#which is fine! but i feel like rap is one of those things where some people are just always going to be better than others

[pparacxosm]

wounded in

(blue-eyed son part 2: electric boogaloo !!!! ; (hate to be that gal but you may have to read the first bit for context); homeless era!patrick zweig x jaded businesswoman!reader; nonlinear narrative; tw office job; tw coworkers; tw mcdonald’s; the sound of music stuff is for myself; i fucking love sound of music; and i fucking love cats (the animal not the musical, though that's lovely too) so there’s that; pushing a patrick zweig can’t spell agenda; tw new england maybe; i gave new rochelle a better rap this time; kiss scene kindaaaa ??..? ; tashi coaching patrick after new rochelle is canon to me; tw descriptions of emojis; what if i told you there’s a part 3; then what)

You hold in a bout of laughter when Patrick brings the drinks to the table.

His hair is longer than the last time you saw him, which wasn’t that long ago, in scale. In bones, in feels like a while.

Dear old New Rochelle. Far enough out that the city is a twinkle on the horizon like a cluster of stars, far enough that there are some actual stars above you, now. It’s odd to see him in New England. It’s odd to see him in jeans. But then it’s September.

There are new lines on his face already. He’s aging quicker now, as if to make a point.

Drinks are on me,

Is the first thing Patrick told you, when you walked in in a juniper parka. Scanned the room, picked out his booth.

Is this the part where you tell me you’ve opened a savings account? you said, trying to seem completely blasé about it. It would have been childish to be thrilled by such meagre chivalry at twentyeight. I feel like I should pay, you’re in my city.

Yeah, but you’ve hosted me enough for now.

That’s what you are, half the time. A host to him.

A museum. Thumbing through a rolodex of all the different shades of blue his eyes could go in one humid night.

You pass on more nights out than you accede to. You got a cat. You’re getting LASIK soon. But what it really looks like is that you’re wearing glasses to show that time has passed.

“What’re you smiling about?” Patrick asks, placing the foamy mug of beer in front of you.

You wipe discreetly under your eyes, spreading the mascara smudge. “Just thinking about how my aweinspiring generosity has rescued you from the misery of total squalor.”

Patrick chuckles. “Well, they say to pay it forward.” He sounds pleased as he lifts his own mug with a wink.

You look out the window. There’s a film of dust on it. There’s dust on the faux-chintz curtains too.

You start to wonder if that’s what he really thinks. That this is him going forward.

Patrick picks up the plastic menu. “We ordering sidedishes or do we want a full dinner? What’s good in Wellesley?”

You try to laugh, though the noise has the distinct tender hue of a sob. But you’re sure you feel mostly fine. “What are you doing here?”

“Hm?”

“What are you doing in Wellesley?”

Patrick looks up at you with bright, twinkling eyes. “Challenger in Boston. Thought it’d be a waste not to come see you.”

You clench your jaw to prevent more runny mascara. It’s stupid. You don’t much like waste either. But you’re not going to weep in front of Patrick like a child.

“You hungry?”

You nod, picking up your own menu, hiding your face behind it.

His hand reaches suddenly across the table, trying to touch yours. You pull away, but make it look like you didn’t.

“Bet you had a hard time leaving Tobes for the night,” he says, trying to lift the mood.

“Um yeah. A little. I like to imagine what she gets up to when I’m away.”

“My sister had a cat, when we were young. My sister was, like, seventeen, and I was eight, so pretty big gap.”

Because he has to clarify those sorts of things. Because you don’t know he has a sister. You don’t know anything.

You find it hard to picture him pinned down in any humane way. It’s always his beautiful leg (now sheathed in denim) writhing in a bear trap. Always his papery wings unfurled and pinned against a picture frame like a butterfly. Something metamorphosed. Something capable of a great change, and that must be tortured for it.

“She found the cat in an alleyway. She called it Patrick.”

You lift your eyes. You feel it bubbling in you like magma, the urge to coo. You feel all soft these days. And maybe that’s just open heart season, and the passage of time. But you see a vivid meridian in your life, and it falls right along the night you met this guy. And this back half is all soft, so you sort of want to blame him.

You swallow.

“Well, that’s sweet.”

Patrick lowers the menu. “Nope,” he shakes his head, that huge smirk on his face, like his name is on every ticket of the raffle, like he’s cheating at something. “Let me tell you what she used to do. She used to put the fucker in, like, a blanket, right? And she’d lift it up like a sack, with him inside, and he’d obviously start clawing and making all of these noises—“

He makes the noises. Just starts whipping his head around and making kitten growls, imitating this cat with his name. You get the sense that this is one of those anecdotes that explains a lot about a person.

“—And she’d come into my room, in, like, the middle of the night—this is real psycho shit—and she’d lift my covers and drop the cat. And the shit would fucking claw at me and bite me, just—“

He’s doing the noises again. And now he’s clawing at the air with his hands.

He stops, and the way he closes his mouth around his grin makes his teeth look like they’re trying to escape past his lips. But it looks sort of lovely.

“When the fuck died, Saskia texted me. She was like, oh, he loved you so much, you should’ve said goodbye.” He pauses, widens his eyes, looks at you with the pointed intimacy of sharing in this ludicrousness.

You roll your eyes. But you catch yourself smiling. You like the idea of him being mauled like that, skin deep. You get the sense that life has done to him a lot of that—those growls and scratches. And that sounds a little fucked. But what you like about it is how he seems so unmoved now, by this psycho shit. This flailing animal, this torture device. Pinning him down. He's laughing.

You try to imagine him as a child, but the proportions are all comically bizarre, in your mind’s eye.

“Pork chops,” you say, throwing the menu aside. “I feel like stuffing my face.”

Patrick gets three sausage egg McMuffins on the way to the New Rochelle Country Club—and fries, and a hash, and a soda—and he’s eating the second by the time you pull out of the drivethru.

There is a compelling sense of chaos to how he drives. Like, he’s so bad at driving. Three different people honk at him in a dozenminute window. And you feel content knowing that whatever had had your heart thumping last night has not shrivelled and died with the morningtime. Though now it’s maybe a partial distress for your safety. But you get the sense that, maybe, this is actually the person you are now. The woman who sleeps beside a rugged stranger and buys him breakfast and doesn’t care how he speaks with his mouth open while he’s eating the fries. Doesn’t care about the writhing mire of half chewed potato on his tongue. The way his lips gleam pink with salt.

“I need to listen to really specific music to, like, get in the zone? If you don’t mind?”

He sounds so uncharacteristically shy, for brief a moment. You have to lean forward and look to see he isn’t joking. He isn't.

“Uh— yeah, of course. It’s your car.”

He slides a Sound of Music soundtrack disc into the mouth of the dashboard.

You laugh so hard you fold over.

He’s got one hand on the wheel, and shifts is his seat, peeling the unfamiliarly clean skin of his thighs off the leather before sitting back down. He’s tearing into his third breakfast sandwich with a reckless abandon reserved for death row. He laughs around the bite, glancing, bemused, between you and the road, and, ultimately, spending more time looking at you.

“What?” he laughs around a halfmasticated mouthful. “What?”

There are tears sluicing down your face. You can’t breathe. You think you can, and then you start laughing again, and you can’t.

“How do you solve a problem like Maria?” Patrick hums cheerily as he noshes. It’s a gross and wonderful noise, the food moving between his teeth, circumventing Hammerstein.

You think the large coke is probably no performance enhancer, not only because he all but tumbles out of the car when it’s hardly halfway parked (poorly, you’ll add).

“Fuck, need to piss,” he says frenetically.

When you know the notes to sing…, carols Julie Andrews.

You’re still laughing. Crying. Your tummy fluttering painfully.

Patrick makes you order dessert too, since you’re celebrating.

Celebrating what? you had to ask, though, at the time, you were wearing an impish, knowing, frankly celebratory sort of smile.

Patrick feigned great offense. He said, I’m fucking here, aren’t I?

He wants you to have sundaes together. You spill some ice cream on your skirt. He finds that funny. He’s always got this weasel smile, like he’s constantly ready for amusement. He’s shaved, at some point between now and then. The hairs on his face are sparser. The skin on his face looks milky and organic like a crinite litchifruit.

The frumpy diner was his idea too.

He’s spent some time on the veritable extremes of the economic spectrum—that’s what life tends to be for him; veritable extremes, scratching him meanly—and now he just wants to play at being the average wage earner.

“You really are welcome to stay with me, if you’d like.”

Patrick looks at you like he’d rather shoot himself.

You sort of marvel at his sense of pride, as if it were a rare stone, swallowing light and spewing it out at all angles. The Sociology course you took in uni had a whole two modules on personal pride. It is one of the few emotions that are unique to humans.

Patrick—for his weasel smile and beastly hunger and feline anti—is remarkably proficient in being human. In the real, visceral parts of it. In wielding his emotions like kaleidoscope hues. Dancing freely in confinement.

“When are you leaving?”

“Don’t worry about that. If you have time for breakfast tomorrow, we can—”

“Mm, not tomorrow, I don’t think. But I have no plans this weekend.”

You say it with this weird, bright intonation, like you’re jesting. Which—a lot of things feel like a bit of a joke these days. But he seems to understand you well enough. Delivers a curt, unspurned nod, and even a smile. Not the weasley, chronicling one. The wolfish one that makes his eyes crinkle up.

“Come here then,” he says.

Patrick leans in for a hug. You can’t avoid it. He enfolds you in a fascinatingly soft, burning embrace. He still smells sort of musky and acrid. Like even though he can shower regularly now, he maybe doesn’t as often as he should. But you find a gross comfort that. This pleasantly fetid, human man. His cologne smells like a wine cellar.

He says, “It’s nice to see you again.”

Something churns in your belly. Maybe the pork chops. Maybe the ice cream. This whole fucking day. You accidentally deleted some files and IT spent five hours trying to help you unsheathe them from oblivion. You felt like a failure. And now you’re here and,

“Fuck, you’re still so cool.”

You push away from him with a forceful laugh.

You used to be able to tell your sister all kinds of things. But, lately, you haven’t been able to talk to anyone about anything.

Working so many years for a soulless corporate hive mind has turned you into an expert at short, polite, and meaningless feedback that only varies with inflection.

“Right”, “Sure”, “Got it”, “Whatever you think is best”, “Already on it”.

Half the time you sound illiterate. The other half, you sound like you could have written Prozac Nation.

When your sister asks, how was New Rochelle? she expects you to say something annoyingly vague and ominous in your cool, collected adjunct’s voice, like: Everything is under control.

But, instead, you say, “Do you and Mark still go to mass? I really want to start giving more of myself away.” And you’re wearing this smile that’s utterly sincere.

That’s what spooks your sister.

Of course, you want to tell her more. Because your sister married a Herman Melville character; one of those grizzly, stinky, sacerdotal men who don’t want to work but don’t want to lose either. You know your tale of Linklateresque, serendipitous connection would render her mesmerised and marginally jealous.

But, soft and charitable as you may now be, you keep it all to yourself.

Patrick is still in Massachusetts a fortnight later. You say you’d have loved to come and see him play, but you’re really busy, and he says not to sweat it. Insists really. Maybe even begs. Do not sweat it.

You text him, presumably a day or two afterwards, and ask how it went.

Smahsed it!, he texts, and garlands the (misspelled) notion with eight sunglassfaced emojis. You counted. Dibner? he texts.

Then, a moment later,

*dinner?

You get to see your first New Rochelle sunrise.

You slink out of bed with toothfairy softness, even though Patrick is sleeping the sleep of death—with a deep, miserable snore like a resounding dirge to prove it—beside you. Your pillow wall, in the night, had collapsed like Berlin in 89.

You step outside. You check your phone, first, but you do go outside. You do believe in fresh air in the mornings, even if you don’t have the fortitude for mindfulness and journaling.

The parking lot is a vast open soul. Regretfully resigned and stunningly silent.

The sky looks like a bleeding mouth, but the hard grey edges around it don’t seem to care. The concrete enterprises and litter splay do not want anything to do with this bruise. A tart, sort of sewery smell makes your eyes water.

Cars drive by too fast. 

You think, in some faraway capacity, you can hear the soft, rhythmic thunk of tennis balls hitting asphalt. But it’s only your heart.

You hear things. You see things.

You don’t want to sound like some haunted Victorian heiress with a mystical past, but you do.

In the break room, mostly.

So you hadn’t noticed before. Your coworker, Sam, goes fucking wild for tennis. Sam’s slobbering lewd and voracious over tennis. It’s hard to witness. In fact, you feel dirty witnessing this. You should call HR. Sam’s in the break room doing an onanistic oneman scene play about tennis.

Or maybe he just kind of likes it.

And you hadn’t noticed it before.

There’s a lot, for your part, that you were content not noticing around the office.

But now every errant tenniscentric commentary makes your hands feel sore and weightless without the presence of a gun.

“No, you don’t get it, Deirdre, this is like if LeBron played a game at some random Y, and got dunked on by this fuckin’ nobody, and then just… quit the game.” He sounds tumid with bewilderment. “Just fuckin’ dipped!” Sam’s incredulous. “Forever!”

“LeBron…?”

“Fuck, Deirdre, you’re killing me.”

You slot the mouth of your bottle beneath the spout of the water cooler. You close your eyes—zombieleaden, uneven on the tiles; it’s only 10—and listen to the halting trickle, trickle… stream. The plastic goes cold against your palm as the water rises.

“All because of some… fuckin’,” Sam snaps his fingers, “Fuck, I forget the name.”

Peter Zeppelin, your mind supplies dryly.

It is then that Sam chooses to notice you. Points his finger. Wide smile. “Oh-ho, here’s trouble!” says Sam.

Sam and you have had enough one on one conversations for you to list on your one free hand, and you wouldn’t be spoiled for digits. But, all the same,

“Here’s trouble!” Sam announces, “Big shot boss babe, huh? Back from kickin’ rear in New Rochelle. I know you’re glad to be back.”

You don’t say anything. You feign responsiveness, flash a stilted smile. But you don’t say anything. Because what would you say?

Outside the men’s bathroom of the New Rochelle Country Club, you fidget awkwardly, standing against a wall and trying to look inconspicuous. Patrick’s duffel sits at your heels like a staunch hound.

Your gaze meanders around the venue with an idle sense of inquiry.

You’d expected a certain echelon of grandiosity, anyway. And the country club is nice—you feel silly casting any judgement at all—if a little outdated. All glossy woodpanelling and pea green outdoor carpet.

You can see yourself, warped and bleary, upon the polished floor. The bar flourishes a glassy sheen and cloistered amber rows of lavish whiskeys.

Through glass windows, golf splays unfurl, ceaseless viridescence, beset on all sides by sharpcornered hedges.

People mill about with the air of the lookedafter, and polo shirts as white as the maw of God.

Which is nice—it’s all nice—and all, but your chest seems to enwreathe a stark state of dread. You feel the sort of nausea that would rack you as a child. Floating in the curtains at your dance recitals, like an anxious little poltergeist.

When Patrick emerges from the loo, he is whistling. Fluting finely the swooping tune of ‘Sixteen Going on Seventeen’.

“You certainly seem unburdened,” you murmur, gaze shadowing him as he draws near. You know you sound unconvinced. For his part, he looks undeterred.

Slings his bag over his shoulder like it is floatable, even as you know it bears the poundage of half a man’s life.

He grins, flashing a canine.

To you, he has just eaten his weight in greasy, leaden carbcloth, and proceeded to piss for twelve minutes straight.

But Patrick seems imbued by morningshine.

He throws a heavy arm around you, squeezes your shoulder. Says, “Look alive!” Says, “I’ve had a good night’s sleep, a hot shower, the breakfast of champions, and I’m about to get paid!”

You wince a bit at his volume, and also because he seems to be emanating a bit of that morningshine. Not to speak of the heat. Searing from his very bones.

If nothing else you admire his buoyancy. In that way, the warmth—even as the sun blooms above you—is a fascinating comfort.

Like something to be shared.

You say yes to dinner.

You keep having dinner. He keeps taking you out for dinner, and to decent places, too, places you haven’t even been to around here.

