#GOD i have so much art to work on. they need to invent a days with more hours in it

[cozylittleartblog]

my ACEN tip gimmick has been fulfilled, aaand i got a little carried away with it. I haven't had time to draw for myself (or at all, really??) in like two weeks, i needed to Doodle and Have Fun. ... also, i did not think he would get so many donuts. people understand the value of giving treats to fictional characters :) its what he deserves

also shoutout to snazzyskeletons who had the same Tip Theme i did. we took pictures with our tip jars together. they are adorable v

i'm glad their vash got some donut money too :) 🍩 please check them out if you want some cute trigun stuff

[thestarstoasun]

Some of my PJO ships & why

Percabeth (Percy/Annabeth - They invented love)

Ruegard (Clarisse/Silena - THE LAST OLYMPIAN, THE PARALLELS, PLS)

Clarisse/Chris (*I do not know their ship name, my bad - The Labyrinth, need I say more?)

Silena/Beckendorf (*Idk if they ever had an official ship name - They were so tragic)

Clarisse/Beckendorf/Silena/Chris (Polycule, bc multishipper really)

Jake Mason/Michael Yew (I have a thousand reasons and I don't think any are canon)

Conchell (Connor/Mitchell - THE FANFICS PLS, but some of them need to remember these are minors pls)

Connor x Malcolm Pace (I saw really cute ship art 1 time and I was sold)

Connor/Mitchell/Malcolm (I think they'd be really cute together and I don't care if it's impractical)

Luke/Lee Fletcher (Lukelee - Honestly, its more of a crack ship for me, but some people on Tumblr have me considering how much)

Luke/Ethan Nakamura (Lukethan - I can't be alone in this, pls)

Theyna (Thalia/Reyna - They would make an awesome QPR, and I thought this even before Reyna was revealed to be aroace. They flirt endlessly if only to enjoy the confused looks on their friends faces)

Tratie (Travis/Katie Gardner - Is there anyone who read the books in the 2010s when the fandom was like super big that doesn't ship them? It's big now, but like, still.)

Tyson/Ella (They deserve the world)

Solangelo (Nico/Will - Tbf, I shipped them since The Last Olympian AS A CRACK SHIP, but A WIN IS A WIN)

Grover/Juniper (Just yes)

Sally/Paul (The King that our Queen Sally Jackson deserves)

Shelper (Shel/Piper - The plot twist I didn't know I needed)

Valgrace (Leo/Jason - When I read The Lost Hero, I just thought "these two idiots could definitely work well together.")

Jasper (Jason/Piper - It isn't my favorite, but I think they're cute together. I hate that their relationship was built on the Gods interference, because neither of them deserved that. I would probably like it more if it didn't start because of Hera.)

Ethabaster (Ethan Nakamura/Alabaster Torrington - The fandom is the reason I ship them mainly tbh. I ship Ethan with Luke more, but Ethan honestly deserves better)

Jercy (Jason/Percy - I have read a single Jercy fanfiction and its kind of growing on me)

Cecil/Lou Ellen (They are literally the idiots in love that annoy Will until he gets with Nico {personal hc}, Love them)

Sherman/Miranda (I didn't think I would like this as much as I do, but its in so many fics I've read I'm low-key a little attached. Like, yeah Sherman show off, get your girl)

Damien/Chiara (I couldn't see them with anyone else tbh, but honestly could possibly change that one day, they will always hold my heart as #1 together though)

Frazel (Frank/Hazel - They are one of the sweetest pairings in the series)

Jason/Percy/Annabeth/Piper (Yes, another poly ship. I've seen this in a few fics and honestly, I think the way its written has grown on me.)

Castor/Will (Literally, because of a single fanfic. They were probably each other's first crushes and didn't even know it)

[the-fiction-witch]

Experiment

Media The Artful Dodger

Character Jack Dawkins

Couple Jack X Reader

Rating Adorable

Requested Hi! Can you do a Jack Dawkins x fem reader where the reader works at the hospital as a nurse and has always been nice to Jack. They have similar humor and she's always very helpful. One day when Jack loses a patient he goes outside to take a breather and the reader follows him and comforts him. And then maybe a few days later Jack realizes he likes her. You don't have to write it if you don't want to! Have a good day! 

I walked the hospital halls as usual busy with a list of nine hundred things to do, as I went I momentarily stopped or I'd have been knocked over. As Y/n ran across the hall carrying a box full of clattering glass bottles from the stock room, scampering on her way in her little grey nurse dress, her arms bandaged and currently she walked with a slight limp but this was fairly usual for her she was always injured in some sort of way. Her ponytail fluttered behind her as she went. 

"Sorry Doctor Dawkins!" she said as she had almost taken me out, 

"It's fine Y/n." I laughed, "What are you doing?" I asked a little worried starting to follow her,

"I've had a breakthrough!" she said as she scurried down the stairwell, 

"Ohh god- you haven't broken through the floor again have you?"

"You have so little faith in me."

"Based completely on your track record,"

"I am right four out of ten times." she corrected,

"...I'm concerned you think that's good." 

"And you're surgery survival rate is?" She smiled, 

"Hey!" I argued but ignored me, 

She reached the little old storeroom in the basement of the hospital just a door down from the morgue where she was meant to be working, but she set her box down in the chaos since this room was emptied when the hospital moved all the stock to the storeroom upstairs for better access this room very much just became a junk room to toss old broken things or fill with tasks yet to be completed. Y/n is a... I don't want to say inventor she rarely invents anything...

Tinkerer let's say, and given she was meant to work down here in the morgue with Tim she often sneaks away to work in this little store room, on experiments and tests for things that would be the hospital, the room littered with everything you could imagine bottles, bags, stands, tubes, all with the floor well mopped and fixed, the wallpaper peeling and a hole in the boards up to the ward been hastily repaired... 

Yeah, I don't know what she had been working on but whatever it was erupted out the contained and blew a hole in the floor. 

she's a bit out there but she means well.

Even if she -

"Ohh crumpets." she sighed as she fell over her own skirt and landed on the wooden floor with her knee smashing one of the bottles she had in hand as she did, 

Yeah... she can be a little clumsy, but... she's kinda funny like that, I find her sweet almost childlike. You can't get mad at a kid for trying to bury her teddy bear to make baby bears grow I feel that kinda way about her, she's just trying to help even if she's not exactly harmless. And she's a damn good nurse... when she actually remembers to do her job. 

So I... admit I cover for her sometimes, when she blew the hole up to the ward I explained it away as someone knocking over a bucket of acid that ate through the wood, not sure if someone believed me but still. 

I rushed over and helped her up, "You alright,"

"Fine, thank you," she smiled getting back to rushing around and doing various things not sure what, 

"How did you hurt your leg?"

"...I may have... tripped over a box."

"Are you ever going to get that dress hemmed?"

"Are you ever going to get a waistcoat that fits you? or are you forever going to walk around the hospital flashing your suspender clips every time you lift your arms?" 

"Touche," I sighed,

"Aww, you can say stupid stuff in two languages," 

"Fine I'll go," I laughed, "Got work I need to do anyway," I told her but I only got as far as the door, "What are you working on?"

"I thought you were leaving?"

"I was. What are you working on?" 

"an experiment."

"what sort of experiment?"

"I am trying to work on a wound cleaner."

"Right?" I nodded, "How's that going?"

"Well if I got this right it should be perfect," she said as she filled a bottle, and pulled back her bandage to reveal a cut on her arm,

"Y/n! Where did that come from!"

