#so please submit all the quotes and lyrics you can think of!

[mechsbrackets]

Hello and welcome to the Best Mechanisms Quote/Line Bracket!

Linked at the bottom of this post is the form where you can nominate quotes and lyrics you want to see included in this bracket. It'll be open for a week, and when that week is over I’ll begin the actual bracket with polls, here on Tumblr.

Here are the rules for nominations. They’re in the form, but I’ll put them in the post too:

You can nominate both quotes and song lyrics. For the purposes of this form I'm just gonna use quote as the general term, but both are completely acceptable nominees!

You can nominate as many/few quotes as you want, but please, only nominate each quote once!

Make sure quotes are no longer than 4 lines please! 4 and under is ok, but anything above will be shortened.

Please include the source of the quote - whether it be person or song! The ideal format is "Quote." - Person, but honestly just make it understandable and it'll be fine.

The most nominated quotes will be the ones who get to be in our bracket and battle it out to see what the best quote truly is.

Notes:

This is going to be a 32 single elimination bracket again! As always, please share this with your friends so we can get a nice large pool of competitors!

This form will be open from Sunday April 23rd to Thursday June 1st!

My inbox is open, so if you have any questions or want to know how your favorite is doing, feel free to shoot me an ask!

And now, finally, the link:

https://forms.gle/wy1Snm6x3RsrhyMXA

Go forth and nominate!

[hotvintagepoll]

Propaganda

Harry Belafonte (Carmen Jones, Island in the Sun)—one of my favorite things in the world when I'm sad is kicking back and listening to him and Danny Kaye singing "Hava Nagila" together. Or who can forget this man singing the Banana Boat song with the Muppets?? immensely talented, a powerful fighter for civil rights and humanitarian causes his whole life, if you have any remaining doubts PLEASE look at the following pics [clips and pics attached below]

Buster Keaton (The General, The Navigator, Sherlock Jr.)—For me Buster’s hotness comes not just from his physical beauty but in the constant surprise and contradictions of the man, he’s simultaneously delicate/rough, feminine/masculine, confident/vulnerable, 5foot5 pretty face with an unexpectedly deep voice, at first glance you think oh he’s a cute little thing and then he takes his top off and it’s Superman abs underneath. He was intensely shy in social situations but had no hesitation in jumping off the top of a building. He famously never smiled on screen* but he exudes warmth and joy and laughter. He created some of the most beautiful, intelligent movies ever made but refused to acknowledge his own genius and talent as an artist, instead maintaining that all he wanted to do was make people laugh. If he was here in reality competing in this poll he would give it 100% but he would not be at all bothered if he didn’t win. And that’s why he’s the hottest vintage man. A vote for Buster is a vote for all that is good and decent in the world 💕 (*he did smile on camera occasionally despite his own assertions to the contrary 😄)

This is round 4 of the bracket. All other polls in this bracket can be found here. Please reblog with further support of your beloved hot sexy vintage man.

[additional propaganda submitted under the cut.]

Buster Keaton propaganda:

"Just look at his freaking face...."

This entire Tumblr page was submitted

This post

This video

"And for those who have never heard it, here’s his lovely voice in action: link"

Submitted: Link to Buster Keaton car stunts

Submitted: BK fancam

Submitted: quotes about BK video compilation

"Ripped body, gorgeous unique face, beautiful personality too"

Harry Belafonte propaganda:

"Now let me say this about the songs of the Caribbean - almost all black music is deeply rooted in metaphor. The only way that we could speak to the pain and anguish of our experiences was often through how we codified our stories in the songs that we sang. And when I sing the 'Banana Boat Song,' the song is a work song. It's about men who sweat all day long, and they are underpaid, and they're begging the tallyman to come and give them an honest count - counting the bananas that I've picked, so I can be paid. And sometimes, when they couldn't get money, they'll give them a drink of rum. There's a lyric in the song that says, 'Work all night on a drink of rum.' People sing and delight and dance and love it, but they don't really understand unless they study the song that they're singing a work song, a song of rebellion." -Harry Belafonte

[inventors-fair]

Lyrical Miracles

What's the word? Several words. Maybe I've been a little down on outside sources in MTG as of late, but there are opportunities to use one's love for source material as inspiration. Inspiration leads to creativity, and with however many songs are out in the world, I hope there's a lot to be inspired by this week. I'm keeping the preamble short because honestly—I've never designed a card in the way I'm about to challenge y'all with. Whatever you come up with is going to be uniquely yours. That also means you're going to have to find a strong basis for your presentation! So—

Design a card that uses a song lyric of your choice in either its name or flavor text.

When submitting, please tell me what song it is! Part of this is curiosity, and part is just verification that we're quoting correctly. It'll be tempting to change the lyrics to fit grammar or context, but I want you to adhere to the exact words.

It doesn't matter where you get the lyric from as long as it's from a song that someone would be able to look up and listen to. If you yourself are a songwriter, that's a wonderful vocation; I'm also gonna ask that you use a song that you yourself did not write this week as an additional challenge. Honestly this is a really niche requirement unless Bob Dylan has a secret Magic-themed Tumblr or whatever.

Obviously, you don't have to use a whole line if it goes too far beyond the name bar or stretches the FT box. As long as it's long enough to be recognizable.

If it helps the world of the card, you can attribute the quote in flavor text to a Magic character and/or the subject in the card, etc.

Sometimes song titles are also in the lyrics, that's understandable. If you're going to choose a quote that includes the song title, I wanna stress: I don't want to see card names that are just song titles, 'cause that's a whole different contest that I think we've also done before and defeats the purpose of this being its own thing. Yknow?

Branch out! This one's not a requirement, but these cards don't have to be music-themed at all. I use the Prismari campus just 'cause that one happens to hit the inspirational theme. Let the lyrics guide you towards feeling, and put that feeling towards a card!

Most importantly: have fun <3 I think we've done this one before but it's been a long time and I don't...think it was me running it? Eh, either way, I'm a poet, so let's go nuts.

A winning card will be an impactful and/or transformative work that uses the flavor text in ways that elevate the emotions, situation and context of the work at hand.

I'm looking to see cards that either lean heavily into the heart of a song lyric or skillfully subvert the lyric to emphasize a card's presentation.

@abelzumi

Submitters, keep on >> SUBMITTING The Discord, keep on >> DISCORDING

P.S. If you're on Mobile and have trouble submitting, use the askbox instead! It should work just as well.

[barrenclan]

ok ONE more music ask bc i think this is the third one i’ve submitted for the new issue so far:

so i went back & read issue 37 while listening to “drunk walk home” by mitski (both the original and the live at palisades version), timing my reading with the listening so that certain panels & passages would line up with the right points in the song, and dear. fucking. LORD. i wanna make a rainhaze pmv with this so badly. the only question is which version of the song to use

so the best way i can explain it:

*drumbeat intro* - the title page

“i will retire to the salton sea/at the age of 23” - that comic panel at the beginning showing how much he changed

“for i’ve started to learn i may never be free/but though I may never be free/fuck you and your money/i’m tired of your money” - idk exactly how it’d line up with the issue but something something him being influenced by defiance & ranger, something something “you can love someone and still hate/hurt them”

*guitar picks up* - the canine realization and/or slug’s reaction to the murder reveal. some combination of the two.

“and i sit on the curb ‘cause it’s the prettiest night/with no one else in sight/don’t you know i wore this dress for you/these killer heels for you” - rain gets all defensive & tries to justify the murder with the sleep thing & the hypocrisy

“see the dark, it moves/with every breath of the breeze” (+ the buildup before the guitar solo) - “convince them…okay”

*guitar solo* - slug attacks him, big fight scene

and of course the screaming at the end correlates to him screaming as he’s gutted like a baked potato

Nice!! I always love how much thought you put into song choices.

As a Johnny Cash enjoyer I must say I do prefer his cover but of course I love Nine Inch Nails too. More dark and gritty does fit Rainhaze better.

I've never actually listened to or seen Repo, but it does seem like something that would be up my alley. It does fit him too, driving in what he's done and forcing him to remember killing Asphodelpaw.

I remember every dying whisper Every desperate murmur I remember when I gaze upon her She looks just like you I remember, I remember

I like this from Rainhaze's perspective, like he's constantly trying to guess what Ranger wants from him, how much he has to hurt himself to please Ranger.

The waves suck you in then you drown If like, you'd just stay down with me I'll swim down with you Is that what you want?

You hang the anchors over my neck (Saw your end) I liked it at first but the more you laughed The crazier I became

Haha aww, Pinepaw.

I lost some weight from anxious pacing talking on the telephone If I look cool I'm fooling you At any point you can assume My mind's computing every path that screws up what I wanna do

The things that I can't shoulder well I pass onto my older self And hope I learn to cope so I don't end up broke or overwhelmed 'Cause vocally, I'm not the best

Poinsettia is an interesting pull, but I can see it. I hate to say Rainhaze once again but yknow... kinda Rainhaze...

The feelings of regret And now I'm running to forget But know, the consequence of imagination's fear I met a man downtown the other day With ruby eyes that took my life away

Thе antidote we look so hard to find To purge yourself of fear, relax your mind But heaven only knows Where my mind leads, the feeling grows

Someone has actually recently made an incredible animatic set to Ptolemaea, actually! You can see it here.