You’re sitting across from him. You’re eating, as one does. He’s regarding you with something like awe. Though you wouldn’t know it, because he regards, too, his plate, when the waiter rests it before him, with a sort of comical reverence. Even though you’re pretty sure he’s not starving, anymore.

But hunger’s not always about those sorts of things, you suppose. Maybe he's just still hungry.

He’s winning a lot. Must be, if he’s taking you out all the time, and—hey—maybe you can get him to sign something for Sam. That’d be nice of you.

Patrick watches you eat.

You try not to stare back at him. As long as you keep chewing, you won’t have to ask why he’s still here.

“That’s a nice shirt,” he says after a long silence.

You smile. “Thank you.”

He doesn’t text you for months, many months, after New Rochelle. You’d given him your number, because you wanted to put the ball in his court, and—fuck—here’s hoping you didn’t say that.

But you can’t recall.

It’s been months.

So, when you do get the text, you’re pleased to see it’s aptly contrite.

ypu probably think I’msn idiot, it reads, and it’s late at night and you’re already in bed, stewing over NYT Connections.

You eye the ID. Maybe: Patrick Zweig, but that’s implied—so many implicit little shards—because not a lot of people are so tortured by the prospect of your opinion on them so as to text you at 1 AM. So.

Define idiot, you text back.

dictionary defenition is Patrick Rupert Zweih. There’s prpbably even a lil picture of me next to it.

A few moments.

A bad one.

Ten or eleven emojis of abject terror.

You consider this—not a bad picture of him (though he doesn’t quite strike you as wildly photogenic anyway), just... This Whole Wound—and tap the side of your phonecase in tentative thought.

Your full name is Patrick Rupert Zweig? Tough.

Like ypu didnt already look me up.

You blink. Whoa—okay.

Not a humble idiot, I see, you type.

You don’t know where you get the balls. There’s a sweeping litany of long, gorgeous miles between your bed and New Rochelle, but maybe he can smell you thinking as much because,

Im in MA next week

In the registration room, a man with a binder asks his name, and Patrick sheathes his canine in a way that makes him look conspiratorial and amused. You suppose it’s become an inside joke.

The ATP official seems to gleam with recognition when Patrick does give his name—his real name—and he says, “Oh wow, that is you!”

You can’t see his face from this angle, but you can envisage the way his moue has settled in confusion.

Apparently, the ATP official was a line judge at the Junior US Open back in 06.

You try to think back to what you were doing in 2006. Probably populating your microcosm in The Sims. Trapping little imitations of those who had scorned you in swimming pools to drown.

“You were really something back then, huh?” says the ATP official.

Your eyes flicker to Patrick’s profile. He doesn’t quite know how to respond to that.

The official hands Patrick a packet. There’s a little map of the facility in there, in case he gets lost. His first match is against one Gonzalez, on court seven.

Patrick says, marginally halting, “Hey, so, is there any chance of an advance payment on the prize money.”

The official blinks.

“Because I know I’m guaranteed a minimum of four hundred dollars even if I get knocked out today—“

You frown a bit at that. The official frowns a lot at that.

“Well,” he says, “Generally we don’t give out winnings until a player makes his way through the tournament…”

A beat.

Then,

“You could always just lose today. Then we’d have to cut you a check this evening.”

Patrick hardens to bone. You hope he has another lifeaffirming piss in him. He doesn’t meet your eyes when he turns to leave, but flicks you a glance that seems to ask that you spare him the judgement.

You leave New Rochelle today. Good as the night’s sleep may have been, he knows better than anyone that life’s loveliest things are fleeting.

So—fine—you don’t begrudge him. Instead,

“He seems hopeful,” you say wryly.

“Must’ve been thrown off by my pretty caddie,” he says dismissively. Maybe a little bristled.

The warmup courts, deep blue plane, shimmer in the sunheat.

Patrick takes the asphalt, flicks his racket around by its handgrip as though refamiliarising himself with the palmfeel for the first time in a while. Which—well—doesn’t give you confidence, at risk of contesting Julie Andrews.

He practices his serve. Starts to work the ball up and down the court. Hits a few forehands, a few backhands.

Then,

“He was lying,” he yells to the bleachers.

The bleachers are mostly empty. A few errant loiterers. Bored spectators who have finished their lunch earlier than their friends. What have you.

He’s looking at you, though. With a staggering precision from so far away.

“What?”

“That guy. He was lying. Or… bigging it up. Or whatever. I wasn’t really something, I was just decent.”

He strikes a ball over the net. You can see, from here, the vibration ricochet through the racketstrings with a shudder that has you expecting music to flutter out.

You lean back in your seat, sort of sliding down against the glossy plastic, a tremor of induced electric tickling your bum through your jeans. You cross your arms.

“That’s kind of bullshit,” you call out.

He spares you a glance, sort of doubletakes, and you can see the corner of his mouth tremble with intrigue.

He takes another ball from the basket. Tosses it up. You watch the neon starsphere spin fleetingly in the air before being walloped to oblivion. And what do you know of tennis? But you do think his serve is a thing of beauty. Beauty measured in power and precision, sure (he hits the ball straight and hard and fast and low, just barely clearing the net), but you can also see the way his muscles work beneath his skin. Which—you know.

Patrick walks to the fence that partitions the courts from the stands. He leans over, rests his arms on the palisade, and looks at you.

“This was the whole problem,” he tells you, “Everyone was always telling me how good I was. And it got to my head. And now I’m here.”

It’s a shabby imitation of humility. What it really is, is an attempt to scale down the apogee, so the fall seems less mythic. So the years seem less unkind.

“I didn’t come here to watch you sulk just because some guy was nice to you.”

Patrick grins. His cheeks are flushed with heat, and there are little spots of sweat on the hollows where his skin and bones meet. But he seems to know not to exert himself fully right now.

“You think I’m sulking?”

“I think you seem pretty torn up for a guy who’s going to play a thirty minute match, and walk away a few hundred dollars richer.”

He makes a noise like you’ve wounded him, but he seems elated.

“A few hundred dollars?” he says, raising his brows. “So you’ve lost your faith in me.”

“I have some,” you allow, and you’re not surprised to find that you really do. “Just don’t choke.”

Patrick wears the smile of a newly crowned Miss Universe. He looks touched that you’re being so frank.

“I won’t,” he says, with a sense of finality and what you feel is an incongruous tenderness. “I’m pretty good at dealing with pressure. My parents always used to take me to work with them and tell employees to come to me at random intervals with madeup highstakes scenarios. Like, pretending to have a breakdown, and saying they needed me to help them out and make the final decision. Some of them could cry on command.”

You try and fail to hide a look on your face that divulges how demented you think that anecdote is. But you try to find something neutral to say.

“Well, maybe you’re lucky,” you tell him. “I was horrifically nervous as a child.”

“Not anymore?” he asks, swinging his racket idly, and you get the sense he’s actually very interested in how you will answer.

So it’s hard not to answer him honestly.

“I don’t know,” you say finally, and you look away from his eyes, and instead at the sky. You’re alarmed to find they are precisely the same tincture of aegean. “Mostly not. But if I have to give a presentation or speak up in a meeting, I have to take one of those beta blockers, you know? Propranolol?”

You are stricken, at odd moments, in New Rochelle, in Massachusetts.

You get the sense that he’s trying to be cavalier. But, at the same time, there’s this unmistakable fragility about him. Like it wouldn’t take much to knock him down.

You are stricken by how he’s managed to maintain this cocksure swagger for so long. With such a brittle, aching core.

How easily it all might’ve been shaken by the wrong person, and the wrong word.

You love the smell of your dear kitty’s head right after a bath. The fluff of dandelions and baby bird. You love toweling her, taking her little paws in your hand and prying the toes open.

Toby pretends not to like being fussed over, but she doesn’t put up much of a fight. In fact, most nights, she falls asleep in your arms.

When he pays you the visit, Ms Tobes is breathing evenly in your arms, your thumb caressing the organtender slope of her silky head.

You open the door, and great weeping gales have been jostling your windows all evening. But he is in shorts.

Patrick’s been in New England for nearly a month.

There’s an odd sort of look on his face, and an unlit cigarette behind his ear.

Hands in his pockets, he leans against the door frame, staring down at you. You feel a remarkable heat radiating from the downy flesh of his bare legs.

He doesn’t seem confident, nor does he seem unperturbed. He seems… pensive and maybe even penitent, but he wears it with a fascinating poise. There’s still something wounded and vulnerable about the way of his shoulders, the slant of his mouth. It's the softness that kills you, anyway, you think incoherently. 

You peer up at him, dubious, through the briar of your lashes. He looks down at Toby, at the sweep of your finger over her head. You do not know if it is he or Toby who purrs.

When he speaks, he is whispering very softly, though there’s a frayed, low seep of his voice in his throat. It feels revoltingly intimate.

“When Patrick died,” he says, “The cat. I felt so shitty. I had this weird feeling of—like—I don’t know. Shittiness. Because of how Sassy said what she said. You should’ve said goodbye. What am I supposed to do with that, y’know?”

You swallow. The hallway is so vacant and noiseless you can hear the plush shuffle of his running shoes against the carpet. Dutifully beyond the boundary of your home, even though he’s been here quite a few times now.

“Patr—“ you croak.

“I’m not in Massachusetts for a game,” he tells you, shrugging hopelessly and almost smiling. But failing to. Which you register. “There’s no challenger in Boston. There’s just you. In Wellesley. All these… fucking ponds everywhere. Private schools. Bunch of rich little assholes who need a tennis coach, I bet. All these res—fuck. You know,” he shifts, taking the cigarette from his ear and gesturing with it between the two of you, “We’ve been out, like, twenty times, since I’ve been here, and there’s still, like, fifty restaurants we haven’t been to.”

You stare up at him. Your palms, where they cradle Toby, grow damp. The throbbing organ of your heart takes up residence in your throat. There’s a sad sort of clanging from the clock in the hall.

You lift one trembling finger to your lips.

Please, don’t say anything else, you beg with your eyes. Please, not in front of Toby.

Patrick’s eyes glint ruefully. Almost ominously. He seems insulted by your gesture, but he understands. He always understands. He never holds anything against anyone.

“No need for that,” he says very quietly. “I come in peace.”

He moves closer, breaking the enclave where the carpet of the hall meets the vinyl of your floor, until he is inches away.

A head taller, yet shrinking, as if you were seeing him from across a room.

He smells very good today. He smells like spice and bergamot and the laundered fabric of his navy blue halfzip. You sort of miss the musk. Of course you think of New Rochelle. You think of Bob Dylan and Hello Kitty and thermostats. Fucking Sally.

You lift your chin.

“I’m not asking you to—“

Patrick leans forward, his nose touching your nose.

“I’m gonna do the tennis,” he speaks the words into your mouth, voice like gravel melting in the sun.

You part your lips. A part of you hates him, hates how he’s insinuated himself in your life without warning. Another part, however, is asleep and betrays you.

He shushes you, though you’re sure you haven’t said anything. It’s just that you’re crying now. Completely still and silent. Weeping like the dead, because the dead weep, too.

He shakes his head, his nose brushing over yours, says shhh like you’re a cat, and, even then, Toby only stirs between your fingers.

“It’ll be good,” he says, and you’ve heard him sound convincing. You know that right now he sounds… something else. And he’s still shaking his head as he whispers, “It’ll be good, I’ll be good. I have a coach, I’m not done, I love the tennis.”

You look up at him. Lick your lips, which, when you’re so close, also means sort of licking his. Sort of licking into him. You want to say, fuck your tennis and fuck you too, but you also want to fuck him and you want to fuck his tennis, too.

You think of New Rochelle.

Patrick’s hand meanders upward toward Toby, and, if his cigarette was lit, you’d see sweeping coils of smoke floating heavenward.

It isn’t lit, but still.

You catch him quickly. You hold him by the wrist.

His skin is nauseatingly warm.

“You love it?” You sound unimpressed now. Your mouth moves over and around and against his as you speak.

“I do.”

“You love it, you love the tennis?” You’re sort of spitting it at him, and he tastes it.

And he thinks of Patrick the cat, how he lay there and was mauled. Pinned down. He thinks he’d let you draw blood, now, if you really wanted to.

“Tennis doesn’t love you.”

“Do you?”

There is time enough for you to answer. But when a sound is finally made it is only Toby, who mewls.

Patrick smiles. You feel the seam of his lips touch your lower teeth. “Didn’t think so.”

He straightens, his lips swiping your nose on his way up. He gently removes his arm from your grasp, your nails scraping is skin.

You exhale sharply. You feel stung.

Poor Toby, caught between your beating hearts. Patrick steps away. He places the cigarette between his lips, and then you do not stop him from touching Tobes. He strokes her gently.

“You got a lighter?” he asks around the cig.

There are three aflame candles in your home right now. He can smell the vanilla. You shake your head. He smiles again. Toby purrs. Patrick’s fingers touch yours between the heather fur.

You feel a strange ignition in your bones.

The game begins.

Everything is quick and violent.

You don’t know if tennis is actually quick and violent, or if that’s just him.

You are astounded by just how much a man can sweat. You are spellbound by the visceral implication of being drenched in one’s own exertion.

Gonzalez is younger. A little bit more thrilled to be here. And he’s got the kind of easy, quick thoroughness that means he probably practices with a ball machine at home, but not a lot of real experience.

Patrick makes brutal work of him.

There is a certain way his muscles tense through his forearm and the pulse travels up his bicep when he strikes the ball. His shirt rises as he twists to send it flying over the net. There is so much laboured breath and dripping skin.

He has you sit exactly where you sat during warmups.

Between sets, he extends his arm, taut and sweatsoused, and points to you with the scratched edge of his racket, one eye closed like he’s mapping trajectory. And he does sort of have this bloodhungry precision in his gaze, like a marksman.

You feel it in your neck, the ache of your focus, how your eyes water for lack of blinking as you swivel your head side to side. You do not close your mouth once.

He hits the ball again, and then again. Each with an almost startling accuracy. Each with a deep and fleshsatisfying thwack that makes your very ear canals thrum with the sort of pain that has you expecting the warmth of dripping crimson on your shoulders.

But it’s not just the force that strikes you. It’s that precision. That bulletgleam precision.

He seems to know, with a profound, animalic certainty, exactly where to place each shot.

At times, they will land exactly where the last landed.

And by the time his adversary cottons on, he has set his hungry eyes upon another target.

It’s beautiful.

You start to wonder if you have ever—ever—looked so fucking beautiful doing any single thing in your life. This strange and beautiful violence. Refined and delicate violence. He is violent and graceful.

Patrick groans when he hits the ball. Makes a guttural sound, a pained sort of sound, like he loses something of himself with each forceful departure.

The sun beams down, and you see his beautiful legs flex aglow with the beautiful gleam of his abject labour.

You think, fuck—

New Rochelle is beautiful.

“You know, I could have gone pro.”

Sam leans back in his Herman Miller chair. Takes a deep quaff of his coffee before pointing to Deirdre with his mug.

“You played for two years in middle school,” Deirdre deadpans, her gaze unmoving from her monitor as she populates a spreadsheet with who the fuck knows.

“This is huge, D,” says Sam, unhurt, “This is like if Jamal Mashburn started coaching the fuckin’ nobody that demolished LeBron at the Y.”

Deirdre seems to have forgotten this analogy, which, for her part, Sam first made months ago now.

“But also if Mashburn was married to Lebron,” adds Sam.

Your computer screen casts depressing polygons across your glasses. You slide your AirPods in. You don’t want to know where Bob Dylan will appear on your Spotify Wrapped.

I met one man who was wounded in love. I met another man who was wounded in hatred. And it’s a hard, it’s a hard— It’s a hard, it’s a hard—

It’s a hard rain’s a-gonna fall.

[inventors-fair]

The Sound of Silence: Lyric Commentary

I'm quite happy with the response that this contest generated this week, and I'm thoroughly impressed with the variety of music that I got to see everyone choose! From classic rap to soundtracks, indie to musicals, it really goes to show that there are so many ways to connect with lyrics across the board. I've been trying to do more mechanical-oriented contests as of late after a slew of flavorful ones. Contests like this seem to tread a medium ground.

