#the little video of it being drawn with one of their hit songs in the background 🥹 Season of Memories indeed 🤍💙💜

[lilidawnonthemoon]

GFriend Season of Memories concept sketch artwork by Sosan (sso._01 on Instagram) ❄️

[ohnoitstbskyen]

100 songs to get to know me

I posted this image over on the bluesky, and it got like 100 likes, so now here we are. I was going to write them all up here, but Tumblr imposes a 10 video limit on embeds per post which I find infuriating.

So! You can read the first ten entries here, but you can read the entire list here: https://tbskyen.bearblog.dev/100-songs-to-get-to-know-me/

1. ABBA - Lay All Your Love On Me

I genuinely don't quite know if my enjoyment of ABBA is something I came by honestly, or something which is simply genetically engineered into my Scandinavian soul. I remember hearing my mom blasting their songs on the home stereo in my childhood, and the association has put permanent nostalgia blinders on me for all of ABBA's greatest hits. Still, I think the beat is undeniable and the mournful tone of the chorus adds some real melancholy to the dramatic plea at the core of the song.

2. Afenginn - Oestrogenmanipuleret Basilisk

Afenginn describe themselves as "bastard etno-punk" which is probably as good a description as you're going to get. There's a lot of klezmer and eastern European folk influences here, but what is more important about Afenginn's best songs is that they go hard as f*ck and it's an absolute blast to dance to them at a show. They played this the first time I saw them live, and the rhythm comes back every time I hear it again. Good times!

3. Afenginn - Ralli in D Minor

With 100 slots to fill, I am giving myself permission to allocate two slots to Afenginn, and for the same reason. Ralli in D Minor is less of a dance tune to me, and more of a headbanger, but with a sufficiently loud subwoofer and a game crowd, you could f*ing mosh to this.

4. Anamanaguchi - Prom Night

I discovered Anamanaguchi as the composers of the title track to the Nerdist podcast back in the day, and being unfamiliar with the concept of chiptunes, I was drawn in initially by the sheer novelty of hearing the squeaks and bloops of my gaming childhood employed towards rock tunes and combined with "real" instruments.

Beyond the gimmick, though, Anamanaguchi won me over fully with the Scott Pilgrim game soundtrack, and then 2013's Endless Fantasy, where the gimmick of chiptune nostalgia noise (at least for me) finally coalesced into something that felt entirely like its own thing. Plus I'm a sucker for exactly this kind of bright dance pop, and Bianca Raquel's vocals here are a perfect match for the tone of the music.

5. Jennifer Hudson - Memory

2019s Cats is a fascinating fucking disaster. Tom Hooper is the worst director of musicals in my living memory, the abuse of the VFX staff extended beyond brutal crunch and absurd challenge imposed by a director who had no idea what the hell he was asking them to do all the way into an astonishingly arrogant and condescending joke from Rebel Wilson and James Corden at the expense of workers who were the last people at fault for the disaster that the movie became (look in the fucking mirror, Wilson and Corden, your performances were rancid).

Still, the silver lining of Cats is we got to hear Jennifer Hudson shake the world on its foundations with her rendition of Memory. I don't give a shit what anyone says, this performance is transcendent and no amount of institutional failure can dim its quality.

6. Annette Bjergfeldt - Min Bærende Bjælke

Annette is one of my mother's oldest friends, and a prolific singer-songwriter now turned author. I've been going to her concerts since I was a little child, and while I am absolutely not the target audience for any of it, it has stuck with me as part of my musical vocabulary deep into adulthood.

She has experimented with brass band accompaniment a few times, but for my money, nothing quite comes close to the floating, optimistic vibe of Min Bærende Bjælke. It sounds like a very particular kind of lasting romance, which of course is also what the lyrics are about.

7. Hozier - Blood Upon the Snow

We'll get more than one Hozier song on this list, but Blood Upon the Snow stands out to me as a song which easily transcends the videogame soundtrack promotional tie-in nature of its conception. Bear McCreary's hurdy gurdy and lyrics about surviving through adversity by holding on to existence with your teeth and nails... yeah, it hits with me. There's something real in that.

"The trees deny themselves nothing that makes them grow, no rainfall, no sunshine, no blood upon the snow." Something about that feels real.

8. The Beatles - Something

idk if I really need to write anything about George Harrison's most famous love song that hasn't been written more extensively by a million dad-rock enthusiasts before me.

I will say, this is one of the few songs I listen to regularly that justify the expensive audiophile headphones I invest in. There's a LOT to hear on a good, lossless, original mix of this song, if you're the kind of pervert who gets off to listening to a song a hundred times to focus on different parts of the soundscape. (it's me, I am the pervert)

9. Blink-182 - Adam's Song

I discovered a lot of my music taste as a young man from extremely low-resolution AMVs that my friend used to download off sketchy file-sharing sites. Blink-182 entered my musical lexicon through the one above, specifically, piggybacking off of my teenage love of Dragon Ball.

I never really grokked what the lyrics were actually about, until relistening to the song years later, but something about the minor-key wail of the thing really sat with my angsty teenage soul and has stuck with me ever since. I cannot listen to this song without that music video playing in my head, the song will forever belong to Vegeta.

There's remastered versions of this AMV out there, apparently, but if it's not 144p with tinny audio, it's just not right. That's not what the song is supposed to sound like, not to me.

10. Blink-182 - Miss You

Blink-182 is one of those bands I discovered via anime AMVs and listened to obsessively for a period as a teenager (The Offspring will show up later on this list), and then fell entirely out of touch with for years until discovering much later in life that they did, in fact, keep releasing music. I Miss You from their self-titled 2003 album felt, when I discovered it sometime in the early 2010s, like a much more mature and interesting sound from a band which had gotten stuck associated with my adolescent superpower kung-fu fantasies which I was, at the time, feeling a bit embarrassed about.

The song had a resurgence on TikTok a little while ago as a meme template, which made me listen to the albums again, and rediscover yet again that Blink-182 is, in fact, still putting out albums.

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The rest of the list is here: https://tbskyen.bearblog.dev/100-songs-to-get-to-know-me/

[freesia-writes]

Ch 28: Party Hard and...

Master List ~~ Previous Chapter ~~ WC: 2.1k Author's Note: Time for it to hit the fan a bit. Hunter's just not having a great time. At least he's trying? Oh boy. Remember, kids, when you’re faced with a difficult situation, you can pause and respond intentionally or you can react without thinking. 😉

Couldn’t resist releasing this one early. Happy Saturday!

THIS SONG IS THE PERFECT VIBE; I'd suggest starting it halfway through (I'll mark it below): David Guetta & Bebe Rexha - I'm Good (Blue) [Official Music Video] (youtube.com)

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Luci’s gigantic floppy hat nearly hit Hunter in the face for a third time as they made their way into the transport station. It was perched on the side of the island, with equal access to a small landing pad as well as docks below, providing passage by air or by sea depending on the destination. After purchasing their tickets, they wandered down the stairs to the boats, scanning the numbers to find the right one. There were only a few routes available – one to each of the nearby islands – and Plata was by far the most popular destination. 

Wind ruffled his hair as the sound of engines grew louder, and Hunter looked up to see the shuttle coming in for landing. It was the same one he’d taken to Keytoll, and he squinted at it harshly as though the ship itself were to blame for all the strife he’d experienced. Something caught his eye, though, as it turned and settled onto the landing platform – a small tracking beacon stood out against the otherwise dull and dingy hull of the shuttle. The shiny little dome-shaped piece reflected the sunlight from its perch beneath one of the lateral wings, hidden to the casual onlooker. His brow furrowed, old habits kicking in as he wondered who put it there and for what reason. Hundreds of people had taken the shuttle to and from various places since he and Lyra had been on it; he was undoubtedly being paranoid to think it had something to do with them. But still…

“Time to go!” Luci’s bright voice called him back to the present as she took his arm and pulled him into motion. Her sundress fluttered in the breeze, and she entwined her fingers with his, coaxing him on with an affectionate gaze as they walked along the dock. They boarded the boat to Plata, tucked into some seats at the rear, and then they were off, skimming across the waves and leaving the weight of the world behind.

* * * 

“I am not wearing that!” Hunter laughed, giddy from a delicious dinner and the bottle of liquor they continued to share as they had returned to their hotel room. “You already got your way with the hair.”

“Come onnnn,” Luci insisted, waving at him like a flag. “You’ll fit right in.”

“I don’t want to fit in with that!” he protested, taking a swipe at it but missing as she jerked it out of his reach.

“Well then you can just go naked!”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you,” he said, slurring his words a tiny bit. 

“I mean, yeah!” she giggled, throwing her hands in the air in surrender. “Okay, we’ll compromise. Just wear the shirt. Keep your stupid jeans.”

“It’s not even a shirt!” he complained, shaking his head with a dumb grin on his inebriated face. 

“Just put it on so we can go,” she said, exasperated. She began to tug his shirt up and over his head, biting her lip at the way his hair scattered across his face once the shirt was free of his arms. A few fingers traced across his chest and stomach, and with just a look in those emerald eyes, he was drawn in for a kiss. When she released him, she pushed the “shirt” into his hands with a mischievous smile. “Go on.”

“This is beyond ridiculous,” He muttered, pulling it on and staring at her in disbelief. 

“You look sexy!” 

“I can’t…” 

“Ssshhhhh,” she pressed a finger to his lips, then stepped back and took another swig from the liquor bottle before handing it to him. He followed suit, set it on the counter with a loud clank, then turned to look at the tiny mirror on the back of the hotel room door. 

“Son of a Hutt…” 

His reflection stared back at him, almost unrecognizable. He was mercifully still wearing a plain pair of jeans, but that was where the common garb ended. Luci had pulled the top half of his hair into two slightly crooked little tufts atop his head and, once they were secured with rubber bands, had tied his bandana in its usual place below them. The “shirt” she’d insisted on looked like a fishing net. In fact, he was fairly certain it was made from a fishing net. There was a faint sense, somewhere deep inside, that he was embarrassed, or should be embarrassed… But it was quieted as Luci spun him around to face her. 

“Just relax and enjoy yourself.”

Fanart by @that-salmonberry-punk

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Music blared from each doorway they passed as they pushed through the crowds in downtown Plata. Much like Xylo, the island was small enough to have only one main town, but Plata was broad and flat, with tall buildings stacked neatly beside each other from end to end. It was tiny compared to Xylo, yet far more densely populated and full of art, culture, and nightlife. Luci’s outfit seemed as ridiculous as his own, and yet she strutted with full confidence. She’d opted for a pair of low-rise, baggy black pants with stripes down the sides and some kind of cropped moto jacket that hung open. Beneath that was just… underwear, as far as he could tell – a bright red bra and strappy thong that came up above the waistband of her pants that barely clung to her hips. But she’d insisted it was a proper outfit, and at that point he was a bit too tipsy to care.

She found an alleyway off the main street, pulling him into it and beaming at him from dewy, flushed cheeks. It was a warm and humid night, and the sheer number of people crammed into one area did nothing to help the claustrophobic vibe. But the temporary relief of quiet and darkness in the alley was a welcome reprieve, and Hunter exhaled, starting to run a hand through his hair before hitting the spiky little pigtails. Luci laughed, straightening them with playful little tugs, and she tickled his nipples where they poked out from his netted shirt. 

“What the kriff are we doing?” Hunter muttered, eyelids rather heavy as he regarded her with rummy fondness.

“Having fun. Plain and simple,” she answered with a shrug, tugging her red top down a bit to plump up her cleavage. Hunter was overwhelmed as it were, and when she gave them an extra little jiggle, laughing at the way his eyebrows shot up, he was about ready to call it a night. 

But Luci had other plans.

“I thought we might start the night off right…” she purred, biting her lip as her eyes roved from his recently-firmed abs to his broad, shapely chest. “If you’re interested…” He watched curiously as she produced a small capsule from her pocket, opening it to reveal some nondescript pills. “These are nifty little things… Basically, they bring you fully into the moment. It’s like you’re totally yourself, totally present… And you don’t remember any of it the next day.”

Hunter balked at that, jerking his chin down in scrutiny. “That sounds… scary.”

“Don’t you wish you could forget, sometimes?” she asked, somewhat profound all of a sudden. “To just press pause on all of life and enjoy each minute?”

“I mean, yeah, but not remembering…?”

“It doesn’t make you do anything crazy. I think it just releases who you are, at the core. Without inhibitions. Without all the pressures and expectations of everyone else. Just you… and me… and a night to be free.” She shrugged, taking a pill and showing him how it melted on her tongue. “You can try just one – it will just be mild… if you want.” 

