour paint to colour her gorgeously drawn scenes) instead. That way you get the soothing side of painting without the pressure of having to draw and create a scene

Baking is absolutely great however it can be one with tricker end products, gratification on that one can be a little iffy sometimes in case your brain needs something a little quick (I speak as an experienced home baker who still gets wildly frustrating results on very easy bakes, blueberry cake I’m looking at you -_-) but cookies are a pretty safe place to start with (and ooh I’ve been meaning to try the chai cookies myself! Do let me know how it goes if you make them ^_^)

Can’t quite think of anything else… I’m sure some more’ll come to mind as I wake up a bit but I hope this is a good jumping off point ^_^

Sometimes I see those posts from art accounts that have like really put together, only art posts and I feel tempted to delete all personal posts off my blog

And this thought today led me down a long thought path. Which was primarily, I don't....particularly like my personal vent posts on here. I mean they're not there to be liked, they're there to help me process things but... I also don't like to look back on them.

I mean writing on here is meant to be like a journal right? Journals are there to help through the act of writing, not the end result, though the end result can be helpful in a self reflective sense occasionally but for the most part it's about the process.

And then I realised... I've had one of the worst times of my life lately, and not once did venting or the thought of venting do anything to help it. For a lot of reasons, because I... couldn't voice it, because it would be another thing to obsess over, because I can't be as honest and true and personal as I would be in a literal journal because... I'm still posting things on the internet. And yeah it's Tumblr, it's a black hole, but it's still strangers on the internet reading my thoughts so.... I can't go too deep.

I've hit this point where I was trying to... go halfway, like keep it as this fun cutesy blog but then have some halfway personal venting posts. In the end, I just feel kind of dissatisfied because I'm not being fully honest, or if I am it feels so out of place with everything else.

And yeah it's a Tumblr blog it's not meant to be that serious, that helps, I like thinking of Tumblr like a commonplace notebook I keep just online. But.... the halfway personal/vent things, they feel disingenuous and out of place because they're... so unfinished, so calculated. Forced sometimes. There's this pressure I feel on myself, that I'm putting on myself. That pressure gets stronger to do the cute or fun posts if I've done a vent post, or to make the vent post.... I don't know, good, palatable, refined. I can't think of the right word but... something not spontaneous and genuine.

I think a lot about why I started this blog... it was ages ago around 2020 and because I had this idea in my head of, I don't know, being this spectacular writer and journalist writing really cool think pieces and changing the world, or at least the people who interact with my blog. Then it just, became like a commonplace notebook and that was fun, some curated posts to sort of fit the vibe I wanted, but personal.

Messy, messy is how it's gotten, and messy is fine in a journal, I might cringe looking back at old journals but there's a little fondness too, it's like meeting my past selves and being able to hold all the memories and emotions. But online is messy because... personal, and I need to be a little guarded, I can't be free, and I guess it sort of messes with when I want to have more light, cheery things on my blog. Or rather, it takes me away from spending time reading, or sewing or drawing and painting or any of the other hobbies I love that I can make cute and fun posts about. It takes me away from the time I want to spend on religion too, on reading Qur'aan and learning and memorising it, listening to and learning from lectures.

This leads into another thought which is... if the venting itself is not free, and it doesn't quite help my mental state, then it's just time wasted on something empty instead of another coping mechanism, one of the hobbies mentioned above, which could help me a lot. I'm realising that it's just an added pressure, and a really unnecessary one that often makes my head spin.

I think overstimulation probably adds to it too, social media scrolling is easy to do in bad moments because you're frozen, so you may as well scroll. It kind of feeds into the worst of it. I've been meaning to take a bit more of a step away from social media anyway, I wouldn't say I'm addicted but I definitely don't like the feeling I get when I'm in a freeze state or I'm tired and I scroll instead of spending time on a hobby.

Honestly I've been thinking a lot about the time I spend on things I enjoy, and it's not that Tumblr isn't a hobby but I preferred how I used it before; a record of all my interests. I liked it when I spent most of my time on my hobbies, and I just realised that it's been a while since I've done that, because poor mental health and extra work and studies... I feel like social media is the equivalent of eating a bag of crisps for dinner instead of a proper meal. Like sometimes you really don't have the energy and capability to do it, to cook something nice for yourself.

