#let’s thank bht for one thing and one thing only x

[xndamilton]

i love you so much, cannot believe we went a year of dislike before finding out we are basically the same person. even now i can still think of moments that you haven’t wrote here 💗

💌

sophie my wee darling, u associate you with being an impatient bitch, xnda, the phoenix by fob and africa by toto, "technology? get rid of it", popcorn, being funny on accident, parking like a maniac, paper straws and champagne, the c word iykyk, mcdonalds trips, taking the absolute piss when we should be doing work, jojo siwa, subway sandwiches, recreating iconic vines, and teen wolf <333

send me a 💌 and i'll tell you something i associate with you

[raggedy-dxctor]

izzy hands soulmate au headcanons

soulmate au where a person cannot see any colour until they meet eyes with their soulmate, their world is dull monochrome until the moment they meet.

pairing(s): izzy hands x gn!reader + stede x edward

warnings: short-ish? and very cliche :], izzy is lovesick

honestly? he really doesnt give a fuck about not being able to see colour. there are times where he's curious about the colour of the sea or the sky, bit other than that he really doesn't care

at first I feel like he'd be totally against the idea of a soulmate. the idea that he would have to live his entire life setting up boundaries just for one personxto come and break then down, bringing a large splash of colour and banishing the monochrome canvas of his future, just seemed stupid to him. but as life progressed he found himself yearning for that one person that his soul was intertwined with

"why would i want to let my walls down for some stupid fuckin' stranger tjat ive never seen before in my life?! what're they supposed to do? fix everything?-"

like he sees edward and stede's love and just yearns for something like it, he wants someone that will love him until the ends of the earth. and honestly? above all he just wants to feel safe, he wants someone he can rely on, he wants someone that will hold him in their arms for as long as he needs

when he meets eyes with you my guy almost faints. he has to steady himself on the beam of the ship and beauty hues erupt all around him, bht most off all he can't take his eyes off you. the collur of your eyes is so beautiful that he just can't look away,'he's absolutely entranced

"i im i. isrea- iz- iszy hands" he sticks his hand out and clears his throat as his face turns bright red. his panic is immediately set to rest when you chuckle and gently grasp his hand, shaking it. bomys points if you pull him closer yo you and intertwine your fingers, dude would be absolutely smitten. bonus bonus points if you do something flirty like kiss his hand while not breaking eye contact or immediately compliment his attractiveness.

"i see the universe chose well for me" and he's just stood there, jaw hung open, absolutely speechless. he regains his composure after a moment and brushes your hair back, out of you face and just gently smiles at you

he's absolutely head over heels for you after that like. he's always just so euphoric when he's with you, pointing out all the colours lf the ocean and the birds and thanking you for bringing it into his life, when you do the exact same back, with probably more affection, he almost collapses

starts wearing rings with gems the colour of your eyes sp ue cam always ne reminded of them and the first colour he aaw in the moment the two of you caught eyes, he gets you one matching his eye colour too if you ask for one

sometimes he just suts by himself and watches the sunset, smiling slightly to himself as your laugh dchoes through his head

the comfortable silences with izzy are the best because he'll just sneak his hand into yours and lean against your shlulder, sighing contendedly as the only sound that you can hear is the waves gently crashing against the ship

being alone with izzy is the greatest because sometimes he nust stares at you lovingly, reaching a hand out to stroke your cheek, when you ask what he's thinking about he'll just gently smile and lean in, placing a kiss on your lips. "you"

and the truth was, you did fix things. ever since izzy found you he has been a better person, he's not bitter, cruel or harsh to the crew anymore, in factzn much to their surprised discomfort and distrust, he's given them quite a few days off to relax

"not that im not appreciative izzy, i reasally am, but cani ask why the change all the sudden? why're you sooo.... different?" "love does that to a person i guess" he just mutters, stroking the top of you hand with a cheeky grin on his face

[nightcoremoon]

looking for input on something

so currently in one of the fantasy series I'm writing the first installment of, I kind of noticed something... queer

so 7 of the characters are pyromancers and I accidentally made all of them gay. except one. we have:

-bisexual disaster dad, O

-steamship pilot lesbian, K

-florist panro ace, P

-armor knight lesbian, A

-royal guard twink, T

-a moth man, S

-the token straight, L

...

