#URL Music challenge

[fangbangerghoul]

Pick a song for each letter of your URL, and then tag that many people!

Thank you @seraaphiel for tagging me! ♥ I loooooove music challenges because I love music and sharing music! (I'm including links cause I'm extra)

LETS GOOOO

Faucet Failure - Ski Mask the Slump God Arrow to the Knee - Kiki Rockwell Naked - Courting Harlots Gravity - Tinashe Broken Clocks - SZA Alive - TRiDENT New Wage Slavery - End It Girl of the Year - Allie X Everlong - Foo Fighters Rain - Sleep Token Ghost in the Shell - Kiera Please Howling at the Moon - Phantogram Only God Forgives - Virgin Miri United in Grief - Kendrick Lamar Linger - The Cranberries

This was incredibly fun and I think one of the better music challenges! I definitely was forced to look through my whole library to find some of the letters and I loved it. I hope this will also introduce a new favorite song to someone because all these songs have special places in my heart!

I am tagging: @squidgeandsmidge, @spookyspecterino, @thatsgoodsquishy0, and @silurisanguine (if you were already tagged or dont want to thats fine!)

[emzchaos]

rules: pick a song for each letter of your URL and then tag that many people

I was tagged by @lilypixels, @noeyinthemist, @morgynemberisagenderfluiddaddy & @liliumsims Thank you all so much for the tage

E- EVERYDAY by WINNER

M - Modern Love by All Time Low

Z - Zombie by The Cranberries

C - Calm Down by All Time Low

H- Heart Beat by Devina Michelle

A - Alive by The Scarlet Opera

O - One Of Us by Ava Max

S- Sad Bitch by Anne- Marie

My tag victims will be @pink-chevalier, @wileyfern @latte-trait @miss-may-i @floresibs @silwermoon-sims, @simmingonthelow, @aurorangen ( you do not have to do this at all)

[dutchforstrangers]

Rules: pick a song for each letter of your URL and tag that many people.

Thank you for the tag Sam @tangledupblue! I had the worst time finding a song for the letter "U" xD

Made it a playlist too! Click here.

D igital love - Daft Punk

U ndertow - Timbaland ft. The Fray & Esthero

T out l'univers - Gjon's Tears

C ASE143 - Stray Kids

H orizon - Cinematic Orchestra & Niara Scarlett

F eel again - Jovan Perez

O ne day more - Les Miserables

R emembrance - Balmorhea

S pirits - Jamie Woon

T eeth - 5 Seconds to Summer

R ush - Troye Sivan (ft. Pink Pantheress & Hyunjin)

A live - Selah Sue

N aartoe - Eefje de Visser

G uns for hire - Woodkid

E veryone who falls in love (has someone else they're thinking of) - Cian Ducrot

R ain down on me - KANE

S unday drive - Asgeir

I don't even have 17 mutuals that are still active on here enough to tag xD So please feel free to take the challenge! But tagging a few anyway ;)

@seventeenlovesthree @darkened-storm @nina-a-pines @s-t-a-y-i-n-g @jamesthedigidestined @xnananko

[sim-berry]

Pick a song for each letter of your URL

Thanks @akitasimblr for tagging me!

S- Serendipity by Jimin

I- I’m Still Standing by Elton John

M- More by J-Hope

B- Bang Bang by Jessie J, Ariana Grande, & Nicki Minaj

E- End Up Here by 5 Seconds of Summer

R- Running Up That Hill by Kate Bush

R- Radioactive by Imagine Dragons

Y- You Oughtta Know by Alanis Morrissette

My music taste is a bit all over the place😂But this was so fun! 

[transman-badass]

Which Image - A Chzo Mythos fanfic

Title comes from the song Witch Image by the band Ghost. If there's interest I'll write more and explain to my followers what this game series is.

Apologies to the people who wanted to be tagged in this, Tumblr isn't recognizing your urls. I'll try to tag in a reblog. Also apologies to the British if my American ass screwed things up. I'll make edits as needed.

London, 2015

In between the crackling thunder, a young man screamed in agony, sweet as the music of a harpsichord.

Footsteps pounded like the rain through the stolen, repurposed corpse of a building. An office, once, now a shell like any other mortal body. Down the many stairs the footsteps carried, sneakers squeaking wet on dirty tile. Down the stairs and through the halls, she ran.

Why the persistence? Too late, far too late, to save her friend. But the young woman resisted the obvious. Dark of hair and pure of heart, he could not harm her yet. He watched the sweat drip down her warm brown skin, how she brushed the strands of hair from her face. Standing, kneeling, struggling, suffering.

He watched and he wondered. Yes, he did wonder.

It'd been a strange choice, to offer up an American for a sacrifice, but Chzo was not a picky god. This young woman could not have looked more different from her light-haired friend. But in her eyes, a desperate fire burned, and looking away proved a challenge.

That fire… She reminded him of someone. How distasteful.

Of course, of course, too late for her friend. She opened the door to strangers standing over the remains. Of course, of course, too late for her. The cult would spare her, when they caught her, he would ensure it…

They did not catch her.

They did not even notice her, too consumed with their own escape. The Ministry agents closed in, fortune smiling upon them once again. She fled, they fled, and it had all gone wrong.

He could've been furious.

He could've been.

Instead, he stood upon the old building, his shadow stretching long in the light flashing overhead. He stood, and he watched her race into the darkness, her parcel, their parcel, clutched to her frail body.

He watched, and yes, yes he wondered.

She reminded him of someone… Cabadath wasn't sure he liked that.

It'd been almost twelve hours before anyone realized the girl was gone. Far too late to save her life. The Order of Blessed Agonies worked fast. But so did Trilby.