That's alright, I usually do all the lyric quoting!

Pick up another cigarette Smoke it now and soon you'll forget If only your silver lining had better timing 'Cause there's no crown for one on the way down

Your dull blade and your dusty attire Can bring back all those burning desires So go back to the pit or roll over

I'd love to see the animation if you ever make it! It does have big synergy with "The Death of BarrenClan" event.

Heed the sirens, take shelter, my lover Flee the fire that devours But the sight held me fixed like a bayonet against my throat

It was a pale white horse With a crooked smile And I knew it was my time

Not a song in the world that doesn't make me think of Rainhaze... anyways, I always like a good Hoosiers song.

Everything you love turns to dust, You'd make more of it but you felt rushed By all that's periphery, You held tight, but on the contrary

Don't look your life passed you by, 'Cause you're too attached to it, Don't look your life passed you by, 'Cause you're too attached to it

[be-compromised]

Mini Promptathon: 2012 Re-edition!

What is this? It’s like the big summer promptathon, only a shorter version - a fun, no-pressure event where you can post zero to as many prompts as you like, zero to as many fills as you like, and join in the squee or just quietly enjoy the fun.

It's taking place here on dreamwidth. You don't need a dreamwidth account (or to be part of our community) to play - just please include an online handle of some kind in anon comments so we know who you are and can credit you for your prompts and fills!

We’re a Clintasha (Clint Barton/Natasha Romanoff) community that welcomes ALL THINGS MARVEL. We’d like Clint and/or Natasha to show up in prompt fills somewhere, but what that means is up to you - individually or as friends, lovers, spouses, partners, gen fic, ANYTHING. Yes, that means we also welcome other characters and pairings (and threesomes or moresomes.)

This year’s, by discord vote, the theme is 2012 Re-edition! To set the scene: the year is 2012. Avengers has recently been released, ending MCU Phase One (Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America: The First Avenger). Those of us who didn’t get the shawarma after credits scene in our countries are frantically searching for it online. We can quote the Clintasha scenes off by heart. Fandom is going mad for the Avengers living in the Tower together or going on road trips. And if you want more marvel characters? Well, that's what comics are for. Helped by Matt Fraction and David Aja, who have just started their Hawkeye comic (issues 1-6 were released in 2012). Outside of Marvel, fuel is added to the fandom with the release of The Bourne Legacy and a Jeremy Renner photoshoot for Empire involving ropes. (If you want a blast from the past or prompt ideas: original 2012 promptathon post with masterlist links and associated posts.)

TIMELINE:

NOW: the clock has been wound back to 2012, prompting has begun! 12 February: open for fills! (You can also keep prompthing.) MIDIGHT 12 March: promptathon ends, both fills and prompts, at midnight whatever your timezone. (A masterlist of fills will be posted after.)

If you too would like to party like it’s 2012, please read on for how to leave prompts and fills, and a few rules to make sure everyone has a fun time.

LEAVING PROMPTS

Please post each prompt in a separate comment on the dreamdwidth post.

Prompts can be anything – simple or elaborate, words or pictures, songs or poems, lyrics or phrases, anything that could inspire a fanwork. Use your imagination. Go wild! You can also re-use prompts from previous events, whether they were filled or not.  

You can leave as many prompts as you want. We’re serious. Keep coming back. We want as many prompts as we can possibly get.

In keeping with the theme, aim to prompt like it’s 2012. As in as if nothing MCU or Marvel etc that was created after 2012 exists. (No harm, no foul for any mistakes! Any prompts and fills that contain content post-2012 just means you’ve created an alternate timeline.)

SUBMITTING FILLS

Respond by commenting in a reply to the prompt that you are filling.

The subject line of your comment should be: FILL: title, rating.

The content of your comment should start with: > Title > Rating (ie film ratings or AO3 style ratings) > Any warnings OR you can say ‘choose not to warn’ (think about the AO3 warnings or take a look at our comm guidance if you’re stuck)

You can then post your entire fanwork in the comment if it’s short enough OR you can post your fanwork anywhere else on the internet and post a link to it in your comment.

Following these guidelines 1) makes it easier for people to find your fills during the event as a one-stop shop, and know what they’re clicking on and 2) makes it a LOT easier for your mods to create a masterlist at the end, without missing any of your fills. Thank you!

Consider including a teaser to catch people’s attention! If you’re posting on AO3, we have a ‘Community: be_compromised’ tag. If you’re posting on tumblr, let us know and we’ll reblog on the be_compromised tumblr. We want people to be able to find and appreciate your fills <3

There’s no length requirement on fanworks submitted. You can create drabbles or epics, vids, art, fanmixes, anything at all; it’s just all about getting creative! Fills do not have to be complete or completed during the promptathon. You can fill as many prompts as you want, and prompts can be filled multiple times by whoever wants to fill them. Zero pressure; all fun.

In keeping with the theme, aim to fill prompt like it’s 2012. As in as if nothing MCU or Marvel etc that was created after 2012 exists. (No harm, no foul for any mistakes! Any prompts and fills that contain content post-2012 just means you’ve created an alternate timeline.)

SQUEE

We have a generic thread for comments, questions, and chat as the first comment thread on the dreamwidth post. We welcome chatting and cheerleading in replies to prompts and fills. (This is where posting each prompt separately and labelling the subject line of fills helps to keep things organised.) We also have a be_compromised discord server for all kinds of discussion if you prefer a chatroom-style space. (Although as above, all prompts and fills will be in this post as a one-stop shop.)

Commenting, cheerleading, and enthusiasm is a huge part of fandom and you are very welcome to join in! Yes, even if you don’t post any prompts or fills.

GENERAL RULES

Our Community Rules apply to this event. To summarise: > No character or ship bashing. This is a positive fandom space. > No plagiarism or use of AI.  > Please no RPF (Real Person Fanfiction) or any gossip/speculation about actors’ off-screen non-work lives, as the primary focus of this community is fictional characters. > Please including a rating for fanworks and a warning OR choose not to warn. > Be kind and have fun!

If you have any questions about anything please feel free to ask! The easiest way is to use the ‘Questions / Comments / Squee’ thread, which is in the first comment to this post, or ask on the Discord server. Your mods are @inkvoices, @cloud--atlas aka franztastisch, and @quidnunc-life aka gsparkle.

Welcome back to 2012. We’re bringing the party to you!

[vitaminseetarot]

Aquarius Full Moon PAC - General Messages 🖤💗❤️

The full moon in Aquarius is finally here! I hope you're getting the chance to enjoy some sunshine in between these bright moonlit evenings. I sure have had my fill from this last weekend; I got the royal sunburn to prove it! Owo#

(Life lesson: apply sunscreen, then do it AGAIN.)

Aren't you glad we can't get moonburns? One could get burned sitting on the moon, sure, but it's kinder than to send that kind of energy back down to Earth. The moon allows us to see the sun's light without dying, which I can appreciate. But I'm going off on a tangent! Below are three images based on color palette cards I've picked for your reading. I've also added some emoji hearts for additional guidance. Please time all the time you need to select your pile when you're ready.

(1, 2, 3 - images from pixabay, divider from @saradika)

Pile 1. Tahoe Blue + Black Heart

X Wheel of Fortune, 7 of Pentacles, XXI World; Sun - Source, Space (Black), New Moon Gemini - Communication is Key

"I'm curious about my true nature; I seek to understand myself."

I feel such stillness and calm with this pile. You have so much blue present in your pile asides from the palette card! And watery energy too; your moon quote card has a lake on it too! Still yet deep. I'm hearing that this pile is getting a big upgrade to your throat energy. It's for both ways, listening and speaking, but I think speaking is being highlighted here more. This is in order to help you move through a bigger phase of your life that's yet to come. You may be feeling like you're ready to come out of your shell, even if just for a short while. There's a sense of grand change occurring in your external world, something that has been in the background or in the works for a long time has finally begun to culminate during this potent full moon time.

You have have recently closed a big chapter in your life and cleared out the muck. Now it's like you're standing before a canvas and you're ready to paint something new. The lunar force moving now allows a turn of luck to flow towards you like a water wheel. It's also purifying your intentions. When you have the place to be still and concentrate on where you want to go next, things can really quickly line up in your favor. With this extra space, whatever that has been building in the background may finally come out and be seen and heard. There's no resistance to this buildup, or there was resistance but it's been removed through this clearing out. You're being asked to savor this brief time. Not just make use of it, because in a way it's growing on its own, but to actually enjoy where you are right now. To get into the mindset of the person on the 7 pentacles card harvesting their abundance, that all is working out at a good pace.

You're being recommended to journal or write during this phase, perhaps like paragraphs of where you're going next (like a vaunt). I'm also getting vision boards for you would help if you need inspiration, or lyrical songs. I'm getting that communications will help you move into the next stage. This whole reading reminds me of someone who's finally finished the manuscript of their book and is sitting in that serenity of having completed something important. But, dear, that's not the end of it! You still need to bring it out into the world for it to be as evident as you see it in your mind. You still would need to get an agent and submit the manuscript to publishers for review.