He watched her put another one into her mouth, feeling equally apprehensive and enticed. Out of the blue, Lyra’s face flashed across his mind, causing an immediate revolt from all his senses at once. Something inside of him felt odd, as though it were slashing through thick vines and roots to try to free itself. But it felt foreign, too… distinctly “other”. It was a tumultuous sensation, almost beyond his control, and he found that he did not like it one bit. 

He took one of the pills, sniffing it out of habit before swallowing it without further question. 

Luci smiled.

SONG TIME: David Guetta & Bebe Rexha - I'm Good (Blue) [Official Music Video] (youtube.com)

She pushed him until his back was flush against the wall, head spinning and heart racing. Her hands were heavy on his chest, his neck, his cheeks... She cupped his face with fervent desire, gazing affectionately into his eyes before closing her own, tilting her head, and pressing her lips to his. 

Her hands began to roam again, stroking and caressing, pulling feelings and yearnings and urges from him that had been dormant for so long until she’d awakened them. An initial resistance welled up, adding to the constant confusion, but it was soon diminished beneath her passion as she kissed him again and again. 

Heat flushed Hunter's body from head to toe, and he opened up to her, his fingers gripping her waist as he leaned in. A feminine, breathy sigh escaped her as the intensity grew, their faces pressed together, lips caressing and tugging. She opened her mouth more, sliding her tongue against his, and tingles coursed through his veins as he met her fervor with his own, squeezing his eyes tightly shut and losing himself to the ardor growing in his core. He didn’t notice the already-melting pills she’d moved from her mouth to his as she continued to ravish him.

She ran a hand up the back of his neck, digging it into his hair and tightening her grip, pulling back for a moment to regard him with unbridled lust. "You are so kriffing hot, you know that? Damn, the things I want to do to you..." she murmured, heavy-lidded eyes following the contour of his face as he opened his eyes to meet hers, smoldering with intensity. 

A small smile curved her cheeks, and she bit her lip before leaning in again. He was reeling from the sheer overwhelm of it all -- her scent, her breath, her body, her sensuality, her uncomplicated want for him. This was what he'd wanted, wasn't it? Freedom from responsibility, freedom to pursue a future of his own, freedom to release the burden of every possible consequence and to simply enjoy life on life's terms...

Her hand slipped beneath his shirt, his muscles tensing against her touch and fanning the flame where her fingernails gently raked up toward his chest. Soft lips trailed to his jawbone, below his ear, down the side of his neck, setting him on fire inside and out. Hunter tilted his head away, feeling her consuming desire spreading through his own chest. He felt as though he were spinning in place; every taste, scent, touch, and sound was amplified and improved.

This was what he had wanted. This was the right choice. 

Wasn't it? 

* * * 

Fanart by @clownbloody

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Stairs, so many stairs. Luci’s voluptuous curves moving ahead of him in serpentine mystery. Loud music and flashing lights. The rhythm thumping inside his chest. Bodies jostling against one another, loose and free. Weaving through the crowd, laughter and liquor and sweat and salt all blending into the beat. 

Deep green eyes finding his. Gentle arms around his neck. Her hips in his hands. Her breath and pulse melding into his. The music was what moved him; he was just a willing participant. Everyone was together and yet separate. Blending in seamless surrender to hedonistic folly.

He chased Luci along a side street, stumbling as people leapt out of the way. The cold night air burned his lungs, a sharp contrast to the heat radiating from his body until he plunged into water beside her. They floated on their backs in a large fountain, surrounded by music and laughter. Lights flashed from a nearby rooftop party, and the next thing he knew, they found themselves there. 

A sparkling disco ball scattered beams of light across the area, refracting every color into splintered shards of rainbow on people’s faces, drinks, chests, and backs. A tall Twi’lek with a metallic gold dress slithered up behind Hunter as Luci was grinding against his front, his hands on her hips as his head tilted back, and the strong green body pressed against his back, swaying in perfect time. Luci glanced back, laughing in delirious joy, and reached her arms over her head, red curls scattering everywhere as she lost herself in the music.

He pressed her against the wall in the hallway, jostled by people making their way to and from the refreshers. Her lips were hot and heavy on his neck, hands pulling his waist ever closer, until she paused for a moment, pulling back to regard him with a suddenly serious expression. Tears in her eyes, a frown on her lips. He bent his head down, touching the side of his face to hers, and she whispered in his ear. 

“Sometimes it all just feels so empty.”

And then she was on him again, coaxing sensations that threatened to overtake him.

Small red lamps glowed on each table in the center of each booth in the dimly-lit room. It was a temporary reprieve from the jam-packed chaos of the streets and clubs, and the food tasted like nothing he’d ever had before. The textures of each bite came alive in his mouth, flavors combining effortlessly – sweet and spicy, savory and tart… Luci climbed into his lap, banging the table as she straddled him. She held up a piece of cheesy bread in her fingers, inviting him to eat it from her hand, which he immediately did. With a giggle, she buried her hands in his hair, tugging it free from the pigtails, and bent over him to bring her mouth to his. 

The rest of the night was a blur.

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I stole the inspo for his hair from this post by @raevulsix 😂

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[timeagainreviews]

Bursting Your Bubble

Liam Lynch once said- “The internet is a glimpse into how rude people will be in the future.” At the time it felt like just another funny little line from his song “Internet Killed the Video Star,” (not to be confused with the Limousines’ song of the same name) but nowadays it feels prophetic. Just this morning I made the mistake of reading the comments section and it’s thrown my day off considerably. From the comforts of our keyboards, we can write horrendous things. Treat strangers with contempt. It’s sometimes easy to forget there are actual people on the other end of our glowing screens. Insularity breeds contempt for the different. We live in our little bubbles.

It would be easy to blame the posters, the content creators, the influencers. A few bad apples spoil the bunch. But as psychologist Philip Zimbardo would say- don’t blame the apples, don’t blame the barrel, blame the barrel makers. The people who put the apples into the barrel in the first place. Despite everything Russell T Davies’ “Dot and Bubble,” is trying to say, one question hangs over it and the rest of this season- who is the barrel maker? Things in Finetime are anything but fine, but by whose design? One might assume it’s Susan Twist’s character, but who is she? This is the overarching question of season one, but is the question beginning to feel a bit drawn out?

From the outset, “Dot and Bubble,” acts as a sort of Black Mirror version of “Blink.” We’re given a young blonde woman who finds herself in a dangerous situation that requires her to look at something she would usually ignore. All the while, the Doctor and his companion are forced to talk to the young woman through a screen. The difference here is that while Sally Sparrow had gumption, Lindy Pepper-Bean is about as useful as a wicker toilet. She lives in “Finetime,” an actual bubbled world. Her “Dot,” device then creates yet another bubble around her head. It’s bubble inception. The bubble tells her when to wake up, how to walk, and even when to pee. (Shout out to my boy Dr Pee!) Because of this, Lindy lives an unobserved life where hard questions need not bother her.

Everything about Finetime is a hyper-realistic nightmare of overstimulation. It’s like “A Clockwork Orange,” meets “The Stepford Wives.” Lindy can ignore her problems when there’s always a new Ricky September video on the horizon. As Frank from Brad Neely’s “The Professor Brothers” said- “We danced like those people in the hyper-tight light of fried chicken commercials.” Lindy and her “friends,” can completely ignore the fact that their friends have slowly begun disappearing. They don’t even seem to notice when they’re the only ones in the room, how would they notice gigantic slugs eating each other?

With Ncuti Gatwa away filming season four of “Sex Education,” the show had to do a couple Doctor-lite episodes. These are usually hit-or-miss among fans, but as “Blink,” proved back in 2007, they can become fan favourites. The Doctor and Ruby’s roles are reduced, but this episode does a good job of making them feel like a recurring part of the story. Even though they spend the bulk of the episode in what looks like the intro to “The Brady Bunch,” it never feels like we’re being underserved.

Lindy’s friends float around her like talking heads in her holographic bubble. But she keeps getting interrupted by the Doctor and his bad vibes. Even though Ruby is also invading her privacy despite not being on her friend list, Lindy is willing to hear her out. We’re not told why up front, but there is a reason Lindy can believe Ruby might feasibly be tech support, but the Doctor could not. Due to Lindy’s impatience, Ruby is forced to talk to Lindy as if she were a child, but not so much that she catches on. Anyone who stops Lindy from either working or playing is a massive drag to her. She really just wants Ruby and the Doctor to go away. How do they not know how society works? Why are they asking such stupid questions when the answers have been drilled into everyone since they were children?

We learn that Lindy’s mother is Penny Pepper-Bean, but she’s actually another Susan Twist cameo, so she could be anyone. Thankfully, both the Doctor and Ruby recognise her this time, and it’s not in an aborted timeline. I saw someone mention on Facebook today that they felt the Doctor recognising her felt rushed, and I couldn’t disagree more. It was high time we got something from this storyline. While it has been nice to genuinely be curious about Doctor Who’s mysteries again, this one has felt like a lot of the same. With the Doctor and Ruby now clued in, we have somewhere else to go in the future. Maybe now Susan Twist will come out from behind the mask and we can learn something more about her. Maybe now the Doctor will start looking into her involvement.

I’m usually not interested in fan theories as they’re often filler content when YouTubers and bloggers don’t have anything else to talk about. But here I believe we’ve been given quite a lot to work with to formulate a theory or two. I know I said “It’s probably not the Rani because it’s never the Rani,” but at this point, if she’s not the Rani, they’ve wasted their biggest opportunity to reintroduce audiences to her that the show has ever had. At this point, it would be weird if she wasn’t the Rani. The things she’s been involved with have all of her usual hallmarks. We have genetic manipulation in “Space Babies,” humans are being treated like lab rats in “Dot and Bubble,” and then there’s the whole disguising yourself in plain sight aspect. At this point, the bigger question isn’t whether or not she’s the Rani. The bigger question is why wouldn’t she be? Why would the show come so close to revealing her and then pull back?

Ruby finally convinces Lindy to look beyond her bubble where she witnesses her co-worker being eaten by one of the Man-Traps. Usually Lindy could just ask her Dot to guide her to safety, but for some reason, it feels more than ready to direct her right into the open mouth of a Man-Trap. Lindy must walk without the aid of her Dot, and man does she suck at it. She quite literally cannot walk talk and chew bubblegum at the same time. Part of me was worried the episode was going to spend all of its time making fun of young people and their phones. It’s cliched and honestly, I’m tired of it. But within the context of the episode, Davies isn’t attempting a technophobic condescension toward the youth of today. Instead, the episode endeavours to highlight the danger of relinquishing your thoughts and actions to outside entities. If we let others tell us what to like, who to like, or how to live, you may as well become worm food.

Having narrowly escaped death by slug, Lindy is forced to bumble about outside while the Doctor and Ruby direct her like the most exasperated form of Google Maps ever. An interesting aspect of this scene that I’ve not heard anyone talk about is the greenish-blue blood seen from a body being dragged away. You may not know what I’m talking about, but I’ll post a picture below. You may look at that and say “That’s not blood, that’s slug goo.” But where else in the episode do we actually see the Man-Traps leave behind any kind of snail trail? I’m going to go out on a limb and say I think the people of Finetime are blue-blooded, and considering what we learn about them, it makes sense. Blue blood is often a symbol for aristocracy, but it can also be used as a way to imply an inbred nature. In this case, we could infer that the citizens have blue blood because they don’t “dilute,” it with the blood of non-white people. Oh did I not mention the Finetimers are racists? More on that in a bit.

Throughout most of this episode, only one of Lindy’s friends seems to be concerned with the fact that people are going missing, and that’s Gothic Paul. Gothic Paul was a nice little addition to the episode because a trans man plays him and they didn’t make a big deal about it. He wasn’t even killed for being trans. He was killed for being delicious and too dumb to notice. A diversity win! Compare this to Chibnall’s gay representation where a character says “By the way, I’m gay,” and then spiders eat her face. LGBTQ+ people are allowed to exist in such a manner that it doesn’t feel like “kill your gays,” when they kill our gays. Representation has been so good that it’s not even problematic that a drag queen made a child disappear. You know, the thing all of those conservatives are worried about with drag story hour? That’s just the Maestro’s schtick. 