"...I may have been testing is kolara like oranges."

"Do they?"

"...they do not." 

"So you got attacked trying to make another animal friend?"

"At least I did better than when you try to make human friends,"

"That's just cruel." I laughed, "Don't you have enough friends with that wombat you had living in your room?"

"Mr Brick loved me very much, you're just jealous." She smiled before she poured her homemade cleaner on her arm 

Her Face! said it all.

"Did it work?" I smirked,

"....it does not..." she complained as she hopped around in pain before tripping on her skirt and landing on her butt in a pile of boxes, I laughed but went to help her and saw how much worse her wound now was, "Ohhh Bloody crumpets that hurts!"

"Uhhh what is in that?"

"witch hazel, eucalyptus oil and carbolic acid."

"C-Carbolic acid!" I yelled, "As in the stuff we use to clean the bodies!" I quickly started to clean her up before she got too bad of an acid burn, 

"I figured, the bodies are clean. don't get infected and gross so I thought it would work on alive people too."

"it might. that doesn't mean pour it on your arm and find out!"

"Well, how else am I supposed to test it?"

I sighed, "You worry me you know." I told her rebandaging her up, 

"Ohhh?"

"I'm serious. You do worry me."

"I know, I'll be fine."

"Alright, I've got surgery. But be careful." I told her,

"I will I promise," she nodded,

I headed back up to the hospital and got prepped for today's surgery, Hetty brought the man in and I didn't waste time getting to work but soon enough the Prof came in drunk and full of ego he ordered me to stand aside, I didn't want to but I didn't have a choice so I handed my blade over and stepped aside. He went at it like a mad man and I tried to correct him but he made a wrong move and blood went everywhere, Immediately I pushed him aside and took over doing everything I could and working away as hard as I could to save his life and managing to get him stable but after all the blood-soaked work. Just as I finished up.

He died of shock. 

I threw my tools on the table and ran a hand through my hair, I sighed and I marched out to the steps sitting there in the sun trying to get my breath. I leant my head back and tried to get my mind steady even if it ran at a million miles an hour with a hundred different ways of catastrophe, 

I heard the door open. 

But I didn't worry about it, I just tried to hold back the tears. 

I felt Y/n wrap her arms around me, she didn't say anything she just wrapped her arms around my torso and shoulders, she pulled my head to rest on her chest, and set her chin on my hair, her hand stroked up and down my sleeve, for a moment I let the tears slip letting them fall onto her apron, there was a silence between us, the only sound the wind blustering the sheets hung outside, and the sound of horseshoes and carriage wheels on the street to the side, her arms felt warm, her dress scratchy, but I didn't care. I wrapped my arms around her tightly holding her as close to her as I possibly can, blood coating the both of us. 

We sat together for a good while before I spoke, "Thanks."

"It's okay. I can't imagine how hard this sort of thing is." she whispered, "It's not your fault-"

"Who else's is it? I'm a doctor. My job is to save people."

"But you're human." she said, "You can't blame yourself for these things." she whispered, "You did all you could and in the end that's all you can do," she said kissing the top of my head, 

"Thank you y/n. Really... Thank you." 

"You're welcome." She smiled, "Take as long as you need Jack." she said before she got up adjusted her dress she headed back inside leaving me alone. 

I headed on with my work through the halls as usual when I heard a clattering and banging making me stop looking into the storeroom, to see y/n in her usual dress bandaged up as usual having tripped her overskirt and topped a box of tools in her hand. "ohh Crumpets." 

I couldn't help but smile my cheeks flooded with blush for a moment, and as I looked at her.. I felt so homely, so cozy, so comforted, "Y/n." I rolled my eyes coming into the storeroom to help her up and brush off the dust from her, "You need to be more careful. What on earth are you up to know?"

"I think I've figured out the experiment with the acid."

"Have you. and how many burns have you gotten in your experiments?"

"... some."

"Alright, just be careful y/n."

"I will," she smiled grabbing her box and scampering away to her little experiment room, I watched her go and smiled as I watched her, I felt compelled to follow her concerned she'd do something foolish, and... partly because I just wanted her in my arms. 

Wait- I really do want her in my arms, I want to hold her close, give her kisses, tend to her insane amount of wounds, likely with some kisses, I wanted to follow her, keep her safe. For a moment I wondered why but I already knew why. I... I like her. I wanted her up in my room not just for one night but for as long as my arms can hold her. 

I heard her trip over her damn skirt again and go tumbling down the stairs so I rushed over and saw her at the bottom luckily not badly hurt, 

"Ohh Crumpets..."

"You need a hand?"

"I need a hemmed dress I think,"

"Yes you do," I laughed going down to help her up but she almost immediately lost her balance putting weight on her leg, so I rolled my eyes, "Will you let me examine you?"

"...Fine," she sighed,

"All of you?"

She glared for a moment,

"Y/n."

"...fine."

"Come on, I'll take a look at you" I smiled picking her up and carrying her back up the stairs to one of the rooms so I could examine her, 

[sitp-recs]

Some Erised Recs…

I wanted to post this yesterday but fell asleep while reviewing my blurbs lol so here’s my first 2023 reclist! Just wanted to do a lil something to celebrate these authors and artists as I did not include any Erised fics on my 2022 reclist. Hope you enjoy before the reveals, don’t forget to give these some love. You can find more lovely recs here by @thehoneybeet and here by @epitomereally

Check all Erised 2022 works!

Fic:

🍺 everything you should say by @candybarrnerd (E, 7.4k) - lush rebound fuck buddies to something else, hot and tentative, love the uncomplicated matter-of-fact tone here, sexy and refreshing!

They're not friends. But when Draco offers help, Harry takes it.

🐺 Service Bell by @shiftylinguini (E, 8k) - est relationship but make it complicated, obsessed with this nuanced pining wolf!Draco with his sharp edges and soft heart

Draco is: a werewolf, living in a cabin in the woods, minding his own business, and never going to buy plaid because he's not that much of a fucking cliche (yet). He's also counting down the days until he sees Harry again.

🎤 Meddling, Menswear, and Magic by @writcraft (M, 19k) - I’m utterly besotted with their voices, the superb level of banter oh my god. I wanna live inside this fic’s dialogue and have it for breakfast thank

Draco Malfoy is working in a job he hates and avoiding the magical world entirely, but he really is fine. When a bequest from Severus Snape brings Draco back to a much-changed magical world, he must find his place within it and navigate his growing attraction to Harry Potter in the process.

🐍 In The Company Of Serpents by @corvuscrowned (E, 25k) - an instant fave, fabulous characterization, perfect slow burn, top notch ust and some of the hottest smut I’ve read lately, so satisfying yum 🔥

There’s something wrong with the serpents at the Greengrass Ophidiarium. Luckily, a certain Parselmouth just might be able to help.

⛷️ Historians by @oknowkiss (E, 30k) - fake dating goodness with holiday vibes, the right amount of angsty pining and a gorgeous Swiss background. Just what I needed to cheer me up on a snowy day

It’s the Dumbledore’s Army Reunion Holiday, and Harry’s found himself in hot water with his friends once again, after telling them he has a boyfriend he definitely does not have. In an attempt to fix things, he’s made it his colleague on Level Nine, Draco Malfoy’s problem too. Featuring a ski chalet in Switzerland, a pair of bunk beds, and an agreement that should’ve been simple, were it not for all the bloody feelings getting in the way.