Communication is being highlighted here as being that which you need in order to move along. Furthermore, you're being asked to tune into yourself for answers on where you'd like to go next, as no one else can tell you. People don't just go out on the lake for peace and quiet, they go to find a piece of themselves and to tune into that for spiritual guidance. May the boat be your lucky charm this full moon, pile 1. Not just to find yourself on the open water, but to connect you with other shores as well.

Pile 2. Sunflower Seed + Pink Heart

Queen of Cups, Queen of Swords, 4 of Cups; Vesta - Hearth, Love (Pink); Full Moon Virgo - You Are Good Enough

"Beauty raises my vibration; I seek it for joy."

For the rest of this month, you are focusing solely on your own needs. Like it or not! [blows coach whistle] But no, seriously, I'm not getting busybee vibes from this pile, I'm getting "poor dehydrated bee that's fainted on a flower" kind of feel. Maybe you're actually dehydrated and tired! This could also be true for your garden if you have one. You may need extra TLC around this full moon. You've been stretching yourself too thin but you'll be in much-deserved receiving mode in order to heal. I like that two Queens showed up and one of them is of Swords. She knows better than to spend her precious time worrying over the trifling things. She knows when to disconnect and tune into what's important. And Queen of Cups says that important thing is your own emotional wellbeing and comfort.

Your quote card features a person standing at the peak of a mountain with arms stretched out towards the moon in accomplishment. You either are or have been working intensely on something for the last few months. It either has or will soon come to a full head and with that comes a surge of expended energy. Similar to midterms or the week before a holiday when the workflow doubles. It's a crunch time! Since it's summer and you may not be in midterms or busy on vacation, this could be a reference for later this year or fiscal quarter. Take care that this busy time coming up isn't going to drain you.

You could have opportunities come up near the middle of autumn that's gonna want your attention. You'll want to be fully hydrated and refreshed for when it finally shows up. The 4 of cups can sometimes be about blind spots, or the blessings we don't see readily available because we're too tired and burnt out to really see what's there. It's highlighting this opportunity and wants you to make the most of it.

You could be feeling a strong pull to stay at home and focus on your craft, project, or hobby. Perhaps you're busy squeezing out the most free time you can while you have it. Again, avoid the sense of pushing like "oh man, I only have a week of summer vacation left oh geez what do I do?!" It's not a matter of sitting around and doing nothing all vacation only to hurt ourselves trying to be On 24/7 for a semester. That's not sustainable. Make the most out of your time, but make sure you have time carved out in between the high energy weeks of being productive. A sunflower without water can't stand and a bee without rest can't fly!

Pile 3. Clover Patch + Red Heart

XVII Star, XVI Tower, XV Devil; Progressions - Journey, Anger (Red), Waxing Crescent - Have Faith in Your Dream

"I gather more wisdom each day."

This pile … hoo boy. This would be my pile if I had to choose one, so I'm with y'all on this. Okay, I got the instant message that you are trying to manifest something very VERY big right now. I mean big like new car, apartment, longterm relationship, just something that's gonna upgrade and transform your life in a big way. It could even be education as one of the cards has a book in center. The thing is, Rome wasn't built in a day. Neither is your manifestation gonna instantly appear when you're desperately trying for it to cause desperation doesn't usually bring positive outcomes, it usually winds up with Fun With Dick and Jane type scenarios to play out. Also stress.

You have three major arcana cards in a row, with the tower card smacked right in the middle like a spicy sandwich cookie (would I even try one?) So I get it. This is likely a very significant full moon for you, supercharged as it's an Aquarian supermoon, and you got Aquarian Star as your first card, so emotions will be running a bit hot. Unpredictable swings. Sudden "bursts". But don't suppress your feelings of frustration, you'll just need to redirect these emotions differently.

You gotta be patient and watch it unfold organically. Even if you're manifesting the demolition of something, there is strategy to it. Demolition workers don't just go in and do what they please, they have to be mindful of their surroundings and what impact they'll make when they make it. When gardeners prune, they're mindful of the angle of the cut, knowing that the right cut can grow just as the wrong cut can infect. Let things go as they may. Things can start moving smoothly or quite abruptly, so focus from a place of expecting that it's already coming and strategize from there. You got the Star card, so something fortunate is indeed coming for you. There is a little Leprechaun luck on your side. It'll be easier to see that once you're able to move past old blockages that are delaying your manifestation. Listen to the leprechaun and not the little voice on the other shoulder telling you that you need to panic over the small things.

See the current time you have as a manifestation in itself, as a product of you believing that you need extra time to cook up the right end goal. See this time you have as a blessing, not just an in-between state. Make good use of this time. There is no reason why the process can't be as fun as the destination. Your inner child is being subtly asked to come out to play for a spell. This pile may be into doing witchcraft spells; if so, grab a little glitter and sprinkle some magic into your day, especially a time-based spell like a growing plant or burning a candle. If anything, it will boost morale which is often more important for manifestation than simply applying routine and logic to everything. I'm also getting that journaling may be of interest to you, whether it's writing down meditation notes or affirmations or just venting. Get creative even and write a poem about your wishes. Try to incorporate more writing in general into your moon magic. (Thoth would be pleased.)

This reading has not been evaluated by the FDA to diagnose, prevent, treat, or cure any disease or infection. Please ask your physician before going online.

2023, @VitaminseeTarot ™

[mood-board-requests]

hi!! i'm jules, i use she/they pronouns and this is my mood-board blog!!

i'm currently taking any and all requests for any and all fandoms including bands, songs, characters, albums, shows, movies, musicals, plays, etc!!

i will take requests for ocs but if your fandom is not something i have listed before please give me some background information so that i can find related images :)))

additionally, with oc requests please send a link to an image of your character so that i have a reference point to work from :))

in your ask feel free to request specific images (flowers/shoes/stars/etc) or colours (red/blue/yellow/etc) or quotes (things your character has said/book quotes/song lyrics) or anything else you can think of that you would like to be included in the mood-board!!

DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES SUBMIT YOUR ASK MORE THAN ONCE!! IF YOU THINK THERE HAS BEEN AN ISSUE WITH YOUR ASK PLEASE DM ME BUT I MAY TAKE UP TO A FEW WEEKS TO CREATE YOUR MOODBOARD!!

movies/tv shows/books (taking requests of characters too!)

newsies

marauders

osemanverse

maze runner

divergent

the hunger games

greek gods (any)

little women

bands/artists (taking requests of albums/songs too!)

good kid

artic monkeys

los campesinos

the white stripes

platinum moon

radiohead

simple minds

wild cherry

green day

the cure

tears for fears

olivia rodrigo

billie eilish

taylor swift

musicals/plays (taking requests of characters/actors too!)

hamilton

six

everybody's talking about jamie

heathers

hairspray

newsies

in the heights

wicked

into the woods

the prom

school of rock

tick, tick, boom

dear evan hansen

a very potter musical (trilogy)

the guy who didn't like musicals

black friday

nerdy prudes must die

shakespeare

the last quiz night on earth

plaza suite

DNA

the children's hour

blooded

angels in america

iron

all the little lights

smalltown

punk rock

PLEASE NOTE THAT EVEN IF YOUR REQUEST IS NOT LISTED BELOW OR AN OC YOU MUST ADD BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE CHARACTER/BAND/SITUATION!!!

[throwaway-yandere]

!!!MODERN YANDERE IDOL!GENSHIN/READER MATCH-UP EVENT!!! (Masterlist)

"Oh no... another poor unfortunate soul."

Slots available: "CLOSED. 22 ANONS HAVE SUBMITTED. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME, I'M GLAD WE HAD THIS INTERVIEW" - Exec. Producer Alice

"It was supposed to be 20 but I forgot to close it." - Producer Lumine

"And who's fault is that, exactly?" - CEO Alhaitham

"... I know..." - Producer Lumine

LIST OF ANONS THAT GOT IN

THANK YOU POSTERS

=============

SENDER: (Executive Producer) Alice ||

WELCOME TO TEYVAT PRODUCTIONS.

PLEASE READ THE GUIDELINES BEFORE ACKNOWLEDGING THE LIST OF IDOL GROUPS YOU MIGHT GET ASSIGNED TO.

HERE IS THE LIST:

ADDICKTZ

ADDICKTZ, formerly known as DCKZ, is an idol group formed in 20XX. They are incredibly well-known in the industry and their singles frequently top the charts. All the members previously worked as fashion models and half of the members (Dainsleif, Arataki Itto, Kaeya Alberich, and Childe) took movie and theatre roles. They are currently the number #1 unit in terms of presenting satisfactory fanservice.

Ayato || Diluc || Dainsleif || Itto || Childe || Kaeya || Thoma || Zhongli

["For your sake, I advise you to start praying for the God you believe in so that you won't end up producing ADDICKTZ. Unlike me, they might just listen to you. Why won't they listen to me? Hmm. Well, that's because I've never been a devotee. Still, be wary." - Dainsleif]

5WIRL

5WIRL, formally known as 4NEMO before Shikanoin Heizou's debut, is an idol group formed in 20XX. They often experiment with multiple genres of music and present multicultural aesthetics. The group consistently adds their thematic light green and wind motifs in their albums, poetry, and other media. 5WIRL's lyrics have often discussed mental health, stages of grief, nature, and other self-reflections. 

