#these are from a playlist that’s like 300 strong haha

[mobbothetrue]

I was tagged by @lunapegasus :)

shuffle your “on repeat” playlist on spotify & post the first 10 songs and tag 10 people

Raison Detre by eve

Believe by The Bravery

Golden Dandelions by Barnes Courtney

FightSong by eve

Area - Starlight Carnival from Sonic Colours

Bokutatchi no Kisetsu by DOES

Katte ni MY SOUL by DISH//

Kagerou by ReaL

Never Turn Back by crush 40

The Tornado by Owl City

Uhmm. I cannot think of ten people to tag. So I will tag @lessrthanthree @abalonetea and uhh. @sunocat ?

[not-poignant]

Can I ask about your method of deciding your Spotify playlists for stories? Where do you look for songs? How do you decide which you want? How do you decide the order, esp for stories that have long arcs that you have yet to write? If a song has perfect lyrics, but the wrong mood, or vice-versa, would you still use it? What if a song perfectly fits a character, but you personally don't like to listen to it? Are the songs more for you as you write? (Sorry for so many questions!)

You don’t need to apologise for a lot of questions, anon! Anything that sort of enables me to ramble hugely is never a bad thing, heh. :D

Can I ask about your method of deciding your Spotify playlists for stories? Where do you look for songs?

...On Spotify. I mean I have like about 300 playlists, about 3,000 local tracks not actually on Spotify, and I’ve listened to easily over (actually I’m gonna go check last.fm to make this legit hang on) - okay so over the years I’ve listened to 15,000~ unique songs over 255,000 times, from 3,200~ different artists. I am what you would call an avid music listener who deliberately seeks and explores for new music (when I’m in the mood.)

This is actually a huge part of my life with Glen, who was at university doing film and journalism (I was at university doing media studies and mass communication and scriptwriting, and film analysis fell into that) and that was how we met. So like fifteen years later, and we have consumed an unbelievable amount of music both together and apart. Like, way back in the day, 15 years ago, I had to make sure my computer had a CD burner so I could make mix-tapes for the both of us like all the time (and he did the same), and they were constantly changing.

Generally speaking, before Spotify, I used to look for music via the ‘similar to’ section on Allmusic, and sometimes Pitchfork recommendations. These days Spotify does a lot of that which makes it super helpful (along with the Discovery weekly list and the Release Radar). I don’t look on places like Youtube. I also do a lot of ‘who is the lead singer of this band’ and finding them in Wikipedia, and then listening to their other projects. Or ‘who is the guitarist they sound talented’ and finding their other projects.

How do you decide which you want?

The most important thing actually is I need to be able to write while listening to it (which answers the last question), which means a lot of the harder shit I listen to (dubstep, clubstep, some of the indie rock, rock and emo) can’t actually go on story playlists. So even if I find great songs for characters, that doesn’t always mean I can set words to them. For example Gulvi’s playlist I think suits her as a character, but I can’t write while listening to it. So I’ll often listen to some of that before writing her, and then switch into a quieter playlist.

I mean I don’t make the playlists for others. It’s nice that other people can enjoy them but for the longest time they were all set on private until I realised people wanted to see/listen to them. I make them to help my ability to write, they’re not...intended to be shared in the same way that fanfiction or fiction is? Like they are shared, but if people don’t see the character in the playlist, that doesn’t bother me and I’d never change it, because it’s about how I feel/see that character and how I’ll write them or interact with them based on the music I’m listening to.

How do you decide the order, esp for stories that have long arcs that you have yet to write?

Usually by evolution/feel of what I’m aiming for, to a point. The playlists generally always end with the happier songs (unless I’ve added a bunch of new songs and haven’t set them in order yet, lmao), or songs indicating that love is being more freely expressed. Though that’s not universal. Sometimes the order of songs is even mildly spoilery, if a playlist - like Mikkel’s - is ending with songs about ‘he was a good man but now he’s gone’ - chances are high someone’s gonna die. Like the last song on Mikkel’s playlist is literally a song about how we all die in the end. It was a glaring spoiler for those who were looking for it. There are playlists like that for The Ice Plague too, which I’m like ‘haha, *laughs nervously* I’m sure glad no one has commented on these particular songs yet, they probably think they apply to like, past loss or something even though they’re at the end of the playlist...’

Like weirdly, depending on how you look at it, I’m probably boldest about story spoilers in my playlists. Because the songs are often arranged by story chronology or character growth chronology (which is convenient for me, I can listen to the beginning songs in the beginning, the end songs at the end).