After the battery in Lindy’s Dot goes dead, she’s basically a sitting duck. That is until she hears a familiar voice call out. A voice belonging to none other than the dreamy Ricky September. Maybe it’s the insular nature of being a pop star, but Ricky isn’t bogged down by his Dot. Instead, he’s learned to appreciate existing offline. Because of this, Ricky reads things about their people’s history. And even luckier for Lindy, Ricky can actually walk and move about in the world. After a bit of starstruck awe, Lindy takes his hand as he leads her away from danger. It’s almost sweet if you don’t suspect what’s coming.

Ricky leads Lindy to Plaza 55 where a door leading to the river flowing beneath the bubble can lead them out into the Wild Woods. Knowing a bit about coding, Ricky simply needs to type in two digits every five seconds and the door will come open eventually. With no Man-Traps about, Lindy needs only to sit tight and let Ricky work his magic. While she waits, Lindy is able to charge her Dot which enables the Doctor and Ruby to contact her again. The Doctor infers that the Dots can see the Man-Traps, but willfully encourage people to walk directly into their mouths. As it turns out, the Dot hates Lindy and her friends about as much as the audience does. The AI has gone rogue and it’s taking these airheads with it. Sadly, this is also when the episode starts to get bogged down by the season's overarching plot.

The Doctor deduces that the Man-Traps are eating the people in alphabetical order. This leads him to believe that the AI must have created the Man-Traps, otherwise they would eat whoever, whenever. The reason I feel this feels bogged down by the overarching plot is that I can’t imagine these golfball-sized Dots being capable of growing creatures in a laboratory. The most they can do against Ricky and Lindy is act as a projectile. They don’t even have thumbs. Because of this, it’s logical to imagine that there is a third party involved. It’s not hard to imagine who that third party is, considering Susan Twist’s cameo. But in the meantime, we as an audience are left in a state of limbo where this is either part of some greater plan, or an unsatisfying plothole. Albeit, not an incredibly episode-breaking one. After all, the Daleks manage quite a bit with only a plunger.

With Lindy’s Dot trying to bash their brains in and Lindy being next in line, alphabetically speaking, we are finally introduced to who Lindy actually is as person. Using her mega fan knowledge about Ricky September, she informs the Dot that Ricky’s name is a stage name and his real name is Coombes. Ricky can barely believe the betrayal from the woman he’s tried so very hard to save. But her gamble pays off as the Dot refocuses its attention on Ricky, giving Lindy enough time to escape to the river while the Dot strikes down poor Ricky. As face turns go, this is one of the worst in Doctor Who history. However, it’s not entirely without warning. Certain lines of dialogue have clued us in to Lindy’s true nature throughout the episode.

Before we leave him behind like Lindy so callously does, I’d like to take a moment to talk about Ricky September, as I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him. It was hard to tell what the Dot does to Ricky because the camera looks away, but he could have survived. Why I think this is because they spend a lot of time building Ricky up as a character. Both the Doctor and Ruby have shown a romantic interest in him. There have even been rumours that there would be a sort of love triangle between the Doctor, Ruby, and Ruby’s boyfriend. On top of that, we’ve got another blonde-haired blue-eyed person with RS for initials. Even further, the S in both names indicates a point in time- September and Sunday. And just because Ricky comes from a community of racists doesn’t mean he is one. Like he said, he does a lot of reading. Perhaps he’s learned better. Or I’m wrong and he has a Dot-sized hole in his head.

Finally, we get to see the Doctor and Ruby in the flesh. Even more finally, we get to see them both in the costumes they wore in their first costume reveal! Lindy gives the Doctor and Ruby some shitty excuse about Ricky turning back to save more people. She even gives a begrudging thank you to them, but ultimately can’t bring herself to let the Doctor help her or her friends. Lindy and her fellow survivors can’t bring themselves to interact with the Doctor because he’s black. It’s as heartbreaking for the Doctor as it is infuriating to Ruby who can only stand there and watch her friend experience this ugliness. But the Doctor is still the Doctor and he’s a bigger man than their small minds. He continues holding out a lifeline to some of the most undeserving group of spoiled narcissists to ever grace the screen of Doctor Who.

I’ve seen people complain that the Doctor does this. That it doesn’t mesh with the same character who once punched a man who was racist toward Bill. But that was the Doctor drawing a line and defending his friend’s honour. The Doctor’s compassion is so great that he’s willing to forego his sense of self-respect to save lives. This is the same man who tries to reason with racist genocidal aliens, he doesn’t stop just because they look human. I know I would have let them die, but the Doctor is a better person than me. That’s not to say any of this is easy for him. It very clearly cuts him to his core. Ncuti Gatwa gives an earth-shattering performance here, and when you consider this is the first scene he filmed after the Giggle, it’s fucking astounding. This is the exact type of range I was hoping they would bring to his character.

As a white member of the audience, I am left with a lot of uncomfortable realisations. Like, I barely batted an eye at the fact that Lindy’s friends were all white. I’m also left wondering how many people the Doctor has saved in the past who might have also treated a black Doctor differently. But I also feel like this ending took me by surprise for a different reason than my own ignorance. I simply never expected Doctor Who to go there. The topic of racism is not new to Doctor Who. Martha experiences quite a bit of it, especially in “Human Nature.” But even their more recent attempt with “Rosa,” fell short by implying that in 3000 years, no other black person would stand up for their rights. It was an oversimplification of the civil rights movement that left me wondering if Doctor Who was capable of tackling such heavy issues. I never felt like the show properly addressed the Doctor being a woman, so believe me when I say how much I appreciate them addressing the Doctor’s race. Even further, I loved that it ultimately isn’t the Doctor who will suffer from their racism. Their prejudice has doomed them without anyone else’s help.

It’s weird to look at this episode on the TARDIS wiki and see the Dots and Man-Traps listed as the main enemy. Because really, it’s Lindy who is the real monster. It’s Hoochy Pie and her wack-ass trumpet. Also, can we not come up with a better name than Man-Trap? What about Erascists? They erase e-racists. Just some good little sluggy bois taking out the trash. I stan a king. The Dots hate those evil trust fund dickweeds, and honestly, same. Evidently, the name Man-Trap was introduced in Doctor Who Unleashed, which for the 4th week in a row, I’ve forgotten to watch. One of the side-effects of Doctor Who’s screwy release schedule is that now I completely forget Doctor Who Unleashed even exists. One benefit, however, is that I often get to rewatch the episodes the next day with my partners who didn’t want to stay up late. The benefit is that I’ll notice things I missed the first time. It also allows me to experience the stories for what they are, as opposed to what I expected them to be.

Being able to watch “Dot and Bubble,” with hindsight has given me an even greater appreciation for this story. Over time, I feel people will eventually regard it as one of Davies’ best. Its tone and themes remind me of something you would find in the Seventh Doctor era, which is high praise coming from me. Ricky feels like the promise of a character like Pex from “Paradise Towers,” properly realised. Hopefully, like the graffiti says- “Pex lives.” Dylan Holmes Williams does a fabulous job directing as the episode wastes nothing. It’s a Doctor-lite episode that manages not to waste a moment of screen time with the Doctor. In less than five minutes, Gatwa manages to be the command performance in an episode of solid performances. But much like “The Fugitive of the Judoon,” this strong episode remains feeling unresolved due to the plotline still hanging over its head. Once we have the hindsight of knowing how it fits into the greater storyline, it could appreciate in value. One can only hope.

[abeautylives]

Trip Around the Sun - The Epilogue

a/n: If you’ve made it this far, THANK YOU! I really loved writing this little miniseries so if it made its way to you and you enjoyed it, thank you thank you thank you.

Series Masterlist

pairing: Joshxfemale!reader

word count: 3k this part

summary: A vacation fling that ended in heartbreak. How far will you go to put the pieces back together?

warnings: Absolutely none other than some language

Six Months Later

I do not need this shit today.

Your boss has been riding your ass particularly hard this week, but today it’s taken the form of email after email, requests for quarterly reports, calendar invites to meetings you won’t even get to speak during. Why did she wait until Friday to lay all this shit on you? The incessant ding from your computer with each incoming notification is giving you a migraine. You let your eyes drop to the bottom right corner of your screen.

11:47am. Fuck it.

You clock out for your lunch break unannounced, grab your bag and your phone and make your way toward the elevator. No one so much as raises their head in notice of you, but you avoid their eyes over the walls of their cubicles anyway.

The midsummer heat envelops you as soon as you step out onto the sidewalk, a welcome change from the frigid conditioned air inside the office building, your headache easing up instantly. Bypassing a Starbucks on the way, you pop into your preferred coffee bar, a cozy local spot with better drinks and far superior food. From behind the counter, the barista greets you by name and asks if you’re having your usual, but you turn down the hot drink in favor of something iced.

The second the heavily caffeinated liquid hits your tongue, you can feel the remnants of your headache melting away. You find a lone seat outside on their shaded patio, sipping your drink as you pull out your phone to scroll mindlessly for the next forty-five minutes.

You’re doing exactly that, flipping your thumb over the screen as your For You page flashes past, pausing occasionally to watch a video in its entirety. Every five or six videos or so, the same song starts to play, something that’s trending but that you don’t recognize, so you flip past it. Over, and over, and over again until you realize you’ve heard it nearly ten times.

Your thumb moving now of its own volition, you swipe another video away as that same song starts. This time, you bring it back to you with a downward pull.

The screen is split, your eyes first drawn to the person on the left who’s definitely wearing a ridiculous wig and mouthing along to the words of the song, an acoustic guitar strumming the tune that’s vaguely familiar to you now that you’ve heard its beginnings so many times. You let your focus slip to the right, the video that the creator is clearly imitating, and your phone slides from your fingers. It hits the edge of the bistro table and bounces, landing face up on the ground at your feet, the song still playing as the video runs on a loop.

There’s no fucking way.

You scramble to scoop your phone from the bricks, the screen undamaged and his face on full display.

His face.

It looks different than the face in your memory, younger maybe, softer at the edges that you remember being sharp, defined. Maybe it’s the lack of facial hair.

The video plays on and you can’t stop watching it, again and again, eyes focusing on a different part of him with every loop. The way his plump lips move over those obscenely perfect teeth, the way his eyes sparkle as he lifts them though you can’t see the exact shade of his irises, the way his curls look almost exactly as you remember them, despite the ways he’d changed. The way he drops his head and his jaw flexes, that is very familiar to you.

Josh.

What the fuck is this?

You’d been so stunned at the sight of him that nothing else had truly registered, but now your eyes are bouncing around the screen. He’s singing. Is he a singer? What the hell is he wearing?

What is this?

Greta Van Fleet. The words tumble over themselves in your mind as if they're in a language unknown to you. The tags on the video capture your attention.

#gretavanfleet #gvf #snl

Saturday Night Live? You’re about to dive into a Google search when you catch the time at the top corner of your screen. Shit.

Coffee in hand, you speed walk back to your office building, eyes still trained on your phone’s screen. It’s a miracle that you haven’t tripped or mowed someone over as you’re stuck scrolling, your first entry into the search bar being what you assume is a band name.

Rock band from Michigan

Kiszka brothers, twins Josh and Jake

Kiszka. Josh Kiszka.

He’s fucking famous.

The rest of your work day passes in a blur of emails and reports, your focus effectively obliterated by what you’ve discovered. You actively have to resist searching for him on your company computer, your fingertips itching to type in his name, so you settle for putting in your AirPods and pulling up their discography on Spotify.

Unfortunately, the sound of his voice, nothing like the voice that spoke so many beautiful words against your skin, sucks the air from your lungs until you feel like you might actually have a panic attack. You wrench the AirPods from your ears and throw them back into your bag.

Five o’clock couldn’t come soon enough.

The door of your apartment slams behind you, your bag and keys tossed to the ancient hardwood and heels kicked aside within seconds. You can’t be bothered to change out of your clothes, tossing your blazer aside as you enter your bedroom and hiking your pencil skirt up over your thighs as you sit cross legged in your bed, laptop already pulled to rest in front of you.

His name is typed into your browser as soon as you flip it open, and within seconds you learn more about him than you did in all the hours spent together. His birthdate, his hometown, his middle fucking name. This almost feels invasive, like you’re suddenly privy to information that should be secret, yet here it is for all the world to see. You open the Images tab and hold back a sob, a hand flying over your mouth to capture it.

Before today, you’ve never seen a picture of him. There’s a barrage of them on your screen, ranging from what must be a few years old to what you assume are current, his appearance so similar to that of your memories. Clicking on one to enlarge it, your fingertips leave your lips and trace over the image of his. You feel a hot tear slip free and roll down your cheek.