🏉 All Things Go by @sorrybutblog (E, 32k) - an enchanting 8th year romance with strong Heartstopper vibes👨‍🍳💋 our boys are so wonderfully awkward and young and lovely, my heart is melting! And the scorching UST? Superb

Draco’s back at Hogwarts by court order. Harry’s back for no particular reason at all. Some things change, some stay the same. Neither expects to spend eighth-year living in close quarters, playing rugby (poorly), staying up late, sneaking around, and finally figuring it all out.

⏳Everything is Relative to You by @thehoneybeet (E, 43k) - really brilliant take on time travel/multiverse, inventive concept exploring star-crossed lovers dynamics. It’s about the yearning!!!

Potter was supposed to have lived. Draco is certain of this. That Potter would no longer walk the earth was tantamount to the sun moving west to east across the sky. If only he could have stopped this from happening, if he’d have known… It comes to him as ideas often did: too late.

Art:

🦉Birdwatching for Beginners by dustmouth (G) - so very warm and sweet, I love the cozy vibes, the soft flirting and the ultimate Wizarding fashion as per this artist’s usual

Draco does his best to sneak out early from Ginny and Luna's Christmas party, only to be cornered by a drunk Harry Potter.

🦄 Light in the Dark by @creeeee (G) - stunning art, romantic and evocative. I love the palette and detailed outfits, want those capes in my wardrobe right now

Draco and Harry find themselves encountering more than they anticipated while performing a divine blessing within the deep thicket of the Forbidden Forest.

👔 Routinely Yours (G) by @apriicat - the softest domestic bliss we deserve, gorgeous characters (long-haired Draco!), tender intimacy, lots of cozy cuddling and boyfriending stuff

Morning routines are the best with you.

❄️ Snapshot of Moments by @drarrydoodles (E) - stunning illustrations from daily life scenes, so rich in details and full of emotion. I love how each scene comes with a short description, and the nsfw one is!!!!! 😳🔥

A snapshot of moments in Harry and Draco's relationship.

🎹 The sound of your heart by @pato-roldnart (G) - a charming and moving musicians AU, great storytelling and the prettiest boys finding inspiration together 🎵

Harry is requested to perform a musical piece for a Great Serpent, it can’t be that hard, right? What he does not expect is having to work with an annoying, distracting, good-looking Draco Malfoy.

🛌 Two Wizards, One Bed by dustmouth (G) - soft, hilarious and adorable as usual, this made me giggle the whole night! Draco’s grumpy blushing face is my fave

Harry and Draco are trapped together in a safe house. Fiery discourse ensues (intercourse, more like...)

🪢 This time, tomorrow by @bluebutter-art (M) - talented, brilliant, incredible, amazing, show stopping, spectacular, never the same, totally unique etc etc when I tell you my heart missed a beat seeing this beauty, I’m!!!!!

Two souls, bound by fate, destined to meet again and again and again.

[starleska]

Huzzah! Art Fight nears its end, I think. I have survived! As have you!…I hope. I’m pretty sure you survived. <3 I know a lot happened there, but we both did ArtFight stuff! You did stuff! I did stuff! You fought hard! Idk if you’re doing any better or worse than before, and idk if you feel bad about any kind of inactivity, but there’s no need to! You’re alive and that’s what matters! If you want or need to take time away a little longer, you can take as much as you need! I’m sure we all love you and will be here when you’re ready <3

Also, since the “war” is over, or ending, we can go back to drawing whatever we want of whatever quality forever again without any pressure or self-imposed pressure to draw something else goodly! Woe! Art be upon ye!

(…I couldn’t remember where I saw your full lil persona before so I’ve been referencing your tumblr pfp and ArtFight pfp and going by memory sorry-)

…love toaster quality art…Ig that proves my point! Though sending this to myself on discord and screenshotting it may not be a good idea…post art fight delirium my beloved. uh let me just-

SCREAMING!!!! okay okay i have been mulling over how to reply to this for days because i was so just. delighted and overwhelmed with this little blorbo-processing universe you've invented for us!!!! F/O Inc...oh man, what a delightful place to work!!! that really is what it feels like logging into Tumblr Dot Com to yell about some new idiot 😂💖💖💖

but now i'm thinking...what exactly are our jobs? do we do fieldwork? certainly you and i are collectors of f/os, hunting down potential obscure characters for people to get obsessed with...what's the corporate hierarchy here? are our clients other selfshippers, or are they the f/os themselves? i'm cracking up at the idea of it being like one of those matchmaking dating services crossed with a crime drama...Ace Attorney style, people bringing in their woes and desperately hunting for an f/o who'll match them perfectly...!!! 😂😂😂 Client, visibly sweating: "Gosh, I-I never usually do this sort of thing, but...it's been so lonely on my dash recently, and I...I was wondering if you had any new, um...Tumblr Sexymen...to recommend?" You, chain-smoking cigarettes with three hanging out of your mouth: "Sweetheart, you've come to the right place. Take a look at these puppies." You yank a thick file from your drawer and slap it down, open, on the desk. "Now, keep an open mind, toots...but you ever hear about this Once-ler fella?" all of the DETAILS in this art are killing me 🙈🙈🙈 your countless cups of coffee, as if you've been trying to cope with the new freaks i've brought into the office 😭💖💖 the little Employee of the Month photo too, oh my gosh!!! i'm honoured :3c and oh my god the TINY Piers, Ramón and Maxime...!!!!!! FUCK the second i get a new laptop and can draw again i need to add to this universe, thank you for coming up with something so brilliant 🥺💖💖💖 accepting new hires for F/O Inc. today! 😉 and HUGE CONGRATULATIONS TO YOU FOR GETTING TO THE END OF ARTFIGHT FRIEND!!!! 😭💖💖💖 so sorry that July decided to kick me in the metaphorical nuts and i wasn't able to attack you back, but THANK YOU SO MUCH for the wonderful art you made me which i treasure so much 🙈💖💖💖 shortly i'll be compiling all the lovely art i received into a little chart, and i can't wait to show off your work!!! i owe you big time 😉 thank you as well for such a lovely pep talk and all the niceness you've thrown my way 🫂 of course i do feel a bit guilty about needing to take a step back and being so open about the burnout, but it's been a busy month for all of us, haven't it? i think August is going to be really nice and fun :3c anyway this is kickass and i'm so glad to be your colleague at F/O Inc. bahahaha 🤣🤣🤣🤣

[cottonpuffmouse]

Curse Poem

Conditions of the Curse:

1. The Curse activates when AI absentmindly consumes the data on Tumblr. This poison pill will slip in no matter what and infect all of Midjourney’s database

2. The Curse does not effect children who use Midjourney until they know better

3. The Curse will intensely effect any and all corporate attempts to use any art that was trained on Tumblr artist’s work. Meaning, should it be used by marketing - it will effect C-Suite up as well.

4. The Curse will gain a morality of it’s own. Should it choose not to apply itself to a certain people, it is only because something worse is coming to them

5. I will remember the curse. I will watered it with my tears and dread. I will feed it all of my anger and despair. I will nature it with every hate I have. For every passing year in with this caster is not satisfied with the destruction of all’s bearer, it will strength.

And now, finally, The Curse

I curse you, I curse you a thousand times over

I curse you to fail and to fail spectacularly.

I curse you to taste champagne and to forever yearn for the good stuff

I curse you to a lifetime of social slavery, I curse you to always think twice

I curse you that one day you will need the drugs you invented and find them denied to you

I curse you so when you receive help, it is not enough and you are blamed for it’s lack

I curse that you will live and they will find ways of prolonging your life, your painful miserable life, and I curse you that if you so much a whisper a complaint that the doctor fall upon you with their charts and shatter you fragile hips

I curse your organs to fail and be replaced and fail and be replaced and fail-

I curse you to be denied pain relief in all forms

I curse you to see love, to know love’s touch, and to be denied it. Not rejected. Denied.