The Order must've been desperate to prey on tourists. They had to have known who they were choosing. The accents on these kids weren't subtle. Five of them came overseas on spring holiday, bright eyed and oblivious. Three headed home tonight. The other two would follow in coffins.

“Trilby,” one of his supervisors said, “I know what you're thinking. Don't put yourself at risk to try and save this kid.”

“I'm already at risk,” he'd said. “What's a little more?”

“We need you alive - and so do they.”

And that was the thing, wasn't it? The Order wouldn't keep this girl, this Jillian Taylor Cortez, alive, but he couldn't say they'd do the same with him. Damned prophecies…

Her name was Jillian Taylor Cortez. She just turned 19. Mexican-American mother, British father. Got her middle name because the latter died before she was born, so said her friends.

She looked nothing like Simone Taylor. If she had, Trilby might've lost it again.

Twelve hours, they found the boy, or what was left of him. They'd followed the muddy footprints from the ground floor all the way to the altar. Trilby followed them back up, frowning. Pretended he didn't see the glances between the ones around him.

He had a hunch.

Just a hunch, but he'd been doing this for almost twenty years now. Just a hunch, he'd say later… but he'd been right before.

“Don't you dare!” Someone shouted at his back. “Damn it, Trilby! Get back here! It's not worth it!”

He ignored them, ignored the rain soaking his suit. Wasn't breaking the rules if nobody up top told you not to. Besides, he was just following a hunch. Just giving a quick check around the buildings. No harm in that.

No harm on her, when he caught her dead center in the light of his torch.

He stared at her and she stared right back, her eyes wide and hollow. The rain soaked her right through, plastering clothes to skin and hair to her cheeks. The bow in her hair, half undone. The fear in her eyes, too painful, too real.

Trilby raised a hand.

“Jill-”

She bolted.

“Wait! No!”

Trilby followed.

The kid knew how to run. Ran through the streets like the world was ending. Trilby kept up. He wasn't young anymore, he'd feel it for the next few days, but he kept up. So did the rain.

Only took a few wrong turns. She didn't know anything about the area - neither did he, to be fair. Was only a little bit of a surprise to find themselves in another alley, to come across the fence blocking their way. Was a very big surprise when the girl ran right for it.

“Jillian!” He shouted over the thunder. “Jill!”

Did she even hear him? She didn't stop. Lunged for the fence, one hand grasping the chain link metal. Trilby moved faster than her.

He grabbed her around the waist. She screamed. They both hit the ground, he let her go and she scrambled backwards. He shifted, sat up, looked her in the face again.

Terrified eyes, wide and wild. It wasn't just the rain soaking her cheeks, the spring weather shuddering her shoulders.

Trilby raised his hands.

“Jillian,” he said. “It's alright, Jill. I'm with the Ministry of Occultism. We're here to help you. I can't believe you're still alive…”

She breathed. She held the book in her arms tight. Book? He looked down at it. Heavy, large, leather bound. Some kind of writing on the cover.

Oh my God, he thought. Did she steal that from the Order?

Trilby looked up to her face again. Her eyes locked onto something over his shoulder.

Trilby jerked out of the way. The blade buried into the ground he'd stood moments before. Trilby moved, backed away as far as he could go, the blood draining from his face.

“Oh, hell,” Trilby said.

The featureless face of the Prince of Pain tilted towards him. Cabadath had not changed at all in the last twenty years. Bone chilling, even after all these years and all their meetings. Still ever the same, nine feet tall and dressed in black, the rain coursing down his long coat and leaving the fabric dry. The Prince straightened in slow motions, raising the four pronged scythe and resting it by his side.

Still the Prince stared at him, though he had no eyes to do so. He raised a hand and pointed to the girl.

Jill. She'd gotten out of the way just in time. Trilby couldn't risk looking away from the Prince for longer than an instant, Cabadath moved too fast, but she still breathed, standing against the fence. Her eyes, still wild, locked onto the terror between them.

Had Cabadath been chasing her too? The Prince had powers like no human ever could. Hallucinations were a favorite, Trilby knew that from experience.

The Prince waited.

Trilby took a breath.

“Jillian,” he said. “Give him the book.”

She did not move but her whole body shuddered with her breath.

“He's playing nice right now,” Trilby said, eyes locked on the Prince, “but he doesn't have to. You don't know what he's fully capable of, you've just seen part of it.”

Jillian did not move.

“There's nothing in that book that can help you,” Trilby said. “You don't want to get involved with this more than you have been. I don't know how you got it, but you need to give it back. Before he takes it from you.”

Her body shuddered. Jillian blinked, hard. The Prince did not move. He did not look away.

Her arms unlocked. She took another deep, shuddering breath. Holding the book in careful hands, she laid it upon the ground at her feet, and stepped away. And away. And away.

Trilby watched the Prince. He did not notice where the young woman moved to, until she stopped. Stopped between him and Cabadath, facing the Prince, her arms stretched out as if she could protect Trilby from the monster watching them.

Protect him from Cabadath. He wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or cry at the thought.

The Prince tilted his head. His gaze shifted towards the girl. Trilby placed a hand on Jillian’s shoulder. Cabadath’s shoulders shook, as if in silent laughter. But of course, no sound came from the Tall Man. They were not worth the effort.

Turning away from the mortals, Cabadath stepped toward the book. He knelt, and with one long free hand, picked it up. Turning fully back towards the two humans, he bowed a mocking thanks. Trilby set his teeth, held Jill's shoulder as she flinched.

As the Prince straightened, he vanished. The rain poured down over them and the tension disappeared from Trilby's body. Cabadath truly was gone. For now.