O is the kind of guy who encounters orphan kids and immediately adopts them-kinda like Bruce Wayne- because of a tragic backstory that killed his family- again, like Bruce Wayne- and he's bi but doesn't really think too much about romance- oh oops he's just Batman. and he is a pyromancer, but only in one arm since the other arm is prosthetic looking like sekiro.

K and P are sisters, major red oni blue oni but their palettes are more orange and green, and live a frugal life alone after losing their parents. K is soft femme awkward lesbean while P is a pan ace social butterfly. they're pyromancers.

A is the "oh shit we're being invaded" button, deployed via zeppelin airdrop with a fuckhuge flame claymore and emerald green armor; like if flame swordsman and gearfried the iron knight had a baby. she has an Eowyn reveal but it's when she kisses her wife. also she's trans. the sword's fire is powered by pyromancy.

T runs fast and leaves walls of fire behind him. he exists because he's part of a group whose names are based on the 8 horses of Helios so since he was Phlegon he... has fire magic. I coincidentally made him gay because why not.

S is not mothman, he is a moth man. he's an anthropomorphic man sized moth man from a race of anthropomorphic man sized moth men. but with that being said since mothman is an LGBT icon I decided to make him LGBT, which stands for Let's Get Bright Things. but also he has a husband. and he can throw fireballs. this is because that would be very fucking cool.

L is a merchant's daughter who has a strong affinity for dragons and it eventually gives her fire magic and the ability to

all of these were completely coincidental means of settling on their sexuality. them also all using fire magic and also being the only ones who use fire magic I am considering...

what if I used fire magic as an allegory for gay?

like, I'm not gonna make some huge political "being gay is okay" big deal about it because homophobia never existed in this universe so that's normal n shit like it is now without all of the fuckin post-british-colonialism degens. it's just a fact of life that some people are gay oh well who cares. which is i guess itself a political statement in this modern hellscape, you can't take five steps or say racism is bad without some boomer getting mad and crying because they can't be evil misogynists without getting criticized anymore. but I'm not gonna have an extensive preachy segment because we don't want that, we want dame archer and the pride knights fighting eldritch horrors. but but BUT!

what if I... sneak in some social commentary? like the only good part of x men 3, which used bobby telling his parents about his ice powers as a euphemism for coming out of the closet, except instead of being good in screenplay but clunky in execution and also brian singer being yucky, it's actually good because I wrote it? it's conceited to say that, yes, but I'm confident in my abilities. I already have there being distaste for magic users sorta like with korra's equalists and a segment where O takes a ride on K's air ship (the city is built in the side of a crack in a cliff and they use hot air zeppelins as public transport and pyromancers use their fire to work the hot air stuff) and she's all nervous because he's comin from the antimagic part of town but he sees that she's kinda uncomfy so he starts a fire and uses it to light his pipe and she kinda relaxes because oh thank god he's just like me, which as I was looking over that I was like. well shit that might as well be allegory for gay especially since I thought of mckellen's interview where he was nervous about telling this cab driver he was gay bht the dude was like "oh cool me too". and that prompted me to look at the rest of the pyromancers before i wrote this.

now obviously I know that the answer is most likely going to be a resounding, oh that may be cool if you somehow manage to not fuck it up. that's me using logic and common sense. but. at the same time, things like flaming and flamer being used as insults towards pyromancers is a natural consequence, and it will not end well. and there may even be a group of people who find it offensive to use the allegory, and even saying that it trivializes the struggles that gay people have gone through to just reskin it with something fantastical like magic. or whatever. because at this point I'm not sure what is or is not offensive anymore since 12 year olds will just say random shit on twitter and everyone goes along with whatever dumb shit they have to say for 5 minutes before moving onto the next thing to send death threats to people over. so I'm only asking this on the off chance that this actually is offensive in some way that I've not thought about because I genuinely want to seek out other people's perspectives on this.