In stories I haven’t written yet, it’s more aspirational, like ‘I think I’m headed in this direction.’ It’s actually an important part of playlist building, is finding songs that inspire growth or plot, and then locking those in to remember how I want the story to feel.

You can normally tell I’m feeling pretty serious about wanting to write a story if it has a playlist though. It’s not guaranteed that I’ll write it, but it bumps up the likelihood to like 90%.

If a song has perfect lyrics, but the wrong mood, or vice-versa, would you still use it?

No, because music is just as important as lyrics, and if it’s not right, it’ll jar me out of my writing zone. (Lyrics can make me like a song more, but not always). Likewise, sometimes songs that feel right but don’t have the right lyrics will make it onto the playlist. Though not always. Downtown by Majical Cloudz is a song that actually makes me think of a lot of my stories, but the lyrics are so obviously contemporary, that I’ve only put it on the new Detroit Become Human fic I’m going to write. I just sometimes sneak out of a character playlist and listen to it while writing, lmao.

Thankfully I literally have thousands of songs to choose from, so some songs not fitting isn’t a problem for me. In fact my biggest issue is normally ‘all ten of these songs suit, but I’m not going to use all ten right now.’ 

With the latest Detroit Become Human playlist, I wanted a certain kind of bluesy rock for some of Hank’s songs. And I have very strong ‘this song belongs to this character’ ‘this song belongs to this character’ feels (sometimes they belong to both characters, in which case you’ll find the same song on both playlists.)

What if a song perfectly fits a character, but you personally don't like to listen to it?

Then it won’t go on the playlist, with some exceptions - again, Gulvi’s features a lot of music I don’t normally listen to.

But yeah like...music and listening to music is a huge part of my life. This week alone I’ve listened to 161 songs, which actually isn’t a huge music week for me (a sign that I’ve been out of the house a lot lol with appts etc.) Though I did listen to Downtown 66 times in order to help me write the last chapter of The Ice Plague: Book One. (I’m not finished yet, but I’m much closer).

[steamishot]

February

I took birth control pills for a month, starting December sometime when we didn’t use a condom and I thought there was a slight slight chance I could become pregnant. Then as my period in January was approaching, I stopped taking them again. After my period ended, I started feeling pretty moody and down. I talked to Matt about it saying that my moodiness may be a result of my inconsistency with the ocp and he told me that I don’t have to take them if I don’t want to and he’ll just use protection. So I took him up on his offer because I didn’t wanna deal with that. Starting 3 days ago, I started spotting. I had just completed my period the week before. I started spotting, and then I started full on bleeding as if I was having my period again. I was mildly freaking out because I’ve never experienced that before (and it wasn’t the first time I was on and off the pill). I ended up bleeding more during my second “period” than my actual period. He and my nursing school friend said it seemed normal and that it was fine, as long as I wasn’t experiencing symptoms of feeling weak/lightheaded etc. So I took their word for it and now my second period is almost over lol. Emotionally, I feel better this week. Last week was just a mess—I left work on two days feeling super anxious/stressed and like I needed a glass of wine to relax. Granted, work was crazy, but I don’t have to let the craziness affect me to that degree. I was also being weird about my relationship as evidenced by my last post. I’m taking this Monday slow to ease into the week.

I haven’t been having penetrative sex for very long. I believe it’s been around 2.5-3 years since my first time ever. With my last partner, I didn’t really understand why it was enjoyable sometimes and wasn’t other times. And actually, it wasn’t that enjoyable like 70% of the time with him. 70% or more when he inserted, it was an uncomfortable feeling. At first, I thought it might have been the size difference as to why it doesn’t hurt with my current partner. It seems pretty common sense but I just learned that the more lubricated the sex is/the more wet I am, the better it feels for the both of us and that sex shouldn’t be uncomfortable if I am wet enough. My current partner literally stops when he senses that I’m not into it or that I’m bored, because he feels “rapey” if he continues. He gets off on me getting off. We’ve communicated about sex before and how so and so times were the best. We deduced that when I’m the most relaxed/not thinking ahead about our day/being present with him, I’m able to enjoy myself more and therefore he does too. And because we talked about it, I try to be mindfully present when we’re in that space. It’s really helpful because then I enjoy having sex too. I think our goal is to have me reach orgasm naturally, because I was never to with my last partner during penetrative sex. We improved so much from our first night together lol.