Jillian sobbed.

Trilby's focus snapped to her again. Shit.

“Jill?”

She placed her hand over her mouth as the sobs shook her body.

“Cal,” she whispered the name of her friend. “Cal, I'm sorry.”

He couldn't think of anything to say. Trilby wrapped an arm around her and pulled out his phone with the other. How long had it been ringing?

“Yeah?” He said. “Yeah, I'm alright. Yeah, we're both okay. I found the girl, she's alive. It's… it's a long story. I'll explain everything back at headquarters.”

Trilby held the young woman against his body as he led her back into the light. He glanced uneasy at the roofs above them, expecting a tall shadow staring down, but only the rain waited overhead, the drops falling down between her tears.

[mischief-and-tea-by-the-sea]

Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter to Star in ‘Waiting for Godot’ on Broadway

They played slacker buddies in three “Bill & Ted” films, and next year they plan to reunite for Beckett’s classic tragicomedy.

By Michael Paulson

Aug. 1, 2024

Call it Bill and Ted’s Existentialist Adventure.

Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter, the actors who incarnated a pair of slacker musicians for three “Bill & Ted” films, are planning to reunite for a Broadway revival of “Waiting for Godot.”

The production, planned for the fall of 2025, will be directed by Jamie Lloyd, one of the hottest directors of the moment, whose work is characterized by a spare aesthetic and an emphasis on psychological intensity.

Lloyd said that the project was Reeves’s idea, but that as soon as the actor approached him, “it was a no-brainer that this needed to be done.”

“Their instant chemistry and their shorthand and their friendship is going to be so valuable,” Lloyd said of Reeves and Winter in an interview. “This is a very deeply complex play, as we all know, but it’s also a very funny play, and they’re very witty people and their shared sense of humor in those movies and in real life is going to be very beneficial to the production.”

In “Godot,” Reeves will play Estragon and Winter will play Vladimir, who banter and bicker while waiting for a mysterious figure who never arrives. “Those characters take solace in their companionship as they stumble toward the void,” Lloyd said, adding, “that’s going to be the central thesis of the production, with Keanu and Alex’s own friendship.”

“Waiting for Godot,” by the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett, was first staged in French in 1953 and then in English in 1955. The play was first performed on Broadway in 1956, and has been revived there three times since, most recently in 2013 with Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart.

Reeves, the prolific film star of the “Matrix” and “John Wick” series, will be making his Broadway debut with “Godot.” He likes a challenge: In 1995, he played Hamlet in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Winter, who writes and directs in addition to acting, appeared on Broadway twice in the 1970s, when he was a teenager, in musical revivals of “The King and I” and “Peter Pan.”

The two first worked together in 1989 in “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.” A second film, “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey,” arrived in 1991, and a third, “Bill & Ted Face the Music,” in 2020.

Lloyd, based in London, has become a regular presence in New York. Last year he directed a revival of “A Doll’s House” starring Jessica Chastain, and this fall he will direct a revival of “Sunset Boulevard” starring Nicole Scherzinger.

The “Waiting for Godot” revival is being produced by Lloyd’s production company, as well as ATG Productions, Bad Robot Live (J.J. Abrams’s company) and Gavin Kalin Productions. ATG is a British theater company that has a long relationship with Lloyd and operates seven Broadway theaters; the production said that “Godot” would be staged in one of those ATG theaters.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/theater/keanu-reeves-broadway-godot.html?unlocked_article_code=1._k0.sgY5.jVlfdfEVMdVl&smid=url-share

[phantomcodes]

rosemary | theme by sage

get the code: $5 - static preview / version 2 a sidebar theme with light gradient accents for southcodes coding challenge

1. code whatever you want but it must contain popups and/or tabs

features (more info below the cut):

toggle: updates, music player, explore menu, tags on click

header with blog icon & title, day/night & tumblr controls buttons

customizable: description, colors, body & title fonts, font size, & blog title

responsive design, 4 corner options, 3 post margin options, scroll to top button, jump pagination, phosphor icons

nothing needs to be changed in the code, everything can be changed in the customize panel!

terms:

reblog if using

do not touch the credit

view all terms

credits listed in the code / credits page

please consider supporting me ♡

sidebars

left sidebar:

optional uploadable sidebar image - 300px x 200px

up to 5 extra sidebar links each with an icon & text

right sidebar:

up to 6 updates each with an icon & text

the music player image is an image link, see my faq if you have questions

both the updates & music player can be toggled on/off

explore menu

optional sections are the explore image, explore links, project, & blogs

uploadable explore image - 200px height, the width will adjust automatically

unlimited explore links, use this format: <a href="linkurl">link name<a>

one to four info stats with an icon & text

the explore bio will scroll if it gets too long

the project image is an image link, see my faq if you have questions

keep the project title short!

project progress is a number between 0 and 100

to close the explore menu you can either click the explore button again or click above/below the menu

uploading your song:

i recommend using google drive to host your mp3 files - below is a brief explanation for how to do this but you can also see the resources provided here by glenthemes and more links on my credits page

to start you need an mp3 audio file, once you have the one you want go to google drive and click: ＋ New ➞ File upload

select your mp3 audio file and click open

open your newly uploaded audio file in google drive and click the three dots on the top right, then click Share and under General Access change it to Anyone with the link can view

copy the sharing link provided, it will look something like this: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pBA6KdlLEzoEZPQ6hmaSr9LGLeCQGPxz/view?usp=sharing

go to the following site and paste your sharing url in the first box provided: https://www.joelgrayson.com/drive-download-link-generator

your final product should look something like this: https://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&id=1pBA6KdlLEzoEZPQ6hmaSr9LGLeCQGPxz

make sure the music player is toggled on in the theme, paste your audio link in the Song URL field

[amerricanartwork]

URL Song Game

Got tagged by one of my mutuals (@maddiethesapphic) to do this game, but the original post was lagging my computer, so I decided to put the songs on a separate post here!