You’d love to say you had boarded that plane and simply accepted the fact that your time together was just that, limited and perfect in its brevity, a sweet escape from reality that was never meant to exist beyond the confines of a tropical resort. But that would be a lie.

Instead, you’d returned home a broken woman, bereft in the loss of him. It wasn’t logical, your heartbreak, but that fact hadn’t helped it heal. As you look at him now, through a watery veil of tears that won’t stop coming, you realize that time has done nothing to lessen the hurt.

Unable to stop yourself, you let your eyes move over the screen, taking in every version of his sweet face. Some pictures look like they’re from the same period of time as the footage from the TikTok, his stage outfits much more flamboyant and form-fitting than the plain white t-shirt or tank he’d adorned every day that you knew him. Knew him. That’s a joke. You didn’t know him at all.

But you had wanted to.

You switch back to the Google search results. As you scroll down the page, you avoid clicking links to videos that look like interviews, the thought of hearing him speak is overwhelming in the worst way, but something else grabs your attention.

His Instagram.

Your laptop abandoned, you open the app on your phone and search for his username, your finger hovers over the top result before you suck in a breath and tap it.

More pictures, a carefully curated collection of images made up almost solely of him. You open the most recent and feel heat blossom over your cheeks. It’s just him, you’re growing used to the sight of his face already, but he’s in profile and his curls are pulled back and tucked beneath that cap. The same one he’d been wearing when you met him by the pool. It’s so nearly exactly how he looked the first time you saw him up close that you have to move past it before you crumble completely.

His captions are sometimes poetic, as you had learned he could be, and now it all makes perfect sense. He’s an artist, a lyricist, he is a poet.

Here you are again, scrolling, growing numb to the digital portrayal of his face as you take in each one, watching him age in reverse as you reach the very last post on his account. When you make it there, you click on his username and it opens back at the top. You stare hard at the options before you.

Follow

Message

There’s no way it could be that easy… right?

The next days pass slowly, dragged out by the dwindling hope that the message you had managed to type out with shaky fingers somewhere around midnight that first night, will be read.

Days turn into weeks, your work performance suffering as the hole he’d left in your heart only seems to grow. You check Instagram almost obsessively but that little note never appears to indicate that he’s even seen your message. You lose yourself to it a little bit, the fixation, the need, he feels so close and somehow farther away than he’s ever been. It sometimes feels worse than not knowing anything about him at all.

In a dark moment of tequila-fueled weakness, you send another message. And another, convinced that somehow you’ll grab his attention. Prompted by a new set of black and white portraits uploaded to his account, you’d purchased the bottle and brought it home to drown in it, staring at the photos until your vision blurs. In the first image he’s looking directly down the barrel, into the lens, his body facing away and head turned toward the camera, an unbearably devilish smirk curving his lips. You know that smirk and the dimple it pulls into his skin well, it appears frequently in your dreams and now it takes up the entire screen of your phone, made up of pixels that lack all of the warmth and vibrancy that emanate from him.

You double tap your screen, a white heart appearing and disappearing over his grin. In a desperate attempt to be noticed, for him to sense your torment, you tap the heart at the bottom left corner of the picture, changing it from red back to an outline, a shell of itself. You repeat this over and over, red to outline, red to outline, will he see the notifications? Will anyone? Even if he did, would your username set off any alarm bells, does he even remember you?

He promised he would, but he didn’t keep every promise he made. Not when it mattered.

Willing yourself to stop liking and unliking the picture, you go back to your messages. Still unread.

The frustration gnaws at you from the inside until you feel on the verge of a true mental breakdown, a snap decision away from being locked up. Ignoring the potential consequences, you make that decision anyway, and a quick search brings you the name of their management company.

This is crazy… right?

You had definitely called. The first call was answered with cool professionalism that you met with your own cultivated “phone voice”, the conversation pleasant enough until you’d come out and asked for Josh Kiszka’s contact information. You’re sure you heard the woman on the other end of the line gasp, a sharp intake of breath followed by a heated dismissal as she admonished you for even daring to ask for the personal information of one of their clients. When the distinct click of the call disconnecting hits your ear, you’re not surprised.

But it doesn’t stop you from dialing the number again. And then again when the call goes unanswered.

The same woman picks up the phone after allowing it to ring for a considerable amount of time, and she manages to maintain the professional tone she’d answered with the first time. You ask if you can leave a message for Mr. Kiszka, but she declines and advises you to stop calling their office.

Two days later, you call again. As soon as you hear her, you know it’s the same person and that she’ll be prepared to hang up on you the moment you open your mouth. You don’t even try to hide your desperation, practically begging her to just take your name and number and pass it along, no message, no further information, please just tell him I called.

Click.

Six weeks. It’s been a month and a half since you saw that God forsaken video and it’s haunted you every day. You’ve gone to borderline embarrassing lengths to reach him. Messages, comments across the band’s various social media platforms, you’ve gone so far as to slide into his brothers’ DMs, in the hope that maybe one of them actually checks them.

They don’t.

As if it’s routine for you now, you absently scroll through your recent calls while you sit at your desk and tap on the number you’ve memorized as that of their management office, putting your phone on speaker as it rings. Ready to go toe-to-toe with Amber again while you wrap up an email, you’re shocked into momentary silence as a voice you don’t recognize comes over the line and greets you with the name of the company followed by their own and an offer to assist.

“Oh, hi um, Drew, was it? Drew I’m trying to get in contact with a client of yours, a Mr. Josh Kiszka. Could you-“

“What’s your name?”

Fuck. You can’t lie, so you give him your first name and hold your breath, waiting for the inevitable click.

“Please hold, I’ll connect your call.”

Holy shit. Your palms are instantly clammy with a cold sweat. There’s no way. The phone nearly slips from your fingers again as you take the call off speaker and hold it up to your ear with a shaky hand, the generic hold music drowned out by the rush of your own blood, your heart racing.

In a small conference room several floors over Drew’s head, the intercom at the center of the table beeps. Josh is seated there, next to Jake, the other band members across from them. All eyes dart to the intercom before sliding back to Patrick, their manager’s assistant that’s leading this meeting. Patrick sighs and leans in, pressing the button to answer the call.

“We’re in the middle of something, what?”

“S-so sorry sir, Mr. Kiszka has a call waiting on line three.”

Patrick sighs again deeply as he shakes his head, the other men around the table grin at each other, individual eyebrows raised in curiosity before they look back to the head of the table.

“Sorry guys, new fucking intern- Which Mr. Kiszka, Drew? Quickly.”

“Oh- I, sorry, Josh, sir.” Drew is about to lose this job before he even truly has it.

“And you didn’t just take a message because…?” Patrick is understandably irritated but the rest of the guys take the interruption in stride, leaning back into their chairs and letting their gazes drift back to Josh, intrigue written between his brows and on the subtle downturn of his lips.

“I- Don’t know sir, I’m so sorry, I’ll let her know-“

Josh interjects, cutting Drew the smallest amount of slack that he seems to desperately need. “Hey, that’s okay I’ll just take it. Where can I…?” He trails off and Drew stutters through telling him there’s a vacant office next door to the left, he can pick up line three, before Patrick presses the button to end Drew’s suffering.

“You expecting a call, Josh?” Sam, the youngest Kiszka brother speaks up, an inquisitive eyebrow still sitting high on his forehead.

“Ya know, I’m not, and that makes it all the more mysterious doesn’t it?” He waves his hands through the air and flashes a wide grin before standing and leaving the room.

The office next door is indeed empty, and dark. Josh flips the light switch on the wall and strolls in, rounding the tidy desk and taking a seat behind it. A multi-line corded phone sits at the corner, a red light flashing next to a button labeled Line 3. He leans in and lifts the handset from the receiver, putting it up to his ear as he pushes the button and the flashing light goes solid.

You’ve been on hold for what feels like hours, though it’s probably been only a few minutes, and you can’t bring yourself to end the call. The hope radiating through your body has caused a flush to creep over your chest and up your neck, you’d torn your cardigan off and thrown it onto your desk after the first minute. Your cheek is hot against the glass of your phone’s screen and your heart feels like it’s about to burst from your chest. You suck in a gasp and hold it when you hear the line click.

“Hello?”

His voice. You haven’t heard it at all since the day you’d found out who he was, haven’t listened to a song, haven’t watched a video. There would have been absolutely no way you could’ve handled it, and you’ve been holding out hope against every odd that the next time you did hear it… it would be straight from his own mouth. The sound of it leaves you light headed as you exhale the breath you’ve been holding, and you realize you haven’t said anything.

His voice rasps through the speaker again. “Hello?”

“… Josh.”

Taglist:

@lightmylove-gvf @spicedandicedtea @weneedsomehealing123 @milkgemini @why-ami-on-here @gretavanbitches @twistedmelodies @wildflowerxx-x @dannythedog @blissfulbellss @averagemisfit03 @dharmasdivine @thetroublegetssoloud71 @lucimoo @toxbexannouncedx @dig0930 @maddie-van-fleet @friska101-cg @welllauragvf @gretasimp @objectsinspvce @writingcold @gretavangroupie @sweetybre @gretasgoose @gvfjess @josh-iamyour-mama

[jules-has-notes]

A Crimpella — VoicePlay music video

This is one of the more odd and creative things VoicePlay concocted early on. They turned a collection of phonations, sound effects, nonsense words, and foreign language lyrics from two dozen songs into a delightfully goofy performance art piece. You will almost certainly recognize some of the samples. The set-up is a little drawn-out for my taste, but once the beat kicks in, it's off to the races.

Details:

title: A Crimpella

original songs / performers: [2:20] "Walk the Dinosaur" by Was (Not Was); [2:28] "Witch Doctor" by Alvin & the Chipmunks; [2:35] "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang; [2:40] "We Go Together" from Grease!; [2:47] “Motownphilly” by Boyz II Men; [2:55] "Imma Be" by the Black Eyed Peas; [3:03] "Tutti Frutti" by Little Richard; [3:05] "Shoop" by Salt N Pepa; [3:12] "Jock-A-Mo" (aka "Iko Iko") by James "Sugar Boy" Crawford; [3:20] "Mahna Mahna" from The Muppet Show; [3:30] "Lovin, Touchin, Squeezin" by Journey; [3:54] "Goofy Goober Rock" from The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie; [3:57] "MMMBop" by Hanson; [4:10] "Hooked on a Feeling" by Blue Swede; [4:14] "Bawitdaba" by Kid Rock; [4:19] "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" by Neil Sedaka; [4:29] "Can't Get You Outta My Head" by Kylie Minogue; [4:32] "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen; [4:45] "Bad Romance" by Lady Gaga; [4:51] "Limbo La La" by James Lloyd; [5:01] "All Night Long" by Lionel Richie; [5:18] "Wanna Be Starting Something" by Michael Jackson; [5:24] "Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye" by Steam

arranged by: VoicePlay

release date: 1 September 2012

My favorite bits:

the thump at 2:30 propelling Eli into the air

everyone "watching" the UFO fly by

their most concerted effort at choreography being to "Shoop"

all the tentative poking and grimacing as they try to figure out how to "fix" their necks

Tony rocking out solo while the other guys consider whether to join in

the string of silly noises starting at 4:08

Layne's lowkey Little Monster claws during the Lady Gaga section

Trivia:

○ The boys gnaw on five CD cases at the beginning, but only Earl's album contains a song included in the ensuing medley:

Earl — Cooleyhighharmony by Boyz II Men (1991)

Tony — The Doors' greatest hits (1996 re-release)

Eli — Pump by Aerosmith (1989)

Geoff — Toxic Audio's eponymous debut album (1999)

Layne — Contra by Vampire Weekend (2010)

○ Several of the songs referenced here have appeared in VoicePlay's later medleys or short videos:

The bell tone section from Motownphilly was also included in their Boy Bands in 5 Minutes medley.

Different sections of Bohemian Rhapsody were part of their Queen in 5 Minutes medley.

Hooked on a Feeling and Mahna Mahna have both been featured in recent short-form videos.

○ This piece was included in their setlist for the 2014 Sing-Off tour.

○ This medley was inspired by British comedy troupe The Mighty Boosh. TMB had a series of sketches containing absurdist songs / performance art pieces they called "crimping". (Fair warning, most of their "crimps" feature adult language and gestures.)

[crimsun-n-clover]

dalia chronicles

i need her so bad dude

like. i don’t. i’m just being weird because i’m bored and she’s my type.