Venti || Xiao || Kazuha || Heizou

Note: Aether is under Producer Lumine's management.

["Ohohoho, a lost guest! It's always nice to see a new face around here! Can I get you something to drink? I promise you can trust me!... Geez, what's with that look? I don't spike drinks. Is that sooo hard to believe?" - Venti]

Kreideprinz

Dr. Albedo operates a solo unit more professionally known as "Kreideprinz." He debuted in 20XX before his major label debut album "The Chalk Prince and the Dragon" in 20XX under his previous producer "Alice". His unit work focuses on commercials, modeling for magazines, and talk shows. The unit rarely goes on tours since Dr. Albedo prioritizes his scientific research more than idol work.

Dr. Albedo || (Student) Gorou

["You must have a strong body and you must also stay on top of your game in this industry. Although, if you do get assigned to Kreideprinz, leave the heavy lifting to us!... Or me. Just. Only rely on me. Y-You don't have to keep your eyes on him 24/7." - Gorou]

I HEREBY AGREE TO THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OUTLINED IN THIS AGREEMENT AND SUCH IS DEMONSTRATED THROUGHOUT BY MY SIGNATURE BELOW

____________________________________

SIGNATURE OVER PRINTED NAME

=============

"So, which unit will Mx. (Y/n) end up working with? Ooh, Paimon can't wait!"

"I don't know kid, but something tells me that something bad is going to happen..."

=============

"Pwah! It's fiiine! They may be a total newbie, but Paimon thinks they can handle it!... Right?"

PERSONS OF INTEREST (SECRET MATCH-UPS)

Teyvat Productions' logo's made by ESTHER anon!!!

CEO Alhaitham

Manga Shop Owner Cyno

Music Composer Tighnari

Creative Director Zandik (ADDICKTZ)

Creative Director Baizhu (5wirl)

Stylist & Model Scaramouche (Affiliated w/ 5wirl)

Trainee Kaveh

Pantalone

"Interesting... So these are the people that didn't become producers, huh? But why do you keep a record of them, miss Alice?"

"Isn't it obvious Lumine? It's because they're interesting, duh~"

=========================

EXTRAS:

ADDICKTZ video shtpost: "Tonight on the real ADDICKTZ at TeyvatPro"

[READ AFTER KAEYA'S FIC] Dottore's always watching.

[GENERAL SPOILERS] Incorrect Quotes, P2, P3

TIGHNARI'S TAPES (voice lines):

[AFTER KAEYA'S FIC] Qiqi and Xingqiu during Childe's recording

[BEFORE AYATO'S FIC] Beidou and Sucrose in front of Albedo's room

[gallavichthings]

Gallavich Week 2022

Hello, everyone! It’s that time of the year again! Are you all ready for Gallavich Week 2022? I’m so excited for this one! We’re doing things a bit differently this year, as you might have noticed. More details about the prompts as well as full guidelines after the Read More. Quick reminder that all kinds of work are welcome, as long as they are original. Please read the guidelines before posting.

DAYS AND PROMPTS

Day 1 (June 12) - Theme based (choose 1): Celebration (birthdays, anniversaries, festivals, holidays, random celebrations, anything goes) Trials and Tribulations (problems, big or small, it doesn’t matter; may be between them or something they face together) Day 2 (June 13) - Quote based (choose 1 - anything loosely based in one of these quotes goes): “I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.” - Elizabeth Barrett Browning. “I love being married. It’s so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life.” - Rita Rudner Day 3 (June 14) - Painting based (choose 1 - again, anything loosely based in one of these paintings is enough; may be the general atmosphere of it, the situation in it or even them actually interacting with it somehow):

Stag at Sharkey’s (George Bellows)

Nighthawks (Edward Hopper)

  Day 4 (June 15) - Album based (choose 1 - it can be based in the album atmosphere, Ian and Mickey actually interacting with the album or one of the songs, or based on a piece of lyrics from one of the songs) Rumours (Fleetwood Mac) Born This Way (Lady Gaga) Day 5 (June 16) - Film based (choose 1 - again, feel free to use your imagination and do anything from vaguely inspired by to actual crossover): Love, Actually Fast & Furious Day 6 (June 17) - Based on Gallavich fanwork  Here’s your chance to redo one of your old works or to make something inspired by somebody else’s work - just remember to ASK FOR PERMISSION first. If the person says no, if you can’t find the person to ask or if you don’t know who made the original, DON’T DO IT. Also, you have to CREDIT the original when posting.  Day 7 (June 18) - Free Day  Got a fic or fanart or whatever that you’re making and want to post, but don’t think would fit with the other days? Post it here! It’s also a chance to do whatever you want if none of the other prompts appeal to you. Don’t know what to do? Try the Writing Prompt Generator and the Art Prompt Generator.

CREATING AND POSTING GUIDELINES

How do I participate?

You don’t have to subscribe to anything or announce what you’re doing, you just have to post your work on the appropriate day and tag me using @gallavichthings. It’s important that you tag me properly so that I can be sure to see your post and reblog it. For those days with more than one prompt option, please make it clear which one you’ve chosen.

What types of works are accepted?

Any kind of original fan work is accepted, including but not limited to: fanart, fanfiction (no minimum words required), graphics, gifs and gifsets, videos, and fanmixes.

When can I start posting?

I’ll always make one initial post for each day, at 12am GMT (check here to see when that is in your time zone). After that, post away!

Can I still participate even if I don’t have a Tumblr account?

Absolutely! Just submit something here (http://gallavichthings.tumblr.com/submit).

Can I post on Twitter or Instagram?

You can post anywhere you want! On Twitter and IG, we encourage you to use the hashtag #GW2022 and I’ll RT you. You can also mention @gallavichthings if you want. I do not have an IG account though, sorry, but you can post there and send me a link for visibility. That being said, we do encourage you to post here as well, so it can be seen by more people (all gallavichthings reblogs get cross-posted to Twitter automatically anyway).

Can I post something that I’ve already posted before?

No, sorry. The works should have been created specifically for GW. You can, however, create a sequel or a different version of a previous work.

Can I post something that is not in English?

Of course. Just make sure that it is original, or that you have the original author’s permission (and, in that case, link to the original too).

Can I make R-rated works?

Yes, just please give any necessary warnings and tell us the rating at the very beginning of the post. If the post is visual (like a fanart or a gifset), it would be nice for you to also tag it accordingly. It's not mandatory, but if possible put it under a Read More here on Tumblr and under a spoilers mark (so it's not instantly visible) on Twitter. Please remember that Tumblr now has stricter rules regarding that type of content, so if the post is really NSFW I’d suggest hosting it somewhere else and just posting a link to it, maybe along with a safe version of it.

Can I post something that’s AU?

Sure thing! Tag it accordingly though, both for those who want to avoid it and for those who'd like to find it.

Can I post supernatural works, mpreg, or genderbends?

Yes! But if it’s a fic, please include it in the warnings.

Can I post more than one work?

Definitely! The more, the merrier. You can post as many works as you want, on as many days as you want, be it one post per day or ten on the same day. Anything goes!

Can I post on more than one day? Do I have to make something for each day?

Again, the more, the merrier! You can post on only one or all days if you wish!

Can I make one work that fits two or more themes?

Sure thing. I only ask that you post it on the day of the last theme included. For example, if you are posting a work that includes the theme from Day 1 and the theme from Day 4, post it on day 4 (just make sure to tell me that it includes both).

Can I write a multi-chaptered fanfiction?

Yes, and you don’t have to post everything either. When you do, just be sure to include either a masterpost, or the links to the previous chapters in the beginning.

Can I include other characters/pairings in my work?

Yes, as long as Gallavich is still the focus.

What if I can’t finish on time?

The Gallavich fandom is ALWAYS happy to see new fan material, so just post it when you’re done and tag me, ok? The same goes for people who can’t finish a work on the assigned theme day; you can still post it on a different day during GW, just make it clear which day it was made for.

Is there a contest?

No. It was an idea once, but most people didn’t want it, and felt a bit intimidated by it.

[in-my-feels-probably]

300 Followers Celebration

i’ve hit 300 followers! thank you so much for the support and love on my account and my work, i wanted to do something for you guys again to say thank you. keep reading if you want to participate!

i’m going to ship you (either platonically or romantically, up to you) which a character from a fandom of your choice: grishaverse, marauders era, house of the dragon, game of thrones, and stranger things. (i'll only write for the older characters in stranger things, and i write best for marauders era, but i can try for any fandom i've written for). i’ll write a little blurb for you with the character/why i think they’d like you.

to participate, tell me what your favorite song is, why it’s your favorite, and what your favorite lyric from it is. if you can't narrow it down to one, i’ll accept a few or artists instead of songs. i'll also accept your favorite quote, or your favorite line from a movie, and why it’s your favorite. i will also accept any little random blurb scenario and a character you want specifically, instead of me shipping you with someone, i'll write for who you pick, but it will be a short blurb. this part is required to get a ship.

if there's anything extra you want to share, feel free, just give me a bit about yourself, whatever information you’re willing to share. none of these things are required. it can be a physical description, your favorite things (like books, movies, places, music), your hobbies and interests, your favorite characters. any information about yourself (and specific scenarios if you want one) that you want to share and you think would help me give you a character.

if you’re willing to, please specify your pronouns (and sexuality, or just say if you want me to ship you with a boy or a girl) and i’ll do my best to give you your best fit in my opinion. if you don’t include any of this, i'll try and keep it gender neutral, but i generally write for male characters with fem readers in mind, so if you’re looking for something else, make sure you clarify this. 

just submit an ask with these guidelines, and i’ll get back to you as soon as i can! if you have any questions, feel free to message me.