My favorite overall aspect of this week is how those variations in music either influenced or completely changed one's approach to the song. Many cards had themes that were directly connected to the world of Magic and intentionally shifted the context of the lyrics, but for others, I feel that the lyrics helped drive the card's creation. I liked seeing the ways in which people allowed their love of music to make new cards!

My overall mechanical critique is a reminder about space and punctuation. Magic cards are limited by the amount of characters you can fit into a title, and there's only so much room for flavor text as well. In the real world of card processes, there would be someone who would ask for flavor text on cards that needed them, but seeing as we're acting in mechanical, creative, AND visual space, it's something to be cognizant of. Additionally, I saw a lot of semicolon misuse this week. Semicolons are for separating two like ideas that could be connected but lead into each other naturally; they can't replace the function of commas or emdashes.

But my song's almost been sung, SO: here are the entries and commentary! If you see a card with JUDGE PICK next to it, that means it was either a) in the running and there just wasn't space, or b) there was a specific cool thing about it that I wanted to highlight for the crowd. One, two, three, four—

@an-anarchist-shapeshifter — End the Feud "Time will Change You" by The Crane Wives

I feel a sense of disconnect between the notion of equal pacifism and the mechanical implications. Perhaps the king and the elves are each representative of the green and white here, but then there's the fact that everyone's graveyards are exiled and only you get the benefit. Of course, there's no way that giving your opponents the counters would be reasonable. In that instance, perhaps one compromise would've been to not necessarily display the truce, but also a force for the future. After all, wouldn't you be swinging in pretty hard after this?

Still, the ability to really beef up a board through lots of graveyard shenanigans is just what a GW deck could use against a more control-oriented matchup. Personally I'd phrase it "where X is the number of cards exiled from your graveyard this way" instead of "owned," because it's more intuitive to me. Yeah, it's the same thing, but regardless. And it's a good swing in still! I think the bottom line is that I wanted for there to be a more direct connection between the trajectory of these two kingdoms and how the player would use this to then claim some manner of victory. The intended mood matches the lyrics but could've used a different mechanical angle if you wanted to stick with the notion of peace. A lifegain spell might've been reasonable as well.

~

@arixordragc — Disdainful Dragon "Judgement" by Caamora)

I'm quite familiar with the card Disdainful Stroke. I'm also familiar with the cost and its effects. I'm baffled as to why the choice to name a card ostensibly after a specific spell would lead to an inverted effect here. Why mana value 4 or less? Yeah, maybe someone would be disdainful of those underneath them as the lyric suggests, but most of the Disdainful Strokes that we've seen have flavorfully been about dismissing the greater displays of power from those above you. The choice to invert that feels incongruous to me.

The card's perfectly fine, I suppose, even if the flavor text is kinda squished in there. It's a good draft mythic and could see sideboard play. Really, though, the whole concept of the card feels like it should've been built around the spell in question and the fact that it isn't frustrates me somewhat. I want to hear about the decision for that later if you're around and about to tell it.

~

@bergdg — One More Light "One More Light" by Linkin Park

Yeah, it's a great little one-drop. Combat tricks like this are fun for limited and good for constructed in the right situations. I like the stipulation for the counter. Did you ever consider having an effect that would do something else if the permanent wasn't a creature? I suppose that the bonus is fine enough for white. The flavorful portion of this card is pretty strongly in white's wheelhouse, and that's something that really solidifies it in this unique position.

What is the value of a single entity to the colors? I suppose Blue would have each individual categorized, Black would have each individual counting themselves first, Red would fight for each individual's brightness to shine, and Green recognizes that each light has a purpose. But it's white's capacity to care from one light to another first that matters. The ellipses in the flavor text is grammatically awkward to me, and really should've been removed, but the sentiment's what matters here. Ultimately a great connection that speaks to the color pie, I say. Maybe not the most staggering effect, but eh, combat tricks are always worth it to someone.

~

@bread-into-toast — Weight of the Worldsoul "Good Luck Babe!" by Chappell Roan

I'm always struck by the effort of the art here. The new enchantment frames really make this pop for sure, and with this kind of really wild effect, it's a feast for the senses. That said, mechanics matter more here, so I'll stop that particular praise to tell you that I wish there was a more coherent way to phrase this effect. Coherent? More succinct is what I mean. I grok it, of course, and there are plenty of effects that do this sort of thing, but it's a heck of a mouthful.

Being able to shut off someone's cards like this is often much better than just removing them, though, even if it gets them mana. Sacrificing a creature is still totally doable if it's just got Pacifism on it, and instant-speed Aura removal is a lot worse when it's on a Planeswalker you control. Could "Enchant creature, planeswalker or land" roll off the tongue easier? Is there a tried-and-true 'you must do this' order to these things? At this point I usually go with intuition. As far as the Worldsoul and whatever goes, I like the interpretation of the lyrics to this kind of overwhelming effect. Like, damn, yeah, being interconnected to all of life and nature really can be a burden. I don't believe that Chappell Roan was talking about that exactly but who knows, maybe she's a planeswalker in disguise. I suppose in the end you've got a lot of funky words on a funky card, but it's a heck of an interesting card for what it's worth. 

~

@cthulhusaurusrex — Lead Pipe Languages "Ballskin" by MF DOOM

What a fantastic reference choice of lyric-to-card-presentation you've got here. I think that anyone looking at this art would certainly understand the homage, although the name is somewhat... Well, not to tie things up, but it's kind of blunt all things considered. Maybe I would expect there to be more bludgeoning in the connection; as someone who's a fan of the esoteric, it's a wee bit too esoteric to pass the test of player comprehension.

The mechanics are certainly reminiscent of the Silverquill power, and it was a fair enough choice to have the power of language and the rap references align here. The fact that you can turn Auras into enchantment creatures is a bit of an oversight considering how they would immediately die. And since when do the Silverquill care about enchantments or enchantment creatures? Yes, I know that it would be more to the point of having this card work in a specific constructed shell, but unless this is intended to present a completely new leap here, I don't see the exact connection. Maybe if there are more Silverquill cards in the future they'll be able to delve into this space. Other than that, the 'why' of this card is still lost on me.

~

@dimestoretajic — Graveyard Smash (JUDGE PICK) "Monster Mash" by Bobby Pickett

It's a perfectly reasonable card that smashes with flash, if your casting is ramped to amp up the crash of nasty ghasts to cash their massive axes and gash the aghast. Plus, exiling someone else's graveyard so that they can't get their own creature reanimated is pretty awesome too. I didn't expect for someone to go with a song that's a little...sillier? I should've expected that more, honestly, it's kinda silly myself that I didn't. Maybe I was thinking of more personal songs for people, more poetic. But hey, maybe there's sentimentality for you, I ain't one to judge. Except in the position whereupon I'm the judge.

And I'm judging that flavor text just a little bit, just because it feels a little obvious for what you're going for. It's not bad, of course, and I like how there's a little bit of that implied silliness with a hooligan horde of graverobbers coming in to dig up a bunch of graves as fast as they can before bouncing. Maybe I would've liked some more of the result of the looting, like how after they'd heard about the security, there wasn't a still shovel for weeks, or how the sounds of tilled earth and cracked granite kept everyone up, or maybe how it even startled the ghosts—yadda yadda yadda. Reanimating from an eff-yours-got-mine is awesome, and I love the name because of how absurd the portrayal is! There's a poetic extra mile that really could've pushed it, but take the thumbs-up for what it is.

~

@feyd-rautha-apologist — Ignite the Drive (JUDGE PICK) "Extras (Elphelt's Theme)" by Molly Daisy & Daisuke Ishiwatari

I'm guilty for not knowing anything about Guilty Gear. Frankly, I don't play that many video games in the first place. What I do know is that goblins also don't listen to safety regulations and also, Vehicles don't have enough of this effect—honestly, there isn't any effect quite like this, not as simple, and I enjoy it a lot. Whatever limited environment that this could go in, it knows what it's asking for. Good topdeck when you need that last creature and don't have what you need to power your vehicles.

There's this energy that the song brings and this Magic-themed matching energy that feels aligned even without that direct connection between the nice young lady in the thumbnail and the motorhead in the art description. Maybe the exclamation points in the flavor text are a little much, but aside from that, this was a competitive week and I still want to commend this card for its strength of mood and overall kick-assery. 

~

@frognarch — Ruler's Acquisition "C.R.E.A.M." by Wu-Tang Clan

It's a damn cool image, that's for sure. Something tells me that "cash" as a concept isn't the most in-line with most Magic universes, and that's really the most difficult part of this card to contend with flavorfully; the fact that it's the flavor text that you chose is, well... I might just not be the right audience for sunglasses-wearing skulls. What this card sets out to do, I imagine, is to display a more contemporary take that's connected to the music, as opposed to finding a niche in a specific/established plane. And that's fine if that's what you're setting out to do! For most contest criteria, I'm just a little more straightedge with it.

The mechanics are what I really want to tinker with here, because goodness gracious there's some powerful stuff moving around. I will say that there's a small issue in power balance for constructed for sure. Swinging in and getting your Treasures with any kind of earlier treasure support means that you can, at instant speed, snatch up your opponents blockers and effectively ensure that they don't play the game. If this was a rare that sacrificed itself to gain control of another creature, I'd be a lot more down for that. Repeatedly and permanently gaining control of other players' stuff is a feelbad for just about any format. If that's still what you're after, then you might want to secure more hoops to jump through, because the threshold of five Treasures in the right shell is a lot easier to get to than you might think.

~

@horsecrash — Wanderlust (JUDGE PICK) "Metal Detector" by They Might Be Giants

So far, Glowcap Lantern is the closest that any other card's come to this effect, and it's kinda strange that that's the case. It's a damn powerful effect, but having to hit on contact doesn't make it any more powerful than, say, Sticky Fingers or whatever. Less so without evasion, honestly. And that's good! Balanced commons are indeed good, no matter what the folks on the internet might say. They don't say otherwise, I don't know why I said that. Auras in limited are pretty undervalued, and in the end I think that having this in a shell with flying evasion would be the best bet. Whether or not I'd play it is kinda up in the air.

What I do like about this card that's commendable enough for a JP is the natural manner in which the flavor text as a fragment defines the aura, and also turns around the song to something that feels distinctly Magic-related. Yep, it's exactly that, that's how we're defining "wanderlust" for green, and I think it clicks in very well. Usually I'm not as down for fragments, but you make it make sense here because its parts of speech are enhancing what's being demonstrated through gameplay. This card should be notable for anyone reading this as an example of how grammar can work for you when you're writing your own original flavor text. Also, hell yeah TMBG.

~

@izzet-always-r-versus-u — Trust Deceived "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" by The Offspring

[image description: a scene through Kellan's POV - on the ground in the midst of the crossfire in Tarnation, vision going dark at the edges, hand outstretched, watching Oko walk away from him.]

Something something two nickels. Anyway, it's a pretty rough pseudo-counterspell, and I like the way that your art direction places us. It's been a while since I've read the OTJ story. With that snippet of the lyrics in the title, I guess I understand it, but it's a little underwhelming for a choice. Maybe that's the hard part about having lyrics for a title—you don't get all the nuance that a longer sentence might bring. But I'm also not opposed to it, and if I'm generous, seeing this card in an OTJ pack would make me pretty happy to play blue. Blue was really damn powerful in OTJ. Makes me nostalgic, really.

The first line is the only one that needs a mechanical change, I think. Were you going for more of a Deflecting Swat kind of deal? Honestly I don't know why that one is a "may," but whatever. In that case, you might want to actually word it like Sideswipe. Yes, from CHK. Because OTJ had cards with multiple targets, the ability to change any number of them would've been awesome. Against a full-spree Metamorphic Blast or Rustler Rampage? Hell yeah. That said, I'm glad that this card doesn't have Spree, and that was a fair choice. Maybe stunning a creature as a last resort is a feelsbad at rare, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, and options are what really makes a rare card rare. The fact that just about all these things were found on OTJ spells actually makes me less inclined to think that that's the environment where you imagined this, but tell me what your thought process was—I'm curious!

~

@levelzeo — Let Me See Your Bones "Skeleton Appreciation Day" by Will Wood and the Tapeworms

Weirdly enough, for reasons that I don't have a specific example for, this card doesn't work within the layers. I've attached the link below as to why, but the TL;DR is that modifying creature types happens in layer 4 and P/T stuff happens in layer 7. If you want to change a creature's type, it can't be contingent on its colors, abilities, or P/T as a static effect. Intuitive? No. Rulesworthy? Yes. This is one of the first cards in a while where I've actually had to investigate this! You learn something new every day. And it's a shame, because I really like how this card plays out.

Getting everything to be a X/1 Skeleton and having them party hard with each other is really cool for making the board a bunch of boney boys, and the length of the title is awesome with flavor text that takes from the song as well. Like, this is a skeleton love letter and I think that all the elements technically come together very well! It's a shame that there's not really an easy way to go about the effect that you're looking for without some weird wording and/or targeting and stuff. Small note: you're using MSE, correct? Using "Chop Bottom" in the Style tab will make it so that your FT doesn't get covered by a stamp.

~

@melancholia-ennui — Moment of Doubt "The Getting By II" by The Killers

Once more the semicolon of separation comes in to rattle my bones. Argh! Small potatoes, though, for a card that's got some heavy emotions that come with it. I think that there's something to be said for how you've gone about this concept from a flavorful perspective, some kind of lost faith. The Theros Gods in particular being contingent upon belief is an interesting one, because there's that feeling of outsider doubt that makes cards like this that much more profound in-universe, to say nothing of the profundity outside of it. I wonder if the FT could've been just as fine with "When I look up, all I see is sky" attributed to one of the figures. It says enough without the rhyme to make it feel lyrical, no?

I don't think we need to delve into the mechanics as much as the flavor's getting to me, honestly, but I'll do my damndest anyway. After all, it's a fun take on the white boardwipes that we've been seeing these days with the draw stuff, and I think I'm a fan of how it reflects belief as something that can still accrue meaning despite the doubt being more powerful than said belief. Still, it should read: "Each player who controls an Avatar, God, Demigod, and/or legendary enchantment" because otherwise one could argue that someone who controls both somehow wouldn't draw a card. Semantics! Yes, that's a dumb take. Yes, someone would actually argue that if they found themselves in that situation. Yes, boardwipes are awesome in limited. And yes, I do particularly like the inclusion of Avatar in there, actually. It's a nice touch.

~

@mildewpyre — Dreamless Dorm/Ticking Clock "Burn My Dread" by Yumi Kawamura

I am...more or less confused by what this card seeks to accomplish. Your opponent has basically no chance to react to Dreamless Dorm when you cast it, right? So why is it worded as a trigger like that? Playing a creatureless control deck that ensures you maximize that value is a bit uninteractive in limited, and with a majority of Magic back-and-forth being tied to creatures these days, having a burn spell that can deal a ridiculous amount of damage for that little mana isn't what I'd call a fun card. And then you have the card that changes life totals being one that follows after that, for seven mana? I'm not sure what the process was for how this card was intended to work.

If I'm being generous, I'd say that playing Dreamless Dorm and then swinging in incentivizes your opponents to block with a little more fatalism in mind before maximizing the damage that your own creatures would do to you. That's also if you're running creatures in the first place, which if you're doing limited, you'd have to do in order to get anywhere. But that's pure conjecture and that's nothing to be said for how Ticking Clock really doesn't mesh with the Dorm in the first place. What's with the name-to-gameplay connection, too? And why did you include flavor text on an Aftermath card? I'll assume this is supposed to be rare, too, but I'll be honest: this card feels like the idea for a Persona-themed card came took over the actual card design. Theming is important but it can't come at the cost of a cohesive card structure.

~

@nine-effing-hells — Throw Off the Shackles "Defying Gravity" by Stephen Schwartz

I read one of the books in the series many years ago, but I've never been too into Wicked like a lot of people I know. Never really delved into theatre as much as I should've. Still, when you have a green-skinned ostracized character being unjustly maligned, might as well roll with it, right? I guess that the only thing I have against this card is the fact that I don't sense any sort of "game" that one might associate with the Azorius? Like, is that how a Golgari character would see the relationship? I have a hard time buying that just because it's a specific kind of back-and-forth where the powerful figure(s) need to take themselves less seriously in order for a game to be recognized. IMO the Azorius take themselves way too seriously for this FT to be the best application.