But I've learnt I gotta got that extra mile to cook a nice meal for myself ^_^ It gives me something to look forward to at the end of the day, or the beginning, it actually feels fun to do even if it feels like a big task to start, and it is good for me.

So, I wanna cook the meals again. I say I don't have time for things but I think if I added up the five minutes here and there on Tumblr and Instagram, I'd at least get an extra hour to have fun reading or painting or baking or sewing or something.

I guess it's a new mindset shift for me, I'm used to fitting work and studies in into every spare moment I can, that's how I operated for a lot of my life to make sure my academics were prioritised. Now I realise the importance of play and downtime, and I hadn't yet figured out that I need to prioritise it the same way. I'm going to try to now.

And going off of my earlier point, about how Tumblr isn't the same as journalling, well... something I really do miss about journalling is the physicality of it. The sitting with a cup of tea or coffee and writing in cursive in a pretty notebook ^_^ It feels so much more natural, and it's a keepsake, and most of all, private. Obviously I've... always had issues with privacy growing up, a warning my aunt used to give me was hah don't keep a journal in that house, it's probably not private.

That's a fear I still feel, but also... I have sketchbooks and journals and loads of things already and I mean, quite honestly you get to a certain age where no one cares. Not to say I am going to be careless in any way, Insha'Allah, I keep my phone very private anyway, same for my sketchbooks and personal collection boxes, but... I think I should.... give a little. I can give a little, I can give myself outlets. It's true that my current journal/sketchbook is mostly just out anyway and no one bats an eye.

So this brings me a little to the question; well, what is Tumblr for if you have a journal and sketchbook? I think I'll still use it, just not in the same capacity. Tumblr is for art posts, or odd or amusing one liners that pass through my mind everyday XD I actually save funny thoughts just for Tumblr or relatable thoughts. I also kinda want to return to my original thing, or what it was a couple of years ago; making fun cute posts about my interests, essays definitely, fanfic obviously, it doesn't need to be put together it can still be my eclectic digital commonplace notebook, but just... not a faux journal either.

Something I love to see are those moodboards on Tumblr and I've done a few myself but not as an actual.... board. I know there's some apps I can use on the iPad to make collages stuff and that makes me excited, so maybe I could start making posts like that (a la Polyvore, my first social media site, always missed :'))

I guess this might be my last journal-esque post in a while? Okay writing that made my anxiety do a thing (*shushes anxiety creature clinging to my brain*) IT IS NOT A LAST POST OF ANY KIND

But yeah I miss the artsy, literary vibes of curling up with my notebook on a cold day, so that'll be my new habit Insha'Allah. New, old habit. I feel like one thing Tumblr did do is train me to be okay with imperfect and messy, I feel like the reason my journal writing dropped off last time was because I was trying to force it so much. Over the past few years I've gotten so creative and loosened up a lot, so I'm hoping it'll show in my journal. Furthermore, the last time I was writing a journal, I really didn't have much to talk about because I was so 1. closed off and 2. limited in my hobbies and creative practices, I didn't have things to write about, I had just lost horse riding and I was consumed with studies only... I'm hoping there'll be a bigger difference now.

A part of me feels sort of nervous, I... only ever kept a journal during dark periods of my life too. I don't have the best associations to it, and even if I'm going through some rough times now, I don't really consider it a dark time... my anxiety brain is kind of overheating and going "but bad things!" and I know that's not rational. We should always think the best of what Allah has written for us, having good thoughts of Allah and having a more hopeful outlook on life is the best thing to do so I'll try to hold that in my heart more. If I find it's a bit too scary at first, that's fine I can just stick to prioritising my religion and health and hobbies, it'll follow naturally Insha'Allah i just need to not put pressure on myself.

I think I'll probably spend a lot less time online overall, just because I want to spend that time on all my other interests, not to mention I want to actually put time into making a proper online presence for myself as an artist.