(also, requests for imagines for these fandoms are still open, im currently working on a few requests that will be coming as soon as i can write them, feel free to check them out when i post them and any of my other work in my masterlist in my pinned post.)

thank you again for all the love and support on my work and account, i really appreciate anyone who’s been there and motivated me. 300 followers is so cool!

[thirstyandbeautiful]

Here we go hoes…

It’s bounce back time for your Hoe Fairy, so it’s time unveil next month’s drabble kick off. Pick between 1-2 lines/brief dialogues below, a driver, and (if you want) a scenario (or not!). I’ll be fulfilling little drabbles here and there with what you send in!

PLEASE REMEMBER TO READ OUR GUIDELINES BEFORE SUBMITTING YOUR DRABBLE REQUEST.

Here it is: A mashup of prompts (all inspired by a number of amazing writing tumblrs that I follow and my own imagination)

X

X

X

X

X

X

“Don’t you ever do that again!”

“It could be worse.”

X

X

“Wanna dance?”

X

“YOU DID WHAT?!”

“I fucking hate you”

“He’s dead, again.”

“It’s hard to get used to…” - “what?” - “Being someone that someone cares for…”

“just because you can doesn’t mean you should”

“how don’t you know the difference between your left and right?”

“If I hear one laugh, I’m killing you in your sleep.”

“one of us is clearly smarter than the other.”

“How have you survived this long by yourself?”

“My love for you is like a disease. And it’s probably terminal.”

“Are you trying to have a conversation with me by quoting song lyrics?”

“I think we should get a dog.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

“I only say yes under one condition: I want a public proposal with the potential to be a viral sensation. Go big or go home.” - “Are you-“ - “HUGE, like if there’s no fireworks I’ll say no.”

X

“What? I have never-”

“In my defense, I really wanted to.”

“At least I didn’t break any laws.”

“What did you do this time?”

X

X

X

“Did I stutter?”

“Babe, I’m a demon. What do you expect me to do?”

“I think I’m dying and I wanted to tell you ‘I love you’ before I do.” - “Okay, let’s work on one problem at a time.”

“One day, I won’t have to leave again.”

“Is that what you call an apology?”

X

“Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“There is no way this much stupid can fit inside one person.”

“I’m never leaving…I promise.”

“I like you, like like you like you.”

X

“Stop being a fucking prick.”

X

“Do you want me to stay?”

X

X

X

X

X

X

“ i think i might be in some kind of love with you.”

X

X

X

X

“is that a drawing of me?”

X

“stop looking at me like that!”

“i didn’t know you could sing.”

“i’m not scared but if you are, you can hold my hand.”

X

X

“we’re quite literally fugitives of the state.” - “so no pizza?”

“you’re pretty.” - “people keep telling me that.”

“It must be hard with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line.”

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

X

“Will you stop when I say it? Okay, you’re cute. Most days.”

X

X

X

X

X

“I wouldn’t mind holding your hand. I guess.”

“This is so stupid. And I hate that I like it so much.”

“Wow, I never thought you’d be stupid enough to try and do this.” "Well, you’re here with me, so that makes you stupid too.”

X

“Are you going to hit me if I kiss you?” “I might if you don’t.”

“Well, I mean, I could say no but then I’d have to listen to you all day.”

“Can we go two one place without you causing someone trauma?”

[jeffparkers]

LET'S ROLL FOR REQUESTS: (NOW CLOSED)

Hi friends! So I wanted to do something a little different for requests this time around. For starters, I’ll be taking 20 requests and writing up to 500 words for each of them, but in an effort to avoid repeating a lot of requests, I thought it would be fun to combine my two projects right now which have been writing and dice making. I also wanted to try to fanfic-ify a fun trend I have seen of people rolling dice for inspiration/sandwiches/what have you — we’re going to roll for requests!

HOW IT WORKS:

Submit a wrestler to my ask box.

I have created 2 separate lists of 21 prompts each (you’ll see why 21 on the lists!)

I will roll a d6 to see which list I pull from (odd numbers list one, even numbers list two).

Then, I will roll a d20 to figure out which prompt to assign that wrestler. If that prompt has already been assigned, I’ll roll again until I get one that has not been taken.

RULES: 

Please consult my guidelines over on my main blog (@elitehunternter), and especially who I do not write for. 

All stories will be written with a gender neutral reader unless the prompt somehow suggests otherwise.

You can request more than one wrestler but ask that each person only requests a specific wrestler once — ie, please do not request (anon or not) the same wrestler multiple times so that we can get a real spread of who people want, I can flex my creative muscles, and people can get a request in if they want.

I will be doing a firm cut off of requests at 20 requests. If your request comes in after 20, I will reply to let you know I won’t be able to write it.

If you request on anonymous, you can DM me to let me know if you want me to ping you when it is up since you won’t be notified when I answer your ask. (Also, we can be friends if I know who you are guys!)

I will not write anything smutty for these beyond some suggestive stuff, as I do not take specific NSFW requests though sometimes inspiration takes me in that direction, it’s just that the content here is so short that I probably wouldn’t write anything smutty in a 500 word span. (As always though, anything smutty DEFINITELY won’t be included for an anonymous request or a request made by someone without their age in their bio even if the prompt we roll suggests the inclusion of smut.)

LIST ONE:

“Come over here and make me.”

“Don’t you ever do that again!”

AUTHOR’S FREE WRITE

“Looks like we’ll be trapped for a while…”

“You fainted…straight into my arms. You know, if you wanted my attention you didn’t have to go to such extremes.”

“He’s dead, again.”

"Don't call me that."

“How long have you been standing there?”

“You’re so fucking cute.”

“Stop being a fucking prick.”

“You did all of this for me?”

“The first time you smiled it felt like the universe aligned.”

“If you die, I’m gonna kill you.”

“You were put on this earth to give me a headache”

“Be my Valentine?”

ROLL A D4: 1: romantic fluff, 2. Humor, 3. Platonic fluff, 4. Angst with prompt 21.

“I’ll spend a thousand lifetimes coming back to you.”

“There is no way this much stupid can fit inside one person.”

“Are you just quoting song lyrics?”

"If I ask you to kiss me in front of all these people, will you do it?”

“Just once.”

LIST TWO:

“Is that what you call an apology?”

“Did I just say that out loud?”

"In my defense, I really wanted to."

“I like you, like like you like you.”

“Tell me again.”

“Stop distracting me.”

“I almost lost you.”

“Wait a minute. Are you jealous?”

“I’ve seen the way you look at me when you think I don’t notice.”

AUTHOR’S FREE WRITE

“It could be worse.”

Roll D4: 1: There’s only one bed. 2. Enemies to lovers. 3. Pretending to date. 4. Break up with prompt 21

“This is a one time thing.”

“If you keep looking at me like that we won’t make it to a bed.”

“I swear it was an accident.”

“YOU DID WHAT?!”

"At least I didn't break any laws."

“I think I might be in some kind of love with you.”

“I’m only here for the dog.”

“Uh, am I interrupting?”

"I don't hate you."

I hope that we have some fun with this, I think it'll be really interesting and am thinking of some other fun ways to let chance and you guys dictate some of the stuff I write.

REQUESTS CLOSED: For transparency here is my list and the rolls that got me there!

[thisdancingheart]

Remember YFIP?

My Year of Grief and Cancellation

What was I trying to accomplish with my anonymous Tumblr?

By Liat Kaplan Feb. 25, 2021, 5:00 a.m. ET https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/25/style/your-fave-is-problematic-tumblr.html

If you were on Tumblr in the early 2010s, you may remember a blog called Your Fave Is Problematic. If not, its content should still sound familiar to you. The posts contained long lists of celebrities’ regrettable (racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic, ethnophobic, ableist and so on) statements and actions — the stuff that gets people canceled these days.

That blog was my blog. I spent hours researching each post; as you can probably imagine, my search history was pretty ugly.

Your Fave Is Problematic had around 50,000 followers at its peak, in 2014, when I was a high school senior, but its influence was outsized. I got in a feud with a prominent young adult fiction author over his inclusion. One actor submitted himself, perhaps as a dare (or a plea) to dig up his worst. “Problematic fave” became a well-worn meme; even after I stopped posting, my blog was cited in books, articles, podcasts and think pieces. Through it all, my identity stayed private.

The blog started, as so many anonymous online projects do, as vengeful public shaming masquerading as social criticism. I was fine-tuning my moral compass and coming into my own as a feminist. So when I noticed classmates making sexist jokes on Facebook, including some about me, I started taking screenshots to post on a Tumblr called Calling Out Sexists. My policy was that I would take down a post only if its author publicly apologized.