I feel like I almost rely on alcohol to let down my inhibitions so I can communicate with him more freely. As he becomes more comfortable with me (this and he acts different when he’s sick), I think he tries less to be a good listener. He told me he thinks he has ADHD and in the beginning I thought he was only joking, but by hanging out with him more and more, I can see how it might be true. I feel like these past two hangouts when we’re talking, I have to compete with him for the “spotlight” and naturally, I don’t like to talk when I know people aren’t listening or feel rushed to speak again. I’m usually pretty quiet, even with my friends, and I talk more when I know they are good listeners. But a lot of the times, I prefer not to talk as well. There were three different instances in the past two hangouts we’ve been on (he had a cold both times so that may have something to do with it) when he communicated with servers/hosts where he was super spacey and like all ADHD’d out. I thought it was kinda endearing/cute and ended up laughing at him all three times but this is not a positive trait in a partner. I wondered why it was so easy for me to talk to my previous partner about my issues and such, but then caught myself comparing communication in a 3-year relationship to a 4 month relationship. I was like oh wait, we’re still getting to know each other and in that stage of opening up. However, my last partner was definitely more in tune with female feelings than Matt is. That was a double-edged sword because I didn’t like that because of that, he had a lot of female friends and not enough strong male figures in his life. With my last partner, I didn’t really feel the need to talk to my female friends as much for “girl talk” because he probably provided enough of that to me. I think I just have to work around it and it might be healthier this way that my partner doesn’t enable my crazy feelings. There are boundaries and I maintain a relationship with my female friends as well.

Another update, we celebrated Chinese new year with my family yesterday. Due to family drama, I haven’t seen my favorite nephew in a long time (1 year) before my brother’s wedding. When I saw him/hungout with him during the wedding, it was really nice. He’s growing really big and fat but he still has that lovable personality. He messaged me yesterday saying Happy early Chinese new year and it meant a lot because he hasn’t initiated conversation since the family drama happened. I thought, why not pick him up and bring him to my family gathering like the good old days? He lives a little further away now ~12-15 min, so I won’t be able to do it often because it’s time consuming to pick him up and drop him off. But we hung out with the family, and he’s still my little buddy. I made him run/jog 1.5 miles while I worked out. I asked him if he had any song requests. Half of the songs I played were from my playlist, and he chose the rest. In the car ride back home, he asked me what the names of two songs were that I played. It was really cute and nice because he used to do that when he was younger as well. He also revealed to me that he was scared of not getting taller, thinking that overweight kids do not grow taller. I assured him he will grow taller and his fat will even out. It’s a sensitive topic because I know he gets told he is fat a lot. He handles it well and doesn’t really show that he is bothered by it. And in the snap of a finger, the kid that I used to babysit is as tall as me now and weighs 1.5 my weight.

Another incident I wanted to write about before I forgot was me losing my wallet and not even knowing it. On Wednesday night, I stopped by to get gas near my house before going home. When I got home, I just went inside my house and got some food (no one was home that day as my parents and grandma went out for dinner). As I was eating in my room, someone rang the doorbell twice. I was conditioned to not open the door if I was home alone so I just ignored them lol. I heard someone open the gate and then they left. The next day while I was trying to pay for my lunch, I realized my wallet wasn’t in my backpack and thought to myself, oh it must be in my purse or something. Thank goodness for apple pay. Then my day goes by normally. On Friday morning as I was leaving my house for work, I saw my wallet on the floor tucked away behind a pillar. My first instinct was to take a picture of it and I thought some crazy Gloria shit was happening to me (as she tends to have odd experiences). I tried to connect this incident to the weird vibes I was feeling in the hotel room the weekend before and was trying to come up with evidence that paranormal activities are real haha. However, when I got into my car and started texting Matt about the situation, I thought it out and the sequence of events (with the doorbell ringing) made sense. I put two and two together and realized that I was probably clumsy and not paying attention after I left my car to go home on Wednesday night. My wallet was probably still out of my backpack and I accidentally dropped it on the floor. It was already dark too so I wouldn’t have seen it. And a very kind neighbor returned it. Everything was still there-- I had almost $300 in cash and many credit cards with nice limits haha. I was so impressed by humanity that day and felt very fortunate. Our CNY celebration just passed and my mom was like why aren’t you wearing red? I said I’m already lucky and she proceeded to tell my family about how crazy/lucky I am that I dropped my wallet and had it returned to me. And my wallet was out on my porch for two nights and a day before I even found it. My dad joked that I probably did some good in this world and good things happen to me. Thank you world.