TL;DR

would it be cool if I used the social struggles of those who use fire magic in a fantasy novel as an allegory for gay people in the real world,

or would that be dumb and stupid and harmful and bad?

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 8th December 2019

Top 10

This is a pretty easy week for me, thankfully, as not much has changed... well, apart from pretty much everything... except the top four, of course. “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I is at its tenth consecutive week at #1.

At number-two, we have “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi steady at the runner-up spot.

Similarly non-moving off of the debut at number-three is “Own It” by Stormzy featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy. I’d say this could make a viable play for #1 in two weeks with the album release but I have my qualms, mostly because... well, you’ll see.

“Don’t Start Now” by Dua Lipa has not moved at number-four.

Arizona Zervas keeps climbing with “ROXANNE” up two spaces to number-five. As much as I hate to say it, this could clinch the top spot in the foreseeable future.

Billie Eilish is only slowly pushing herself down the chart, with “everything i wanted” down a spot to number-six.

“Memories” byhabm Maorith 5n is aipneone s;aceygw to nnujmberse0even bht who the hell cares

Now here’s the big story: “All I Want for Christmas is You”, the 1994 classic by Mariah Carey, straight off of its re-entry in the Top 40 last week, is up a whopping 26 spaces, probably the largest increase we’ve seen in months. It’s getting the #1, I’m guaranteeing it, in both the UK and US. It has virtually no competition. It’s getting there.

“South of the Border” by Ed Sheeran featuring Camila Cabello and Cardi B isn’t moving at number-nine.

At #10, we have “Heartless” by the Weeknd, a debut in the top 10 that I honestly expected to be higher, but nonetheless, it’s here and I’ll talk more about it later, but it’s the Weeknd’s 21st UK Top 40 hit and his eighth top 10.

Climbers

As I expected, there are no climbers to speak of here. You’ll see why.

Fallers

Well, here’s our first of three big lists to cover in this episode, as we have 14 fallers within the Top 40. Alright, let’s blast through them all: “Bruises” by Lewis Capaldi and “Down Like That” by KSI with Rick Ross, Lil Baby and S-X, both in the top 10 last week, are down five and seven spaces respectively to #11 and #17. “Good as Hell” by Lizzo isn’t far off, down seven spots to #19, and “Netflix & Chill” by Fredo is down five positions to #24... You know what, I’m typing too many words and too little numbers, here we go: “Turn Me On” by Riton, Oliver Heldens and Vula is down eight to #25, “Professor X” by Dave is down five to #27, “Must Be” by J Hus is down eight to #28, “Lights Up” by Harry Styles is down 14 to #29, “HIGHEST IN THE ROOM” by Travis Scott is down seven to #30 and “Ride It” by Regard featuring Jay Sean is down six to #31 – that’s five consecutive fallers. “Someone You Loved” by Lewis Capaldi is down eight to #34, “New Dior” by DigDat and D-Block Europe is down nine to #35 off of the debut last week, “Don’t Rush” by Young T & Bugsey with Headie One is down eight to #37, and finally, “Nice to Meet Ya” by Niall Horan is at #38, down 16 spaces from last week. The sad thing is that I think most if not all of these songs, excluding “Bruises” and “Down Like That”, have been hit by the Christmas explosion and prematurely lost their chart runs, which is kind of sad – I don’t see these tracks rebounding anytime soon.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Now for our second list of 12 drop-outs, which is only slightly less than the last list. Don’t worry, these lists do get increasingly smaller... or decreasingly bigger, however you want to phrase it. Out from #27 is “Orphans” by Coldplay, “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles is out from #28 (It’ll rebound due to the album release in the next two weeks), “God is a Dancer” by Tiesto and Mabel is out from #30, “Loyal” by PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake is out from #31, “Liar” by Camila Cabello is out from #32 (It’ll rebound next week if nothing goes awry, although she has suffered a serious sophomore slump), “Gangsta” by Darkoo and One Acen is out from #33, “French Kisses” by ZieZie and Aitch is out off of the debut from #34, “Circles” by Post Malone is finally out from #37 and “Better Half of Me” by Tom Walker is out from #38. I don’t see many of these rebounding, although the releases of sophomore albums Fine Line and Romance could seriously help out Harry and Camila, and “Gangsta” and “French Kisses” seem like they could rise later on.