A group of students brought the blog to the attention of our school’s administrators, who threatened to take legal action if I continued to write about them. Meanwhile, other Tumblr users had begun submitting screenshots featuring statements from minor celebrities. With graduation hanging in the balance, I shifted my focus away from my peers and toward public figures. I rebranded. Money and fame had protected them since time immemorial. What harm could my little blog do?

So I posted photos of Lady Gaga in V magazine with her skin bronzed to an unnatural brown. I pulled out troubling quotes from an essay Lena Dunham had written about a trip to Japan. I noted Taylor Swift’s since-changed homophobic lyric in “Picture to Burn.” My most popular posts tended to be about women — which makes sense, because the celebrity press tends to be more critical of them.

As it turned out, I had bigger things to worry about than dissecting the careers of celebrities I’d never met. On a winter morning, I woke up to the news that my older sister, Tamar, who was studying in Bolivia, had been in a bus crash, and the outlook was not good. I pored over research to escape from what felt like an impossible situation: my sister slowly dying of treatable injuries in a rural area thousands of miles away.

We held a public memorial service for Tamar in our hometown. Some of my classmates showed up, including a few who had written nasty things about me online. I found their shows of kindness insulting now, during what was quickly becoming the worst year of my life.

I tried going back to school after a few weeks, but I found myself picking frequent arguments with classmates and teachers. The school made an arrangement with my parents: I would be placed on “medical leave” for the remainder of the semester. I would graduate on time, but I wouldn’t return to campus.

Stuck at home, I devoted myself to Tumblr. What was I trying to accomplish? Mostly, I was interested in knocking people off their pedestals. I also enjoyed being popular, controversial, discussed. When a comedian I had posted about name-checked my blog on Twitter, I was giddy.

Then I started receiving threats. Someone sent me a screenshot of a house from Google Maps, claiming to have found my IP address. It wasn’t my house, but still. I realized that for every person on Tumblr who looked up to my blog, there were many more, online and offline, who hated it — and me. I started posting less and, eventually, stopped posting at all.

In the years since, I’ve looked back on my blog with shame and regret — about my pettiness, my motivating rage, my hard-and-fast assumptions that people were either good or bad. Who was I to lump together known misogynists with people who got tattoos in languages they didn’t speak? I just wanted to see someone face consequences; no one who’d hurt me ever had.

There’s something almost quaint about it all now: teenage me, teaching myself about social justice on Tumblr while also posturing as an authority on that very subject, thinking I was making a difference while engaging in a bit of schadenfreude. Meanwhile, other movements — local, global, unified in their purposes and rooted in progressive philosophies — were organizing for actual justice. Looking back, I was more of a cop than a social justice warrior, as people on Tumblr had come to think of me.

These days, there’s no shortage of online accountability efforts, the large part of them anonymously run. Some accounts post typically anodyne but occasionally explosive celebrity gossip. Others are explicitly aimed at naming, shaming and punishing people for all kinds of actions and missteps. My own work fell somewhere in the middle, I think; the information I posted was out in the open, but I was cataloging it to make a case against the veneration of the rich and famous.

As many have noted, the coronavirus pandemic has pronounced the distance between celebrities and the rest of us. And their actions have been subject to greater scrutiny — the vacations they’ve gone on, the parties they’ve held, the access they’ve had to testing and care during a health crisis that has taken millions of lives.

But celebrity culture began to crumble long before Covid-19. Mounting accusations of many kinds, whispered between industry professionals, had become too loud to ignore. Social media, which gave celebrities more control over their images and influence over their fans, also opened them up to new kinds of criticism. People have lost jobs and entire careers because of the kinds of errors my blog cited. Others have apologized for work and behavior that, re-examined in a contemporary context, just doesn’t hold up.

For years, I’ve regretted the spotlight I put on other people’s mistakes, as if one day I wouldn’t make plenty of my own. There can be an unsparing purity to growing into one’s social conscience that is often overbroad.

My brain wasn’t ready for nuance. I was angered by hypocrisy and cruelty; what I did about it was apply a level of scrutiny that left no room for error. I’m not saying that I should be canceled for my teenage blog. (Please don't!) I just know what we all should know by now: that no one who has lived publicly, online or off, has a spotless record.