Still, the effect is something that we haven't seen too much of re:Aura destruction, and looking at all the Auras that Ravnica has to offer from the Azorius, I like what the gameplay and AD could do with one another! Getting that sense of tethering severance feels both strong for Black on both fronts, and the indestructible is another cool aspect that I like about the combat tricks Black has to offer. Determination is a quality that we've been seeing more of in Black. Bringing that out to this card is actually quite impressive considering how well the execution flows.

~

@piccadilly-blue — Baron Von Marlon "Too Much Brandy" by The Streets

Honestly, I didn't listen to too many of the songs that people had sent in, either because I didn't have the time, and/or the genre didn't appeal to me, and/or I had already heard the artists and could get the vibe from that. You, on the other hand, piqued my interest, and—well, I'm not sold, but I'm far from turned off, and more staggered than anything. Staggering suits this character well, now that we're on the topic, and the mood is by far the strongest thing about this card. I don't mean the mood of the AD, but the whole mood. This character is pretty damn awesome. I don't think it would be a safe idea to go out partying with them, but, y'know, I'd follow them on Rakblr.

I feel that I'm kinda missing the context for where you imagine the gameplay to fit in here. Rakdos gameplay is something that's rather hard to pin down, although having a guy sobering up to eventually pummel you in the face is pretty reasonable. Not that he's the strongest, though, and without that history of -1/-1 counters, I'm left wondering where you're expecting this archetype to go, if anywhere. But is that really the concern of this card? Maybe you're going strictly for mood, and that succeeded immensely. I just wish I didn't have to stop that mood and question it against where the card itself is taking me. Feels like I'm ruining the vibe, y'know?

~

@real-aspen-hours — Ghouls Gambit "Drink with the Living Dead" by Ghoultown

[Art: a zombie dressed in tattered cowboy attire is sitting at a table, across from a living person. Both have shot their thunder pistols at each other, knocking cards and shot glasses off the table. The human reels back from the shot, while the zombie only gives a skeletal grin as the attack pierces him, to no effect.]

Was this supposed to be "Ghoul's" or "Ghouls'" with a possessive? Either way, sorry about not having the full spree there, but I haven't found the place to add the [+] for the upper-right on Spree cards. Ah well. It's certainly a functional Spree card, and it's a shame that Unfortunate Accident is also a card here to take that second mode and make it feel slightly more derivative. But deathtouch/indestructible is a perfectly fine way of making combat that much stronger, so yeah, for five mana you can control some interaction. That's worth it for me as a black instant! Not breaking ground necessarily, but it's got what it needs.

Simple cards are then reliant on the strength of their flavor in order to get the point across. Where we land here is the midpoint of having the flavor text not exactly enhancing but not exactly repeating what's being presented via the art. Maybe as a warning or an attribution it could've gone somewhere. Poetically, the warning that's in the song preempts the result (the "would") and as such there might still be an element of surprise. Not so much here, though. I think the quote "Try to match me shot for shot" might have been a better application of the song, honestly, to match both the humor and immediacy. Not a bad connection considering OTJ overall, but I was hoping for slightly more substance.

~

@sparkyyoungupstart — Fable to Fighter "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies

In no other Magic timeline could this lyric be applicable. And I actually think it's pretty great here! Do they have movies on Kamigawa yet? I mean, they have cameras and chips, but I don't know for sure about films. I think it's cute enough for me to suspend my disbelief. I'm still a big fan of Kamigawa when I can ignore the turntables and headphones and allow for neon mechanics to be their own form of magical joy. Does that bring me out of this immersion? No, although it's still really clear that the lyrics were what shaped the card and that there was a bit of a forced meshing here. Not a bad meshing, mind! Just a pretty clear point of contact.

As for the ability, historic permanents turning alive also feels pretty cool from a manifestation standpoint. That said, Vengeant Earth is where you want the wording to be: "Target historic permanent you control becomes a 4/4 Samurai creature with first strike in addition to its other types until end of turn." Sometimes you can ignore the "base" stuff, y'know? All depends on precedent. It's a fairly strong effect, I'd say, good for a combat trick, good for combat math. The actual gameplay might not be doing anything particularly crazy, but I loved playing with Historic in limited, and that ticks off a box for me. Having a lot forced into the box of these lyrics is still a bit tongue-in-cheek. Again, I'm smiling as I'm writing this. Take that however ya want.

~

@tanknspank — Two-Toned Echoes "Who Brings Shadow" by Masayoshi Soken

I'm slowly learning that the intersection of Final Fantasy enthusiasts and Magic players is a lot stronger than I first realized. As someone with absolutely no connection to the game I'm a little struck by the whole presentation, so that's a good start. Squishing that name into the adventure, on the other hand, is a little forced, and you and I both know that I don't have to tell you twice. Two-Toned Echoes, eh? Look, I'm gonna level with you: it's a weird name for a card. Explicitly referring to Magic's color system in-game has been done before, but there's a reason that it's fallen out of favor, and I think there could've been a little more separation before jumping into this name as a first choice. But, you had to abide by the lyrics, and as far as prismatic things go, I'm willing to envision an adventure-y sensation wherein some figure is leaping over their past and future selves in a rainbow-colored array of joy.

Tumbling Through Time is a fine card by itself as well. Look, overall I think that this card is really good and grokable. What am I hesitant about, then? Something's prodding me, and it may just be the arrangement of lyric and adventure, which IIRC you pointed out in the submission process. "Lost in the Flood" could've been fine—I just checked it, heh—but no, that wasn't what you wanted from this card. Maybe that's just what happened with a few cards from this contest: it's just so apparent when the desire to get the lyrics is evident on the cards, and it's no longer blended together. What does that matter in the end, I suppose? Love trumps immersion. I'm still gonna critique it a bit but only 'cause that's my job.

~

@wildcardgamez — The Fire "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel

Just so it's out there in front of this, I did note that the title (or part of the title) of the song shouldn't be what the name/flavor took from. Kinda not in the spirit of the lyric contest. But regardless, here we are, and we've got The Fire here. It's living up to its name, I suppose? It's basically "You can cast two spells, but watch out" which really means "Your opponents should only cast one spell each turn." It's an easily contained fire, that's for sure. I don't think it's living up to the legendary stature of its title or its flavor because of that. Maybe it's a sideboard card against combo decks and big spell decks, but I'd hope there would be bounce removal or whatever for it.

I think that you aimed a little too high here for an effect that's far too abstract for what's reasonable. It feels less like you were designing with the lyric in mind and more that you took the song and tried to apply it to the Magic world in an 'epic' way. And that's admirable, but IMO the contest was looking for less macroscopic approaches. Who's the speaker? Is this the effect or a story about the effect? Is there a plane in question? Mystique can bring intrigue, but in this case it's obscuring the larger idea that the card is asking for.

~

@xenobladexfan — Gunborg, Starnheim Gatekeeper (JUDGE PICK) "Wir fliegen" by Cyua & Hiroyuki Sawano

I'm trying so hard to picture the epic art that your illustration is going for, and yes, I can absolutely see the valkyrie with their weapons guarding a withered world tree. I'm also a veteran of the Kingdom of Loathing and that's taking over so much of my visual memory right now. But, this isn't about the art, innit? It's about a pretty darn good angel-to-non-angel ratio and having these cards slam in the air. Having even one or two angels makes all the ground attacks and deaths that much better, and I'd like to think that they're talking to another angel in the FT—to the player, even, as a guardian. I like that a lot!

I didn't think "Untap them" should be its own sentence but I guess we have The Fifth Doctor as kinda-precedent. I dunno, seems a little wonky but not that wonky at all. Really, there's not much to actively dislike about this card at all. The name's a lot longer than it needs to be, and "Gunborg" sounds fairly unserious for a serious card, but those a little nitpicks to be fixed in post. You took the lyrics and you fulfilled the prompt in a way that coincided with Magic's multiverse in a pleasant and almost poignant manner. So kudos to you!

~

@yourrightfulking — Stray from the Path "Ghost Light" by TheFatRat & Everglow

Let's start with the mechanics here, which are what I like the best. This card should for sure be an uncommon, because a two-mana exile spell, even multicolored, is still quite powerful. Being able to rescue one of your own untapped creatures and/or bounce it is fun too. Really, besides a complexity spike that also justifies this card as uncommon, I think that there's a lot to be intrigued by here! I'm a huge fan of the various UW tempo/control shells, so I'll admit that I'm a little more biased towards these effects personally.

As for how the lyrics/flavor interact, though, I think that I could've used a little bit of context here. Maybe there's a voice that's taking wandering kids or survivors and schwooping them away, where attackers are punished but bystanders aren't? I don't think I have enough information with what you're presenting here to get a clear understanding of what your card is supposed to depict. Conjecture is fine, of course, but I want more than conjecture when it comes to these sorts of things, because I can't really judge my own presumptions. Upping the rarity and giving a little more definition to the showcase could've turned me onto this card as much as I was wanting, all things considered.

~

And that's that. Phew. Thank you all once more for your cards <3 This was a popular week! @abelzumi

[riansdiary]

https://www.tumblr.com/creature-wizard/752280454158270464/whats-your-thoughts-on-the-law-of-assumption?source=share

I'm sorry but this post you sent anon, doesn't make sense to me and it feels very judgemental and decreasing us all different humans to having one purpose.

Tell me, how many people are aspiring to become an actor, singer etc? Okay we know there are many but is that wrong? NO. That is not everybody, different loa bloggers can have different goals. I've seen someone who manifested as being good at studying. Someone who likes art, someone who wants to shift to their dr, someone who has totally different aspirations in life.

It's saying we're like attention-motivated or attention seekers when a lot of us are private and careful about posting our results. That's a contradicting statement. Hell, if I liked getting attention, I would've posted my actual selfie. I'm blurring it because I still am manifesting some issues away like a little bit of insecurity left in me. I'm stopping myself from picking myself apart and I was really just anxious about it. That's why I'm not completely comfortable in posting the actual unblurred selfie because I still pick flaws apart which is my old bad habit and sometimes still think I'm not pretty enough. One of the things I'm manifesting more of is becoming more confident.

Tell me, is it wrong if someone wants to be famous? Is it wrong if someone wants to be an It Girl? Is it oh so wrong to want what a lot of people want? Not all of us want to be fucking famous. There are people here who have manifested different careers.

It is not one of the main things I've seen that people are trying to manifest. Most of us want a better life for ourselves and live our dream lives. Better grades in school. Money for a comfortable worry-free life because we have suffered before. Those are the ones that I see the most. Also go to Subliminal Amino, there's a lot of good before and after pics.

Let me ask this again. Is wanting yourself to be safe and private on the internet an issue of wanting fame? If we were wanting fame, wouldn't we go and plaster our faces everywhere like TikTokers. Why is wanting and valuing your privacy like your face being on the internet and being seen by the whole world not a good thing? Again, you are you, I am me. We are different. What's comfortable for you could not be comfortable for me.

Let me ask once again. Is it wrong to wanna be with someone you like who is a celebrity? How many of us have celebrity crushes, think of that. Exactly. I didn't wanna manifest my boyfriend because I want his fame. I had a crush on him and I liked him and his personality even more, that's all. I felt safe, comfortable and at home even just watching him before.

I'm kind of just done with people saying that wanting fame is bad when there are a lot of us who look up to celebrities and singers and you wanted to be like them since you were young. Granted, not everybody wants it but you don't have to invalidate what other people want. It's not yours and you don't relate but that's fine!

Personally, my passion is singing, dancing and rapping since I saw SHINee, F(x), BTS and Blackpink. I've been inspired by them since I was little especially for SHINee and F(x). It's the first music videos I've watched that made me want to do that. Naturally, one of the things I'm manifesting is to be a member of a K-Pop girl group but is it really that wrong to do what I'm passionate about and what I love to do and what my heart wants? Mainly, it's because it's my passion. I'm a theater kid, hello?

That's not my only interest. I also wanna have a business whether it's about fashion, skincare and also makeup. I like those things, does that include fame there? No. I just really want a business where I could express myself and make products that I've been imagining in my brain.

All I'm saying is that again, please stop judging us all loa bloggers here. We all have different wants and desires so please do not speak ill of it or judge us for wanting that when so many people in the world want it for different reasons. Do not say things like that when you don't know us personally. Why not get to know us more so you can learn that fame is not all we want in life.

Everyone has different main things they wanna manifest but trust me the most I see is not celebrity SP or fame, it's usually more so about dream life, having a better life, becoming financially free so we don't have to worry about money and also shifting ones. There's also school stuff.

I did not start this blog so I can famous bla bla bla. I came here because I finally knew the best way for me to manifest. I was so lost and so negative before so I couldn't manifest things as easily. I had mental health problems as well. There was one point in my life when I was in a manifesting rut where I couldn't get anything I'm manifesting and I was frustrated as hell. Now I know the right and best way for me to manifest thanks to @babygothprincess and Rita Kaminski on YouTube. Babygothprincess was like an older sister and manifesting mentor to me. She answered my questions and I started applying her tips. Her way of manifesting really resonated with me. It's something fun and easy for me and not something I think of as a chore. She has shown her vampire pale skin results so go to her blog and check that out!

I started this blog first and foremost not to be famous but to help someone who might have the same manifesting style as me. To give guidance to people who are like how I was before. I posted these blogs mainly to help and teach with my style of manifesting and manifesting in general. I was thinking that there could be someone like me somewhere out there. I wanted to post helpful manifesting guides and advice that worked for me. Also about my knowledge about the law of assumption. I learned about it since I found out about subliminals.

That was my main goal in starting this and for the other things that I do here that are fun for me and where I can express myself like my Bridgerton reactions and other things I've posted. I didn't just start this to be famous. I looked up to some loa bloggers and I wanted to be as knowledgeable as them. As soon as I learned more and applied, I started sharing my epiphanies when I was thinking deeply about the law in my free time. I also posted what I have learned and my knowledge about the law of assumption and subliminals.

That's my truth and I've said my piece. I'm hoping this helps you disprove what's written on that ask and make you realize that we loa bloggers are humans, normal people who want to share their knowledge and express themselves. Normal people who have their own wants and desires that shouldn't be minimized or assumed to be just one purpose which is getting fame. There's seriously nothing wrong with that.

I was insecure years ago and really used to hate my face and pick it apart everyday. I looked up to It Girls like Olivia Rodrigo, Jennie, Wonyoung and Song Jia not for their fame but for their beauty and confidence. I also admired their self concept and how they think because I wanted to be more like that about myself. Again, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be an It Girl. Why is this an issue? Of course, I wanted to be like them who are loved and adored but is there something wrong with that? No, absolutely not. My main reason for wanting to be an It Girl is because I look up to those girls and they are my role models when it comes to beauty, confidence and self concept.

If you want before and after pictures and you need that, I'll try posting one. Also, go and join subliminal amino for more because that's where I see a lot of people share before and after results.

[absinthe-adonis]

lucien flavius x reader

warnings: pwp, blowjobs, finger sucking, mild choking, jerking off, dom!reader, sub!lucien, orgasm denial, begging

author’s note: ive never sucked a dick before unfortunately so i apologize if this is written weird. as always feedback and requests are very welcome!! i still have a nagging feeling that there are some weird clunky sentences and mistakes and/or i overused some words too much even though ive read this over three times now and sent it to two different people to read so i also apologize about that. however one of those people was a lesbian and she said “the fact that it kept me interested is extremely impressive”

“Why don’t we work on your training, Lucien?” As much as you wished he’d let you train him on more than one thing a day, you had to admit at least the days seemed to fly past when you were with him.

He looks up from the enchanting table, his face lighting up. “Really? Oh, I’ve been looking forward to this. What shall we work on this time?”

“Well.” You smile wryly. “Don’t take this personally, but I was thinking we should build up your stamina.”

His face pales dramatically. “Oh dear. You’re going to make me exercise, aren’t you?”