Right now I wanna lie down and read for a chunk of time :D so I'll do that

[thingscanalwaysgetworse]

me, listening to the Inception soundtrack and loving it: fuck Hans Zimmer actually. Making me lose my mind over four notes. Asshole (affectionate)

[into-the-spider-verse]

List of Gundam’s I’ve watched so far, least favorite to favorite (warning, may be controversial? idk)

Stardust Memory - I’m going to be honest, I watched this one but did not super follow it.  Maybe I should try again, it just didn’t feel that interesting to me for some reason.  Like it was a short series, and I didn’t get attached enough to the characters in that short time, and it is only really setting up stuff from Zeta Gundam that I already knew about so I didn’t particularly care about it. idk

ZZ Gundam - I’m currently halfway through this one, and it is growing on me, but the front half is silly in a not fun way for me.  Feels aimed at a markedly younger audience then Zeta, which maybe it was but its losing me for that.  Also the lack of a dub means I can’t really work on Gunpla/play videogames while watching which makes it less engaging for my ADHD.  I think the reuse of Zeta suits with entirely new characters feels a bit like a cheap reboot.  My understanding is that like, Char and a lot of the other cast was meant to return but because Char’s Counterattack got approval all of the characters/actors got saved for that project, so we ended up with a new cast for ZZ, but I’m just not feeling them/their stories feel like childlike rehashes of previous stuff largely. Mobile Suit Gundam - The original gundam feels like the baseline.  I enjoyed it, I know conceptually it had more going on then just a children’s show about robots fighting, but it didn’t really hook me properly.  I ended up caring about its cast more when watching other stuff with them in it then when I watched MSG.  Wasn’t bad by any means, but just the absolute neutral of mecha experiences imo. 8th MS Team - I liked it.  Felt decidedly more adult then the mainline series, wasn’t my favorite cast of characters but it was fun and interesting at the same time.

Zeta Gundam - I found it more compelling then MSG on the individual character basis, but I think its overall message stumbled in a few places and dove headfirst into misogyny in others.  Despite that and some repetitive storylines with Cybernewtypes, I found I ended up liking the cast of Zeta a whole lot, and I definitely thought the look of the suits in Zeta were an improvement over the originals.  Zeta itself was not my favorite, but the MK II, Hyaku Shiki, and many of the other suits were super cool.

Gundam The Origin - Beautifully animated, wonderfully fleshes out the characters in a way that made them much more compelling to me then MSG did on its own.

Iron Blooded Orphans - Second series I watched, before any UC stuff.  It was great, the mechs were cool, the story was compelling and at the surface scratched a lot of itches I look for in sci-fi in general, in many ways more so then any other Gundam series.  The only reason it isn’t higher up is that the other series just connected with me more in ways I didn’t expect.

War in the Pocket - Loved it, a smaller, microscopic view of war and its horrors, while also having some cool robot action.  I loved the Alex, I def want its MG.

00 Gundam - It was the first gundam series I watched, and got me back into mecha after not really watching much anime at all since highschool.  The suits are cool, the characters and story arc compelling.  I do need to do a rewatch though, as my opinion of it may be more about how cool it was after not watching anything like it in awhile and how much was its actual quality, but I do think it was pretty great.

Gundam Thunderbolt - The perfect combination of flashy animation, compelling characters, and cool suits.  Full Armor Gundam is my favorite UC suit so far. Honorable Mention: Witch from Mercury I’m not even done with whats out yet, and half of it hasn’t been released, but I’m loving it so far.  The designs are amazing, the characters compelling, but there isn’t a ton I could say about it that I haven’t said about other series already.

[tau1tvec]

hi! i love your blog so much and all the games you play always look so fun through your pictures! i wanted to buy cyberpunk 2077 but i'm hesitant because i've heard mixed reviews on it and it's pretty expensive. i would like to know your thoughts on it if you don't mind sharing them since i really respect you as a gamer! <3

Oh wow, ty.

I'm kinda finicky about which games I play tho, mostly bc I'm limited on time these days, but also bc they are indeed way to expensive, esp in this economy.