For these reasons, I’ve thought about deleting my Tumblr. But doing that would mean erasing my own errors of judgment. I almost feel like I need to leave it up to punish myself for having made it in the first place. That, and I know someone could (and probably would) just pull it up on Wayback Machine. The internet, after all, never forgets.

~~~~~~~

[doshmanziari]

Musical Offerings for the New Year || What is “Radical Music” in 2021?

Near the end of 2020, a bunch of musicians populating a chatroom, including myself, each submitted ten minutes’ worth of our work to another musician, Chimeratio, who generously compiled it all into a set totaling nearly ten hours.¹ The work didn’t need to be new; just what we thought might best represent our abilities/style(s) and/or perhaps what we were especially pleased with. The set premiered in late January. Since I have some tentative plans for reorienting Brick By Brick this year, while not overriding its emphases, I wanted to share that music with anyone who’s interested.

I compiled the four videos into a playlist, although you can also access them individually: here (1), here (2), here (3), and here (4). If you care to, and are on a computer, you can also view the accompanying chatlog and read people’s responses from when they were listening to the live broadcast.

The compulsion for this project was sparked by excited discussions over and usage of the term “digital fusion”, most helpfully propagated by Aivi Tran, designating a computer-based body of work that for years lacked the rooftop of a commonly agreed upon genre-name. While describing my music has never been a big concern, even if it’s usually felt impossible (what, for example, is this? or this? I dunno!), I’ve appreciated how the spread and application of this term has brought together people who may have felt isolated.²

As “digital fusion” gained designative traction, I witnessed the activity in the aforementioned chatroom explode over the course of a few days. Before, a day’s discussion might’ve been a few dozen messages; now, there were dozens of messages every half-minute. This had positive and negative ramifications, the negative being that conversations often proceeded at a pace of rapidity which precluded concentrated thought. Eventually, I bowed out because the rapidity exceeded my threshold for meaningful interaction; but I was glad that significant invigoration was going on.

I wanted to share this music also because it intersects with thoughts and talks I’ve been having stemming from the question, “What is ‘radical music’ in 2021?” This was stimulated by a 2014 talk given by the writer Mark Fisher, wherein he contends that, were we to play prominent “cutting edge” music from now to people twenty years ago, very nearly none of it would be aesthetically shocking, bizarre, or revelatory (think of playing house music to an audience in the early 1960s!). Fisher also observes a trend of returning to music which once was seen as the future -- as if, deprived of a shared prograde vision, imaginations turn hazily retrograde; ergo, genres such as synthwave or albums like Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories.

It isn’t my goal here to argue about the “end of history.” Fisher’s time-travel hypothetical, however, rings loud and true to me. Visible musical radicalism has, for at least a decade, been strictly extra-musical, in the sense of songs like “This is America” or “WAP”, where one’s response is primarily to the spectacle of the music video, the performer’s identistic markers, and/or the manner in which the lyrics intersect with (mostly US-centric) ideological hotspots. Musically, there is really nothing radical here. Any vociferous condemnations or defenses of a song like “WAP” deal in moralizing reactions to semantics or imagery: how progressive or regressive is the political aspect? how propelled or repelled are we by the word “pussy”?

It would be a mistake, and simply wrong, to assert that the only music one can enjoy escapes the parameters outlined above; and my inability to coherently categorize some of my own music hardly raises that portion to the status of radicality. But the question here pertains to what is being made, and I think that if we’re going to seriously consider the nature of truly radical music today, we do need to question if such a quality can prominently exist when our hyper-fast consumerist cycle seems to forbid not just sustained, lifelong relationships to artwork but also the local, unhurried nourishment of creative gestation. Now, in my opinion, there are good, even great, examples of radical music still being made in deep Internet-burrows, and for evidence of that I would offer some of the material contained in the linked playlists. Moreover, I’d say that this quality can exist in part because these little artistic communities are so buried.

Let me share a quote that another person shared with me recently:

For culture to shift, you need pockets of isolated humanity. Since all pockets of humanity (outside of the perpetually isolated indigenous people in remote wilderness) are connected in instantaneous fashion, independent ideas aren’t allowed to ferment on their own. When you cook a meal, you have to bring ingredients together that have had time to grow, ferment, or decompose separately. A cucumber starts out as a seed, then you mix it with the soil, water and sunlight. You can’t bring the seed, soil, water and sunlight to the kitchen from the get-go. When you throw those things in to the mixture without letting them mature, the flavor cannot stand out on its own. Same thing with art and fashion. A kid in Russia can come up with a new way to dance, gets filmed on a phone, it goes viral quickly but gets lost in the morass of all of the other multitudinous forms of dance. Sure it spread far and wide, but it gets forgotten in a week. In the past, his new art form would have been confined locally, nurtured, honed, then spread geographically, creating a distinct new cultural idiosyncrasy with a strong support base. By the time it was big enough to be presented globally, it was already a cultural phenomenon locally. This isn’t possible anymore. We’re consuming too many unripened fruits.

The main impression I have here is that radical music today will, and must be, folk music. Our common idea of folkiness might be the scrappy singer strumming a guitar, but my interpretive reference rather has to do with the idea of a music being written, first of all, for one’s self, and then shared with a small-scale community, which in turn helps the artist grow at their own pace. This transcends a dependence upon image, the primacy of acoustic instrumentation, or the signaling of sincerity versus insincerity. It is a return to the valuation of outsider art, so rare nowadays. As someone who I was recently in dialogue with wrote, “Where can you find new genuine folk music? Pretty much just with your friends, imo. Even then, the global world is so influential and seeps into any crack it can find. I think vaporwave was radical and folk for a while. Grant Forbes made that music way before the world knew about it.”

Sometimes, a lot of fuss is made over what’s seen as “gatekeeping” within certain communities. It can be, depending on the context, justifiable to question and critique this behavior. At other times, the effort of maintaining a level of exclusivity, of retaining an idiosyncratic shapeliness to the communal organism, can be a legitimate attempt to protect the personal, interpersonal, and cultural aspects from the flattening effect of monoculture. Hypothetically, I welcome the Castlevania TV series and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate having introduced new and younger demographics to Castlevania. In actuality, stuff like “wholesome sad gay himbo Alucard”, image macros, and neurotic “stan” fanfiction being what’s now first associated with the series makes me want to put as much distance as possible between my interests and those latecoming impositions.

The group-terminology David Chapman uses in his essay “Geeks, MOPs, and Sociopaths in Subculture Evolution” is kinda cringey, but some of the cultural/behavioral patterns he lays out are relevant to the topic. Give it a look. If we cross his belief that “[subcultures] are no longer the primary drivers of cultural development” with our contemporary consume-and-dispose customs, we’re left with the predicament of it’s even worth attempting to bring radical/outsider art beyond its rhizomatic habitat. This is troubling, because it would mean that artistic radicality no longer might not only refuse to but cannot encompass cultural upheaval. It would be like if dance music were invented and -- instead of progressively permeating nightlife, stimulating countercultural trends, and ultimately being adapted as the basis for pop music globally -- only were listened to via headphones by a few thousand people on their own, stimulated a group meeting once a year or two, and never affected music beyond a niche-within-a-niche. That’s a very sad picture to me.

⁂

¹ Chimeratio has also maintained an excellent blog on here dedicated to looking at videogame music written in irregular time signatures, far preceding higher-profile examinations like 8-bit Music Theory’s video on the same topic.

² For myself, creative isolation has had its uses, because it has led me down routes that are highly personalized. The isolation can be dispiriting too. Although a lot of my music is videogame-music-adjacent, almost none of it uses “authentic” technology, such as PSG synthesizers or FM synthesis; and the identification of those sounds is fairly important for recognition.

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Bulgaria brings a mentally reassuring anthem to Rotterdam 2021

I’ve said so that VICTORIA herself sort of agreed to have done “Tears Getting Sober” if she was allowed to, but for one I have to thank that EBU said that the artists can’t have their 2020 songs back? You’ll see why when I get to the review after two boring paragraphs of text with technical info, for the country that is Bulgaria!

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

Victoria Georgieva (or VICTORIA, but I can’t be arsed to continuously capitalize her name so I’ll just say Victoria from now on) was born a singer, for she started to sing at the age 11, went to a specific school of angel voices (no really that’s what it was called), and tried to go to the X Factor while a liiiiiittle too young until realizing that she needed to wait for a few years, and wait a few years she did, and went on to the X Factor again.

She didn’t win, but she still got to sign a contract and sing some stuff in Bulgarian before she decided to rebrand, started singing in English, and completely decided that ballads is her style. She cannot really do upbeat most of the time. So you can’t really have a bop from her in the future. (Well except that there’s a couple of songs in her discography that I personally classify as “bops” but they’re more like... idek sad bops?? but they can be danced to, but I get her, she doesn’t do anything that’s more loud and upbeat and clubby and summery kind of - in short, nothing you can go “YAAASSSS QUEEEEEN” over to.)

The entry she ended up singing, “Growing Up Is Getting Old”, is what I can describe to be about overcoming the emotional twists and turns inside of you as you grow older, because as it turns out, it ain’t what you thought it would be - but if you push just a little further, you realize that if you’re growing up, maybe the life isn’t so bad, afterall - you are able to get up. Somehow. It was written as part of Boris-Milanov-led songwriting camp held during summer, and a lot of people seemed to be a part of it because multiple different folk have songwriting credits on the potential Bulgarian entries this year.

REVIEW

Let’s get this out of the way immediately. I prefer “Growing Up Is Getting Old” to “Tears Getting Sober”. The former sounds a lot less irritatingly underwhelming and a lot more positively overwhelming you with warm emotions and sunglow. “Tears Getting Sober” was a song I could never really connect with - maaaaybe the last chorus is much better on there, but it doesn’t do much for me either, I guess.

Their 2021 forray however is a much different kind of thing - once again, going for lyrical non-cliches, Victoria tells a tale about her inner turmoils and continuing in life, in a way that’s personal to her and also kind of relatable to all of us. We all have these moments of fear and anxiety and nervous systems aching. If only there was someone who’d tell us that we’re worth saving... thanks a lot Victoria, you’re the MVP. Filling in the void that Netherlands from last year had brought us but not anymore - another personal song about getting old and having those kind of feelings inside - and doing a great job at taking the baton in the right way (even with featuring the word “grow” in both of the titles, neat coincidence).

Not only the lyrics feel like a hug, the song just emulates ray of sunshine and golden glitter coming down from the sky, Molly Sanden style. The violins in the G major key playing so precisely, building up momentum throughout the entire song, slowly but surely - starting with the ticking clock in the first verse that may have subtle violin in there; and the first chorus is just so simple piano, and then the second chorus has a tinge of electronic something, and the last chorus goes full in with the backing vocals boosting the song, after Victoria performs the quite magnificent bridge... now I don’t have synesthesia but I associate music keys with colors, and to me G major would always come across as something yellow or orange - “Growing Up Is Getting Old” is a perfect example of why’s that for me. And obviously, Victoria’s love for harmony-humming (even if there’s just one instance of it after she sings “star crossed soul”) complements the song to a T.

And it turned out to be a much better choice than last year’s. Maybe finally a female ballad I am getting behind.

Now I wanna know why the bookies don’t appreciate THIS entry as much as last year?