Edit: I forgot to note that “Can’t Fight This Feeling” by Bastille and the London Contemporary Orchestra is out from #39.

IT’S CHRISTMAS INNIT

Now for our final list, and our shortest, with only seven entries, although I will also recite the year they were produced just to show how insane these returns are every year. “Step into Christmas” by Elton John, from 1973, is back at #39, “Santa Tell Me” by Ariana Grande, from 2014, is back at #33, “It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas” by Michael Bublé, from 2011, is back at #32, “Merry Christmas Everyone” by Shakin’ Stevens, from 1985, is back at #26, “Do They Know it’s Christmas?” by Band Aid, from 1984, is back at #23, “Fairytale of New York” by The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl, from 1987, is back at #22, and “Last Christmas” by Wham!, also from 1984, is back at #13. Rest in peace to George Michael (Who actually contributed to two songs here), Kirsty MacColl and Rick Parfitt.

NEW ARRIVALS

#40 – “Falling” – Trevor Daniel

Produced by KC Supreme, Taz Taylor and Charlie Handsome – Peaked at #3 in Latvia and #41 in the US

I have no introduction for this. It’s just one of these TikTok songs and it’s produced by the new crop of trap-rap Internet Money-type guys. I don’t care for Lil Tecca or most of the crop surrounding him, so I doubt I’ll like this. This is Trevor Daniel’s first UK Top 40 hit and yeah, surprise, surprise, it’s not great. The bland guitar pick-up is good enough, but Trevor Daniel cannot sing and makes no effort to convince you that he can. The distorted sub-bass is just odd and honestly way too menacing and dark for a break-up song that paints itself not as a kiss-off, but more like a “Thank God I found someone else” song, so why isn’t this happier? The trap percussion is an FL Studio loop, and his delivery and cadence is mopey and pathetic. Everything here just feels painfully amateur, almost offensively so. This might be a lot worse than I’m giving off with my more apathetic tone here, but this is underdeveloped with a singular verse that somehow stretches out to nearly three minutes due to an overlong chorus. Yeah, no, I can’t stand this. Next.

#14 – “River” – Ellie Goulding

We’ve seen this before with Katy Perry’s “Cozy Little Christmas” last year. A week before the real Christmas kick-in, a new, mediocre Christmas-related song enters for the first time at an alarmingly high position by an increasingly irrelevant female pop star, that is exclusive to Amazon music for no other reason other than to bump sales and chart success, falsely implying that this song is successful. In the r/popheads thread about this chart, people upvoted a comment saying they didn’t even know Ellie Goulding had released anything – and I didn’t either, because it’s not on Spotify, Apple or even freaking TIDAL. It’s just on Amazon music, which is so odd to me but that is why I don’t have production info. No-one on Genius has bothered to download Goulding’s cover of a 1971 Joni Mitchell deep cut (I’m sure they just copy-pasted the original lyrics) to check the songwriting credits. The Wikipedia page for the song doesn’t have a separate section for Goulding’s version, and they did for the John Lewis advert rendition of “Can’t Fight This Feeling” that Bastille made with the London Contemporary Orchestra, a song that I forgot to even note myself until I realised it dropped out this week. In fact, I am protesting this song’s chart placement. Okay, that’s a bit far, but I’m not reviewing it, even if I could easily take a peep at a leaked YouTube re-upload. If it’s not on Spotify, it’s not on REVIEWING THE CHARTS.