It was quite a challenge picking out my favorites; even with just these letters there were a lot of good candidates! I'm also curious to see if anyone actually checks these out or recognizes them, because honestly I'm pretty eager to get to share some of my music tastes! I will say though, it's pretty all over the place in terms of genre and sources...!

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

A - Another Believer (Rufus Wainwright)

M - Mébh's Tune (Kíla)

E - Embers of a Burning Dystopia (flashygoodness)

R - Reverse (Caravan Palace)

R - Road to Lisdoonvarna (Celtica)

I - I Bring You a Song/Looking For Romance (Frank Churchill and Larry Morey)

C - Collision Chaos Present JP (Naofumi Hataya, Masafumi Ogata)

A - Antonio's Voice (Germaine Franco)

N - No Strings Attached (Swingrowers)

A - Ave Maria, Op. 52 No. 6 (Leopold Stokowski)

R - Rapid As Wildfires (Yu-peng Chen)

T - Through Heaven's Eyes (Brian Stokes Mitchell)

W - What Would I Do If I Could Feel? (Nipsey Russell)

O - One Nation Under a Groove (Funkadelic) (This version is also very good!)

R - Rio Grande (The Oh Hellos)

K - Kingdom Dance (Alan Menken)

-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-

And for as many mutuals I can send this to: @laismoura-art @hail-strom @ghostlycoze @kociamieta @pansear-doodles @shkika @purpura-box.

And anyone else who wants to do this is free to join!

[ayy-junipei]

Thinking of the whole H Bomb lack of sourcing materials topic, I think its hilarious that funny meme challenge runner Ymfah sources 90% of the stuff he uses in his videos. Like not just the music man sources his glitches, guides and some of the memes too.

But serious longform essay person firstname lastname can't even URL a wikipedia article

[memory-the-unconscious]

Hi... I'm like really evil so... I apologize in advance

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

cactus ⇢ something you’re currently learning (about)?

bamboo ⇢ do you change into a different outfit when you get home?

abelia ⇢ do you have a particular piece of jewelry you always wear or can’t part with?

daffodil ⇢ do you have siblings? if yes, in what ways do you think you’re similar to or different from them?

mahonia ⇢ what place, thing, activity inspires you most and how do you express yourself when it does?

chia ⇢ what’s an inside joke you have with someone else?

sage ⇢ what ‘medium’ of art (poetry, music, fiction, paintings, statues etc.) is the most touching to you? why do you think that is?

edelweiss ⇢ how’d you think of your url/username? what’s it associated with to you?

camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

jasmine ⇢ do you have a movie or book you loved but will never watch/read again?

ivy ⇢ what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?

chamomile ⇢ what kind of things do you like receiving as gifts?

aloe vera ⇢ what’s something (mundane) you really want to experience in life?

palm tree ⇢ do you have a fictional villain you shouldn’t like but love regardless?

nutmeg ⇢ how’s your room/home decorated? do you have a specific theme or style going on?

papyrus ⇢ if you put your ‘on repeat’ playlist on shuffle, what’s the first song that comes up? what do you like about it / associate it with?

taro ⇢ if someone called you right now to catch up, what’re the things you’d tell them about?

LMAO love that you decided to ask me this as soon as I reblogged it. so very kind of you lol

orchid ⇢ Hozier's Unknown/Nth. He had no right writing the most soul-crushing lyrics to ever exist in this life and then just SHALALA his way into my heart. like.. "DO YOU KNOW I COULD BREAK BENEATH THE WEIGHT OF THE GOODNESS, LOVE, I STILL CARRY FOR YOU???" WHAT WAS THAT?? how do you even begin to EXIST after hearing that??

cactus ⇢ the way that feminist theory has impacted other realms of life--and also the way literature has tied into different cultural movements. I've also been researching the various circles of Dante's Inferno (just for the giggles, ya know :P)

bamboo ⇢ sometimes. it depends. sometimes i get home and all i want to do is just collapse on my bed and not have to deal with anything else, but others I want to feel like a pretentious character from some novel so I'll keep my "fancy" clothes on lol

abelia ⇢ i have this one ring that I wear a lot--my grandma gave it to me. I also have a few pairs of earrings that I treasure a lot.

daffodil ⇢nope :) only child over here

mahonia ⇢ I love the mountains and the ocean--I think they both inspire me to be more than my usual self in various ways: to be kinder, to be more poetic, to see beauty in a wider variety of things and people.

chia ⇢ oh gosh, so many. does challenging my friends to duels count?? lol

sage ⇢ I really cannot decide on this one. I think the beauty of enjoying and being inspired by a variety of artistic mediums is that they each bring something unique into your world view: poetry can bring a sense of rhythm and orderliness or, in other cases, chaos. Music I see as another way of enjoying poetry--what else are lyrics, after all? Fiction is somewhere I can get lost and experience things I've never gotten the chance to see or meet people I'll never meet. Paintings, like photographs, capture a singular moment, but also infuse their meaning with a more personal flavor from the artist's own life. Statues are this concrete, physical expression of being that capture movement and emotion and strength and weakness and just the general essence of existence in a very solid, real way. plzzzz don't make me choose :)

edelweiss ⇢ the secret history. idk what else to add lol

camellia ⇢ I think i conformed a lot more to other's expectations (I know...such a cliche thing to say.. :(( lol). In other respects, I don't think i've changed all that much. I still love art and reading and running through fields and dancing in the rain and curling up with a story next to my dog just as much as I used to :)

jasmine ⇢ This is really tough. I definitely feel that way about some books that just destroyed me emotionally--same goes for films--but I also feel like, given enough time, I'd want to return to them to get a fresh perspective. Idk, I've definitely thought about this a lot, but a lot of types of media store cherished memories for me, so in returning to the media, I'm also reopening that treasure trove of my own life.