“Come on, come on, outside. You want to be able to hold your own in a fight for longer, don’t you?”

He groans, dragging himself dramatically toward the door. “I suppose so.”

You roll your eyes and walk out to the sprawling, vibrant yard of Tundra Homestead. Despite his complaints, Lucien is close behind you, as always.

“We can start easy,” you say, fighting back laughter at the look of dread he’s giving you. “15 push-ups. Make sure you count them.”

“Easy?! You overestimate me.” Resentfully, he lowers himself to the ground in the most dignified way he can and begins his set of very undignified push-ups. You fold your arms and watch him amusedly.

“One… two… three… f-four…” His strained, breathy voice gives you butterflies — and not in your stomach. To make matters worse, Lucien lets out a soft, broken moan as he reaches the sixth push-up. You tighten your grip on your arms, trying with all your might not to react visibly (or audibly).

His body shakes as he struggles to raise himself up and down, breathing heavily. You imagine what he would look like, unclothed and trembling beneath you, completely at your mercy-

You clasp your hand over your mouth, horrified at your own thoughts. Holy shit, this is so bad, he’s just your traveling companion, he probably doesn’t even-

Your train of thought is interrupted by Lucien exhaling loudly and collapsing on the ground. He looks up at you with forlorn puppy eyes. “Can that please be it for today?”

You nod stiffly. “Uh- yep. That’s fine. I’m gonna- I- I’m gonna- I’ll be right back.” You turn around and practically stumble back into the house.

You sit down on the side of your bed and stare at the wall, mind and heart racing. The attraction itself wasn’t even that bad- it had always sort of been there, ever since your first meeting when you asked if he was flirting and he got all flustered. It was cute. He was cute. But now, he’s hot, which is a completely and vastly different beast to deal with. And really, it’s the implications of the attraction that have you so frazzled. Also, how did such a short and simple thing drive you so insane with lust? Where did all of this come from? What if you accidentally change the way you treat him and then he feels bad or he starts treating you differently back?

The wooden rapping of knuckles against wood breaks through the deafening silence. Lucien poked his head through the door nervously. “Is- is everything all right?”

Gods motherfucking damn it. “Yeah, it’s okay, Luce. I dunno.”

“Were my push-ups really that bad?” He asks, the slight lilt in his voice and his concerned smile clearing the cloud in your mind a bit. You chuckle.

“Can I come in?”

You nod and pat the bed next to you. He sits, his knees tilted in towards you. “Do you, er… want to talk about anything?”

“I want you,” you blurt out. Lucien stares at you, mouth open.

“I’m sorry,” you choke out, quickly standing up. “I shouldn’t have- oh my god, I’m so stupid, I’m sorry. You-”

You stop as he grabs your wrist, not pulling you back but not letting you leave either. “Do you mean, like-”

“Yes.”

He lets go of you, putting his fingertips to his lips. A deep coral hue floods across his cheeks. “Oh! Well. That’s- certainly something!”

“Look, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything- I especially shouldn’t have said it like that- if you’re disgusted and want me to leave, you can just say that, I won’t-”

He gives you an incredulous look. “What? No! No, that’s not what I meant at all! I’m not- I mean, I’m not… opposed??”

Your brain seems to have shut off. “You… really?

“Well, I wouldn’t lie to you!” He says defensively. “Especially not about this, that would be cruel!”

A fiery sensation begins to burn in the pit of your stomach. “Lucien.” There’s a new deep, sultry quality to your voice, sending visible shivers down his spine. He looks at you, silently, expectantly.

“Would you want to? Right now?”

He swallows. “I suppose I wouldn’t-”

You don’t even allow him to finish his sentence before you push him down onto the bed, climbing on top of him. He gasps quietly, almost paralyzed.

You straddle him, placing one hand on his waist and leaning down to run the other through his soft blond hair. “Relax,” you purr into his ear. “You can tell me to stop at any time.” You move your hand down to palm the growing bulge in his pants. He lets out a soft whimper, and the fire in your stomach begins to burn brighter. “Fuck,” you whisper. “You’re so pretty.” You move your hand back to his waist and start grinding against him, eliciting more muffled moans from his closed mouth. You run your thumb across his lips. “You like this?”

He nods fervently. “Yes- gods, that feels- really good-” His high, whiny voice is like a divine symphony. Your hands travel slowly down his sides until you slip your thumbs under the waistband of his pants, causing him to stir in anticipation. You drag them down his slim, downy legs, and slide yourself back onto your knees. He whines at the absence of stimulation.

“Sit up, Lucien.”

He inhales sharply and slowly props himself up with his arms, which you can see are shaking with nervousness and excitement.

“Now take your shirt off.”

He nods and eagerly pulls it over his head, tossing it to the side. You allow your gaze to indulgently explore his exposed body. “Look at you,” you breathe softly. “So obedient for me.” He closes his eyes and tilts his head back, whining again and rolling his hips forward. You reach out and hook your fingers onto his loincloth, slowly and agonizingly pulling it down to reveal his rapidly hardening cock, dripping with precum.

“Hmm,” you hum appreciatively. “Already so wet. You want me to suck your dick, Lucien?”

“Yes,” he says in a quiet, choked voice.

“Oh, you’re gonna have to do better than that, Luce. I want you to beg for me. I want you to show me that you want me as much as I want you.”

“Please,” he mewls. “Please, please, I need you- I n-need you, please make me feel good, please-” His words dissolve into incoherence as you grasp onto his thighs, your fingers sinking into his plush skin, pushing his legs further apart. He lets out high, shuddering moans as you put your lips against his cock, swirling your tongue languidly around his tip. “Fuck- oh my gods- aah-”

You continue to suck teasingly at his tip, thoroughly enjoying his taste, the heat of his skin, the high desperation of the noises he’s making. You can feel him squirming, and you can see his hands grabbing fistfuls of the sheets in the corners of your vision.

“Please,” Lucien moans. “I need more- more, please-”

You laugh softly, the vibration of the sound making him sigh wantonly. You move your head down his shaft, sucking and caressing him with your mouth and tongue. His hips buck up involuntarily, his long cock hitting the back of your throat. “Ah- sorry- fuck. It feels- so good- so good-”

You smile and reach up, grabbing his wrist and placing his hand on the back of your head. His fingers immediately lace through your hair, holding firmly onto you. “Oh my gods,” he groans, and starts slowly pushing your head up and down. You relish in his pleasure, in how perfectly his dick seems to fit in your mouth. You shift your hands to his hips, and he whines loudly, thrusting forward.

You can tell he’s holding back, trying to keep his composure. You wish you could tell him it’s okay, he can let go, but you don’t want to stop. His cock is absolutely intoxicating, and you need more of it. You want to make him completely unravel. You increase your pace, bobbing your head up and down, and using your grip on his hips to pull him closer to you, farther down your throat. He cries out your name, and you can feel him quivering beneath you. Yes. Fuck. Oh my gods. Your hands curl into claws, your nails scratching at him in blind desire. His yelps and moans only make you more and more insatiable.

But suddenly, you have an idea that makes an evil smile spread across your face. As wonderful as it would be to swallow every last drop of his cum, you want to see him. You continue to suck on him, rapidly and passionately, coaxing him towards his orgasm-

-And then, you pull back. He practically screams in agony, thrusting hopelessly into the air. You look up at his face; his eyes squeezed shut, his mouth wide open, his features twisted together in pleasure and pain. “N-no,” he gasps out. It takes every ounce of willpower in your body not to pounce on him and finish him off right there.

He opens his eyes and looks down at you pitifully, panting and twitching, leaning back on his hands. “Please, please, keep going, please-”

You climb up on top of him and then swing around, pressing yourself against his sweat-slicked back and putting your lips against his ear.

“I’m going to help you jerk off that pretty cock of yours, and you are not going to cum until I say you can.”

He whimpers quietly, and you reach forward and place your hand on his, guiding it to his throbbing dick. He wraps his fingers needily around it, and you did the same between his. He starts moving his fist up and down, but you tighten your grip and force him to slow down, to which he lets out a heavy, drawn-out moan. You splay your free hand across his smooth chest, stroking his skin, slowly traveling upward until you clasp it around his throat.

Lucien lets out a depraved keening sound, his own free hand shooting backward and finding your thigh, then clutching onto it for dear life. You look at the hopeless expression on his face, completely lost in pleasure. “That’s my good boy,” you croon in his ear, earning yourself another sweetly strangled moan.

“Please,” he stammers out, hardly able to speak. “Please let me cum, please, I want to cum, please, I need it so bad-”

“Mmm, not yet, Luci.” He groans in pain, both at your response and as you remove your hand from his. “Don’t stop, now. Keep the same pace. Be a good boy.”

“I will, I will- I’ll be such a good boy for you, please, plea-” You cut him off by shoving two fingers into his mouth, essentially having him in a headlock now. “Suck.”

He moans again around your fingers, and does as you ask. Your entire body feels as if it might burn to a crisp at any moment, seeing the pleasure he’s in because of you. He can barely concentrate on jerking off and sucking your fingers at the same time. The beautiful noises he’s making are steadily amping up in volume and desperation, and he’s becoming sloppier and shakier the more his restraint fades into utter ecstasy.

You push your fingers further into his mouth. “Does my pretty boy want to cum?” You ask sweetly. He nods and whines in response.

“Cum for me, Lucien. Show me how good you feel.” You clamp your legs on either side of his torso, spreading your fingers out in his mouth, squeezing his throat in encouragement. In a few seconds, hot streams of cum burst out of his dick, covering his hand, his legs, his stomach, the sheets, even the floor. You press hard, passionate kisses against his shoulder, cheek, and neck, everywhere you can reach, as tremors rack his body and his moans reach a heavenly climactic chorus. He calls out your name, over and over, pushing himself into you as he orgasms.

Finally, he goes limp, breathing like he had just run a marathon. You let yourself relax in the blissful intimacy of this moment, before peeling yourself off of him and gently lowering him down onto the bed, pressing a final kiss to his lips. “You’re perfect, Lucien. You did so good.”

“You,” he answered breathlessly. “You’re amazing.”

You cup his cheek in your hand. “Let’s get you cleaned up, hmm?”

The you spend the next few minutes cleaning the mess off of him and his surroundings with rags from your bedside table, while he apologizes profusely no matter how many times you assure him it’s okay (and you actually think it’s very hot). He still doesn’t seem to have complete control of his motor skills back yet.

What a man. You already can’t wait for the next time you get to rail him senseless.

[sitp-recs]

Hi liv! I was wondering if you had any fics with really charged moments between harry and draco? Where they both want each other but are unwilling to make a move? They don't strictly have to be slow burn or ust fics because I feel like I've read some where there's a fast sexual burn but they still contain heavy moments. This ask was inspired by me just finishing little Compton street and rereading some bixgirl fics, and I know you love those authors so hopefully you know the vibe I'm trying to find! Thank youuu

Ohh I love this ask! And I’m really pleased to know that we share some favorite authors and works, LCS has my whole heart ❤️ I also think that Writ and Bix are great authors to binge read if you’re looking for that specific vibe of UST, their fics are sooo cinematic. Here are some recs, I’ll save this list as “intense UST” lol

Take These Lies by @pennygalleon (E, 20k)

There’s a portrait of his godfather in Draco Malfoy’s potions shop and Harry needs to know why. But that’s not why he keeps coming back.

The Venice Job by nishizono (E, 25k)

Harry Potter was one of the youngest Aurors in history. He was the Boy Who Lived, and the Boy Who Lived Again. He loved Guinness and Quidditch, and hated pineapple. He wrote letters to Hagrid every Thursday, and on Sundays, he visited Hermione and Ron. Harry Potter was also not gay.

I Bet That You Look Good on the Dancefloor by birdsofshore (E, 28k)

God, he wanted this – wanted it so much he could taste it, a metallic tang of heat and desire. He suspected nothing would ever be the same again – especially when he saw who else was in the room.

War Wounds by SilentAuror (E, 30k)

Some wounds take longer to recover from than others. HP/DM, with background HP/GW. Themes of alcoholism, love triangles, and dubious fidelity.

Us, in Lieu by Tepre (E, 30k)

Teddy needs help and Harry needs funding. Draco sits in the other room and plays the piano.

Expecto Patronum by @writcraft (E, 35k)

As Draco Malfoy negotiates his feelings for the wizarding world's brightest star, he becomes increasingly attached to Harry and unravels the secrets he keeps hidden from the rest of the world.

Stately Homes of Wiltshire by waspabi (E, 57k)

Malfoy Manor has mould, dry rot and an infestation of unusually historical poltergeists. Harry Potter is on the case.

Modern Love by @tackytigerfic (E, 61k)

Harry Potter, of all people, knows that life isn’t always fair. And no one gets to be happy all of the time. But surely there’s something more—something better—than a rubbish Ministry job, and a lonely old house, and that feeling that everyone out there is doing a better job of living than Harry is.

Criminal by @the-sinking-ship (E, 83k)

Things were going just fine for Draco Malfoy. He successfully conned and counted cards across Europe and America, amassing a small fortune, along with a lengthy rap sheet. That was until he made the grave mistake of returning to England for a high stakes card game and got himself caught – by Harry Potter no less.

Who we are in the shadows by @quicksilvermaid (E, 100k)

What happens when you’re forced to become the very thing you despise? Ex-Auror Harry Potter, tossed out of the Ministry for something he had no control over, has been looking for a way back to his former life.

By the Grace by lettered (T, 140k)

Harry is an Auror instructor. Malfoy wants to be an Auror.

Can't Sit Still by wilteddaisy (E, 193k)

Five years after the war, Harry finds himself drawn to Draco Malfoy by memories that aren't his own. Or, in which Harry hates his Auror partner, Draco flips houses, Pansy sleeps around, Hermione is a magical creatures’ justice warrior, Blaise is getting married, and Ron is just along for the ride.

[littlemessyjessi]

Buying You Candles: BTS Reactions x Witchy Partner

BTS Reactions

BTS x Witchy Partner 

For any of you wishing to read the other's in this series, please defer to my profile where you can find the link to the navi in my bio.  All my Kpop content is located in Masterlist 2.0.  

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Summary:  They buy you candles for your practice. 

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Seokjin: 

Jin's hyung energy is strong with this one.  And it doesn't matter if you're older than him… the hyung/oppa side of him is coming out and he is going to play that card.  He's this way with the members.  Imagine how he is going to be with a partner.  So yeah…  He spies the little list you have sitting on your desk of things you need to pick up from the metaphysical store next time you're there.  

"Here, let me do it. What shop is it?" 

"Jin, I can do it.  It's no big deal." 

*withering glare* 

"Ok, damn.  Chill.  You can do it." 

*bombastic side eye* 

"It's the little building beside the cupcake shop. It's called Third Eye." 

You just need to accept the fact that Seokjin is going to spoil you and you're going to have to let him.  

Because if you don't - A, he's going to pout and B, he's going to do it anyway so you might as well just accept it, write the list and let the man feel needed.   

And if for some god forsaken reason you decide to say, "Jin, I love you and I appreciate it but really, I can do it. You don't have to pick these up for me." 

Just know, that you are going to be on the recieving end of major sass, possibly his mad angry rapping skill featuring that little vein in his neck trying to pop out and then a pompous little dismissal something along the lines of:

"It's healing for me, jagi.  Now, would you really deny me the opportunity of healing?" 

So just suck it up and accept the fact that you have a very loving partner who is going to spoil you with candles and whatever else you might possibly need or want. 

Yoongi: 

This man knows how to find a good deal.   Three dollar chain? Psh. Bitch, you can't tell.  Which is why he won't hesistate to stroll up in the dollar tree and load up an entire cart with the different color glass vase candles.   He follows the 'dollartreefinds' and 'dollartreecandles' hashtags on instagram purely for this reason.  They come out with new colors?  On it.   They've released pastel versions for spring?  Add to cart.   Black candles for spooky season?  Bitch, please.   You will never run out.   And because he saved so much on candles… his baby wants a huge opal figure? His baby GETS a huge opal figure.   Damn straight. 