BUT—

i’ve hit rock fucking bottom. i took all the screenshots of her stuff and all the songs off of them and put them in a playlist. because if i was posting “me <3” to thee most obscure song ever?? i’d want people to go check that shit out. and like. understand me or whatever. but that’s what i would want. i’m being fucking weird about this. i think she’d like the attention but i’d actually rather die than give it to her in this dumbass unstable institutionalized way

i just need her to dm me first ONE TIME. not replying to me posting her stuff on my story. like. replying to literally anything else. to justify my behavior.

BECAUSE

HERES THE FUCKING T H I N G MAN

i took mickey to a concert a few days back. twas rad. we saw idkhow. i posted about it a little. when i get home and check my instagram?? i see that i posted us at the concert waiting for it to start 5 hours ago. and dalia posted a question submission box to an idkhow song. 5 hours ago.

WHAT ARE THE ODDS. she’s fucking with me. she’s SO fucking with me. just dm me for the love of GOD and stop baiting me with things. even though it’s kinda why im into you in the first place. fuckin whatever man.

this is literal torture but i’m kinda having a good time ngl

today she posted two stories to the song casual by chappell roan and holy. fuck. dude. that song is SO real.

i’ve felt used so much for my looks and reputation and i was fucking fine with it at the time because if that was all i was gonna get then i should just shut up and be grateful. i was so stupid but i was almost happy. it made everything hurt so much more when it was over because honestly? i was fucking bitter. i wanted nothing more than revenge and numbness. i wanted to hurt her back and keep her down before she can try that shit again. teach her a thing or two about what loss means. it’s horrible to be like that, i know. but it was horrible of her to be showing me apartment listings for us while talking to a guy who was actively homophobic toward me. i’m not proud of what i did or who i am, but fuck being the bigger person. i’m three fuckin inches tall and gonna get in your stupid double standard holding brain until you pry me out yourself and admit what you did.

anyway

dalia posted herself to that song twice in a thirst trappy way. i want to pick her brain so bad. what happened? are you okay?? you deserve better. you’re interesting and talented and deserve every ounce of attention you crave. i’d be happy to give you some if you’d give me permission. i don’t want to be the problem here. the bits of your personality that i’ve seen have been so intriguing to me. i’m enraptured and i want to know more. it’s not purely physical, but it could be if you want it to.

also. why are you so hot it’s not FAIR and how have the last two girls i’ve been dangerously into posted themselves with a star drawn on their collarbone and made my poor gay brain short circuit?? i’m actually in shock about that one ngl. while the lyric “knee deep in the passenger seat and you’re eating me out, is it casual now?” plays in the background. i hope i die

moving on. ish.

i want to save it but they’re videos and i can’t just paste videos into a notes file like i would with a photo i didn’t want laying around. i didn’t even like the more thirst trappy one because i’m RESPECTFUL. she’s so pretty and i want to drool over her a little. i’m obviously fucking ashamed but if a straight guy did it it would be normal so. whatever. i feel like saving it would be hitting some kind of barrier. dunno what it is but there’s gotta be a limit around here somewhere. or maybe it’s admitting something to myself. that this is a genuine interest but it’s not if i don’t save the video. GOD i hate it here

i feel like i’m objectifying her? like. i’d love for her to objectify me honestly. lick my fucking tongue and get it over with so i can think about it for the rest of my life. she seems to be looking for attention in any way she can get it and that makes me think she would be cool with it. but i don’t want to be that you know? i know how that feels. but i also wouldn’t mind something unserious with her. but i would want more if she wanted more. that’s a fucking LIE i’d want more regardless but i’d take more if i got permission.

i’m kinda sorta maybe the type of person with an avoidant attachment style. something good happens? cool! sounds like bullshit. cash out while i’m high and tuck tail n fucking bolt. i’ll feel like shit about it but if i stick around something bad always happens.

i’m getting. a vibe. that maybe she’s similar. i’m probably just projecting. i don’t know how to describe it, but it feels like everything she does is a wild fucking shot in the dark and then she runs off for a bit until she builds up the courage to do it again. she’ll drop a hint or say something important and then post art and her outfit for a week and do it all over again.

it feels like we’re both testing the water at different times. just “wouldn’t it be cool if. girlfriend? GOODBYE GUYS NICE KNOWING YOU” eventually there’s gonna be an intersection and shit is gonna go DOWN bro. like. added to my lore kind of down. but i think i’m gonna be the one to have to actually make the first move that isn’t liking her stories and i’m gonna blow my fucking brains out. and like five other people will die because of all the suicide pacts i’m a part of.

and then immediately after i get even a DROP of reciprocation i’ll go “damn that’s crazy. fuckin ditto or whatever. i’m leaving the country don’t wait up” OR immediately propose. no in between. i hate it here

[grapecinnamon]

Rambling and Rating Portals

Guys

I know it's been weeks since Portals was out, but I can't stop thinking about it and I need to talk about all my fave parts about it and rank the songs. Ok? ok. lets go:

DEATH💀🍄

"death is life is death is life..." is everything

I lost a longtime family pet and listening to this was very comforting. I even started tearing up around the pre-chorus

Speaking of which, its the best part of the song! "I DON'T WANNA BE CARRYING THE WEIGHT ON MY SHOULDERS!" Takes me out every time. I feel like my soul is leaving my body.

The music video. OMG the music video! The scene with Crybaby stabbing her old body was fucking amazing!

And I fucking love the part with her detaching herself from her old body. It's just so good I fnadklsfhiosanfiowrsjaiogfrj-

"PLEASE DON'T EVER WORRY, I KNOW IT'S MORBID, BUT WE ALL DIE ONE DAY!" Yeesssss Mel, tell it like it is!!!!

Overall, it's a really good opener to the song

10/10

VOID⚫

"In the void, in the void, in the void inthevoidinthevoidinthevoidVOIDVOIDVOIDVOIDVOIDVOID!!!" Gets me so pumped

The whole song gives me the feeling of being alone. Like I feel like I'm in a void myself where no one else but me can judge me

The song also kind of reminds me of Ethel Cain

"LIKE A PRIEST BEHIND CONFESSION WALLS, I JUDGE MYSELF" Goes so HARD!

The little high-pitched guitar cords in the verses give me life, I swear they're perfect

9/10, perfect follow up to death

TUNNEL VISION🕳️👁️

It's a shame this one was leaked and around for so long. I never listened to the leak when it came out and I wish more people did too

I love how it's a very erotic song, but the message is how you're more than just your looks

I also turn into such a whore when this comes on istg

The ending where it gets slower is so fucking good and the sound effects and the weird, alien vocals make me so hyped for the next song.

Another 10/10

FAERIE SOIREE🧚‍♀️💙🍄✨

This song is such a vibe

And I love the latin-sounding beat

This song feels like an actual dream. Like it actually feels like something I would dream of

"Lead me away to the faerie soiree" ugh YES

By far the best part has to be the ending where it's just Melanie's vocals

It really gives off the feeling of being disconnected. It's like you're back in the void, but it almost feels more positive

And I like that it implies that Crybaby definitely had a lot more lives before this body

8/10

LIGHT SHOWER☀️🌧️

This song feels like a light shower. It feels like when the sun is out and it's lightly sprinkling. My favorite weather

It's just so gentle and calming, different from the songs before this

And since I'm currently taken, this song hits me harder. I even teared up the first few times I heard this

I also kinda like how it sounds like Stairway to Heaven

Plus "You make me want to plan out my last days on earth eating you" is kind of cute. Like Mel's supposed to be a faerie in a fantasy world, so this weird line is very fitting

7.8/10 I don't always want to listen to this one, but when I do, I'm so entranced

SPIDER WEB🕷️🕸️

This song actually tickles my brain

Like it wiggles in and scurries through the wrinkles on my brain and shakes my skull around when the beat comes in

I can't get over it. It just punches my ear drums in all the right places

Besides that, I like the meaning behind it. I think its about social media, but I feel like it could also be interpreted as getting an addiction to substances, like Power

I also kind of like the explanation on what spiders do to their prey at the end

8/10

LEECHES🩸

Its slow, but it's so powerful

The way the instruments build up to the chorus is amazing

And I love the imagery we get on Mel getting eaten alive by these leeches

It's not just about having one thing taken away from you, its about yourself getting taken advantage of and I like that the imagery shows that. Not just by describing Mel having her blood drawn, but also her flesh until she's just bones

"I GUESS THAT IS THE LUCK OF THE DRAW!" Is another one of my favorite lines

The transition at the end fucking shakes me to my core every single time. I usually skip it when it comes up cause it's too much

8.5/10

BATTLE OF THE LARYNX⚔️🗣️

I needed, I repeat, NEEDED a song like this back when I was in elementary school... and middle... and high...

It brings me back to that time in my life where it felt like everyone was out to get me. And I like this message. I wish I heard this song earlier in life

But it's just so perfect. The guitar, the pre-chorus, the metaphors.

When I think I need to intervein in an online fight, or if someone's trying to provoke me, I just think of this song. I'm better than those trying to get a rise out of me

It's just one of those songs that hits the right and wrong places at once

Again, the transition is also great. I love the imagery of the party and how you can't make out what anyone is saying, like a crowd in a dream

My morbid curiosity really wants to know what shocked those people in the room...

10/10 don't battle with my larynx on this one, it's great and you KNOW IT

THE CONTORTIONIST🦴📦🪢

The bone cracking... the bone cracking is intense, and I love it

Mel really gets a kick out of songs that make people uncomfortable and I'm living for it

This always gets me to dance! A lot of these do but mainly this one and Nymphology. I like to dance like my body's contorting in strange ways

again, the pre-chorus (I'm noticing a pattern) is soooooo goooood! The layers really make it stand out from the other songs

And the laugh! I can't forget that laugh, like Mel's really snapping (lol)

It almost reminds me of an Ashnikko song

9/10

MOON CYCLE🩸🌒🐺

I'm not gonna lie. I couldn't make this up for the life of me. I loved this song the MOMENT I heard the snippet. Not even kidding

I really wish this song didn't get that much hate. I get why it makes people uncomfortable, but that's the purpose of this song

And, again, I like that Mel isn't afraid to write a song about this

She even mentions period sex in this song and makes it sound so intimate

And I love that she disses her ex in this song, something she does a lot on this album

I love the message about how periods don't make you weak. Not letting a period get you down is so empowering (even though I let it get me down lol)

"Making roooooom for blessings" is so CUTE!

10/10, judge me all you want, idc

NYMPHOLOGY✨🌳🌬️☁️

This song is a lot. It's ethereal, it's majestic, it's beautiful, its everything!!!!!!

I feel like I'm listening to a goddess sing and not just cause Mel's on the track

Another great feminist song, mainly about men who objectify women and always think they're (men) right

Oh, and I CANNOT ignore the one lyric "Put your penis into your mouth" That took me out the first time I heard it. I had to stop the song to collect myself

And Amulet... THE AMULET SECTION! It goes so damn hard!

And I love that the lyrics came from an unreleased song called Emerald (my fave unreleased song)

and the way that transitions into Evil. It so good and makes me hyped for the song

10/10

EVIL😈👿

God how many amazing songs on this album?

I can't get over Mel's flow, especially in, you guessed it, the pre-chorus

And the way she sounds so angry

And how she says so much mean shit like yeessssss

"This time I reFUSE!" is perfect

I'm loving all these rock songs on the album. It's nice seeing Mel try out different genres

9/10

WOMB🤰👶

I feel so connected to this song, like my soul is bound to it

It might be because I had a dream where I literally heard the beginning melody BEFORE the album dropped

I'm not even kidding, I don't know how I did it

But yeah this song feels so personal, it's like a happy version of Where Do Babies Come From?

The way Mel talks about a fetus about to be born, she really knows how to make birth sound magical

And that BEAT! The BASS is fhoiwihafioherknfioernj

And let's not forget, we CANNOT forget the ending.

"Life is death is life is death..." gives me goosebumps every! single! time!

10/10

POWDER👃🩸

This song makes me sad. It almost kind of hurts to listen to, but that's what I like about it

It hurts knowing that people have family and friends who are drug addicts. It makes me think of one of my family members

I like the detail of the deep voice. I know not a lot of people like that but I like it. It's another detail that makes the song stand out, much more than the others

7/10 Not my most favorite, but the message is really powerful

PLUTO🦋🐛🪐😈

Probably my fave song from the deluxe edition

I love the melody, it sounds very carnival esque, like Carousel

I feel like this song is basically a summary of the album as a whole. It seems like it's about transforming into a brand new you and leaving all your burdens behind

The chorus, yes the regular chorus this time, has to be the best part. I like the moments on this album where Mel sounds like she's isolated, or like there's not a lot going on around her and the world seems to slow down

Also, Mel's voice sounds so good. As much as I like the uses of the different voice filters, it's great hearing Mel's regular vocals every once-in-a-while

10/10

MILK OF THE SIREN🥛🧜‍♀️

I'm so glad I didn't listen to this song when it was leaked

It's so FUCKING GREAT!