ivy ⇢ I smile a lot for no reason when I'm happy. I'm much more sarcastic when I'm down. I also tend to hold my hand up to my face when I'm anxious or annoyed. I feel like this is so much easier to determine about someone else, not yourself :)

chamomile ⇢ BOOKS. chocolate. hugs. cozy sweaters. tea. handmade gifts that are more a demonstration of love that anything else.

aloe vera ⇢ (i am aware this makes me sound a lot more lonely than i actually am lol) I would love to experience the feeling of sitting next to someone I love--platonic or romantic--and just sensing this absolute tranquility. I am always so happy every time I experience that and I'd love to have that feeling more present in my life.

palm tree ⇢ not really?? idk, i mean does Dorian Gray count??

nutmeg ⇢ the walls of my room are a green color that I chose when i was ten, which kinda sets the automatic aesthetic to cottagecore. Lots of plants, poetry and drawings and paintining and quotes pinned on the walls, books everywhere, a quilt i made as my bedcover, my dog (sometimes lol)

papyrus ⇢ just went and did this for the sake of experimentation. the song that came up was "king" by florence and the machine. I love all of florence's songs, but i love "king" for so many reasons. The guttural vocals really bring something out in the lyrics (which are incredible on their own). Also the production of the music video (directed by one of my favorite people of all time, Autumn de Wilde--same person who directed Emma 2020) just makes the aesthetic of the music so much more....GRAND

taro ⇢ I'd tell them about all the beautiful things I saw today, about all the interactions I had. about how much i love being alive, and how much I am looking forward to spending more time getting to know people and reading new books and falling in love with the way the world continues despite it all.

thank you for sending this ask, @kaleb-is-definitely-sane

[panfritoo]

Yearning for 2014

It’s 2014. All my family is gathered at the restaurant to debut my becoming a woman. ‘My new monthly doom’, I think bending over by first-period cramps. I know for a fact that none of my sisters have been through this pseudo-tradition but, as the youngest family member, the older relatives rejoice in the mockery of this dinner and speak to me teasingly, knowing that whatever

I'm going through, they've already been through it all. Caught in the awkwardness, angst, and general anhedonia of puberty we reach dessert and I’m praying my bleeding uterus hasn't stained the chair's lining. That was the same year Lana Del Rey released her third album Ultraviolence, a time when her music served as a rite of passage. Her dreamy melancholic voice and lyrics on older men and drug use had to be consumed with a cautious warning, as they had cathartic effects on my already moody state.

I didn’t think there was any cultural significance at the time, but trends from 2014 have resurfaced on Instagram and TikTok, prompting discussions that contribute to the internet's fixation on that year. In the fashion industry, the emergence of an indie-sleaze revival marks a departure from the polished "clean girl aesthetic" that had dominated online platforms for years. This shift towards combat boots, distressed leather, and a deliberately messy look resonates with the unfiltered style of the early 2010s. Similarly, the film industry's wave of reboots and revivals including iconic shows like "Gossip Girl," "Sex and the City," and "Friends," taps into the comfort of familiar characters which says something about the generalized state of nostalgia. Moreover, the popularity of ‘POV: it's 2014’ videos on social media showcasing various ephemera and pop culture references that defined that year such as ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ and ‘Eos lip balm’ confirms there is cultural yearning for 2014.

But why are people obsessing over 2014?

Every generation makes the point that old times were better. Generation Z, me included, we're now at an age where we can start feeling nostalgic for the first time, as we've reached the threshold of adulthood. Our seemingly world-ending problems from when we were younger—like high school crushes and acne—now seem trivial in comparison to the complexities of adult life.

During my early teens, I was eager to grow up, idealizing all kinds of freedoms. But as I've grown older, I realize that many of the key milestones of life are out of my generation's reach. The dream of finding a fulfilling job, owning a home, and living life on my terms feels like a scam.

Adulthood is a fraud.

Social media also amplifies our crushed expectations, because while in our reality we are constantly facing struggles to make a living, in social media everyone seems to fucking have it together. The internet has become increasingly commodified and exploited for its business possibilities. Platforms such as Instagram and TikTok are no longer ‘social’ but a form of consumption. I can't even remember the days before doom-scrolling addiction wasn't a thing.

I yearn for when the internet was once a refuge for connection and exploration. In 2014 Instagram was still in its infancy, Facebook was still popular, but the ultimate platform was Tumblr. It's difficult to explain the significance of Tumblr. Is it a social media platform? Yes. Where you can share images and longer fragments of text? Yes. But it was also more, you had to be there to understand it. Tumblr was a world of its own, Tumblr funded URL counterculture materialized through music and fashion.

Unlike social media now, Tumblr was not based on followers or likes, users were highly anonymous creating a safe haven for teenage girls to blog and post images freely. The aesthetics movement, which became a substitute for subcultures, also originated on Tumblr. Within this ecosystem, individuals self-prescribe to an aesthetic such as grunge, pastel grunge, or hipster. "That's so Tumblr" was also an aesthetic of its own. Posting “aesthetically” pleasing featuring grainy black and white edits of Lana del Rey, knee-high socks, Doctor Martens, chokers, galaxy prints, vinyl records from The 1975 and Arctic Monkeys was a way to combat the ugliness in real life. Having this beautifully curated blog was a form of reinvention. However, not everything about Tumblr was pretty, images of anorexia, depression and self-harm circulated on the platform romanticizing mental health issues.