#12 – “Blinding Lights” – The Weeknd

Produced by The Weeknd, Max Martin and Oscar Holter – Peaked at #3 in Lithuania and #11 in the US

It’s the Weeknd’s 22nd UK Top 40 hit: the double A-side with “Heartless” was released oddly, with “Blinding Lights” here being released days after and about a week after, was finally accompanied by a music video that’s really just an advertisement for Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Neither single got to experience their best possible tracking week in full, but nonetheless, both are still pretty high because it’s the Weeknd, and I’m actually somewhat excited for this. I’ve heard that it interpolates A-ha’s cheesy 80s synthpop classic “Take on Me”, and it wouldn’t be the first rendition I’ve heard of the song in 2019. That would be Weezer’s hilarious cover on both the Jimmy Fallon show (Where they played it with kids’ toys) and their “Teal Album”. Sorry, I bring Weezer up too much. Is the song good? Hell, yes. It starts with an overwhelming wave of ominous distortion before retro 80s synths quickly come in and an iconic, reverb-heavy drum pattern comes in that sounds awfully familiar – it’s probably also from “Take on Me”. The synth riff, as typical with 1980s synthpop, is hilariously grandiose and egregious, but the Weeknd kills it here as well, not letting the instrumental or even the freaking bongos playing during the verse shine over him or put him off. He blends in with the airy synth painting in the chorus, and it is gorgeous, it really is. I wish this was a tad catchier but that definitely will be a possibility for it to grow on me later on (Which hopefully it does, it’s already perfectly qualified for my best of 2020 list). The Weeknd’s vocals on the bridge are oddly powerful, and that last moment in the penultimate chorus where there is this epic beeping synth that rises until the synth riff drops once again is awesome. The pre-chorus is probably my favourite part, though, especially when the synths cut out for it to just be the Weeknd over the drums, right before the chorus kicks in. I love this so much, unexpectedly so, and I’m so glad it charted so high. I hope it survives the Christmas songs, though.

#10 – “Heartless” – The Weeknd

Produced by The Weeknd, Metro Boomin, Dre Moon and Illangelo – Peaked at #1 in the US

If “Blinding Lights” was the “pop” single, this is the “R&B” single. It’s very much like the Weeknd to release two singles harboured towards two different demographics and two different radio formats, and for both of them to be smash hits, although dropping them at the same time is a tad overwhelming. I can skip the pre-amble as I’ve already done that at the start of the episode, so does it deserve its (Likely single) chart-topping week on the Billboard Hot 100? Well, yeah, I’d say so definitely, this is pretty cool, although not nearly as good as “Blinding Lights” or really any of his songs by now. This really is only decent-tier Weeknd but, man, this guy’s too good. Metro Boomin is one of my favourite hip-hop producers, and he definitely makes his presence known here, with the watery synths in the intro being abruptly drowned out by massive 808 bass and a skittering trap pattern, as well as the Weeknd whispering “Sheesh” for whatever reason. Weeknd uses a very typical delivery for him here, one I’ve heard on his other massive #1 hits, “The Hills” and “Starboy”, but he still sounds charismatic as all hell, and rides the beat incredibly well, especially when those drum hits come in before pounding back into the groovy trap beat. Weeknd plays more into his cocaine-addict sex god persona here, but is pretty thorough and honestly kind of funny here (Despite sounding checked-out in the chorus’ whiny falsetto), as he’s “running through the [women] like a dog pound” and getting so much of said [women] that it’s falling out of his pockets... although he definitely doesn’t just glamorise the sour rockstar lifestyle, in fact he predicts himself to be jumping the shark in seven years (Or, alternatively, says he has already jumped the shark within his seven-year-long career). On both of these songs, however, I do feel that while they don’t run too long, they don’t really have that effective of a climax, even if both the final choruses are epic (This one going for a distorted, cluttered vocal samples to build up the dark sonic atmosphere replacing a plundering bass), and the bridges are kind of unnecessary. I’m not complaining that these songs exist though, they’re both pretty good at least. Welcome back, Abel, we missed you.

Conclusion

Best of the Week is going to the Weeknd for both “Heartless” and ESPECIALLY “Blinding Lights”, and Worst of the Week goes to Trevor Daniel for “Falling”. We’ll see next week a large amount of Christmas nonsense coming in once again, as well as the impacts of a certain unfortunate circumstance I’ve said my peace on with Twitter @cactusinthebank, which you can follow for more musical ramblings. See you next week.