Again, another feminist song about the mistreatment of women throughout history

And the beat is so fucking ethereal, especially when Mel screams "LET THEM DROWN!"

9/10

Please don't get mad at these rankings (they're mostly positive anyway). I just wanted an excuse to talk about Portals and how much I loved it. Gotta be one of my fave Melanie albums

[lunaccult]

I found my original timeline for milo and edited a few things, switching up his story a smidge. if you're interested in liminal spaces....... teehee...... heed the trigger warnings.......

Birth - Todd and Shannon Bishop welcome their second child, who they name Adam. His older sister, Caitlyn, is 5 years his senior and is immediately enamored of her little brother. She is diligent in helping her parents care for this boy. The Bishop family lives in the small town of Nimilla, Missouri, and Todd is the only, and highly esteemed, pastor of the local Church.

5 - This will be the first memory Adam has of his drunk father hitting his mother, though it had long been happening even before his birth. It is his first glimpse into the reality that his father is not the decent holy man that many believe him to be.

6 - Adam befriends another boy in the first grade. Isaiah becomes his first, and only, friend as long as he is in Nimilla.

8 - One night, after a violent and destructive fight between Todd and Shannon, Todd takes Caitlyn from her bed and drags her out of the house. Adam, despite being afraid and concerned for his mother who had gone to bed weeping, follows his father and sister into the woods past his backyard. What he witnesses that night is only the first of a long series of horrifying events in his life and can only be described as despicable. Ignorant to what goes on for many years even after this night, Adam later realizes that this night was the first time Todd had tried to give something permission to possess an innocent person, this time being Caitlyn. When the possession does not happen, Todd grows furious and unhinged, so much so that he proceeds to beat his oldest child. Young, and terrified, Adam flees back to his house. In the morning, Caitlyn is declared missing and, later, dead. The mystery around her death is no mystery to Adam, who will be haunted by this memory forever. The Bishop family, specifically Adam and Shannon, are devastated.

10 - Two years after the death of his sister, Adam is the one dragged from his bed one night and submitted to a cult ritual conducted by his own father, though this time Adam is successfully possessed by the entity that his father had been desperate to contain and control. This possession will trigger in Adam hallucinations, dissociation, and the ability to hop through realities into what he refers to as the Spaces. 

11 - During an episode where he is caught in the Spaces, Adam is startled to discover another person with him, which has not happened in the entire year that he has been experiencing his possession. They talk, though Adam is still afraid of what it means that she is there and also the Spaces themselves. Before she leaves, the girl gives him what Adam learns is an iPod, which contains music in it. This will become his most prized possession and will send him spiralling into the one escape he has, music.

12 - When the few songs on the iPod become not enough to satisfy Adam’s love for music anymore, he finds himself drawn to create his own. He begins to teach himself how to play the piano at his father’s church, though he has few resources to do so. It is his mother who teaches him how to read sheet music when she discovers him trying to play; she also is the one to secretly purchase for him his own very small keyboard.

13 - Adam discovers the Internet, but does not have access to it for very long. He finds that the only time he can use it is late into the night, so he begins watching YouTube videos on his very small, cheap cell phone (which he is only to use to contact his father in an emergency). He discovers more music and even starts watching tutorials on how to create music so that he can better his own songs. 

14 - Adam buys his own laptop in secret so that he can start trying to make real music. He begins putting out short snippets of songs he’s written on YouTube under the username musicsaves212. During this time, he continues to witness his father’s abuse toward his mother and is subjected to cruel verbal and emotional treatment himself, as well as his own mental decline from his possession.

16 - Adam is woken up in the middle of the night by his father fighting with his mother. Unbeknownst to them both, he sneaks out to check on his mother, who he can hear crying. Very quickly, the fight escalates and Adam watches helplessly as his father retreats into the kitchen. When he returns, Adam is forced to watch his father cruelly and mercilessly murder his mother in their living room. When Adam begins to cry, Todd finally catches sight of him and lunges toward the boy. Horrified and shocked by what he’s just witnessed, Adam runs from his childhood home and is thrown into the Spaces.

17 - When Adam emerges from the Spaces again, he is shocked to discover that he had been in there for five months and his father has given the same lie he had for Caitlyn several years before: Adam has gone missing, though this time Todd appears to be searching for him. Several townspeople spot and recognize him, though Adam realizes very quickly that if his father finds him, he will likely be given the same fate as his mother and sister before him. So he flees Nimilla.

17 - For the next several days, Adam begins a trek away from Missouri. He hops trains, stows away in semi trucks, walks and hitchhikes - anything to get him away from his father and that town. After a week, he finds himself outside of New York and decides that the city is where he wants to go. 

18 - Adam changes his name to Milo McKiernan. He is unhoused, but has begun job hopping to get enough money to get himself a new laptop and eventually a guitar. He begins writing music again and even posting to social media, though he remains anonymous by keeping his face covered when he does upload content. 

20 - Milo’s music is discovered by a music producer. It lands Milo an offer to work at Manhattan-based, Agony Records. Initially, he is wary because he does not want his father to discover his whereabouts, but it doesn’t take long for his love for music (and need for a roof over his head) to take precedence over his concerns. Despite what appears to be a switch into the right (and safe) direction, Milo continues to suffer from the effects of his possession. During his initial time working at Agony, he is mentored by Zander Riles, the very producer who'd discovered him.

[airadam]

Episode 184 : Concentration

"Traumatised, but full of pride..."

- Bashy

Thanks to the short length of some of the tracks, the total running time of this episode isn't as long as some others, but it's a high-potency forty-eight minutes! We start with one of the realest, toughest tracks I've heard in ages, low-tempo to make sure you catch every word, end on a new track by some of the most dedicated veterans in the culture, and hit some incredible notes between those two points. Let's get it going...

Mastodon : @airadam@mastodon.me.uk

Twitch : @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Bashy : How Black Men Lose Their Smile

Wow. Stunning, 100% relatable song that everyone should sit down, listen to, then run it back and listen again. Bashy is absolutely flawless here, telling his story while also telling the stories of so many of us Black men who have grown up here. The production by Toddla T just adds to it, with the reggae-influenced beat calling back to the music that has been so prominent in Black British life, and the straight-to-camera video is starkly fitting. "Being Poor Is Expensive" is the title of the new album this track is drawn from, and also a plain statement of fact.

M Slago : Sonic Marvel (Ten City Flip)

"The 80's Beat Tape" coming out of FWMJ's "Producers I Know" collective/project was a ten-track collection of, as you'd expect, producers flipping 80s records into their own compositions. I can't say I remember the original that Nashville's M Slago chopped into this slowed, ominous track, but I do know that many years after the 2015 release of this tape which was recorded at least two years before that, this beat was used for "Finer Things" featuring Kyle Rapps. So nice, we got it twice!

Scarface : No Problem

Scarface's "Deeply Rooted" from 2015 is a quality LP that you should seek out if you can - more than likely, you'll need to fork out to buy a copy since it seems to have long disappeared from Spotify. The Houston icon was on his eleventh solo album here, and his one long verse is an aggressive statement of who he is, what he's about, and what/who he has no respect for, over a dark, grinding beat from Atlanta's KEY! (punctuation is part of the name).

Ghetts ft. Stefflon Don : Slumdog Millionaire

This Bollywood-accented cut from 2017 is such a killer, and an appropriate move coming from the UK where many of us grew up hearing it at least as part of the background growing up - Ghetts himself notes that it was that element that made this Nutty P beat stand out for him. Stefflon Don adds some flavour to the hook, but Ghetts takes centre stage on the mic for two tight verses. If you want more, 2018's "Ghetto Gospel : The New Testament" is the place to go.

GQ : Trap

A track I admit I'd overlooked on the "Rated Oakland" LP despite its position as the closer, this one definitely pulled me in when I went back to it for the first time in a while, ten years after the original release. I've cut it a little short here for the sake of pacing, but you'll get a long spoken word closing from GQ if you go to check the full album! The moody, dark production comes courtesy of Eric G of The Soul Council.

namesbliss : Last Week

I was totally unaware of this highly-skilled MC out of Kilburn, London, until he popped up on my IG feed - who says social media is good for nothing? His rapid-fire, witty, and clean flows are married up with smooth beats (this particular one produced by Scruz) that are miles away from what you generally hear in the grime genre - I've heard this described as "lo-fi grime" and that seems as good a label as any. It reminds of me what KwolleM started a good few years back with his "mellow grime" style, and it's nice to hear an MC like this with room to breathe on the track! This particular cut is a highlight from his latest LP "Lively Experience", which is one of my favourite purchases of the month.

Devin Morrison : The Blisselle

I played a vocal track by Devin Morrison on the podcast back on episode 153, but didn't appreciate until recently how prolific (as well as skilled) a producer he is! In just over two years he has released a twelve volume series of "Dream Lobby" collections, made up of work he didn't think fit a standard album format, and if you like modern, smooth, dreamy, and soulful production then you want to at least dip in if not collect the set. This cut is taken from "Dream Lobby Vol. IX", a seven-track delight from last autumn - so I thought I'd share it as we get ready to enter this one...

Ghostface Killah : The Forest

I had the chance to see The Alchemist live this month, and as he was playing a smoking set of some of his many, many production classics from a long career, he dropped this one - which I totally forgot he did! With all the cartoon characters engaged in legally questionable activities, this track from 2001's "Bulletproof Wallets" is very much like Ghost's take on the two "A Gangsta's Fairytale" tracks Ice Cube did back in the day.

Jeru The Damaja : One Day

Hits differently now, doesn't it? Short, pointed, and naming names, find this DJ Premier-produced dagger on Jeru's second LP, "Wrath Of The Math".

Kuartz & Dubbul O : War Cry

Dubbul O only recently released the "Stay Gold" EP with Cutterz and now he's back with the devastating production of Kuartz on the new "Shigurui" EP, giving us that boom-bap rawness. This is the opening track, with the Manchester duo giving us some Timberland and hoodie music for real. If you miss this style, pick up this LP to hear it being done very well indeed!

Clear Soul Forces : Insane

One of the more light-heartedly amusing moment of this month for the heavily-online Hip-Hop fan was when the great Questlove of The Roots, one of the most knowledgeable music heads in the entire world discovered that Clear Soul Forces existed - it appears he thought they were a new act, but they've been about for almost a decade! We all have things slip under our radars, and there's no shame - if Questlove can miss a talented group like this, then we all can! Anyway, I thought it was fitting to go all the way back to their first album, 2015's "Fab 5ive" for this banger. While most of their catalogue has been produced by Ilajide, who is also an MC, this LP was produced by fellow Michigan native NAMELESS, who has this one smashing while CSF explode lyrically all over the track. As an aside - Quest was of course gracious when everyone leapt in to correct him!

[Kut Masta Kurt] Motion Man : Play Dough (Instrumental)

Early-2000s, independent underground boom-bap business - and while I got this beat from these two Cali natives on the B-side of a 12" single, you can now get the entire set of instrumentals from the "Clearing The Field" LP on Bandcamp!

LL Cool J ft. Busta Rhymes : Huey In The Chair

The buzz around this album since it came out this month has been quite something, with most heads agreeing it's the best thing LL has done in years! "The FORCE" is almost entirely produced by Q-Tip, and the result is a triumph for these two giants from the borough of Queens. This track brings in Busta alongside LL, with both going ultra-Black while referring to the famous image of Huey Newton of the Black Panther Party in the peacock chair that still hits as hard today, over fifty years since it was taken. Definitely check the album if you've not heard it yet.

Slum Village ft. Little Brother : Where Do We Go From Here?

As you likely know, SV have been through many lineup changes over the years and as much as anything the name is a flag to rally under for Detroit's finest - with this track coming from 2010's "Villa Manifesto", an album which thanks to posthumous contributions actually features every member that had been in the group up to that time. The vibe here is kind of retro-futuristic Hip-Hop, with Young RJ on production, Samuel Beubien on string arrangements, and DJ Dez doing a phenomenal job scratching in all the separate lines of lyrics to create a spoken hook. Only two verses, but T3 and then the combination of Phonte and Big Pooh of LB do the business. 