Life was simpler in 2014 because we were younger but also life just seems to have gotten complicated after 2015. Ebola, Brexit, Trump winning elections, the War in Ukraine and Gaza, and the COVID-19 pandemic. Lots of us feel that COVID robbed us of our youth and by the time we got out of isolation we were on the cusp of adulthood.

The longing for 2014 reflects more than just a desire for a bygone era; it symbolizes a yearning for a time when life seemed less daunting, and the future felt more hopeful. We cling to the memories of our youth as a form of escapism from the present. But this is not a way of living, as Andy Bernard character from the office said, "I wish there was a way to know you're in the good old days...".

[olderthannetfic]

Hi! So I have a rambling explanation that’s going to lead into a genuine question about making a website somewhat like a03 or finding alternatives to a site I will mention (it’s not a03 don’t worry)

I am a non/disney editor, crossover artist, amv maker and deep faker and any other term for “make videos of characters in canon or au type scenarios to music”. I’m also a fanficcer. And I remember when being wary of Anne Rice and Archie Comics and DC was a thing. A teacher, to cover his ass for an assignment of mine, taught me how to write an apology letter to a company on the offhand my hand written basically Batman fanfiction, made it’s way online or was heard about. I was in the tail end right before A03 but I am extremely grateful that the site exists. Okay. So now I need to talk about the Owl House. In season three episode special one, Luz Noceda makes an amv coming out to her mom.

Editor friends in a private discord were both happy and worried. Luz is one of us….but also Disney knows about us, to some level. Nothings happened I’ve just been stewing and I’m just worried something might hit the fan for the community given many of us use Disney media (hard not to when 80% of things put out is by them) So I’m asking how one would make a platform like A03 but for video media. Or if there’s things you know like that. YouTube is getting more and more difficult for anyone nowadays too.

Again, nothings really happened yet, I just can’t get it out of my head

--

Video is worlds harder than text, but you know that.

There are a couple of approaches here: First, more is more. The more sites you have your stuff on, the smaller the chance that Disney can nuke all of them. Second, if you're not just using youtube and getting good at playing the algorithm, you need some way for people to find you or to keep track of all your alternate hosting.

Vidders of the oldschool sort have taken to using AO3. It doesn't have native hosting, of course, but it provides a stable URL and useful fandom-based tagging without algorithm bullshit. It's also a decent way to get vids out there if you only have download links and no streaming (though, of course, that means fewer views). You can embed a bunch of different copies of the same thing in the same work.

I don't know of a ton of fannish attempts at video hosting that are open to everyone. The only person I can think of who's heavily working on that is the guy behind Vidders.net who has a few different projects going.

For other hosting options, I'd see what AO3 currently has whitelisted for embedding. Two obvious ones are Critical Commons and Archive.org.

--

Broadly, yes, fanvids and AMVs have been subject to even more disastrous mass deletions than fanfic has, and far fewer of them have been saved by other fans because video files are huge.

Oldschool AMVs in the strict sense (i.e. Japanese anime and not Disney) are catalogued and sometimes hosted on animemusicvideos.org. Oldschool Media Fandom has some vidding archivists, and really old stuff was released on tape and then disc, and people still have their copies of those. But online-only fannish video stuff from the 00s and 10s has massive gaps in the historical record already.

Disney is quiescent now, but they haven't always been, and neither have other rights holders. Worse, a bunch of hosts vidders liked just up and deleted their entire sites, wiping out eras of videos and commentary.

Your stuff is in less danger than it would have been 10 years ago, as far as anyone can tell, but video is always in massive danger of disappearing.

--

If you actually succeed at video!AO3, more power to you! I'm just skeptical that you'll be up to the technical and financial challenge if you don't already know more than you currently do, you know?

Hosting video has, among other problems, the issue that people trading actual abuse materials will upload their videos to your service. Hosts often play whackamole with illegal and traumatizing content. I've known people whose jobs exposed them to this shit, and they were... not okay.

I guess you could make things slightly easier on yourself if you restricted video to cartoons only, but then you'd have the same issues amvs.org does where people who start as one kind of editor start working with other footage and keep trying to upload the wrong thing.

It's often not really viable to host unless you make everyone pay and/or you're authorizing a few dozen accounts of people you've vetted, not running a service just anyone can sign up for. Hosting a hundred videos for friends that you have reviewed and know to be fanvids/amvs is a lot easier than hosting enough stuff that you can't personally review it all.

If you or anyone else is interested in trying to start a site, I'd go check out the various writings by Denise (who runs Dreamwidth). She has some twitter threads and posts on enforcement and running a platform. I remember she talked about the tech people use to detect CSAM from known law enforcement databases.

I don't want to be a downer here, but there are serious legal implications to being the actual host as opposed to just running a discord or something on someone else's platform and reporting some fucker if they try to post illegal shit.

--

If I were you, I'd get my buddies together, embed all our works on AO3, and then maybe make a collection or tagging standards so we could find each other's stuff.

For hosting, I'd add the Internet Archive, Vimeo, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc. to Youtube and do a periodic audit of AO3 works to make sure links were still working.

AO3 already has a lot of tags that have been made filterable, like Fanvids, AMV, Video Format: Streaming, etc.

[antoniosvivaldi]

A YEAR IN REVIEW: CREATIONS OF 2023

Post your favourite and most popular post from each month in 2023.