So I find I tend to play games that are more... versatile? Like, I can get plenty of hours, and uses out of it I guess, and luckily Cyberpunk 2077 mostly scratches that itch, and by mostly I mean... eh, it has it's downsides, so I'll go through those below.

Quality

Well it's gorgeous, so it will require a pretty beefy computer to run it, but I was able to play it with a 1060 GTX pretty okay, using the AMD Fidelity thingy in the settings helped a lot with keeping it playable, without losing quality.

Otherwise, as for the quality of the game, and gameplay itself, it has improved drastically since it first launched. The bugs are pretty far and few for me now, even before I got my RTX card, and CDPR has done a pretty swell job adding a lot of the features fans asked for, which is cool.

I still highly suggest that if you do get it, get it on a PC... it's alright to play without Mods, but Mods in general just add much longer life to games, the modding community is also pretty active rn, and so many mods have truly managed to make it the game people wanted it to be from the start.

Gameplay

There are plenty of difficulty options, if this is a concern, and I'm pretty sure you can change the difficulty while playing. The gameplay is simple enough otherwise, as it's FPP at all times, even in cutscenes, so you never see your V, unless you're in Photomode, but there are mods out there to allow you to see your V in third person as well.

I personally enjoy using AMM and a camera mod.

Otherwise the gun combat is stellar, I rather enjoy it, and the stealth is pretty fun esp with the use of your hacking abilities. Learning it all was pretty easy... mostly, it took me some time to figure out how the skill tree worked, but much of it is certainly a lot more straightforward than CDPR's previous titles imo.

Melee combat on the other hand... is... meh, but first person and melee is kind of a tough concept for me to wrap my head around sometimes, lol.

Missions, are a give and take depending which mission it is. The main story missions are gr8, lots of cutscenes, lots of action, lots of twists, but the further you get down the ladder, they tend to get repetitive don't involve a lotta story, or cutscenes, and the characters you meet during them aren't all too memorable, unless you loot the reading material you run across while doing them. Leveling is based on how much you do combat, or hack, so... there are times where I felt like I was just killing random gang members for money and points, then emptying out my inventory... wash, rinse, repeat.

Now as for the other aspects of gameplay, the character creation is okay... like it isn't the best, you can't do much with your V beyond choosing from a set of presets Potato Head Style, but similar to The Sims 4 it's quite easy to make a very pretty V with little to no effort... though it's likely they'll still end up looking like everyone else's. For a more unique looking V however, mods would help.

The world isn't as interactive as it should be either, which in a way I can understand bc it's a pretty big, densely populated, and highly detailed open world, but idk... perhaps Bethesda has spoiled me.

I rather enjoy breaking into people's houses CDPR, tyvm.

Dialogue options are... limited, but it is a voiced protag... the voices are well done tho, and depending on the path you chose at the beginning ( street kid, corpo, etc. ), you will occasionally get options that differ from the others, so this does help a bit with replayability.

Replayability

Now speaking of replayability, I weirdly don't find it as replay friendly as other games, like Skyrim, I guess bc it's a bit more linear, and although you can change how you play, what you say, and how you build your character, the story kinda still pans out the same way really... it's also super short. The main story is anyway, I've literally just been spamming side missions with my Corpo V, bc I'm just not "emotionally" ready to play the final mission, but even though I felt I kinda paced myself, I still somehow got to the end mission waaayyy too quickly, and now I'm running outta side missions to do.

Some of them... luckily, are pretty interesting, and will string you through three or four more missions to complete their own little story, but idk... some felt a bit underwhelming in the end.

Romances

They're cute, but there could've been more. I've romanced Panam and Kerry, and I enjoyed both, and they offered some fun missions leading up to the romantic portion as well so it doesn't feel rushed... sadly not all of the romances are like this. They've got preferences as well, so depending on your V's gender and path, some you'll find are able to be approached, but might not be interested.

There are plenty of other really amazing relationships in the game that aren't romantic too, and that's honestly where this game truly excels. Despite what's going on, it's obvious the core focus of the story is more about the people you meet, and connections you make along the way, so it was really cute watching my Corpo V's interactions with Judy blossom into a very sweet brother/sister type relationship.

