#the playlist is neat also BUT i listened to it like 1000 times while writing this so im afraid im gonna have to take a break from it lmao

[gendryw4ters-blog]

since no one else seems into it: would you try lip/lew? its okay if that isn't your cup of tea either though

 when i first got this, i was a little uncertain because i couldnt really remember any times when the two of them interacted one-to-one (which! Im pretty sure they must do a couple of times i just have a really really terrible memory), and so since im a very musically driven person, well, this naturally kind of came about, and as a result so did these (which are all set in highschool- the setting of which ive tried to keep as vague as possible because i couldnt decide if i wanted these to be in the 80s or modern times because im hugely indecisive in nature):

When Lipton first lays eyes on Nix, he thinks he might be one of the coolest people he’s ever seen in his entire life. Lip’s new in school- in town, in fact, he and his Ma having just moved into the area not long ago- but he’s seen this kind of boy before. Wealthy and entitled, yet effortlessly charming- with a swagger about him that borders on cocky. He’s an absolute asshole, Lip’s sure of it, but there’s something about him that keeps dragging Lip’s gaze back over in his direction. He is cool, Lip will give him that.

Lip doesn’t realise it, but Lew’s noticed him too. The new kid, soft around the edges. Definitely a mama’s boy. But there’s a toughness there too, he can see it in Lip’s shoulders (which are waay more defined than a 17-18 year old’s shoulders have any right to be), the way he’s jammed his headphones all the way into his ears and shut himself off from the others around him. He’s someone Lew wants to get to know, wants to understand. He wonders idly how easy it would be to charm him, the way he’d charmed all of the others. He’s bored of his current group, anyways. Even Katherine.

He decides he’s going to make his move on the fifth day of Lip being around. Sidles up to him and leans against some nearby lockers in an attempt at staying suave. Runs his fingers through his thick dark curls a few times, thinks he’s got this in the bag. Lip’s polite, but not quite receptive enough. He’s not going to ignore Lew, but he’s met guys like him before. Knows he’s only going to be a good time until he gets bored and finds someone else. He doesn’t call him out on it, but he thinks maybe Lew gets the message, if his crestfallen “what do you MEAN you’re not swept off of your feet already?” look is anything to go by.

Lew persists nonetheless. He isn’t one to give up TOO easily. He needs to keep himself entertained, people are entertaining. Lip’s entertaining. Fuck that, he thinks, Lip’s enthralling. Lip lives in his own little world, so wrapped up in plaid shirts and Blondie and New Order that he’s almost untouchable, and Lew’s never been good at keeping his hands to himself.

There’s a party, and Lew invites Lip. Invites him because he ‘seems cool’- at least that’s what he tells his friends and Katherine. Doesn’t tell them it’s because he’s a little sure that he might actually kind of be falling for him. Mostly because that’s something he doesn’t even really like admitting to himself. Lip was never really planning on going, but his Ma tells him it might be a good idea. Helps him pick out a nicer shirt to wear, remind him that it’s okay to have fun sometimes and that she’ll be okay on her own for one damn night, and that she’ll leave a key under the doormat for him so he can come home whenever he pleases.

Katherine dumps Lew at the party. He saw it coming from miles off, and didn’t even really like her all that much, but that doesn’t make it sting any less. She leaves early with the rest of his friends, and he deals with it the best way he knows how- getting Too Drunk and making an ass out of himself. He’s not sure who’s hands are on his sides and helping him outside for some air, but he’s grateful for them. Grateful for them even moreso when they stay near by him and rub circles into his back while he throws up all over the host’s flowerbeds.

When he wakes the next day, Lew has no idea where he is. He’s never been here before, he knows that much. He hasn’t slept in a single bed in years, and he’s never been a fan of Blondie- the only poster on his wall is Bowie, tyvm. He’s never worn a plaid shirt either, though there’s a whole bunch of them strewn across the back of a chair and the tops of the wardrobe doors. Lip. This must be Lip’s house. Oh god, had they slept together? Lip didn’t seem the type, but they’d both been drunk, at least Lew assumes Lip had been drunk, he doesn’t really remember much and he’s-

“Hey,” it’s Lip, leaning against the doorframe and clutching two mugs of steaming hot coffee. “Sorry, I- I should have taken you back to yours but you weren’t making any sense and I didn’t want to leave you just out on the streets. Coffee?”