Granted, now it’s 2021 and the environment is so much different, and the songs have changed, and the dynamics have changed, and now there’s suddenly more competition at stake. And for Bulgaria it fares quite much more underwhelmingly - well, at this moment they’re like 6th, which isn’t bad, but there’s a lack of sung praises coming its way, not quite a feat that “Tears Getting Sober” actually achieved, being the bookies fave right before the cancellation of last year. In general the year has been pretty dry for the previous winner picks like Iceland, Lithuania and this, but I can’t say that the previous winner bets from 2020 are all that dead either? Though I gotta say that Bulgaria wasn’t gonna win 2020 anyway, so it’s a lose-lose in this case.

Also I just can’t at that music video being a little dramatic at the beginning, with the cancellation of Eurovision being presented as if it were a worldwide disaster during which we all shall lock ourselves into bunkers and wait until the better days, eventhough the panini is not war and war supplies kit is not just enough to survive it. But it seems like that the world is quite literally falling apart, as evidenced by Victoria going through all kinds of pathways away from her living room, meeting a  (presumably) mini version of her somewhere in between, and literally surrounded by the shaking environment by the last moments of the song

before we realize it was just reality recursing from the TV’s point of view that Victoria was watching all along, and then she leaves the living room again, but in her world, everything is normal and she could just go wherever she wants by car. Even I can’t come up with a storyline ending that’s somewhat intertwined and all plot-twisty and more confusing than that. But props to her team I guess

Approval factor: Let’s say I somewhat approve this message. Follow-up factor: For the sake of argument let me just say that Bulgaria is moving on a great path, eventhough the former entry leaves me cold, at least the current entry keeps me warm at all times, like a cup of cocoa and a good blanket. Please Bulgaria, never run out of sponsors. Qualification factor: I’ve seen one or two people throw around the “surprise NQ” tag for this song and I don’t get why??? There’s no way that the tense atmosphere of semifinal 2 would sure-fire-ly kill Bulgaria, even if they have a lot less chances to win this year than they had the last one. There can be some shock NQs indeed though, and if there are, I am paging... uhhhhh Finland? Idk why but you might see what I mean if I ever get around to reviewing “Dark Side”. Bulgaria? Never. It may not win the semi but it will cradle around the top 7 somehow.

INTERNAL NF CORNER

That’s right, Bulgaria managed to do both.

At the time when one other of Bulgaria’s songs got released, within the *Special* Eurovision September 1st-onwards range, people naturally succumbed to their primal instinct of asking whether that’s her Eurovision song... only for Vic to probably announce this early on that no, it’s just *one* of potential ESC entries she’s harbouring. And the remaining potential ones were all on her debut EP. Who actually got a more well-orchestrated schedule for everyone to follow, and yet, people were much more keen to cling on the first EP song out of the gate, “Imaginary Friend”. Now I get that the fans of that song were super upset at the revelation that IF is not going, but it is a technically strong song for the sake of being a technically strong song, and I don’t want to think that Victoria is only forced to choose the songs that can win for her, so she’s such a sweetheart for gravitating towards a song she could dearly care about. So props to her team saving the initial winner for last to be revealed, lol.

Though wasn’t her personal favourite a Billie-Eilish-lite-upbeat-kinda-track Phantom Pain?

Which was also my personal favourite?

Look, I know that favouring the only non-ballad in the whole lineup (well “Ugly Cry” is also not quite a ballad but its beat is kinda so-so, so I tend to ignore it) is kinda sus, also, y’all are sick to death to Billie Eilish comparisons, but I do believe that Billie would never be able to do an “Imaginary Friend” while Victoria could do a “Lovely”. This makes me remember the cover art of Billie’s debut album where she sits on her bed, dressed in white, and so is Victoria on this very MV, with strange shit going on behind her in the mirror. To the mirror, her reflection acts creepy, back again.

The other 2 I don’t feel like caring about enough, sure they got their cred, sure there’s one entry properly crediting Milanov (who seems to not have an actual entry this year that’s purely attributed to *him*, as opposed to 3 last year, 2 of which were performed by acts that returned this year????), sure there’s the funny thing about having a funeral song where out of this and Finland only Austria managed to send a quote unquote “funeral” song, but I think the funeral song would’ve sounded better if the pre-section of it on the “Phantom Pain” video was THE “funeral” song itself, and not whatever was that other funeral song.

In between there was a public sort of survey where people could submit feedback and positive words to Vic’s choices to help her decide - I didn’t get to vote but I feel fine with the winner eitherway, and that counts for something! And the end result was revealed at the very end of Victoria’s very own rooftop concert.

The colors on the circle thingy of this, they were meant to symbolize all Bulgarian entries up to Victoria’s 2nd one, in pictograms that kind of reminded me of Coldplay attributing every song on ‘Mylo Xyloto’ its own little symbol.

The concert was not only full of music and also adverts for the inaugural sponsor iCard (that also included some element of foreshadow in between the suspense, you’ll see why), but also the Bulgarian folk talking before each song, saying all the positive nice words they can for Vic; that she’s talented, and that they were so excited that Bulgaria was doing well in the odds last year prior to cancellation, bla bla bla... also some people were proud of voting for Bulgaria outside Bulgaia, and they made puns about the forthcoming songs on the concert that they were introducing, and so on, and there was also someone called Dara, whom I really want to be sent by Bulgaria one day to show off that they’re not afraid of doing trashy-esque bops that don’t necessarily win

Also they reminded me that Lucy from No Angels (aka the sole reason Bulgaria 12′d Germany in 2008) still exists.

Also Azis.

There was also an intermission where Eurovision 2021 acts could say all the nice words to Victoria on their own part. And several artists chose to... how shall I put it... use up their several seconds rather interestingly. Like how The Roop would say something real quick only to delve into more of their usual “let’s dance, let’s discoteque! *hand scissors* ;P” self-promo, and Senhit carelessly being allowed to say whatever she wants in Italian without subtitles <3 Sorry sis, they’re only given to people from another white-green-red flag-color country.

About the iCard foreshadow... so there’s their advert about Victoria waiting in the line to get something in the Soft Vocals Store, and people ahead of her giving her money the standard oldfashioned way, and the old lady at the counter is... slow, to say the least. After a good amount of time spent waffling around, Victoria finally pulls out the iCard application and pays for the imaginary items she wants, then narrates some stuff about said application, and a Eurovision entry of hers plays when the old lady is at home, spending time in front of TV enjoying the music. Before the concert, the song that played was “Tears Getting Sober”. The advert played once more before Victoria’s big entry decision and entry MV reveal, and in place of the 2020 entry, “Growing Up Is Getting Old” was the one that sounded out loud... Now you may think that there were attempts at some sort of spoilage here, but after that ad before the concert EP NF result, there was this other advert starring Victoria that played “Imaginary Friend” at the end, a last-ditch effort to trick viewers into going “see? just because that ad played the chosen song doesn’t mean it’s the chosen song!! this song could as well be a chosen song as well!!” yeah no shut up GUIGO IS the chosen song kthxbyebye.

ANY LAST WORDS?

Having said all that praise, I actually have “Growing Up Is Getting Old” fairly low on my ranking. It’s just because the year is so damn good and I have a lot more songs to care about more than this, but I appreciate the gesture that this singer is sending very much. Good luck on your road to conquer Europe, Victory-ia, I’m sure you get the best of the experience and all, because you would deserve it.

[swiftlymoniquesblog]

Celebrating Fearless: Taylor’s Version- My Swiftie Story

Hi friends! So we are just TWO DAYS away from Fearless: Taylor’s Version and I don’t know about you but I am SO EXCITED! The Fearless Era was when I became a Swiftie and my friend Ashley, who runs The World According to Taylor Swift: Fanpage for Swifties on Facebook, as well as several other social media pages, had her followers submit pictures/videos from their experiences of the Fearless era and I because I don’t have any photos, I asked if I could share my story so I wanted to share it with all of you! As well as try to see if Tay is lurking around and happens to run into this too. I am so ready for Taylor to FINALLY own all her music and we all can enjoy each album again like we’re hearing them for the first time. Please enjoy my Swiftie Story!

I became a Swiftie sometime in 2008 when I was 12 years old. I can’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember I had a few girlfriends who were crazy about country music. One of the girls lived on a farm and she would play Taylor’s music all the time. I didn’t like country music at all, and I’m still very selective about it today, but I do remember, the first song I heard was Love Story and it was New Year’s Eve. I think we listened to the song on YouTube (most likely) and I was really impressed by her voice and the story the song was telling. My friend had wanted me to sing along with her but I didn’t want to because I didn’t know all the lyrics and I just wanted to hear Taylor sing. 

Fast forward to 2009 and at this point, I was OBSESSED with Taylor. I remember I was at Walmart and bought the first album made by Justin Bieber and Taylor’s first album because I didn’t know she had an album before Fearless. I do know I was really interested and enchanted by the words she sang, the videos she made, and the stories she told. I wanted so much to be like her, that I even thought that was how high school was going to be for me when I heard Fifteen for the first time. Turns out, I was homeschooled for my entire middle school and high school years so I didn’t get to experience any “senior boys who would wink at me and say they hadn’t seen me around before.” I even had my Mom listen to her too, and she’s always enjoyed Taylor’s music and the kind of person she is, just like I do. 

As the years had gone by and I grew a bit older, I made a long-standing dream come true; I got to go to one of Taylor’s shows. It was July 19, 2013, at one of her shows in Philadelphia, which is very close to where she grew up. I had surprised my youth group leader with the tickets for her wedding since she was a really big fan like I was. We had made a day of it since the drive was about two hours from the town we lived in and I had just turned 17 the week before, so we wanted to celebrate. Summer in Philly was HOT and that day had reached 120 degrees. We were standing outside in that heat before we were allowed to go in and people had been passing out from it. Once we finally got inside and the whole arena went dark, the opening music to State of Grace began to play and the whole crowd of 50,000 people began screaming. I’ll never forget just seeing Taylor’s silhouette behind the red curtains, my heart was racing. Finally, I was going to see Taylor Swift in person and, even though I wasn’t able to get any photos and just one crappy video of the intro to the show, I’ll never forget that night. Or when Taylor stopped to look around at everyone as we all cheered for her and she seemed in disbelief that many people were there to see her. Or when she asked the audience if it was our first time seeing her, I shot my hand up so fast; I was so proud. 

 Now, at almost 25 years old, I still love Taylor just as much today as I did back in 2008. I owe so much of my happiness to Taylor because I can relate to her in a lot of ways. When life gets to be too much for me, I turn to Taylor’s music, sometimes even before I even tell anyone else about what’s going on. Her music is a way for me to cope with life; it’s therapy to me. I can play just about any song and I’ll immediately start to feel better. I sing along and imagine myself dancing around with Taylor in her apartment in New York City. 

If I ever have the opportunity to meet Taylor, I would tell her all of this and thank her from the bottom of my heart for saving my life on numerous occasions. Without her music or even just her posting on her social media channels, I would not be where I am today or who I am today. Every day is a chance to quote Taylor’s lyrics and then burst out the music on Spotify and that happens quite often. If I do get to meet Taylor, I would want my Mom to be there because she has seen firsthand the impact Taylor has had on me over all these years. She can attest to my journey and just how much I’ve looked up to Taylor. I want my Mom to experience being there when I finally get a hug and/or picture with Taylor because she has been a part of a lot of special things in my life. If I bring my Mom to a future show, I would make a sign that reads: “Here’s to my Momma, she listens to all my drama” with an arrow pointing to her because how cool would that be? My relationship with my Mom is very similar to Taylor and Andrea’s relationship so I’m sure we all could talk about that for a long time too. All in all, I’m very excited to hear the rerecording of Fearless, as it was the first album I heard and when I became a Swiftie, and it would feel like I was back in 2008 in my living room, listening to Love Story for the very first time with my friends, not wanting to sing along unless I knew the words. I will be a Swiftie forever & always. @taylorswift @taylornation​