Final Word

Honestly if you enjoy roleplaying games, it's a pretty good one, you assume a role, you play it... it's a game ??? Sadly, again, due to the relatively linear story, it still doesn't feel as much like an RPG as it should, esp if your idea of an RPG is more Bethesda or BioWare, and less Final Fantasy.

Now if you've got an imagination however, and plenty of time to download mods it can absolutely scratch that roleplaying itch, but much if it will be in your head, if what the game offers isn't doing it for you.

My suggestion... wait until Black Friday rolls around, and get it on sale.

[bandsanitizer]

hi alison! because i am me i would like to hear about when facing the things we turn away from pls <3 molly

hi molly! @burstingsunrise 💖 thank you for asking! we love luke and wfttwtaf in this house

so as the title might imply, the idea was a “canon”-compliant fic centric on Luke and writing the album. it was an idea I started once the tracklists were out and the title “comedown” had me thinking about a lot of things in comparison to starting line and what we knew about the album at the time. Ideally, it would be track title per chapter that sort of centers on a moment in the process between Luke deciding to write a solo album and a little before release.

I had these little stanzas written to reflect possible ideas I had for each of the songs based solely on title with scenes of Luke sharing the idea with Sierra and then with his mom and then the band, but Luke kept releasing tracks and eventually the album and all the interviews, so I’ve been a little… hesistant. to finish and write it.

RPF has that fine line that different people draw different with respect to what’s fiction and what’s being pushy or w/e. while personally I would know the fic was just fiction and for fun and a “what-if” I do worry about perception of it being speculative or something and while I would never actually challenge what an artist themself is claiming their work to be, I am anxious of the idea of “this is how the titles and concepts inspire me” being misconstrued as “this is what I think Luke thinks” or something. idk. it’s difficult now that the actual songs and his interviews are out there. so idk if it’ll ever leave the WIP stage lol

but!! the first chapter “starting line” was based on actual lyrics and it still falls within the realm of unknown (at least to my knowledge) so I’m going to put it below if you’re interested in reading! warning for some discussion of covid.

“Take me alive.

Make me a liar.

Take me alive.

Don’t look away until it’s gone,

‘til it’s gone.”

The album doesn’t start off as an album. It barely starts off as a song. One might say it starts off with nothing.

With touring halted and postponed by the pandemic, there’s much less to do—much less to look forward to. Album promo dies out quickly and without a tour to practice and prepare for, all that’s left is restlessness.

There is need to create despite the exhaustion that’s caught up with him after Youngblood, two tours, and then a whole other album. A pull to the guitar and piano. An itch aching to be scratched. And yet, he finds nothing.

Luke’s messing around with what he can remember from a track off of their debut album when the feeling settles in. It’s his fingers hesitating for a piece of a second before landing on a chord that comes out discordant. It’s the way the the sound vibrates through the air, shifting everything off by mere atoms and, yet, he can feel it all.

That forgetting the chord in a song is just shy of forgetting a song—almost is, really, given repetition makes the music. And it’s forgetting a song that’s forgetting moments, a reminder ringing through the air that he is no longer who he was then—if he could even remember who that was.

Placing the guitar softly on the stand beside him, Luke listens as the last of the chord echoes through his living room. Imagines particles displaced—sent off in directions and speeds unexpected, wondering how they got to where they are now.

When the silence hits, he squeeze the armrests of his chair for a moment. Like a delayed reaction, the sound through the air is a thought travelling from the tips of his fingers through the tension in his arms and up the rise of his shoulders into a shuddered exhale.

Scrambling for the pen and notebook on the coffee table, “I think I missed the gun at the starting line,” appears in scratchy black ink and the room is no longer shifted by an atom’s width, but distances only measured in time.

So he stares and stares at the thought on canary paper, as if Luke could glare it into life. And he knows, he knows pages of verses can become nothing. He knows six minutes of melodies can simply be noise. He knows not every concept is the seed of an idea to grow. But this?

Luke can feel something. He’s just not sure what it is.