Lew can’t manage anything other than a grunt in reply, making grabby hands towards the mug in the other’s hand. Lip hands him it with a sympathetic smile. Asks if he’s okay after what happened, and Lew just kind of shrugs because not many people stick around all that much. Lip asks if it’s because he’s an asshole, which startles a laugh and “well fuck, maybe it is” out of him. His headache subsides a little when the other also begins to laugh, and he wonders briefly if the charm offensive might work a little better this time around.

“Don’t even bother,” Lip grins before Lew can even open his mouth. “You still think you can charm me after throwing up on my shoes on the way home?”

Well fuck, Lew didn’t remember that. But nevertheless, he found himself grinning in return.

“I’m going to try.”

 (this plays on my headcanons that lew was really cocky and cool when he was younger but then had to face up to realities about things and that’s how he became who he is today. Like, he was cocky in a sense that he figured he was smart enough to get by without doing much work, and he was- barely. His last exams and the end of highschool hit him really hard and so he began to study more as a result because like- man i got by on natural intelligence for a little while but once you hit A levels over here [don’t know what your equivalent is sorry!!] it’s a real shock to your system and that’s kind of how i picture him as well) (im not wording this as well as id like to be but i hope you get what i mean sort of)

Thanks for the ask!! And sorry this is so late omg, i kept getting sidetracked while writing it, but!! This is it. This is lew/lip. I hope!! it’s kind of what you had in mind!! 

much love!!

[cokestudio]

My quarantine life

On weekdays, I wake up at 6pm to read my holy book. You should make it a habit to read the Bible, Quran, Torah or any others every morning. After that, I eat a healthy breakfast, and then do the schoolwork my teachers sent. Schools are closed, and you don't want to turn into a brainless zombie, so do all you sent schoolwork or your online classes. If you don't have any of those, then print out some math worksheets, maybe do a science experiment, or some research. Anything that you would normally do at school. It is important to get the education you need. Next, do some fun activities. I get all the work out of the way so I have time to chill. You should avoid screens, and do something more productive. Here is a list. 

Read a book

write a poem

do a sewing project

find cool diys

write a story

build with Lego

go on a walk

paint a picture

play an instrument

make some slime

play a sport outside

try a new recipe

sing a song

knit a sweater

I could go on and on, but let's continue. Don't freak out, because after doing at least 1 hour of screen free activities, you can have a precious hour and a half for your TV, phone, I-pad, laptop and more. Here are some things to do.

Scroll through ALL your social media, and make fun posts. I like using Pinterest, Weheartit, Reddit, pearl trees and Tumblr. Reply to your comments also. FaceTime friends and family, or just text. Zoom is a great app for contacting with larger groups. Play some games on your device, like Fortnite and Roblox. Cooking and dress up games are fun to try. There are endless video games to play, but my favorite is  Super Mario Kart. Try some riddles to exercise your brain. They are really fun and challenging. Find some fun facts and jokes to tell your family and friends. Clear out your inbox, apps you don't use, and delete useless pictures so you have more storage space. You can find some really neat websites, for finding new recipes, fashion ideas, exercise routines and more everyday stuff. If you like writing, you can go to Writerscafe.org, and post your stories, poems and writings, for free. Online shopping is fun, but don't spend too much. I have a blog, and you should too. Share about yourself, and more, like weight loss plans, food recipes, activities to do, things to try, baby names, fun facts, decor ideas, fashions, diys, hacks, gardening tips and more! Anything that floats your boat! Blogger is easy and free, if you want to make a blog. Here is my blog:  https://pearlsaphhire.blogspot.com/

This is getting long, and you might be bored, so I will hurry up:)