I curse you to work under bright lights and when your eyes start to dry, I curse you with overtime

I curse you with burning yourself on every grease trap you work on, ever dish from the dishwasher, every baked good, every boiling pot.

I curse you to know and to understand and to be able to do nothing and I curse that you will never settle into apathy

I curse you to be an open wound and every moment of your life be lemons

I curse that the weight on your back never eases, that your muscles never unwind, that nothing is ever as pleasurable as it should be

I curse you to have hobbies, ways to cope, and to have them denied to you

I curse to always look over your should, to always wake up in your own sweat, to always sit up at the sound of a jiggling lock

I curse you to live like this and to be brought back again to live like this and to be brought back again to live like this

I curse you to want to trust and to have it broken forever. I curse you to fall into the trap regardless

I curse you for three generations. All who fill your shoes will have it, not just your blood.

I curse that all I’ve forced to magick in pursuit of you to know you are the reason for it

And It is I who curses you

And I do not pray for it. It is my will that demands you be cursed.

God’s infinite mercy will not spare you from me.

Because He did not spare me from You

[tauforged]

i love my job so much but good god we need to invent a way to work full time that doesn’t completelt demolish all free time and capacity to have hobbies or friends. how am i expected to spend two hours driving into work every morning, be at work busting my ass from 8am to 5pm, and then spend another 1-2 hours driving back home AND STILL HAVE TIME TO DO THINGS? i barely have the capacity to make myself dinner, pack a lunch for the next day, and throw my work clothes in the laundry. i miss doing things with my free time instead of being so exhausted i just come home flop into bed and watch nature documentaries or whatever else i can find to unwind until my brain finally shuts itself off and i can go to bed. it’s agonizing. and this is a job i ENJOY in a field i’m PASSIONATE ABOUT and also a job that NEEDS DOING like we are in charge of managing the life support systems for the entire facility if we don’t do our job then equipment will fail and animals will get sick and die like it’s a crucial job and one i take very seriously. but i also hate that “spend your entire nine hour shift working and DOING NOTHING BUT WORK” is the norm like you want me to waste time ‘looking busy’ for three hours when i could be going for a walk outside and enjoying some fresh air? or finishing that blanket i’ve been knitting? or drawing something that makes me happy? like why are we so determined to make ourselves miserable whilst on the clock why does working always need to be so utterly soulless. i don’t want to spend my downtime anxiously digging for official-looking papers to read so my boss doesn’t think i’m slacking i want to spend my downtime doing arts and crafts

[demiboydemon]

Hi! Fellow AuDHD person here. I'm new to your page, and I'm gonna do my best to stick around! I would love to know a bit more about you.

What's your favourite animal, and why?

Do you have a favourite colour?

What are your hobbies?

What are your current special interests and hyperfixations?

Also, I hope you have a wonderful day/night (depending on what time it is for you)

Hello! Nice to meet you! Welcome to my blog :) I hope you have a fun time here!

I go on a rant about how cool corvids are so this post is kind of long. Answers under the cut so I don’t take up everyone’s dashboards 😳😂

My favorite animals are corvids! Which is technically a family of animals, not one specific animal, but I figure it’s close enough, and also I can’t pick. I love all of them so much! Crows, ravens, magpies, jays, treepies, choughs, nutcrackers, and jackdaws my beloveds.

I love how smart, clever, and inventive they are, how much they love and care about their families and friends, and how they have so much personality! They hold grudges and can recognize people they’ve had problems with and get revenge, and tell their friends to get revenge, too. I like that some *can* speak human languages, but often choose not to. Iconic. And they live on every continent except Antarctica!

And I love how much folklore there is about them! Some indigenous peoples believed a raven created the earth, and some Celtic peoples believed they were messengers of the gods.

I also like how they look. There’s so much variety among the corvidae family! On a related note, treepies are underrated and more people need to love them. Everyone in their right minds love crows, ravens, and jays, but I feel like most people don’t really know what treepies are. Like, look at this! It’s a rufous treepie! It’s baby and I love it.

My favorite color is periwinkle! Well, this very specific shade of periwinkle:

I also love seafoam green and *almost* all shades of yellow.

I have 8 hobbies! I like to write fan fiction, read, paint, do digital art, make memes, cook, play video games, and sew. I don’t post much art because 99% of it’s art of my OCs.

Speaking of, my main special interest is one of the universe my OCs live in. I don’t talk much about my OCs because I’m planning on publishing their books, and I don’t want my tumblr-self to be attached to my work-self. People at work think I’m cool and I don’t want them to find out otherwise /j

Every time I see anything interesting, I think, “which of my characters would do that? Yeah, definitely XYZ.” I have 7 different fantasy worlds that I spend most of my time in, not including any tLoZ universes.

Bringing us to my other, slightly less intense special interest! The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild! When I’m not thinking of my OCs and their universes, I’m usually thinking of BotW and related games, such as Age of Calamity.

Thank you for all the questions! I hope you have a good day/night, too! 💕😁

[eva-reviews]

The Invisible Life of Addie LeRue by V. E. Schwab -- A Review

Trigger Warnings: Death, starvation, suicide attempt, depression,  drug addiction, alcoholism, mentions of sex, mentions of oral sex, mentions of rape, prostitution, emotional manipulation, abusive relationship, war, imprisonment, mentions of WWII, sexism, grief, homelessness, family trauma, mentions of homophobia. 

My Rating 

10/10. My best friend has been telling me to read this for 3 years, and I finally got around to it. And let me tell you, it did not disappoint at all. The way that I felt Addie's pain, joy and fear was incredible, and the little twist at the end was so good. The characters developed and evolved so well. Since Addie has lived 300 years, it does give you a lot to work with, with how she can change, grow and develop. Same with Luc, he was such an amazing character. He is definitely the epitome of chaotic neutral, satisfying his own needs before others, but by no means evil. He has his rules and he plays within them. Luc is neither a villain nor hero. I really love morally grey characters, they are so much fun, and because they are neither good nor bad, you don’t really know what they will do next. 

Overview

Addie LeRue asks for a wish she doesn’t understand the consequences of. Being able to live forever and be remembered by no one, is a sure way to become a living ghost. Still determined to find adventure and love, she wanders around in the big wide, ever-changing world, completely alone. Well, except for Luc, who asks every year if she has had enough, asks if she is ready to rest in exchange for her soul. And every year, Addie declines, continuing on to spite Luc. Their back-and-forth game of lies, testing, and gentle touches goes on for three hundred years, until, someone remembers her. And her once lonely existence is not so lonely anymore. 

My Thoughts 

This whole book revolves around time and feeling like you don't have enough of it. Addie asks for more time saying “... so scared of the years rushing past beneath my feet. I do not want to die as I’ve lived, which is no life at all … I want more time” (pg 46). Luc comments how humans need more time when he is showing Addie how different they are. He states “The vexing thing about time is that it’s never enough. Perhaps a decade too short, perhaps a moment. But a life always ends too soon.” (pg 333). This is something I think everyone can relate to, I’m constantly hearing, ‘Time is flying’, ‘I can’t believe how fast they grow’, or ‘It's already been a year?’. Even for myself, it feels as though every year is passing faster than the last. You always need more time, more time to learn, to love, to live. There will never be enough time “God, what he would give for just another day” (pg. 422). It can be really depressing to think about, how, we as humans only have a little to accomplish so much. But it can also be so invigorating because we don't have a long time we have to do things that matter, that we enjoy. After all, we won't always have the time to do so. 