I was tagged by @madeline-kahn & @bazkrekkers 💖

A short summary on 2023 as a content creator: This was one of my most prolific & fruitful years in terms of content creating since I've started using Tumblr in 2014 - both artistically and quantitatively. I look forward to what my creative muse will bring to me the coming year 🤩

January

Most popular: The Little Mermaid gifset — A relatively quick set that came together after experimenting with a handful of mermaid / aquatic themed Photoshop freebies that I've got!

Favourite: 2023 releases compilation gifset — Assembling this gifset made me realise how many anticipated media releases were coming out in 2023 & I've also discovered quite a few new musical artists to listen in the giffing process.

February

I've subscribed to Adobe Creative Cloud subscription & got my "bad boy" Max aka the trusty M2 Mac that I now primarily gif on! It's a night and day difference, what used to take a few days can be done within a single giffing session 🤩

Most Popular: Taylor Swift Lavender Haze gifset — My first gifset that I've giffed on Max and also my first attempt incorporating Neural Filters in my giffing workflow!

Favourite: Bridgerton characters + Certainly Not A Bot Description gifset — A highly entertaining gifset to assemble and I certainly had a lot of laughs while making this 😂

March

Most Popular: Rotoscoping Tutorial — I've finished my long overdue Rotoscoping Tutorial in March and it's the most popular post that I've made in 2023

Favourite: Assorted Female Musicians + Tropes gifset / playlists — I listen to music diversely and thought it would be fun to share a playlist set of the musical artists that I've discovered / listen to! This edit idea went through quite a few iterations and was very happy that it gets to see the light of the day!

April

Most Popular: Fantasia 1940 + animals gifset — Made under a bit of time crunch but enjoyed giffing a childhood favourite & playing around with Neural Filters!

Favourite: Taylor Swift + Four Seasons gifset — A remake of this gifset and inspired by my URL! Taylor Swift ft. Landscape Mixer Filter & Fantasia scenes that reminds me of the four seasons 🌸🌞🍁❄️

May

Most Popular: Olivia Rodrigo Sour anniversary gifset — May 2023 was a challenging giffing month for me, but making purple sets like this kept me going

Favourite: Kathony x Kanej gifset — A gifset to showcase two of my favourite fictional relationships (and I love that there are thematic similarities) 💜

June

Most Popular: Heartstopper characters rainbow gifset — One of the most wholesome shows that I've watched 🥺

Favourite: Gracie Abrams Good Riddance gifset — Originally, I was going to make a B&W Gracie Abrams gifset but ended up with something more colourful & something that I'm much happier with! A lot of videos Gracie Abrams released this year were in B&W / had horrific lightings, but I got around with the Colourise & Photo Enhancement Neural Filters ft. adjustment layers!

July

I took a break using Max this month and giffed on my Intel-based Macs from 2012 and 2015. This is to better gauge the performance required to comfortably run Photoshop's Neural Filters & to try out other Photoshop filters e.g. Adobe Camera Raw Filter.

Most Popular: Speak Now (Taylor's Version) gifset — A relatively quick purple gifset that I've made right before Speak Now (Taylor's Version) came out!

Favourite: Watch (Maisie Peters) x Sour (Olivia Rodrigo) gifset — Watch is one of the few songs that I've enjoyed back when standard version of The Good Witch came out and it struck me as a very Sour-coded song to me (and also something that's very neon pink & blue to me).

August

Most Popular: 1989 (Taylor's Version) gifset — Was very excited that Taylor announced that she's releasing the re-recorded version of 1989 💙

Favourite: Adaptations grand compilation gifset — I love making grand compilation sets! It's a fun way to showcase the things that I enjoy & do things as creatively as possible! In this set, I had a lot of fun experimenting with transition effects, as well as 3D text!

September

Most Popular: Olivia Rodrigo Guts gifset — I think Olivia Rodrigo's discography is very purple-coded to me and Guts is no exception 💜

Favourite: Maisie Peters YSUFT x Taylor Swift parallels gifset — A gifset idea that I held close to my heart for a while. Took quite some time to iron out the overall layout & it's one of the sets I've made on my Intel-based Mac to test Neural Filters performance, but I'm really happy with the pastel colour scheme produced from the Colour Transfer Neural Filter!

October

Most Popular: A more elaborate 1989 (Taylor's Version) gifset — This is very much a crunch time gifset that quickly came together 💙

Favourite: Kathony x BSC (Maisie Peters) gifset — The lyrics of BSC reminds me of Kathony. Then I came across a fun colour palette (that's a mix of purple & orange) and experimented with some fonts + organic shapes that I've recently installed. As always, the typography took a lot of time to grind out but had a lot of fun assembling the set & experimenting with the animated texts!

November

Max's sidekick aka Bailey (an M3-based Mac) arrived in late November & I've installed Topaz Labs plugins (very helpful for enhancing screencaps)

Most Popular: Taylor Swift Fearless anniversary gifset — Happy anniversary to Fearless 💛

Favourite: The Comfort Zone: The Joyful Issue + playlist + uquiz — I really enjoyed the creative process for this: I've learnt how to make 3D animations from scratch & had a lot of fun putting together the companion playlist + uquiz!

As an aside, the rendering process was so resource intensive that the workload was bifurcated between two computers, to ensure I was able to finish the set within the submission window.

December

This is one of my most inspired & prolific time in giffing since a while and I'm grateful that I'm able to wrap up my 2023 on a high note!