Make sure to help with chores, like sweeping, dusting, washing dishes, vacuuming, and cleaning countertops. You can organize your room, make your bed, and wash your clothes once a week. Doing chores is really important, so make sure you do some for about half an hour. With all this free time, you should take a nap, or just relax, while listening to music, or podcasts. I daydream a lot also, and I love writing down my goals. Bucket list are great ideas, so here are some links:

 150 Bucket List Ideas + Printables to Help You Live Your Best ...

1000+ Bucket List Ideas: The Best Things to Do Before You Die

10,000+ Bucket List Ideas For Designing Your Best Life -

Bucket lists are basically a list of things you want to do before you die, or at least something you want to achieve in your life.

 Here are more extra things to do when you are bored:

Make a quarantine playlist

bake a cake

explore the attic

watch the news(but not too much)

I am now gonna give you some tips on how to learn a language. Duolingo is the best site for learning a new language.check it out and you'll see what i mean. They give you reminders to practice every day, and there are different levels, and they are super easy. I am learning German and Italian. Both are fairly easy. If you don't know French, try that. Spanish is also very popular. Irish is similar to Italian, so that should be a breeze. If you want a challenge, try Ukrainian, or Chinese. Learning languages are really fun, and educational at the same time, and I totally recommend it. 

Try some makeup tutorials.

Experiment your makeup, make natural makeups and do some step by steps. You can make your own videos too! Give yourself a spa day.

24 Inexpensive Ways To Create Your Own DIY Spa Day

30 Luxurious (But Cheap!) Products For An At-Home Spa Night

Check out these links.

Anyways, I'm gonna wrap this up! Make sure to check my blog, and stay home, stay safe, and stay calm! The COVID-19 will end soon! I love you all!

[bookenders]

11/11/11 Tag Game: Round 12

This is a very popular tag game, it seems! Tagged by @ren-c-leyn! Thanks, friend! I am evidence that you can do this game thousands of times, as I have answered 12% of 1000 questions by now. 😋

🎶🎵Hit me baby one more time🎵🎶

My Questions (running out of creativity, must consume more media):

What baseball positions would your OCs be in if they all had to be on a baseball team? What’s the team name? What’s their mascot? What do the uniforms look like? (If you hate baseball or prefer a different sport, substitute said sport for baseball.)

How good are your OCs at bowling? How good are you at bowling?

Rewrite this in your style: “I picked up the book and read the back. He took it from me before I could protest. He never lets me have the cool stuff.”

What do you love about the last book you read?

What are three things you love about your writing?

What’s a word you love the sound of? What’s a word you really don’t like the sound of?

How do you like to begin your stories?

What other forms of writing have you tried other than the one you’re working with now? (i.e. playwriting, screenwriting, poetry, interactive, novels, short fiction. etc.) How do you feel about them?

What’s your favorite play/musical? Why? What’s your favorite part?

What kind of stories do you like to read? How different are they from what you write?

What’s your favorite bit of worldbuilding from a story someone else wrote?

Frodo Taggins:@cawolters, @mvcreates, @a-story-im-writing, @cvrmillas, @ink-flavored, @aslanwrites, @the-real-rg, @bookish-actor, @toboldlywrite, @pens-swords-stuff, @tangoswips and legit anyone else who wants to do this. Especially you.

Answers under the cut!

1. Why did you chose to write the genre you do? If you don’t write in any particular one, why do you bounce?

I grew up writing literary fiction, the undergrad program I studied in prioritized literary fiction, and I like it best. Sometimes I get fancy and branch into fantasy. 

I do not write sci-fi because it’s too hard for me. I’ve tried, it didn’t turn out well. I also don’t usually do horror because it’s a lot of effort for me to make my brain go that kind of dark. And I tend to stay away from YA because the voice is tough for me to write in.

2. Favorite name?

Lydia! 

3. Type of music/ambiance you listen to while writing?

I make playlists and loop them or put the same song on repeat for however long the writing session lasts. Usually a cello/violin piece. Sometimes I’ll hit flow state without anything playing and come out weirded out by the silence. That’s always fun.