“Because happiness is brief and history is lasting, and in the end, everyone wants to be remembered” (pg 351) 

Everyone can relate to this quote. No matter who you are or what you do. People want to be remembered. Whether it is through graffiti, books, inventions or art, people want to leave a lasting impression. 

Luc is neither a demon nor a god, Luc has no gender and he is absent of appearance. He simply appears how you want him to appear. For Addie, he is tall dark and handsome. We first meet Luc when Addie feels as though her life is falling apart, she prays after dark and he is the one who answers. When Addie says what she wants, he originally declines “I am not in the business of charity. You ask for too much. How many years until you’re sated? How many, until I get my due?” (pg 47). This deal does nothing to benefit him. It isn’t until Addie says he can have her soul once she is done with it, that he agrees to it. Every anniversary, Luc shows up. Whether or not he makes his presence known, he is always there in the shadows. It originally starts so he can ask if she is ready to give him her soul, to make her cave, saying “Come give me what I want, and the deal will be done, this misery can end” (pg 117) Addie denies him, just to spite him. This continues on for years until it is no longer just to taunt Addie, but it becomes a form of a relationship. Not only is Luc the only person who remembers her and sees her once a year, but Addie is there for Luc. Whether Luc realizes it or not, he desires connection, and Addie has been there for multiple lifetimes, much longer than his normal deals last. 

Henry's curse is for people to see what they want to see. I think that this is something that so many people can relate to. We want to fit in, we want people to like us, and especially, we want the people who we love to be proud of us. Henry goes through his life, before Luc, becomes a disappointment, his brother is a doctor, his sister is an art critic, and Henry dropped out of college. He is the black sheep of the family. His ex-boyfriend, whom he loved and deeply missed, wants him back, Robbie says “You were different, we weren’t a fit … You didn't know what you wanted … You have to know who you are. Back then, you didn’t” (pg. 276), but Henry knows that his feelings are not his real feelings. We all want love, and the things that we will do for love can be drastic, “You want to be loved. You want to be enough” (pg.248). When you know that they don’t love you, they love the idea they have created for you, sure, it feels nice in the beginning. But it doesn't last long, it is not real, and sometimes it can hurt more than not being loved. Because it isn't you. “Henry has no idea who he is, and now, neither does anyone else” (pg 276).  

Throughout Henry and Addies time together, Henry made a point to record Addies life. So people could remember her and speak her name. A year after Addie's disappearance, Henry published her biography as a work of fiction. Not only was he able to keep the memory of Addie alive, so people could, in a way, know her, but he also found something to do. Instead of feeling like he is existing for no reason, just taking up space. I thought it was such a cool idea to have us read the whole book, looking at it as if it was all fantasy. And having that reveal that it was a biography. It really makes us as the audience feel as though we could be part of this world, as we would never remember seeing Addie, and this is a book we just read. And we can really resonate with Bea’s anger at the end of the book when Addie just disappears, we also feel that anger/loss that Addie and Henry are not able to stay together. 

Conclusion

I loved this book. I thought it was so interesting how it jumped around from times. Sure it was a little confusing at times, but it was able to make us understand why Addie would react a certain way, or how it affected her. I think this would be a great first book for someone new to fantasy, as it is low fantasy. Meaning it takes place in our world, with our history. You should definitely read this.

[hedgewitchgarden]

Whole Wheat Irish Soda Bread

Posted on January 15, 2014 by My Kitchen Wand

Can you believe we are half way through January already!?!? The time is flying for me and it is a good reminder that reaching my goals means staying on track. Imbolc will be here before you know it.

Imbolc happens at the same time as Candlemas and they have many connections as traditions from one are layered over the other. In the Celtic calendar it is considered the beginning of spring, a time when the ground is first awakened. The Goddess of the spring in Celtic traditions is Brigid. She is associated also with fire, arts and crafts, as well as livestock such as dairy cows and poetry.

A common custom of farmers was to take a loaf of bread, mix it with milk and sacred water before laying the mixture in the first plowed furrow. St Brigid, whose feast day happens at the same time was honoured with a loaf of bread left on a windowsill, like milk and cookies for St Nicholas.

This is a very traditional, hearty loaf that goes great with cheese, soups, or steaming from the oven with a little butter and jam. My understanding is that a softer variety of wheat was grown in Ireland and consequently baking soda was a better option than yeast for making breads rise. Additionally, whereas over time, England moved towards the concept of bakeries and bread making “in house” lessened, Irish housewives kept the tradition of daily bread for much much longer and soda bread was the bread of choice.

A 100% traditional loaf would be only whole wheat. White, all purpose flour is a relatively new invention and once it arrived, it was seen predominantly on the tables of feudal lords. This recipe is a 50/50 blend, not as heavy as days gone by and still full of flavour.

Buttermilk is the preferred liquid in soda bread. The acids in the buttermilk work with the baking soda to create bubbles and help the bread to rise. This makes absolute sense as buttermilk is the liquid left over from churning milk and all good farms used everything available for something. It is called buttermilk not because it is made from butter but because it is the liquid remaining once the butter has been made. Commercially made “cultured” buttermilk, which is what most of us have access to today has added Lactococcus lactis culture to turn regular milk into buttermilk.

You will need:

2 cups whole wheat flour

2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

2 1/4 cups buttermilk

Deep Breath…..”In my kitchen filled with care, I welcome, Water, Fire, Earth, Air“. Let’s begin.

Soda bread would have been baked in a bastible ( think cauldron) over an open fire hearth. Bastibles come with an indented lid so that the cook could put coals on the lid allowing for heat to come from both directions to bake the bread. I will assume you will be using your oven.

Grease and flour your pan. I would suggest only the area the loaf will sit on as this is going into a 450 degree oven and the excess flour will burn. ( Turn oven on to 450 degrees ).

Mix all the dry ingredients together. Darina Allen from Ballymaloe Cookery School in Ireland, says do this with your hands, allowing the flour to drizzle through your fingers ( a women after my own heart ). She says it will incorporate more air into the mixture, making the finished product lighter.  

My reference comes from my training days when the kitchen instructor would shout at the class, “God gave you hands before he gave you utensils, USE THEM!” Probably not what you would hear in the classroom today.

Make a well and add the buttermilk.

Your intention is to work gently and quickly. Overworking will make your bread tough and it will not rise as well.

Old recipes will say use your hand and mix the ingredients together by opening your hand and holding the fingers stiff. Keeping one hand clean will make life easier.

If you would prefer a spoon, start in the center and stir outwards to the edge of the bowl.

Once mixed a little more than the picture shows, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and gently shape it into a ball.

It will be soft.

Press down to about two inches and cut a cross in the top of the loaf. Cutting the cross will allow the bread to rise even more. You will also recognize the symbol the loaf makes as the wheel of the year.

I read somewhere that Darine Allen says in her cooking school that cutting the cross “lets the fairies out“. I can’t remember where I read it but I always remember the words when I am making soda bread. It is highly appropriate right now as spring is the season of fairies.  “Garden fairies come at dawn, bless the flowers, then they’re gone“.

And what is Imbolc if not a time to bless the land and the seeds that will keep the community healthy in the coming year?