Mr. Voodoo aka AGU : Crhyme Life

Alchemist on the beat again, with a dark, tense piece of production to go along with the killer bars of Mr. Voodoo, one-third of the highly-respected Natural Elements crew.  As far as I can tell, this was only ever released as a 12" single and I can't find it on the streaming services, but it's available used pretty inexpensively if you want to add some quality rhymes and early Alchemist production to your crates!

Dave East and Mike & Keys ft. Stacy Barthe : So Much Changed

You know you're getting on a bit when tunes you clearly remember growing up are being covered, sampled, and tributed! This track from this year's "APT 6E" album from Harlem's Dave East and the production duo Mike & Keys is a clear tribute to the 1994 release "Pain" by 2Pac, from the "Above The Rim" soundtrack. It's not just the sample, but the lyrical themes that hark back to that original song, particularly on the first verse, and it's well done. Multiple Grammy nominee Stacy Barthe blesses the hook with her vocals, which again are reminiscent of "Pain" but with her own flavour.

[Ice Cube, QD III] Yo-Yo : IBWin' With My CREWin' (Instrumental)

After starting the mix with this stripped down to just the drums and bass courtesy of Serato's "stems" feature, I was tempted to leave it like that but ended up bringing back the rest of the elements on this banging 90s beat from Yo-Yo's third album "You Better Ask Somebody". Yo-Yo first came to our attention on Ice Cube's first solo LP, as his foil on "It's A Man's World" before going on a strong four-album run from 1991-1996 - go and have a listen if you're not familiar!

The B Boys ft. Chuck D and Ice-T : Hello

A record I had no idea was coming, this is a true meeting of veterans, OGs of the artform. The B Boys are the original crew of Donald D, an MC you might know from his excellent late 80s-90s work as part of the Rhyme Syndicate, with Brother B and DJ Chuck Chillout completing the trio. Their original run was roughly 1983-1985, then they went separate ways before coming back together for a couple of EPs in 2022 and 2023, and then a full LP "We Get Down" this year, which this track is on! The Donald D-produced instrumental is heavily drum-centred, and in the best way, sounds like something that could have been on Ice-T's first LP, and leaves plenty of space for the vocals to be heard clearly - and the headliners bring along Ice-T and Public Enemy's Chuck D to provide full verses for a track that runs for over five minutes, a relative rarity these days. Abigail Culley's hook rounds it out nicely, and if you're anything like me, will stick in your head!

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

[ehlenvs3000w24]

The Melodies of Nature (BLOG 7)

Hello everyone and once again, welcome to my nature blog! I am SO excited about this week's topic: music in nature and nature in music. As some of you may have read from my previous posts, I am someone who really enjoys spending time in nature and using its wonders to inspire my art. Growing up as a creative person, I took an interest in visual arts and dabbled in theatre, but my main passion is music. I learned to play guitar, ukulele, tenor saxophone, and my favourite instrument by far is my voice.

Whether it's classic choir pieces, musical theatre songs, or fun pop hits, I've always noticed most songs use nature as imagery and description for lyrics. Nature is in music is everywhere. So many music pieces use nature to connect the audience to an emotion that is trying to be delivered. For example, passion and intensity can be represented by relating to fire, a landslide, or thunder. An example of love or happiness could be described by the warm embrace of the summer sun. Nature also inspires writers to talk about places they've been, experiences in nature, or even tell fictional stories that would be deepened by describing the environment it's happening in. This in itself is a form of nature interpretation presentation, it allows for effective communication in an engaging way while also inspiring and encouraging others to be curious about what nature has to offer (Hooykaas, n.d). For me, there are certain songs that I correlate to nature and that help me remember experiences I've had in the outdoors. Music has such a strong connection to memory and emotion, it's not surprising that some of my favourite experiences at the cottage or the lake bring a few songs to my mind. One of these songs from way back in my childhood is “When the Night Feels My Song” by Bedouin Soundclash, and it's the first song that comes to mind when I think of nature and music. This song reminds me of getting up and going to summer camp, singing in your group, and going to play Manhunt in the forest. Every time I hear this song now it makes me think of hot summer days, hiding under trees from the sun after playing, and having the campfire smell linger on my clothes.

Take a listen to the music video of this awesome song:

Nature also has its own wonderful songs that weave its melodies through the world around us. From the gentle rustle of leaves in the wind to the powerful sounds of a thunderstorm, the sounds of nature inspire awe and wonder. There are so many examples of nature's sounds that bring us out into the outdoors to observe and listen to them. Nature's music inspires exploration and new opportunities for interpretation. An example of this in my life is the renowned songs of birds. Each species has its own unique melody, from the cheerful song of a robin to the haunting call of the loon. Humans tend to be drawn to the lovely songs of birds as they remind us of our own harmonies and melodies (Gray et al., 2001). Bird calls can be recognizable because they emulate our human musical scale and notes, and a species’ song can be sung in many ways using octaves to create harmonies (Gray et al., 2001). My early interest in birds came from positive memories of sitting outside watching them at my grandparent's house or hearing their calls while playing outside. Experiences like these spark interest in being out in nature. Some more of my favourite examples of awesome nature songs are calls of spring peeper frogs letting you know warmer weather is coming, they call all together in a chorus. I hope to hear from these little guys at my local pond soon, I'm ready for spring!

References:

Gray, P. M., Krause, B., Atema, J., Payne, R., Krumhansl, C., & Baptista, L. (2001). The music of nature and the nature of music. Science, 291(5501), 52–54. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.10.1126/science.1056960 

Hooykaas, A. (n.d.). Unit 07: Nature Interpretation through Music [Online Unit Notes]. ENVS3000 Nature Interpretation. University of Guelph. Available from: https://courselink.uoguelph.ca/d2l/le/content/858004/viewContent/3640021/View

[wittez]

this campus is full of horrors, if by horrors we follow clara’s definition and mean spaces all too cluttered with memories that, while once precious, have little to no use in the current day and age and need to be discarded before her eye starts twitching again. out with the old and in with the new, so on and so forth.

you see, the thing with clara is that she’s never quite been good friends with the concept of messy spaces; her upbringing in an environment that was borderline clinical in nature may or may not have to do with it, but if we were to examine that topic we’d end up with enough material for three deep dive videos, an hour long iceberg of things that are wrong with clara including a conspiracy theory or two and a ruined afternoon, so let’s get back on track instead.

it’s summer, and this season has little to offer to clara beyond the grass being greener on the other side ( literally ). because as it stands she’s in the communication club’s room, just clara with air conditioning, some old junk and a dream. while the football field is thriving these days with the extra sunlight she’s not sure she can say the same for its players in this heat, because even from this distance she can make out the faint outline of misery on noah’s features. so then, who’s really winning?

huh… and maybe that can serve as inspiration for the script she’s currently working on for the school podcast, due tomorrow yet largely ignored until it couldn’t be put off any longer, just the way it’s meant to be amongst university students. her second source of inspiration, she then decides, is a summer vibes playlist from a past long gone that features hits such as what makes you beautiful and counting stars. people grow, but songs are always the same even if your perspective of them may vary with the passage of time; and that’s what so special about nostalgia, clara thinks. it’s something we can rely on for comfort, especially when trying to cope with change. summer is to a year what young adulthood is to the life cycle; it’s the transition between the youth of spring and the maturity of fall. they’re buffers for big shifts, and so full of changes of their own as well, that it’s normal if not outright expected to seek a little extra cheer during this period.

…and that’s just great podcast content, they’re gonna eat that shit up!

at first she doesn’t hear anything, far too invested in hastily jotting down each and every one of her ideas on a worn out legal pad, with accompanying crudely-drawn doodles and all to better illustrate her ideas and drive the points home. but then… she does hear it, and despite being fuzzy with static it’s a little too clear to mistake for something other than a voice. “who’s there?” but clara’s not too worried; chances are it’s someone who got lost, or a clubmate who forgot something here. “hello?” after a brief bout of silence more static follows, and that’s when things get kind of weird because she doesn’t quite recall ever turning on the radio so obviously someone must be pulling her hair at this point. “well? if this is for one of those little prank videos you can come out now. i’ll even fake a scream and all, so long as i get part of the royalties for it.” but of course, there’s no camera to be seen. and that’s just irritating, because she was just now really getting into this script and god knows hell hath no fury like an artist interrupted in the middle of their creative process.

“…prank video? what are you talking about?” the voice is still fuzzy, and even so undeniably there. and where, exactly, is there? “helloooo? can anyone hear me?” the strands of clara’s hair might as well be standing up straight with how freaky this whole thing is, and for a moment she considers the possibility of a ghost taking up residence in the warm, welcoming (not) atmosphere of the communications club. 

“who even are you?” is all clara manages out, legal pad all but forgotten as her attention shifts onto trying to find the source of the sound instead by carefully walking a lap around the room.

“my name is jennifer… i’m a mechanical engineering major at penn university. and you?” here, clara’s ears narrow the sound down to the storage closet for all the old equipment the professor in charge doesn’t quite have the heart to throw away just yet. one of these days, clara herself will have to take matters into her own hands because keeping all these radios from the fifties is getting ridiculous.

as she fumbles with the comically full keyring trying to find the one to unlock this closet, clara’s reply is a simple, “i’m clara. i’m also studying at penn u, but i’m a communications major with a software engineering minor.”

one, two beats pass before the entity now known as jennifer replies, seconds in which clara gets the door open just in time to hear the voice coming from a visibly broken radio, which if she had to guess clara would say is from about 1975. “…software engineering? what the hell is that?”

[sourbead]

‧˚₊∗ THIS CAMPUS IS FULL OF HORRORS, if by horrors we follow jiwan's definition and mean spaces all too cluttered with memories that, while once precious, have little to no use in the current day and age and need to be discarded before her eye starts twitching again. out with the old and in with the new, so on and so forth. you see, the thing with jiwan is that she's never quite been good friends with the concept of messy spaces; her upbringing in an environment that was borderline clinical in nature may or may not have to do with it, but if we were to examine that topic we'd end up with enough material for three deep dive videos and a ruined afternoon, so let's get back on track instead.

it's summer, and this season has little to offer to jiwan beyond the grass being greener on the other side ( literally ). because as it stands she's in the communication club's room, just jiwan with some old junk and a dream, and while the football field is thriving these days she's not sure she can say the same for its players in this heat. so then, who's really winning?

huh... and maybe that can serve as inspiration for the script she's currently working on for the school podcast, due tomorrow yet largely ignored until it couldn't be put off any longer, just the way it's meant to be. her second source of inspiration, she then decides, is a summer vibes playlist from a past long gone that features hits such as what makes you beautiful. people grow, but songs are always the same even if your perspective of them may vary with the passage of time; and that's what so special about nostalgia, jiwan thinks. it's something we can rely on for comfort, especially when trying to cope with change.

...and that's just great podcast content, they're gonna eat that shit up!

at first she doesn't hear anything, far too invested in hastily jotting down each and every one of her ideas on a worn out legal pad, with accompanying crudely-drawn doodles and all. but then... she does hear it, and it's a little too clear to mistake for something else. " who's there? " but jiwan's not too worried; chances are it's someone who got lost, or a clubmate forgot something here. " hello? "

♡  DIALING …  @miunsi​

⭒ ° . ♡ ― honesty was a virtue, right ? so angela could be honest in admitting that she was avoiding biking home like the goddamn plague. it wasn’t that her family was bad – far from it, they were loving in their own way. it was just impossible to get any WORK done under the family household circumstances. and unlike her other senior friends, her parents had had nothing to offer in the way of apartment costs or gas money, insisting instead that she angle herself towards a career when her degree was finally finished and bike around campus to cut costs in the mean time. her legs ? looking great these days. her will to bike home carrying a decade-old transistor radio ( and all the bits and bobs she’d pulled out of it ), just to put it back together again in the cold, dimly-lit garage surrounded by cobwebs and the ambiance of her brother’s THIRD loop of Yes’s Fragile that evening ? non-existent. she could get down to roundabout the next time she had nine minutes to spare. 