4. Best feeling you’ve ever had while writing? (example: filling in that one plot hole and not making another one. Or dropped a tiny detail in and it connected all of the subplots Perfectly.)

I get one in just about every story. Each one has a line/section that I wrote, stopped, and looked at it while going “yisssss” in my head. Usually it’s my last lines. That’s when I love to bring everything together. For my war story, it was finding the perfect song to include that referenced both a character and his journey (”Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” for those wondering). 

A few others: Finishing my last thesis story after having to rewrite it one day before my last draft was due to my committee because computer errors ugh (but it was way better the second time and I got some good bird imagery in there so it’s all good). Putting in a callback to a character’s old desk by using her new one. Getting the dream scene tense shift perfectly paced in the story I’m working on now. Hitting the perfect emotional beat and satisfying the whole dang emotional arc thread in my artist short story.

5. Is it easier for you to write comedic situations or serious ones?

Serious, by far. My funny doesn’t translate well to the written word. I mean, I can do both, but my serious emotionally heavy scenes are far easier for me to bust out than the funnies. 

6. Do you tend to use symbolism a lot?

Unconsciously, all the time! I think it’s almost impossible for a writer to not use symbolism. On purpose, slightly less than all the time. I prefer rhyming actions than what a lot of people think of as symbolism. I don’t do the “x person is represented by the color red and it gets more washed out as the story goes on symbolizing their internal crisis of conscience.” I’m more of a “here’s a thing they both liked and an innocuous detail about it but now that one of them is gone the detail means something different and the weight of the symbol changes.”

I like extended metaphors a whole lot.

7. Think fast: Which book inspired your writing style the most?

Uhhhhh The Things They Carried? Or Wintergirls. Or Hooked on Phonics (heh). I’ve found that Anne Valente’s style is kinda similar to mine, too. Possibly Where the Red Fern Grows. I dunno. There are so many!

8. Last book you read?

I just finished Autoboyography, it was lovely. I recommend it for anyone who wants a coming out story that helps you learn about Mormonism and the LDS church. Also the main character is a wonderful disaster.

9. Book you’re currently working on?

So many. But I just started reading Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan. It’s an odd style that I’m super not used to reading in longer fiction (it reads like a short story, which is neat) but I’m trying to get into it.

[Edit: yeah, I gave up and swapped it for Once and Future, which is good.]

10. Do you ever regret deciding you wanted to be a writer?

I have. I do sometimes. But I never really “decided,” per say. It’s just been what I’ve always done and I keep doin’ it. 🚂 That’s why I’m gonna study and have a career outside of writing. It’s the thing I love to do and I’m good at it, but I know myself, and it’d be tough for me to become a career writer. Unless some miracles happen.

11. Something besides writing or reading that you like to do for fun?

I started getting into graphic design, which is a lot harder than I thought. I like going to art installations and ren faires. I love theatre, watching and participating (I’ve written, directed, and acted before!). I like going to local art events, festivals, faires, and supporting local businesses. 

[streetlightsky]

🏅🌙👖⏰🌝 for the fic asks! Also for the 💋 (freeform) question: is music a part of your creative process? Do you have any songs you associate with your fics/do you make playlists for your fics? 💖

okay, i've calmed down since this morning, lol. but thanks so much for indulging me, lovely. 💛

fic ask game

🏅 What is something you recently felt proud of in regard to your writing (finished a fic, actually planned for once, etc).

this is a... more profound question than i thought? though i know i'm overthinking it. i'm pretty proud that i typed out almost 1000 words for that sebchal ski chalet ficlet after you sent me that link and actually posted it when i could've gotten super insecure about it and abandoned the spurt of inspiration. and because i can't leave things alone, i'm also proud that i figured out quite neat extended headcanons for that universe if it was a feature-length fic (#dolomites here we come).