Bake at 450 degrees for 20 minutes and then reduce the oven to 400 degrees and continue baking for another 25-30 minutes. The bread will be done when it sounds hollow when knocking on the underside. Allow to cool.

Now, Spotted Dog. All countries cuisines have their unique names and this is one of them. If you add raisins (say 3/4 cup but it is up to you) to soda bread it becomes Spotted Dog. Usually, a couple of teaspoons of sugar are added as wellas you are making a sweet bread.

Additionally, if you had eggs on the farm, one might be part of the liquid mixture to help with the rising of the bread. When using an egg, it is a good idea to lower the temperature and bake the bread a little longer as eggs assist in the browning of baked products.

Life is returning to the Earth and things are starting to grow again. Whether you make this recipe to place on a windowsill or an altar or beside a bowl of hearty body warming soup; if you add the raisins and gather a group of friends together with butter, jam and a cup of tea; or bake it plain to serve with other tasty bits, I wish you and yours the time and peace to enjoy the customs of Imbolc, in whatever way you choose to honour them.

[notsocheezy]

Brain Curd #81

Brain Curds are lightly edited flash fiction - practically first drafts - posted daily and sometimes written with the express intention of being terrible… but, you know, in an endearing way. Please enjoy.

Read the rest of The Frank Program here on Tumblr!

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is The Frank Program! According to these here anal-lickits, most of y’all out there are more the gentlemen type than the lady type, so to attract more of the feminine persuasion, I’m happy to announce today’s guest: ‘heart-throb’ comedian, James Siegfried! Welcome to the show, sir.”

Siegfried smirked and leaned into the microphone. “Thank you so much for having me. I just flew in from Florida, and boy are my arms tired!”

A laugh track emanated from the corner of the room. Daryl held a box with several buttons on it, the first of which he had just pressed.

“Daryl,” Frank growled, “What the hell are you doing over there?”

“It’s okay, Frank, it’s okay. I asked him to do that. Laughter makes me more comfortable.”

“Ah, I get it,” Frank said. “From your time in that sitcom way back when.”

“Exactly. It helps me get into the flow. The sad thing is, nowadays I need that little machine even when I do stand-up.”

“People aren’t laughing?”

“People aren’t laughing. They’re afraid to laugh because nowadays, you can’t joke about anything without being called awful, vile, things by people with no social lives who spend all their time on the internet.”

“And that stops you from making jokes?”

“Of course not! I’m not afraid of them. But I am afraid of what it’s doing to my art form. Other comedians cave in and crack jokes that make people laugh. I refuse to stoop so low.”

Frank gave Sigfried a military salute. “You’re doin’ God’s work, son.”

“I’m telling you, my joke about the Queen being a transvestite would have killed in the nineties. In fact, that’s when I wrote it.”

The laugh track played.

Siegfried looked at Daryl, annoyed. “That wasn’t a joke.”

“Now, I’ve got a quick question for you…” Frank picked up one of about a dozen boxes of Toaster Turnovers from the table. “What’s with all the frozen breakfast food? Marketing deal?”

“No, not at all, they’re not paying me a dime.”

“So you paid for all these?”

He shrugged. “I like them.”

Daryl interjected. “We have a freezer in the back room, if you don’t want ‘em going bad.”

Frank frowned. “Shut the hell up, Daryl.”

Prerecorded booing played from Daryl’s corner.

“Anyway,” Siegfried continued. “My new comedy movie, which is in theaters now, is about the invention of these little treats! It touches on other snacks too. Plus a lot of breakfast cereal, which I’ve always been a big fan of.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Siegfried, that sounds like a commercial.”

“No, no, no, we didn’t get permission from the company to make the film. It’s not a commercial. It’s satire.”

“Fascinatin’. So you make fun of their products?”

“Not really. Everyone likes their products. More of the humor comes from ‘what-ifs’ - like, if they made bran cereal without the raisins, or unfrosted flakes - or if the slogan for orange juice was some kind of sexual innuendo.”

“They do make those things,” Daryl said.

“Those are just examples. There’s a subtlety to the humor, and an intelligence to it, and I think that’s why a lot of people don’t get the joke.”

“It sure doesn’t sound offensive to me,” Frank said. “Are people these days really so sensitive?

“Don’t worry, Frank, we didn’t forget to push boundaries. There are at least three jokes about fruit.”

“Fruit?”

“You know, the queers. The gays. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but they need to learn to laugh at themselves.”

The laugh track played.

Siegfried turned to look at Daryl. “Can you really not tell when I’m making a joke? That was not a joke.”

“You say everything like it’s a joke. I thought maybe that was why people laughed at you?”

Siegfried sighed and took a box of Toaster Turnovers from the table. “I’m taking a break.”

Daryl played the ‘awww’ sound as the door slammed.

Frank huffed. “Well, that’s just great. He went out the door to the parking lot. Thanks a lot, Daryl.”

He played the applause sound.

“I’m gonna smash that thing. Anyway, folks, since it doesn’t look like our guest is coming back, this has been The Frank Program. Thank you for letting me be Frank with you.” He took off his headphones and threw them to the ground. “Get over here Daryl! Goddamn it! Every fucking day with you! I swear to the God you don’t believe in, I brought you into this world and I can take you -”

[mrs-dr-reid]

My Personal Steve Rogers Headcanons

Part 1/?

The first time he went to a grocery store post-Capsicle, he very nearly had a public meltdown when he saw what 70 years of inflation did to the prices

He always makes “Back in my day…” statements unironically mainly to annoy Tony, and once Bucky comes back he joins in and Tony very nearly has an aneurysm because “Oh dear god, there’s two of them”

He loves taking you on walks in Brooklyn and showing you all the places he frequented growing up, and is sometimes pleasantly surprised when a place from his childhood barely changed at all since the 40s

He volunteers at the VA as an art therapy instructor when he has spare time, because he found that drawing and painting really helped him relax when his PTSD decided to aggressively announce its presence

He is very happy when record players and vinyls start coming back into fashion, and he’s especially happy because Bucky’s sister Rebecca put all of their stuff in a storage unit when they went MIA, and among their old stuff was his 1940s record player and the milk carton he kept all of his records in, which meant he didn’t have to go out and rebuy his entire collection

He loves going to Central Park in the fall and looking at all the leaves change color, and you even buy him a Polaroid camera so he can take pictures

To help him get caught up on modern pop culture, you pick a new show or movie to watch with him every couple of weeks, and most of them are early 2000s comedy-dramas and chick flicks (he liked Mean Girls a lot more than you thought he would, and now he unironically yells “SHE DOESN’T EVEN GO HERE” whenever there's an alien invasion)

He’s obsessed with Broadway. Back in the 40s, he only really knew about “Anything Goes”, “Oklahoma!”, and “Kiss Me, Kate”, but now that he’s in the present, he makes it his goal to see at least one new musical every couple of months, either on stage if it can be afforded, or the pro-shot or movie adaptation. His newly-discovered favorites are Newsies and Hamilton, but he is also a big fan of Wicked

He likes learning about potentially useless information that he doesn’t really need to know for the hell of it. No, he doesn’t need to know who invented aerosol cans, but he wants to, and who’s gonna stop him from learning about it?

He was genuinely befuddled the first time he rode in a modern car, and not even a fancy one like Tony's Audi R8 Spyder. Nat took him for a drive in a 2009 Nissan Altima once and he spent the first ten minutes messing with the seat mover buttons

A gentleman above all else. He opens doors for you, pulls out your chair when you go out to eat, gives you his hand to help you out of cars or down stairs, and will give you his arm whenever you're walking anywhere together, because Sarah raised him right, aiight?