TODAY, she was so frustratingly, achingly close to finishing her pet project Emdeko that if she had to focus on absolutely anything else before it was done she might actually combust. and actually, on second thought, it was possible the radio was university property anyways. COULD she even leave with it ?

the thing wasn’t broken, per se. or at least, it hadn’t been until she’d started deconstructing it. nothing she couldn’t fix, but she’d noticed nothing appeared to be out of place on the inside. it just wasn’t picking up the local stations – or any station really. no matter which way she’d messed around with it, it picked up silence and little more. she knew they weren’t in a dead zone, because the other radio she’d placed beside it for her tests had worked just fine. so it had to be a mechanical issue, didn’t it ? and screwdriver deep in it’s bowels, she swore she’d heard the raucous, fuzzy snow of a too - distant channel just a couple hours earlier. all ange had to do was chase it down again. wiggle some pieces and whisper sweetly to the little thing until it hummed back to life with the exact right combination of care, even if it ate up her evening.

maybe she was lucky, then, that only about an hour after she’d decided to take the hit of coming home late and worrying her mother did she finally convince the radio to make another noise. again, it was fuzzy. the sounds of a lifetime entirely out of context and well beyond it’s signal range. but it was SOMETHING. 

“ god, finally. ” she huffed. “ hellooo. ”  she was talking to the radio. just the radio. not whatever the absolute living fuck replied. it wasn’t supposed to hear her.

[dogsliampaynedoesntinstagram]

I don't understand why pointing out the 28s in Harrys music feels like satire. There are many more examples of Harry using things in 28s that in my opinion crosses the line of being a coincidence or fandom reach. I'll give a few more examples

In Boyfriends, the first word of the song is boyfriends and it starts at 28 seconds in

On his ig, in between the 2021 and 2022 tour announcement posts, there are 28 pictures posted from the tour

In Golden, before the line I know that you're scared because I'm so open, in the official lyrics, there are 28 goldens written out. He doesn't actually sing them but in exchange the beat is hit 28 times

In sunflower vol 6, he does the same thing at the end. The little woo woo woo du du du scats are repeated 28 times

In Cinema, you got is repeated 28 times

In Grapejuice, he sings 1982, which is 28 backwards and maybe louis 91 birth year

At the spotify listening party, they gave out ONO tickets to the crowd. The tickets had 28 homes drawn on them

In the Kiwi music video, there are 29 kids but girl that's featured is dressed in the same blue suit like harry. So if she is supposed to represent harry then techically there are 28 kids

In the Late Night Talking mv, the person in blue shirt he's sharing pasta with has 77 on each arm. 7x4 =28

Am I just completely blinded by confirmation bias? I'm trying to take a step back and look at it objectively and I'm having a hard time.

Oh anon - I think you are stuck in a loop of confirmation bias and I'll try to explain why. (I haven't tried to verify any of these - except Golden, which I didn't understand or still didn't).

I think there are three basic fallacies here. The first is unfixed goal posts - where you modify what counts so it makes up to 28. The second is if you have enough of something then '28' would be expected - for example if you were driving along the more car number plates you saw the more likely it would be that '28' would appear on one of them. The third is ignoring other explanations, both for specific examples of '28', and why '28' might be a common number.

Unfixed Goal Posts

The Kiwi music video is an example of having your thumb on the scale. There were 29 kids, but you're saying one of them doesn't count. But if there had been one less kid you could have said there were 28 kids and counted that kid and if there'd been 27 kids you could have said there were 28 people, including Harry, and if there'd been 26 you could have counted Harry and the dog.

I'm not quite sure what you're arguing with Golden - the lyrics in the booklet don't have Golden 28 times. But if you're arguing that a lyric happens 28 times before a certain line - then that's definitely unfixed goal posts. If something occurs more than 28 times in a song, then you could always make the argument that something happens 28 times before a particular moment in the song.

If you have enough examples of anything 28 becomes expected

Harry has released 35 recorded songs. Why is it surprising that one of them starts 28 seconds in? Given the average and range of intros songs have - the likelihood a song where the singing starts 28 seconds in would be expected.

He has almost 600 posts on Instagram. It's hardly surprising that sometimes a certain type of post is 28 posts apart. (I think this is also an example of goal post moving).

Harry has lots of examples of songs where a short burst is repeated over and over again. It's probably more common in his song than in the wider genre. It's not a surprise that sometimes the repeats will come to 28.

Ignoring other explanations

1982 is a really significant year in wine making - in the context of a song about wine it doesn't need an explanation.

In the context of pop music, you'd expect 28 to come up more often than 25, 26, 27 or 29. A four beat rhythm is pretty central to the artform, therefore multiples of fours are more likely than any other number.

***********

None of what you mentioned seems odd or unlikely to me anon. It all seems like the sort of thing that you would expect to happen over years of someone's career. Of course it's not impossible that 28 might mean something to Harry and some of these might be slipped in deliberately. Part of my point is that we don't know how Harry relates to numbers - and if he thinks they're important he's not telling us. But nothing about what you list sticks out as unusual or impossible - it could definitely be a coincidence.

I guess my question would be - why the certainty about these sorts of things? Why assume what Harry is meaning and doing? What's the appeal of that?

[daja-the-hypnokitten]

Jukebox reviews part 7! For context, see my post “A Project” under this same tag. If you want to see a full list of his EMCSA stories, they can be found here, sorted alphabetically.And if you want to see some of his drabbles, check out his blog at @jukeboxemcsa

Video Killed the Radio Star

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10/19/2008                                   mc mf fd

This is a solid, clever induction. It's well paced, and I love the focus on the process. I would caution readers to be careful - it's written well enough that I could see it catching a reader up in the induction, if they're particularly visual or a skilled enough hypnotee. But having said that, I really enjoy the story. The framing is solid, and makes sense for the song title, and sets our intrepid reporter up for exactly this sort of thing. 9/10 spirals.

Tempted

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10/26/2008                                   mc mf ff fd

"Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely" - A British Lord (Acton? I think?) said this a long time ago, and this story really digs into that whole concept. It's an interesting premise, and I like the Professor's way of convincing the Devil to actually take the gift back - or to invert it, I suppose. It brings up rather a large number of philosophical quesitons, but now I also want to use this as a suggestion sometime for a particular partner.  8/10 spirals, and thanks for the inspiration, Jukebox!

 

Love Bites

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11/2/2008                                     mc ff

*grins* Have I mentioned that vampires are one of my favourite tropes yet? Because they ARE. And this? The twisting, the command and domination and just all of it? It helps that I have a soft spot for Milwaukee, where this story is set, but even without that, the flavor of role play for magic domination, an induction I could let myself get lost in if I wanted, and relating to that whole "being too shy to approach a cute girl without adding in hypnosis/mind control" thing makes this an easy 10/10 spirals. (also, I totally stole inspiration to melt one of my girlfriends into a blissed out, Dominated puddle, which was DELIGHTFUL, so thanks, Jukebox!)

 

Shiny Happy People

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11/9/2008                                     mc ma rb

This is a fascinating setup! It'd be really cool to see an expansion on this world, as the metal spreads and people learn how to fight it. I find myself invested in Leigh, and cheering her on the whole way. And the logic in play, the conclusions drawn, and what's being ignored/forgotten all work together really well to drive this story on. It doesn't hit me as super erotic, outside the temptation Leigh deals with, the I love it all the same. 10/10 for world/plot/story, 2/10 for erotica; I'll give it overall 8/10 spirals.

 

Say It

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11/16/2008                                   mc mf ff fd

Judy is clever, and handles no-verbal cues so well. Unethical AF, of course, but still. I appreciate the show of her skill, how she uses "you" in a clever way, the use of a hypnotized  person as a focus just makes it even easier, because it's a convincer and seeing someone be hypnotized can nudge someone into hypnosis, or help anyway, just the technique here is solid. And the idea of having three brainwashed hypnoslaves... well, I have enough of a dominant side to see why that could be quite fun, yes - especially when Jukebox gives all the little signs of them falling into Judy's power and control. 9/10 spirals

 

Soft and Wet

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11/22/2008                                   mc mf fd

Aww, this story is sweet, and for all there's a lot of sex within it, the way the sex is used for the purpose of brainwashing our POV character makes it work for me in a way it might not otherwise. There's such clear affection between these two, and the way he just melts for her  and lets all her words control him in so many ways is absolutely delightful. This is the sort of story that feels just a bit fictionalized but could be (mostly) true in a way I really enjoy, too. 10/10 spirals.

 

Rescue Me

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11/29/2008                                   mc mf

Nope, this one's a squick enough I'm not even trying to rate it fairly.

 

Voices Carry

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12/7/2008                                     mc mf ff fd

On the one hand, this feels just sufficiently voyeuristic that I feel a bit ... something? reading it. On the other hand, it's *so sweet* and I can HEAR people I care about in James and - especially! - Thea. The sense of connection, of happy chance to meet for even just a little while, is also one I relate to, having had quite a lot of experience with long-distance relationships. And it makes the story so good for me, because gosh I *can* hear the reality of hypnokinksters doing it. That all said, I *do* hope Thea gave Amber a proper lecture on the etiquette of inserting oneself in another's scene and some basic safety around hypnokink. >.> 7/10 spirals.

Xanadu

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12/14/2008                                   mc mf ff md fd bd ds

This is another one of those Jukebox stories that don't really feel like erotic mind control stories as much as just *really solid* short stories. It hits me less as mind control and more (very) long term conditioning, which ok, fine, at some point the line between those two things is flimsy at best, but still. Having said that, the world in which this Xanadu exists is fascinating, and I'm intrigued by a lot of the questions posted by the existance of the magic air here. As a story, 10/10. As an *erotic mind control* story? 6/10 spirals.

Ok, secondary note after having properly listened to Rush's song Xanadu, from which I assume this story takes its name. Miriam really ought to have listened to Xanadu herself before she went searching for Xanadu - she might have thought better of it, had she sat with the song a while, seeing as how the song itself calls Xanadu a prison at the end. With the context of the Rush song? This jumps up to 8/10 spirals for me.

 

Every Rose Has Its Thorn

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12/21/2008                                   mc ff cb

Oh, there's SO MUCH in this story I like. I'd somehow completely missed it in the past, and ... I kind of regret it, but I don't think I would have appreciated it the way I do now. The idea of a scent as a hypnotic focus is a newer thing for me, and the moment of teasing the concept adds to the "how exactly is this going to go?" moment in a way that wouldn't have stuck with me in years previous. The focus in play is all the better for being surprised by what it is, and that's easier to be surprised by when so many things are given as options. And the last part of the story - which I shan't spoil! - is absolutely delightful. 9/10 spirals

[maybenotmei]

Okay hear me out: Madeline, Twizzly Gummy(if you write for her), and Parfait with an s/o who's the cookie ru equivalent of a kpop idol- like, I imagine them being part of an idol group, and maybe even Introducing their group mates to their partner-

sorry! i felt too overloaded with everything recently & decided i wont write for twizzly here... sorry !!

you're an internet sensation, and well... dating when you're one of the most popular cookies ever is difficult!

but of course, madeleine knows how to protect anyone he wishes to protect! rest assured you're safe with him, and your bandmates will be very much safer with him

since being an idol is busy work, you don't get to spend as much time as you want... but it's okay! you two make it work

again, company policies make it so madeleine can't attend your rehearsals, assemblies, or even anything remotely related to your work, but he makes it to every concert he can

as much as madeleine is considered part of royalty, this man,,, most likely doesn't have enough to buy every single one of your concert tickets,,,

but he'll definitely message you something before congratulating you in person as you exit your company's building

your groupmates are quite surprised you got with someone in the first place (madeleine: "you could say [your name] got drawn to me instead :)")

madeleine is very sweet towards your groupmates, treating them with absolute respect & surprisingly he isn't as loud as he usually is. he's respectful but a little casual.

they love madeleine! not as much as you do though.

woah!! you're an actual idol? like, agency idol with staff-filmed professional music videos and stuff? that's super cool!

she'd ask you a lot of things about being an idol, and would ask you to let her meet your groupmates— of course only if you're comfortable and they are too!!

but you agreed to let her meet them, and to your surprise they know her! one of them is actually a big fan and the experience went better than expected

you actually help parfait get bigger promotions & concert bookings, and also teach her whatever she wants to learn about being an idol. if you play the guitar for your band, you teach her some of your group's songs on the guitar

(she sometimes believes she doesn't really deserve all of this, but deep down she knows it's her chance.)

she attends your concerts of course! she attends the ones closest to her home & during the right time (which is usually after her part time job) and always congratulates you! she always tells you about how you're so amazing on stage and how you shine so brightly

("you fluster me, parfait... but thank you so much.")

when you can you help her put on her toppings and join her lives when you can.

you do so much for her, and she feels as if she has to do something back, so she makes songs about you & they always end up a hit. she dedicates many concerts to you and buys you whatever she can afford & maybe something you'd like. anything she can do to show she loves you too.

you like anything from her. to you, she's worth everything in your life, and you would give the world for her.