🌙  What time of day do you prefer to write? Why?

whenever my brain decides to actually let me write. afternoon through evening and night is usually the sweet spot for me. mostly because it's when i have time in my day to focus on writing and other hobbies. cozy evening lights and quiet nights are good vibes for me. i also envision myself doing that quintessential cafe writing thing, but it would have to be... not during the lunch rush.

👖 Are you a planner, plantser, or pantser? Is it consistent?

plantser, pretty consistently. i don't do meticulous outlines anymore because i've found that if i put that much effort into an uber specific outline, that's all the energy i'm going to spend on that idea and nothing i ever try to write will live up to that outline's expectation. basically, i could've spent that energy actually writing the fic rather than writing an outline. but i can't just be all 'weeee gonna write a fic with no plan and post without editing' because my brain does not function that way. if i get a request for a drabble or something (people are welcome to), i'll let ideas flow. but for my usual works, i need to visualize some kind of plot; it just doesn't get written down in finite details all the time.

⏰ Do you spend more time reading fic, writing fic, or do you do both equally?

i want to say i read fic more often, but the amount of time and energy i spend writing fic is far greater in comparison. when reading, i'm just there for a good time and to vibe with content i enjoy, and i consume it at my typical reading speed. but when writing, i agonize over every single thing--characterization, setting, relationship development, conflict, literary devices, dialogue, what have you. so, it feels like i spend a lot more time writing fic, though that's not necessarily true.

🌝 Who is one character you haven’t yet written for that you would like to?

for f1, maybe mick? he's flown a bit under the radar, but i see potential there. i just have no ideas.

i don't really think in terms of individual characters though. i tend to think about which ships i could or want to write for that i haven't. in which case, that would be chenford from the rookie.

💋 (freeform) question: Is music a part of your creative process? Do you have any songs you associate with your fics/do you make playlists for your fics?

good question! music is definitely a part of the creative process. i usually do like music on while i write. however, i've actually come to realize that sometimes i write best when music is not playing and it's dead silent. the silence helps with reading/hearing the words i'm writing so i can concentrate on that, and honestly the sound of typing always makes me feel productive. i used to listen to writing playlists (8tracks, literally) with no lyrics, but it didn't make much difference, so i stopped.

there are definitely songs i associate with my fics. usually there will be 1-3 songs where lyrics vibe with the theme of the fic or even inspire certain aspects of the fic, and those songs will get played incessantly during the writing process (until they're turned off for the silence). i don't make playlists, though. i just loop that one song for eons until i get tired of it and switch to another.

[5-star-songs]

Weekend Rant: FOOBAR2000

Since I rhapsodised about my wonderful new mp3 player last weekend, I figured a companion piece was in order. This one’s about Foobar2000, the media player I set up on my PC to replace iTunes, once I ditched my iPod. Foobar is not for the faint of heart, as it requires users to build it piece by piece, but once you figure out its quirks it’s all kinds of amazing.

I downloaded my first mp3 in 1999, and started ripping my vinyl and CD collection in earnest sometime in 2000, so I’ve got almost two decades’ worth of digital files for a media manager to deal with. iTunes wasn’t my first choice, but once Apple started making iPods with significantly more storage than any of their competition, I succumbed. As my computer and that iPod came to account for a majority of my listening, I invested more and more time into making those files neat and orderly: assigning consistent genres and artist names, rating each and every song, adding album art, removing track numbers from song titles, and 101 other little metadata clean-up tasks. Amazing as they can be, computers are also pretty dumb, as they think Allison and the South Funk Boulevard Band is a different group than Allison & the South Funk Boulevard Band (and that Allison & The South Funk Boulevard Band is yet a third ensemble).

If you have a certain type of personality (which I most decidedly do), fussing about correcting all that can be oddly rewarding.

The problem is, the more time you invest in performing such tasks within a given piece of software, the harder it becomes to change over to another solution. In product management circles, this phenomenon is called “switching costs,” and it can be a deliberate strategy -- there’s a reason all the playlists you’ve made in Spotify, or Apple Music, or the streaming service of your choice, cannot be easily transferred to one of their competitors. They want you locked in.