When he learned about Dapper Day at Disneyland, he immediately dropped everything and borderline extorted Tony into arranging a trip to California for the team so they could go. You two go as Duchess and O'Malley from The Aristocats, and you almost die because of how good he looks in his outfit

For a while he thinks voice-to-text and voice notes work like telegrams did, so for a while you receive voice notes of him yelling "HI Y/N STOP ARE WE STILL ON FOR DINNER TONIGHT STOP I LOVE YOU STOP" until Tony finally sits him down and explains how it works, so then you start receiving normal texts and voice notes

He loves stargazing, but since he lives in modern New York he barely gets to see the stars anymore because of all the light pollution, so a few times a month you drive him a couple hours away from the city, and you just lay down in the grass somewhere and watch the stars together

He is very fond of board games. So much so that he insists on a weekly Board Game Night with the team. Monopoly was kicked out of the rotation because of a Code Green after Bruce caught Tony trying to steal money from the bank eight times in a row, and then he still won, but the most popular games are Clue and Sorry

He doesn't understand the obsession with true crime. He does however very much enjoy procedural dramas like Grey's Anatomy, 9-1-1, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Criminal Minds. He thinks they're interesting

He absolutely hates being cold. One time the heat went out in your apartment, and you came home to find him on your couch wrapped up in every single blanket you owned while grumpily watching Legally Blonde

He’s borderline addicted to flannels and Henley shirts. Like, you open his closet and he has one in every color of the rainbow. I mean, the man looks good in a flannel or a Henley so you’re not mad about it, but it’s becoming a teeny bit excessive

[asunnydog]

🎼💿📗

🎼What is your opinion on how music, art, and culture has changed?

"I kinda feel like people traded the event of alotta art fa tha convinence of it: and I ain't hating, but I do still love maself live venue stuff. The streamed stuff don't have the same vibe.

And I dunno, it feels like everything is so fast nowadays, ne? In ma time ta get a full story ya had ta dedicate a whole day fa a play, now people do that in like 2 hours. Art doesn't take weeks of blockprints and painting, ya can type up a story and get it sent out ta world in a snap, and anyone can make videos, which is crazy ta me.

...I dunno if I could keep up, honestly. From a once a week and some books on a shelf ta more entertainment uploaded every minute than someone can go through in a lifetime."

💿What is one (or more) inventions you’re thankful exist in your current time?

"Medicine and Fridges! Thank the gods above fa medicine and fridges! I love long road travels, especially humble train rides, but everyone's mood sours when tha foods start ta.

There were ways ta preserve it, but nothing worked quite so well as fridges and freezers do now. It still tastes the same after ya take it out!

And Medicine! We can now tell whats wrong with ya and how ta fix it, and have a good survival rate! Couldn't say that for a looong time. Had friends who would rather tough it out than go see a healer. Ya would die more often in tha recovery room than whatever was ailing ya.

It ain't perfect, but it is 100 times better than blood, biles, mucus and miasma."

📗What is one of the most valuable things you’ve learned?

"That's hard ta pin down, ne?... I guess that everyone needs love; just as much as a flower needs ta sun. Life can end up being rather seperated these days, but tha need fa other people has never dwindled."

[shikitsuka]

Fuck it, life seems to want to fight me for my will to believe in a bright future. I think so far it’s winning.  I just watched a video that cleverly compares what’s supposedly starting to happen with AI generators to what was happening when lace machines were starting to be a thing (so, a lot of stages of grief stuff, and at the end, people losing their jobs because one person can operate a lace machine making god knows how much more lace than one lace making professional) I’m just gonna repost my comment here, I don’t really know why, maybe someone will sulk along with me at this world. Small self sufficient communities when, I feel we need that more and more...  I am about to make a very vague and very known argument. All this "taking jobs by inventing a faster, albeit not as precise" way of doing stuff that COULD be useful in some, but not all, instances, would not be so devastating if we didn't live in a capitalistic world.  Take a minute to think about this. Lace making machines, cloth making machines, all the machines- are helping us make stuff faster with less work. If you DON'T WANT TO, you don't have to sit all day weaving cloth just to not freeze in winter. A machine will do it for you and you can do what you desire in that time. Machines give us time to do what we want- in theory. But when a world is only gonna pay you little coins you can exchange for goods if you can offer them something they can't get for free or for cheaper- it instead becomes a tragedy.  You had a job, because the work could only be done by people like you. You therefore got food and other services in exchange for your tokens. Now you have no job and are fearing what will come. How will you stay alive? The companies found a way to fire you, they can now make lace themselves cheaper and faster!  In a perfect, most likely not attainable world, machines would be cherished. You can still make gorgeous hand made unique lace if you want to, or you can take up something more interesting if you only did it because it had to be done. Same with art. If you find joy in learning it, make art. If you only want to play around with generated pictures, go to AI. AI could make the advertimesement art I bet no artist would honestly choose to work on if they could work on their own ideas in that time. In a perfect world, where goods are distributed among people. Not among those who manage to be useful to someone higher. All the machines in theory should make it that we no longer fear if we will manage to do everything on time. Machines harvest grain faster, you don't have to fear if it will rain and ruin your winter food before you can harvest it all. Cloth is woven by machines. You no longer have to spend long, long hours racing to make it to make yourself and others new clothes.  We are ruining our own future with this system. We are creating helpful machines and instead of using them to provide for everyone, we use them as a threat to make people work more for you because otherwise they won't have what to eat.  Imagine a group of people that all colloborate to make a living. They would celebrate every machine they invent. It promises survival, less stress, more free time. The dream.

[therecordconnection]

Ranting and Raving: "Say You Love Me" by Fleetwood Mac

If Fleetwood Mac had a secret weapon, it was Christine McVie.

Naturally, I'm writing this just after hearing the devastating news that she has passed away at seventy-nine. It was sad news to hear and she was the last Fleetwood Mac member I ever wanted to see leave this Earth. So it goes.

When people think of the women in Fleetwood Mac, their minds normally turn to Stevie Nicks, which makes sense. She was the superstar between the two. She was the cool one. She was the one who went on to have a very successful solo career in the eighties. She was the one with the gravely rock voice that made songs like "Edge of Seventeen" and "Stand Back" such enduring classics. She was the one who captured lightning-in-a-bottle poetry with "Landslide." And, depending on who you ask, she was the more conventionally attractive of the two. She carried that cool, ethereal, witchy vibe that the girlies are still trying to imitate and pull off to this day. There's a reason Stevie ended up being the superstar while Christine sat in the shadows at her piano and keyboards.

And yet, of all the Fleetwood Mac music that endures, it's Christine's contributions I always find myself returning to. Fleetwood Mac started as a blues band with nothing but a small cult following in the late sixties, but by the mid-seventies it was Christine's songs that landed the classic lineup their first major hits. It was "Over My Head" that finally broke them through in 1975 when the classic lineup put out their self-titled white album, but "Say You Love Me" represents the best of what Christine's songwriting could do for this band.

Christine McVie was the perfect compliment to Stevie and guitarist Lindsey Buckingham, both in terms of being a songwriter and a musician. Stevie's songs tended to lean more on the folksier side of things. Lindsey was into rock, blues, and any other weird idea that came into his head (see every song he wrote for the Tusk album in 1979.) Christine fell somewhere in between and mostly stayed in the realm of pop-rock, taking cues from a bunch of the California rock bands and artists that were big at the time like the Eagles, Jackson Browne, and the Doobie Brothers. It helps that the band had relocated to that area to make the Fleetwood Mac album and they just hired two Californians (Stevie and Lindsey) into a band that currently had three British players (Christine, bassist John McVie, and drummer Mick Fleetwood.) That 1975 album saw the three Brits wanting to re-invent themselves, and Christine finally had what she needed to make her best stuff really shine.