Hoseok: 

Hobi on the other hand.   Quality over everything.  Truthfully the dollar tree candles work just fine but you ain't gonna tell him that.  Well, you might.  But he ain't listening.  He is going IN.  He is RESEARCHING.   He's reading ALL the reviews.   He will find the best rated, top quality shop for all the candles.  He will be going in person to inspect them with those sharp eyes of his to make sure that they will in fact be up to his standards. And this mother fucker will stock you on all the basics he feel like you could ever need.  And then he's gonna want a list of wants.   And you better just comply or else you'll get attitude.  "Hobi, babe, this is more than enough.  I'm fine.  Like this is more than I've ever had anyway.  I don't need-" 

 "Jagi, I did not ask you what you needed.   I asked you what you wanted.  Now you can either tell me or I'm getting one of everything."  

"But I-"  

*Cue that sharp ass glare he has when someone messes up choreo.  

"Ok, ok.  This one.  I would like this one."  

"Great, add at least nine more." 

 "Hobi, I don't"  

*Glare intensifies and that jaw becomes so flexed you actually fear for your life with how sharp it is* 

"Ok, ok.  Well, these are the holidays that are coming up that I'd like to celebrate. So maybe these.  And the haters have been particularly nasty lately so maybe this one." 

"Good, baby.  See? Now was that so difficult?" 

You accept the kiss and thank him for his generosity but damn, homie gets pressed when you don't let him spoil you, lol. 

Namjoon: 

Now, does Namjoon believe in this stuff? No.  He doesn't.  He's an aetheist.  However, you do and it's important to you.  So he takes this VERY seriously.   This is important to you and you're important to him so he would never DARE to roll his eyes at it.   Like Hoseok, Namjoon his does his research.  He's not likely to go all in like Hobi but Namjoon does know the holidays you choose to celebrate or what you're typically going to do in a week or whatever.  His research however consists mostly of what the corresponding candle, color and scent or whatever would be.  He prefers wandering into the small witchy shops, definitely having a look at the book section.  He'll often pick up something occultish.  Even if he doesn't believe he does find it interesting and entertaining.  And he knows that you'll definitely want the book once he's finished with it.  Then he'll make his way to the candle section, pull up the notes on his phone and choose from there.  He sometimes cross references with whoever is working there but often times he gets more joy out of it knowing that he learned enough about something that you do to pick correctly.   You're unsure whether it's his research or his intuition… but often times he is actually spot on.  Also, if you EVER dont let him watch...he will so sad. and dramatic.

Jimin: 

Now, Jimin's approach to buying you candles is based heavily in observation.  He prides himself on how open, safe and vulnerable you are with each other in your relationship.   He's often present when you are doing workings or journaling or even shopping just as an excuse for the two of you to spend time with one another. And Park Jimin is a very observant man.  So he notices shit.   He takes stock of the fact that there are only two green candles left on the shelf and one gold one.  So he makes  a note to order some more for you because he knows you use those often in prosperity workings.  While he's at it, he might add in a figural dollar sign candle as a surprise for you to try.   The little pink birthday candles that you use for peace in friendships are down to about two in that little box.  He's picking you up some on the way home from work one night because he knows you like the ones from that supermarket the best.  You've been talking about ancestor work?   He texts you to let you know that a package is about to be delivered today so you need to be there to recieve it.  You open it and it's got not only white candles but also figural family candles as well. It's in the details for Jimin.  This mother fucker pays attention and provides based on what he sees.  He doesn't just pick blindly.  Even if he doesn't believe.  He knows you do and he wants to show you that because it's important to you… it's important to him. 10/10 if you ever try to tell him that he doesnt have to do this... will sit you down for a talk and shame for even thinking he wouldnt take care of you.

Taehyung: 

Taehyung wants to know everything.  He's probably going to ask a lot of questions.   He's INVOLVED.  And he's quite sweet and endearing.  He may not have been raised in it and he might not connect with it on the level that you.  But he's still present and participates.  He likes to learn and he loves learning from you.  So while he might do his own research… he much prefers you to be his teacher.   He's likely going to come home one day with a basics kit.  A little of everything.   What will surprise you is that it's doubled.  He's gotten one for himself as well.   What's amusing is that this little shit pulls out a damn Gucci candle and wants to know if that can be his working candle.   You just have to smile and kiss his cheek. 

"I mean, it's an expensive choice to make for your working candle, babe but yes, that's fine.  If you connect with it, that's all that matters.  For the record though, you can just as easily use a white pillar candle from the dollar tree.  It can work just the same." 

"I really like this one though." "That's fine.  If you vibe with that, then go with that.  What you connect with the most is gonna make it the strongest." 

"Ok, Gucci it is." 

You smile at his expensive yet endearing choice. 

A week later… you too have a Gucci 'working candle'.

Because obviously you're a liar and a Gucci candle is far superior.

Jungkook:  

Ever the frugal king, Jungkook is likely to come back with no telling what that he's swiped from hotel rooms for you.  He's always bring you those little teabags because 'You can use these for herbs, right jagiya?"  and if he's lucky enough to come across a room with tea light candles or incense or anything like that… ha.  Man RUNS for his suitcase!  I mean, BURSTS through the door.  "Jagi, you're going to love me so much right now."   Proceeds to empty the entire front pocket of his suitcase out.   Dozens of little scented tea lights that he has wrapped in cling wrap or put in little baggies.  "This one got a little melted but you can still use it right?" You just pepper him with kisses because oh, that man of yours is so sweet and considerate.   10/10 you PROUDLY use them in your workings because yes.  That energy.  *chef's kiss* Bonus if you use them in lust magic. when you tell him this... he makes it a personal mission to acquire something useful everywhere he goes,

.

Hey loves! I'm back! Welcome to Kenny's Comeback! It's the Goddess Era yall!

Love, K

@thickemadame

@toomanyfictionalboyfriends

@blackirisposts

@alisoncdariel

@therealmrshale

@thegreatirene

@angelus320

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@disneymarina

[mash-masha2011]

Chapter 3: Next stop, anywhere!

Hey, I'm back!

You really motivated me back on previous post, 'cause I really doubted should I continue!

Also I'll try being faster! I just need to fight laziness and 'good' concentration!

Anyway, hope you like this chapter!

By the time Raps, Eugene and Cassandra brought Varian to the castle and led him to his room he was sick of glares, staring people terrified faces and parents holding or hiding their children close. it also didn't help that there were two guards standing at his door who seemed to listen to every sound he made. 

Since he didn't remember much useful on a trip information, once woke up he immediately decided to go in the library and spend there, like, at lest half of week. Of course guards were pretty annoying but he soon got used to their quiet chatter and to the feeling of eyes watching him. His plans were interrupted when Raps barged into the library startling him with Eugene walking in behind her and said that they were going shopping. Varian wasn't too happy about it at first but when he looked at his clothes he agreed that he needs new.

When they walked on the shopping street first thing Varian bought was a black cloak with bright blue treads and a big hood. Rapunzel was against it at first but Varian told her about all those looks people were giving him and she - reluctantly - agreed. Then she bought him a few pairs of dark blue jeans, black and white t-shirts, black really comfy boots and after Eugene asked her a leather vest matching his but brown. Raps also bought him a brown pretty big satchel and said she will paint it when she has time. 

When they returned to the castle and lunched he went straight to the library and the next day woke up sitting in the armchair with the book on his lap in the same Royal library and after a minute of confusion continued studying. At midday Cass walked into his room, led him to stables, gave him horse, walked with Varian to the training grounds and for a few hours was teaching him riding a horse. After that he returned to the library and read some more. He found some interesting information about the sundrop and following the thread learned about Demanitus and got fascinated by him and his work!

Next two days went the same. He read, in the midday Cass taught him riding horse, he ate, went back to library and fell asleep it the armchair. Fifth day though was different. Raps came into his room/library - since no one was ever in library at that week it practically became his room - and handed him journal. His journal. She told him it's where he kept all his alchemy records and formulas, and when she saw how fascinated he was she managed him a lab, which became his new room. 

After that and 'till the end of that week he didn't leave his lab except when needed and made dozens of 'clean' bombs, 'goo' bombs, 'smoke' bombs, 'stink' bombs and a few small drops of acid and Ruddiger transformers - just in case. 

He also discovered that since he lost his memories he could think more out of the box, so he invented a 'smink' bomb, which is a mix of 'stink' and 'smoke' bomb,  'fire' bomb, which in contact with air inflames, 'anti-fire' bomb - compound that stops the fire from fire bomb, 'ice' bomb, which is basically a water bomb but in contact with same air becomes ice and 'anti-ice' bomb which melts the 'ice-bomb''s effect in seconds.

In a few hours before starting their trip Varian packed all solutions he made and put a few in his new satchel - which he really liked - put all his alchemical stuff in caravan - with Eugene's help, he could hardly lift any of them - and finally the journey began!

So naw he was sitting in the end of the caravan and watched the kingdom he barely knew fading in the distance. It was strange. He felt like he should miss this place - he knew he should, it's his home after all - but... he couldn't honestly say he did.

"Hey!" soft voice said behind him and he recognised Raps's "How're you doing?"

"I'm fine!" He didn't fully lie, he didn't know how he felt "And you? You must be so excited about the journey!"

"Yes!" she squealed "It's my first time seeing the real world outside Corona! I can't wait to see what people we'll meet out there!"

"Yeah!" Varian was glad for this distraction from his thoughts. His mind never helped him lighten his mood "What if we meet some alchemists on the road! We could exchange useful formulas!"

"Yeah!" Raps said dreamily "Oh, look!" She added suddenly "That cloud is just like a cat!"

"Wow! And look! That one's a flower!"

"And that looks like a horse!" said voice behind their back. Varian jumped and turned his head so fast his neck hurt. To his relief it was only Eugene, standing there, hands on hips and smirking.

"Hey! You did it on purpose!" Varian couldn't keep smile from his face. He was glad his friends were here.

"Did what?" innocently asked Eugene 

"Startled us!" 

"I did?" Varian glared at him playfully and Eugene exclaimed in fake fear "Okay, okay, sorry! Stop looking at me like that!"

They all started laughing, and laughed for a few minutes before stopping and falling in comfortable silence

"I'm gonna check how Cass is doing!" Rapunzel said finally and climbed on the roof

"I'm gonna go look after her! She's just like a child, needs supervision all the time!" With that Eugene climbed after Raps

Varian looked out of the window again and smiled when saw a cloud that looked like a girl with unnaturally long hair. He was still stressed and guilty for probably terrible stuff he did, - he couldn't been put in chains only because of taking some ancient flower, and people shouldn't look at him the way they do if stealing Sunflower was the only thing he did - but right now he felt better. 

"Hey!" Varian turned and saw Lance. He didn't know much about him. He met him a few times, but they never talked much. So he was surprised when he sat next to him and smiled.

"Hi...?"

"How's the mood?" Lance looked at clouds

"Good, actually!" Varian also looked at the sky

"Me too. I'm kinda excited! We will visit so many new places! So many people to steal from!" He said dreamily, and then added quickly with a tiny dramatically offended note to his voice "Not that I ever would do such thing, of course!"

"Yeah" Varian saddened a bit remembering his worries and fears.

They sat watching clouds for a bit. It wasn't like with Rapunzel, a fun time spent together, more like an excuse not to try finding topic for conversation. It wasn't a comfortable silence though. At least for Varian. He didn't know how to act around Lance since they hadn't spent much time together before now, so...

Their cloud-watching was interrupted by Cass angry yelling "Lance! Did you eat all the berries again?!" 

"I better go!" with these words Lance ran on the rooftop.

In the next second caravan stopped and Cass barged through the door "Where's Lance?" she barked at Varian who shrank into himself a little 

"I-I don't know!" He answered quickly. Varian didn't want to give away Lance, because he himself wouldn't want to be found by angry at him Cass under any circumstances ...except if he got kidnapped. Or injured and bleeding. Or lost without anything. Or- Stop!  His mind never helped him calm down.

Meanwhile Cassandra rolled her eyes and walked out of boy's section into girl's. After a minute - in which she probably checked every place Lance could possibly be hiding - caravan started moving again and Lance climbed down from the roof.

"Thanks, Goggles!"  he said and ruffled Varian's hair. Varian stiffened a little at that but Lance didn't notice and sat nearby. 

"What do you think Raps is doing?" Varian asked the first question that he could think of to fill the uncomfortable silence.

"As far as I know her, probably runs around, sings songs, and having Eugene chase her!" Lance smiled at something he imagined "I can totally see Raps taking him in a mud puddle and dirtying his hair!"

"Yeah... Imagine how angry Eugene would be!" Varian shuddered a little at the memory of Eugene looking at him with mix or anger, fear and protectiveness toward Raps when he woke up.

"Nah, he would forgive anything to Raps!" Lance chuckled "He changed so much since he was Flynn Rider! He was so much more... fun? I guess I can say that!" 

"Tell me more about his days being Flynn?" Varian said. He wanted to know Eugene better than he does now since he already knew Raps's and Cassandras's stories.

"Well... there is a story when we were both fifteen" Lance chuckled again "There was a Baron. He was, how to say it... 'king' in crime. He was really powerful, so powerful that if he said something to his people it will happen no matter what. And he had his most loyal 'friend', Anthony the Weasel"

"'The Weasel'?! Why 'Weasel'?" Varian said holding the laugh

"Well, we gave him this nickname!" Lance said proudly "We called him that and then it just stuck with him. And why? Hmm, probably because of his long nose and how sneaky he is! Anyway! We were young, reckless, sassy, master-thieves teenagers. And we were broke. Were searched for a solution, trying to rob popular bakeries and shops, but none of it ended well! We or ended up caught - and escaped after an hour - or stole a small amount of money which last us for a few days. And we started to lose hope and even thinking about trying taking a job - can you imagine it! - when Eugene had an idea! He offered to rob The Baron! I was really against it, but he convinced me, and so we did it! At night we broke into his manor, stalked down to the basement where we knew he kept all his values, lockpicked the lock, opened the door and walked straight to the meeting! Turned out we came into wrong door ! They captured Flynn, - I ran away - took all his lockpicks and I needed to rescue him! I still remind him of that sometimes! How famous Flynn Rider needed rescue! Also that's when he met his ex-girlfriend Stalyan"

"What a strange name!" Varian laughed a bit. He felt a little closer to Lance and felt like they could become pretty good friends with time.

Suddenly they heard Cass talking to Raps from outside "You've got to exercise at least some caution out here. Trust me, Raps, the real world isn't all fun and games!" Varian could almost see Cassandra's eyeroll and Raps sitting there and smiling like nothing happened

"That's my line!" Lance said quietly to Varian and in the blink of an eye he was on the roof saying "Next stop, Vardaros! City of fun and games!" 

Both laughed when Cassandra mumbled just loud enough for them to hear "I am so glad we decided to bring those two along!" 

"Oh, come on, Cass! Vardaros is an amazing city! You're gonna have fun... which I guess is a new thing for you!" Eugene added from the rooftop where he apparently climbed after washing the mud from his precious hair

"Come on, Pascal! It's our first big city outside of Corona!" Rapunzel spoke excitedly "You heard them, Cass, this is gonna be fun!"

They rode for a few more hours and to Varian's surprise he had a pretty fun talk with Lance! Man told him few more stories about Eugene, and promised to buy him few 'Flynnigan Rider' books, and Varian told him about his alchemy and 'hard-not-sticky-goo' he wants to make. Also he discovered that Lance is very interested in alchemy, and decided to teach him a bit. 

Hey! I know it was long, I'm sorry again! I don't really have excuses.

BUT I wrote you a scene for Warriors fan! No one asked for it buuuuuuut here you go!

I'm a Warriors fan myself, and I saw a potential in V/Raps cloud scene, so... well, here you go!

Anyway, see you next time, love you all!

ALSO!!! If you didn't read The Prophesies Begin (first series) 'till the end there are SPOILERS!!!

"Yeah!" Raps said dreamily "Oh, look! That cloud is just like a cat! And it's almost like he's on fire! And that's just like a star on his head!"

"Wow! Clouds can be almost magical sometimes!" Varian looked at the sky again "And look! That one's a tabby cat! And wow! That looks like a tiger behind him!"