Most Popular: A Charlie Brown Christmas gifset — I've downloaded quite a lot of Christmas / holidays themed Photoshop resources in December and thought it would be fun to play around with those in a Christmas gifset! This Peanuts gifset is the end result 🎅

Favourite: Maisie Peters The Good Witch gifset — One of the biggest challenges giffing Maisie Peters is that most of the videos came from Youtube. I've got around experimenting with Topaz Labs (in addition to the usual Neural Filters) to enhance the gifs and have been very happy with the result!

As of the creative process of the set: I associate The Good Witch with blue & orange, played around with transparency in gif panels, and applied Neural Filters to bring out artistic effects for the component gifs.

Tagging (absolutely no pressure): @rogerhealey, @silversmists, @tayloralison, @laurabenanti, @fawad-khan, @goldrushkid, @cobbbvanth, @swearphil, @breakbleheavens, @imkindatheman, @miss-lauryn-hill , @muldery , @crushcrushcrushs , @matlillard , @deweyduck + anyone who wants to do this 💖

[theheightofdishonor]

thank you @azhagiye for tagging me in the url playlist challenge <3. My url is soo long so this is going to take a fair bit

t- tuta gold by mahmood

h- happy to die by I.M.

e- echale by anthony ramos

h- harlem by new politics. It's one of their best songs

e- ente khalbile by vineeth sreenivasan , song of ALL time

i- into the night by yoasobi

g- gasoline by halsey. The storytelling in her songs is so compelling.

h- hold me tight or don't by fall out boy. I forgot how many letter h's i have in my url lmao.

t- tum tum from enemy

o- oo antava from pushpa because I just choreo'd a dance for this and it was fun

f- this one was really hard but free fall by slot machine

d- decay by jordan adetunji. I really like his music but this song is one of my absolute favourites at the moment. I've listened to it a half dozen times just today.

i- in the heights from in the heights

s- saami saami from pushpa but specifically in tamil

h- hold up by beyonce. It's sooo fun to sing.

o- only exception from paramore (the 'the' doesn't count)

n- this one was possibly the hardest because there's so many songs i love that start with n but rn it has to be neela nilave from RDX

o- otha sollaala, I forgot the movie it's from ngl

r-raavanan by rolex rasathy.

It was so hard to pick for some of these, I'm terrible at making decisions. I alsol have the worst memory ever so i did use help from my spotify playlist to remember song titles.

hmm haven't done tag games in a long time but tagging @alenadragonne and @cescalr because i miss them. Don't feel pressured tho ofc!

[mamuzzy]

Username Song Game!

Rules: pick a song for each letter of your URL and tag that many people.

@hastalavistabyebye and @whiskygoldwings tagged me for this challenge, thank you so much <3

I'm that kind of music enjoyer who listens the same 30 songs from the 90's/early 2000s. Or anime and videogame OSTs. Aaa I could have cheated with my sideblog, maybe next time :D

M - Mammago's Garage - Beyond Good & Evil OST

A - Adrenalize Me - In this Moment (My ultimate Crosshair song)

M - Mama - My Chemical Romance

U - Uwasa no Kazoe Uta - Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica Gaiden OST

Z - Zesshou - Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei OST

Z - Zombie - The Cranberries

Y - Yuri Yura Rarara Yuru Yuri Dai Jiken - Yasumoto Hiroki cover

(Z-s gave me a bit of a challenge but I conquered it. :D)

No Pressure Tags: @ithillia @riinoaheartilly @alabyte @aerjnn @nocturius8015ficore

@insertmeaningfulusername @the-starry-seas @blackat-t7t @aggy72 @wyvernsrus

@notavalidusername @dukeoftheblackstar @bilbosmom-belladonna @hshfsjzjsgj @brooks-skirata @hurryupmerlin @wolveria @hexerein @doublesunsets

@battlekilt

@brokenphoenix99 @wackylurker @bloody-writing @spacingstars

@loverboy-havocboy @lothcatthree @dahscribbler @nukebag

@marymunchkiin @dogmafives @corrie-guard-things @aurathebardwife @totally-not-your-babe

@commanderfoxdeservesbetter @galaxyofjedi

Whoops that's more people :D ohwell.

[arobarbie]

₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧　about me!　 ✧₊⁺⋆☾⋆.˚₊

✧ name: barbie, but you can also call me shadow, starlight, or holtz. (the name changes depending on my mood)

✧ tracking: #userholtz

✧ i'm 23 years old, i'm arab (free palestine), and a proud bimbo catgirl.

✧ i go by they/them and it/its pronouns. i'm bisexual and, as u may have guessed from the url, i'm also aromantic.

✧ my blog runs on a queue, but if you see me posting or reblogging text posts/asks, then you know i'm online :3

✧ my asks and dms are always open!

₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧　interests!　 ✧₊⁺⋆☾⋆.˚₊

✧ music: the living tombstone, dan avidan (ninja sex party + starbomb + shadow academy), olivia rodrigo, megan thee stallion, dua lipa, sabrina carpenter, renee rapp, shit from my dad’s childhood.

✧ movies: iron man 3, most mcu movies, lisa frankenstein, animated barbie movies, challengers.

✧ tv shows: abbott elementary, community, the bear, schitt's creek.

✧ hyperfixations: barbie & monster high, tony stark, lisa frankenstein.

✧ hobbies: playing the piano, making gifs, makeup & fashion, loving my friends.

₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧　what i post about!　 ✧₊⁺⋆☾⋆.˚₊

✧ my blog mostly consists of gifsets, because they're pretty and gifmakers work hard. usually they're movies and tv shows i've seen, or actors i really like, but i'll reblog anything if it's pretty. i also love textposts that make me laugh.

✧ i try to tag triggers as #tw [trigger], but let me know if there's anything else you need me to tag! i also tag nsfw as #tw nsft so minors please block that!