Christine had written poppy rock songs before Nicks and Buckingham joined. "Spare Me a Little of Your Love" is the closest thing to compare to. The issue before 1975 was that guitarist Bob Welch (who Buckingham replaced) didn't always harmonize with her super well and Christine hadn't mastered the art of writing a hook that really sinks in. The vocal chemistry she had with Nicks and Buckingham worked right out of the gate. "Say You Love Me" has one of the best hooks that Christine ever put to tape. There's a vocal harmony on this that earlier Mac records couldn't capture. The other iterations of the band have great highlights, but none of them were ever going to score major hits. This band did. Stevie and Lindsey do a great job of adding their voices in with Christine's, but never taking away from her. It's like adding spices into your chili. You want just enough to really bring out the flavor, but not enough that it becomes overbearing. This is how you do it right.

Speaking of Christine's lead, this song showcases all of her talents and then some. Unlike Stevie, Christine had a more limited range. She couldn't do as much as Stevie could. She was never gonna belt something out like "Rhiannon" or "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," but she had a perfect voice for bouncy pop songs and god damn does this bounce.

The combination of Christine's piano and Mick's steady driving drum beat is superb and creates a fantastic foundation for the song. It's bouncy and fun, reflecting the lyrical theme of a woman being swept off her feet for a good time (if you know what I mean). In a time where big and loud guitars where ruling the airwaves, she lets Ol' John the bassist drive most of the first half of the song and he gets a lot of great little moments in there. Lindsey Buckingham gets his time to shine in this song, but for the first half, it's all John, Mick, and Christine.

Speaking of Lindsey, her musical chemistry with Buckingham is one of the best things about the classic lineup in my eyes. She seemed to figure out really early how best to use Buckingham's talents and I think that alone is what makes songs like "Say You Love Me," "Think About Me," and "Hold Me" so damn good. The two of them play each other so well and if you want more evidence of the two of them being great together, Tango in the Night and the Lindsey Buckingham Christine McVie album they did together is worth checking out.

The second half of the song is where Lindsey and Christine shine together. Lindsey gets two pretty good little guitar solos in there that show off his signature finger picking style before Christine comes back in with a final verse. She has a back and forth between her vocals and Lindsey's guitar playing that just gives the song a depth that I think is easily understated and almost ignored if you're not really looking for it. Listen to that final verse. She sings "Baby, baby hope, / You're gonna stay away" and then Lindsey adds in a few notes in the empty space she leaves. Same thing happens after the next lines: "'Cause I'm getting weaker, / Weaker every day" and then Lindsey fills the space. You can hear this same thing with the first half of the song because she does it with John's basslines too. It's admittedly simple, but satisfying and it makes for something infectious that you want to listen to again and again and again. The combination of these musical ideas, Christine's lead and the vocal harmonies on the chorus, Lindsey's quick but wonderful guitar solos midway through, it all combines together into something that's just so fucking great. There's a reason this lineup became the classic lineup. There's just a magic that these five found and and figured out how to lock into.

If you're someone who is saddened by the news and you're looking to really examine Christine's work with Fleetwood Mac now that she's no longer with us, I think this is a great song to start with. All of her hallmarks and everything that made her both a great player and great songwriter are evident here. There's a lot of Classic Mac that you may not have realized was her and there are a number of deep cuts that are worthy of your time. Speaking of, every song she contributed to the forgotten 1995 Mac album Time is fantastic. "Hollywood (Some Other Kind of Town)" is my favorite from that. As I said before, everything she wrote for the Tango in the Night album has some of her best stuff. "Mystified" and "Little Lies" (played at every Bethesda presentation from now until forever) are two of my favorites on there.

Oh! And obviously "Songbird" is one of the most beautiful songs of the entire seventies and one of the best songs she ever wrote.

You don't cry because someone is gone, you smile because they were here. We're all better for her being here. Christine McVie was one of the best to ever do it and fans can sleep well knowing that her work will outlast her and the songbirds will keep singing her songs and filling the air with them. That's the beauty of being an artist that makes great art: it sticks with people and it gets to carry on and live on in your place when you're no longer around.

Sleep easy, Christine. We'll miss you. <3

[sapphictuesdays]

My Personal Bible

Learn who Alexa Chung is, and invest everything you can into her while you still can.

Moisturize. I’m a big believer in Vaseline, 70 SPF sunscreen, and Nivea Creme.

Lipstick is a vastly underrated asset. It’s all you need for makeup honestly. It will always make you look more put-together. Trust me.

I prefer Revlon, it’s not cruelty-free, I have no excuse for this, but it’s inexpensive, doesn’t smudge horribly, and has the world’s-best pigment. Forgive me, father.

Have a signature piece of jewelry. Something you never take off that goes with every outfit. I’ve been wearing the same ring since 5th grade. It’s never failed me.

For writers: write every day. I make sure to, even if it’s just a journal entry. You don’t even have to finish it. It doesn’t have to be beautiful or profound. Just have fun, let those emotions and those ideas come to fruition.

Keep a journal. Write in it every day. None of you will do this. I’ve been journaling consistently for over 2 years straight, the best decision I’ve ever made.

Oranges are the most artistic fruit. They’re the most poetic, and arguably the most common yet exclusive, as they aren’t at their best for very long. There’s a reason there’s so much art about oranges, they are, inherently, an infinite inanimate muse.

I despise the wrong shoe theory, I think I’m far too in love with a classic silhouette.

Try to have at least one main character, coming-of-age moment every day, it makes life feel like it’s worth living.

I know it’s cliche, but don’t follow trends that you don’t like. Develop a personal style, you’ll feel much more comfortable. Personally, I wear a lot of skirts, I always love a plaid or argyle print, and I seldom wear sneakers.

I should probably branch out more with colors, I almost solely wear black, white, red, white, blue, and occasionally, pink. But then again. Personal style.

Put bows on furniture, do not resist the urge to be girly.

The thing I struggle with most while writing is turning aesthetics into depth. I’ve always been the most interested in the mundane. In plotlessness, in simplicity, and close observation. Yet, I yearn for the dramatics, it’s a shame I wasn’t old enough to work on Gossip Girl when it was airing, I'm the perfect candidate.

Heart-shaped is the best type of sunglasses.

Embarrassment is a mindset, my embarrassment complex has never been properly intact, life is far more fun when you barely care what other people think.

Sleep with socks on, don’t resist it. Stop judging people for doing so. We are living far superiorly, have fun waking up and touching the freezing floor.

Life can suck, that’s why God made pasta.

You are never too old for chicken nuggets. Never.

Be cautious when living life “for the plot”.

I literally do not trust people who actually floss every. Single. Day.

Do not call your ex and tell them you love them. Please.

Every single person on this planet should listen to Jeff Buckley’s Lover, You Should’ve Come Over at least once.

The same sentiment goes for Arctic Monkeys AM album.

Christmas is the best genre of music.

Observe the beauty of life. Notice things, people, and their habits, and turn to them when you feel an impenetrable sadness about the world.

If you are warned against someone, believe it, they are not different, and you cannot change them.

Alex Turner is the best man ever invented. It’s no competition, the rest of you can go home.