"And that's just like a star on his head too! Just like the Fire one's! And wow! There is another cat! He's darker! And look, he has a cute white paw!"

"That's beautiful! An- oh my god! Did White-paw just killed Tiger?"

"I think so!" Raps placed a hand on her mouth in shock

They watched as White-paw killed the Fire-star, and how the star on Fire's head became a bit smaller before he shuddered, stood up and killed the white pawed one and how much more cats appeared and seemingly praised the Fire one.

"Those are the strangest clouds I ever saw" said Varian quietly still in deep deep shock

"Yeah" Said a voice behind them

Anyway again, see you next time, love you all!

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Hey I know these problaby aren't the question you where thinking where gonna come up here but I have a couple rapped fire questions I don't know who to ask and your the only one who ever consistently comes into my page so here I go:

How does one game followers on this app because whenever I post something I feel like I'm just waiting my time cuz nobody ever sees the stuff I'm writing or making, and I know people say to just be who you are and do what you like but I've been doing that and I have a total of six followers (and in all honesty your the only person who ever interacts with my posts)

Is it better to just spew out content or space out posts? I have all these ideas and things I want to make and post but I feel like if I post over something it's gonna have an even smaller chance of being seen and that honestly hurts cuz I put allot of time and effort into my posts for literally no one to see them!

Okay I know that was a lot and I'm sorry but I just don't know how else to ask and you seem like you would know that kind of thing because you always get notes on your posts, if these are questions you can't or don't wanna answer that's obviously fine but If you do choose to answer I would really appreciate it since I'm new to this whole Tumblr thing and I have never had a platform like this.

Anyway I'm done rambling, answer or no answer thank you for your time and I just wanted to thank you for everything!

Ella Zimmerman

Hello! Dear friend! First of all, some bigger blogs don't mind signal boosting. You can drop an ask into the inbox of some of them and be like, "hey, do you think you could ask people to look at my art and/or writing? I'm having trouble finding people." Case in point: EVERYBODY GO FOLLOW @ellazimmermansblog , HER STUFF IS VERY COOL, SHE IS VERY FUNNY AND TALENTED, AND HER ART IS AMAZING! SHE MADE MY HEADER IMAGE!

I feel you on nobody interacting with your posts, it felt like a while before I found my people here! This is how I found them.

1) Follow other people. A lot of the followers I have are just my much cooler mutuals. Find someone who's blog you like. Follow them, interact with their posts, send them asks, that kind of thing. Just an example of the kind of asks you can send: I love OC content, and a lot of really cool people will happily infodump about their OCs if you ask them. A lot of people are happy to make friends. The way I find people to follow is part scrolling through tags for my interests, but also looking through likes and reblogged that were made on my own posts and seeing if I click with any of those folks.

2) Make fandom posts. Tumblr is a fandom website, and while I ADORE your original content, it is easier for people to find you through fandom and then get attached to your other stuff.

3) Be alright with screaming into the void. A lot of the time when I make posts, I'm not actually expecting anybody to interact with them, unless it's a fandom post. I'm kind of just screaming into the void. Sometimes I'll get pleasantly surprised and someone will interact with it, but my personal posts are all 0-3 note posts most of the time, while most of my fandom posts hover around 20ish and sometimes my posts "break containment," which I classify as anything over 50 notes (you can see which ones have broken for me in the top posts section).

4) Tag EVERYTHING. This one is annoying and boring and hard, but tags are how people see your posts. I spent a solid month just having an empty blog and stalking tumblr before I actually made a post, so I had a pretty good handle on what tags I should be using, because some of them aren't very intuitive. For example: I play wizard101 and that was one of the first posts I made where I found mutuals. Wizard 101 is tagged under #wizard101, #wizzy101, #wiz101, and #w101. That's FOUR different tags that people could be using, and if I wanted all of them to find that post, I had to use all four. Tumblr's auto-suggest tags are pretty helpful, but so is just scrolling through like a maniac.

(I also ramble in the tags of my posts. Just things I want to add that don't really belong in the main body of the post).

5) Post a lot. There are 2 types of people on this website: the people who are doing some kind of long-form project and don't really have time to make other posts, and the people who just post things and reblog things they like willy nilly. The long form project people also usually post their project on a side-blog and have a main account they use to still jabber and talk about stuff not related to it.

6) Reblog things. A LOT. Tumblr isn't really a "passive engagement" website. There's no algorithm on here. People prefer to curate their dashes very carefully based on the tags and the blogs they follow. So if you want to see more content for something you like, follow that person and reblog that post! ESPECIALLY posts that don't have very many notes, since those people are usually also looking for friends and engagement. You've probably noticed my blog is like 80% funny reblogs where I ramble in the tags and 20% my own nonsense.

7) And this last piece of advice is more for how to engage and less for how to get engagement yourself: find someone who is really bored and likes answering asks. They may not follow you back, but it'll be a fun conversation and way to engage and pass the time. I'm shy, so I look for people who are bored and have anons turned on like @call-me-chips (hope you don't mind the tag!) For people who are unaware, I am ALSO one of those people! Ask me questions! About anything! Even invasive ones! Including stuff I logically can't answer! Or just send me rants about things that you just want someone to hear! I love them! Send them as anons if you want! I don't care, I love talking to people on this website!

I hope this helps you find more of your people, and best of luck to you amigo! Remember to follow @ellazimmermansblog who I am tagging twice and praying that tumblr doesn't break for at least one of them!

[art-of-manliness]

What to Do When You Don’t Feel Like Doing Anything

Every now and then I have days where I just don’t feel like doing a damn thing. The idea of being productive makes my brain hurt. These little funks can be extremely frustrating, especially when there’s a lot I need to accomplish. I haven’t quite figured out why I get hit with these bouts of “don’t-want-to-do-anything-itis.” Maybe it’s burnout. Maybe it’s the vagaries of fluctuating mood. Maybe it’s the stars. It’s a mystery. While it might be nice to lean into the feeling and take the day off, I typically don’t have that luxury. So, over the years, I’ve developed a toolkit for myself to help me get through those days when I feel like doing nuthin’. There’s no single silver bullet in my bag of tricks. Some days, one tactic works; other days, it doesn’t. Sometimes I have to put together a cocktail of different approaches to get myself going. Also, the goal on these days when I don’t feel like doing anything isn’t to heroically overcome my inertia and knock the day out of the park; rather, my expectations are much lower. I’ll take a metaphorical ground ball that dribbles into the outfield for a single. I’m just trying to keep the gears of life greased and moving while my motivational faculties come back online. Go Through the Motions “Going through the motions” gets a bad rap. There’s this idea that if your actions aren’t imbued with passion and excitement, then you shouldn’t do them at all. But based on my experience, going through the motions is completely fine on those days you don’t feel like doing anything. Going through the motions keeps you consistent. Consistency in the long term is the key to success in life. Going through the motions when you don’t feel like doing the thing helps keep the habit in place. I’ll have days when I don’t feel like working out, but I go through the motions of working out anyway. My workout isn’t super awesome on these days. In fact, I’ll lower the weight and even shorten the workout. But I get the workout done. I keep up the identity of a dedicated exerciser. In addition to maintaining and strengthening a habit, going through the motions might also catalyze a resurgence of motivation. We’ve talked about this idea before: Feelings often follow action. You might not initially feel like working on your taxes, but once you begin, you might start feeling more dialed in because you see yourself getting closer to being done with them. Go for a Walk Outside Solvitur ambulando. It is solved by walking. Yes, just about anything can be solved by a walk. Even a lack of motivation to clean out the garage. When you feel stuck, head out the door and take a stroll around the neighborhood. Physical activity can increase neurotransmitters like dopamine and norepinephrine, which play crucial roles in motivation. Change Your Surroundings Sometimes, a change of scenery is all it takes to reignite your motivation. This could be as simple as moving to a different room in your house or finding a new workspace altogether. On days when I don’t feel like doing anything, I’ll sometimes take my laptop to a coffee shop or the public library. Something about the change in environment scrapes off the barnacles of psychic lethargy and helps me get working again. Leverage Positive Peer Pressure Humans are inherently social creatures, and we can use this to our advantage when motivation wanes. Setting up accountability partnerships or joining group challenges can provide external motivation when internal drive is lacking. Just working around other people who are working can be motivating. I think this may be one reason why I find working in a public library helpful: I’m around other people who are working. I’ve also seen students who will join a virtual study group — a Zoom call — with strangers. Just the feeling that there are other eyes on them (whether or not other people on the call are really paying attention to them) helps them get to work and stay focused.   Journal and Goal Review I gave up on daily journaling several years ago. But I… http://dlvr.it/TDRnds

[nomsfaultau]

Hiiii, just wanted to say that your work is amazing and it’s completely consumed my thoughts and—

How would karaoke night go with the Fault crew? Sprinkle all the mundane/chaos that can ensue…Let’s say that against all odds, they’re in a safe enough period where they don’t have to worry about anything and just muck around! On a scale of 1-10, how would each person fare?

Also if it’s alright can we find out how Skeppy and Halo are doing, please say they’re having a happy life somewhere off the grid like the forest or deep within the mountains ekekeiwkwk

Okay Tubbo can't sing very well. However. If anyone points this out, Tubbo can start singing the song of the End Times and literally destroy the world. So. Everyone is careful to give them lots of compliments while Tubbo grins mischievously. They have a pretty broad variety of songs, and Jasmine demands a turn to sing the ABCs (because there are 26 of them! AND it's hard to get them in order) and gets thunderous applause. Or else. 100/10, just threaten the jury!

Wilbur try-hards it in a way that's very cringe. Like, you AREN'T supposed to be good at karaoke, but nobody told him that? So it's out here like harmonizing and it's like bro....bro now everyone else feels inadequate......the only thing leveling the playing field is he only knows songs that play in Walmart and has a trash memory. So he's purely playing it by ear, but that just makes it worse when it's still amazing. Also Wilbur found out the buffet table is infinite and has eaten everything except the nachos, which are inedible even to him. 0/10

Philza scrolls through the music selection for a very very long term, a little misty eyed as he picks songs literally no one has ever heard from that hold memories of old Collecteds. About half way through he gets a fragment of a song stuck in his head and desperately googles it for two hours. It's from like 5 centuries ago and when he finally unearths some recording of music he gets cross that 'those aren't the right lyrics!' But other than that he's having a swell time and okay yeah he's a little tipsy and keeps gushing about how much he loves his kids but other than being sappy and old, not the worst karaoke companion. 7/10.

When they first get there, The Blade swears he's doing one song AND THAT'S IT. Because he's built it up a little as an ordeal in his head and is nervous. His voice is perpetually pretty gravelly, and he has zero idea how well he's doing since the voices are singing along too. But then he kinda has fun with it and starts bopping, and unwinds since his friends are only lightly teasing. So he ends up going the whole night. The Blade exclusively sings Taylor Swift titles. Tommy is going to kill him. I think Rosalind had a Taylor Swift phase so Tubbo is just embarrassed. He makes sure to clap for everyone else and he hooves go clack clack cklack. Does not fit in the table booth tho. and the mic is so so tiny in his hands. He accidentally breaks it at least twice and they have to wait for a replacement. 5/10.

Someone else has to hold the mic for Tommy to avoid contamination, so he ends up in a lot of duets. He's incredibly enthusiastic and asserts that he has the most talent of anyone. Mostly very recent popular hits (from his pov). Tries to rap but gets completely tongue tied. Eventually tries to find the songs with the most cuss words so he can see how bad the muffin censorship gets. About half way through the night Tommy starts trying to sneak alcohol. Except actually he realizes that no one in the room can rat him to his mom, or even really knows about underage drinking laws. Okay Tubbo does, but like he's surrounded by friends some of which are sober, so the kiddo's fine. 7/10.

For some reason I always pictured Skeppy and Halo living in a sitcom apartment alongside Charlie, the woman Charlie body horror puppeted in order to escape, her wife, and Chad Bowinger my beloved. But I guess a bunker in the mountains makes more sense! Medical attention was probably the first thought, trying to patch up Halo's wings. Maybe they eventually heal and because Skeppy lost so much weight in the Foundation he can now be flown around? Very bittersweet but still. And Skeppy can show Halo all the movies and books he missed in the decades he was trapped, with the humans and Charlie catching them up on everything else. I picture mostly lighthearted recovery and awkward bonding between strangers from starkly different backgrounds. Lots of shenanigans too.

[yourdrugisafartbreaker]

I am so mad at Music Choice right now.

For those of you without cable, you may not know hwat a “Music Choice” is. Essentially, high up on the channel numbers is the whole bloc of Music Choice channels. These channels would be focused on playing music of different genres or demographics or time periods. You got Music Choice RnB, Music Choice Toddler Tunes, Music Choice 80’s and all that and many more.

I had a system where I had 8 Music Choice channels favorited that I visited the most often, and conveniently, they were all neatly in two little blocs themselves. The first bloc had Music Choice Hit List (Popular music), Music Choice Max (Which is like Hit List but for popular Rap and EDM), Music Choice Dance (EDM but it’s not called EDM), and Music Choice Indie (Probably the 2nd best channel because it was so diverse and different). The second bloc had Music Choice Rock (This channel just screams lighter metal to me and I can’t get over it but I have it favorited because sometimes metal will occasionally pop up on it), Music Choice Metal (THE best channel because it was a mix of so many different types of metal and metal artists of varying popularities), Music Choice Alternative (The certified Gorillaz channel), and Music Choice Adult Alternative (Which is like if Indie and Alternative mixed and had a focus on leas popular artists but also had some occasional country sounding twang in there).

So, I don’t actively have a show I’m watching right now. I’ve tried to find one, and I have some saved on Tubi to check out, but I’m not fully feeling them and maybe one will more fully captivate me. Anyways, I was bored and didn’t just want to pick up my phone to watch YouTube, so I checked out my Music Choice Channels for a minute. These motherfuckers did some motherfucking up in here.

So, I go through my favorite channels and see my little Music Choice blocs. “Hit List… Max… Dance… 60’s- 60’s? When did I add 60’s?” I never added 60’s? You know what I did add? Indie. You know what I conveniently can’t find right now? Indie. WHY DID THEY HAVE TO REPLACE INDIE??!! Listen, if Indie wasn’t performing well or something, fine. But… Why 60’s and why there? It is so out of place! And, here’s the thing: You can already listen to music from the 60’s on Music Choice. You know how I mentioned Music Choice 80’s? There is also Music Choice Y2K, Music Choice 90’s, Music Choice 70’s, and Music Choice Solid Old Goldies! That is 60’s music right there! What the fuck are you thinking replacing a good channel with something you already have??!!

But, that’s fine, I guess. Nothing worth freaking out about. Alternative and Adult Alternative can kinda fill the gap, I guess. And hey, at least those are by Rock and Yacht Rock so I can-

YACHT ROCK??!!

Nope, nope, this is not okay! They did not just take the heaviest Music Choice channel I have and replace it with the softest version of rock ever! I dunno if it can even be considering rock at all! Who was asking for this??!! I’m… So pissed. I’m most likely going to do jack shit about this but… Fuck, I’m pissed right now.

[joehillssimp]

Hermitfam is baaaad.

Like it's passable when you consider it's a 30-40 something year old white guy writing and performing it, but like... aside from that it's baad.

The backing beat is good, I like it. However, the chill vibes don't really match the speed Impulse pulls right after the intro poems. It honestly feels more like the backing beat for a singer than that for a rap song, missing the heavy percussion and.... BEAT, that that is typical of the genre.

Even more chill rap songs like Young and Wild and Free(Wiz Kalifa, Snoop Dogg, Bruno Mars, etc) have a set percussion and rhythm that guides the song along and helps to set the pace for the artists performing on the song. And that is really the core of the problem with this song.

Impulse doesn't know how to stay on beat, and doesn't seem to understand that the performer is supposed to stand out, but still fit into the overall composition of the song.

I won't talk about the opening bars, those are more spoken poetry and an introduction than anything. But the first real verse, despite being the strongest one, with a consistent flow, has the problem of not quite matching the backing track.