Since I worked with the product teams at both Rhapsody and Google Play, I don’t think making switching costs high is automatically evil. But Apple has been particularly nefarious about these things, when it comes to iTunes. Though iTunes could have stored the 1 to 5 star ratings I’d assigned to >36,000 tracks within the mp3 files themselves, it deliberately did not, instead writing them to a database accessible only by iTunes itself. Similarly, any album art I’d let iTunes find for me was not attached to the mp3s, but instead locked within that database file.

This was annoying. iTunes had been getting more bloated and less reliable with every passing year, and I’d been looking forward to switching. But I knew it was going to be a huge hassle (as in, it was going to take weeks, not hours) re-adding all that album art and re-rating all those songs, so before my new X5II player arrived, I briefly considered just installing one of several programs that would let me manage my Fiio player via iTunes.

I’m glad I’m stubborn, though, because the thought of letting Apple win proved even more unbearable. And as a result I now have a lovely little media manager that hogs far less of my computer’s memory while doing dozens more things than iTunes ever managed.

That’s a picture of my particular Foobar installation up above, but one of the many great things about Foobar is that yours can look wildly different, should you want it to. That’s also what can make it so daunting, though: the trade-off for maximum customization is minimal hand-holding. When you first install it (which you can do here), you’re asked to choose among several possible layouts and colors, but given no information what any of the options might actually mean: “Album List + Properties” is one option; “Slim View + Tabs” is another. OK, thanks.

I found that selecting one at random and playing around with it for a while before going back and selecting a different one gave me a fairly quick idea what the different choices referred to, but even so that’s just a start. Foobar’s designed so that anyone with the know-how can create additional, or alternative, components -- you can add components that let you flip through album covers, view lyrics to all your tracks, fiddle with more advanced EQ settings, and more.

There are also plenty of articles and YouTube videos that walk you through the necessary steps to get a particular set of components up and running. It took me a couple weeks of playing around with different possibilities before settling on what you see up above, which includes a lyric viewer, a metadata viewer that helps me find where in the hell on my PC a given track might be hiding, and a view of all the album covers in my library.

Then the real work began: I had to install additional components to handle five star ratings, and to let me mass tag thousands of songs at once with a given rating. The satisfaction I felt when I finally figured out how to steal my ratings back from iTunes (step 1: build then save smart playlists for each star rating; step 2, import that playlist into Foobar; step 3, mass tag every song in that playlist with the appropriate number of stars) was particularly sweet: fuck you back, Apple.

Making smart playlists required getting comfortable writing queries such as “%rating% GREATER 4 AND %genre% IS soul,” which again is the type of thing that might scare away average music lovers, but once you learn the syntax it’s not any more complicated than selecting options from drop-down menus in iTunes.

Dealing with the album art took forever. I used a program called Album Art Downloader that scanned my entire collection to let me know not just which albums were missing art, but also the precise dimensions of the art on any albums that already had it, so I could upgrade if I wanted. It took me a week of very late nights to download >6000 images, and then to attach those images to every file on a particular album via Foobar. And then it turned out I had to repeat the entire process with about half of them, as my Fiio player won’t actually display anything over 1000 X 1000 (though you might want to stick with 500 X 500 to keep large playlists loading quickly).

That occupied most of my November and all of my December, and then I spent a good chunk of January doing the somewhat absurd favoriting of 24,760 songs on my Fiio as detailed last week. While I really do find such operations somewhat meditative, the truth is I did it all because I was hiding. I couldn’t bear to turn on the news or look at a newspaper after the election, and my Twitter and Facebook feeds were minefields best avoided, though I couldn’t resist tiptoeing around their perimeters from time to time.

The energy I devoted to Foobar and Fiio can’t really be justified beyond that. They helped me keep my mind blank when it seemed like I had no other choice, and I got something that’s not going to save the world but did save me, temporarily.

In any event, my project is now finished, and I can come out of hiding. I will be marching today, to let the world know we haven’t ALL lost our minds. I hope to see you out there.

I know a LOT of songs we can sing together.