I don't much to say about it other than that, it's the best part.

Then the chorus comes in with Impulse kicking it up about half a notch speedwise, returns to that thing he did in Hermitgang where he tries to shove too many syllables into one bar, making the whole thing sound jumbled and rushed, like he didn't take the time to actually smooth out the little bumps in his writing before recording.

After that, the next 2 verses have this kind of spoken word, beat poetry, vibe to them. Which is fine, if he hadn't tried to open the song itself with speedrap.

Now it's not uncommon for rappers to have 1 verse, or a bridge in a different style than the rest of the song, but it's hardly ever the first verse, and usually when they bring on a guest, who's voice adds variety and it supposed to act as a high point in the song, before having another chorus or whatever to finish off the song.

It's a climax. So musically, Impulse has the Climax right at the start of the song, and then the rest a kind of chill slide down a lazy river. And i should say, there is nothign wrong with a slower flow, a lot of rappers from the east coast are hella successful off their slower flows, but once again, their flows are on beat, with a consistent cadence and blend with the backing track.

So when he starts off fast, and then slows down for all his other lines, which are at most 12 syllables each, it feels like he couldn't figure out what to say about the rest of the server, or that he was padding for runtime so the song would reach that 2 minute mark. Not to mention completely leaving out TFC.

And I think, that aside from there being no rhythm to the song, Impulse's voice isn't properly balanced by the rest of the beat. Impulse's voice, I wouldn't say it's high pitched, but it's very close to the tonal range that the rest of the song exists in, and so they use volume to make him stand out. It would have been better if perhaps they had taken some deep bass, and used that to set some kind of rhythm, with higher melodies that create a space for Impulse's voice to stand out, while keeping all the audio levels at reasonable levels.

As it stands, Impulse is so loud you can barely hear the beat, especially during the chorus.

I'm not good at explaining my thoughts but yeah uhhh...

In regards to impulse's writing...

Think of the consonants in a word, or line, to be like a drum beat. The way each one is stressed and unstressed, creating each hit and pause in the percussive melody.

For people not familiar with music theory, even drums have tones and pitches, and when you write a rap song, your voice becomes a part of the drums, who's tones support the melody, rather than the melody themselves like in normal singing.

And I listen to how Impulse phrases his words, and how he places his stresses and pauses, and it creates something akin to a child just beating a drum however they like, getting tired but still hitting, and then doing whatever they want on the chorus as well. it's not a good sound.

And the worst part is that I KNOW that impulse plays the drums. I KNOW that he should have a better understanding of rhythm and cadence than that shown in the song. Which makes this as a whole more disappointing.

Maybe he just doesn't understand how that all translates to writing.

I genuinely believe impulse could have made a better song, writing, cadence, overseeing the creation of the beat so it matched his creative vision....

I dunno it feels rushed.

And it sounds like a bad song.

[moviemunchies]

I saw this movie with friends, because they wanted to see it. And I don’t think it’s a bad film; as a family film, it’s just fine. However, I can’t say that this movie feels like it justifies its existence. 

It doesn’t need to exist! We already have The Little Mermaid! It didn’t need to be redone!

Alright! So! Ariel is the mermaid daughter of Triton, the King of the Seas, and she’s obsessed with humans and their world much to her father’s disapproval. Then she falls in love with Prince Eric and saves his life. When Triton finds out, he wrecks her collection of human artifacts, which the sea witch Ursula uses as a way to manipulate Ariel. She offers to make Ursula human for three days, with a chance to be human forever if she can get her true love, Eric, to kiss her. Except she won’t have her voice, and she’s forgotten that she needs the kiss. And if she fails, she belongs to the sea witch now. Ursula, of course, only wants Ariel as leverage to overthrow Triton, her brother.

Alright, so, let me first put forward this: I don’t know if I’ve ever seen the original animated The Little Mermaid all the way through. If I have, I’m not that familiar with it, so while I’ve had some input on what’s changed, through asking friends and looking up for myself, I might get something wrong.

I am going to start with things I liked or thought were well-done:

-Performances in general. For the most part, the acting in this movie is good, and Halle Bailey is a standout star. Her singing is fantastic, and she is absolutely an excellent choice to lead this movie. I heard someone say that she cried when she heard “Part of Your World” in the theater this time around, and I didn’t get it, but I admitted she does a damn good musical number when she gives it a go.

-Daveed Diggs is also doing a pretty good job as Sebastian. Admittedly that doesn’t make his character in this movie great, his design is uninspired for one, only that Diggs is doing incredibly well with what he’s given.

-When the special effects are bright and colorful, it’s really cool. Look, this is an undersea magical world, so it SHOULD be colorful and fantastical. There’s a lot that’s great to look at in some sequences, especially in “Under the Sea” (though put a pin in that, we’ll come back to that number).

-Things that have been headcanon or limited to supplementary material/expansions, like Triton’s queen having been slain by humans or Ursula being Triton’s sister do a lot to explain these characters, and they’re quickly established without taking up too much of the movie. It works a lot better than whatever the heck they were doing with Belle’s mother in the Beauty & the Beast remake.

But you know, there are also a lot of things that also kind of fall flat. Going back to the “Under the Sea” argument, there’s a whole bit where Sebastian sings about the different sea creatures playing different instruments–only to have almost none of those creatures appear on the screen at those moments, or have them playing instruments at all. I thought I might be mistaken, so I looked up the original scene in the animated film, and the animals are all doing exactly that as Sebastian describes them. So why have this song, with these lyrics, if the sea animals aren’t on screen doing what you’re saying they’re doing?

This is probably an extension of the obsession with the remakes of making animals look “realistic” and “realistic animals don’t play instruments”. Or something. It’s at the absolute worst whenever Flounder’s on screen, because he doesn’t look like a character as much as a real fish who is baffled to be there and would rather you stop touching him, thank you very much. 

Also they go through the trouble of changing Scuttle to a diving bird so she can go underwater to talk to Ariel and friends, but like… that means she can breathe underwater for short periods? Which is as unrealistic as it gets.

The less said about “Scuttlebutt” rap, the better. Lin-Manuel Miranda is a great songwriter, but Disney needs to stop hiring him for everything. It doesn’t fit here–every song in the original serves a dramatic or character-building purpose. Here, “Scuttlebutt” tells us something that’s proven untrue a minute later: that Eric is proposing to Ariel that day.

Also, when the “Under the Sea” sequence, and some of the others, show off a fantastical world of color and wonder, it’s a little disappointing to see exactly how drab Triton’s palace is. He’s King of the Sea and his house is drab, undecorated stone?

The conclusion is also a bit strange. In it, Ariel is the one who drives the wrecked ship to impale giant Ursula instead of Eric. I get why they did this, so that she’s a much more straightforwardly powerful protagonist with agency–SHE’s the one who defeats the villain in the end. Okay, fine, but this also means that Prince Eric does almost nothing in the climax of the movie. He, the experienced sailor, just flails about while Ariel, the one who didn’t know what a fork was a week ago, steers a ship into the Big Bad.

Yeah, that makes sense, right?

More than anything though, my main complaint about this movie is: why does this exist? I know the answer, it’s money. I am fully convinced that there could have been a great movie made out of reviving The Little Mermaid. We could get a movie about Ursula’s story, Triton’s rule, other mermaids like Ariel’s sisters, Ariel adjusting to life on land, putting this in a different setting, gender-swapping this… really, Disney could be doing anything right now and instead they’re telling the same story again, but with a bigger budget and tiny little patches to cover up perceived failings and Plot Holes, like making Ariel magically forget that she has to kiss Eric.

But no, it’s about the money. 

There’s some good in this movie, and I maintain that as a family film, it’s just fine. Whatever. But The Little Mermaid already exists, and you could watch the original one instead. This is just a copy that feels less creative, blatantly developed because Disney wants our money. 

And they’re getting it, apparently. Ugh.

[blackbird-brewster]

Idk if you take Onschot ideas but I really love your writing style and was hoping you might could make something out of one of my Jemily idea.

It´s not much but I was thinking about some hurt/comfort stuff. It plays a few weeks after the episode "Blackbird" in season 9 so JJ has to deal with her PTSD and Emily (who is in this one her wife since season 7) is worried about her after what happened during that case and the fact that JJ tells everyone that she is fine but she isn´t and JJ just don´t want to upon up. And Emily thinks it's too early for JJ to go back into the field which is why she talks with Hotch and tells him a little about the things that going on right now (not in detail). JJ is mad because Emily goes to Hotch without talking before about that. The next few days it´s a little tense till after a hard case where JJ was back in the field and something happens that make Hotch give them both a longer break after that case because JJ definitely needs that because she was not ready yet to come back.

They drive home in silence because Emily doesn't want to push her but she knows they need to talk about what happened. When they get ready for bed it finally happens. JJ breaks and opens up to Emily. She tells her the little things she didn´t told her after her kidnapping (like Hastings barely rapping her and the baby) and that she still feels like she has failed because she was not strong enough to take it like Emily was years ago with Doyle because she told Askari her code.

I hope you can do something with that and if not that´s totally fine.

Lots of Love

Hiiiiiiiiiiii Anon!! I know this has been in my inbox for AGES and I had considered writing you a little something, something but I just haven't felt inspired much lately.

BUT! I have actually written a few pieces that explore JJ's PTSD after the events of '200'. So maybe you'll like those! I know they're not EXACTLY what you were thinking (established Jemily) but they're still a good look at JJ's trauma.

FIC RECS: JJ'S PTSD (With JJ/Emily pairings)

ESPECIALLY with these pieces ALWAYS CHECK THE TAGS for each fic, since they deal with heavier topics! Enjoy <3

[manysmallhands]

#43: Kendrick Lamar - King Kunta

Released - Mar 24 2015

Highest UK chart position- #56

Spotify streams to date - 483,175,108(!!)

First heard - 2015, radio

It took me a long time to come around to Kendrick. I��d probably have first heard King Kunta on the radio when it came out, but I struggled with the album at the time: in truth, I gave it a quick listen, heard a bunch of gangsta shit in the first song without understanding any of the (extremely complicated) context and couldn’t be bothered to go any further. I didn’t go back until I was listening to more RnB/rap crossover stuff a few years on, at which point I became determined to understand why he was such a big deal and fell for the whole thing. I had to return to To Pimp A Butterfly a lot before I really felt across it and even then, there were ambiguities which still kept me interested, moral quandaries and judgements where I’m not quite sure where he stands, or where I stand either. And that’s part of his greatness, cos that messy and singular perspective where nothing is spelled out for you is how the real world tends to work, which is what he understands so well. But in all honesty, you don’t need any of that stuff to love King Kunta: you just have to recognise some great rhymes and a killer bassline.

King Kunta doesn’t so much begin as ooze into being: there’s even a little “pop!” at the beginning, like a bubble bursting to release its thick, gelatinous substance from the speakers. It’s is a remarkable groove and a supreme walking song at any time, but it’s always best in the dark, when that creepy guitar line gets going and each key change steps up its cartoonish intensity just a little bit more. Whenever I'm listening to it I can’t help but slink along anyway, looking for all the world not one bit like a famous rapper from Compton. The song itself - wherein Kendrick takes the Hip Hop crown, having gone from “a peasant to a prince to a motherfuckin’ king!” -  is full of smart intertextual references, casually lifting from Jay-Z and James Brown while bitching about “a rapper with a ghost-writer”, as if to prove the adage the that genius can repurpose something effortlessly while yr standard mediocrity comes off just looking a bit shabby. It’s also a great piece of pop music: the call and response routines are of the kind where you desperately want to take both parts (“I’m mad“ - “HE MAD!!” - “but I ain’t stressin!” has become a fine “i need to calm down now” personal reference point) and its immense sense of (what can only described as) wobbliness makes you feel as if Kendrick is strolling thru a surrealist painting, casually conquering each lolling landmark as he passes them by.

So many of my 2010s picks have been records that matter intensely to tiny numbers of people, so it’s a good palette cleanser to have a recent artist so colossal that it feels like he belongs to everyone. Kendrick is a unifying force in a music world that’s become increasingly fragmented, but he compromises nothing for bridging those gaps and King Kunta is one of perhaps only two songs I have from this decade that i wouldn’t hesitate to call a genuine modern classic.

[vitaminwaterreviews]

Nmixx - Fe3O4: Stick Out

I’m curious what I said about Fe3O4: Break, so let me pull up my review of that one. Alright, it looks like my main criticism was that it was repetitive and cliche and boring, and kind of a slog by the end. I’m happy to say that this time around, they did a much better job of keeping it interesting. I only found one song to be particularly boring, everything else was very good. A lot of it did feel underdeveloped though; basically every song I felt could have used a little extra something, whether that’s just more runtime or more instrumental breaks or more interesting instrumentation or just something. I do really like the last song a lot, I think I’ll probably be giving it some listens. The first song is super catchy, everything else was actually kind of forgettable? I already don’t even remember what the Dem Jointz song sounded like, and that’s a Dem Jointz song! My notes say that I liked Red light sign, but I also don’t remember how that one sounded. Oh well, I’ll add them to the playlist and see what happens. Average score of 7.7 which is significantly higher than Break, and fair enough, I enjoyed this album a lot more.

- A bit of a preamble here: I’ve listened to the title track twice so far, once with the MV and once about 20 minutes ago in the car. The first time I heard it, I thought it was Super cool, and the second time I was a bit underwhelmed. So let’s see how my third listen of the title track goes, and how it compares to the rest of the album!

See that?

This isn’t a Dem Jointz song, but you wouldn’t know by listening to it

Are my headphones broken?

After pausing this song, listening to Cheer Up, and fiddling with my wire, it seems that my headphones are indeed broken. And that is so dumb.

Alright it’s tomorrow now and I’m using a different pair of headphones so let’s try that again. I’ve listened to the song a few times since yesterday, so I do have a reasonably developed opinion of it, but this time I’ll watch the performance video which just came out.

See that? (take 2)

Someone on Reddit commented that Nmixx songs are designed to be performed and they’re so right

That move where they slide forward is So cool

That mmmm is so good

I really want a dance practice for this

The chorus is so catchy, I was singing it to myself in the shower earlier today

9/10, I like the choreo a lot, the song is catchy, and it has some really good moments. But it doesn’t quite do it for me, something is missing

SICKUHH

Incomingggg

Yeah now this is a Dem Jointz song

I feel like hip hop girl group concepts are in vogue right now

Maybe that’s just bc I - wait those tuplets though

Anway, maybe it’s just because I’m So happy with the Young Posse comeback

The “sickuhh”s alternating in my ears is a neat effect

I dunno what to give this one

7/10 first listen

Red light sign, but we go

Lol what is this horn sound here in the intro

And now the party synth in the chorus?

This song better have the Blackpink party chorus lmao

It’s only like 2 minutes long so probably not

The synths in the chorus do feel So good though

Oh my god the rapping in the outro

I did actually just get goosebumps

8/10, I just wish it was longer

BEAT BEAT

Whole lotta nothing going on, it’s very empty

Not a sound I’m a huge fan of

The beat is in fact kind of the only thing going on, outside of the vocals

I looked at my phone and got kinda bored by the end, never a good sign, but the song is Fine I guess

6/10

Moving On

Woah okay, this is a sound

Woah okay, this is not where I expected that sound to go all of a sudden

And now it’s just like, rock? The drums certainly are anyway

For some reason it kind of reminds me of the original Fortnite BR menu music

Suho has like, ruined kpop rock for me though. Every time I hear a kpop rock song I’m like “yeah but it’s not Suho 1 to 3”

7/10

Love is Lonely

Alright, based on the title and the position in the album, my guess is that this is a ballad

2 seconds in and I seem to be wrong

This vibe is delicious though

Actually maybe it is a ballad, but like, an EDM ballad

Those exist right?

Actually a lot of EDM songs give me the same feeling as a good ballad, even if they aren’t ballads

I hear the clapping

And now the drums

Give me a Crazy drop, cmon now do it

Okay, okay, okay

That’s it? They better give us more the second time around

I wish there was more of an instrumental break

Mkay, a nice outro rap section, that’s good

9/10, very very very good, but not quite perfect